Finding "Me"

At any time do we know who is looking for us? Someone was looking for me this last week and "stumbled" upon my blog. I know you were looking for me. If you need some help and don't want to search:

sloffer is my twitter handle
http://www.frumrevolution.tumblr.com/ is my tumblr.

You can "stumble" all you want, but, don't presume you know me anymore.

Jesus or Her Boyfriend

I hate Mainstream Christian Pop Praise and Worship music. Well, most that I’ve heard anyway. Have you ever seen that South Park episode where Cartman starts a Christian band and he says all you have to do to write a Christian Praise song is to take out the word “baby” and put in the word “Jesus?” Well, it’s true. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen it done. 

I’ll never forget the time I was invited to a church and I stood up for praise and worship (because I am nothing, if not respectful of other people religious observances) and they sang a song with the line “Lay back against you and breath, feel your heart beat.” I know of a lot of people that really love that song. It's by Kari Jobe and it's called "The more I seek you."
I have no problem with Ms. Jobe or the people that like her music. The HUGE problem I do have though is I was sitting with a bunch of women listening to that song and one of the mom's asked her daughter if she know who the woman was singing to and the girl (who was 9 years old) said "Um, Jesus or her boyfriend."

I asked My husband about this phenomenon (if you want to call it that) and he had this to say:

"A lot of people get it mixed up with the Song of Solomon. They think the Song of Solomon is a love letter to you from Gd. It's not. It's a love letter from Solomon to his wife. Gd doesn't love you like that. Gd loves you MORE than that. He doesn't want to put his hand behind your head and his hand on your breast (SOS 1:6). Think about it; that's Gd making out with you! Gd doesn't want to make out with you. Gd is our father. He isn't our lover. Lover's can break up with you. He know you even better than a mother or a father, the love is deeper than that. It's a different kind of relationship but it sure as hell isn't a sexual relationship.
It never says in the Bible that Gd wants to kiss you and hug you. It says things like "His love will envelope you" and "He is awe inspiring"

The Bible is a series of books, yes, it's the word of Gd. The song of Solomon is the layout of how a loving sexual relationship is supposed to be between a husband and a wife. How a husband and wife is supposed to love each other. It's from Solomon to his wife not from Gd to you."

So, yea, that sums it up entirely for me. When children can't tell the difference between secular love music and "Worship music" it's time for a change. BIG TIME. 

What. The. Heck. Are You Seriousing Me With This?

So, my Grandma texted me yesterday asking me if I had some free time to make some cookies for the Tea Party that we are going to on Saturday. I of course said yes because I am not a total butt-hole. She asks me what I needed for it and I said sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, and butter.

She comes over to my house with all that stuff EXCEPT

Butter

She comes over with Parkay. Thank G-d I had some other sticks of butter in my fridge.
Do you know what the first ingredient in Parkay is?!?! OIL!!!! It is OIL!!! IS OIL BUTTER?!?!?! NO IT IS NOT! OIL IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BUTTER!!

If you are at a party and you are on a diet. Don't eat the pastries. Seriously. But don't try and fool yourself into thinking pastries can be made "healthy." They can't. And, if they ever are, I want no part of it.

Then she let me know that she actually needed 3 dozen cookies for other parties she was going to. But, that is beside the point.


Oil is not butter.

And, anyone with a tongue can tell the difference.

And here is Tank and Panzer snuggling:

"You can't date the guy now that you lied"

I'm watching, right now, for the first time ever an episode of "Sex and the City." It's completely ridiculous but my husband drove my car today to work and I'm stuck at home.

Basically, the "question" of the episode is whether or not it's better to tell the truth in relationships or keep secrets of horrible/bad things you've done. Be it in your past or present or things you intend on doing in the future.

I have lived in and traveled to lots of different countries and dated a guy in all of those countries (except Singapore.) I can say, with relative certainty that there are some exceptions but for the most part, that whole topic of lying in a relationship is pretty culturally based. Whether or not you do I mean.

I've heard a lot of arguments for and against telling the truth but these are the two basic ones:

1) Telling the truth to your partner is selfish and you deserve to suffer with the guilt of your horrible secret rather than hurting your innocent partner
or
2) The innocent partner deserves to know what you did, (aka: telling the truth is the "right" thing to do)

I have found that the older the culture is, the more secret-y things are. Also, more Asian/Middle Eastern.

All I know, is that I have developed my personal preference over the years and that is to first of all, not cheat on my partner. That in and of it's self takes away a lot of things you would need to keep a secret about.

At the end of the episode, they guy said "I just wish I didn't know about this." Yea, I know how he feels.

My ex-husband cheated on me, with an 18 year old girl, just out of high-school. He left his secret Facebook open that displayed his status as single. There was emails between then ALL OVER THE PLACE that were *ahem* indecent. I found texts too. Just like, out there. Every where.

After (March 5th 2009 aka: The best day of my entire freaking life) I recovered and got my self together and got back out on the market. My new opinion of the subject of secrets was to stick my fingers in my ears and be like "LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAAAAAAAN'T HEEEEAR YOOOOOOOU!"

I'm re-married now, and that being said, now and in my past the person who was with me at the time and now needs to be the master of discretion. If they were/are doing anything they need to keep a secret about; they need to be not having odd phone numbers on their phones or in their pockets, taking showers and not smelling like sex, selectively deleting numbers out of their phones, and letting me see the phone if I want to and just generally not be a creepy creeperson about everything.

Please allow me to go one step further though and suggest something radical. How about we as human beings consider our actions and decisions and their consequences on our partners BEFORE we do stuff. What a novel idea. That way we don't have to keep horrible secrets from people.

Did I just blow your mind? I hope not. I hope you already knew this.

Tank is hiding in my leg because secrets make him sad.

How to Make Cupcakes From Pancake Mix

In a very sad turn of events my husband was let go from the trucking company he worked for. Not fired, just let go. In that same week my car broke down. My car was amazing on gas mileage and his truck sucks. We had to choose between gas and food. We had to apply for food stamps.

Food stamps are a funny thing. I’m very grateful for them; don’t get me wrong, they make sure you can eat. But, on the other hand, they make your diet very poor and lacking in serious nutritional content and variety.

Matthew’s foods are covered. He only eats pizza and spaghetti just about. I however, was finding myself very frustrated cooking the same cheap things over and over again.

I was staring at the cabinet, looking at all of our boxes and cans (food stamps don’t really give you the luxury of fresh produce) and thinking, “what could I make for breakfast?”

So, here I give you, muffins/cupcakes from pancake box mix

Ingredients:
Pancake Box Mix                                              Water
Vanilla                                                                   Cinnamon
Cupcake Pan                                                      Fork & Cup
Optional: Frosting

I always mix my pancake mix in a cup or a measuring cup instead of a bowl so you can just pour it. Also, if you are, also on food stamps and you want icing or other things you can’t afford. I just write or email the company that makes it and tell them how amazing/horrible I think their product is and I normally get coupons or even if I’m lucky I get a coupon for a free one. The icing was free that way.

Step 1: Set Oven to 350*. Pour Pancake mix in the cup. Make sure there’s still enough room to add the other ingredients or add more pancake mix.

Step 2: Add Vanilla and Cinnamon and Sugar. I lived in the Middle East for a while so I consequently add cinnamon to EVERYTHING I cook. You’ll notice I’m not using any measurements. That’s because it needs to be made to taste and you can make it no matter how much of the ingredients you have. If it tastes good to you then that’s enough.

Step 3: Add water. Add a little at a time so that the batter gets to the right consistency. You want it to be like cake batter. If you add too much water, no big deal, just add more pancake mix till you get it right. That’s why you left room in the top.

Step 4: Put little paper cups in the muffin pan. Or, if you don’t have paper cups, spray with non-stick cooking spray. If you don’t have spray use a little bit of oil on a piece of wax/regular paper. Anyway you do it, make it slick ‘cause this stuff sticks.

Step 5: Pour the batter into the cups half full. When the oven is preheated put them in. Mine cook best for 10 minutes. They are prefect at that time. Yours however, might take longer or shorter. They are done when you put a toothpick or knife in the middle and it pulls out clean.

After that you can ice them or just eat them plain. I ice mine. It might also work to sprinkle a little bit of sugar on the top of them before you put them in the oven.

Have Fun! If you make them send me pics! 

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard

I just read an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about an 8 year old, 200lb boy that got taken away from his mom because he was so obese. “They” consider it a form of medical neglect. He is supposed to weigh an average of 60lbs. I don’t agree with how medical professionals calculate obesity using BMI, however, my little brother was recently 8 years old and he did not weigh 200lbs. He was more like 70lbs.

It took 20 months to get to the decision to place him in foster care and the decision was approved by a judge. I agree with their choice. I agree with their choice for several reasons.

The boy has developed sleep apnea. Both my father-in-law and my dad (who are obese, but in a really awesome snuggly type way) have sleep apnea. They have to wear c-pap machines when they sleep. It’s really intense. Do you know what happens with sleep apnea? YOU STOP BREATHING IN YOUR SLEEP!!!!!! THIS MOM LET THIS KID GET SO FAT HE STOPS BREATHING IN HIS SLEEP!!!! He is 8. That’s freaking ridiculous.

Do you know how easy it is for kids/men to lose weight? Seriously, just don’t give the kid refined sugars and not as much carbs. Women have all sorts of “female issues” that interfere with weight loss like hormones and water retention. My husband wanted to lose ten pounds and he just stopped eating sweets for a week and he lost it. Don’t let your kid have candy or processed foods or refined sugar and *GASP* play with him outside for an hour a day (crazy idea I know) and BAM! Your kid loses weight.

Obesity kills. It’s a fact. If you let your kid get that obese, you are killing your kid. Diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, I mean, the list goes on and on about the effects of obesity on the body. If the body is a child’s body, the effect of all that weight on the skeletal system alone makes my head spin.

If it is a psychological reason why this kid is so obese, or, if the mom is very obese then she needed to get outside help. She had 20 months to do that. That’s almost 2 freaking years. That means this poor freaking kid has been so overweight for that long. That’s just sad. He needs a better chance and if being put in foster care will help him then I am all for it.

After all, if he is in foster care all she has to do is comply with what the court tells the mom to comply with to get him back. I hope she can do it. Seems like her lawyer, Sam Amata, says "We don't feel there's that kind of requisite danger," 

That kind of thinking in and of itself if dangerous, and, that poor kid's quality of life hangs in the balance. Sad. 

And now, to lighten the mood, a picture of my not-obese son, Tank! So adorablez. 

How to Make a Crinkly Dog Toy

I bought Tank some Frisbee’s for Christmas that are really floppy and rubbery. I bought Panzer a bed because up until now she was just sleeping on a nasty old blanket because she wasn't completely potty trained. She’s ready for a “big girl bed” now. Matthew (aka: the best puppy dad ever) was standing outside of Orschelin at 6am, by himself, on Black Friday to get her the bed for $6.

I was kind of stumped on what her other present should be until I caught her playing with an empty plastic soda bottle. She loved playing with it because I think she likes the noise.

I’ve seen those stuffed animal type toys with the Velcro opening to put the plastic bottle in the bottom. I looked all over the place but the cheapest ones I saw were $9 each. So, yea, I’m obviously not paying that much.

So here you have a crinkly plastic bottle dog toy tutorial.

What you need:
Plastic Bottle                                      Box of Fabric Scraps                        Optional: Velcro
Scissors                                             Needle and Thread

1^st: Pick out a fabric that is durable and is interesting to chew on. It needs to be big enough to loosely fit around the plastic bottle. For this I used a big square of grey fleece that I used for Panzer’s Tin Man Halloween costume. It has some stretch to it and it’s fuzzy but not too fuzzy. Cut it into a rectangle that can loosely fit around the bottle.

2^nd: Lay the rectangle out in front of you right side up, (fuzzy side up). Get your box of fabrics and cut out its face, or decorations, or whatever. You can give it “hair” too if you want. I’m using some of the strips of “mane” from Tank’s Cowardly Lion costume. I also gave my little guy eyes with pupils, a mustache, and a little mouth.

3^rd: Hand-sew to secure any small loose parts. Such as, the little mouth to the mustache and the pupils to the eyes.

4^th: Pin the bigger parts after you’ve hand sewn them together to the “face” of the “guy.” Sew them by hand or by machine to the “face.”

5^th: Sew the sides together (right sides together). If he/she has hair, make sure the hair is INSIDE the tube or else the hair will be sewn inside the tube and you will have to rip out all your stitches and do it again L.

6^th: Turn the tube inside out and put the bottle in its bottom. At this point you have several options. You can turn the edges down and put Velcro on it. That was you can switch out the bottle if you have an aggressive chewer. Or you can turn down the edges and hand-sew it if you like a cleaner seam. Panzer is not so aggressive a chewer and I am lazy so I just pinch the edges together and sew along the bottom.

There you go! Hope you enjoy it and if you make it send me pics!