National Education Association Set to Endorse Homose*ual Marriage

The National Education Association is set to endorse homose*ual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6.





The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homose*ual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools.





The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, is found under the B-8 Diversity paragraph:




The Association... believes in the importance of observances, programs and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the roles, contributions, cultures, and history of these diverse groups and individuals.




The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, legal immigration, domestic partnerships, and civil unions and/or marriage belong to all these diverse groups and individuals.



Translated, that means the NEA will promote homose*ual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America.




Take Action


First, please forward this to all parents with children in public schools. They need to be aware of the plans the NEA has to indoctrinate their children with their pro-homose*ual, homose*ual marriage agenda.




Please forward this to public school teachers you know so they can be aware of the NEA's plans. In fact, their membership dues will be used to help implement the new NEA plan.



AFA encourages teachers who do not approve of their dues going to the NEA to find an alternative teacher's group to help them retain their benefits. Teachers might want to give the CEAI home page a look http://www.ceai.org/index.htm or find another alternative in their state.

"Awesome God" Censored by Elementary School

The case of an 8-year-old New Jersey girl who was told she couldn't sing Rich Mullins' "Awesome God" for an after-school talent show has created a platform for attorneys to highlight the rights of students to express a religious viewpoint, The Christian Science Monitor reported.




The second-grader at Frenchtown Elementary wanted to sing the contested song for a talent show. While school officials did not object to the general idea of a religious song, they opposed one specific section:



"There's thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists. (Our God is an awesome God.) And the Lord wasn't joking when He kicked 'em out of Eden. It wasn't for no reason that He shed His blood. His return is very close and so you better be believing that our God is an awesome God."



Joyce Brennan, superintendent for the Frenchtown School District, determined those lyrics to be too graphic and violent.




"The problem came with the words in the song that were not espousing what the child believed," she said, "but rather indicating what other people should be believing."





Maryann Turton, the girl's mother, said schools are erring on the side of being overly cautious to the point of being ridiculous.





"This is tolerance and political correctness gone awry," she said. "This is a much bigger picture than just our daughter in our little town. It is going on everywhere."





Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), agreed.





"It is utterly absurd that we live in an era where parents need to go to federal court," he said, "in order to make sure their daughter can sing 'Awesome God' at her local school talent show."

Get Up Off That Thang!

You know, I've been whining and complaining for SO long about how much extra weight I have to lose and how miserable I am and how I don't have any clothes that fit and how depressed it makes me to just look in the mirror. Sheesh! I'm tired of hearing myself. I can't imagine how my family must feel.



But I had a huge slap-in-the-face when we bought pedometers for each of us in order to do our virtual walk across America with a bunch of other Five In A Row families. I read that to maintain health you need to be getting in at least 10,000 steps a day and if you are trying to lose weight that you need to aim for at least 15,000 per day.



WELL! Let's just say that I sure ain't gonna be losing any pounds with the numbers my pedometer was registering. Darn thing. Surely mine was broken. But, much to my dismay, it was working just fine because on the days that I actually got up and done some work out in the yard with my hubby, I got a whole lotta steps in. Soooo... I got a good look at just how lazy I am. Some days I didn't even reach 5,000 steps! ACK! Now granted, our house isn't very big and I do stay inside most of the time, but come on!



So, I've decided to get up off my fanny and get to movin'. I put it on first thing when I get up in the morning and wear it all day long. Today the kids and I did a Leslie Sansone walking video as well as 20 minutes of Winsor Pilates (well, I did Pilates while my 10 year old daughter complained the whole time... guess what she'll be doing each day with me now?) and even before 10 a.m. I had 5000 steps in! Yay me! Later this afternoon we plan on going outside in the beautiful sunshine and playing and riding bikes!



So, this is to encourage you to make a small investment in a pedometer (ours were only $3.88 at Wal-Mart) but a huge investment in your health and the health of your family. When my kids have their pedometers on they are so much more active, even running in place, just to get the most steps in each day that they can. And getting up off our fanny's and getting active is a good thing for all of us.

Blueberry Bran Breakfast Treats

Blueberry Bran Breakfast Treats
Dig into mini muffins with maxi fruit taste!



Yes, you can still have a muffin for breakfast--a sweet, delicious, real muffin, not an over-sugared cake in disguise. These mini treats pack in the flavor of fresh blueberries and are loaded with fiber, which adds up to satisfying start to the day.




Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups unprocessed wheat bran or oat bran


1 cup whole wheat flour


2 tablespoons ground flaxseed


1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda


1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


1/8 teaspoon salt


3/4 cup 1-percent milk or unflavored soymilk


1/3 cup honey


1 ripe medium banana, mashed with a fork


1 large egg


2 tablespoons olive oil


1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


1 cup fresh blueberries or other berries




Prep Tip: Color, not size, tells you which blueberries are the ripest. Look for berries that are deep purple to blue-black.




Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly coat 24 nonstick miniature muffin cups with cooking oil spray.




In a medium bowl, combine bran, flour, flaxseed, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. In another medium bowl or in a blender, combine the milk, honey, banana, egg, olive oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.




Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then pour in one-third of the liquid mixture. Stir until smooth. Add remaining liquid mixture and stir just until combined. Add blueberries and stir again, but do not over mix.




Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter into each muffin cup. Bake about 8 minutes, or until the tops spring back when pressed gently. Do not overbake. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the cups.




Yield: 24 miniature muffins




Serving Tip: Spread the warm halves of each muffin with a little mashed, ripe banana instead of butter.




Nutritional Values: Fat: 2 g, Carbohydrates: 11 g, Protein: 2 g, Calories: 63 kcal


Recipe courtesy of The Biggest Loser Club

Planning A More Healthy Menu

As I told you before, I am on a quest to find a more healthy way to feed my family. But what exactly IS 'healthy'?



I've been watching a new show on TLC called 'Honey We're Killing The Kids' and it has been a real wake up call for me. Since I was already on this path to finding a more healthy way of eating, seeing this show really gave me the kick I needed to move forward. On this show, they take the family's children and do an age progression of them based on continuing to eat the way the are eating right now. Talk about a scary sight! Then, after 3 weeks of intense changes, they do another age progression based on if they continue living this new healthy lifestyle. The difference is AMAZING! Their skin and hair are so pretty. Their weight is normal. Their teeth are such a beautiful pearly white!



But the route they make these families take is an extreme one. They have to throw out ALL canned or boxed processed food and EVERYTHING with sugar in it. That wouldn't go around here, I can just tell you that. I want my man to be healthy, but I also want him to come home every night! LOL! And besides, what are the chances that these families are really going to stick with this drastic change over the long-run?



So again, I'm back to my original question. What exactly IS 'healthy'? Well, there are some things I know it is NOT, despite what we we're told. Low-fat and fat-free foods scare me now. What exactly do they DO to these foods to make them low-or-no fat but still taste good? Hmmm... makes you wonder, huh? Added artificial colors and flavoring? I don't think so. Just WHERE do those 'added' things come from?



So, in looking over all the different thoughts on the subject and considering the particular needs and temperments of my family, I have decided to just simply do the very best I can and leave the rest up to the Lord. What a concept, huh?



I have been very intrigued by the Feingold program for several years and have obtained one of their 2003 food guides to look over. The quick, basic explanation of foods that are 'Feingold approved' is that they are free of added 'junk'. For example, instead of buying Wal-Mart orange juice we will be drinking Tropicana Pure Premium O.J. and for snacks we will be munching on Cracker Jacks, Stauffer's animal crackers, or Del Monte fruit cups, along with a whole list of other 'healthier' snacks that are free of added flavors and colors. Obviously there's a lot more to Feingold than just this, and I HIGHLY recommend you at least look over the website no matter if you are attempting to feed your family healthier or not. It's important information for EVERYONE. But I am simply going to use the Feingold program as a guide for how I shop and cook from now on.



I will be buying organic as much as I possibly can, and for those things that aren't available organically, I will go by the Feingold foodlist to choose those items that are free of added colors and flavoring. This will allow me to still provide a much healthier menu for my family while not being too overwhelming of a change.



For you see, as a homeschooling mother of 4 children, I don't have the time to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen preparing every single thing we eat from scratch. Sometimes we have to head out quickly and I need to grab some snacks to take for the kids. I don't have time to stop and toast pumpkin seeds or bake homemade oatmeal raisin cookies or any number of other totally-made-from-scratch healthy snacks.



So, as for me and my house, we will eat organic/Feingold style.



Here is a helpful website to help you plan some healthier meals...



*Discovery Health/Food Fit.com



And from this site you can download this free unit study (Know Your Gene- they offer a new free one each week, I think) and you will be given a $5.00 credit. With my $5.00 I purchased this All Natural Cook Book, which has a lot of helpful tips and advice, along with lots of recipes!



So, here's to a whole new path on the journey of life! May it be a healthy and happy one!