Adventures in Domesticity

Lagniappe 1/4/2012

2012-01-04T19:04:00.001-06:00

Since I’m sure you’re dying to know what’s going on around here . . .

Rosie Girl made cheese soup, pasta, and broccoli for dinner tonight. Delish!!
The LSU football team left Baton Rouge this afternoon for New Orleans and the National Championship Game. I imagine that they’re already in New Orleans since it’s only about an hour’s drive. Still, it’s exciting!
I’m glad I’m not in New Orleans this week with all the craziness that is the Sugar Bowl, BCS Game, and NFL play-offs, but I seriously miss the beignets and po-boys!
I had my annual phone call with my disability insurance people today to confirm that I am, indeed, unable to work because of my migraines and remain a drain on society. About the time I think I’m emotionally stable, something like this happens to remind me that no, I have not worked through all my issues and yes, it is a good thing I’m seeing my counselor next week.
I’ve had a bad run of headaches, but I think having a bit of an upper respiratory infection hasn’t helped my cause much.
I’ve been increasing my Topamax and been feeling the cognitive side effects. The word-finding difficulty is most obvious, although I’m also noticing that I am slower with doing calculations in my head and being able to spell words, etc. Other than that, it’s mostly been noticing numbness in my feet and occasionally my hands and having a much decreased appetite. It could definitely be worse!
I’ve been working on a pair of socks for Rosie Girl that I started about a year ago! For some reason, they just got put to the side and never finished. Well, they will be done within the next few weeks. I’m also learning to crochet – it’s not hard, but frustrating to try to get my hands to learn a new motion.

So, what’s up in your neck of the woods?

Simplicity

2012-01-01T22:57:00.001-06:00

I like to make plans, goals, lists, and other organizational kinds of things. Set me loose in an office supply store and I’m a happy girl!! A year or so ago, I looked back at some of my professional goals from when I was working, and I had met most of them. I was a Daytimer Diva and proud of it!!!

Life is not the same any more. I’ve never really been in control of my circumstances, but it’s become more obvious in the day to day living of life in the last five years. I’ve quit making New Year’s Resolutions and setting goals with hard and fast deadlines. However, I’ve come across a great idea to replace it. Instead of making resolutions, I’m going to have a word on which to focus this year. And the word for 2012 is Simplicity. Inherent in simplicity is the non-necessity of organizational strategies and trips to office supply stores.

The only way that something (except meal plans) is likely to get organized differently in this house this year is to get thrown out! Overall, we have plenty of shelf and storage space. If stuff falls on the floor, it’s because we need to quit being lazy and pick it up or it’s because we have too much stuff and need to get rid of some. What will simplicity look like this year? Here are some things I’m thinking:

Menu Planning. A friend gave me a subscription to PlanToEat, an online menu planning program. So far, I’m loving it. I’m only using it for dinner but it helps me plan out five dinner meals per week and then puts together an appropriate shopping list, which I can add to for all the other stuff we need. There will, hopefully, be less stress about what to have for dinner. We have five menus. Whoever is scheduled to make dinner has five options with the recipes printed out and in a notebook.
Limiting choices. One of the main sources of complexity in life is the plethora of choices. Choices are wonderful – most of the time. But they also can add stress to our life by making us worry about whether we made the “best” possible choice (even if it was just which movie to watch) and take up time because of all the time we spend perusing all the choices. I’m specifically limiting my time surfing the web, seeing what’s on TV, checking what’s new at the library.
Making better use of time. I know this sounds crazy, but I really feel almost guilty about not finishing books that I start. What if it gets really good in the next chapter? I’m getting more “brutal” about my audiobook as well as traditional book reading time. If I don’t enjoy the book, I’ll quit reading. (That being said, I’ve tried to read a novel about a knitting shop at least twice, and just could not get into it. Someone brought a copy into the shop, so I decided I really need to finish it, even if just to say that I’ve read it. I got it on audio and this time I made it through the fourth chapter and now I’m hooked. This is why I’m afraid to not finish a book!)
More silence. I’m used to having some kind of noise around. I’m such a multi-tasker that I like to have audiobooks or music going while I knit or clean, etc. I’ve started to be deliberate about spending some of my knitting time each day in silence. Of course, part of that reason is because I’m trying to learn brioche knitting which requires more brain power than other kinds of knitting, but I’m trying to do some of my “easier” knitting in quiet as well.
Less stuff. PWM and I are gradually getting rid of stuff. When we did the Christmas decorating, we filled a couple of boxes for Goodwill. The front room probably has some more stuff that can go. We’ve made a lot of progress since the Fall, but we can still do better.

These are some steps that I hope will get our family on track to a more simple lifestyle. I’m not interested in homesteading or getting rid of technology (don’t even THINK about taking my Kindle!), but I want to be wise in our use of the time and talents God has given us. If nothing else, the chronic migraines have helped me to see more clearly that our life on earth is not about the stuff – it’s about following Jesus. And following Jesus is much easier when we don’t have to worry about full houses and full schedules.

What changes (if any) are you planning for 2012?

7 Quick Takes Friday–The Last of 2011

2011-12-30T18:14:00.001-06:00

This is the last time I’ll do a “7 Quick Takes Friday” this year! Can you believe that we’re already to December 30? It seems like we were just welcoming in 2011 and now we’re telling it good-bye. Well, here are 7 highlights of the last couple of weeks.

1. Christmas Eve was as busy as usual for PWM, Rosie Girl and Wild Man. PWM did sound for the three church services, while Wild Man played percussion and Rosie Girl played keyboard. I, on the other hand, had a migraine all day and didn’t make it to any of the church services. Yippee.

2. Christmas Day, though, was wonderful! I made scarves for both kids using a double knitting technique so that both sides have the same design, but in opposite colors. Rosie Girl has a keyboard design while Wild Man has the silhouette of his bass guitar.

3. Wild Man was excited because he finally got his own ipod. Rosie Girl got some money from Santa. She added that to some of her own money and went with PWM on Monday to buy herself a guitar – it’s a classical, nylon string acoustic electric with a built-in tuner. She’s a very happy young woman.

4. One of our Christmas traditions is to have tomato soup (actually a ham and tomato cream soup) during the week of Christmas. We eat ham during the first or second week of December then during the week of Christmas, I use the ham bone to make the stock for the soup and make a huge pot of soup so we don’t have to worry about cooking. Things were no different this year. Easy and delicious!

5. We don’t have much of a tradition for Christmas dinner except that we don’t do it on Christmas Day. We do our Christmas Dinner on the day after Christmas so we can enjoy Christmas day with each other and not stress about cooking. We decide each year what we want to eat, and it’s rarely turkey since we have that on Thanksgiving. We were going to do lamb until we realized how expensive it would be. Instead, we decided on individual Beef Wellingtons. Unfortunately, they were overcooked – the casualty of an oven that isn’t very consistent. We had leftover roast and filling (the recipe called for a mushroom filling instead of a liver pate), so we tried again on the 27th and they were much better.

6. Rosie Girl has found some added benefits to working at a cheese factory, even if she is working just in the retail portion. She got a cash Christmas bonus and a HUGE box of cheese and chocolates! Very nice!!

7. We don’t usually watch football except for Packers and LSU, but we turned it on the other day and watched the Saints game (partly because we knew that PWM’s brother was at the game). It turned out to be the game where Drew Brees broke Dan Marino’s record for single season passing yards! Talk about good timing!

So, what’s up with you? How have your holidays been going? Check out Conversion Diary to see what others have been up to!

7 Quick Takes Friday–December 10, 2011

2011-12-10T16:36:00.001-06:00

Yep, I missed Friday again. I guess I didn’t completely miss it. I mean, I was here. I just forgot to do any blogging. But, I’ve remembered now and I’ve got plenty to say!

1. Last Sunday, Wild Man played Congas (hand drums) to accompany two singers and a guitar player at our church’s Women’s Christmas Tea. What a wonderful job they all did! It’s hard to believe sometimes that he’s just 13.

2. On Thursday night, Wild Man played percussion with the rest of the 7th and 8th grade band at the Middle School. It was a wonderful concert!!

3. Rosie Girl got her PSAT scores yesterday and they were quite good, particularly the reading and writing scores.

4. Wild Man was in the other room playing bass guitar when Rosie Girl got home yesterday. She went in to show him her scores and he was very excited for her. I love seeing my kids happy for each other!

5. Wild Man is playing drums today at a Christian camp Christmas event – I’m sure he’s having a blast. He’s such a performer at heart.

6. Rosie Girl was sick last week and only got to work a couple of hours (and missed her piano recital, although she wasn’t too terribly upset since performance isn’t her favorite thing), but she’s working a full day today which will make her bank account happy!

7. I’m still slowly increasing my Topamax. I think the migraines are marginally better, but the side effects are annoying (well, except for the loss of appetite).

So, how was your week?! Anything exciting?! Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

An Epiphany

2011-11-27T11:33:00.001-06:00

I’m reading Flunking Sainthood by Jana Reiss, a memoir of the author’s year of trying out different spiritual practices, including fasting, lectio divina, and more. I’m about halfway through and have been quite interested in her insights. She has finished each month so far not by not being successful at the spiritual practice, but at finding that the attempt at practicing it is bringing out deeper spiritual issues in her life.

The chapter I just read is about simplicity and the author’s task was to avoid any non-essential purchases for a month. What she learned through the month was that shopping and consumerism aren’t real problems for her, but the underlying spirit of coveting is real and problematic.

I read that a little self-righteously because, after all, I’m not big on conspicuous consumerism. Our furniture is old, our TV is dying, we wear socks till they have holes in them, etc. You get the drift. But, as I considered what she had written, I realized that I am not content with my life in many ways – and it’s not the “holy discontent” of wanting to walk more closely with Jesus or even having goals in life. I’m not content because I look around my house and think “If we had less stuff and clutter and were more organized, I’d be happy.” Really? Will a clean house and organized meal plan make me happy? They aren’t bad things, but they certainly aren’t top-of-the-list most important, either.

My epiphany this morning (which I don’t think was due to the two-day headache and Topamax) was that I’m once again waiting for contentment and happiness when they are right here in front of me. PWM and I try to impress upon the kids that relationships are more important than things – but I’m not doing such a great job living that out.

The Great Commandment says (paraphrased) to love God and love others. The stuff is of secondary importance. I’ll still declutter and give away a bunch of stuff in the next few weeks. And I hope to have a decent system of meal planning in place by the first of the year so we can save some money. But, I’m praying for the grace to remember to love God and love others and let the rest fall where it will.

7 Quick Takes Friday–11/26/2011

2011-11-26T15:10:00.001-06:00

So, it’s Saturday, but let’s not quibble about details, especially when it’s Thanksgiving week!

1. The Topamax appears to be helping my headaches. The chronic headaches are much less, so I’m getting a real break between the migraines. I feel the cognitive slowing more than I’d like, but it’s not very noticeable to the rest of the world. I’m not going to ask my doctor to increase my dose for a while to see if the side effects will decrease a bit. In any case, I’m feeling better overall (although today is a pretty rough one).

2. I felt really well on Sunday and made it to church, which made for a successful day in and of itself. But, it got even better. PWM and I decided to go see Les Miserables on it’s last night playing at the Fox Cities PAC. Sure, we had seats in the nosebleed section, but it was wonderful anyway!! Such amazing music – and a wonderful story!!

3. Rosie Girl got a Kindle in lieu of payment for babysitting this summer, but she hasn’t been using it nearly as much as she expected that she would, so PWM and I have bought it from her. I never felt any interest in an e-reader, but I’m loving this Kindle! I have Les Miserables on the Kindle, which was free. It keeps track of where I’m reading, let’s me highlight things, and is easy to read. It also weighs a fraction of what the print version of Les Miserables must weigh!! A couple of nights ago, I knitted a cover for the Kindle so that I don’t have to worry about just throwing it into my bag.

4. We put up our Christmas window display at The Knitting Nest yesterday along with Cathy from Premier Petals and Kasi from Focusing Life Photography. Originally, we were just going to use our little 18 inch Christmas tree, but then decided to include our 4 foot tree as well. Which means that we don’t have a Christmas tree for home right now. I think we’ll have to take care of that tomorrow or Monday.

5. We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, iced tea, apple pie, pecan pie, and vanilla ice cream. We’re still eating leftovers, of course! PWM cut most of the turkey off the bones, but he wasn’t too fussy about getting every last bit because the bones are in the freezer so I can take them out and make turkey and andouille gumbo tomorrow or Monday. The week after that, we have a half ham to eat. I’ll use the ham bone to make the stock for tomato soup. It’s become a tradition that we do our Christmas dinner on December 26th and I have no idea what the family wants for that meal – but I’ve got a few days to sort it out!

6. I’m feeling the need to get rid of stuff and get organized. PWM is feeling the same way. Well, he’s not as fussed about the whole organizing thing. But, when you don’t have as much stuff, you don’t need to worry about organizing.

7. Christmas is on the way, and I refer you again this year to Advent Conspiracy. I don’t want anyone to ever feel guilty for being generous, but it’s important that we remember during the holidays, as during the rest of the year, that our lives should focus on Jesus.

See what others are up to at Conversion Diary!!

Multitasking

2011-11-10T01:07:00.001-06:00

For the record, I used to be really good at multitasking. I started young, as all good control freaks do. In high school, I could be doing homework while listening to music and talking to a friend on the phone. By the time I got to med school, I would be walking down the hall while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looking over my notes before rounds. And, in medical practice, I was often doing 2, 3, or more things at a time.

When I quit work because of my migraines, though, I didn’t really stop my multitasking ways. You see, I was still under the impression (delusion?) that if I worked hard enough, I could keep all the balls in the air. I thought I could certainly juggle educating the kids, keeping the house clean, doing laundry, and more along with having the migraines. The problem with juggling, though, is that you never have one ball in your hand for any length of time. Consequently, it’s easy to forget what that ball is, what it looks like, what it’s name is, etc. But, when you don’t juggle, you can hold each ball in your hand and enjoy it and learn about it’s characteristics.

Over the years, I’ve gotten rid of some of my multitasking mostly by learning that the world won’t end if I don’t get everything done – and I might be happier and more relaxed if I don’t get it all done. Now, I try to read without having any music on so I can concentrate on the words, the plot, the message. I still often listen to books or watch TV while I knit, but I try to spend some time each day just enjoying knitting. It’s a relaxing activity – when I don’t try to incorporate in other things to do.

I’ve even been known to just sit in a quiet house and do nothing for a while. That still takes a good bit of discipline, but it’s good for me. Jesus gave us the example of practicing solitude. I can pray during that time. Or I can meditate on Scripture. Or sometimes just let thoughts go through my head.

There are a few multitasking activities that I won’t give up (at least, anytime soon). I like listening to (and singing with) music when I clean the kitchen. When I’m knitting (particularly if it’s a repetitive stretch of knitting), I will still often listen to music or books.

I am only keeping one fiction and one non-fiction book around instead of always having 8-10 books going at a time. I am trying to eat without feeling the need to read something at the same time.

Mostly, I want to quit juggling. It’s a tiring and inefficient way to live. I want to spend time with my family just sitting and talking. I want to be with my kids. I want to be present in my own life, not a spectator. The way to do that is to pay attention, to do only one thing at a time. Unfortunately, this is a pretty counter-cultural way to live.

Jesus was counter-cultural, though. And not just so that people would think he was weird. (Sometimes, I think Christians adopt certain dress and mannerisms just to be “different”. Jesus had a reason for everything He did.) Jesus spent intimate, quality time with his 12 disciples. He spent time every day in solitude and prayer. He slept when He was tired (think about the miracle where the disciples had to wake Him so He could calm the storm!). His big multitasking activity was to heal people as He walked from town to town.

This is the life I want. I want to be intentional; to do one thing at a time; to have deep relationships. And, while I know there’s a selfish component here, the real reason I want to live this way is because I won’t be too busy to follow Jesus. I won’t have to pass by people in need because I have 14 other things on my to-do list. Being busy should not be a badge of honor – despite the fact that I acted like it was for many years.

What are your thoughts on multitasking? Is it always a bad thing or just sometimes? How can we live more intentionally obedient lives to Jesus? And on that note, I’m going to read a book for a few minutes and then go to bed!

Our Week In Review–November 4, 2011

2011-11-05T23:05:00.001-05:00

(I wrote most of this on Friday, but didn’t finish till Saturday. FYI.)

I really don’t feel like our week ends on Friday since the shop is open on Saturday and we often have a Saturday afternoon knitting class. I offered to have the kids do their schoolwork on Tuesday through Saturday, but they prefer the Monday through Friday schedule.

Halloween was on Monday, but our town’s trick-or-treat hours and Main Street BooFest were held on Sunday from 4-7pm. Unfortunately, I had a migraine, so I couldn’t go, but the kids and PWM dressed up and gave out candy at The Knitting Nest’s booth.

The shop is closed on Mondays, so that’s the day we do our errands and appointments. This week, I had a mammogram on Monday and then PWM and I both had eye appointments (and will both be getting new glasses). Low on fun, high on utility.

The rest of the week is eventful only for the fact that I had a migraine from Monday afternoon through Thursday. Yes, I was about to lose my mind! Thankfully, I’m feeling much better today.

What have the kids been up to?

Rosie Girl

History – 1930s, Nazis, The Great Depression
Writing – She starts her Research Paper workshop with WriteAtHome this week.
Literature – She finished Brave New World.
Science – Reading Healing at the Speed of Sound as well as working on her research paper.
Music – Playing lots of piano and ocarina.

Wild Man

History – We’re listening to The Three Musketeers and he’s been looking up various things online.
Science – Watching a Teaching Company DVD set on Astronomy. Pretty cool so far.
Literature – He’s been reading “fun books” since we’re listening to The Three Musketeers.
Writing – Adding “dress-ups” to the paragraphs in his story.
Music – Band, youth band

So, that’s it. Excitement level has been pretty low (until Saturday night and the LSU game – but more on that another time!)

See what others have been doing at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Simplifying Life–November 2, 2011

2011-11-02T20:58:00.001-05:00

I know, I know. I’ve been talking about simplifying life for years, but I have been spectacularly unsuccessful at it.

Symptoms that I need to simplify life:

The house is never clean.
We have too much stuff – there’s no room to keep it all and we don’t use it all.
I generally feel overwhelmed.
I am almost always doing more than one thing at a time – knitting while watching TV or listening to a book, cleaning while listening to a book, etc.

I haven’t been successful with this previously because I’m still addicted to the idea that I have to be “productive” at all times. I feel bad when I am reading a light novel or when I’m just watching TV. Multitasking has been my life since I was in high school. But, this needs to change.

I’ve been reading the Zen Habits blog and getting some good ideas. I’ve also been going back to some of the ideas from Foster’s The Freedom of Simplicity and Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines. Not only that, but my counselor and I have been talking about how to manage stress, particularly when I start to get busy on days when I don’t have a migraine. Here are some of the steps that I’m taking, although I’m only changing one thing at a time (for the most part).

Have Grape-Nuts for breakfast every morning. How is this simplifying life? Well, I don’t have to think about what to eat and it’s healthy.
20 minutes of stretching and yoga-type exercise without watching TV or listening to a book.
One fiction and one non-fiction book at a time. I usually have 3 or 4 or more books going at a time – and then feel guilty that I haven’t read enough!
One fiction and one non-fiction audiobook at a time. I enjoy listening to audiobooks when I knit, but I’m going to limit the number I have going at any one time.
Get rid of stuff!! The rest of the family is helping tremendously with this. PWM is highly motivated to get rid of things we don’t need, which is good. He and the kids cleaned the school room on Monday so I have a place to block my large swirl jacket that I’ve knitted. I really need to get rid of some clothes and go through the kids’ school stuff.
Only have one or two things on the to-do list for each day. If I don’t have a headache and I get more done, great; that leaves more time to knit! If I have a migraine, then there’s no guilt about not doing something.
Spend time every day just sitting and being mindful of where I am and how much God loves me.

That’s it so far. I don’t think I’m going to leave behind my overachieving, multitasking ways completely overnight, but I’m starting. And, now, I’m off to do some light reading. And nothing else.

Our Week In Review–October 29, 2011

2011-10-28T23:18:00.001-05:00

So, this homeschooling while trying to help PWM run a business while having lots of migraines is a real challenge. But, there are lots of good things happening despite the “challenges” (including a messy kitchen and undone laundry).

On Monday, PWM and I went on a date to Olive Garden, Home Depot, and Woodman’s. The romance level may not have been so high, but it was nice to be together outside of the house and the shop.

I had significant migraines on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I spent very little time at the shop. Bummer.

Wild Man was sick Thursday and today. He’s seriously bummed about not being able to sleep over at a friend’s house tonight, but we’re hoping that he’s feeling better tomorrow and can go to Haunted Hollow. We’ll see.

Rosie Girl wanted to have a friend sleep over tonight, so she actually turned in her weekly paper yesterday! I’m impressed. And she and her friend made cupcakes – Yummy!

Here’s what the academics over the last couple of weeks have looked like:

Wild Man

History/Science – He finished the Weapon and Warrior books as well as The Samurai’s Tale. Right now, we’re listening to The Three Musketeers on audiobook and Wild Man has been reading about the Musketeers and French medieval history online.
Math – Wild Man is starting to feel held back by his not having his math facts memorized completely, so he’s been motivated to practice them in addition to doing his regular ALEKs work.
Music – Wild Man is playing percussion in the public school band and alternates between drum kit and bass guitar in the youth band at church.
Writing – I’ve had Wild Man dictate his story to me. Then, I’ve had him take each paragraph (one per day) and do the dress-ups that he learned last year. It’s actually working well.
Spelling – This is generally Wild Man’s nemesis, but I think we’re starting to see some real improvement. It certainly seems less frustrating to him.

Rosie Girl

Rosie Girl got a job!! She’s working at a business here in town, so she won’t need to worry about gas money.
Social Science – She just finished the 1920s and wrote a nice paper summarizing the events of the decade and how they related to the 1910s and 1930s. This isn’t her favorite subject, but she’s doing the work diligently.
Natural Science – This is her self-directed “Science of Music” course. Rosie Girl is still not quite sure exactly what her research question is going to be. We’re working on that.
Literature – The poor kid has had to read The Metamorphosis and Brave New World in the last few weeks. She’s ready for something a little lighter, I think!
Writing – I’m generally happy with her weekly papers, although I’ve asked her to provide more concrete examples for her main points. She’s also starting the research paper writing workshop through WriteAtHome. This may require much prayer.
Japanese – She finished the first semester Japanese with an A-. She started this semester’s course this week.
Music – Rosie Girl is not only taking piano lessons, but learning some basics of composition from her piano teacher. She’s also been practicing her ocarina and acoustic guitar a good bit. She has a method book for clarinet, but she hasn’t practiced in several days.

So, that’s where we are academically. I’m very thankful that Rosie Girl works pretty independently. Wild Man needs a little more direction from me, but that’s OK.

How was your week? Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been up to!

7 Quick Takes Friday–October 28, 2011

2011-10-28T22:50:00.001-05:00

1. So, the Cardinals won the World Series. Of all my Facebook friends who follow baseball, I think there are a total of 4 who wanted the Cardinals to win. I have at least 20 friends who were pulling for the Rangers.

2. Migraine update – I still have migraines.

3. In a new twist, Wild Man has been sick for the last two days with fever and intestinal upset. He missed sleeping over at a friend’s house tonight, but he’s perking up so there’s a chance he’ll be able to go to the Haunted Hollow with them tomorrow evening.

4. I actually played some piano yesterday. Naturally, it was Christmas music since that’s about the only thing I can still play. Rosie Girl played along with her ocarina. It was a pretty special moment.

5. Rosie Girl has a friend sleeping over tonight so they made chocolate cupcakes with white icing and then painted flags of different countries on the tops. Why flags? It has something to do with one of the animes that they watch.

6. PWM and I had a date on Monday. We had lunch at Olive Garden, bought light bulbs for the shop at Home Depot, and then went grocery shopping at Woodman’s. The grocery bill was staggering, but I think it’s the first time we’ve done a full shopping trip in the last couple of months. Wow.

7. Our family likes watching several of the reality/competition shows, particularly Top Chef, Next Food Network Star, Next Iron Chef, The Amazing Race, and Top Shot. This week was the final episode of this season of Top Shot (on History Channel) and it was a great one. The guy who won is a young guy who isn’t formally trained in marksmanship. He and his family run a Christian camp in Texas, so he said the prize money would go a long way toward some expansion of the camp. What is so cool, though, is that this guy seemed to just be having a blast the entire time! On the very last challenge, he was almost perfect. It was just fun to watch!

So how was your week?! Anything exciting?! Check out what others are up to at 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Extravagant Grace

2011-10-26T01:27:00.001-05:00

Please pardon the “stream of consciousness” style of writing this am. It’s 1:04am and I can’t sleep because my head is killing me. I’m so not fond of migraines. But, you probably knew that.

I’ve been thinking about purpose, my reason for existing, etc. The Westminster Catechism says that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” [I need to insert a little explanation about the word glorify. The words “glory” and “glorify” get tossed around a lot in Christian circles without anyone really knowing what they mean. According to my dad who is way smarter than I am about these things, the word “glory” implies reputation. When we are told to “glorify” God, it means to give HIm a good reputation. If this is incorrect, Dad, please let me know.] Back to purpose. We are to glorify God and enjoy HIm forever. You know, when I read that it sounds like our job as Christians is pretty easy. We are to give honor and praise to God, our Creator. We are to enjoy him forever.

Somehow we make it complicated. Either we get so caught up in the little steps and looking for confirmation from God every five seconds or we look only at the big picture and completely ignore what is right in our path. Either way, we end up living a very stressful life.

That’s not what God wants for us. In Matthew, Jesus tells us to take his yoke upon us for his burden is light. Of course, it’s light! He’s GOD!! But, when we give Jesus our burdens and cares, we can now walk beside Him and live in a more comfortable place.

God wants us to enjoy HIm. He wants us to be content. How do we wake up in the morning and feel content with life?

I think that the key is to see God’s extravagant grace. Not only did Jesus die for our sins and then conquer death through His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit to live with us and show us God’s grace every day. Whether I’m working as a family doctor, as a mom, or selling yarn, I can experience God’s love and grace.

Tonight (or this morning), as I’m writing this with an icepack on my head and a pounding against my skull. Physically, I’m feeling pretty rotten. Emotionally, I’m also kind of down. But I’m starting to learn to be content with each day. God gives me the grace (the love that I can’t even begin to earn) to get through each day. Today, I didn’t do much “productive”, but God doesn’t need me to be productive to love me. I hate having the headaches, but the headaches have given us the chance to open a yarn shop.

My purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And I pray that glorifying God and enjoying Him shows to my children, my husband, and our customers. God loves me extravagantly. Because of that, I am free to love others without worrying about their response. No matter what, God has said that He loves me. Hopefully, tomorrow, I can really love the other people I see. (And, hopefully, my migraine will go away so that I can get out of the house and see someone other than my kids!)

Shaun Groves’ new song “All Is Grace” expressed these ideas well. Check out the lyrics here.

Lagniappe–10/24/2011

2011-10-24T00:52:00.001-05:00

1. This would have been “7 Quick Takes Friday” except that it’s early Monday am instead of Friday.

2. I’m having a serious craving for Chick-Fil-A.

3. The nearest Chick-Fil-A is Racine or the Chicago area.

4. I’m not sure I can convince PWM of the need for a road trip just for Chick-Fil-A.

5. Rosie Girl has a job!! And it’s right here in town, so it doesn’t involve driving and spending all the money she will make on gas!

6. Wild Man cleaned the bathroom this week – and it actually looked clean when it was done!

7. Somehow, we managed to run out of fuel oil yesterday. The tank is getting refilled tomorrow.

8. It feels almost like the 1850s except that we have electricity and we don’t have the possibility of keeping warm by a fire since we don’t have a fireplace and I’m on a computer. So, maybe not.

9. I’m pretty sure that I would not do well in the 19th century.

10. We’re also out of groceries.

11. I may go grocery shopping because the stores are heated and I won’t have to wear 5 layers of clothes.

12. I’ve discovered reruns of “Mad About You”, one of my most favorite sitcoms of all time!!

That’s it. What’s going on in your life? Is the temperature inside your house above 60 degrees? If so, I’m jealous.

Lagniappe

2011-10-17T06:12:00.001-05:00

I woke up about an hour ago with a migraine. I’m not having a good feeling about today. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some blog fun! And by blog fun, I mean that I’ll write about my life and you, hopefully, will enjoy reading it. So, let’s get started.

1. Yes, I still have chronic migraine and, no, we still haven’t found a cure. It does provide me with plenty of surprises, though. I’m never quite sure when the headache is going to get rip-roaring bad. I’m having to pretend to be a Boy Scout – “be prepared”.

2. When I have a bad migraine but still need to interact with the world (which I try to avoid), I have taken a clue from the penguins from Madagascar – “Smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave”. It kind of works.

3. Rosie Girl writes a paper every week, with the topic varying among Bible, History, or Literature. She wrote a very nice essay explaining why she didn’t particularly like Murder on the Orient Express. She spent all day yesterday writing a short story. She said that it’s kind of like fan fiction with some Hetalia characters (don’t ask, I don’t keep up with all her anime and manga!) that takes place during the great fire of Peshtigo, WI.

4. Wild Man has been using voice recognition software (apparently, it’s part of Windows 7) to help him with spelling when he is doing his daily journals. It’s great because it requires him to articulate which was hard enough before braces, but has become a real challenge with that palate expander in place. It also means that he doesn’t have to ask me how to spell every other word. Pretty cool.

5. Our family’s favorite football teams, the LSU Tigers and the Green Bay Packers, are having great seasons. Apparently, the WI Badgers are also doing well, although we only pay attention to them tangentially. Sadly, we decided last night that we should support the Brewers since they had a chance of going to the World Series and all of our other friends are huge Brewers fans. It was a short relationship. I’m sure the Brewers did their best, but it just didn’t work. We’ll have to see about whether we’ll try again next year.

6. In two weeks, we (as in, The Knitting Nest) will be participating in BooFest on Main Street. We’ll give out candy, teach finger knitting, and wear costumes. Actually, I think PWM will take care of that while I hide in the back room from all the children. I need Xanax to handle large numbers of kids. PWM loves it, though. I’ll just keep an eye on that extra candy. We wouldn’t want the kiddoes to eat too much chocolate, now, would we? Of course not. So, I’ll take care of that.

7. Have you heard the new Shaun Groves album, Third World Symphony? What are you waiting for? This is a wonderful album that I’m sure you’re going to love! Check out Shaun’s website!

Since 7 is the number of completion and perfection, I’ll be done now. Besides, my brain is a little fuzzy from this migraine. I’m off to knit. I hope you have a wonderful day without migraine, but with lots of fun and love.

The Days Go So Slowly . . . The Years Go So Quickly

2011-10-16T17:24:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, I called Wild Man’s phone and got his voice mail. It was the voice of a child, recorded not six months ago.

Today, Wild Man said something from the other room and I heard a young man’s voice. Where did that time go?

Just a few months ago, PWM and I were ferrying Rosie Girl to her activities.

Now, she drives herself not only where she wants to go, but also to run errands for me and PWM.

Two months ago, I was taller than Wild Man. He’s now two inches taller than me.

Rosie Girl has a job interview on Wednesday. When did she get old enough to work?

Some days are so long . . . I almost look forward to not having to supervise their education, to not making sure that they have adequate winter clothes, etc. I wonder if my house will ever be clean.

But then a catch of glimpse of my babies and want to hold them to me forever.

Just a normal mom, I guess.

Thankfulness

2011-09-27T02:18:00.001-05:00

I love to thank and praise God when life is going well – we’re making money at the shop (The Knitting Nest), the kids are behaving and I’m feeling well without a migraine. When things aren’t working out like that, though, it’s harder to be thankful. I mean, how do I thank God for something as miserable as migraines?

In the first part of the book of Philippians, Paul thanks God that he is in chains for the Gospel. Paul’s life was on the line for Jesus, and he was OK with that. He said that living would be good, but dying even better.

Can I just admit right here and now that I don’t have the faith that Paul has. I’m not sure how I’d react in a life-threatening situation. (Although, I’m listening to The Hiding Place and Corrie Ten Boom often comments on how God gives us the faith that we need just at the right time!)

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:4-7

We are told that we are to rejoice in the Lord always. Always. Migraine? Rejoice Fussy kids? Rejoice Uncertainty? Rejoice. But, Paul understands this. In Hebrews 13:15, we are told to offer up to God a “sacrifice of praise”. I am to praise and thank God even when I don’t feel like it.

I also notice in this section of Philippians that the emphasis on what we get from prayer is not the answered prayer (although God certainly does that), but the peace of God that transcends all understanding.

Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to give thanks in all circumstances. I’ve got insomnia right now – I’m praying for it to go away, but also thanking God that these few hours by myself give me some time to read that I might have otherwise missed.

Honestly, there are a lot of times that I don’t feel too grateful for my circumstances. But, somehow, God will give the grace and faith to give thanks. Don’t be too surprised if you see me write about thanking God for migraines on my next Facebook post! I thank God for the migraines even though I don’t see the whole plan. God is still good even though I don’t understand.

God is God and I am not.

Our Week In Review–September 17, 2011

2011-09-17T20:58:00.001-05:00

We just finished the fourth week of owning The Knitting Nest and third week of the school year. Unfortunately, I had terrible migraines on Tuesday and Thursday, so I wasn’t very useful most of the week. Nonetheless, some education did happen.

Rosie Girl

History – She finished the first decade of the 20th century this week and wrote a paper on inventions.

Literature – She’s reading Murder on the Orient Express and finished Heart of Darkness.

Bible – Still in the book of Matthew.

Math – Making progress in Algebra 2.

Japanese – She needs to take her final exam for 1st semester and then she can start 2nd semester.

Writing – The paper on inventions.

Science – She’s still reading about music and the mind.

Music – Her piano teacher is also teaching her some principles of arranging and composing music.

Wild Man

History – This week he read about the Samurai.

Literature – He’s reading Theras and his Town which is about a boy in Sparta.

Bible – Read some of the major events in the book of Genesis.

Math – Working on math facts and otherwise progressing well in ALEKS.

Writing – He read Katy and the Big Snow in preparation for story-writing. Unfortunately, that’s as far as we got. Hopefully, this week, he’ll make a story outline and then rewrite the story.

Spelling – I had a great idea to use the All About Spelling curriculum, but have him practice words using the Spelling Power 10 step list. We did it on Monday, but not the rest of the week. However, I hope he is learning some spelling by being on Facebook because he keeps asking me and PWM how to spell common words.

Grammar – Easy Grammar.

Typing – Yep.

Music – After band class on Thursday, he stayed and taught one of the other middle school percussionists how to play the drum kit (with the director’s permission).

Not a very exciting week, but the kids are moving forward in all their subjects. How are things at your house? Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been up to!

Selfishness

2011-09-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

I am a selfish person. I know this. And I pray regularly for God to forgive me of that particular day’s version of selfishness – being irritable because someone interrupted my listening to a good book, my frustration at my less-than-perfect children, my wish to be left alone or to be with people (but by my choice – not anyone else’s).

One of the signs of spiritual growth is becoming other-focused. I know people like this. One of my dearest friends made time to come see me at home on Thursday despite my headache since we had missed our last couple of get-togethers. My husband took care of me on Tuesday when I had a splitting migraine and was throwing up. (That’s how you know someone loves you – they stay with you even when it involves bodily fluids!)

One of my frustrations is that I feel like my migraines make me very inward-focused when I should be focusing on God and other people. I feel like I’m always self-monitoring to see how bad the headache is, whether I need to take meds, whether I should put an ice pack on, whether I’ll be able to go to the shop. It’s a little difficult to focus on other people’s needs when I’m constantly checking on my own.

The Great Commandment says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. . . . and . . . love your neighbor as yourself.” I don’t have any trouble with the loving myself part. I don’t do so well with loving God and loving others.

It’s hard to find the line, though, between being selfish and legitimately meeting my own needs. When I have a migraine, I know that I need to treat it and not try to pretend it isn’t there or it gets worse and I end up in the ER. When I’m not in the throes of a migraine, I need God’s grace to help me look beyond myself and do what I can for others. Right now, that appears to involve working (or knitting) at our yarn shop. Not only do I get to be around yarn, but I get to help people with their knitting, and build relationships that benefit us both. But I know that I can’t do this myself.

How am I supposed to solve this problem without doing something active, setting up a “program” (of Bible reading, prayer, etc.)? It seems to me that it’s not the activities of spiritual formation that are helpful here, but the walking day by day with Jesus. He tells us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus tells us to take His yoke upon ourselves. A yoke is meant for two animals, so Jesus is saying to walk with Him. While prayer and Bible study are important for this walk, I think that meditation and solitude and silence may be just as useful. As I walk with Jesus, I hope to become more like Him, seeing people through His eyes, instead of through my lens of selfishness.

Just my thoughts on a Friday night.

7 Quick Takes Friday–September 16, 2011

2011-09-16T21:26:00.001-05:00

1. Wild Man has shingles. Seriously? Shingles? He showed me this rash on his back and chest early in the week and I thought it might be a herald patch from pytiriasis rosea which is completely benign. I briefly thought about shingles, but I’ve never seen them in a kid, although I have seen them in a young adult. Anyway, the rash wasn’t getting better, so PWM took Wild Man to see a “real” doctor (as opposed to his mother who still has my MD, but no valid license). Well, the “real” doctor said Wild Man has shingles. Huh. The poor kid has to take “horse pills” for a few days, but overall appears not to be terribly ill. Now, I’m still not going to be an anti-vaccination person (because there is lots of good evidence that the vast majority of vaccination programs have been very helpful to the population), but I do wonder about the whole chickenpox issue. The kids were both vaccinated, but the vaccine uses a live virus, which could be the cause of the shingles. Or, Wild Man could still have picked up a low-level chicken pox infection. And, one article suggested that since people are no longer frequently exposed to small amounts of the varicella-zoster virus, we are seeing more shingles in kids and young adults. Food for thought.

2. So, the idea of opening a yarn shop was that I could go in and work when I was feeling decent, which would be several days each week. That would not be this week, though. I had a wicked migraine on Tuesday, bordering on requiring a visit to the ER. Then I woke up Thursday with another one – and PWM was waiting at the pharmacy when they opened because I was out of Imitrex. Not good. Anyway, I was at the shop a little on Wednesday afternoon and then today. Here’s praying that next week is better.

3. I think I have found something that works for our school days. Each kid fills out a journal page each day telling me what they did for each subject and giving me their thoughts about any reading they’ve done (hopefully). This has been a real challenge for Wild Man since he doesn’t spell very well and is often asking me and PWM to spell words for him. However, they do the journal pages on the computer and email me when they’re done. We’re still working out a few kinks, but overall, I’m pretty happy with it.

4. Tomorrow is Weyauwega’s Horse and Buggy Days!! This year, they’re just doing a parade down Main Street, but Main Street businesses are encouraged to have a presence. We are going to be teaching finger knitting and giving away little bags with enough yarn to make a finger-knit bracelet. We’re really excited about this – more people to see what our shop is all about!

5. The library sure knows how to get my attention. One of my books is significantly overdue, so I can’t put any more on hold until I turn in the book and pay my fine. Unfortunately, I’m not exactly sure where the book is. Hmmmmm.

6. We were very bummed that Lawrence Academy of Music was not able to offer the composing and arranging class that Rosie Girl wanted to take. The good news is that her piano teacher is taking a few minutes of her regular lesson time to help her learn some skills for composing and arranging.

7. My mother is on Facebook. Thankfully, we managed to get her to change the account name to hers and Dads because she was the only one talking, but it had Dad’s name. That was kind of freaky. It’s still a little strange to see both their names as one, but it is a reminder of who does the typing in that house!!

How was your week? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Lagniappe–September 11, 2011

2011-09-12T01:41:00.001-05:00

Highlights of our week:

I had a migraine Wednesday night through early Friday morning. It did calm down enough to let me go to Open Stitch Night at The Knitting Nest.
Wild Man doesn’t have to turn his palate expander each night. Now he has a rubber band that he puts in for 14 hours a day.
Rosie Girl had her first piano lesson on Thursday night. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough kids to run the music composition and arranging class.
This was our third week that The Knitting Nest has been open, so PWM made chocolate milkshakes for us all last night. Yummmmmm!
LSU and the Packers both won this week!!
It has been nice enough weather here that I walked about 1/2 a mile to a friend’s house to knit with her on Friday and walked to and from the shop yesterday.
The nice thing about opening a yarn shop with the hubby as the main “business person” is that I get lots of time for knitting! Lots of yarn shop owners on Ravelry say that they don’t have time for knitting or crochet because of the shop responsibilities. PWM does most of the business stuff (although I help when I can), giving me the luxury of knitting. Mostly, I’m working on shop models, but I try to choose things that I’d like to have or give away eventually.
I’m reading The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis again. Excellent book!
We watched the first half of The Return of the King (from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) with cast commentary this afternoon.
This evening, we watched a Lifetime Movie Network movie about JK Rowling which was quite good and very interesting. I think this has to be one of the very few times that we’ve watched anything on LMN.

Make sure to check out The Knitting Nest blog for details about how the shop is going. Anything exciting going on in your neck of the woods?

Our Week In Review–September 11, 2011

2011-09-11T11:54:00.001-05:00

Week 2 of the 2011-2012 school year is done. Overall, I’m pleased with how things are going. I’m sure we’ll be making some changes over the next few weeks. though.

Rosie Girl

I’m really missing being with Rosie Girl most of each day. PWM, Wild Man and I spend most of each day at the shop but Rosie Girl spends most of her day at home. She says that it’s working fine for her. She does her schoolwork early in the day and emails me her journaling page when she’s done. I’m very proud that she’s being diligent about getting her work done before doing her “fun stuff”.
History/Social Sciences – She got her new copy of A Visual History of the Twentieth Century on Friday so she had to do her full week’s reading in one day.
Bible – She’s reading the book of Matthew.
Literature – She’s read The Great Brain and Heart of Darkness.
Writing – She chose to write a compare and contrast essay about The Great Brain and Tom Sawyer.
Math – ALEKS Algebra 2. She’s spending more time on math this year so that she doesn’t have to finish it during the summer.
Science – Can I just say how pleased I am that Rosie Girl is engaging the idea of learning the science of music. This semester she’s learning about how music affects the brain.
Music – In addition to her piano lessons, she’s documenting her practice of guitar, clarinet, and ocarina.
Art – The public school art class seems to be going pretty well.

Wild Man

Wild Man still needs a fair amount of direction, so he does most of his work at the shop. I wasn’t there much on Thursday or Friday because of a migraine, so he didn’t get as much work done. We need to work on that.
History/Social Sciences/Natural Sciences – Wild Man is reading through his Warrior and Weapon books. After he reads some in the beginning of the books, he usually reads some in the back of Weapon about modern weapons.
Bible – He’s doing a read-through of “highlights” of the Bible.
Reading – He’s enjoyed The Roman Ransom.
Writing – We watched the IEW section on story outlining and writing. This week I’ll have him do a story outline and rewrite the story.
Math – more ALEKS
Music – Between Band class, private drum lessons, and playing with the youth band, he’s got lots of music in his life!!
Spelling – This is probably Wild Man’s most difficult subject, but we keep pressing on.

How was your week? Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been up to!

Entropy

2011-09-09T02:07:00.001-05:00

Entropy: The tendency of a closed system toward disorder.

My college roommate and I put a sign on our door one year that read “Entropy at work: Enter at your own risk!” Yes, we were geeks. The idea of entropy is that a system will become disordered over time without the input of energy. In the case of our dorm room, the room became a disaster (disordered) unless we put in some energy (in the form of cleaning up).

I’m feeling entropy in my life right now. I have too many things to maintain for the amount of energy I have to put into them. I just cleared a bunch of blogs from my blog reader, realizing that there are quite a few that I never actually read, and some that I shouldn’t expend the time or energy to read. I spend too much time doing things that are not important to me that leave me with less time to do what is important. I’m again asking God, “What do you want me to do? Where is my ministry? How do I serve you – and others – between headaches? And, by the way, you are welcome to take the headaches away at any time!”

In the next few days, I will probably post some more of my thoughts on how to deal with entropy in various parts of my life and where to spend my limited resources.

Any thoughts??

A Good Day

2011-09-06T23:51:00.001-05:00

Today was a really, really good day at The Knitting Nest. I try to spend as much of each day up there as I can, but I’ve had so many headaches in the last few weeks that it’s been difficult. PWM is completely capable of doing everything that needs to be done, but I like being there. Yes, I LOVE being around all that wonderful yarn! But, I also enjoy hanging out with PWM. Wild Man is usually up at the shop when I’m there because he needs some supervision with his schoolwork. I’m a little bummed out that Rosie Girl spends most of her day by herself here at home. I do hope that she’ll come to the shop after school sometimes – she takes an 8th hour Art class, so she could walk to the shop from school.

Why was today such a good day? Well, it helped that we had three customers who made purchases as well as a couple of people who just came in to check out the shop. What really made my day, though, was that I got to help a customer on a project. She came in with her pattern and the 5 rows that she’d already done, but was having trouble with having too many or too few stitches at the end of each round. The problem itself wasn’t difficult (although unknitting angora can get a bit tricky), but I enjoyed figuring out the best solution to her problem. When I was done, I showed her the changes I had made and did a couple of pattern repeats to show her. She then did a couple of pattern repeats. And then she hugged me! What was a somewhat tricky problem to sort out for me really made her day. I think we have a loyal customer now!

When I was working as a family doctor, hugs were not uncommon. I hugged little kids who were coming in for physicals. I hugged elderly people who just didn’t get out much. I hugged and cried with women who had a pregnancy loss. I hugged families, whether it was a good occasion or a bad one. I guess I’m just a “huggy” kind of person! (We hug a lot in our house. It’s not unusual for the 13 year old or the 16 year old to walk up to me or PWM and say, “I need a hug.” And we’re happy to oblige.)

Not everyone wants hugs or to be touched. People have different personal space needs. But, today I realized that I’ve been missing these kinds of encounters. I like being able to help people – whether it’s getting their cholesterol under control when I was working as a family doc or teaching them a new knitting technique. And I’m finding that these interactions with people in a yarn shop can be (are) as important as when I was working as a family doctor. Yes, I hope we can meet people’s crafting needs, but I also want to help meet their emotional and spiritual needs.

And these contacts with people are also helping meet my own emotional needs. I have become so isolated because of the headaches, that I didn’t really notice how much I missed being with people. Nowadays, I prefer smaller groups of people and tend to avoid places with lots of noise. However, I’m still an extrovert and being with people is generally uplifting for me.

I’m learning how to balance my need for interaction and physical touch (being a natural extrovert) with my need for solitude and quiet (which helps me relax and keeps me grounded). Even more than meeting my own need to be around people, the yarn shop provides me and PWM a way to minister to our community in a very practical way.

It was a really good day today. Here’s praying for many more to come!

Our Week In Review–September 3, 2011

2011-09-03T07:27:00.001-05:00

It’s “Back To School” week here at the Martin School of Joy!! We started on Monday, while the public schools started on Thursday. Overall it was a good week, and we only have a few kinks left to work out.

Rosie Girl

Bible – She is reading through the New Testament and journaling as she goes. Right now she’s in Matthew.
History/Social Sciences – Core 300 is looking to be pretty interesting. The one issue that we had is that one of her books (A Visual History of the Modern World) had some pages missing and others duplicated. Sonlight is sending us a new copy. We’ve never had any issues with Sonlight, but this year, both of Rosie Girl’s primary history books had problems, one of which might have been an Sonlight issue, while the other was definitely a publishing issue. In any case, they made the return process very simple and Rosie Girl should have her new book next week. Rosie Girl is enjoying this Core so far.
Literature – Rosie Girl questioned why they had The Great Brain in Core 300 because she thought it was a little “easy”. I reminded her, though, that she’s going to be reading a lot of “heavy” stuff this year in history and literature. The 20th century was the most brutal and bloody in history. Books like The Great Brain are scattered through the Core, not just because they’re good books, but also to provide a little break from all the bad stuff of the 20th century.
Writing – In the second quarter, Rosie Girl will take a research paper writing workshop through WriteAtHome in conjunction with her self-directed science course. Otherwise, I’ve scheduled an essay per week from her, rotating through History, Literature, and Bible. Next week, she starts with a paper about The Great Brain. She will also choose which paper she wants to also present as a speech.
Science – Honestly, I’ve been a little concerned in the last month how a self-directed science course might work with Rosie Girl, but I’m pleasantly surprised so far. She is reading a book about how music affects the brain and watched a PBS show about the same topic. She is thinking that she will do her research paper on something to do with music’s effect on the brain. Then she wants to do a second semester project using her computer, keyboard, clarinet, guitar, and ocarina in some combination that explores the physics of music. She’s also excited because I agreed that we would get her the microphone that she needs for second semester if her research paper effort was up to par.
Math – Rosie Girl is starting Algebra 2 in ALEKS. She was very bummed out that her assessment score was very low, but she’s never had Algebra 2, so it’s supposed to be low!! After this year, she’s not going to be taking trigonometry as originally planned, but will do a semester of personal finance and a semester of statistics (not AP).
Piano – Lessons start next week, but she is still doing some work from her summer lessons.
Community Service – She hasn’t worked at church in the last two weeks, but now that she knows her schedule, she’ll set up times with our Worship Arts Director.
Art – This course is taken at the public school. There is a new teacher this year and Rosie Girl thinks she’ll like him.
Japanese – Rosie Girl turned in her last assignment of Semester 1, so she needs to take the final. This year, she needs to get her semester’s work done in a semester, not a year.
Other Music – Rosie Girl has been singing and playing guitar lately – and she’s really good! She continues to play ocarina. She’s also practicing clarinet so that she can perhaps have clarinet as her second instrument in college.

Wild Man

Wild Man does his schoolwork up at the shop. He needs reminders to stay focused, etc.
Bible – Wild Man is doing a “tour” of the whole Bible. So far, so good.
History/Social Science – He is reading through Weapon and Warrior. Not only does he tell me about what he is learning, but he journals a few sentences each day. He’s not fond of journaling, but he needs to get used to writing. And I usually am around to spell things for him, but when I’m not going to be available, I tell him to guess at the spelling and we’ll check it later.
Science – Wild Man is learning a good bit of science from his Weapon and Warrior books, but I also will have him reading some about the human body. That will provide a nice basis for understanding how bullets affect the body, etc.
Math – He’s working in ALEKS Middle School Year 3. He’s realizing that he needs to know his math facts better, so he’s been asking me to help him. He conceptually understands math very well, but still needs to practice his multiplication tables.
Writing – Wild Man’s main source of writing at the moment is his journaling. Mondays are our days at home since the shop is closed, so I plan to do some work from Institute for Excellence in Writing with him once a week. We’re going to start this year with outlining.
Spelling – I’m still using SpellingCity as a resource this year, but I noticed that Wild Man does better when I drill him than when the computer does. I’m trying hard not to give feedback until we’ve done the entire list, but he still spells better working with me. Hmmmm. We are still in Book 3 of All About Spelling. In addition to learning the spelling rules and how to spell the words, I’m also dictating lots of sentences to get him used to writing.
Typing – This is new for Wild Man. I think we’ll be using TypingMaster. In any case, he definitely needs some typing practice.
Grammar – He is continuing in Easy Grammar 5. He’s able to be more independent these days, which makes me very happy.
Community Service – Still helping at the Senior Nutrition Site.
Drums/Percussion – He takes Band at the middle school and plays percussion. They have a new band director, and Wild Man likes her. He will be starting back with his drum lessons (with our Minister to Students) in the next week or two. He’s also playing drum kit and percussion in our church’s youth band. They also split into middle school and high school groups every week; when they do that, Wild Man plays bass guitar.
Literature – I’m pulling books from previous Cores for him to read this year along with some library books. Our read alouds are going to be alternating apologetics with novels.

Both kids are also helping out at the shop when we need it, although we haven’t needed much help since we opened now that the yarns are priced and put out on display. But, I’m sure there will be more opportunities for them in the future!

Whew! It looks like more than it is. Really. Now I need to get the books off the dining room floor and find them homes on the school bookshelf (which is already full, even after I weeded out the books a few months ago). But, I have a migraine today, so I’ll just knit.

How did your week go? See what others have been up to at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

7 Quick Takes Friday–September 2, 2011

2011-09-02T19:50:00.001-05:00

It’s Friday again! Funny how it keeps happening every seven days. . .

1. Wild Man has had his palate expander in for a couple of weeks now and there’s a big gap between his two front teeth – almost like when he was a toddler!

2. The kids have been doing a good job of picking up the slack in the housework with PWM at the shop so much and me either at the shop or having a migraine. I don’t have chore charts for them anymore, but they have been doing what I ask (usually one big task per day) without complaining (much).

3. Public schools started this week. Both kids have eighth hour classes. Rosie Girl is in Art 3 which meets every day. Wild Man is in 7th and 8th grade band which meets on Tuesday, Thursday, and every other Friday.

4. I’m loving that Rosie Girl can drive. She can run up to the store to pick something up when we need it. I had a terrible migraine on Wednesday, so she went to pick up our CSA veggies so PWM could stay in the shop.

5. Rosie Girl has been spending a lot more time practicing guitar these days and she’s glad that I'll give her school credit if she documents it. My favorite is when she plays and sings “Into The West” from The Lord Of The Rings. So beautiful.

6. Wild Man has been playing bass guitar lately. He plays drums or percussion in the church combined youth band, but he plays bass guitar when he plays in the middle school church youth band (which really needs a name). He and Rosie Girl have even started doing some playing together with her on acoustic guitar and him on bass guitar.

7. A huge storm came through this morning and I didn’t even wake up. A lot of areas around here lost power, but ours only flickered a couple of times. Since I use a CPAP machine, the kids called and asked PWM if they should wake me up if the power goes out. He agreed that they should. Really, though, I’m betting that I would wake up if my machine quit working. But, I’m glad they thought of it.

How has your week been? Anything exciting? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Ministry With Yarn

2011-08-30T22:10:00.001-05:00

“What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God…We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow” Martin Luther

From the first two chapters of Genesis, we see that people are made for work. In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam the job of naming the animals and then caring for the garden. We are not intended to sit around and be lazy.

But, neither can we go to the other extreme and base our identity in our work. We are saved by faith through grace. We cannot do anything to merit salvation. And, while spiritual disciplines are useful as we grow more like Jesus, these works don’t make God love us more. That’s the problem with the “Protestant Work Ethic” – we think that the harder we work, the more God loves us. Although I’ve known my whole life that this isn’t true, I’ve certainly acted like it was. Not only did I try to “work” myself into being loved by God and other people, but I judged other people by what I saw them do.

God’s intention for us is a balance between these two extremes. We are to work, but also take time to rest. We are to work, but not become consumed by our work or believe that our efforts make us more acceptable to God.

Another type of wrong thinking that we sometimes find among Christians is the idea that “church” or “Christian” work has more value than “secular” work. The quote above from Luther supports this. Everything that we do every day should be in service to the Lord Jesus. Whether we work for an employer, in our home, or for a church or ministry, we are working for God. There should be no difference between our work and our church personalities.

Last Tuesday, our family opened The Knitting Nest in our small town. We are excited by the prospect of selling yarn and helping people become better at knitting and crochet, but we also recognize that any interactions we have with the community are a ministry – it should be a natural outgrowth of our faith. Because of that, the pastors and elders of our church came by last week to pray over our little shop. We prayed that it would be financially successful, but mostly that we can be a positive influence in our community. And we’ll be doing it with yarn!

Catching Up

2011-08-29T21:39:00.001-05:00

So, who knew opening a yarn shop would keep me so busy?! Yes, The Knitting Nest is open!! There have been other things happening this week, though.

I had a migraine on Monday, the day before we opened and then on Wednesday, but NOT on Tuesday!! Yippee!
The County Fair was last week, so we had lots of people driving by the store on their way to the Fair.
The kids spent a fair amount of time at the Fairgrounds with friends. It’s nice that we live close.
I don’t know how we’re going to be able to have many “family dinners” with our new schedule. I guess Mondays will have to do.
Wild Man’s palate expander makes him even harder than usual to understand. By the time his braces are off, his consonants will be clear as bells!
Rosie Girl has a bite guard that she puts in right before bed, so we have about 15 minutes each day of not being able to understand her, either. Gracious!

So, The Knitting Nest opened last Tuesday and the kids started home school work today and start their public school classes on Wednesday.

Despite the kids starting schoolwork, the books are still on the dining room floor. Deep sigh.
I wish the kids were happier about doing their school stuff. PWM and I try to make it as interesting as possible, but we’re apparently not all that successful.
However, Rosie Girl, who complains about her school stuff, has already read about the first half of her reader. “But, it’s really fun!”
The book in question is “The Great Brain”. Rosie Girl asked why she’s reading something so easy as a junior. I told her that much of the literature and history that she’ll be reading is pretty heavy, so they throw in some lighter titles to keep it from getting too depressing. The 20th century was very brutal in many parts of the world, and her reading will reflect that.
Wild Man is enjoying his reading. He remembers his first reader because it was a read-aloud a couple of years ago. It’s kind of nice to start with something easy.

And tomorrow, it’s back to the shop for me (assuming I don’t have a migraine)! I’m starting a new knitting project and working on developing some classes.

7 Quick Takes Friday–August 19, 2011

2011-08-19T19:44:00.001-05:00

1. Football season is upon us!! You can’t live so close to Lambeau Field (aka The Frozen Tundra) and not be affected by the start of football season. We love our Packers up here!!

2. Rosie Girl has been doing a lot of babysitting and they asked her today if they could pay her for several day’s worth of work with a Kindle that they got as a gift but don’t use. Rosie Girl loves her words, so she was thrilled to get the Kindle!! I think the free books alone will keep her busy for a year or two!

3. Wild Man got the first part of his braces this week – it’s a palate expander with a little wrench that PWM uses at night to open the expander a little more. Poor Wild Man has been stuck on mostly soft foods along with lots of ibuprofen.

4. This was a terrible week to have a migraine, and I, of course, had a three-day migraine. Yuck! The migraine started on Tuesday. We did the Chamber’s Business After Five on Wednesday evening, so I was pretty highly medicated. I finally woke up this morning feeling MUCH better. This has been a very clear indication that The Knitting Nest is operated by PWM and that I’m a “yarn groupie” or “expert consultant” or “the cute woman who shows up to knit every couple of days” or “the woman who sleeps with the owner and has lots of influence over inventory and shop management.”

5. On Wednesday, my motto was from the penguins in “Madagascar”: “Smile and wave, boys; smile and wave!” And it worked.

6. Rosie Girl has been spending quality time with her guitar. I walked in the other day and she was playing and singing “Into The West” from The Lord of the Rings movie series. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

7. Our church’s Rock The City is this Sunday!! PWM and Wild Man will be very busy tomorrow with practices because PWM is playing bass guitar in the main worship service and Wild Man is playing percussion and drums with the Youth Band.

How has your week been? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Reading Aloud

2011-08-18T23:15:00.001-05:00

Our family loves to read. We all enjoy personal and individual reading, but we also love our family reading time (almost) every night. We’ve been reading aloud since our children were babies. Yes, we read to them even before they were really old enough to “understand”. Rosie Girl has always been willing to sit and listen to someone read. Wild Man, though, would often crawl off while I was reading to him. I used to read to him while he was in his high chair or in the bathtub, telling him, “All the books say I should read to you, so I’m going to read to you!” Once the kids got to school age, PWM would read the “school” books to the kids during the day and we would read the Bible and a read-aloud (from the Sonlight curriculum) at night. The children are 13 and 16 and still look forward to read-aloud time every night. We often finish the Sonlight read-aloud earlier than scheduled, so we’ve added in lots of other books – the Narnia series, the Septimus Heap series, the Artemis Fowl series, and (of course) the Harry Potter series.

Reading aloud has lots of advantages.

It’s a scheduled “together” time for the family. We don’t always eat dinner together because of schedules, but we try to make sure we can read together. If we aren’t going to be together at bedtime, PWM will often read to us during the day.
Wild Man had a hard time learning to read because of his dyslexia. However, once he could decode words, he didn’t have much trouble at all with comprehension and all the other things that kids learn as they read, because we had been reading aloud and talking to each other about our books.
We have a shared “family culture” from reading the same books. We often laugh about things that remind us of something that happened in a book we read.
Especially when the kids were young, reading aloud was great to help them wind down and get ready for bed.

This year, I’m having a more interesting time coming up with books to read. Until 2 years ago, the kids were using the same Sonlight Core, so we would read the read-alouds from that Core. For the last two years, we’ve been reading the read-alouds from Wild Man’s Core (American History and then Eastern Hemisphere). This year, though, Wild Man is going to be studying weapons and warriors, so I don’t have a read-aloud list. I got a set of books called the Rani series from Sonlight that look like they’ll be fun. I’m also going to have use read some of the Core 6/7 books but also add in some of Rosie Girl’s Core 300 books. We haven’t done C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy books, yet, so I might include those.

We’ve also decided that we aren’t going to read a read-aloud and then Bible at night. The kids both have Bible reading and study to do during the day and we were finding that the Bible reading was getting pushed to the side so we could read more of the read alouds. In addition, we weren’t really getting into much discussion about the Bible reading. So, we’re changing things up. We’re going to read a read-aloud (i.e. fiction) until we finish the book and then read a book about faith or the Bible. We’ve started with Matthew Paul Turner’s What You Didn’t Learn From Your Parents About Christianity. This is a rather light-hearted look at our faith, and we’re having a great time with it. Tonight, we talked about our earliest mental pictures of Jesus. The kids are really engaging it, and we’re having some good discussions. Eventually, we want to read The Ragamuffin Gospel, Know What You Believe, and The Jesus I Never Knew. If some of the books are hard to get through, we’ll either put them off till the kids are a little older, or we’ll read a couple of chapters and then read a novel, and then come back to the non-fiction.

What does your family enjoy reading? Any suggestions for me to put on our read-aloud list for this year? And, if you don’t read aloud as a family, maybe this year is a good time to start!

My Kids

2011-08-10T01:33:00.001-05:00

I have some wonderful kids. They are funny, sweet, and smart. Of course, there are times when they can be trying, selfish, and annoying – but I try not to think about those too often. Today’s post is just a list of things that my kids have done or said in the last month or so.

1. Rosie Girl has her driver’s license!! She drove to the grocery store for me the other day. She drove to a sleepover. Right now, she can only drive the van, but we want to teach her to drive the Saturn VUE very soon because it is a standard transmission and gets much better gas mileage.

2. Rosie Girl went on a tubing trip with some friends Sunday afternoon and then slept over on Sunday night. Monday morning, she got up at 5:30am and drove herself home to get a shower and get to her babysitting job by 7:30. Yeah, she’s growing up.

3. Wild Man has been pricing a lot of our yarn and other items. On the first day, he was playing with the price gun and “priced” me with a $0.50 sticker. The next day, I got priced at $5.00. I guess he’s realizing my value!

4. Wild Man said to Grandma while they were pricing yarn the other day, “You know, this would be a lot more fun if the yarn attacked until you priced it!” Yes, he likes video games. Why do you ask?

5. We had Chinese food for dinner last night, courtesy of Wild Man. He had earned money for mowing Grandma’s lawn, so he decided to treat the whole family to a yummy meal!

6. PWM took Rosie Girl to the dentist to have her teeth cleaned and to have her jaw pain evaluated. The good news is that the jaw pain is just muscle spasms. The bad news is that she needs a bite guard to wear at night to prevent her grinding her teeth, which is not cheap. And all this while Wild Man is getting his braces on.

7. So, in the middle of trying to open a yarn store, we are also having to get Wild Man in to his orthodontist appointments, and we found out today that he has band lessons this week. Somehow, we didn’t get a schedule. I had made sure that he got registered for the class, but I was planning to call the band director today. Instead, some friends stopped by the shop since one of their girls had band lessons, so PWM and Wild Man went to the school and got the schedule. Thankfully, Wild Man hadn’t missed any practices.

8. Rosie Girl’s current projects include crocheting a backpack to go with one of her CosPlay costumes as well as crocheting Barbie clothes for one of the little girls that she babysits because the little girl has lost Barbie’s clothes and Rosie Girl thinks it will be more fun to play with a Barbie with clothes. (Wow. That’s a really long sentence, but I don’t think it’s a run-on.)

9. Sassy (one of the cats) has been trying to escape whenever we open the door again. One or both of the kids ends up running out after her to catch her before she gets too deep in the bushes. Dumb cat.

10. I had a short “orientation” with each of the kids about this next year’s schoolwork. They weren’t overly thrilled, but they don’t want to go to public school, so they do their work, even when it’s not their first choice. We actually start our new school year the day after Labor Day.

How are your kids? Are they doing anything fun and exciting?!

The Post That Was Going To Be Here

2011-08-02T00:04:00.001-05:00

So, I was going to write a well-developed, cogent argument for Inclusivism and against Universalism based on the book of John and using at least one example from C.S. Lewis. But, it’s almost midnight, I still have the (hopefully) tail end of a five day headache, and I doubt anything well-developed or cogent could come out of my head tonight.

Here’s the short version of the post:

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16

I think it’s really hard to read the book of John (and Romans) and be a Universalist, but Inclusivism is possible. I’ll let you chew on that for a while.

P.S. It’s entirely possible that I have no business commenting on deep theological issues at any time, but lot’s of people spout off opinions based on very little knowledge, so I won’t be the only one out in the blogosphere thinking out loud!

7 Quick Takes Friday

2011-07-29T22:03:00.001-05:00

1. I have had the most incredibly awful headache for the last three days. It seems to be letting up today, but it’s still not gone.

2. Rosie Girl takes her driving test on Monday!! Please send lots of prayers for her to be relaxed – she drives quite well and will certainly pass!

3. Wild Man spent yesterday and today at a waterpark in Wisconsin Dells with five other middle school boys and our Minister to Students. He came back tired, but with lots of great stories. He also came back with writing on his arms. I asked if they went to a tattoo parlor or something, but he said that they were just writing on each other with Sharpy on the way home. SHARPY!!! He’s going to have black marks on his arms for months – crazy child.

4. Does anyone else up north think it’s been a hotter than usual summer? I don’t recall having so many days of temps in the upper 80s and 90s. These low pressure systems are killing my head – and I’m not as fond of the heat as when I was growing up. Fall weather, we’re ready for you!!

5. The big Sonlight box came today. The kids were going to clean their desks this week, but they managed to avoid the task by working up at The Knitting Nest. Hmmmmm. Next week, I need to have some clean desks so I can start putting away the books, etc. I wonder if they will work as hard on their desks as they do at the shop if I ~~bribe~~ reward them with a latte from the coffee shop when they’re done? I need some leverage, although I supposed I could always take away ipods, computers, and TV time. Eh, offering a latte is easier on everyone.

6. I always love the Sonlight books, especially the read-alouds, but I don’t usually read the readers. This year, though, Rosie Girl is in Core 300 (20th Century History), so she’s got One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich, The Old Man and the Sea, and a couple of others that I haven’t read but really want to. I think I’m also going to make a few of her literature books read alouds since we’ve already read the Core 6/7 books once or twice. I’m all about flexibility this year, though, so we’ll see how things go!

7. Silver and Sassy are enjoying lying on the wadded up paper from our Sonlight box. Ah, to be happy with just some paper!

How was your week? Check out what others are saying at 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Box Day 2011!!

2011-07-29T17:43:00.001-05:00

It’s that time of year – the Sonlight box arrived!! The kids don’t get terribly excited about Box Day anymore. They like homeschooling, but the box of books doesn’t do much for them now that they are teenagers. It’s almost bittersweet this year because this is our last year of getting a full Bible/Social Science/Literature curriculum from Sonlight. We’ve done Cores 1-7 (in the old numbering system), 100, and 200. Rosie Girl is doing Core 300 this year which is what came in the box. Next year, Rosie Girl will be doing a one-semester American Government course and another 1/2 credit social science (not yet determined), so we won’t be getting Core 400. We will be getting British Literature from Sonlight next year, and I’m sure that we’ll be ordering additional books and Instructor’s Guides for Wild Man over the next several years.

So, there’s a bit of an undercurrent of sadness this year, knowing that we only have two more years before Rosie Girl is off to college and five more years before Wild Man graduates. On the up-side, that means we still have 2 and five years, respectively, to enjoy Rosie Girl’s and Wild Man’s presence here at home. And I would not have traded any of our homeschooling time for anything! Even when I was working full-time and PWM was doing the schooling, I loved that the kids were home on my days off and that we could take our vacations without respect to the school calendar. Mostly, I’ve just been so glad to have time with my children.

Growing Up

2011-07-28T23:56:00.001-05:00

About a year ago, I read Escaping the Endless Adolescence, a wonderful book that deals with the issue of young adults and their lack of maturity. Having two adolescents in my home made this particularly pertinent for me. This week, I’ve seen the authors’ thesis played out in front of me. Basically, the authors point out that teenagers are not maturing as we would expect them to because they are given very little real challenge in their lives. How can this be, when they are taking AP classes, playing sports, and generally being very busy? Teens are having trouble connecting much of what they do with “real life”, so they feel like they are (and, in many cases, really are) living in a bubble. Many adolescents spend most of their time around other adolescents. They go to school, practice sports or music, and maybe even have a job, but they have a hard time connecting it to their anticipated adult life. Yes, their grades are important, but college stands between them and “a real job” in many cases. The authors point out that teens quite often “step up to the plate” when given adult responsibilities with appropriate feedback.

So, how does this relate to my life? In the last week, The Knitting Nest started getting our yarn and other product shipments. Earlier this week, Wild Man helped PWM inventory and price a bunch of the yarn as well as put together the wire display cubes and putting the yarn in the cubes. You can tell that it’s Wild Man’s work because the yarn balls are all lined up nice and straight. Yes, he likes order. Rosie Girl spent all day today working with PWM to price and display more of the yarn. (And they’re not done!) Both kids have been very proud of their work in the shop during the last few days. Wild Man was sick last week and watched more TV than anyone should watch, but he didn’t seem to miss his daily dose of Disney Channel this week. The kids have been paid with drinks from the local coffee shop; clearly, it’s not money that’s motivating them. They enjoy seeing that their effort is important. All the yarn that they price is yarn that PWM and I don’t have to price.

One of the reasons that we teach our kids at home is because we don’t think that a school environment where kids are with their peers all day every day is the best thing for them. We want them to be comfortable with people of all ages. We also want them to learn to work. We’ve been deliberate about giving them work to do here at home, including their own laundry. Wild Man works at the Senior Nutrition Site helping to get Meals on Wheels ready as well as being one of the helpers in children’s church. Rosie Girl works with our Worship Arts Director, helping with paperwork and making chord sheets. It really seems that home education works in our favor in this case.

I have no idea how my kids are going to “turn out” – that’s largely between them and God. However, based on what I’ve been reading and how I’ve seen my kids interact with the world, I’m pretty optimistic.

The End of the Harry Potter Era

2011-07-26T19:04:00.001-05:00

I almost didn’t want to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Now that I’ve seen it, there are no more books or movies to anticipate. Well, there’s Pottermore, but we don’t even know what that really is. Here are my thoughts on the last Harry Potter movie (which I’m putting in a bulleted list which gives the impression of a well-thought out piece of writing – which this most decidedly is not). Warning: spoilers ahead!

It was loud! Of course, Wild Man and I were only 2 out of 4 people in the theater, so there weren’t the usual number of bodies around to absorb sound.
I think they did a pretty good job of deciding what parts of the story were critical and which could be left out.
Griphook was well-acted.
The special effects in Gringotts were wonderful! And I really liked the dragon.
I LOVED Shell Cottage – very picturesque.
We could have done without Molly Weasley standing beside Professor McGonagall looking scared and helpless. Because Molly Weasley is not helpless. She didn’t seem to belong there.
I liked Aberforth and I also really liked how they made him more important later on in the battle than he was in the book.
I’m glad that they kept with the plot of Percy Weasley coming back and Fred Weasley getting killed. I realize that there wasn’t time to include the whole scenes, but seeing the family together before Harry went into the forest was incredibly moving.
The shot of Tonks and Lupin was also sad.
They could have killed Snape without the violence that they chose to use. I know it was mostly just sounds, but, really, a single snake bite would have been plenty.
I was concerned that the scenes in the pensieve would either get too long and involved or not be enough to show us about Severus, Lily, and James, but it was actually quite good. Having Snape at the Potter’s cottage right after Lily and James were killed may not have been necessary, but it was OK.
Alan Rickman did a wonderful job with Snape, but I could see in this movie that he does look rather older than the Potters.
Neville’s sweater was amazing! One of these days I’ll try to make one like it.
I cried when Harry went to the forest. It’s a wonderful scene in the book and the movie.
Voldemort was much better acted (or directed) in this film. In Part 1, I felt like his evil was more pedestrian. This time, he was evil incarnate.
Neville’s speech when Harry is brought back to the castle was unnecessary and entirely too long.
The battle between Harry and Voldemort was longer than necessary, even for an action film.
I understand why they put the killing of the snake and the killing of Voldemort so close together, but it didn’t quite feel right.
I liked that the atmosphere after Voldemort’s death was subdued instead of jubilant. Yes, they had won, but they had paid a terrible price.
I do not think that Draco would have gone back to the Death Eaters. The Malfoy family leaving before the final battle was interesting – was it cowardice or a love for their family?
The scene on the platform at the end of the movie was just perfect.

So, what did you think? Did they do a good job? Was it close enough to the book?

The Wedding at Cana

2011-07-23T23:07:00.001-05:00

A couple of nights ago, I read John 2 which includes the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding. I’ve been pondering why that story is included in the Bible, besides the fact that it’s just one of the episodes of Jesus’ life. From what I can tell, the book of John would be pretty complete even without it. Why does God want us to know about it? I’m not a Bible scholar, but here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

1. Mary, the mother of Jesus, already knew that Jesus was special and could have done something about the wine situation. Did she understand at that point that Jesus was the Messiah? Did she know that He would have to die? I don’t know and it’s not at all clear in the story. But, she definitely knew that Jesus was different from her other sons.

2. Jesus also knew He was different. I’ve often wondered when Jesus knew of His true identity. Did He skip the “terrible twos” because He knew that He was perfect, even at age 2? I have no idea. Yet, Jesus didn’t ask his mother if she was crazy with wanting him to deal with the lack of wine. Rather, He told her that His time had not yet come.

3. Jesus honored his mother. He told her that His time was not yet come, but then did what his mother had asked. Later in the gospels, Jesus tells people that they must be willing to give up even their family if necessary to follow Him. I don’t think that Jesus did what his mother asked because He was still under her authority as a child – He was, after all, a 30 year old man. However, by doing what she asked, He showed that He was willing to change His plans to honor his mother.

4. They were drinking wine. I know this seems pretty obvious since the miracle is usually referred to as “changing water into wine.” Anyone who grew up in a Southern Baptist church can tell you, though, that this is kind of a sticky passage. If alcohol is the evil that the early 20th century temperance activists would have had us believe, then why does Jesus change the water into wine? No, it doesn’t say grape juice, although I have heard this explanation. In fact, in a time when there was no refrigeration, alcoholic beverages were often the safest things to drink. I wouldn’t be surprised if the alcohol level was relatively low and not the 12% of most modern wines. However, there was clearly some alcohol here because the master of the house was impressed because he thought that the bridegroom had saved the best wine till later when people were already drunk. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anyone drunk off grape juice, even the sparkly kind!

5. What hit me today was that Mary told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Well, no big deal. This guy is going to tell us to run down to the corner store and get a few more kegs, right? Uh, no. Jesus had them fill up jars that were normally filled with water for guests to wash their feet. I don’t know if people dunked their feet in the jars to get them clean or if they dipped the water out onto their feet. In any case, I don’t think that these were “food-grade” containers. You probably would not have chosen to drink water out of such a jar. So, the servants must have been pretty skeptical of the whole thing. But, they obeyed. And the wine was better than what had previously been served. The lesson here? Jesus may ask us to do all kinds of things that are counterintuitive, but He’s God, and I’m not. I may not always understand the outcome and may not always get wine out of the footwashing jar, but I can be like the servants in the story and do what he says. (There’s no note about whether or not the servants complained or fussed, but it’s generally not good to fuss to the Creator of the universe. Just sayin’.) If I have a question on what to do, I can fall back on “Do whatever He tells you.” When I’m unsure, the four gospels have lots of sermons and stories by Jesus, and they all boil down to the same thing: love.

6. So, why is this story even included in the Bible? It’s really cool that some wedding guests in first-century Cana got some spectacular wine, but why was it worth using precious parchment and ink? The answer can be found in verse 11: “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” This episode was important because it was the first time that he was revealed as more than just a local carpenter. It was also the event that convinced his disciples of his identity as Messiah – or at least got them started in that direction. When I read back to the gospels, I see these miracles and think that they are pretty small potatoes compared to the resurrection. Indeed, they are – to me, 2000 years later. But, at the time, the host of the wedding thought this miracle was a really big deal. I don’t understand why Jesus healed so many in Palestine in the first century, but left many more unhealed at that time, not to mention the millions of people who suffered before His coming and after His ascension. But, for the three years of Jesus’ ministry, those who could get close to Him had a chance at healing – and it was a big deal for them. This story of the wedding at Cana is the first piece of evidence that Jesus was more than just the carpenter from the next village. It’s included in the Bible so we can see how He started in ministry.

7. This story also affirms the everyday joys of life. Jesus participated in the normal celebrations of the community. My life as a Christian includes these typical ups and down of living normal life with other people. Jesus didn’t avoid these normal parts of life because He was busy with his ministry; this WAS His ministry. He was involved in the lives of those around Him.

What do you think about this story? What does it tell us about Jesus?

Idols

2011-07-22T23:58:00.001-05:00

I’ve been reading a lot about idols, particularly this post and this post by Skye Jethani. I’m also listening to The Screwtape Letters (book written by C.S. Lewis) radio drama. Skye Jethani makes the very important point that we must not let our mission become our idol. God doesn’t love us because of what we do for Him. It’s the exact opposite – we love God because of who He gave us. Doing activities for God, even things that are good in and of themselves, is only part of our life as a Christian. If we neglect our inner life because we are always out “doing” something, we miss something vital. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard myself and other people talk about being too busy for prayer and worship. So, we end up neglecting the part of life that isn’t immediately visible to the rest of the world.

C.S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, makes the point that we should not make our faith solely a part of our inner life. He emphasizes that we are both physical and spiritual creatures (he has Screwtape call humans “amphibians” because we live in the physical and the spiritual world). One thing that really sticks out to me is that our position in prayer can affect our praying. It’s not that God says the we must kneel or fold our hands or whatever. Rather, by placing ourselves in a certain physical position, our body is reinforcing in the physical realm the reality in the spiritual realm. In Lewis’ eyes, we need to make sure that we don’t sit around and navel-gaze without making our faith real by acting in a way that pleases God.

It might seem that Jethani and Lewis are saying contradictory things. They’re not, though. They are each writing to warn us not to go too far in the wrong direction. It’s like we are walking on a very narrow path in which we are balancing faith and works. The book of James tells us that faith and deeds are inextricably connected; you can’t have one without the other. If we go off the road on one side, we make an idol of the good things that we are doing and hoping that God will approve us because of them. If we veer off the other direction, we become so focused on our prayer, Bible study, knowledge, and spiritual feelings that we’ve made an idol out of being “spiritual” (because we know that works are not what provide salvation).

The balance here is that, the longer we walk with Jesus and tend appropriately to our inner spiritual life, the more that we will (if we are obedient) live a life focused on other people and meeting their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Our faith and our works go hand in hand. If we allow one to become our complete focus in life, we have made an idol of it. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we will stay on that straight path with both our inner and outer lives being appropriately tended. Clearly, I’ve not arrived at this state of spiritual maturity. Too often, I find that I’ve been so busy trying to do good things that I’ve left Jesus by the wayside. At other times, I pay close attention to my reading, Bible study, and prayer, but then act selfishly and in other ways that Jesus would not encourage.

I don’t have great advice on this subject, since it’s one that I struggle with. I do think, though, that I’m learning to live minute by minute and making sure that I’m hanging out close to Him (in a spiritual sense) so that each decision I make or direction I take is with God. That sounds really mystical, but it’s not as spooky and “smoke and mirrors” as it sounds. The more that I pray, read Scripture, and study Scripture, the more resources I have to make decisions. If I’ve just been reading about love in the book of 1 Corinthians, I’m more likely to act in a loving way; the more often this happens, the more it becomes a habit. No, I don’t hear voices and I don’t trust impressions. Rather, I rely on prayer and the Bible.

I hope this was helpful for someone reading it. It was good for me to write it. And convicting about my need to clean up some in my inner and outer lives. Thoughts? Ideas?

7 Quick Takes Friday–July 22, 2011

2011-07-22T20:40:00.001-05:00

I’ve posted lots of new stuff on The Knitting Nest blog, so hop over there to check it out. We do have a life outside of yarn, so that’s what I’m talking about on this blog.

1. My dad’s birthday is today!! Happy Birthday, Dad!

2. Speaking of birthdays, I had one last week, but got presents this week. The kids got me Focus on the Family’s radio drama of The Screwtape Letters. I am LOVING it!! Andy Serkis does the voice of Screwtape and he’s wonderful. The gift from my parents is a new mp3 player. I ordered it early this week and should get it next week. My other mp3 player died several months ago and I’ve been using Wild Man’s. The problem is that I often have several library books as well as music from Rhapsody on the player and Wild Man’s mp3 player doesn’t have as much memory as I’d like.

3. Rosie Girl has her driver’s test in two weeks, so she’s been doing a lot of driving. PWM and I are very proud of how she is doing – she drove home from her piano lesson in Appleton this week.

4. Rosie Girl has been babysitting three little girls for two full days a week. She loves the little girls, but found out how hard it can be yesterday. The heat has been extreme and the family she babysits for only has window units in the girls’ bedroom so they were all uncomfortable and getting crabby. But, Rosie Girl is shaking it off and going back for two days next week. I love watching her grow up!

5. Wild Man told me on Wednesday that he was bored of TV and video games! There were extenuating circumstances, though. Wild Man started getting sick on Monday night so he didn’t do much except lie around, watch TV, and listening to audiobooks. Yesterday, I came home from the shop for an hour just to keep him company because he was getting lonely. He’s all back to normal now – and isn’t lying on the sofa watching TV all day!

6. While Wild Man was sick, I realized just how much noise the boy makes! The three days he was sick were some of the quietest we’ve had in our house. I kept checking on him every hour or so because I was worried about how quiet it was!

7. Grandma came on Wednesday, so we’ve been enjoying her company. She took everyone to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 this evening. Well, everyone except me because I had a migraine that started this afternoon. PWM and I will go in a couple of days when I’m feeling better.

That’s what’s been going on in our family! How are things in your part of the world? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others are saying!

How to Live

2011-07-20T23:24:00.001-05:00

6 With what shall I come before the LORD
   and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
   with calves a year old?
⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
   And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
   and to walk humbly^[a] with your God.

I learned Micah 6:8 in elementary school. I remember it so well because it was put to music. Since we used the King James Version of the Bible back then, I always remember, “He has shewn thee, Oh man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Right before this section, God is asking Israel to remember the things he has done for her. In verses 6 and 7, Micah says that God is not primarily interested in offerings; in verse 8, we see that God wants us to “act justly”, “love mercy”, and “walk humbly” with God.

Micah was writing/speaking to Israel and Judah, that is, to God’s chosen people. Moses had already given the people God’s instructions for life in the Torah. When Israel followed God’s commands, it was showing that they were God’s chosen people and it was to be an example to other nations. But, people being people, God’s chosen people had turned to idols (yet once again). In the beginning of chapter 6, God reminds the people of His goodness in bringing them out of Egypt and having Moses lead them.

You might think that Micah would be exhorting the Israelites to get back to obeying the details of the Torah. But he doesn’t. Instead, he rhetorically asks about the value of sacrifice to atone for “the sin of my soul”.

In verse 8, Micah tells us what God really wants from us – “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah isn’t saying to forget the Torah (the Law), but summarizing the Law. The Law specified how the Israelites were to “act justly”. The first couple of commandments in the Ten Commandments teach us to be humble before God.

The details of how we behave as believers are not unimportant. God expects us to live out our faith (see the book of James). But, showing love and mercy to others, worshiping God, and working for justice are more critical than the more obvious sacrifice. Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are not to do our good deeds to be seen by men. Micah is saying something similar here; God didn’t want Israel to get all the sacrifices (that were visible to others) done correctly but not love one another.

So, Micah 6:8 is a summary of what God expects. Sometimes it’s easier to do the “flashy” or “obvious” good deeds, like participating in church activities. Yet, God wants our hearts turned toward Him and to overflow with love.

How do we “act justly”, “love mercy”, and “walk humbly” with God? This is, I think, the hard part. It involves a minute by minute walk with Jesus. Every interaction with every person gives us the chance to do these things. It’s more difficult, but we can’t do it without God’s constant presence anyway. When I allow my relationship with Jesus to inform every action of my day, I have done “what is good”. This means that my Christian walk is going to look different than everyone else’s – which is good.

Micah 6:8 doesn’t tell me to work harder at being a better person. Rather, it says to walk with God. I don’t have it all figured out, but I hope that each day brings me closer and closer.

Your thoughts?

Who Am I? Part 2

2011-07-19T23:28:00.001-05:00

The last time I asked this question on the blog, I was having a little fun with coming up with titles for me in The Knitting Nest. (By the way, PWM and are thinking seriously that he should be the “Yarn Rock Star” and I’ll be the “Yarn Groupie”!) Today, I’m considering it from a more serious perspective. You’d think that by the age of 44, I’d have this whole “Who am I?” thing sorted out, but it is more complex than it looks on the outside.

I found out today that some friends of ours from when I was in medical school have founded a medical ministry in a third-world country. Which it totally amazing and wonderful!! But it made me feel a little uneasy and almost sad.

You see, I’ve always wanted to “make an impact” or “change the world” for God through medicine. I went to Tulane medical school because it’s an excellent medical school, little thinking that I might end up as a family doctor in a small town. I worked for ten years as a physician. And then, five years ago, I had to quit working because of migraines. My counselor and I have been working through the issue of getting my self-worth from being a child of God instead from doing lots of good things for God. When I couldn’t practice medicine anymore, my world was rocked pretty hard. It’s not just that I had spent so long training to become a doctor, but because I saw medicine as my ministry. And, even more, I saw it as my way to be a “good Christian”. So I’m kind of jealous to see my colleagues doing such “great things for God”.

I came across this article by Skye Jethani today and it’s saying a lot that I need to hear. God wants us to live with Him and be with Him, not just do things for Him. God may, indeed, call us to work in cross-cultural missions, but He might just think that it’s more important to have a couple of people open a yarn shop in a small town. I’m learning to understand that God loves me because He created me, not because of anything that I do. And I’m being reminded that my calling in a small town in Wisconsin is just as important in God’s plan as my friends’ calling in a third-world country.

Read Skye Jethani’s article. He says it much better than I can.

School Year 2011-2012

2011-07-18T19:44:00.001-05:00

It's getting closer and closer to school starting, so I need to put together a plan to make sure these kids get educated over the next year.

To start with, here are our general academic goals for both kids before they finish their formal education:

They will be fully literate with very good oral and written communication skills.
They will have good “number sense” with the ability to use math to manage their money as well as whatever math is required for any higher education that they choose.
They will have a good understanding of the tenets of the Christian faith and the contents of the Bible along with a basic understanding of the other major world religions.
They will understand the basics of world history and how the Church and our country fit into that history.
They will have read a wide range of literature.
They will know how to find information that they need.

Now, on to specifics for the 2011-2012 school year.

Rosie Girl (11th grade)

Bible – New Testament Survey
- Rosie Girl will read through the New Testament in conjunction with How to Read the Bible Book by Book and write an essay after she finishes each book.
History – Twentieth Century World History.
- Sonlight Core 300 reading with one essay after she finishes studying each decade of the 20th century.
Literature – Twentieth Century World Literature
- Sonlight Core 300 literature with an essay after she finishes each book.
Composition
- Write At Home – Research paper workshop in the 2nd quarter in conjunction with her science studies.
- Essays for Bible, History, and Literature.
Creative writing – She regularly writes stories for fanfiction.net and will probably be in the high school writing club.
Science – The Science of Music
- This is a self-directed half-credit course. Rosie Girl will study either the science of how music is made and/or the science of how music affects people. (If she decides to do both, we will extend this to a full-credit course.) She will keep a journal of her reading, do a presentation after the first quarter of the year, and write a research paper (in conjunction with her composition course) in the second quarter of the year.
Math – Algebra 2 (ALEKS)
Japanese – BYU online course
Art 3 – Local high school course
Metals – Local high school course (in the art department)
Piano and Keyboards
- Lessons at Lawrence Academy
- Playing keyboards with the worship team at church once a month.
Music Composition and Arranging – at Lawrence Academy (if there are enough students to have the course.
Physical Education
- Tap dance class and perhaps acting as a demonstrator for more basic classes at Dance Dynamics.
- Regular exercise – walking, biking, etc.
Community Service
- Helping our church's Worship Arts Director once a week.
Occupational Education
- Working at The Knitting Nest (our family business – opening August 23) as we need her.
- Babysitting
- (Possibly) teaching piano lessons

Wild Man

Bible – Apologetics
- Wild Man will read several books on apologetics over the course of the year with discussions and journaling to supplement.
History/Science – Weapons
- Wild Man wants to study weapons this year. For at least half a year (and, perhaps, the whole year), Wild Man will read Warrior and Weapon, two books that study warriors and weapons through world history. He will then use other materials (books, internet, etc.) to study the specific time periods in history, the important conflicts, and the weapons that were used. He will also take Hunter Safety course as well as go with family friends to use various types of weapons (bows and arrows as well as firearms) on a closed range. He will learn to use weapons safely. This course will cover both social science and natural science as he learns the historical use of weapons along with the mechanics of how they work. Wild Man will journal daily and do a project each quarter.
Math – ALEKS
Literature
- Sonlight Core W literature (we have the books from doing this Core three years ago)
Composition
- Institute for Excellence in Writing
- Writing about weapons in his unity study
Grammar
- Easy Grammar
Spelling
- All About Spelling
Music
- Band at the local middle school
- Drum lessons every week
- Youth Band practice every week at church
Community Service
- Senior Nutrition Site volunteering once a week
- Helping the Children's Minister at church on Sunday mornings
Physical Education
- 30 minutes of physical activity each day
-Tae Kwon Do
Occupational Education
- Working at The Knitting Nest as needed

One of the biggest changes that we're going to do this year is be more flexible and less scheduled. I've started by getting rid of their chore lists. The kids haven't been good about doing the chores regularly and PWM and I haven't been consistent in enforcing it. This does not mean that they won’t work around the house!! They may actually end up doing more around the house since PWM and I will be working at the yarn shop!! Instead of a schedule, we've asked the kids to step up and do things before we ask them. PWM and I will also assign the kids tasks around the house (cooking and cleaning) as needed. They won't be working less, but it will be less structured.

Instead of giving the kids school work lists each day, I'm going to have them take more responsibility for their education. Rosie Girl is going to have her Sonlight schedule and a Bible reading plan. For all of her subjects, she will journal the amount of time she spends on the subject as well as a paragraph about what she's done. Her science course is completely self-directed, so I'm expecting her to be very independent. She and I will have “conferences” every Friday so I can make sure she's keeping up.

Wild Man’s social sciences and natural sciences are a self-directed unit study, but since he’s thirteen, I don't expect him to be as self-directed as his sister. I'm going to have him read from one of the “spine” books (Warrior and Weapon) every day. As he gets interested in topics, I'll help him find more materials for study. Wild Man still needs my help with spelling, grammar, and writing, so we'll probably do those in the evening or up at the shop (although I'm hoping the shop will be too busy to allow us to do schoolwork there).

This has been a really long post, but it has helped me to sort out next year's schoolwork. One thing that I need to work on, though, is keeping up with Rosie Girl's work and assigning credit.

Fellow homeschoolers, how is your school planning going? Everyone, are you feeling ready for the kids to go back to school, be it public, private or home school? Are you wondering where all the time is going?!

Who Am I?

2011-07-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

You may think that since I just celebrated my 44^th (ACK!) birthday, that this post is going to be a philosophical exploration of my spiritual identity, emotional status, and or mental well-being. Well, it's not.

I may have mentioned once or twice (or a million times) that our family is opening a yarn shop. My question is really, “Who am I in The Knitting Nest?” PWM is the business owner and is going to be responsible for the day-to-day financial workings, getting items priced and on the shelves, etc. While we have been doing most things jointly, there are at least two or three days each week when I'm completely useless for a good bit of the day because of migraines and then another day or two when the headache isn't bad, but I'm just worn out. I don't think I can really count myself as a business manager. I will be doing lots of knitting of models, helping to teach classes, and various and sundry other things.

I think we should have interesting titles, kind of like how Starbucks employees are “barristas”, Disney employees are “Imagineers”, and Apple sales employees are “Evangelists”. PWM is the owner, so we can call him “Boss”, “Chief Yarn Dude”, or “Head Honcho”. I wanted to be the “Yarn Goddess”, but after the fiasco with my Fair Isle sweater, I don't think I can equate myself with a deity yet.

Here are some ideas I've come up with for a job “title” for myself:

Knitting Aficionado. According to Dictionary.com, aficionado means “an ardent devotee”. That seems to fit, although it's not very inclusive.
Yarn Connoisseur. Hmmmmmm. Maybe.
Knitting Nest Accomplice. That makes me sound like a criminal. I think not.
Yarn and Social Media Maven. Getting closer.
Girl Friday. Umm, no.
Knitting Nest Gofer and Yarn and Social Media Artiste. Too long.
The Mom (Wild Man's contribution). Rather limited – I'm only “Mom” to two people.

I'm not so thrilled with any of these. What do you think? Maybe I should just be “Catherine” and let people try to figure it out from there?

Cross-posted at The Knitting Nest blog.

7 Quick Takes Friday–July 15, 2011

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Friday, once again!! I celebrated my 44^th birthday yesterday, so today's post is all about July 14, 2011.

I was awakened by PWM and Wild Man who had made chocolate chip pancakes – my favorite! They had a candle in the pancakes that I blew out. When I pulled the candle out, the very bottom was just a string – the wax had melted in the hot pancakes! We cut the very center bit of the pancakes out so I didn't get a big bite of wax!
We met with a sales representative for several yarn companies yesterday from 10:30am-1:30pm. I have learned my lesson – sales meetings take at least twice as long as I expect.
After our meeting, I went up to church to hang out with our Worship Arts Director for a little while before my counseling appointment. PWM and the kids had stopped at Dairy Queen and picked up an ice cream cake and brought it to church for me to enjoy with my friends. Unfortunately, the cake was so frozen that we couldn't even get the knife through it! I put it int the church refrigerator and my friends and I had some after my counseling appointment.
The kids were both at sleepovers last night, so PWM and I had the house to ourselves. Don't worry, though, there's still cake in the freezer for them.
Wild Man is staying with a friend of his whose family owns a large dairy farm. He went over yesterday afternoon and is staying until Youth Band practice tomorrow afternoon. When he's over there, he works right along with the other kids. While this is a wonderful thing for him to do, it does mean that he's going to be pretty sore on Sunday and Monday. It's good for him, though.
PWM made steaks, broccoli, buttered corn, and garlic bread for our dinner last night. It was a perfect birthday dinner!
A birthday tradition in our family is that my parents always sing Happy Birthday over the phone to me. In harmony. It makes me feel very loved.

How was your week? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Family Camp - 2011

2011-07-10T19:51:00.001-05:00

We are home from Family Camp (Fort Wilderness, near Rhinelander)! It was, as usual, a wonderful getaway for our family. Here are some highlights (and I apologize for the dearth of photos – I just didn’t think to take pictures all the time like I usually do).

1. The bugs are always bad in the Northwoods in July, but they were out in more force than usual this year!! Despite our best efforts to keep ourselves coated with DEET, the bugs still feasted on our blood!

2. I had two significant migraines this year at camp. Ugh! Usually, I have one bad one that really stops me from participating for a day or so. This year, I missed the Family Carnival and the adult dessert because of the headaches.

3. Wild Man and I went to a Nature Center class on solar energy. They had some toy Viking-style boats that had oars that turned when the sun hit the photo-voltaic cell. We also saw a demonstration of how air in a black plastic bag (a very LONG plastic bag) heats up and starts to float upward. Really cool.

4. PWM and I took several lovely long walks on various nature trails. I had some sore feet by the end of the week, but it was worth it.

5. The mattresses are just not good for old people like me and PWM. Thankfully, though, the soreness was much improved after the first night.

6. For the last couple of years, I’ve gone to Lumberjack Breakfast with Wild Man while PWM went with Rosie Girl on Wrangler’s Breakfast. We can only do one special breakfast each, so this year, I decided to go with Rosie Girl and let PWM go with Wild Man. Rosie Girl and I were up bright and early to go to the stables where we got on horse-drawn wagons that took us over to Blair Lake. When we got there, staff members had our potatoes and bacon cooking on the griddle and were ready to make our eggs to order. Delish! And lots of fun!

7. Wild Man and PWM went to the lake where the Lumberjack breakfast group was met by “Jacques” (who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Nature Center guy) who took them on the trail to Cranberry Point while discussing the logging lifestyle of 150-200 years ago. They ended by having pancakes made to order (with toppings) and bacon at Cranberry Point. A wonderful breakfast was had by all!

8. On Monday, July 4, I missed breakfast because of the aforementioned migraine so PWM brought me a scone to eat before the morning session. Rosie Girl said, “There must be Revolutionary War soldiers turning over in their graves right now!” I asked why, and she answered, “Because we’re eating British scones on American Independence Day!”

9. Another mealtime funny: We were sitting before dinner with two other couples and Rosie Girl and Wild Man. Wild Man had been playing all afternoon and was starving. He drank two glasses of milk and then served himself some pears while we were waiting for the rest of the meal to be served. Someone asked me to pass the pears and Wild Man said, “Those are pears?” I asked, “What did you think they are? You just ate them – didn’t you taste them?” Wild Man answered (rather sheepishly), “I thought they were apples and I inhaled them so fast that I didn’t really taste them. I’m hungry!!” Crazy boy.

10. On Thursday, Wild Man won first place for his age group in both the Archery and Riflery tournaments!! He won two free double-scoop ice creams, which worked out very well because he had spent all his money earlier on Thursday when he bought a T-shirt. He had one ice cream on Thursday night and the other right before we left on Friday morning.

11. PWM got second place in the adult section of the Archery Tournament and won a single scoop of ice cream from the canteen! Congratulations, PWM!!

12. PWM and I forgot to pack blankets! The kids each had a sleeping bag, so they were comfortable. On the first night and last night, it got really chilly and I slept in my jeans and sweatshirt as well as putting jackets and towels over myself to get warm. This never happened when I went to camp in Florida – we were always hot!

How was your week? Anything exciting happening? How bad are the bugs and heat in your part of the world?

7 Quick Takes Friday–July 1, 2011

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1. We go to Family Camp tomorrow!! We’re all very excited and can’t wait to get there. A week of no cooking, just hanging out with the hubby and kids (and a couple hundred other people), playing games, reading books, and (of course) knitting.

2. I’ve had a migraine all day today, so PWM has been doing most of the house-cleaning and packing. Thankfully, the kids are old enough to do their own packing. I really hope the headache is gone by tomorrow because the one thing that’s worse than having a migraine when I’d rather be packing is having a migraine during the drive and first day of camp.

3. Our week has been consumed with The Knitting Nest. We have the retail space now, but still need to get fixtures. We met with our first yarn company rep this week, too. Check out The Knitting Nest blog for more details.

4. I just finished an excellent biography on Adolf Hitler. I’ll post a review later, but suffice it to say that the man was truly evil. I’m also reading a book by an author who is part of the Second Generation, those whose parents were Holocaust survivors. Yet once again, I’m devastated by the reminder of how awful human beings can treat each other.

5. Rosie Girl is making a crochet backpack with a theme from one of her favorite anime shows. I may wish that she’d be this diligent with her Geometry, but she certainly knows how to keep learning new things and trying new projects. It’s also been fun to have her help with the library knitting club – the girls really look up to her!

6. Wild Man made chocolate-chip pancakes yesterday. I could get used to him doing most of the cooking around here! Mom cooked week before last and we’ve been eating those leftovers this week and now we’re going to camp where we will be fed three wonderful meals each day, with the option for an afternoon snack (mint chocolate chip ice cream for me) at the canteen. [Insert deep sigh of contentment.]

7. The last Harry Potter movie comes out in two weeks!! I don’t feel strongly about going to see it on the first day, and I really don’t want to see it in 3D (that can’t be good for someone who has migraines on a regular basis!), but I do think we’ll get to it within the first week. PWM has been learning to use his lathe and he wants to use it to make replicas of the “Elder Wand” that he can sell. He carved one by hand for Wild Man for Christmas and it’s just gorgeous. I can’t wait to see how his work on the lathe goes!

Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Our Week In Review - June 27, 2011

2011-06-27T02:19:00.001-05:00

Several times this week, I really expected to see the animals coming 2 by 2 into an ark. The rain and storms have been just crazy! PWM and I are from down South where torrential rains aren't unheard of, but this kind of rain is not the norm here in Wisconsin.

For the next couple of months, these weekly reviews are going to be pretty sparse. I'm chronicling our opening of The Knitting Nest over at The Knitting Nest blog, so you can click over there to see what other mischief we've been up to!

The big excitement this week was having my parents up for a visit. My mom cooked and cooked and cooked some more - and there are no arguments from me because I love her food and I've been working pretty obsessively on this Fair Isle sweater for the County Fair (see The Knitting Nest blog for more details on the knitting projects). Not only that, but she had Wild Man helping her and learning how to make some of his favorite dishes.

We've watched several of the Star Wars movies this week - at the kids' requests - and the new PBS/BBC Masterpiece Theater adaptations of Mansfield Park and Persuasion. PWM received the new Lego "Pirates of the Caribbean" for Wii, so he and the kids have been having fun playing.

When the rain finally quit, Wild Man went out fishing - once with Grams and once with PWM. He didn't catch anything, but he enjoys it. He's still getting drum lessons once a week as well as having Youth Band practice on Sunday afternoon. And, of course, he works at the Nutrition Site on Wednesday and helps the Children's Ministries Director on Sunday morning. He has yet to tell me that he's bored - of course, that may just be because he knows how I'll respond (give him housework to do - there's never a shortage!).

Rosie Girl just finished crocheting some juggling balls that look like tomatoes as a prop for her CosPlay for DaiShoCon this Fall. (She's going to dress up as an anime character for the anime convention.) Now she's working on a crocheted backpack. In the last two weeks, she's been on two sleepovers. It was good to have her home for a couple of days!

Rosie Girl is working diligently to finish Geometry and Japanese, although she didn't have as much opportunity this week since the grandparents were here. Wild Man and I have not done any spelling yet. I hope to do some review with him once or twice this week. She is also driving a good bit so that she can get all of her hours recorded

PWM has been sharpening all the tools for his new (well, new to him) lathe. He's even done a little bit of turning. It's good for him to have a creative outlet, particularly if he makes knitting needles that we can sell at the shop!

So, what about me? I've had two big, bad migraines in the last few weeks. Not fun. Despite that, I've gotten a lot of knitting done as well as trying to read more about sheep and wool as well as how to be a successful entrepreneur.

Oh, and we got a car. My Malibu gave up the ghost this Spring, so we've been driving PWM's mom's car. We'd been looking for a few weeks, but found a Saturn VUE in good condition and in our price range (always a plus). And, it's a standard transmission, so Rosie Girl will get to learn to drive it.

This week is going to be filled with more work at the shop and, perhaps, cleaning some fleeces to send to a mill for processing. And, then, we get to go to Family Camp!! I really can't wait for camp! It's the one week when we are pretty much unplugged and have time to just relax and enjoy God's creation and our family.

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see how others are spending their summer! And leave me a comment about what your family is up to!

7 Quick Takes Friday - June 24, 2011

2011-06-24T22:48:00.001-05:00

So, what's going on around here this week? Lots and lots and lots of fun! OK, some not-so-fun as well, but God is still good.

1. My parents are visiting this week. We have all really enjoyed having them here - and it certainly doesn't hurt that my Mom cooks for us!

2. The weather has been just atrocious this week! PWM and I are used to heavy rains, having lived our early lives in the Deep South, but we aren't used to seeing the heavy, drenching rains up here in Wisconsin. There are all kinds of flood watches and warnings now.

3. I had a big, bad migraine yesterday that left me just worn out today. And I feel another one coming on. Yuck!

4. It has been funny to watch Wild Man and Grams together this trip. Wild Man has grown several inches this year and is almost towering over my mom!

5. PWM has spent a good bit of time this week setting up his lathe working area in the garage and has even done a little bit of turning. I'm excited about getting some custom-made knitting needles!

6. Rosie Girl is such a musician! She played some of the theme from Lord of the Rings on her keyboard and recorded it. Then, she played ocarina while she played back the keyboard part. It was wonderful!!

7. Grams has been teaching Wild Man to cook several of his favorite dishes this week. No arguments from me!

Check out what others are saying at 7 Quick Takes Friday (note the temporary change in location)!

Thinking About The School Year

2011-06-18T22:29:00.001-05:00

I’m a planner. Normally, I’m such a planner that by this time of year, I’ve already planned the curriculum for next year and purchased it. Then, during July and August, I plan things out week by week. Whether we actually stick to the plan is a completely different story, but I like the planning. It makes me feel secure.

Not this year. In the hustle and bustle of starting a new business, I haven’t had much time to think about curriculum. In fact, Wild Man didn’t get nearly as much of the last month of his curriculum done as I would have liked. And Rosie Girl is going to do some Chemistry experiments in the Fall since they didn’t get done this Spring.

I think, though, that involving the kids in our shop is going to be at least as educational as any purchased curriculum that we could use. Not only that, but Rosie Girl works quite independently and Wild Man is more and more independent each year.

Here’s what I’m thinking right now:

Rosie Girl

New Testament Survey

Sonlight Core 300 – 20th Century History

20th Century Literature

Research Paper Workshop (through Write At Home)

Japanese

The Science of Music (independent study)

Algebra 2

Piano

Tap Dance

Art 3 (at the high school)

Metals (Art class at the high school)

Community Service (helping our Worship Arts Director once a week)

Composing and Arranging (at Lawrence Academy of Music)

Wild Man

Bible (don’t know what I’m going to have him study, perhaps apologetics)

History – I think I’m going to have him do a largely self-directed unit study on weapons (his choice) for the first 9 weeks. Then, I’ll have him do an abbreviated Core 6/7 or Overview of World History. We’ll have to see.

Literature (from Sonlight Core 6/7)

Math (ALEKS)

Spelling (All About Spelling)

Institute for Excellence in Writing

Science – For the first quarter, he’ll be learning science in the unit study. After that, who knows?

TaeKwonDo

Community Service (working at the Senior Nutrition Site)

At the end of the school year, I’ll see how much Rosie Girl has learned from helping us with the business and award credit. I’m actually not very stressed out about the kids’ education right now. Home education has been very successful thus far, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t continue to be. I like to be very organized, but I’ve also seen how real life interrupts my plans. I’m learning to be flexible – which is going to be important this next year!

7 Quick Takes Friday–June 17, 2011

2011-06-17T22:44:00.001-05:00

1. The Knitting Nest is taking shape. And, from now on, posts about my knitting projects and The Knitting Nest can be found at the Knitting Nest blog. Check it out and add it to your feed reader if you want to keep up with our progress!

2. Rosie Girl turns 16 next week!! Ack!! It feels like it was just yesterday that she was a little toddler who loved to yell, “To infinity – and beyond!”

3. Wild Man is loving that I’m letting him have more media time during the summer. But, when the weather is nice, I’ve been making him disconnect.

4. It’s going to be a busy week next week. My parents are coming for a visit! I’m sure they’re going to enjoy the break from the 90+ degree Florida weather!

5. Wild Man is becoming quite the cook. He made apple pie this week with PWM’s help. Wild Man also made spaghetti for dinner last night completely by himself. I’m enjoying this self-sufficiency.

6. Rosie Girl has developed quite the social life. She’s at her second sleepover of the week!

7. We have the windows open intermittently depending on the weather. The cats love open windows and will sit in them and watch the squirrels and birds for hours. When it’s too hot or cold for open windows, Sophie (usually, but occasionally the other two cats as well) cries and begs for us to open the kitchen window. It’s rather pathetic!

Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

Embracing the Gray

2011-06-05T00:14:00.001-05:00

And I don’t mean gray hair!

Do you ever wish that God gave us a textbook of systematic theology instead of the Bible? I do. I’m not sure why God chose to give us the Bible in the form it is in, but the consequence is that we have a lot to discuss about the Bible and what it means. (I suspect that part of God’s intention was to force us to work at relationships instead of making it easy. Kind of like marriage. When a couple works through all kinds of difficulties and troubles, they usually end up with a better relationship in the long-run.) It seems a little odd to me that the book that points us to Jesus is, in many ways, a story book. Lots of stories. Put together over a long period of time. Sometimes it’s hard to know what a text actually means.

The basic plan of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection is pretty clear. Beyond that, though, there are lots of places that are just difficult to understand. Humans like, I think, to be certain about things. As I grew up in Evangelicalism, I learned a lot of things that were very black and white (many from my church, less from my parents).

1. The earth is about 6000 years old and God created it and all life in six, literal, 24-hour days.

2. The flood was worldwide and all geological formations that we see were made by the flood.

3. People who engage in practices beside married heterosexuality can’t possibly be saved.

4. The plan for the end of the world is spelled out in Revelation, Daniel, and a couple of Paul’s letters and can be predicted, albeit not down to the day.

5. Baptism must be by immersion after someone prays the “Sinner’s Prayer”.

6. We can know about other people’s eternal situation based on whether or not they have prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer”.

As I’ve gotten older and more mature, I’ve learned that very few things are as black and white as I thought. There are gray areas. And it’s not necessarily bad. I have changed my mind on some of my beliefs, but, while I still hold on to some others, I realize that believers in Jesus can and will have differences.

1. I believe that the scientific discoveries that show that the universe and earth are very old and that biological evolution occurred are the best explanations for origins. But, others believe in an old earth but don’t accept that biological evolution occurred. But, when we try to be true to the original meaning of the text by it’s original authors (inspired by God), what are the truths that we can get from Genesis 1-3? Did Adam literally exist? If not, what does that do to our interpretation of the New Testament references to Adam? Origins is definitely a gray area. There are lots of questions, few concrete answers, and lots and lots of opinions.

2. I believe that the story of Noah describes a local flood. The science doesn’t support a worldwide flood, and the text is part of the early sections of Genesis that may or may not have contained literal descriptions of events. That doesn’t mean that I believe that it’s unimportant or uninspired! So, another gray area.

3. I think the Bible is pretty clear that we are only to express our sexuality through marriage to a partner of the opposite sex. Yet, others disagree. And they love Jesus. (And, you have to admit that the examples of sexual relationships in the Old Testament show a much wider variety of “acceptable” sexual practices than we now have. When a woman is raped nowadays, the perpetrator is (hopefully) brought to justice. The biblical rules say that they should get married. Strange.) While I don’t consider this very gray in my world, I know others who worship Jesus and disagree. But, I can still worship with them.

4. As we all saw a few weeks ago when the Rapture did NOT occur, there are widely varying opinions on when the world will end and how. There are those who believe that the events foretold in Revelation have already occurred. Others believe that Revelation needs to be understood symbolically. This isn’t an issue that I spend much time and energy on. It’s definitely a gray area.

5. I still believe that the Bible teaches baptism by immersion after someone has clearly accepted the Christian faith as their own. Yet, I can see how paedo-baptism (infant baptism) got started and how it is still used in Reformed churches today. And, apparently, some people do credo-baptism (baptism after the person has professed their faith), but still sprinkle. The one part of the baptism controversy that is black and white to me is that baptism is NOT what saves us. However, we can agree on salvation while still disagreeing about baptism. More gray.

6. A person can know about their own eternal salvation because they can know what they believe and have a relationship with God. However, we can’t know the eternal status of other people. If you have seen any of the controversy about the book Love Wins (which I haven’t read), you will have seen how concerned people are to be sure they know what happens after death to other people. Certainly, we can have some clue as to a person’s destiny, but we can only judge by what we can see on the outside. God judges the inside. And here’s what makes this really gray – what happens to people who have never heard the Gospel? I don’t have the answer for that. Paul says in one of his letters that those who haven’t heard still have the witness of nature. Does that mean that God holds us responsible for what we know of Him? Is there a time after death when people are given a chance to make the choice for salvation? I think this is the most gray area in the Christian faith that I can think of. I have far more questions than answers here.

So, what do we do with all this “gray”? We don’t run away from it. Nor do we try to get rid of the gray and make those black and white lines that have become so much a part of Evangelicalism. Rather, we need to embrace the uncertainty and limitedness of our knowledge and point instead to God, who knows everything, even if he’s not spelled it all out for us in detail. Besides, would a God that you can understand be a God worthy of worship?

Embrace the gray. Be willing to talk about these issues with other believers. Give lots of grace to those who hold a different perspective. Let’s get away from all the sniping and fussing and fear-mongering and instead focus on Jesus, who tells us to love one another. Remember, Jesus said to lay down our burdens and take his burden because it is light. I’m afraid that sometimes I get caught up in these peripheral issues (particularly origins) and forget the primary thing: Love.

Any thoughts? Go out and Love some people tomorrow!

7 Quick Takes Friday–6/3/2011

2011-06-03T21:57:00.001-05:00

The end of the week and the end of the school year!!

1. Rosie Girl has dance recital this weekend – 2 performances on Saturday and one on Sunday. It’s a long weekend, but she’s only taking one class now which makes it easier. I can’t wait to see the dance!

2. Wild Man made lasagna on Wednesday night for us for dinner. I love that he’s old enough to cook. But, I wonder where my sweet little baby boy went!

3. Next week sometime, our yarn shop will be officially incorporated! We start renting our shop space in the middle of the month and hope we can open in early Fall. Exciting!!

4. I bought some wonderfully beautiful yarn last weekend and I’m making a lace shawl from it. Right now, I hope that I have enough yarn to finish.

5. We’ve been watching lots of Lord of the Rings. Earlier this week, we watched the appendices to The Two Towers and tonight we watched The Return of the King.

6. Next week is time to clean the basement and garage. I am so thrilled.

7. Tonight was high school graduation, so Rosie Girl went up to the school to watch her best friend graduate. The friend will still be living in the area, so they’ll get to see each other next year, but not every day in the hall before Rosie Girl’s art class like they did this year.

Check out what others are saying at 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Adolescence

2011-06-01T15:21:00.001-05:00

I am the mother of two adolescents!! And, since we homeschool, I spend hours and hours each day with these adolescents. And I love it!! (Most of the time!)

Adolescents are physically, mentally, and emotionally become adults, but the brain and body don’t always develop at the same rate. So, I have a thirteen year old boy who still loves watching cartoons (especially Phineas and Ferb) but wants to learn to cook and use power tools (not at the same time!). Sometimes the hormones just seem to be on overdrive and emotions are completely uncontrollable. And the next day, that excessively emotional teenager is very calmly driving me to the grocery store.

I have read somewhere (and since this isn’t an academic paper, I don’t have to go track down my sources) that adolescence is a creation of the twentieth century. Prior to this, teenagers were expected to transition from childhood to adulthood with minimal trouble. It was largely the start of mass education that allowed childhood to continue into the late teens. I agree that this is likely the case, but the body changes and hormones were still there. It was just that teens didn’t have the luxury to “freak out” on occasion because they were expected to be acting as productive adults by that time.

Another book that I read recently (again, I don’t remember the source) said that kids often don’t feel like they are doing anything important, leading to some of the adolescent angst. And, that’s not an unrealistic conclusion. Most kids go to school to prepare for college, which seems a million years away, and then maybe work in a fast-food place or have other kinds of “unimportant” work. The authors of this book recommend that kids become part of the adult world during their teen years by doing volunteer work or paid work that they see as having some value.

PWM and I love homeschooling because we can help them find places where they can learn to be part of the adult world. Wild Man volunteers on Wednesdays at the Senior Nutrition Site to pack Meals on Wheels while Rosie Girl does some clerical-type work for our church’s Worship Arts director. Wild Man is also busy every Sunday morning helping the Children’s Director at church with her skits for Children’s Church. And both kids are going to be helping us open the yarn shop.

Sometimes I feel like I’m on a roller coaster with these kids – sometimes they’re children, other times they’re adults! But, this is my job – helping them navigate all the changes going on as they become young adults and eventually leave home. Excuse me now while I go cry over scrapbooks and baby pictures!

The End Of The School Year . . .

2011-05-31T23:23:00.001-05:00

The end of the “school” year is upon us . . . and I’m feeling my usual guilt that we didn’t “do” enough. I’m not feeling it as much with Rosie Girl because she works independently, but I definitely feel it with Wild Man. What if he hasn’t learned enough? What if he becomes a bum? Worse, what if he can’t ever get a job and wants to live at home the rest of his life??? What if???

And then I’m reminded that most of our educational goals for our kids are not academic. What do we want our kids to get from being homeschooled?

1. A strong grounding in the Christian faith and (hopefully) making their faith their own.

2. An appropriate self-image – confident enough to take risks and handle failure, but not overly confident and unable to handle the tough situations in life.

3. Good work ethic – they need to be willing to work, yet not get their self-worth from work.

4. Ability to communicate well and work with others – they need to respect others and be able to manage conflict by addressing it and not hiding from it.

5. Initiative to do what needs to be done.

6. Money management

Of all of those goals, only money management is particularly academic. We do plan that our kids will have a high school education that will be academically strong enough to make them attractive to colleges. But, whether they choose college or some other vocational track is between them and God. (I’m sure we’ll give an opinion!)

I was reminded today of how much my kids learn even when we aren’t doing the academics the way that I’d like. Wild Man did his laundry today without being asked. Several years ago, I taught the kids to do their own laundry so that I could not worry about it when I had long migraines. Rosie Girl has been good about doing hers without any prompting, but, until today, Wild Man often needed reminders. The kids are splitting the lawn mowing tasks here at home and next door at Grandma’s (who is only going to have that house until early fall, but is paying the kids to mow the lawn this summer). Rosie Girl also has a lawn mowing job with a neighbor and, it appears, will be teaching some piano lessons.

My kids aren’t perfect. But, I’m pleased with their growth and development. It’s really not of crucial importance that they can name the halogens or noble gases if they’re not going to be chemists. It is crucial that they are willing to work, can be persistent with a project, can take the initiative (like Wild Man’s doing his own laundry), and can manage their money.

So, I’m not feeling so bad about my kids’ educations. I just have to remind myself that learning to do laundry and cook dinner (which Wild Man did last night with PWM’s help and is doing tomorrow with my help) are at least as important as being able to name all the countries in Africa.

Sometime in the next few months I need to plan curriculum for next year. I’m not sure when I’m going to get around to that because all my energy right now is focused on the yarn shop. I figure that Wild Man and Rosie Girl will end up with some kind of “Entrepreneurship” credit on their transcripts – because they’re definitely going to be helping out with this venture!

P.S. The pictures don’t actually have anything to do with the post. I figured since I like seeing pictures of the kids, then you would too!!

Lagniappe 5/25/2011

2011-05-25T20:32:00.001-05:00

Just an update on what is going on in our little family.

Wild Man got Rock Band Beatles for Wii for his birthday and it has become one of his favorite games.
Rosie Girl is making bracelets with flags on them based on one of the anime shows that she watches. She’s probably going to sell them on Etsy – I’ll post a link if she does.
Wild Man is doing lots of practice on his drum set and he’s becoming pretty good.
Wild Man has also been practicing bass guitar.
After a visit with the accountant today, we’ve made some decisions about the yarn shop that mean that we may be able to get started without a bank loan. Yippee!!
The Weyauwega Fiber Arts Circle afternoons and evenings have been going great! We had six women at the Circle this afternoon and three last week on Thursday afternoon.
The elementary school knitting club is finished, but we’re going to be doing a knitting/crochet club at the library over the summer.
I’m working diligently on my Fair Isle sweater, but it’s slow going. Items for the County Fair have to be finished by July 26th, so I have to keep moving.
PWM is knitting a hat and I’m learning crochet.
Next week is stage rehearsal and dress rehearsal for Rosie Girl’s tap class. It’s always a busy week, but worth it!

OK, that’s it. Nothing deep today.

Things I Will Never Understand

2011-05-12T02:28:00.000-05:00

Technically, I should title this “Things I Will Never Understand Until I Get To Heaven”, but that is a little too long and tedious. But, here at 2:17am while I’m having some impressive insomnia, I’ll list some things that I’ve realized I’ll never understand.

Why Sophie (Rosie Girl’s cat) steals socks. She certainly doesn’t wear them!
The Boson-Higgs particle
Why Sassy (the long-haired cat) thinks it’s such a victory that she conquered a hair elastic.
Why PWM loves me
Why Silver (the short-haired grey cat) believes that the laundry basket of clean clothes needs to be her bed.
Why Sophie and Sassy are addicted to packing tape.
Why I can’t sleep tonight.
“The physics of the thing!” (Sorry, Dad, I’m still a physics novice!)
Wild Man’s love of all things gun-like.
Anime and Manga (sorry, Rosie Girl)
Why I have migraines (although I’m pretty sure I didn’t cause them)
Twitter
IPhones (I guess I’m not as tech-savvy as I thought)
Why I don’t like fruit (and many veggies)
The grace of God.

Do you have any to add? Isn’t insomnia great? I get all kinds of crazy things coming from my head when I don’t sleep!

Our Weekend, Including Mother’s Day

2011-05-08T15:15:00.001-05:00

I’ve had better weekends. The plan was for me to make Wild Man’s birthday cake on Friday so he could have his party on Saturday with his friends sleeping over, and then go to church on Sunday (Mother’s Day) where PWM, Rosie Girl, and Wild Man would all be playing during the worship music time. So, did it happen like this? Kind of.

On Friday, PWM was feeling awful with cold symptoms and a sore throat. I was inclined to think it was just a cold until he developed a fever. Since he was sick, I did the shopping for Wild Man’s party and then came home and made dinner and made Wild Man’s cake. He didn’t want a lot of decorations on it, so I thought I’d just do a little writing on it Saturday morning.

PWM had an 8am appointment at the clinic where he was diagnosed with strep and given meds. Yippee!! (Not “yippee” that he had strep, but “yippee” that he could take meds for it instead of just having to wait it out.) I woke up at about 8:30 with a migraine. No big deal, I figured I’d take my meds and stay upstairs when the boys were inside and being loud. Unfortunately, by 11am, I was vomiting and thought my head might explode. So, my dear hubby took me off to the Emergency Room for treatment.

While we were there, he texted Rosie Girl that she was to be “in charge” when Wild Man’s friends got there. The boys started arriving at 1pm, but PWM and I didn’t leave the Emergency Department until 2pm. The ER staff was very helpful. The doctor who saw me is one whom I’ve seen before (and I think he started there before I quit working). He commented that I hadn’t been to the ER in “a coon’s age” – which is, thankfully, true. My last couple of bad migraines that required intervention were during clinic hours and I could get meds there. In any case, it took a lot of meds and fluids to get things calmed down.

We got home to find five adolescent boys running around playing. And they were ready for cake! So, we had presents and cake and ice cream before I went upstairs. I slept for about 4 hours and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon/evening upstairs with one of the cats (who did NOT like having strangers around).

The boys were in their sleeping bags by 11, although I don’t think they were asleep quite that soon. I didn’t get up this morning till 10:30, but I know that everyone had to be at church at 7am, so Wild Man, all his friends, Rosie Girl, and PWM were out the door by 6:30am.

Since I got up so late, I’m missing the Mother’s Day festivities at church. But, really, I’m just glad the migraine is better. I haven’t had one that bad in quite a while. And, I have to say that Wild Man has some good friends. They prayed before they ate dinner (without having a parent tell them to), their arguments and fussing were minimal, and they were all very respectful to me and PWM.

I think we’re going to have a quiet day at home today. We might take a walk later. Otherwise, we’re going to have Chinese take-out, hang out together, and watch the finale of The Amazing Race.

So, how has your Mother’s Day been? Anything exciting planned?

7 Quick Takes Friday–The “I Can’t Believe I Have 2 Teenagers” Edition

2011-05-07T00:08:00.001-05:00

1. I am now on the sixth day of being the mother of two teenagers. I don’t think we can afford it. Wild Man has taken to eating like a Hobbit, although he’s got more height and less foot hair than a hobbit. He would eat breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, supper, dinner, and dessert if he could!

2. God is laughing at me. As I teenager and young adult, I would say that I didn’t want to marry an engineer or a pastor and I wanted to be employed, not run my own business (or practice). My husband has a degree in electrical engineering and is an elder. And we’re going to open a yarn store. This was definitely not in the plan I had for my life. (Of course, neither were debilitating headaches.) But, God is in control of everything, so I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. And laugh right along with Him!

3. I finished a really fun pair of socks for myself this week. I need to block them before I wear them. However, I’m thinking about entering them in the County Fair, so I might not wear them until Fall. Which wouldn’t be too bad since they’re wool.

4. On Sunday morning, the other three members of the family are all going to be playing music for worship. PWM plays bass guitar almost every week with the worship team. Rosie Girl is joining them on keyboards this week since the person originally scheduled had to cancel. And, since it’s Mother’s Day, the teen band is going to play, with Wild Man on drums.

5. Tomorrow is Wild Man’s birthday party!! We’re going to have five boys running around playing Nerf Dart War. And eating. I bought lots and lots of food!

6. The weather was sunny and 65 degrees today. Is spring actually going to stick around this time??

7. I made Wild Man a yellow cake with chocolate icing for tomorrow. It’s on a big cake stand, so I can’t put it in the cabinet. I loosely covered it with aluminum foil, not because it will go bad, but because one of our crazy cats likes chocolate and I’m afraid she would decide to eat icing till she got sick. So, the foil is to scare her off with the noise if she gets too close.

So, how has your week been? Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others are up to!!

Lagniappe–5/4/2011

2011-05-04T16:20:00.001-05:00

1. We had ten kids at knitting club yesterday – it was a blast!! Of course, now I’m exhausted and sore from leaning over kids to help them knit. Last week, we got the first nine casting on. This week, we got those nine knitting. We had another girl in the club and she learned to cast on and to knit all in one day. I’m going to see if the kids are interested in continuing through the summer at the library. I’m honestly having a lot more fun than I expected with this project.

2. I’m going to start on the rest of my Fair Isle sweater soon. I was going to start last night until I realized that the socks I’m knitting are on one of the needles that I need. Oops!

3. I’m working on a business plan and spreadsheet for our yarn shop venture. Wow – I’m learning a ton!

4. We still have the Christmas lights inside the house and around the front door up. I think we’ll try to get those taken care of in the next few days!

5. Wild Man turned 13 on Sunday. He’s having a Nerf Darts party on Saturday. I’m so not ready for this!

6. Along with turning 13, Wild Man’s appetite seems to be increasing. Since breakfast this morning, he’s had lunch at the Senior Nutrition Site and then the equivalent of two more meals here at home. I’m not sure if we’ll be afford to keep him!!

7. We finally got some sunshine today!! Yippee!! At the rate we were going, I was afraid we’d all be Vitamin D deficient in month or so.

Our Week In Review–5/1/2011

2011-05-01T22:50:00.001-05:00

So, I’m doing our Week In Review on Sunday night. What does this say about our week?

We’ve just finished a very busy week and weekend. I had a migraine last Monday through Wednesday and then again last night. Nonetheless, the children appear to be getting educated.

Wild Man

History/Social Sciences – Wild Man has been watching some DVDs on Africa, although we’ve been reading about the Middle East. Hopefully, he’s not too terribly confused!

Language Arts – Wild Man is reading King Of The Wind. We made some real progress this week in spelling and I had him compose his own paragraph using some spelling words. Overall, I’d like to see him doing some writing as well as starting on a typing program. We didn’t do any work in his grammar book this week, but we’ll try to do some this week, along with some MadLibs.

Math – He’s continuing in ALEKS Math. This week, he was working on factoring numbers along with trying to get his multiplication tables down pat. I think we’ll be playing some Multiplication/Division 24 this week.

Science – I’m feeling pretty guilty that we haven’t gotten much Science done the last few weeks. I’ll probably have him watch some science stuff on DVR or Netflix this week. He keeps wanting to watch Mythbusters, but I think he’s seen all the Mythbusters episodes!

PE – Friday night was belt test night and Wild Man and PWM both passed their tests and will get green-tip belts! The warmer weather means that Wild Man has also been out playing basketball whenever it’s not raining.

Music – The 7th and 8th grade band is working on music for their Spring Concert. Wild Man is still getting drum lessons and is practicing bass guitar and getting help from PWM as he needs it.

Life Skills – On Wednesday night, I wasn’t up to cooking, so I gave Wild Man instructions on making meatballs. He also made spaghetti and spaghetti sauce to go with the meatballs. Yummy!!

Rosie Girl

History/Social Sciences – Rosie Girl’s study of the church has gotten into the 20th century. I hope she understands the various groups and denominations within the Christian Church better than I did when I was a teenager.

Language Arts – On Thursday night, Rosie Girl and I watched The Zefferelli production of “Romeo and Juliet” since that’s the play she’s studying right now. Her copy has the original Shakespeare on the left side and updated language on the right side – she tells me that it’s quite helpful! Next week, she’ll write about literature – either “Romeo and Juliet” or “Twelfth Night”.

Math – Rosie Girl is plodding on through Geometry. Not much more to say about it.

Japanese – More plodding.

Chemistry – I’m very glad that PWM is helping Rosie Girl with Chemistry these days. She’s making progress and will be doing experiments this week.

Dance – Rosie Girl had a make-up dance class on Friday night, which made her very, very happy!

Music – Yesterday, Rosie Girl played in the annual Piano Festival. She’s pretty happy with how she did. She will be playing on Sunday with the church’s worship team because the keyboard player had to cancel at the last minute.

Art – Rosie Girl is enjoying her art class. For one of her projects, she did a drawing of the dance studio and gave it to the owner.

I still don’t have this week’s school schedules ready. I guess I’ll get it done first thing in the morning.

Catching Up 5/1/2011

2011-05-01T14:14:00.001-05:00

Just a list of what’s been going on around here!

1. Today Wild Man turns 13!! I am the mother of two teenagers!! Ack!

2. Since Wild Man is 13, he’s getting his own Facebook account. Ack!!

3. PWM and I are feeling a little stalled on the yarn shop thing. We are meeting with a friend who knows a lot about business stuff to pick his brain and sort out the next step. I’ve been working on our business plan and have even learned some basic spreadsheet stuff. So, despite feeling stalled, I guess we are progressing, albeit slowly.

4. I’ve got several hats and bags up at the coffee shop for sale.

5. I came up with a great idea for a purse, but it didn’t work out. I wanted to have cables up the purse that extended into the handles. Unfortunately, I chose a kind of cable that is not the same right side up and upside down so I can’t hook up the cables from one side to another. Do I rip it out and start over? Try to do another kind of handle so I don’t have to start all over? Think about it tomorrow?

6. Wild Man and PWM both passed their Tae Kwon Do test for green tip belts!!

7. Rosie Girl played at Piano Festival yesterday and felt like she did pretty well.

8. I was up most of the night with a migraine, so I’m feeling like a wet dishrag at the moment. I’ve got a lot of things bouncing around in my head, but it’s quite the mess up there, so I’ll write more when I’m a little more awake.

That’s all for the moment.

Our Week In Review – The “We Already Had Our Spring Break” Edition

2011-04-23T11:13:00.001-05:00

The local school districts had Spring Break this week, although our district only takes Friday and Monday for the break. Rosie Girl and Wild Man thought that they should have had the week off, even though I reminded them that our trip to Florida last month was their big break for the spring semester. I did offer to give them the week off and end a week later, but they were definitely opposed to anything that might require schoolwork after the public schools are out for the year. So, we did do schoolwork the last couple of weeks. And with less wailing and gnashing of teeth than I might have expected!

Wild Man

History/Social Sciences - He was supposed to be reading from The Arabs In The Golden Age starting a few weeks ago, but we couldn’t find the book, despite my having rearranged and cleaned out bookshelves. We found it at the end of last week – right when it belonged and where I had looked at least three times! Bah! In any case, he’s now reading about the Arabs during the Middle Ages. We’ve also watched some DVDs about Islam, Mecca, etc. And, I threw in a show about the Russian Revolution because I just found it on Netflix this week. We had been listening to Around The World In Eighty Days, so we took out the globe one day and reviewed Phileas Fogg’s journey as well as the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. (As an aside, there was a reference in Around The World In Eighty Days to Chicago rebuilding. I stopped the book and asked Wild Man what they were talking about, why was Chicago rebuilding? And I was thrilled that he looked at me and said (without a pause, and with a little incredulity that I would even have to ask him), “The Great Fire of Chicago!” Yes, he did learn something from that trip to the top of the Hancock Building a few years ago – besides that it’s really, really, really high up!)

Math – Wild Man is doing a great job these days of learning math from ALEKS. He occasionally needs PWM to explain something, but, overall, he’s able to learn from the explanations given. He’s still reviewing math facts because they just don’t stick well in his head, but he’s making progress.

Reading – He has been reading Physick, a book from a series that he had been reading for fun. I thought Around The World In Eighty Days would be hard for him to read by himself (and I think it was scheduled as a read-aloud when Rosie Girl did this Core) so we got it on audio. The other two books that go with his History/Social Sciences are The Shadow Spinner and Seven Sisters And Seven Brothers. I want to do them as read-alouds because I think Wild Man will get more out of them and there are a few sections with things I’d like to make sure we discuss. Right now, we’re reading Surely, You’re Joking, Mr. Feynmann! by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynmann. It’s an entertaining book and has provoked some great discussions.

Writing/Spelling/Grammar – Wild Man has really been improving in spelling and writing. I still have him copy a paragraph every few days. And I have dreams of eventually doing the outlining lessons in IEW. One day. . .

Science – We’ve mostly been watching DVDs about science, particular earthquakes. PWM also gave both kids a good explanation of the basics of a nuclear power plant – and the differences between what happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. No, he’s not a physicist, but he understands this stuff better than I do, and he can explain it in terms the kids can understand. My parents sent the kids each a piece of agatized coral along with an explanation of what it is. Pretty cool!

Music – Last Friday night, the teens did a fund-raising dinner and show. Wild Man’s band played several songs and did a wonderful job! And, they raised a bunch of money! This week, Wild Man and PWM have been busy with helping get everything ready for Easter service (which is held at the high school auditorium) and for EggVenture (also held in the high school, but in the commons). The Youth Band plays today at 11:30am. Wild Man is also learning a xylophone/bells part for one of the songs in the Middle School 7th and 8th grade band. We’re rapidly approaching concert season! (In fact, Wild Man and I did a manic shopping trip to get him dress clothes for Easter and band concert along with some jeans and T-shirts – since the child has insisted on growing something like 6 inches in the last year!!)

Rosie Girl

First of all, here’s the wonderful news!! Rosie Girl got a 28 on the ACT!! This is a really good score for anyone, but we had Rosie Girl take the ACT this year (in 10th grade) to get a feel for standardized tests, since she doesn’t have to do them at home. We did have her do some review tests, but felt like she should have at least one “practice run”. And she got a 28 on the “practice test”! She definitely could do better in Math and Science. The Math score should be better next year when she’s got some Algebra 2 under her belt. And the Science will improve with time, I think. PWM and I are incredibly proud of her. She’s a bright kid anyway, but she worked through her nerves and inexperience to do very well!

History/Social Sciences – Rosie Girl wrote a nice paper a couple of weeks ago about three women missionaries. She’s up into the twentieth century in her survey of church history. (I really wanted to make sure my kids did this Core because I didn’t learn much about church history until college and beyond. This Core is giving her some insight into why the Church looks the way it does today.)

Literature/Writing – This week’s paper was on Pride And Prejudice. Rosie Girl chose to write about the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Bennett. I’m thrilled that Rosie Girl enjoys Jane Austen. She’ll have a great time with British Literature her senior year. My dad (Rosie Girl’s grandfather) asked Rosie Girl to type up a letter that my great-aunt had written to my parents that included several pages of memories about my grandfather, who died before I was born. Rosie Girl finished that this week and we talked some about the insights she gained into her grandfather’s family.

Science – Rosie Girl is doing Chemistry with PWM these days. I’m pleased with what I hear from their conversations. I need to get her doing the lab portion over the next few weeks.

Bible – Having Rosie Girl read the prophets makes for interesting journaling.

Music – Next week is Piano Festival! Rosie Girl isn’t all that excited about it, though. She loves music and is very good at it, but doesn’t enjoy performing too much. She’s also been helping our Worship Arts Director every week and has even agreed to play keyboards for worship on occasion.

So that’s our week. What’s up with you? Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others did this week!

7 Quick Takes Friday – 4/7/2011

2011-04-09T00:32:00.001-05:00

Well, I started it on Friday. I hope it still counts – LOL!

1. What a headache week!! I don’t want to repeat this too terribly often. I’m feeling OK right now, but I’ve got insomnia because of the late nap that I took. Grrrrr.

2. The weather is finally warming up!! PWM and I walked today to get ice cream and then to the library. Unfortunately, I only thought I had two books at the library, so we didn’t bring a bag. The library was gracious enough to give us a plastic grocery bag, but it still would have been easier on PWM’s hands and back if we’d had the canvas bags.

3. In a week and a half, I’m starting to teach knitting at a local elementary school after school. I’m very excited, but also worried. You see, large groups of children scare me. The good news is that we’ll have several adults working with us, so it won’t be just me and 30 kids (I don’t even know how many kids are likely to come!).

4. Several of the library books are to help kids learn to knit. I have, though, three books and each one teaches a different way to cast-on. I’m going to start by giving the kids the needle with the first row cast on. Once they can knit, I’ll teach the cast-on. I’m pretty sure I’m going to teach the long-tail cast-on. It’s not my favorite to use, but it’s very versatile. Knitting on is really easy, but it’s not terribly elastic. The “thumb method” or “backward loop” method is something I think is only suited for casting on the middle of a row. When you use it as your first row, there ends up being a ton of yarn leftover at the end of the first row.

5. This week is the first meeting of the Fiber Arts Circle. I’m really excited about this. I know that one person wants to learn to knit. I’m hoping some others will be interested to come see what’s up.

6. Wild Man is taller than I am. I’m not ready for this.

7. Rosie Girl takes the ACT in the morning (as a practice run – she’ll take it again as a junior next year). I’m not ready for this, either.

That’s what’s up in our house. What’s going on with you? Check 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others are doing!

Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, Helper?

2011-04-06T00:59:00.001-05:00

I was having a little trouble deciding on what to write about tonight – chocolate or the Holy Spirit? They are both good topics. Excellent, truth be told. Since I’m feeling all migraine-y which makes me think of spiritual things (albeit not all that deeply since it makes the headache worse), I’ll write about the Holy Spirit.

A couple of nights ago, I read John 16 in the NIV 2011 on www.biblegateway.com. I really like that they have so many translations, but things can get a little confusing. In John 16, I’m used to the Holy Spirit (paraclete is the transliteration, I believe) being called the “Comforter” from the days in my childhood when I used the King James Version. The NIV 1984 uses “Counselor” and the ESV says “Helper”. But, the NIV 2011 uses the word “Advocate”. Hmmmmm. That got me thinking. Why did the NIV change from “Counselor” in the 1984 version to “Advocate” in the 2011 version? As far as I know, there haven’t been any recent manuscript discoveries – although, not being a biblical scholar, I wouldn’t have known about it anyway. What were the translators trying to express?

So, off to my trusty Broadman Bible Commentary and Barclay Commentary (thanks, Dad – they’re getting a lot of use these days!). One thing that I have learned over the last several years is that words can change meaning over long periods of time. That’s why I don’t use the King James Version for much real Bible study, preferring instead the NIV (and I’ve like the ESV on Bible Gateway although I don’t have the actual book version with all the notes). I realize that my Broadman commentary is from 1970, but the authors do a nice job of explaining important words like “paraclete”. The Broadman authors talk about the “paraclete” having two roles: the outward role of confronting “the world with the necessity of a drastic change in its notions of sin and of rightesousness and of judgement as a result of the coming of Jesus”; and the inward role to the church of guiding the church “into all the truth”. Broadman translates “paraclete” as “Counselor” which emphasizes His role of convicting the world of the truth of the Messiah and His role of providing Christians with “insight to understand and of courage to apply those truths which the church has received.”

Barclay has a little more detail. He says that “paraclete” is really an untranslatable word. The closest meaning is “someone who is called in.” Ummmm, what? The Greeks used this word when they wanted to talk about someone who is called in to help “during a time of trouble or need.” (And, in fact, Comforter was a pretty good translation when Wycliffe used it. Over the years, though, the meaning has changed. I think of a “Comforter” as someone who gives me a hug and tells me everything will be OK. “Comforter” originally had the connotation of helping someone who is feeling dispirited to be brave.) Barclay would use the word “Helper” to connote someone coming alongside to help another.

Dictionary.com defines “Advocate” as “a person who speaks or writes in support or defense of a person, cause, etc.” When we read in John 16 that Jesus is going to send the “Advocate”, we are to understand that the Holy Spirit will not only comfort us in our times of trouble, but will guide us in truth and give us strength for the trials of life. There is a sense of loyalty in the word “Advocate”. It’s also a word of strength. When life gets overwhelming, the Holy Spirit is our advocate, who walks with us to give us strength for the days ahead.

That’s what I need. Comfort is important, but I need strength to get through days of migraines, to parent my children with love and grace, to stand with others who are facing illness and loss. That’s what the Holy Spirit does; every minute of every day, if we allow Him, He’s right beside us, giving us whatever help we need right then. (I’m listening to The Hiding Place on audiobook. Corrie’s father tells her that the Holy Spirit gives us the faith that we need for each moment, not all at once. And we don’t need to worry because the Holy Spirit is always here with us.)

What have you learned about the role of the Holy Spirit? How has His presence affected your life?

John 16:33b - “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

7 Quick Takes Friday (Actually, Saturday) April 2, 2011

2011-04-02T18:56:00.001-05:00

Today’s 7 Quick Takes is a knitting edition! Between knitting and thinking about and planning for a yarn shop, I’ve become rather obsessed. So, I’ll share that obsession with you!

1. I was keeping all my yarn in zip top bags and had all the bags piled in an antique crib/bassinet that was hand-made for my dad (60+ years ago). Unfortunately, it was just about impossible to find a specific kind of yarn or to see what kind of yarn I actually have. Over the last couple of weeks, PWM and I have been cleaning out books (a painful task!) and I got the large bookcase in the living room emptied. I put all the yarn on the bookcase tonight, separated by fiber type. Unfortunately, it just barely fits on the bookcase and bags of yarn have been “jumping” on to the floor. So, I need to evaluate my yarn storage again. Sigh.

2. Early in the week, PWM and I went to Appleton and talked with the owner of a yarn shop. She gave us lots of good information, but it was her encouragement that was most helpful. PWM and I are getting more and more excited about the opportunity to open a shop!

3. Last weekend, we looked at another downtown building for our shop. The building used to be an accountant’s office downstairs and a dentist office upstairs, but it’s been empty for a number of years. The downstairs would require cosmetic work to make a retail space, but the upstairs would need more work to be an appropriate living space. In any case, that one’s on the list for consideration. Exciting!!

4. A friend and I are starting a Fiber Arts Circle in our little town. We hope to provide crafters the chance to get together to craft, learn from each other, and do charity knitting/crochet projects.

5. My current knitting obsession is little purses made from cotton yarn. I’ve got a couple of designs that are fun to make and very useful. They’re the size to hold a driver’s license, money, and a phone. I’m calling them “essentials” purses. A woman who lives down the street does glass work, so I’ve purchased some beautiful glass buttons for the purses.

6. I’m also working on a pair of socks, but instead of knitting them one at a time, I’m knitting them at the same time using the 2-circular needle technique. So often, I’m kind of bored when I get working on a second sock, but this way, I finish both socks at the same time.

7. I blocked the sleeves to my Fair Isle sweater, so I can start working on the rest of it. However, I have a cotton short-sleeved sweater that I’d like to finish first. It would be really nice if I finished it before Easter so it could be part of my Easter outfit.

What are you working on these days? Any fun crafts?

Check out what others are up to at 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Moral Messages In Media?

2011-04-02T11:03:00.001-05:00

This post is inspired by a friend’s comment on Facebook about the movie “Tangled”. Our family watched “Tangled” last night (and the kids put it on the DVD again this morning) and just loved it! The animation is amazing, the plot is interesting, the characters have depth, and it’s just a fun movie!

Spoiler Alert!

The problem in the movie is that the hero starts out as a thief with very little in the way of redeeming qualities. By the end of the movie, he is a good guy, but he never pays for his earlier actions.

You may have figured out by now that I have the ability to be a world-class worrier!! I don’t practice that skill much any longer since I’m getting better at trusting God and not trying to control everything and everyone around me. What are some of the media things I’ve worried about?

1. Cinderella – a girl only needs a man to be happy.
2. Beauty and the Beast – while it celebrates intellectual activities, the main character is not content with her life in the village and is disdainful of the villagers with “little minds”.
3. Pocahontas – a complete travesty of history with overtones of pantheism.
4. Harry Potter – I didn’t have issues with the witchcraft and wizardry, but rather with the hero’s ignoring the adults, breaking rules, and even using unforgivable curses.
5. Veggie Tales – telling Bible stories with silliness – can this be good?
6. Shrek – potty humor
7. Pirates of the Caribbean – Jack Sparrow – need I say more?

And I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. There are no perfect books or movies. And if there were, they’d be boring. Even Bible stories often show people doing bad things and not always receiving the appropriate consequences.

So, should we shield our kids from anything that doesn’t have the appropriate “message”? No. When kids are very young, we should perhaps be careful to weight their books and movies (and lots more books than movies!) toward those with positive messages and generally good characters. As our children get older, though, media can be a wonderful tool for both entertainment and education. I’m not suggesting that we need to be overt in trying to teach our kids whenever we watch a movie or read a book. Rather, we should make it a habit to read aloud to our kids (which we still do even though the kids are 12 and 15) and watch movies with our kids and make discussion a normal part of our family life.

This hasn’t come easily for me. I’m learning to do my best as a parent and trust God for the outcomes. While it does require work to be a good parent, it’s much easier than trying to be a perfect parent. In observing families, it seems that the ones whose kids turn out confident and ready for the adult world are those who had good relationships in the family and who have been gradually given more responsibility. We do have some hard and fast limits on our kids’ media exposure – no R-rated movies unless they are with a parent, no T-rated video games without parental approval, no more than 1 hour of media on weekdays, etc. As they’ve gotten older, we’ve gradually loosened our limits (from PG movies to PG-13, etc.) but we still try to be involved and watch movies and read books with them and have discussions with them.

How do you handle media and moral messages with your kids? Has it changed as the children have gotten older?

Works For Me Wednesday – 3/30/2011

2011-03-30T20:35:00.001-05:00

It’s springtime, and I’m itchy to get our house decluttered and simplified. Not only that, we are actively looking for a building downtown where we can open a yarn shop on the main floor and live in another portion of the building. That means we’ll be in a much smaller space. To get started, yesterday I cleaned off some bookshelves and made piles of books to be given away. I think the give-away piles include about 40% of our books. We’re going to take them to our local library, but there are lots of other places you can give books.

1. Library – check and see if your library is interested in your books. Our library puts what they can into circulation and then sells the rest at their annual book sale.

2. Used bookstores – We gave our last bunch of books to the local used bookstore. They price the books at 50% of the retail price. They give us credit for all the books that we bring in and then we can use our credits for up to 50% of the cost of our next purchase.

3. Jail – A friend suggested this on Facebook. They are also happy to take some of the easier-to-read books because the inmates have varying levels of literacy.

4. Goodwill or local thrift store – I’ve bought some of my favorite books at Goodwill.

5. Homeschool group or convention – Many homeschool groups have used book sales near the end of the school year where we can sell our old books and get used books for next year. Our state’s homeschool convention also has a used book sale where people can buy and sell books.

Any other ideas? Where do you take your old books when you are Spring Cleaning?

Check out Works For Me Wednesday for more great ideas!!

Top Shot – 3/30/2011

2011-03-30T10:15:00.001-05:00

We don’t watch a lot of TV around here, but the shows that we do watch regularly are reality competition shows: Top Chef, The Amazing Race, Next Food Network Star, and Top Shot. Top Shot is a History Channel show that starts out with 16 shooters and has weekly competitions to eliminate one shooter each week until they are down to a winner. So far, they have shot .22 pistols and rifles, bows and arrows, tomahawks, and other firearms. The 16 participants are from various backgrounds: military, recreational shooting, and competitive shooting.

Last night’s show was particularly interesting for a couple of reasons.

1. I noticed in the last two shows that they show the guys (both women were eliminated rather early – blah) holding hands and praying before meals. It’s really cool so see a bunch of men doing this. I don’t presume to think that they are all practicing Protestant Christians, but at least any who might not be believers are very respectful of those who are.

2. Last night’s show was apparently filmed on November 10th, the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. The men made a nice dinner and then a birthday cake. They then did a little ceremony where the oldest Marine in the room got the first piece and the youngest Marine got the second piece of cake. Of the final 8 competitors, there were 4 Marines, 3 members of other branches of the Armed Forces, and 1 civilian. The majority of the final competitors had much of their training in the military, and I think this says good things about military training. My brother was in the Marine Corps for six years, so this kind of thing is very meaningful to me.

I’m not a big firearms person. I support strong enforcement of the right to bear arms, but I’ve never been all that interested in shooting (although I did enjoy archery at Family Camp for a few years). Nonetheless, Top Shot is a very interesting show to watch.

Do you watch reality shows? What kinds do you like?

Our Week In Review – 3/26/2011

2011-03-26T17:36:00.001-05:00

Actually, it should be our “weeks” in review since I haven’t updated our school situation in quite a while. For one thing, I’m starting to think longingly of Summer – and we’ve got 10 more weeks to go!! But, we will press on!

We did take a week off to go on a trip to Florida as a gift from Grandma. Yippee!! Unfortunately, since we’ve been back, both Rosie Girl and Wild Man have been sick. Wild Man was diagnosed last week with tonsillitis and sinusitis. Rosie Girl will probably go to the doctor on Monday because I think she’s got sinusitis. Between their illnesses and my migraines, it’s a wonder anything has been getting done!

As a family, we read almost every night. Right now, we’re reading The Hobbit. Generally, we read one of Wild Man’s read-alouds from his curriculum, but I haven’t ruled out reading some of Rosie Girl’s literature selections.

Rosie Girl

History/Literature – She continues with Core 200 History and seems to be learning, even though she’s not thrilled about it. Part of me wishes that she enjoyed school more than she does, but then I remember how I felt about Physics classes. She’s not a fan of History, even though I love it, so I just have to deal with that.

Math – Rosie Girl is about 2/3 done with ALEKS Geometry. PWM works with her every morning for a little while on it.

Chemistry – PWM is doing most of the work with Rosie Girl in Chemistry. The online textbook that she’s using is a much better “fit” for her. This last week, they discussed atomic structure, including electron orbital structure. Again, she’s not fond of it, but she’s learning.

Writing – We took a break from the biweekly essay for her to take a Research Paper class through Write At Home. Again, I was very pleased with the instruction. However, Rosie Girl wasn’t too happy with her grade. Since this is the first time she did a full research paper, I’m not distressed about the grade. I’m definitely having her do it again next year, though. She continues to write fan fiction and occasional poetry as well as being part of the Writing Club at the high school.

Music – Piano Festival is next month. Rosie Girl still needs to work on memorizing her music (!), but it’s otherwise sounding good. Last week, we got her a double ocarina which allows her a wider range of tones.

Art – I am continually blown away at the projects that Rosie Girl makes in Art Class at the local high school. I’ll post pictures soon if she agrees.

Japanese – Rosie Girl is halfway through her first semester.

Driving – She’s completely done with the classroom portion of Driver’s Education. Now she has to drive with her instructor and with me and PWM. She’s driving quite well and significantly less nervous behind the wheel.

Community Service – Rosie Girl is very comfortable now helping our Worship Arts Director get music and music packets ready for the worship team each week. She also does some transposing and other fun things.

Bible – Rosie Girl is still reading through the Old Testament along with some background information from How To Read The Bible For All It’s Worth.

Wild Man

History – In the craziness of the last month, Wild Man has not done as much History/Social Science as I would have liked. However, I consider it less important than his Language Arts and Math, so I’m not going to try to catch him up completely. He has recently watched “Gandhi” and a documentary about Mother Theresa along with other documentaries about India. I also had him watch “Bridge Over The River Kwai” just because it’s such a great movie set in southeast Asia. It was also a springboard for a great discussion of the morality of the actions of the various characters.

Language Arts – We’re still using All About Spelling and Easy Grammar 5. Every week (OK, every couple of weeks), I have him dictate a short paper on something he studied during the week. We aren’t using IEW at the moment. I’ve realized that Wild Man is reading well, but he is having real trouble with writing fluency, both handwriting and typing. I’m not sure how much of this is purely mechanical and how much is related to his dyslexia. In any case, I have him copy a paragraph from one of his schoolbooks to try to improve the mechanical side of writing. He is also very slowed down in his writing by his difficulties with spelling. He has trouble spelling words that he has been working on in his spelling book when they are in another context. So, he has a hard time writing more than a couple of sentences before he’s asking for help spelling most of the words. We’ll keep working on both spelling and writing and hope that he can improve his writing soon. In the meantime, I am going to try skipping forward in IEW to outlining. Having to write the words will still be a challenge for him, but most of what he will need to write will be in the work that he’s outlining. We’ll see how it goes.

Math – He’s moving forward in ALEKS.

Science – We’ve been watching some documentaries about nature, specifically earthquakes and tsunamis, given the recent events in Japan. Otherwise, we’ve been reading some about nutrition. I’m going to sign him up for an online course that uses Legos to teach elementary engineering principles. Wild Man is certainly looking forward to that!

Bible – He and PWM are still working through their Bible overview.

Music – Wild Man plays percussion with the 7th and 8th grade band. He’s also been playing with the junior high “Youth Band” at church, alternating between drum kit and percussion since there’s another drum player in that band. A few weeks ago, PWM started to teach him to play bass guitar, which Wild Man is picking up very, very quickly.

Community Service – It’s so cool to see Wild Man excited to go to the Nutrition Site every week to help with Meals on Wheels and the Senior Lunches.

Tae Kwon Do – PWM and Wild Man are both ready for their next belt test, but they missed the most recent opportunity when we were in Florida. They’ll have to wait several more weeks for the next belt testing date. In any case, both are doing well and practice their forms at home a couple of times a week.

So, that’s pretty much it. The kids are learning a lot, even when they don’t realize it. As they’re getting older, we’re able to have more discussions about world events and other important topics.

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others are up to!

7 Quick Takes Friday – 3/25/2011

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1. I still haven’t blogged about our trip to Universal Studios in Florida. In summary, it was a total blast!! More later.

2. Today was Day #4 of a migraine. I start to get really crabby after about 2 days. Thankfully, it appears to be a good bit better.

3. We watched MegaMind tonight. That is one of the best family films I’ve seen in a long time. Entirely too often, my mind gets distracted because the plot is dragging, or there’s just a bunch of action animation. This one, though, was entertaining to the end.

4. We got eight inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, it also rained, so there were layers of snow and ice. I drove Wild Man to church last night, and he and I scraped/pushed/otherwise removed a good three inches of snow and ice from the top of the car.

5. However, my family is determined that it really is springtime, so we got a watermelon!!

6. Between the winter blahs and the colds/sinus infections in this house, we are ready for warmer weather and to open the windows! Rosie Girl and PWM still have left-overs of their colds and Wild Man was diagnosed with sinusitis on Tuesday. I’m the only one who hasn’t had an upper respiratory infection (fingers crossed, knock on wood!).

7. You know already that Rosie Girl plays piano and Wild Man plays percussion. Rosie Girl also plays ocarina and got a double ocarina this week. She is thrilled!! The double ocarina gives here a much wider range to play. Wild Man is now learning to play electric bass and doing quite well.

I’m not feeling terribly verbose today, so it’s a short post. Check out what other people are up to at 7 Quick Takes Friday.

Snow Day!

2011-03-23T16:43:00.001-05:00

The winter storm started yesterday with mixed rain and sleet. Then we had some snow, then more icy rain but this time with thunder and lightening. And, of course, I had a migraine. Let me tell you, though, listening to the sleet hit the windows while it was thundering and lightening last night was a strange experience. I always think of snow storms as being generally quiet, or maybe having a little howling wind. The thunder and lightening is supposed to come with rainstorms – and rain, not snow!

We took a snow day today like the public schools. Normally, we continue with our regular work, but Rosie Girl is getting over a cold, Wild Man started yesterday on antibiotics for tonsillitis and sinusitis, PWM is on the tail end of a cold, and I have a migraine. Yes, we’re quite the picture here. Unfortunately, it’s going to be cold for several more days. This is a problem because PWM and I feel like we need to open up the house, spray Lysol everywhere, and then leave for a few hours (or days). We’re probably going to open up the house tomorrow anyway and just bundle up!

Today, PWM has read to us from The Hobbit. Rosie Girl scanned one of her drawings into the computer and is working on it in Gimp (a graphics program). Wild Man has been listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when I’ve had it on and has played Wii, even beating PWM at bowling. PWM is working on some little projects around the house. I’ve been working on some knitting. At some point, PWM is going to deal with the snow, but it’s still coming down.

What do you do on bad weather days?

7 Quick Takes Friday – 2/25/2011

2011-02-26T12:17:00.001-06:00

1. I got up this morning to find Wild Man at the table doing his copy work, his least favorite kind of schoolwork. I told him that I’m not a young woman anymore and that he shouldn’t shock me like that! Waking up to such a site could do me in! (He has appropriately apologized and promised to return to his usual level of laziness first thing Monday Morning.

2. Wild Man has been studying India, so we watched Gandhi this week. Wow. What a powerful movie.

3. I watched The Last Days of Sophie Scholl, the story of Sophie Scholl who was a Nazi resistor. The story encompasses her crime (writing and passing out leaflets), arrest, and execution. It was inspiring and depressing at the same time. One of the things that made an impression on me was how the prosecutor/judge kept saying things like “The Reich paid for your education and you repay them with sedition!” We are very fortunate to live in a free country, but we have to be vigilant to preserve those freedoms. It also reminded me that no one can say that the government paid for their education since we have chosen to homeschool.

4. I need a new “dream writer”. I have been having lots of vivid and strange dreams lately! Last night, I dreamed that I was somewhere in Florida and that there was a 14 foot alligator terrorizing people. There were several helicopters that managed to hoist up the alligator (killing one person, unfortunately) and take him somewhere else. I think you’ll agree that my subconsious needs new personnel.

5. We watched “Despicable Me” a couple of weeks ago. The kids’ new favorite saying is “It’s so fluffy, I’m gonna DIE!!!” Completely silly.

6. Our current read-aloud is The Hobbit. I just LOVE Tolkein’s work. Well, except maybe the Simarillion – I had a hard time with Tolkein’s writing style in that book.

7. The kids are watching Phineas and Ferb and the song playing right now is “It’s so much fun not knowing where you’re goin’”. I feel that way rather often!

Check out what others are saying at 7 Quick Takes Friday. And have a great weekend!

Knitting Update – 2/24/2011

2011-02-24T22:09:00.001-06:00

I have been toiling away at my stranded knitting project – Dogwood Blossoms by KnitPicks. So far, I’ve gotten 1 1/2 sleeves done. It is definitely slow going with color changes almost every row. After I finished the first sleeve, I measured it and realized that it was too small! But, I promise that I did a swatch before I started. Apparently, though, I knit the actual item more tightly than I did the swatch. I’m going to finish the second sleeve and then block them, hopefully to the size that I need. If that works, I’ll do the body using larger needles. If it doesn’t, then I’ll do the body at the same gauge I’m doing it now and give the sweater to someone smaller than me. Lesson learned: A swatch is vital, but it’s also important to check gauge during the knitting project!

Last weekend, PWM, Grandma, Rosie Girl, and I went to a Shop Hop in Appleton. We started at a yarn shop where I bought some great yarn – at 20% off! Then, we went to a bead shop where we got to learn to make earrings. Rosie Girl picked up some wire and we both got some beads. I’ve got some great ideas for adding beads to knitted items! We ended up at a quilt shop that Grandma really likes. I loved all the fabric, but I don’t sew much, so it was just “window shopping” for me.

Other projects I’ve got in the works are a scarf for the coffee shop owner and a pair of socks. I’ve also come across a great idea for using leftover plastic grocery bags to make totes bags.

I sold a pair of wrist warmers this week!! I guess I’m now a “professional knitter”. Now that the weather is warming up, I’m thinking about some new designs for lacy wristlets, summer hats, and bags. When I’m not knitting, I’m thinking about new pattern possibilities.

The yarn shop plan is still moving forward – just very, very slowly. Lots of thinking, lots of ideas.

What fun and creative things have you been doing lately?

Proof That God Has A Sense Of Humor

2011-02-21T23:53:00.001-06:00

I have a sin to confess. Lean in real close and I’ll whisper it to you: I’m an intellectual snob. I’ve looked down on people who are interested in fashion (i.e. clothing) or work in fashion. There. I said it. Lord, please forgive me of my intellectual pride!

You’re probably wondering, “How does this have anything to do with God having a sense of humor?” As long as I was working as a physician, I was doing REAL work. I mean, saving people’s lives – or at least getting them over their poison ivy a day or two early. Either way – it was IMPORTANT work! People who worked in fashion – not real work. I mean, how many of them had 12 years of post-high school education under their belts and the pieces of paper to prove it? And, how hard could the work be? Really? And since I’m pretty much a “jeans and T-shirt” kind of girl at the moment, it’s been pretty easy to be something of a “reverse snob”. I didn’t look down on people because of their lack of fashion sense, but rather because they spent any energy at all on fashion. I prefer books to magazines, ideas to art – and I thought that made me better than other people.

Of course, during all this, I was still more than happy to accept that “real” artists (who paint or sculpt) and musicians do useful work. God spent plenty of time in the Old Testament giving instructions for the artistic things He wanted in the tabernacle. Besides, God made petunias and roses – the epitome of beauty. Making art makes the world a better place for all of us. Unless that art is fashion, of course. I did have my standards.

About a year ago, I watched a documentary about Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. And, I must admit that there are a lot of smart people in the fashion industry. And they make beautiful things. So – time to bite the bullet - I had to admit that fashion is as much of an art form as any other. This acceptance means that I have to give up my superior attitude toward an entire industry. (It may also be possible that I need to give up all my notions of superiority – it’s not exactly one of those attitudes that Jesus encouraged, you know?)

PWM and I are planning to open a yarn store one day. I’m also starting to make my own designs so that I can sell some of my knitted items as well. And these things mean that I need to know something about fashion – colors, fibers, shapes, etc. In fact, one of the most popular knitting magazines is Vogue Knitting. You may laugh now. I’m pretty sure that God is.

In the last few years, though, I’ve learned tons about fibers, knitting techniques, etc. I’ve also learned how good a nice soft pair of gloves feels, how pretty socks can make my day, and how a fun scarf can perk up my mood. I may not worry too much about what’s on the runways each season, but I am going to have to learn to pay more attention to current fashion trends if I want to sell any knitwear. It’s kind of fun to see my artistic side try to peek out a little. And the part of me that likes math is happy because making my own patterns definitely requires math. Maybe it’s OK to enjoy clothing. If God clothed the “lilies of the field” with such beauty, I’m betting He won’t be too upset with us trying to beautify our bit of the world.

Yes, God has a sense of humor. Go ahead and laugh and I’ll laugh right with you. And pray (yet once again) for humility. I’m never going to set the fashion world on fire, but I do hope that my little foray into designing and making knitwear (however small – I like socks, gloves, and mittens) makes our little corner of the world a little more beautiful and happy. And manages to bring glory to God (the ultimate Designer) in the process.

P.S. I’ll post later this week about how the sweater is going. And I’m working on another Mobius scarf. And got some amazingly wonderful yarn on Saturday that I haven’t decided what to do with yet.

7 Quick Takes Friday – 2/18/2011

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1. A migraine cure? I watched a PBS special on the Donner Party this week. Margret Reed was a member of the Donner party. One reason that the family wanted to go to California was because Margret was plagued with “sick headaches”. During the terrible winter in the mountains, however, she not only survived, but was considered one of the most brave. After the family arrived in California, Margret had no more headaches. Should I subject myself to a terrible winter ordeal in which half of my friends die in order to get rid of the migraines? No, don’t think so! (It’s unclear from what I’ve read whether or not Margret was one of the members who resorted to cannibalism.)

2. Rosie Girl is finishing her last Driver’s Ed classroom session tonight! Her first drive is scheduled for next week, although she’s already driven around the school parking lot and then back home with PWM. (And she did amazingly well – 100% – on the written test last week.)

3. I just finished listening to The Sisters Who Would Be Queen about Lady Jane Grey, Katharine Grey, and Mary Grey. I am fascinated about the Tudor family and their role in British history and really enjoyed listening to this book while I was knitting.

4. Wild Man cooked dinner tonight for the family! I’m so glad that my kids are learning these important skills.

5. My dad sent me a document a few days ago that was written by my great-aunt about my paternal grandfather. My grandfather (known to everyone as Cavie) died before I was born, so I cherish this glimpse into his life and personality.

6. Rosie Girl and I have been listening to the music from Wicked since we went to see the show. Wild Man has become hooked on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He watches as many episodes as I’ll allow him each day!

7. I’ve been reading The War On the Weak, which is a history of eugenics in the US. It’s really scary how far along the movement got. Many of the leaders would have been happy to have all Native Americans, African Americans, and those of many other nationalities exterminated. Unfortunately, we’re doing some of the same thing by allowing (and encouraging) abortion of children with birth defects (and even those who are just inconvenient). If we don’t respect all life, we respect none.

Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others are up to!

Remembering . . .

2011-02-17T13:58:00.001-06:00

For some reason, I got rather nostalgic last night thinking about people I’ve been close to who have died. Maybe it was the migraine getting to me. In any case, it’s not a bad thing to remember.

Danny was a year younger than I and lived “next door” to us. Actually, it was around the corner, but since there were no other houses between ours, it was pretty much like it was next door. Danny was a well-loved and well-respected professor of Old Testament as an adult. But as a kid . . . I remember the time that the three of us who waited at our bus stop (me, Danny and my brother) decided to hide in the bushes until the bus went past and then told our parents that the bus had come early and we had missed it. Of course, they were all working and didn’t have time to drive us to school (a good 15 mile drive), so we got the day off! I also remember going to his family’s house every year for Christmas (they came to ours for Thanksgiving – it worked out well). And since we lived in Florida, we could usually wear shorts! Danny died about a year ago from a heart attack.

I didn’t know my Aunt Annie very well. She lived in Minneapolis during much of my life and then in Dallas. What’s kind of funny is that I’m geographically closer to her kids now than to any of my other cousins since most of them still live in the South. What I remember most about Aunt Annie is how much she and my mom look alike. When I was down South a year and a half ago for another aunt’s funeral, I got to see Aunt Annie again – and the similarities between her and my mom were striking. Aunt Annie died this past fall.

My Aunt Alma was my favorite aunt (narrowly edging out Aunt Dot – more on her later). Her first husband died while I was in high school. In fact, I missed taking the PSAT because of the funeral and never investigated how to take it again, so I never got to see if I’d qualify for a National Merit Scholarship. Anyway, when I started college, Aunt Alma lived in a trailer and I would visit her on holidays since she was only about 2 hours away from LSU, but my parents lived 15 hours away. After my sophomore year, Aunt Alma remarried and moved out into the country. I visited her once and we had squirrel stew with dumplings for lunch. It tasted like chicken in case you’re curious. But it was definitely squirrel – little tiny bones. Aunt Alma was diagnosed with cancer about 2 or 3 years before she died. We were able to visit her a month or two before she died and she was able to meet the kids. Actually, we had been there the year before and the kids had picked blueberries and we made them into pancakes. It’s been over ten years since Aunt Alma died, but it seems like yesterday. I have her set of china now displayed above my cabinets.

Aunt Dot. What can I say about Aunt Dot? The woman was crazy! She was funny and loud and loved me and my brother. I discovered when I rode with her and Uncle Travis to New Orleans one day that there was a side of her I didn’t like – she and Uncle Travis argued over everything! And the driving made it worse! But, she taught me how to sew when I would visit in the summer and helped me to make a sundress and a denim skirt. I learned not to ask her real name – she was a little sensitive about it, and honestly, I don’t blame her. She died while I was in college – the same summer that Aunt Alma got married, I believe.

Uncle Bill was the next to youngest of my mom’s 11 siblings. Mom was the youngest, so the two of them were very close. I remember visiting him and his family whenever we went to visit family in Mississippi. They had a pool in one of the houses where they lived which we just loved! My most recent memory was when we were visiting a few years ago and my dad was teaching Wild Man and my nephew to fish. While Dad was trying to help my nephew get his hook baited and everything started, Wild Man caught a fish. My sister-in-law and I were the only other two adults around. So, I went down to the edge of the pond and helped Wild Man unhook his fish, throw it back, and then baited the hook with a cricket for him. Wild Man threw the line out and the fish (which were pretty small) ate the bait. About that time, Uncle Bill pulled up and stepped in to help. He told me I was hooking the cricket wrong – you were supposed to hook them behind the head instead of through the abdomen like I was doing. I handed over fishing responsibilities to Uncle Bill since I didn’t like dealing with crickets anyway. The fish ate the bait off the hook that Uncle Bill baited too! So, he took Wild Man to another spot on the pond where he had good luck earlier in the week, but this time the fish weren’t biting! Uncle Bill died almost two years ago from a heart attack.

Last year, a ten year old boy died from cancer. He was the son of one of my partners in medical practice – in fact, I delivered his older sister and him. I remember what an adorable child he was. The family moved about thirty miles away, into a larger city, partly to get the services he needed because he had some developmental delay. Right after they moved, he was diagnosed with a muscle cancer. Thankfully, it was pretty treatable and he was doing better within a year or so. But, it turned out that he had a rare genetic illness (that I’d never heard of before this) that made him predisposed to cancer and he had developed a cancer in his brain. I don’t remember the timeline of things, but I remember that he died right before Easter last year. I think this was one death that impacted me more than anything else. Why would God allow a ten year old kid to die? I had a number of my patients who died, but they were almost all older. Having a ten year old boy who was well-loved by his family and community die just seems unfair.

But, really, these all seem pretty unfair. My Uncle Bill was an active, busy man with horses who should have had lots of time left on this earth. Danny certainly is missed by his wife and kids, who are still in high school. So, I don’t have any answers – just more questions. I’m going to need a few weeks to spend with Jesus in Heaven to ask all my questions!

But If Not . . .

2011-02-16T02:09:00.001-06:00

I’ve had a rough few days with migraines – the kind that make me wonder where God is and what He is doing. Cause, clearly, he’s not healing my headaches. I know from the Bible and from history that God is able to fix them, yet He has chosen not to.

Do you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? (I remember a great Sunday School song we used to sing about them.) They were Jews who had been exiled to Babylon. While they were there, King Nebudcanezzar decided it would be a great idea for him to make a huge idol of himself and require people to bow down to it. Some of the king’s astrologers saw this and reported it to the king. Here’s the exchange that happens next:

¹³ Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, ¹⁴ and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? ¹⁵ Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us^[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

So the three guys got thrown in the fiery furnace, but survived and were even joined by another being – either an angel or a pre-incarnation of Jesus.

What I find interesting, though, is what they told Nebudcanezzar. They believed that God could deliver them, but even if God chose for them to die in the furnace, they would continue to worship Him.

“And if not” (the King James’ Version). That’s what I need to remember. “And if not” (i.e. God chooses to let me continue having migraines, etc.), I will still only worship the one true God who loved me enough to become a human and pay for my sins. And, honestly, my sin issue needs far more work than my migraines.

Every morning when I wake up (or afternoon, like today), I have to make a choice. Will I follow my Lord? I know he can heal me, make life work out perfectly, etc. And if not, I will love and worship Him anyway.

What I Like About My Life Right Now – 2/15/2011

2011-02-15T03:32:00.001-06:00

It’s been a rough couple of days around here with my insomnia and migraines. It’s 3:15am and I’m still awake, although I don’t feel the need to have an icepack on my head. Instead of complaining tonight (this morning?), I decided to regale you with a list of things I like about my life right now.

1. I’m allowed to sleep as late as I want in the morning. When I was working, I was up between 5 and 6am (and sometimes had been up all night the night before). Since I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow, the insomnia won’t decimate the day tomorrow. That’s pretty nice.

2. I totally love that my dear hubby bought me a single red rose (just like he did almost 20 years ago when he met me at the airport in Colorado Springs) and some truffles from a florist who recently opened a shop downtown. It was sooooooo sweet – and made me forget the headache for a few minutes.

3. Christopher is the silliest boy that I know. He loves to tell jokes and otherwise be crazy. But, he can be serious, too. He came back from H2O, the junior high youth group, last Thursday so excited not about the games (although he enjoyed those), but about the stories people told about how God was changing their lives!

4. Rosie Girl likes to talk to me. She’s less interested in discussing school items, but she will talk up a blue streak about her anime and manga stuff as well as music. Yesterday morning, she asked me about the history of various European countries because one of the anime shows she watches has characters that are personifications of the countries. I don’t really understand all the stuff about the anime, but I do like getting to talk about things with my kids.

5. I like that we (the whole family) have real discussions. Rosie Girl is reading Wicked right now. One of her friends tried to read it but got bogged down early on. (There’s a lot of political and religious commentary throughout the book). Rosie Girl told me and PWM that she thinks she’s having an easier time with the book because we often having religious/philosophical discussions.

6. Of course, I’m loving yarn these days! My Fair Isle sweater is coming along pretty well. I was trying to figure out how to deal with all the ends since I change colors just about every round, but I’ve come up with a working solution that involves weaving in ends as I go.

7. As frustrated as I get with the difficulties of sticking with a schedule, I still love educating our kids at home. Rosie Girl needs help with just Chemistry and Math, which PWM takes care of. Wild Man is able to do more and more reading by himself. I’m also going to start having him work on typing skills and copywork so that getting ideas on paper/screen is easier for him. In the meantime, I like being around my kids. They are really fun!

8. And I’m glad for my friends, especially the one who meets me on Thursday for a nice chat!

So, that’s it for now.

What do you like about your life?

Why I Haven’t Posted . . .

2011-02-13T21:13:00.001-06:00

This is what I’ve been working on for the last few days. (The picture was taken yesterday, so I’m a little further along today.) I’m sure I’ll post something else in the next few days, but for right now, I’m immersed in my sweater!

The Lombardi Trophy Comes Home!

2011-02-06T21:24:00.001-06:00

I was going to write something deep and philosophical today, but we’ve been pretty engrossed with the Super Bowl today! Grandma came over, we made homemade pizzas, and we watched the Packers win the Super Bowl!!

Our Week In Review – 2/5/2011

2011-02-05T13:27:00.001-06:00

While the rest of the country was bombarded with snow and freezing weather, we had our usual “Great White North” snow and freezing temperatures. We did get fresh snow a couple of times this week. Unfortunately, we also had one night with below zero temperatures – although, I guess, it’s good news if you like to ice fish or snowmobile on the frozen lakes.

Wild Man

I feel like Wild Man is getting short shrift these days with the school stuff. He’s been reading a good bit, but we only got to spelling and grammar once this week.

He’s supposed to be learning about Central Asia, but we just got the two discs about Russia from Netflix that we’ve been reading some about Central Asia and then watching DVR stuff about Russia.

Wild Man is doing quite well in Math. He is still using ALEKS and working on math facts with PWM. He’s much more able these days to read and understand the explanations in ALEKS without PWM’s help.

Yesterday, Wild Man went over to Grandma’s and learned to sew a little bit. He has no interest in other needle or fiber arts. But, it’s important to know some sewing basics, and I’m glad that Grandma is teaching him.

Rosie Girl

Driver’s Ed started this week! Rosie Girl was pretty overwhelmed on the first day of class, but is settling in pretty well. The class did a practice test for temporary licenses (even though Rosie Girl already has hers) and Rosie Girl did wonderfully well.

PWM has been helping Rosie Girl with Chemistry this week since the chapter was on unit conversions (i.e. math) and energy. It was very nice for me to have a break from Chemistry – and PWM is a good teacher.

The highlight of Rosie Girl’s week was Thursday night when she and I went to dinner and then to see Wicked at the PAC! The show was wonderful! (I would have loved to see the show on Broadway with Kristin Chenowith, but I can’t complain about the traveling cast that we saw.)

That was our week. Not terribly exciting on the education front. I’m going to try to do a little more Language Arts with Wild Man this week. Otherwise, we’ll just keep moving forward.

How was your week? Anything interesting happen? Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been up to!