I used to make candles, but haven’t since I left Branson.  One of my favorite scents was Amish Friendship Bread.  I still have the link to the company who sold the fragrance oil, so when I finally do start melting wax again, I can use that scent.

Recently, a co-worker asked me if I wanted a starter for Amish Friendship Bread.   Since I have such fond memories of the candle scent, I said yes.  That was before I realized what was involved in this tradition.  When it comes time to make the bread 3 days from now, the directions say to put 1 cup of the starter in 4 different ziploc bags and mark them with the date.  Then I am to give the starter to friends with a set of directions on how to make the bread.  That sounds great in theory.  I’m just not sure I know enough people here in OK that would like the friendship bread starter. 

What am I supposed to do then?  Hand it out on the street? 

I can see that one now.  LOL! I suspect I would get some very strange looks when I tried to hand a bag of starter out. 

I saw some given away on FreeCycle.  I could do that.  Explain that I don’t know enough people in the area, and am not sure who I should give it to. 

Or I can make one batch, keep a bag of the mix for myself, then dump the rest down the drain. 

 After all, who would know what I did with it?  I’m sure Amari isn’t going to go looking in my trash. 

Or, since a batch makes 2 loaves of bread, I can figure out what would be left after taking out the 4 cups, double that amount and make 4 loaves of bread to bring some to work.  Then I can leave some starter on the desk with the bread, with the directions. 

Or I can make a single batch, and leave 3 bags of starter on the desk.  Then I can make some for the family in another 10 days.

 I still think the office is going to get overrun with Amish Friendship Bread starter. 

I was looking for a picture of the grade school I went to in the NorthEast Kingdom of Vermont.  When I’ve been talking to a few people here in Oklahoma, they’ve said they grew up in a small town.  Well, not many towns are smaller than Barton, VT.  According to http://city-data.com, the village of Barton has a population of around 750.  The neighboring town of Glover has around 950.  However, Barton has something that Glover does not have — there are two villages in the town of Barton.  That’s one of those irregularities of how Vermont figures out its towns. 

 Each town in Vermont comprises 36 square miles.  As a result, you can have several villages in the same town area.  Barton and Orleans are one example, Colchester and Mallet’s Bay are another.  I suspect the same goes for Essex and Essex Junction, but I’ve never lived there, so I don’t know for sure.

Which brings me to the title of my post.  Real Vermonters.  There used to be a series of books sold in local stores around Vermont talking about “Real Vermonters.” One of them was called “Out, The Vermont Secession Book.” All of Frank Bryan’s books are satire.  One of the running jokes is about ‘flatlanders.’ which by definition, is anyone who was not born and raised in Vermont.  Wouldn’t you know, I married a real ‘flatlander.’  As in someone from the great flat state of Oklahoma.  I know irony when I see it.

It’s the new year, and an election year to boot.  I’m going to be taking an in-depth look at the different political candidates and give my opinion.  Whether you want to listen to me or not, that’s your perogative.  Like Huckabee, I am Christian.  Unlike Huckabee, I do not feel we should be trying to bring God back into the US.  I believe that he never left.  God is only gone if we let him go. 

 Oh, and we can’t force our beliefs on anyone else. 

I know I haven’t posted much in the last 2 weeks.  It’s just been busy.  Like many all over the world, I’ve been working and trying to prepare for that most commercialized of holidays, Christmas. 

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that we should celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus.  I even insist on making a birthday cake either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. 

I just don’t see the controversy over the whole Christmas vs Holiday vs Solstice argument.  If someone doesn’t want to celebrate on the 25th of December, that’s their perogative.  It’s not as if Jesus was actually born on the 25th of December.  Rather somewhere in the far distant past, the powers that be (not to be confused with the planet Petabee*) decided to take over the Winter Solstice celebration by the Druids in England.  They decided to move Jesus’ birthday celebration from whatever day it was originally to coincide with the shortest day of the year. 

 Instead of getting mad at those who want their preferences recognized, pray for them.  Remember, it’s not our place to judge.

 Granted, that’s not to say that we shouldn’t use our best judgement on electing a leader this next November.  It’s another case of pray for others.  Go by their actions, but remember that even the sinless Jesus told a prostitute to go and sin no more.  Everyone deserves a second chance.

 *Regarding Petabee — if you haven’t read Anne McCaffrey’s “The Powers That Be” ignore my reference entirely, or else go check out the book and stay warm this weekend 🙂

In the absence of any decent presidential candidate, I am going to revert to my Vermonter roots.  I say Bernie Sanders should run for president.  His focus is not on Iraq or a stupid declaration that since Iran has the knowledge to build nuclear weapons, we should wage war with them.  Instead, everyone knows where this Independant senator from Vermont stands on the issues.  His values have not wavered. 

According to a 2006 quote on the http://www.guardian.co.uk website (article is linked):

[Bernie] says his consistent electoral success reflects the widespread discontent with rising inequality, deepening poverty and dwindling access to affordable healthcare in the US. “People realise there is a lot to be learned from the democratic socialist models in northern Europe,” Mr Sanders said. “The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth. Iraq is important, but it’s not the only issue.”

At a time when Huckabee is being lambasted for pushing to free a convicted rapist, Romney is being accused of being Mormon (since when is this a crime?!?), Clinton and Obama are tearing each other’s throats out, Edwards is pushing mandatory mammograms (You know they’ve been shown to cause cancer, right, Mr. Edwards?).  I say we should throw all of the candidates out and start endorsing what matters to us. 

 So I say it again, Bernie Sanders for President.

Since Christmas time is coming, I thought I’d share something that is on our bulletin board at work.  Whether or not you support the war in Iraq, we need to support our troops.   They and others like them are the reason we are able to speak freely.   But more on that in a minute.

Since this is such a large list, I have created a .pdf version here.

Food additives linked to hyperactivity in children

I have a 2 year old daughter.  I’ll admit that most of the time it’s easier to give in and give her whatever she wants.  Being a “normal, picky” 2 year old, most of the time what she wants to eat is cereal and chocolate milk.

 That’s at 2.  If I keep giving her what she wants, then she’ll get used to eating like my neice does.  As my neice lives with her great-grandparents, she has learned that she can throw a fit and get what she wants.  They always have candy, sugar cereals (no better than candy) and juice around.  She has been diagnosed with ADD and takes medication for it. 

At 8:30 on Halloween, I told my neice and my daughter that they had had enough candy.  My sneaky 2 year old had a sucker in her jacket pocket, but it was my neice that I had to watch.  She got mad, especially when I confiscated the candy necklace and wouldn’t let her have the candy bracelet she had gotten. 

When we went to drop her off, I insisted on carrying the candy inside and handing it to her grandfather myself.  We went inside for a few minutes and she started trying to get into her candy.  My husband and I both ended up enforcing the no more candy rule.  The grandparents were saying no more, but my neice wasn’t listening.

 Compare that to this weekend.  It being Thanksgiving, I had sweets around — notably Rice Krispie treats and a cookie bar that I haven’t had in years.  She did not have her ADD medication, but her behaviour was less like a hyperactive child and more like a child who needed consistancy in her discipline (she got 3 warnings then got a time out — I didn’t start the timer until she stopped the screaming).  Well and more like a child that needed to learn to play with others, she kept hogging the toys.  Then again, so did my 2 year old.

 All this not from cutting out the sugar, but from cutting out the artificial colors and flavors and keeping her away from soda.  To the end of the weekend, she was even asking me for Rice Krispies for breakfast even though I had 2 kinds of Captain Crunch. 

It may be a small experiment, but that definitely shows me that they may actually be figuring out the cause of this sudden influx of ADD and ADHD. 

 Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that some kids actually do have a problem with concentration.  From what I’ve seen though, some of it is either they have home problems on their mind (which my neice obviously does when she doesn’t see her mom very much) or too much artificial color and caffeine/soda (which my neice also has).  Yet her mom is determined that she wants to keep her on the ADD medication indefinitely, instead of stopping at 2 years like the doctor suggests.

Things that make you go hmmm… It’s so much easier to let the medication parent for us, isn’t it?

I had planned on just leaving the below post tonight, but I was thinking about this while I was watching teevee the other day. 

 Have you ever noticed that most of the people in the shows are of a “normal” BMI?  I mean yea, there’s always the obligatory fat guy (or gal), but most of the main characters are thin.  We have an obesity epidemic here in the good ol’ US, yet our popular culture does not reflect this fact (almost said fat there). 

 Then there’s the occasions like the VMA’s this year (2007) where Britney Spears shows up in an outfit that is slightly too small and everyone jumps on it!  I mean come on.  Go out in the public in the Midwest or any other town in the US (and many other countries) and you’ll see people wearing clothes that are so small they look like they’re going to burst the seams any minute. 

 Muffin tops aside, I think it’s time that SOMEONE actually dealt with the problems we are going to face. 

 Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I do NOT mean Big Pharma, or the complimentary industry Big Food.

Well, it looks like I’m going to have to design a WordPress theme after all.  I found a theme I think I can deal with for a couple of days, which is a good thing since none of the themes I saw match what I’m looking for.  Figures, I now need to sort out the PHP.  Guess I’ve gotten lazy in my old age.