Waning Days of Summer

It is in the air, that thing, the smell, the feel that says we are on the tale end of summer and not the beginning.  You would know even without a calendar - but you can't explain it to your city friends to save your life!  We have accomplished so much and yet have so much left to do. (sigh)
Still no hot running water - the plumbing issues were worse than we thought and now there is more electrical rewiring.  So we get to practice our disaster plans for water and bathing etc.  Yes we can do without hot running water - it is just not as easy.  But we have lived now without running water, without hot water, without a stove, and without air conditioning in the hottest summer on record.  Yup it's doable - OK so I'm ready to stop practicing!!  (smile)

I have been thinking about the political climate and all that is going on in the political arena lately. I am convinced now that so many differences could be solved if we just used the right words!  We conservatives need to learn to use the correct words so we could quit scaring the the other side!  We do scare them you know, with our guns and our God, all that clinging you know.  So I have come up with a few suggestions to help our progressive neighbors get over their fears....
My suggested word Substitutes:
Food Storage = Earthquake Kit (Snowstorm Kit, Hurricane Kit -you see where I'm going here)
Bicycle, horse = Green Transportation
Homesteading/living off the grid = Sustainable Lifestyle, Permaculture living
Gardening and food preservation = Natural/organic food
Concealed Carry classes I teach for women = Empowering women, closing the gender gap
(smile) I think I just lost them!!  Oh well I still think the theory is a good one!

Back to fall -  fall and winter are my favorite seasons, I hate to be hot, I am more comfortable a little cool.  I love the colors and the smells.  I love that crisp bite to the air.  I love football!!!  My beloved Broncos will be playing this Sunday night and I have already informed my sports challenged Handy Hubby that the TV is mine for the duration of the game!!!  What?? Orange is a fall color!!!  I miss my Daddy most this time of year, he and I and my brother - hundreds of miles apart would be calling each other throughout every Bronco game and then do the breakdown afterward.  He was a HS football coach for years and my brother and I were weaned on football.  My Mother is a saint!!!

For the record - I love the colors of the leaves on the trees, once they hit the ground or the roof they become enemies, if I could just train them to fall into the compost buckets!

What Were We Thinking!? (It is a good thing God is in Charge!)

I have not posted here in quite sometime, our daily lives have been taken up with our 'new' old house and all the resultant work. 
Our original goal was to live in an apartment for a year and get used to the area - make sure we were in a place we liked, and and then buy a place we could pay cash for, live a semi - self sustainable life style and be prepared to welcome our kids and relatives if things got bad in other places.  When we hit March and started actively looking for places to buy we got an education!  Seems that there is a 'list' price on homes and then investors come in and start bidding wars and the selling price can be as much as double.  This left us out in the cold, we couldn't get the place we had thought we wanted and needed.  We began to look at smaller homes, with smaller lots, in towns, in the not as nice part of town, we kept praying though, and we kept praying for the home we thought we had needed.  We had just decided to look at mobile home parks, thinking maybe God wanted us to be there, maybe we were being told to narrow our goals, I looked online and a home that had been on the HUD website before was back, it had issues, but we would go look at it, it certainly wouldn't be the first dead end or unproductive trip.  Our real estate agent (a lovely LDS lady also a prepper, who knew what we were going for) met us at the house and we looked around, when we walked out onto the back porch we were hooked, none of us could believe that this house had not been snapped up, she called for sure - "no, its not eligible for a conventional loan, plumbing issues, roof issues, electrical issues, HUD is not offering a loan."  So we made a cash offer of exactly the amount they were asking, 4 days later they accepted our offer and we had to wait the standard 45 days for HUD and then it was ours, we  signed the paperwork on May 27th and got the keys on the 29th.  After all of our looking and praying we got the house we wanted in the first place, 1/2 acre in a rural/residential area, 1600 sq. ft. (big enough to have extra people live with us), private well and septic, sheds and shops, large mature trees, garden space etc.  Just one problem - we would have to fix our issues ourselves!  We had a contractor fix the plumbing leak in the main line that required a backhoe and crawling under the house, but then the rest would have to be done ourselves as the money was available, we had enough cash to buy a refrigerator - after Hubby rewired most of the kitchen, we moved in on the 1st of July and had electricity, and walls and a leaky roof and the refrigerator!  But we also knew this was the house the Lord had led us to.  We still had a microwave and the pump was pouring out pure clear water, it was just outside and cold!  I have had much reason to thank the Lord for my handy Hubby who spent years working with electrical machinery for aerospace, and who can figure things out in a mechanical sense, he has so many useful skills!  He managed to finish the rewiring of the rest of the kitchen (the 220 part) and now we have a stove!  Yippee!  Amazing how my standards have gotten a little lower now on what makes me happy.  Did I mention - no air conditioning?  We are still taking 'bucket baths' (heat the water, mix with cold, lather up, rinse), and still boiling water for dish-washing, but the cold water now comes out of the taps, and as soon as we (not me of course) get the plumbing fixed to the water heater and purchase a new one we will have hot running water.  I am anxiously awaiting my first hot shower in nearly a month!  I may have some kind of celebration!
I have not been idle - while Hubby is working on his projects I have painted the entire inside a clean white on walls and ceilings, (I celebrated the last painting day by giving myself a manicure and picking the white paint out of my hair, my hair is not gray it is Clairol 6G!), I have nearly unpacked everything out of storage and apartment, and have begun to replace the curtains from another house that don't quite fit with curtains made for each window.
In the middle of all this moving in and roughing it (smile), the cherry tree on the back side of the house produced a beautiful bounty of "pie cherries" (sour) before I had the stove to can them on! Sooo 15 lbs. of cherries that had to be hand pitted (red streaks down my arms) and then frozen, at least until I can find the box with the canning jars, so I currently have a pound of chicken and 15lbs of cherries in my freezer!  However I also have this wonderful view from the back porch, 11 tomatoes ripening on the vine, 8 or 9 cucumbers looking like small beans right now and several green pepper blooms in my "pot garden".  Hubby and I go to bed tired and happy and alternating between pinching ourselves that we have the place we dreamed of (some assembly required) and laughing at ourselves for doubting - not God of course- but doubting our interpretation of his plan for us.  We are so blessed and He is so good to us!  I will try to get back to posting more recipes here pretty soon and if the new cherry pie filling recipe is any good - guinea pig husband will let us know - I will also post it - Kathy

The Proverbs 31 Woman - The True Original Feminist

Feminism - The doctrine — and the political movement based on it — that women should have the same economic, social, and political rights as men.
A movement for granting women political, social, and economic equality with men.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

I think of myself as an Intelligent, Conservative, Christian, Feminist. Do those words look strange together in a sentence? It is really sad that people don't think of those words as belonging together because the author of feminism is God. Do you really think that Gods purpose for women was to be beaten, abused, humiliated and kept in slavery to the whims of a man? I believe that God created us to be exactly what he said in Genesis, a helpmate. Seriously, think about Gods view of women, how does the One who created us want us to be treated? How does He work through us? How do we appear to Him? Look at the women in the Bible – Gloria Steinem eat your heart out! These women were in charge, won wars, provided for the family, saved their entire race, Gloria should have been as productive or important.

Numbers 27:7 – God establishes the daughters right to inherit if there is no son to pass on the name.  Judges chapter 4 – This is a chapter all about women and what they can do, Deborah (a married woman with a career) is the judge (deliverer) of the children of Israel. Deborah ends up having to accompany Israel into the battle and then the enemy leader is captured and killed by a woman, Jael. There is Ruth - who takes care of another woman (obviously not a 'Mean Girl) and joins the ancestry of Jesus. Esther, who saves the Jewish people from one who would destroy them, by risking her life - brave women whose place in history is assured because of their obedience to God and sometimes heroic actions.

Many will say that the New Testament is very hard on women, they have to be quiet and submissive!

Submissive -

Inclined or ready to submit;  unresistingly or humbly obedient:

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.

In the time of Paul's ministry there was Priscilla – she made tents with her husband, it doesn't say she was married to a tent maker, she was a tent maker, She and her husband Aquila also go on a missionary journey with Paul (didn't he hate women? Stop it!!) and end up staying and ministering in Ephesus and helping Apollos in his growth in the way of truth. There are Lois and Eunice – The grandmother and mother of Timothy. Jesus own mother, and his friends Mary and Martha, there was Lydia, and more. Jesus, his disciples, and even Paul talked about the women who helped, and they all hung out with strong amazing women.

Yes I know there are instances in the Bible when women were treated horribly, but I don't think this is Gods purpose, I do think that humans are fallible and men make mistakes. I think the horrible treatment of women is a perversion of God rules and that his heart (the heart of a father) bleeds for his daughters who are treated this way. It is an interesting fact that some of the most restrictive religions of the world at least regarding women and their behavior are the religions which were started by a male 'prophet' reinterpreting Gods will for the world.   Some of the most cruel punishments for women are given when men lose control of themselves.  It was the woman's fault she was raped.  Of course it was!!  Women have no souls, women can only get to heaven if they marry a man of the faith, men marry multiple women to save them.  Really?  Do any of these things sound like words of God?  Of course not they sound like the words of men!  In the Christian church shortly after the death and resurrection of Christ, women were missionaries and teachers, helpers in the church.  The subjugation of women by the church is, I believe man made - the voluntary submission of a wife to her husband is not the same thing. He then submits to Christ and now we have a chain of command. I have no problem with this, the key word is voluntary.

The women of the Bible, including the 'perfect' Proverbs 31 woman, were strong, they worked outside the home at times, some raised children. They were smart - training missionaries for Paul, and they were careful to behave in ways that would not dishonor themselves or their families including their husbands, in other words they were Intelligent, Conservative, Judeo-Christian Feminists. Women should have the same political, economic and social rights as men. But when the discussion gets into the physical then it gets all ridiculous – “Men don't have to have babies, they can sleep around with no consequences so I need the abortion choice!” or “I want to be a firefighter, so can you make the test easier for me so I can do the same job as a man”? Whoa there!! If you think either one of those sentences sound reasonable just go away now, you are never going to agree with me and you will probably irritate me. I do not want to be a man! (OK I am a little envious of the pee standing up thing)

I am a woman - with all that entails, My husband loves me and takes care of many things and frees me to be myself, we discuss our plans but if we do not agree he has the burden of making the final call and living with the consequence of his decision. I have run my own business for years, but I never could have given my kids the life they had on my own, the fact that my husband took the responsibility and did his biblical job gave me the freedom to be the wife and mother and homemaker and cook and shopper without the concern about those things he took care of – roof over our heads, money, security etc.. What a great freedom for me!

OK I think I'm done now. This turned into a really long rant and I hope you are not too bored, I promise to turn off the TV the next time that ridiculous Kathleen Sebelius starts talking about women being denied their 'constitutional' rights to an abortion by the horrible GOP!!!! OK I probably won't turn it off but I will try to work out my anger by pinching her head while she's on the screen!! (It really is only mildly childish!!)

- Kathy