3295 December twenty first poem

I posted this three years ago, last year and here it is, December 21 again.


Christmas will be here in only four days.
House is festive--we found the artificial poinsettia
in the attic with other mementoes of holidays past.
A big roll of wrapping paper--blue with snowmen--and scissors
wait on the dining room table for those final exchange gifts
we’ll take to Indiana, socks for a guy, gloves for a girl.
The decorative shopping bag waits for its next assignment.

Christmas will be here in only three days.
It’s always been a pagan holiday, but now it’s more so.
The cranky ACLU is just spinning its wheels in snow
because not even Christians can make it religious these days.
Mistletoe, holly, evergreen trees, candles, and Santa Claus,
feasting, caroling, office parties, gift giving and shopping.
It’s all worldly or completely secular, therefore legal.

Christmas will be here in only two days.
The early Christians scooped up local winter festivities
in a giant snowball, soft and white, and pronounced it holy.
The godly let the Angles, Saxons and Romans keep their ways.
People do not care who they worship if they have a good time.
Our Puritan forefathers tried to stamp out the revelry.
They were the nay sayers of yesterday, spoiling the party.

Christmas will be here in only one day.
Yes, there really is a new born babe, and a sweet young mother,
and angels announcing to shepherds in the fields, Peace on Earth.
But Rachel is weeping because Herod is killing her sons.
One baby lives on only to die on a cross for my sin,
including celebrating his coming rather than going,
his birth, not his death and resurrection.

Christmas poetry
Christmas customs

Thursday Thirteen

13 Gifts my mother gave at Christmas.

You probably think I'm going to list wonderful personal qualities and characteristics, like honesty, integrity, kindness, etc. No, this really is a list of presents given to us children at Christmas from a woman who made every dollar count, was practical and believed educational things would last. The gift tags said from "Mom and Dad" or "Santa," but we knew who picked them out and wrapped them. Looking back, some of these surprise me (we were were always supervised, but some don't look real safe in retrospect) and this covers about a 10 year period.

Thirteen Gifts

1) Wood burning set. I don't know if these are still made for young children; the box included stamped designs on wooden plaques, metal hooks for hanging, and an electrical tool with multiple points for burning. Then the plaques were painted and shellacked.

2) Building sets: Erector set (for my brother, but I got to use it). We didn't have elaborate sets, but there was a little electric motor. Lincoln logs (for my brother, and I didn't get to use this).

3) Records (probably 78 rpm) with stories; I think some were the sound track of movies. I remember "Treasure Island" with Bobby Driscoll.

4) Oil painting by number. Usually a horse or dog printed on canvas board.

5) Chemistry set. I think it had test tubes and little jars of crystalized chemicals.

6) Pottery kits. These were extremely popular in the 50s--don't know if they still are. The kits had rubber molds and a plaster to mix with water. After drying, the mold was removed and you painted the object. Getting out the bubbles was always a challenge. She also bought us pottery we could paint and glaze. I still have some of them.

7) Embroidery stamped towels, pillow cases and dresser scarves with the thread. Sometimes she also bought the transfer design and we would hem the towels, iron on the transfer, and make our own.

8) Small metal looms to make woven squares from stretchy loops which were then stitched together to make something. I doubt that I ever completed a single project.

9) My first Bible, a KJV with Jesus' words in red, maps, leather binding with gold print. I still have it.

10) Books. I still have some of them, like the Marguerite Henry horse stories and the Black Stallion series. We got magazine subscriptions from her mother.

11) Board and card games. Sorry, Monopoly, Checkers are some I remember best. Authors was a favorite card game. This was even approved for use at my grandparents.

12) Glass dishes, metal pots and pans, and metal stove and sink, white with red handles. I still have my glass dishes. The little kitchen appliances lasted into the 1960s and 70s for their grandchildren to play with.

13) Art supplies--drawing pencils of various hardness. Different types of paper. One box of "oil crayons" I may have kept for at least 40 years. Possibly still have them.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
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Christmas gifts
nostalgia
educational toys

3293 Volunteering at the Food Pantry

Tuesday I had the opportunity to work at the Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio newly remodeled Choice Food Pantry. I was very impressed with the new layout and system which I believe provides the client with more responsibility, dignity, and less waste. The food is now all arranged on movable shelving units (can be stocked in the back and moved to the client area), color coded by USDA food pyramid graph. After the client is screened and approved by an experienced staff member, the volunteer picks up the card with the amounts allowed (a family of 10 with 6 children would have very different needs than a retired couple), and walks with the client through the aisles and they pick out what they know their families will eat. People with diabetes or cholesterol problems stop and read the labels. It takes a little longer than the old method where the volunteer selected the items, but in the long run there will be less waste. Tuesday had a special treat that I would have loved--30 piece slabs of wonderful, fresh corn bread from a local restaurant. Only one family unit turned it down. Each family can have as much bread (muffins, bagels, rolls, buns) as they can use up without it counting as a choice.

Because it is the Christmas season, each client also received age and sex appropriate gifts purchased, packaged and wrapped by the churches of central Ohio. Some families received table decorations and stockings with personal care items until we ran out. Adults received knit hats and gloves if they wanted them. Each child in the family received a very nice selection of new books, including a hard cover children's Bible.

Did you know that the "working poor" families and the welfare families in this country have about the same income, but the working families by percentage of income are the most generous of any group? Yes, they donate a higher percentage of their incomes than do the wealthiest income group; and welfare families with about the same income give almost nothing to others. There is dignity in work and self-sufficency. Occasionally, something happens to people of limited means--maybe grandchildren have to be taken in, or a heating bill is outrageous, the support check doesn't come, or there's an illness, so they need a little boost from the food pantry.

LSSCO distributed 2,416,715 lbs. or $2.8 million worth of food, and used 28,000 volunteer hours in 2006. This time of year 80-90 family units are being served at the location where I worked. The poor in the USA are not underfed or poorly clothed; many are overweight or obese, they dress well and have access to or own an automobile. For whatever personal circumstance, they are in a moment--or a month--of hardship. However, the Bible says in Matt. 25:35 that it is the ones feeding the hungry who are benefiting, because they are meeting Jesus, the Son of Man, who will be separating the sheep and goats. Keep that in mind the next time you are needed as a volunteer. There are no goats in heaven; only sheep.

Food banks
hunger
Lutheran Social Services

3292 More about Christmas letters

Previously, I posted about a Christmas letter I got from the OSU Medical Center, which hasn't yet deleted my name from its list of employees (6 years I've been retired). I just counted our printed Christmas letters on festive paper, fifteen, and our hand written letters and notes, also fifteen. This is a pretty skimpy survey, but based on past Christmases, I think only Democrats include political statements in their Christmas letters. Anti-Bush, anti-war, global warming, etc. Nothing like 2004, however. Although, I suppose if someone mentioned stem cell research or abortion (no one did), that would be a draw, because it could be considered a seasonal message, Jesus having been an unattached embryo at one point in his life. But I give liberals a pass on this, because I used to be a Democrat, and thinking back, I think I probably used my Christmas letter to smack others around too, but now I have blogs. Did you see me on the cover of Time Magazine?

We also received a lot of nice family photos. Most of the people we know seem to be repopulating the earth with grandchildren--5, 8, 10. Over the years, we've watched their kids growing up; now we're seeing the grandchildren. We love the family updates, and worry for a few moments over the people who are missing from the photos.

We've also received some wonderful original poetry and art. My friend Lynne (from high school) always has something fabulous. My brother-in-law is terribly clever, and our son-in-law-once-removed (brother of our son-in-law) also has a cute one. Several of our artist friends sent reproductions.

I just LOVE getting mail. Don't let any Grinchivious advice columnist tell you otherwise.

3291 Joseph Rago doesn't have a blog

He's a highfalutin journalist, writing for the WSJ (MSM) and bloggers are just scum. Check it out. If you're reading this, you're an imbecile, and I'm a fool for writing it.

Joseph Rago
bloggers

3290 The Christmas letters

Yesterday was probably the big haul--maybe 10 cards and 4 or 5 letters. Today I got a lovely Christmas letter [holiday letter] from the Ohio State University Medical Center thanking me for all my hard work and dedication in 2006. "The success we have achieved would not be possible without [my] your contributions and all of us working together as one team."

I retired over six years ago, but there's a few folks over there who haven't noticed I'm gone.

But I learned a lot reading the Christmas letter [holiday letter]:

• There is a $780 million expansion project, the largest upgrade and expansion of facilities in OSU Medical Center history--this year they completed the Biomedical Research Tower (800 researchers identifying the mechanisms of disease) and started the expansion of the Heart Hospital and Digestive Diseases Tower.
  
• All kinds of new talent and administrators have been hired.
  
• The Center improved in national rankings in ALL three of the mission areas--patient care, research and education
  
• The Leapfrog Group named the Center to its list of top hospitals in the USA in quality and safety.
  
• US News & World Report ranked our hospitals among America's Best for the 14th consecutive year and in the top 20 for the 2nd year in a row
  
• We were named one of the 100 most wired health systems by Hospitals & Health Networks and
  
• received the CIO 100 Award from CIO magazine.
  
• The faculty hold almost $200 million in sponsored research funding--triple the amount when I retired (was it me?)
  
• We have the 8th largest medical student enrollment in the country--only 9% of the applicants are accepted.
  
• Financially, 2006 was the best year ever--we generated more than $1 billion in revenue and reinvested almost $50 million back into our organization in all areas.

But we went to Finland, Estonia and Russia, Bay View, Michigan and Columbus, Indiana, California and Illinois.

3289 Malaria's Silent Spring

The October 2006 Budget Travel has two unrelated items, linked unintentionally. After p. 30 there is a full page ad for Malarone (atovaquone and proguanil HCl). An attractive couple is sunning on a tropical white sand beach joined on a third cot by an ugly, huge mosquito. "It could take just one bite from one infected mosquito to get malaria," reads the text.

Then after p. 57 there is a pull-out booklet, "Born in the U.S.A." by Michele McEvoy with details about where 50 important Americans grew up (includes Elvis Presley, but not Ronald Reagan). There is a paragraph on Rachel Carson, Springdale, PA, "credited for galvanizing the modern environmental movement" with Silent Spring and banning DDT.

Thus, we can also credit Ms. Carson, who was not a scientist, with the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria, more than died in the brutal trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. To date, there is no record of anyone ever dying from exposure to DDT.

That's one homestead I don't plan to visit.

3288 How Kool is this?

Trinkets and Trash is a website that keeps track of all the artifacts of the tobacco industry with an archive of tobacco products and tobacco industry marketing materials. Items are indexed by brand, media, and type/category (point of sale, free gift, gender, ethnicity, signage, etc.). Database includes a photo of the item. I came across it when I was reading an article in Tobacco Control which mentioned that Kool offers small business grants for creativity. Apparently, a simple addiction isn't enough. Death has no measure with these guys.

Zippo lighter/tape measure Marlboro

3287 Next they'll be telling us there's no Santa Claus

Seven health myths about the kids and flu and cold season. I believed most of these, although my kids never had ear infections.

HT Rebecca, who has a really great blog with wonderful stories about hymns.

3286 Darwin's Works on-line

I'll never need this, but perhaps you will. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.

"This site contains Darwin's complete publications, many handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published. There are over 160 ancillary texts, from reference works to reviews, obituaries, recollections and more. Free mp3 downloads are available."

Wrong, but on-line. Amazing world we live in. There are times, however, that I wish Christians had the faith in God that the secularists have in Darwin.

3285 It's still just a baseball cap

and it's rude and unattractive to wear them inside. I still have to remind my husband to take his off while kissing so I don't get an eyebrow injury or have my glasses knocked off. See this.

3284 Don't wait to start saving

It will cost you a lot of money.

"David is 25 years old.
He begins saving $2,000 a year for ten years (until age 34) then stops. A total of $20,000 has been invested.

Katie, age 22, plans to wait until age 35 to start saving and will invest $2,000 a year until age 65 at a total investment of $62,000.

Who would you expect would have more money at 65?

If you guessed David, you were RIGHT!

David’s initial investment of $20,000 in stocks (at an average interest of 10%) would be worth $545,344 at age 65.

Katie’s initial investment of $62,000 ($2,000 X 31 years) in those same stocks would be worth $352,427 at age 65."

And if David hadn't stopped, but kept going until he was 65? He'd have $815,771. think of it. Just $2,000 a year. That's just a little more than a pack of cigarettes a day not bought and smoked.

Project Cash How time affects the value of money

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about my brief, Christmas singing career?


This memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think it was for Christmas 1947 that my mother organized her four adorable children, 6, 8, 10, and 12, into a quartet and we performed for the various organizations and church groups in our little town of Forreston, Illinois. It was a very small town, so people must have heard us more than once. I'm not sure if Mother was overcome with ambition, or the townspeople were trying to make us feel welcome, or if there was a huge shortage of programming, or all three. My oldest sister played the piano, and the rest of us, little stair steps dressed in our Sunday best, faced the audience and sang, "Frosty the Snowman," "White Christmas," and "Winter Wonderland." My sister continues to perform as a church musician, but the rest of us had no talent and we outgrew cute. However, it was fun--and I still know the words.

You'll find lots of ways to modify your photos with beards, wigs, hats or antlers with this.

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My visitors and those I'll visit this week are: Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Debbie, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie,

3282 Person of the Year

Finally, I'm a POTY mouth. Time magazine named all of us who have contributed content on the internet, such as BLOGGERS, as person of the year. The magazine started this in 1927, so we've got some illustrious and infamous covermates.

With a mirror on the cover, Time released its Person of the Year today, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said.

According to Reuters, we "beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan Iraq Study Group."

I humbly accept this POTY award.

What's your blog list?

This is based on the frequency of posting and the number of links. With 809 links in the last 180 days, I'm an A list blogger. It's based on Technorati figures, and that's about as much as I know. Certain people who comment here who haven't posted since last winter, would be a D-list blogger.

3280 Munching through Sunday

My, it's a rough season to be watching your diet, isn't it? We had a lovely Christmas, sit down dinner at Howard and Betty's beautiful new home up in the next county this afternoon. After two hours we said good-bye to old and new friends and headed for Jan and Marvin's for an afternoon open house. There we saw many we knew from church. After an hour of munchies and conversation we came home to rest up, now we're leaving for church to hear Dave and Pam, recently returned from their ministry in Haiti. They'll be going back after Christmas and in February my husband will go there on a short term mission. Then after that presentation, our small group will be going out--eek. More food. But so wonderful to get together with so many great folks.

3279 Tattoos for librarians

Lorcan Dempsey reports in his blog about a recent visit to book sites in Chicago where saw this at Chicago Comics: The Illustrated Librarian: 12 temporary tatoos for librarians and booklovers. Includes 'I love Dewey Decimal System', 'Read or die', 'Born to read', 'Literate 4 life' with conventional assortment of hearts, skulls, scrolls and gothic script.

3278 And we're giving AIDS/HIV advice and drugs to Africans?

Dr. Anonymous in her memoir Unprotected which was reviewed in the Dec. 14 WSJ reveals that medical personnel can warn college kids about healthier living--trans fat, exercise, sensible weight--but not that their sexual behavior is dangerous and unhealthy.

"I'm discussing a taboo topic here: the dangers of radical social agendas in my profession. My colleagues are well-intentioned, and care deeply about their patients. But campus counseling centers are whitewashing the painful consequences of casual sex, STDs and abortion.

They are promoting the notion that men and women are the same. They are not educating young people about future and family. In these issues, so central to campus health and counseling, we are failing our young people."

She can't suggest to a depressed female student that the source of her pain might be the casual sex vs. her desire for love and commitment.

When she treats a young homosexual college student engaged in "high risk behavior with multiple people she discovers by policy she cannot insist that he be tested for HIV. And if he were to submit to voluntary testing and the tests were to prove positive, she would not be allowed to report this information to the local health department--even as she would have to for any other communicable disease." [from the review]

Publishing details.

3277 Brightly colored lunch

Yesterday I ate one of the prettiest, most colorful and healthy lunches I've had in a long time, and three months ago you wouldn't have been able to get me to even consider it. If you read this blog, you know that for a Thursday Thirteen, I listed my 13 food triggers I was going to avoid, so I could lose some of my "blogging weight." After getting broadband about three years ago, I'd put on 20 pounds, flirting with 150, a new friend I definitely didn't want to get to know better because it had bounced me to the low end of the "overweight" BMI category. After 77 days, I was at 134 and feeling great. Eventually I'll get back to my "normal" 130, but there's no hurry, and with the holidays upon us, it will probably be nearer the end of January.

But what do you eat to replace all those bad-for-you favorites? I tried a number of new things and kept at it until my taste buds adjusted. Prepared food and bags of snacks no longer fill my grocery cart. Black beans and bell peppers were two things I never ate. Now I open a can of fiber rich, high protein beans (someday I may learn to cook dried beans, but I suspect life is too short), rinse them (to get rid of the salt and goo) and put them in the frig mixed with brown rice for my lunch salads. I keep the peppers, high in Vit. A, in 3 colors always around to throw at something that needs a little color.

Yesterday's lunch was a colorful masterpiece. First I grilled some chopped onion in a little olive oil; then I added some dark collard greens, the leaves rolled and sliced into pretty, thin circles; I put the lid on just a few minutes to steam a bit, then added some chopped red bell pepper and about 1/3 cup of frozen yellow corn; earlier in the week I had prepared a mix of brown rice and black beans, dividing it into 4 containers, so I added a container of that--probably 4 oz. of the beans and 2.5 oz of the rice. Oh my. Tender crisp and almost too pretty to eat! I should have taken a photo.

Collard greens are mild tasting, and really easy to fix sauted. I think one of the reason I had a negative impression of this wonderful cruciferous vegetable related to broccoli and cauliflower is that I'd only had the overcooked drowned in bacon grease or steamed-to-death dishes. One cup of collard greens (and I probably only had 1/2 cup or less) has 880% of the Vit. K requirement, 119% of Vit. A, almost 60% of Vit. C and lots of the trace minerals and vitamins you're probably buying in your multivitamin pill. It's high in fiber and calcium.

If you're taking a blood thinner for some reason, you should avoid foods high in Vit. K. When my dad, who never met a green leaf vegetable he liked, was taking coumadin for congestive heart failure, he would just beam when reading the list of green leafy things he shouldn't eat. Even without green veggies, he lived to 89.

3276 The Multiple Cat Household

How do you do it? Yesterday, see previous post, I stripped all the bedding, including the blankets, and vacuumed and turned the mattresses. We have one small, short hair domestic, 7 lb calico. The cat hair I clean up day-to-day and week-to-week is just amazing--from the cold air returns, from the chair seats in the dining room, from the kitchen floor, from every upholstered piece in the living room, from my office chair (black) and settee, from the lint filter in the dryer, from the blinds, the lamp shades, inside the ribbon and bow sack we pulled out to wrap presents, and occasionally (but I'm very careful), from the food! So I'm asking you with more than one cat (and I see them on your blogs), do you just live with it and send your guests home covered with fuzz and hair, or do you spend the time you're not blogging vacuuming cat hair?