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Some Info on Guns

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Having spent several evenings talking with ladies who had no earthly idea of what they were looking at when shopping for guns for self-protection, I decided to put some of my thoughts on paper.

There are more gun manufacturers than ever. Your chances of finding a good fit for your lifestyle and protection are excellent. Many manufacturers are creating lines specifically geared for women, including how they typically carry their weapons (purses, anyone?) and their size/strength ratios. There are also more types of ammunition to go with these guns.

I grew up in an NRA household… but that was in the 1970s, before the NRA got so friggin’ nutty about carrying military-style full-auto arms. My dad kept a sizeable collection of fairly exotic ordinance under my bed, in my chest of drawers, and tucked into the attic crawlspace on the other side of my closet. He would describe the protective packaging and length and I would go to the spot and fetch it for him to play with.

The first thing I have to point out is the two basic types: revolvers and semi-automatic. If you want something you can use while still half-asleep, or conversely, while scared shitless, get a good double-action revolver, the more basic, the better. 

Semi-automatic pistols have a “magazine” that you load the bullets into, and the magazine goes up into the butt of the gun where it feeds into the chamber. These tend to be a lot sleeker and the new space-age materials make them lighter and very durable. The thing is, you have to pull back on the top of the thing (the slide) in order to start shooting… which can cost you seconds, especially if you fumble. Once you start shooting, you can keep squeezing until the gun presents you with an empty chamber. You can usually carry more ammo in the magazine than most revolvers, and you can reload by hitting the button to release the spent magazine and then sticking a fresh one in. You sacrifice some ease of use for the smaller size.  Remember it is a “magazine”, not a “clip”… a clip goes onto the top of a really big rifle to feed the ammo directly into the chamber.

If you go for your Concealed Handgun License, you need to qualify on a semi-automatic gun, which most CHL classes will rent to you for that class, that way you can carry either kind of gun after you get your license. In Texas, you have to qualify with a minimum of .32 caliber… period. You can bring your 9 mm, your .40 caliber or anything else you want for the class, but the minimum is .32 caliber.  Once you have your license, you can carry anything you darn well want to… as long as it is concealed.

In Texas, you have to get the CHL in order to carry outside of your property. You can keep a gun in your car at all times, but you can’t take it out of your car unless you are on your property or have the CHL. Having the CHL doesn’t mean that you can carry a firearm just anywhere either… a lot of malls (probably with Yankee owners) forbid carrying on their property, along with a number of government buildings, stadiums and what-not. I won’t bother going to any of these malls.

If you don’t have anyone around to teach you the ways of guns, by all means, take a class! The NRA can refer you. So can your local gun shop. Knowledge is power. Getting yourself past the fear is very empowering.

Now a couple more things:  (1)  You don’t flash your gun unless you are prepared to use it. If someone has broken into your house with you in it, you don’t attempt to make threats. If someone has kicked in your door or window, you shoot first and ask questions later. In Texas we have something called the “Castle Doctrine”… as in “your home is your castle”.  In a lot of instances, simply the presence of a gun has made all the difference in the world, and caused a would-be attacker to flee.

(2)  There is no such thing as “shoot to wound”. You shoot to kill every damn time, and believe it or not, that is a tough thing to accomplish under pressure. You don’t want the criminal coming back with bigger ordinance to use against you, and you don’t want him coming back with a lawsuit, either. Speaking as an ordained minister, go ahead and kill the bugger! He’s going there fast, anyway, so help him get his death-wish. You might as well stop him from continuing on a long string of murders.

Silencers?  Why? Quit watching TV!  The most idiotic thing I ever saw was the title sequence for the old Avengers TV series… shows a silencer on a revolver. I guess that looked tough to the producers, but it showed their ignorance… revolvers are open chamber so the noise comes out of the back. If you shoot, believe me, you want the noise to be noticeable! Noise is your friend! A shot fired into the asphalt of a parking lot does constitute the use of “deadly force” in Texas, but it is more than enough to get someone’s attention if you are stopping an assault.

A word about WD-40:  Only in moderation, and only on revolvers that are easy to clean. WD-40 is basically olive oil, and as such, it turns to goo in fairly short order. When the stuff originally came out, policemen would spray down their guns with this stuff, and discovered that it caused their handguns to misfire in bad way… really embarrassing and dangerous. I inherited a semi-automatic .22 target pistol that had been sprayed down with WD-40… it was so gunked-up that it wouldn’t fire at all. I had to take it to a gunsmith to take apart and use his ultrasonic cleaner on it… $70 to reclaim the use of that gun. Stick to good synthetic machine oils. Talk to your gunsmith.

Gun control:  Means using BOTH HANDS… capice?

SOME FINDINGS:

In finding ammo, I’ve discovered that .32 and .22 are relatively easy to find, even at WalMart.  The .38 and .357 got kind of rare after Obama got sworn in.  9 mm is a lot easier to find across the board. Bear that in mind.

My first handgun purchase was back in 1978… I was 18 and I purchased a North American Arms stainless steel, 5-shot, .22 long rifle derringer, and I carried it either in my pocket or in my purse. We didn’t have the current concealed handgun laws back then. I have two of these now. Great to have on you while doing your walking program. It makes an excellent loud noise, which alone is a deterrent. Not very good past 20 feet, but you wouldn’t want to get hit with a .22 hollow-point, either.

Several manufacturers make a good compact double-action revolver that has the hammer concealed… you just point and squeeze. Smith & Wesson makes a Model 442 Revolver and uses .38 special ammo. Ruger makes the same thing for like $300 less, and theirs is called the LCR.  The idea behind this is so you can throw it in your purse without that hammer thing on the top getting hung up on anything, and you can just keep your hand on your gun in your purse and shoot through your purse if you have to. You just squeeze. I like Ruger… good products and good value.

I personally carry a Kel-Tec P-32 semi-automatic pistol… 9 ounces loaded. The magazine holds 7 bullets, and you can carry with an additional bullet in the chamber so you can just squeeze away without having to cock it. I choose not to because there is no “safety lock” button on the gun. If I have to pull that puppy out, it is going to be intentional.  http://www.kel-tec-cnc.com/  Expect to pay around $350. Taurus makes something similar for about $450.

Something new I discovered:  The Taurus Judge.  It is a small frame 5-shot revolver that can shoot either .45 caliber long bullets or .410 shotgun shells, which makes it a favorite with campers and hikers that come across lots of snakes. Now… a .410 shotgun shell probably won’t kick a lot, given how chunky this particular handgun is. The spread of the pellets in that cartridge ammo would really guarantee enough hits to prove a deterrent to just about any critter, including the two-legged kind. I’m betting the .45 bullets would tend to kick like a mule.   http://www.taurususa.com/  Expect to pay around $500 new, but that depends on the barrel length. The longer the barrel, the better the accuracy and stability.

Now… as for longer weapons… I offer the following link:  http://www.captaindaves.com/guide

Kel-Tec does manufacture a series of semi-automatic rifles in different calibers, and they make these things to be upgraded on a whim. Several models can fold in half. Their SU-22 rifle can carry 26 rounds of .22 caliber long rifle, and will accept magazines for the Atchison M-16 conversion (more ammo). My friends will typically ask you to consider a carbine of some sort. Just bear in mind that you will need training and you will have to carry it… don’t over-do.

If you opt for a shotgun, get one that will hold as many shells as possible. That single-shot may not be enough if it came down to it. The lower the gauge, the bigger the cartridge and the larger the BBs inside the cartridge… and the bigger the kick when fired. Remember that. 

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 Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-05-07 03:58:03. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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The Practical Side of Preparing for the Apocalypse

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

http://www.naturalnews.com/028712_preparedness_survival.html  Just got a link to an article about this!   And:  http://www.infowars.com/u-s-food-prices-spiraling-out-of-control/

I’ve had the guidance to store food for the long haul, Mormon style, for the last year or so. I also got the guidance to get into gardening, which is now slowly paying off. I purchased a FoodSaver System and began buying dry foods in large amounts, say, 25 pounds or more, and then breaking it down into more manageable amounts using the FoodSaver System. I’ve been buying bulk beans of all sorts, rice, quinoa, amaranth, millet, oats, nonfat dry milk, and a whole range of other staples and putting them in suck-wrapped bags of 4 to 7 cups each. In addition to this, every time I hit Sam’s Club, I pick up some extra staples… Spam, canned chicken or turkey, Ro-Tel Tomatoes with Green Chiles, tomato paste and sauce, dried onions, spices… just about anything I can imagine I might need to prepare simple and nutritious meals.

In America, we are at a crossroads. We know the government is rogue, with unabated and up-front corruption, and is going the way of Nazi Germany… massive expansion of power accompanied by runaway inflation and unprecedented taxation.  People are already showing their displeasure with both political parties, and are getting more vocal about it. The government is pushing through its corporatist/new world order agenda as fast as it can before the mid-term elections.  In short, we can expect things to really get strange.

Living on the Texas gulf coast, I can tell you what cattle people can be based on what has happened during the past few hurricanes. People are short-sighted and stupid… which is to say they are prone to not planning ahead. People are not necessarily good at feeling the situation. I didn’t evacuate during either Hurricane Rita or Ike because I listened to my inner guidance. I even tried to convince my neighbors that they didn’t need to leave, and yet they spent the entire 3 days sitting on a highway in the heat, while I stayed home and relaxed in relative comfort and cooked one nice meal after another. The grocery store shelves were empty 3 days ahead of hurricane landfall. After the hurricane had come and gone, people stood in line for hours outside of local grocery stores, which had very little to sell, but were only letting 5 people at a time inside anyway. The traffic stayed crazy the entire time. It took two months for the grocery store shelves in my area to get back to normal stock levels.

The thing is, the big forecast economists like Gerald Celente and Peter Schiff predict hyper-inflation possibly hitting by the end of this year, and by 2012 at the very latest, causing prices to go up to where most people’s paychecks can’t keep up enough just to put food on the table. That sets the stage for civil unrest, there is the possibility of having to shelter in place… perhaps for weeks. http://www.prisonplanet.com/%e2%80%9cthings-are-never-going-to-get-that-bad%e2%80%9d.html

I can tell you that inflation is already hitting at the grocery stores, and they aren’t carrying the variety they used to.

If the crazies running that whole “new world order” thing manage to pick a war between Iran and Israel, it would probably involve a nuclear exchange and the price of oil would go up. Gas prices could go over $10 a gallon, which would bring most food transport to a screeching halt, and would certainly shove all prices skyward. You’re looking at supply versus demand, and a lot of people caught with their pants down. Depending on the season, we could see riots, or segments of the population starving to death… or dying in FEMA camps. Martial law could become a possibility, with entire neighborhoods closed off by military cordons. It might take a while before things settle down again.

The Mormons have it right… they encourage their families to save as much money as they can and store large amounts of food at home – a three-month supply of what they normally eat and a year’s worth of long-term stocks such as wheat, rice and nuts. Many Mormons also can their own food, and their 140 Mormon storehouses include canneries that stay busy… even more now because of the economy and the number of natural disasters. www.providentliving.org

I’m not a Mormon, but I was reared on the Texas gulf coast. We understood the need for stored water and “hurricane food” that we maintained and cycled through the pantry, and of course, the means to cook a meal, whether charcoal or propane.  http://rocketstoves.org/ has how-to material on making a stove that will heat a whole gallon of water with a few twigs as fuel. Or buy one already made from http://www.stovetec.net  I’ve certainly got twigs in my yard.

Now, when you buy and repackage bulk foods, you have to get into the concept of cycling this stuff. You have to eat it and replace it. I discovered that this cuts down on food expenses quite nicely, while cleaning up your diet.  Believe me, your gut will thank you. If you can only find quinoa at the local health food store for around $5 a pound, and you can buy 25 pounds of it in bulk for $2 a pound, then that is a substantial savings, even with shipping costs. Every dollar you save is worthwhile.

A 12-ounce can of turkey meat, half a cup of brown rice, some non-MSG bullion, a fresh onion, some tarragon, and either a can or packet of frozen mixed veggies makes a really good chicken dish in the rice cooker.  For added pop, I make up a packet of biscuit mix and add that in little globs on top to cook… instant dumplings. 

I purchased some whole grain brown rice elbow pasta from http://www.sunorganic.com and decided to make macaroni and cheese with it… a little butter, milk, Velveeta, and a pinch each of paprika and turmeric. It is far, far better than any other you’ve ever had.

Please talk to your friends and relatives about this topic. Ask them to at least start buying a few extra pantry staples every time they go to the grocery store. When I mention this among people I work around, it is often the case that someone says that their pastor has been encouraging them to stock up… that’s a good thing. Listen… I’d rather have to give food to the food banks than not have it when I really need it.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-05-05 06:43:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Home Depot Observation

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

My friend in Santa Fe, New Mexico is dealing with some really strange phenomena. New Mexico is melting down and there isn’t a peep about it in the media. Their governor apparently stole billions of dollars from the state, the attorney general is also a crook, the crimelords are running things, and the police can’t be bothered to deal with any crimes that they can’t take a profit from (traffic enforcement). There is no immigration law enforcement.  The economy there stinks worse than probably anywhere else.  The grocery stores aren’t really stocking much, either, so they line the fronts of the shelves with food and don’t load any stock behind that.   The food banks are tapped out and even Costco isn’t carrying anywhere near the variety that we have here in Houston. 

So my friend is trying to put some resources together so she can handle the upcoming shifts, and the probable crazy stuff that may very well accompany all of that. I’ve walked down the aisles at Costco and my local grocery store with her on the phone… I tell her what I see and the price and she tells me how much of it to buy for her. I’ve shipped several heavy boxes to her this past month.

The latest thing was that she needed to find a way to store her food stash so the bugs wouldn’t get into it. It needed to be light and air tight. I suggested she go down to Home Depot, which has the 5 gallon paint buckets with the good lids that have rubber o-rings in them. They’re tough to get open once you have filled them and clamped the lid down.  Turns out, the Home Depot in Santa Fe is out of them… and has been for some time… and they’re not restocking very much, either. She went all over town trying to find something along those lines, but couldn’t. 

This evening after dinner, I went to my local Home Depot, and got my friend the lids, and got myself some buckets and lids as well, among other things. I asked an associate to please check to see if there were any more of the crank-up flashlights… he came back to report there were none. The fellow then asked about why he was seeing so many people loading up on things like these buckets, and emergency type supplies like the batteries and crank radios and the like. I simply explained things as best I could in a nutshell:  we’re about to experience hyper-inflation, and people are preparing by pulling their investments out of the banks and stock market and buying food, ammo and metals.  I explained that we could see the real poo hit the fan as early as first quarter of next year, but we will likely see obvious price inflation hitting as early as this fall.  The man looked at me with glazed, uncomprehending eyes and said that he was glad I was keeping up on these things, as he didn’t have time to.  The poor schmuck… he seemed too old to be that stupid.

The experience tells me that a lot of my neighbors here in Houston are paying attention and trying to stock their pantries, if nothing else.  I’m glad about that.  I’m concerned about the other folks that can’t wrap their heads around what’s going on, hoping that everything will continue bumping along. I try to educate people, but I can’t do their thinking for them. I’m genuinely worried about family members of mine that opt to complain about where the country is heading, and how their 401-Ks are tanking, but aren’t doing anything to be able to handle what looks to be coming up pretty soon. I plan on taking a load of food over to my mom and ask her to “store it for me for a little while”  just to get her marginally equipped.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

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THE SECRET TO TIGHT GUMS…

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

I just got the ol’ postcard notice from my dentist. This is the same dentist that George Herbert Walker Bush goes to here in Houston. The guy is a real peach, and tries to be gentle. I don’t have the trepidation at the concept of going to the dentist that I used to. I’ve got a handle on a lot of the underlying problems that were giving me hell so many years ago.

Well… last summer, I finally decided to go to the dentist, after having not gone for three years. The hygienist x-rayed me, checked me over and cleaned my teeth, and remarked at how very little plaque I had, and that my gums were amazingly tight. Their main comment was that I had probably been brushing my teeth a little too hard, most probably because I hadn’t been going to the dentist regularly. The dentist himself confirmed this, looking at my information sheet listing the many vitamin and herb supplements that I take, either with every meal, or as I feel the need. These include a whole vitamin C supplement, B-complex, co-enzyme Q-10, MSM, gelatin/silica supplement, Fo-ti, calcium-magnesium-zinc, omega 3-6-9, vitamin D and E, and beta carotene. If I’m fighting an infection, I know to add selenium, olive leaf extract (in capsules) and oregano oil gelcaps to the pile.

I mentioned that I switched to iced tea in place of soda pop, and I use Stevita stevia sweetener in that iced tea. I also munch on ice after meals to clean the teeth, or at least knock off the big chunks. I also switched to non-waxed dental floss, because the unwaxed variety scrubs between the teeth better, and I usually swish with colloidal silver  (and I swallow it) instead of regular mouthwash. I also use an “organic” toothpaste without fluoride, that uses essential oils to control bacteria in the mouth. Fluoride, I’ll remind you, not only does nothing whatsoever to help your teeth, but makes you acquiescent to all sorts of abuse (probably the main reason why we’re in the current pickle with our government), and shuts down the pineal gland (the source of most of our psychic ability). Most of the sweets I make at home are sweetened with stevia, xylitol and inulin-FOS, and much cleaner ingredients than you will ever see in the grocery stores. On top of all that, my campaign to get the candida out of my body has definitely helped my gums.  All of these differences are very good.

I still needed some serious care at the time… I had one cracked tooth, and a couple of the crappy veneers that the quack dentist put on several years ago (and she cut my gums to do so) were falling off, leaving sharp edges. I needed a crown for that broken tooth, so he took a cast and then installed a temporary crown, then got rid of a couple of amalgam fillings and patched one of the veneers. I got to break the whole bill down into four payments, which helped, though it really took a chunk out of my budget. It kept me from putting any money away for the last four months of 2009 and into 2010, which made paying income taxes a booger-bear.

Listen… my teeth aren’t much to look at. I grew up in an area (South Houston) with a lot of natural fluoride in the water that caused me to have streaky yellow teeth; kind of like horse teeth. That quack dentist on Highway 6 is no longer in that location, and her partner in crime, the endodontist she sent everyone to, is now deaf (she never listened to anyone anyway). The point I’m making is that we have to take care of ourselves the best we can while we are in these fragile bodies. That means questioning the standard medical or dental line and doing our own research. It also means listening to our own bodies. What you do that impacts your dental health, also remarkably impacts the rest of the body in every way, long term.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-04-25 16:03:03. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Earth Medicine

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

In this instance, I am talking about Diatomaceous Earth.

A little background story first… some years ago, I went to a very bad dentist. The woman was ruthless and incompetent at the same time. She screwed around with everything in my mouth, cutting into gums, replacing enamel with crowns and veneers, and did this screwed up bridge over two teeth where two root canals had been done… both on her watch because the endodontist she sent me to did a half-ass job the first time. I relived the Inquisition every time I went there, and I payed her thousands of dollars for the privilege. In the midst of all this, there were antibiotics… several rounds of them. I went from being on the way to losing some weight, to having my gut in complete upheaval because of a systemic candida albicans infection. I wound up with food allergies. I wound up with my period becoming painful and heavy, and taking way too long. I wound up with mostly chronic diarrhea punctuated by occasional days of not having the runs.

I had been “diagnosed” by several holistic doctors as having leaky bowel syndrome… which actually refers to pinprick holes in the intestine walls leaking into the peritoneum… actually a rare occurrence.  After spending thousands of dollars on Chinese herbs and acupuncture, I finally hit upon what was really going on.

I’ve tried a number of things to get the candida under control and out of my system. I did the Hanna Kroeger Candida Formulas I and II, and I supplemented that with Black Walnut capsules… and that did help some… in fact, if my period were really rough, I would hit this stuff and the period would slack off pretty well.

I tried baking soda… as in swallowing several spoonfuls a day, chased by water. Yes, that alkalizes the system, but it couldn’t do it all.

I tried Willard Water… great stuff… but again, it alkalizes the system, but couldn’t do it all. It did give me some comfort and relief. I put the stuff in my cats’ drinking water and it completely healed one cat’s weepy eye that had been scratched by another cat.

At long last, last Friday the 16th, I followed a friend to a nice feed store on Veterans Memorial Drive, and picked up a big 25 lb. bag of food grade diatomaceous earth for $19.50.  That night, I started taking the stuff: one tablespoon in some juice. The stuff is a fine powder that has an astringent smell… you will need something with a reasonably strong taste to get it down.

I’ve been taking one helping in the morning and another at night and I am impressed. Seriously. My food cravings are changing… I want veggies and fruit and nuts like all get-out. My gut is feeling good and my tummy isn’t as poochy. I’ve had NO diarrhea, and what has come out has been really interesting. The stools are large and solid, and it looks like it has scrubbed some oddball stuff out of my body… some kind of fuzzy, wooly stuff.

This morning, Thursday, I noticed that the rosacea on my cheeks was already fading. While it has never been a severe case of the red blotchiness, I don’t like it. It won’t be long before I’ll be down to just using powder foundation without the liquid foundation under it.

Since the basis of diatomaceous earth is silica, I expect my hair to get even better looking. I hope my nails improve as well. 

So what else can I do with this humongous bag of D.E.?  I’ve given several ziplock bags of it to friends to try out. I’ve put a pinch of it into my cats’ food (you really have to bury it in something moist). The stuff can be used to kill bugs… they walk in it and then when they clean themselves, the tiny diatoms are sharp enough to kill the bugs. I have used D.E. in my garden with some success.

By all means, give this stuff a try. At the very least, it won’t hurt you. It’s cheap and it has numerous applications.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-04-23 05:42:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Eating Right Isn’t That Time-Consuming

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Okay… I’ve been looking at ingredient labels and wondering why we’re eating the packaged crap at the grocery stores. Having been “prepping” by stocking up on basic materials, I’ve had to re-explore home cooking, which better prepares me for self-sufficiency in the aftermath of whatever might throw a monkey-wrench into the normal commerce around these parts. Seeing my neighbors standing in line for hours to enter a grocery store that had been completely denuded a couple of days in front of Hurricane Ike, was a good indicator that the more I can do for myself, the better.

Now… talking to a friend on the phone, who admittedly says that she doesn’t have time to cook… and here the poor dear is carrying enough weight to make an extra person… just doesn’t wash with me.  That very evening I had created a perfectly wonderful and healthy dish with some of my pantry basics. I took a cup of quinoa, about 3 cups of water, a MSG-free chicken buillion cube, half a chopped onion, a tablespoon of the garlic in olive oil, and one of the 12-ounce cans of turkey meat, drained (I buy the 4-packs of the turkey meat at the wholesale clubs)… and dumped the entire lot into my rice cooker and pretty much walked away.  Once things got about half done, I dumped in a couple of fist-fulls of the dehydrated carrot bits and half a bag of frozen peas.  It became a wonderful dish. You can easily use Veg-All mixed vegetables in a can for the veggie. I made up a quick gravy using a can of Cream of Mushroom soup to top it off.  My husband said it was like turkey and dressing all together, and he certainly made a lunch of it to take to work the next day. 

Okay… I had the veggies, the meat, plenty of flavor, and a HEALTHY carb… quinoa  is gluten-free, has about 15% protein content, a high amino acid score, a relatively low glycemic load, plenty of fiber and is loaded with bone-building minerals.

I mean, really… dumping some ingredients into a rice cooker and walking away?  That didn’t take much of any time.  Okay… it took a little time to chop up an onion.

What did it actually cost? $2 for the can of turkey, maybe $1 for the quinoa, half an onion I already had in the fridge and half a bag of veggies I already had in the freezer (closed with a clothes-pin)… maybe another dollar?  And a can of cream of mushroom soup to top it off? Not much there. I  created a total of 5 healthy meals for maybe $5.50. 

Time to get real, America!

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

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Wampum Redux

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

I was looking at a Discovery Channel program about some Viking settlements they’ve unearthed in Great Britain. The more I learn about this branch of my ancestry, the more impressed I am with them. They were consummate traders. They had a trading network that brought fine goods all the way to northern Europe from the middle east. They couldn’t make fine wire to wire-wrap things (see my own website for examples similar to what they did) so they imported it. They swapped for things. 

 They wore silver barter bracelets… cuff bracelets that they would chop off sections of and use for currency; if a Viking wanted a new leather jerkin, he’d ask a purveyor how much and they’d weigh the barter bracelet, then measure the appropriate amount and chop it off with an axe. If they carried silver or gold coins, they chopped these into pieces as required per transaction.

The Native Americans… Indians… were very similar. Some 500 tribes scattered across the Americas networked their trading and met at a number of trading sites. Coral, abalone and cowrie shells have been found in burial sites far inland, well away from the tribes who were geographically close to these goods. What one tribe had, another tribe wanted.  Pipestone found its way all over the Americas. When tribes or individuals rendezvoused at these trading sites, people were also exchanged… marriages were arranged.  Most tribes were extended families, so you didn’t marry within your own tribe… these ancestors understood the problem with inbreeding.  “Wampum” was the trading medium… and at one point, they settled on beads and shells as the “wampum” and wore these strung on necklaces or decorating clothing, to be removed and traded with as needed.

The point is, where there are people, there is a requirement and a desire for trade. It’s against human nature not to want to trade. We got away from traditional bartering with the advent of “currency”. I can see that we’re going to be going back to the old ways of doing business, at least until a new currency can be established, hopefully without the private banking cabal involved.

Those of you that have been reading my humble blog, know that I’m a “prepper” and a “gold & silver bug”.  I recently cashed out my IRAs that had been languishing in the bank, however “safe” that was at such a miserably small interest rate. Believe me, when a bank has held $10,000 of your money for a whole year and barely paid you $50 in interest… it is time to buy metals.  I paid the fees and taxes, and  purchased silver and gold bullion, and a few other potentially useful things.  Gold is for preservation of wealth, and silver would likely be the preferred medium for barter.

I know that silver and gold prices have been heavily manipulated, especially silver. Silver used to trade at a 16-1 ratio with gold, meaning that the price of silver was being held artificially low to begin with before Goldman Sachs and the other criminal banksters began shorting it… selling positions in the metal without even holding any of the metal. Why they got away with that is completely beyond me. Suffice it to say, that at some point, anyone having dealt with them will eventually go back to them and demand to see the vault, and at that point, metals prices will likely jump. They’ll definitely jump when the dollars that have been held by other countries around the world are brought back to the U.S. to purchase what they can before what little value the currency has craters once and for all and the hyper-inflation hits hard.  

Okay… so there are a few of you that don’t really understand what could happen when the dollar loses its hegemony as the world’s default currency. Right now, all oil is traded in “petro-dollars” with the U.S. dollar as the pricing unit. Our government is spending money that it doesn’t have and the banking cabal Federal Reserve is printing it, causing the money to lose its value as the supply dilutes. At some point, the countries that have been buying our debt (as in Treasury Bills) will consider it a bad investment because the new dollars being paid to them are not going to be as valuable as the old dollars they bought the T-bills with… and they will offload the dollars any way they can, either by dumping them in the financial markets or by coming to the U.S. and buying up anything with perceived value while they can. Either way, all that money comes back here, and the dilution factor hits in earnest. 

  • Which means that OPEC will not accept dollars in exchange for oil any more.
  • Which means that fuel will likely become scarce, and farmers will have a tougher time affording fuel to run those big machines to do the farming, and that the truckers that move the food across the land will probably be making a lot fewer trips.
  • Which means that your local grocery store might not be able to restock inventory.
  • Which means that food prices would likely be going up hugely because of the cost of production and the cost of shipping. 
  • What do you think people might do in that event?  The poorest among us would feel the effects first. We’ve already got over 40 million people relying on food stamps.  So under those circumstances we may be looking at the possibility of civil unrest, riots, martial law, lockdowns of entire districts, and… starvation.
  • Which means that each person will likely be stuck with whatever they’ve got stored.
  • Power generation could very well be effected, as could other utilities. Are you ready for far higher prices on utilities coupled with blackouts and rationing?
  • It could take a while to get things straightened out… perhaps months, maybe longer. 
  • Things could come to a standstill in the meantime while food production localizes and farmers’ markets take the place of supermarkets. Barter will likely become the main means of trade.

Even if you have a modest budget… if you can still dine out on burgers a couple of times a week, you can retool and make some basic preparations.  Eat a nut-butter sandwich instead of McDonald’s, and put that money to work for you by buying some stuff. Come on now, you can buy a 1-pound bag of lentils, beans, rice or split peas for like $0.85  so if the average McDonald’s lunch is like $6.00, you can buy at least six bags of food you can store. Or you could save the cost for a couple of those lunches and go purchase some junk silver (90% silver coins) or some generic silver round at a local bullion dealer. Yes, you’d pay sales tax on bullion purchases under $1,000, but you’d have something that would be worth something.

A lot of grocery stores are closing out some inventories… I picked up 1 pound shake dispensers of spices (onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, etc.) for $2 each. You’ll need to flavor those beans. I picked up some close outs on organic unbleached white flour for $3.50 a 5 pound bag… I learned to make tortillas from scratch.  Shop the sales!  Find a friend with a Costco or Sam’s Club membership and go shopping with them… you can buy twice as much for the same price as a regular grocery store. 

Do these things for yourself while your dollars will still purchase things that have real value and are useful, and that could very well sustain you. I’ve been telling people to clean out their closets to get rid of anything they don’t use, store food in every nook and cranny, and buy ammunition for self-defense. Gold and silver are good, but food and ammo will likely come into play first.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

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Perimenopausal Helpers

Saturday, July 24th, 2010
As above, so below. Lately I’ve been fielding a lot of questions from my customers about how to fix perimenopause/menopause symptoms.  For some time now I’ve been doing battle with perimenopause. In my case, the symptoms have to do with my actual period… super-heavy to the point of filling adult urinary diapers, and very painful at that. I’m not kidding. A lot of women will go to their doctor hoping for help. I can tell you that the average medical response is to do a hysterectomy. My sister did that and the friggin’ doctor ripped EVERYTHING out… didn’t even leave her an ovary!  Okay… if it is fibroids, yes they can make things more difficult, but the fibroids leave when your uterine lining thins out for menopause. Same thing about endometriosis.
If you want to get rid of the fibroids… get the Essiac Tea. Herbal Healer Academy http://www.herbalhealer.com  sells the tea in bulk, liquid concentrate and capsules. It will take a long time, but it will work. A friend of mine with really big fibroids took this route… it took about two years to get them to totally go away drinking this tea twice a day. It works. The tea is also good for combatting just about any infection! If you feel a cold coming on, get into the Essiac!
The herb Sarsaparilla to replace progesterone… perhaps up to 3 capsules with each meal.
Another herb, called Dong Quai, is also called “women’s ginseng”. I’m trying this one out now. It is known to balance hormonal levels at all stages of life, eliminating PMS, perimenopause and menopausal symptoms, while providing benefits for overall health.
 
Another herb, Fo-Ti, is a youth herb… and you will need 3 capsules with each meal… really helps your energy level. I won’t do without this one. It is a youth herb… look up the history. If you take this plus two of the Swanson Vitamins Gelatin & Silicon supplement with each meal, your hair will come in thicker and darker, with a lot less gray. No kidding.
Since most of the weight gain, sleep disruption and stress during the shift into menopause stresses the adrenals, you need adrenal support. A simple solution is Red Clover, either in capsules or in tea form, or Ashwagandha, which additionally aids in weight loss.
 
Yet another FOOD herb called Maca boosts and optimizes the entire endocrine system, and most people feel it first in the sex drive. It isn’t an herb so much as a FOOD. You will take several tablespoons of this each day. Check around for it in loose form… you’ll go nuts trying to take that many capsules. Try making a smoothie with bananas and throwing the Maca in it each morning. You’ll know when to back off when you start looking at doorknobs and other odd objects in regard for their sexual gratification potential… I’m not kidding. 
 
The supplements Pregnenolone and DHEA, which are precursors to the progesterone, estrogen and testosterone. I know ladies in their 70s that take up to 100 mg of the pregnenolone daily, just to feel normal and have decent energy. If you are 50, you can handle up to 50 mg of Pregnenolone and up to 25 mg of DHEA.   My last period was super bad, and I had some of this in the house. I started taking them, the sarsaparilla and using the progesterone cream/spray, and it arrested the hemmoraging in ONE DAY!  You have to feel the body on this one… it can aggravate PMS symptoms short-term. I downsized the DHEA to 20 mg.
 
There are various progesterone creams and a progesterone spray on the Swanson Vitamins website. You just rub it somewhere on your body… and rotate the various spots you apply it to. One time you rub it on your tummy, another on your thighs, another on the inside of your arms…  No prescription required.
 
I get all of this very inexpensively on http://www.swansonvitamins.com  even with the darn shipping.
 
Another thing… stay away from all SOY, including TVP (textured vegetable protein).  No kidding. Soybean oil prevents your body from absorbing nutrition from your food… really blocks it.  Soy in general will mess up every hormone you ever had, beginning with the thyroid hormones, and then everything else. It is an endocrine disruptor.
 
If you think your thyroid is running low, taken a bunch of Kelp tablets for the iodine. Swanson has some good iodine drops, too. You can tell whether your thyroid is working right… stand in front of a mirror with your arms hanging at rest at your sides… if your hands are not palms to your legs… it they slant so the palms are not parallel with your body… your thyroid is outta whack. You need the iodine.
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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

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Astrology for the Next Couple of Years

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

I went to my friend and astrologer, Enola Dominiak, for a reading to see what was up in my chart and in general. This was back in November 2009, and I was experiencing a dry spell business-wise (a lot of people were), along with an incredible urge to write. 

Enola is a real expert… she can look at your chart from any of 6 different astrological schools and give you the scenarios. A few years back, she looked at one aspect in my chart and told me that “a mother figure” would either get really sick or die sometime that November or December… it turned out, my mother-in-law died on November 20th of a heart attack… really sudden. That’s how good she is. If you want to avail yourself of her services, her number is 713-503-1574.

Okay, now on to this year.  Enola saw no economic improvement until fall of 2010… this year. We are going to be seeing some MAJOR SHIFTS because for the next 3 years we are under the influence of Saturn in Libra. Saturn is exhalted, or empowered, in Libra. Saturn is the teacher of the zodiac, and Libra is a cardinal sign. This is a very forceful, aggressive aspect.  This is all about “relationships”… friends, lovers, employers, business relationships, and so forth, and all of these relationships will be changing  depending on how they all relate to Saturn in their charts.

One thing she stated is that we have to be very careful about staying out of negativity while Saturn is in Libra, because Saturn will give us what we think about. This is a critical spot in the global and personal balancing act.

Enola voiced concern that there was the probability of violence in the larger world and relationships, as in we-the-people regarding our government. We’re already seeing vandalism directed at members of congress as a result of their vote for ObamaCare. As the economy continues melting down with inflation and job losses, people may very well become agitated and militant. Witness the Tea Party movement now.

Other than that, the rest of 2010 looks interesting enough, astrologically speaking:  Mercury goes retrograde April 18-May 11,  then August 20-September 12, then again December 10-30th.  Venus goes retrograde October 8- November 18th… that’s in Libra… ouch.  Mars had been retrograde  since December 20th, 2009 and finally went direct on March 10th, 2010… if you noticed that not much was moving, that is one reason why.  Jupiter, the Santa Claus of the zodiac, goes retrograde from July 23-November 18… you can expect sales to be slow during this period… and remember, that goes along with a Mercury retrograde.  Saturn is now retrograde from January 13-May 30th… the teacher is revisiting some lessons to make sure we got them down pat, or we will receive a smack with the ruler. Chiron is retrograde from June 4 – November 5th… look at both your physical health and the inner health issues carefully, because they will be up in your grille.  Uranus is retrograde from July 5-December 5th… since Uranus is the divine rebel, it has to do with individualism and rapid change, so I think we will be seeing some real interesting stuff with Uranus revisiting the issues and sitting on them to make us look at them. Neptune is retrograde from May 31-November 7th… that has to do with the urge to escape limitations, living an ideal, and unity… things could get interesting over the summer.  Pluto is retrograde from April 6-September 14th… Pluto is all about transformation, evolutionary growth, elimination, power, control, the surging masses, and… transition (death).  

For me, personally, this is a time of laying down the foundations and doing some major introspection work.  When my brother who died at the end of February, was finally buried on the 19th of March, I spent a chunk of time processing rage… classic Chiron issues. I basically spent most of my childhood and teens in an unsupportive, competitive and antagonistic environment, with my brother the main reason for the turmoil, and my parents feeding it by refusing to deal with it… in fact, they didn’t start addressing my brother as an issue until 2 years after I had launched out of their house. I have to heal that in order to heal the rest of my body and drop the armor on my tummy. Enola says I came in with this anger from a past life. I am also likely to have a kundalini awakening this year. I do have a lot of good stuff going on in my chart, though.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-03-27 02:45:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Bulk High Protein Dry Foods

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

I have a few resources for you:

http://www.sunorganic.com  has great deals on quinoa, amaranth, millet, great northern beans (not so gassy), nuts and dried fruits. They are in California.

http://www.hidalgofoods.com  is in  Texas, and has the best prices on chia and maca, but if you are closer, the proximity can save you some serious bucks on shipping, even if the prices on quinoa are a little higher.

http://www.glaserorganicfarms.com is near Miami, Florida, so those of you on the east coast will probably save on shipping bulk items by ordering from them. Good prices on most items, and they also have a line of pesto sauces, nuts, raw snack foods, and other things for healthy cravings.

I’ve ordered from all of these companies and they are all good.  I will buy 25 lb. bags of the  grains and then use my FoodSaver system to suck-wrap them down into 4-cups per bag for long-haul storage.

Now… regarding the grains I’ve been ordering. Quinoa  is gluten-free, has about 15% protein content, a high amino acid score, a relatively low glycemic load and is loaded with bone-building minerals. Quinoa doesn’t have that much flavor on its own, so I fix that in the rice cooker with either chicken broth or bullion, chopped onions, garlic, parsley, tarragon and maybe even throw in a bag of frozen mixed veggies. Great stuff… works great with meat and gravy.

Amaranth is gluten-free, contains 13% protein dry, but has a high amino acid score and a load of minerals. Amaranth can’t take the place of rice as a side dish… too fine and too mushy. What I discovered on my own, is that you can either make a pudding out of it for dessert, or make it up with a little molasses or organic cane sugar, and serve it either as breakfast (like oatmeal or cream of wheat), or serve it along side your morning eggs as a substitute for grits. I’ll keep experimenting with it. I think it has promise for cookies and the like.

Millet is very interesting. It contains something like 11% protein, and also has middle score in amino acids and a higher glycemic index, and is heavy on bone-building minerals. It does substitute for rice very nicely. Cook it up just like you do rice, with a little salt and a pat of butter, and it tastes a lot like some kind of flavored grits. It substitutes for rice very nicely. My husband’s blood sugar will spike with millet, mainly because he goes back for second and third helpings, if he controls himself, it won’t spike.  There are a lot of artisan bread recipes that include millet. This has no gluten.

Compare that to whole grain brown rice, which has a very high glycemic index (higher than millet), about 7% protein, and is a lot more inflammation causing than the other three, by about double the numbers. Rice still contains gluten, even if it is refined out.

I did try kamut, which is a middle-eastern relative of the wheat family and does have gluten in it. It is about 16% protein and has a fairly low glycemic load, but then again, it’s tough to cook and eat the stuff. Granted I just put it in a rice cooker with water and a chicken bullion cube. It took darn-near forever to cook, and it still wasn’t cooked. Maybe the trick is to grind it up first. I’ll give it a “fail” for now.

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-03-26 17:56:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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