Single! Young Christian Woman Nov 2011

single!

A PUBLICAT I O N O F O N M Y OW N N OW M I N I ST R I ES

NOVEMBER / 11

Young Christian Woman

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FRENCH BREAD

Toppers

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Shopping Scene Investigation Equip your PC

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Don’t Show Up Empty-Handed!

NOVEMBER2011

single!

Young Christian Woman

4.

STRAIGHT TALK

Don’t Show Up Empty-Handed

By Donna Lee Schillinger FASHION DIVINA

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9 Ways You Could Unwittingly Hinder Your Christian Brother’s Walk

By Tamara Jane

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SPARE CHANGE

Shopping Scene Investigation

By Julie Ann

CENTER RING

10. Let Me Entertain You (NOT!)

By Donna Lee Schillinger

A publication of ON MY OWN NOW MINISTRIES

www.onmyownnow. com

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Donna Lee Schillinger

ART DIRECTION Daniela Bermúdez

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REBA RAY’S DOWN HOME HEALTHY COOKIN’

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THE RECAP

18.

THE RECAP

10 French Bread Toppers

By Reba Ray

Equip Your PC for Free

By Jeffrey Bridgman

One Thousand Gifts: Just as Many Complaints

By Donna Lee Schillinger

GOOD READS AVAILABLE AT WWW.ONMYOWNNOW.COM + 50% of the sale price goes to support On My Own Now Ministries, publisher of this ezine.

Walking Man: A Modern Missions Experience in Latin America By Narciso Zamora Winner of the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Award, this odyssey of a Peruvian delinquent’s winding and treacherous path toward finding his calling in missions recounts a literal journey of 10,000 miles.

978-0-9791639-0-6 Softcover 208 pp. On sale $11 at OnMyOwnNow.com Abridged audiobook in MP3 format and CD .Kindle edition available.

Also in Spanish: Caminante con Dios…en apuro mas no desesperados: El Trabajo Misionero en América Latina Por Narciso Zamora 978-0-9791639-1-3 Softcover 186 pp. On sale $1 1 at OnMyOwnNow.com

White Collar Skid Row by Melissa Ann Bell Melissa thought her faith was strong, but when she fell in love with and married a charming doctor, in rehab for alcoholism, she quickly became his enabler and their relationship challenged all she believed about herself and her faith. White Collar Skid Row is a wake-up call for any woman who thinks she might be impervious to falling for the wrong man. Paperback 302pp. On sale $11

On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debt-free and Regret-free By Donna Lee Schillinger This compact collection of quirky vignettes, based on gender-reversed Proverbs, is great for daily devotions, affirmations, confessions, benedictions and many other religious “tions,” all with the goal of keeping you on the yellow brick road. After all, you’re not in Kansas anymore – you’re on your own now.

978-0-9791639-5-1 Softcover, 288 pp. © 2008 On sale $11 at OnMyOwnNow.com; Abridged Audiobook (MP3 download) On sale $11; Kindle edition available.

Also in Spanish: Por Mi Cuenta Ahora: Una Conversación Directa de los Proverbios para Mujeres Jóvenes Cristianas que Quieren Permanecer Puras, Libres de Deudas y Arrepentimientos Por Donna Lee Schillinger. Free e-book at www.VivaLaPureza.info Purity’s Big Payoff/Premarital Sex is a Big Rip-off is a collection of 17 first-person narratives about successfully waiting for marriage to have sex – or not – and the consequences of those decisions.

978-0-9791639-8-2, Softcover, 116 pp. On sale $11 at OnMyOwnNow.com Also in Spanish! La Gran Recompensa de la Pureza/La Gran Estafa del Sexo Prematrimonial. Free e-book at www.VivaLaPureza.info

In the Care of Angels: God’s Work Through Adoption (both Physical and Spiritual)

By Dorothy Grace Manning Kennedy A tender story of a selfless act that addresses critical issues for those considering adoption. Softcover, 86pp.

On sale $11

FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS PLACED AT WWW.ONMYOWNNOW.COM

STRAIGHT TALK

by Donna Lee Schillinger

DON’T SHOW UP

emptyhanded A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers her into the presence of the great.

PROVERBS 18:16

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his is no Christmas story; it’s a practical application for all year round. Gift-giving upon first meeting is a distinguishing mark of courtesy – a great idea anytime you want to be distinguished as a courteous person!

My first day of college, I arrived to find a jar layered with colorful candy waiting for me on my desk in my dorm room. It was from my new “roomie.” More than 20 years later, we’re still best friends.

There are a lot of first meetings where we can improve our impression with a gift. How about the first time you meet a friend’s parents or your boyfriend’s parents? Or when you go for your college interview – why not bring a famous hometown trinket for the interviewer? First day on the job? You’ll impress your boss like no other employee ever has with a homebaked pie or some cookies. (Just pray she’s not diabetic.)

Once, I received an invitation for a graduation party for a lady from my church. She was a nontraditional student in her early 50s. I didn’t know her that well but I wanted to honor her effort with a gift. I decided to give her a little tea basket of my own composition.

Finding honey, tea and some biscuits was easy but for the cup and saucer, I wanted something antique and very pretty. For being as busy a person as I am, I spent way too much time looking for that cup and saucer. I went into every second-hand store in town and concluded I must have been on the heals of an antique dealer who was buying up just what I needed right before I arrived. No store had anything suitable.

Finally, I went to an antique flea market and found about 50 beautiful sets in all price ranges. I spent half an hour trying to find the one that was the right combination of elegance and cost.

All this time over the several days of my teacup search, I kept thinking about the lady I was going to give it to. I didn’t know much about her, so my thoughts weren’t too varied or profound; I just held an image of her in my head and thought of some of the things I’d heard her say. It was interesting to me to be thinking so much about this person I hardly knew. By the time I finished wrapping the gift and delivering it, I found myself warmed up to that woman and wanting to get to know her. And I really wanted to know if she liked my gift.

Less than three months later, I was sitting in her house having dinner – something that might never have happened without that gift-giving opportunity. I saw on the wall behind her stove a collection of about 25 boxes of tea and I spotted the one I had given her. She is a tea fanatic! I had no idea.

I know, this advice sounds so

quaint it’s almost retro to the 1950s, but look who’s giving the advice – a king! The greatest king in all Jewish history (except for Christ himself) is saying, “You want to get in to see me? Don’t show up emptyhanded!”

Do you think Solomon was so easily won over? Was he a real sucker for getting gifts? Probably not. The magic in a gift is that it creates in the receiver a sense of obligation to, at very least, say “thank you” in person, particularly if the giver is waiting just outside for such an opportunity. And in the giver, it builds affection for the person you are giving to as you take the time to contemplate what that person would like.

Even if you’re not trying to get an audience with an important person, learn to give gifts. Maybe you think, “I can barely pay my bills, how am I supposed to be a gift-giver?”

Well, here’s where I have to confess to being a real cheapskate. When I find an interesting gift item for a good price, I may buy two or three of them. I have a plastic storage container in the top of the closet in our guest bedroom that has a collection of gifts that are ready to give should I need one in a pinch. When I shop garage sales and second-hand stores, I hone in on items that still have the price tag on them. More than one person has received a gift from me that looks brand new but cost me less than a dollar at a garage sale.

As an aside – if you don’t shop garage sales and second-hand stores, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt, but it’s fun and saves lots of money. I paid $20 for the antique desk I’m sitting at right now. One summer, my daughter found two pairs of Nike Airs in excellent condition for just a couple of dollars.

When giving gifts, it really is the thought that counts, and shopping for a gift for someone, or just creating a beautifully wrapped gift from those you picked out of the top of the guestroom closet, causes you to spend time in selfless thought about another person, and that is time well spent. By the way, I believe that time spent in selfless thought is what distinguishes a gift from a bribe. To give the right gift, you have to put another person’s interests above yours. When finding just the right bribe, you’re thinking foremost of what will work best to your advantage.

Whether you’re trying to get in to see a busy person, make a good impression on a first meeting, or responding to an invitation you’ve received, form the distinguishing good habit of giving gifts. It seems to be of another generation, age and time, but in fact, it is timeless yet rare. And rare stands out!

Hold this thought:

I won’t show up empty-handed

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FA SHION DIVINA

by Tamara Jane

9 WAYS YOU COULD UNWITTINGLY HINDER YOUR CHRISTIAN BROTHER’S WALK

D

oes it disgust you when you’re trying to have a conversation with a guy and he won’t look you in the face… because he’s too busy looking you over? I think that every young woman struggles with this, regardless of how modestly we dress. I recently asked some guys I know if there are some things that cause their eyes to wander and imaginations to ignite more than others. I have formed their responses into a list of nine things women wear that are especially tempting to men.

Billboard shorts. The very idea here

is to draw attention to the butt, and it works. Even women are checking out your butt if you have something printed on it. It’s the same concept of highway billboards, and as they assure us, “advertising works.”

Side Satchel Purses. For real? A

purse? I love those little purses with the long straps that fit comfortably over the shoulder freeing my hands. So it was a little upsetting to learn that when I

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am wearing my purse across the body, and the strap cuts right down the middle and separates my breasts, defining them more, some guy is filling in the details in his mind. Further, when we walk, those cute sidesatchel bags often get shoved to the back; once again, this is very convenient for the wearer, but it lands on our bottoms. And so it bounces along, as we do, with each step and, once again, calls guys’ attentions. Even the best-intentioned person can’t help but notice a bouncing object.

Words across the Chest. This

style shirt is so ubiquitous that one would think guys would be desensitized to it. Some of the messages are quite innocent, if not even laudable. But here’s what happens: You’re walking into Walmart with a shirt that says, “Peru Mission Trip 2011” and people can’t help but try to read it. As you move, so do the words. And so after a guy finishes reading the shirt, his attention lingers to the platform behind the words.

They’re looking at our chests again! Grrr.

V-necks Shirts.

It’s another optical trick. The eye wants to follow the two sides to its point. And sometimes the point of the V is a jumping off place for the male imagination.

Tight Shirts.

Same concept, broader category. I hope by now you’re getting the point that men are easily distracted and thrown off track by visual stimuli. Shirts that accentuate every curve we have been blessed with are basically an embossed invitation to the active male imagination.

High Kick Pleats. It’s the V-neck con-

cept in reverse. Again, the eye wants to follow the sides to the point. And in many cases, with today’s ridiculously high pleats, it’s not a huge mental leap for a guy to go from the end of the pleat to seeing you in your skivvies.

Exposed Bra Straps.

This “fashion” trend was made really popular in the mid 80s by Madonna. That should be our first clue that it’s completely godless. It’s odd how one popular person can come along and turn something that was previously iconic for white trash into something chic. I think we had it right before Madonna.

Tube Shirts or Halters.

that Expose Tan Lines (or lack thereof). OK, you’ve just had a tan sprayed on and you want to show it off. So out comes the tube top. To a guy, you might just as well havewalked out of the shower, and all that that implies. Or, you’re proud of your hard-earned tan and you want to show the world how far you’ve come by showing off those tan lines. Maybe the girls will be impressed, but the guys will not think a thing of your color, and will start to imagine what you might look like in a bikini, or worse. What other tan lines might you be hiding? Accessories. There are actually a lot of ways bling-bling can lead the male mind astray. I’ll

just list a few: Bright reds, on lips and nails, big earrings, and facial piercings, all fairly or unfairly still call to mind a woman of less than stellar morals. Be especially wary of these things on first dates, when a guy is apt to take any little thing as a sign you want sex. Necklaces that rest on the chest (we’ve covered the why of this already), and jeans with heavily decorated pockets, as well as shirts with decorated breast pockets.

I suspect readers will have one of two reactions to this: Mouth wide open in disbelief (and a little disgust for men) or eyes rolling, thinking this a ridiculous list. And it does seem rather ridiculous that in this day and age women should have to restrict the liberties so hard won to what? Prevent some pervert from falling to lust? Men are men (from Mars, if you didn’t get the memo). They are, as God wired them to be, a lot more physical and visual, than women are.

So what’s a woman to do about that? Well, this wellaccepted fact has led some extremists to cover everything but their eyes while in public. Do you think that solves the problem? Do men in Iran not lust?

Probably they do. So why do we even try? Why not give up on modesty all together?

Let’s look at it from another perspective. Instead of saying, “I have to dress modestly so my brother doesn’t stumble,” (oh, that it were as easy as that!), say instead, “I want to make life a tad easier for my brothers in Christ by dressing in a way that doesn’t make it easier for them to stumble.” Romans 14:13b says,

“Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”

In our clothing choices, we can be a help or a hindrance to our brothers. I know, it’s no fun to have to consider other people over your own tastes and desires, but if you’re a disciple of Christ, that’s just the kind of life you’re called to, and not just in one area, but in every aspect of life. As Paul said, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1). The great thing about fashion in the 21st century is that there our choices so vast that we can comply with Scriptural mandates not to be a stumbling block in how we dress, while still finding tons of outfits that work for us. Dress as unto the Lord.

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SPARE CHANGE

by Julie Ann

SSI:

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S H O P P I N G S C E N E I N V E S T I G AT I O N

H

ave you ever watched a crime drama on television and observed how the detectives find numerous subtle little clues which no one else would even notice? By carefully studying the scene of the crime, these detectives analyze the minutest pieces of evidence to determine “whodunit.”

Recently, I’ve taken up some “crime scene investigation” of sorts in order to help me analyze where my money is going and how I can save more. I call this “Receipt CSI.” Any time you buy groceries, eat dinner in a restaurant, or spend your entire paycheck on new fall boots, the cashier will hand you a receipt. If you are smart, you won’t use the receipt to wad up your chewing gum before throwing it into the trash, but you’ll keep your receipt (after all, that new dress might not look as good at home as it did in the dressing room) and take a few minutes to analyze it. Here is the best way you can engage in some receipt CSI.

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1.Investigate Immediately: A few weeks ago, I bought a new top from a department store. When I got home, I looked over my receipt and realized the cashier had charged me twice. I was able to return to the store the next day and they removed one of the charges. If I had waited to check my receipt, it may have been a bigger hassle to remedy the situation; if I had not checked it at all, I would have paid for the item twice. Obviously, I should have been paying better attention at check out, but if you find yourself distracted like me, be sure to give your receipt a quick overview before leaving the parking lot.

2. Organize the Evidence:

The wisest thing to do with your receipts is to keep them in a centralized location. The best method is a folder organized by month. When you come home after making some purchases, simply drop your receipts into the current month. If you are not a hyper-organized person, don’t feel too bad about dumping your receipts into an old shoebox – it will still work. It will just be more work to sort through them later. You should review your receipts for budget purposes on a monthly basis and then sort through them every few months to determine if they are still needed.

3. Submitting the Evidence:

At the end of the month (or whenever you go over your budget), you should pull out the receipts from the evidence pile and begin adding up the damage.

You should always have your budget defined so that you can easily add up your restaurant receipts and calculate the total expenditures into the dining out budget, your clothing receipts into the fashion category, the oil change receipt into your car maintenance tally, etc. After doing this for several months, you can see where your money is going and then adjust your budget accordingly. Are you always going over your coffee budget (those gourmet coffees add up fast) but under on your clothing budget? Then recalculate your spending plan since you now have a better handle on your spending habits. Spending too much on dining out? Then make a plan to go out less or spend less in another (nonessential) area.

4. The Details:

One of my favorite parts of “Receipt CSI” is finding the little hidden clues about my spending habits. For example, most stores will include a savings total at the bottom of the receipt. In examining my last three grocery store receipts, I’ve saved $6.12 by using manufacturer and store coupons and my store rewards card. I also like to see the five cent per bag discount I receive at most stores by using reusable cloth grocery bags. It becomes a game to me to see how high I can get the dollar amount on the “savings” line. Many stores will also break down the type of product you purchased in a single trip such as grocery, health and beauty, or clothing items. This is very helpful in breaking down spending habits. If you are really serious, you can also use receipt time stamps to determine if you spend more on groceries at 1 p.m. (perhaps when you are full from lunch) verses 5 p.m. (when you are starving for dinner and buy more). Yes, a simple little receipt will provide a wealth of helpful clues to your spending habits if you will just take the time to investigate.

5. Discarding the Evidence: Once you no longer have practical use for the receipt and have analyzed it in accordance with your budget, you may be wondering how long you should keep it.

The receipt for an item that has already been paid for and consumed (i.e. the frozen yogurt you paid for with cash) can probably be tossed as soon as you’ve reconciled it with your budget. If you’ve charged something on a credit card, it would be wise to keep the receipt for a few months after purchase to make sure there are no issues with the credit card company. For big ticket purchases (i.e. electronics, furniture, jewelry), you should keep the receipt for the life of the product in case you need it for warranty or insurance purposes. I would suggest creating a special file folder specifically for long-term receipt storage.

The clues to our spending habits surround us everywhere. You may not pay much attention to the humble little receipt; but as you can see, it just might be one of the biggest tools to help you stay on budget and bring in the savings.

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CENTER RING

by Donna Lee Schillinger

LET ME

entertain you (NOT!)

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W

hat are you living for? Don’t answer that. Instead, take this short assessment and then let’s talk.

Part A. In the blank before each statement, write in the number of hours in the average week (including your weekend or days off) you do the following activities: ___ Watch television (including news) and movies ___ Read fiction, magazines or the newspaper ___ Surf the Internet for leisure/social reasons or for non-essential shopping (clothes, accessories, electronics, etc.) ___ Play sports or work out ___ Hang out with friends, including going out to eat with them or talking on the phone with them ___ Work on hobbies or pursue activities like dance or theater ___ Play video games or other games ___ Just chill (take a drive, sit on the porch, sunbathe) ___ Listen to the radio (exclusively or while you drive, but not while you do other activities) ___ Sleep (outside of your normal sleeping hours) ___ Hair, nails or other spa appointments

Part B. Now fill in the blanks before the statements with the number of hours each week you do these activities.

___ Read non-fiction or study the Bible ___ Attend church activities or meet with someone for the purpose of counseling (giving or receiving) ___ Pray, meditate or journal ___ Work on an income-generating or money-saving hobby or interest (not your job) ___ Study (for a class or test or to learn a skill or language on your own) or helping someone else study ___ Work in charitable activities (planning or implementing fund raisers, helping others, volun teering at an organization, etc.) ___ Playing an instrument ___ Write (letters, short stories, poems, etc.) ___ Cleaning house

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A

dd your hours from Part A and Part B of the above, and compare the scores. I suspect that a good many completing this brief assessment clocked many more hours in Part A activities than they did in Part B activities. Some exceptions might be serious students taking challenging courses or… people like me, whose families think they are odd birds for not kicking back more.

I used to be a queen of leisure. When I was in high school, I spent as much time as I could in Part A activities and almost none in Part B activities. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (I Cor. 13:11).

“Live to work,” goes the saying, but in fact, many of us are simply working to afford to live and what we actually live for is what we do outside of the J-O-B. In fact, the trend of the last few decades has been to hold on to child-like ways all the way to the golden years. It’s become the new American dream: a life of leisure and entertainment.

In contrast, there are those who are passionate about their work, seeing their job not only as a means of sustaining the rest of life, but meaningful in itself, and perhaps even a joy. That’s a blessed place to be in life, but also another subject. What we want to hone in on today is what we are doing with life outside of the money-making, bill-paying work.

If you look at the official statistics, Americans don’t actually spend all that much money on leisure and entertainment each year ($2,699 for the average household in 2009, according to Bundle.com). Yet that figure doesn’t include eating out (which would more than double that figure) or non-essential shopping (like for most clothes and home décor, etc.) And, this figure has actually decreased during these last few economically depressed years. However, analysts found that people are using those leisure dollars to do more at home, rather than take expensive vacations, and so they are likely getting more leisure time out of the same or fewer dollars. For example, many used their dollars to upgrade their television and gaming equipment, and with the average American spending 28 hours a week with the television on, that’s an amazing return on investment of those leisure dollars.

The bigger concern, however, is not whether we are getting our money’s worth, but whether we are getting our life’s worth out of our leisure time. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” How often do we apply this test to determine God’s good, pleasing

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and perfect will to the areas of our lives we think are just fine? After all, there’s nothing sinful about hanging out with friends, reading a novel or playing soccer on the weekend. Sin or not sin? Not sin! Passed the test, right?

In a simple analysis, yes. But a person who wants to live like Christ lived has to go deeper. Among the very many non-sinful choices, are there some that are wiser than others? Some that imitate Christ better than others? Don’t think that a God who has your hairs numbered on a moment-to-moment basis doesn’t care what you do with your down time. He does and He has provided examples for us to emulate.

First, if we would care to really search the scriptures in this regard, we might be shocked to see that the Bible doesn’t profile in a positive manner any people who live for leisure. You will be hard-pressed to make a case that any Bible hero spent his down time playing bocce ball or horseshoes. Instead, our Bible heroes are people on missions or who are mentioned in tandem with their industry. Even David took advantage of his relatively inactive periods watching sheep and hanging out in a cave writing psalms.

Secondly, we have specific examples that indicate that God values industry over entertainment and leisure. Starting in Genesis when he placed Adam “in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Oh, you thought it was for Adam’s pleasure? And then God made woman as a what? A helper to Adam. So both men and women were there to work – not lay naked all day in the daisies. And that, folks, was before the fall!

After the fall, God told his people “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest” (Exodus 34:21). And in Bible times, as well as in modern times in many less developed countries, a work day does not consist of just eight hours. It was often as many hours as the sun shone, and then whatever could be done by candlelight. And thus it was the world over until about 100 years ago when modern conveniences made our workload so much lighter.

Think of stories you may have heard from your grandparents, or books like Little House on the Prairie.

Thank God we don’t have it that hard anymore, but should I also say, “Thank you, God, that I now have time to watch four hours of television a night”? Television is an easy target, and a broad one, but please know that the other forms of time-passers listed in Part A can be every bit as deserving of attack as television.

On the other hand, many of the Part A activities (ex-

TELEVISION STATISTICS cepting video games) can be a healthy and fulfilling part of a life well-lived, a truly abundant life. The deciding factor of whether they detract or add to your abundant life in Christ may be the priority and amount of time you are giving these activities. We have the weekly day of rest and we have God-sanctioned extended periods of rest as well. These are the times to fill with Part A activities. And I believe God takes joy in seeing us relax and play.

However, on the average day, I believe it is more pleasing to God to be about industry, not leisure and entertainment, in our downtime.

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TVwatching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.

I. FAMILY LIFE Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99 Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24 Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66 Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66 Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion

My first clue that this is true is that it is counter-cultural. We are not of this world, and if the world’s idea of an abundant life is a relaxing evening after work and weekends on the lake, that is probably not God’s idea of an abundant life. My second clue is found in Proverbs 31. If you’re like me, it’s exhausting to even read the list of things that woman masters. In and among her waking early, cooking, mulling over real estate, planting, spinning and sewing, note two things: 1. There is no record of leisure activity and 2. Further, it specifically says she “does not eat the bread of idleness.” And my third and strongest clue is that Jesus Himself was a work-aholic. He worked to the point of exhaustion, so much so that one time He slept right through a squall on a small boat. The scriptures mention that He withdrew to places of solitude and we have the record of Him attending a wedding and dinner at some peoples’ houses. However, the gospels from beginning to end manifest that Jesus was all about His purpose. He had three short years of ministry and He made the very best of it.

How much time do we have before the Master demands to see what we have done with our talents? Do you think He’ll be pleased when we tell Him we were able to answer all the bonus questions on Jeopardy?

What a stellar use of our intellect! The psalmist said, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” In other words, if we were to accurately reflect on just how little time we have in life, we would make wiser choices about how we spend each moment.

Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56 Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49

II. CHILDREN Approximate number of studies examining TV’s effects on children: 4,000 Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5 Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680 Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70 Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children’s TV watching: 73 Percentage of 4-6-year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54

REBA RAY ’S

Down-Home Healthy Cookin’

10FRENCH BREAD

TOPPERS

Y

ou worked all day and yur tired. I get it. Me too. So you want somethin’ quick that doesn’t involve a lot of whisking, sautéing, tenderizin’ and braisin’. Yep, me too. That’s why, especially for a busy week, a loaf of French bread is the ticket.

Get a fat, round one, cuz we’re gonna load it with all kinds of goodies. The idea here is to NOT have to cook anything other than just ploppin’the loaded toast into a toaster oven or pre-heated regular oven.

There are tons more things you can put on a slice of French toast – over a hundred variations with roasted garlic alone, I suspect, but I’m offerin’ ya just top-

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pings that require no other cookin’. These oughta just take about 10 minutes in an oven on 400°F (exceptin’ where noted). Clean up equals wash the cuttin’ board and a spoon, wipe off the bakin’ pan and yur done.

For a quick meal, cut off one, two or three slices of French bread, to the thickness you desire, between 1/4 and one inch. Use a serrated knife to get a good cut on the bread without bunchin’ it up. Yur gonna notice olive oil in several o’ these recipettes. I recommend you use extra virgin first-press oil because it isn’t gonna be in the oven long enough to really constitute high heat and so what you want is high taste.

★French Bread Pizza Let’s get

the obvious out of the way. If this isn’t one of your regular quick meals, why not? Keep a jar of red sauce in the fridge and a bag of shredded mozzarella. Dollop on the sauce and sprinkle with cheese, 10 mins in the oven and dinner is served. Other great add-ons that don’t require cookin’ are pepperoni slices, which will keep for dern near ever in your fridge, mushrooms, olives and bacon bits.

★Caprese Toast Don’t worry about

how to pronounce that, you can just call it basil, mozzarella and tomato toast. Shredded or sliced mozzarella first, then some thin slices of nice, ripe, deep red mater, sprinkle with some fresh chopped basil and drizzle with olive oil.

★Garlicly Shrooms Spread soft

butter or margarine on the bread, then mince one small clove o’ garlic per slice of bread and spread it evenly over the butter. Slice thinly two mushrooms per piece of bread. Put em in a cup and drizzle a little olive oil (1/2 tsp.) over ‘em, coatin’ real good with the oil. Spread over the garlic and butter and sprinkle with just a little nutmeg and pepper.

★Classic Garlic-Cheese Bread This is a great side to any Italian dish,

and if you use enough cheese, it can count as a meal in itself. You can use any kind of cheese on this, but there’s absolutely nuthin’ wrong with yur basic mozzarella. Just spread some soft butter and minced garlic on the bread (garlic powder used sparingly works too), sprinkle cheese on top and yur done. This is good with just parmesan cheese too.

★Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Just as good as on a ba-

gel, who said this combo is just for fancy brunches?

Think you can’t afford smoked salmon? Check in the tuna section of yur grocer, some leadin’ tuna companies are now packaging smoked salmon in foil and you can afford it. Especially if you only use about half of it in one sittin’. (The other half will keep in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for several days.) Spread on yur cream cheese first, then add the salmon. Just leave this one in the oven long enough to warm it – about five minutes.

★Olive Tapenade and Cream Cheese Tapenade. There’s another word you don’t need to worry about. If you want, you can buy some prepared chunky olive

spread in the deli section, but no need. Just take a couple of different kinds of olives, like black and red, with or without pimentos, and chop ‘em up pretty fine and mix ‘em with a little olive oil. Spread this on top of French bread with cream cheese, and again, just leave in the oven until heated, about five minutes.

★Apple and Cheddar Here’s a

French combination for yur French bread. Slice half a golden delish apple in 1/2-inch thin slices and spread it out on a few pieces of bread. Top that with sliced or shredded medium or sharp cheddar cheese, and voila.

★Pecan, Pear and Blue Cheese: Oh, get over yurself and try somethin’ grown up! This combo is not as “yucky” as it sounds; in fact, it’ll make a sophisticated palate hoot and holler. I recommend thinly coatin’ yur bread with butter or a brush of olive oil cuz that blue cheese won’t melt as well as a mozzarella. Slice up a fresh pear, or use canned pears, rinsed clean of that sugary syrup. Put a layer of pears down, then add one half to one tablespoon of crumbled blue cheese per slice and about a half tablespoon of finely chopped pecans on top of that.

★Red, White and Green Bread: Dollop on some Alfredo sauce from a

jar (the rest will keep for a good while in the fridge), layer on some washed fresh spinach leaves, stems removed, and cover with sun-dried tomatoes. Most sun-dried maters come in an olive oil packing, but if yurs didn’t, toss the spinach and tomatoes in olive oil before heapin’ em on the bread.

Roasted pine nuts would make a fine sprinkle for several of these recipettes, but you’ll have to go the extra mile to roast the nuts. That’s about five minutes on medium high in a small skillet, stirrin’ or aggitatin’ constantly after the first minute. When you start to smell warm nut and they start to brown just a bit, take ‘em off the fire. Roasted nuts have about a 30-second window in which they go from beautiful to burnt.

Well, with so many different choices, you can make a whole week’s meals out of one loaf o’ bread and a few add-ons. Or you can always freeze the rest of the loaf, and pull it out about 10 minutes before you want to start cookin. Just cut off what you need and put the rest back in the freezer. Bread is easy that way.

So many of these add-ons last a long time too in the fridge, that once you get the basic ingredients, you can eat on ‘em for a month’s worth of quick and easy dinners after that long, hard day.

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JUST WHAT YOU NEED

by Jeffrey Bridgman

EQUIP YOUR PC FOR FREE Get the freewarez lolz! (Did I even spell that right?!)

For practically any type of software it is possible to find some sort of free alternative, usually called freeware (or open-source software). In fact, if you think you can’t afford a computer, visit a used computer store and ask for their bargain basement box with a decent hard drive and Wi-Fi and wave off the expensive software. Load up Linux from a CD (see below) and then head to the closest free Wi-Fi spot and start equipping your machine. Not all are equal in quality and you may end up wanting to opt for fancier programs that have a more polished look and extended functionality; but for most tasks you can deal with the free stuff – where there’s a will, there’s a way.

There are so many options for good freeware any sort of exhaustive list isn’t really possible in this space, but here are a few of my favorites.

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H

OPERATING SYSTEMS Linux is a type of operating system (based on Unix, the same thing that’s running beneath Mac OS X, actually) which is free. It comes in countless distributions (or distros) tailored to whatever purposes (data recovery, gaming, multimedia, education, server and even science). For a beginner I’d recommend Ubuntu, one of the more popular distros. You can download it and run it from a CD first to give it a try if you’d like.

DOCUMENTS/EDUCATION OpenOffice: Free office suite. Not as attractive of an interface as Office 2007/2010, but hey, it’s free.

PrimoPDF: Make anything a .pdf file with the print to pdf feature. Also handy for when you don’t have a printer and need to print a copy of a online purchase confirmation, etc.

GraphCalc: Don’t have one of those expensive graphic calculators? This program can do 2D and 3D graphing.

Google Earth: See satellite images of the earth overlayed with various information layers. It fits the images to the terrain so you can do a 3D fly-through as well. You can check out Mars, the moon and the stars too!

E-Sword: free Bible study software.

VIDEO AND AUDIO Audacity: Audio editing software. Not exactly super handy for actually making music, but you can use it to filter and splice tracks together or convert from one format to another. Great for prepping music for use with video.

Realplayer: Ever wanted to save a video from YouTube? You can with the video downloader included in Realplayer.

VLC – The “play anything” player: Not its actual name (VLC media player), but this program is generally held in well-regard to be able to play almost any type of video, no matter the codec.

Photoscape: If GIMP is a little much for the simple editing you want to do, give Photoscape a try. It has a bunch of easy to use, handy and fun tools to make the most of your photos.

Picasa: A very well-designed easy to use photo editing and organization application. Includes handy things like face recognition and the ability to tie into your Google account online to share photos.

GAMES BZFlag: 3D online multiplayer tank game with freefor-all, capture-the-flag, etc. Has an older look, but is fun nonetheless.

Mediamonkey: If you’ve tried iTunes but don’t care for it, and don’t like Windows Media Player either, give this media player a try.

Battle for Wesnoth: Fantasy turn-based strategy game.

imTOO Movie Maker Got raw video footage you want to jazz up? This freebie allows you to create movies from multiple videos with professional-looking transitions and music.

UTILITIES

INTERNET

Recuva: Ever deleted a file and then realized you still needed it? … and you just emptied the trash can?

Well, the truth of the fact is, your 0’s and 1’s on the hard drive for your file are probably still there. This little utility can help you get those files back.

Skype: Video-chat, calling program. Use your computer as a phone, basically... not very useful without internet, obviously ;)

7Zip: Can handle almost any file compression format.

We typically just think of .zip files, but his can also handle .tar, .tzip, .gzip., .7z., .rar, .lzh.... the list goes on.

Filezilla: For any older-school technology people out there, this is a good FTP client for uploading/downloading files. This is not a P2P (peer-to-peer) client.

CCleaner: Tool to help clean up various files that exist on your system.

Try PortableApps.com to find versions of free and popular software that can be installed to a flash drive so you can take it with you wherever you go. I used to have my favorite browser installed onto one so that where ever I went, I always had my favorite bookmarks, saved passwords, and browsing history with me for convenient browsing.

PHOTO AND GRAPHICS GIMP: Think Adobe Photoshop alternative. You can use it for anything from editing photos to painting something from scratch or doing some graphics design.

Inkscape: This one is similar to Adobe Illustrator.

Useful for vector-based graphics design.

Blender: I haven’t played with this one too much, but you can do some amazing stuff with this like 3D model design and even animation.

Launchy: In Windows 7, the start menu now has a place you type to launch any program, or access any of your files, but that doesn’t exist back in XP. With this program, finding things in various places like my documents, bookmarks or that start menu is just a few keystrokes away. It’ll take what you type and make suggestions for what you might be looking for.

All the “A” Anti-virus Apps... there’s a bunch: AVG, Avast, Avira, Adaware.

WinDirStat: Running out of space on your hard drive?

This program graphically shows you what files/folders are using the most space.

WinMerge: This one takes a bit more time to figure out, but the basic concept is you have two almost identical folders, but they’re aren’t exactly the same.

This program allows you to compare the differences between to folders and chose which files from each you’d like to use where there are differences.

For even more free software try sites like SourceForge.net or CNET Download.com (fair warning, not all software on these sites are free to try, i.e., demo).

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THE RECAP

by Donna Lee Schillinger

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS:

JUST AS MANY COMPLAINTS Ann Voskamp’s debut book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, is truly a beautiful piece of writing, and highly recommended for women who love poetry but have a harder time getting into nonfiction devotional reading. It’s a seamless amalgamation of the two, as Voskamp recounts her journey to learning gratitude in a highly creative and aesthetical weaving.

The issues that Voskamp addresses in her past and daily life have surely resonated with many women, particularly of the twenty to forty age ranges. In fact, Voskamp is almost iconic of this age Christian woman. Being a pig farmer’s wife and homeschooling five children gives her additional color – and her talent with words is undeniably outstanding – but I believe most women will be able to really relate to Voskamp. Indeed, the book sales have shown this to be the case.

Voskamp has a way of nailing those feelings of inadequacy and excuses we make for ourselves – thoughts that plague many women in the deep parts

WWW.AHOLLYEXPERIENCE.COM

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp.

240 pp. $16.00 (Amazon’s listing for $11.43) ISBN 0310321913 ©2010 Zondervan Visit Ann Voskamp’s www.aholyexperience.com.

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✎ of the brain, though they might never have articulated them. Of why women worry she writes, “Easier to let a mind run wild with the worry than to exercise discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on and train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the specters looming ahead.” And elsewhere, she urgently calls out on behalf of Christians everywhere, “…someone, please give me – who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew – give me the details of how to live in the waiting cocoon before the forever begins?”

full of grace,” lacks grit. I would think this book a poor candidate to be translated into Vietnamese, Spanish or Mandarin, as readers in many parts of the world where these languages are spoken would just sit with mouths agape, perhaps wondering if this were not some sort of satire.

Voskamp’s book is timely as ingratitude is one of the major issues facing American Christians today. And unlike many other books that explore gratitude as if on a guided tour, Voskamp takes the reader off the beaten path and to the places most travelers have never seen.

I found myself wondering, “What could the next chapter possibly be about?

Hasn’t she said all there is to say on this subject?” One Thousand Gifts will take the reader on a deeper venture into gratitude – and the words along the way are five-star – but be sure to bring your earplugs in case the whining just gets to be too much.

Voskamp not only captures truths that previously have escaped words, she also lets flow that which most women have no trouble expressing on their own – complaints.

Voskamp not only captures truths that previously have escaped words, she also lets flow that which most women have no trouble expressing on their own – complaints.

Voskamp, as a Christian in the United States, happily married and mothering, and not needed to work outside, is among the most blessed of all people anywhere. (Period.) And this book is about her realization of that, to some extent.

But those of us who recognized it by the end of chapter one are left with the impression that this “Ann,

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