The Atheist Mama

I’m just about done moving things around. All comments and posts are intact. I’m sure there will be a few wrinkles, but I’ll have to iron those out as I find them. It was a very, very easy move, surprisingly.

Anyway, thanks for coming by and thanks for all of the support!!

If you have me blogrolled, please remember to update your link. I’d appreciate it.

:-)

So I’m finally moving this blog to it’s own domain name. It’s about time that I get out of my boy’s site (that’s what the JesseandJeremy.com is all about if you didn’t know). So I will be moving this blog on over to it’s new home within the next few days. I’ve also changed the name from “I’m the Mama” to “The Atheist Mama.” :-)

So get ready to update links!

Take the quiz.

I only scored a 13. Apparently I have work to do.

Thanks to God is for Suckers for the tip!

Kids have been sick, and I’ve been busy.
I’ve learned a bit about my school district and the elementary school my children are to attend. I have a fight on my hands, or we have to move. :-(

Anyway, I’ll be back in full soon (probably after the State of the Union tonight).

My father left for Iraq yesterday (Jan 21) morning. He has been retired from the military for about 10 years now.
He’ll be there for 6 months. It’s really strange. He’s 49. He’s had (and beaten) throat cancer. He’s a very intelligent guy. I just can’t believe that they are sending him to Iraq.

Here’s a picture of my father and my son from Dec. 24, 2005.

My brother spent a year in Iraq. He came home about 4 months ago. He was actually in combat. We’re hoping that he doesn’t go back, but there’s a chance that he will. He’s newly married (he and his wife actually got married when he was home from Iraq on leave).

Here’s a picture of my brother (he’s 24), his wife and my boys from Dec. 24, 2005.

Anyway, just sharing. It was easier on me for my brother to be in Iraq than my father. I mean, my brother is young and healthy and gung ho. My father, well, it’s not that he’s old. He’s in great shape and in great health (now, after the cancer) but he’s almost 50! 50 year olds don’t belong in war. Not that I think that anyone does, but there’s a difference between a 50 year old and a 23 year old, know what I mean?

Tags:
war, Iraq, Military, Politics, Bush

Last night I went to a book club meeting at a local library held by The Humanist Community of Central Ohio. It was really great to get out and have some adult interaction.
While I’m not really reading a book, I did mention Bad Astronomy.
I got to hear reviews on The End of Faith by Sam Harris, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker, The Collapsing Universe by Isaac Asimov, and Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, just to name a few (that I can remember). Amazing… Where these guys find the time to read!!
Anyway, it was a good time with great people, and I decided to join today.

Strength in numbers people!! :-)

I’ve just finished (I think) a long overdue redesign. Please let me know if something looks off to you. I’m using Ubuntu and Firefox, and I’m checking things on a Windows machine on IE, and all seems well. But let me know if something is not right.
Thanks!!

Today marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin.
- Thanks to AU’s blog for the tip!

From FFRF’s Freethought of the Day -

“On this date in 1706, Benjamin Franklin was born. The Boston-born printer, publisher, inventor, author, aphorist and statesman quit the Presbyterian Church in 1734, according to his Autobiography. Franklin was a Deist in the mode of the Enlightenment, retaining only a belief in a god and future life. After the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had been underway for a month, the octogenarian Franklin suggested that the so-far secular convention conduct a prayer. Records show that Franklin’s proposal created polite embarrassment, and that the convention adjourned without any vote on the motion. Franklin was part of a distinguished committee, including Adams and Jefferson, which adopted the United States’ secular motto, “E Pluribus Unum” (From many, [come] one). At one point, the pragmatic Franklin suggested currency contain the phrase “Mind your business.” D. 1790.”

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.â€Â?
– Benjamin Franklin, Works, Vol. XIII, p. 506

My first son Jesse was named after Benjamin Franklin. We named him Jesse Franklin Cox.
My husband is a direct descendant of Ben. His grandmother’s maiden name is actually Franklin. She has all of the family history documented. I will soon be the proud owner of the documentation. I can’t wait… I’d really like to get some sort of a family tree together. They are also related to Ceasar Rodney so it should be an interesting project when I have the honor of taking it on.

Happy Birthday Mr. Franklin!!

Thanks to We The People, I came across the Ohio State Constitution.

Preamble -

We, the people of the State of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare, do establish this Constitution.

Interesting, huh?

Finished it. Finally. It’s amazing… The number of commas, the amount of capitalized words, the wording of some of these sentences. Wow.

Well, my brain is FRIED for the evening. Guinness #2 isn’t helping, but it tastes damn good.

I met my goal for the night. Wooo Hooo!!

Well, like I posted in the comments of the original post on this subject, the editor of the Dispatch called me this past Friday (13th) to verify my letter. Hopefully we’ll see it in the paper this week!

Still pretty busy, but I think that I have finally gotten my groove back. For some reason, I’ve been pretty down lately, but I think that I’m finally snapping back to it. I’m pretty done with Winter and we are so ready for Spring. I can not wait to get out into my yard and garden.

I’ve been looking into joining the local Humanist group. It has been recommended to me by quite a few people now. I missed their “open to the public” meeting a few days ago, so I’ll have to wait until the next one. I figure it would make sense to attend a meeting before paying the dues. But it really looks like a great group.

I haven’t spent much time studying… I need to “schedule” myself some study time. I think that I will do that tonight. After the boys are in bed (7:30ish) I will grab a Guinness, sit down and work on the rest of Article I, Section 8, Section 9 and Section 10. That will finish up Article I so that I can move on to Article II.
So, my goal for tonight is to finish up Article I. Maybe I’ll get started early. We’ll see how the kids are this afternoon.

I never really got to make any “New Year” posts since I was out of town. So I thought I’d share my “resolution” with you all.

My goal for this year is education.

Like I said 2 posts ago, I’m reading, and understanding the U.S. Constitution. It’s not an easy task for me. I sit with a copy of the constitution, a copy of the amendments, a notebook, a pen, and a dictionary. I also have to run some things by my husband to make sure that I’m understanding it correctly.

I have other things on my list of things to educate myself on, but I’m starting small. It’s not easy to do any of this with the kids around, so I mainly only work on this at night. It’ll take a while, but that’s ok. I have plenty of time.

Anyway, I have to go. I have a beer to finish, a little to read, and Lost to watch.

On Monday night, my oldest son started throwing up. My husband started at 3 am, and I started at 7 am on Tuesday morning. Ugh… something in that chili we made was NOT good.
We were all better in time for Solstice though, and had a great day hanging out. The boys got a fish tank from us for Solstice. We’ll be going to get the fish tonight.
Today I am SUPER busy getting myself and the boys ready for a trip to Northern VA to visit my folks. We’ll be going up to Northern NJ for New Year’s Eve, and my husband will be meeting us there. New Year’s Eve is our 4th anniversary!

Anyway, I probably won’t be blogging again until after the 1st of the year.

Oh!! BTW, my letter was published, right underneath someone who certainly disagrees and suggests that if you don’t like “merry Christmas” then just “shut up.” Nice…

Have a great new years everyone!!

Egg Nog fact #134 -
The canned eggnog from Borden® will actually keep in the can for 18 months without refrigeration!

Mincemeat Spice Cake with EggNog Topping

1 (18 1/4-ounce) package spice cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (9-ounce) package NONE SUCH® Condensed Mincemeat, finely crumbled
1/2 cup canned BORDEN®® Premium EggNog
1 (1.3-ounce) envelope whipped topping mix

Preheat oven to 350°. In large mixer bowl, combine cake mix, water, vegetable oil and eggs; mix well. Beat on high speed 2 minutes. Stir in NONE SUCH. Pour into well-greased and floured 10-inch fluted or tube pan. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely. In small mixer bowl, combine BORDEN Premium EggNog and whipped topping mix; mix well. Beat on high speed 4 minutes or until mixture forms soft peaks. Serve topping over cake slices. Refrigerate leftover topping.

I’ve been thinking more and more about my previous post.

“Jesus, could you let the ringing in our ears from the Fourth of July fireworks stop before assulting our senses with Christmas music and decorations.”

Ok, this guy was asking for it. Am I offended? Hell no. Are others? Absolutely, and I guess I can’t blame them.

So I guess my point is that I don’t have a problem with what he wrote, but I can see why others would.

When I sell this house, would that letter that she wrote be a reason to not give her my business? I mean, she never mentioned God or Jesus or anything like that when we were working with her. So I respect that.
In her letter, she did refer to “our God” and “my Lord”, not “the” God or “the” Lord, so she’s not pushing her beliefs onto others. She was just stating that she was offended.

Hmmmm… Food for thought…

HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM
EST FRIDAY
TOTAL ACCUMULATION OF 3 TO 5 INCHES.

Hopefully we won’t get over an inch.

Last year we had quite a storm but it was ice. We ended up with no power for 4 days and were stuck in a hotel room. It was miserable with a 2 year old and a 3 month old. When we got back to the house, it was 38* inside. It took about 24 hours to warm back up to 70*.
It was crazy… The night the power went out I was sleeping (it was about 3 am) and I heard a very loud pop and there was a bright light. We didn’t realize that a transformer behind the house had blown up until later.

Here’s a picture from December 26, 2004 -

Let’s hope there’s no ice this year!!

I’ll have to call Robert and tell him to bring home beer.

Tags:
columbusblogger, columbus

Limbo
1 theological intermediary (used)

“Constructed in the 13th century as a solution to the theological conundrum of what happened to babies who died before they were christened, Limbo has been home from home to millions of top quality souls. Liberation of Limbo by one P. Benedict (IVI) has brought this top quality theological space to the open market.”

My son is going to be having a 24 hour EEG done and we’ll be going to Children’s Hospital in the morning.
Soooo… until then!!

:-)

No, not to Firefox. I did that a while ago.
I switched from Windows XP to Ubuntu.
It’s not so bad!! I actually really like being out of Microsoft land. It’s something to get used to, that’s for sure. But the messenger software (Gaim) is very cool. The email software (Thunderbird) is very much like Outlook Express.
There are lots of different, cool little features. So, I’m impressed and I think that I can say goodbye to Windows now.

My husband has been trying to convince me to switch for a while now, but I had no interest. Finally, I decided to give it a try.

I can certainly say that I recommend it to the average computer user out there.

Tags:
ubuntu, Linux, Windows, Microsoft

Have you ever listened to these guys??
They’re great! They’re based out of Cleveland (for now - they’re moving to Chicago at the beginning of next year). They’re on 107.1 in Columbus. They’re also on in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Rochester, Memphis, Cincinnati, Madison, and St. Louis.

Anyway, I get a real kick out of them every morning. If you are in these areas, listen sometime!

Tags:
columbusblogger, radio