That one where Abigail gives away the fridge...

[MamaJunebug]

So, Peeps *are* on WIC approved-foods lists?

If not, how does a direly poor family afford 'em?

Where's the "contemplative prayer" part of a woman who posts that many times/day?

Interesting that she shows no comments on any of her posts.

I don't want to read about her any more. In the words of more than one FJer, she makes me feel "stabby."

[GeoBQn]

She's closed the blog to comments to "focus on Jesus." And Jesus will decide when she can turn the comments back on. If someone wants to tell her how wrong she is about poverty being awesome, they have to e-mail her.

[miffy]

Australian supermarkets didn't keep the eggs in the refrigerated section until a couple of years ago. Lots of places still sell them at room temperature. I buy local free range eggs from an orchard nearby (its like a farmers market thats open until 6pm 7 days a week!!!) & they are room temp.

Abigail is such a moron. I wonder if any of her siblings read her blog?

[miffy]

Abigail's blog is reminding me of the show 7th Heaven, where the family of 9 people would complain about how they couldn't afford anything while they drank bottled water and ate individual pints of ice cream.

She would probably find that insulting because the Camdens were most probably Episcopalian & therefore not of the true church. :lol:

At least they were fictional & had a pretty house to show for it.

[alba]

The longest I managed to keep fresh milk out, was two days in winter (milk always got nicked from the fridges in my halls of residence, so I used to buy a pint, and keep it in my room. Somehow it never crossed my mind to buy UHT).

We had rather spacious windowsills in halls so that was where people put milk in the winter. You didn't want to do it with cheese, though, because the seagulls stole it.

How long do you typically leave the eggs and butter out?

I leave eggs out for a month or so. My fiancé, whose parents keep hens, is aghast at the idea of keeping eggs in the fridge and insists they keep better on the counter. I don't know if it's true or not, but we have a mini-fridge so whatever doesn't have to go in the fridge doesn't.

Why does she so desire an eat-in kitchen? Presumably there would be other more suitable spaces in her house...

I agree. She has a dining room with a door leading off the kitchen. Personally, I would love an eat-in kitchen, but that's because we don't have a dining room so our table's in the living room. If I had a small kitchen and separate dining room I'd eat in the dining room and cook in the kitchen. Then again, maybe she's put off by the anti-choice poster in the dining room.

[Nothing2CHere]

I agree. She has a dining room with a door leading off the kitchen. Personally, I would love an eat-in kitchen, but that's because we don't have a dining room so our table's in the living room. If I had a small kitchen and separate dining room I'd eat in the dining room and cook in the kitchen. Then again, maybe she's put off by the anti-choice poster in the dining room.

!!! I would LOVE a dining room. I have told my husband that if we ever get a house with a dining room, we will eat in the dining room Every.Single.Day. Our kitchen is technically an eat-in kitchen, but it can only fit a small table. I am not getting rid of our full-sized fridge to try to put a bigger table in there.

[ladyaudley]

Well the advice also says to cook eggs until yolks are firm, which I hardly ever do unless I'm making egg salad. I always have my egg yolks runny in a fried or poached egg, and most British people cook their eggs sunny side up. Clearly, Europeans don't think much of FDA guidelines.

runny eggs ftw!

on a German website I found the info that in Germany, the eggs are not washed, only brushed. Thus the cuticula stays intact and eggs can be kept unrefridgerated for up to 18 days. Once you start refridgerating eggs, you need to keep them refridgerated, otherwise condensation on the shell can be absorbed into the egg and take bacteria with it.

Because eggs are washed in the US and Canada and the cuticula is thus destroyed, they are immediately refridgerated.

things I never even thought about!

[Conuly]

Yes, they look old IMO. The difference between my fresh from the chicken eggs and grocery store eggs is huge. The yolks from my chickens are orange, grocery store eggs are pale yellow. i also think that our home grown eggs are much tastier, grocery store eggs are just bland. I never knew there was such a difference before we had our own chickens.

I thought that was because pasture raised chickens have a better diet and lifestyle, not because of the age of the eggs...? At any rate, the eggs at the store can't be all that old. I sometimes prefer older eggs because they're better for hard boiling, but when I buy them straight from the store they still are awful at that.

The USDA guidelines are "best, safest" guidelines. That is, they're going to be overly careful and give recommendations that, if followed, will result in no one ever getting sick. This doesn't mean it's the only way to safely handle eggs.

Thank you for that entire post :) That's probably the most useful thing any of us will say.

[rward]

!!! I would LOVE a dining room. I have told my husband that if we ever get a house with a dining room, we will eat in the dining room Every.Single.Day. Our kitchen is technically an eat-in kitchen, but it can only fit a small table. I am not getting rid of our full-sized fridge to try to put a bigger table in there.

I said that. Got a beautiful dining room table and chairs set, installed a new, fancy chandelier . . . and we only ever use the dining room table to play family games of poker on.

But I do have an eat in kitchen, and a full size fridge, which Abigail would have to pry from my cold, dead hands.

She's just so weird to me. Living in actual poverty isn't fun. It's exhausting. I'm just starting to emotionally recover, and the effects have been, well, weird. I find it hard to throw anything away, because when you're poor, you can't buy things. This weekend, I found myself looking at an old receipt thinking, "I should keep this, I could write on the back."

And Abigail aspires to this?!

[formergothardite]

We all have crazy stories from our childhood, but these kids are going to grow up and really have crazy stories.

"Hey remember the time mom gave away the fridge and talked about how poor we were because we had to buy more expensive small containers of milk? Fun times."

[LilMissMetaphor]

This reminds me that my mom used to pour hot water over our shredded wheat pucks instead of giving us milk. Damned if I know why, it wasn't as if we didn't have money.

[LucySnowe]

I have some very good friends who grew up in real poverty. One was from a large family and it wasn't just 'no shoes in the summer' but the clothes he got to wear that day were whatever he grabbed out of the pile, because there were barely enough clothes for everyone, so you had to get up first if you wanted to wear things that actually fit you. Another eats anything that's put on his plate, because he learned very early that if he didn't eat what he was given, he didn't eat at all. He will reject one, maybe two food types that make him feel physically ill, but in general he's internalised that 'eat or starve' choice.

I cannot fathom aspiring to poverty. Frugality, sure; that's how I live and it is largely a lifestyle choice and I appreciate having the ability to make that choice. But poverty is ugly, and it physically hurts children. (My 'friend who eats anything' is 5'5" tall and is pretty sure that his childhood diet had some effect on his height.)

[Joan of Snarc]

Abigail's just playing at poverty. She has no idea what it's really like and she never intends to find out. It's just a game to her. She wonders, "How far can I take this?" while picking out individual containers of organic milk and plotting her next attention-seeking blog post. I feel for her husband and kids.

[Koala]

But I do have an eat in kitchen, and a full size fridge, which Abigail would have to pry from my cold, dead hands.

She's just so weird to me. Living in actual poverty isn't fun. It's exhausting. I'm just starting to emotionally recover, and the effects have been, well, weird. I find it hard to throw anything away, because when you're poor, you can't buy things. This weekend, I found myself looking at an old receipt thinking, "I should keep this, I could write on the back."

And Abigail aspires to this?!

Totally agree about the fridge. I have a 2 door side by side and you'd have to get past me to get it out of here.

In one of her (13) posts yesterday she talked about all the stuff they gave away because they were too poor to keep it. :evil-eye: My grandparents started out poor and it made hoarders out of the pair of them. When encouraged to throw something away, my grandfather always replied, "Never know when you might need it". They kept everything. As a result, I throw everything away. At the very least, wouldn't they be selling this stuff??? Maybe not though...making money might endanger their poverty status.

[Mudball]

I just can't wrap my head around this. It makes me sick!

We live on a modest income but I would never co-opt the term 'poverty' because not only do we have a roof over our heads and food in our belly but we have enough money that we can make poor financial decisions and squander occasionally and not wind up starving or on the street. I strive to be frugal and responsible and make financial decisions that allow us to save and provide extras for our child, and that doesn't make us poor. It makes us mature adults with some measure of responsibility and the ability to prioritize, make sacrifices for the greater good, and delay gratification. It's so disrespectful to scream from the rooftops about how poor you are when you aren't.

Abigail has tons of extras, squanders her money left and right (McDonald's, quarts of milk, crap from Hobby Lobby), makes decisions that make no sense in terms of frugality, and still calls herself impoverished.

Anyone with an ounce of sense and a true desire to provide the best possible for her children would never even entertain the thought of getting rid of a perfectly good refrigerator. I can let go of a lot of shit but for my child. *I* might be able to live without a refrigerator, or with the heat turned down to 58, or without new clothes for years at a time, but I could never do that to my daughter. Kids deserve to not have to go without food options. When my daughter is hungry she can open our large freezer and refrigerator and choose from many healthy options because that's what's important to us. Far more important than wasting money on McDonald's, or Hobby Lobby Jesus wall decorations.

Sorry for the rant. :angry-banghead:

[Nothing2CHere]

She's just so weird to me. Living in actual poverty isn't fun. It's exhausting. I'm just starting to emotionally recover, and the effects have been, well, weird. I find it hard to throw anything away, because when you're poor, you can't buy things. This weekend, I found myself looking at an old receipt thinking, "I should keep this, I could write on the back."

And Abigail aspires to this?!

This reminds me so much of how my grandparents, who grew up during the Great Depression, were. They used to even do things like wash styrofoam plates to reuse them.

Abigail has no idea of what she speaks.

[Confused_by_religion]

I believe that Abigail aspires to the monastic ideal, being a really devout Catholic.

I'm sure she does the obedience thing, instead of chastity she does the no-contraception-sex-within-marriage thing, which the Church also applauds, and the poverty's the third monastic vow. It's supposed to make you rely more on God.

So for her it certainly makes sense - apart from the fact that it isn't real soul-crushing poverty but more frugality (and a little sillyness thrown in - buying small portions that are certainly more expensive!). People have done without fridges for centuries, after all, even the rich.

It would be interesting to know where the Catholic Church would actually draw the line - she is not a single adult responsible for herself only (as somebody entering a convent would be), but she drags a whole family of children into whatever she does. Would the church think it's okay if an adult chose to deprive their kids of things they would need - food, education and so on - in the name of the monastic ideal of poverty?

[JenXer]

I have been seeing a growing trend of young Catholic couples who seem to glamorize poverty. I don't get it... I'm 20 years older than they are and we aim for as much money as possible. Life is hard enough even with financial stability. Trust me, honeys... there will be plenty of opportunities for redemptive suffering, even if you have some savings and a 401K.

These couples often go into significant debt to attend private, expensive Catholic colleges and get degrees in low employable fields, like literature or history. They marry right out of college and the babies arrive in rapid succession.

The problem is that I'm seeing these couples five to ten years into their "Poverty will be great and holy!" experiment. They are stressed beyond belief. Some of the husbands take to drinking heavily and the wives are deeply depressed. Sometimes it becomes a crisis of faith. "We made all of these sacrifices to serve Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, so why is it sooo crushingly hard??"

I can tell that we get judged sometimes because we are encouraging our children to follow a different sort of path. Ours go to secular universities and major in employable fields. We call it prudence.

[Confused_by_religion]

I have been seeing a growing trend of young Catholic couples who seem to glamorize poverty. I don't get it... I'm 20 years older than they are and we aim for as much money as possible. Life is hard enough even with financial stability. Trust me, honeys... there will be plenty of opportunities for redemptive suffering, even if you have some savings and a 401K.

These couples often go into significant debt to attend private, expensive Catholic colleges and get degrees in low employable fields, like literature or history. They marry right out of college and the babies arrive in rapid succession.

The problem is that I'm seeing these couples five to ten years into their "Poverty will be great and holy!" experiment. They are stressed beyond belief. Some of the husbands take to drinking heavily and the wives are deeply depressed. Sometimes it becomes a crisis of faith. "We made all of these sacrifices to serve Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, so why is it sooo crushingly hard??"

I can tell that we get judged sometimes because we are encouraging our children to follow a different sort of path. Ours go to secular universities and major in employable fields. We call it prudence.

Oh well, can you remember being 20 and so much wiser and smarter and passionate than everybody else? So alive with passion for a faith or a political idea or making the world a better place? Of course, nobody else understands you, as you are so much more radical and advanced than they, and their warnings only mean that they conform to the mediocre expectations of mainstream society.

I agree with you, in ten years' time they'll most likely have grown out of the "poverty is cool" phase - hopefully with as little harm as possible. But in my experience you can't really tell people what they are not ready to hear, so good advice might be wasted.

[Cora Persephona]

I have a question regarding this Catholic vow of poverty. Is it more like "be poor so you can suffer more on earth and get a greater reward in heaven" or more like "don't have more than you need so that anyone can have some" ?

Also, I agree with the person that said that she is playing at being poor. No truly poor person would glory in the fact that she may not have food for her children, but requires cello lessons in order to feel better about herself.

[PurpleSheepleEater]

I thought that was because pasture raised chickens have a better diet and lifestyle, not because of the age of the eggs...? At any rate, the eggs at the store can't be all that old. I sometimes prefer older eggs because they're better for hard boiling, but when I buy them straight from the store they still are awful at that.

Thank you for that entire post :) That's probably the most useful thing any of us will say.

Well my chickens are free range but in the winter there's nothing for them to eat except the packaged feed from the feed store that I give them and their eggs are still orange with huge yolks that stand up really nice and they taste much better than grocery store eggs. I imagine factory chickens probably eat a feed very similar to what mine eat. I couldn't find any exact information on what brand any egg companies feed.

I googled the age of eggs and although eggs are collected and packaged immediately it can take 30 days for them to actually be on the store shelf. Apparently it depends on how much of a stock your store keeps. There are warehouses where eggs sit for a month too and apparently it's legal in some places for them to be rewashed and repackaged after 30 days. I haven't bought eggs in forever but I'm going to look at the store next time I'm there to see if there is a packaged on date and figure out how old the eggs there are. I'm really curious now!

[Confused_by_religion]

I have a question regarding this Catholic vow of poverty. Is it more like "be poor so you can suffer more on earth and get a greater reward in heaven" or more like "don't have more than you need so that anyone can have some" ?

Also, I agree with the person that said that she is playing at being poor. No truly poor person would glory in the fact that she may not have food for her children, but requires cello lessons in order to feel better about herself.

Oh God, cello lessons for HERSELF to make her feel better about herself? *doh

As to poverty - there are a lot of ideas behind it. One is that this frees the monk or the nun - they don't have to worry about getting rich or keeping their possessions, so they can get closer to god and other people. The vow of poverty only means that they don't want to own personal possessions, though. There is a communal fund which is used to pay for buildings, food or whatever is needed. So if you are a nun or a monk and you aren't one of those orders that rely entirely on charity (thus giving somebody a chance to do good works), you usually don't have to worry about the fridge. There will be a fridge, but it won't be your own, but the community's.

Another point is that riches are not spoken of favourably by Jesus - but poverty is. Remember the Sermon on the Mount, when he says blessed are the poor in spirit. Some orders took this to mean it's okay if you own stuff as long as you are "poor in spirit", whatever that may mean. So there was lots of division in the medieval church as to what was the correct way of being poor. *sigh

So they are poor because being a follower of Jesus means extolling poverty and sneering at riches.

Then some look on voluntary poverty as an act of solidarity with the poor. Some orders choose to live in poor neighbourhoods and live like the poor to show they are with THEM, not with the rich who profit from structures that exploit the poor.

Fun fact: this is what a Missionary of Charity owns:

"A Sister's possessions include: three saris (one to wear, one to wash, one to mend), two or three cotton habits, a girdle, a pair of sandals, a crucifix and rosary. They also have a plate, a set of cutlery, a serviette, a canvas bag, and prayer book. In cold countries, possessions also include a cardigan and other suitable items according to the local conditions (a coat, scarf, shoes etc)." (quote from wikipedia)

No fridge. :-)

[rward]

This reminds me so much of how my grandparents, who grew up during the Great Depression, were. They used to even do things like wash styrofoam plates to reuse them.

Abigail has no idea of what she speaks.

Been there. Abigail reminds me of Emily. Do we have a shudder emoticon?

The first Christmas after my husband was diagnosed, got treatment and was working a little, we had $20 each to buy presents for each other. I wanted a piece of clothing from Target that was not on sale, he wanted Tide laundry detergent. That's what real poverty does to you.

[lilah]

You know there are famlies (I think the kennedys were one) where they will eat cereal for dinner one night a week so that they can give the money they could have spent on food to charitry. It's about giving up something for a greater good.

There is nothing holy or good about Abby's selective poverty. It's just poor planning and lack of impulse control. And instead of seeing it as a problem she tries to pretend she's all holier than thou.

[Savoring Samsara]

I have a question regarding this Catholic vow of poverty. Is it more like "be poor so you can suffer more on earth and get a greater reward in heaven" or more like "don't have more than you need so that anyone can have some" ?

Also, I agree with the person that said that she is playing at being poor. No truly poor person would glory in the fact that she may not have food for her children, but requires cello lessons in order to feel better about herself.

My brother-in-law is a Dominican monk, so to my knowledge he took a vow of poverty when he joined the order. I've seen how he lives, and while his lifestyle is very different from mine, he certainly does not suffer for the sake of suffering. The form that a vow of poverty appears to take, for him, is that he lives simply and without debt, that most of his property is considered to be communal with the other brothers (he has his own car, computer, clothing, and standard personal items, but that's about it), and that his focus is on doing what the Church needs rather than on seeking the highest-paying job. For example, when he first joined his order, he had a job stage managing plays at a local theater. He has a background in drama and made decent money for his community this way. However, after a while his superior asked him to quit stage managing and move to a lower-paying job at a local parish because the rehearsals and performances he had to be present for were taking him away from the other monks too frequently, so he did.

My husband and I were guests at his organization's main monastery before and it's actually pretty swanky. It's a huge house in a nice suburb - it has to be when about a dozen people live there. It has a nice, full kitchen and the monks eat very well. Sure, there is a chapel and a lot of time is spent in prayer and study, but they also have central air, premium cable, fast Internet, a home theater system, a gym, a library, and a pool and hot tub out back where we spent many enjoyable hours drinking beer and bullshitting about philosophy. He's since moved and his current digs are much more humble, because his order sent him to set up a branch in a different, economically depressed city, but he still has all the modern conveniences of life as you would expect them. He would certainly not give up his refrigerator to be closer to Jesus and would probably have some pretty strong words about how ridiculous that is if he were asked about it.

I'm not Catholic, just sharing my perceptions of what religious life is like as someone on the outside of it. I'm sure one of the many Catholics on this board can go more in depth about what a vow of poverty actually means in a theological sense.