A Rare Thursday Evening Ramble

The girls and I are home from church tonight, due to colds coming and going.  Normally if I had one with a cold, we'd go anyway and stay away from the little kids and the older people. But since all four of the girls are in one stage or another of some sort of virus, I decided it would be irresponsible to spread four times the germs around the church.  We have a small church family, and we really don't like to have people out for sickness for weeks at a time!  Oh, and yes.  We have church on Thursdays, not on your traditional Wednesday evening.  That was decided before we got here five years ago, and it works to our advantage on those occasions when we want to go see my parents for a few days.

Anyway, three of the sickies are listening to their daddy on a CD, starting a new weekly series on the book of Revelation. Monocogman has not taught Revelation here, and he has a refreshing approach to a sometimes difficult study.  Actually, Revelation is not that hard to understand; people just find it hard to believe.  Every time I read through it, I am excited to think (and know) that we are living in the days prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Certainly the signs of the times are all around us.  By the way, Monocogman is doing a great job on his new blog, keeping with his theme (the theme being ONE) in each post.! Go check it out.

Daughter #1 is rapidly whacking away at her computer keyboard (she heard the lesson from Revelation last Sunday already), and oh good! I see she is writing a new entry.  Did I tell you?  Alizona was recently asked to author the Animal Facts column for the HSB kids' blog, The Backyard!  She spent hours one day doing research and writing entries ahead of time, and she LOVED  learning that way!  Only because it wasn't required for school.  When I suggested doing a history research project she made a face.  But she did say she LOVED learning about animals on her own.  Now if I can only get her interested in chemistry or history or some other high school subject that way.  She is very savvy with computer technology, given the opportunity to do something with her knowledge.  For some reason -- ?? beats me -- Alizona has been very interested lately in learning the Linux OS, and this week she figured out on her own how to download it to a "live" CD and run if from there, rather than from her computer. (I'm certain I am messing up the terminology. Sorry, dear.)  If you know anything about Linux, or if you are a computer geek, she would love to hear from you.  I have no clue.  She will spend as much time as I will give her, telling me all the ins and outs of this Kubuntu or whatever, and it's like she is speaking a foreign language to me.  I pray the Lord would lead guide her interests and talents to the things that she can use for this glory (and maybe a teeny bit of income) down the road.

In other news, we tried a new oatmeal raisin cookie recipe yesterday, one that calls for a yellow cake mix.  Those cookies are half gone already (what do you expect in a family of six that is very communistic when it comes to goodies?) ... very yummy.  However they are not your traditional oatmeal raisin cookie, and this week I am particularly fond of tradition.  I'm kind of longing for a traditional Thanksgiving, which this one is not going to be.  One side of our family does everything very traditionally -- fall centerpiece, turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, the whole kaboodle. The main player on the other side doesn't care for turkey, so I believe we are having lasagna, or something else that will be equally delicious but not traditional.  And, a picnic, not a big sit-down dinner in the dining room. Now, I am not grumbling about this -- it is fun to be with my family, and this is one of the rare times we siblings are all able to get together. ...But in my own immediate family, this one right here, we keep so few traditions.  (I can't even think of any.)  I really want to establish Thanksgiving Day as a special time around the Lord and all his goodness.  Which it should be anyway, but how that turns out depends a lot on the company we keep on that day. You know how it is. And somehow it's just not the same if we do the traditional meal on Friday.  Mom...?  Next year we might be staying home...