Menu Plan Monday - 24 November

Welcome to the very last Menu Plan Monday for 2008 here at Kin’s Home.

This Friday we are packing up the car and heading off on an extended holiday. We plan on staying with several different friends and family members (so they don’t get sick of us) and we have a wedding to go to as well as several family Christmas celebrations.

My next Menu Plan Monday won’t be until 5 January 2009! How exciting!

And unfortunately, as we’re leaving on Friday, my menu plan is rather weak this week.

Monday - Spaghetti Bolognaise (the family favourite that also provides lunches for 2 people the following day)

Tuesday - Curry and rice (the curry is already in the freezer, so I’m looking forward to NOT cooking on Tuesday night. I think there might even be some rice in the freezer that needs using up)



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Wednesday - A meeting and thus not home for dinner

Thursday - Leftovers from the freezer - there are about 4 or 5 single serves of food left - We’ll just have those and empty the freezer before we head off early Friday morning.

What’s on your menu plan this week? Do you have a menu plan? If not, check out my How to Menu Plan post and then head over to Orgnaizing Junkie and post your menu and see what everyone else is eating this week.

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Filed under JOBS : Comments (0) : Dec 13th, 2008

My Disenchantment with Church and State—Part 1 The Church

MY DISENCHANTMENT WITH CHURCH

As long as I can remember, I was always rebellious against what I felt was unjust coercion, but I feel it was not until my mission that I started to come into conflict with authority.

At points I felt that missionary managers did not care about me or the other missionaries. At one point, crying on the mission president’s shoulder, I said, “All I want is to know that someone cares.” This was my own personal gethsemane that helped me feel the atonement working in my life and to feel Jesus’s love when I felt no one else cared for me. My mission president often described a mission as “a wonderfully awful but an awfully wonderful experience”. It definitely was for me. I had firsthand experience of the pain of mission politics and the abuses of power within a vertically structured organization.

When I heard John Dehlin’s podcast about his mission in Guatemala, about baseball baptisms I realized that there were similar stories, by others, of problems where people felt that ecclesiastical power was being abused and regular missionaries were being ostracized or punished for “objecting to unjust authority.” We have all heard Lord Acton’s maxim,

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I firmly believe this and have witnessed it in myself and in others.
Read the rest of this entry »

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New Rules for Church Music

My favorite part of any church service is the music.

Even when the music is poorly done — which all too often it is — it has power to inspire, teach, and heal.

That said, I would like some changes to the music section of the handbook. If I were in charge, here are the rules I’d implement:

  • Hymns must be sung at a decent speed. Listless tempos are absolutely forbidden.
  • Music directors who drag the hymns will be beaten with a conductor’s baton
  • People must sing. No free agency here - singing is required!
  • Love at Home cannot be sung on Mother’s Day. Ever. If sung, a ward will run the risk of mothers running screaming from the chapel during the guilt-provoking line about roses blooming beneath their feet. (I, for one, have always felt roses blooming beneath my feet would be painful, given the thorns.)
  • Tremolo needs to be turned off on the organ. Save the vibrato for sopranos over the age of 75.
  • O My Father must be sung at least once a quarter, since it is the most acceptable way to address one of Mormonism’s unique doctrines, that of Mother in Heaven.
  • One song per meeting must be about Christ. The sacrament song doesn’t count.
  • If the organ has chimes, they must be used when I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is sung.
  • All voices are loved and welcomed, even those that are loud, ugly, operatic, nasal, breathy, or absolutely out of tune on every note.
  • Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing will be put back in the hymnbook.
  • Hymns need not be limited to the requisite opening, sacrament, and closing. Nobody would die if a meeting included four or five hymns.
  • Testimony meetings can contain musical numbers.
  • Hymns should be accompanied on occasion by trumpets, french horns, saxophones, guitars, and other instruments usually deemed unholy and inappropriate.
  • All verses of the hymns will be sung. Yes, all of them, even those verses written at the bottom of the page which are usually ignored.
  • Amazing Grace, the most beloved of all Christian hymns, will be added immediately to the hymnbook.
  • People who talk loudly during the prelude music will be assigned to scrub all the toilets in the building after the three-hour block.
  • All of the 29 official sacrament songs in the hymnbook should be sung, even the mostly ignored O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown (one of the best of the bunch).· Music-only sacrament meetings are not only allowed, they are highly encouraged.
  • All the hymns in the book should be sung, not just the old chestnuts. The only possible exception is The World Has Need of Willing Men, which never needs to be sung again.
  • If the choir director sees fit, and has a choir that can do it, motets by Mozart, Palestrina, or other great composers can be sung in church - in Latin. (Gasp!)
  • And last, let’s stand up when we sing.

Those are a few of my new rules for church music. What are yours?

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Filed under JOBS : Comments (0) : Dec 13th, 2008

Avocados and the Gym

So I didn’t end up cleaning much last night, but I did workout. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and did upper body weights.

I am always paranoid at the gym that people are looking at me while I work out. But I think it is because I am looking at other people while I work out. And it is not to judge them, it is to get ideas on different exercises I could be doing. I am at heart a people watcher/observer so it is difficult for me not to look. Do any of you look at other people while working out? Do you keep to yourself?

My lunch today, although earlier then I expected, ended up being pretty fantastic. It is free lunch Wednesday at work, so I got a salad with beans, avocado, pico de gallo, jalapenos, and chili lime ranch dressing. And then also had a churro. Mmm.

When I was eating my salad I said something about how because I chose the healthy option for lunch I was going to have a churro, you know to break things up. Then this person says, what, you think your salad is healthy with AVOCADO and DRESSING?

Lame. Avocado’s in small amounts (like in my salad) is good for you, as is dressing (in small amounts). They both contain the healthy fats. And if I am not eating meat in my salad then what is wrong with getting some healthy fats from other things? It really annoys me sometimes when people give avocado’s a bad rep, because they are amazing… in moderation. Well actually they are still amazing NOT in moderation, but they are more amazing to my health in moderation. Any of you get this ever? People mistake healthy food for unhealthy food? Or maybe I just think certain things are healthy when they are not, and maybe that is why I have not lost weight while eating relatively “healthy”.

For the record here are some avocado facts:
“Avocados contain oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat that may help to lower cholesterol. In one study of people with moderately high cholesterol levels, individuals who ate a diet high in avocados showed clear health improvements. After seven days on the diet that included avocados, they had significant decreases in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, along with an 11% increase in health promoting HDL cholesterol.

Avocados are a good source of potassium, a mineral that helps regulate blood pressure. Adequate intake of potassium can help to guard against circulatory diseases, like high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Association has authorized a health claim that states: “Diets containing foods that are good sources of potassium and low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and stroke.”

One cup of avocado has 23% of the Daily Value for folate, a nutrient important for heart health. To determine the relationship between folate intake and heart disease, researchers followed over 80,000 women for 14 years using dietary questionnaires. They found that women who had higher intakes of dietary folate had a 55% lower risk of having heart attacks or fatal heart disease. Another study showed that individuals who consume folate-rich diets have a much lower risk of cardiovascular disease or stroke than those who do not consume as much of this vital nutrient.” - whfoods.com/avocados

Okay done with that.

Tonight is kickball. I am hoping it doesn’t get canceled and that we have fun. I can’t wait!!

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Filed under JOBS : Comments (0) : Dec 13th, 2008

“All we can hope for is for God to bring us home.” (Thanks, Stephen.)

1) There is a man in my ward who is a dean at a major college in our area. He is a brilliant scholar in his field, and he has served as a Bishop and in a Stake Presidency. He also is one of the most humble men I have ever met. A couple of years ago, one of his adult daughters died in a freakish surgery accident - totally unexpected - leaving behind a husband and an infant daughter.

In a Priesthood lesson a few months ago, we were discussing “things I’ve learned in life” - everyone taking turns sharing something with everyone else. He said something that broke my heart - that I am sure I will never forget. This brilliantly humble man, whose Gospel knowledge blows us all away but who sits quietly throughout most lessons and just listens, said:

“I have learned that our deepest and most difficult trials can bring us closer to God than anything else can. I am profoundly grateful for that lesson; I just wish I had not had to learn it the way I did.”

2) In high school, I was blessed to sing for David Dahlquist, one of the most impressive musicians and directors I have ever met. (A song he wrote - “Lullaby” - took second place in the 1980 All-Church Music Contest.)

“Mr. D” had numerous opportunities to leave our little farm community school and pursue a career at the college level and beyond. He stayed, however, because he simply loved touching kids’ hearts and helping them find glory and majesty in music. The sheer joy and rapture on his face when a song “clicked” with his students was wonderful to behold. He touched more lives directly and profoundly in his 30 years as a teacher than perhaps anyone else in the history of the towns that feed into that high school. Other than my father, he probably is the one teacher who has been the greatest inspirational example in my life.

His and his wife’s story is told in the September, 2002 Ensign - (”In a Quiet House”). It illustrates Dave and Maria Elena amazingly well. What it doesn’t mention is that Mr. D served as a Bishop and as a Stake President during some of the time (the last few years) the story details. Their story will break your heart and fill your soul.

Please read it now at the link above. (This post will still be here when you are done. Really, go ahead and read it before moving on here. Don’t keep reading this; read it first.)

As difficult as it is to understand and accept experiences like these, I am inspired by our ability to rise above anything that happens in our lives by holding fast to a faith - any faith - that allows us to see the good even in the trials that break our hearts. Stephen is an inspiration to me. As he said so eloquently elsewhere, “All we can hope for is for God to bring us home.” I am grateful for that faith and that hope - and I pray that I will not have to learn the lessons my friend and Mr. D learned in the same way they did as God works to bring me home. 

(Please pardon a personal request: Mr.D retired a few years ago, and a scholarship fund was established in his name to help an exceptional student each year who sings at Payson High School pursue his or her college career. If you know of anyone who can read his story and bring this fund to a greater audience - or bring it to someone who can endow it to provide a regular scholarship off of the interest, I will be eternally grateful.)

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Filed under JOBS : Comments (0) : Dec 13th, 2008

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