It Pays to Serve

Boy, did my girls make out at the book fair!  Alison and Amy volunteered their under-age services yesterday, and they were paid anyway, in book credits!  It was a great experience for them.  They set up the room, unloaded boxes, organized materials, priced books, made up displays, socialized with grown-ups, and came home with $100 worth of fun things. What a blessing! God is good to us!  Isn't this cute -- their aprons say, "BookLover" on them.  That's Amy's HSB user name.

Wish we had picked up a few more things.  It's just like me to change my mind!  Might have to go back today.

Just Checking In

"In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin."  Somehow I believe that if you have nothing much to say, you are best off not saying anything, and that is where I have been lately.  Even today there isn't much in my heart or brain that really needs telling...

We are a few days closer to the end of the school year than we were last year, hooray.  Yesterday I was ready to send two of the rotten lovely children to public school just so they could appreciate being homeschooled. But with my luck these two would have loved PS and would never have wanted to come home, lol.  So.  That option is out.  We definitely need more structure, and the girls need a teacher who NEVER lets them get away with ANYTHING, because I am paying big time for being a softie.  You know, in school, you don't get to skip any of the problems just because you already know how to do them, and you have to answer all the "answer in a full sentence" questions, and you wouldn't think of whining to the teacher, "Please, do we HAVE to do this page??", and the teacher doesn't do the work for you.  Someday I may write a best-selling book on all the "don'ts" of parenting/homeschooling, based on personal experience.

This afternoon my older two are going to pose as volunteers for the Scholastic Book Fair in town.  They  can't be official volunteers because they are underage, but the lady is very short-handed, and a friend of mine who IS an official volunteer is going to adopt them for the afternoon.  If a volunteer mom brings her kids along, there isn't much the Scholastic lady can do about that, is there?  So A&A are looking forward to stocking books and straightening up stuff and helping customers, and, no doubt, reading a few books!

Our third annual homeschoolers' recital is tomorrow night, one of those things kids are forced to do, as my children attest, for the sake of their proud parents.  We will have a nice variety of instrumentalists and ensembles and reciters of poetry/scripture for our listening pleasure.  Only three of the kids who are participating are taking music lessons, and I think it is fun to see how the others improve on their own. Our group has grown from eight participants the first year to eighteen this year!  I am excited.

So.  That's about all the news.  Not really, but I am getting ready to post my Month in Review for April, and you wouldn't want me to spoil anything. 

From Today's eMail

Jesus Christ is the First and Last,
The Beginning and the End!

He is the keeper of Creation and the Creator of all!
He is the Architect of the universe and the Manager of all times.
He always was, He always is, and He always will be ...
unmoved, Unchanged, Undefeated, and never Undone!

He was bruised and brought healing!
He was pierced and eased pain!
He was persecuted and brought freedom!
He was dead and brought life!
He is risen and brings power!
He reigns and brings Peace!
The world can't understand him,
The armies can't defeat Him,
The schools can't explain Him, and The leaders can't ignore Him.
Herod couldn't kill Him, The Pharisees couldn't confuse Him,  and The people couldn't hold Him!
Nero couldn't crush Him, Hitler couldn't silence Him,
The New Age can't replace Him, and "Oprah" can't explain Him away!

He is light, love, longevity, and Lord.
He is goodness, Kindness, Gentleness, and God.
He is Holy, Righteous, mighty, powerful, and pure.

His ways are right,
His word is eternal,
His will is unchanging, and His mind is on me.
He is my Savior,
He is my guide, and He is my peace!
He is my Joy,
He is my comfort,
He is my Lord, and He rules my life!

I serve Him because His bond is love,
His burden is light, and His goal for me is abundant life.

I follow Him because He is the wisdom of the wise,
the power of the powerful,
the ancient of days, the ruler of rulers, the leader of leaders, the overseer of the overcomers, and is to come. And if that seems impressive to you, try this for size.

His goal is a relationship with ME!
He will never leave me,
never forsake me,
never mislead me,
never forget me,
never overlook me and
never cancel my appointment in His appointment book!

When I fall, He lifts me up!
When I fail, He forgives!
When I am weak, He is strong!
When I am lost, He is the way!
When I am afraid, He is my courage!
When I stumble, He steadies me!
When I am hurt, He heals me!
When I am broken, He mends me!
When I am blind, He leads me!
When I am hungry, He feeds me!
When I face trials, He is with me!
When I face persecution, He shields me!
  When I face problems, He comforts me!
When I face loss, He provides for me!
When I face Death, He carries me Home!

He is everything for everybody everywhere, every time, and every way.

He is God, He is faithful. I am His, and He is mine!

My Father in heaven can whip the father of this world.
So, if you're wondering why I feel so secure, understand this...

He said it and that settles it.
Jesus Christ is in control, I am on His side,
and that means all is well with my soul.
 

Everyday is a blessing for GOD Is!

Three Days and Three Nights

For as Jonas was three days and three nights
in the whale's belly;
so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40

Have you ever wondered how we get three days and three nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning? Tradition can really mess up the way we understand God's word.  For a concise explanation, see here. 

Another tradition we should examine is observing the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. 

Why did "the church" adopt the "observing of times" in their worship?  Did you know that the early Christians didn't keep an annual observance of the resurrection day?  That observance was added to the church "calendar" many, many years later.  See my earlier post on the word  "Easter", if you are curious about the use of that word  in the King James Bible, in Acts 12:4.

Don't be one of those to whom Jesus was speaking when he said, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. Mark 7:9  

This Week's Vocabulary List

 

Crafting With Kids

When I was a lot younger I learned how to sew.  Now that I am older and can look back on those years with some measure of maturity and objectivity, I realize that my learning to sew must have been miserable for my dear mother.  I am a perfectionist of sorts, choosing those thing in my life which must be faultless, impatient with myself, unrealistically expecting mastery on my first try. 

Amy is quite crafty and creative all on her own.  She sees something to make, and she makes it her own way, substituting supplies when we don't have the "right" ones.  She always has something in the works.  In this way, she is a dream child.  But the others need help. Lots of it.  They need for me to set aside a block of time to do it for them help them until the project is finished. A block of time with no distractions.  And we're not stopping until we're done.

Yesterday big sister started some thread spool dolls in minutes, cute little things.  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and soon I had two smaller girls avidly interested in making "something" on their own.  (But not something Mom suggested, of course, something that was their own idea.)  You have to understand, I am one of those people who run from crafts.  And to me, crafting with kids is like... well, like the Chinese bamboo-under-the-fingernails torture! **Shudder.** Today, underneath my outwardly, barely adequate, meek and quiet spirit,  I have been writhing and twisting, and occasionally screaming.  I have a five-year-old learning to back-stitch.  She does well for about three stitches, and then she makes a huge mess, and then I undo it and make about a dozen stitches myself.  Then we are out of thread, so I get some more and start it, then she takes three stitches, un-threading the needle a dozen times in the process, and we repeat.  We have been doing this project for hours.  But I have to give her credit.  She is DETERMINED.  I am happy to see this character quality in her, as painful as it is to my selfishness.

I know this is necessary.  It's how we learn.  Oh. Heh heh.  I am not talking about Emily learning to sew.  I am talking about me!  I am flunking... I am not nearly as determined to be patient as Emily is to learn to sew.  Above is her finished project, done 75% by me.  My own project will not be completed til I go to heaven... but Jesus is still working on me!

He's Still Working on Me There really ought to be a sign upon the heart,
Don't judge her yet, there's an unfinished part.
But I'll be perfect just according to His plan
Fashioned by the Master's loving hands.

Chorus
He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He's still working on me.

In the mirror of His Word reflections that I see
Make me wonder why He never gave up on me.
He loves me as I am and helps me when I pray
Remember He's the Potter, I'm the clay.

--Joel Hemphill

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded:
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Phil. 3:13-15

Being confident of this very thing,

that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Phil 1:6 

A Belated Happy Spring (and April Fool's Day, Too)

The Month in Review -- March

March has been a lovely month!  Up until the past couple of blustery days, the weather has been perfect.  It was so perfect, in fact, that we took a couple of weeks off school and played outside.  So, this school year is going to end in August, so what?  I don't mind doing school through the summer, but I'd much rather be ahead than behind. And we definitely aren't ahead!   

The desert bloomed this month, hooray!  Here are a few early morning pics of the blooming desert.  The landscape has blossomed nicely.  Lots of winter rain brings a thin blanket of green to the local mountains and provides us with blossoms in profusion.  Notice our flowers are mostly in "hot" colors. How fitting.  If you don't care for yellow or orange flowers, this is not the place for you.

We finished The Wheel on the School (Meinert DeJong), and it comes highly recommended by all the children, and by me, too.  Daddy and Emily are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl) together, and the rest of us are really enjoying the fourth book in the autobiographical Little Britches series by Ralph Moody, Mary Emma and Company.  It is such a heartwarming story!  The children are happy, hard workers and so resourceful, and, as I told you, Mrs. Moody is my character hero.  Any mom who can cheerfully battle a smoky, sooty furnace, freezing temperatures, and a "new" house that was left absolutely filthy by the previous occupants gets a big star in my book.  On my personal pile is a garage sale find, Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook.  A very good read.  I don't completely share his criteria for read-aloud selections, but he gives enlightening info on the benefits of reading to your kids, the serious detriments of the television, and a great list of recommendations.

Amy is still crafting away.  A very sweet blogging friend has hired to her to make several of those little dollies that I posted photos of in last month's Review.  We have begged and groveled for wool, acorn caps, and felt.  Below, Amy is washing mohair from PlainJane's goats.  And thanks to OldSchoolMarm, these dollies will be complete with their acorn cap hats.  Thank you, friends!

More crafting, miniature appliances by Amy:

Elisabeth has been busy with her Sculpey clay, making tiny culinary delights for her clay people.

roast beef mashed potatoes and corn

spaghetti and meatballs, of course

ice cream sundae!

the eaters

Below, my handyman operates on the nasty swamp cooler guts.  It's quite ingenious, actually.  A small hose drips on thick pads surrounding this squirrel cage.  As the fan rotates air is pulled in through the wet pads and is cooled, then it is forced into ducts that come into the house through the ceiling.  The windows have to be open to prevent blowing up the house, so we get lots of fresh air.  I do like that aspect.  A swamp cooler costs pennies to run, but in our house it's only good to about 105°.  After that we seal up the place and run the AC.  I feel rather foolish about my earlier rant.  It only took about fifteen minutes to clean up the dust that blew in.  How silly of me. 

Alison is pretending to be Anne of Green Gables, balancing on the "ridge pole".  We need a little bit steeper pitch on the roof to be more authentic.

Four very tall people took an evening stroll:

Oh, and I can't forget to post photos from the manly men's mountain climbing expedition! (See previous post.) It's really difficult to get the right perspective in a photo. This was a very steep climb!  My husband is the kind of guy who climbs a mountain because it is there.  Is your husband like this? To be honest, I really don't understand this kind of thinking.  I enjoy looking at mountains, but I don't ever feel like I have to climb them.  Must be a guy thing.  Anyway, these guys all did some research before tackling Spirit Mountain, and everyone agreed the directions were very vague.  So they just drove out there and started up.  The supposedly six-hour, moderate climb up and back down the mountain took them over eight and a half grueling hours, and they never did get to the top.  My DH did a little more research when he got home, and he found that there is marked trail on the west side, which is a  nice level two hike.  Ah. They had scaled the level five south side of the mountain, blazing their own trail.  LOL!  So they are already making plans for the next climb, but it will be later in the year, AFTER snake season, you know.  Speaking of snakes, they didn't see any, but they did see this critter, a chuckwalla.  Chuckwallas get up to 18" long, almost as big as a gila monster. Scary.  That body of water in the lower right photo is Lake Mohave. In the lower left photo you can just barely see the Laughin casinos waaay off in the distance. 

Alison got her braces this week.  After much deliberation, she finally settled on metallic blue bands (not pictured yet).  Poor kid, her mouth is still sore, and she is on an unanticipated diet.  The orthodontist yanked out four teeth, leaving her nothing to chew with. Amy gets her brackets and appliances next month, and she has already made up her mind to get glow-in-the-dark pink.   It's a nice thing those band colors can be changed each visit, hee hee.  While Alison was being held captive in the chair, Amy spent a couple of hours asking questions and exploring the contents of the cabinets in our dentist's office. (No, Amy is not a toddler, lol.)  Three or four of the nurses and the dentist/ortho asked her if she wanted to be a dentist when she grows up, and Amy replied, "No.  I want to be a full-time mom."  Good. 

Tonight I opened the fridge to get a  hard boiled egg for our salad, and look what I found -- gospel eggs!  You can see which one I cracked before I decided to take a picture.  This verse, "O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good," brought a smile to my face.  God certainly is good.  I thanked him for my daughter, who left these subtle reminders.

Three days left this month, but we have no plans other than church and a funeral. If anything exciting happens I'll be sure to let you know!

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?
or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children:
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Luke 11:11-13