bekahcubed

Categories Memes

According to this survey, I’m 27

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…but I think this survey is totally whacked. Several of the questions are some teenager’s idea of what constitutes adulthood–but truly don’t even come close. If the survey were more accurate, it would say that I’m 35. Because I am. Honestly.

[X] You know how to make a pot of coffee

[X] You keep track of dates using a calendar
How else would you keep track of dates? Anything else would be like using a screwdriver to pound nails.

[] You own a credit card
If this is a mark of maturity, I’m proud to be an infant.

[X] You know how to change the oil in a car
I not only know HOW, but I actually DO change the oil in my car about once every three month.

[X] You’ve done your own laundry
I would changes this question to “You do”. Adults don’t do their laundry once and then turn it back over to someone else.

[X] You can vote in an election
How about, “You are an informed voter, and actually vote in elections”?

[X] You can cook for yourself

[X] You think politics are interesting
Politics IS interesting. Politics are not interesting. By which I mean, national politics is an interesting subject. Being involved in politicking (office politics, etc.) is not.

[] You show up for school late a lot
School? What’s that? And promptness seems a bit more grown-up than tardiness.

[X] You always carry a pen/pencil in your bag/purse/pocket

[X] You’ve never gotten a detention

[] You have forgotten your own birthday

[X] You like to take walks by yourself

[X] You know what credibility means, without looking it up

[X] You drink caffeine at least once a week

[X] You know how to do the dishes
They should add “by hand”. If so, it’d rule out every single one of my lab students. I think we should start requiring life skills classes in high school–make students learn how to sweep floors, wipe tables, and wash dishes (Oh, and recognize the difference between a towel and a washcloth.) It’s amazing how many simple skills are lacking in today’s youth.

[X] You can count to 10 in another language

[X] When you say you’re going to do something you do it

[X] You can mow the lawn

[X] You study even when you don’t have to

[X] You have hand washed a car before

[X] You can spell experience, without looking it up

[] The people at Starbucks know you by name

[] Your favorite kind of food is take out

[X] You can go to the store without getting something you don’t need

[X] You understand political jokes the first time they are said

[X] You can type pretty quick
Was that “You can type PRETTY QUICK” (as in the words “Pretty quick”), or did it intend to say “You can type pretty quickly”? Yes, I am nit-picky about adjectives and adverbs.

[] Your only friends are from your place of employment (school counts as employment)
I don’t know what kind of adult they’re talking about here–’cause most adults I know have other ways of knowing people. They have old friends and church friends and acquaintances from here or there and neighbor-friends, etc.

[X] You have been to a Tupperware party

[] You have realized that practically no one will take you seriously unless you are over the age of 25 and have a job
People took me seriously before I was 25 and had a job. Maybe it just depends on whether you say something worth being taken seriously.

[] You have more bills than you can pay
Thanks to a little thing called “responsibility”, I choose to only accrue bills that I can afford to pay. What kind of survey is this?

[X] You have been to the beach

[X] You use the internet every day

[X] You have been outside of the United States 3 or more times

[X] You make your bed in the morning
First thing

TOTAL: 27

Categories Flashback Friday

Flashback: With a stick

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Once upon a time, there was a police officer who went to our church who had a nice tip for parents who believe in corporal punishment. “Use a ping-pong paddle. It hurts but it doesn’t leave a mark.”

Flashback Friday buttonToday Linda asks… Were your parents strict, permissive, or somewhere in-between when you were growing up? Did you tend to be compliant or rebellious? What did you tend to get in trouble for doing? How did your parents discipline/punish you…

My parents believed in corporal punishment. We were spanked when we disobeyed–sometimes with a hand, sometimes with a ping-pong paddle (yes, if that happened to be handy), but most often with a wooden spoon from the kitchen.

I don’t remember any specific instances of being spanked–although I know that I was probably spanked rather often, at least as a young child.

The one spanking memory that I do have actually turns the tables a bit.

I remember the time we kids spanked my dad.

Dad had gotten home from the store and was bringing in his purchases when something was discovered to be missing. I’m not sure what it was, but it must have been something that was pretty desirable to us kids. Maybe candy or something like that.

Anyway, Dad couldn’t find it anywhere, so he launched an investigation of us kids. I’m not sure what the investigation entailed–but I do know that Dad got pretty steamed. I don’t think he spanked anyone because of the incident, but I could be wrong.

At any rate, we kids were held responsible for this missing item, which Dad later found. When Dad found it, he realized that the fault was his.

So he gathered the kids together, took us outside and showed us what had happened. And then he put his hands on the top of the zucchini car (our station wagon), bent over, and invited us kids to spank him for punishing us (or yelling at us or whatever) for his own wrongdoing. And so we did, lining up for a chance to smack Dad’s butt (we used our hands.)

I don’t remember any form of punishment other than spanking being used until we were old enough for grounding from friend’s houses to be an option.

In this day and age, I think most people would consider that sort of scheme abusive. But really, even if our family might sometimes SOUND abusive, it certainly was not.

Two of our favorite games to play with Dad had names that sounded abusive. “Kicks in the Butt” and “Chasing around the yard with a stick.”

“Kicks in the Butt” were offered as inducement to do some small task. “I’ll give you a kick in the butt if you…fetch me a glass of water” for example. “Kicks in the Butt” involved Dad picking one or another of us up and lightly kicking our backsides with his knee, causing us to swing back and forth in his arms. We loved it.

“Chasing around the yard with a stick” was a common cure for cabin fever, more often known as “You kids are driving me UP THE WALLS” (an exclamation occasionally heard from Mom after a long day homeschooling a half dozen squabbling children.) When Dad saw that Mom had had enough and needed the house to herself, he’d have us children bundle up and we’d go outside where he’d “chase us around the yard with a stick.” He took a pencil in hand, and off we all went, running and laughing that Dad couldn’t possibly catch us.

Those were games, not discipline. Dad’s kicks and sticks were fun, not fury.

Really, the primary form of discipline in our home was what my Grandma Menter (deep in the throughs of dementia) termed “beating religion into their heads.”

Again, the term is a complete misnomer. Religion wasn’t taught us by beatings–it was taught by modeling. We learned to obey, not because we were compelled by a stick, but because we were drawn by love–love for God, love for our parents, love for one another.

My story of spanking Dad is a metaphor for what “beating religion into their heads” looked like. It looked like my parents humbling themselves, even before their children, modeling Christ-likeness and urging us to follow after the same God they served.

And ultimately, it was not a stick but a carrot–the grace of God bestowed on sinners such as we–that taught us discipline.

Hear about how other people were punished/disciplined with Mocha with Linda’s Flashback Friday Meme

Categories Thankful Thursday, Work

Thankful Thursday: Work

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Five years ago, when I was halfway through my undergraduate education in dietetics, I never would have guessed that I’d be working in long-term care.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the idea. I just intended to go a different direction. Should I not end up married before the time came to get a first professional job, I’d try to find something in community nutrition, education in the community.

And that is what I tried for–but jobs in the community are few and far between (and not always that greatly funded.)

So instead of a community position, I found myself in Columbus, Nebraska as a long-term care dietitian. And I love it.

Thankful Thursday banner

Today I’m thankful…

…for a good first day at the two facilities I’m now consulting for (even if the previous dietitian couldn’t be there to orient me to the facilities)

…for a just the right length to-do list. Now that I’m caught up from my conference and am full-time, I have enough work to keep me busy but not so much that I’m scrambling to keep afloat.

…for affirmation from a coworker who thinks I’m doing a good job (Thanks, Jen!)

…for a visit from my consultant RD who was able to catch something I was doing inadequately so I could correct it (before it became an issue)

…for conversations with coworkers before weights meetings

…for dark chocolate from my Secret Santa in our post-Christmas exchange

Above all, I’m thankful that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen to place me as the in-house dietitian in one long term care facility and as consultant dietitian to two others. It isn’t what I would have chosen for myself, but apparently God’s better at choosing than I am!

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Science of Sexy” by Bradley Bayou

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I’ve always considered science a pretty sexy thing.

Then again, I’m a bit of a nerd.

Lab coat and glasses and all that.

But that’s not what Bradley Bayou’s talking about in his The Science of Sexy. No, Bayou is interested in teaching YOU (and ME?) how to dress “sexy”.

**Interjection: Just thought of President Obama’s claim last year that insulation is sexy–and am envisioning someone dressed in insulation. Yeah, not quite.**

Bayou suggests that “sexy” is really all about symmetry and giving the illusion of an hourglass figure. His “science” is simply a collection of tips to help you dress YOUR body (or MINE?) to make it appear “hourglass-like”.

For an (admittedly soft) scientist like myself, I find Bayou’s “science” a bit mushy. The “science” in this book consists of measuring your shoulders, bust, waist, and hips and using those measurements to match you into one of four basic body shapes. Then, using a chart reminiscent of the size charts for pantyhose, you determine which “color” you are (12 different height/weight combinations). Having done this, you can now go to your “fitting room”, one of 12 chapters, which will give you hints and tips for dressing your unique figure.

The basic premise of the book isn’t bad. I agree with the whole symmetry and balance thing. I understand the hourglass illusion thing.

But is it really worth a whole book?

I’m not sure.

Since I’m only one woman, it just so happens that exactly four pages of this book directly applied to me–pages 246-249 for the “tall, medium hourglass.” These pages told me pretty much what I’ve already learned. I have a pretty decent body and my trick is to not cover up or de-emphasize my waist (and to not overemphasize my boobs, but that’s another story altogether). One new piece of information I learned from this book? I learned that apparently Bayou “thinks of [me] as a tall Play.boy bunny.” Marvelous. I’m ecstatic. (He did, thankfully, qualify that that doesn’t mean I have to or should dress like one. Whew–that’s a real load off my shoulders!)

Anyway, in order to more accurately assess the value of this book for those who may not be blessed (or cursed) with the body of a bunny, I took some measurements from willing guinea pigs (my mother, my sister, two brothers, and a slightly less willing father) and took a look at how they should dress in order to be “sexy.”

My little sister pretty much disagreed with everything Bayou said about her figure–but I couldn’t decide whether that’s because his recommendations were bad or because Grace is a teenager who’s into the “counter-cultural” thing (by which I mean into fitting in with her group of friends who refuse to let anyone but one another define them.)

Mom felt that the recommendations given for her body shape were just flat out wrong. They didn’t correspond with what she had experimentally found to be flattering in the past. So she started leafing through the book until she found some recommendations that were similar to what she finds flattering to her body type. She explained her problem to me and asked that I re-measure her. I did–and lo and behold, we’d classified her wrong!

The tricky thing about Bayou’s classification system is that the difference between a triangle shape and an hourglass shape or an inverted triangle and an hourglass is a 5% difference. Which for Menter women, at any rate is a difference of less than 2 inches. So if you get measured incorrectly, it can really throw off your readings.

Once we got Mom classified properly (as an average height, medium build, inverted triangle), the recommendations were spot on.

My brothers and Dad all ended up as “Tall Plus Inverted Triangles” (imagine that!) They were quite disappointed t not have breasts, since Bayou counseled those with their body shape that “Another blessing is that if you have breasts to play up, you can create cleavage to help create a sexy look.” Which began an interesting discussion of who had the bigger man-boobs. But I (and they) digress.

From my family’s perusal of this book, it seems a fairly sound system–as long as you do your measurements and calculations right. (For those of you who don’t remember percentages, to determine whether something is within 5% of your waist measurement, multiply your waist measurement by .95 to get the lower limit and by 1.05 to get the upper limit. If your waist is 40 inches, this’ll be 40x.95=38 and 40×1.05=42.)

Of course, even at the fairly low Amazon price of $11.90, I think this book’s a bit pricey considering that you’ll get about 60 pages of reading (20 pages at the beginning which basically say “I know what I’m talking about, I dress famous people” and 40 more that give general fashion strategies). Only four pages will directly apply to you.

So while this might be a worthwhile book to check out of the library and spend a max hour perusing, it’s probably not worth buying.

Rating: 2 stars
Category:Fashion
Synopsis:Figure out your custom “shape” and read recommendations for making you look sexy (in other words, hourglass-like)
Recommendation: The recommendations aren’t bad, but I certainly wouldn’t buy a book for 4 measly pages of pointers.

Visit my books page for more reviews and notes.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Radical” by David Platt

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If the chapter titles of David Platt’s Radical were written to describe the contents of said chapters, they might read as follows:
Chapter 1: A challenge to comfortable Christianity
Chapter 2: A radical gospel which requires a radical response
Chapter 3: The American way of self-reliance vs. God’s way of Christ dependence
Chapter 4: God’s purposes in the world aren’t just for YOU, they’re for the WHOLE WORLD
Chapter 5: God’s goal is reproducing disciples, not isolating followers
Chapter 6: Following Christ means selling all we have and giving to the poor
Chapter 7: If we don’t share the gospel with the world, the world is damned.
Chapter 8: As radical followers of Christ, we have a guarantee of risk and a guarantee of reward
Chapter 9: A challenge for believers to become radicals by 1) praying for the entire world, 2) reading through the entire Word, 3) sacrificing money for a specific purpose, 4) spending at least one week in another context, and 5) committing their lives to a multiplying community

All in all, it’s a decent book. It is effective at promoting its main point, that is, to issue a wake up call to comfortable American Christians. It’s highly readable, with lots of stories to make the page-turning even easier.

On the down side, Radical has the potential of de-emphasizing the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Platt’s emphasis on the radical response of a true believer through actions such as selling possessions and giving to the poor, taking the gospel to the whole world, and taking risks for the sake of Christ may cause some readers to miss that this is only the RESPONSE to the FREE gift of God in Christ Jesus. One is not saved BECAUSE one sells all of his possessions—he sells all his possessions BECAUSE he has been saved freely.

Furthermore, Platt’s emphasis on “exciting” radicality through social justice activism may cause believers to undervalue and therefore ignore the less-exciting but no less radical actions that Christ calls His followers to. Christ has not only called his followers to give to the poor. He has also called them to live lives of radical forgiveness, of radical dependence, of radical trust. These things are just as radical as the showy actions of social justice—perhaps even more radical because they’re silent, they’re unlikely to result in the world’s (or the church’s) acclaim. They’re what Kevin DeYoung might call “faithful plodding.”

Overall, Platt’s Radical is a good book, but believers should be careful to not consider it the be-all, end-all of the radical Christian life. Read this book. Let it issue a challenge to your comfortable Christianity. But then turn your eyes towards the word of God and see what radical acts God might be calling you to through the pages of Scripture.

Rating: 3 stars
Category:Christian Living
Synopsis:Platt issues a challenge to comfortable Christianity–and the illusion that the Christian life equals the American dream.
Recommendation: Worth reading, but ultimately, take your view of what “radical” Christianity looks like from the pages of Scripture rather than simply taking Platt’s angle on it.

Visit my books page for more reviews and notes.

Categories Homemaking

Trash (wo)man

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Our family didn’t have a garbage collection service when I was growing up. Every Saturday, we loaded up our trash into the back of one of our trusty station wagons and drove it to the “dump” ourselves.

The “dump” (actually a transfer station) was only a mile or two away, but it closed at 3 on Saturdays.

Which was sometimes always a difficulty for our family.

Come 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon, Dad was running about the house hollering for us to get our trash together ’cause he had to get to the dump before it closed.

Nowadays, without kids around to do trash duty, Dad runs around collecting trash himself at 2:30 on Saturday afternoons.

I never intended to take my trash to the dump just moments before closing. I intended to get it done in plenty of time. So when I had a Tuesday off and intended to get trash taken to the transfer station in Columbus, I got started around 2:30 in the afternoon.

I knew the trash would take a while, since our recent investigation of the wooden bin-thing just off our driveway had revealed that it was stuffed full of trash (disgusting mildewy wallpaper and pop cans, gross!) I’d have to bag all that and take it with me.

My guess was absolutely right. It took me about an hour to dig out all that trash and get it bagged and into my car.

So come 3:20 or so, I came into the house, washed my hands VERY thoroughly, and ran upstairs to get the address for the transfer station.

What I discovered terrified me. The transfer station closed at…

3:45.

By now, that was 15 minutes away.

But I couldn’t let that trash sit in my car overnight. I had meetings at work the next morning and couldn’t drop it off then. And if I let it sit until my lunch break, my car would absolutely REAK!

I hopped in the car and started driving, hoping that I could find the transfer station despite it being in a part of town I’d never visited before–and wasn’t even sure I could get to.

Thankfully, the “dump” (actually a transfer station) was only a mile or two away–so even though it closes at 3:45 on weekdays, I still made it on time.

Barely.

Just like old times.

And the next morning when I opened my car, I remembered something I had forgotten from old times. Even if the garbage is only in your car for a half an hour…it’s still going to make your car reek! (Thankfully, it was *mostly* gone by the time I was done with a day of work.)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Justice that Restores” by Chuck Colson

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I think most Americans would agree that our American system of justice is less than stellar. We spend massive amounts of money incarcerating criminals—yet we seem unable to avoid the problem of repeat offenses.

Conservatives insist that the answer to this dilemma is harsher sentences from the beginning. Liberals insist that the answer is to work harder to rehabilitate offenders. In Justice that Restores, Chuck Colson argues that neither of those work. He argues that the rehabilitative approach, because it fails to underscore the reality of moral offenses against others, ultimately fails to change behavior. At the same time, he says that the harsh sentence approach serves to enrage criminals without changing their behavior, while simultaneously costing Americans significant amounts of money.

Colson argues instead for a “Restorational” approach to justice. At the center of this approach is the idea that criminals should seek to make right what they have done wrong—becoming aware of the impact that their transgressions have had on others and taking action to correct what they have done. He argues that incarceration should be reserved only for violent criminals who are a risk to others—and that non-custodial forms of punishment should be designed to deal with nonviolent offenses (One shocking statistic Colson shares is that in 1995, 71% of all incarcerated criminals were guilty of nonviolent crimes.)

I found Colson’s book to be a well-written description of today’s justice dilemma—and a well-thought-out suggestion for how to solve today’s justice dilemma.

Colson has a unique viewpoint on justice as a former offender who served seven months in a Federal prison following his conviction as a participant in the Watergate scandal. He came to know Christ during his incarceration and has since founded Prison Fellowship, a ministry to incarcerated prisoners and their families.

Justice that Restores gives plenty of statistical descriptions of the justice problem—but it goes beyond to give personal examples both from Colson’s own incarceration and from his conversations with prisoners over the years.

This is an excellent book for all those interested in seeing justice prevail in the American court system. I feel that this book should have great cross-sectional appeal as this issue affects the political and the apolitical, the friend of offenders and the friend of victims. We are all affected, whether we recognize it or not, by the failings of our justice system—and we ultimately can all play a role in helping to establish a justice that restores.

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Criminal Justice
Synopsis:Using the Christian worldview as a starting place, Colson offers an alternative model to the current American justice system.
Recommendation: This short, easy-to-read volume engages thought regarding and offers innovative solutions to America’s current criminal justice problem.

Visit my books page for more reviews and notes.

Categories Books

ANNE through another pair of eyes

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L. M. Montgomery Reading ChallengeMan, I’d completely forgotten that TODAY was the day for beginning Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

But today it is, and I’m gonna participate.

Having already read and re-read the “Anne” series by L.M. Montgomery a bazillion times and having read each title by L.M. Montgomery that my library owns at least once, I have decided to do something a bit different for this year’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

This year, I’m going to re-read Anne of Green Gables in conjunction with Heather Vogel Frederick’s Much Ado About Anne, a middle grade (?) novel about a mother-daughter book club that reads through the Anne books (See Jennifer’s 5M4B Review).

I’m excited to take a look at Anne through another pair of eyes this year!

Check out some of the other Montgomery-readers at Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge page

Categories Everyday Life

Road Rubric

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Back when I was commuting (Oh how nice it is to use the past tense there!), I had to get from point A to point B in the shortest possible time. I generally had less than 15 minutes of wiggle room on either end–and generally had to eat, walk to my car, answer student questions or unload my car in that time.

Which meant I spent some time perfecting those little techniques to make sure you get where you’re going fast enough. Techniques like passing all the slow-pokes before the road narrows to one lane. Techniques like passing the MOMENT you have free room (not waiting until a car approaches and causes the passing room you once had to disappear.) Techniques like knowing which car to get behind when there are people stopped in BOTH LANES at a red light.

Do you know which car to get behind?

I’ll let you in on the secret.

You get behind the vehicle that’s going to accelerate faster–er, whose driver is going to accelerate faster.

Which means, if your options are a car and a truck—
Choose the car.

If your options are a truck and a minivan?
Choose the truck.

If your options are 2 cars?
Choose the younger driver over the older (unless either is driving a Geo Metro–in which case, get behind the car that’s NOT the Geo Metro.)

If your options are 2 trucks?
Choose the man over the woman.

If your options are 2 minivans?
You’re pretty much doomed.

Categories Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: A Poor Counterfeit

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The Week in Words

“Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted until she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee who remove far from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature…”

~St. Augustine from his Confessions

What is sin, Augustine asks, but the fading shadow, the poor imitation of that which can be found in Christ alone? Is it not the attempt to wrest from God the attributes that are His alone?

Our pride but a poor imitation of His exaltedness; our ambition but a poor striving for the honour and glory that belongs to Him alone. Our immorality a poor counterfeit of His genuine love.

Augustine goes on–Our curiosity a pretense of His omniscience. Our sloth an attempt at rest apart from Him. Our gluttony mimicking the satisfaction that can only be found in Him.

Sin is me trying to live life on my own, not acknowledging that Christ is the only source of true life. Sin is me trying to exalt myself, not acknowledging that Christ is the only one truly worthy of exaltation. Sin is me trying to become wise, not acknowledging that Christ is the only source of wisdom.

Looking at sin through Augustine’s eyes, I see the sins I so regularly excuse.

Self-improvement. The sin of trying to be sanctified without God’s Spirit.

Goal-orientedness. The sin of fixing my eyes on outcomes rather than Christ.

All of it Pride. Pretending I can live, can survive, can thrive with me at the center rather than Christ.

But I am a poor counterfeit, a tainted instrument. What I find in myself is only a warped copy of what can be found only in Christ.

Oh, Lord, forgive me for my sin of spiritual fornication, for seeking in myself what can only be found in You. Turn my eyes, my heart from these fleshly things that I might better see and savor You.

“Oh! that Thou wouldst enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good?”

~St. Augustine from his Confessions

Collect more quotes from throughout the week with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”.