Welcome to my microcosm

Although I’m allergic to milk, I do loooove chocolate milk. But the fact is that unless you make it yourself, it’s really bad for you. Sugar is very bad for your health, and many of them have high fructose corn syrup, which is even worse! Well, there is a new campaign sweeping the nations most popular online mommy groups, in hand magazines ect. Pediatricians, dietitians and celebrities are getting involved in the possible ban of chocolate milk from schools and presenting the argument that if we don’t flavor the milk, the children won’t drink it and will have poorer nutrician.

Of course, the fact that you are adding an additional 70 calories per 236 ml and the fact that they often are sweetened with HFCS (doubling the sugar content in the process) is something completely embraced as an acceptable risk due to the ‘health benefits’ of chocolate milk.

The ‘science’ behind it states that we should add sugar to nutrient rich foods such as milk and cereal to make them more palatable as well as other skewed facts and ideas. This is atrocious! It’s like putting on the Cocoa Krispies box that it improves immunity (they actually did that too!!) There are plenty of people out there uncomfortable with the health claims made in sly marketing techniques.

So why are they doing this? Perhaps it has something to do with milk sales going down if they ban chocolate milk in the schools. Some think that it’s a conspiracy to make Americans unhealthy so they can make more money in the healthcare system or for population control. I don’t know…maybe it’s because people are typically stupid, especially in large groups. The fact is that this campaign needs to be crushed! It gives the very wrong impression that chocolate milk is actually good for children, when there’s already serious doubts wither regularly processed nonorganic white milk is suitable for consumption! Surely adding chocolate (often artificial) and sugar (often high fructose corn syrup) is NOT a good thing. True, children who drink flavored milk will drink more of it, but is this beneficial? I don’t think so. Those nutrients can be consumed by eating fruits and vegetables and cheese and yogurt rather then encouraging children to guzzle chocolate milk because it is ‘good’ for them. Of course, children don’t want to eat things that are good for them, which is why chocolate milk is the ‘easy way’ for them to be ‘healthy.’ Really, if there was an easy way to be healthy, our nation would have a low BMI and good muscle tone.

My kids love fruits and veggies, but they were raised with them. Processed foods and…chocolate milk…are a special treat. I think that if children grow up with a good diet you don’t have to buy sugared up cereals and chocolate milk to get them to eat well, and at the risk of repeating myself yet again, sugar has been proven to be bad for you! How can adding something bad for you to mechanically processed ‘nutrients’ be considered good for you??!!

STILL
music & lyrics: Gerrit Hofsink

I’ve been waiting for you
For such a long time
You’re always on my mind

And I’m lying awake
Most of the night
Waiting to hold you tight

Now that I do
And look at you
My heart is breaking
This can’t be true

Chorus:
Lost you before I found you
Gone before you came
But I love you just the same
Missed you before I met you
On earth we never can
But in heaven we’ll meet again

Close to my soul
Close to my heart
Right from the start

Lost in time
Lost in space
Can’t wait to see your face

Now that I do
And look at you
My heart is breaking
I know it’s true

Chorus:
Lost you . . .

Sometimes I find myself wondering what to do
With this pain that I’m going through
But I know one day, God will take me away
And I’m coming home to you

And when I do
And look at you
My heart is healing
I know it’s true

Chorus:
Lost you . . .

It is so hard making small choices sometimes.  Do I buy that dress?  A new pair of shoes?  Chicken or beef or tofu?  Big decisions about much more important options can be almost impossible, sometimes, especially when you are leaning in a direction that those around you may disagree with.

Perfect love drives out fear, and  if you seek His face He will give you peace about the path He wants you to take.  Sometimes, there is a God given healthy concern about an issue, but even in those times when there is a Godly urgency about something, there will be a level of peace there with you, you should never be overtaken with fear.

For instance, it’s only when I’m being selfish that I feel panic/fear over the idea of getting pregnant this month.  When I’m wanting to be on the computer or read or do something else that my children are taking me away from and requiring extra attention from me then I really want to give, that’s when I start thinking I’m crazy for wanting more children or the ‘burden’ of pregnancy woes and surgical delivery.  But when I have faith and trust in my Maker, I have joy in looking forward to another.

This is a good pattern to live your life by- notice why you feel fear and if it’s because you are not being Christ-like, then you need to look inward for a heartchange and reach further inward and ask our Helper to change it.  Jesus knew that fear and sinful selfish desires would rule the hearts of His followers, that’s why He told them before He left Earth that He would send a Helper, the Holy Spirit.  And as we change we find ourselves reaching outward towards others in Christ’s love.  When our hands are open to give and to receive we can’t make fists to fight or to hold onto our fear and selfishness.  This is something that I have really been learning a lot about these last couple of years of trials.

So as I am in the midst of the cancer pit and the chemo horrors and the pregnancy losses, do I have fear, or faith? I find that I have faith and peace. But it’s not easy, even with faith. I am not appreciating this time of my life. I don’t embrace it with the kind of joy that some say we should have while facing trials. I just want it to be over. But…there is still peace and faith.  Well, most of the time!  Admittedly there are times that I take my eyes off Jesus and begin to sink into the raging sea.

What about you? What has God taught you about faith, fear, peace and doubt? When have you felt the most peace and how has God used fear to bring about good things in your life? I’m willing to bet that true fear has never brought about good things.

Straight from the government, yes, the same one who declared the ‘swine flu’ a pandemic and declared a national state of emergency!  ” Most people with 2009 H1N1 have had mild illness and have not needed medical care or antiviral drugs and the same is true of seasonal flu.”

Yes, H1N1 has been problematic for those with other underlying conditions, but the same is true for the regular flu.

Another article of interest “It’s really not causing — and is not going to cause and nowhere has caused — significant levels of illness or death,” said Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health.  “But governments moved ahead regardless. They ramped up their response, spent a huge amount of money on vaccines and other things (Canada spent $1.5 billion on their vaccine campaign.)  The huge investment that’s been put into planning for what has ultimately turned out to be, from a pandemic perspective, a dud.”

ABC news said “A new analysis, using H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, shows that a typical — or possibly even milder then average flu season should have been expected.

The finding begs the question: Has swine flu been oversold?

The new study, done by researchers at Harvard University and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit in the U.K., says swine flu cases in the spring indicated a flu season that might be, at worst, slightly worse than normal.

“It would have been great to have that back in June,” said Philip Alcabes, an associate professor in the program in urban public health at Hunter College’s School of Health Sciences. “There would have been one more bit of evidence behind my assertion six months ago” that people were overreacting to H1N1.”

Mercola says “in Britain, health authorities’ original worst-case scenario — which said as many as 65,000 could die from H1N1 — has twice been revised down and the prediction is now for around 1,000 deaths, way below the average annual toll of 4,000 to 8,000 deaths from seasonal winter flu.”

And “Now it looks as though the H1N1 scare of 2009 will go down as one of the biggest government and pharmaceutical scams ever, renewing a healthy, and necessary, skepticism about government fear-mongering, the swine flu vaccine and the dubious dealings behind the implementation of worldwide mass-vaccination programs.”

From the most clinical health professional to the conspiracy theorists alike, all can agree that this most certainly was NOT the flu pandemic of 2009.

The Flu Pandemic

Copyright 1999 Topmast Productions and the Flying Fish Sailors

Chorus: It was the Flu pandemic
And it swept the whole world wide
It caught soldiers and civilians
And they died, died, died!
Whether they’re lying in the trenches
Or lying in their beds
Twenty million of them got it
And they’re dead, dead, dead!

There was a soldier on the battleground in 1917
He turned there to his buddy with his face a ghastly green
He said “We made it both through Passchendaele, the Somme, and Flanders too
But now my number’s up my lad for I’ve gone and caught the flu”

chorus

Well a nurse was in the hospital when Tommy was brought in
When he sneezed she caught a face full that was flying in the wind
She wrote a letter home to England to tell them of her plight
But the letter never got there ’cause the postman too had died

chorus

From the meadow-lands of Somerset and o’er the bounding main
To the shores of old Americay they sung the same refrain
Mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts as well as the odd nephew
Brothers and sisters and bosses and lovers were all got by the flu

chorus

Well a farmer out in China watched his family dropping down
And a businessman in Cairo hit the street without a sound
And an eager little Bolshevik in old Sevastopol couldn’t keep up his grinnin’ at Lenin as Comrade Virus took its toll

I dream of Benjamin sometimes.  Soon after his death I had a very healing dream where I was in a pretty cabin room with double doors that opened onto a patio.  Gauzy white curtains blew with the wind and soft white sheets with fluffy pillows surrounded me on the bed.  I was holding Benjamin and his eyes were open, he was alive!  He heart beat within his chest and he breathed rhythmically.  The midwife in my dream (different then my RL midwife) was there and a little confused why I thought that Benjamin had died.

I usually don’t remember my other Benjamin dreams when I wake, only that I had dreamed of him.  This morning I had another dream, though.  I did not realize I was dreaming, or it would have been very different.  I had things I wanted to do, an agenda for the week.  My mom was watching him, giving him a bottle.  I kept thinking that it was ok, I would see him soon.  I did see him for a brief moment here and there, and even nursed him, although I didn’t pay much attention to him.  It was just something I did, not a precious experience between mother and son.

When I woke I mourned that I didn’t cherish the time I had with him.  If only I had remembered that he was dead and I was dreaming and enjoyed him, instead of off doing my own thing.  But isn’t that the way our lives often go?  We are busy doing our own thing and although it may not mean leaving our children with someone else, we have our minds on the cooking and cleaning and other things…and neglect to cherish each moment with our loved ones because we think they will be there when we are ready.  But then sometimes they aren’t…things have changed and they are gone and our lives are full of missed opportunities that can never be retrieved.

“The Days we are given are gifts from above,today we  remember to live and to love…” Superchick.

In our house we have a few phrases that you hear every day. Here are two:

“You don’t get seconds until everybody has had firsts. ”

“You get what you get and you don’t whine about it! “

The second one is a particular favorite of our two year old and can be heard frequently (particularly when someone is whining.) When someone says it inevitably another child (or several) chorus “AMEN!”

It is so funny.

the joys of soda

Now, before I get a bunch of emails, I know that some sodas do not have HFCS.  In fact, there’s a popular line that has Splenda, although some believe that Splenda is worse then sugar.  When I have a hankering for soda I try to drink something with sugar or a new stevia sweetened, carbonated, flavored green tea.  Ultimately, I just try to stay away from it alltogether.  That’s a great ‘New Years Resolution.”  One soda a month?  None at all?   Carbonation dehydrates and has a strong link to tooth decay, so limiting all carbonated beverages is a good idea.