The wish list is growing

Thanks to this article (Christian Science Monitor January 23, 2007), found through Arts and Letters Daily, this book is now on my amazon.com wish list:


Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die By Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

From the article:

In separate chapters for each of the six principal characteristics, "Made to Stick" explores in depth exactly how, say, concreteness provides more hooks for recall (the "Velcro theory of memory") and why abstraction is often what unintentionally results from expertise.

"This is the Curse of Knowledge," the Heaths write, describing what they consider the single biggest reason so many messages fail to stick. "Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. [It] becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind."

The expert "wants to talk about chess strategies, not about bishops moving diagonally."

A favorite children's book

Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm

As we were eating dinner tonight, a terrible realization came upon us. Our two youngest have no recollection of reading Maple Hill Farm together. They don't remember Eggnog the cat (she has a sweet nature, but she throws up a lot) or Willow whose father was Potato Who Disappeared. They don't recall the horses named Ichabod and Ibn Rafferty, even though we ended up with a bouncy horse we named Ibn Rafferty when my oldest was four. So, I grabbed the book and read as we finished our dinner. Everyone came closer, wanting to see the pictures, giggling at the descriptions of the "perfect" geese (well, perfect except the dozens of things that aren't perfect about them), the antics of the kid goats, and a sheep named Whiney. The gentle writing is a pleasure.

"In a quiet corner of an overgrown field, where the snow lies deepest and the oak trees hold their leaves all winter, a beloved hound, named John, lies buried. Three cats are buried here - Webster, the first Siamese, a dear, dirty white cat named Crook, who stole from the table, and Fat Boy who looked like Max.

In this quiet corner, the best wild flowers grow, and the first peepers are heard in the spring, even before the snow melts. Here, owls call from the treetops in the early morning, and the irreverent crows hold their noisy conventions. Here, the mother deer has her fawn, and the migrating geese come to rest. It is here that the fox is safe from the hunters.

The animals that were....
the animals that are....
and the animals that will be....
bring joy, laughter, and life to the lives of the people who live in a house that needs painting, at the end of a road full of holes. Maple Hill Farm."

HIghly recommended.

On its way home

It has arrived at my husband's school. It is on its way home RIGHT NOW.

Excitement is the name of the game.

*** Added later ***

And now, for the rest of the story....

My phone rang at 10:30 this morning, and the caller ID showed it was my husband's school. I am always happy to talk to my husband, so I answered. His voice was filled with doom, and he announced that he was terrible, that he had done something awful. After my wild imagination attempted to conjure up what horrible thing could possibly be the problem, including the random and diabolical thought that he had been fired, he told me that it was about our daughter's harp. Excuse me?

Some context before I continue. We have all had a terrible cold and cough for days adding up to weeks. My husband even lost his voice, but it was the loss of energy that had him slinking to his car each afternoon without so much as a "howdy do" to the front office.

Or a "my daughter has a harp that is going to be delivered to our school" to the front office.

He found out this morning that the harp had actually come to his school last week without his name on it. Because he had not alerted the front office of its imminent arrival, and because the seller neglected to put my husband's name on the box, the front office had no idea what to do. Try they did. They called the music teacher, the local music store, asked everyone in and around the office. No clues. So, they refused to accept it and sent the freight guy away. Sent our daughter's harp away.

My husband felt like a total loser. My initial response was relief that he hadn't been fired, and then my heart sank. Do you have any idea how much it costs to ship a harp from North Carolina to California? Let's just say it is not a fee that one would want to pay twice.

So, I got on the phone and talked with the shipping service in North Carolina, the North Carolina freight company they had used, and finally got on the line with their Sacramento office. Telling my story for the third time, I started in about the harp. She stopped me as soon as I said "harp." "Oh, honey, I know all about that harp. They are going to try again to deliver it. Sometime today." I have never been so happy to have someone call me "honey." Even with the contact name May Simpson on the box (do I even want to know how they came up with that name?), the harp was delivered to its rightful owner this afternoon.

Why is it that our lives are full of these stories? Stories of mishaps and near mishaps, dread that turns to glee? I don't know, but they sure make great campfire stories each summer. We'll add this one to our repertoire, and perhaps we can have some musical accompaniment with the tale.

Morning glory

Sunrise over Mom's house

Watching

Death in Holy Orders

I've never seen a PD James on screen, never watched the old Adam Dagliesh (Roy Marsden), and couldn't imagine who could actually do Dagliesh. Well, Martin Shaw did a believable job. I enjoyed it very much.

Now, if I could have seen Children of Men in the theater! Somehow it left town before I woke up to its being there.

Overheard at the cafe

Our oldest is currently reading Dante's Inferno (translated by Dorothy Sayers) for Great Books class. Over the cafe table, her dad was amused to watch her grimacing and wincing as she read the vivid descriptions of the circles of hell.

At one point in her reading she commented, "Oh, can you imagine what Peter Jackson could do with this?" We all decided that we would rather not, thank you very much.

Found

At the library book sale table:


The Field Guide to Photographing Birds by Allen Rokach and Anne Millman

Patrick O'Brian: A Life by Dean King


In my recipe binder (don't ask -- I have no idea why they were there):

"Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

"Whenever I get one of those questionnaires and they ask what is your profession, I always put down housewife. It's an admirable profession, why apologize for it? You aren't stupid because you're a housewife. When you're stirring the jam you can read Shakespeare."

Credited to Tasha Tudor

At the thrift store:



A beautiful chair for our bedroom for $17.50 (naughty dog not included.)

History, politics, or opinion?

In my last semester of college, I had a government class that became an all-time favorite. It was the first time I was able to listen to someone argue any and every political position without revealing their own opinion. He promised us that at the end of the semester we would have no idea what his political affiliations were. Each day as we left class, we were sure we knew, but at the next class he was able to argue the opposite side with just as much detailed analysis and what I would have sworn was personal conviction. He was right: I never knew his opinion, but I sure knew a lot more about liberal, conservative and all points in between and around about. It was a great class.

My dear Autumn Rain is wishing for just a bit of personal opinion restraint in her history class this semester. I can only hope, dear niece, that the assigned reading is fascinating enough to make up for the class time. I encourage you to remember that your frustrations with her lecture style and content can fuel your writing gift and equip you for the areas of influence you will have in the years to come.

On reading aloud

On Reading Aloud by Kate Pitrone

"There is also this: we could not afford to travel with our children, but we gave them more than this world through poetry and literature. The house we lived in was our realm, but we gave them many worlds and many perspectives on the world, in the words we gave to them. They saw the world differently every time, with every book, and every author’s vision. We fed our family with more than food. We fed our longings for more than mere life. We took ourselves far and away with the words we found: the words that are the best that men have offered. When we read aloud to our children, we gave them language and vision and a context for the human in the world. They are grown, now, but they still remember."

What's on your read-aloud list?

HT: Wittingshire

Reality check

Gods and Generals

The children watched Gods and Generals earlier this week. One of my sons has two characters in his interpretive speech with southern accents, and he was assigned to watch it for inspiration. In a small house, it is hard to turn on a movie without the whole place stopping to watch, so I assigned everyone else the job of watching to determine their favorite character, with the promise that they would talk about their selection over dinner.

I missed all but the end, giving me a chance to see Stonewall Jackson in all his glory, but my husband was home to watch chunks of it. His choice of favorite characters was Joshua Chamberlain's wife.

"But, Dad, she swears!"

"Well, so does my wife, and she is a fine woman!"

There you have it. It's not all a circle of quiet around here.

****ADDED LATER*****

I got it wrong. My husband's favorite character is Chamberlain himself. "But, his wife swears" was the dismayed response. "Well, so does mine!" was the answer. I stand (or sit) corrected.

Books and Culture

Books and Culture for January/February arrived in the mailbox this week. Two interesting articles:

On Slippery Slopes, the Blogosphere, and (oh, yes) Women:
The place of women in the redemptive community
by Susan Wise Bauer

John Stackhouse's book should stand as one among many examples that egalitarians are in fact very aware of the corrosive effects of culture. After all, our interpretations of the difficult passages on women have been colored by centuries of decidedly un-Christian practice. And surely we shouldn't assume that a Christian who disagrees with us about such passages—whether from a complementarian or an egalitarian viewpoint—is lost forever.

Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics
by Christian Smith

"The real question is not whether evangelicals can clean up their statistical act. The deeper question is whether American evangelicals can learn to live without the alarmism that is so comfortably familiar to them. Evangelicals, by my observation, thrive on fear of impending catastrophe, accelerating decay, apocalyptic crises that demand immediate action (and maybe money). All of that can be energizing and mobilizing. The problem is, it also often distorts, misrepresents, or falsifies what actually happens to be true about reality. And to sacrifice what is actually true for the sake of immediate attention and action is plain wrong."

Literacy

In my inbox this week:

A link to Albert Mohler's blog, discussing this article:

Librarian's Lament: Books Are a Hard Sell:

"A library's neglected shelves reveal the demise of something important, especially for young readers starved for meaning -- for anything profound. Still, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet."

From Dr. Mohler:

"Do our own young people read books? Do they know the pleasures of the solitary reading of a life-changing page? Have they ever lost themselves in a story, framed by their own imaginations rather than by digital images? Have they ever marked up a page, urgently engaged in a debate with the author? Can they even think of a book that has changed the way they see the world . . . or the Christian faith? If not, why not?"

This is not just a theoretical discussion for me. I have one child whose vision issues have made reading less than a pleasure. It has taken me awhile to realize that this must be extra difficult for someone in a family like ours. You can't even go to the restroom in this house without being confronted with a bookcase. I have considered that a good thing, both because of my own love of books and my desire and expectation that my students would follow suit. I am just now beginning to understand that for someone who views reading as work and not pleasure, this world filled with books, and with people who talk about them ad nauseam, can feel a bit claustrophobic and perhaps a little lonely.

I have some more thinking to do.

A quote worth remembering

"All day long have I toiled and striven; but now in the stillness of heart and the clear light of thine eternity, I would ponder the pattern my life is weaving." (John Baillie)

HT: Seasonal Soundings

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The Oak


Love thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed,
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fallen at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough,
Naked strength.

New links

I have added two new links to my favorite blogs list. One is new, one is a long overdue addition. To find the links, just click on the Destinations button in the sidebar.

The Sacred Everyday is a new blog featuring Tonia and Ann, of favorite blogs Little Old House (formerly of Intent) and Holy Experience. Good thoughts and good writing and great teamwork.


The Sacred Everyday

I have no idea how Today's Lessons has been missing from my list of regulars until now. It's a favorite, and it has been for a long time. Honest writing, diverse interests and a lovely family make this an worthwhile destination.

Today's Lessons

Scholegium

Wes Callihan, of Schola Classical Tutorials, now has a regular newsletter that comes via email: Scholegium. From today's issue:

Last Sunday was the second Sunday after the Epiphany, and today (January 21, 2007) is the third. The Collects (prayers for use on a particular Sunday and all the following week) appointed for these Sundays and their following weeks are concerned with peace and our need of God's help in the face of spiritual or physical enemies. The Collect for the second Sunday was composed in the tumultuous sixth century, when much of the European world was torn apart by struggling kingdoms in the aftermath of the collapse of the western Roman empire. Life was difficult and frightening, and the Latin of the collect says, "grant Thy peace in our times", reflecting concern in that chaotic and violent age. The Prayer Book in English now says, "grant us thy peace all the days of our lives," a reminder that although we live in relative peace in our time, there's no guarantee of its continuance. The Saxon monk Alcuin, who so advanced education in Charlemagne's Frankish court around 800, chose this collect for the second Sunday after Epiphany and it's been there ever since. (As a related bit of trivia, one of Charlemagne's bishops, Theodulf of Orleans, who knew Alcuin, wrote the lyrics to the hymn "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" which many of us still sing in our churches.)

Collect for the second Sunday after the Epiphany: "Almighty and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth; mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The collect for the third Sunday after the Epiphany (today) likewise appeals to God's mercy in the light of our weaknesses, physical and mental and spiritual, and begs for His defence on our behalf: "Almight and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The SCHOLEGIUM archives, along with subscribe and unsubscribe
information, may be found at the Schola website (click "Scholegium newsletter" on the left).

Evening prayers for a January Sunday

Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior whom you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel. Amen.

Now guide me waking, O Lord, and guard me sleeping; that awake I may watch with Christ, and asleep, I may rest in peace. Amen.

From the Office of the Night Watch in:


The Night Offices: Prayers for the hours from sunset to sunrise
by Phyllis Tickle

New blog look

My blog is sporting a new look, thanks to the blog designing skills of our friend Seth. Click on the logo below if you are interested in learning more about his services. You can be confident that he has worked with clients who have strong opinions and no computer expertise. Just ask me how I know *grin*

All the links that were previously listed in my sidebar are now behind the "Destinations" button. That includes all you blogs, un-blogs, periodicals, education links and the SET and Sudoku category.

The "Books" button has my current winter reading list, but I will expand it to include other lists of books finished and books in my to-be-read pile.

"Recipes", "Archives" and "Contact Me" are what you would expect.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

Happy birthday Edgar Allan Poe
(Here is a link to the Poe page at the Literature Network.)

Our favorite Poe poem:

The Bells

I

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.


II

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!


III

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!


IV

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

HT: Semicolon, always a great source for the literary birthday scene.

More on the WSJ series on college

Joanne Jacobs has a few posts on Charles Murray's three-part series I mentioned below.

Recommended for reading and watching

My daughter has been working through her list of books she wants to read to her youngest siblings before she leaves home. The most recent accomplishment?


The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

What a quotable book! From the very beginning, the characters charm us:

"The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled on it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not observed. It was painted blue outside and white within, and was just the size for two animals; and the Mole's whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did yet fully understand its uses.

The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. 'Lean on that!' he said. 'Now then, step lively!' and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.

'This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. 'Do you know, I've never been in a boat all my life.'

'What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: 'Never been in a - you never - well, I - what have you been doing, then?'

'Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leaned back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

'Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leaned forward for his stroke. 'Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.'"

Also recommended: the 1996 movie version

Thoughts on college

It is a hushed morning at my house. Everyone is either working quietly or sleeping off a head cold. I am somewhere in between, curled up on the couch in my jammies with the family dog and a splitting headache. But I am not sleeping; instead, I am reading through this week's Wall Street Journal series on whether or not a four-year college education is appropriate for all, or even most, students.

Part I

Part II

Part III


Once again, I am gleaning these articles from Arts and Letters Daily.

I'd love to know your thoughts on Charles Murray's opinion pieces. My email address can be found in the sidebar; write me your thoughts, or you can let me know if you post them on your blog.

**Added later**

Discussion on the WSJ pieces can be found at:

World Magazine's blog
Dominion Family

In defense of old-fashioned correspondence

A new look at the impact of email on society:

The lost art of the letter by Robert Crease

The Internet is affecting not only how scientists communicate, but also how future science historians will have to work, says Robert P Crease

One can lose letters, of course, a classic case being much of Planck's correspondence thanks to an Allied bomb in the Second World War. But the challenges of electronic preservation are more extensive and immediate. As AIP historian Spencer Weart notes: "We have paper from 2000 BC, but we can't read the first e-mail ever sent. We have the data, and the magnetic tape – but the format is lost." Weart is fond of quoting RAND researcher Jeff Rothenberg's remark that "it is only slightly facetious to say that digital information lasts forever – or five years, whichever comes first"...

Physics World, January 2007

** Added later ** I do NOT read Physics World on a regular basis. In fact, I didn't even know the magazine existed until yesterday. This article courtesy of the highly recommended website Arts and Letters Daily.

Just a bit of fun

Make your own: Catalog Card Generator

HT: Mental multivitamin

Reading challenge? What reading challenge?

As suspected, this season's reading challenge is a much bigger bite than I can chew and digest this winter. But the beauty of these challenges is that I can come back, review my list, and either celebrate the alternatives I have chosen for myself or get back on track. I am doing a little of both this winter. The Speech Bug has definitely bit, so I am eager to read more about that (hence the entry below on It Doesn't Take A Genius). We are also in the midst of major church changes, the details of which will not be written about here, but it is worth a brief mention because of what unexpected change does to my reading life. I turn to old favorite books, chummy companions to ease my troubled mind and soothe me to sleep. Cadfael and Persuasion have been the perfect re-reads this January.

I have read:

Standing by Words: Essays by Wendell Berry

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

About A Boy by Nick Hornby

ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau

More details on these....hopefully....soon.

On the current stack:

The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume 20 (Includes Christendom in Dublin, Irish Impressions, A Short History of England and more)

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins

Recommended reading, listening, watching

Reading



It Doesn't Take A Genius: Five Truths to Inspire Success in Every Student by Randall McCutcheon and Tommie Lindsey

Albert Einstein was right: "It is the supreme art of teaching to awaken the joy in creative expression and knowledge."

In my thirty years of teaching, I've found that the best way to reveal that creative spirit is through public speaking. I've always believed that the voice is a window on the soul. The seat of the soul is, as Gerald de Nerval suggests, "not inside or outside a person, but the very place they overlap and meet the world." I've discovered that when teenagers come into high school, they have a number of issues to confront...It is my role as a teacher to provide kids with what they need to better address the issues and barriers they will inevitably face.

(HT: Seasonal Soundings. How can I ever thank you for the recommendation, Janie?)

December 2006 Touchstone Magazine (finally getting through the meaty pleasure of its contents)

FYI: The best stuff, some of the smaller articles, cannot be accessed online. Subscribe, order a back issue -- it's worth it. Every issue!

The Economist
This was a joint Christmas present to me and my husband...from my husband and me. Good stuff.

Listening



Prayer: A Windham Hill Collection. Includes Holy, Holy, Holy; Be Thou My Vision; Psalm 23; Ave Maria and more.

Watching



The Cadfael Collection

Another favorite Christmas present!

Speech reflections

It was a fantastic trip to Point Loma University for speech. Long hours of driving were filled with speech practice, musical choices, lots of conversation, and plenty of thinking time. We also listened to The Grey Lady, a Father Gilbert mystery from Focus on the Family Radio Theater. The time flew by and we soon arrived at our first destination: the home of our October guest. What we suspected was confirmed..this is a family of kindred spirits, and we wish we lived closer and could visit more often (and eat their tamales -- yum!) Without wasting any time, we talked of family life, church experiences, and everyone was able to practice their speeches. As sad as it was to say good-bye, we are hopeful for another visit. If one of our students can manage to break into semi-finals in speech, we will come back to Southern California for the invitational tournament in the spring. We will all be working hard in hopes of reaching that goal.

Dear friends and Violet the faithful dog

The tournament itself is a blur of memories. Competing, cheering, judging events, we all met up from time to time to eat, debrief, and continue on the marathon. It's a stretch for anyone with introverted tendencies, but I think we did pretty well. I loved being near the ocean; though my toes did not touch the sand, we did have the joy of watching the sunset over the water.

The view at sunset

Fine company

Then, we parted from our tournament pals, and we headed over to the HMS Surprise. The ships in the museum were all we hoped for, and the Surprise in particular was fun to visit. Ropes, ropes, and more ropes left the biggest impression on me!

Now, for those of you who might be envious of the experience, I'll provide a reality check. The skyscrapers in the background and the airplanes taking off with earth-shaking regularity did take away from the ambiance just a bit.

I thought of Ms. Crib Chick, though, amidst the rigging and the flight pattern!

After two days of laundry, rest and getting back on the ordinary routine, registrations are confirmed for our next speech adventure. We are hopeful for a visit with another bunch of loved ones (this one, this one, this one and this one. Yippee skippee.)

For now, though, the adventure must wait. These are the weeks of home-sweet-home. Our view is beautiful in its winter simplicity, the caffeine requirements are lower, the routine is soothing and the ordinariness is quite pleasant. The birds are asking to be noticed, a stack of books is waiting ever-so-patiently, and there is always the joy of my own, perfect, cozy bed. Ah, it is good to be home.

Scurry, scurry, hurry, hurry

Speech Tournament
Season One: The Rookies and their Rookie Mother

Packing, packing
Worrying, too
Suits? Check
Tie tacks? Borrow Dad's! Check
Toothbrush? Comb? Check. Check.

Worry, worry
Tums, merlot, what if I snore?
Don't forget speeches!
Don't forget timers!
Don't forget to ....
relax and have FUN

Does this match?
Did you remember?
Meal plans
Nervous energy
Pick out the music.
Pack a Wodehouse, okay?

Coffee.
Lots of coffee.
Dark, strong, caffeinated coffee.
All will be well.

**********************************************

Tomorrow, Vincent Van-Go, our faithful family mobile, will escort us down the agricultural interior of California, taking us to the southern lands that my children have never seen. Our ultimate destination: the new world of competitive speech. Business dress may be just as challenging as memorizing a ten-minute speech, but we are all seeing the fruits of our labors.

I am traveling without a co-pilot (no student drivers in our family yet), and I would appreciate prayer for our safety. And for the nervous speakers and their outwardly calm mother? More prayers would be dandy.

Reports from the road are a possibility.

Break a leg, guys!

Dreams come true

Five years of working hard and dreaming and saving...and then my mother-in-law was inspired to send the link to her friend Laurie Riley's site where there are used harps listed for sale.

Voila! The dream comes true.

The checks are in the mail, and we will begin our delivery man vigil as soon as we return from San Diego.

Thanks, Margaret! Thanks, Laurie! Congrats, dear girl!

Can you even imagine the music to come? Be still my beating heart.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Thoughts for the new year

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Colossians 3:12-17