1.

I need your help.  Last year I got a paragraph one of my mommy friends makes her children write when they are naughty.  It was kind of long, an essay on “I will respect my parents” “I will love others as Jesus loves them”, that sort of thing.  But I lost the link and I lost the text.

I need this essay.  It was very effective and better, IMO, than just sentence writing.  Please help!  Was it on your blog?  Do you remember seeing it?  I *think* it was on a Catholic homeschooling mama blog, but I could be entirely mistaken about that.

2.

Did you hear?  Abstinence only education works.  In fact, NO sex education at all worked better than comprehensive safe sex ed, if success is measured by how many kids didn’t have sex.

3.

I actually hired a mother’s helper for a couple of hours.  If it works out, she could be our babysitter, too.  Husband is still working 7 days a week, 12 hour days (8 on Sundays) and I just need to get stuff done sometimes.  It’s really hard to take 8 children to the dentist when only 3 have appointments, for example.

My first project is my bedroom.  Y’all, it is bad.  You may notice I refer to it as a “blackhole of clutter” on my sidebar.  I am embarking on OrgJunkie’s (of Menu Plan Monday fame) 28 day challenge, but in order to enter the contest I have to post before pictures.

I’m not sure I’m that brave.

4.

How did the room get so bad?  It’s the dumping ground.  We have a family closet and all laundry processes through my bedroom.  I got behind when I had to wash every bloomin’ thing in the house and then husband started working crazy hours and never got caught back up.  My room is also where we stash stuff when company comes over, put stuff that we’re not sure what to do with, things that need to be fixed, and there are a couple of pieces of furniture that just don’t have anywhere else to live.

Yes.  I have clutter, seasonal stuff, broken stuff, and random non-functional furniture in my bedroom.  I’m just worried that if I post pics the crew of Hoarders will show up, wanting to make a documentary.

5.

How is it I can keep the kitchen, which processes 30 meals plus snacks a day, clean but not my bedroom?

6.

I liked this contrast of Nobel Peace Prize winners: Mother Teresa vs. Barack Obama

7.

Have you heard about S510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act?  My local CSA grass fed pastured poultry farmers are up in arms over it.  It will expand FEDERAL oversight, authorizing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to shut down any food producing facility.  At first, this looks like a good idea.  Right now, for example, the USDA cannot shut down a factory that is producing ground beef contaminated with e.coli.  However, the legislation is too broad, and it’s not the feds job.  The states should be regulating local food producers.  This is a huge threat to the little guys, the family farms, the people without lobbyists.  The bill is open ended and gives one unelected person too much power over our food supply.

To remind you, our current Secretary of Health and Human Services is Kathleen Sebelius.

Read the summary or the full text.    We need an organic farmer’s protection rider placed in this bill.  You can’t lump the little guy selling eggs off his back porch with Cargill.  This bill will increase fees (to pay for all that oversight) and add burdens to local food producers.

For more Quick Takes, check out Jen at Conversion Diary!