The Adams family

I have been reading a book of selected letters of John and Abagail Adams that were written from 1762-1784. Because of his duties, John Adams was away from home for very long amounts of time. These letters are written in the good kind of romantic way, with Mr. and Mrs. Adams calling each other "my dearest best friend" etc. I really have enjoyed it, but as I am so rushed I only have time to post this quote from a certain letter:

"This wandering, intinerating life grows more and more disagreeable to me. I want to see my wife and children every day, I want to see my grass and blossoms and corn every day. I want to see my workmen, nay, I almost want to go and see the boss calves as often as Charles does. But above all except the wife and children, I want to see my books."
John Adams to his wife Abagail in 1772

Memorial Day

Yesterday we went to the local Memorial Day service to remember and honor those soldiers who have died for our country. It's good we can still pray and read the Bible, in public, at these services.

I have some personal news to share- I will most likely, probably, almost for certain unless God doesn't want me to, be going to Ft. Bragg this summer. I will be staying for several months, serving a family there. It's exciting to think about seeing someplace new and being able to learn and serve, but it's also sad to think of leaving my family, even though it won't be a very long time.

I have too much to read so I don't have time to post

So I'll just copy this email (I added some emphasis):
From:Gary L. Bauer, Chairman, Campaign for Working Families
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Poll Raises Questions

A new poll of the attitudes and beliefs of American Muslims is disturbing – even to members of the American Muslim community – and should be raising serious questions among U.S. policymakers. The poll was conducted by the well respected Pew Research Center, and surveyed over 1,000 U.S. Muslims on a variety of topics.
Here are some key findings:

• Only 26% of U.S. Muslims believe the war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism.
• 12% support the decision to invade Iraq
• only 35% believe we made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan.

I realize the American public is generally divided on Iraq, but a majority of American Muslims are conflicted about going after our attackers in Afghanistan. That disconnect is troubling, but there is a reason:
Only 40% of U.S. Muslims believe that Arab men carried out the September 11th attacks! That figure led Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, to remark, “They’re in denial, refusing to take moral responsibility, and the radicals will feed on this.”
And speaking of radical, while 58% of American Muslims said they had a “very unfavorable” opinion of Al Qaeda, 27% said they did not know, and five percent actually expressed a favorable opinion of Al Qaeda! Even more disturbing is the evidence that Muslim youth are becoming radicalized.
Muslims under 30 overwhelmingly identify as Muslims first and Americans second, and are twice as likely than their elders to believe that homicide bombings can be justified, with 26% of Muslim youth in America believing such acts are justifiable. Now, if anything, these polls generally understate the problem. How many people will actually admit to a total stranger that they support what is essentially a war crime?
As you know, Congress is in the middle of a major debate on the overhauling of our immigration laws for the third time in 40 years. Perhaps these shocking poll numbers will shock some sense into the debate. Now would be an ideal time to consider what can be done to prevent the immigration of radical Islamists into America.

Anniversaries

This week I am celebrating the anniversaries of two notable events:
My Second Blogiversary and the anniversary of high school Graduation.

Here’s how my blog got started:
Jen: Em, you need a blog. I’ll set it up for you.
Em: I’m kind of busy…..
Jen: Here’s your password, and here’s how to post. Have fun.
Em: Oh.

And here's what I said in one of my earliest posts: "I do not want to be online very much- it is addicting. Time will tell if blogging can fit into my already rather busy life."
Hmmm.

It's all Jen's fault, really. I probably wouldn't have started a blog without her. To mark my blogiversary, I've been going back through all my blogposts and deleting the most embarrassing ones.

As far as Graduation, it doesn't seem fitting to celebrate just getting older, but I hope I will be able to celebrate getting wiser.

Due to a recent book order and a visit from a very good author to our Church, I now have a dozen new books to read. It makes me itch and ache(in a good way) to think of all the books I have to read now! Furthermore, Mom got me some more contact paper and I have been joyfully covering those books so they will now last forever. Happy thought.
Right now I am reading a book of Abigail and John Adams' letters to each other- they are a wonderful collection of humor and wisdom. Some of the other books in my now large to-read stack:
"The bait of Satan" by John Bevere
"How to bring your children to Christ", by Ray Comfort
"Ten P's in a pod" by Arnold Pent.
I also purchased this week another necessary addition for my library, and for only ten cents: "The Whipping Boy" by Sid Fleischman (A classic! Don't we all love the garlic-eating bandit, hold-your-nose-Billy?).

2 Timothy 1:12

For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

Being a Person Under Authority

by Os Hillman

...''I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.'' ~ Matthew 8:10

The centurion came to Jesus and told Him of his servant who was paralyzed and in terrible suffering. He came to Jesus because he believed He could heal him. He told Jesus of the matter, and Jesus was willing to come with the centurion. But the centurion would not have it. He knew that Jesus, being under the authority of Heaven itself, did not have to see the servant to help him. The centurion understood authority. He understood that he himself had certain rights that his position granted him to have power over situations and people. He also was a man under authority. The centurion understood Jesus' position and what power that position held in Heaven - the power to heal his servant if He chose to exercise that authority.

When Jesus saw that the centurion understood this principle of authority and that He did not have to visit the servant to heal him, He acknowledged the centurion's faith. Jesus knew it took great faith to understand authority and whether He had the authority to do what was being asked.

God has placed a system of authority in our world that requires faith to operate under its boundaries: fathers over sons and daughters, employers over employees, government leaders over the people, church leaders over church members. These are authority structures God has placed in our lives to protect and guide us to His will. Some confuse position with worthiness or qualifications of that position. It is the position that God works through. The fact that an authority may not be a Christian may have no bearing on whether God can work through him as your authority. It is only when that authority counsels against a biblical mandate that we should not follow that person's guidance. The hand of the king is in the hand of God.

Today, we find few who understand this system of authority God has ordained. It requires great faith to operate in this realm. Yet Jesus said that when we understand this, we demonstrate the kind of faith that He rarely sees. Be a person of rare faith. See the authorities placed in your life as those God is using to protect you.

• I have such a hard time remembering this. I get frustrated when Dad tells me to do something I really don't want to do, and I sometimes resent our public authorities, for example, I got mad when a Policeman gave me my first warning ever for not signaling a turn. So I thought this was a good message for me, and I'm sharing it with you!

So posting has been sparse, and there's a lot going on right now that I could post about:

From the Rebelution: watch FOX news tonight at 5pm PST to see the story of an eighteen year old girl who "visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Los Angeles armed with a hidden camera, posing as a 15-year-old who had been impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend.

Though California law requires abortion providers to report all cases of statutory rape to the police, a staff member at Planned Parenthood instructed Lila to lie about her age so she could protect her boyfriend and go through with an abortion."

You should be reading this milblog! Learn about military hospitals in Iraq who are treating not only our soldiers, but Iraqis too.

In other news, Hamas and Fatah are running wild in the streets of Palestine, shooting crazily at each other and pausing every so often to pop off a rocket towards Israel. They are obviously insane. May they kill each other off!

Still looking for the three missing American soldiers.
About 4,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 Iraqis are searching for the three soldiers feared captured by al-Qaida during the ambush, which also killed one Iraqi soldier.

It's recital season

Some of you may know that my sister is nearly the best ballerina in the Mid-west. Her ballet recital was last week, and we have more ballet activities next week. Her ballet is very beautiful, very inspiring, and very expensive. So running off to ballet events is what's keeping me busy these days. This photo is of her group's pointe dance.

Guess what I found in our car today

Alright, it really wasn't that big, but it was a spider none the less. I jumped into the car and found my head covered in one of those perfect cobwebs, like you see on TV all covered with dew. That was bad enough- but I couldn't find the spider. Scary. I should have thought to look under the sun visor, but I didn't think of that until it was too late. In the end, I killed it. Ugh!

An update on my cactus

Some of you may remember I brought a plain old cactus(plucked at a great physical price from the dusty earth) home from Texas a year ago. It flourished and then we thought it had died; but now it is growing again. I tell you, I am not touching that thing again. It can do whatever it wants, I am going to leave it alone now. The thrill of owning a Texas cactus has vanished. But here it is in it's current state, with its newest branches.

It's a beautiful day

Every morning I wake up to the sound of birds outside my window- almost right next to my head. Sometimes, when the loud, ugly-sounding birds are in residence, this can be annoying. Some birds really sound like monkeys. But most mornings I hear birds chirp and sing- this considerably helps my mood when getting up in the morning. Sometimes at night I hear owls, raccoons, cat-fights, and other strange rustling noises. I am so thankful that we live where we can enjoy God's nature so easily.
While we are on the subject of birds, the other day on the way to work I nearly hit three vultures that were eating a dead animal on the road. We don't often see vultures. Then a little ways further a pheasant ran across the road. I am proud to say that the only creatures I have ever run over and killed are a squirrel, a cat, and a snake. No deers or skunks yet.


Last week we had Dad's students up for lunch, and this week we are having more guests as well. So in the course of two weeks I will have met people from Korea, Japan, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Columbia, and Afghanistan. Of course we can't serve pork, because the Tajikis and Afghans are Muslims. At one pot-luck we had a while ago, we cautioned everyone not to bring pork, just in case they didn't already know that Muslims don't eat pork. And guess what one lady brought- a nice, big, ham.
And then when we had students from Korea stay with us, a lot of innocent and apparently uninformed people would ask us, "So are they from North or South Korea?"
It was hard not to laugh at that.

Random bits of info

It was 91 degrees on Monday, and breezy. I did two loads of laundry and the first load dried in just an hour because of the hot weather and wind. Today it got up to around 70. Fluctuating weather!

I rubbed my hands raw yesterday trying to hack up a piece of cardboard for my younger brother- he is making a raised map of the USA using cardboard and salt-dough for our upcoming home school fair. We always seem to wait until the last minute to finish our displays.

From the ever talkative Jeremy, while discussing what to become when he grows up:
"Who's the person who brings us mail?
Oh yeah, the mailman."

And on the way home from a dinner after observing the sky:
"Look, the moon followed us home!"

Ahhh, so cute. I did remember to do his reading lesson with him today, and he wiggled all the while. For some reason, it wears me out to watch him use so much energy; maybe it's just wearing to have to exercise so much patience on my part! Today we read about the "the dog will eat his small car." It's definitely better then "See Jane run" right?

Stress

Frankenstien. A drawing I started today in the few free minutes I had.

More projects.