Archive for January, 2007
Get a free mini-unit from Tapestry of Grace!
Are you looking for something different for your homeschool next year? Check out the FREE mini-unit on Egypt from Tapestry of Grace! What a great way to experience and learn about what TOG is and how it works, while at the same time experiencing and learning about Egypt! The mini-unit is 3 weeks long and is taken straight from Year 1 of the Tapestry of Grace curriculum. The only thing "mini" about it is the length - certainly not the content!
Check it out and ENJOY!
Some questions for Joseph when I get to heaven
What were you thinking in between
Gen 40:13-15 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will again put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, as when you were his butler. (14) But think of me when it shall be well with you and show kindness, I beg of you, to me, and mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. (15) For truly I was carried away from the land of the Hebrews by unlawful force, and here too I have done nothing for which they should put me into the dungeon.
and
Absolute must-reads
I mean it. Do not pass go; do not collect $200 until you have read these posts from Molly at Adventures in Mercy:
Feast One Hundred & Twenty Eight
Appetizer
If you could take lessons to learn any musical instrument, which would you want to learn?Bass violin. HANDS DOWN. I want to learn how to play it sooooooooooo bad, and I actually have to be careful when I listen to classical music, lest I become discontent at not being able to at this point in time.
Soup
Have you ever mistaken a person for someone else?Maybe, but I don't think I've ever actually said anything to the person.
Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?Probably around a 9.
Main Course
What's the closest you've ever been to a dangerous animal?Hm. Not counting the zoo LOL, maybe when I've been within a few feet of my fil's bull??????
Dessert
When was the last time you lost your patience?About 3 hours ago. LOLOLOL
Courtesy of Friday's Feast.
Which Jane Austen heroine am I?
You scored as Elinor Dashwood. You're Elinor Dashwood, the "sense" of Sense & Sensibility! You tend to hide your emotions, but you feel deeply. You also feel obligated to carry the burden of keeping everyone in your family under control. Which Jane Austen heroine are you?
created with QuizFarm.com
Expectations
I'm part of a small homeschool group at my church. We moms meet once a month. This year we have been going through the book Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell. I've read it in the past, found it "OK," and just sort of went on. But this go around some new things have been sticking out to me.
This past week we were discussing the chapter on anger. One section that hit me square between the eyes was entitled "High Goals, Low Expectations."
I can almost be assured that if I become angry with a child, it is because my expectations match my goals for him. It is essential that we have high, godly goals for our children. We want to lead them to the best of their ability spiritually and educationally. However, in this process of moving toward the goals, we must keep our expectation lower than those goals. When I expect my child to have reached a high goal, then I am likely to become angry with him if he hasn't. On the other hand, if I expect my child to have not yet reached the goal, then my spirit is at peace with the training and teaching process as we strive to reach those goals.
It is so much a matter of perspective. The Lord has given us a definite role in our children's lives. If they are spiritually and educationally mature as children, then why are we to train them up? Why are we told to discipline them? It is because children will spend their childhoods working toward the "high goals" the Lord has set for them. They will make progress toward those goals, but it may not be as quick or discernable as we would like it to be. Aren't we glad the Lord doesn't get angry with us every time we fall short of His goals for us?
More often than not, they don't deliberately choose not to do what we have told them in the past. It just doesn't occur to them at the moment; they are still children. If my expectation is that they probably will forget and I will need to remind them, then it is okay. I am expecting to do my "job." However, if I have expected them to remember and they don't, I will be angry with them.
I have trained my children to make their beds in the morning, get dressed, and straighten up their rooms. That is my goal for them. However, my expectation is that they might not have done some or all of these jobs. My husband and I have set consequences for the various parts that might have been neglected. This frees me from anger. I can inspect their morning work and not be angry if the goal wasn't met. I am prepared to deal with it. I am also delighted to praise a good job.
I can't tell you how many times I have said to my husband in exasperation, "Am I just expecting too much?!?!?!?!" And I think that yes, I have. Another lady in the group expressed the same sort of realization as I did. We both have very high standards for our children, since we all know that children will rise to meet said standard, no matter how high OR low. But what we've seemed to miss is what Mrs. Maxwell wrote about. We've expected them to reach that standard immediately or at least after just a couple reminders/consequences. But instead we should be fully prepared in our minds that they WILL fail and that we WILL have to discipline in some form or fashion (even if it's as simple as a reminder), so that we can help them reach that standard, yet without getting angry/frustrated that they haven't reached it already.
As I've pondered this, I've realized that I do this in other areas as well. I don't know if I'd classify my response as "anger," but at the very least it's disappointment. Whether it be something that my husband doesn't do (that I expect him to) or just something in LIFE that I expect that doesn't happen, it seems that I'm usually disappointed.
I can honestly say that my expectations aren't TOO high either - I don't expect my husband to work full-time, change every diaper when he's home, rub my feet every night, AND take the kids to the park every weekend. 
So I'm trying to learn to expect NOTHING so that everything that does happen is a bonus. 
I will say that one area that is hard for me though is how to remain positive and hopeful about things while at the same time not setting myself up for disappointment due to having too high expectations (even if they aren't really all that high). I'm not a pessimistic person, so it goes against my nature to look to the future and think, "This is as good as it will ever get; dh will always be away from us this often; I'll never have a close in-real-life friend." I tend to think the opposite things and that basically our circumstances are just a "blip" on the radar. Although I do have to admit that this "blip" has been going on now for nearly 6 years.
But I keep on holding on and holding on, remaining hopeful and optimistic.I can see how that can be a GOOD thing, don't get me wrong! Yet I find myself disappointed when either the circumstances just don't change OR get worse. What has really been a bummer in the past is when things have been bad, something happens that I think will improve things DRAMATICALLY, only for things to be a tad bit better, if they're better at all.
So I'm trying to work out just how I need to approach these hopes/dreams/expectations so that I don't turn into a sour grouch while at the same time not expecting things so much that I'm perpetually disappointed when they don't occur.
#6
Everything looked good, from what we could tell! The final report will be sent to my midwives, and I'll get that in a couple weeks when I go for my next appointment. Baby was measuring a week big, but that's no biggie. I doubt very seriously that I'll deliver early.Note the color of my font.
Why I roll my eyes when I hear about global warming
From the March 26, 2006, edition of Time Magazine:
Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.
Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.
Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.
"There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation.
Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970,
Compare this with the June 24, 1974, edition of the same magazine:
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.
the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since
Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
So you'll have to excuse me if I don't buy into "global warming." Considering that just 30 years ago the "experts" were sounding the alarm of a coming ice age, caused by the same things (emissions, etc.), I think I'll just ride it out rather than get into an uproar about it.
Methinks the emperor has no clothes.
Days of Elijah
(I wonder if I will ever be able to sing this song all the way through without losing it.)
Days Of Elijah
These are the days of Elijah,
Declaring the word of the Lord:
And these are the days of Your servant Moses,
Righteousness being restored.
And though these are days of great trial,
Of famine and darkness and sword,
Still, we are the voice in the desert crying
'Prepare ye the way of the Lord!'Behold He comes riding on the clouds,
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call;
Lift your voice, it's the year of jubilee,
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes.These are the days of Ezekiel,
The dry bones becoming as flesh;
And these are the days of Your servant David,
Rebuilding a temple of praise.
These are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white in Your world,
And we are the labourers in Your vineyard,
Declaring the word of the Lord!There's no God like Jehovah.
There's no God like Jehovah!
The Dangerous Journey by Oliver Hunkin
The Dangerous Journey is a retelling of Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. In school right now we are studying colonial New England (Year 2 of Tapestry of Grace), and since that is where John Bunyan lived, we are reading literature written by him. At this point all of my kiddos are Lower Grammar, so instead of the full Pilgrim's Progress, we are reading The Dangerous Journey instead.
WOW!!! This book is excellent! The illustrations are PHENOMENAL. My boys are not ones who just adore books, especially not read-alouds, but this one has kept them on the edge of their seats. There has been gasping during certain passages (always a good sign
). One day I realized that my 8yo was creeping closer and closer to me as I read, so he could see the pictures better.I'm not sure if they have quite grasped the whole allegory concept LOL, but I've been attempting to explain it as we read.
We are definitely looking forward to continuing it next week!
