Deep Thoughts......A Crisis of Religion, but Not of Faith.........

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you may remember that for most of our marriage we weren't regular church attendees.  God has always been our constant, and the driving force in our lives, but we didn't attend organized religious services.

There are a whole lot of reasons why we didn't attend regularly, and I won't get into those here, but we never lacked for a close relationship with God, which to my mind is what matters more than anything.

Shortly after we moved down here to KY, The Man's sister lost her husband after a long illness, and his funeral was preached by a hell fire and brimstone preacher who inspired us to begin attending church.  It was wonderful!  Uplifting and inspiring and most Sundays a wonderful jolt to the spirit.

We attended every Sunday until we moved to Montana, and then as soon as we came back we went right back.  I think we only missed two Sundays in over 2 years.....

The last few months however, we began to notice some things that made us increasingly uncomfortable.  Certain things that weren't exactly Biblically correct.  Things that just began to bother us more and more.  Also, after that amount of time attending every Sunday, we began to notice that the sermon was pretty much exactly the same every Sunday.  The same message, and sometimes not a Biblically correct message.  This really began to wear on us.  

We prayed and prayed and we continued to attend, but things just kept getting worse and worse and we felt it was time to leave.

That was about 2 months ago I suppose, and we've tried a couple of different churches since.  We've also missed a few Sundays, not attending anywhere.  We are still praying for God's direction.  We have not found a church home.  We still talk in depth about God as a family every day.  God isn't just on Sunday morning to us.  God is every day, every moment, every second.  His love and His presence permeates every aspect of our lives as it always has.

Church is important, but it absolutely doesn't substitute for that close personal relationship with God.  You can't have a true relationship with Him if you are eating with a spoon everything the preacher is saying on Sunday morning and never learning to feed yourself.  If you don't study the Bible and have deep conversations with others outside of the church, you won't know, or notice if and when your preacher strays from the Word.

I'm so thankful to live in a country where you can own a Bible and can read and study God's word at any time you want.  I have a Bible in the car, at my desk at work, on the bench beside where I sit at the table, and in the bathroom.  God's word is never far away from me and I can read it any time I want.  I can also pray and talk to God at any time.  This is the beautiful thing about a relationship with God.  He is never out of reach!

So we are in search of a church.  And we sort of feel as if we are in a bit of a crisis of religion.

A crisis of religion, but not a crisis of Faith!

Till next time.....

God Bless,

Standing On Conviction....or Passing Judgement.....It's a Fine Line.....

I am a person of strong convictions, and strong passions.  This can at times get me into trouble as I have no fear of expressing my convictions and beliefs.  I think when you have conviction, especially when your convictions and views on what is right and wrong go against mainstream society, it can at times be perceived as passing judgement.

There are certain things I will not do.  I just won't.  They don't fit in with my personal belief system, and the sense of conviction I feel when I think about doing it, tears me up inside.  These things may not be the tiny-est of a big deal to others.  I'm going to use examples here in order to prove my point.

I won't wear shorts in public.  I used to.  There was a time when I did.  I just feel as if it's inappropriate at this time for ME to do so.

I don't drink alcohol.  I just don't.  I have in the past, but again, I feel convicted about it, and it isn't something I'm "supposed" to do anymore.  I was never a big drinker, but now The Man and I are both teetotalers and have been for oh about the last 14 or so years.

I don't go out without The Man, and we've never spent a night apart in 19 years....not one.

I don't read sexy books (romance novels).  I used to.....used to really enjoy them.  But several years ago I began to feel really convicted when I would pick one up.  I began to read the "story" and skip over the sexy parts, and then even that made me feel convicted so I don't read them any more.

There are a lot of other things I could blather on about, but here is the point of my entire post.

There is NOTHING wrong with a person wearing shorts in public.  Not...one...thing.  As long as your personal convictions aren't telling you it's wrong, then go for it.  I don't judge you. I don't particularly care what you wear to be honest.  Now I may make an internal comment to myself, or an external to The Man or The Youngun, but that's it and it's gone.  And that's because I'm human.

There is nothing wrong with alcohol in moderation.  Not one thing.  I don't care if Joe Joe down the street loves his beer and ends every day with one.  Don't care, none of my business and the fact that I choose not to partake doesn't mean that I think I'm better or that I'm passing judgement.

There is nothing wrong with a husband and wife spending time apart.  Vacations apart, girls night out, guys night out, whatever.  Nothing wrong with it, if both parties are willing and happy with the arrangement.  The Man and I have certain expectations of our marriage that we have talked about, discussed and that have evolved over our 19 years (next month).  You should have your own expectations that you've discussed and they are probably wildly different than mine.  Again, as long as you aren't doing anything that pricks your own personal set of convictions then you are probably fine.

What in the world is the point of this post?

It's my prayer that I can stand on my convictions, and stand by my beliefs without passing judgement on others who believe/behave differently!

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.Romans 2:1

Deep Thoughts.........Is Life Perfect?

Lately I've been having some deep thoughts from my shallow mind.  I love living here in Montana, it's a dream come true for me.  The Youngun is doing great and is starting Karate.  She has entered back into public school after a year and a half of un-schooling (yup that's what I said) and has straight A's.  The Man is thriving in his training as a ranch hand and I very much enjoy helping out in whatever capacity they need me.  I trust in my Heavenly Father fully and completely and know that if He should decide to send us somewhere else, we'll go willingly and faithfully.

But...........did you sense a but coming here??

I miss Champ.  I miss horses.  I miss critters of my own, but oh how I ache for horses.  Every day as I'm driving back the 14 miles from taking Pied and The Youngun to the bus, I gaze at the mountains, coulees, hills, and valleys and I hurt to ride them with an equine pal.  There is a herd of Quarter Horses along the road to the school bus and I ache to play with them.  I want to groom them, and talk to them, and work with them.  There are bays, and sorrels, and chestnuts, grullas, and buckskins.  There is one dapple grey mare with black points that I'd bring home in a second.  It's a herd of mostly broodmares and colts with a few geldings tossed in and I'm in love with them all.  I've tried to fall as in love with the cows, and they are very nice, but they fall far short of a horse.

Now you may be thinking that the point of this post was that life isn't perfect, but such is not the case.  As heavy as my heart sometimes gets without an equine pal, my entire being knows we are exactly where God wants us to be.  Life isn't always perfect from our perspective, but in God's divine plan it is exactly, perfectly what it should be.

Till next time............God Bless........

Pure Bred Critters.........Line Bred, or In Bred, It's All the Same Thing.........

This is a topic that's been swirlin' round in my little pea brain for a few weeks now.  It's finally reached the percolation stage and I gotta get it down so it will go away!  Once again, these are my opinions and mine alone.  What you decide to do with your animals is your business and blahdeblahblah......

In any purebred animal, be it horse, goat, dog, cat, pig, chicken, whatever, if you go back far enough you will find a rather spectacular amount of line breeding.  In animals we call it line breeding as opposed to in breeding, but it means the same thing.

Take the dog for instance.  If you have a pure bred dog, at one time in it's ancestry it was just your basic garden variety cur.  Folks picked out dogs with traits they liked and they bred them together.  Then they bred fathers to daughters, mothers to sons, grandparents to grandchildren and so on to "fix" the genes.  Then they would start to outcross a little bit to see if the genes would pass on true, all the while crossing back on the original stock to re-"fix" the genes.  This is true of every single purebred critter out there.  Of course this is a very simplistic view of things, and if you want to know more you can do the research and get into it a bit deeper.  I just want to say again, if you go back far enough in your purebred animals pedigree you WILL find a rather spectacular amount of line breeding.  It's just the way it is.  You cannot create a new breed without it. 

Now that that's out of the way, here comes the important part that you HAVE to listen to......

When you line breed, you are not only concentrating the desirable characteristics, you are also concentrating the un-desirable ones.  You must ONLY breed the best.  When you are building up a herd, you have to cull and cull hard.  Take my Kinders for instance.  Kinders are a sort of rare as well as new breed of goat.  If I go back 6 generations (sometimes less) my Kinders are related to almost every other Kinder out there.  This isn't a bad thing, and only becomes a real problem when people breed just to be breeding and don't worry about quality.  For instance, if Tulip were to throw a kid with a split teat, or a double teat, even if it were a buck kid, I wouldn't sell (to the general public) ANY kids from that breeding.  Nada, none, zilch.  The kids would go to the meat sale or would be butchered here at home with no exception and I wouldn't repeat the breeding.  Next breeding I would use a different buck and if she again threw a kid with a split teat, or an extra teat, I would once again butcher all the kids and I would know that the defect was in Tulip's lineage.  I would keep Tulip, because she is an excellent milker, but I would NEVER sell kids, they would all go to meat.  It would be unethical for me to sell kids from a goat that I know possesses a defective gene. 

Star is Tulip's daughter as well as her half sister.  Star is the product of Tulip being bred back to her father, and Star is an amazing goat.  She has a gorgeous udder and no problems.  She also throws beautiful correct kids.  Through the careful breeding program of my friend Rhonda, this line breeding produced an excellent animal, because she only breeds animals that are completely correct!  Now say you've got a goat that is a gallon a day milker, but her attachments aren't the greatest.  Should you line breed this goat?  Well it depends.  Does her father's mother have nice attachment, really nice attachment?  If she does, then you could try breeding her back to her father to see if that would improve the attachment on her doelings.  If her father's mother doesn't have good attachment then you wouldn't want to even try it, because you would be concentrating the gene that caused the poor attachment. 

Another note about line breeding is that you should take care to breed vertically (up and down the pedigree, ie mother to son, father to daughter, grandfather to great granddaughter) as opposed to horizontally (side to side in the pedigree, ie brother to sister, half brother to half sister).  You run much less risk of problems when you do things this way.  Although breeding half siblings can do wonderful things, it is also a really quick way to bring any genetic problems to the forefront.

I should also say, that when you are developing a new line or bringing back a line from the brink of extinction, you sometimes must breed imperfect animals and deal with the consequences.  You still want to pick the best of what you've got and breed them together.  This is called "breeding up" and it's a long road to perfection.  You are much better off if you can find and buy, or breed to, extremely correct animals, but sometimes this just isn't possible.

Of course in a well established breed such as Nubians or Alpines in goats, or Labs or Boxers in dogs, or Quarter Horses or Hereford cattle you have a broad enough gene pool that you shouldn't have to mess with any of this.  But in Heritage animals this is a big deal, and that's what's got me thinking......

In 2009 the Gloucestershire Old Spot breed of hog had less than 1000 animals in Great Britain and fewer than 200 breeding animals in the US.  It is that way or worse with a great deal of heritage animals.  If an animal's numbers are allowed to fall to that few, you MUST line breed.  There is no way around it because there simply aren't enough animals to cross breed them out without losing the "fixed" genes that make the breed what it is.  If you are responsible with your breeding program, this doesn't have to be a problem, but you have to cull, cull, cull.  You have to be prepared to eat lots of your culls, which is why this is less of a problem in livestock, than it is in dogs or cats!  Unless you want to eat bbq'd Fido and that's your business.......... 

 That said, Ed Earl isn't registered.  One of his litter mates was born without a tail, so his breeder didn't want to register him in case that popped back up in later generations.  Should he have even sold Ed Earl to me? As long as I breed responsibly and am aware of the possibilities of this defect cropping up, it shouldn't be a problem. If problems continue to arise the breeding should be re-evaluated.  As for my boar being not registered, I could care less.  I'm not much for playing with others, and don't particularly like the politics that oftentimes come with breed registries.  Most breed registries (with the exception of rabbits) don't guarantee good animals.  Most registries, if the parents are registered, well then the offspring can be registered and it doesn't matter a whit the quality of the animal.  It is in the hands of the breeder, and their choice to register the offspring or not.  The breeder of Ed Earl is a good example.  He was correct in not registering Ed Earl since he came from a litter with a cosmetic defect.  A note about registered rabbits;  Rabbits can only be registered after being examined and passed by a registrar, therefore a subpar animal is not going to be registered, no matter it's parentage. 

Should I breed Ed Earl?  Well there's that question again.  Here's the thing..........I am breeding solely to get pork for my table.  I have NO intention of selling Ed Earl's offspring as breeding stock.  Every boar piglet will be castrated before leaving here and buyers of the gilts will know about the tail issue and that they are buying FEEDER pigs,  not breeding stock.

One thing is for sure and certain, Ed Earl shouldn't be line bred, because the defect that caused the no tail in his brother could be masking an even deeper problem, or it could be nothing.  I won't know until I've bred him and even then I may not know because I'll only be breeding him to one sow and genes cross differently in different animals.  It isn't near the problem for someone like me, who is breeding solely for meat, as it would be for someone who was breeding to sell breeding stock to others.  But again, when you have heritage animals with a limited gene pool you sometimes must do things you wouldn't do in a more optimal situation, but you still have to be honest and ethical in all you do.  You should be honest and ethical in every aspect of your life, but that's not the topic for today.....hehehe!

I didn't get Old Spot pigs because I want to become a famous breeder and save the breed.  I don't have the land, nor the money for that.  What I want is to produce my own meat for my own freezer and sell the surplus, probably at the livestock auction.  In that case, having a pig with the genetic codes to produce tail-less pigs is pretty much a non issue, but I will still be very careful in my breeding, even though I'm just breeding for the table. 

In closing I'd just like to say that line breeding is a very good tool in the hands of a responsible breeder..............

Don't Worry........

My dad is a worrier.  He says  he's just a realist, but in my opinion he's a worrier.  I'm a realist.  I know bad things happen and I know they can happen at any time.  That said, God is my guidance and I don't borrow trouble.  Dad and I talk politics quite a bit.  I enjoy a rousing debate, but I don't worry about the state of things.  Let me stress that, I don't worry about the state of our government or our world at large.  I think Dad thinks, because I don't get all upset and angry, I don't understand what is going on.  Let me assure you, I totally understand what is going on and I can get pretty passionate about it.  I've got a good grip on how messed up our world is and if I didn't have such a strong grip on my Savior, I'd imagine I'd be pretty tore up with worry and stress about it. 

God is in control.  There is nothing going on anywhere in the world that God doesn't know about.  How can I worry when I know God is in control?  If I truly believe God is in control, how insulting of me to worry about things?  It would be akin to slapping my Lord and Savior in the face for me to worry about day to day matters.

The Man has a wonderful secure job.  Why??  By the Grace of God.  He has wonderful health insurance for the three of us.  Why??  By the Grace of God.  We have a lovely snug home to live in and plenty of food to eat.  Why??  By the Grace of God.  My husband may come home tonight and tell me his job is gone.  Maybe we'll lose our home, or a loved one.  Anything can happen at anytime.  There are no guarantees in life.  The only certainty we have is our Faith in God.  Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is in control.  That gives me such a feeling of peace and security, much more so than anything else could. 

Now I'm not perfect and sometimes I do get a little scared.  I try to turn those fears over to my Jesus.  They are nothing to Him and when I truly let go of them, Peace descends on me.  We are truly blessed, because we have God.  Being His child and walking day to day with Him doesn't mean your life won't have hardship, it simply means He will take care of your hardships.........IF you let Him.

What I'm trying to say is this..........

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can

and Wisdom to know the difference. 

A simple prayer and a common one, but oh so true. 

 I can't change the government policies that are already in effect, but I can have the wisdom to know through voting I can make my voice heard.  I can't change the course my public school system is taking, but I can pull my daughter from that environment.  I can't make others live life right, but I can raise my daughter to be strong and confident, moral and ethical, and make sure my backyard is cleaned up rather than throwing stones at others.

  There are so many things I can't change, and I won't let myself get upset about them.  Is that a simplistic view of things?  Probably.  I'm just so thankful for my childlike Faith.  You know how when you were a little kid, you thought there was nothing your daddy couldn't fix?  Well that's how I feel about my Heavenly Father.  There is nothing He can't fix and because we are His children, and He loves us, we'll be ok.  Does that mean I think nothing bad will ever happen to me?  Of course not.  I could be murdered at the grocery store tomorrow, or killed in a head on car crash, or The Man or The Youngun could be taken from me.  What I do know from the depths of my being, is that God is in control.  Every blessing I have has been given me by God, and they are His to take away.  We've done nothing on our own.  God has chosen to give us these gifts and God may choose to change our lives at any time.  We have no say.  Let me say that again, we have no say in where God takes us.  We think we do, and we'd like to, but in reality we don't.  I feel that when we finally accept that Truth, our lives will really become wonderful. 

It is God's plan that I was born in America in 1977 instead of France in 1456.  It was God's plan for me to meet and marry The Paintiff and nothing I did made it happen.  We must open our minds to God's guidance, however scary it may be, because when we are still trying to control where we go and what we do, God can't truly work in our lives.

God Bless..........................

Sherriff Ed Earl Dodd....................

Do you know Ed Earl?  He's the character played by Burt Reynolds, opposite Dolly Parton's Miss Mona in that most wonderful of movies, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  In that movie Ed Earl is trying to keep the Chicken Ranch open and he gives this impassioned speech to the governor......

"I've been fightin' crime all my life but let's not confuse crime with committing a sin. You can't legislate morality. Those girls out there have never caused any trouble to anybody. They're healthy, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who supply a demand and provide an economic asset to the community."  

Now at the risk of whackin' a hornets nest, I've got to say I wholeheartedly agree.  You simply cannot legislate morality.  You cannot force people to be good.  The idea of a "law" regarding a moral issue in my opinion is ridiculous.  A moral person would never do it, and an immoral person isn't going to care one whit that it's illegal.  For example, I, as a sane person, would never murder my neighbor for walking his dog on my lawn.  Does it piss me off?  Sure, but I'm not going to kill the guy over it.  That would be immoral.  Now lets say that murdering my lousy neighbor for letting his dog pinch a loaf on my yard was suddenly made legal.  Am I going to sit on my porch with the 12 gauge loaded with deer slugs and just wait for that sucker to come by?  I should hope not because even if it was legal, it would still be immoral.  Killing somebody over a little dog poop is just plain wrong.  Now if he is coming into my home uninvited with the intent to harm me or my family, that is another ball of wax all together.  Is it still illegal to kill him??  You bet.  There will be an inquest and all sorts of investigations and whatnot.  If I live in the right state I'll probably get off with no charges, but it's still illegal.  However, in that case, is it immoral?  Not to me it isn't. 

There is a headline in St. Louis right now that says.........

"Belleville woman sold kids' Christmas gifts for crack"

Hmm..........isn't crack illegal?  I'm pretty sure it is, last time I checked anyway.  Now, if the use of crack were legal, would a moral person steal their kids' Christmas gifts to get money to buy said crack?  In my honest opinion, drugs are a moral issue and illegality certainly hasn't stopped the use of them.  I'm not saying all drugs should be made legal, but making them illegal has surely not helped the people who are addicted.  If the pull of drugs is so strong that you would steal from your own children, then you need serious help, not necessarily jail time.

Laws were/should be created to protect people from others.  They should protect children and animals.  I don't need a law to protect me from myself.  Murder is, of course, wrong, rape, child abuse, animal abuse, of course all wrong.  Gay marriage............polygamy.......smoking, alcohol, drugs................the use of seat belts............purchasing raw food products..............what I can and can't buy at the store?  None of this has any business being legislated by our government in my opinion.  If you are an adult or two consenting adults it is nobody's business what you are doing as long as you aren't harming anyone else.  How do I feel about all these issues I just mentioned?  Well that doesn't matter because they are moral issues and something you must decide on for yourself.  For the record, I really don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone to live my life the way I want to live it.  How I choose to live my life is between God and I and quite frankly it's no-one else's business.  I'm an intelligent adult.  I have the capabilities to make decisions for myself and I respect the abilities of other adults to do the same.

In closing, I'd just like to say this...............

We are born with free will.  This is how God designed us.  He is the Supreme Creator.  He could have created us anyway He chose and He chose to give us free will.  God wants us to be good and moral, but He doesn't force us.  He wants us to choose right.  If our Creator and Savior gives us the right to choose, how in hell does our government think they know better?  How can they possibly think they can make the world a more moral place through the passage of laws?  Please don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying we should throw all caution to the wind and have no laws.  That would be anarchy.  We need laws to keep the populace safe.  We don't need laws to keep the populace moral.  Morality must be taught at home.  We must teach our children right from wrong, and right from wrong can be subjective.  I'm sorry and I know that may really honk some folks off, but it's true.  I'm a very black and white person, but even I know that right to some is wrong to others.  We don't drink.  I have no use for alcohol and I hope that The Youngun doesn't drink.  Does that mean I think alcohol is immoral?  Of course not, it just isn't for us.  In our home, Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life.  I wouldn't want to live in a place where my right to that belief was taken from me.  If I want my rights preserved, then I have to fight for the rights of others to be preserved.  Is it wrong to not believe in God?..........well in my home it is wrong, but if I want to be able to believe how I wish, and raise my daughter to have those beliefs then I must respect the beliefs of others.  How could it be otherwise?

As always during my rants, I must give you my disclaimer.  I love a good debate and as long as you keep your comments polite, plenty of passion is ok!  ;)       

PS, The Man had to go into work at 1:15 AM because we are having an ice storm.  After getting him off to work and laying back in bed, my little pea brain was a swirl with these thoughts and I couldn't get back to sleep until getting them off my chest. 

I hope you are safe and snug this fine December morn!

God Bless....................

A Perfect World......My Thoughts on God and Freewill.......

Oh oh, here we go..........the Goodwife's been thinkin' again.  I was just vaccuming my hardwood floors when this popped into my head.  As you know, if it pops in, I gotta let it out and share it with you all.......so here we go.

God gave us free will.  He could have made us robots, or dummies, or I don't know what, but He chose instead to make us human, full of failings and oh so very full of free will.  We have so many choices in our day to day lives.  God doesn't force us to do the right thing.  He usually doesn't strike us down in the midst of a bad choice, no matter how bad or even evil that choice is.  That's because He wants us to repent and He wants us to have the chance to make the right choice the next time.  That's powerful love, that is. 

Being Christian isn't about living in a bubble away from temptations and the world.  It's about being faced with evil and temptations every day and making the right Godly decision.  God put us all here in the midst of immorality and decay and said Do the right thing even when the wrong thing is easier or more fun.  I used to think abortion wouldn't exist in a perfect world.  Now I think in a perfect world, abortion would be an option, but no one would ever do it, because even though evil would exist, humans would rise above it the way God wants us to.  Ya know??

It's very hard to convey what I want to in the written word.  I'm a much better oral communicator, but I hope you got at least the gist of what I was saying.  As always, feel free to comment and disagree and as long as you keep the hate out, I'll leave 'em up! 

Till next time..........God Bless!

Deep Thoughts from this Shallow Mind.....

As I'm sitting here at my table working on my quilt and enjoying my fireplace my mind is very busy. My mind is constantly going, sometimes with a song on full loop, sometimes with a certain phrase, sometimes talking to God, sometimes talking to myself....well I could go on and on. But right now, my mind is sweeping back to my ancestors. As some of you may know from reading my blogs, I'm a throwback to another age. I live on a homestead, grow as much of my food as I can, raise rabbits and chickens for meat, enjoy fresh rich milk from my goats and pretty much try to live as naturally as I can. I love my life!

Today I've been thinking alot about how my ancestors ate. Years and years ago my great, great, great grandma didn't have a supermarket to go to. There was no such thing as fiber bars, 100 calorie packs, and such. White flour was for Christmas and nothing else, and the same for white sugar. A couple times a year if that. The rest of the time, they ate whole cornmeal (not this degerminated crapola we have today) whole wheat that they probably ground themselves or else took their sack of wheat to the mill and had it stone ground, maple sugar and fresh meat and vegetables that they raised. Then times got "better"! People could afford to buy white flour! Glory be what a miracle! They could afford white sugar, not just for Christmas, but all the year round. Then not only could they afford to buy those things, but grocery stores began carrying white bread and already baked and cookies, cakes, and pies! Then the powers that be figured out that if they could just make it to where that stuff would last longer, they could bake more volume and make more money. Enter the preservatives. I currently have a container of heavy cream in my ice box because we are making homemade ice cream and I didn't have enough milk to seperate for my own cream. I was reading the ingredients list, thinking well it's probably just cream right?...........WRONG. Heavy cream, skim milk, mono and diglycerides, polysorbate80 and carrageenan. What??? I'm pretty certain that those last few ingredients do NOT come out of my goat? What is that stuff and why is it in there? Have you ever read the ingriedents list on a packet of instant hot cocoa? Good grief, but I digress.

As times got "better" people stopped making so much of their food themselves. It was far easier to purchase it and wow, look how fancy we are having store bought white bread at every meal! I firmly believe that our lives might have gotten easier with these new innovations, but they for sure didn't get healthier or better. I'm not saying that we all should go back to beating our laundry against a rock in the creek (because face it, the clothes that are made today wouldn't stand up to it) but I am saying that we need to get back to a more natural way of eating. For me, I'd much rather get my fiber from some oatmeal, fresh veggies, or fruit, rather than something wrapped in cellophane paper! :)

ok, I'll step down off my soapbox now!

Till next time....I'm unTHICKINandsoTHINNIN