About the Bible, Harry Potter and more

I let my dc read all of these. As to the Harry Potter witch thing, a "witch" by biblical definition is a Satan worshiper. Today we call the equivalent the church of Wicca or new agers. The “witches” in Harry Potter are people who have been given a special gift much like art, music, math, etc. Hogwarts is the same as an art school (like Julliard in New York ) that teaches children how to use and develop their gifts. This is not Satan worship. In fact in book one:

Harry (English pronunciation= 'arry, =heir) Potter (of the Potter) lives amongst those that hate him and try to pretend he doesn't exist. He moves to the house of the King of Heaven and Earth (a griffen is half lion [king of the earth] and half eagle [king of the heavens]) whose symbol is the Lion (of Judah ). They clothe themselves in the blood colored robes when they take on their enemies from the house of the snake. His arch enemy is the evil dragon (draco=dragon, malfoy=slight twist on the Latin for evil) whose father is Lucious malfoy (Lucifer Evil). Satan (voldemart) is trying to find the way to conquer death. Harry receives the key to eternal life because he wants to save those he loves (he was willing to die himself to protect those he loves). He can’t be touched by Satan because he is protected by the sacrifice of one who loved him enough to give her life for him. Throughout the books, the choice must be made between what is right and what is easy, just like in real life.

I could go on and on. Get the book "Looking for God in Harry Potter." by John Granger. The symbolism so saturates the books it could not possibly be an accident. You will change from allowing your child to read the books to requiring them to.

If the proof is in the fruit then HP is ok. Since the books came out membership in Wicca has plummeted while membership in Bible believing churches has skyrocketed. If the book is having an affect on children in general it is the right one.


Oh and if someone tells you that HP is the same witches as the Bible talks about and the church of Wicca ask them what kind of broom the wiccans use or why wiccans need money since Hp witches can conjure up whatever they need. Hello people. Can you say “pretend.”

Busy weekend

What with going to the fair Friday and all, I havent' got much done all weekend. I do have many prayer requests:

My friend Crystal's 10yo boy had surgury for a brain tumor last March. The tumor is back. Surgury this week. This is a God fearing, homeschool/private schooling family. They really need God's touch.
The waiter at the Basque restaraunt my parents frequent is having such a hard time financially his wife has had to go back to work. They have a new born baby.

My friend Chris has friends whose newborn is having surgury today for heart valve problems.

God is good and faithful. Please join me in prayer for these families.

An interesting article on love.

Ca state fair

We went to the Ca state fair yesterday with my parents. We had a great time, though we are very tired today. Not as many animals as we like. We seemed to have missed most of them. Oh well. We did get to tlk to some llamas.

Today is my 6yo's birthday. Happy Birthday little girl!

Advise in a rant

I have had feminists tell me that feminism is about women being able to make choices, not about making everyone make the same choice to work outside the home. But that is simply not what I see. I see that any choice except "go to college, find a career, delay marriage and motherhood, work your whole life" is assumed to be bad. Sigh.

In reading these two articles, I have come up with advise for young women, say in their late teens:

You will most likely live to be 80. You will have 62 years after you graduate high school to make decisions and live your life. plot out your life to take advantage of peek times for each event.

The time in you life when you will have the biggest selection of men to choose from is your late teens to early twenties. By the time you hit 30 the smart women will have snatched up all the good ones and all you will have left is leftovers. Be one of the smart ones.

First of all, assume you won't marry Mr. Perfect. Why? The only Mr. Perfect that ever walked this planet died on a cross 2000 years ago to save you from your sins. Everyone else is a flawed human being. Decide which flaws you can live with and which ones you can't tolerate (I can handle a bossy man, for example, but not a violent one. I married a wonderful though slightly bossy man who doesn't have a violent bone in his body). Look at the men available to you in light of this and pick a few to investigate further. Hopefully you find one willing to tolerate your flaws too. (and a modern twist- Google your perspective mate!!! Pay the money and do the research to make sure you are getting a good man, not a preditor. Be paranoid and persistent. Suggest he do the same.)

Marry young. I know the studies say you have a better chance of not divorcing if you wait, but the studies are flawed. They study a population where the young marriages are generally due to unwed pregnancy, not intelligent planning of the couple. Our ancestors used to marry at 14-16 and live together for the rest of their lives. This is due to being truly prepared for marriage and being truly committed. You have a very good chance of making it if you enter marriage intelligently and not hormonally (though that hormonal attraction does need to be there. It just shouldn't be the only deciding factor.)

Delay sex until after marriage. There are many good reasons God commanded this in the Bible. One is that without the hormones or sexual expectation clouding your every date you can focus on getting to know each other. And for heaven's sake DON'T LIVE TOGETHER! That drastically raises the risk of divorce.

Conversely, engagement shouldn't last more than a year, and shorter is good. Our ancestors often had two-month engagements that turned into life-long marriages. It doesn't take that long (after the google search) to get to know a person and see if he will make a good hubby and daddy. Don't date for fun but for the purpose of choosing a mate. If the one you are dating won't make a good mate, drop him and move on. (Love? A choice. For long term love you need sexul attraction PLUS mutal respect and a godly attitude towards marriage. you need the same type of sense of humor and the same goals.)

You will have 62 years after graduation to live and work, but you will only have, at most, 42 years of fertility. And honestly, having your first baby at 50 is very rare. Your peek fertile years are your late teens and twenties. That is also when you have the most energy to keep up with little ones. Your fertility will drop by 50% by the time you turn 30 and continue to plummet every year. Most women are infertile after 40, especially if they haven't had any children yet. It is simply wisest to have your babies as early as possible (after the wedding cermony). This is when your body is best suited for it.

Have many babies. Your body was designed to have babies and the continued periods month after month for years on end puts a tremendous amount of stress on you. Babies leave behind fetal stem cells that your body uses to heal anything that may be fixing to give problems. children are also your best retirement insurance. Well raised children will make sure mommy isn't eating cat food for survival and the more of them there are, the better you will live.

Invest your time in your children. They will grow up to be smarter, more mentally balanced and healthier if you are their primary care provider. One-on-One attention is essential for them to achieve their best. Consider this time not wasted or stuck at home, but an investment in the doctors, lawyer and mommies (you know, the rulers of the world) of tomorrow.

You won't really know who you are or what you want to be until your 30s, no matter how much college you do now, so wait until your babies are older to bother with higher education. Many, Many people spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree in an area that they leave in their 30s. Don't waste the money on college for  women (and most men) in their 20s. They will be different people by their 30s anyway. If you begin to train for your preferred career at, say, 40, and it takes five years to complete your training, you can still work in that career for twenty years and have fifteen years of retirement!

If you want both a career and a family it simply doesn't make sense to delay your family until you are the age you can't have it when you can always have career at any age (and enjoy it more too!) Would following my advise guarantee you find  good man, have  passel of kids and then a fulfilling career? No of course not. Life happens. But it increases your odds.

The most important thing of course is to pray. God loves you and will guide you on your unique path if you let Him. but you have to be willing to not listen to our culture's obsession with young careers.

Old fashioned Housewives or new fangled "Home Managers?" Either way, it just makes sense. "'The best person to look after my children is me" You just can't argue with it.

What do Peanuts and vaccines have in common?

Nine questions to ask your doctor before vaccinating your child.

Lab Class Today

Turns out a family friend from church got the bid to clean up the mess from the burned out house up the street. He was up there working on it today. We took him some ice water and he let the boys work his track hoe. Cool! And Hubby and I have decided that all our boys have to learn to drive a back hoe for a graduation requierment. since grandpa has one as well as this friend, Mr Bird, that shouldn't be too hard of a requierment to fill. No matter what field they go into, it will be good for them to know this skill.

Baseball Night

Our local minor league baseball team is having "Church Night" tonight. We are not baseball fans but expect to have fun fellowshipping with our brothers and sister in God. It will be some of my children's first baseball game ever. Should be interesting.

Ants bite

Yesterday while my feet were being bitten to death, I looked up to see my entire flock of chickens calmly and determinedly marching out our front gate. They acted like they knew where they were going! Jackie (5 11.5/12yo) and I herded them back, but goodness! Why travel an entire acre to go who knows where? Especially when you are at the bottom of the food chain. Dumb clucks.

A change of Names

I have come to the realization that the title of this blog does not reflect my true goals. I am not going for traditional womanhood, but Biblical Womanhood. No society anywhere in the past has ever fully eximplified the Bible's instruction for family roles. So I will now use that name. You can still find this blog through betty.tracyent.com

Not sure...

If the testing post worked. It appears it may have posted on facebook but not twitter. interesting.

I was working on our fence line this morning when my feet began to hurt. At first I didn't think anything about it since I was walking through tumbleweeds and sage brush (which have been know to cause me mild allergic reactions. Just wash my feet when I am done and it's gone though so no big deal). I even took each shoe off, dumped it and brushed my feet off. The pain kept getting worse until I had to run into the house. As I was soaking my feet in cold water in the tub, I saw a red ant. I evidently stepped on his home. I have no idea how many times I was bit or how many ants were involved, but by breakfast I couldn't walk. My feet felt swollen to twice the size of a house (though they didn't look like it) and HURT. I used my herbal salve I make, but that didn't faze it. I coated my feet in a paste of baking soda and that seemed to help. I also took a clariton (I've heard that the pain from insect bites is actually an allergic reaction) and put on my soothing music. Now, I generally have a very high pain tolerence but my feet still hurt a little and definitly feel swollen and uncomfortable to walk on. I will be more careful about ant hills in the future.

Back to school! After two and a half weeks off we are back. Going pretty good.

Bible Study Today

We are beginning a woman's Bible Study today using our Foundations of Faith. I am teaching it. How did that happen??!! Argh! and I have already messed it up. Evidently when I uploaded the editted text to the book-maker and deleted the unedited text, I hit the wrong button. I went to study this morning and discovered that all of our copies are the uneditted text! Can I cry now?

Update

I haven't posted here lately because I have been on a simi-Internet fast. I did check my emails a few times because of a business transaction, but other than that I have stayed away. Sometimes I get so involved in what is going on here that I forget about the important stuff (like cleaning house and talking with my children). And since my mom (who live just 20 minutes away) had company from out of state it was the perfect opportunity to take some time off. But I'm back now.

With eight children being homeschooled and all their math lessons on DVD (see here) plus their music theory and spanish lessons being software, (not to mention compositions done on Word), I seldom got a chance on the computer there for awhile. A lovely lady at our church upgraded her laptop for work and gave me her old one. This made such a difference! So when God put the opportunity in front of me to pick up another one cheap, I took it. This is what has enabled me to finish a couple of books and get some other long term projects done (and for my children to be able to discuss "pantalones soap" around the supper table) Today I got a wireless router hooked up and all the laptops enabled for it! yeah! I also password protected the entire Internet.everyone must type a password for every page. since I am the only one who knows the word, the only thing any child can get to without my direct attention is this blog, lol.

My brother was Mom's company. He arrived just as Dad began to preach Father's Day morning. It was a total surprise to Dad! He was actually speechless for about 30 seconds. Johnny led the music one Sunday he was here and preached the next. It was very nice to have him.

The the next Monday, my hubby was sick and stayed home in bed. I had had the flu a week before so we both expected just a quicky thing. Tuesday morning Mr. "I don't go to doctors EVER" woke me up at 5am to take him to the emergency room. The flu had turned into intense pain in his back and side. after a couple tests, the diagnosis was kidney stones. The poor thing had to miss the rodeo we had been planning as a church outing for a year plus all the plans he had for my brother's visit. He was totally out of it for a whole week. He is over it now, but that was obviously an incredibly painful event. He has actually been eating (mostly) healthy ever since!

All in all we have had a great two weeks (minus hubby being down of course).


Is it possible to live on one income? Or let's word it a different way; In the richest culture this planet has ever known, are so many babies being raised by baby-sitters instead of their own mommies because the family would starve to death otherwise or because mommy and daddy are too selfish to move to a cheaper house and buy used cars (or, heaven forbid, take the bus!)? Have mommy and daddy actually figured out how much mommy is making after daycare, taxes, gas, extra wear on the extra car, convience foods, etc.? It's probably not as much as you think.


And, you know, babies don't just need mommies. Mommies need to be with their babies.

And we need to guard our marriages.