Meet Kevin, Our Pet Bacon Fat!

Months ago, I posted about my husbands preference for lean, quality meats. Since then, I have bought dollar store bacon, in an attempt to clog his arteries and kill any joy he may have in life. Bacon is thin slices of pig that we fry up and add to our eggs. Jesus says it's ok to eat bacon now. Although we call our bacon fat Kevin, his fat is actually a community of many slices of bacon.

When we first got Kevin, we had to put him in the crotchpot for a few days, then he was ready to get to work. Every day or two, Dna pours off the Kevin's grease into a jar. He then puts the slices of kevin back in the crotchpot. If you will notice, we have left the lid off Kevin. This is so he can get air, and we are hoping to get a colony of flies for meat. If I can get the larvae before they turn to flies, these will be added to the sprouted rice oatmeal. This will pack an extra nutritional punch.

The grease that Kevin gives us can be made into numerous things. Brad had fleas so we used the grease from Kevin to smother the fleas. I used a coating of the grease on little Dna's crib mattress to repel the pee, now I don't even have to wipe it off, it beads up and rolls away. This is my idea of a self cleaning house!

Dna sometimes tries to make sodas out of Kevin. For Sprite he he adds some lemon juice and lime juice. For cream soda, he just adds vanilla. For a cola-like beverage, he adds vanilla, cinnamon and lime juice. He was sad that we couldn't make Kevin into Mountain Dew though.

Kevin is not only a nourishing alternative and a step towards the plan, he is a money saver.

We paid a dollar at Dollar Tree for him, and he just keeps on giving. Pets generally are not frugal, but there are useful pets, like our Bacon Fat, Kevin, who save us money.

Contest for the Room of Horrors

Emily has been whining to Blogger that we have been copying her posts and I had to edit out her drivel this morning. So, going forward, instead of wasting time copying her posts, I'll just give a summary of what she said, and you can read her shit through a feed if you still don't want her to get a click. The link for the feed to the comments is listed at the top too so you can repeatedly check to see what the Stunned One has to say without contributing to her Neglect Fund.

Yesterday I was actually debating whether to continue this blog or not, but now that the Snippy Fundy has whined to Blogger yet again, I am most definitely continuing. *Evil Laugh*

So today is about the contest she had to redesign the Room of Horrors aka the Boys' Room.

She was completely overwhelmed with the responses she got when she asked for submissions to redo the Room of Horror. She got 40 entries, that's official entries mind you, not entries through comments because those don't count dammit, follow the rules. The final entry rolled in around 4 this morning. People love Emily so much they stay up all night redesigning the Room of Horrors. She says it was very difficult to get it down to just the top 5 entries (I'm betting all five are hers) She's taking a lesson in GRATEfulness, and expressing how much she appreciated the effort and creativity.

The criteria she used to choose was based on whether or not it would work for her boys, whether or not she thought it could be done with a reasonable budget, how versatile it was, and how much she thought the boys would like it. I call Bullshit on this, becasue she doesn't care one bit how much her boys will like it, just give them some clean sheets and a mattress you lazy old sow. She says she truly hopes no one is offended by how she chose, or didn't choose their submission. But we know Emily and she doesn't give a shit if she offended or not.

She has posted the pictures of the suggestions. I am encouraging you to go and vote in the poll for one of the suggestions that actually allows for the boys to have a bed, looks like entry number one actaully allows for a bed off the floor. I'm sure they still won't be allowed a matress, but at least it's off the floor. This entry also gives Brad the Wonder Ecoli a prominent place watching over the boys. You can use the feed after you vote to check back if you want http://under1000permonth.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default and youcan check comments at http://under1000permonth.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Wackadoodle Theories

This is actually not a parody today. This is highlighting some of Emily’s best wackadoodle theories on life. These are not lies but instead are things she’s written on her blog or her comments. These are my favorites in no particular order (but with random bolding for fun)
Doctors are conspiring with the pharmaceutical companies and have a vested interest in diagnosing illnesses.

According to Emily, doctors want you to be sick. They want to pump you full of drugs and are trained to look for illness. Nevermind that doctors actually take an oath to heal, she knows better. She even stated that she has had experiences where doctors have made mistakes and when she says going to the doctor is a matter of life or death she implied that in her experience going to the doctor could result in death. She uses these theories to justify not taking her children to the doctor for yearly physicals.

Brushing your teeth is enough dental care.

How anyone can see poor Dan’s teeth and think that brushing is sufficient is beyond me. It’s very clear that dental care is more than a Cars toothbrush with Dollar Tree toothpaste on it. Some have pointed out that her children may be too young to see the dentist. But even when they grow I doubt that routine visits are in her budget or intentions. Flossing, checking on how children’s teeth are coming in are important. But Emily knows better, as always.

Mattresses cause illness.

Honestly, I had never heard this before it popped up on her blog. So the theory is that mattresses, especially crib mattresses release toxic gas? I have a hard time believing that there’s enough toxic gas coming off of mattresses to put her child in a coma. If that were true don’t you think there would be federal investigations and regulations on mattresses? Did I miss something in the news? Plus, I think having your child sleep on a urine stained mattress under a crib next to a heating vent on a dusty floor in the middle of a Maine winter with no cover, no sheet and barely a blanket might be worse than the miniscule gases that might be released.

Government Nutritional Information

She doesn’t trust FDA nutritional information, the food pyramid specifically. Sure, there’s room for deviation. Not everyone eats according to the pyramid. Depending on your health needs (diabetes, Crohn’s disease, gluten problems) it might not be possible. However, she takes it to the extreme, claiming that food producers sponsor that pyramid so it can’t be trusted. And she uses that to justify feeding her children a high-fat, low-carb diet. Forget heart disease – we need to stay away from the tiny bit of phytic acid in oats!! Fill ‘em up with lard but stay away from corn on the cob.

Tube Meat

This is my favorite bit of insanity. She worries about phytic acid in oats. She worries about the quality of bowel movements from “crap” cookies at RMH. She makes baking powder (or soda) because of GMO but she feeds them tube meat. Rolls of meat. Cylinders of meat. Meat in a plastic casing. Whatever in God’s name she wants to call it. The fact remains that even her staunchest supporters have pointed out the hypocrisy of worrying about a teaspoon of sugar on oatmeal or GMO in baking powder but feeding her children the lowest possible quality of meat. Especially since they do NOT have to eat that much meat. There’s no reason they can’t cut down on meat consumption so they have less meat but a higher quality. She could look into finding game meat, go in on buying half of butchered grassfed beef. She could eliminate a lot of the meat and add beans and rice and other vegetarian options for protein. Instead, she clings to the tube meat like a fat kid clinging to cake. (or Dan clinging to a forbidden Twinkie)

Junk Food

I’m not defending junk food as good food. I’m sure most Americans would be healthier without the Super Sized McDonald’s meals, bags of Cheetos, Cheez Whiz, ice cream, candy bars and the like. But she takes it the extreme, as usual. Dan has to ask for it and she usually hopes he forgets about it. No sense of moderation. Food should be enjoyable. If Dan (or the kids) wants to have a bowl of ice cream, a candy bar or some potato chips once in a while it’s not the end all of nutritional health. On a personal note, I’m on a diet and eating much better than I used to. And yet still sometimes I treat myself to a small bag of Cheetos or some ice cream. Because I enjoy it. Like most things she writes, there’s a lack of joy about food and family.

Emily runs across a random statement in her “research” and runs with it. “GMOs are bad” = no GMOs. “Sugar is bad” = no sugar. Those are easily changed. They require little work on her part. Don’t buy the GMO food and use stevia. Done. But when it requires real research, real work on her part, eg. eliminating tube meat and getting protein through creative vegetarian means – well, that’s not in her PLAN. Which basically means, she doesn’t know how to cook lentil and barley soup, etc. Deviating from her plan would require change, knowledge and skills on her part. Things she doesn’t have. A mattress cover, sheets and real blankets equals more time on the Wonderwash or possibly going to a Laundromat every time Daniel has a nighttime accident.

Emily seems to go through life like a spoiled child with only half the information. A teenager who KNOWS what she’s doing even in the face of adults telling her she doesn’t. The only time she’s taken advice was when she absolutely could not get anyone on her side, i.e. the shelving, the Rubbermaid totes, the bathroom light. If she doesn’t get the validation she seeks she clams up.

I worry about the next crackpot theory she works up: fresh air has pollution so therefore the children should never go outside, no more fruit because fruit flies may have deposited eggs on it, pillows are bad because once a child got smothered under a pillow, shoes are bad because they mold children’s feet, heat is bad because it produces asthma.

I will point and laugh but I’ll also feel so sorry for her children.

Emily's Claim of Cyber Bullying

Well, that is just pure BS. It's not bullying to comment on your Apartment of Horrors. It is not bullying to point out the dangers of a light perched on a towel rod in the bathroom. What if Brad fell off the wall and knocked the light into the shower? It is not bullying to point out the horror of a child sleeping like a dog under a crib with no sheets and greige, pissed soaked blankets that haven't seen soap in months, possibly years.

It is not bullying to wonder why the hell you didn't take your child to the doctor until he fell into a coma. And it is not bullying to point out that you don't feed your family enough food if you have one quarter of a spaghetti squash for dinner with no side dishes and that feeds the whole family with leftovers for Dna.

Emily, it is not bullying to have a few paradies of your whackadoodle life. You even said...

Emily has left a new comment on your post "Emily": Braincells, Great idea! I think anyone who is creative enough to spoof us deserves a kudos. (I may even read it myself.) Just don't take our stuff to do it. Here is my feed link. I don't get any income from this. If you want to let people know who you are spoofing, you can send them here. (:http://under1000permonth.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

And then with the following comment, you even supplied possible parody material. You were practically foaming at the mouth to goad us into posting parodies.

Emily has left a new comment on your post "Send us your Emily/Dan material!": How is it that no body has come up with anything? Dan and I have come up with a bunch of hilarious parody themes, including pitching a tent in the Walmart parking lot to save rent money over the summer, saving money on soap nuts by not allowing the family to wear clothes, strategically moving to a flood zone around flood season and saying we're refugees, vaccines containing Satanic mind control, and is human sacrifice biblical. How utterly lacking in creativity you and your readers must be!

So lay of the sobs of "victim of severe cyber-bullying" That is total bulshit and you know it.

You treat your children like objects, and you do everything you can to take away even their smallest pleasure. If you can find even a tiny article that supports your abuse, you run with it. Now you are even taking away their beds and making them sleep in a pile of piss soaked blankets. You truly make me sick.

Now, I'm not going back to proof read this so if I spelled something wrong, make sure to log out of your Emily Blogger account and leave me an anonymous comment on what word I spelled wrong.

Monday

Hey all. I'm really sick, sorry for not posting yeaterday (didn't realize she had blogged yesterday) and today's post is boring anyway, about sprouting rice. She found some theory that oatmeal blocks digestion of nutrients. Whatever, it's just a way to take away someting else that the kids probably enjoyed. Now she ffed them sprouted rice, with just a bit of cinamon.

Here's the feed link

http://under1000permonth.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Savory Sunday

I’ve decided to offer a bonus for my faithful fans – a double post day! My first Sunday post will be a book review. My second post will be Savory Sunday where I explore classic recipes but put my own frugal twist on them. That way anyone can enjoy fine dining no matter their budget.

When I married my mother gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking. However, once I looked through the book I realized that it would not work with our budget or our dietary plans. It relied a lot on vegetables, spices, lean cuts of meat and those are not in our plan.

However, I did not get rid of the book since we don’t get rid of anything, preferring instead to make piles and piles of crap stacked everywhere and covered with dusty sheets. That how we like it! So yesterday I was looking for a heavy book to use in making more floor pressed cheese and I ran across this volume. I decided that adapting these classic recipes with frugality in mind would be a wonderful way to share my inventive culinary skills with my legions of fans.

Therefore, following will be the original recipe and in parenthesis will be my frugal substitution.

Blue Cheese Spread with Walnuts

8 ounces cream cheese, softened (homemade cream cheese - $0.20)

¼ cup crumbled Blue Cheese (pressed cheese sitting for two weeks in humid bathroom to produce blue veins of mold - $0.35)

2 tbsp port (2 tablespoons of kefir water - $0.02)

1 tbsp chopped walnuts (1 tbsp crushed soap nuts - $0.10)

I mix the cream cheese and the crumbles of my homemade blue cheese and add some kefir water and soap nuts. Voila. A delicious spread for crockpot bread for only $0.67. Dan loved this though he did chip a tooth (again!) on a soap nut piece. Remember to only use used soap nuts as that way you’ve gotten two uses out of them!

Chipped Beef and Gravy

8 ounces sliced dried beef (I take the tube meat, make patties and put in crockpot with 2 cups of salt and leave on high for 2 days. Then they are dry and Christ-like since Jesus loved salt and therefore we eat a lot of it. We only use 2 ounces as that’s all we need to sustain us. Dan gets one ounce, I get ½ an ounce and the boys split the other ½ ounce. Tube Meat Patties - $0.15)

3 tablespoons of butter (we use lard because butter may contain GM foods. I tried to make our own butter but realized that lard is much better for us. We prefer lard. That’s our dietary plan. We use 2 cups of lard for this recipe. $0.30)

3 tbsp minced onion (I have a jar of garlic from when we were married so I just used a teaspoon of that. As long as you spoon out the slimy mold from the top it will be good as new. $0.05)

3 tbsp flour (I used my weevil-enhanced King Arthur flour. I first soak the flour in 2 cups of whey and a teaspoon of kefir water in order to soak the grains so they pass through our colon better. $0.10)

2 cups of milk (since we ran out of milk when I went to make this recipe I used diluted breast milk. Thomas doesn’t like to eat too much anyway and I don’t want to waste anything. Besides, breast milk is free!)

I left the tube meat patties in the crockpot. I added the lard and let it melt down. Then I added the garlic. I omitted the green peppers as I felt they weren’t needed. I let the garlic steep in the lard for ten minutes. Then I added the soaked grain flour and whisked until it was combined with the lard. I let it sit on high for 2 hours. Then I added the breast milk and whisked again until it was thick. It wasn’t as thick as I wanted at first so I added some of my homemade ricotta cheese to thicken up the sauce. Dan wondered what the black flecks were. I told him pepper (even though it’s the Devil’s spice as opposed to the Jesus-approved salt) though they were actually active weevils. For some reason he doesn’t like the crunch of weevils. I’ve told him that they add extra protein for free but he gets obstinate about some things. I usually just lie and hope he doesn’t notice them wiggling in his mouth. Total cost: $0.60. So far this week, this has been my most inexpensive recipe. I think it’s going to be a keeper.

Pita Salad

I was nervous about making this one as it had a lot of different ingredients, but I am a good steward of our resources so I knew I could adapt this to suit our tastes.

1 small cucumber (I used 1 spear of our lacto-fermented pickles. $0.05)

1 teaspoon salt (I used 1 cup of salt in honor of Jesus. $0.15)

½ head romaine lettuce (I used our coffeepot lettuce. 2 leaves were enough for our family. $0.01)

3 medium tomatoes (I used ¼ of a can of crushed tomatoes. $0.10)

6 scallions (I used a handful of chopped Dollar Store frozen onion. $0.10)

2/3 cup parsley (instead, I used some leaves off my spider plant that hangs in the living room. It was a little wilted so I cut it into strips. Free!)

1/3 cup cilantro (since the spider plant worked so well I used some of the grass outside the apartment building. It smelled fresh and clean. It was a little brown because that’s where the neighbor’s dog usually goes but I know it’s been well fertilized. Free!)

2 tbsp chopped mint (I chopped up an Altoid from Mystery Shopping and ground it into a powder. Free!)

I take all the above ingredients and put them in a large jar. I cover with whey and let sit for three weeks. When it bubbles I pour it into the blender and blend until smooth. Then I combine it with a teaspoon of melted lard ($0.02), lemon from one of my almost-empty deodorant lemons ($0.02), a teaspoon of dried and pulverized garlic powder ($0.01), a cup of salt ($0.15) and a few teaspoons of dried weevils (as we don’t keep pepper in the house). Then I toss all of that with:

2 pita pockets, torn in strips (I simply made crockpot bread and let it sit for 3 days until it was hard and crisp. Then I tore it in little bits after I scraped off the green parts. $0.10)

It’s a delicious summer salad and a welcome, fresh treat for the dead of winter. Total cost: $0.71. Since it’s the most expensive dish on the list I only make it twice a year. But it does yield enough for Dan to take to work for lunch and for the boys and I to graze on all day long. Plus, it has a lot of lacto-fermentation which makes me happy.

I look forward to sharing more recipes with you with my really original frugal tips! Next week: Chateaubriand, Charlotte Russe and Waldorf Salad.

No Storage Solutions today

I thought Saturday's were supposed to be storage solution day? I guess after telling us how to store paper in the magazine rack she ran out of ideas, LOL

To those who have asked, we had a great time at the spiritual life retreat . As someone who cooks a lot, I was looking forward to a few days without cooking. Still I found myself in the kitchen helping out the students [and showing them how to do things right~ OMG, I bet the other students were mortified at her cooking and hygeine, can you imagine?] as a way to get to know them a little better. Many of these students I was meeting for the first time, so I really enjoyed my time with them. [Why was she meeting them for the first time? Isn't this Dan's 12th year in Babble College? Don't they go to church together? Me thinks Emily doesn't actually go to church]

The teaching sessions were awesome, but we were only there for the tail end of the retreat, so we didn't get the full message [ Emily, you never get the full message, but you seem to have no problem running with partial information, so...]. Still, we came away invigorated and thankful. [The Quiverful, Snippy Fundy, greatful? Well knock me over with a feather, I never thought I'd see the day]

The kids were a big hit. Everyone wanted to hold Bobby, but he wouldn't let them. Thomas, though, was passed around to everyone [I think they were trying to formulate a plan how to run away with them and feed them, or give them a bath, Poor Booby probably thinks all adults are going to take him and feed him fermented salsa so he got scared]. It reminded Dan and I of our pre-kid life when holding a baby would be the highlight of our day. Now, it is our whole day [in between blogging and feeding Therese], but still a great joy.

Most of all, this was a retreat for us. We were able to put away the stresses [I'd be stressed in that foul apartment too, never going anywhere] of our daily lives for a few days. We didn't think or talk about the blog, work, or even classes. That was refreshing. [Emily, the blog should not be causing you stress, after all, you are doing everything right and everyone else is wrong, what is to stress about? And how is a Walmart janitor job stressful? Or Basement college?]

Mattresses, Mattresses, Mattresses

I think there has been some misunderstanding about the no-mattress idea. [Confusion, what confusion? Emily said Matresses will not be part of their plan]

First, the links I posted of alternatives were not of alternatives I was thinking of getting, but ideas of bedding types I was inspired by [Then you should say that. You should be clear what you want, especially when you are asking for people to do the work for you. But I guess if you are vague, it gives you wiggle room]. Beds that fold up or roll out are neat and worth considering, which is why I used the word "like" when mentioning them.

Second I don't want a conventional mattress for reasons that have been discussed [One article that is not supported by any scientific evidence. But any fruitloop idea if it supports depriving your family is valid right Emily?]. I think the best alternative I am looking at is a nice blanket mattress. This would not be a blanket thrown on the floor, or even folded once or plopped on the floor. This would be three or four blankets folded three or four times, depending on the size and type of bed we end up with. It would also depend on what my kids want for firmness and it may talk a few nights to figure out exactly how that will go. Then, when we've got them the way we like them, I would sew them together in a way similar to how you would sew a quilt to keep the batting in place. They would then be covered and put into place. If people genuinely think this would be uncomfortable, go get a stack of blankets, fold them up and see if it is cozy. [This whole thing just makes me sick. I can smell the stink already of three boys pissing away on a pile of blankets held together with thread. Of course 'mommy' will be too busy blogging to wash any of it. Maybe she will give it a mist of soap nut juice every once in awhile.]

It will take longer for my husband and I to convert our own bed to this, since we simply don't have that many blankets. I imagine we will achieve this by the end of the yard sale season for our bed. [The last thing you need is more blankets to turn greige. You need a bed with a set of clean sheets and a nice warm quilt/comforter. I was going to say a Duvet, but I cannot image you being able to properly care for one. Can you imagine a duvet washed in the wonder wash with soap nut juice and hung up to dry in that fermented hovel? My local thrift store sells bags of blankets for $5. You just go in and ask for a bag of dog blankets.]

After I wrote the post about helping Haiti without money, I received an email about one more way to help. It took me six minutes to donate $1 through Brickfish. All you have to do is go here, make an account and submit a photo. For each photo, they will donate $1. You can then tell others about it so that more money can be donated. Here is the photo I submitted:

It's just a picture of her boys sitting on one of the black blanket draped pieces of furniture in their hovel

Enjoy the day people, I'm off to buy my dog another bed at Costco today. I have better bedding for my dog than she does for her kids and that is pretty sad.

Saturday Advice

So far I've blogged about our bathroom habits (d-mn Clown House crap food), my desire to use a used Dixie Cup from the Walmart bathroom for my monthly flow, my use of lemon as deordorant, giving birth on the crusty sheets and, of course, my unnatural relationship with my crockpot. Today I purpose to discuss something important to each woman: yeast infections.


Yeast infections happen because the Lord has deemed my lady parts too hot to handle and with the kefir fumes, lacto-fermenting salsa coursing through my system, the general humidity in our home from the dripping Wonderwashed clothes and the weird green stuff growing on Brad my life is filled with mold spores. But this is how I planned it!

Doctors will tell you to use Monistat 7 but we believe doctors are in league with Eli Lilly and only want to make money. I have gone to Private Nourishing Organic Traditions to research natural ways to combat an itchy va-jay-jay. Plus, we believe in being frugal and spending $8.00 on a tube of cream is not in our budget.

I was happy to find out that kitty litter can do the trick. It soaks up moisture and is a cheap alternative. Plus, many of them come scented so it's like deordorant. Of course, I want to stay all natural so I planned on using unscented kitty litter. But when I went to the Dollar Store I found out that the price per pound was $2.00, which is outside of my $1.00 per pound rule. Since kitty litter is basically like a sand and gravel mixture. So I took the children to the playground and while I was there I scooped up some sand from the sandbox.

It's very simple to use sand as a yeast infection cure. I simply took a pair of Dan's old tidy whities and sewed a little liner using used floor cheese straining cloth. Yes, I boiled it first in the crockpot. There's no reason to believe I used whey encrusted cloth. Then I filled the little pocket with sand and voila I had something to soak up the moisture and remove it from my body without using chemicals. The best thing was that it was totally free. I used a cup I found in the playground trash to carry my sand.

I think this is a great, frugal way to combat yeast infections. I've also decided to use playground sand to soak up the urine on Daniel's mattress, to make a crunchy coating on crockpot chicken, and to use in my soap nut liquid cleaner as an abrasive.

How do you save money during yeast infections?

FAQ Friday, Part Two

 I get a lot of questions because I’m so wise and intelligent that others seek my counsel on a regular basis. Therefore, this Friday will have a two-part FAQ. Aren’t you lucky?

Why are you so snippy?

I’m not snippy. Anyone who says so is just too unintelligent to understand my writing style. Further, if you don’t like what I have to say or do, keep it to yourself. We have a plan and that plan does not include mattresses, low-fat healthy foods, vegetables, adequate room for our children, birth control, cleanliness or living without stacks of crap everywhere. You’re lucky that I share my life with you in the first place let alone sending me critical comments because I think it’s okay for my three-year old to juggle knives and sleep in a crawlspace under the floorboards.

Do you control Dan?

No, I am a perfect submissive wife and if you ask Dan he better tell you the same thing unless he wants further caloric restrictions on his diet. Dan is the head of the household so he is the one who makes the final decisions. If I don’t agree with something he says I agree to his face but then I hide his shoes and withhold the kefir soda. It works for us. This is how we like our life.

You said that part of the Bible was outdated but you also have said that all of the Bible is unerringly true. Which is it?

If you’re too dense to know which parts of the Bible to follow then I can’t help you. You must not have gone to Ed Smith’s Super Dooper Bible College like I did for my year-long certificate in Loopy Bible Theory or attended an unaccredited Bible College of the Holy Basement like Dan, where they compare the Book of Job with Family Guy. Obviously, you don’t know anything about the Bible and I’m too busy with the crockpot to educate you. Further, if you should start asking me about inaccuracies in the Bible and my beliefs I’ll simply remove myself from the conversation. This topic is closed for discussion.

Why don’t you post any more recipes on your blog?

I have posted all the recipes of all the food we eat. We have a fourteen day meal rotation and never eat anything else. We like eating the same foods over and over and over again. The only reason Dan wakes up crying in the night is because he’s so grateful for the home cooked gloodles and lacto-fermented stevia I feed him. If he asks for something that’s not on our rotation I simply go on with my plan and hope he forgets about salads, fresh green beans, rice (which I don’t like so no one gets to eat it), fresh tomatoes and a bag of Funyuns once in a while. I’ve found that the less he eats the less he remembers to ask for different food so if he gets particularly upset about not ever having a Twinkie then I simply halve his food intake and pretty soon he spends most of his time passed out on the crusty sheets and I don’t have to cook anything but gloodles and crockpot bread.

Why won’t you accept gifts from well meaning people?

It is none of your business if we want to tie our children in plastic bags and hang them from the ceiling to sleep. When I asked for help to redesign the boys’ room I just wanted some adoring fans to simply tell me to stencil cars and trucks on the wall and maybe remove half the dust bunnies (Daniel has named the rest of them so they are staying!). Since it’s our decision to allow our children to wallow in filth and sleep underneath chain saws and play with matches, it is inappropriate for supposedly well meaning people to send mattresses and fresh food to us. If you want to send something to us you must ask first as we don’t appreciate spontaneous generosity. Approved items are: additional crockpot so our present crockpot, Maurice, can have a friend; King Arthur flour with weevils for extra protein; gift certificates for Star Trek dvds; boxes of band-aids for Vulcan ears; notebooks for Dan to write in and I can put in my revolutionary magazine rack; and codes for Swagbucks. Unapproved items include: mattresses; fresh food; junk food so Dan can have a small bit of pleasure in his life; fresh bedding; a new spatula; shoes for the children; in fact, anything for our children at all; or a plane ticket for Dan and the boys to run off to my evil, materialistic mother who will shower them with love and fresh food.

I sent a very nice and respectful comment and it wasn’t posted? Why?

Because it was well-written, well-reasoned and in some miniscule way questioned what I was doing and how it isn’t right to force my children to sleep under the couch or in the kitchen cabinets. If you don’t like everything I do and say or disagree with our plan in the slightest then don’t bother to comment at all. But please click on my blog repeatedly so I can make $4000 a day and hoard all the money so that I can afford my own semi-trailer home and a crate of deodorant lemons.

That’s it for FAQ Friday. I may post on Saturday if I feel like it and if I do you’ll be the luckiest reader in the world and feel free to weep with gratitude if I do. To whet your appetite for my outstanding Saturday posts, which are usually amazing in their originality (eg. magazine rack fun, printer ink information), I will post this Saturday about how to organize your fridge by putting large things on the shelves and small things in the door. Stay tuned!!!



Love,

Emily

Fock You Friday

Emily Answers some very imprtant questions...

Do you follow Bill Gothard's movement? Are you part of ATI or do you strive to be? Will you use their homeschooling program? Do you associate with the quiverfull movement? Have you read the No Longer Quivering blog?

I had to ask Dan who Bill Gothard was[See, I'm submissive, I really am. I could have swagbuck searched, but instead I asked the Head of the Household]. He described Bill Gothard as "the guy who believes that single women in their sixties should still live at home and be under the authority of their father, who is in his nineties." The fact that I had never heard of him means we don't follow his movement.[Actually it means that I haven't been told I follow his movement, or someone hasn't sent me a whacky article that makes absolutely no sense for me to jump on. If someone out there has an article of him saying mattresses are bad, or that lacto fermented food is good, I can change my mind and jump on that bandwagon]

Dan didn't know what "ATI" [Dna thought it eant Away Team Intelligence, snort!] was and neither did I, so I did a swagsearch [If the Head of the Household doesn't know, then it is permissable to swagsearch, but always go to your cousband first ladies] and came up with a bunch of odd technical things until I came across Bill Gothard's homeschooling curriculum site. Although I'm sure it is a fine curriculum, we are not planning on using it.[I'll be making my own curriclum from various fruitloop ideas I find on the internet. It is what is best for our family] I will be writing a separate post about what we will be using for curriculum in the future.[ And I bet it will be a doozy, and published right around a time when the blog is lagging in hits. I'll really rile them up with the half baked ideas I have for curriculum]

I wrote here about our lack of association with the quiverfull movement. [I don't want to be associated with them. Even though a lot of them are fruitloops too, too many of them are materialistic and give their children beds, food and clean clothes. That is not our plan]

I have come across the No Longer Quivering blog, but I don't keep up on it. If I remember correctly, the administrator believes that the Bible does teach families to desire a "full quiver", but that that part of the Bible is out-dated. [What I mean is, it didn't fit in with the plan we have for our family. It doesn't support some of my crazier ideas and it encourages women to escape a life of servitude. They really should just pretend to submissive to the cousbands and then take control of their lives. It can be done, I am doing it]

What do you wear when you swim?

I wear shorts and a t-shirt. I don't wear shorts any other time, since I find them not-so-cute, and I have a t-shirt designated for swimming. [we try not to swim too often though as the chlorine gets our clothes too clean and we feel that cleanliness leads to weakened immune systems. People in 3rd world countries have less illness than we do. No, it's true, I read it on http://www.whackedouttheoriestosuitmyneed.com/ and I'm not changing my mind, cleanliness will not be part of our home!]

On some of the forums that talk about you, people are talking about sending you gifts and things they think you need. What will you do with these things if you receive them?

It will depend on what it is. If it is something that we could use [like Star Trek DVD's or band aid ears] that would add value to our quality of life, we will keep it and use it[ if it's something than can add value to the kids lives, it will be craigslisted ot tossed]. If someone sends us something we don't need or can't use, it will go to charity. To those who are seriously thinking of boxing things up and sending them through the mail, feel free to email me first just to see if it is something we want [because if you even think about sending anything for my boys, I'll throw a snippy fit and tell you how it doesn't fit the plan]

How do you know that your children don't need glasses like you if you aren't taking them for regular check-ups?

First, a child's first eye routine exam is at six months. Both Bobby and Daniel went to their six month check-up and Thomas isn't old enough. The second is at the age of three. Daniel is going for regular check-ups and the other two boys are not old enough for this eye exam. [See how great a mom I am? I know when they need to go to the doctors and you all didn't. How dare you tell me when I am a master swagbuck searcher]

Second, considering the real possibility that what Daniel had was genetic,[Wait, I thought she had determined that it was caused from sleeping on and under the crib mattress? I'm confused again by Emily's contradictions] all the boys are going to doctor's appointments. I don't think routine visits before would have prevented a genetic disorder in Daniel, but I think that if either of the other boys has it, it will be helpful for them to have a solid medical history for doctors to work with [Too bad little Dna hadn;t been to the doctor's for routine visits before he was sick, it might have helped the doc's to have that history. Oh wait, it was the mattress, so it wouldn;t have mattered].

Third, my need for glasses is not genetic. Out of five biological siblings, I am the only one with glasses, but I will be writing about that topic in a separate post. [The story of how I got my glasses is so riveting, it deserves it's own post, but why my kids dont go to the doctor can be said in a snippy two paragraph's. Me, me, me, it's all about me.]

What kind of soap do you use to wash dishes?

I use Dawn foam in a pump. I've tried natural dish washing cleaners, but nothing works like Dawn. [although it doesn't work on my filthy crotchpot, or my pizza cutter, or the grout on my table]We have a lot of fat in our diet [and that is not changing, that is the plan, we like it that way and we always buy full fat tube beef] and thus have some greasy dishes [Whew! I'm glad she stopped at greasy dishes, I was afraid we were about to get another indepth look into their bathroom habits]. Dawn cuts grease. Nothing else comes close [I have sent Dawn the stats for my blog and I am really hoping they will want to advertise here]. I also use it as a laundry pretreater for grease stains I get from cooking and Dan gets from work.