Pardon My Poppet

Archive for January, 2012

I am thankful for my conscience

Ever since I was little, if I did something I knew was wrong, my conscience would really bother me.  Especially if I hurt someone else in the process.  I was immune to no one’s feelings (my sister, my parents, strangers on the street).

When I read the news I am struck by a complete lack of conscience in many offenders.  This is so utterly foreign to me, I simply cannot understand it.  Although my conscience has caused me more than one sleepless night, that it has helped me to not do anything drastically horrid.  For that I am thankful.

Warmest regards,

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I used to be so frustrated on Saturday mornings when I wasn’t allowed to go to a friend’s house until I had cleaned my room.  It often felt like a completely insurmountable task.  I would often be driven to frustration, not having a clue where to begin!

One day my parents came home with a book for me.  It was called, “What to Do When Your Mom or Dad Says…Clean Your Room!”  It is one of 30 books in the Survival Series for Kids.  Trust me, it has been well used.  There are principles I still use today (ask my husband, organization is NOT my strong suit!).

This series has been out of print for over 20 years, but the principles remain the same.  Here are some basic tips to help you teach your child how to clean their room!

1)  Make the bed

2)  Take anything that is out-of-place in the room and put it on the bed

3)  Systematically pick up each object, one by one, and put it in its proper place.  (not just crammed any old place).

4)  Throw trash away

5)  Donate unused items

6)  Dust

7)  Vacuum

If you are lucky enough to get your hands on this book it is a MUST have for any child’s library!  It goes into such detail.  There are 10 steps on how to make a bed, 4 steps on how to fold a t-shirt, and a complete section on how to organize your room after it is cleaned.  Invaluable!

Here is a fun check-list you can print that your child can go through with you.  Help them think up some extra tasks to add in the blank spaces!

How To Clean My Room Task List

Warmest regards,

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Just a word of caution.  If you are reading this post and you have children in the house, you may want to close the window before you leave your computer unless they are old enough to know about this topic.

Abortion.

It’s become just a word in our society.  Even for myself, as a religious woman, it has been a word that is said in passing without much thought for what it actually means.  We rattle off statistics, but do we really stop to think what they add up to?

2 weeks before I got pregnant I ran across an article entitled “One Woman’s Abortion“.  It was written in August of 1965.  What really riled me up about this article was the flippancy with which the woman  goes about getting an abortion.  She is a 40 something year old mother of 2.  The reasons for obtaining the abortion:  didn’t think they had the stamina for middle of the night feedings, day-to-day childhood antics, not to mention the dent it would put in their nest egg.  For her, it was just another day at the doctor’s office.   Then it occurs to me, this woman is the mother of those who got pregnant in the 80′s (well, minus one), the grandmother of those having children now.

As I write I have Poppet sitting in the bed beside me.  Every once in a while she settles in for a nursing.  These moments are fleeting and oh so precious.  It took 13 long years for our lives to be blessed with her presence, 13 long years.  When she was born there was a complication with the placenta and I was unable to deliver it.  I was taken to the operating room, and they removed it, after which they performed a D & C.  A few months later I couldn’t sleep (I know, I know, I’m the only woman with a newborn who couldn’t sleep, go figure!).  Curiosity got the better of me and I started researching what a D & C really was.  Turns out it used to be a method used for abortions.  Always the detective, I looked further.  Forays into the world of Wikipedia led from one thing, to another.  From early term abortions, to partial birth abortions, and needless to say one very angry Mummy sitting wide awake in bed shedding tears for these lost lives!  (I thought of posting links here, but the information is readily available online, so there is no need to make their pages go up any higher in the search terms.)

It occurs to me that most women who have abortions are like the author above.  They are told that the procedure is nothing (for the mother at least).  They are assured that all their womb contains is some cells making up skin and hair.  That the infant (perhaps using the word fetus or embryo makes a little to impersonal I think) can’t possible feel anything, because it’s sensory perceptions are not far enough developed.

On a side note:  I ran across a YouTube video of a young woman talking about the 5 questions she gets asked the most about her abortion experience.  What struck me was how many times “I, me, my” were used in this video.  How flippantly she took this life and death decision!

What prompted me to write this post now you may ask?  Just last week I ran across a statistic showing that 61% of all abortions performed today are for women who have at least one other child.  WHAT!?!?  I was shocked, and furious all over again!

As a woman who could not have a child for so long, I remember thinking how unfair it seemed at times that people who didn’t want children, who threw them away like trash, just had to blink and they were pregnant.  I still can’t understand how anyone, if they FULLY KNOW what is happening, can in clear conscience choose death, rather than having the child and giving it to someone who  will love it as their own.  And MOST OF ALL, I can’t fathom, as a mother, carrying a little life inside of me, knowing what Poppet adds to my life, and choosing to end the existence of a younger sibling.  Could you choose to kill one of your children you carried to full term?   How hardened we have become as a society that we can on a whim decide this child is not as worthy as any of our others.

Warmest regards,

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Remember when computing used to look like this?  In university we got the ability to create our own profile page online.  It was a text website and we’d use character strokes to “draw” pics on the screen.  Then we’d have to connect via a phone modem.  I loved hearing the squealing tones!  I remember well, type:  T1……

How far we’ve come in a few short years!  I also used to work for a story-teller and book publisher laying out books.  There were graphics.  We would cut out the images by hand, glue them to a sheet of paper and cut out pieces of text by hand to fit them around the images.  Then we’d go into Word (in DOS) and we’d press “enter” after each word that needed to wrap around the image.  Print out the sheet, see if the image still fits right, glue it in place, and send it off to the printer to get a proof made.  I still remember, each page had to be either 30 or 31 lines long.  No more, no less.  I remember when Microsoft Windows 95 came out and I tried to convince my 75-year-old boss that it might be a great idea to upgrade.  Frugal as she was, she wasn’t convinced this “new” program would make any difference at all!  Amazing!

As I write my blog posts in an interface that almost thinks for me, I am fondly reminded of those days!

I am thankful for GUI programs

Warmest regards,

P.S.  for those of you youngin’s  GUI is Graphical User Interface, or WYSIWYG – pronounced wiz-ee-wig (What You See Is What You Get!)

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Now to combine two of my absolutely favourite things:  Mabel’s Labels and La Leche League Canada!

If I can at all help it, I go to the local Guelph La Leche League every month.  and if the evening meeting was not on Friday nights I’d go to that too!  I can’t get enough.  I’m convinced that even when Poppet weans I will continue to go, as it is such a valuable resource in the community!  How might Mabel’s Labels fit into a La Leche League meeting you may ask?

Every time I go, I’m amazed at how quickly the kids toys are passed around.  Often there is more than one of the same toy in the room.  By the time I get all mine gathered up, inadvertently I will either have forgotten one, or taken another that is not mine home.  As I don’t remove the tags from Poppet’s toys (she loves them almost as much as the actual toy), it is the perfect place to quickly put a Tag Mate.  That way I’m always assured to get her toy returned to us!  If the toy does not have a tag I can easily use a Skinny Mini sticky label too!  Mabel’s Labels truly are super practical!

If you have an idea on how to use Mabel’s Labels in a unique way, please drop me a line!

Warmest regards,

As a Mabel’s Labels Buzzmama I receive free product from time to time as a thank you for sharing my honest opinion on their FABULOUS products!

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I am thankful for Pico de Gallo

My favourite is Penny’s Salsa!  I buy it from Costco, multiple 48 oz  jars at a time!  When I was pregnant I craved it.  It’s the kind of slow burn that builds and builds.  I LOVE IT!

Warmest regards,

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What you’ll need:

2 pounds medium ground beef
1 cup soft bread crumbs moistened with a little milk
2 beaten eggs
2 cloves garlic pressed
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon quick cooking tapioca
1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 can pineapple chunks in juice, drained

What you do with the stuff:

1- Combine first 6 ingredients together and mix well. Form into 48 meatballs. Saute until brown or cook in 400 degree Farenheit oven until cooked through (approx. 20 minutes). Transfer to slow cooker crock.

2- Combine ketchup, maple syrup, soy sauce, tapioca, allspice and mustard in crock as well. Add pineapple and stir gently to combine.

3- Cover; cook on LOW 5 to 6 hours. Stir before serving. Serve warm; insert cocktail picks, if desired.

4- For a quick main dish, serve meatballs over rice or mashed potatoes.  Yummy!

Warmest regards,

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