Feast of Trumpets, 2011

This is a season of favor and forgiveness, growth, maturity, reconciliation with God and man. It is a time of new beginnings.

Listen to the sound of the Shofar!

Traditionally this festival is a time of the creation of the world and the re-creation of man. It is understood that at this time man can experience the newness of creation through his reconnection with God. This renewal process does not occur in some mystical manner--but rather through effort and faith. True change is possible through personal commitment to repentance, learning, and forgiveness.

Repentance brings renewal! As we hear the Shofar, we proclaim, "... Return us and we will return..." (Lamentations 5:21)

Paul brings in the "trumpet of the Lord" analogy for the resurrection of the dead. In 1 Thessalonians 4-5 he is speaking in the context of the future resurrection of the dead. But we can experience this resurrection now by awaking ourselves to our true spiritual realities and also by exhorting others.

He tells us that while we wait for the great trumpet of the Lord we are to "Therefore encourage one another with these words." (1 Th. 4:18)

What are these words?

• That we are children of light...and to walk it that light. To be awake not asleep. (5:4-11)
• Respect those who labor among you and be at peace with one another. (5:12-13)
• Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, seek to do good to one another, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks to God in all circumstances, abstain from every form of evil. (5:14-22)

Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Th. 5:23)

We are fast approaching the biblical year of 5772. May God bless you. May He strengthen and unite us. May His spirit abound and be evident in us. May He bring peace to our restless souls and may we serve Him unreservedly.  ~Boaz Michael, "Rosh Hoshanah & Admonishing the Idle"


These photos are from our Yom Teruah/Feast of Trumpets gathering just last night.  The girls were thrilled to be able to be a part of the evening!

Miss Mary is a gentle and patient teacher.  She taught this dance to them just this week.

More than a tad sweet.

Let me tell you just a little bit about Sally and Randy.  They are just about the sweetest folks you would ever want to meet. We met them a couple months ago when we visited their church, and we are very fortunate to have continued to stay in touch despite choosing to worship among a different congregation of believers.  They live on a couple acres of land in a beautiful country subdivision with twisting and turning roads and hills.  Along with their two fabulous children, Jonathon and Anna, they have a goat.  Her name is Linda, and we love her almost as much as the human members of the family.  We've not visited their home more than a couple times, but both times the home smelled like freshly baked yumminess and oozed a sense of peace and calm.  Yes, even as Linda was making all sorts of loud (and kinda crazy) goat calls to the girls through the windows, the home retained a comfortable and peaceful feeling.  Linda loves company, and although we were told that she was frolicking with about 20 wild turkeys earlier in the week, she clearly prefers the human variety of playmate. 
This week, Sally called and said that Randy had cleaned out Linda's water bowl and found several tadpoles...and did we want any?  Knowing that the kids would LOVE the idea, I said yes.  Now, we have Bob, Alex, Joe, Tailey and about a dozen other tadpoles on our back porch.  These tadpoles are getting more mothering than they could have ever hoped for! 

As I type this a couple hours after The Great Tadpole Adoption of 2011, the girls are still hovered over the aquarium hoping to see tails shrink and legs sprout, and whatever else happens in-between. 

Feeling thankful and happy for all creatures, great and small--for Sally and Randy, and a bucket full of tadpoles.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Swede and Uncle Cliff.  They turned 80 and 90 this year, respectively.  We weren't able to make their big birthday bash up in Illinois this year, but we heard it was a lot of fun.  With the advent of facebook, this and many other pictures were posted by party-goers almost immediately afterwards. Don't they look cute? :)

Quotables

Belle: "Oh, I'm so cold!"
Moo: (Quickly and quietly gets up, grabs a quilt off the quilt rack and goes over and covers her sister on the couch.)
Mom: "Awww...I never had a sweet sister like that when I was growing up!"
Belle: "Yeah, it skips a generation."

I love my girls.

More Quotes

Belle:  "Leave Mama alone...she's got her syndrome right now."

Note to self: sometimes sharing the reality of PMS with the kids can work.

Turning Mirrors into Windows

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.  

~Sydney J. Harris

 

I realized just this year that I list my curriculum and book choices for the girls along the right margin of my blog, and each year when I revise and update them they are then lost forever!! (Yes, I keep some sort of "official records"...they are just not that fun to read through.) So I thought I would just write a post in the beginning of each school year outlining our books and emphases for that year.  This is that post.

 2011-2012

Moo: 7th Grade  

This year we are trying something different with our eldest.  Up until this point, I have been quite eclectic in my curriculum choices.  We went with classical education for a couple years, and used Classical Conversations as our guide.  Then, for the last couple years, I have been leaning more toward a Charlotte Mason approach, with a decent amount of extra-curriculars, field trips, get-out-in-the-real-world-and-look-around, delight-directed education.  This year, I decided to jump head first into Calvert School.  *GULP*  It is a great curriculum, though very different to what we are used to in a few ways.  Nevertheless, Moo is really starting to take to it quite well after a couple weeks of getting used to the structure and rigor of the program.  What she loves about the program are all the online options, including frequent links during Science class to Brainpop.com, streaming video options from Discovery Channel School for a good portion of her history work, online spelling games and several tutorials and activities developed specifically by Calvert for their students.  The bulk of her work is very traditional reading, writing and assessment--but these few minutes a day of online "extras" really make her quite happy. 

Here is Moo's daily/weekly schedule:

Bible- The Gospel of John, weekly Torah Portions  
Violin- Suzuki book 2 (almost on to book 3!) 
Math- Chalkdust Pre-Algebra 
Grammar & Composition- Elements of Language, Holt, Rinehart, Winston 
Spelling- Everyday Spelling, Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley
History- Across the Centuries, Houghton Mifflin
Geography- The World and its People, Vol 1, Glencoe McGraw-Hill
Science- Science Explorer Series, Pearson Learning Solutions & Discovery School

• From Bacteria to Plants
• Human Biology & Health
• Motion, Forces and Energy
• Animals
• Sound and Light

Art- A Child's History of Art: Architecture, Hillyer & Huey
Choir- 15-30 minutes practice daily
Foreign Language- Rosetta Stone Spanish, learning Hebrew aleph bet
Reading- The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli; A Single Shard, Park; Out of the Dust, Hesse; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Taylor; Across America on an Emigrant Train, Murphy; The Miracle Worker, Gibson;  Around the World in Eighty Days, Verne;  Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl; Kidnapped, Stevenson; Classic Poems to Read Aloud, Selected by James Berry

Belle: 5th Grade

This is a fun year for Belle, as she has been blessed with a sharp mind and a love for reading...which then makes for a perfect scenario for a year full-to-the-brim with really great books.  (I am reconciling myself to the fact that Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys will sneak into her booklist here and there...that will just have to be okay.)   Being the second child, Belle is fortunate to have a homeschooling mommy who has seen the favorable outcome of the eclectic (and dare I say laid back?) homeschooling approach with her older sister. So this year for Belle, I am very contentedly and confidently charging forward with my "a little of this, and a little of that" curriculum decisions.  So far, she is very pleased.

Here is Belle's daily/weekly schedule:

Bible- The Gospel of John, weekly Torah Portions

Guitar- 30 minutes a day, 1x/wk. with MTPAA

Handwriting- A Reason For Handwriting, Cursive E

Spelling/Dictation-  Spelling Plus, Susan C. Anthony

Grammar- Daily Grams 5

Math- Abeka 5 Math

Geography- Daily Geography Practice, Evan-Moor; Explore the Holy Land, Voskamp

History- Abraham Lincoln's World, Foster; Story of the World: Modern Era, Bauer; This Country of Ours, H.E. Marshall

Science- Christian Liberty Nature Reader 5; Exploring Creation with Botany, Fulbright; The Story of Inventions, McHugh

Foreign Language- Rosetta Stone Spanish, Hebrew aleph bet

Art-  Discovering Great Artists, Kohl & Solga

Choir- 15- 30 minutes practice daily

Reading- Robin Hood, Pyle; Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan; The Railway Children, Nesbit; Bambi: A Life in the Woods, Salten; In His Steps, Sheldon; A Basket of Flowers, Christoph von Schmid

Poetry- A Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson; Lewis Carroll study

That's about it...though I am positive there will be changes along the way.  It's a gal's prerogative to change her mind, right?  That is the beauty of being the teacher, principal and superintendent all rolled into one!

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.  

~Albert Einstein

Random Pictures of Nashville

The other day when I was in the rare position of being the passenger and not the driver of my van, I decided to just snap a few pictures within a 10 minute time frame of driving on the outskirts of Nashville. So yeah, this pretty much qualifies for the distinction of "Lamest Blogpost Ever"...but I was compelled. ;)

LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans

Another view.

Yep, another view.

Oh, if only we knew this guy when we were selling our home up north...

Nashville.

Nashville...

...and more Nashville.

Look Dad!

Awww--you know you want to!

Yum, y'all.

Where do you want to go? Knoxville? Chattanooga?

Memphis? Murfreesboro?

A nice retirement community with great construction management?

You can't read the sign, but this is the entrance to the Nashville Airport.  A little different from O'Hare, yes?

This is a highway.  I know...strange and exciting, right?

The End of the Lamest Blogpost Ever.

Enjoying Kipling

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

A Pilgrim's Way
I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way,
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If these are added, I rejoice---if not, I shall not mind,
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
For as we come and as we go (and deadly-soon go we!)
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

Thus I will honour pious men whose virtue shines so bright
(Though none are more amazed than I when I by chance do right),
And I will pity foolish men for woe their sins have bred
(Though ninety-nine per cent. of mine I brought on my own head).
And, Amorite or Eremite, or General Averagee,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

And when they bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears,
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears.
And when they labour to impress, I will not doubt nor scoff;
Since I myself have done no less and---sometimes pulled it off.
Yea, as we are and we are not, and we pretend to be,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

And when they work me random wrong, as oftentimes hath been,
I will not cherish hate too long (my hands are none too clean).
And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise.
No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside charities.
But, as we give and as we take---whate'er our takings be---
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

But when I meet with frantic folk who sinfully declare
There is no pardon for their sin, the same I will not spare
Till I have proved that Heaven and Hell which in our hearts we have
Show nothing irredeemable on either side of the grave.
For as we live and as we die---if utter Death there be---
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

Deliver me from every pride---the Middle, High, and Low---
That bars me from a brother's side, whatever pride he show.
And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen
That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged. Amen!
That I may sing of Crowd or King or road-borne company,
That I may labour in my day, vocation and degree,
To prove the same in deed and name, and hold unshakenly
(Where'er I go, whate'er I know, whoe'er my neighbor be)
This single faith in Life and Death and to Eternity:
``The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!''

From Tennesse to Egypt, and Back.

 The Tennessee State Museum is a great place to visit when you are down visiting the Capitol grounds.  It offers free admission, lots of displays and, for now, an Egypt exhibit called Relics, Replicas and Revivals: Treasures from Tutankhamun.  Key word?  Replicas.  Yep--when you scroll down and see how CLOSE we got to the exhibits that are NOT behind glass...well, it's because they are only replicas.  But hey, none of us cared, and it was a lot more fun and beautiful than our time at the Field Museum when the real Tut and his real stuff was on exhibit.

Learning about Long Hunters, like Daniel Boone.  We visited Long Hunter State Park a few months ago, not knowing the origin of the term.  Long Hunters (or Longhunters) would go on long expeditions and hunting trips for months at a time.   I think my Dad would have liked this way of life.

A frontier cabin, a 200-year-old dugout canoe, a grist mill, and a Conestoga wagon all give testimony to life on the frontier.

This canoe would have had room for dozens of men.

Such humble beginnings...see the following picture to read the plaque below this scale model of early Nashville.

Grain mill.

Daaavvyyy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier! 

Old printing press.

Ain't misbehavin'!

Guilty as charged.

Dumb camera failure.  Anyway--that's a replica of King Tut. Poor guy has seen better days.

This guy is a modern piece that is described as "Egyptian Revival".  Even though the sign says that there's an "Egyptian revival in Tennessee", well, I'm not buying it.  I'll take that statement back the moment I see something like this standing out in one of my neighbor's front yards.

Wondering how similar this chariot would have been to those that were part of Pharoah's army and overcome in the sea while pursuing the Israelites.

Cartouche Box of the 18th Dynasty.  Replica of what is held at the Cairo Museum.

Yeah, yeah...it's covered in gold.  But personally, I'm thankful for modern-day mattresses.

Interesting...read below:

Egyptian game--read below:

The Grant Clan enjoyed their short visit in Egypt, but honestly...we prefer being out of Egypt.  For all the wealth, nobility and majesty displayed in the relics of the kings of Egypt, we are reminded of the even greater treasures and majesty of the One who chose to send his initial messenger in a humble basket down the Nile.  Decades after being "drawn from the water", he would instruct and guide in the gentle Way of He who would come from similar humble beginnings in a land northeast of Egypt.  May we have ears to hear.