"The Five Love Languages of Children" by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell
"Keeping Faith" by John Schaeffer and Frank Schaeffer
"Flags of our Fathers" by James Bradley
"Loving God With All Your Mind" by Elizabeth George
On... May. 17, 2008
my friend... callmekate
wrote about...Lessons
Well, that's one way to amass a large number of birthday greetings - just leave your post up forever and everyone will get around to reading it!
Just kidding! Thanks again for all the nice birthday comments! So kind! In sharp contrast, Mother's Day was a pretty average day. My kids don't quite get Mother's Day and unless my husband is actively involved, Mother's Day is a wash. And I don't feel quite right about asking everyone to celebrate Mother's Day after the birthday event. Todd worked Sat. and Sun. nights and was sleeping most of Sun, so I just asked the kids to try and be extra good that day. And I ordered Chinese take-out for dinner, my own contribution to my day. Those sweet ladies at the restaurant wished me a Happy Mother's Day (and I returned the greeting) and then they gave me a rose before I left. That was really all I needed! It's been fun reading about other bloggers' Mom's Day. Especially the breakfast-in-bed posts. Precious. I seriously doubt I'll ever get that kind of treatment but it's totally o.k.
Yesterday turned out to be a learning experience for me. I had driven into a suburb of Portland, nearly 100 miles away, to do some shopping. As I was leaving to start the journey home, I saw a warning light on my new car's dashboard. NO ONE wants to see a warning light now, do they? And wouldn't it be great if those warning lights SAID what they meant in words instead of some unfamiliar symbol that doesn't seem to match anything you can find in your manual? It looked like a fish bowl with a candle in the middle. Seriously! I found a good place to pull over and got out my car manual. I finally figured out it was low tire pressure. Hmmm. I got out and looked at the tires and, sure enough, one was flat. The nearest gas station was ahead on Hwy 30, at least 10 miles away and I had nothing but a sharp, curving road to drive before I got there. Well, this is a good time to pray! Amazingly, the car didn't feel like it was driving funny at all. I made it to the gas station and checked the tire pressure. Uh, wait a minute ... there WAS no tire pressure, at all! Geesh! And, of course, air costs 75 cents (quarters only) and, of course, I only had 1 quarter. I went inside the station and got quarters, returned and put air in the tire. Did I mention that this was the hottest day we've had all year? It was 95 degrees. 95!! No big deal if one is used to it but just the day before, I was still cold and wearing a sweater. That's the way it is here, quite often. It's cold forever and then one day, boom, you get a sweltering day. And not just hot but WINDY. Not the usual cold wind we get but a really hot wind, like the Santa Ana winds I grew up with. Anyway, there I was, sweaty, hot, filling the tire, checking the pressure, praying that the tire would get me home.
It didn't. About a mile down the road, the fish bowl light appeared again. This wasn't good. I pulled over and called my dh (again). I could have called AAA (our roadside membership) but since the car was still driveable, I decided to keep going, being so far from home and all. Several miles down the highway, I spotted a car dealer and I pulled in. They agreed to put my spare tire on for me but when they found out how far I had to drive to get home, they suggested I go further down a few blocks to a tire store and see if they could fix the tire. I thanked the guys who helped me and headed down the highway. It was getting late but the tire store was still open. They were so nice, they took the tire off right away to inspect it ... then they showed me the 8" steel nail that punctured the tire, bent and then shredded a big hole in it. Yikes! They didn't have a tire to match so my dh said to have them put the spare on and just come home. When I asked the tire people how much I owed them, they said it would be "Free dollars". At first I didn't understand, then I got the joke! By now, I am wind-blown, really hot and sweaty and probably not smelling the greatest. But I thanked them graciously and started on my way home, being warned not to go more than 40-50 mph. So I went 43 mph all the way home. I must have pulled over 10 times to let cars pass me (Hwy 30 is a 2 lane hwy for much of the stretch to the coast). I kept looking in my rear view mirror to check for cars and once I looked up and saw a red truck behind me. In the next instant, suddenly a police car appeared with flashing lights and siren blaring! Where he came from, I do not know. I skidded to the side of the road to let him by and sat there to collect myself a bit. Boy was I glad he wasn't after me! By this time, I just wanted to get home, you know? It was 4:00 when I originally left to head home but it was 7:30 before I got there. It should have only taken 2 hours. You tend to feel a bit cheated out of your day when something like this happens. I was so glad to turn into our driveway. I was tense all the way home because of the spare tire and worried about the people behind me. I did have a few cars drive up suddenly and pass me too fast but most people kept their distance and didn't tail me. God kept me safe and I when I was afraid, He helped me. My husband took care of the kids and dinner was ready when I got home. Bless him.
Today was another learning experience. When we bought this car (about 3 weeks ago) we paid for a program that would give us discounts on several services, including tires. I called the program center and asked how to proceed with this tire claim. We made an appointment with the car dealer and my husband took the tire in for me (another "bless him"!) His appt. was at 1:00 pm. By 3:00 pm, I called my dh and he said he was still waiting for the program center to approve his claim. This wasn't right. So I called the program center and they said they hadn't received the claim. They said they needed pictures of the damaged tire before they could approve a new one and they hadn't heard from the car dealer. I'm starting to get frustrated at this point. I called the car dealer and explained the situation. They said they emailed the photos. I said, "Well, the program center hasn't received them. Can you follow up on this?" Within 10 minutes, my husband called me back to say that all had been approved and they were putting on the tire. I was furious that they made him wait 2 hours for something that should have only taken 10-15 minutes. He was 50 miles away as well, which meant he had to hang out somewhere all that time (in another sweltering day). It turns out that the guy at the car dealer did email the photos but attached the wrong customer name to the photos. I was so glad I called everyone and made things happen. I think God gave me that nudge. If I hadn't have intervened, my husband would still be there (o.k., he wouldn't be there this late but you get the picture!)
Lessons learned:
1. Read your car owner's manual. Sometimes a fish bowl isn't a fish bowl.
2. Pack extra food/water and maybe an extra shirt when you have to travel over 50 miles away from home.
3. Never assume people will take care of things for you. You must follow up on things yourself. People make mistakes. Keep your cool and ask for help - people usually respond in kind. Smile a lot and thank everyone who helps you. Never assume help is free - always offer to pay.
I finally remembered when and where I hit that stupid 8 inch nail. I had heard a loud thump under the car but I didn't see anything in the road before I heard it and when I looked in the mirror behind me, I saw nothing. But then I wouldn't see something like that, would I? No, today was just one of those days that you see the lessons you had to learn and thank the Lord for being at your side. And be grateful for the kindness of those who tried to help.
On... May. 16, 2008
my friend... Gena Suarez, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
wrote about...The State of Education: Public Schools/Part Two
Hi everyone. I’m enjoying becoming part of The Old Schoolhouse family.
I hope you’ll forgive the length of my post this week, but some things take a few extra words to say.
Sometimes I think parents know things are terribly wrong in public schools, but that somehow their children will navigate the waters okay. But the variety and vastness of the problems is far worse than most people realize.
There are the courses taught, of course – stuff that finds its way into even rural schools in strong family communities. It was going on even when I was in school. I recall having a Zen class in 8th grade during which we were instructed in mystical meditation techniques. Today, it’s the rare child who escapes a public school without a substantial amount of knowledge about alternative lifestyles and an active or subconscious bias against religion.
Then there are the students. Regardless of what parents teach at home, the children they toss into public schools become the students and victims of all the worst that other students have been exposed to. No MTV at home does not protect a child against the antics of Madonna if he attends a public school.
Then there are the people we always excuse when we talk about public schools – the teachers. I’ll start with an excuse myself – there are some good, caring, capable teachers out there. And now a truth that must be faced – there are a lot, a whole lot, of bad teachers out there. Some are immature, some mean, some incompetent, some predatory, some emotionally dysfunctional, and quite a few a combination of these things.
I took stock of all the teachers I can recall from my school years – ten of them. Of ten, three were outright cruel and one had some serious issues that his students suffered for. Two were very good. The rest were mediocre. The cruel ones stand out most clearly in my mind. They’re the ones who left an impression, though they were not cruel to me but to other students. I can only imagine what they left those students with – very possibly ruined lives.
What I hear from many parents today is that it’s hard to tell the students from the teachers. Teachers are as immature as their charges. They scream and swear at students and at parents, they’re defensive over even the most innocent questions, and they’re mean or vindictive.
I used to pick up the 3rd grade daughter of a friend from public school each day, and the girl often climbed into my car in tears. Her teacher, she said, swore at them all the time and was always telling them they were stupid. I tried to comfort her and told her she knew she wasn’t stupid. She said, “I know, but when someone tells you that every day it’s hard not to believe it.”
Then there was the call from the mom whose 10-year-old daughter suffered from a bladder control problem. The teacher would not allow her to use the restroom except at appointed times. When the girl had an accident in her seat, which she often did, the teacher encouraged the other students to make fun of the girl. The mother had been to the principal and the school board, but the teacher had been with the school for over 20 years and had tenure. The girl failed her grade and started seeing a psychiatrist.
And there was the 10th grade boy who suffered from narcolepsy. His mom had explained his condition to all his teachers at the beginning of the year, supplied a doctor’s verification, educated everyone on what to expect – all to no avail. No amount of reasoning would convince this boy’s teachers that it was fair for him to get away with sleeping during class when the other students could not do it. He was penalized with detention every time he fell asleep.
A friend’s son who attended public school for one year – 11th grade, reported that no math was done in his math class. Instead, the teacher had the students push the desks aside each day and he engaged in wrestling matches with the young people he was supposed to be educating.
An 8th grade girl who was eight months into a pregnancy was not permitted to go to the nurse’s office when she felt poorly; instead, she was forced to lie down on the cold tile floor of the classroom.
One mother I know was so displeased with the quality of education in her children’s middle and high schools that she required them to take a second math and a second foreign language course at home.
I’ve heard dozens upon dozens of stories of teachers calling students stupid or lazy and yelling and swearing at their classes.
The complaint I hear the most is that teachers simply don’t teach. Parents are sending their children to school and “homeschooling” at the same time. School time is spent playing, watching movies (quite often R-rated ones), gossiping, and goofing off. Home time is spend making up for it.
I have no trouble believing any of this, because whenever I’m out, I talk to young people. Regardless of what any test scores say, young people today are woefully ignorant and increasingly amoral or immoral. I can’t tell you how many teenage cashiers cavalierly tell me they’re living with their boyfriends or that they and their “fiancé” are expecting a baby.
These same young adults can’t figure out what 10% of $4.00 is so I can get my discount on a magazine. Conversation with them is extremely limited because they’ve been so unexposed to so much in the world of learning.
Even among the better students, the academic deficiency is shocking. I worked for a number of years at a bookstore that often employed high school students who loved to read and thought working in a bookstore was the epitome of cool. These kids liked to flaunt their literary knowledge, but it didn’t take five minutes to figure out that they’d never read anything that wasn’t on the school reading list and had never thought anything about it that didn’t spout from a teacher’s mouth. They could parrot what they’d read and been told, but they couldn’t discuss it in any meaningful way.
There’s a lot going on in public schools today, but I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that education and growing in maturity and wisdom are not among those things.
The schools have great PR agents (including the media, the NEA and many others). They feed us endless lies about how public schools have made America great, public schools make us one as a nation, public schools are staffed by highly-trained professionals. It has been said by more than one famous person: A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth for most people. For everyone else, it plants a seed of doubt that grows with each watering.
The only way to safeguard ourselves against the lies and to keep our children safe is to strengthen our resolve by facing the truth.
There are some nice people who work in public schools and there are nice children who go to public schools, but public schools are not nice places.
More truth about public schools next week.
Tammy Drennan has homeschooled and helped others start homeschooling for 23 years. Her web sites and blogs include: www.homeschoolstarter.com and www.educationconversation.wordpress.com.
On... May. 16, 2008
my friend... Gena Suarez, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
wrote about...Forced Dating?
Allowing your daughter to go to the Junior Prom just hit a new level. What if you don't want your daughter to have a date for prom? Should the principal be able to mandate that your child go to prom with a date? Apparently, a Staten Island principal thinks she has the right to do just that, when NYC Principal Bans Going Stag To The Prom for juniors at St. Peter's Girls High School. The girls have one week to find a boy to take to prom, or they're not allowed to go.
This is upsetting on so many levels. One is because school interim principal Florence Bricker refuses to discuss the decision. The rule was made, no discussion. Another is because the girls have been instructed not to talk about it with the media. They can't even discuss how they feel about it.
The parents interviewed on the video think it is not the principal's choice. So do I. What do you think? Additionally, the mandate is only for Juniors, but not for Seniors. Besides the fact that it should be the parents' instruction, what about the girls themselves? One mother on the video said, "I don't think it's right because what if they don't have a boyfriend?" "They got to be forced to go bring somebody off the street, or a cousin? That's embarrassing … or your brother?".
Forced dating is not a good idea at all. I find it ironic that this is a Catholic all-girls school, where parents obviously want the girls in an environment where it is not mandated mixed company. I know "having a date for prom" is a big deal, but I do not understand the motivation. Why put all this pressure on these girls? And why for the younger ones, but not the older ones? One article speculated that it may be to boost the appearance of the attendance numbers.
What would you do if it were your daughter? What if it were a get-together at your church? What would you do? Would you keep your child from participating on principle or do you think it is no biggie? Read the full story.
On... May. 16, 2008
my friend... Gena Suarez, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
wrote about...Freebie Finder - Little House Resources
My children and I recently started reading the Little House on the Prairie book. So I thought I would pass along some great freebies I have found to go along with the book.
Here is a great site with lots of information ranging from family tree to recipes. LOTS of resources here!
This site offers free Lessons Plans to go along with the Little House series.
This blog has a great list of projects and ideas to go along with the books.
On... Friday, May 16, 2008
my friend... Steve Walden
wrote about...Mountain Lions
in... Coping With Disability
A long walk back from fishing at a reservoir in 1998 taught me something new: mountain lions don't roar, they scream. We were walking toward the dam when a unhuman, warbled scream made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Uh, what was that, Dad?" He told me to just keep walking. A few minutes later, the scream sounded again from further away.
"That was a mountain lion," he told me.
Earlier this spring, I had the chance to hear it again at a big cat sanctuary and it still brought a jolt of adrenaline, even with a cage and enough distance to keep me safe. It was the primal reaction to a threat that 34 years of relative safety couldn't quite smother. It makes me wonder at how this woman has not only survived but thrived after her encounter. It takes a lot of prayer and not just a little courage. I know that God is using her in a powerful way.
On... Monday, May 12, 2008
my friend... Rachel
wrote about...First Game!
in... Family News
We had a Mother's Day dinner for my Mom, Auntie Pauline (sisters) and special friend Andrea. My mom had to make the gravy because she's much better at it then I am, but otherwise I think the dinner was pretty acceptable. We don't often get to visit with my Auntie Pauline and Uncle Dennis as they live across the country in BC. We do take advantage when we are able! My Auntie Pauline has been a special influence in my life and I cherish her. (She taught me all about nail polish, make up and such girlie things!)
(my daughter entertains the ladies by blowing bubbles with them)
After dinner the ladies stayed home to do the dishes and the men took my soccer son to his first game. When he got home he came bursting through the door shouting "Mommy, Guess what! We got SNACK at soccer!" He was so thrilled! Turns out they won their first game, too - but that clearly wasn't the important part to him. He was just so glad to play and be a part of the team.
Here he is, breaking away from the pack with the ball - he's a fast little kid!
On... Monday, May 12, 2008
my friend... Rachel
wrote about...Science Experiment
in... Homeschooling
With the receipt of some flowers for Mothers Day (white carnations) we decided to attempt a science experiment which we had been talking about for a little while now. The carnations were cut and the children added red, blue and yellow food colouring to the water. Now they get to document and keep track of the colouring process! I love science!
On... Thursday, May 15, 2008
my friend... Steve Walden
wrote about...Encouraging Defection
in... Smalll-time Observations
A lot of folks are talking about Expelled from Ben Stein. As if liberals were the only ones who could make a documentary. I haven't yet seen it, but I've followed Stein for years and I know that Bueller Bueller boy is right on course.
The frustrating thing is that the establishment will not admit Darwin's theory of macro-evolution is a bunch of hopeless fiction. They will not admit an error, for fear that the Pope will knock on their door with a writ and a warm spot by the fire picked out for them. They won't even say they don't know. Rather than admit there is a Designer, I believe that most neo-Darwinists would claim a sweater as correctly tangled yarn. Um, guys, you can come out now. It's okay to say Darwin was a little off and that Sagan seems creepy even in reruns on the Science channel. If the inquisitor of dogmatic Science taps you on the shoulder, you'll be in good company.
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(my daughter entertains the ladies by blowing bubbles with them)
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