That's Not Charity

Providence

That's what my poor dogwood looked like with a huge load of wet snow bending the branches over.

And that's what the driveway looked like right before Kerry suggested to Wyatt that he ought to roll the van back a few feet.

And that's what happened right before one of those big branches broke off and landed on the pavement instead of breaking the front windshield.

On Motherhood

A few months ago (time flies!) I went with friends from the chapel to a one-day women's conference.  That was a bit of a stretch for me.  As a rule, I'm kind of skeptical of Christian women's events because I usually feel like a foreigner.  It's a tribute to my friends (who probably don't read this) that I went at all... because of them.

And I'm glad I did.  One of these days I'll pull out my notes and review them.  The speaker, whose name escapes me, kept my attention the whole time, explaining Biblical womanhood.  Of all the things he said, what stuck with me were comments he made as an aside, a little rabbit trail he followed in response to a question.

Someone brought up the passage in 1 Timothy that says,
But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

I don't think I've ever heard that addressed convincingly before.  Saved through childbearing?  His take on it was this.

Obviously, there are many wonderful women who are single and/or childless, and godly.  I"m sure he was aware that many of these women can feel alienated at these women's conferences that focus exclusively on being a wife and mother, and he wanted to reassure them.  So what does it mean, then?

Though it's not the only way to be a holy and obedient and godly woman, being a wife and mother is the "default" role for Christian women.  Therefore, embracing her God-given role of motherhood demonstrates her salvation.

He didn't have time to elaborate on that, but even so I thought that was the most helpful explanation I've ever heard.  If you've got a different understanding of it, I'd love to hear it!

When You Give

When you give a gift, you GIVE it.

You release it.

You let it go.

And you don't try to control it any more.

Otherwise you should just keep it.

Grasshopper Days

Grasshopper Days

For today, Monday, February 24, 2014

Outside my window...  usually I look out, under and through the branches of a dogwood, but today they are so weighed down with snow...

... I moved the table, got a pole, and knocked as much snow off as I could because it's so heavy!  We've already lost one big branch from this tree and one from a tree in the front.

Hearing...  one of the saddest sounds in the world, from the boys' point of view... rain.  Melting snow.

Pondering...  euphemisms.  Why we rename things.  Lots of reasons, I'm sure.  But one of them?  

Shame.

We put a new name on it to make it sound better.

Praying...  Kerry's sick (nothing scary, just a miserable cold) and two of the boys are congested.  Whatever we get, Kerry gets worse.  His immunities are pthpthpth.  And - of course - for work.  For a JOB, not a project.

Thankful...  for the snow!  I know some of you are sick to death of winter, but we're having fun :D  I'm thankful the boys are all home today :D

Wearing...  jeans, white t-shirt, a thick navy/indigo stripe pullover, and warm socks.  Woo-hoo!  Fashion central, here I come ;D

Creating...  organization in my craft room.  I've done my part in getting everything ready for taxes (what a way to spend a weekend - blah!) and what a load off my shoulders :D

Going...  to make myself deal with several piles of books.  I need to rotate the book basket in the living room (books from our home library that correlate to what we're doing in school), check for library books getting close to due, and put piles and piles back on the shelves.

Reading...  just finished The Help and want to watch the movie - LOVED IT.

Looking forward to...  getting Tate a second CI!

In the kitchen...  this is two days in a row I've cooked breakfast.  It's the snow - puts me in a hot-food-mood :D  Dinner tonight?  Depends if Wyatt and I go to rehearsal.  The snow is melting, but I'm told the roads in the county are really icy.  If we stay home?  Something turkey... turkey taquitos? Turkey pot pie?  Hmmm...

In the learning rooms...  since the public schools are closed, we're taking a snow-day too.  I know Tate will go ahead and work independently, and more power to him.  But me?  I'm taking a "mental health day" :D

Around the house...  various coats, hats, and gloves hanging on chairs surrounding the heat vents.  When I was growing up we had a big, airtight wood stove that heated the house.  Hanging just a few feet away was a huge set of moose antlers my dad brought home from the Yukon.  Guess where we hung our hats and gloves and socks to dry?!

The Mother Load...  still there.  Still long.  Still giving me the Stink Eye.  But with the tax prep done I feel so much lighter!

A favorite quote for today...  When I do stuff, stuff gets done.  Yep.

One of my favorite things...  a yard full of boys - seeing my boys have so much fun!

A Bible verse...  I love the contrast of these verses from Exodus 14, when the Israelites were trapped between the Red Sea and the pursuing Egyptians and absolutely freaking out...

Moses answered the people,

"Do not be afraid.

Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.

The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

But being still, may have been more of a state of heart than... well... inertia.  Because in the next verse...

Then the Lord said to Moses,

"Why are you crying out to me?

Tell the Israelites to move on."

So, apparently, there's the praying-and-trusting part of faith, and the get-up-and-get-a-move-on part.

A few plans for the week...  I suspect we're going to have some cleaning up to do around the yard after the snow melts.  This snow is pretty wet and we've had a few branches come down.  And, of course, there's the usual round of schoolwork, CAP, rehearsal (maybe), yadda yadda yadda.

A peek into my world...  Wyatt likes to leave little messages for Tate on his dry erase board.

The bass says, "Reblz" and "New Hope" and "Go Luke"

Snowed In Sunday

Surprise!

Just when the boys had given up (on more snow)

and resigned themselves that we were heading

for a cold, wet spring...

ta daaaaa :D

Woke to this out my window, and it's still coming down.

We had just a little snow Friday night and Saturday,
and as I drove the boys to a CAP event yesterday morning
we found a Christmas cd still in the car.
We arrived at the Guard Building
bopping along with Frank Sinatra singing
Jingle Bells.

Why not ;D

They've had a full weekend.

Friday they were invited to bring a small group of their CAP friends

down to Whidbey NAS.

We have a good friend stationed there -

a P-3 Orion pilot -

who showed them some interesting things around the base,

got them up in the flight control tower,

into one of the P-3s to look around,

AND into the P-3 simulator.

So much fun!

They got back from that kind of late,
and then had a CAP training event all day yesterday.
So, as much as we love our chapel,
we were a bit relieved when one of the elders called this morning
and said they'd cancelled church today.

Wyatt's getting caught up on some schoolwork.
Tate and Gunnar had some screen time
and are heading out to play in the snow.
Kerry is probably taking a nap -
he's not feeling great.

I've got elk stew bubbling in the crock-pot for later,
and the boys have requested some home-made bread.

It's a good day :D

I've been outside,
as you can tell from the pics.
The ones just above are future lilacs
in my neighbor's yard.

And my snowdrops are poking right up
through the snow.

Snow on everything.

So thankful for my cozy, warm house :D

Wednesday Brain Dump... In Pictures!

1.  I'm apparently 47-going-on-90, because I couldn't wait to get to bed last night at about 8pm.  Could have something to do with the three insane raccoons fighting under my window the night before.  And let me tell you that is not a pleasant sound.

2.  Of course, Tate and I were up and on the road by about 6am to beat the Seattle morning traffic. Grandma Grasshopper accompanied us to Seattle Childrens for hoop-to-jump-through: number one towards Tate's second implant!  I don't mean to minimize the important work those folks do, but this appointment... well... it was just to confirm things we all already know.

They have to make sure that Tate knows what he's getting into - the pros and cons (amazing improvement in access to sound, yet loss of residual 'natural' hearing), the risks (minimal), the commitment to follow-up appointments and therapy (huge, I estimated we put over 2000 miles of driving into these appointments).  Since we just did this two years ago, he remembers pretty well.  Check.  

They also want to make sure that it's his decision and we're not coercing him.  Check.

And they have to document, yet again (for insurance purposes), that his hearing really sucks.  Check.

If you're interested, this is what his current (unaided, right ear) audiogram looks like.  First, it's showing you that he can hear a few low frequency sounds if they're pretty loud - 75 to 95 decibels.  That's a range that most people find painful.  Medium frequency sounds have to be even louder.  And the high frequency sounds are completely gone.

Compare what he hears with this chart:

He might hear a truck or lawn mower, the rock concert, a jack hammer, or a gun going off, but that's about it.  He probably wouldn't hear the helicopter or a jet engine, because the frequency is too high.  Sure his HA will amplify the other sounds, but they become so distorted that it's not really helpful.  And even when they're amplified, he's only getting the speech sounds on the left side of the chart - none of the sounds to the right of the two talking heads in the center.

He's been without his HA for a couple of weeks (just picked it up yesterday from being repaired), which confirmed what we thought.  He told me that he depends on his CI for hearing things and understanding speech, but without the HA he can't tell where anything is coming from.  All the HA is doing for him is helping him localize sound.  Which is useful, but imagine if that's all your hearing did for you.

While that's kind of depressing (and it's a fine HA), it really makes the decision clear, and for that we're thankful. And look at this!  At the top of the photo below you can see the processor he currently has (on the left), the size of the average HA on the right (I think his is a bit bigger), and the new processors he'll get in the center - so much slimmer!  And look at all the colors!

I know which one I'd pick - the Caribbean blue!  But I think he's leaning toward the one next to it called Petrol - nearly black with a drop of metallic blue.  Or he'll get black.  Whatever.  He's not embarrassed by his ear gear, but he's moved past the age where he wants neon green ear molds and bright blue HAs.

So excited for him... more about that all later.  We don't have a surgery date yet.

Will he have "normal" hearing?  No.  But what he gets is awesome, and he does amazingly well with what he gets.

Will he be able to lead an ordinary life?  No.  Good grief!  Why would we settle for ordinary?!  Tate is aiming much higher than that!

3.  I'm very thankful to have a "normal" day today - no trips, no errands, no appointments.  Maybe we can just get through our school work in the normal way.

Checking... one boy working on his language lesson, and...

... another boy reading his science lesson.  Yay!

And the third boy left them this...

... which has to do with the LEGO movie they've recently seen.  Double decker couch, anyone?

4.  A missed opportunity...

I took this photo a few days ago.  See the big white house, lower right, between the power lines?

That has got to be one of the most amazing pieces of property on the lake, and they built... a big, boring, white box.

The owners came to Kerry a few years ago when they bought the land to talk about the house they wanted to build, but he didn't get the job.

What a snafu that was...  Kerry's office is in our garage and is not conducive to meeting with clients so he'll usually arrange to meet them at a coffee shop or at the job site, but once in awhile he'll invite clients to the house, as he did that time.  For whatever reason (maybe not much notice?) things weren't as tidy as I would've liked. The clients are from a different culture, and the fact that the meeting was in a house probably created some expectations in them that weren't met.  (The boys and I stayed upstairs out of the way, as we usually would, rather than acting like hosts and offering refreshments.)  And after they left we noticed that the bathroom not only wasn't exactly spic and span, but the toilet paper had run out.  *cringe*  So, yah, he didn't get the job.

Turned out to be a good thing, after all.  In the first place, that house... I mean, all those feathers and it still can't fly.  They had the property and the resources to do something amazing, and they built an over-sized spec house.  Further, word got around that the professionals they hired had a lot of trouble getting paid.  Who needs that?

So I look out the window and see that house, and I remind myself that sometimes it's a blessing not to get a job.

5.  Meanwhile, I look out the school room window and see this...

... which looks like a lovely day is coming.  But I look out the other window and see this...

.. which tells me that Gunnar and I had better get a move on and go for our walk before we're underneath all of what's coming up the lake.

Probably more rain, but of course I'm just guessing.


6.  Had a little chuckle over this...

7.   I may actually have quite a chunk of free time coming up!  And by "quite a bit" I mean, a few hours.  The boys are visiting Whidbey NAS on Friday with a few CAP friends (I may have mentioned it earlier - it got rescheduled) - they'll get to see some of the base and get to try out the P-3 Orion flight simulators, thanks to a friend of ours.  Then Saturday they have a "training day", also with CAP.  What will I do with all that time?!  (Probably gather tax info... bubble officially burst.)

8.   Tate and I got home from Seattle in time to overlap with Gunnar's babysitting job, not that he needs my help.  Sammy's mom is really good to Gunnar, and shows her appreciation in very generous ways.  She and Sammy brought him this Valentine treat, which he graciously shared with his brothers.

And how's your week unfolding?

Grasshopper Days

Grasshopper Days

For today, Monday, February 17, 2014

Outside my window...  wild and windy, with fresh snow in the hills above.

Hearing...  the rush of wind through the trees outside my window.

Pondering...  we watched The Butler over the weekend.  It gave the boys an interesting view into the Civil Rights movement, which we've talked and read about,
but seeing it... seeing and hearing the events has so much more impact.  

Coincidentally our pastor, who grew up in the segregated South and witnessed that era first hand, is currently preaching through Galatians.  He was preaching yesterday about the absolutely radical change it was for the early church to allow uncircumcised, "unclean" Gentiles to become Christian,

without becoming observant Jews.

I'd never given it a lot of thought, really, because it seems so obvious to us.  But he made the comparison to the total societal upheaval that integration brought to the South.

Imagine,
everything you thought made you better than "them",

everything you thought made you "pure",

everything you thought earned you status...

doesn't count.

The Gospel is shocking.

Praying...  Kerry and work (a persistent theme, I know), a good (safe!) trip to Seattle tomorrow - the first step toward Tate's second implant!

Thankful...  for flexibility.  Last week was crazy.  Crazy good, but still crazy.
Hoping this week is more stable.
And so thankful that while the public schools may have a holiday,
we can just go ahead and school today, since tomorrow will be boogered up.
Driving to Seattle and back kind of throws a wrench in "normal".

Creating...  just ideas at this point.

Going...  to apply some "motivation" to one particular boy to get moving on his schoolwork.  Arrrrgh.  I have one who is completely self-motivated - he'll get up early and do everything he can independently in order to maximize his time with me (stuff he needs help with) and get FREE earlier.
I have another who isn't quite so much of a self-starter, but is generally cooperative.
Then I have one who is... a procrastinator.
I'm not naming names ;D

Reading...  That Hideous Strength aloud with the boys.  Wither is driving them absolutely batty, as he should.

In the kitchen...  leftover sweet and spicy pulled pork - yum!

in the learning rooms...  this week we're going to stay on track.  Yah.

Around the house...  lots of candles - partly for ambience and partly because it's been so windy I kind of expect to lose power.

The Mother Load...  must get tax stuff together SOON.

And by soon I mean immediately.

This week.

Something to remember for later...  Gunnar walking into the kitchen and announcing,

I'm feeling a bit peckish.

A favorite quote for today... 
It is very interesting to note that Jesus often prayed all night in private,
but His public prayers were very brief.
- Billy Graham

One of my favorite things...  a good book!

A Bible verse...  Zephaniah 3:17
For some reason (probably early childhood memorization?) I like this best in the old KJV,

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty;
He will save,
He will rejoice over thee with joy;
He will rest in His love,
He will joy over thee with singing.

A few plans for the rest of the week...  school, school, school, and the usual round of rehearsal, Civil Air Patrol, babysitting, etc.  Aaaaaand throw in a trip to Seattle.

A peek into my day...  the results of my morning tea, and a mid-morning cocoa break ;D

Scatterday

In case I haven't mentioned it (!), we've had a kind of crazy week.  Makes me so thankful for homeschooling - that we can be that flexible.  Tate and Gunnar and I usually get through their schoolwork in four days, leaving Friday for... whatever.

Not so this week.

Well, Tuesday always gets disrupted because Gunnar has a job - he babysits a two-year-old for about an hour and a half.  And he really does the work; I'm just here as back-up.  He does an awesome job - well worth disrupting his school week to get real-world work experience.  And it sure helped his confidence recently when we were visiting with a neighbor who manages the local Olive Garden.  He was actually talking with Wyatt about a potential job and about previous work experience.  He said they view experience baby-sitting very highly, because it says that you're worthy of being trusted with people's lives.  Yes!

So Tuesday gets disrupted, but we're good with that.
School work completed on Tuesday?  About 75%.

Also this week, a friend from church asked if we could watch a couple of her kids on Wednesday.  No problem - I've helped her out before if she wanted to meet a friend for lunch or something.  She has five kids, she deserves a break from time to time, you know?  But this was no lunch meeting.  She had a one-day acting job in Seattle - fun!  So Gunnar and I had her two youngest kids (just turned four, and eight months) for ten hours on Wednesday.
School work completed on Wednesday?  0%.

Thursday we made our mid-morning trek to Costco, which totally boogered up our day.  I like to get there right when they open because it's typically much less crowded.  So we cranked out some morning work and were waiting at their door at 9:30... only to find they've changed their hours and don't open until 10.  So... we sat out the rainstorm in the van, amusing ourselves with Stink Pinks and Fannee Doolees.  And by the time we got home, got everything unloaded and put away, and dashed back to the school to pick up Wyatt, none of us had brain power left for school work.  Especially when it involved formulas with mass and acceleration and kinetic friction force and figuring out Newtons are something like kilograms divided by seconds squared times ... I don't know.  Times something else.
Schoolwork completed on Thursday?  About 30%.

Which brought us to Friday.  Tate and I triumphed over Newtons (at least briefly.  Don't ask me to explain it to you.)  He did well enough on his science test that we can leave force, mass and acceleration for another go-round when he's older.  Gunnar must have accomplished something, but darned if I can remember what, because guess what?  The boys decided to go see the new LEGO movie.  And I let them.  In the middle of the day on Friday.  Because, why not?  No crowds, and they can finish their work the next day, right?
Schoolwork completed on Friday?  About 50% of what was left.

And now, at 12:30 on Saturday, we're DONE.

And now, at 12:31 on Saturday, I've exposed any illusions you might have hung onto about me being really disciplined and organized ;D

And now - whoops - Saturday is going sideways... in a good way.  Wyatt and Tate just got called out to find an ELT that's going off at the airport.  Probably just a pilot that had a rough landing and doesn't know it's going off, but - hey! - it's

a mission.

And they could earn a CAP "Find" ribbon.  Which would be awesome.

So off we go again.

Love/Hate...

... describes my relationship with Costco.  Maybe it's because I seem to be missing the shopping gene common to so many women.  Therefore Costco rocks because - hey! -  if I can get three times as much laundry detergent at once, I won't have to go buy it again for three times as long, right?  What's not to love?

Well, you see, due to where we live, shopping at Costco is a cross-cultural experience.  And let me tell you there are a whole lot of people who need some education and training on assimilating into the North American shopping modus operandi.  For instance...

*  Please, if you want to bring your entire extended family shopping with you, do not meander slowly through the aisles walking six abreast.  Single file, people.  Or at least walk in pairs.

*  Further, if you want to have a big family discussion about an item you've just discovered, pull your cart and your family off to the side where you're not blocking everyone else.  I know, in your eyes we're all lowly peasants and unworthy of your consideration, but news flash - we don't think much of you either.

*  You look particularly wretched when we see you using your women like beasts of burden and attempting to treat the (female) store employees that way.  No, nobody here is going to carry your two hundred gallons of milk out for you.  Man up and do it yourself.


On the other hand, I was oh-so-happy to have two cheerful and helpful young men with me (the third was at school), who were happy to fetch and carry along with me.  They pushed two over-loaded carts all through the store and out to the van, and then executed some sort of tetris maneuver to fit everything in.

And oh my word... when you combine three, hungry, growing boys with a somewhat shopping-averse mom, you know what you get?  Among other things...

4 dozen eggs
4 pounds of fish sticks
4 pork roasts
4 pizzas
4 pounds of butter
6 pounds of craisins
10 pounds of frozen veggies
10 pounds of cheese
12 rolls of paper towels
12 pounds of frozen chicken
18 pounds of white and brown sugar
18 pounds of peanut butter
15 boxes of mac and cheese
24 cans of veggies
96 rolls of toilet paper
150+ granola bars

And probably a partridge in a pear tree, among the ketchup, laundry detergent, refried beans, fruit, and aluminum foil.

And that was my exciting day.  Don't you wish you were me?!

Babysitting Today...

It's the Little Things That Make Me Sew Crazy

When the boys were really little, we lived in a smaller house.  Two bedrooms, one bathroom, large living room, but no dining room.  Nowhere I could set out a project I was working on and leave it out.  The only table was the kitchen table, and we kind of needed that three times a day.

Through some unusual circumstances I got a sewing machine, but I had absolutely no idea how to use it.  I had a vague idea that I'd like to learn to quilt someday.  Somehow quilting seemed kind of homey.  Practical, but maybe fun.  And the bright, saturated colors in the fabric store appealed to me.

Quilting, I told myself, was for later, when the kids were older.  And I had free time.  (Free time?  Yah, laugh it up.)  But my friend Gini had other ideas, and talked me into taking a beginners quilt class with her.  Just one evening a week for five weeks.  I could manage that.

And so it began.

I discovered I really liked quilting.  I think it has a lot to do with doing something that stays done.  Unlike most of what I do which is immediately undone (cleaning), consumed (cooking), or needs to be done again (grocery shopping), quilting stays done.  Granted, I give most of them away, but I have a few things I've kept.  Like this tumbler quilt, this batik quilt, and this mosaic quilt.

And now, years later, I'm still trying to get it right.  And you know what really makes me crazy?  Pinwheels.  All those little points - eight of them - coming together in one place.  You'd be surprised how many quilt blocks have some variation of it.  Trying to get all those points to line up just exactly right is like... well, like herding grasshoppers.

So every once in awhile I make myself practice.  When I made this quilt, last spring, and made all those star points, I saved all the little triangles and practiced sewing pinwheels.  Little, bitty pinwheels.

Guess where most of them ended up?  Yah, the garbage.  The rest were "orphan blocks" in my sewing basket for months and months.  Every time I did a sewing project I'd pull them out and wonder what to do with them.  Until Gunnar announced that we needed more pillows in the living room.  Aha!

Sew them into strips, with some white blocks between, add a couple of scrap strips to two sides to make a square, make an envelope backing, and WA-WAH... a pillow.

Gunnar's quite happy with it, but he - fortunately - is pretty easy to please.  However, if you look a little closer...

... you'll see that there are some hits and some misses in the lining-up-the-points department.

Not too shabby...

... but what on earth happened here, to the triangle on the bottom?  It's wavy.  Oops.

This yellow one is okay, but I should've ironed some of the seams the other way - you can see the yellow through the white.  Oops.

Then there's this sad, turquoise fellow.  The bottom right is okay, but two of the points have lost their points, and the other didn't quite make it to the party in the middle.

Closer... I'm batting about .500 here...

And then this one almost works, but I wasn't paying attention to the print on the fabric (bumble bees) when I cut it, and a bumblebee appears to be getting caught in the vortex at the center. 

Well, it's fine for my living room, but not quite ready for prime time.

Grasshopper Days

Grasshopper Days

For today, Monday, February 10, 2014

Outside my window...  dark, cold, and rainy.  We had a bit more snow in the night (it was beautiful at 1:30 am ;D ) but the temp is just above freezing now, so bye-bye snow.

Hearing...  the wind blowing, rain spattering on the window, and the furnace coming on.  Oh, I'm thankful for central heating!

Pondering...  just how "mandatory" a meeting is... 

Praying...  steady work for Kerry (maybe even with health insurance - what a bonus), for a peaceful and productive week, and for (continued) good health when there's so much sickness floating around.

Thankful...  but for one boy with a cold, we're all healthy, Kerry has a bit of work for this month (!), and I may even be able to make a much-needed run to Costco.

Wearing...  layers.  It may have "warmed up", but these just-above-freezing rainy days somehow feel colder than snow days.  Blue jeans, white t-neck, and navy/indigo stripe thermal shirt... faaaancy ;D

Creating...  in between projects right now, with a busy week planned.

Going...  to do a bit of tidying around my work room.

Reading...  still plodding through The Victory of Reason.  I just can't get excited about it.  When I told a friend how much I enjoyed and was encouraged by Vishal Mangalwadi's The Book That Made Your World, he recommended Victory, because he thought the authors were saying the same thing... but I'm not as enamored with it.  Mangalwadi shows cross-culturally the impact of the Bible on civilization - how worldview shapes culture.  Victory of Reason seems to be focused on capitalism above all else.  Sure, I'm all in favor of capitalism, but so far (and I'm not very far into the book, so I'll give it another chance) it seems that the author views Christianity as a means to an end... capitalism.  Blah.

Learning...  I have to work a lot harder to focus than I used to!  Good grief, I used to just devour books when I was college-age, and beyond.  Now?  Is it too many distractions, or just plain age?  I'll keep working on my reading...

Looking forward to...  Gunnar's Disneyland trip in June, when he turns thirteen.  Mostly I'm excited because he'll have such a good time and he's so excited about it.

And also because he talks about it

Every.  Single.  Day.

In the kitchen...  leftover elk roast and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight.

In the learning rooms...  reading about WWI, the Panama Canal, multiplying and dividing radicals (square roots), acids, bases, and salts in Chemistry, writing a book report, Eleanor of Aquitaine and feudal society, and interjections, conjunctions, and prepositions.

Around the house...  boys reading :D

The Mother Load...  gather info for taxes, rotate school-related books in the book basket, go by the bank, make a doctor's appointment, tidy my work room, go for a walk with Gunnar, clean the shower (ugh!), make a plan for this year's family b'day gifts (start early this time!), etc.

Noticing that...  one thing I love about our little chapel is the singing.  I don't always love the actual songs, many of which are unfamiliar to me, but at least they have good words - good theology.  They're meaningful.  And everybody sings.  There's no over-rehearsed "team" up in front, performing for us.  We're worshipers, not an audience.

Something to remember for later...  though the bunnies can stay warm in cold weather, their water does not.  Even if the whole water bottle doesn't freeze solid, it doesn't take long for the water in the little metal nozzle to freeze.  Tate has been very diligent about checking the bunnies several times a day, and thawing out their water bottles so they'll be able to drink.

Something fun to share...  I wish you could hear Wyatt.  He has a fabulous ear for imitating voices and accents.  I love his rendition of Gru, from Despicable Me.  And he does a great Sean Connery/Marko Ramius from The Hunt for Red October.

One of my favorite things...  hot mint tea on a cold morning.

A favorite quote for today...  God's discipline of His children always hurts and never harms.

A Bible verse...  Jeremiah 20:12-14
Then you will call upon me and ocme and pray to me,
and I will hear you.
You will seek me and find me,
when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you, declares the Lord,
and I will restore your fortunes
and gather you from all the nations and all the places
where I have driven you, declares the Lord,
and I will bring you back to the place
from which I sent you into exile.

A few plans for the rest of the week...  homeschool, choir rehearsal, Civil Air Patrol, babysitting two of my friend's kids for one (long) day, and Valentine's Day... what to do?

A peek into my day...  my little Christmas poinsettia is still hanging on... just right for Valentine's Day!

Eye Candy

I s'pose it's no coincidence I was working on this during a very cold and wintery week!

Just a little thank you to a sweet friend.

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others

cannot keep it from themselves.

James M. Barrie