Susie-Q&A

• Jun. 28, 2009 - I Look to Thee in Every Need...

And never look in vain.
I feel Thy strong and tender love, and all is well again.
The thought of Thee is mightier far than sin and pain and sorrow are,
Than sin and pain and sorrow are, my Lord.

Discouraged in the work of life, disheartened by its load,
Shamed by its failures or its fears, I sink beside the road;
But let me only think of Thee, and then new heart springs up in me,
And then new heart springs up in me, my Lord.

There is an eye that never sleeps beneath the wing of night;
There is an ear that never shuts when sink the beams of light;
There is an arm that never tires when human strength gives way;
There is a love that never fails when earthly loves decay.

But there's a power man can wield when mortal aid is vain,
That eye, that arm, that love to reach, that listening ear to gain.
That power is prayer which soars on high through Jesus to the throne,
And moves the hand which moves the world to bring salvation down.

(by Samuel Longfellow, and Anonymous)

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• Jun. 23, 2009 - Are We Really Illiterate Schlubs?

From a friend's Facebook Notes. Many of the books listed do not belong on the list, in my opinion:

Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books on the BBC big read top 100 book list.

How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
Copy the list, create your own new "Note" and paste text into it.

Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. Make sure you delete my Xs!

When you've finished, tag 10 people to do it too, and put your total at the bottom.

Here we go!!!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen   X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (movie) X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -- (Ummm, I don't count these among my Must-Reads.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -- (I think not!)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X Hilarious book!
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X Not the complete works, but many, many of them, including the sonnets
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (Never heard of it)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (No Salinger on my list, thanks. Bleah)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X (Read many times!)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X (Yes, I actually read this, and it was actually great!)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X (Hilarious!)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X (Many times over)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X (Many times over)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X (Many times over)
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X (Jane Austen is great!)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X (How does this differ from Chronicles?_
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha -
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X (Many times over and still reading it aloud!)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X (I read it, and it stunk.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X (Many times over, and just read it to my kids!)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X (Read it and it was paranoid feminist tripe.)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X (Scary book spot-on when it comes to human nature.)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ~~(Nope, only seen the movie)~~ X I actually did read it during my sci fi stage.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X (knitting knitting knitting)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X (Eh...)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X (Very yucky book. Does not belong on this list. Did not like it.)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X (Many times over!)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X (Yuck)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White   X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X (only the Hound of the Baskervilles)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad   X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare   X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total = 45 46 (If I counted right) But where are Swift, Defoe, O'Connor, etc.?

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• Jun. 19, 2009 - All Things Made New

I've just spent the last three days learning a great deal about a new direction we will be taking in our homeschooling. I am so grateful to God for his answer to our prayers.

I wrote my first check today, so I guess that means I'm committed; thus, dear readers, I can tell you that we have decided to enroll the children in Classical Conversations this coming year. This week I've been learning about the language arts class my older three children will take, and my husband very willingly and graciously took on all the child care and my usual errands, while I drove an hour to and from the Parent Practicum each day.

What dedicated, gifted, home educating moms these ladies are! I was so blessed by all the presentations, and by all the hard work that obviously goes in to setting up these practicums (which are completely free for parents, although they do offer children's camps for a small fee).

I'm so impressed with this curriculum and the support it is to parents who want to educate their children according to the Trivium. I've always been impressed by classical education, but felt it was far beyond me to organize and teach. This program streamlines everything for me. All the children will be learning the same content, but it will be at their appropriate developmental level. So when we review during the week, we do it all together.

The children will meet one day a week with a group of other children for tutoring from a homeschooling mom contracted with CC. In the morning, they will drill facts related to every subject area. I will be able to observe and learn how to drill them myself the rest of the week.

After lunch, the three older children will be in Essentials class, where they learn...well, the Essentials of the English Language: grammar and writing skills (and a little math practice as well). During that time, the younger ones can either join in nursery and an art class (if I have the cash for it that week) or be picked up by their dad, or dropped at a friend's over lunch by me, if we can arrange that. (I may figure that out on a week by week basis.) Meanwhile, I get to sit in on the Essentials class, help the tutor, and learn right along with my older students! Much of what we covered this week in the Parent Practicum had to do with how the Essentials class is run and what it covers, but we also learned about logic, and each stage of the Trivium.

What seems so great about this is that it's structured, and rich in content, and yet it's still homeschooling with good ol' mom. You would not believe it, but today I witnessed a group of students reciting the history timeline from Creation to Modern America without missing a beat! Not only will they learn the timeline, but also history facts, geography facts, scientific classifications, math facts, etc. It's truly amazing what they can retain! Yes, it is rote memorization, but it is laying the groundwork, or as they put it, "pounding in the pegs" on which the children can hang future knowledge. And the tutors find lots of ways to make it fun and kinesthetic for the little ones. We will also be putting on family presentations periodically, which will be such good experience for all of us! We tend to be a bit hermetically sealed on our little homestead here. It's good to learn to get up and speak before others.

The beauty of this is that *I* get to be their teacher, but I also get the benefit of support from the tutor and other mothers, who are all on the very same page as me. The children get to catch the enthusiasm of the other students for the work. So even though it might be challenging for them in some areas (though mom has full purview to eliminate any work a child is not capable of), the group participation adds a real dash of excitement to the whole thing.

Add to that, it's just an excellent method of education. Teaching to the Trivium means respecting the child's developmental stages, but also not underestimating what the child can do. It also falls right into line with daddy's mission at the college, which has a classical emphasis. When a student graduates from CC, she will be fully prepared for any college she may wish to attend, but especially one that is classically oriented.

The weekly accountability will be very good for me, and the structure will shore me up in the areas where I'm weak (planning, organization). I think it will add so much to our homeschooling!

I've always loved ideas that are fully thought through by others, that I can implement right away. This is one of those ideas, along with the workboxes by Sue Patrick. (I can still use the workboxes to organize our work, by the way, so it was a good investment.) I am so grateful to other homeschooling moms who blaze the trail for me, so that I don't have to struggle alone.

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• Jun. 14, 2009 - Hubby Got a Workout Yesterday

He's laying the pipes for draining the duck pool. He spent the day trenching, which included digging underneath the sidewalk.

He dug an initial trench...

...but eventually had to dig it deeper...

That's a lot of digging!

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• Jun. 14, 2009 - Scaly Interloper's Relative

We seem to have a whole family living under the barn. This one, hubby caught right inside the chicken coop. This is the third snake we've caught & released in the last few weeks.

Not a happy reptile.

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• Jun. 13, 2009 - Surrender

"The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you."

Oswald Chambers

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• Jun. 12, 2009 - This & That: A Miscellany of Photos

A glimpse of the neighbor's horses, upon whom a certain young lady (of this household) gazes fondly from a distance.

Tomatoes and marigolds (and a little parsley here and there).

Somebody dug a rather deep hole on one side of my tomato bed. Possibly this somebody?

(I assure you, he's wearing his big boy pants under that shirt.)

A tree.

But not just any tree.

The only tree on the property suitable for climbing.

Best perch in the house for Lookout Duty. Aidan has learned to say, "Mom, you came back!"

Acorn treasure found.

Caterpillar, not looking so well, but children insisted it was "all right."

Elias built a log structure and took a picture for posterity.

Several pictures...

And this reminds me that I forgot to have everyone clean up their toys. Good night!

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• Jun. 12, 2009 - A Roost for the Chickens

First, hubby had to tear down a lot of stuff. Hence, the piles.

Then you string some hot wire around the chicken yard.

More to be done to keep the chickens in, but this at least keeps predators out.

It's a pretty big chicken yard.

Everybody had to test the electric fencing--everybody except me, that is. :) The chickens were a bit taken unawares. I'm told it was quite funny.

An entrance/exit:

Next, a window for a bit of ventilation and light. More to be done on this as well, but in the meantime it's not so hot inside.

I can't remember what this is going to be when hubby's done. Nesting boxes, I think?

The sliding door for the entrance/exit, rigged over pulleys across the ceiling.

Feeding time...

Hubby's going to do a lot more with it before it's over. He's doing an excellent job, don't you think?

Happy clucks.

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• Jun. 12, 2009 - Scaly Interloper

You may well ask what hubby is doing here...

Then again, you may not want to know.

The game's afoot! Tug o' war!

Boo!

Everybody say hi, before he goes 'bye.

Just a harmless rat snake. Nevertheless, he found a new home far away from the chicken shed.

Snake-in-a-bucket:

Look ma! I'm holding a snake!

Bye-bye Mr. Snake! Hope you like your new home in the woods!

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• Jun. 11, 2009 - Compassion Milestone!

Meet Compassion International's one millionth sponsored child! And then help them keep going to 2 million...spread the word! It's such a wonderful thought: one million children in the world receiving love and encouragement from a sponsor, and having their physical needs met as well.

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• Jun. 6, 2009 - Saturdays Mean...Yard Sales!

I am so thrilled to be back to yard-saling again. I'm not sure why I find it such an enjoyable activity. Probably because I get all the shopping and none of the guilt (or credit card bills). It's just like treasure hunting.

I've prayed before walking up to sales, and found God supplying just what we need! Today I bought seven girls' clothing items for $3.50! Poor Chicken, my front-runner who never has hand-me-downs, has been wanting for clothes--but between last weekend and this, not any more. :) I found a bookcase for the schoolroom (badly needed) for $10 and some new empty 3-ring binders to use for portfolios, for a quarter apiece. I found a Haynes manual on automobile electric systems for .75 for hubby. (Sure don't mind adding to the handyman library!) Found a life vest for Fuzzy, for swimming in the pond. Got a cute basket for holding napkins on the dinner table (a quarter). I even bought a $2 Louisville Slugger bat for the boys. We had a baseball, but no bat. Now we can't find the baseball. But I'm sure it will turn up.

Mopsy went with me on a mama-daughter date, and we had a good time, although she hasn't the stamina of a yard-sale addict like me. She was ready to go to a playground after one neighborhood. She did score a Pretty Pony for fifty cents. I took her to BK for lunch and she played a bit on the playground there.

I almost bought a toddler bed, but it was a bit too pricey for my taste. Meant to go back by and see if it had sold, and if they'd bargain, but once you get home...well, you know how it is. I also meant to do some baking ahead for next week, but only got as far as the homemade ice cream and pancake syrup before supper-time hit. Maybe I can do granola tonight before going to bed.

I just can't wait until next Saturday! Hope the weather's fine! Someday, hubby and I will go on a yard-saling date. :) I'm going to plan one.

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• Jun. 6, 2009 - Life Through Zinnia-Colored Glasses

It has a strangely ruddy glow.

Fascinating.

Yep, orange over this way too.

Fingers are orange!

Do these come with color adjust?

Ahhh!

There we go!

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• Jun. 6, 2009 - No More Reading in the Dark

I spent a dollar on this light fixture last Saturday, and yesterday hubby installed it.

Granted, he had to spend on supplies to install it, but the light fixture itself cost next-to-nothing, and he saved us a ton on labor. He bought a glow-in-the-dark switch for it.

Of course, this is not permanent. It will be moved somewhere else when he re-does the roof and opens up the ceilings at some point in the future (Lord willing). But in the meantime, I won't be reading in the dark before bedtime anymore! Yay hubby!

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• Jun. 5, 2009 - Swimming

The pictures speak for themselves, I suppose. Otherwise I'd spend time threading creative writing around them and come up with a clever title. Truth is, I haven't a clue what to write these days. Ah, the banality of happy springtime.

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• Jun. 5, 2009 - Girls Growing Up

Here's a little photo essay to catch my readers up on our latest celebratory event...

(Yes, a gift from a brother.)

(Bug-catcher kit from other brother.)

(They got their own personal Bibles this year.)

Happy Birthday to the best 13- and 11-year-olds on the planet!

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• May. 27, 2009 - Daddy's Made a Video

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• May. 26, 2009 - DHS Has "Reason" to Target Veterans/Conservatives

Remember this?

Well, this Sunday I read a PR piece for the administration by Jonathan Alter attempting to justify Janet Napolitano's targeting of those who hold to conservative ideals as potential public enemies. Only he didn't mention that was what she did. He only mentioned (and rationalized) her affront to veterans--he left out the ideological witchhunting against those who are pro-life, pro-strong-borders.

Oh, and those who oppose *illegal* immigration are labeled "anti-immigration" by Alter as well.

Where was this puff piece printed? Parade Magazine...which goes to practically every household that takes a Sunday edition of the newspaper. Was any journalistic balance offered to this propaganda peddled straight from the White House? No.

I think we should politely address our concerns to Parade Magazine, don't you?

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• May. 23, 2009 - All Things are Possible

I'll allow this post to spool out of my mind as it will, and see where it takes me.

I've been reading a book loaned to me by a homeschooling neighbor: A Mother's Rule of Life. I've read many books during my mothering career, all with helpful and encouraging advice. This one is no exception. The author, Holly Pierlot, a Catholic Christian, speaks to five areas in a mother's life that fall under her vocation. They are alliterated, for better memorization, of course (which takes me right back to my Baptist church attendance days!): Prayer, Person, Partner, Parent, and Provider.

What I like best about the book is her emphasis on spiritual formation. This is something I hunger for. It's so easy to want to please my flesh, and allow lesser things to crowd out time that should be spent on the Central Thing: loving God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and all that flows out of that (namely, loving others as myself). Something in my heart whispers that, with God at the center of my days (rather than my own selfish pursuits), things may just fall into place without a lot of striving on my part. I do not like trying to "pull myself up by my own bootstraps," because...well, I know for a fact I do not have it in me. Some people have the steel in their will to do that, but I am squishy of will. And yes, I know it's a character failing...but I am.

She places these areas of our marriage vocation in a hierarchy. I have also seen them presented as spokes on a wheel, with the first P serving as the hub. However, the benefit to her hierarchy is that it demonstrates with clarity that each thing is contingent on the prior things.

For instance, marriage will be out of balance for the woman who does not devote herself prayer and spiritual formation, and see to her basic personal care, for who can properly love her spouse when her own well is empty? And parenting is very difficult in an out-of-balance marriage. Premium parenting offers children complete security and confidence in their parents' love for one another, and provides them a Godly and winsome example of each partner's submission to Christ, to each other, and to the "government" in the home.

I know all of this already because I've been taught a great deal throughout my life-long church attendance. Where I fall down is in the "doing of the Word."

Confession time: I have conflicting responses when reading any book about "pulling one's life together." I am responding as I did when I first read about the workboxes. On one hand, I have great hope that this might actually be something I could do. On the other hand, I am besieged with fears of failing (once again) and the discouragement that follows. But fear is essentially unbelief. And unbelief is sin. It's listening to the lies of the enemy, rather than trusting in the sufficiency of the Lord.

To be honest, I haven't been doing the workboxes beyond the first week (which was fairly successful, at least in the amount we got done)...but that's mainly because hubby is at home now on summer break, and I got such a negative response from at least one child to the prospect of full-on schooling all summer long that I thought it better to do things here and there, and just try to keep up our math this summer. That simplifies things for me, and gives me time to plan to power up the workbox system again at the beginning of August. I am itching to give the system a few months' run and see how it improves our work habits. I hope in relaxing this summer I'm not just making excuses for inconsistency.

Speaking of Confession: After reading of Mrs. Pierlot's spiritual disciplines, which flow out of Catholic practice, I have to wonder if, as a non-Catholic Christian, I miss out on the blessing of regular confession of my faults to a fellow believer. I don't agree with all the theology behind the Confessional or the Catholic priesthood, but I do see the practical benefits of regular confession, and of having a mentor in the faith (she calls hers a Spiritual Director, and invests a great deal more authority in hers than I would--but again, that's a theological difference). And both are fully Biblical (Titus 2 comes to mind).

The book reminds me that there is something to be said for spiritual disciplines--that the faith that goes into our meager efforts to seek God is blessed and greatly multiplied by the Presence of God's Spirit in our lives.

I've had a children's scripture ditty replaying in my head all morning:

Without faith, it's impossible...
(It's what??)
It's impossible...
(WHAT??)
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE
To please God!
He who comes to God,
Must believe that He is,
And he rewards those who seek Him!

But wait! There's more...

All things are possible!
All things are possible!
All things are possible!
Just believe
God will do everything
That He says he will do,
And He rewards those who seek Him!

As Holly Pierlot puts it: like the disciples, we may want to "send away" those who need us, because we see the impossibility of the task of ministering to them. But Jesus says, "You feed them." And as we offer our best efforts (pitiful as five loaves and two fish to feed a crowd of thousands), he blesses and multiplies, and miraculously ministers through us. It looks like folly to the world, but the "folly" of God is far wiser than the best wisdom man has to offer.

So, for the time being, I will try to devote the first part of my day to the Lord, and see what falls into place after that, as I offer whatever I have (not much) to the task God has given me. I have to believe that, as I cooperate with God, He will give victory over my bad habits and inconsistencies.

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• May. 13, 2009 - The Ducks' House

The ducklings also need a place to keep them safe from predators, so hubby built them a nice, snug little house.

Yes, the fare is five-star, but where are our beds?

The raised foundation:

Framing...

Don't worry, duckies! It's coming along.

Plywood sides.

A sliding door to keep the foxes out...

A lovely hinged roof to keep the rain out, and to allow for hosing down.

The gangplank...

With the heat lamp hooked up, and the latch on the roof.

Hubby wants to put batten siding on it to finish it off. It will look very cute beside the pond someday!

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• May. 13, 2009 - Building the Duck Hilton

Hubby did an excellent job on the ducklings' house and enclosure.

The chosen site. This is right behind the house, so we can see the ducks easily from the windows. Apparently somebody had put in a little garden pool here in the past. Hubby is going to put in a new, possibly larger, pool for the ducks.

From the other direction. You can see how close to the house it is.

Setting the fence posts...

Helper #1:

Helper #2:

Future helpers:

Attaching the fencing:

It's springtime, which means...bugs as playthings! Pets in jars!

Making progress...

A beetle friend...

Introducing duckies to their new yard...

What is this strange, green world...this air ruffling my feathers? Seriously, it took them a little while get their landlubber legs, they were so used to the box.