Oklahoma, my friends, is hotter 'n Texas.


Had a wonderful three hour visit with my Mom on Sunday. I loved seeing the surprise on her face when I walked in...I realize it might not be too long before nothing will register when she sees me, but I hope that can be a long time from now. She was calmer and more coherent than she's been in months (at least when I've been around) and it was a joy to show her my needlework and look through hundreds of Facebook photos with her.


One of my projects while in OK was to make some simple curtains for Ava's windows from a fabric collection that was used in two separate gifts she was given, from two people who don't even know each other. (Tiffany L. and Cindy H.) CJ decided that was a sign we were supposed to use that fabric as an inspiration for the nursery, which all of us working on the room have done. Curtains are now up :-)


I've just ordered and received my copy of The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, on the recommendation of Ann Voskamp from A Holy Experience. When I get home I'm going to work my way through it in 13 weeks per her suggestion.


Rick Perry looks closer to running every day, and it appears that Mitt Romney will be the loser. Ah well...


I believe I've mentioned YNAB budget software before, but if you're not familiar with it, here's a nice review by Tim Challies. If I swore, I'd swear by it.


My conversion to Apple gets more complete all the time. I'm now running a MacBook Pro, an iPhone4, and an iPad2. As soon as life slows down, I'll finish the conversion by getting a Windows platform on the Mac so that I can run all the programs I use that aren't compatible with Mac or that Mac just hasn't mastered yet. Like Office 2010. 


For you natural history and biology buffs, this is simply astounding.


And despite the references to evolution, here's another fascinating study:

Researchers from Oxford University studied the eye sockets and brain capacity of 55 human skulls from 12 different populations across the world and found that the further human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains. 

It's not because they are smarter, however, but because they need bigger vision areas in the brain to cope with the low light levels at high latitudes, the scientists said in a report of their findings in the journal Biology Letters.

My summer is flying by, and it's time to start getting serious about the school year. With just two students left, my workload is not what it used to be, but I am determined to finish well. This year I will be teaching geometry to my boys and assisting in their history (still Tapestry of Grace). The rest they'll be taking at co-op or, in the case of John Caleb, the community college. I think I'll be driving more than teaching. 26 years ago I could hardly have imagined where this journey would lead!


And now, it's time for me to cool off with (another) Diet Coke. Have a great weekend, y'all!

Labels: Decorating, Devotional, Homeschooling, Money, Political Observation, Science, Technology, Texas, Weather

Labels: Books, Devotional, Food, Kids, Money, Movies, Political Observation, Technology, Theater of the Absurd

Writing off cursive

Labels: Homeschooling, Learning, Technology

Labels: Books, Church, Food, Grandparenting, Homeschooling, Music, Political Humor, Sundays, Technology, TV

Having just experienced my third computer crash in six months, I have finally taken the plunge into the Mac world...there's going to be a big learning curve and I may have to put off blogging for a while. I'll be back!

Labels: Apple, Technology

Labels: Books, Family, goo, Good Stuff, Memories, Music, Political Observation, Technology

Labels: Books, Good Stuff, Technology

How about you? Cookbooks or Internet?

Labels: Food, Technology

We'll do School Lite for the two weeks before Christmas break--mainly math, as it's what suffers the most from several weeks of vacation. There's always more to do during December than I can do alone, so I appreciate the kids' help and can't have them buried in books the whole time!


Microfiber cleaning cloths. That's what I need more of. Just ordered 3 dozen. Oh, Amazon, whatever did I do without you?



I love my Otter Box. If you get an iPhone for Christmas, don't leave home without one. (Especially if, like me, you sometimes drive with your phone in your lap, and then, forgetting it's there, get out of the car.)

Still pluggin' away at Nicholas Nickleby. Man, that book is long.


The kids have dutifully gotten all the dusting and vacuuming done so we're ready to set out Christmas decorations. I'd gladly wait another week or so, but they're always chomping at the bit to have the trees and lights and sparkles and music...so I told them I'd oblige them as soon as the common areas in this house are spotless. It was great motivation.

O come, O come, Emanuel...

Labels: Books, Family, Grandparenting, Holidays, Movies, Technology, Weather

I have a love-hate relationship with Netflix. I think they have a great business model, and I love the fact that, for the most part, our membership kept us out of the video rental store. Well, not our grown kids, but that's another story.

I also love the fairly new ability to stream video to my computer or my iPhone so that I can watch a movie in bed, in the car, etc. without bothering anyone else. This is especially nice when riding between here and our families in north Texas after dark, when it's very hard to read.


But up until now, my membership has included DVD's...at times I've paid for the level where you can have up to 3 DVDs out at a time; more recently I've reduced that to just one, plus the unlimited streaming hours. During the hustle and bustle that was the wedding, I lost one of the DVDs and had to pay full price for it (even though the lady on the phone asked me, "Don't you just want to say it was lost in the mail?"). That cost me the equivalent of nearly two months of membership. Ouch. And I never even watched it!


So...when Netflix announced yesterday that 1) my plan was going up in price, and 2) they would now offer a plan with NO DVDs and just the unlimited streaming video, I decided to make the switch. No more waiting to get the DVDs in my queue, no more looking for those red envelopes, no more losing movies. And my membership now goes DOWN by a dollar.


The down side is that there is still a limited number of movies (and documentaries, my favorite) available to stream. This is bound to increase rapidly with Netflix's new focus on this model, but for now I won't have the selection I used to. Not that I'm a huge movie watcher...often I like the IDEA of watching a movie more than I actually like doing it...but it was nice to have the option of practically anything I could think of. Now, if we have our heart set on a particular movie, we'll have to hope we can order it on-demand from cable. We're so spoiled.


Anyway, it got me thinking about how much the world has changed during the second half of my adult life (the second half of what I've lived so far!) and how sometimes just the choices are overwhelming. Remember the days when you could either watch TV or read? No, I guess most of you don't  ;-)

Labels: Fun, Movies, Technology

Labels: Body of Christ, Books, Family, Food, Homeschooling, Political Action, Technology, Texas, TV

These last weeks of spring have been beautifully busy. With all the major activities of the school year finished, I'm making lists and tentative schedules and planning some travel for the summer. I always love the looseness of the summer as a break from the school year routines...and then, come late August/September, I'm ready to tighten up again and "fall" back into the routines that hold us together for most of the year.

My partial summer list: Get started on my Rosetta Stone course. Be available to work on wedding plans with CJ. Fine tune school plans for the fall. Finish reading How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil (it's slow reading, but oh-so-worth it). Declutter our room (it's become the victim of my inability to walk and use my hands at the same time!).

Our attempt to get AT&T U-verse installed this week fell through when the installer was unable to get the expected signal at our house. So we settled for upgrading our cable package to one where we can DVR and order movies from more than one TV, and get more channels (including FOX Business!) than we've had before. We're still anxious to get U-verse, but it could be another year according to them.

I know I keep saying this, but I need a new computer. And a new phone. But I'm going to try and make the ones I have limp along until the end of the year. I finally got everything from my laptop backed up on a hard drive, something I should have done long ago, so at least I'm not living in fear of an unrecoverable crash. And I've freed up some space on this old not-so-faithful.

Last weekend we celebrated Shelley's graduation from high school and her senior piano recital. About 200 friends and family joined us for the big occasion and were treated to a 90 minute concert of Shelley's best. Later we presented her with her high school diploma and lots of roses and finished the evening with a nice reception. Shelley will now take a European-style "gap year" to work on material for college auditions and to breathe a little while she decides exactly what to do about college choices. Here are a few photos from her recital...




Thursday was a big day for me! I went for my routine appointment with my surgeon, expecting him to clear me to move from 25 to 50% weight on my right leg. After seeing the xrays, he was confident enough to tell me that I could put 100% weight on the leg "as tolerated", making sure that I didn't do too much too soon. My "surprises" at doctor's appointments of late have not been good ones, so I left walking on clouds instead of tile! At that point my plans for the summer changed a little, as I was expecting a very slow summer adding weight very gradually and needing a walker for a few more months. But it appears I may be free of that unwelcome companion sooner than I thought!

Just five months until the election when we may begin to retake our stolen government and return it to a group of men (and increasingly, women!) who respect the Constitution and will stop the madness that could soon have us modeling Greece.

All year long, while sitting here in my chair or lying in the bed, I have been craving some giant sea scallops, perfectly seared and sitting on a bed of couscous. Random, I know, but I'm going to find them.

Our freshly remodeled deck was the site of a Hawaiian luau last night, meticulously planned and executed by our church deacons and their wives. Yes, it was complete with a kalua pig, roasted in a pit in the ground in our back yard, which is being filled in by The Papa and Sons as I write this. It was a delightful evening, blessed by unseasonably mild and breezy weather. Here's a taste of our luau:




For the next couple of weeks, we'll be getting ready for Kristen and the elves to move in with us for a month or two. Dave is still in training for his new insurance job, and soon they'll need to relocate to the DFW area. In the meantime they'll keep us company as they wait for the big move. We're delighted...Kristen is a big help to me and a wonderful companion, and it's a joy to have the children here. Last time they lived with us there were four of them, and now there are five!

I hope you enjoy your last week of spring, 2010. I, for one, am more than ready for a new season!

Labels: Books, Church, Family, Food, Health, Political Observation, Summer, Sundays, Technology

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

Labels: News, Technology

'Twas the week before Christmas
And throughout Granny's House
Every creature was stirring
Even the wireless mouse....

Okay, I'll spare you more; suffice it to say that our mouses (how come the plural of computer mouse isn't "mice"?) have been busy ordering gifts and making plans...some of us have even braved real stores in addition to the virtual ones...and we're almost ready for next weekend. It has seemed crazy here at times, but then I stop and think that within five years our home is going to be a lot quieter and I will long for the craziness...

In the few quiet spaces, I've been reading, jotting down ideas for New Year goals, praying for friends who have hurts and or/big decisions ahead, and putting my feet up when possible to conserve energy and minimize pain. Happily, there have been enough of those spaces to keep the craziness enjoyable and not insane!

Printer update: We are loving our Canon Pixma printer. I recommend it.

It's looking like we're about to find out how much ObamaCares about all of us. I can't believe that we're on the cusp of being thrust into the pit of socialism, but since we've been creeping that way anyway I guess I shouldn't be surprised. One of the things that stuns me is that anyone enrolled in a government "exchange" plan will be forced to pay an abortion premium (doesn't matter if you've had a hysterectomy or you're a 22-year-old young man or you object to abortion) every month to fund those abortions that can't be "publicly funded". Yeah, right.

I'm thinkin' the east coast had plenty snow that they could have shared with south Texas, but no....Hey, maybe the administration can fix that, too? I mean, level playing field and all that...

Once again, Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark is the best. As are friends who give it :-)

In these days when "peace on earth" seems cliche and certainly doesn't express the current realities, I'm reminded that there will be a new heaven and a new earth before we see it come to be. And so I close with the words of a old carol by William Wadsworth Longfellow:

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

May each of you reading have a blessed, peaceful, and worshipful Christmas!

Labels: Holidays, ObamaNation, Sundays, Technology, Weather

It's Thanksgiving week...and I'm feeling more grateful already! Grateful, of course, for all the blessings in my life, but also for the 50+ people that will be sharing the day with us in a combination of food, football (real and virtual), fun, crafts, and music. The logistics are a challenge this year but that just adds to the excitement!

I have two turkeys thawing: one 20lb and one 25lb. Seems no matter how much turkey I cook, we never have enough leftovers. And who wants to cook on the Saturday after Thanksgiving? I'm going to check and see if the grocery store sells turkey leftovers :-)

How come I didn't know that The Wizard of Oz is on some channel almost every Sunday?

Okay, the Kindle is fabulous. It still has a bug or two that I think should be addressed in the next iteration, including a navigation system that's a little less than intuitive, but all in all it gets an A- from me and I'm on my third book already, with two more loaded!

And I have no doubt that the Kindle will make the hours on the flights to and from Hawaii a lot easier for me to handle. I love going there, but I hate getting there, and any distractions that keep me busy for longer than five minutes are very welcome.

If I'm REALLY lucky, American Airlines will be showing The Blind Side on the flight over the Pacific!

I'm sorry that we'll be away from our church family on one of my favorite days of the year: the first Sunday of Advent. I'll try to console myself with the sights and sounds of wave and tropical sunsets, but really, nothing replaces celebrating Advent with those we love.

From this morning's worship...


Have a great week with your loved ones, giving thanks for blessings none of us deserves but which have been lavished on us by the Lover of our souls...

Labels: Books, Food, Holidays, Movies, Technology, Vacations

Finally, some color in the leaves! True, it's a paltry autumn compared to most other places I've lived, but it's nice to look up and see a patch of red on the occasional tree...

So this is the week that the girls and I work on seating charts for Thanksgiving Dinner. We have a slightly-larger-than-usual group this year but we still want it to be a special, sit-down experience for each one who's with us. So since we don't have the optimum floor plan for eating with large groups, it takes some planning ahead and careful use of the available space. Happily, I have kids who excel at this sort of thing :-)

I was able to visit with my mother this week. Her Parkinson's, along with her very fragile bones and all the meds she must take for both conditions, have left her in a state that makes me sad to see. This visit she was confused about CJ, my companion for this trip, thinking she was Aubrey even after I told her several times. She knew me, but asked me the same things over and over...I'm tearing up as I write this, as it was a painful realization that disease is taking its toll and usually only goes in one direction.

Well FINALLY I made the decision on a new printer this week and get to ditch the Dell. We've had it three years and it's never worked right, and we've probably spent fifteen times as much money on the ink for it as we did on the original purchase. The new printer is a Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless All-In-One Photo Printer and I'll let you know if it ends up being any better than our old one.

And because this news will get out anyway, I'll confess that I took some of my spending money this week and bought myself a Kindle. I've been very curious about this gadget, wondering if I would really use it. After playing with it, loading my NASB Bible and a couple other books on it, I have already become attached. No, it will never completely replace books for me, but it lets me travel with a lot more reading material than I can fit in my luggage, and it also means I can enjoy a lot of books without having to find shelf space for them.

Looks like we'll forgo our usual day-after-Thanksgiving trip to choose a live Christmas tree. The Papa and I will be leaving for Hawaii early on Friday morning, and we've also decided that it will be better for our sweet asthmatic grandson if we don't bring a fresh tree in the house. So I'm on the lookout for a really nice, TALL artificial tree. The Papa says that this time it's gonna be pre-lit.

I'll be loading Going Rogue on my Kindle.

Happy birthday to Joshua, who is T E N today!

Labels: Books, Family, Good Stuff, Grandkids, Holidays, Technology

There's certain to be a lot of back and forth about this report (which is actually a survey, not a study, per se) and it will no doubt be a long time until we have definitive answers. But it seems to me that the evidence may be piling up in favor of extreme caution.

I, for one, will be training myself to rely a lot more on speakerphone. Unfortunately, as an iPhone user I possess one of the worst speakerphones known to modern man, and so this will definitely play a large part in my decision about my next phone: new iPhone/Blackberry/some other smart phone whose features may beat out the others by the time I'm ready to replace mine in March. Well, I'm ready now, was ready two months after I got my iPhone...but AT&T isn't yet ready for me to switch providers, which I will probably do when I get a new phone...

Cell phone use linked to brain tumours

Labels: Health, Science, Technology

When I first saw the header on this story, I thought to myself, "Oh great. Another article trying to scare us out of using computers." I'm glad I read on. This study and others like it could hold the seeds of advances in the prevention/treatment of dementia, Alzheimer's, brain injury, stroke, etc.

(I often tried to convince my mother during the early days of her Parkinson's to get and use a laptop, but she resisted and now wouldn't be able to maneuver it. She did some work on a desktop computer before becoming ill, but it never became second nature and was always a laborious process for her. I wonder if a little more encouragement from me would have enabled brain changes that could have delayed her deterioration...)

UCLA Study: The Internet Is Altering Our Brains

Labels: Health, Science, Technology

Okay, this is funny. Those of you with G-mail who are tired of the ads, take note (just watch your language!):

Kill Gmail Ads With a Few Choice Words

Labels: Fun, Technology

There's a lot of talk these days about the death of handwriting. Conservatives, especially, bemoan it right along with the "dumbing down" of history and English. There was a time when I, too, fretted about it and put it in the same category as "slouching towards Gomorrah."

No longer. For the past twenty years I've been trying to convince fellow homeschooling parents to lighten up, especially in the last decade as we've become less and less dependent on anything handwritten. I get static from the folks who believe if it's old it must be better than anything new, but I respectfully disagree. More than once I've used the example that when I graduated high school in 1972 you weren't considered educated if you couldn't use a slide rule. My kids don't know what a slide rule is, and I'd bet money that most of you can't use one even if you have a vague idea of how it worked.

Lovely handwriting is just that: lovely. But it is not a necessity and it will become even less relied on than it is at this dawning of the millennium. I love it that my best friend has beautiful handwriting and that I get to see it when she sends me a card in the snail mail. But I will not put the burden on my children and grandchildren to develop a skill which has no real relevance in modern life unless they have a particular interest in it.

With that disclaimer, I invite you to read but will not take part in TIME magazine's

Mourning the Death of Handwriting

Labels: Education, Homeschooling, Technology