Desert Strawberry
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Posts posted by Desert Strawberry
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I'm a type 2 diabetic. I would say the strawberries are better. Berries tend not to spike blood sugar like other fruits. I can eat strawberries, but not much else. They are nutritionally sound.
IMO diet sodas aren't "healthy" at all, in any way, for anyone. The caffiene (and maybe other things in there) mess up my blood sugar more than most other foods. Alas, they are my vice. I'm enjoying one right now.
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Blissfully happy.
I never imagined I'd have everything I ever dreamed of, but here it is. A husband who treasures me, a little country cottage filled with happy healthy children whom I spend all day with. My front door opens onto a field of flowers and fruit trees.
I had a difficult start in life. Things have never been easy for me. I would never have believed I could have this life.
ETA: FWIW, things are still not perfect. But they are improving each day. I have been tested, I have proven my strength, I know my limits and my capabilities. I have faith in myself and my future. Everything is going to be ok, one way or another.
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Buddhism doesn't have a creation story that I'm aware of. like the Hindus, we believe in a cyclical universe. There doesn't seem to be much focus on it, but I would say that the concept of time is less linear, and far more vast. We believe in endless lifetimes.
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My OB keeps me waiting for.ever. My ped has a lengthy wait time, but he spends a lot of time with us. My FP is reasonable. My endo is in and out. I rarely see more than one other patient in the waiting room, if that.
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I want to be the one to raise my children. I don't want anyone else (besides my husband) to have a say in what they do or what they know or how they live. They are ours and ours alone.
ETA: We aren't weird and controlling and antisocial. We do see other people. I just don't want anyone else making decisions for my family and forcing us to abide by them. I do the research. I have strong opinions. I am highly capable. I care more about my kids than anyone else ever will.
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I love kids. All kids. I worked with kids until I had my own. But right now, my focus is on my own kids. I don't have the time, energy or inclination to help raise someone else's. So I limit our interactions to well-behaved, well-parented kids.
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Rubbing alcohol removes sharpie from glass.
Not what you're looking for, but each of my kids has a spill-proof straw cup in a different color. Wash and fill them in the morning ( or at night) and then they are responsible for them the rest of the day. They bring them along when we go places. My oldest is in charge of refilling them for the little ones if they need help.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain that. It sounds interesting to me now. I know a few people that have conveyed Buddhism to me as sterile. You have warmed it up.
Aw, thank you.
When I converted, this was my biggest disappointment. We really don't have a lot of warm fuzzies. There's not big celebration, not much in the way of community support, not a lot of involvement for the children. We just don't get the fellowship that other religions have.
but, there are other ways of getting that. We still have family celebrations, the local sanghas have community events, and we enjoy secular events. It's just a shift of focus.
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I want to properly respect the Japanese and recognize how they live from their perspective not mine. I'm going off this article. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/14/how-japans-religions-confront-tragedy/?hpt=C2
That article, while not wholly inaccurate, is not impressive.
It is true that Japanese society is largely secular. Religion is incorporated very differently into the day-to-day life of the people. There is far less emphasis on defining one's beliefs. There is no sabbath. There are no weekly services to attend. There are no religious holidays comparable to Judeo-Christian religions. There are cultural events that may take place at shrines and temples. There are small shrines everywhere. There are large temples that people travel all over to visit.
Japan is a series of islands, each with it's own history and culture. I lived on the main island of Honshu, where Zen is most present. I also grew up on the west coast of the US, where Zen is quite popular ( as is Tibetan Buddhism, but that is something different). I have not had much exposure to Pure Land, or other forms of Japanese Buddhism.
I would disagree with the article that Buddhist ritual emphasizes death. Shinto emphasizes ancestral worship. Buddhism does emphasize dealing positively with suffering. The First Noble Truth is Suffering Exists. It was the question of the existence of suffering that lead Siddartha Gautauma on the quest that lead him to enlightenment in the first place. In Buddhist cultures all over the world, times of loss and grief are the times when one would turn to their faith. That's just how the faith works. It's all about living in such a way as to minimize suffering. The article does point out that the question of why tragedy occurs is not one a Buddhist would ask. tragedy is just a part of life. The key is not to get hung up on it. The important thing is how you deal with it, how you move forward from it.
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That seeing deleted threads makes me wildly curious. :blush:
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4 yrs, not including preK. I did PreK with my oldest so that i could learn to teach him. Formal lessons for 6yrs.
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it had not even occurred to me that someone might say things like this to my child. This is a deal breaker for me. NO ONE is allowed to undermine our family's choices to my children. I don't care how great of a dentist she is. I'd find another one.
FTR, we are on our 3rd dentist for much lesser offenses. We drive 30 miles one way to the new dentist and 35 miles to the ped. It's so worth it to know that my children are being cared for with respect.
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Thank you all for the replies. It appears I did have an inaccurate impression.
I have taught, and continue to teach, my children to respect the experience and interests of others in conversation. Esp my oldest, who does tend to be a bit self-involved and not terribly responsive to his audience. in that regard, it does make perfect sense to teach them to limit a topic of conversation. We do not discuss politics in public, as I consider that a private discussion for our home. Along those lines, I suppose we do limit some topics as necessary.
So I would assume you don't have any Christian friends or those of other faiths? If you must always be free to talk about all your beliefs and you don't want your children exposed to beliefs which differ from yours, either your friends have to all agree completely with you or stifle themselves and live dishonestly in order to associate with you. I'm not trying to be snarky at all. I'm just trying to see if I'm following your logic.Most of our friends are fairly devout Christians. I do live in the Bible Belt, after all.
I do expose my children to other faiths. I don't expect them never to encounter mainstream culture. We sing Channukkah songs, and eat latkes, and have a Christmas tree and sing carols and such, because I grew up doing those things. We have attended church services with the grandparents and religious weddings and funerals, and I have taught the children to genuflect and recite the Lord's Prayer as a matter of culture, not faith. We are frequently visited by missionaries of different faiths and entertain them warmly in our home. I have a subscription to Above Rubies, which I thoroughly enjoy. By no means am I sheltering my children.
But, I do not read them bible stories before bed, I attempt to limit Biblical references in their reading materials and entertainment, because that does not reflect our belief system. In the same manner, I understand why other families might not wish to immerse their children in entertainment steeped in Asian culture and beliefs. Living where we do, Christian references are extremely pervasive. Other religions, including our own, are far less frequently encountered. I don't want my children growing up with the impression that our faith is weird or inferior simply because it is far less present in the community at large.
I didn't realize anime and Japan represented Buddism? I thought the Japanese followed Shinto and used Buddhism for funeral purposes? I think Buddhism is a philosophy not a true religion?This is a whole other can of worms.
As Buddhism spread across Asia and the world, individual cultures incorporated Buddhist teachings with their own cultural beliefs. Each culture has developed it's own form of Buddhism, which sometimes co-exists with the original faith or belief system. Buddha taught his followers NOT to renounce their cultural beliefs, but to add the teachings that he espoused in addition to the beliefs they already held dear.There is no necessary conflict between the two.
In Japan, Zen Buddhism and Shinto co-exist and are intertwined. IMO it is very difficult to separate the 2, as they are intrinsicly linked over centuries. Temples are designated as one or the other, but neither is truly exclusive.
Shinto is actually more present as a means of explaining death and disposition of the soul. Buddhism is more of the rules of living, with some emphasis on the disposition of the soul in the long term (meaning centuries/eternity). But these distictions are debatable.
My husband identifies as Shinto, I identify as Zen. There are topics here we are not exactly on the same page, and I might ask his opinion or he might ask mine-though, neither of us claim to be a great scholar of the faith. But for the most part, we are in agreement.
As far as Buddhism being a religion vs a philosophy, this is an old debate. It all comes down to definition. I believe the main argument of the non-religion side is that there is no deity to worship, no one to pass judgement on the soul. Buddha did not claim to be holy, did not claim to be a prophet, did not communicate with any gods. Nor did he believe in any sensiate gods. But if you were to use a broader definition of god, then Karma would certainly qualify. Again, it comes down the to the flexibility of the definition.
But Karma does have consequences. There is a mystical aspect to Buddhism. There is an explanation of the afterlife. There are methods of bringing good results about and the threat of poor results if one behaves badly. IMO that qualifies it as a religion.
But yes, it is also a philosophy. How can any deeply held set of beliefs that one chooses to live by not be qualified as a philosophy?
Imho, the argument is moot. It's a matter of symantics. We believe that all faiths-whether classified as a religion or a philosophy or nothing at all-are equally valid. What matters is actions. If you act, speak, think in kindness, you will recieve kindness in return. If you think, act, speak in violence (any and all forms) and desire, them you will suffer. If you spend time in quiet introspection, channeling the good and peacefulness from the Universe (or god)-whether you call it prayer or mediation- your soul will advance toward enlightment.
Results are what matter. Call it whatever you want.
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I base it on our diet. We eat seasonally, and mostly locally, so our diet varies greatly during the year ( as I beleive it should).
Right now, we are getting ton of fresh fruits and veg, so I'm letting it go a bit. In the winter, when we are existing mainly off of root veg, dried a and canned fruits, dried beans and grains, I push the vitamins a bit harder. Just multivites and C, unless there's something specific to address.
I use vitamins and supplements medicinally. If someone has a runny nose, I load them up with C, garlic, ginger, echinacea, etc. I take Bs for morning sickness. My DH takes Bs to boost his energy levels. I'm using Evening primrose (actually tea, from wild growing flowers that we collected), red rooibos, and Red raspberry leaf to prepare for my baby's birth. But if everyone is feeling well and and we are eating well, I don't see a need for a lot of stuff.
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I have heard that there are families that avoid all things magic-Pokemon, HP, vampires, witchcraft, etc. I know that we know some families who believe this, but it has not really come up much in conversation.
I get that. It conflicts with their values and beliefs. As a Buddhist family, we avoid stories that are steeped in Christian values and belief (among other things) because they conflict with ours. We actively seek out anime, Japanese graphic novels, and things like that, because they do reflect our values and beliefs. Being in the minority, we want to present our beliefs as normal-not as something in conflict with mainstream society.
My question is in interacting with these families. I assumed that if someone disagreed with us on these topics, becasue they are such a big part of our lives, that they would not be interested in interacting with us. I'm sure that a lot families view us as that weird, dorky family. and that would be a correct assessment. :) I'm ok with that. We aren't pretending to be something we're not.
In the other threads many people mentioned that they caution the children not to talk about HP or other questionable materials. This has me :confused: It has never occurred to me to limit my children in their discussion of...well...much of anything. We have talked about private, personal topics ( like bathroom habits), but to say not to mention this game, or that book, or whatever, it just feel odd and, frankly, dishonest to me.
Could someone enlighten me a bit on this topic? I don't want to come away with inaccuarate negative opinions or assumptions
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I serve whatever I serve. They can eat it or not. If they don't want to eat, they can wait until the next meal/snack. We eat roughly 5 times a day. I don't count it against them if they refuse something (maybe they just aren't hungry at that time), but if they come to me half an hour later, asking for food, they are out of luck until it's time to eat again. Otherwise, certain children would eat certain foods all day long.
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oooh, good idea to put it in coffee. I have done that, but hadn't really thought about it. A non-carb eater here, too.
the ones my dad uses are ground cinnamon in a gelatin capsule. I think-as with all things-you just have to read the ingredients to make sure you are really getting what you should be getting and not some other stuff.
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I'd wait. With my last, I went to stay with my ill mother and missed appts between 4 and 6 months. I did a scan when I got back.
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I love this thread. I feel so much better about every aspect of my life now. Truly life-changing. Thank you.
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My dad does. Cinnamon helps balance blood sugar. He doesn't like the taste, so he takes capsules. I do like the taste, so I use it in my cooking and baking.
We're both diabetic. I don't think I eat enough to make it work for me, though.
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Depending on the questioner, I usually say, "Eh, I enjoy it." and leave it at that, the same as when people say things like this about me staying home, doing meal planning, keeping my house neat and organized, sewing, knitting, cooking, etc. They are just things that I do, kwim?
If the person sounds defensive (HSing is generally viewed very positively here, as the ideal educational choice), I say, "It isn't for everyone. I believe that anyone *can* homeschool, but not everyone *should*. The only reason why someone shouldn't is if they don't *want* to." The listener almost always agrees with me that they really don't *want* to. I think it gives them validation that they aren't being selfish. It isn't easy, and you shouldn't suffer to do it if your heart isn't in it.
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No. It's just easier.
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I don't see how thier immigrant status has anything to do with their choice of what to name thier children.
I live in Cajun country. It's common right now to use Cajun French names. I'm not aware of any rules I must adhere to, just because we live here and I married into a Cajun family. If I want to name my kid Honore or Angelle, that's my business. I haven't, and that's my business, too.
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It's their decision, of course.
IME, recent immigrants usually choose *very* traditional American names for their offspring-like Kathy, Sarah, Nancy, John, Michael, etc. I'm sure it 's in part to fit in to the new culture, and in part a liking for the *new* exotic names.
Confession: I have NOT posted on the thread, "There is a member here"...
in General Education Discussion Board
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I grew up in Hollywood. I don't understand celebrity stalking. Famous people are just people. I'm sure that whomever it is is not loving that thread and having her cover blown. it must be a nice escape to come online and get ot be just another, normal mom for a while, without anyone digging for personal details.