Busy Work

My oldest three kids were insatiably curious. If I wanted them to read a book, all I had to do was bring it home from the library or leave it lying around the living room -- it would get read, consumed, devoured. But my next-to-youngest isn't as curious. He doesn't need to know how things work and what people think and what's going on in the world. Part of this may be due to his inborn nature just being different from his siblings. Part of it, though, is probably due to the amount of time we spent with his sister's doctors and therapists when he was just a toddler and preschooler. We didn't do as many science experiments, take as many walks, read as many kiddy books, as we'd done with the older children.

Since we've been homeschooling, I've despised busy work. It has always seemed like a waste of time. If the kids can learn something by practicing it 4-5 times, why make them do the handwriting or the math 30 times? If we can work on things orally, through discussion and reading and working out concepts, why make them sit in chairs and write just for the sake of have some worksheets filled out? We are people who know how true is the saying, "So many books, so little time!" Why divert our limited time from those books and those projects and those educational videos to something as dreary as seatwork?

But right now, I'm finding busy-work to be somewhat useful. If I have a kid who is perfectly content to read comic books and play video games all day, then I am not content. I can do interesting educational activities with him, and he will enjoy them. I can even make him study certain things on his own, but of course he retains very little of it. I am discovering, though, that busy-work doesn't hurt him. Oh, he may think it's injurious to his time in front of the computer or tv. But for some odd reasion, I just don't have a lot of sympathy for his grief.

For the older kids, busy-work distracted them from the excitement of learning. Because of that, I see busy-work as detrimental. But in recent weeks, I'm beginning to see that busy-work isn't altogether bad. It's certainly better than perpetually vegging out.

Government Goof-Up

Our state government had a slip-up in the past few weeks. They accidentally made public some information that had names and addresses, with SocSec numbers attached. It wasn't a big group of people, but I was one of the group. I got a letter yesterday informing me of the risk. Along with profuse apologies, the letter had all sorts of information about "fraud alerts" and "freezes" that we can get from the credit bureaus, and I need to figure that out. They've provided for insurance that will cover up to $20,000 to compensate victims of identity theft. (From what I've heard, that amount could be barely a drop in the bucket, given the trouble identity theft would cause.) They've offered to pay for a year of daily monitoring with the credit bureaus, in an attempt to protect the people whose numbers were released.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what "fraud alerts" mean. It sounds to me like the inconvenience of having a fraud alert on your record probably means something as inconsequential as not being able to get a new credit card while you're in line at the check-out of a department store. Like, maybe, before they extend credit to you, the company will actually have to verify your information like they all did 20-30 years ago.

They assure us and assure us and assure us that they take utmost care with our personal information and will never release it to anyone. I never believed that. I get called paranoid. I get told that I don't understand the high value businesses and government place on privacy. But mistakes happen. And sometimes (not this time, though!) there is intentional manipulation of private information too. But even if we believe that everybody in government or hospitals or insurance companies is honest and upstanding and completely moral, nevertheless, mistakes happen.

I guess we're going to learn more about credit bureaus this year than we intended.

Some Links

Elizabeth had a great post about the importance of vocational tech school, and thoughts about what kind of education/training might be good for kids after high school.

In the comment section on one of my recent posts, a friend pointed out Jonathan Lange's article Using the Third Use. I thought it was a fantastic article on the topic of the Law and sanctification, and just wanted to mention it here in case anybody's interested.

Scott reminded us that most of us need to get a patch for our computers so they can update themselves correctly this year when Daylight Savings Time is made longer than before. You can get more information on his blog.

Random Thoughts

Gas down in Rockford this morning was still over $2 when we went to church, but on our way home we saw a gas station in Wisconsin with $1.98. It's been a while since we saw that!

For years, I told myself that we needed to buy snow-fence and put it up in late fall. But year after year, I neglected to do it. Then we had to dig out the drifts. When I was little and my dad talked about "drifts," I didn't understand what he meant. Sure, I understood the concept in my mind, but I didn't understand the way that snow drifts make shoveling seem entirely futile. After a few years of drought, snow-fencing seemed pointless (even though there were several days per year of digging and re-digging out a sidewalk that had already been cleaned four times since the last snowfall). This year I'm wondering if the increased snowfall will motivate me to get snow-fencing in November. Probably not...

I had sixteen hours added to my week this past week. Didache was canceled because of Pastor's being in Fort Wayne for symposia. So was Thursday Bible class. I also skipped my weekly errand-day in the city because I'm trying to get back onto my Monday routine after having the errand-schedule goofed up by Christmas and New Years. Those three things alone put sixteen extra hours into my week. Did I cross a lot of projects off my to-do list? Did I catch up on chores? No. Granted, I spent a little more time on the computer than I should've, and I spent a few hours answering phone calls from desperate parents investigating the possibility of homeschooling. But most of those extra hours got used up in homeschooling. No wonder I always feel like I'm behind.

I was a good girl last week and did schoolwork with the kids instead of listening to symposium lectures live-streamed on the computer. Boy, that took some self-denial!

When we were driving into town the other day, Andrew saw a sign that I hadn't noticed. He asked, "What does evangelical mean?" I asked whether he meant the real meaning of the word, or the way it is commonly used today. He asked for the real meaning first. So I told him it means "gospel" or "gospel-ish." The sign he saw was for the Evangelical Free church in town. He wanted to know why any denomination would call itself something like "Gospel-Free Church."

Constitutional Oath

Normally, public officials must take an oath of office in which they swear to uphold the Constitution. That's changing in Wisconsin, though.

In last fall's elections, Wisconsinites approved a ban on gay "marriage." In Madison, however, local results were strongly against the ban. Many public officials are scandalized by this constitutional amendment and are now unwilling to swear to uphold the state constitution. The Madison city council voted this week to allow elected and appointed officials to make their oath without swearing to uphold the constitution we actually have. They are given the option of making a statement (either verbally or in writing) that declares they are taking the oath of office "under protest" and will work to change the state constitution where they disagree with it.

I can understand a desire to go into politics to work for your cause, even if (maybe "especially if") you don't agree with the status quo. I can see that someone might say he can't support everything in the constitution. Theoretically, this exemption should be allowed for conservatives and liberals alike. It also seems that a candidate's desire for one of these exemptions should be known by the voters prior to the election.

But even if I try really hard to see their side of it, there's still one thing I can't get over. With that kind of disclaimer, one wonders, "What's the point of taking the oath at all?"

You can read the AP story here.

Thesis XXIII

Yesterday, I was remembering a discussion with my father-confessor and his father-confessor, regarding one of "grandpa-confessor's" sermons. Because of recent discussions, I wanted to take a peek at which one of Walther's Law/Gospel theses fit the situation. So I quickly skimmed the first couple of pages of the book, and Thesis 23 caught my eye. I got distracted from my initial quest. Upon exploration, I noticed the following quotes.


From Walther's Law and Gospel:

The Word of God is not rightly divided ... when an endeavor is made, by means of the commands of the Law rather than by the admonitions of the Gospel, to urge the regenerate to do good.


And some quotes from the lecture in support of the thesis:

Page 381: The attempt to make men godly by means of the Law and to induce even those who are already believers in Christ to do good by holding up the Law and issuing commands to them, is a very gross confounding of Law and Gospel.

Page 382: Concerning the new covenant, ... [God] is not going to issue any commandments, but is going to write the Law directly into their mind and give them a new and pure heart, so that they shall not need to be plagued with the Law, with enforcements and urgings: Thou shalt do this! Thou shalt do that! because that will not help matters at all.

Page 384: This is an experience which you may have had personally. After a long season of sluggishness and lukewarmness, during which you began to hate yourself because you saw no way to change your condition, you happen to hear a real Gospel sermon, and you leave the church a changed man and rejoice in the fact that you may believe and are a child of God. You suddenly become aware of the fact that it is not difficult to walk in the way of God's commandments; you seem to walk in it of your own accord. [Almost sounds like Walther is saying that walking in the way of God's commands happens on spiritual auto-pilot.]

Page 386: To make people godly, [the rationalists] preach ethics with great earnestness.... [The papists] preach ethics continually ....

Page 387-8: This confounding of Law and Gospel occurs ... also in the orthodox Church... when ministers become aware that all their Gospel-preaching is useless because gross sins of the flesh still occur among their hearers.... The preacher may come to the conclusion that he has preached too much Gospel.... But he is mistaken.... The reason why congregations are corrupt is invariably this, that its ministers have not sufficiently preached the Gospel to the people.


I suppose it might not be helpful to toss quotes out there. After all, quotes "sound" different when they're taken out of context, and when the terms within the quotes are understood differently by different hearers. I've had conversations with homeschool friends where we can toss Bible verses back and forth at each other, and have not come to agreement. I've had theological debates with friends where Church-Father quotes are tossed around, or where we quote the Confessions back and forth at each other. I've seen "quote wars" where Luther appears to be contradicting himself. So I'm quite skeptical as to the benefit of putting quotes out there. Nevertheless, I thought these were rather interesting in light of recent conversations.

Care for a Snooty Title?

I saw this on Melynda's blog, and it just looked like fun!! ... even if it did pick "discombobulated" for me. LOL!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Imperial Majesty Susan the Discombobulated of Kesslington under Ox Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Vanilla Beans, Anyone?

I recently received my order from an herb wholesaler. With the price I was paying at the grocery store, I figured two packets of spices and herbs from the grocery store would be about equivalent to the price I'd pay for a whole pound from this wholesaler. So even if some of the spices got old and went to waste, I'd still be ahead financially.

I go through a lot of dried parsley. The minimum order for most items is a pound. I figured I'd go with two pounds instead of one because we use so much parsley. So I open up the box.... Do you know how much a pound of parsley is? It's like a gallon! Turns out that those huge jars of parsley I was buying at the store are only an ounce. Well, I won't need to buy parsley in 2007 any more. Maybe not in 2008 either.

I also bought a few pounds of dried apples. When we tasted them, they were a little bland. My guess is that the dried apples from the grocery store are spiked with sugar or corn syrup. I know they douse the dried pineapple and dried bananas with all sorts of sugar. These unsweetened apples may not entice the kids into snacking on them as I'd anticipated, but they'll be good for putting in oatmeal or cookies.

Now to the point of the post. Is there anybody we see in Real Life who needs a vanilla bean or two or three? Vanilla prices have gone up. Last time I started a batch of extract, the cost of one vanilla bean was $6, and two of them were $10. Shoot -- I liked paying $2 per bean at the health food store. (I can't imagine what they cost now at the grocery store. The grocery store used to charge three times as much as the health food store. I bet the price-difference between the two has narrowed.) So from this wholesaler, I ordered the minimum allowable amount of vanilla beans: 1/4 pound. I figured if I got four beans, I was already saving money; anything more would be a bonus. Turns out that I got 29 vanilla beans. 29! So Laura, Anthea, Leila, Katie, Mom, Wolfs? Anybody have a use for a couple of beans? I'd planned to start some more vanilla extract going, but this is a lot of beans for that. If nobody wants beans, we're going to grind some up in ice cream and have reeeeeally delicious vanilly ice cream. Yummmmmmm!

Pizza Lentils

Another one of my frequently used recipes came from Jennifer T. It too fulfills all five requirements for being an ideal recipe. If you're scared of lentils and legumes, I gotta tell you that many an avowed lentil-hater has loved this recipe.

Here is the "serves 8" version
(which really only serves 3-4 here).
In other words, this makes a 13x9.

Simmer together for 30 minutes:
2 cups dry lentils
4 cups water
1 tsp salt

While simmering,
brown 1-2# pork sausage
with a chopped onion.
Stir in 1/2 cup flour
and 1/2 tsp dried garlic.
Mix in 1 quart canned tomatoes.

Mix together lentils and sausage.
Pour into 13x9.
Sprinkle with mozarella.
Bake at 350 for about 25-35 minutes.


My family-sized version (two 13x9's):

1# bag of lentils
7 cups water
2 tsp salt

2# sausage
2 onions
several cloves garlic
1.25 cups flour
1 quart canned tomatoes

1-2# grated mozarella (or less)

Snow

Children were ecstatic when they went to bed last night, anticipating the snowfall they'd find in the morning. Our last snow was December 1. Our topmost snow-lover "couldn't" go out and play in it because he'd seriously outgrown his snowpants. Having received snowpants as a Christmas gift, he's been itchin' to break 'em in. Another little snow-lover was told by her cardiologist that "playing in the snow" for a few weeks must be confined to throwing snowballs at trees or other targets: no snowball fights, no sliding or sledding, no making angels, and definitely no snowmen! So she's been itchin' to get out in a real snowfall too.

So why have they no incentive to go outdoors this afternoon? Was shoveling the walks this morning enough snow-time? Maybe they're getting old and grown-up and boring like me.

I gotta admit, though, I am so glad I'm not trying to make my way to Fort Wayne today on these messy, slippery roads. But we sure are hoping all our loved ones and buddies make it there safely.

Is Sanctification Synergistic?

Probably every Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist homeschooler has had the experience of being told that he isn't really saved. Many of our friends in the homeschool group believe that converion is a synergistic activity: it's something that God and I do together. If my children and I have not made a decision for Jesus, prayed the Believer's Prayer, and invited Him into our lives, we obviously have no use for conversion. We obviously are not saved. We haven't "done" the thing we need to do to participate in our conversion.

We know that's wrong, though. Even though we reject that we are participating in our conversion, we are still nevertheless converted. We cherish what God has done for us in our conversion. Our conversion is immensely important to us.

Some Lutherans believe sanctification and good works are "synergistic" activities: that is, I cooperate with God. Other Lutherans believe that sanctification and good works are monergistic activities: something God works in us though His sacraments, through the call to repentance (that is, real and smiting law), and through the forgiveness of sin (that is, the bestowal of the Gospel).

If a Lutheran believes that sanctification is a monergistic activity, he may be told that he has no use for sanctification. But it isn't true. He still values sanctification. He is still being sanctified. He may disagree with another Lutheran about how that sanctification is being wrought in his life. But that doesn't mean he's averse to sanctification.

Homeschooling a Doctorate?

My husband was interested in doing further study at the seminary. However, it costs a lot, and we don't have the money. It would take a lot of time in Indiana, and he doesn't have that either. And it would involve a lot of driving around the south end of Lake Michigan -- enough to drive a person insane. He didn't want the degree for prestige reasons: who's really gonna care whether he has letters behind his name? Another degree certainly wouldn't make any difference in his salary. So the only purpose of the study is LEARNING. (How's that for a homeschooler's viewpoint? Studying only for the sake of learning something?? Who'da thunk it possible?)

So he dove into teaching himself Latin. He and our friend Tim May got together every other Friday for a year, wading into the Wheelocks Latin textbook. (Mommies and kiddoes sure liked the excuse for play-dates twice a month!) Then Gary was ready to dive into translating, essentially teaching himself Latin through his translating efforts. (Reminds me of Nat Bowditch in one of our favorite books, Carry On, Mr Bowditch.)

A few weeks ago, he finished translating his book: Peter Zorn's The History of the Communion of Infants: Illustrated from the Ancient Times of the Church: First from the West then of the East, after a series of ten centuries and [after] manifold variations. It took a huge amount of work, translating not only Latin, but also some Greek, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish. There were 1300 bibliographical references, and that was no small job to find the translations of all those personal names and place names. Coral and I each got copies of the book for Christmas. (Pretty thrilling until we found out he was looking for proofreaders. LOL!)

I want to brag on him and do the husband-version of the Genius-Child Dance. But somehow, "Genius-Husband Dance" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

Jane's Cowboy Soup

A couple of months ago, I declared Polly's recipe one of the ideal ones.
1) It is quick and easy to make.
2) It is inexpensive.
3) It is nutritious.
4) It uses whole-food ingredients that are often on hand or easily stored.
5) Most importantly, it tastes great!

Another recipe that meets those requirements is Jane's

Cowboy Soup.

Brown 1# ground beef
with 1 small onion, chopped.

Add (liquid and all)
1# can of pinto beans
1# can of black beans
1# can of kidney beans
1# can of navy beans (or great northerns)
1# can of tomatoes
4-oz can of green chilies (optional)
10-16 oz of frozen corn.

When heated, add seasonings.
Jane's recipe says to mix:
1 pkg Hidden Valley Ranch dry dressing mix
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
2 cups water,
and add to soup.
Simmer for 15-20 minutes or more.

I cringe at the price of those little packages, so instead of the seasoning packages, I add:
1 Tbsp dried parsley flakes
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt (or more)
1 tsp dillweed
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
a few cloves minced garlic (or 1 tsp dried garlic powder).
Simmer 15-20 minutes or more.
Shortly before serving, remove from heat and add
1 cup buttermilk.

This soup is excellent when it's naked in your bowl; it's even better when dressed up with cheddar, asiago, or monterey jack, sour cream, and/or Fritos.

In this house, that recipe serves 3. I suspect (for most households) it would serve 8.

Movie about Vivien Thomas

Thursday night we watched Something the Lord Made, a 2004 HBO movie. For anyone who's asked about what's wrong with Maggie's heart, for anyone who would like to know more about her surgeries, this movie tells a lot.

Maggie's first surgery was a Blalock-Taussig Shunt. When I saw an Alan Rickman movie at the library, I nabbed it just for the opportunity to revel in a couple of hours swooning over Alan Rickman's voice. (Turned out that didn't work so well. Alan Rickman with a Southern accent just isn't the same as regular Alan Rickman!) When I looked at the description of the plot on the DVD cover, it was describing Dr Blalock and Mr Thomas's work on saving blue babies born with Tetralogy of Fallot. Dr Taussig shows up a little later in the movie. Mom and Katie, I think you guys are going to want to see this movie! I don't know if other people will get as much out of it as we did; we've been steeped in that particular medical vocabulary and what it's like to have a little baby who's blue.

But even beyond the medical advancements shown in the movie, there are two other aspects of the show that I loved. One is the depiction of the racism during the 1900s, and how Mr Thomas's work basically spit in the eye of racism. Sadly though, Mr Thomas was not given credit until late in his life. Even more honorable (in my opinion) than Mr Thomas's medical achievements was his selflessness in doing the work without the recognition, honor, and pay that he should've received.

The other thing I loved about the movie was the high esteem shown for thinking outside the box, in spite of the naysaying by the people surrounding Mr Thomas and Dr Blalock. Heart surgeries were begun because of a talented high-school graduate who was self-taught in the medical field, was a good problem-solver, and was also talented with his hands and tools. The men's theology may have been wanting, and Maggie says it should've been rated R for foul language, but none of that could stop tears of thankfulness from flowing as we watched the historical events that led up to that little cyanotic girl who turned pink during the first heart surgery!

Trying to Be Good

Within the "confessional camp" in our synod, there seem to be two viewpoints on what sanctification is and how it's accomplished. This became starkly apparent to me at the symposium at the Ft Wayne seminary in January 2005.

I have been told repeatedly that of course we don't believe that our good works will earn us heaven, but nevertheless we'd better try to do good works. If we don't try, if we don't work at it, some say, we're taking our salvation for granted. (This trying to be good is not presented as if it were "merely" the drowning of the sinful nature -- the struggle against sin -- but rather is presented as attempting to pump up and energize the new man of faith.)

It seems to me, though, that when I try, the "trying" is good for neither me nor my neighbor. For me, the trying sends me into navel-gazing. For me, the trying leads me to focus on my piety, and to find my comfort in my piety. (In other words, to make a god of my piety, my goodness.) This is definitely not good for me.

As for my neighbor, my trying is not good for him either. My bottom-line is NOT how I'm doing on good works. But if someone's bottom-line were the good works emanating from the Christian, then where would those good works come from? I have been amazed to see more good works ooze outta my life if'n I'm not "trying." I have found that repeatedly being convicted of sin, confessing it, being absolved, and pretty much giving up on the trrrying is more "effective" in bringing about a right attitude and good works in my life.



There are loads of Bible passages telling us what we should do. That is good; I love those passages. But I have found that I can look at those passages in only two ways:
1) Jesus did it right, and
2) I don't do it right; Lord, have mercy on me.

Some people want me to add a third:
3) Try to do it and be right. Or at least be better.

But I can't. I just can't. If I add that, I change Hebrews 12:2 to "Come, let me fix my eyes on myself, the perfector of the faith which was authored by Jesus." Now, I'm not saying that this is the way everybody responds; I'm saying this is how I respond. I don't know about other people. But I know it's dangerous for me; I am much more inclined to sin by being a pharisee than I am tempted to sin by being a hedonist.

Some pastors preach the law to smash self-righteousness, and then forgive the wretched sinners who have despaired of their own goodness. Other pastors say that's not enough, that Christians must be encouraged to try to be better people. They say that not teaching people to try is the same thing as saying that it's okay to continue in sin, the same as actually being opposed to sanctification.

But it's not the same thing.

Raspberries and blackberries don't try to grow fruit. Assuming that the gardener is pruning and watering and fertilizing, the plants do indeed bear fruit on auto-pilot.

Adult "Children" Living at Home

In typical middle-class American society, it is not considered okay for young adults to live at home with their parents. I recognize that some kids just don't grow up and will continue to sponge off their parents. But it doesn't have to be that way. Through much of history, young adults would live with their parents until such time as they left to make a new home with husband or wife. And even then, sometimes they didn't leave too far, continuing to live on the farm or nearby for running the family business.

My husband and I used to think that it was a pretty good idea for adult children to live at home for a number of reasons. It's certainly not necessary for every kid to stay at home until the wedding day, but it is a concept worthy of serious consideration. It allows kids to save up a nest-egg for a downpayment on a home or college debt or other large expenses. Because of the expense of housing, few young adults live on their own; they must have a roommate. As long as the parents and adult-child can work through issues of freedom and responsibility, it seems far better for the child to be living with "roommates" (i.e., their parents and possibly siblings) who share their beliefs and values and general lifestyle. It's got all the benefits of a commune with none of the drawbacks.

But in the last year, we've discovered an even better reason for kids to continue living at home. My eldest daughter was recently engaged to a very nice young man. Nearly every week for the last year, the two of them have spent at least an evening each week at our house. We've gotten to know Matt. He's gotten to know us. He's grown to be part of the family. Rachel is not marrying somebody who's a stranger to her family. Those Friday evenings have not been the kind of exciting dates most people consider to be part of courtship, but they're a much more realistic type of togetherness. Our son-in-law was a dear family friend before he ever fell in love with my middle daughter, so we knew him and loved him prior to the kids' "interest" in each other. But Matt didn't start out as part of that close family circle. If Rachel had not been living at home, he would not now already be part of that close family circle; we'd be trying to get to know this fellow who was going to be spending his life as part of our family. And, to me, that in itself is of such great value that it is definitely worth any of the struggles that come with the change in relationships when parents are living with their adult children.

Men Are from Mars??

For a good laugh, check out Pastor Petersens' blog that includes an old Dave Barry column.

Published

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Today's mail brought the Winter 2006 issue of Higher Things magazine, and I have an article in it. I've had lots of letters published in newspapers and magazines, and a few brief articles in magazines, and a picture of my photogenic son Paul in Home Education Magazine, and oodles of newsletter articles, but never a whole real article in a snazzy slick magazine. This is so exciting!

Adultery

Okay, you guys. We watched Spanglish as suggested. I'm not sure what I think.

Warning: spoilers ahead! If you don't want to know how the movie turns out, stop reading now. (Personally, I like spoilers. They save me time because I don't have to go back and watch an intriguing movie the second time.)

On the one hand, as Hollywood goes, I figure they think the husband/father and the maid (or nanny or whatever she was) did the right thing, in that "nothing happened." It was refreshing to see a husband being patient with a nutty wife, and being good to his children without undermining his nutso wife.

And yet, it seems to me that the movie glorifies adultery. Not in the way that so many Hollywood movies do. But still, I can't get over the fact that the husband and the nanny ended up on a romantic date, dinner by candlelight with soft music in the background, cuddling the evening away, and even kissing a few times. In my mind, that's cheating on his wife -- Bill Clinton's opinion notwithstanding. It's adultery. Man oh man, if MY husband were "just cuddling" or "just kissing" another woman, I would not be a happy camper! Even though the relationship went no further than that, and even though they put an end to seeing each other [the nanny quit her job], what happened between them was still wrong. Seriously wrong. And yet, we're left with the impression that we're supposed to say "good for them!" that they denied their desires and didn't indulge fully in the adultery that lured them.

The biggest "hooray!" in the movie went to the mom/nanny when she pulled her daughter away from the upper-class white world. The mom had to quit the job to avoid temptation. But the daughter didn't want to leave the Anglo world. She liked her private school and the nice clothes and the friends and the fancy-schmancy house and the pool and all the other trappings. But the mom/nanny knew it was bad for her daughter's values. While the daughter was yelling "I hate you!" and "I'll never forgive you for this!" the mom remained calm and collected, never budging from doing what she knew was right (though highly uncomfortable) for her daughter. That was the shining moment of the film for me!

Klutz Castles

One of Christmas gifts was a new toy from the Klutz folks: a card set for building castles. My youngest simply doesn't have the manual dexterity or the patience to build card-houses. But this set from Klutz is a heavier cardboard than playing cards are, and the cards are slotted, so they fit together without slipping and sliding. Even better, they're decorated as though they were brick or wood, and some cards even have doors or battlements.

It was just in the past year that my 12-yr-old began to understand how to build a simple Lego house, or an interlocking wall of Legos. So this Klutz card set was not easy for her to do, but it was do-able. Some of the older kids (the ones who are very good with spatial skills) have made some pretty cool castles.

For the price, this is one nifty building set!!

"Searching for Bobby Fischer"

Upon recommendation from some friends, we watched this movie. We loved it!

When the young chess whiz was first becoming interested in chess, he arranged his Playmobile people in a chess line-up. My daughter and I both gasped: my kids did that! They played chess with Playmobile kings and knights, with the little kids for pawns.

I loved the line near the middle of the movie where the boy was beginning to feel the pressure of being ranked #1. It went something like this: "Maybe it would be better not to be the best. Then nobody would be disappointed if you lost." There's some serious wisdom there if an over-achieving society has ears to hear.

A Mess

Trust me on this: it is a bad plan to break a liter-sized bottle of olive oil in your trunk, amongst all the other groceries. No. No. I know you want to go try it, just to see if I'm really telling the truth. But really, you should trust me on this. You don't have to test out the veracity of my claim.

If a liter of olive oil is disgorged into a paper grocery-sack, you get to wash every can and bottle in that sack, in very hot and soapy water, before you can put the groceries away. You also will have a big sticky stain on the carpet in the car's trunk. And you will drip olive oil all over the garage floor. Furthermore, no matter how careful you are with the mess, you will of course get way too much olive oil splashed on the kitchen counters and kitchen floor. (Naturally, this spillage will occur only an hour after someone at home mops the kitchen floor while you were fetching the groceries which you decided to slather with olive oil on your way home.)

Unless you stockpile paper towels in your home, you will use up the whole roll of disposable towels in an effort to get olive oil off the kitchen steps, off the kitchen cupboard doors, out of the bottom of the trash can, off the bumper of the car, and off the doorknobs.

And while you are cleaning up this mess, you will overcook the hamburgers for lunch. Which means you also get to spend half an hour scrubbing the broiler pan to remove charred barbecue sauce. Furthermore, the soles of your shoes will be well-greased so that you can skate across the kitchen floor, whether you want to slipslide around or not.

In a few days, today's events will be funny. :-) And I'm sure it was very good for my hands to be doused in that much olive oil for as long as it took me to clean up that mess.
But nevertheless, don't let that tempt you to try it!

Spiritual Auto-Pilot

The comment has been made recently that "some Lutherans think that good works are something that 'just happen' on some sort of a spiritual auto-pilot."

What part of fruit do such people not understand?

For some reason, Jesus called good works the fruit of faith. Last I checked on my grape vines or my blackberry canes, the fruit-bearing actually was on auto-pilot. I suspect Jesus knew that when he used the term "fruit."

(Dan at Necessary Roughness brought up the topic and a little discussion ensued.)

Hospital Update - 2

Today's x-rays showed that Maggie's lung is no longer collapsed; she popped open the bottom lobe. Her left lung still doesn't look quite as clear as her right, but it's open and improving!

She lost weight during the surgery and hospitalization, but she lost even more from the collapsed lung. It was good to see she's gained back half of what she lost from the lung problem.

On the "Insurance meets Speech Therapy" front, I've discovered that our old perfect therapist is still practicing three afternoons a week but is not in-network for insurance coverage. Figuring that we'll have to stay in-network, I started hunting speech therapists. We either have to go to Illinois or to Milwaukee. Most of the Illinois locations are closer than Milwaukee, but take just as long to drive to because of the infamous Chicago traffic. I'm seriously considering paying out-of-pocket for our old therapist because she's so much closer than the other options (one-hour roundtrip instead of two) and because she's entirely willing to train me to do the work so that we only have to go a few times and check back periodically instead of going 3 times weekly.

We're wondering too if the collapsed lung could've led to the hypernasality. Now that the lung is reinflated, maybe we just need to work on undoing the bad habits that took hold while Mag was trying to protect herself from pain in the chest. (Hey, I can hope, can't I?)

Distribution Hymn for Epiphany

The distribution hymn last night was As With Gladness Men of Old, fine but not exactly a hymn on my top-ten list. But I lucked into perfect timing again!

Luther commented on the Lord's Supper being the manger in which He nows lies. "As with joyful steps they sped, Savior, to Thy lowly bed" could refer to us going to the Sacrament as much as it refers to the Wise Men going to see Jesus in His crib. "There to bend the knee before Thee whom heaven and earth adore," and we do kneel at the altar rail. As the mercyseat was the place of God's gracious presence and was the location of the pouring out of the Lamb's atoning blood, "So may we with willing feet ever seek Thy mercyseat!"

An Art, Not a Science

After having spent the evening websurfing items such as ionized calcium levels, renal abnormalities, schizophrenia, and thrombocytopenia, I crawled into bed with a heavy heart and a mind swimming with medical jargon.

When Maggie was first diagnosed with VCFS, it seemed like the experts wanted to put her under a microscope and check for every possible abnormality they could find. And there were so many they could find! After discussion with our family doctor (and with his blessing) we concluded that we'd deal with problems as they arose. But we wouldn't try to check everything periodically "just to see how things are going." I know that's not the typical attitude among Americans. We are told to get our annual check-ups, and to expect that cancer and diabetes and wife-abuse and car accidents and heart attacks are lurking just around the corner, waiting to jump out and destroy us. We are told that if there are enough tests and screenings, we can find these things early and do something about them. Sometimes that's true. Other times it causes needless worry. The whole mindset of expecting there to be problems can, in itself, influence attitudes so as to create new problems where they wouldn't have been. How many times I've read articles for parents of special-needs kids, trying to convince the parents to see the child as a person instead of a Mishmosh Of Diagnoses! Thanks, docs, but I'd prefer to live with the person who is my beloved daughter than to begin wading in the pool of Mishmosh.

Furthermore, I don't believe in traditional Western medicine to the extent that most of the experts do. I believe that science informs medicine, and we are grateful for what we've learned. But nevertheless, medicine is an art, not a science. All drugs have side-effects. The decision to use a drug is made when the benefits outweigh the side-effects. But experts who believe in science (to the same extent that I believe in God) oftentimes don't want to acknowledge the downsides of their Wonder Cures. The experts also have too little regard for nutrition. The Cherrix case (the 16 yr old from Chincoteauge who wanted to treat his second bout of cancer through alternative means) is a high-profile example that alternative views are not acceptable. It's not usually okay to tell a doctor "no thank you for the prescription vitamins/minerals" because I serve a lot of raw foods and give my daughter enzymes & probiotics with her Real Food home-cooked meals and let her drink kombucha.

Beyond the alternative views on medicine, what about alternative views on education? Education is not a science either. There is a particular path we are supposed to follow for the education of VCFS kids. I don't like where that path leads. When I went to a few support group meetings, the parents were beside themselves with frustration over their kids' inability to read, do math, get along with the other kids at school. They were spending huge amounts of time fighting the school for appropriate attention for their kids. It was like they were on a hamster's exercise wheel, expending all this energy fighting the system, getting nowhere. Thing is, even at its best, the system isn't giving the kind of results I want for my child. So instead, we here are doing it "wrong." We're not using the textbooks recommended by the experts. We're not on a strict schedule. We're not trying to make this child fit a mold that is wrong for her. And it seems to be working out smashingly well. Math is a struggle and always will be, but Maggie can understand stories, and by all rights, she's not supposed to be able to do that. We get along with each other. She has friends. The doctor commented yesterday on how incredibly well we're coping with the VCFS. Maggie doesn't see herself as a defective person who needs to spend all day every day being tweaked and repaired and improved. This is good.

Everybody thinks the heart surgery was a big deal. Well, I suppose it was. But surgery is a cake-walk compared to these kinds of decisions. Surgery was one big (scary) to-do; a mechanical fix to a misfitted pipe, done and over with in due time. But these decisions are long-term. They influence what we do every day, influence what kind of stories we read, influence the schedule, influence what we eat and when, influence when we can pray. These decisions will impact our thoughts and feelings and relationships and self-esteem and time constraints. These are decisions that put us in a position where we have to tell the experts that we know better than they do what is best for this one particular child. Because medicine is an art, not a science. But try telling that to people whose god is the "science of medicine."

Mice

What does this cat think her job IS, anyway???

Christmas Eve, my husband thought he heard a noise in the basement, but dismissed it. The next day, I went downstairs to get something and found a canning jar busted on the concrete floor. Closer examination proved that a mouse had been on that shelf and just bumped the glass jar far enough that gravity took over.

Creatures who leave poop on my shelves should die. (Exemptions made for human creatures who are having diaper issues.) Traps were set. Mousie got away with the snack on the first night. He died the second night. Traps have caught nothing since, and there have been no signs of any more blasted critters.

Yesterday I was doing paperwork for taxes and medical records. When I opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet (next to the shelves where mousie bit the dust) I found a huge messy nest. I screamed. I hate it when they start eating my insurance policies and the car-repair receipts. But not only that, the little monsters shred the tabs on the file folders so that you can't find the correct folder to put things away. Highly inconvenient.

At least they haven't resorted to an "upstairs apartment" in the file cabinet, where they could be eating tax forms and receipts I need for the IRS!

Hospital Update - 1

We saw the ENT today because of questions regarding Maggie's hypernasality. (That means her voice is coming from her sinuses instead of from her throat.) The hypernasality was of sudden onset following surgery. The problem is not as bad as it was prior to her palate surgery six years ago. It's also good that there's been some slight improvement over the past five weeks. The doctor said we need an in-depth speech evaluation, an x-ray movie of what's going on when she's speaking, and possibly a visual look via the camera they thread through your nose. It will be an all-day appointment. He said he was hopeful that something as simple as a few months of therapy might be able to get her speech back on track and prevent it from deteriorating. With the sudden onset of the change, he's hopeful that it can be fixed relatively easily. (Right now, a few months of speech therapy -- with 60 or more minutes of driving for each appt -- does not sound "relatively easy" to me!)

He did not offer any explanations of what caused this change in Maggie's speech. He did say that occasionally use of the heart-lung machine may cause small clots that could lodge somewhere. He said these clots can cause memory loss, or minor stroke symptoms, or partial paralysis. So he postulated that there may have been something that interfered in a small way with her ability to move her pharynx and palate. But that's just a guess.

He also encouraged us to bring her in for the "VCFS Clinic" which pulls together all the specialists that would be needed for kids with VCFS. This is where the decisions become really difficult. One of the reasons Maggie is doing so well is because we're not doing what is "supposed" to be done with VCFS kids. On the one hand, we don't want to ignore problems that could be helped. On the other hand, sometimes the help brings with it side effects (from drugs or therapies) that outweigh the benefit. So this is going to be a gut-wrenching decision.

The Prize-Winner

The movie The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio gives some interesting food for thought with regard to one's station in life. The story is set in the 50s and 60s. The mom of a large family enters contests and writes jingles; her winnings bail out the family from some close brushes with financial ruin. The problem is that the husband is an alcoholic and sometimes abusive.

What's interesting to watch is a husband who is often remorseful for his inability to provide for his family, who often regrets his enslavement to the bottle, but who nevertheless loves his wife and kids and would like to be able to do what is right. And we see a wife who loves him and forgives him, a wife who mothers the children and keeps the home going in spite of the difficulties, a woman who maintains a cheerful attitude and sticks with him, sinner though he be. It's not a pie-in-the-sky movie, but it nevertheless provides a startling contrast to the typical Hollywood fare wherein the husband is a lout, and where the woman finds happiness only through ditching him. It's not for little kids: there's "language" when the dad is in his drunken rages. But for the most part, it turns out a whole lot better than I would've ever expected from a movie. And there are a lot of funny parts and some good sound outlooks on life -- a general "feel good" movie.

How Did Simeon Know?

"And it had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple."

I had always thought of that in a mystic sort of way, that somehow the Holy Spirit gave Simeon a "feeling" or implanted an idea in his head. But a year or so ago, I noticed something in the previous chapter. Everybody knew what had happened with Zachariah and Elizabeth. They all knew that something was up with that baby. They knew that Zachariah had seen an angel while he was ministering at evening prayer. They knew that he was mute until he prophesied at John's circumcision. The rumor mill was not silent; Mary told Luke not only about the events of John's birth, but also that it was the talk of the town, and Luke recorded it under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So I figured that Simeon knew that the Messiah was due "pretty soon."

But then Pastor pointed out that John's birth wasn't the only grist for the rumor mill. The shepherds told gobs of people what had happened when Jesus was born.

So Simeon didn't need some weird feeling from God to make him go to the temple that day. He'd heard the news. He'd heard the reports. If he himself hadn't heard the preaching of the shepherds, he heard the scuttlebutt from those who did. Baby boys were presented on the 40th day. If you wanted to see the Messiah, and you'd heard what happened with Zachariah, and then heard what happened to the shepherds, it'd sure be easy enough to count up the days on the calendar and thus know when you could find Mary and Joseph at the temple.

Simeon was not an Enthusiast!

Unschooling Article

The Chicago Sun-Times recently ran an article on unschooling that is just great! I found it amusing that one of the parents used the term "factoids" like I do. What I thought was weird was the one unschooling dad who said, "We don't know that children are innately curious." Good grief, what children has he been observing? Granted, children's curiosity can be thwarted and squashed, but they are innately curious.

Hail, Highly Favored Lady

Driving to church on Sunday afternoon, I was looking for something on the radio. When I hit the pre-set button for NPR, the first carol that came on was "Gabriel's Message" (LSB 356), not exactly what I expected from NPR, but very welcome! It fit well with Sunday morning's Gospel.

Gabriel called Mary "highly favored one" and said she was blessed among women. When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, she too called Mary "blessed among women."

What does it mean to be "highly favored"? Some of my friends almost make it sound like there was something special about Mary, something different, that caused God to choose her to be the Mother of Our Lord. Or if not that, maybe God made her into something special, something different, so that she could be His mother.

But what if Mary really was "just like us"? What if she really was just as much a sinner as I am? Like Pastor says, "favored" is grace-language. Isn't is possible that the title "highly favored one" is due not to what she was in her own person (with or without God's help) but rather due to what He declared her to be and because of the copious amounts of grace He was going to be showering upon her over the next 30+ years?

But if "highly favored" isn't about Mary's self, then you have to start wondering where the favor is. Surely it's not something as self-centered as being "famous" and that we all know about her. Instead, there were the realities of life she had to face when her family suspected that she been behaving sleezily, and then when she was on the run as a refugee, and then when she was tagged as the mother of a rabble-rouser -- that's not the kind of "favor" from God that most of us covet.

Gabriel calls her highly favored. Elizabeth calls her blessed. And Simeon says that a sword will pierce her soul. Personally, I suspect I'd tell God that I didn't want that kind of favor or blessing. Who needs pain and suffering? Who wants to be the outcast? Who wants to have her soul pierced?

And yet, maybe that's where the favor is found.

Maybe she is "highly favored" because she was appointed for a very difficult life, a life full of suffering, and that she would have a soul pierced in a way that she'd never choose for herself. When we suffer, we're driven to depend upon Jesus in a way that we never would otherwise. When our soul is pierced, He binds us up.

And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly will I rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12)

Maybe the "high favor" and the "blessedness" of Mary is the great measure of grace she received, commensurate with the sufferings she endured in being the mommy of Jesus. As much as we all hate suffering, would we actually choose to trade the comfort of the Absolution for something "easy"? Jesus said of a different Mary, "She loved much, for she was forgiven much." Maybe that's also related to the anfechtung that His mom would endure. Maybe the "high favor" was that the Blessed Virgin just needed to receive more of the Gospel, more of God's love, more of His support, more of His forgiveness, to continue living out the life she was called to as the Mother of Our Lord.

The Alpha and the Omega

My husband has spent the last year listening to the Bible read aloud on CD. He mostly listens while he's driving. He's near the end. So last night, on our way to church for the Feast of St John, Apostle and Evangelist, he asked if we could listen to Revelation for his first time through that CD. That made a very interesting juxtaposition of readings. The first reading at church was from Revelation 1. The epistle was 1 John 1, and the Gospel was John 21. Oodles of John last night!

After spending the last year going through Leviticus on Thursday mornings, it surprised me how much of Leviticus (the priestly garments, the tabernacle furnishings and sacrifices) showed up in Revelation that I'd never noticed before.

It's also interesting to think of what it was that John was seeing and then trying to describe with words that just weren't adequate for the task. If one cannot describe the indescribable, just what does the indescribable look like??

Listening to the whole book read in one big swoop, I also noticed how often Jesus refers to Himself as the "Alpha and Omega." I had always thought of that simply as the "first and the last," the "beginning and the end." Maybe it was because of last night's sermon, and the emphasis on the Word, the testimony, the witness, the preaching... but whatever it was, it made me realize that Jesus' being the Alpha and the Omega has to do not just with starts and finishes, but also with the alphabet. If He is "A to Z," that means all words, all sentences, all writing, all speech, all words, proceed from Him. (Of course, that doesn't contradict the reality that we can pervert words and use them against His will. But without Him, there could be no words.)

"This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true."

Picking Up

Sometimes it gets to the point that the kids just can't pick up when the mother tells them to. They go to the bedroom. They make an attempt. But nothing really gets accomplished. Not quite understanding why this is, the mother then sits on the bed, giving instructions, micro-managing the kid's way through the picking-up chore.

Ah. Then the mother discovers why "picking up" has not resulted in a "picked-up room" for the last month or so.

Why is it that we must keep candy wrappers under the bed or in the sock drawer instead of putting them in the garbage can? If a person were to actually go to the trouble to PICK UP the candy wrapper and "put it away" in a sock drawer, mightn't it just have been easier to drop it in the waste can that's right there?

Why is it that receipts for the last several candy bars are being stowed away in the jewelry box? Now, stowing chocolate itself in the jewelry box... that I can understand: it's valuable stuff. But the receipts?

Why is it that a person can helpfully be making orange juice for the family, and manage to leave the lid of the frozen-concentrate jar on the counter rather than dropping it in the garbage can, when the garbage can is easier to access than was the place the lid got left?

Why is it that doll clothes were "put away" by being moved from the middle of the dresser-top to a corner of the dresser-top, when the doll-clothes bucket was right there handy?

Why is it that when you tell a child to "put away" the ponytail bands, they get shoved into the right drawer, but the child does not take the extra half a second to put them in the right spot in that drawer?


This is not rocket science.
This is not stuff that hasn't already been explained repeatedly.

There must be some magnetic frequency running through our house, pushing Stuff away from its proper storage location.

Well, back to the micro-managing....

Christmas Reflections

It's fun to have a big group of people singing Happy Birthday to a little girl in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas afternoon.

I don't recall any previous Christmas with so much Nerf weaponry and light sabres. PEACE on earth??

We bought altogether too many DVDs with TV series and movies. The comedies should help us laugh our way through the dismal days of February when the sun refuses to shine.

When I went to town today, there wasn't a single Christmas tree out on the curb for garbage pick-up. Either people are keeping their trees up past the 25th, or nobody has real trees anymore. I'm hoping that the lack of curbside trees at least somewhat indicates people may be continuing the celebration on into Christmastide.

Karaoke is harder than it looks. I thought I knew those country pop songs. But when I have to sing lead without the printed music in front of me, I flop. (At least I'm embarrassing myself in the privacy of my own home!) I wonder where I can get TLH or LSB hymns for karaoke? ;-)

I hear tell that some people get stressed out by a house full of company. Boy, I think it's a blast! It may not be quiet, but it's fun! Or maybe it's just that the people who descend upon our house are such joys to be with!

Christmas Sermon

You may wish to read Pastor Petersen's Christmas Eve sermon which expresses appreciation for the secularization of the holiday.

My "Eve" Pet Peeve

According to Genesis 1, the day begins at sundown, goes through the night, through the daylight hours, and ends at sunset. That's why the Jewish sabbath begins at Friday sunset. That's why we begin celebrating Easter at the Vigil on Saturday after sundown. That's why Christmas Eve is the evening of the 24th.

But we get all out of kilter because we know October 31st as Halloween. The evening of the 31st is the eve of All Hallows Day (also known as All Saints Day, November 1). And so the misconception has spread. We talk about "Christmas Eve Day" and "New Years Eve Day."

But the one that really struck me as funny was the sign at the Evangelical Free Church in town today. "New Years Eve Service -- 10 a.m." Ten in the morning. What part of evening do they not understand?

Veiled in Flesh

I love having distribution hymns during communion.

This evening, just as the pastor was holding up the host before my eyes, preparing to place it into my mouth, the congregation was singing, "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see." Think of that: he's holding God in his hand, about to put God into my mouth, and I can see it with my eyeballs. "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see."

And then, as we're singing "Hail the incarnate deity," the deacon is pouring the enfleshed deity from the chalice into my mouth.

How come God so often sees fit to bless me with that kind of timing at the communion rail? It is just so cool!

Welcome to the Family?

Shame on me.... telling funny, embarrassing tales on my nephew.

A bunch of my Illinois family was here yesterday and today, celebrating Christmas and visiting. After supper was all cleaned up, Nathan (my good buddy and now also my son-in-law) and I went to town to do my paper route. While we were gone, one of the boys was given the job of passing out gift-envelopes from Grandpa and Grandma. When we got home, my nephew comes up to me and Nathan and hands us our envelopes.

Josh says to Nathan, "I'm not sure why you get one of these."

Nathan was sitting near Matt (the boyfriend of my other daughter) and noticed that Matt had an envelope from my folks too. So Nathan pointed this out to Joshua.

Joshua responded, "Well, HE's Rachel's boyfriend."

Nathan pointed out that he was Katie's husband.

"Yeah. So?"

Apparently, Matt's popularity with the little kids counts for more than wedding rings and a marriage license and God's pronouncement. LOL! My mom says that we're stuck with Matt now, because the cousin's have no intention of letting him go. Matt is as popular with the kids as is my cousin Eric -- and that is no small feat.

Well, I guess I'm about as popular with the kids as Nathan is. Maybe that's why he and I are such good friends. :-)

Solstice

The rejoicing should be commencing. The days are now getting longer, or so the scientists tell us. This normally brings much relief to the females of this family. (And hence, it brings a secondary form of relief to the males of this family. Let the reader understand.) Yes, it's true, as Dave says, that winter's cold has barely begun. But the sun is headed north again!

If there is still a sun.

It's been raining and dark here for the last 42 hours. I guess we have to take it on faith that there's still a sun up there, behind the clouds, on the other side of the constant rain. (Not that I'm complaining about rain! Oh no! There's been too much drought for too long to be complaining of rain! Is it too much to ask, though, to have rain AND sunshine at the same time? Oh. Yeah. I guess it is.... But I digress.)

Maggie, having been sprung from confinement, hit up the library yesterday. She brought home a video of The Silver Chair. There's the scene where the witch is trying to convince Rillian and the kids that there is no sun, that it's just a figment of their imagination. Kinda funny thing to be watching on the shortest day of the year, especially when the brightest part of the whole day was about as luminescent as 4:30 a.m. in June.

But in spite of the darkness, we have light. We have the light that makes me happy in a shallow sort of way: too many natural light light-bulbs wasting electricity. And we have the Light that brings real and non-shallow joy. For Advent, I've been trying to teach my minions children the Phos Hilaron. "Joyous light of glory of the immortal Father; heavenly, holy, blessed Jesus Christ. We have come to the setting of the sun, and we look to the evening light. We sing to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are worthy of being praised with pure voices forever. O Son of God, o Giver of Life: the universe proclaims Your glory." The canticle goes so well with lighting Advent candles in the evening. And it just thrills the heart to think of how vividly the Easter Vigil's canticles will hit the ear after having made a habit of singing the Phos Hilaron at sundown.

You Know You're _____ When...

You know you're old when the popular "retro toys" of the Christmas season are things that were brand new (or not even available yet) when you were already grown up.

You know you're a country girl when the kids say "P.U. I smell something that stinks; it must be pigs," and you say, "No! That's cows, not pigs! Cows don't stink. Can't you tell the difference?!?"

You know you're getting grinchy when you wonder if you'll bother to take the time to decorate for Christmas ten years hence.

You know you're giving up too much privacy online when your own children read your blog and thus know which packages under the tree hold underwear.

You know you're forgetful when you had a lot more of these items that you'd planned to write, but you can't remember them by the time you get your hands on the computer.

Hospital Update - 14

The x-rays this morning were much better. Last week's x-rays showed two of the three lobes of Maggie's left lung collapsed, and the top lobe starting to go. This week, the top two lobes look good, and only the bottom lobe is still collapsed. This has resulted in much less shoulder pain for Maggie, as well an increase in her appetite. She's still not eating much, but she's eating a whole lot more than the nothing she was nibbling at last week.

The doctor says she's allowed to go to Sunday School and sing in the Christmas program. He said singing would be good for her, and that we should continue the coughing and the balloon-blowing and the percussing on her chest. He assured her that this problem wouldn't cause her to be hospitalized on Christmas. But he stressed that she still has a lot of work to do to inflate that bottom lobe of the lung. And I think her motivation to work hard on her breathing exercises just flew out the window. That means I'm really going to have to be the mean naggy mommy who oversees every moment of the lung exercises.

We go back in two weeks. On Tuesday we see the ENT who did her palate surgery. On Thursday we do more x-rays to check out the progress on her lung.

DVDs at Borders

What a deal!
Usually the best coupon or sale-price you can get on DVDs at Borders is 20% off. Even the employees can't get more than that on their best Employee Appreciation Days. But right now, for Tuesday and Wednesday only, Borders is offering a coupon that permits 40% off DVD boxed sets. One coupon per customer per day. There are some things we've wanted but didn't want to pay for. Now, at 40% off, it puts those items on the wish-list into reach.

Hoover Savvy

I bought a Hoover Savvy vacuum cleaner in April. It has "wind tunnel technology." It is in for repairs under warranty for the FOURTH time right now. Each time has been over a week. This time it will be at least two weeks before I can pick it up. Last time it was in for repairs, I finally gave up and bought a Panasonic. The Panasonic is used when the Hoover is being repaired and will be there in April when the warranty runs out on the Hoover. I can keep using the Hoover (if and when it's operable) for 5 more months. But I am not going to pay for repairs every six weeks once my warranty runs out.

Long Lines

No, not at the grocery store or Best Buy. Not long lines turning left out of the mall's parking lot.

A long line for the confessional. This evening, I had to wait more than half an hour for my turn to go to private confession. That's happened before, but usually it's prior to a Lenten service. Such lines are not common in LCMS churches. It is such an incredible blessing to have to wait in line, though, knowing that your brothers and sisters value this Word of Absolution as dearly as you do yourself!

Collapsed Lung

The doctor suggested on Thursday that Maggie blow up balloons. Those little exercise machines are boring to use. Coughing (as a lung exercise) isn't any more fun. But balloons ... ah! The doctor said blowing up balloons always used to be recommended for helping the lungs after surgery. But nowadays balloons are dangerous and evil; they aren't allowed in the hospital because it would be a choking hazard. So we bought 12 dozen balloons on the way home from the hospital on Thursday.

Maggie has to blow up each balloon over and over, until it's too easy to expand, 3-5 times per balloon. I just figured the balloons would get thrown away after that, but nooooooo. Someone decided these balloons needed to be tied up and saved for playing with. When the living room floor had been entirely taken over by balloons, the plan morphed. Balloons were conjoined into tetrahedrons, pyramids, and cubes. Eventually all balloon configurations became cubic, simply because more could be jammed into a smaller space that way. But eventually the living room floor was being obscured by Balloon Cubic-Art. Someone else came up with a new notion: stacking them. The squareness of the configurations allowed the sections to interlock and stack. So we then had towers of red and yellow balloons, like stalagmites growing out of the carpet. Someone posited that we forego the Christmas tree this year, and simply decorate a balloon-tower or two. Youngest child recognized that the ornament hooks might possibly "do in" a balloon tower prior to Epiphany. So we knuckled under to the power of tradition and bought a tree anyhow.

Unfortunately, by this time of the season, there's not a lot of choice left at the cut-your-own farms. Andrew and I chose a tree that had a decent shape and was as short as we wanted. Boy, it was prickly! I'm used to the firs I had been growing on the north side of the property. But my homegrown firs have all been used up for Christmases past, and now I have to pay someone else for a tree. This one was a spruce. It was so pokey and sharp that we used leather work gloves while stringing the lights.

One of the kids asked on Friday night what we were going to do with ALL these balloons. I had said that I never intended for them to be tied, but rather that they just be thrown away flat. So we'd probably just get a pin and bust them when we were sick of having balloons everywhere. After finishing up altar-guild duty at church today, I arrived home to find children thowing balloon configurations at the tree. The needles are so sharp that they instantly pop the balloons. And it's really cool to throw six balloons at the tree, all tied together, and hear the pop-pop-popping as the branches snag those balloons. The kids say it sounds like a machine gun. If we keep throwing balloons at the tree and leaving broken bits of red latex on the tree, maybe we won't have to hang the traditional ornaments....

This stunt could end up in family legend with the delightfully noisy time the kids got to ride bikes over yards and yards of big fat bubble-wrap.

Leviticus 26

We've been going through Leviticus all year for Thursday morning Bible study. Pastor is just tickled with Kleinig's commentary on the book. One of the things Pastor has been harping on repeatedly is how the "law" is not just a moral code, but is mostly about the sacrificial system and the ordering of the worship in the tabernacle. So when Jesus "fulfills the law," it's not just that He was a good boy, but that everything in the Torah is about Him -- the altar, the incense, the priest's garments, the blood, the mercyseat, the veil, the lampstand, the lambs, the doves -- everything points to Him and His atonement for sin.

The moral code is important too. But Pastor has repeatedly made the point that the "law" (as in, the Torah) spends so much more time on how sin is atoned for than it spends on how to "be good."

Pastor took us to Daniel 9 in connection with Lev 26. At Sinai, God was telling His people to be faithful. If they weren't faithful, thus-and-so is what would happen to them. And it was exactly what happened to them -- both their sin and the consequences of it. It sounds almost like you're reading a history of Israel in the past tense. So 1000 years later, Daniel is sitting in Babylon, reading his Bible and meditating upon it, and sees what God spoke through Moses way back when. So Daniel repents and fasts, and he prays in accord with the words of Leviticus.

Daniel prays: "Cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate" which reminds one of the phraseology of Psalm 80. Then he goes on, reminding Yahweh of the promises of Lev 26:40ff. "O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act!" (I just love that triple "O Lord." You'd almost be tempted to think that the OT Christians believed in the Trinity or something....)

And then Pastor took us to 2 Corinthians 12, about how knowing our weakness is good for us, and how His forgiving grace is the only strength we need. In Lev 26, we read about the chastening that God would provide when the people became stiff-necked and rebellious. In Daniel 9, we read about the same thing, after the fact. And in Corinthians, we read that the chastening is something in which to rejoice, because it calls us to repentance and it is there where we (like Daniel) encounter God's mercy.

So when I looked at the very last verse of Lev 26, where it says "These are the statutes and judgments and laws," I wondered "WHAT are the statutes and judgments and laws?" The moral code? The ten commandments? The promise of punishment? Or might the judgment be intimately tied in with verses 44-45: that God will be gracious and merciful to His people for the sake of His promise EVEN THOUGH they/we are scumbags.

Then, to top it all off, the psalm for the next morning was 102, reinforcing all those points from Bible class the day before.

Cooking Lessons

A child is called into the kitchen to slice apples with the cool tool that the kids love to use. She has a hard time placing the apples on the tines straight, so that the corer cuts out the core instead of the good part of the apple.

Lesson the child learns? If you can't get the apple on straight, the machine often breaks the apple into big chunks instead of slicing it nicely.

Lesson the mom learns? If you have to cut cores out of already-sliced apples, it would've been easier to do it yourself.



A child is making the topping for Apple Betty. He needs to measure the brown sugar. What's left in the container "looks about right." So he asks the mother. She says it's not enough and that he needs to open the new bag to get more sugar. So he dumps the contents of the container into the melted butter and proceeds to open the new bag of sugar.

Lesson the child learns? Once you've dumped sugar into a liquid, it is very hard to measure the sugar to know how much is there, and how much more you need.

Lesson the mom learns? Sometimes it's easier to do it yourself.



The child who is neglecting to measure the sugar plops the tightly packed brown sugar into a bowl of melted butter.

Lesson the child learns? Throwing a huge clump of brown sugar into melted butter surprisingly causes the melted butter to splash violently out of the bowl. (Who'da thunk it?)

Lesson the mom learns? Sometimes it's easier to do it yourself.


Now, how does the mom unlearn the lesson that her children so thoroughly taught her today? Because if she doesn't unlearn her lesson, the children will never get a chance to make more mistakes and eventually learn to do it right.

Oh, but melted butter splashed all over.....

No Room in the Inn

I had always thought of Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem and finding an overcrowded city, so that there was no room available for them. But Pastor has pointed out the last year or two that Bethlehem was the place Joseph's family was from. The reason Mary & Joseph were there was because it was time for Joseph's family to be registered in the census. It wasn't necessarily strangers who were refusing a pregnant Mary a place to stay. It was the extended family. And it's very likely they were disgusted with the behavior of Mary & Joseph, not wanting to countenance the apparent adultery between the two that resulted in Mary's huge tummy.

He came to His own, and His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God.

Hospital Update - 13

We took Maggie to cardiology for her follow-up visit today.

The good news is that her "conduit" (the new pulmonary artery) is working perfectly, according to the doctor.

The bad news, though, is that the bottom 2/3 of her left lung is collapsed. This explains the weird pain in her shoulder. I'm wondering if it might also explain the serious lack of appetite.

The x-rays from her next-to-last day in the hospital showed some lung problem. It was a little bit increased the day we took her home. She was given instructions on how to use the spirometer to exercise her lungs. She was told to cough a lot. She was told to take deep breaths. But she didn't. It hurt to do so, so she just didn't. I would remind her to use the spirometer, but she would use it for a brief time and then put it down when I wasn't looking. The x-ray today was far far worse than the x-ray from two weeks ago.

The doctor explained to Maggie that there's nothing he can do to help her. There's nothing her parents can do to help her. SHE has to do this. SHE has to cough and blow up balloons and exercise with the spirometer. He also explained to her that neglect to exercise her lungs will lead to pneumonia and possibly spending Christmas in the hospital. That certainly got her attention. I think she made herself cough about every 2-3 miles on the way home. Good!

Doctor is skeptical of the likelihood that the rash was a penicillin reaction. But he had no other explanation. A late reaction to the meds is pretty rare, but neither is it impossible.

We asked about the hypernasality (the change in her voice after surgery, with her voice coming out her nose again instead of out her mouth). He suggested we go back to ENT who did her palate surgery and get his opinion. Another appointment....

We also noticed at pre-op that her scoliosis is worsening. We should have taken her to the osteopath prior to surgery, but it didn't cross my mind. Now we have to wait another 2-3 months for an adjustment to her spine. Can't very well have a doctor yanking bones around and popping vertebrae into place when the breastbone is still knitting itself back together. So I hope the scoliosis doesn't worsen too much in the next few months.

Maggie asked about going to Sunday School, in hopes of still getting to sing with the rest of the kids for the Christmas program. But because of the likelihood of contracting pneumonia, she is stuck in her confinement for another week. We have to go back to the hospital on Tuesday for more x-rays, looking for improvement or worsening.

Suuuuuure We Communicate Here

We're having company on Friday night. Rachel's boyfriend's family is coming over. Sounds good. At Didache on Monday night, Rachel (my oldest daughter) and Matt (her boyfriend) invited Katie (my second daughter) to join us on Friday night for the festivities. It was naturally assumed by all involved that of course Nathan (Katie's husband) is also invited. So at lunch yesterday, the conversation got convoluted. If anybody ever wanted to see an action plan for How Rumors Start, he ought to observe our family communicate for a while.

Mom to Dad: Rachel and Matt invited Katie to come on Friday night.

Kid #6 to Mom: What about Nathan?

Mom to kid #6: I don't know. What about Nathan?

Kid #6: Why can't Nathan come?

Mom to kid #6: Who said Nathan can't come?

Kid #5 (around the corner in another room): Nathan can't come????

Mom to kid #5: Who said Nathan can't come?

Kid #5: WHY can't Nathan come?

Mom: Nobody said Nathan can't come! They didn't invite Nathan on Monday night because Nathan wasn't there at class to invite. They invited Katie, and she will...

Kid #6 (interrupting Mom): They didn't invite Nathan??

Mom: They didn't talk to Nathan on Monday because Nathan wasn't at class. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to come with Katie.

Kid #4 (relishing the chance to tweak younger people): Nathan wasn't at class. That means he didn't come.

Kid #6: WHY can't Nathan come??

Mom to kid #6: Nathan didn't come on MONDAY night. He can come on Friday night.

Dad (joining in with kid #4's tweaking): Why can't Nathan come?

And so forth and so on. After all this, some of us were laughing hard enough that there were tears in our eyes. We finally managed to get a grip on ourselves, breathe deeply, get everybody straightened out on the Monday night situation as well as the Friday night invitations, and start clearing the table.

So, after church on Wednesday, we're sitting around eating cheesecake ... as well as fighting with cardboard boxes in an attempt to overpower their newfangled technology. Rachel proceeds to tell us that Matt invited his brother Greg for Friday night too. And she invited Katie. End of statement.

Mom: You invited Katie. Matt invited Greg. Uh, Matt IS aware, isn't he?, that Katie is married? We don't need to set her up with his brother.

Rachel: I didn't say that!

Mom: Sure sounded like it to me. You've got two people inviting two other people of the opposite sex. Sounds like attempted matchmaking. But Katie's already taken.

Rachel: What's with the matchmaking?? There's no matchmaking. Nathan is coming on Friday night.

Kid #4 (still tweaking): Who says Nathan is coming on Friday? I thought Nathan wasn't coming.

Kid #5: Wait! Nathan isn't coming? But I thought you said he WAS!

Rachel: Yes, Nathan is coming.

Dad (still tweaking): But did you invite him on Monday night?

Rachel: No, he wasn't there.

Mom (tweaking too): See, he wasn't there. You didn't invite him.

Kid #6: WHY didn't you invite Nathan?

Mom (still tweaking): I think we should invite Nathan so he knows what's going on.

By this point, most of us from the lunch conversation are laughing uproariously, while Rachel is getting more and more confused. We proceeded to explain how the earlier conversation had gone, and how her comments just re-ignited the whole thing, along with geniune confusion on the part of the youngest member of the family.

They say good families communicate.

Oops.

OCD Jogging

While Maggie was in the hospital, I skipped jogging eight times in a week and a half. After that, especially with the cold air and the cloudy & foggy days, it is SO hard to make myself go out and jog.

It's like I have failed if I skip exercise just one day. One transgression seems to give me "permission" to skip again, since I've already failed. The same thing happens with washing dishes, or prayers, or dusting, or the kids' math. Something similar happens with horizontal surfaces after the living room is cleaned. The end table and the coffee table and the buffet will stay clean for a while ... until one person puts one item there, and then it's like everybody has permission to leave mugs and socks and books and pencils and drawings on that particular horizontal surface.

It seems like maybe I'm beginning to learn that a person can keep starting over, and that one failure does not mean that we will be forever consigned to ditching family prayers or jogging or vacuuming or whatever. There's also the benefit of harnessing that obsessive-compulsive tendency. If I know that allowing myself to skip jogging today means that I will be giving myself an excuse to skip jogging every day for the rest of the week, that gives me more incentive to discipline the flesh and do what needs to be done NOW.

Harry-and-David Boxes

We received a gift of Harry-and-David fruit in today's mail. As we're sitting around the supper table being silly and eating leftover wedding-cheesecake, one kid tries to open the apple box to pull out an apple. She couldn't. Now, surely you would think an adult woman should be able to open a fruit box. After struggling for a moment, one of the other kids gives her the helpful hint: "Push on the circles on the sides, and then lift the lid." Hey, it worked. Then second-kid announces that these are Technologically Advanced Cardboard Boxes. Next, second-kid announces that they are Child-Proof Fruit Boxes, so as to prevent children from getting into the fruit box and overdosing on vitamins. I can barely work the VCR or the alarm clock, and now they're making cardboard boxes too complicated for me to figure out!

Frugality and Underwear

Oh darn -- how do you talk about underwear without thoroughly embarrassing the owners of said underwear?

Someone gave me a tip several years ago with regard to laundry. With a bunch of boys in the house, she said that I could distinguish whose laundry was whose by utilizing the different name-brands and their unique features. For example, one boy gets gray socks, another gets white socks, and the third gets white socks with gray heels. It makes it easier to get laundry sorted and back to its owner.

It seems like I'm buying underwear all the time. Enough friends have mentioned that the gifts will be an "underwear and socks Christmas" that I think other people get stuck buying underwear "all the time" too. Today while doing laundry, I noticed something. One of the males in my household hasn't needed new underwear since my mom bought some as a gift over three years ago. (See, that's my excuse for buying underwear for Christmas gifts. My mommy taught me to do it!) That fellow's 3-yr-old underwear is still in fantastic shape. So I web-hunted. Towncraft is available at JC Penneys, and it costs three or four times as much as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom. But it lasts SO much longer that it's cheaper in the long run.

And thus ends the embarrassing frugality observation of the day.

My next job is to find out if there's enough variety in Towncraft that I could buy it and still figure out whose laundry is whose when I'm sorting and folding. OR I could start making these guys do their own laundry. But that would probably be more work than it's worth. Besides, they cook for me sometimes and clean my bathrooms and mow my lawn; surely I can wash their laundry.

Dead Mushrooms

A while back, someone asked about kombucha mushrooms that had been in the refrigerator for several months. Sadly enough, I think I learned today that it's not a good plan to try. Better to get your hands on a new mushroom.

I left one batch of kombucha brewing while we were at the hospital for that week. I set aside some mushrooms in the fridge, in glass containers, covered. Using those "saved mushrooms," I set a batch of kombucha to brew last Tuesday and another batch on Thursday. Neither one has done anything but sit there. No new mushroom has grown. No carbonation has developed. No tangy taste. No nothing. Bummers. Now I have to go about multiplying my mushrooms from the ONE that I have.

Next time I have to save mushrooms, I will keep them at cool room temperature (50-65), with a breathable lid. That hasn't worked well for me in the past, but at least my mushrooms didn't DIE.

Mom Brag

Paul came home from work a month or so ago, a little worried by managerial complaints about the stockers, one of which is Paul. So he was happy (and I was so proud) with the comments made recently about what a good job he's doing!

Pizza

My men are spoiling me. My husband made dinner yesterday while I was running errands. One son made pizza and salad for dinner today. Another son is making meatloaf for tomorrow's dinner. All their cooking has enabled me to get some Christmas shopping done, and some decorating, and catch up on bread-baking and laundry and some other chores.

My son makes pizza so much better than I do. So today I asked him for times and temperatures, in hopes that I can do a better job copying his nice pizza crusts.

The recipe makes 3 pizzas that are about 11x14" each.
Stir together
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
2 Tbsp sugar or honey
1/2 Tbsp salt
Add 2 cups white flour. Beat well.
Add 2-3 cups flour, mix and knead.
The crust doesn't have to rise.
Pat crusts onto well-greased cookie sheets. (We use thin ones instead of the air-bake ones. With air-bake pans, the crusts must bake for a lot longer.)

Parbake crusts at 500 degrees for 7 minutes. Top with whatever's desired: we use about 10 oz of spaghetti sauce and 10 oz of grated mozarella for each pizza. (Adding 1-2 oz of cheddar and/or parmesan really perks it up.) Bake pizzas for 10 minutes at 500. Let cool for a few minutes before slicing.

Anonymous Posts

When Beggars All ceased their blogging, one of the explanations given was the lack of time. Although the men enjoyed blogging, although they enjoyed reading theology and talking about it, they also had their families and their jobs that needed attention. Jon called blogging a "black hole" that sucked time away from what should be our priorities.

I can easily get caught up in debates. But I ought not. It's not that I cannot provide evidence. It's not that I cannot give reasonable arguments for what I believe. It's not that I'm afraid of the name-calling. But I have other things that are more important to me. Besides, carrying out these debates via writing is a process that takes much time; such discussions work better in person, over a cup of coffee or a beer.

This blog was not started as a forum for arguing politics. It's particularly hard to "argue" with someone who resorts to name-calling and who will not actually engage the ideas and discuss the merits of the different viewpoints. I understand that people have different opinions. I doubt, though, that those who hold to a "non-religious" faith recognize that their beliefs are every bit as much BELIEFS as are my beliefs.

I cannot try to convince people of the shortcomings of their belief system. Not that I wouldn't like to try, but I have my priorities about how I spend my time. I'll say on my blog what I want to say. Comments are welcome. But I can and will delete posts from those who are anonymous and antagonistic. (Mom, I'm not talking to you. When you post "anonymously," you're not really anonymous. I know who you are. That's how it is for most "anonymous" posters. Besides, you're not antagonistic.)

Insulting me isn't a big deal. But don't be surprised when I delete posts that dishonor my Savior and His Word.

Found: A Leather Coat

Before I start bubbling about why I'm asking -- who left a coat here? It's a very nice leather coat, either black or dark-brown enough that it's nearly black, and has a silver-gray lining. It's a woman's coat, and it says "large" but it looks to me more like a medium. Long enough to come down to mid-thigh. Name on the label says "Adler Collection." On the hanger with it (around the collar of the coat) is a hand-knit dark-gold scarf that's about 8" wide. The coat has no belt. Below the waistline, there's a slit (or "vent," I think my mom called it) in the middle-back seam.

Next, a man's jacket. Like a suit coat, but tweedy. It's a lightish brown. No size in the label.

Any claimants? For some reason, I'm thinking the leather coat may be Maria's. And SHE won't need it where SHE is because SHE is WARM!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm taking a coat inventory right now. We seem to have a hall closet and a coat rack that are just FULL of coats and jackets. But I think some of them are unclaimed. Y'know, somebody outgrew his coat, found a bigger one in the hand-me-down bins, and didn't take the old one out of the closet. So there are piles of coats and jackets all over the living room, and I'm trying to figure out who owns which coats. Part of the instigation for this process was my bonanza at Goodwill today.

I found two nice wool coats, a leather coat, and a Christmas gift there. Two of those items would normally sell for $100 or more. The other two would be more like $200 each. And I paid $73 for the whole shootin' match! Yee haw!

AND on top of that, we took Zippy [my 93 Corolla] in for repairs. Turns out that almost every problem she was having was connected to a flaw in the exhaust. Repairs were only $400. Okay, $400 is a lot of money, but it is a whole lot less than any of the el-cheapo replacement vehicles I was test-driving. We can put off Zippy's funeral for a little while longer. And the greatest immediate relief in this is that I don't have to go gallavanting around tomorrow (again!) test-driving yet more vehicles!

Wasn't there something in Day By Day recently (or did I read it on somebody's blog?) about God providing for all our temporal needs, much more abundantly than we could ever expect? I know I read something like that recently. And today, I experienced it.

Arrival Time of the Magi

When I was growing up, I always assumed the Wise Men showed up at the stable alongside the shepherds. That's what the creches and Christmas cards always showed. And at Sunday School, we always talked about the stories as though they were one.

I heard later that it was possible the Magi came later. For decades, I heard good arguments for both sides of the issue, and never knew which one was right.

In the last couple of weeks, I've seen several reviews of the movie The Nativity Story. Every time, I've heard how it's faithful to the biblical text. But a friend who saw the movie told us that the movie shows the wise men and shepherds arriving together at the stable, and how the movie skipped the Presentation of our Lord. Now, having not seen the movie, I will refrain from commenting on those things. But what has somewhat shocked me is the widespread refrain of how this movie is biblically accurate.

I didn't realize until recent years that the wise men arrived later. But now, I just can't imagine thinking otherwise; it's clear from the biblical text.

Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple, according to the law of Moses. That happened when He was 40 days old. The family was still dwelling in Judea for at least six weeks after Jesus' birth.

Matthew tells us how Jesus' Father sent word to Jesus' step-dad to "get outta there because Herod wants to kill the Messiah." Do we really think Joseph dawdled around for a month or more, having gotten word that the hit-men were on their way? No. The magi must have arrived after the Presentation.

That was enough to convince me. But my husband pointed out evidence that is irrefutable. At the Presentation and for the purification of Mary, they gave the offering of two turtledoves. That's what people in poverty were allowed to give, instead of the prescribed gift of a lamb and a turtledove (see Lev 12). If the wise men arrived before the Presentation, then Mary and Joseph had gold and frankincense and myrrh. They were devout and holy; if they had the financial means, they would have offered up the lamb instead of the pigeon. But they didn't have the financial means: the magi hadn't yet given their valuable gifts. The Magi hadn't come yet.

Hospital Update - 12

Rash is all gone.
Swelling at the incision site is nearly gone.
Most of the scabs have fallen off incisions and chest-tube sites, and are looking good.

Only concerns at this point are a lack of appetite and a sore shoulder. Maggie's eating very very little, and often feels nauseous. I think part of the sick-tummy feeling is due to hunger, but not much sounds good to her. When she does eat, she can eat only a tiny fraction of what she was eating prior to surgery, and then gets too full.

She also complains of her left shoulder hurting. I can't figure that one out, other than the fact that it's near where her central line was inserted. We'll ask on Thursday at the cardiology follow-up appt.