Tag: safety

Posted in Believe it or not!, Health, Herbs

State Senators Seek A.G. Opinion on Marijuana Vending Machines

Posted on by Katharine
English: Snack Machine
Snack Machine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear Friends,

Today The Arkansas Family Council held a press conference announcing they are working with State Senators Jeremy Hutchinson and Johnny Key, who are seeking an opinion from Attorney General McDaniel on whether or not the proposed Issue 5 would open Arkansas up to marijuana vending machines.

Marijuana is dispensed through vending machines in California. Some people are trying to get Connecticut to permit vending machines under its marijuana program. Vending machines seem to be the future of the ‘medical’ marijuana industry.

These machines are basically high-tech snack machines that sell marijuana and marijuana-infused food instead of potato chips.

Having read the measure, I don’t think there’s anything in Issue 5 that would prohibit vending machines. Hopefully Attorney General McDaniel’s office can shed some light on how widespread vending machines might become if Issue 5 passes, next week.

For instance, if Issue 5 passes, can a marijuana dispensary put a vending machine offsite somewhere? Can a dispensary in Magnolia or Jonesboro contract to put a vending machine at a convenience store across town? Can a dispensary put a vending machine out front for people to use in the middle of the night, when the dispensary is closed?

We don’t sell beer out of vending machines. We don’t sell cigarettes out of vending machines. I don’t know why anyone would be comfortable selling marijuana out of vending machines.

You can see the website for the marijuana vending machine (“Med Box”) popular in California here: http://www.thedispensingsolution.com/

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Posted in Health, Home School, Wisdom

Who Should Home School?

Posted on by Katharine

Physical bullying at school, as depicted in th...
Physical bullying at school, as depicted in the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are you on this list?

  1. Those who think ketchup is not a vegetable
  2. Those who think ketchup is a vegetable
  3. Those who know what bullying feels like
  4. Those who don’t know what bullying feels like.
  5. Those who know there is always free cheese in a mousetrap
  6. Those who care about their children
  7. Those whose conscience is bothering them about lack of school choice
  8. Those whose minds are not concrete (mixed up and permanently set)
  9. Those whose children need to pray before an algebra test
  10. Those who have good horse sense and want their children to have it, too
  11. Those who know the best way to get a life worth living is to make it that way
  12. Those who want to guide their children’s experiences
  13. Those whose hearts are telling them things their minds are not sure about
  14. Those who realize little ones do not learn by the clock.
  15. Those who long for a simpler life
  16. Those who want everything green for their kids
  17. Those whose children have roach allergies
  18. Those whose children stay sick all during the school year
  19. Those who are at home
  20. Those who must travel all the time

You don’t have to cry over spilled milk if you own the cow.

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Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

THE Cure for “The Quits” – At LAST!

Posted on by Katharine
English: An aerial view over the north part of...
An aerial view over the north part of the Grand Canyon.

Most of us entertain a combination of all four of the “quit” reasons I gave my friend that day.

From the core of our beings, we know that the home is where our beloved children belong, but we forget, we tire, we listen to others. If we keep fighting, we succeed, but too often, we quit. Quitting is not the way of God’s people. We must press on. We must realize that any prize that includes the rescue of our children from hell is worth any effort.

Many do not realize that it takes only a tiny bit of quitting to quit entirely, because the rest is downhill. It is like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, where unwavering commitment to careful success is of utmost importance: One slip can spell disaster, two slips most certainly can spell disaster, and few if any have survived three slips. The difference is that we know certain death lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but we do not see that danger for our children in our wavering commitments to home schooling. We absolutely must develop a strategy for the times when we are tempted to take that slippery, deadly road of ease.

What should such a plan look like? Why, it must lead in the exact opposite direction from the bottom, just as you would lift a child who was slipping down a great gulf, of course! Therefore, any plan must include the following four aspects:

Keep the vision constantly before you. Pray that God will renew your vision for your children, in your heart. Make a list of all the reasons He gives you to home school, and READ it. Add to it often. Decide, forever, that home schooling is good. Read good home school magazines. Read good home school books. Read good homekeeping blogs. (Oh. I guess you already are doing that!) Remember all the upright people that home schooling has contributed to this world. Read the scientific statistics that prove the benefits of home schooling. Find a good support group and be involved in it, making good home school friends. Connect with Home School Legal Defense Association for wonderful confidence boosters. Wake up!

Determine that any cost is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in the end. Eighty-five percent of the children who attend worldly schools grow to deny their parents’ faith. That does not happen with home school. What are a few moments of sleep compared to their lives in heaven and a “well done” from our Lord? What is a new car? What is a worldly friendship? What is a college education? What is a second income? What, on this earth, is worth the loss of even one of your children? Pay up!

Commit yourself to your children, as unto the Lord. People hear calls to all sorts of missions, all the time. Churches have “charge conferences” to determine what each one’s job should be. Tithes and other resources are pledged all the time. You have been called to your children, just because you bore them. They are your charge. Pledge your life, before God, to be what they need, so they can grow up right in this wrong world. Join up!

Do not slink back and let the enemy succeed with you and your children. Your enemy is looking around for whomever he can devour, just like a roaring lion. Learn to recognize his roaring for what it is. Set your face like a flint. Grit your teeth. Exert yourself. Protect and defend your children, as any good parent should. Provide for them. Pray for them, for yourself, and for all home schoolers. Stand up!

And do not give up.

__________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

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Posted in Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

The OUCH Factor — Beginning a New Habit

Posted on by Katharine

Foto einer Glühbirne (an),

We do well compared to guppies.

The human brain thrives on habit, grows larger on a diet of routine. The memory inside a human brain is frighteningly complex and magnificently comforting, at the same time.

Our children can reap what God intended from good habits, if, by the time our babies are crawling, they’ve had the pleasure of our instilling good habits into them.

They test us all the time. Why?

TO BE SURE. To make positively sure this boundary will hold and self is safe.

For instance, we know that because of the inherent danger, we should keep them out of the cooking area, so we train them to stay out. Eventually they learn such comfort, but sometimes this is the first clash of wills between the darling babe and the soft mom. It can seem like war, if Mom doesn’t know how to make it happen:

  1. In the beginning, you must teach the child what “hot” means. Use a hot light bulb and tell him “NO—HOT!” Act like you’re preventing him, but let him touch it briefly. Ask if he wants to repeat. If you see unwillingness, it’s a sign the child knows what you mean. If he cries, keep telling him it’s hot.
  2. Anger and yelling do not help. They hinder. Anger has a place, but not in teaching. Yelling is for long distance, loud environments, or extreme emergencies.
  3. Consistent firmness is the key. If you do not have time to be consistent, use a playpen or highchair to confine the child, or enlist a helper. “No” must mean “no”. If you are too lazy to be consistent, think about burn scars on your baby. That should help.
  4. You must not cave in to crying. Crying sometimes is good, but crying to get one’s way is bad. Do not teach the child it is good by rewarding him with his own way.
  5. Draw the line where you want, and make it stick. In our kitchen, one cabinet was permissible, but the rest of the kitchen was off limits, during cooking. At crawling age, a child can grasp this.

We know we don’t want picky eaters and do want well-balanced diets for our children, so we train them to eat. This can be another war, a bigger one, again avoidable, if Mom knows what to do.

  1. Be sure you do not serve food your husband will not eat when he is present. Save it for when he is gone. Be sure he understands this is a time of training, both in obedience and in habit, and you need his backing.
  2. Make a new rule that every person will take at least a bite of every food on the table and eat it all gone, no exceptions.
  3. Anyone who complains about one bite, gets two bites.
  4. All food must be gone, not just pushed around, before getting any seconds or any dessert.

All their lives, my children will be careful around off-limit things and unafraid of green things on the plate. It will be good.

More tomorrow.

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Health, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom, Womanhood

Ode to a Wringer Washer

Posted on by Katharine
genuine Kenmore wringer on tub
Genuine Kenmore Wringer on Tub

The second-most-viewed post on my site. I cannot figure this, but have loved seeing nearly every week, someone else coming to read this.

Have fun.

My gramma had a laundry wringer. And for a while, so did my mom. I always loved these machines that squeezed the water out of clothing so graphically and intriguingly.

click to view water running off
Click to View Water Running Off

Back then, washing used only one load of soapy water, beginning clean, with white clothing, and proceeded to gradually dirtier and darker clothing and water, until the last thing washed was the dingy dungarees worn to protect the good clothing from animal chores.

no longer dripping
No Longer Dripping

After washing came rinsing, or some said, “wrenching,” which surely they thought referred to the old way of removing extra water, by hand wringing, making the arms and hands feel nearly wrenched out of socket. My gramma put bluing in rinse water to make whites look whiter. I never could understand this substance, bluer than a computer screen, that made things white.

Gramma used homemade soap on clothes. I mean: natural lye made from last winter’s wood ash combined with natural trimmings from natural meat, and yes, she made it herself, on the wood stove in her woodshed, and stacked it everywhere in there to cure. Then she grated it for flakes. It all smelled so fresh and good.

To this day, aroma from homemade soap makes me think of birds calling and locusts scritching combined with comfy sloshy sounds of laundry done during warm laundry days. And my gramma’s voice explaining . . .

The washer, and its accompanying rinse tubs on platforms, rolled creaking out onto the bumpy concrete porch around Gramma’s woodshed. A hose ran first to fill rinse tubs, and later to empty them onto the enormous strawberry patch.

Only large pots of scalding water went into the washer, itself, and yes, heated on that wood stove. All the concrete porches got a scrub-down with used laundry water splashed on, pure and natural.

There were manual and electric versions of the wringer. My gramma had the kind she had to crank and disdained the electric, which could swallow up an arm or break off buttons. She fished clothes out with a stick; the water was that hot. My auntie had one and I didn’t like the noise of it. Besides, cranking the wringer was an honored chore because you had to be old enough to reach and strong enough turn it without let-up.

The wringer and its tray were rotatable to provide also for two tubs of rinse water. Every article of clothing went through the agitation in soapy water, wringing, pouring and dribbling, to kerplunk into the first rinse, and then into the second, before finally being wrung into a laundry basket for hanging on the line.

It seems like so much work, and it was. No wonder laundering was an event with its own day set aside. Imagine dragging all that production outdoors on a daily basis for just one load! Yet, all this was such an improvement over lugging all the laundry to a stream, or boiling it in a huge pot over an open fire.

Yes, it was good, honest work, but that woodshed and that porch were my gramma’s gym and she stayed fit, even into old age. And although she belonged to a gene pool that proved a tendency to plumpness, she always remained trim.

Unlike me.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Notice: You Are Safe at Home’s Cool

Posted on by Katharine

In Arkansas, the state from which I post, home schooling is protected by law. Home schooling parents are a protected group.

I have researched today what to do about violent content in the comments.

I think any attack on a commenter is inexcusable. Every commenter on my site is a guest, and as such, is at my mercy.

My commenters need to feel they are safe at my site.

Yesterday’s post, which is part of a 4-part series beginning here, has been published in a popular homeschooling magazine (circulation, 22,000) and my editor printed it word for word, so I do not feel it was an unwise post.  The WordPress crew is welcome to correct me on that, in private. I will respond, accordingly.

I have done all I can to make peace, but so far have received no response. I cannot afford to wait longer.

Sadly, for the first time in two years, I must remove a comment from yesterday’s post.

I welcome disagreement.

But hate speech directed toward my commenters will not be protected on this site.

All readers are welcome, welcome, welcome.

All commenters are welcome, welcome, welcome.

And anyone who is driven to hatred by reading here is welcome to turn the page.