Month in Review -- July

Oh dear, I am tardy with this post!  Good thing I don't have much to tell you.  It was July.  Hot, above or below 115°F, with average LOW temps at 85°.  We've lived here nearly six years, and it's still weird to me to see the bank thermometer at 103° at 9:00 or 10:00 at night!   We spent a lot of time in the house, and some at the lake or river.  I posted photos of the lake already... And we did art, which I also told you about.... So I will just go look at my trusty camera and see if anything else exciting happened. * * *

While I'm looking, I'll tell you about my reading list.  Lately I have been reading some of the literary classics, to reacquaint myself with them and to see if I would now consider them decent reading for my growing girls.  My criteria for good reading  material changed drastically when the Lord saved me, and as I am responsible for the hearts and minds of a few voracious readers in my house, I am trying to be careful about what we have on our shelves. In the "done" pile are The Old Man and the Sea, Pride and Prejudice, Flowers for Algernon (definitely NOT recommended by me for tweens or teens), and To Kill a Mockingbird.    I can't pre-read everything my kids get a hold of, and I thought that the classics should be relatively safe.  But I had a nagging feeling that they might not be.  I don't know who decides a book is a classic, but we don't have the same standards.  Okay, blanket statement forthcoming. Seems to me a book is called a classic if, in addition to containing great writing, it does one of two things: One, either it challenges cultural mores and norms and ideas about what is right and wrong, or two, it challenges GOD'S authority on the subject of right and wrong.  I don't mind the first at all.  I would put Mockingbird in that category.  It's a great book.  But I don't consider Mockingbird okay for my kids to read, simply because of the mature content.  I know, I read it for the first time in junior high, and I survived. The testimonies about the rape must not have made a big impression on me, because I had forgotten all about them. But do I want to feed that to my kids? And what about the language? Garbage in, garbage out?  **sigh**   Algernon, on the other hand, challenges both societal behavior and God's law.  The story idea is great, but the philosophy is entirely humanistic, and the content is definitely "adult".  Many of the classics have excellent ideas and excellent writing, with all this other stuff thrown in.  Why do they have to do that?  Do I want my kids to learn about humanism or immorality from a book? I haven't figured out if or when it's okay to read something  as  a family that is completely contrary to God's thinking, just so that we can discuss contrasting ideas.  What are your reading recommendations?

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Okay, I found something.  I picked up this great book at the library.   Amy took it over as well as my sewing machine, and she created several bags:

 

Here's the first one she did.  I had this fabric map of the USA hanging around, which I intended for years to at least hem (even had it on the wall with just its raw edges for a long time), and Amy made much better use of it than what it was doing in my sewing stuff.  Using an old mattress pad for batting, Amy machine-quilted the fabric then constructed a big bag and lined it.

My artist mom went to the Provence region of France with her artsy friends for a couple of weeks (wish I could say it was us -- now THAT would have been something to tell!), and that sort of inspired Amy and me to make her a brush holder from a pattern in that same book. (Excuse the tacky brushes.)  Here's the process:

 

Next week we'll be starting "school". Yippee!   Actually I am considering unschooling this year.  Or should I say, unschooling again this year?