Soy Milk

It bothers me that this is called "Soy Milk" when I wonder shouldn't it just be called "Soy Juice?"

Oh, well, it's good anyway.  And when my 16-year-old daughter decided to become vegan, our whole house switched to soy milk.  Thankfully, Publix and Walmart have started carrying a store brand and thankfully even the brand name soy milk have gone down in price a little because at the beginning, paying that much for "soy
juice" to me was positively ridiculous!

As good as those are getting in price, I found another good option:  Soy Dream on Amazon is 12 - 32 oz boxes for 32.47 for vanilla and 35.99 (as of Aug 2011).  With Amazon prime they're delivered to the house for free.  That's about 2.70 each. In our grocery, Soy Dream is 3.47 each (although Publix has refrigerated Silk on sale this week for 2 for 5.00).

Amazon's price on Tofu is really good as well.  It's in non-refrigerated packages, so you get 12 - 12 oz for about 22.00.  So, our vegan teens will be content for a little while  :-)

Magazine Holders

Magazine/Catalog Holder, Ring Binder, 3 Hole Punched, 11-5/8" x 1",12 Holders/Pk ROG02802

I used these to organize my knitting magazines.

Mattress from Amazon

Several people have asked me about our mattress on Amazon.

It is free shipping with Amazon Prime, which I also highly recommend.  It was funny when we got it because it came vacuum-sealed in a box that was about 15x15x40.  I was shocked when we took it out because it looked about an inch thick.  But, as soon as we cut the plastic, and the air quickly hissed in, the mattress plumped up to a full 12" thick with a pillow top.

We got it just to get us through until we could afford one from a store, but this IS a high-quality mattress and someday, if we ever do need another mattress, I will definitely look to get one like this again!

Textrade Queen Inner Spring Pillow Top Mattress in a Box

Watercolors...

A few years ago I decided to take up watercolors.  After about two dozen book purchases, I finally found "Watercolor for the First Time", by Kory Fluckiger.

I think true artists are able to come up with ideas out of nowhere, but some of us need a lot more help.  This book was very good for me; the author literally broke down painting a picture into micro-steps that even I could decipher.

I decided today that I would post some of my work that I did using this wonderful book.  Please note, these are replicas of the author's works (albeit meager replicas) that he used as projects in the book.

Rejection

April 16, 2011 -- Thinking a lot about THE FEAR OF REJECTION over the last couple of days…

• We are a society frozen by a severe phobia of rejection.  Nearly every crime that is not a crime of self-defense or immediate response is a crime over the fear of rejection.  We say we are not accountable at all because of our fear of rejection.
• Erich and I are watching “Ken Burns’ The War” and I am struck by the lack of this fear among that generation.  I think the big difference is that then, regardless of race or economic status or geography, or even by other familial dysfunctions, people were raised with a feeling of worth that therefore led to a strong self-worth.  If someone was rejected, they put the fault on the rejector, not on themselves.  This is not the same as a lack of accountability.  What I mean is that if someone rejected them, they went on and said, “Well, I can’t please everybody.”  I truly believe that their self-worth was built from birth by family, by culture, by the notion of “American pride” that said anyone could be anything.
• Also, in past generations, elders were prized, appreciated, and exalted (whether they deserved it or not.)  In our society, where this is rarely the case, is it surprising that the fear of rejection makes us cling desperately to youth?
• Today, people are so afraid of rejection, not just who they revere or who are important to them, but we are afraid of being rejected by anyone.  A man killed his wife and three small children.  He then called 911 and said, “There’s been an accident.”  An accident?  See?  He is so afraid of being rejected by anyone, his ex, his children and even a 911 dispatcher.  (Erich said the dispatcher deserved a medal because Erich would have asked the guy why he didn’t use his last bullet on himself.) 
• A woman here in Orlando, a woman in her 40s, raped a 13-year-old.  I think pedophilia is the very definition of a fear of rejection.  These sickos choose the least likely person who has the power to reject them and then imposes themselves on the child. 
• Society is as afraid of rejection as much as the individual.  This is where “politically correctness” was born.  The phrase “I am offended” has become the creed of our new religion of rejection-phobics.  Broadcasters, publishers, and even our government leaders take more pains in not appearing to reject anyone that not only wisdom but also simple common sense is burned at the stake.  And in the suburbs, throngs of the rejected seek out their fiefdom in home owners’ associations where they can offend anyone and proselytize towards “non-offense”.
• What’s funny (or not so funny) is how Christianity has waned in this time.  It isn’t surprising though… we’ve heard that people in churches have rejected someone, so there’s no way we’re going to chance it ourselves.  Nothing in eternity is as scary as the fear of being rejected here on earth.

What’s even more ironic is the truth about the fear of rejection…  In our hearts we know that we don’t really have anything—no magic cure—to keep us from being rejected.  We are filled with dark thoughts and guilt over past deeds… the great “emperor’s new clothes” of our day and age is the notion that we’re all good people.  We cling to ideas that make us victims or incapable of being accountable.  Accountable will make us rejectable.  If we explore these feelings of how little we really have to offer the world, how much we may even deserve to be rejected, it’s at that point that we either choose to end it all (coward) or pray.  Chesterton called it the great paradox of Christianity: the way a trampled on, rejected, self-loathing nothing of a woman can find God and at once be exalted to the status of co-heir in the Kingdom. 
In Christ, I am a Princess!  I have worth!  With the indwelt Holy Spirit inside of me, I have no emotional investment—let me say that again—no emotional investment whatsoever whether… no, when anyone accepts or rejects Georgianna Sue Albright Schuttauf!  Who cares!  My Abba loves me!  Jesus loves me, this I KNOW. 
And the joy, the peace, the rescue from that fucking treadmill. 
Yes, I still face painful, personal rejection and I still don’t like it.  But, I am free, FREE, from a fear of rejection.
You can see how I have such an inexhaustible need to help others off of that treadmill and freedom from fear of rejection!  Who would sit at a feast and let someone go hungry just outside the window?
But (and this is a biggie), I have realized that there are worse things than being personally rejected.  When someone rejects the God I Love—the God Who Heals—the God Who Provides—the God Who Sees—Jesus, my Savior—tears well up in my eyes.  Of course, it isn’t sympathy for God; it is sympathy for the person.  I know they are still on that treadmill.
“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more… To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:19,22 (NASB)

The Last Time I Went to Disney

The last time I went to Disney is the last time I will ever go to Disney.

It's a little bit of a story, so let me tell it because it will be very therapeutic for me to get this out.

My father-in-law, Frank, was dying.  He and my mother-in-law, Ruth, decided to come to Florida between Christmas and New Years', and Frank really wanted to take my children to Disney.  I loved Frank.  He was such a great man, a great Christian, and yes, a great grandfather.  But, as ungrateful as it sounded, I begged them to not do this during the worst week to go to Disney.  I begged Erich.  No one would listen.  So, I canceled Max's birthday party that we had planned for the same day, and I surrendered.

The day started off pretty normal.  We handed the girls over to their Uncle Scott as he has a "Guardian" personality and we knew the girls would get the most from the day by going with Scott in his scheduled and regimental day.

The first thing we did was to stop on Main Street and get coffee.  Max was in the stroller and Timmy was bouncing around.  My in-laws and Erich and several of his cousins thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the outdoor cafe talking and reminiscing.  I remember thinking how much more enjoying it would have been to stay there.

Erich had his "pillar to die on" -- he had to visit the Tom Sawyer island.  So, Erich, Frank, Ruth and I, with Timmy and Max in tow, headed off for that direction.  As we made our way there, we asked directions a couple of times.  Every time we were told, "get there quick so you don't get stuck by the parade."  I don't need to tell you....

We stopped at every kiosk and ride on the way to the island.  And, shocker of shockers, we got stuck.  Oh, not Erich and his parents and Timmy, they weren't pushing a stroller with a sleeping baby and could weave in and out of the crowd faster than I could.  Soon they were gone and I was surrounded by strangers.

Directly behind me there were two couples, one young and one old.  The older woman was in a wheelchair.  While we were stranded on this bridge, on this crowded, claustrophobic bridge, the family behind me decided to entertain themselves with running the wheelchair into the back of my calf muscles.  Bump, bump, bump, the metal foot rests jammed into my calf muscles, bump, bump bump, I asked them nicely to stop, bump, bump, bump, I begged them to stop, bump, bump, bump, I tried to move around Max sleeping in the stroller, but they moved the wheelchair to follow me... bump, bump, bump.  "Okay, that hurts!  Please, please, stop."  They smiled at each other.  I turned back to Max sleeping in the stroller, bump, bump.  Bump.

I was being bullied.  No one around me.   I was so upset that I began to have tunnel vision and to hyperventilate.  At 4'11" I could see nothing but shoulders.  I could yell for security if I could find my voice.  I could grab Max out of the stroller and make a run for it, leaving the stroller behind. 

This happened years ago and I woke up this morning with an anxiety attack again because a dream reminded me of it.  I can still feel the metal jamming over and over into my legs.  I still feel them smiling and joking about hurting me.

Just when I was about to scream and totally lose it -- making me the freak -- the parade ended and the traffic broke free.  When I found Erich and his family their attitude was "shake it off" but here I am still unable to shake it off.  I parked the stroller where there was no one else, sat down on the cement and refused to move. 

Bullying is empowerment.  Everything about a bully is animal ignorance and everything that entertains a bully must involve a weaker person.  That bully family still has power over me today because I could not escape.  While I have no doubt about how infinitely more intelligent I am than them, there was nothing I could do to break through to their savage sense of humor.  I wouldn't trade places with any of them, not even for those horrible minutes, but it is they who have power over me.

Well, there it is.  Journaling and blogging has helped me so much through different events of my life.  As I write this out, I continue to remind myself that I'm safe and comfortable sitting here, hopefully making those emotions replace the anxiety and helplessness that I felt that day.  That's the very definition of hope.

For me, the "happiest place on earth" will always be that place furthest (mentally if not physically) from Disney World.

In the moments after I've finished reading a book...

I just finished My Thoughts Be Bloody, by Nora Titone.  The title is from Hamlet, "O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth."  The book, the first for Mrs. Titone, is the story of the Booth family, starting with Junius Brutus Booth in the early nineteenth century, through his immigration to America, starting a family, including sons Edwin and John Wilkes Booth.  The story goes into greater detail with the relationship of the two brothers from their childhood through to the death of John Wilkes after the assassination of Lincoln. 

This is not a book about the assassination; it is a book about family relationships and about a family who, in their day, were superstars very much like the Jacksons of our own day.  Mrs. Titone tells a masterful story--one that is relatable to all Americans--primarily about Edwin Booth.  So wrapped up in this story as I have done in other biographies (silly me), I actually weep when the point of drama is met in the story.  It's silly because, being a biography, we all know what the point of drama is, it's the facts we learned in history books.  We all know when it is coming and that nothing the author or the reader can do will keep that point from coming.  This time though, rather than just names and places dotting a timeline, there were real characters--brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers--wrapped up in this tale.

For me, it was very interesting reading this with different events going on in my life.  I started reading just about the time US Representative Gaby Giffords was shot by another deranged young man from our own century.  Even after reading this book, John Wilkes Booth's actions are no more comprehensible to me and every bit as troubling, every bit as tragic as those of Jared Loughner.  Always a Civil War and history buff, I have also been following the New York Times Civil War series on FaceBook, with daily dispatches commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the events (www.facebook.com/nytimescivilwar).

So, yes, I highly recommend this book.  Many times I'll say about a book, "give it a hundred pages and you'll start to get it."  This book needs no such qualifier.  Right from the beginning you'll be hooked into this American family--their relationships, their hardships, their offenses, their loyalty and for this family, their drama.