I thought the name Mamahadeen was pretty witty when I first registered it, but unfortunately, only one single person outside our family has gotten the joke (at least, has confessed to getting the joke.) This week another friend asked "What's that?" So, here goes:
Well, it's kind of complicated. The Islamic jihadists call themselves Mujahadeen -- holy warriors in Arabic. When folks started blogging, the mainstream media got bent out of shape and basically said "Are you gonna believe a bunch of crazy conservatives, typing in their pajamas or are you gonna believe us -- apostles of truth like Dan Rather?" Then some wiseacre called the bloggers "pajamahadeen" because they caused such a ruckus in the mainstream media. I took off on that and called myself Mamahadeen -- the mama in pajamas causing a ruckus for a holy reason -- got it?
Thursday, July 27, 2006
On Cooking and Costs
I've noticed sadly that many of the young mothers I talk to have even less idea how to run a household than I do. Now, that's pathetic, because I grew up in a family business. Literally. We came home from school to the store and stayed there til it closed. I felt like I had to learn how to be a housewife "on the job" but with no training. I'm still not terribly good at it. Compared to the generation of mothers just starting out, though, I'm a wiz. Many of them had working mothers and all of them were fed frozen dinners and McDonald's predominantly. I was told by one friend, "I only make one meal from scratch -- Hamburger Helper." Seriously.
The really sad thing is that their lack of training makes it so much harder for them to make it financially on one income so that they can stay home with their little ones or homeschool. For example, when they want a pie, they buy a frozen one ($3-5) and put whipped topping on top ($1-2). It's so easy to make a pie if you've been taught -- and inexpensive. Even if you buy the crust ($1) and use Jello pudding and pie filling ($0.80), but then make meringue ($0.20).
Dorothy Sayers in Murder Must Advertise once said that we pay extra to have our food prepared and stripped of all natural fiber and vitamins and then buy the fiber and vitamins on the side, keeping the wheels of commerce constantly turning. Well, folks, don't let those wheels run you down: Get a good cookbook like The Joy of Cooking [Nota Bene: Buy only this edition (1975) or an older one - The All New... has removed all that made The Joy of Cooking the one cookbook Julia Child would have on her shelf if she could only have one] or Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and teach yourself to really cook. Or better yet, make friends with an older woman who loves to cook and ask her if you can "come help" and she'll help you!
The really sad thing is that their lack of training makes it so much harder for them to make it financially on one income so that they can stay home with their little ones or homeschool. For example, when they want a pie, they buy a frozen one ($3-5) and put whipped topping on top ($1-2). It's so easy to make a pie if you've been taught -- and inexpensive. Even if you buy the crust ($1) and use Jello pudding and pie filling ($0.80), but then make meringue ($0.20).
Dorothy Sayers in Murder Must Advertise once said that we pay extra to have our food prepared and stripped of all natural fiber and vitamins and then buy the fiber and vitamins on the side, keeping the wheels of commerce constantly turning. Well, folks, don't let those wheels run you down: Get a good cookbook like The Joy of Cooking [Nota Bene: Buy only this edition (1975) or an older one - The All New... has removed all that made The Joy of Cooking the one cookbook Julia Child would have on her shelf if she could only have one] or Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and teach yourself to really cook. Or better yet, make friends with an older woman who loves to cook and ask her if you can "come help" and she'll help you!
Monday, July 24, 2006
Remarkable Providences
The incredible thing about the Christian life is that trials are often great blessings. Four and a half years ago, after the 9/11 business bust, dear husband was out of work for some time. When we told the children that Daddy no longer had his corporate job and it would be a long, precarious time until the business began to pay, the older children began to encourage the younger children to trust God by telling them many stories of God's providential provision for us four years ago. What a blessing!
Our dear Lord has already begun to show his love and provision for us:
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. I John 3:14
Immediately after reading the prayer request we sent out on our local homeschool loop, a dear sister emailed, saying that she and her husband were grateful for the service and encouragement we had given as homeschool leaders and they committed to bringing us a bag of grocery essentials every Friday for nine months! Can you believe that? What sacrificial love! What commitment! I pray that we will not need this provision, but to know that they are there is an incredible comfort. May the Lord bless them a hundredfold.
For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. Matthew 6:8
Last week I received a very hurtful letter from an old friend and in the same mail a great encouragement: A letter from friends saying that they were grateful for our ministry to homeschoolers and wanted to encourage us in a tangible way. It was a very tangible way, a $500 check! We rejoiced at the provision and at the kind way they had helped us without referencing our need, even making it sound like it was something we deserved -- which we do not, we deserve hell, but have been given all this (and heaven, too, said the wise man). Last night we wrote them a thank you note and this morning they told us they had only found out last night about our need -- nearly a week after the check had been sent. They had been thinking of doing this for weeks. Our dear, precious Lord, knowing the coming need had prepared their hearts and provided an answer before we even asked. Blessed be His name! May these saints be blessed beyond measure!
How could we fail to trust Him? How could we doubt when we see such remarkable providences?
Our dear Lord has already begun to show his love and provision for us:
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. I John 3:14
Immediately after reading the prayer request we sent out on our local homeschool loop, a dear sister emailed, saying that she and her husband were grateful for the service and encouragement we had given as homeschool leaders and they committed to bringing us a bag of grocery essentials every Friday for nine months! Can you believe that? What sacrificial love! What commitment! I pray that we will not need this provision, but to know that they are there is an incredible comfort. May the Lord bless them a hundredfold.
For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. Matthew 6:8
Last week I received a very hurtful letter from an old friend and in the same mail a great encouragement: A letter from friends saying that they were grateful for our ministry to homeschoolers and wanted to encourage us in a tangible way. It was a very tangible way, a $500 check! We rejoiced at the provision and at the kind way they had helped us without referencing our need, even making it sound like it was something we deserved -- which we do not, we deserve hell, but have been given all this (and heaven, too, said the wise man). Last night we wrote them a thank you note and this morning they told us they had only found out last night about our need -- nearly a week after the check had been sent. They had been thinking of doing this for weeks. Our dear, precious Lord, knowing the coming need had prepared their hearts and provided an answer before we even asked. Blessed be His name! May these saints be blessed beyond measure!
How could we fail to trust Him? How could we doubt when we see such remarkable providences?
OUR World Turned Upside Down... Or Right Side Up
News Flash: Escape from Cubicle Nation!
An acquaintance of mine uses a great tagline for her email account: "Whenever I sit down and relax in a comfortable chair, a bar falls across my lap and I hear a voice saying, "Keep your hands and feet in the car at all times. Enjoy your ride!" This is our life!
Many of you know that dear husband was involuntarily transferred from a field engineering position to Cubicle Nation nearly two years ago, and the long hours, long commute, and isolation -- people emailed from cubicle to cubicle (really!) -- did not make for a happy assignment. Well, dear husband has had an unexpected opportunity to escape from Cubicle Nation!
We have been talking for a year about the possibility of going into business with my brother and mother to provide a stateside sales office for the Chinese manufacturing concern run by my sister-in-law and brother. We worked on a business plan last month and were getting pretty excited about the possibilities, but knowing that it would take nine months to see any money, it just seemed like a pretty big cliff to jump off of.
Well, here we go: The rollercoaster has reached the top of the hill and Whoosh! we're headed down the drop off. I can't wait to see what the Lord does next!
An acquaintance of mine uses a great tagline for her email account: "Whenever I sit down and relax in a comfortable chair, a bar falls across my lap and I hear a voice saying, "Keep your hands and feet in the car at all times. Enjoy your ride!" This is our life!
Many of you know that dear husband was involuntarily transferred from a field engineering position to Cubicle Nation nearly two years ago, and the long hours, long commute, and isolation -- people emailed from cubicle to cubicle (really!) -- did not make for a happy assignment. Well, dear husband has had an unexpected opportunity to escape from Cubicle Nation!
We have been talking for a year about the possibility of going into business with my brother and mother to provide a stateside sales office for the Chinese manufacturing concern run by my sister-in-law and brother. We worked on a business plan last month and were getting pretty excited about the possibilities, but knowing that it would take nine months to see any money, it just seemed like a pretty big cliff to jump off of.
Well, here we go: The rollercoaster has reached the top of the hill and Whoosh! we're headed down the drop off. I can't wait to see what the Lord does next!
Monday, July 10, 2006
The World Turned Upside Down
For many years, I've enjoyed reading the wedding announcements in the newspaper. An incurable romantic, I enjoy reading all the details! In recent times, I have noticed a worrisome trend and I invite you to test it out yourself. In nearly all new marriages in the paper, the wife is substantially better educated than the husband. Now, please understand, I do believe that women should be well-educated, particularly if they desire to be true helpmeets to their husbands and teachers of their children. However, I think that, generally, people should marry those of like religion, values, and education. I worry about those marriages in which the wife is so much better educated than the husband. How will he have the courage to lead his family if he questions his ability to interact with his wife intellectually? Will they both face pressure for the wife to continue working even after the children are born if she is earning a great deal more than he is? It happens. I saw a friend in Wal-Mart the other day who is expecting her second. She badly wants to come home and raise her children, but she's a nurse and she makes so much more money than her husband that they can't imagine making it on his salary.
The New York Times confirms that it's not just my imagination in a very disturbing article about not only the predominance of women on college campuses, but the failure of the men who do make it to college to compete in any real way with the women. How can this be for the "favored male" we've heard so much about? Well, how can it not be, with the constant stream of "Taking Our Daughters to Work Days", the constant encouragement of girls to be ambitious and "do something with their lives", with the death of boy-friendliness in the culture and in the schools? When boys who are perfectly normal are drugged into passivity for being too active, when a boy dares not defend the weak with his fists, when his only heroes are sports stars and gansta rappers? When military heroes are portrayed as evil oppressors, not the geniuses they once were?
Manhood is in trouble in our culture. It's been going on a long time and the alarm has been thoroughly sounded before. Now we are going to see the consequences: God's design for families turned upside down. The really sad thing about it is that no one is happy with the results. Men desire to lead, women desire to nurture, all are told that their natural God-given desires are unworthy of them. How incredibly pathetic.
Do you believe that those who have been fighting and fighting to remedy "discrimination" against women will be concerned about men's under representation in higher education? I don't. If they decide to pretend concern for other reasons, I predict that their solution is to make the men more like the women, just like feminism's solution was to defeminize women. The enemy always, always tries to destroy what God has wrought. Oh, that at least the church would value manhood and womanhood as God has designed it!
H/T The Drudge Report and The New York Times
The New York Times confirms that it's not just my imagination in a very disturbing article about not only the predominance of women on college campuses, but the failure of the men who do make it to college to compete in any real way with the women. How can this be for the "favored male" we've heard so much about? Well, how can it not be, with the constant stream of "Taking Our Daughters to Work Days", the constant encouragement of girls to be ambitious and "do something with their lives", with the death of boy-friendliness in the culture and in the schools? When boys who are perfectly normal are drugged into passivity for being too active, when a boy dares not defend the weak with his fists, when his only heroes are sports stars and gansta rappers? When military heroes are portrayed as evil oppressors, not the geniuses they once were?
Manhood is in trouble in our culture. It's been going on a long time and the alarm has been thoroughly sounded before. Now we are going to see the consequences: God's design for families turned upside down. The really sad thing about it is that no one is happy with the results. Men desire to lead, women desire to nurture, all are told that their natural God-given desires are unworthy of them. How incredibly pathetic.
Do you believe that those who have been fighting and fighting to remedy "discrimination" against women will be concerned about men's under representation in higher education? I don't. If they decide to pretend concern for other reasons, I predict that their solution is to make the men more like the women, just like feminism's solution was to defeminize women. The enemy always, always tries to destroy what God has wrought. Oh, that at least the church would value manhood and womanhood as God has designed it!
H/T The Drudge Report and The New York Times
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