The Cost of Memories

Plane tickets to Indiana for the weekend: $253
Flour, Yeast, Eggs, and Butter: $7.68

Making yeast rolls with my 90-year old Grandmother: priceless.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday's Sentiments

"You must know that the special honor which God has from His creatures in this world is the manifestation of the graces of His Spirit. It is true that God gets a great deal of honor when a man is in a public place, and so is able to do a great deal of good, to countenance godliness, and discountenance sin, but the main thing is in our showing forth the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. . . . That is the work that God calls me to now, and I must consider God to be most honored when I do the work that he calls me to; he set me to work in my prosperous estate to honor him at that time in that condition, and now he sets me to work to honor him at this time in this condition. God is most honored when I can turn from one condition to another, according as he calls me to it."

~Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, italics mine

The question is, can I honor God in whatever circumstance He places me?

To paraphrase a modern author:

"So I will praise Him in a box,
And I will praise Him with a fox,
And I will praise Him in a house,
And I will praise Him with a mouse,
And I will praise Him here and there,
Say! I will praise Him anywhere!"

~ Theodore Geisel, Green Eggs and Ham, adapted. Obviously!

or, as the Apostle Paul puts it:

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and huger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Phillipians 4:11-13)

Thoughts for my own heart, this week.

(And hey! What other blogger quotes Dr. Seuss and the Puritans!?)

Faculty Meeting, Homeschool Style

I've been to my share of faculty meetings, back-in-the-day.

You know the drill - after school, the teachers are exhausted and want to get home, principal's going through an agenda that seems to have nothing to do with day-to-day teaching (if you're reading this, sorry, Mom!), and if you're lucky, someone brought a goodie to share.

Well, I attended a great faculty meeting today.

(hand raising from the back row of blogdom)

"Um, excuse me? Don't you. . . um. . . .homeschool?"

Heh. My principal (read: Yurii) gave me the entire day to hang out here:

Coffee-o-logy, the uber-cool coffee shop in the world's best public library.

OK, that last part's debatable. But the coffee shop is uber-cool. If only I drank coffee. (The pannini was amazing.)

Four lovely hours, no interruptions (other than lunch and starting Jane Eyre), and a pretty decent wireless connection. Finished planning schedules, and was able to organize and input about 3 months worth of assignments.

Whew.

May I recommend a back-to-school faculty meeting to all my friends?

(and getting called into the principal's office isn't so bad, either! Thanks honey - I love you!)

Not On Your Life

Imagine my double-take when I sat down to teach a grammar lesson, and saw this:
No, it wasn't coffee. It was water. But apparently, Hannah thought it tasted better out of a Starbucks travel mug.


If any of my children do NOT need caffeine, it would be her.

Think Hammy the squirrel from Over the Hedge.

You get the picture.

Wordless Wednesday

On the Brink

Today, I become the mother of another teenager young adult.

I can't say I'm all that sad about it - there's something wonderful and wacky and wild about the way these older ones need me.

It's certainly not as simple as these days:


When a bowl of pretzels, a dinosaur party, and a romp in the yard made for one happy boy.

It's more challenging, full of paths unknown and less traveled, but with rewards as sweet as a dripping wet man-child hug after a high-speed tube ride on the lake.



Now I look in the face of this amazing young man - poised on the brink of becoming an adult, a bright arrow in the quiver Yurii and I steward with fear and trembling - and pray. . .

That the Lord will guard his heart,
keep him as tender and sweet towards his future wife and children . . .

as he is towards his sisters.

Most of the time!

That he would always use his talents - in music, film-making and the like - to bring glory to the Lord, and not to himself.


And, most of all, that he would never stop being the blue in the midst of our pink, the tender heart in the midst of a sinful world, the nonstop talker, movie-maker, joke teller, joy-bringer, Jesus-lover that he is today.

We love you, Nathaniel. Happy 13th Birthday!