LIFE GOES ON

You want to know if you did a good job at parenting?  Our daughters have grown up and are living life as they wish. They are responsible, have savings and retirmentn, and their own places they are paying for.  They are thoughtful, respectful, caring, and happy.

I am beyond grateful to have been their mother.  I wish I could give them more, but it's not in my power to do more.  

Richelle, graduated from Rose-Hulman Insititute of Technology with her bachelor's in Engineering Design and a master's in Engineering Managment.  She is working in Virginia near the DC area for a company she wanted to be with.  With the government shutdown, it may mean she gets laid off, or at best, moved to another site.  We are praying for the best outcome for her.

Kenzie is going back to college.  We happen to think it is in some part the influence of her boyfriend.  She is doing well in school and having the time of her life. 

Thanking God daily for our blessings.

 These two girls are what make life worth living.

They may be all grown up...  but in my heart, they are still my babies.  My job was to raise two independent, intelligent, caring, thoughtful, and capable young women so they would be able to take care of themselves after my husband and I were no longer around.  

Nailed it!

Covid-19.

I am lucky that I am very comfortable staying to myself.  I've always been a bit of a recluse, since I am basically an introvert.

And so far, I've not had any depression or feelings of loneliness.  Having both your daughters and a husband in the house lends a little help in that arena.  But I have always been comfortable in my own skin.

We have the internet, phones, tv, movies, deliveries from Amazon (although they are not doing as well as they used to...  even the simplest deliveries are S L O W.  People using Skype or Zoom if they need to be face to face.  We have contact if we need it.

But every time I listen to our governor YET AGAIN hold another tv update at 2:30 EVERY DAY, I am over it. Every time I have to go to the store and they play over their intercom a recording about social distancing and how you are expected to cough or sneeze into your arm or a tissue, I am over it.   Every time I watch a show and the endless public service announcements or commercials with supposedly famous people in it (I have NO idea who these people are - which says more about my social networking skills than anything else) telling me "We're all in this together,"  I am over it.   It sounds like George Orwell's 1984 - the voice droning over a speaker system with propaganda and brainwashing diatribes.

Other parts of this scenario remind me of the movie I Am Legend.  If you don't know the movie - watch it.

I'm not saying this isn't a serious issue.  Covid-19 can be deadly for the people who are compromised in the first place.  That would be me.  I meet most of the criteria for it.  But the government is finding out how easy it is to control people through fear and giving the same messaging over and over and over and over....   I don't want fear to be a part of my life.  God tells me FEAR NOT, FOR I AM WITH YOU.   And I believe that.

My heart breaks at how quickly we have become a police state without even thinking about the circumstances around the situation.  Governments and police banning drive-in church services - that is wrong. No one is close to each other when you are sitting in your car, and being social creatures and lovers of God, we need some camaraderie and Godly guidance.  Arresting a father for playing ball with his 6 year old daughter and wife in an empty park...  the cops should be furloughed without pay for a month over that stupidity.  A surfer being arrested for surfing on a deserted beach.  I can go on...  

So wondering where everyone stands on this.  If one of my daughters were to get sick, it is my understanding that I would have to drop her off and I would not be allowed into the hospital - yet they are minors.  What mother or father would simply give up their child entirely to strangers in any situation?  I don't think any of us, as parents, are okay with that.  Whatever happened to personal responsibility in these matters?  Am I not allowed to take my chances?



So, where is the balance?

Thoughts for the future...

So much has been on my mind.  

I have been heartsick to see how young people are embracing abortion as if it is a wonderful thing - something to brag about and revel in.

The people who are doing this consider themselves enlightened and the "kind and caring" ones.  But I  can't fathom how one gets to this point in their lives and not understand they are devoid of love, compassion, and are so out of touch with their soul.

Because I believe you can't kill your baby and not feel like you are dead inside - just as dead as the baby you had ripped from your body.  It changes you.

People have been lied to by Planned Parenthood.  They are told that even at 3-4 months old, their baby is just a blob of tissue - not even recognizable.  However, that is just not true.  By the time the baby is one month old, it looks like a baby - not a mass of tissue.  But if you still want to believe that fallacy - then here's a cold hard fact...  if that formed baby is a blob of tissue, then so are you.  

You might say that you are a higher form and more biologically advanced than a fetus.  But I looked up stages of development online, and surprisingly, at a very early stage.  The word fetus (Latin for offspring) is used technically for when the child begins to look like its mature form - in humans, that would be by the end of the 2nd month.  Here is an excerpt from the Cleveland Clinic website "Fetal Development: Stages of Growth".  

Month 1

As the fertilized egg grows, a water-tight sac forms around it, gradually filling with fluid. This is called the amniotic sac, and it helps cushion the growing embryo.

The placenta also develops. The placenta is a round, flat organ that transfers nutrients from the mother to the baby, and transfers wastes from the baby.

A primitive face will take form with large dark circles for eyes. The mouth, lower jaw, and throat are developing. Blood cells are taking shape, and circulation will begin. The tiny "heart" tube will beat 65 times a minute by the end of the fourth week. By the end of the first month, your baby is about 1/4 inch long – smaller than a grain of rice!

Month 2

Your baby's facial features continue to develop. Each ear begins as a little fold of skin at the side of the head. Tiny buds that eventually grow into arms and legs are forming. Fingers, toes and eyes are also forming.

The neural tube (brain, spinal cord and other neural tissue of the central nervous system) is well formed. The digestive tract and sensory organs begin to develop. Bone starts to replace cartilage.

The head is large in proportion to the rest of the baby's body.

By the end of the second month, your baby is about 1 inch long and weighs about 1/30 of an ounce.

At about 6 weeks, your baby's heart beat can usually be detected.

After the 8th week, your baby is called a fetus instead of an embryo.

Month 3

Your baby's arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. Your baby can open and close its fists and mouth. Fingernails and toenails are beginning to develop and the external ears are formed. The beginnings of teeth are forming. Your baby's reproductive organs also develop, but the baby's gender is difficult to distinguish on ultrasound.

By the end of the third month, your baby is fully formed. All the organs and extremities are present and will continue to mature in order to become functional. The circulatory and urinary systems are working and the liver produces bile.

At the end of the third month, your baby is about 4 inches long and weighs about 1 ounce.

Since your baby's most critical development has taken place, your chance of miscarriage drops considerably after three months.

By the end of the THIRD MONTH the baby is FULLY FORMED.  Let that sink in for a moment.

At no time in its development does the baby look like a blob of tissue as Planned Parenthood says the fetus looks like. It will be a clump of cells only in the first 2 weeks, and quickly develops into a recognizable form - one that begins to resemble a human baby.  Here is a picture of the embryo at 8 days - attached to the uterine wall.  It has purpose as a living thing.  This photo was taken by Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson, who spent a good part of his life photographing the development of babies in the womb.

Lennart Nilsson shows us an 8 week old baby looks like this:

Not a blob of tissue. And yet this is what is removed from a woman's body.  There is video of an 8 week old baby moving its arms and legs.  You can find that video HERE.

I can tell you that the strongest instinct in all living things is the will to live.

I am forever grateful to my Chinese daughters' mothers who did whatever they had to do to give birth to them.  They gave our daughters life, and I pray that God blesses them every day.  And I can tell you that my daughters are forever grateful for that life.  They know that their mothers, being in China, could have had forced abortions.  Not sure how they kept from getting into trouble with the authorities - but GOOD FOR THEM! 

My youngest, when in middle school, would argue with high school students that abortion was wrong.  And she did so fearlessly and with logic.  She has had discussions with classmates who are willing to listen to her point of view (and they will have a discussion not an argument) and she would be minding her own business, when someone in the class will overhear and begin to argue with her.  However, she listens and then points out their contradictions they make as they say one thing and then another that is totally opposite of their original statement. She isn't mean, just not afraid to point out their inconsistencies.  Fearless.

Back to blogging

Facebook sucks. 

There, I said it.  I get on nowadays to check on friends and post annoying things like what my kids are doing now...  but I can't stand Zuckerberg's hypocrisy and blatant censorship of anything he doesn't like or agree with, and it has just made me say "I'm over it."  It's no wonder his stock has dropped.  

We moved into a new home, and it has been nothing but headaches.  The builder never completed projects that he promised to do and now we are left with doing it ourselves. It's been expensive and I am seriously thinking I need a lawyer to sue his ass into oblivion.  I believe that a person in business should stand behind their work, but evidently he believes in "take the money and run." 

Enough of the bitch fest.  For now - it's done.

On the brighter side - there are my daughters.  They are the bright spots in my life.... the very ones who make my life worth living.  Don't get me wrong - it is frustrating sometimes.  But they are teenagers - and I actually have it pretty good.  With few exceptions, they are loving and respectful.  They work hard in school and want to maintain their good grades.  One has no clue what she wants to be in life, the other has her life planned out.  I just ask them to stay flexible - life doesn't always turn out the way we want it to.  Me, for example.  I wanted to be a paleontologist.  But I ended up after all was said and done a stay at home mom.  

However, it has been the very best job of all. 

 

Growing up

One child is still this precocious little girl we adopted.  June will make 10 years we traveled to  China to adopt her, and I still see that little baby in the things she does...  she is in the between stage of a little child and a young woman...  and she moves back and forth between the two as she pleases, because neither persona is "her" at this moment.  Or rather, both personas are "her".  But she is definitely finding herself, at the same time just being herself.  

Photos of a nice day.

My daughters are growing up.  I haven't posted in a loooooooong time. Time to catch up. And I'm going to become even more active as time goes by.

I have been off to take care of many issues here at home.  In the meantime, the kids are growing and becoming quite the little ladies.

DEATH PANELS AND NATIONAL SALES TAX

Paul Krugman is a die-hard progressive who believes that DEATH PANELS & SALES TAXES  are the answer to the government’s problems with the rising cost of healthcare.  His statements on TV programs and to groups he speaks to (not long ago he was speaking to a synagogue – go to Youtube and do a search on his name and death panels, or just click on the link) he says that we are going to HAVE to have death panels to get control of the healthcare costs, now that we have government funded healthcare. 

For those of you not familiar with death panels, they are based on what is called the Complete Lives System(do a search on the internet, or just click on the link), whereby the age and productiveness of an individual determine what kind of healthcare you will receive, if you get any at all.  The idea  is that those who are 15 – 40 years old are at the optimal time of their lives, able to produce the most, so they are the ones who will have the most choices as to what healthcare will be available to them. The top of the bell curve is around the age of 25 - 30 years old.  This is being represented as steps taken to ensure that younger and older people do not get medical care because in the opinion of the panels, it does not  do any good medically. 

Hey, tell that to those elderly people who need a heart operation, or cataract surgery, or a hip replacement.  Or to the parents of the newborn who needs to be on life support because it was born too early.

The TRUTH, which is not being spoken, is that the government has no use for someone who is not producing / doing any work which is perceived as useful by the government, and therefore  you won’t be given any procedures that will cost more than the government will be able to recoup.  If you read the information on the Complete Lives System, those who are around 15 years old are the ones who begin to get an increased amount of healthcare, because there has been an investment in these youngsters in the form of education. 

OK, for those of you who don’t understand this, the “investment” in kids around 15 years old is the progressive stink-think of indoctrination that has been going on in our schools and colleges for decades.  Why do you think we have so many young people (and even college professors) who do not teach our kids HOW to think, but rather WHAT to think.  If you don’t repeat what they tell you to believe, you are given a failing grade. 

I wonder what would happen if more young people went through these courses standing up for what is right, rather than spout the dribble and hate that many of these brainless nitwit rejects espouse, and with most of the students failing – I think it would actually reflect badly on the professor and the college, rather than the students.  Just think,  every college campus having millions of bright and highly intelligent students failing because they actually have brains enough to disagree with stupidity.  But I am dreaming…

These death panels are exactly what Sarah Palin had been ridiculed by the left for…but Palin was telling the truth.  And now the left is beginning to come forward and admit that what she was saying was EXACTLY correct. 

And, get ready for it folks…  there are those who are now putting forward that we have a NATIONAL SALES TAX!  Alright, kiddies – this will affect those of us who are not rich the worst (present company included).  We don’t have a lot of money – spent most of it adopting our kids and paying for their school, food, clothes, extra-curricular activities, etc……    But now, they want to fund the healthcare system by imposing a “value-added” tax, which is what they are calling the National Sales Tax idea…   yeah… how sweet.  MORE FREAKING TAXES.  Obama only said he wouldn’t RAISE taxes on the middle class… he didn’t say he wouldn’t create new ones.  

Y’all need to learn to read between the lines.  

Genesis 3 - a must see video

I saw this video at church and searched Youtube for it.  It is probably one of the very best interpretations of the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden that I have ever seen.  Please watch!

 

Obamacare in one sentence... video

Cirque Shanghai on Labor Day

We saw Cirque Shanghai at Chicago's Navy Pier again this year (also saw them last year).  I was able to take a few pics of the show (photography is allowed without flash, and no video taping!) before my camera got hot.  It kept shutting down on me several times claiming there was an error.  I'll have to have it checked out because I love this camera for a point-and-shoot.

Anyway - this year's show was even better than last year's... and last year's was good.  Hope you enjoy the pics!

On the way back home, we again stopped at a KFC for their buffet lunch.  Roy was talking about the photo book that Richelle's orphanage had given us, with pictures of her as a baby, and pics of her as a little toddler, and he remembered a picture of one of her poops.

To which Richelle quipped, "Let me guess... below it said 'Actual size'.  And you had to fold out the page."

Where does an 8 year old get this kind of humor????  I didn't pee my pants this time, but we couldn't talk for a while for laughing with tears flowing down my face. 

St. Louis - a GREAT Vacation Place!

We're back from from a trip to St. Louis, MO.   I have to say, I never thought this city would be much - but we had a great time and I found out St. Louis has a lot to offer in the way of entertainment.  We didn't get to do as much as we wanted to, but what we did was great.

First we went to see the Gateway Arch.  I had told myself all my life growing up that I would NEVER get inside that thing and ride to the top... it just didn't seem safe to me.  But then, I have kids, and they were anxious to go inside and see the sights from up high.  The arch is 630 feet high at the top - and you can see so much from up there...   it's a beautiful view of the city.  And it's such a beautifully simple and elegant piece of architecture...  the stainless steel plating on the outside of the arch shines and reflects differently depending on the time of day and angle you are viewing it from.  

  Underneath the arch, there is a lot to see as well.  They have the Museum of Westward Expansion, a theater and gift shop. The museum is free - just walk through it. They had several animals (done by a taxidermist) such as a horse, bison, and longhorn steer.  They also have the robots that talk like at Disney. The kids thought they were creepy.  

  
We then took the kids down to the Mississippi River to take a river boat ride.   They thoroughly enjoyed being on the boat and seeing the city from the river.  I've been on one of these rides when I went to Minneapolis for a visit to a friend's house. 

The bad part was when we had to go back to the hotel.  There are 63 steps to climb up to get back to the park area at the Arch.  The kids ran up them like Rocky Balboa...  LOL!

We were staying at the Hilton at the Ballpark... it is just down the street from Busch Stadium - home of the St. Louis Cardinals. Traffic was somewhat of a mess when it was game day (which was every day we were there). I really wished we could have gone to a game, but the girls weren't interested. Maybe someday. There are some very nice parks nearby, and the girls enjoyed the fountains. As you can see, one of the game days the water was turned red in the fountain. Go Cards!

 We also went to the City Museum.  My camera battery went dead, so I couldn't take many pictures, but click on the name and it will take you to the website. This place was incredible...  a kid's dream come true with places to crawl/walk through, hide in, and explore.   It's $12 per person, but really well worth the price.  The food court was reasonable on their prices (I've seen worse, and they give you good sized sandwiches.) Everything here is made with recycled materials.  And you'd be amazed at what was used throughout the entire place.

  
Other places I would recommend in St. Louis is the St. Louis Zoo (free), the St. Louis Science Center, or take a carriage ride around the river/downtown area.  Also, there's the St. Louis Botanical Gardens (kids 12 and under get in free).  Here's a link to "25 Things to Do in St. Louis".  I really enjoyed the trip and want to return to finish seeing the things we didn't get to the first time.