Blogs that I ought to be reading

Here are some links to blogs that Jen keeps nagging- I mean, suggesting to me that I should be reading:
The Rebelution, is by Jen's definition, one of the best blogs to ever grace our computer screen. And they just updated their blog with a bunch of fancy stuff, so even if you don't have time to read it, just go look at all the cool effects.
Doug's blog- A lot of home schoolers know who Doug Philips is. He often posts very controversial and thought provoking posts that I don't always agree with and I don't always read the whole thing, because they can be so long. Anyway, Mr. Philips recently posted a large batch of beautiful pictures from a wedding that are worth looking at. It makes a person want to get married. There are lots of pictures, so it will take a while to load if you don't have the amazingly magical high speed internet.
Maidens of worth is a blog by Jen's twin and a friend. It's interesting to hear about her life which is both so similar to Jen's and yet so different! I cannot imagine being the second-to-last child. The house would be so empty and the housework so minimal. We always said when we heard about a kid who graduated early or had dozens of activities to attend: They must not have many younger siblings.

Other news:
I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW ON SUNDAY.

And another one the next week if that one doesn’t pan out. I am so apprehensive. And that's the cheerful way to put it.

A Bit of Poetry

No strength of Nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has, she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

-William Cowper, 1731-1800
From what little I have read about him, William Cowper seems to have an interesting life story. He suffered from severe depression and even attempted suicide, and he was a great and famous religious author.

Home life

This morning’s family activities and discussions established the facts that:

1 Pocket knives are only to keep in your pocket, they are not for throwing
2 Couches are only made to be sat on
3 Nebraska spiders will not jump on you and kill you
4 It is possible to have fun and excitement at home without eating food.
5 One does not run their dirty fingers through the granola container

I had a very domestic day. I cleaned the kitchen, and washed tomatoes; did school with Jonny, and then rested for half an hour while the boys wrestled and chased each other, the rules being no biting and no kicking. I stepped up the search for a Nanny job yesterday. Calling people about a advertised job scares me to death. Then in the afternoon I went grocery shopping, visited the library, shopped for a birthday present, and paid the taxes for Mom. Tonight Jen and I are having our girl night, which consists of hiding upstairs with a combination of TV and sugar in chocolate form.

Last night I read a book by Danielle Steel. Now before you all have heart attacks, let me explain. The local book club, which I attend, decided that this month we would all read a Danielle Steel book. Usually the reading assignment is much more flexible, for example, one month we each read a different sea story; so generally, I can pick the type of book I want to read. I know that I didn’t HAVE to read a D.S. book, but I thought I would read one just to say with greater knowledge, “I don’t like her work”. And I don’t. I found her book to be poorly written, immoral, and utterly un-educating. Someone once said “It is a good book which is opened in expectation and closed in profit.” I read books for enjoyment and education. This book gave me neither. How I am going to tell all this to those kind but very sensitive old ladies at book club, I do not know.
Sometimes book club frustrates me- but we do have great treats afterwards.

Watercolor pencil, finished today. 

The rainbow from a week ago. A photo just can't capture how beautiful it really is. 

My cemetery during a heavy fog. Cool!

A book report

Recently I read a book titled "Then sings my soul: 150 of the world's greatest hymn stories" by Robert J. Morgan. I've really enjoyed reading learning the background to some wonderful songs, and I found it can be very encouraging to sing those songs to myself. Just yesterday I sang "It is well with my soul" under my breath while Andrew threw beanie babies at Jeremy, who I was trying to put to bed for his nap so I could go clean house and do chores before an unexpected visitor arrived. My attitude was not right but the song reminded me to not get so frustrated with small things. One of my favorite stories from this book was the story of the hymn "Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty" which is just such a fun song to sing. The author, Joachim Neander, was born in Germany in 1650. He was converted to Christianity at age twenty, and he died ten years later from tuberculosis. The last year of his life, he wrote this beautiful hymn. He loved to roam the nearby hills so much that eventually one of his favorite walking spots was named for him-Neander valley, or Neanderthal, "thal" meaning "valley" in German. Recognize that name now? In 1856, human bones were found in a cave in that very valley. The scientist William King claimed that bones were that of the "missing link" of evolution. Which we know to be baloney, as Joachim Neander would have also rightly asserted. I liked this hymn book so much that I plan to buy them for Dad this Christmas. Don’t tell!

1 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

4 Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

7 Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

I should have learned to swim.

It’s been raining so much here we are like to drown. It was raining just last night(!) and Jen ran out in the rain to take pictures of it(the rain) and she discovered a beautiful, huge, perfect rainbow. A RAINBOW! What a rare and wonderful sight. We all ran out in the rain to stare and got slightly wet in the process. Rain! What strange weather we’ve had this summer.

Yesterday I went into town to do housecleaning for a(slightly crabby) 90 year old lady. On the way in I dropped the girls off by the river so they could go canoeing. I was at the lady’s house for two hours cleaning her cupboards- I nearly had a heart attack cleaning her fine crystal. Some of it nearly fell. After she released me from her hands, I rushed to the library to cover books for an hour. Libraries are a good place to hear gossip- the librarians know all. When I came out of the library, The sky was extremely dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so dark. On the way home I got hit by torrential rains which rendered me nearly sightless on the horrible country roads. Anyway, I made it home and even got the girls to their next social appointment, a birthday party, to which I was not invited, so Jen and I decided to get ice cream!!!! at MacDonald’s after going grocery shopping and visiting the LIBRARY(A different one than the one I mentioned earlier)!

Today we girls are going to can cucumbers and tomatoes. I also have to make zucchini chocolate cake and carrot cake. I figured I'd better do the cake because if Jen's bread is any indication, her cake would not turn out well. Her bread is the stuff legends are made of- you know, the legends that go like, "Yes, I remember using Grandma's fruitcake to build brick walls". After that we have to make dinner-BLT’s. How we are going to do all that in four hours I do not know. We also have to prepare for tomorrow- we aren’t going to Church because we are attending a thank you lunch for veterans from the local nursing home. It starts at 12, and since we usually don’t get home from church until 1:30, we’ll probably just have Church at home.

Well, there you go- an update on my life.

Lunch break

I was eating my unusually substantial lunch (cottage cheese, healthy sesame bread, a peach and ICE CREAM!) while reading my favorite milblogs and I thought I'd share this with you: "Those wacky Iraqis" milblog has a good picture in the latest post.
More news from the blogosphere: Rabenstrange has left the country. We wish him the best.
This Celtic dance group was marked down for playing "Amazing Grace" during their performance last night on NBC. The "Celtic Spring" dance group is made up of a family of eight. Jen and I happened to see them perform on TV last night and as soon as they came on the screen, we just KNEW they were homeschooled. Besides being very accomplished Irish dancers, they also all play the fiddle- while they are dancing. What an amazing family!

Valkommen till min blog

A post on various subjects.

1 Yes, I'm still struggling with the Swedish inscriptions on the tombstones. Hopefully I will meet with a translator this week. Valkommen means Welcome, in case you couldn't figure that out.

2 This week's Townhall link- it might make you mad. Hopefully, it will at least make you righteously indignant.

3 I really hope to start taking art classes as soon as I can find a job. I am getting frustrated trying to continue advancing my artwork by myself. Money is such a terrible thing because you have to have it to do most anything! I promise to post some of my pitiful artwork soon so that you can all fawn over it or mock it, if you wish.

4 I would like to say just how thankful I am for my parents strong marriage. They have been married for twenty one years and they will never separate. It's not even their anniversary- I just wanted to say that.

Heart pounding excitment

Yesterday we had twenty-five of Dad's international students over for lunch. We've done this many times before, so we have the routine down pretty good- cleaning and cooking takes up pretty much half the day before and all the next morning, along with the cooking. This group was special, though, because they were all from Europe, not Asia, and they were almost all Muslim. These students were from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. Quite a few of the students were actually Muslim immigrants from other countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Africa. Mom ended up discussing the war and religion with some of them while I ended up listening, which is fine- I probably would have said something a little too heated. I did talk to one seventeen year old girl from Denmark- actually, she was from Turkey, but her family immigrated to Denmark. She was much more serious than our silly American teenagers.

It was an interesting experience. The discussion did get my blood going. It was like talking to a member of our media. They were total political opposites of us. Mainly what was discussed was the Iraq war(they didn't mention Afghanistan), which they were heartily against. Then Islam was discussed- we heard the history of Islam, which I have heard before, and how alike Christianity and Islam are alike(I disagree!) and I left when one fellow started talking about how wonderful Islam is. So that was our first heart pounding excitement for the weekend.

Then today, the boys were loading wood onto the truck to bring up to the house for the winter. All of a sudden, Jeremy starts crying- no big deal, he probably got a sliver. Not so. Next thing we know, all four of the boys, followed by Dad, tumbled into the house. The three younger ones were crying hysterically, Caleb was shouting "Dad! there's another one! Dad!". Dad was swatting the air. It turns out that they had disturbed a wasp's nest that was in the wood pile. They each had been stung several times and the tears flowed freely for the next few minutes as we tended their wounds. Poor boys! They still have various swollen limbs but after we sat down to lunch, the pain seemed to disappear. Food- works every time. And that was our second heart pounding experience of the weekend.

Terror plot

I don’t really want to post on the current situation with the recent airplane terror plot. In one way, it’s very encouraging. We stopped them before they acted; we are getting better at this. In another way, it’s discouraging. They are still strong enough to get to the last stages of a massively deadly terror plot. Then we look at Syria and Iran. Those countries are so intensely evil and so tied in to our future; what is it going to take for the rest of the world to defeat them? Plus, no more taking drinks on an airplane.
So anyway, I’ll take a break from the world scene for today and post something cheerful:

When you begin the day, O never fail to say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
And at your work rejoice, to sing with heart and voice,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this at meals your grace, in every time and place,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this, when day is past, of all your thoughts the last,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

When mirth for music longs, this is my song of songs:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When evening shadows fall, this rings my curfew call,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
-From a German hymnbook

“Home of the brave” book report.

I figured I’d better post about this book before Jen gets done reading it and posts before me! “Home of the brave” is an excellent, five star book about the military heroes seldom mentioned in the news today. The book claims its purpose is “Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror” and they do a fine job of it. I confess that I had only heard of four of the people told about in the book.
From the website:
“The nineteen heroes whose stories are chronicled in Home of the Brave constitute some of the most highly decorated soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have fought in the War on Terror and each has a powerful story to tell.”

Reading the amazing stories of soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan filled me with awe at their valor. This book also reinforces WHY we are fighting and how the media twists or ignores stories about the war and the amazing people who fight it. If your library won’t get it, it is well worth buying. And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that eight of the nineteen soldiers in the book are Marines.

The fair

This weekend will be pretty busy for us as we get ready for our county fair. We will have a booth at the fair, so someone will always have to be watching that; plus, our home school group is marching in the parade Sunday. We are going to throw candy and carry signs promoting home schooling. Some of the poster-slogan ideas like “Home schooling is legal and it works” and “Teaching kid’s Gods way” were rejected because we have a very public school oriented community and we are supposed to be gaining friends, not making enemies. The people of our town can be very touchy. Some people would do well to heed a sign like this: “Home schoolers rule- get used to it.”
But instead we’ll carry signs proclaiming “I’m home schooled-so was George Washington” and “Home scholar”. If you come up with any slogan ideas, let me know.

Also, we are all very thankful for the recent drop in temperature. The heat has moved on to other unfortunate victims and we are left rejoicing.

War news

With the recent news of Castro's briefly handing Cuba over to his brother, I think it's only appropriate to link to this-One of my favorite funniest news videos- the fall of Fidel Castro. I suppose it's a bit mean, but Jen and I laughed SO HARD when we first saw it.

You've probably heard about this already, but it's REALLY HOT HERE! Hopefully, we'll have a chilling drop into the 90's or mid 80's after today. And seeing as it's 100 here, and maybe 130 in Iraq, I would say that the heat here is obviously more than "only half as bad as Iraq", as Jen claims.

Now on to the news about Israel:

"Why it's good to be Hezbollah" from Townhall writer Bill Murchison. It's a very good piece about some of the most frustrating issues in the Israel/Hezbollah war.
I read the latest TIME magazine today; I didn't read it just for fun, I can tell you. I thought I ought to see what the other side is saying. Well, it made me mad, as it usually does, because of the poor reporting, inaccuracies and obviously slanted stories of those liberal supporters of terrorism.
TIME indicated through all of its articles on the this war that the Israelis are overreacting, killing only innocent civilians, spreading destruction unnecessarily, and then pronounced the situation bleak. After the Israeli-bashing was exhausted, they went on to another familiar subject:

"The Israelis are determined to show their adversaries that they aren't cowed. That has become clear in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet's announcements that Israel will not negotiate for the return of its soldiers...... Olmet may have been influenced by President Bush, both in his stance of "no negotiations with terrorists" and in his decision to retaliate harshly for the Hamas and Hezbollah actions"
It's all Bush's fault. Yep, it all ties in to Bush somehow. Sure, I can see that.

Another frustrating article with the same tune is the one by Robert Malley that starts off by saying "The U.S.'s policy in the Middle East is flawed. Here's how to fix it." He then goes on to whine about-guess who- Bush, because of our current policy of isolating countries like Iran and Syria. I tell you what, I'm not ever reading TIME magazine again. The petty attitude of the writers, the illogical, unfair, and arrogantly written stories are just worthless.

I say, go for it, Israel. You have the responsibility to protect your country.