So Goes People of Faith… So Goes the Nation

I'm really enjoying my new job, which involves research on various topics, but I realize how mis-informed and easily manipulated I've been about a lot things during my lifetime. One of my recent topics has been communism, specifically in the Soviet Union. I try to find websites that present an accurate view, but I've also found a number of websites that continue to espouse that a communist society is the best way for people to live. Some parts sound noble: the classless society; everyone is taken care of with a job and pension and place to live; free healthcare and education. Property and businesses belong to everyone. Sounds good, right? But history paints another story, much of which has been hidden under layers of misinformation and eliminating anyone who might tell the truth.

In studying Lenin and Stalin, I recognized an intellectual arrogance among them. They thought they knew what was best for everyone, but then they had to use tools such as lies and propaganda, ruthless secret police, mass executions, fear, and complete and total control to get the populace in line with their philosophy of life. Have you ever heard of the Gulags? We've all heard of the Nazi concentration camps during World War II and are glad they were closed down, but Soviet Russia used hundreds of forced labor camps to control their people for MANY more years. No one knows exactly how many people Stalin killed; I've seen estimates of 7,000,000 up to 20,000,000, and many of them people of faith.

I found testimonies of people who miss the communist way of life. They felt secure when someone else made all the decisions for them and guaranteed them a job and pension when they got old. They didn't like the insecurity of a republic or a democratic society where the individual had to think and make decisions for themselves. One website, a blogger, said that he'd met people living under communist rule that said their life was just fine. The blogger also seems to think he could continue to express himself freely, study religion, and live however he wants in a communist society.

I also found testimonies of people who suffered tremendously under Stalin's communist rule: practicing Jews, the Christians, creative artists and writers, free-thinkers, land-owners, and more. Nikolai Getman spent seven years in a Gulag just for sitting with some artist friends in a cafe when one of them drew a caricature of Stalin on a cigarette paper. In the year of terror 1937-38, 85% of the 35,000 clergy were arrested; an average of 1,000 people were executed each day during 'the Great Purge' to keep Stalin in power. Why were churches targeted? Did people of faith represent the conscience and consciousness of the nation?

Atheism was the only accepted belief in Soviet Russia. Not in the beginning; in the beginning people were told they could keep their religious beliefs. But it didn't take long for the those in power to start persecuting the churches and people of faith. Again, the arrogance of the atheists in power thought their way was the only way; that an intelligent man would not stoop to believe in the mythological hearsay of a creator god who seeks to have a relationship with puny man. No, man was/is at the top of the totem pole. If man wants to be saved, he must do it himself. And the intellectuals will guide the ignorant, with force and lies, if need be. And that's what it took for communism to work.

I see a disturbing parallel today on all fronts. And too many have already become comfortable with the mindset that a socialist system is the fairest; that the intellectuals in power know what's best for us; that the government taking care of us is the least complicated way of life. And with all of that comes the loss of personal freedom and responsibility.

But take care to watch what's happening to the people of faith. They're slowly being silenced, if not penalized, for expressing or attempting to live out their beliefs. And the culture is being manipulated to stand against them. Rise and shine in love, people of faith, before we lose it all.

What About Medical Menus?

Why can't health providers post a list of prices like everybody else in business? Maybe that could infuse some real competition into health care. I'm not talking about insurance. Health care providers charge whatever they want. Insurance companies decide what they're willing pay, and we're stuck in the middle having to pick up the difference. We walk blindly into the doctor's office for help, and have no clue what we will be charged until we get the bill. Or that's the case with Scott and White in Central Texas.

I went to my dermatologist this past year to get checked for skin cancer, which I've done every year or two for a long time now because we have a history of melanoma in the family, so I try to be responsible about getting checked.

The year before I had a basal cell carcinoma shaved off my leg, which involved two office visits-- one to get checked, the second to come back and get the spot removed. That cost me over $500. So when another place showed up on my leg, I figured this would cost about the same thing.

I was wrong. Scott and White charged me $2,550 for the lab work. The dermatologist charged me  $579. This was for TWO office visits for minor procedures, not cosmetic surgery! I cried when I got the bill. At the time, I was living off my savings so I could take care of my mother, so I saw the $3,179 as costing me two months less time that I might need as her caregiver. 

A friend told me that her doctor occasionally froze things off, but that was included in her inexpensive office visit charge. I don't know how S&W came up with over $3,100 for two office visit procedures. When I wrote the dermatologist to tell her I couldn’t afford her anymore, she referred me to their financial office, saying that since I wasn't working, they might reduce my bill. Even though I had no income coming in, the fact that I still had money in savings and wasn't living on the street meant they denied my request. 

Who do we turn to when someone "legally" robs us? Even my insurance company was no help. They weren’t concerned when I told them S&W had way overcharged me; I hadn't reached my deductible so it was no skin off their backs. I actually tried to pay cash at the time of the service, but the office didn't do the billing so they had no clue what numbers S&W would pull out of the air. I'm insured, but I cannot afford even basic health care with Scott & White now when they charge such exorbitant fees. 

I used to go to a wonderful family of dermatologists in San Antonio, and I'm thinking about writing them a letter asking them what they'd charge for the equivalent services S&W charged me. I really don't want to drive the two hours to SA, but I can't afford to keep going here. 

Why can't health care providers post their costs for the different services so we can actually shop around before choosing? I feel like it's Russian Roulette now when I need medical services. I recently received a letter from the dermatologist saying I needed to come back to get checked, and I thought, "Are you kidding me?!!" I threw it in the trash. 

The Affordable Care Act is such a misnomer. It's not just about insurance or the lack thereof. What about the out-of-control medical charges? I can't afford to have any health issues now, even WITH insurance. 

Pocket Chart Menu Planner

How many times have you faced an empty pot with an empty brain at the end of a long day's work? My kids could tell you they ate a lot of goulash, tuna salad, and take-out during my teaching years because my brain couldn't seem to come up with a variety of meals each evening, much less a home-cooked one. One student told me that his mother never cooked anything at home; they had take-out every evening. Their food budget must've been astronomical. 

And some folks never learned to cook, but like anything else, it just takes a little practice. Some years ago when I was fretting over my lack of culinary skills in the kitchen, a dear cousin (Lee Ann, I'm talking about you) told me, "Just choose a few meals and learn to do them well." That took such a load off my mind to realize that I didn't have to know how to cook everything well to be a good cook.

I created this easy meal-planning kit using a simple pocket chart to display the main meal of the day, which for working folks is usually the evening meal. The cards do the thinking for you, and the ingredients included on the cards give you an easy way to create a grocery list. 

My 14-Day Meal Plan Pocket Chart hangs inside the pantry door

Why plan your meals?

• Saves money - take-out is expensive
• Saves brain power - a meal plan does the thinking for you at the end of a long day
• Saves time - means less time preparing dinner and less trips to the grocery store - I've reduced my grocery shopping to 2 or 3 times a month now, when I used to go every few days
• Your family eats better - you know exactly what ingredients are in the foods you prepare

I keep blank cards on hand to add new dishes when I need to; I color the top of the hand-written cards with a marker to match the type of dish of the pre-printed cards.

You can plan your meals for a week or two weeks, depending on the size of your pocket chart, which you provide. This 22 page digital kit contains: 

• Seven color-coded sheets (105 cards) of main dishes, starch/carb sides, & vegetable sides Basic pantry staples list
• Blank templates for additional cards
• Template for a one-meal card
• Days of the week & reminder cards
• An organized grocery list template - this has saved me so much time in the grocery store
• A cover design that can be personalized, recipe page template, and meal planner sheet for a custom recipe notebook you create that coordinates with the dishes listed on the pocket cards
• Tips for stretching the groceries and time between visits to the store
• Links to good recipe sites online

Spending a little time on meal planning every week or two can help you avoid the frustration of coming up with a home-cooked meal at the last minute, and not having to run to the store for the ingredients. Using a pocket chart system, the meal is already planned, the groceries are already on hand, and you just do it. 

The Pocket Chart Meal Planner is an inexpensive digital file available on Teachers Pay Teachers Web site.

Pretty Patties

My sister makes the prettiest hamburger patties before cooking them. Mine are never round, and often pieces fall off before they're finished cooking. But I finally came up with a way to make the nicest patties.

 Take a nice-size plastic container and cut about   an inch from the top to make a plastic ring.

Put a sheet of wax paper underneath where you'll be working to make the patties on. 

Put a fist-sized amount of ground beef in the ring, or more or less, depending on how thick you want your patties. Remember, depending on the percentage of fat content of the meat, the patty will cook down in size. 

Mash the hamburger meat to fully fill out the ring form; then pull the ring off. Ta-da!

Using a three and a half pound package of ground beef, I cooked a skillet of hamburger meat and chopped onions for tacos for supper tonight, and we didn't even use half of it. The remainder I stored in a zip-loc bag to make a goulash or casserole later. With the remainder of the package of ground beef, I cooked nine patties to freeze for quick lunches or suppers.

I used to hate buying bulk ground beef packages because I didn't want to have to divide it into smaller bags for the freezer, but I think I prefer to cook all of it and freeze it in different forms for quicker meals later. And it doesn't take that long, especially if you have two skillets going. : )

On Blog Hiatus

For the next few months, I plan to focus on finishing book 6, With Liberty and Justice, so future posts will be scanty... unless I'm about to burst about something that would apply to Beans, Means & Possible Dreams. : )

How to Enlarge Your House in Less Than 20 Minutes

Do you remember the old story about the woman who kept nagging her husband for a bigger house, so he started bringing the livestock in a little at a time. After a while, the house was so crowded that they could hardly move. The husband finally emptied the house, and it seemed so much bigger to the wife than before because he changed her perspective about it.

That's sort of what I did today. My 1,560 sq. ft. home seems cavernous now after virtually touring through tiny homes from less than 100 sq. ft. to up to a spacious 320 sq. ft. home on YouTube. It made me realize we have plenty of space in our current house; we just have too much unnecessary stuff. And we need to learn to be creative when it comes to storage.

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Living in 89 sq. ft. -  Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company takes you on a tour. House located in California. Love the look of this tiny house.

Designer/Builder Jay Shafer in front of his tiny house

Photo from Itsrusticliving.blogspot.com 

2. Shotgun Shack Redux: Mortgage-free in 320 sf owned by Gary and Debra Jordan of Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Their son's "bedroom" is the loft.

Photo: http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/5-tiny-homes-youll-love-big-time.html

3. Tiny Texas House at the Homestead Cottages - this one is closer to home: Canyon Lake, Texas

Photo from hillcountryrelax.com

4. There is hope for the future! I'm so impressed with this 16 year old boy who's building his own small home to live in for college. The video shows his work-in-progress, and he's paying for it with his summer and part-time jobs.

Austin Hay showing the 130 sf home he is building

Photo from faircompanies.com

I'm not sure I would ever live in this small of a space if I had the choice, but it's nice to know there are these types of options if I had to drastically downsize financially. One thing I would have to learn to do is recognize what's important to hang onto in life, and let go of the things that aren't. That's been a struggle for me, but I'm getting better at it. Maybe that comes with age. And if you need some inspiration to de-clutter, it helps to watch Hoarding: Buried Alive occasionally to keep one's hoarding gene in check. 

We tend to think bigger is better, but bigger brings on a lot more maintenance, higher bills, and greater responsibilities. One thing I've enjoyed when it came to downsizing from a 2,800 sf home to my current 1,560 sf home is that I can clean the smaller home in a few hours versus taking all day to clean in the larger one. And that's like a gift of time to myself.

Toxic Vanity

Vanity is as old as the mammoth. W.L. George

I loved learning about Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, when I was in London last August. I saw her tomb in Westminster Abbey with a full size effigy of her likeness atop it. Our guide told us the face was one of the few accurate likenesses of Elizabeth because it was created from the actual death mask. He said she never liked her nose and always had her portrait painters change it. I thought her face looked fine for a woman of almost seventy years of age. I don't know how accurate our tour guide's stories were, but they were interesting enough to make me want to learn more about England's fascinating history.

The following portrait was painted when Elizabeth was in her early sixties, and I would think that the artist painting the queen would attempt to flatter her with his efforts.  So we can only imagine what she might have actually looked like at that age.

Portrait of Elizabeth I attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or his studio, ca. 1595. PD

The portrait below was painted five years after the previous painting, and it is attributed to two different artists, including Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Bless his heart. Maybe he felt bad about his first painting. She's a knock-out in the this one, although they do call it an allegorical representation of the Queen. I would love for someone to do an allegorical representation of me.  

Elizabeth I. The "Rainbow Portrait", c. 1600, an allegorical representation of the Queen, become ageless in her old age. PD

Borrowed from Wikipedia

Our guide also told us (which I confirmed) that Elizabeth's face was scarred due to small pox, so she started wearing makeup, which then caused her hair to fall out because the cosmetics were laden with lead. But she had access to wigs and beautiful clothes and obedient portrait artists to compensate for her flaws. I remember thinking at the time that I was glad to be born in an age where makeup is safe to use, and we didn't have to worry about toxic ingredients possibly causing cancer or our hair to fall out, even though my hair is falling out. 

Then I heard a news report about the alarming amounts of lead in women's lipstick. And I told myself that was probably the cheap, unknown brands from China or other countries with less standards of safety. Then I stumbled upon some Websites that say most every well-known brand of makeup and toiletries available in the U.S. uses some toxic ingredients, including lead. 

What?

I did a search to find what cosmetics were made in the U.S., and I didn't find one company that I recognized among the very short list of cosmetics actually made in the U.S. 

I found the following Websites that might be worth looking into. 

http://www.safecosmetics.org/, which created the following Website where you can type in the products you use to see if they contain any questionable or harmful ingredients:

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Cancer and auto-immune diseases are rampant in our culture today, and we need to pause and question if the products we're using or are exposed to in our environment could be related. Somebody else is looking at this, too.

http://www.breastcancerfund.org/reduce-your-risk/tips/choose-safe-cosmetics/

And check out this short video on The Story of Cosmetics:  

http://www.breastcancerfund.org/media/videos/story-of-cosmetics.html

For too much of my life, I've assumed others had my best interests at heart when it came to employers, financial advisors, health care providers, various companies, and even products I used. But getting burned multiple times is finally waking me up. We have to be our own advocates when it comes to our health and safety and stop sticking our heads in the sand assuming everything will be okay if we just don't think about it.