The Goddess Professor Speaks

Unnecessary euphemisms are asinine. Necessary ones can be quite practical when you have young ears around or folks who you don't really want to know what you're talking about, but unnecessary euphemisms are slowly starting to annoy me. I mean, why?  Why use it?  Are you using it because you believe the listener will be offended by what you're saying or because you are too skittish to say what you really mean?  Are using euphemisms a tactful way to avoid offending others or do we increasingly lack the courage of our convictions and so we choose alternative, sad, watered down versions of what we're really trying to say? The longer I teach, the more annoyed I get with euphemisms.  The handbook we use reminds students (and teachers) to be direct and succinct in word choice and expression, so this has become a part of my life.  Don't fill your language with fluffy, indirect terms that don't add any real meaning to the text but instead are just circumlocutory wa

I just read " Don Draper's A Monster, and Here's Why We're Finally Noticing " from the Huffington Post , and I have a few issues with this title and the article. Don has ALWAYS been a monster, and I don't know whether to shrug off the suggestion that people seem to just now be noticing or to rant about what the hell have people being paying attention to if they didn't see that well before now. I also take issue with what he was finally called a monster for doing.  Yeah, it was jacked up that he stole the credit for the idea out from under Peggy, and she was definitely right to confront him--it's one of the main things I love about her lately.  But this isn't new Don.  It's the same Don we've always seen.  Why was this recent lying and recreating a false backstory any different than all the other times before? Again, Don has always been a monster.  A perpetual philanderer, an absent dad (yeah, it was the era, but still), an alcoholic wh

Along with making tons of soaps and whatnot, we also try to make a lot of food at home to cut down on costs. Recently, I was craving a bacon cheeseburger.  I drove over to Hardee's and was only moderately pleased with the burger I bought for $5.   So, the craving rolled around again and the hubs suggested I make one instead of buying. " Fine!   Get me the bacon, buns, and beef." I replied. So, off I set to make my bacon cheeseburger.  The results were ahmazing!!! I took 1 lb of beef and seasoned with season salt, pepper, and worchestershire sauce.  To the mixture, I added diced onion and peppers (we always keep a supply of a frozen "seasoning blend") and italian bread crumbs.  (I couldn't tell you any measurements because I rarely measure anything.  Eyeball it and season to your tastes.) I shaped the meat mixture into four patties and baked for 16 minutes at 375 degrees. While the burgers cooked, I fry the bacon in the pan, sliced the toma

Indecisive people annoy the shit out of me! We make decisions based on the best information we have at the moment, or at least, we should.  That means, gather your information, be as informed as possible about your options, then choose!  If you need advice from others to help you make a decision, seek it, then re-evaluate your options based on the information you've gathered, those people's opinions, your own assessments, then make a decision.  If making the decision takes time, that's fine, but  don't keep asking people their opinions over and over again on the same stuff. Why do people feel the need to constantly reconsider or constantly confirm a decision or constantly seek advice before ever attempting a choice? Are they unsure about their choice?  Insecure about their choice?  Huge life decisions require time, consideration, consultation, and serious thought about the best decision and consequences of that decision.  By huge, I mean buying a house, having a kid

Started this post on Father's Day 2013... Giving me the first example of what a real, hardworking, honest, loving, caring, disciplining man was, my father set the example for my life and more lives than I could ever count. Not only is he an awesome dad, he is the best granddaddy in the world, and has never hesitated to take in and help other folks kids when necessary. I took these life lessons and was blessed to find a husband with those same qualities and many more of his own unique, admirable qualities--qualities he's able to pass on to our own children. I feel so blessed to know so many amazing fathers.  I feel even more blessed that my dad and husband both continue to amaze me.

I grew up in a house that faithfully  relied on Bounce dryer sheets when washing clothes.  I never really questioned the habit as I was taught load the clothes, add the detergent, put in a dryer sheet, put the clothes in, start the dryer.  At various times, the laundry detergent we used varied, but it always Bounce dryer sheets... always!  As I aged and started buying my own laundry stuff, I had to switch to the cheaper sheets.  The clothes didn't smell Bounce awesome, but they were static free-- well mostly. In fact, the Bounce sheets and smell are such a part of my parent's house that my dad washed and returned to us a blanket we left at his house that still smelled like Bounce  months  later.  Although I'd had to switch the cheaper, not-so-long lasting sheets that usually reduced static, getting that awesome smelling blanket back reminded me of the house I grew up in, the warm, nice smelling clothes fresh out the dryer. So, as I've shifted to DIY-ing, I've b

Upon seeing a poll in The Journal.ie , I started thinking deeper about Apple's tax mess (that has recently come to light despite going on for years):                  if it wasn't Ireland, it would've been some place else.   It's possible Apple chose Ireland to avoid the typical tax-havens (Cayman Islands, Switzerland, etc.), and therefore, "legally" get away with not paying taxes here.  Apple has seriously been on the cutting edge of things lately, so why not be on the cutting edge of tax evading? It annoys me to no end that what Apple did is technically legal, and therefore, they very likely won't be punished in any way.  And what would their punishment be--pay a fine?  Big damn whoop!  Just like that hefty  fine the banks had to pay for their part in the foreclosure nightmare (and ultimately, global financial meltdown).  Never mind that many states used that money to plug budgetary holes , which meant people actually hurt by the foreclosure nig

My most recent lesson in DIY-ing... soap may not always thicken as the recipe says it should. After trying for TWO days to get my homemade liquid soap to thicken, I finally had success today by simply putting it in a foam pump dispenser. Two days ago, I set out to make a liquid soap from this easy recipe: grated bar of castile soap and heated water.  As you can see on the linked page, the recipe calls for two 5 oz bars of castile soap and 1 gallon of water.  Well, since my bars of soap were 4 ounces each and I didn't have a container to hold a gallon of soap once it was made, I winged it a bit.  I used one 4 ounce bar and 56 ounces of water.  (My empty old liquid soap container was 56 ounces, so why not?!)  This did NOT turn out as I hoped it would. Beyond those adjustments, I followed the directions from the page I found to a tee:  heating the water, grating the soap, combining the grated soap and heated water, and letting it sit for 24 hours.   Twenty-four hours later and

Mother's Day is a day I approach with trepidation each year because I never know what my emotional state will be. I'm thankful to say that I awoke this afternoon (yes, afternoon!) to find my phone FILLED with messages of cheer from many friends.   I went to bed last night with the thoughts of the awesome Mother's Day card my hubs sent to me. I was greeted by my precious son with a cheerful Mother's Day wish. I miss my mother daily, but I know that she's proud of who I am today.  So, to all of the mothers, surrogate mothers, aunt-mothers, godmothers, father-mothers and everyone in between, I pray you have a fantabulously blessed day.  And I want to remind everyone to cherish the people in your lives right now rather than waiting until they've passed on to heap tons of praise onto their memory.  Love them while their here and make sure they know it. That is all! :-) Be well and blessed.

You ever been so pissed off that you wanted to cuss, scream, spit, punch, stab, drink, cry, and sleep all at the same time? I mean the type of pisstivity that makes you want to harm someone--not yourself and not to the point of legal repercussions.  The kind that you can't see or think straight more than a few minutes at a time. Yeah.  I'm feeling that right now. Parents are supposed to raise their children and help them be productive citizens, which for many people means getting your child to and through college.  What happens when one of those parents is an impediment to that progress towards adulthood?  What happens when that parent is so beyond asinine that his/her actions borders on child abuse.  Well, maybe I'm stretching it to call it child abuse, but seriously, what the fuck? I wash my hands of it--or at least, I'm trying to.  It actually breaks my heart to watch this unfold before my eyes, but I've lived too much of my life reactionary to thi

The last time I blogged about baby wipes, I mentioned that I'd be making a new batch with different ingredients because 1) mineral oil (the base of baby oil) is not good for babies and kids and 2) while all in one baby washes are awesome, they too can be harmful for kids due to some of the chemicals commonly used in them.  Now, I'm not naive to think that I can completely rid my life, family, and home of chemicals.  But I learned a valuable lesson from my mom years ago: "you learn better, you do better."  I know a bit better now, so I'm trying to do better. So, in trying to do a different mixture, I again, set out to find the best and easiest recipes.  I found two that I've sort of combined to make my own.  They come from the Kitchen Stewardship and DIYNatural websites. From the ingredients on their websites, I developed this ingredient list: 1-1/4 C. of water (boiled then cooled a bit) 1 T of lavender liquid castile soap 1/2 t. of Vitamin E oil 2

We've been in the full swing of Lent for a few weeks now, St. Patrick's Day is coming soon, it's Women's History Month, and Black History Month was last month.  Are these things being celebrated in our culture or patronized by companies trying to sell us stuff? Since Lent began last month, everywhere you turn someone is offering a special on some sort of fish: McDonald's has new McFish Bites (REALLY not inclined to try them), Wendy's and Hardee's (and I'm sure others) are promoting their Alaskan Cod sandwiches, among other fish specials at other places.  Plus, there's the Shamrock Shake that McDonald's offers every year.  As far as I know, I'm not Irish so I can't speak from personal feelings on this, but I always cringe a bit whenever I see these shakes and wonder if people who are Irish hate these, love these, or don't really think about it. It's now March, and since St. Patrick's day is coming soon, everywhere you t

Life can offer some incredible highs and deep, horrendous lows . (If you're in a relatively good mood, or are already in a depressed mood, you may want to stop reading now.)   Wednesday, I had wonderful and reflective conversations with two people.  One a former student who is in the prime of her life; has an honest, wonderful, and growing relationship with Christ; and is figuring out things that people at least 10 years older than her aren't always fortunate enough to figure out. The other conversation was with an awesome colleague.  We started discussing work-related matters, but towards the end, I reminded her that she was one of the first people I connected with in my first semester of grad school.  Grad school is the time of my life that I grew up, became me, found my voice and purposes in life, so I feel quite blessed and fortunate to still be friends with folks I met during those years, esp. since I'm not still close to many people I met during undergrad--other tha

The beginnings of my DIY-land adventures began with making my son's food when he was a baby and it kind of fell off for awhile, but on Christmas Eve, I had a very interesting conversation with my sisters and brothers that sparked my recent adventures.  It was about detergent. While sitting around Momma's table joking, singing, eating on Christmas Eve, my brother mentions that his wife (who hadn't yet arrived) got him into using homemade laundry soap.  So, my sister gets there and she tells us her mom has been making laundry soap for years and her mom parcels it out to everyone because she makes 5 gallons at a time.  By then, my interest was seriously piqued.  "Makes laundry soap?  Hmmm?"  We inquired about the difficulty.  My sister said it wasn't too difficult. So, I promptly started googling for details the next day.  My other sister and I were talking about seriously getting into making the soap once we saw it wasn't that difficult. Fast forward to

On my quest to cut costs and figure out better alternatives to things we use daily, I did a lot of research on the easiest and best ways to make homemade laundry detergent. I don't approach anything hastily.  Before actually making the soap, I searched on countless pages to figure out what would be the easiest method to follow and the most cost efficient. The first websites I found showed how to make 5 gallons of soap.  I feared making this much at once because what if it went wrong?  Then I'd have 5 gallons of crap to toss out.  And I'm not super environmental, but tossing out 5 gallons of any mixed product cannot be good for the environment or waterways although wherever you toss it may smell great for awhile. I finally found an awesome website that offered easy directions and a 2 gallon method.  It was WhyNotSew.  I loved this page because the directions were really easy to follow, and I wasn't tied to using one specific type of soap.  Lots of websites report

My adventure in actually making stuff really began after my first son was born.   Prior to him being born, I started researching on products I could make to save money.  I researched homemade baby wipes, homemade baby food, using cloth diapers, and all sorts of other stuff.  I ended up only making the homemade food at the time. When I first began making his food, it was more about saving money than avoiding chemicals or being super organic or something like that.  After slowly becoming more cognizant of the crap that's in the foods we consume, I set out on a mission to make most of his baby food.  If I had to buy his food, it was organic  unless  we were in a dire situation (travelling on the road and only a convenience store shelf of regular baby food was available).  I bought the baby food books, the little baby food ice cube type trays, lived on  WholesomeBabyFood.com , and happily told anyone who asked about his food and my methods.  The food adventure was fun, economical, a

In my life, I view it as my goal and life's mission to open people's eyes to things around them, information they've been fed or led to believe, and in general, make people think for themselves .  I seek not to make people think and feel as I believe, but simply to encourage them to think and know for themselves. I am a lover of knowledge.  I don't profess to know everything, but the things I do know, I am sure of and sure that they are right for me and my life.  As my son ages and my second child makes his way towards this world, I grapple with wanting to impart my version of wisdom, truth, faith, kindness, and love of knowledge and progressivism compared with simply wanting them to seek their own truths--even if they depart from mine.  This is something I'm sure I'll battle for many years to come.  Strong willed parents tend to produce strong willed children. Being a strong willed person herself, my mother raised me to be my own woman, to think independen