Dec. 13, 2009 - Christmas Tree and Faces Aglow
Chicken (my daughter, not the hen in the last entry) took these just now and wanted to share:
Dec. 13, 2009 - Deck the Halls with Bits of Refuse
Here's a wreath I made with baling wire, bread ties, leftover Christmas tree, and ends of ribbon. It's a bit scraggly, but better than paying $20 at the grocery store.
And here's lookin' at you!
Dec. 12, 2009 - Let it Snow!
We are toasty warm tonight, thanks to a "new" woodstove. Hubby purchased it locally through a Craigslist ad and spent the last couple of weeks working through the installment and inspection process.
I took a few (emphasis on few) photos of the installation. I wish I'd gotten more "before and after" pics, because he really made it look like new. Oh, I should add that he also removed the light fixture that hung over this area (you can see a bit of it in the second picture) and installed a new one further away from the stove.
Here's the dura-rock stuff that went under the hearth:
And here's the heat shield going up:
Here's a really dark shot of the heat shields installed (along with the installation mess). He did all the ceiling/roof chimney work himself:
Neatened up a bit:
A "Before" shot of the back of the stove:
I thought using the portable hydraulic jack (that orange and white thing) to move the (very heavy!) stove into place was a brilliant idea on his part.
Rust removal...
The finished product!
Isn't he handsome?
Dec. 12, 2009 - Will the Real Sage Rats Please Stand Up?
I was going through the photos on my camera card today and I found some pictures of sage rats from our property in Oregon. Of course my rat in my avatar and in my header doesn't look anything like these guys, but you don't find too many cartoon sage rats on the internet.
I kind of miss these little guys! We had enabled a large colony of them by feeding them scrap veggies that we threw out into our compost pile. Not a lot of it ever turned into compost, at least, not there in the pile itself. The sage rats were so cute as they nibbled and scurried about.
My favorite picture. Look at those cute little cheeks!
Of course, this one looks like me.
Wisps of grass are in the way, but I think he's smiling!
This would be Bluejane.
This one was feeling a bit more brave.
Here's Kekoa.
Stand tall and proud little guy!
Finally Eyebright!
Dec. 11, 2009 - Christmas Preparations
This year all my kids are at ages where the can participate and enjoy crafts and baking in some way, so we've been able to do a lot more than we did when I had a disinterested toddler or two running around.
There actually are quite a few things to do that are small-kid friendly. Here's what we've been doing, in no particular order.
Glitter ornaments:
The easiest ever ornament to make. Cut out construction paper circles (or any other shape). Hand the kids glue and glitter and let them have at it. Let dry. Punch a hole, string a ribbon through, and it's done. I cut down on the mess by covering the table with news paper and supervising well. It wasn't nearly as horrifying as I'd been anticipating, and the kids had loads of fun. We used these to decorate their room. With the Christmas lights on, they glitter and sparkle and delight little eyes.
Gingerbread cookies:
Tons of great recipes on the web. The boys helped me make the dough, roll it, and cut it. I baked the cookies and froze them, and when we had need of a project, I laid the cookies out on a tray for the boys to put icing on. For the icing I just mixed powdered sugar with enough water to make it slightly drippy, and showed the boys how to use a fork to drizzle it over the cookies. Delicious!
I used these along with ribbon to decorate a grapevine wreath, which we gave to some friends, and it turned out beautifully. If it's hung on an outside door, the cookies can stay on and will stay fresh because of the cold weather.
Cinnamon Ornaments:
This was just like the cookies only you dry them instead of bake them, and you're not technically supposed to eat them. They're supposed to look rustic and emit a beautiful fragrance. We succeeded on both counts.
Here's a non-toxic recipe (in case your two-year old, like mine, decides the "dough" is delicious)
1 c. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cloves
1 t. allspice
1 c. applesauce
enough flour to make the dough workable (it'll still be pretty tacky, though).
Mix, roll out, cut out, and dry for several days, turning halfway through the drying period. Don't forget to make little holes in these before you set them out to dry, so you have something to put a ribbon through for hanging.
The angels were especially pretty, I thought. But it really felt wrong to be poking holes through the heads of "angels". Same for the gingerbread men.
Russian Teacakes and Bon-Bon Cookies.
See links above for recipes. These are both great because there are no eggs involved in the making, so a little dough-nibbling isn't worrisome. Russian Teacakes, fresh out of the oven, rolled in powdered sugar, are just heavenly. Bon-Bons are just fun. You can make the dough any color, and put inside them any treat or surprise you like. We think they're great with chocolate kisses as the "surprise inside".
Buttermints
These are extra special, and safe and easy for children to help with (unless you consider copius amounts of sugar, butter, and food coloring dangerous, in which case they'd at best get a 'non-toxic' label).
6 T melted butter
4 T heavy cream
1 t. peppermint extract
5 c. powdered sugar.
food coloring (optional)
Knead together (and add food coloring if desired), and then roll out into "snakes" on a tray. Cut into small squares. Set tray in a cool, dry place so the mints can dry out.
Wrapping Paper
This one's a mess but the kids love it. We used thin newsprint and tempera paints. I cut several potatoes in half, and cut into them to make several simple shapes. Those were our stamps.
Dec. 10, 2009 - Download N Go Unit Studies ~ Buy them! You won't reget it!
The Download N Go unit studies are a great tool for any homeschooler, whether novice or veteran. So much work has gone into developing each of the typical school subjects as well as encouraging multi-sensory learning. The enjoyable recipes that are included are always simple yet delicious to make, and promise to become some of your family’s favorites. My children love the indoor and outdoor activities and crafts, and the links for further research, book list, vocabulary words, will save you SO much time and effort. The entertaining video links provided are a welcome change from typical schooling. We have especially enjoyed learning about how things are made. Homeschoolers tend to not have a lot of opportunities for field trips, and these links are just the ticket. From an apple orchard and cider mill to a manufacturing plant, these unit studies provide exciting and educational tours. Download N Go unit studies can be used to cover one, several, or all of a student’s subjects. They are also very helpful for studying subjects across grade levels. The unit studies are geared to elementary age students, however the little ones will enjoy them as well as the highschoolers, who will regularly get distracted from their studies to come and participate, as mine have done. In short, you will be amazed at how easy and gratifying school will become in your household! What a joy for all of us to LOVE doing our school! And yes, I said “OUR school” as I have probably learned as much as they have! I plan on buying one of the packages for use over the rest of the school year! Enjoy!
Dec. 10, 2009 - January Molly's Money Saving Digest
Molly has come through again with another great digest! The January Molly’s Money Saving Digest lives up to its name. After all of the holiday craziness is over, it’s time to plunge head long into evaluating, prioritizing, and organizing our “time, money, and “stuff!” To start us off, Molly has supplied a week of menus with yummy sounding recipes like Tomato Basil Chicken and Poppy Seed Fruit Salad, and a premade shopping list (in In the Kitchen with Molly), as well as five different forms to help us get organized and keep track of our “stuff.” I am especially looking forward to using the Family Clothing Inventory Form. With seven children, we have WAY too many clothes! Mt. Washmore needs to be summited! New this month is the Kid’s Corner featuring a homemade piggy bank, tips on opening a first checking account, keeping the check register, and writing checks. Next month the theme will continue with more money tips! Feather Your Nest Frugally teaches frugal décor ideas that are sure to be a God-pleaser, decorating with Scripture, something I love to do. Now I have some great new ideas! I found the monthly feature, Evaluate, Prioritize, Organize to be incredibly useful. Realizing that I am in one “life season” in which not everything is going to be accomplished, but that writing down my priorities for each day will help me get the important ones done. I have found myself trying to keep track of too many plans and ideas in my head, and then when I get to town, I can’t remember half of what I had planned to do or buy! Now, armed with Molly’s forms and encouragement, I am ready to tackle this time and money waster! I also enjoyed getting to know Amy Howard, a new writer for the Digest. I am looking forward to reading her tips and tricks for saving money and stockpiling, to get the most out of my husband’s hard earned money! Welcome to the Digest, Amy! My favorite part of this Digest is Begin With the Basics. Mrs. Martha Greene of Marmee Dear and The Homemaker’s Mentor teaches how to make an In~a~Pinch Pie Crust recipe that is awesome, with step by step pictures, for a large batch of crusts that can be put in the freezer for future needs, including use ideas for turnovers, mini-pies, a chocolate cake pie and a great tip on keeping your berry pie from being too runny! I’m so excited about these pie crusts that I plan to make some with my daughter tomorrow! In conclusion, I would highly recommend picking up this Digest. As always, the money you save will far outweigh all of the information gleaned from it!
Dec. 10, 2009 - Terror by Night/Blind Sight Blog Tour: Part 2
About James Pence:
"Terry Caffey and I met through my karate for homeschoolers class. Back in 2005, his wife Penny brought two of their three children and enrolled them in my class. Erin their oldest daughter and Tyler their youngest son or two of my students. Over time, Erin and my daughter Charlene became very good friends. As a matter of fact, Charlene would often stay with the Caffey's when my wife and I were traveling.
Somewhere in there I gave Mrs. Caffey a copy of my novel Blind Sight. I don't remember if she read it, but she was a big reader so she probably did. As far as I know Terry had never read it.
About six weeks after his family was murdered and his house burned, Terry returned to his property and stood on the ashes of his house crying out to God. His burden that day was to understand why God had taken his family and left him behind without them.
As he was praying, he noticed about 15 feet away a brown scorched page from a book leaning up against the trunk of a tree. He went over and picked it up and read it. It just happened to be a single page from Blind Sight that had survived the fire.
But it wasn't just any page. It was the page where my main character, a man who had lost his family in an automobile accident, came to grips with God's sovereignty in his loss. When Terry picked up that piece of paper the first lines he read were, "I couldn't understand why you would take my family and leave me to struggle along without them but I do believe you are sovereign. You are in control."
It was as if God had saved or preserved that piece of paper to remind Terry that he still cared.
Some time ago, when I was struggling with my own depression over the fact that Blind Sight hadn't sold very well, I gave my book back to God. And I told the Lord that he would just use it in someone's life I would be happy. And boy did he use it in someone's life. From the standpoint of a writer I can think of no greater honor than for God to use my words to change someone's heart.
A few weeks after I learned of the connection between Terry and my book, we got together and began to discuss the possibility of telling this amazing story in book form."
I have definitely had a colorful background as you've already mentioned. I guess the one unifying thread that has run through everything I do is the service of God. I knew when I was 14 years old that God had called me into the ministry, and I've never wavered from that. And even though that ministry now includes such things as teaching karate to homeschoolersI consider that as much a part of my calling as anything else.
Since finishing Bible College back in 1978 I have been a youth pastor, a camp director, a pastor, a prison evangelist, a gospel chalk artist, a speaker, a singer, a Web designer, a writer, a karate teacher, an art teacher, and a writing teacher. Amazingly, I'm still active in most of those things. I'm not pastoring anymore, and I've long since left directing summer camps behind me, but everything else I still do.
It would be a book in and of itself if I were to try to go into the details of all of those different things and how I got started doing each of them. Suffice it to say that I've always believed that the talents that we have are stewardships. Thus I've always felt that if I have a talent in an area I have a responsibility to develop and use it for God's glory. And that's why do so many different things. I wouldn't have it any other way.
There was definitely a tight deadline for Terror by Night. I had a total of 12 weeks in which to write it and that included doing all the interviewing with Terry. I'm very happy to say that I was able to meet that challenge, but there were times when I wondered if I could get it all done.
Terry and I got together every Wednesday for several hours and I would interview him. Our first few interviews were just for getting the layout of the book planned. I had to get an idea of the different aspects of the story that needed to be pulled together, sort of like a plot outline. And then I actually had a plan the storyline based on my discussions with Terry.
It was sort of a cumulative thing, because as we talked each week more questions would come up and I would make notes on those and we would discuss them in subsequent weeks.
I recorded all of the interviews with a digital voice recorder and then transferred them all to my computer. After that I edited the interviews down into soundbites of two to three minutes all according to topics. Then I put them all on my iPod and would listen to them at every spare moment. My goal was to be familiar enough with Terry's voice so that the book would sound natural and that it would sound like Terry was doing the speaking or writing.
This was a very difficult story to write and it was very stressful for both of us, but in different ways. As we went through the interview process Terry began to struggle with depression and had some rough moments. Once or twice we had changed the topic of our discussion because it was just getting to be too hard on him.
For me the stress came from the deadline more than the storyline. The fastest I'd written a book before was 20 weeks, and writing this one in 12 weeks was like running a marathon. Near the end I was exhausted, but still had to get that word count out every day. There were times when I would just become overwhelmed with the size of the task. But there was nothing to do but keep moving forward.
So we were both very happy when this project was complete.
As I mentioned earlier, in addition to being a writer I am a gospel chalk artist and a vocalist. I've been doing that for over 30 years now and really enjoy being able to use art and music to bring a message to people. For about the last 15 years I've been going into prisons with my art and music and sharing the gospel with inmates. That's been a huge blessing to me. In fact, I often say that after a prison service I've been far more blessed than the inmates. And recently God has begun to open up more doors both in prison and out. Over a six-week period, I'll be drawing in Florida, Iowa, and Alabama.
One of the great things about chalk art is that even if the people who see a drawing don't remember everything I say, they will remember the picture and the scripture that the picture represented. I've had people write me who saw my pictures 20 years ago and came to Christ through them, and now they are serving Christ in churches and other ministries. That's one of the great joys of this ministry.
I was so excited when Tyndale decided to release Blind Sight a second time. It's rare that a novel gets a second chance at life. And it's especially satisfying that both books were released simultaneously. And even though one is a novel and the other a nonfiction book, the message that people can take away from the books is really the same. God is sovereign.
So often we are confused when difficult circumstances come into our lives and we wonder why God would allow that. Sometimes we even get angry with him and demand an explanation like Terry did. But the message of both Blind Sight and Terror by Night is that while God doesn't explain himself to us, we can trust in his goodness and sovereign grace. We know that he is working all things together for our good and we can trust him in that. Blind Sight communicates that message by way of a novel; Terror by Night communicates the same message by way of a true story.
Dec. 10, 2009 - Terror by Night/Blind Sight Blog Tour and Review
Christian fiction is hit or miss. So I never expect too much when I first open a novel. But Blind Sight captured my attention immediately, because the villains of the story are the leaders of a cult. Spiritual abuse and cultism touched my family's life directly, so anything related to those subjects has my interest. Author James Pence clearly did his research on the workings and tactics of cults and did a wonderful job giving the reader a view into that scary world.
Blind Sight turned out to be a great fast-paced tale of intrigue, evil, sacrifice, and love. Thomas Kent, a man nearly destroyed by loss, is contacted by a man he barely remembers and finds himself drawn into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. Tasked by his old aquaintance to rescue his children and re-unite them with their mother, Thomas undertakes the orchestration of the children's escape from the dangerous World Renewal Fellowship cult, and the ultimate collapse of the organization. In the process, he faces his own demons and finds himself turning to the God he thought he hated.
This was a double blog tour, because of a strange co-incidence. James Pence, author of Blind Sight, met the man who's story is told in Terror by Night by chance, or perhaps providence. The two of them worked together to tell Terry Caffey's tragic experience.
About Terror by Night:
A father denied his daughter dating privileges with a certain young man. Typical teenage behavior might have included pouting, a bad attitude or perhaps even a yelling match. Never in a million years would Terry Caffey have suspected it would involve murder. Yet, in the early morning hours of March 8, 2008, Terry’s whole world turned upside down. His wife and two sons where brutally murdered and burned in the house they lived and Terry was shot twelve times…by his daughter and her friends.
Terry Caffey and James Pence reconstruct this tragic yet strangely beautiful true story of God’s sovereignty, forgiveness and grace in Terror by Night. As if the story of Caffey’s family wasn’t enough, readers will be captivated by the way God ordained the meeting between the Blind Sight author and Caffey with a burnt page from Blind Sight found at the crime scene.
I will continue with author interviews and extras in the next post.
Dec. 10, 2009 - Basketball
Last night was a new experience for Asrat. Basketball.
We have a voucher from the cyber school for some form of organized sports or exercise, and I asked what he wanted to do. I don't know why he chose basketball, but he insisted. We know nothing about basketball. Absolutely nothing. Well, we know there's some bouncing. And squeaky shoes.
But it was a class of 6 and 7 year olds. I figured they couldn't be that good, right? Asrat, the beginner, would fit in perfectly! Silly me. Apparently some people are teaching their kids to dribble at age 3, and winter Parks & Rec. classes are just practice to hold them over and keep them busy until whenever it is the junior leagues play. Poor Asrat tried, and tried, and tried, but he was obviously the newbie. Even the one girl in the class, a tiny little thing, had better control of the ball than he did. But he pressed gamely on, getting increasingly silly as his inner humiliation increased. He took slapstick falls a lot (on purpose), and whenever he lost the ball (frequently), he stalked across the court with legs locked stiff and straight. Eventually he held the ball in one hand and started beating on it with his other fist. It was positively Chaplain-esque, but I decided to step in at that point.
I reminded him that he was just beginning, and that doing anything well takes practice. And I told him to take a few deep breaths, get rid of the anger, and go ask his coach for a little help instead of acting out. It was hard for me to look into those eyes swimming with held-back tears, and make him go back on the court. But I did it. And I'm glad, because the rest of the class was better. The coach gave him some tips on dribbling, and also paired Asrat with a smaller, less skilled kid for the passing exercises. He had fun after that, but we weren't quite out of the woods yet.
At the end of the class, the coach split the kids into teams and brought out jerseys. Asrat got a green one. He held it, shook it, stretched it, and said in an awestruck voice: "Is this underwear?" I giggled. After that comment, Coach figured Asrat would need help, so he held the jersey for him to stick his arms in. Asrat lifted his leg and tried to step in. Still thinking it was underwear. I snorted. I tried to disguise it as a sneeze, but failed, because I couldn't stop giggling.
Once the jersey was properly on, Asrat enjoyed the last ten minutes of the class, scooting around saying "I'm open! I'm open!" without really knowing what it meant.
So, we had mixed results. It wasn't exactly a brilliant success. But we'll be going back next week. Because we might be sports-impaired, but we're not quitters.
