The Scoop on Granny

Name:
Cathi

Status:
Dreaming of the mountains...


Who is Granny?

I'm the incredibly blessed mother of 9, "Granny" to 16, and wife of "The Papa," the knight-in-shining-armor whose loving support has made it possible for me to stay home and give my life to mothering, homemaking, and 26 years of homeschooling. Life at Granny's House is full of laughter, friendship, books, music, lively debate, writing, and good things to eat. My days are made even more meaningful by coming alongside other moms, giving them the support and encouragement that I lacked as a young mother and helping them to network with each other in ways that strengthen homes and families. A few times a year I board a plane to visit my "away" kids, to attend the birth of a grandchild, or to enjoy some lazy days with my best friend, but I always love coming back to...Granny's House.

My Complete Profile

On Granny's Calendar
  • August 15 - SAC Day begins
  • August 16 - Sam is 7!
  • August 20 - Kristen's birthday
  • August 30 - THE WELTYS ARRIVE!
  • Sept 3 - FAMILY PICTURES
  • Sept 3 - Chris' birthday
  • Sept 5 - Henry is 9!
  • Sept 7 - Isaac is 10!
  • Sept 17 - The Papa's birthday
  • Sept 23-30 - Granny and Papa go to Hawaii
  • Sept 26 - PawPop is 88!
  • Sept 29 - Tim is 15!
  • Oct 2 - Cheyenne's birthday
  • Oct 4 - Liam is 5!
  • Oct 7 - John Caleb is 17!
  • Oct 18 - Tony's birthday



  • Email Granny!


    Get your own calendar



    Granny Cares
  • Care Calendar
  • Agape Pregnancy Help Center San Antonio
  • World Vision

  • Granny Cooks (and Eats)!

  • The Pioneer Woman Cooks
  • Once a Month Mom
  • $5 Dinners
  • Full Bellies, Happy Kids
  • A Year of Crockpotting


  • Granny's House (and yours!)

  • Simple Mom
  • The Nesting Place
  • Between Naps on the Porch
  • The Inspired Room



  • Granny gets around...
  • A Holy Experience
  • MommyLife
  • Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
  • Preschoolers and Peace
  • Breathing Grace
  • theMangoTimes



  • Granny stays informed...
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Fox News
  • Drudge Report

  • Granny Thinks...
  • Al Mohler
  • Between Two Worlds
  • Blog and Mablog
  • First Importance
  • Equipping the Saints
  • Desiring God

  • Granny says you may go to...
  • PowerLine Blog
  • Michelle Malkin
  • SteynOnline
  • WSJ Opinion Journal Best of the Web
  • GetHuman
  • Home School Legal Defense Association

  • Granny goes to the movies...
  • Netflix
  • Rotten Tomatoes
  • ScreenIt.com

  • Granny is watching!
  • Blue Pencil Editing
  • SPOGG
  • Mighty Red Pen
  • Conjugate Visits

  • Granny smiles at...
  • Purgatorio
  • ScrappleFace
  • LarkNews
  • Sacred Sandwich


  • Tuesday, March 30, 2010
    It's always handy to have a prison or two nearby.
    CLEVELAND -Police say a motorist fleeing officers in Cleveland abandoned his car and jumped a fence — landing in what turned out to be a prison yard.

    Garfield Heights police say the chase started in that suburb early Monday over a traffic violation and reached speeds of 90 mph.

    Police say that after a race through several communities, the driver and a passenger bolted from the car and headed for a fence.

    They apparently did not realize it was on the outside the state women's prison in Cleveland.

    They were arrested along with two other passengers who also tried to flee.


    Man fleeing Ohio police jumps fence — into prison

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    has spoken at 6:33 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Sunday, March 21, 2010
    Sunday snippets...

    Well...what can I say about the Health Care Destruction debacle? Americans got what they voted for and no one who voted for Obama or for a Democrat representative (save the very few with courage, not including the pseudo-Pro-life impostors) can complain. Obama promised to "radically transfom" America and that's about the only promise he's kept. We will now see what a sobering thing it is to live by the consent of the governed.

    I like Drudge's headline tonight: "A Day Which Will Live in Infirmary"...

    We drink a fair amount of coffee around here, especially with our kids being old enough to join in the fun. So we also go through a fair number of coffee pots as well. This week I had to replace our main coffeemaker again, ordering our third in a row Hamilton Beach BrewStation. At least with this kind we don't have to worry about breaking the carafe :-)

    The latest Teaching Co. course in my DVD player is Great American Bestsellers: The Books that Shaped America...24 books set in the context of their period and the issues facing the nation at those times. There are many I haven't read, and have been delighted to find that several of them are available free on the Kindle!

    In the past two weeks I've gotten serious about a part of my health that has taken back burner with all the orthopedic issues: diabetes. I haven't monitored my blood sugar for years other than when I'm in the hospital and forced to, but as I've seen those numbers climb in the past few months I've come to the conclusion that all my other troubles are no excuse for not keeping this under control. So I've gone back to the only diet that has ever worked to keep my diabetes under control--a very low-carb diet. I've had instant results...my blood sugars are 60 points lower after meals than they were before changing my eating. And I've also found an easy way to keep track of my progress: SugarStats.

    Today I'm enjoying a bouquet of white roses straight from Emily Bruckart Scifres' wedding last night. I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but sending my congratulations to Em and Jesse...I'm loving the flowers!

    And by way of the great little site Of First Importance today:

    “The Christian life is the life of sons and daughters; it is not the life of slaves. It is freedom, not bondage. Of course, we are slaves of God, of Christ, and of one another. We belong to God, to Christ, to one another, and we love to serve those to whom we belong. But this kind of service is freedom. What the Christian life is not, is a bondage to the law, as if our salvation hung in the balance and depended on our meticulous and slavish obedience to the letter of the law. As it is, our salvation rests upon the finished work of Christ, on His sin-bearing, curse-bearing death, embraced by faith.”

    - John Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1968), 108-109.


    Hoping to have some good news to share on my hip journey by next week. Thank you for your prayers, and stay tuned...

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    has spoken at 9:11 PM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Saturday, March 20, 2010
    Remember...

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    has spoken at 4:14 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    You're confused about the process happening in Washington this weekend to pass Health Care Destruction? Never fear--here's a 90-second remedial course that will explain everything. And it will make you nostalgic for the days of "I'm Just a Bill on Capitol Hill" from Schoolhouse Rock.



    hat tip: Dr. Powers

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    has spoken at 12:04 PM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, March 17, 2010

    Come on, help out your country, would ya?

    No More Popcorn!

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    has spoken at 8:45 AM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, March 10, 2010
    Can you say, "Nanny State"?
    Okay, I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming or if I was reading this in The Onion:

    MYFOXNY.COM - Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

    "No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

    The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

    I feel like we're in a Tim Burton movie! Is it April Fools yet? The only good thing is that this could bring about a serious revival in home cooking.

    Take It With a Grain of Salt


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    has spoken at 8:45 PM
    3 Backtalks to Granny




    I haven't signed up to use this site but I just might. And those of you who are in college, grad school, or types of work where mastery and retention of details is important just might want to check out.

    Headmagnet

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    has spoken at 4:31 PM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Anybody have an old hoodie that's outlived it's current incarnation? This is a cool idea :-)

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    has spoken at 11:31 AM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Monday, March 08, 2010
    Bug Alert.

    Take a look at my "Mission Statement" (left sidebar). It is one of my favorite Bible passages:
    "...Tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done....that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children."
    ~Psalm 78:4-6

    Many of my posts might not seem to fit into this framework, especially the political ones. But I believe that in order to leave our children and grandchildren the country we've been blessed with, it's necessary to be diligent and watchful of the peace and democracy we treasure. There may come a day when we no longer have the freedom to openly declare to our children "the glorious deeds of the LORD" and will have to do this in secret.

    But I digress. This is a post about bugs.

    No, really. I'm not big on bugs, most of the time. But today I ran across a series of photos, taken through a scanning electron microscope, that captivated me. And if we can get past the fact that these are pictures of creatures that normally annoy or injure us, I think they'll captivate you, too, and your children.

    So I spent some time trying to analyze why I was drawn to this photo gallery. My thinking went something like this: I LOVE astronomy. I'm about to spend some money on a college-level course in astronomy, not only because it challenges me intellectually, but also because it strengthens my faith in a God mighty enough to do things I can't come close to grasping. In studying astronomy, we look UP and OUT, to the very largest objects, distances and speeds we can fathom. We see only the beginnings of the scope of God's power and imagination, and we bow in awe. Or we should.

    But what of small things? For thousands of years, there was a whole world invisible to the human eye, and therefore, the brain. We had no concept of things too small to see. But with the invention of the microscope, and recently, the electron microscope, we can look IN and DOWN. I use the word "down" in a broad sense...not directionally, but in the sense that the Bible speaks of "the depths of the earth":

    I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

    My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place.
    When I was woven together in the depths of the earth... (Psalm 139:14-15)

    Did you ever wonder what it meant that you were woven together "in the depths of the earth"? In this sense, it certainly doesn't mean under the sea, or in the earth's core. It means that you were created at the microscopic, even the molecular level. Here we're looking IN and DOWN into the tiniest parts we can imagine.

    And so these glimpses into the microscopic world strengthen my faith in much the same way as astronomy does. God is the God of the smallest things we can imagine and way beyond that. When I was in school, our textbooks taught us that the very tiniest things in the universe were electrons. Open a recent physics book and you'll find that electrons are veritable giants compared to more recently discovered particles. Every time we think we've reached the limits, we find there's something tinier (or in the case of astronomy, farther away.) I love to imagine God just smiling every time there's an announcement that we've now found the limits of something. I think He waits until then to get ready to open up the next level of understanding, even to those who "sit in the seat of scoffers" (Psalm 1).

    I thought of these things as I looked at the remarkably detailed photos of insects. I tried not to think of how much a bee sting hurts or what a fly looks like on the flat side of a flyswatter and concentrate on God's amazing (a word way overused but completely appropriate here) intricacy, symmetry, creativity. The tiniest functions, ones we haven't even figured out yet, have fabulously designed structures devoted to them. Eyes are a display of microscopic honeycombs, works of art in themselves. Why should we not bow in awe of these miracles as well?

    So pull your kids and grandkids in close, and use these wonderful photos to "tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done"!

    Creepy Crawlies "Up Close and Personal"

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    has spoken at 5:28 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Atlas Shrugged watch...
    March 08, 2010
    Guess Who's Coming to Your House!
    By Ken Blackwell

    It's all supposed to be voluntary, those "home visits" that are tucked into the mammoth Obamacare bill. If you have a strong stomach, and a stronger bottom, you can find home visitation on pages 568-595. That's Section 2951 of H.R. 3590, the Senate bill that Harry Reid brought down the chimney on Christmas Eve.

    All voluntary, they say, but once you "volunteer" to have the oh-so-helpful folks from Social Services come in to help with your newborns, or with a number of other specified issues, will you ever be able to get rid of them?

    The bill provides for federal funding and supervision for this vast expansion of government intrusion into family life. This is the Nanny State on steroids.

    Is your family being "targeted" for such home visitations? Let's see if you fit into one of these very broad categories:

    * Families where Mom is not yet 21. (No mention here whether she is married or not.)
    * Families where someone is a tobacco user. (Does this include the White House? Watch out, Sasha and Malia! Does Grandpa, whom you love and have taken in, enjoy his after-dinner pipe?)
    * Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.


    As if that list were not wide-ranging enough, here's the net that can encompass tens of millions:

    * Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States. [Emphasis added.]


    So while Johnny gets his gun, the government steps in to "help" his family at home. Ronald Reagan used to say the most frightening words in the English language were these: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

    Who will sit atop the federal pyramid that runs this vast new invasion of family privacy? Why, it will be Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, of course. She was the most pro-abortion governor in American history when President Obama tapped her for his cabinet.

    Do you spank your children? You should know that HHS bureaucrats think you are an abuser.

    Do you support the Second Amendment? How would you like HHS bureaucrats asking your children if you maintain firearms in the home for family protection?

    Do you home-school your kids? Take care. Members of Congress who have tried to abolish home-schooling are big backers of this health care bill. Do you wonder why?


    Read more:

    Guess Who's Coming to Your House?

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    has spoken at 3:43 PM
    4 Backtalks to Granny



    Sunday, March 07, 2010
    Sunday snippets...
    I'm just not up to Snippets in the plural today, so I'll just give you one.

    Granddaughter Carrie, age 5, on watching the E-trade commercial with the babies: Granny, I just love those commercials where the babies talk like human beings!

    has spoken at 9:48 AM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Saturday, March 06, 2010
    Too good not to share...
    The little girl in the video is Collin Raye's granddaughter...

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    has spoken at 7:59 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Friday, March 05, 2010
    There are times when the line between the benefits and the dangers of technology are blurry. This story is nowhere near the line :-(

    (March 5) -- A South Korean couple addicted to the Internet left their 3-month-old daughter to starve to death while they raised a virtual daughter online during 12-hour bouts at a cyber cafe, police said.

    The husband and wife had been on the run since their baby, born prematurely, died five months ago of severe dehydration and malnutrition, police said. They were arrested this week near their home south of the capital Seoul and charged today with child abuse and neglect.

    Police say the couple left their infant alone in their apartment and rushed back from the Internet cafe just once a day to feed her. South Korea's official Yonhap news agency first reported the arrests, quoting police.


    Baby starves as couple nurtures virtual infant

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    has spoken at 5:33 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Words on....Friday :-)

    Proper grammar, despite what many of us would LIKE to believe, is really a matter of a consensus of educated people. (Sometimes it ends up being the consensus of UNeducated people, but then that's another post.)

    What's clear is that proper grammar isn't static, and words, spelling, and syntax that were acceptable in 1910 are not acceptable in 2010, and vice versa. Some of the longest held "rules" of grammar are now in flux, and I as a writer am having to adjust, which is not always easy for folks in their second half-century of life.

    Today I ran across a summary of some of the sacred rules of grammar and how it is now perfectly acceptable to bend or break them. Because I tend to agree with this particular list, I encourage you to go read it, especially if you're teaching writing or grammar to children. Don't saddle them with the constraints of a previous century when they have to live and write in this one.

    I don't mean by this that it's okay to have sloppy writing or grammar or to make up our own rules...just that we need to stay in tune with what's generally acceptable in educated circles so our kids don't come off as sounding pretentious or stilted when they write. That is something 'up with which we should not put' (to quote Winston Churchill). ;-)

    5 Simple Grammar Tips

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    has spoken at 3:36 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, March 03, 2010
    Here is one of the most beautiful and, for me, encouraging testimonies I've ever read from someone who's dying. It's a bit long, but make sure you don't stop before the end...

    You Will Call, I Will Answer

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    has spoken at 4:19 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Monday, March 01, 2010
    Update: In the interest of fairness, I'm going to print here an excerpt from the actual doctor's report. This makes it look very different:

    Recommendations: Follow-up colorectal cancer screening is recommended in 5 years for routine colon cancer screening. Continue smoking cessation efforts, a daily exercise program, healthy diet, moderation in alcohol intake, periodic dental care, and remain up-to-date with recommended immunizations. Continue modified exercise regimen, and lower extremity muscle strengthening program, for occasional left patella-femoral pain secondary to chronic tendonitis. Recommend dietary modification to reduce LDL cholesterol below 130.

    Little words can make a big difference. Moderation "in" alcohol intake means something quite different than moderation "of" alcohol intake.

    So on this one, I admit jumping the gun.

    *********

    I'm wondering
    why the mainstream media has made sort of a big deal about Obama's doctors telling him to quit smoking, but this has been left as a footnote in some reports and doesn't even appear in others:

    The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".

    The wording of this really bothers me. This is not the same as being told that a moderate alcohol intake is okay. "Moderation" suggests that his intake is higher than moderate and needs attention. The most powerful (and therefore potentially the most dangerous) man in the world, and he's got an alcohol problem that even doctors, albeit quietly, have made public?

    Doesn't this concern anyone but me?

    Doctors tell Barack Obama to quit smoking

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    has spoken at 11:41 AM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Granny's Mission Statement
    "...Tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done....that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children."
    ~Psalm 78:4-6

    My Focal Passage for 2011...
    Philippians 2:5-11

    5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

    6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

    7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

    8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

    9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

    10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

    11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    ~Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV)


    Oxymoronica...

    "The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

    ~Samuel Johnson


    [Oxymoronica, n., A compilation of self-contradictory terms, phrases, or quotations; examples of oxymoronica appear illogical or nonsensical at first, but upon reflection, make a good deal of sense and are often profoundly true.]


    Books on the iPhone, the Kindle, or on the nightstand...


  • The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, Alexander Mccall Smith
  • The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Arthur G. Bennett, editor



  • Books finished in 2011...

  • Oxymoronica, Mardy Grothe
  • Some Sing, Some Cry, Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza
  • English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Roy Porter
  • One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp
  • His Word in My Heart, Janet Pope
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
  • Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
  • Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, John Piper
  • Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Joshua Foer
  • Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Red Queen, Philippa Gregory
  • Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas
  • The Confessions of Saint Augustine, St. Augustine
  • Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, John Keats
  • Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell
  • Words That Work, Frank Luntz
  • NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
  • Poke the Box, Seth Godin
  • Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, Gary Taubes
  • A Patriot's History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
  • Song of Saigon: One Woman's Journey to Freedom, Anh Vu Sawyer
  • The Artistic Mother: A Practical Guide for Fitting Creativity into Your Life, Shona Cole
  • The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, Elizabeth Kantor
  • The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough


  • Oh, the thinks you
    can think...
  • Tapestry of Grace
  • Anatomical Charts
  • America's Library
  • George Washington's Mount Vernon - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Thomas Jefferson's Monticello - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Hurricane Demo

  • Oh, the places we'll go...
  • The Alamo
  • Majestic Theater
  • The MAiZE
  • Magik Theatre
  • Sheldon Vexler Children's Theatre

  • Granny always says...
    Saying goodbye...
    Sunday snippets...
    Summer.
    Sunday snippets...
    Coming soon to a country near you...
    Making (a) room...
    Just in case this might make an impact on your spe...
    Midweek snippets...
    What's up?
    She said YES!

    Granny used to say...
    October 2005
    November 2005
    December 2005
    January 2006
    February 2006
    March 2006
    April 2006
    May 2006
    June 2006
    July 2006
    August 2006
    September 2006
    October 2006
    November 2006
    December 2006
    January 2007
    February 2007
    March 2007
    April 2007
    May 2007
    June 2007
    July 2007
    August 2007
    September 2007
    October 2007
    November 2007
    December 2007
    January 2008
    February 2008
    March 2008
    April 2008
    May 2008
    June 2008
    July 2008
    August 2008
    September 2008
    October 2008
    November 2008
    December 2008
    January 2009
    February 2009
    March 2009
    April 2009
    May 2009
    June 2009
    July 2009
    August 2009
    September 2009
    October 2009
    November 2009
    December 2009
    January 2010
    February 2010
    March 2010
    April 2010
    May 2010
    June 2010
    July 2010
    August 2010
    September 2010
    October 2010
    November 2010
    December 2010
    January 2011
    February 2011
    March 2011
    April 2011
    May 2011
    June 2011
    July 2011
    August 2011


    Grace Notes

    "Were the whole realm of nature mine
    That were a present far too small...
    Love so amazing, so divine
    Demands my soul, my life,
    my all!"