Newt swinging on a zip line
Wordless Wednesday sponsored by 5 Minutes for Mom
Newt swinging on a zip line
Wordless Wednesday sponsored by 5 Minutes for Mom
Eight is a big year for children in my church because at age eight a child can choose to be baptized. Newt had been looking forward to last night for as long as she can remember. A couple of weeks ago, my shy terrified child shocked me by declaring that she wanted to tell the church how she feels about her God. She was so scared that she even cried a little on the way to the podium, but she felt like she really needed to do it.
This is what she said:
I want to share my testimony. I love God and I know he loves me. He is my very best friend in the whole world.
Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 18:3
I’m too exhausted to write much tonight, but today has been a wonderful, special day for our family.
This evening my Newt started a journey. She placed her (not so little anymore) foot upon the path as she chose to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.
I’ve never been prouder to be her mom.
…with all the chatter?
I forgot to mention I’m participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month): one post every day in November.
If you are participating too, stop by and friend me. I could use some friends…
I don’t know how long the cat obsession will last, but I will try to milk it for easy posts document it fully here.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, her ipod was playing Elvis, not Cats.
Heidi would like to apologize for the quality of the following pictures. Once again, her scanner and laptop are quarreling. Thanks, Vista. You rock.
Once upon a time there was a Heidi. Please do not confuse this Heidi with the little girl in the Alps.
Not so long ago, Heidi had a calendar.
It hung on the bulletin board in the kitchen where Heidi could conveniently use it. It worked quite well for her. But…
One day Heidi became a homeschool teacher. She felt the need to become a bit more organized with her schedule.
So Heidi bought another calendar. The second calendar was to record lesson plans.
The dual calendar system worked so well that Heidi bought a third calendar. A little one just for planning her menus.
Now some, less organized, people might think that having three calendars is a bit much, but Heidi did not agree. Heidi was of the mind that if one was good, three were better.
Heidi felt very organized. She wanted to pass her mad organizational skillz to the next generation. Heidi bought a date book for her daughter to keep track of her schedule.
And then she bought one for herself.
Heidi was now so very organized.
Except…
She did occasionally have a problem with writing appointments down on one calendar and then forgetting about them.
Like the time she missed her daughter’s doctor’s appointment…
…and didn’t realize it for a week.
But that’s what happens when you are as organized as Heidi.
Fiction Advisory: The remainder of this story is currently fiction.
Eventually Heidi became so organized that she could no longer function. She was last seen wandering about consulting a suitcase full of calendars trying to determine if she had missed her hair appointment.
But at least she was no longer disorganized.
The End
I thought I was done with all my food preservation this year, but circumstances were out of my hands.
Really.
Take one of the last days of sunshine Oregon is likely to see for the next five months. Add in the irresistible allure of ripe, juicy apples. Season it all with the beautiful phrase “35 cents per pound” and, at no fault of my own, I end up with more apples.
One-hundred-and-one pounds of more apples.
So I donned my lovely apple apron
and got to work.
Today’s apple delicacy?
Dehydrated apple rings!
I love dehydrated apples. They are wonderful on oatmeal or in salads (make a simple olive oil and apple-cider vinegar dressing), if they last that long. We usually end up eating the whole lot before I can do anything else with them.
And just check out that funky-cool dehydrator. Don’t you just love the screens? They look like little window frames.
When I heard that an acquaintance from church was giving this baby away, I jumped in my car and drove right over. I had been searching for a good used dehydrator for awhile.
I tried to borrow my mom’s, but she told me that she had thrown it away. Apparently, she had loaned to someone else and it came back reeking of marijuana. And the smell wouldn’t come out. (Did I mention that we live in Oregon?) She did the right thing; my mom is nutty enough without throwing in some freaky kind of olfactory contact-high.
But back to my dehydrator. It looks old but it works great. And smells pretty good too. And it churns out a gallon-sized ziploc of apples per batch.
Tomorrow I’m making apple sauce and apple pie filling.
I’d ask my mom for canning jars, but…I’m too afraid.
“Mom, I’d rather wear no socks at all than have to wear two the same.”
*****
Wordless Wednesday sponsored by 5 Minutes For Mom
Over the last few months, my inbox has been deluged with emails asking how our little homeschool is going.
Well…maybe not deluged exactly, but there’s definitely been a keen interest.
A small level of curiosity?
All right, I have not received a single email about it. But I understand; you’ve been busy. I’m sure you meant to ask, but life got in the way.
Happens to me all the time.
But since you were wondering, it’s going great.
A couple of weeks ago we studied Helen Keller.
One afternoon, I asked Girl Wonder to make a peanut butter sandwich blindfolded and without any verbal help from me. It was harder than she thought it would be.
I’m sure you can’t see it, but this picture captured a very special moment: the moment a child finds a hero.
Newt is absolutely inspired by Helen Keller. So much so, that she got a book on sign language and spent an entire weekend holed up in her room learning to sign the alphabet and numbers one to ten.
By herself.
She did not ask for or accept any offered help.
It was hard work, but she felt driven to learn it. And now that she has, she is determined to teach it to anyone who will listen.
Just today, she sat on the floor with my friend’s two-year-old son. As he gently patted our dog, she signed for him.
“P-U-P. Can you try? P-U-P. Pup.”
He tried to mimic her sounds and hand motions, but he is only two.
Still, she was not dissuaded. After all, it took some time for Helen to learn but Anne Sullivan didn’t give up.
I watched this little interchange feeling pretty inspired myself.
So, yeah, homeschool is going quite well. Thanks for asking.
Tomorrow is the big day and I, for one, can’t wait to get it over with. I’m so tired of hearing “I’m blah-blah-blah and I approve this message.” I hate that my mailbox is continually stuffed with glossy piles of negativity, paid for by The Coalition to Make Me Want to Run Screaming From the Room.
But most of all, I hate that these two guys are my choices.
I honestly don’t much like either one of them. It really bugs me that I’m not voting for someone I like, but instead I’m voting against the one I like least.
I can only pray that whomever gets elected will prove me wrong and make America proud.
What about you? Do you truly like your candidate or just dislike him less than the other guy?
If you are voting for someone because you believe in him – his vision, his philosophies, I’d love to hear from you.
Who knows? You just might make me change my mind.
