This past week I have been working hard to put our home back together. It has felt like a move, only we didn’t change locations. It has been a challenge to find a place for everything that used to be in the basement. We have rid ourselves of tons of junk, but the bottom line is that seven people in a 1500 sq foot space, plus all our stuff, plus a years supply of food and a three month supply of water, and a couple hundred books in our home library make for a tight fit.
I am teaching a Provident Living class this saturday, and so I have felt the need to really deep clean everything. We had dry wall dust all over the whole house and it is proving to be more of a mess to clean up than anticipated.
I also am teaching a 72 hour kit class tonight for our wards enrichment, and the Broomfield Choral Festival’s performance of the Brahms Requiem is this sunday, with two more rehearsals in the next two days. I also auditioned for the Colorado Repertory Singers and we start rehearsals tonight.
I did not make the Colorado Mormon Chorale. They called last week to let me know that I “would not be needed this year”. I was rather sad, but singing with the repertory group should be fun. My husband also auditioned and made it into this group, so we will be able to do that together. One of the main reasons I married Paul was because he loves to sing, and has a beautiful tenor voice. I didn’t want to sit next to someone in church for fifty years and have to listen to a tone deaf man singing in my ear. That would have driven me batty. We are doing the Messiah for Christmas. I also did not get the solo for the Brahms Requiem. They hired a professional to do that rather difficult Aria in movement 5.
Here is a recent family picture that we had taken at Wal Mart.

Today is Andrews 10th birthday. We are having a small family party after school, and a friend party next week. I explained to him how crazy busy this weekend is, and that after things settle down it would be a better time to have his friends over for a celebration. So we are postponing it until next friday.
Here are some recent articles I found interesting on the web….enjoy!
128 Students Suspended at Indiana School
HAMMOND, Ind. (Aug. 27) – Classrooms were a little less crowded at Morton High School on the first day of classes: 128 students were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes.
Fed up with inappropriate outfits, the principal suspended the students for one day Wednesday, minutes after doors opened at the school. Those suspended represent more than 10 percent of the 1,200 total students.
The offending attire — including baggy pants, low-cut shirts, tank tops and graphic T-shirts — are banned from classrooms. Students were also cited for cell phone use.
“This was the worst year I’ve seen in a long time,” said Principal Theresa Mayerik. “It’s gotten out of control, and we needed to send a message that we’re not messing around.””
I wish all pricipals had the courage to enforce dress codes!
Panel to Review Safety of Mercury Fillings
“WASHINGTON — The safety of silver fillings made with mercury that plug cavities in the teeth of millions of Americans will get another look this week in light of persistent complaints that they may cause health problems.
Dozens of studies have found no evidence that the fillings are dangerous, except for rare cases of allergic reactions, U.S. health officials say. The Food and Drug Administration will ask a panel of outside experts on Wednesday and Thursday if it agrees with that conclusion or sees reason to worry.”
With the FDA on the case, I’m sure we consumers have absolutely nothing to worry about (sarcasm implied)….I have not been to a dentist in 15 years and my children have never gone….just too toxic. I’m positive whatever “expert” panel looks into this mess will find that “hey, no worries, loading up your mouth with toxic mercury actually is good for you!”
Health effects of egg donation may take decades to emerge
Unintended consequences???
“In 1989, a healthy 32-year-old woman offered her infertile younger sister some of her healthy eggs, and with them the chance to have a baby. Doctors at the Cromwell IVF and Fertility Centre in London gave the donor hormones that made a batch of eggs in her ovary mature, and collected six eggs for fertilization. Three embryos were transferred to the younger sister and two were frozen. One baby girl was born.
Five years later, the doctors contacted the egg donor to ask whether to discard her frozen embryos. They discovered that she had been diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer that spread to her skull. She died just before her thirty-ninth birthday.”

Caesarean birth triples maternal death risk
“LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — A Caesarean delivery more than triples a woman’s risk of dying in childbirth compared to a vaginal birth, according to a new study from France.
The risk is still quite small, but many developed countries have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Caesareans performed each year as more women elect to avoid a vaginal delivery.”
This is an education failure in our society. Proper childbirth education and preparation is the best cure for this malady of women choosing major abdominal surgery over giving birth naturally. I was a Bradley Childbirth educator for eight years, and feel passionate about women being given the facts.
Plaming The President: The Anatomy Of A Lie
This was my favorite Blog reaction to the recent discovery that Valerie Plame was outed by none other than Richard Armitage…
“One can’t help but wonder in the aftermath of Plame whether we’ll see the media, the CIA, the State Department, or Joe Wilson subjected to the kind of full bodied, La Brea tar pit wallowing-in-schadenfreude navel gazing we’ve come to expect from the lamestream media. On a careful ninety seconds of caffeine induced rumination, we’re inclined to think not. The odds are a few honest voices will chime in before the inevitable spin begins. Chris Hitchens led the chorus yesterday:
In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak’s—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.
As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president’s war policy.”
I love vilanous company – it is a hilarious blog. Here is a link to a thread I started at Mothering on the Wilson story before I was banned for smacking the liberals every chance I got. And here is the explanation entry on my blog for why I was banned.
Maybe now this pathetic story will be put to rest. Or maybe not….But I have this image in my mind of Joe Wilson twenty years from now…..hand thumping against his chest….moaning to anyone who will listen to him…”Bush lied, kids died”…..
Gov. Arnold tosses
school moral codes
Bill forces condoning of homosexuality,
critics say ‘the gates of hell are prevailing’
This issue is one of the reasons we pulled our kids out and homeschooled for a couple years. My elementary aged children were being sensitivity trained in accepting gay lifestyles in the classroom, after I had specifically requested that we be given the option to keep them away from any assemblys etc that would expose them to “embracing” the gay lifestyle. I lost my trust in the school after they attended said assembly without my permission. I made a huge stink about it, writing letters to the school board, talking to the principle, and then pulling all three of my elementary aged children out of that school. From what I have heard from other parents, the Safe Schools coalition has only been enboldened and enabled these past few years since I took that step. Looks like Arnold has caved to the gay lobby.
Jenny Hatch