Month: April 2008

  • What a difference a few hours make

    Yes I did get the apartment clean for Shabbat.

     

    on 4/22 some teen knocked on my door.  He had my name, my address, and my dad's phone number ((which is listed in my name...long story))....he wanted to ask me about my view on stem cell research...well obviously he already knows my view, he either got my info from the vote we had in 2006 ((yes they know how you vote, the card you punch has a number and they write it by your name/ID when you check in)) or maybe I've signed a petition...which I'm debating to not do if they want my address/phone number....even having my name is scary enough.  I asked who he was working for and he saif the coalition for life saving cures...poor thing yeah I'm sure they'll heal a few poor sick people at first so we'll all say "yes let's start human life and kill it at about 10 days so we can grow new organs"...then it will turn into all about who can pay for it as everything else is all about --MONEY.  insurance companies will say it's not covered by them so if you can't afford it only the rich will be killing babies and the poor ladies they sucker into donating their eggs.  oh and of course you know we've got to clone so and so in hollywhore for generations to come..  :rollseyes:

     

    I did restate to the young man that adult stem cell research is fine....emryonic stem cell is a big no-no ... the kid even filled in that it is un-humane ... so not sure why he's taking money from the enemy.

    Due to some Spirit pricking, I just went to the store for some canned goods and such and some lady in the parking lot asks if I'm a registered voter and would I sign some petitions.  one was for more funding for some school district and the other for gov't funding so we can have alternative ways to heat our homes.  My response was that the people can pay for their own alternative sources and stop raising tax payers taxes to do it ((to me it makes sense...just pay for your own...after all raising money to get a hand out to then pay for it seems round about)) and as far as the school district, schools are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo messed up no amount of funding can fix that.  It's not about money....it's because the G-D of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been removed.  What is it with asking for more gov't money....don't people realize the money actually comes from their own pocket...just donate right to the cause and/or fix it yourself....DUH

     

  • The work week ends

    thoughts:

    I really wanted it....

    You don't want me to have it....

    And that's the part that hurts the most.

    Reading:

    KJV wise- Judges and Ruth and this weeks Parsha

    Lesson wise Exodus 20 via TorahClass ((deep...I suggest you do the same))

    Harback wise - Sacred Influence ((recommended to me by another Torah observant wife/mom)) to be shortly followed by Sacred Marriage  with subtitle what if G-d designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?

    Good Shabbos to ya!

  • Gender and food

    as seen on the news here recently: article found here

    Mom's Diet May Play Role in Whether Baby Is Boy or Girl
    Last Edited: Wednesday, 23 Apr 2008, 6:07 PM CDT
    Created: Wednesday, 23 Apr 2008, 4:42 PM CDT

    By LINDSEY TANNER
    AP Medical Writer

    CHICAGO  --  Snips and snails and puppydog tails ... and cereal and bananas?

    That could be what little boys are made of, according to surprising new research suggesting that what a woman eats before pregnancy influences the gender of her baby.

    Having a hearty appetite, eating potassium-rich foods including bananas, and not skipping breakfast all seemed to raise the odds of having a boy.

    The British research is billed as the first in humans to show a link between a woman's diet and whether she has a boy or girl.

    It is not proof, but it fits with evidence from test tube fertilization that male embryos thrive best with longer exposure to nutrient-rich lab cultures, said Dr. Tarun Jain. He is a fertility specialist at University of Illinois at Chicago who wasn't involved in the study.

    It just might be that it takes more nutrients to build boys than girls, he said.

    University of Exeter researcher Fiona Mathews, the study's lead author, said the findings also fit with fertility research showing that male embryos aren't likely to survive in lab cultures with low sugar levels. Skipping meals can result in low blood sugar levels.

    Jain said he was skeptical when he first heard about the research. But he said the study was well-done and merits follow-up study to see if the theory proves true.

    It's not necessarily as far-fetched as it sounds. While men's sperm determine a baby's gender, it could be that certain nutrients or eating patterns make women's bodies more hospitable to sperm carrying the male chromosome, Jain said.

    "It's an interesting question. I'm not aware of anyone else looking at it in this manner," he said.

    The study was published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British medical journal.

    The research involved about 700 first-time pregnant women in the United Kingdom who didn't know the sex of their fetuses. They were asked about their eating habits in the year before getting pregnant.

    Among women with the highest calorie intake before pregnancy (but still within a normal, healthy range), 56 percent had boys, versus 45 percent of the women with the lowest calorie intake.

    Women who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily were 87 percent more likely to have boys than those who ate no more than one bowlful per week. Cereal is a typical breakfast in Britain and in the study, eating very little cereal was considered a possible sign of skipping breakfast, Mathews said.

    Compared with the women who had girls, those who had boys ate an additional 300 milligrams of potassium daily on average, "which links quite nicely with the old wives' tale that if you eat bananas you'll have a boy," Mathews said.

    Women who had boys also ate about 400 calories more daily than those who had girls, on average, she said.

    Still, no one's recommending pigging out if you really want a boy or starving yourself if you'd prefer a girl.

    Neither style of eating is healthy, and besides all the health risks linked with excess weight, other research suggests obese women have a harder time getting pregnant.

    The study results reflect women at opposite ends of a normal eating pattern, not those with extreme habits, Mathews said.

    Professor Stuart West of the University of Edinburgh said the results echo research in some animals.

    And Dr. Michael Lu, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and public health at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the results "are certainly plausible from an evolutionary biology perspective." In other words, since boys tend to be bigger, it would make sense that it would take more calories to create them, Lu said.

    Still, Lu said a woman's diet before pregnancy may be a marker for other factors in their lives that could influence their baby's gender, including timing of intercourse.

    "The bottom line is, we still don't know how to advise patients in how to make boys," he said.

     

    I found it interesting because when I had my son, I was supposedly hypoglycemic which would indicate low blood sugar and also about a year ago a natural path doc did tell me that because my body did grow a healthy boy it did take a lot more from me to do so and is a harder strain on the body and can take longer to recover from.

     

    So any of the rest of you notice if any of these findings may be true?  I know my aunt said with both of her daughters, before she conceived and early in the pregnancy, she ate mostly fruits and veggies.  I've heard it said meat and milk to be the diet for a baby boy.

     

     

  • Our First Pesach

     Yesterday DS and I read Exodus 12

    Today we read some from Matthew 26 and 27

    This evening a Seder with our Intro to Jewish Roots class, my mom is coming! and I've got to be there at 5pm to help set things up.

    Tomorrow at 11am is class and then 3:30pm the 2nd Seder with our HavDalah group and PRAYING dh can come!!!

    Tomorrow Night we will read about The Resurrection and Start the Omer count. 

    Next week is our "spring" break in honor of the Feast of Unleavend Bread (Matzah).  We will only read daily from the Family Guide to Biblical Holidays and DS is excited to not have to do the 3R's for a whole week.  ((because 9 math  problems, 1 letter/1 word/1 sentence of printing, and 48 words to read are soooo much :rollseyes:))

    Below are some photos of our table this week and centerpiece.  the soup containers are DH's so not mine but DH was like what a whole week without leaven??????

     

     

     

    100_0882

     

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  • Thoughts?

    It's 9:12 minutes long

  • Pesach Approaches

    I have so many questions.

    ok so  when do we partake of the Seder?

     

    Numbers 28:16-17

    16And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the passover of the LORD.

     17And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.

     

    to me this sounds like just before the 15th starts .... but the calendar is having us do the at home w/ family Seder at night on 4/19 ... 

    I would think according to the above passage we should hold the Seder on the evening of the 14th but again is that as it's turning the 14th or as the 14th is leaving and the 15th is starting

    Number 9:3
    In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it.

    ok so if they hold Seder as the 14th is starting, then the daytime of the 14th or the next day, would then be a preparation day for Unleavened Bread ... but this day you also can't eat leavening?  the day you do the final sweep thru of the home or is that on the 13th?

    I know for us on 4/19 we are attending more of a teaching Seder.  I do not want to overthrow authority in my home and DH is not interested in these things.  My mom is attending this one as well..although horseradish makes her vomit so she will be passing on that.   I will also, with permission, only have 1 glass of grape juice in 4 sips ... too much sugar in fruit juice and I tend to have hypoglycemic and insulin resistant bouts. 

    Then at 3:30pm 4/20 DS and I and maybe DH if he's not working  ((Please pray his on call schedule works out so that he can attend, I'd really like for him to experience these things also)) will be attending a Seder at the home of the people we get together with for Bi-Weekly Torah Study and HavDalah.

    Also when is FirstFruits?  this is important to me as this would also be remembering the resurrection and I also want to know when to start counting the omer ... I want that blessing

     

    so Anna, since you usually have Shabbat meal on saturnday nite, then this week will be a doubly special meal since it will include the Seder?

     

  • No and Percentages

    No I did not go to DH's church.  He got worried/guilty that it meant he was gonna have to start attending the places I go.  Seriously, he freaked out.

     

    I took this 20 question quiz and here are the results of the "faiths" that one might think I fall under:

     

    Orthodox Judaism (98%)

    Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (84%)

    Seventh Day Adventist (84%)

    Eastern Orthodox (78%)

    Roman Catholic (78%)

    Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (67%)   that;s scary

    Reform Judaism (64%)