A role model for the ladies

Ladies, I've found the perfect role model for you. Her name is Maggie and she runs a website called Hillbilly Housewife. It's a place where good Christian women can go to learn about the joys of wearing aprons, cooking with bacon grease, survivalism, and worshipping our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Maggie is a traditional wife and mother. She doesn't worry about worldly things like nutrition, which she calls a "burden for His [God's] children." She cites Galatians 5:1 to back her up.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

That's why she's not afraid to cook with bacon grease. In fact, it's in a lot of her recipes.

You will see Bacon Grease called for in many of my recipes. Hillbillies traditionally cook with it a lot. Essentially, bacon grease is the fat left in the pan after frying bacon. I store mine in a clean tin can in the refrigerator. Every time I cook bacon, I pour whatever grease I have left over into my bacon grease can. I use it for frying and seasoning mostly. Bacon Fat lends a very special flavor to foods which are cooked in it.

Perhaps Maggie's most important contribution to Christian womanhood is something she calls, "Apron Evangelism." She doesn't believe that a woman is complete until she's put on an apron, and she wants to tell the world about it.

I wear my aprons every day now. I have made more, in different colors and configurations so as to be pleasing to my senses. I have come to believe they are a like lacy bits of lingerie, only worn on the outside, and a quite a bit more respectable. When I put on my aprons the children mind me better, wandering visitors immediately know my role as a stay at home mom. Door to door religious missionaries assume I am a virtuous woman and cheerfully move on to the next house. Fred thinks I look cute as a button, and neighbor children hug me more often.

I like my aprons. They have changed my life, raising my standards, inspiring me to greater feats of home making skill, and making me more effective as a parent. Whoever thought that a dollars worth of fabric and lace could effect so many changes on one woman and one family? Since my success with aprons I have become a true believer. I am now called to spread the word among my fellow housewives. Join the crusade by sharing your love of aprons with friends, family and internet buddies around the world. Together we will change the face of the House Wife, the world over.

Maggie even offers a little something for the menfolk by providing a forum where discussions about "Conspiracy Theories, Political Rants, Patriot Movement, Home Preparedness, Pro-Constiutuion,[sic] Paranoia welcome and encouraged." I found a post by Geoffc--whose avatar is a little boy wearing cammo and holding a rifle--to be especially informative.

Remember Waco and Ruby Ridge? That really kicked the so-called Survivalist movement into high gear. We used to be warned about "domestic terrorism", and after OKC, the AWCM (Angry White Christian Male) became a one-size-fits-all public enemy synonymous with almost any right-of-center political commentator. Remember when AM talk radio was being blamed for the militia movement and abortion clinic bombings? Turned out that the FBI's biggest identified domestic terrorist organization is the left-wing ELF (Earth Liberation Front). Boy, Christians took a political beating then, until paranoia became mainstream after 911.

Well, more on this later ... I just popped two chicken pot pies in the oven and must go tend to kitchen business. However, my shootin' iron is at the ready for any unforeseen eventuality...!

Ladies, too, can benefit from the wisdom found in Maggie's forums. Here Maggie warns women about one of the greatest dangers they'll face if they should choose to work outside of the home.

That said, many women in the work force find themselves in postions where they have to submit to their bosses decisions and their bosses will's and to me that is a sickening thing for a woman to have to do. Submitting to a husband is right and proper under the bible. Submitting to a man who isn't one's husband is kind of dreadful, at least it is for me. Being that close and spending that much time with another man means you start to adapt yourself to him and to accomodate him in ways that make me uncomfortable. I only want to accomodate and adapt to Fred. I think the reason there are so many office romances is because you spend so much time with another human being and you are destined to become close. Even if it is perfectly innocent and above board, for me it is a risk I am unwilling to take. That sort of close working relationship is for me to share with my hubby and not anyone else. Even though the relationship may be perfectly platonic, the emotional intimacy is still kind of icky, at least for me.