Tag!

Okay, I'm slow. Angie tagged me to play a long time ago, during symposium, right before VBS, and I was not keeping up very well on blogs right then.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

That was about the time I had the good garden because Beau (a borrowed horse) had spent a few months fertilizing a portion of the yard over winter. I was homeschooling one high-schooler, three grade-schoolers, and a kindergartner, and had just finished a short stint with Maggie going to a speech therapist. It was also the summer that Pr Fenton suggested I needed a father-confessor that I wasn't married to, and he and my husband helped me find one. I was also just beginning to discover what it was like to have all my children weaned and not be pregnant -- weird at the time.


2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (in no particular order)?
*return videos to Blockbuster
*pick cherries and turn them into something delicious
*buy rechargeable batteries for the battery-eating camera
*ask the neighbor for permission to have a dump truck use his driveway for access to our septic tank, bringing in more top-soil after the dirt settled around the new tanks
*move the email addresses from the old computer to the new one

3. Snacks I enjoy:
tortilla chips with guacamole
warm chocolate-chip cookies
fruit smoothies


4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Pay off kids' student loans.
Pay off the house, and have Gary quit his cubicle job to do something else.
Give a whole lot of money to church and to some libraries.

Travel more.
Freely spend money on organic foods and raw milk products.
Buy an Aqua-massage for our home.
And a pool WITH a pool-boy.
Come up with a business where I could hire homeschooled teens.



5. Places I have lived:
central Illinois
River Forest
St Louis
Mississippi for a year
three different places in Wisconsin


6. Jobs I have had:
worked at two fast-food restaurants
printer at two print-shops
lots of maid work during college & sem
one year of in-home day-care
typing theses and term papers
paper routes (motor routes and foot routes)
supervision of paper-carriers


7. People I would like to know more about (in no particular order):
I lost track of who's been tagged for this and who hasn't. I think Rachel and Katie could still be tagged. I don't think I saw Paula's answers, so she may not have been tagged yet. How about Melody and Laura? (I'm getting old enough that I can't remember if I saw responses to this meme in the last couple of weeks or if it was a year ago.)

Garage Sale

We finally gave up. We hauled the stuff off to Goodwill. In May, when I looked at prices for advertising a rummage sale in the Shopper-papers, and considered how many direction-signs we'd need to put up, it was overwhelming to think of the cost of having a garage sale. And then there's the work involved. We finally decided we'd just piggy-back on one of the neighbor's sales, and do ours when somebody else had already brought customers out to the neighborhood. But that didn't work because our June weekends were all reserved for something else. And nobody around here seems to do July garage sales.

We toyed with the idea of saving the junk items for later in fall, like, say, maybe for the flea market at church. But I want the garage usable! I hate climbing over piles and piles of stuff to get to the shovels or the deep-freeze! Furthermore, Gary's been having trouble working on the deck due to wet weather. If we can put boards in the garage to dry out, or to keep them from getting wet again after they've been sanded, that'll mean the job is less influenced by rainy weather.

So we hauled a FULL van-load to Goodwill. There will be another van-load going soon. And another van-load of stuff is going to the curb this week for garbage pick-up. (Goodwill thought it was too shabby to take. And here, I thought it was still fine to use except for the fact that it's a smaller house and we no longer have room for these things. [sigh])

Now that we can see a few spots of concrete here and there on the garage floor, and move around to most places in the garage with needing to climb over only one or two piles of stuphph, I feel much freer and lighter. Now, on to catching up in the kitchen, and trying to finish the unpacking (from moving) this week. (I hope!)

Organic Veggies

Thursday Bible class was in charge of providing dinner one night for VBS. I took a whoppin' big batch of steamed carrots. Okay, so it's boring. It's easy. It's something I usually have on hand to take to potlucks. It's healthy. And it tastes good. Not good like a cheesecake, but good nonetheless, and your stomach feels better 3 hours after eating a pile of carrots than you do 3 hours after OD-ing on cheesecake.

I got so many compliments on the delicious carrots! When I took carrots to two potlucks at Triune, I got compliments there too. And I didn't DO anything. I just steamed carrots, put on some butter and sea salt, and that was it.

Ah, but they are organic carrots. And contrary to what I believed for many years, the taste of organic veggies sometimes makes a world of difference! We joined a CSA this year, and the strawberries and broccoli and spinach (all organic) are phenomenal. They are nothing like the veggies I get at Aldi or Pick-n-Save. Problem is, we're getting spoiled. What happens come November when we're back to store veggies? Ah, incentive to get my own garden going....

"100" -- More Backyard Weeds

7. SMARTWEED has smooth-edged leaves and one of the thickest stems you'll find in a weed. It's not flowering yet, but when it does, it will have spikes of pink flowers.






8. WHITE CLOVER is Thumper's candy. It smells sweet sweet sweet! Although it's called "white clover," the petals are often slightly tinged with pink. The flowering heads are smaller than in red clover. And of course, being clover, the leaves come in leaflets of three.





9. RAGWEED is horrid for those with hayfever. In fact, ragweed is the culprit behind the runny noses that usually get blamed on goldenrod.

Underwear

I wrote a year and a half ago about finding underwear for the guys that lasts and lasts. Although it's more expensive initially, it's cheaper in the long run.

Well, I have since discovered the same thing about Victoria's Secret cotton underwear. I don't want to put a link here (due to the pictures on the page), but you can find the page by googling "Victoria's Secret cotton panties," and they're currently on sale for 5 pairs for $25. That's a pretty good deal for ultra-comfortable, boring, long-lasting underwear.

"100" -- Backyard Weeds

After the septic system was installed, I seeded part of the mound, and the installer seeded the rest of the mound and the other places in the yard that were disturbed. When I put out grass, I seed heavily. Probably too heavily. Probably wasteful. But I get grass coming up in sufficient amounts to prevent massive amounts of weeds taking hold first. Well, the baby grass was finally long enough yesterday that it was time to mow. But that meant all those species of weeds were going to go down with the grass. Quick, quick, take pictures first!

1. This is DANDELION. You may recognize it. It is an alien species which was brought to America as a salad green. But the greens taste awful if you eat them after the flowers bloom. Maggie says they taste a lot like spinach.



2. This is a mint. It is called GROUND IVY or creeping charlie. The ground ivy is the one with the little purple flowers. It's very pretty, but it sure does like to creep and it's hard to eradicate.
3. Also in this picture is HOP CLOVER. It's the tiny yellow flowers. In this picture it's hard to see the three-leaf clusters that indicate clover, but here's an online picture.
4. There's also GRASS in this picture. Hey, laugh if you will. But it's a species we can identify!
5. Notice in the upper right corner of the picture are some 3"-tall MAPLE TREES. We could give you a picture of a grown-up maple tree, but I bet you've seen those. So we're just including the maples here with this snapshot.


6. PLANTAIN is recognizable particularly by the veins veering out of the stem rather than from a middle vein in the leaf. If you know plantain, then you can use it out in the yard or a park when you get a mosquito bite or bee sting or contact poison ivy. Plantain is excellent for skin problems.

Fourth-of-July Cheesecake

Sometimes you start a tradition without even realizing what you've gotten yourself into!

In need of cheesecake one year, and with ample supply of strawberries and blueberries, I made the dessert and let the kids use the red and blue fruits to decorate the cheesecake. The kids, in desperate need of repeating the treat the following year, made another Fourth-of-July cheesecake. Twice in a row. That makes a tradition, I guess.

The recipe is:
2/3 pound of graham crackers
1.5 sticks of butter
32 ounces of cream cheese
1.75 cups of sugar
1 Tbsp of vanilla
1/4 cup of cream (or 3/4 cup of Cool Whip)
1 quart strawberries
1 pint blueberries

Crush the crackers into powder, add melted butter. Pat into a jelly roll pan. Bake at 400 for 5 minutes.

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add vanilla and cream. Spread into cooled crust. Decorate with fruit.

We used to make it look like a flag. But I don't like having to choose which kind of fruit I want on my piece of dessert. So we started doing the stripes instead.

Today I made this with organic strawberries, homemade cream cheese from raw milk, and raw cream. So even though it's nearly all fat and sugar (yummmmmm) at least it has a few redeeming characteristics.


Small batch
about 48 square-inches
6x8" or 9x5" or 7" round
1/2 package grahams (2.5 ounces)
3 Tbsp butter
1 (8 oz) bar of cream cheese
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp cream or 3 Tbsp Cool Whip
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and/or blueberries

Revive Me

This week's psalm is the "resh" portion of 119.
Verse 154: Revive me according to Your word.
Verse 156: Revive me according to Your judgments.
Verse 159: Revive me according to Your lovingkindness.

We so often think of God's "judgments" as something scary. But here is another place where we see the word "judgment" used to comfort and to bless.

Great are Your tender mercies, O Lord;
revive me according to Your judgments.

The judgment meted out upon us is:
You are in Christ, baptized into His name.
Atonement has been made.
You are holy; you are pure; you are righteous -- for His sake.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
For those in Christ, there is no trembling, no wondering if we have measured up, no fright.
Great are His tender mercies.
He revives us according to His lovingkindness.

Liturgical Hymns

This morning's psalm in Congregation at Prayer was 135. It sounded remarkably similar to one of the psalms we prayed recently. I went back and looked. Sure enough, much of the psalm is taken from 115 which is in the Hallel (in other words, part of the liturgy regularly used for holy days).

Our hymnals have hymnic versions of the liturgy: hymns on the Magnificat, the Te Deum, the Phos Hilaron, etc. And based on what we see in the Psalter, this is not a new idea. I thought that was cool.

100 Species Challenge

Brenda is engaged in the challenge to find and identify 100 species of plants within walking distance of her home. The initial idea was presented with pictures.

I'm going to break the rules and not list all the rules here; you can go read them for yourselves. Basically the point is to identify species within a mile of your house. Hopefully, your log or journal (on your blog) will include information about the plants, as well as pictures.

Seeing as I don't have a camera, I am postponing the start of this challenge until I can get one. I've been meaning to buy one for a while, and this might give me incentive. This project reminds me very much of one of my favorite books: Naming Nature by Mary Blocksma. We've read this book three times for our homeschooling, and it is the most valuable nature book we've ever used! If I could make this 100-species challenge into a project to do with Maggie, it would be good for both of us. I'm rarin' to go on this (as if I didn't already want to spend hours upon hours writing the blog posts that are spinning around in my head!) and tried to buy a camera tonight to start on the project with Maggers tomorrow. Ah, but the camera-decision was too big. So I hope to pick my son-in-law's brain for all the research he just did on cameras, and get to taking pictures before we lose more of the seasonal wildflowers.

(This will have the added benefit of teaching me how to upload photos to my blog. So far, I always require help from a child. They teach me how to do it, and then I forget before I need to upload the next picture. Many plant pictures may drill the procedure into my brain!)

New Bike

It's gonna make it hard to use bicycles for transportation if we don't have enough to go around. The top priority for yesterday was going to a friend's mom's place to accept some really nice hand-me-downs and pack up a bunch of clothing. The second highest priority for yesterday was bike-shopping. The second one didn't get done.

So the top priority for today was bike shopping. I thought it would take about an hour to drive to the store and choose the vehicle. It took three gallons of gasoline and FIVE and a HALF HOURS . That's all day.

At the first store, it seemed like too many of the bikes were dented or assembled not-quite-right. We looked and looked through the offerings and finally decided upon one. Got it home. Rode it. Gears didn't work. And when you have hills like we have here, you better have gears on your bike that operate -- or you'll be walking that thing uphill quite often!

Back to the store. Returned it. Headed to another store. Found something ideal, except a 24", and Mr Bigfoot definitely needed the biggest size we could get. So off to another version of the same bigbox-store, a store that "has sufficient inventory" of the item we needed. Got there. No bikes. Sold out. (The same thing happened to Gary with deck screws at a different bigbox-store. How can one branch of a store check with the other branch to be sure they've got an item in stock, and just not tell the customer the truth about being sold out? I mean, really, does it make for good customer relations to send somebody gallavanting all over the metro area only to find that the item isn't in stock after all? Can you say "c-r-a-n-k-y"?)

Well, we made Try #4 this evening. (We phoned first. And they set the bike aside in the back room for us. That was so nice!) The bikes at this store all looked properly assembled. I came home with a bike that rides smoothly. It will serve Andrew well. We also bought bike helmets which we will need to fit to our heads properly, and then make a habit of wearing them. And then we'll be all set to use our little muscles to transport ourselves around. We can claim we're being green. But really we're just being tightwads. :-)

Square with the World

It probably took me 8 years at our old house before I figured out which direction was east. There's a big curve in the road --a rather unnoticeable and gentle curve-- and also some not-square "corners" (at highway intersections) that make it easy to think you're driving west on our old street when you're really driving south. Further complicating the matter, "liturgical east" (that is, the end of the church building that contained the altar) was in the "east" as my senses intuited. Problem is, "east" was actually north.

Eventually I learned that the sun rises in the southeast at Christmas and in the northeast in early summer. And thus I eventually got my bearings, with the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. My parents, however, not living in the place, continued with the same problem I had, sensing that the sun was rising in the south and setting in the north, even though their brains knew better. After many years, my dad's brain got it all straight, but his senses just wouldn't let go of that first impression. He said that he could be driving to our house, straight across Stateline Road, and everything was square and right with the world. But as soon as he turned onto our road, the whole world "spun" 90° in his senses. And I knew precisely what he was talking about, since I'd lived with the same feeling for so long.

This is one reason I think it's important that maps go on the north wall, so that places are lined up in the world with where they appear on the map. But the reason I bring up this story is because sometimes the same sudden "spin" will occur mentally. (More on that later.)

Sticker Shock

The credit card bill came in today's mail, and the gasoline was astronomical. It's never been that high. It's never even been HALF that high! I knew prices had gone up. But this? This was outrageous. Surely there was an error!

As I looked closer I realized that we had over $300 in gasoline for vacations. Whew -- those two trips in the van come out of the vacation fund. They aren't a typical expense, and next month's bill isn't going to be so frightening!

Legislation about Homeschoolers

A bill has been introduced in the Senate that would provide tax credits for homeschoolers. All homeschoolers who value their freedom should get on the phone with their senators and let them know that we are not interested in this kind of "help" from the government.

Jenn (whom I do not know) explains why very clearly. Here's an excerpt from her blog:
If we advocate for tax credits--beneficial as that money would be, as much of a right to that money as we have--we will essentially be inviting the federal government to notice us. To define us. To monitor us. To calculate us. To nickel and dime us. To determine us. This is an invitation that we cannot rescind. It's a way into our lives--a door, if you will. And once it is opened, it will never be closed--not by us and certainly not by them. It will only open wider and wider and our freedom will shrink ever smaller. And we will have invited this.

Besides the pigeon-holing of homeschoolers, the reporting requirements, and the invitation of the government further into our lives, there's another aspect to this legislation that people often do not realize. In high-school civics class, we learn how a bill becomes law. It all sounds so clear-cut. But when you get to politics in Real Life, bills coming out of committee often look quite different from the bills that went into committee.

There's also the record-keeping for taking tax deductions, and the government's prerogative to determine which expenses are allowable. Do we expect the government to pay for (that is, allow us a credit for) Bibles and hymnals used in our homeschooling? Do we expect them to allow the deduction of history or science materials that integrate Christianity in the textbooks? What about swimming lessons? Would it be fair for me to deduct my kids' swimming lessons (or piano or judo or theatre) when my brother's family cannot deduct those things? For those of us who use all of life to educate our children (like, say, daily Sudoku puzzles for a child) do we really want the loss of freedom that would result from the government deciding which expenses are legitimate homeschooling expenses and which are not? Might this even result in subtle pressure for homeschools to become more like conventional schools?

You really should go read Jenn's article. It explains this much better than I do and more rationally.


Hat tip: Jane.

Symposium (5)

One of the topics at CCA symposium a couple of weeks ago was contraception. I expected the discussion/debate to be between those who allow contraception in some instances and those who think it should never be used by Christians. That wasn't how the discussion went, though. While most of the speakers seemed to think that there should be allowances for the use of contraception sometimes in the life of married Christian couples, one of the speakers went so far as to suggest that there is a place for voluntary childlessness so that people can serve the Lord unencumbered by children. (Okay, so my eyes about popped out of my head at that one!)

A question was raised during the panel discussion as to the new stance in the church about okaying the use of any contraceptives. ("New" being something that has just been considered okay in the last 3-6 decades within the framework of 200 decades since Jesus' time.)

One speaker pointed out that "Be fruitful and multiply" is not a command which we are obligated to fulfill as best as possible. God said "Be fruitful and multiply" prior to the fall into sin. Before sin, Adam and Eve would have joyfully received children, and conception, pregnancy, and birth would have occurred easily.

But now, after the fall, things have been altered. The only perfect marriage is Christ and His Church. That is the marriage where children are given abundantly and are never a strain. Our marriages are poor shadows of the one true and good marriage. While it is obvious* that limiting the number of children can be contrary to the Gospel (which pours itself out for the other), we also need to remember that the husband must have compassion on the wife who is weak, whose body (or mind) cannot continue to bear children every year or every other year.

On the one hand, we cannot err in emphasizing LIFE too much. On the other hand, we cannot presume that we are capable of living completely the way God intended. If we must consider "Be fruitful and multiply" a command (instead of a blessing), we better be keeping our eyes on Christ and His obedience for us, and His atonement for our weaknesses. The more our eyes are on Him and less on our obedience, the more we find that we become ever more conformed to His image.


*footnote: I'm sure we all know people who "cannot afford" children although they can afford multiple vehicles, second homes, designer clothes, fancy vacations, etc.

Quiverful

Some people say that it's important that Christians be willing to "accept as many children as the Lord gives." They are saying that using contraception is wrong because doing so would not be "accepting as many as the Lord gives." Are we willing to imply that God's hands are tied by our decisions about contraception, as if He were prevented from creating life just because someone decides to use a product from the drug store or have a surgical procedure?

Catechesis and First Communion

Because the article was dated in May, some of you may have missed Pr Stuckwisch's post about "early" first communion and ongoing catechesis and what is necessary for proper reception of the Lord's Supper. It's long and thoughtful, so don't bop over there to merely skim the piece. But it's excellent. I appreciated especially what he said about the pastor's hard (and continuing!) work to teach when he takes seriously the task of lifelong catechesis.

Plink!

I love the sound when canning jars seal. Plink! I love the way the color of the jam turns from cloudy to ruby-red crystal when the sugar is added to the boiling fruit/sugar mix. I love making jelly. After purchasing frozen strawberries (instead of getting the ultra-premium taste that comes from picking your own from the berry patch) today I made 12 half-pints of jam and 7 12-ouncers. That ought to last these folks a little while.

Katie and Nathan arrived last night for a weekend visit. So did Paul's Rachel. It's been great to have them here! Today Rachel came to visit too. So did Laura and Ben. And this wonderful companionship and family-ness is why we looked for a house with a kitchen big enough for loads of people to hang out in together while work is being done!

Gary has made a lot of headway on the deck -- turning the worn and weathered boards over, getting the bottom sides (now the tops) of the planks sanded and re-placed, awaiting dry weather when we will be able to put down sealant.

Mosquitoes are unbelievable. I guess that comes with flooding.

We're in the process of getting a new computer. It's actually an "old" computer that is WAY newer than our old one. Nathan, the computer guru, set it up for us today, and did all the work of moving my bookmarks and installing programs and making it a painless transition for me (in other words, a barely noticeable change-over). He also let me know about some spyware that had slunk onto the old computer past the spy-bot. I had finally gotten caught up with the world's ways and started online banking, and now I think I'd better go and change all my passwords and user-names. Oh, gosh, it makes me nervous to even think about it. But I'm glad he caught it so that I don't continue on my merrily blind way of walking straight into identity theft or other scams. As for the new computer, the speed blows me away. Not too long after I started looking at gmail, Nathan asked if I liked the increased speed. And honestly, I hadn't noticed much improvement. But then later I moved to another program, and those fresh windows were popping up at a shocking speed! Wow, I'm going to get spoiled!

Stemms, Drivers, and Fischers for dinner tomorrow after church. Sounds like good times, lots of love, and lots of laughing!

Luke 15

The story tonight at VBS (also known as our "retreat on reconciliation") was the parable of the prodigal son. My favorite quote from Pastor this evening:

It's like there isn't a reprimand in the father anywhere to be found! Not when the son asks for the inheritance, not when he returns, and not when the older son complains at the end of the story. The father doesn't have a reprimand in his whole body.

Quote

Elephant's Child has a totally awesome quote from Walther about focusing on missions "versus" focusing on doctrine.

Agritainment

The nearby U-Pick farm has strawberries available. We've been out of strawberry jam for 5 months, and the natives are restless. (Oooooh, the abuse they endure, with the only jelly in the house being home-made grape that is completely awesome! My family is SO mistreated. My heart is bleeding for them.) We've been waiting for June, waiting for cheap strawberries instead of making the jam from frozen berries purchased at the store.

When I was trying to find out the cost of the berries, there were no prices listed on the farm's website. No prices listed on their signs by the road. But the website mentioned that they were "agritainment" for the whole family. There's a playground. There are animals. There are hay rides. There will be a corn maze. This made me nervous. This sounded pricey.

So today I wash the jelly jars. I gather the slave labor children and the buckets, and we head off to the farm. And I find U-Pick berries priced at $1.35/pound and the already-picked at $3.75/pound. YIKES. The regular price at Woodmans for frozen berries is $1.89/pound ... and you don't have to pick 'em in the hot sun. Or wash them and hull them. The price for frozen berries last time I was at Woodmans was only $1/pound.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to pay extra for buying local. Not when "local" means paying the premium for the farmy experience.

More incentive to get my own berries in the ground prior to next May!

Fetching Our Own Oil

From the Chicago Tribune: "Obama has said he opposes lifting the federal ban on offshore drilling. And on Friday he promised a moratorium on the practice. Now he will find out if the pain voters are feeling at the pump will be inflicted upon him for his position."


McCain still doesn't have the right position on drilling in Alaska or easing up restrictions on producing our own oil. But at least he's starting to talk about getting oil from the Gulf and temporarily reducing the enormous gasoline taxes. Now if only he could get 'em all to begin undoing the damaging demands for more and more ethanol.

From Symposium (4)

Bender's catechesis was entitled Cain and Abel and the "Murder of God." Call me biased, but I thought it was the best presentation of the symposium. There's too much to summarize it here. Besides, a lot of what was presented is already in the catechist volume of Old Testament Catechesis.

There was one thing I made particular note of from his presentation. Sinning is always self-serving. It is turned inward. It is designed to satisfy ME. The problem, though, is that sinning doesN'T satisfy. It cannot. Satisfaction and joy can come only through sacrificial love. (Maybe that's part of "being made in the image of God"?) We think, "I'll be happy if I..." have this, or do that, or whatever. But when we sin and get what we wanted, we are still unsatisfied.

(For some reason, this reminds me of the insatiable greed for Legos that I see in little boys, or for Barbie clothes that I see in little girls. Of course, these are shallow examples. And of course the Barbies and Legos are not sins. And of course it's easier to see this insatiability in children than it is in myself. Wait... did I get off topic?....)

In the topic of life issues, when we're talking about starving an aged or disabled person, or aborting a baby, these things promise ease to the people who remain. But these sins have results that were unexpected, and the sinner remains discontented, unhappy, and looking for bigger fixes of making his own comfort. The sin did not give what it promised. True joy comes only by giving and sacrificing.

From Symposium (3)

Piotr Malysz spoke on "Humanity in the Image of God." This was a good lecture. It was deep. I wanted sometimes to hit the "pause" button and think through what he was saying before he went on. But nevertheless, what he said was good stuff!

He started by pointing out that the 20th century proved more evil and more self-centered than any other era before. He pointed out that consumerism has taught us to find our uniqueness and our "self" in things. But we also have learned to treat relationships as disposably as we treat our things.

Pr Malysz said that we do not possess the image of God. The image of God is not a quality. It is not something we "understand." Rather, it is about BEING ... and about a relationship with Him and being connected to Him.




The fall into sin was, in part, when Adam and Eve strove to get the image of God ("you will be like God, knowing good and evil") as a quality, as something they could gain knowledge about. And in doing so, they traded the true image of God that they already had, and instead went after a false "image of God."

Sin isolates. Sin separates us from God. It separates us from the creation. It separates us from each other. When we sin, we violate someone's trust. Then we realize that others might do the same to us, violating our trust in them. To protect ourselves from being hurt or being betrayed, we withdraw from others and continue to further separate ourselves. (Hey, I realize now that this fits in well with our VBS theme of the week on reconciliation.)

We desire to be "like God" (as did Adam and Eve). But we imagine God to be powerful in a self-serving way. To be like Him [well, not really like Him, but like what we imagine Him to be], we try to control others. We desire to control people. We want to destroy things and wreck things. This is how we imagine God's "power" can be seen. But that's NOT what God's power is about.

God's power is seen in His loving sacrifice. Life is sacred because our dignity comes from God. The sanctity of life has nothing to do with OUR dignity or even the abilities that God gives us. OUR dignity is futile and fragile. But God sees us with the dignity that is His, the dignity imputed to us and given to us. We look like Him when we are mindful of that same dignity in others even though they be undignified and unworthy according to human standards, and when we sacrifice ourselves (that is, put ourselves out, or inconvenience ourselves) for their dignity (or life, or nurture, or needs).


Well, I'm afraid these rather disjointed comments don't come together too well from my jotted notes and scribbles. My notes were intended mostly to help jog my brain about what I heard. If there is anything wrong in what I wrote, it wasn't Pastor Malysz who was in error, but merely my misunderstanding of what he said.

From Symposium (2)

Stem cell research was discussed last week at the catechetical symposium in Waukesha. There was one comment made in passing that I found quite interesting. There is apparently a theory that cancer is caused by adult stem cells run amok. Even when we're done being little embryos, everybody (babies and kids and adults) still have stem cells. Although the point of stem cells is that they are changeable, so that they can heal or repair parts of the body, there can be too much of a good thing. If these grow too fast and grow out of control, this may be the explanation for cancer.

Kinda makes you wonder about how the doctors and scientists would control the stem cells they use in cures so that cancer doesn't become as an intended consequence.

From Symposium (1)

One of the speakers pointed out that less than half of the doctors are actually in the American Medical Association. He suggested that this was due to its liberal stance on issues, thus setting the AMA in opposition to the position of many healers.

This speaker also suggested that having a living will or a "medical directive" is not as safe as having a "durable power of attorney" because you can't lay out directives ahead of time for all contingencies. Better to have someone making those decisions in the circumstances that actually occur in our lives.

Another speaker pointed out that "pregnancy" is defined differently. Some doctors will say that a particular birth-control measure prevents pregnancy and is not abortifacient because they define pregnancy as the time when the baby is implanted in the womb and not when the baby is conceived. Thus they can claim that a birth-control method does not interrupt pregnancy, although some of us can clearly see that it does. So it's important to find out what your doctor's definition of "pregnancy" is. (Gee! Who would've thought that would be a matter of dispute??)

Milk

Boy, I don't know how the milk situation got away from us. But this morning we had four gallons that were more than a week old, and it is just beginning to turn bad. Part of this is because I overestimated how much the company would drink last week. Part of this is because I forgot we weren't eating dinner at home this week, due to VBS suppers. Part of this is because the refrigerator was accidentally unplugged for about a day and a half, which means the milk is beginning to sour earlier than it should've.

So today we're all hyped up on calcium! I told the kids not to eat anything except the things which were nearing spoilage (milk and lettuce, primarily). Breakfast was milkshakes made of milk, strawberries left over from vacation, and bananas. Mid-morning snack was a big pitcher of cocoa. Lunch was Mexican corn chowder. And supper was custard pies. That took care of 2½ gallons. Another half gallon is being set out to make whey for recipes. That leaves only a gallon to drink (before it really sours) or turn into pancakes and muffins (after it sours).

I am soooo overloaded on milk (which, by the way, has a very different meaning today than it meant 13 years ago....).

Homeschool Stereotypes

Mandatory reading: Jane's You Don't Look Like a Homeschool Mom. (She wrote this in response to an article about how the stereotypical homeschooler is so different from the "normal" American that the rest of society feels threatened by those weirdo homeschoolers.)



On the one hand, I don't want to write any more in this post, because I really want people to go read at least Jane's musings, and preferably the op-ed piece too. But on the other hand, I want to chime in.

I remember the time I was chatting with somebody who was suggested as a possible substitute paper carrier. We needed subs for vacation, and I called the lady. During the conversation, she (who was fairly new to town) decided that we would be greeeeat people to get to know. After all, we were
a) a pastor's family,
b) a large family, and
c) homeschoolers.
And we all know what that means, don't we? And those were the kind of people she wanted for friends. Thing is, this woman didn't know who we really were; she just lumped us into her stereotype.

There was also the eye-opening story of what happened shortly after we met Jane's family. They'd been church-hunting for many months. Everything they found was happy-clappy. Then they came to visit Triune. The stayed for lunch. We loved them and they loved us. But more importantly, the kids made it clear to Mom and Dad that the church-hunting was done and over: they had found the place where they were staying! As Jane told the story, later that day she announced happily to a group of friends (mostly pagan) that they'd found a church-home. For the most part, these friends didn't really care about church or liturgy, but they cared about Jane, and they knew how important this was to her. So they were all ready to be thrilled for her. Until...

she mentioned that the pastor and his wife have six kids and they homeschool. Whoa; put the brakes on, Nelly! "Jane, are you SURE about this? Are you sure this is the kind of place you want to be?" And Jane's response was, "Oh, they're not like THAT!" So even among homeschoolers who are not part of the stereotype, we too are very aware of the stereotype. Good grief, even I am leery of pastors' wives who homeschool more than 4 kids. Some of them are wonderful. But the experiences of the past have convinced me to be cautious when I meet people whose basic situation in life is identical to mine.

And for some reason, that's just kinda sad.

Loosened Bonds

In Psalm 116 we pray:
O Lord, truly I am Your servant;
I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
You have loosed my bonds.

Maybe you're like me, and go on reading the part of the psalm about thanksgiving, and thinking about how we are glad that He has freed us. But instead, stop and think about those lines right there for just a moment.

I am Your servant. I am God's slave. I am bound to Him. BUT "You have loosed my bonds." Does that make sense? We have been loosed. And yet we are His servants, His slaves. It almost sounds contradictory, until ...

a person knows whereof Paul speaks:
And having been set free from sin, you become slaves of righteousness.
And also:
Now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God,
you have your fruit to holiness,
and the end, everlasting life. (Romans 6)


A person might almost be tempted to think that the apostle knew the Old Testament and was expounding upon it. But if you thought that, you'd have to think the Old Testament was about the same God, the same promises, the same mercy, ... the same Jesus. :-)

Waivers

Paul is supposed to turn in his immunization record to the college. He is also supposed to get an updated tetanus shot. After the reaction Maggie had to her last tetanus vaccine, we are very very leery of getting those again ... unless we end up putting ourselves in a situation (like overseas) where there might be a risk of contracting tetanus. So today we were doing some online research and discovered Vaccination Liberation. I do not agree with everything on their page, but they do have a lot of links to state laws, to exemption forms, and to reported complications from vaccines.

If a person were to click on their state abbreviation (oh, say, "Indiana," for example) there would be pertinent laws listed, as well as a model letter for a birth plan which includes avoidance of immediate vaccination for hepatitis, vitamin K shots, and silver nitrate in the baby's eyes. Although this website wouldn't have everything you need to know about the subject, it would at least prove a starting point.

Deck Work

It's very hard to stain the naked deck (where Gary just turned all the boards over because the top side was so very weather-worn) when the forecast tells us that it will rain daily or every other day. And even on the days it doesn't rain, the grass is drenched with dew each morning. Not good weather for staining a deck.

Somebody drove up slowly to our house today and snapped a picture. I don't like it that complete strangers are taking pictures of us. I would be really freaked out, but I'm trying to convince myself that it's just some realtor. I know when we were buying, our realtor could show us examples of similar-sized houses nearby that had sold, and what the prices were, so that we could evaluate property values and what to expect to pay. So maybe that's all this was. I hope. My mind can construct pretty scary scenarios out of strangers taking pictures of us....

Time-Saving on Paint Jobs

At the old house, I painted with a semi-gloss or something even more shiny than that. I wanted the walls to be washable. Granted, it made it harder to put on the next coat of paint because the walls had to be sanded or roughed-up or treated in some way so that the next coat of slicky paint wouldn't slide right off the undercoat of [older] slicky paint.

The new house has an "eggshell" finish which is not washable. Every time I hit a fly or smash a mosquito, there's a blood splat on the wall. Finger-marks don't wash off. Food splashes in the kitchen don't wash off. These walls are going to need to be painted a whole lot sooner than if they were washable. I hear frightening stories about normal people who paint the insides of their houses every 2-4 years; apparently that's just what you're supposed to do. Well, if I can paint with washable paint every 9-12 years, I'm saving time (and money) even if I have to spend twice as long on the paint job!

Imprecatory Psalms

I don't understand how we pray that the Lord smash our enemies when we know our own sin and that we were enemies of God but that He has been gracious to us. If we are the recipients of mercy, and if God's mercy has captured our hearts, and if God wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, wouldn't we desire the salvation of our enemies? Wouldn't we desire that they be turned and become recipients of grace -- they who are as undeserving as we are?

About a year ago, Pastor finally got it through my head that we can pray those psalms of judgment against the true enemies: the devil, the world, the demons, and our own sinful nature.

But when I was praying Psalm 109 yesterday, the psalmist didn't sound like he was talking about demonic forces being judged, but flesh-and-blood people. So I asked about it at the end of Bible class. Pastor didn't have enough time to give much answer, but one thing he said helped a little bit:
We don't pray those psalms out of vengeance nor out of a desire to get even or to "stick it to them." We pray them because God's law is true. We pray that God's judgment be meted out upon His enemies for the honor of God, not for satisfying our own sinful desire to hurt those who have hurt us.

Gotta think on that some more...

Maple Grove

Y'know what happens when you get a new septic system right when the "helicopters" are about done growing on the maples? The wind comes along and blows gazillions of helicopters into your freshly dug-up dirt. The rain comes along and waters them. And then you have a yard that it full full FULL of itty-bitty maple trees! It's so funny-looking in the backyard. The places where I seeded grass are growing nicely. But the places where the septic installer seeded were are a little sparser on grass. So there are places where we have more 3" trees than we have grass!

Creation of Angels

Does Psalm 104:4 indicate that maybe the angels were created on the second day?

The psalm starts with light (day 1) and then goes to the heavens (day 2). It then talks about the seas and the grasses and trees (day 3). Then the sun and moon (day 4). Finally it talks about the creatures in the seas (day 5). In the section where the psalm is talking about the second day of creation, the psalmist mentions that God makes the angels. That doesn't assuredly mean that the angels were created on the second day, but it sure makes me wonder if that might be when it happened.

Zippy's Demise

Eleven years ago we bought a 4-yr-old Corolla. She already had 122,000 miles on her. And she had an irreparable dent in her back bumper. She had been sitting on the used-car lot for a while because nobody wanted her with that not-too-big dent. So we got her for a very good price. My dad thought we made a bad decision, buying a car with a dent. But she was good to us. She lasted many years. I don't think we fixed anything for the first 7-8 years we owned her; we just kept up with periodic maintenance.

Her brakes failed on Monday. Repairing her would have been manageable, except that her fuel lines were about rusted through too. The mechanic told me that, by law, he wasn't supposed to let me drive her home because the brakes were in that bad of shape. He told me that I didn't need to hurry to get her off his lot; a few days would be fine. Hey, I don't move too fast or think too quickly! I thought "a few days" was plenty fast. I found a junk dealer who would pay us for the car, instead of just having her towed away for nothing, or given to one of those places that takes donated vehicles. Because of symposium this week, I couldn't sit on the decision. And I didn't want to inconvenience our mechanic by leaving her sit on his lot for the whole week. So I sold her on Wednesday. It was heart-breaking. She had gone over 300,000 miles. She was the only car I ever had that had a name.

We're not sure whether to start car-shopping to replace her. We are inclined at this point to manage with the cars we have. So now it's time to get serious about toughening up my leg muscles so that I will be able to go UP and down and UP and down the local hills when we bike to town and back. We'll also need to buy another bike or two, and some helmets. I think the loss of Zippy is going to force us into more exercise, which will be good in the long run, but right now will be a bit of a strain on our time.

Janesville

After news of the GM plant closing, the city I love(d) is dealing with more devastation. This time it's flooding. The paper has a variety of stories, but none of the stories told me what I'd heard from Janesville people: that the library may have to close because of flooding and that the bridges are being compromised.

When we read about the signs of the end of the world, the floods and earthquakes and wars, I realized that those things would mean ruin and mess and injury and death. But something else crossed my mind this weekend. It also means ruined crops. And later, food shortages.

Gas prices are rising. Food prices are rising. There are shortages of food in other parts of the world. Our government has mandated that we need to put a certain amount of corn into making inefficient fuel for our vehicles. And now God has destroyed a whole lot of the corn crops. Even those of us with dry basements, even people in other countries, are going to be feeling the sting of these floods. (But not at all as much as those who are losing their homes and possessions!)

Presidential Race

Jane recently posted about Obama's opinions on abortion rights, with quotes about how he thinks that even babies who are born (as in, they didn't have the sense to not die from the abortion, but were born alive) should not be considered real persons, under the protection of law.

And then Cheryl brought to my attention Obama's stance on a Supreme Court decision handed down last week. Obama agrees with a court decision that says enemies of our nation who are held in prison camps should be awarded all the same civil liberties and protections that citizens have. McCain condemns this decision.

The second half of Paula's post on these topics sums it up pretty well.

Baby Picture

Katie posted a link to a picture of my grand-daughter. She tells me it was hard for the sonogram technician to find the baby at first, ... because this is one VERY active baby, doing somersaults, and pokin' Mommy a lot. It's supposed to be another month-and-a-half or two before Katie should be able to feel the baby. I foresee a tree-climbing, bike-riding, couch-bouncing speed-demon on her way.

Spinach Feta Bread

10-oz pkg of frozen chopped spinach
6 oz feta cheese (about 1 ¼ or 1 ½ cups crumbled)

1 ¾ cup milk (warmed to about 110°)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp sea salt
½ tsp nutmeg
2 pkg dry yeast (about 1 ½ Tbsp)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour

5-6 cups white flour


Thaw (but do not squeeze and drain) the spinach.
Stir together milk, oil, egg, sugar, salt, spice, and yeast.
Stir in ww flour and 1 cup of white flour. Beat for 2 minutes.
Stir in spinach and crumbled cheese.
Add the rest of the white flour, stir and knead till dough makes a ball and is not too sticky.
Let rise once or twice. Punch down between risings.
Shape into loaves and bake in greased pans.
Two 9x5" loaves would bake about 55 minutes at about 350-375°.
Six small loaves (about 2 ½ x 5 ½") would be about 35 minutes.
Muffin-sized rolls or breadsticks are about 20-25 minutes.

The Roast

In an attempt to get some barbecue made today so that we'd have something real to eat at the end of the week in between sessions at the symposium, yesterday I took a chuck roast out of the freezer to thaw overnight. When I grabbed it off the counter this morning to put into the crockpot, I noticed something scribbled on the white paper wrapped around the roast. I assumed the butcher had hand-written somebody's name on the meat, but I couldn't figure out why someone else's meat would've gotten mixed up with our side of beef.

Then I got it.
"Roast" was crossed out. "Norris" was written in.

Chuck Roast Norris.

I knew that came from one of my sons.
I live with weird people!!!

John Back from the Dead?

In Matthew 10, Jesus sent out the Twelve and gave them authority to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.

In Luke 9, the same event is told much more succinctly. Immediately following the commissioning of the Twelve, we hear the story about Herod wondering about Jesus, and who He was and what He was up to. Some people thought Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead, or maybe Elijah. I don't think I'd ever noticed those two stories back-to-back before.

Yeah -- people really were being raised from the dead. No wonder John-come-back was considered a reasonable possibility. Before I'd always thought they were being so stupid to have thought up an explanation of John's coming back. But other people were being raised. Why not John too? (Of course, that wasn't the true explanation of who this Jesus-guy was, but the rumors going around don't sound so outlandish in light of Matthew's version of the previous story in Luke's account.)

SAD

It's nearly summer solstice. The longest days of the year. Nevertheless, any single cloudy day has really been getting to me. It's daunting to think what the "seasonal affective disorder" is going to be like come January. I sure do hope I've got the "things" of moving (the boxes unpacked, the clutter in the garage, the pictures on the walls) finished well before the short days hit in September.

Keeping Up (or not)

Bonnie is one of the lovely women at church. She was widowed quite suddenly last fall. Ever since I've known her, she always seems such the optimist. She knows and believes and says that God is working everything out just right, and even when things hurt, she still cheerfully confesses that He is good and gracious, and her praise for Him abounds. On Sunday she was kindly and encouragingly reminding me that it doesn't matter if I feel overwhelmed, because we are in God's care, and it will all work out, and what's necessary will be done (because if it doesn't get done it wasn't really necessary after all).

And then today I spent hours on errands, including an exploratory trip to the west, which ended at my friend's store, after five other stops. And a trip to fetch milk. And catching up on laundry and bread-baking after vacation. And dinner. And Paul and I tried to figure out some things about registering for classes for his freshman year for college next August. And the little car's brakes failed, so we had to get it in to the mechanic and are now waiting on the verdict. (I hate deciding whether a car is getting too old and worn to fix again!)

I kept thinking throughout the day of all the necessary things that weren't getting done. And how I just keep getting more and more behind. I wish I could believe in my gut what my intellect consents to: that Bonnie is right and that God does know what He's doing. I just wish I didn't chafe against it and argue over it so often.

Modesty

1. I normally dress fairly conservatively. Even when the heat calls for shorts and tank tops (or even spaghetti straps), my clothes tend to be frumpy and modest compared to most of what you see out there in the stores and on the streets.

2. I don't like other people undermining what I teach my kids. If something is good and right to do, it's good and right -- not relativistic. In other words, I don't buy into the "it's good for me, but you have your own right and wrong."

3. During the past week, we were at a resort for a grand ol' family reunion with wonderful wonderful people. Also at the resort was a group of Amish folks. They were fun to visit with and chat with around the campfire. The kids were sweet and cute, and the parents enjoyable and friendly.

Thus #4, the dilemma. My kids love the swimming pool. I would put on my swim suit to go to the pool or beach with them. It's not a bikini. It's not particularly revealing as swimsuits go, and actually rather modest. But it's still a swimsuit, with naked arms and near-naked shoulders and most of my thighs exposed. And I felt like I was undermining the Amish moms simply to have a swimsuit. Even though I was more covered than most of the other females at the pool, I could just imagine the Amish women trying to explain to their munchkins why they wear the clothes they do and why they don't run around with that much skin exposed. It was weird feeling like The Bad Influence, while wanting to minimize the Bad Influence I was being, yet without avoiding the pool altogether.

Birkenstocks

Last time I bought shoes, I discovered that Birkenstock makes a high-arch variety. There's not much choice in type of sandal: just the Arizona and the Florida styles. The store where I shopped had the shoes available in only one color. The high-arch sandals are a little more expensive than regular Birkenstocks. The salesman told me that most people don't need (and shouldn't get) the ultra-high arches. I did anyway.

And now I have happy feet. Due to a very wet incident in the backyard with a hose recently, I ended up wearing a pair of old Birkenstocks for a day while my current pair dried. The old ones seem so very flat in comparison. And although my feet were not pained to be wearing them, I could definitely tell the difference in comfort level.

So for those of you who are Birkie-lovers in an attempt to avoid buying orthotic devices -- as opposed to y'all who love your Birkenstocks just because they're so darn comfortable -- you might want to investigate the "high arch footbed" which the company says is their "highest, most aggressive arch support."

Height

I was looking at the 150th-anniversary book of my home congregation. My brother, my sister, my uncle, and I were ALL smack-dab in the center of the back row in our confirmation pictures. My grandpa was the tall one in the pictures of the building committee for the congregation. My grandma was one of the tallest ones in the pictures of the ladies' groups. I guess there's no denying that there's some genes at work there! (Of course, Dad's side of the family ain't exactly short either!)

On top of that, my husband noticed something today. We're doing some time-consuming eagle-watching. (Eaglets are ready to make their first flights in the next day or so.) My uncle and I were both squatting in the exact same position -- the same position, incidentally, in which Philip squats (not sits!) on his chair when he uses the computer. Genes at work there too?

Left toTheir Own Devices

Family reunion. The grown-up cousins enjoying each other's company. The little cousins and second-cousins off playing and having a blast. Lots of games. Lots of talking. LOTS of laughing. Not as much "parenting" going on as normal.

So after lunch, the question is, "Mom, can I go swimming now?"

"Sooooo, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?" (Mothers will understand that that was a HINT and not a genuine question.)

"After breakfast."

For some reason, although I don't know what, I felt the needed to check on the veracity of this statement. So with a little bit of facetiousness, I asked, "After breakfast which day?"

"Yesterday."

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

After my eyes about popped out, I suggested that maybe, just maybe, she miiiight want to brush her teeth BEFORE going swimming.


And then my sister-in-law tells me that a cousin was reeeeeal helpful in this regard. Out in the lake, playing around the "Maypole," Tim tells the group of girls that they need to remember to brush their teeth (even if the parents aren't micro-managing them) because, if they don't, their teeth will get this fuzzy, soft feeling from all that plaque and nastiness. Girls, being girls, decided that maybe, just maybe, FUZZY teeth would feel kinda cool. Maybe they shouldn't brush so they can get that velvety feel on their teeth.

And then parents come along and interfere with their experiment. Harrrumph!

Psalm 78:34

When He slew them,
then they sought Him.
And they returned and sought earnestly for God.
Then they remembered that God was their Rock,
and the Most High God their Redeemer.

Psalm 78 is long. Seventy-two verses long. More than two whole pages in my Bible. Usually when we get to Psalm 78 in daily prayers, I end up reading a portion, or skimming through it pretty quickly. I'm bad. My attention is too short. It's easier for me to pray those 8-verse psalms or even those 16-verse psalms. But two whole long pages? My mind wanders.

This past Sunday, though, we were unable to attend church. I had no laundry to do. No dishes to do. I had time to say my prayers without rushing through a very long psalm. The psalm goes through the things God did for Israel, and how they rejected them. But He was faithful and worked wonders for them. And they rejected Him. So He became angry, but still He was merciful and rescued them. And after a while they spit in His face yet again. This is basically the way life worked through all the history of the children of Israel. And individual Christians can identify with that altogether too well.

But then we get halfway through this recitation of the cycling between unbelief and dependence upon Him and then unbelief again, and Asaph points out very very bluntly, "When He slew them, then they sought Him." It's almost like we cannot seek Him when things are going well. We should! But we tend not to. Thus the need for the curse of the fall, that we struggle with hard work and difficulty in raising kids and coping with earthquakes and floods. Thus God had to give over the Israelites to their sinful desires (for just one little example, to be like the other nations surrounding them) so that they would learn experientially exactly what their desires would garner them.

Pastor talks about the theology of the cross. Luther writes about the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross is obvious through much of Paul's writings. But this one verse really seems to express it in a nutshell: we have no use for Him until He slays us, and then we remember our Rock and our Redeemer.

I've got the quote in at least three different books, but I have access to none of them this week -- the quote from Luther about God's killing to make alive, God's bringing through hell to give heaven, God's bringing us low to raise us up. Yup, that quote is the extended version of these two verses in Psalm 78. I wish I could include the quote; I should probably memorize it. Somewhere in between laundry loads....

Palmolive

My finger hurts. (Waaah waaaah waaaah.)
For a few years I was struggling with a rash on my right hand that hurt and would get so bad that it would bleed. In the last few months I got it under control. I wasn't sure whether it was the Burt's Bees lotion or the Melaleuca Renew lotion or the Palmolive dish soap or the escape from fungus-house. But doing dishes twice (TWICE... only twice!) away on vacation, with soap that's not Palmolive (and what we have here isn't even Dawn!) and the pain is back, the itch is back, the welts are back.

I think the guys are doing the dishes for the rest of this week.
I think I'm going to be freely using my bottle of Renew.
And I think Palmolive just gained one very loyal customer.

Psalm 73

Asaph is having a hard time with the way it seems life plays out. The unbelievers prosper. They have wealth. They have comfort. They oppress the Christians. They sass God. It is just plain useless to be a Christian.

Then Asaph admits that if he were to say such things, it would be untrue and it would scandalize God's children. But he just doesn't get it! He doesn't see how it can NOT be true. Then he goes into the sanctuary of God and figures it out; he sees what will be the end of the wicked.

And that is how Asaph's heart was grieved and how his mind was vexed -- his seeing with his eyeballs (and his senses and his logic) what was going on with the unbelievers and the righteous.

I was foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.
NEVERTHELESS I am continually with You,
You hold me by my right hand;
You will guide me with Your counsel;
and afterward receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none on earth I desire but You.
My heart and my flesh fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.



Sometimes it can be comforting to see that those great saints of the past were as lousy sinners as I. If they can be as unbelieving as Asaph (in other words, if I am as unbelieving and chafing as Asaph was being), we still see that God is faithful to us, turns us around, hangs onto us, and gives us Himself who/which is our only real desire.

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!

Tornado Sirens

This sound filled the air. "What is that?" About the time I began to suspect it was a tornado warning, Paul walked in the door, coming home from work, saying that Mark Belling was interrupted on the radio to announce tornadoes.

I CANNOT SEE THE HORIZON HERE.

This is driving me nuts. There's bad weather, and I have to rely on somebody setting off the sirens? And how do I know if the officials are crying wolf or if there's really danger? I cannot see the full sky now that I live in town!

Seventeen years ago I remember worrying, as spring and "weather" arrived, that there were no tornado sirens out in the country to warn me of dangerous weather. And today I worry that, even though there are sirens, I cannot see the sky and depend on my own two eyes and knowledge of the clouds and weather patterns.

Monday through Friday

Two months ago, Pastor Petersen wrote about how it is good to be a pastor, how it's a good job with many blessings. Gary and I had been talking about that topic while he was applying and interviewing for jobs. And then along came Pr P, affirming all that we recognized was just good about the daily life of a pastor and a pastor's family.

But it was not to be for us. Not anymore.
And it's hard to adjust.

And I know now why so many homeschool moms say that they deeply appreciate that their husbands give them the gift of homeschooling the children. I've heard moms say how glorious it is that they have control of the day, when the kids get up, when mealtime is, whether they ditch the books to go on a fieldtrip, whether they set aside spelling to read another four chapters of history, whether they take the opportunity of good weather to go for a walk or dig in the garden or play at the beach while saving the bookwork for Saturday when it's going to be rainy. That freedom of schedule is an awesome thing to revel in!

I used to know it was a good thing. But I didn't appreciate it as much when Gary had it too, when he could determine whether to mow the grass or make shut-in calls, when he could go on a fieldtrip with us if we could help in the evening with putting the newsletter together, or whatever. But now that he doesn't have that freedom and is tied to his cubicle, it makes me feel sooo thoroughly indulged that I still have that freedom. I feel kinda guilty for having so much when he's sacrificing so much.

Nutrition-Nazi

There's a problem that comes from learning about nutrition and healthy eating. And there's a bigger problem that comes from actually eating well and seeing what a good effect it has on you.

When you're too tired,
or short of money,
or bummed out,
or short on time,
what do you cook, anyhow?

When it seems like making "real food" is beyond your capabilities, and when you feel like you can't eat out or buy insta-food from the grocery store (because you know you'll feel like crud after you eat it), then there's almost nothing left to eat.

No wonder we've been eating so many fried eggs on ww toast recently! Or home-made granola for supper. Or hamburgers. Lots of hamburgers too.

Call Day

When there aren't enough calls to go around when it comes time for placing the graduates of the seminary, that's gotta be pretty discouraging for the guys considering sem. I can't even imagine what it must be like to transplant your family, give up your career, sell your home, take on student debts, and then find after 4-5 years of school that you're not going to be a pastor after all.

Called You by Name

I am Jesus' little lamb.
(Hey. Jesus is the Lamb of God.
We are lambs.
We look like Him.)

Ever glad at heart I am,
for my Shepherd gently guides me,
knows my need and well provides me,
loves me every day the same,
even calls me by my name.
(Hey. We were signed with the holy cross and the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in our baptism. As Isaiah says, "I have called you by name. You are Mine.")

Garden

Jane recently wrote about her garden, and Glenda wrote in response about her farm market and her neighbors who share.

I never used to enjoy gardening. I would do it if necessary. The one year we actually had success was when we took a temporary paddock for a borrowed horse, and tilled it up for garden space. Hey, horse poop and spilled hay makes clay into good soil!

So here we are, in a new house, with a need to cut costs and be even more frugal than before. And now I want to garden. I'm not sure what's going on in me. Maybe there's something about having those baby plants come up and need care; in years past that was just draining because I had PEOPLE who needed so much care and I didn't have energy to waste on plants. Or maybe there's something about the need to make this place MINE that is helped along by putting my seeds into the dirt and getting food out of it. I'm not sure what it is, but there's some desire in me to garden that I never knew before. A friend is putting in extra rows of beans and some extra tomatoes for us, knowing that we aren't prepared to garden yet this year, what with having had to wait on the septic system before doing any tilling. But even with the assurance of beans and tomatoes from someone else (like Glenda has) I just love putting in a foot or two of lettuce every couple of weeks, and putting out one hill of melon in my tiny little patch of dirt south of the garage.

Effective Time

For nearly 20 years we've been having dinner mid-day. The main task of the morning was getting dinner ready. Of course there might also be errands or some schoolwork with the kids. But generally the plan was to eat mid-day and then get on with life during the afternoon and evening.

Now that we are eating in the early evening, I really struggle to get anything accomplished during the day. The pattern is drilled into me that I can buckle down to work (at non-food things, anyway) after dinner. But that isn't a good plan when "after dinner" starts about 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening. Somehow I've got to get my body readjusted and get my mind to agree. I'm just not sure how to get those daily patterns changed. I wish it were as easy as just starting to do it a different way, but that's not workin' so well. At least not yet. Routines and habits do not change just because my mind tells me that those habits have to get switched around Right Now. (Uh... maybe that difficulty in changing something is why we call it a habit.)

Astronaut Farmer

We watched a great movie tonight. Even though I'd felt rather down in the dumps for most of the day, this was an interesting story and a great pick-me-up.

Movies languish for ages in our Blockbuster queue, so by the time they arrive in our mailbox, we've forgotten who recommended it and why, and even what the story is about. Reading the synopsis, I thought this movie was in our queue because it would be about vocation and someone leaving his exciting career to go home and take care of his family. Well, that wasn't the point of the movie at all. I think it must've been recommended by Claire Wolfe in Backwoods Home Magazine ... because this movie isn't shy about showing the government's control over a citizen's grand (and potentially dangerous) plans.

The story is a little heavy on "you can be anything you dream of being," but it still has LOTS of funny and light-hearted moments, a wife who is perpetually supportive of her dear husband, some very real (and very cute) little girls, and a foray into homeschooling.

Janesville

Most of my readers aren't going to care, but a few will. The GM plant in Janesville is closing.

If it weren't for the church situation, I think Janesville would be my first-choice place to live in all the world. There are so many things I love about that city! And the plant's closing is going to be very very hard on the community.

Church Signs

One of the churches in town had a sign for a few weeks that said

Church parking lot for members only.
Trespassers will be baptized.

Now, if it had said "trespassers will be forgiven," I would've really liked that sign.
I like the current one even better. It really doesn't belong on a church sign, but ya gotta admit that there's no false theology in this one:

A balanced diet is
a cookie in each hand.

There are certain women you look up to, certain women you want to be like "when you grow up." They are fun. They tell good stories. They are glowing with love for their Savior. They are your friends as well as people to admire.

So when you get a phone call saying that one of these young 70-yr-olds or 80-yr-olds has passed away, what can you say? If it's relatively unexpected and this lovely woman was bopping along through life in pretty decent health, all you can think is, "NO." But "no" doesn't change it. "No" doesn't make it any easier that Armin and Harlan and Mel and Dorothy aren't joining us for Thursday morning Bible class any more. They're missed. "NO" is not the right response. But "no, it cannot be" is about all I can think right now. Again.

I used to think (back when I was young, and when 50 or 60 seemed "old") that it was odd when you'd see an obituary for an 83-yr-old, and it said that the person "died unexpectedly." I would think about how old the person was and wonder HOW death could be unexpected. But boy, in the last few years, I sure have learned different!

Weekend Away

It was a long drive -- to Fort Wayne yesterday morning and back again this afternoon. But it was a wonnnnderful weekend with so many people we love, and a lovely wedding, and a blast of a party. Not enough time with all those loved ones, but some is better than nothin'! And we made it in better time than we'd anticipated -- which is nice to know with a baby that we may want to see now and then in Ft Wayne. (Katie, it was about 5.2 hours on the way home, and that was with a potty stop and a slow-down for the construction in Chicago, but otherwise ideal traffic through the city.)

Warranties

Gary got a laptop computer from Best Buy three years ago. Three years and three days, to be precise. The extended warranty expired three days ago. Two days ago the whole thing just plain stopped. When he took it in yesterday, they told him what the problem was, and nope, they couldn't fix it under warranty.

Thing is, he's had the machine in twice this past winter for the very problem that finally brought the computer to being utterly unusable two days ago. Best Buy kept insisting there was nothing wrong with the machine. They essentially told Gary that he didn't know how to plug in the machine. If he just plugged it in right, there wouldn't be a problem. Uh. No. How do you make them honor the warranty, short of going to small claims court?

Same day, my oven was blanked out and unusable too. As I tried to figure out online what might need to be repaired, Gary began taking the back off the control. I don't know what he did; I'm not sure he knows what he did. He did get a little zot. But somehow the electricity came back to the control panel, and now the oven is working again. Yeeee haw! (I've been without a stove twice already in the last 9 months, and really really didn't want to do it again.)

Now, if only the computer repair were as easily resolved.

Gary says the moral of the story is to never buy an extended warranty. I don't know. Without the extended warranty, that computer would have only made it a year. I think the moral of the story is to never buy a laptop. (And now all you laptop-lovers, especially the Dell folks, can tell me I'm silly.)

Dizzy

When I was little, I would spin around and around and around in the living room until I got so dizzy I fell over. I loved to get so dizzy that the world would keep on spinning even after I stopped twirling.

My husband hates getting dizzy. He doesn't like to ride the tea-cups or the Tilt-a-Whirl at the fair or at Six Flags. I want to ride the tea-cups with my sons, who have muscles and can make that ride spin fast enough that passers-by stop and point and say, "Wow, look how fast they're going!"

The other day we were at a graduation party. The house has a tiny kettle in the yard. (Maggie calls it a big pit.) A couple of my sons decided to roll down the hill. Oh, gosh! That looked like fun! So I did too. It was steep enough to get rolling really fast, and for a long way down. I finally came to a stop and lay at the bottom of the kettle, looking up at the trees spinning like crazy.

I discovered, though, that I don't have as much padding as I might. I've lost a lot of weight in the last year. And now there are two big bruises on my hips, from thump-thump-thumping down the hill. Still, the 60 seconds of dizziness was great. (And NO, I am not hoping for vertigo! A controlled and sought-after temporary dizziness from a carnival ride is altogether different from being stuck with persistent dizziness.)

Is this what comes from grown-ups tossing around a baby when she's little??? Not only am I not sickened by the spinning, but I love it. Come to think of it, most of my kids enjoy the dizziness, and they were swung around as babies too. Hmmmm, maybe I need to get a large government grant to study this....

The Nagging Habit

The plumber spent Wednesday morning fixing a plethora of leaks around here. Oh, what a wonderful man!! So when he's packing up his final tools, saying goodbye, and taking his leave, I (stupid never-quit-nagging mother that I am) ask if he's got all his tools, and want to go around the house checking all the spots where he might've left things. Oh good grief. Paul (the nice guy from church who is the plumber) told me kindly that he takes good care of his tools and doesn't have a problem leaving them places. Well, of course! Once he said it, it was obvious. Is this what comes from having a plumber a little older than my own kids, instead of older than me? I want to pester and take care of them and make sure they pick up their toys? Oh, what a dummy I am! But at least Paul was nice about my gaffs.

Six Months

More than 17 years ago, Gary had made the decision to leave Wautoma. We were making our first trip to the new home, to visit, to check out the parsonage, to meet the people at Triune. I remember driving down the highway as we approached what would soon be our new home. I remember thinking about this new-to-us landscape, this unfamiliar territory, that someday these farms and fields and roads would signal, "We're almost home!"

It didn't come fast. It took a long long time before that place felt like home. Even after five years, I still thought with longing of the previous parsonage, considering that village and that house to be "home." (We'd lived in the first parsonage for less than 4 years.) When we would go upstate to the annual Wisconsin homeschool conference, we'd swing by the old stomping grounds, and still feel very much "at home" years later. By the time we'd been at the "new" place for about 10 years, I began to feel at home. The roads and farms nearby actually were a sign that we were approaching HOME.

That at-home feeling is coming much faster here. Already there is that deep & comfortable acknowledgment within me that we're "almost home" when we've gotten to within 10 minutes of the house. There's already an "out of place" feeling when I have to go back to the area around the old house for an errand, like this used to be my home. (However, I still am very mixed up in how I refer to which house as "home," going back and forth.)

Anyway, last Thursday when the septic was installed, the previous owner stopped by. (She was the one who contracted with the company who did the work.) It was nice to chat with her and find out that those trees weren't crab apples but were cherries, and when she planted the tulips, and where the garden used to be. But I also thought it was interesting that she's not settled and comfortable in her new home. It's been six months since they moved, and she's still thinking of this place as home. She's wishing they hadn't moved after all.

A couple of hours later, Pastor stopped by. He is a neighbor to the realtor we worked with. Back in March, the realtor would mention how exciting it was that we were moving and buying a house. I was always a little leery, feeling that we'd sort of been pushed into this decision. And then one time she acknowledged the unsettledness that can come from moving. She admitted that it took her six months before she began to feel like their new home (15 years ago) was actually "home." She said it was a gorgeous house, and that it was a wise decision as far as family needs and finances and many other things. But it was still harder on her emotionally than she thought the move should've been. When I mentioned that to Pastor, he couldn't quite figure it out; he thought it would be miiiighty easy to get used to his neighbor's very-nice house. :-)

So maybe this is a girl-thing. Maybe there's something about women and their homes and the attachment they have to those places. Regardless, I feel like maybe I'm a little ahead of the curve on this one, feeling settled faster than these other two women whose stories came up last Thursday, and much faster than I was after our previous move! I think that's why the decision of where to buy groceries yesterday seemed so BIG to me.

New Grocery Stores

I have been trying to finagle a time to get to Woodmans, and it's just not working out. It's so far away, and the gas is so expensive. So yesterday I gathered all my gumption and decided to do the shopping locally. I went to Aldi and got the "real" food (as opposed to majorly processed stuff which is most of what Aldi sells), and then I went to Walmart (sigh!) for the whole wheat flour and the real (not powdered) parmesan and a few other items. I also did some scouting to find out how prices compare and whether the stores even carried a few necessary-to-me items. I know Walmart is more expensive than Woodmans. But is it so much more expensive that it would counteract $12-13 worth of gas to Oak Creek?

I feel disloyal to Mr Woodman. I wonder how long it's going to take before they get that store built in the Falls?

Kombucha Nutrition

Janelle brought to my attention that the nutrition-factoid page I'd linked to previously has been abandoned. The information is no longer there. Bummers. So here is a website that tells what acids are in kombucha and all the different B vitamins in it (along with their specific health benefits). If I remember correctly (and I can't make any guarantees about that), the website that I'd linked to previously claimed that 8 ounces of kombucha provided about 20% of the daily requirements for B vitamins. Another website hawking kombucha claims that a half-pint has traces of protein, fat, and sodium, and about 25 calories,
1/5 from non-sugar carbohydrates
2/5 from fructose
2/5 from glucose
Of course, with home-made kombucha, there's really no sure way to tell what the nutrient content is. But we do know it's heavy in probiotics, enzymes, B's, and all that stuff about acids that I'm not scientific enough to understand.

(This will teach me to rely on using the world-wide web as a file cabinet. You never know when somebody else may come along and purge some files you wanted!)

And for a side comment: while hunting up "replacement information" on kombucha nutrition, I found an article on nutrition and detoxing and eating REAL foods. I didn't read it thoroughly, and I can see there's theology in there that I disagree with. But the lady has some good points with regard to health and nutrition. I really should try making beet kvass. It sounds disgusting, but I used to think carrot juice sounded disgusting, and it actually turned out to be quite sweet. (The sugars in carrots was why Atkins had them on the no-no list.)

Oh, Katie, I just want to point out: the reason you're not supposed to detox while pregnant is because you don't want to loose those deep-buried toxins for your body to deal with. Your body is doing enough work to build a healthy baby. If you're already used to some kombucha now and then, that should be fine. But if anyone you happen to be living with decides to Get Healthy (ahem) you shouldn't be going whole-hog with him.

Visitors

Site-meter tells me that my 50,000th visitor was this afternoon. Wow! Thanks for reading, y'all. :-)

Online Bill Payment

Oh my goodness. Techno-phobe Extraordinaire (that'd be me, by the way) just signed up for online banking and paid a bill online for the first time ever. I got off the computer all shaky and nervous and flustered. But I did it. I bet I can do it again. Especially with the price of stamps these days. Oh, and the price of paper checks too.

Freeze-Drying

I know there are people who freeze-dry their clothes on the clothesline all winter. But I don't want to be one of them! Frugality only goes so far, y'know! It's 50 whoppin' degrees out there, and it's cold to be handling those wet clothes. (Good thing it's summer and we have global warming. Just think how cold it'd be otherwise!)

Maybe I'll look at the electric bill when I resume use of the clothes-dryer next fall and maybe I'll feel compelled to hang clothes on the line in spite of the frigid temps. But right now I'm wondering how long it's going to take those t-shirts to dry today, anyhow. And I'm justifying the use of the clothes-dryer in winter by thinking of colds and immune systems and arthritic hands and other things I want to avoid messing with.

I think maybe, in the ancient days before clothes-dryers, when people had to hang their clothes on the line ALWAYS, they probably didn't do as much laundry during the winter as we do now. Don't you suppose they postponed a lot of it for spring cleaning?

And WHY am I talking about this at the END of MAY??? Aren't we supposed to be reveling in the perfect weather of 70s and 80s -- not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket.... Hmmm?

Whatcha Gotta Do

This morning, while jogging, a neighbor (who was out working in his yard bright and early) commented that I sure am a very hard worker, out jogging every day. It caught me off-guard. I smiled and said briefly as I jogged past, "It's not hard work that does it. I need this to be able to breathe." He smiled and said, "Well, good for you to keep at it." And I kept on joggin' down the road.

And I thought for my last 3/4 mile about the assumptions we make. This man thought I was jogging because it was a good thing to do to exercise, or whatever. And it's not. I do it because I have to. If I don't do my running, I definitely can see the ramifications in both my breathing and my mood. And it's cheaper and has fewer side effects than medications for the same problems.

And I thought about the story I read yesterday (and totally identified with) about the young moms admiring other young moms who have it all together, without a clue that the ones who "have it all together" really really don't and are just acting out of desperation.

And I remembered when my friend Laura thought it was so cool (and was maybe just a mite jealous) that I was all by myself in the house for a couple of days, kids and husband at Grandma's while I painted a few rooms and hauled stuff off to Goodwill. She thought it sounded like a great organization-break from regular life. And all the while I was falling to pieces, trying to figure out how I was going to cope with Baby#7 and where this kid's crib could possibly fit in the house. Thus the purge of belongings to Goodwill. And the early nesting instinct, knowing that there was going to be a LOT of work involved in making space for that baby. (Most of you know us to have six kids. The one in this story was my first miscarriage.)

I have had other homeschool moms make comments about how much catechism or hymnody my children and I have memorized. Sometimes I get the impression they think I'm a dedicated mother who is holy and spiritual and knows her priorities and all that stuff, and thus does [did] a great job of catechizing children. And it's not that. It's much more about being in a situation I can't cope with, neeeeeding God's word to see me through, and therefore devotions is born out of my selfishness rather than proper vocational duty.

I suppose it's nice that the neighbor this morning admired my supposed "hard work." I guess that's putting the best construction on things. And I think we all do that. We admire the hard work and the coping skills of others. The only danger is when we beat ourselves up with thinking, "Why can't I do that too?" Because sometimes things are not what they appear. Today's [3-year] Gospel: Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Maybe you don't want the conditions that impel somebody to DO the things you're admiring???