It's fall. And though usually the beginning of fall is a cruel joke to those of us here in South America Texas, it was actually below 70 before sunset this evening, and that gives me hope. Now if we can just avoid too much rain in the less than three weeks before the wedding. We need to park about 75 cars on our "land" and it would be nice not to have any quicksand, and it would be nice not to experience a deluge during the outdoor ceremony.

Our school is going well this year, but then again, we've way downsized. John Caleb is doing several courses through a local co-op and is just doing math and history with us. I've got lots of time and space now for one-on-one attention with Tim, and that has been very good for both of us.

If you're looking for a good writing program and don't mind giving it some real effort, please look at Classical Writing (www.classicalwriting.com). This is the program I've been looking for for a quarter of a century, and it's one I'd love to use with younger kids (my grandkids and others) when my own teaching responsibilities are over. I love to write, but teaching writing has always been my least favorite "chore," right there behind Texas history.

Learning to walk again with one leg considerably shorter than the other has been one of my biggest challenges in the past decade. And after two false starts at having shoes made for me that would equalize the difference, this week I'm so encouraged! Our friend Cody Longenbaugh brought me in to his company and they worked on two pairs of shoes for me, and I now have hope that I'm not going to have to spend the rest of my life limping or wearing shoes that look like my grandmother's :-)

This afternoon I watched half of the Ken Burns series on Thomas Jefferson. I can never seem to get enough of Jefferson or of trying to figure him out. He's one of the most interesting figures in all of history to me, even when I disagree with him. A couple of things stood out to me today. One is the quote from Tristram Shandy that would have remained obscure except for the fact that Martha Jefferson wrote it out to Thomas as she lay dying and could no longer speak...

Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return...

And then there's this, a quote from a letter Jefferson wrote to William S. Smith in 1787. It more prescient all the time:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

No, I still don't know what I'm wearing to the wedding. I'm working on it.

To the soprano who sat in back of me this morning and blessed my morning and my worship with your beautiful singing, thank you. You were a gift.

And this week, I WILL make Pioneer Woman's "The Bread." Yes, it's glorified breadandbutter. But I can smell it already. I was going to include a link, but her site is down. You're probably better off.

I hope that where you live you'll be feeling the zip of fall air very soon. I'll be here waiting...

Labels: Church, Food, Homeschooling, TV, Weather, Weddings