Well, I’ve been MIA for a while — it’s been pretty busy here with little time for fun stuff like posting interesting tid bits and my bird’s eye view of the world.  But I’m taking a little time this morning to say “hello!”

An important request to those of you who believe in the power of prayer — I have a good friend whose wife is expecting.  They’ve suffered through a couple of miscarriages, but this pregnancy seems to be going well.  They’re at 12 weeks and so far everything looks good, based on a recent ultrasound.  Please keep all three of them in your prayers!

My sweetheart recently went on a motorcycle retreat with some men from his step-dad’s church.  They rode miles and miles up into the East Texas piney woods and he said it was a truly rejuvenating experience.  I hope he’s able to go every year, as he really has seemed more at peace and generally happy since going!  Now if someone would come up with something for us girls!  (Hmmm . . . scrapbooking, anyone?)

The little miss is doing well.  I’m not sure, but I think she is ready for school to be out.  She loves to read, but she’s tired of reading the “required” books.  I think she’d like to have more freedom in her reading choices.  This will be a lot easier for me to manage next year when we start homeschooling.  I want her to have a well-rounded education, of course, but I also want her to have an education that is custom-designed for her benefit AND enjoyment. 

My sister and I will be attending the SETHSA homeschool conference in June.  While I’m pretty sure that we’re going to start out using A Beka’s materials, there are so many wonderful materials out there to supplement and enrich the educational experience.  I need to start “hoarding” my pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters now!

The business is going well — I have several jobs coming to completion with installations scheduled three days next week.  Have a few bids simmering on the burner and hope to hear positive replies from the potential clients soon.  That will help with the expenses of homeschooling, too . . .

Here’s a column I read this morning that I thought you’d all enjoy.  I know it made an impression on me:

Learn When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

By Michael Morris
The Facts

Published April 20, 2005

When our children are growing up, we do our best to teach them language that is respectful. Certain phrases are merely unacceptable, and we are scolded or worse if we use them.

Some children have some difficulty getting their brains and mouths to work in unison, which would explain why I spent a good bit of my childhood in the bathroom having my breath made Zestfully clean.

One such phrase we discourage our children from uttering is telling people to “shut up.” It’s a quite harsh, impolite way of telling someone you disagree with them or are just disgusted with what they have to say. Still, as we run across people in our daily lives, it seems more and more often no other phrase is quite as fitting.

Such as when we watch Barry Bonds complain about how difficult people have made his life. Watching his press conference about how the media has tried to tear him down and treated him unfairly, playing the race card in the process, is so ridiculous it sends us screaming “Oh, shut up already!” at the television and looking for that old novelty foam brick to fire at the screen.

The same goes for most of the political debate shows.

Why do Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity and their brethren not know when their comments have gone so far outside the bounds of logic that they need to grab the SuperGlue and do a little tooth bonding?

Still, the times when the phrase is most deserved to be uttered we remember the lessons of our parents and allow discretion to take over, instead standing there smiling uncomfortably as our blood pressure climbs. It would be so much easier if we could just drop that direct, two-part instruction on the person for the sake of our long-term mental and physical health.

A trip to my dry cleaner’s lately has me popping a precautionary aspirin afterward.

The young woman who works the counter makes small talk with me by complaining about how terrible her job is. Poor thing only gets paid for about 20 hours of overtime a week, and she’s so grateful for Saturdays to roll around because she gets to go home at a decent hour — 3 p.m. instead of 6:30. My heart is bleeding over the terrible life she must have.

Apparently she must believe that I’m not a customer, but a career counselor.

She’s one of those young adults we’ve raised with the spirit of entitlement that you just want to grab by the lapels and snap her into the real world, where folks regularly work 60 hours a week on second or third shift to feed their families.

But that wouldn’t be nice.

It also wouldn’t be nice to clam up the folks who complain about how stressed they are because they’re not sure how they’re gonna make the next payment on their Lexus or how much it costs to keep their kids outfitted in South Pole gear and Air Jordans.

Maybe the solution would be mandatory group sessions for these chronic complainers, sessions led by homeless mothers and senior citizens who can’t afford to fill their prescriptions each month.

Maybe it would be to buy them a ticket to be part of the next mission trip to Nias, Indonesia.

Either would provide some perspective on the spoiled, ungrateful lives we are leading, and perhaps teach the chronic complainers to shut up without us having to say a word.

Michael Morris is assistant managing editor of The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0145, or e-mail michael.morris@thefacts.com.

Guess that’s it for now.  I’ll try not to go so long between posts . . . hope you all have a great day!

Please read this excellent, excellent column by Doug Giles!

An Old School Pope or Progressive Dope?
Doug Giles

April 9, 2005

According to some of my tightly wound theological buddies, as a Protestant Christian, I’m not supposed to say anything favorable about a Catholic, especially … a Pope. Oh well, I’ve got to give honor where honor is due, so pardon me, brethren, if I praise the former pontiff’s past achievements. 

Doug Giles’ provocative weekly one-hour radio program, ‘The Clash’, has re-launched with several new features. Go to clashradio.com and hit ‘listen live.’

©2005 2004 Doug Giles

“What happened to just being a human being, you know? It’s nothing more than state-sanctioned murder. All the big guys, they all have their hands tied up by some tinhorn judge down there. Come on, when they want to whip a judge, they got no problem doing that. Look what they did to [Ten Commandments proponent Roy Moore] in a heartbeat. So they can do it if they want. They just don’t want to.”  (Mel Gibson)

Thank you, countrygirl411, for this quote.  I hope more people see the inconsistencies in our judicial system that Mel points out in his comment.  Just WHY was Judge Greer so much more powerful than Judge Moore?  Why was he able to enforce the murder of an innocent woman, while Judge Moore was prevented from maintaining the exhibit of the Ten Commandments?  Why are some judges so “powerful” and others not?  I don’t really have answers to these questions, but I’d love to hear any comments you have.  I do know that my sense of justice is deeply offended by what has transpired.

My husband and I were talking about it yesterday and we both agree that there’s a difference between life support and life assistance.  Life support being the type of intervention that Christopher Reeve received (he was not able to breath on his own for more than a very short period of time).  Life assistance is the type of intervention that keeps you going while you receive care and therapy to recover (like the feeding tube Terri was denied). 

We both decided that we’d have no problem with life assistance if there was a possibility that we’d recover.  Neither one of us wants to be on a ventilator or other support if that’s all the recovery we’d ever have.

We need to put this all in writing.

Well, after cheating on my diet this weekend, I’ve almost recovered the little bit of ground I lost.  It would have been better if I’d not “fallen off the wagon” so to speak, but at least I didn’t do too much damage.

Goodness, I haven’t used/heard that expression in a long time:  so to speak

It may still be too soon . . . years ago, before we even had Jami (so at least 10 years), I met someone who literally used that phrase every other breath.  Oh, my, goodness.  It was so annoying.  We have a barbecue every 4th of July, and this particular 4th my husband invited a fellow teacher to stop by.  Well, he brought his girlfriend.  Oh, my, goodness.

This girl used that phrase at the end of EVERY sentence.  It was like a nervous tic:

“I took a quilting class where we learned to piece quilt tops, so to speak.  The teacher told us how important it was to invest in quality fabrics, so to speak.  Cheap or “bargain” fabrics are no bargain, so to speak . . .”

I am not exaggerating this at all.  I think that was one of the longest days because it got to the point where I couldn’t really focus on what she was saying because I was so fascinated by the “so to speaks.”  I started counting them in my head . . . I tried not to grab her by the shoulders and say “SNAP OUT OF IT!” 

I went through a phase when I was a kid where I said “you know” a lot.  I am so grateful that my mother stayed on my case until that habit was broken!

It’s going to be a busy day — the girl’s home from school today (staff development day), so we’re going to do some stuff and I also have an appointment this afternoon at 2 p.m.  And I’m back on the diet today.  Holidays are always so difficult when trying to stick to a plan — we pretty much blew it off, but thankfully didn’t do too much damage.    Amazing.

Jami had a little friend spend the night Friday.  They were soooo well-behaved.  I was very proud.  They played school and did art and watched a DVD (Annie).  I think they enjoyed themselves. 

After her friend went home, I went to Wal-mart (ugh).  It was insane.  But we needed some groceries and I also wanted to pick up one of those George Foreman grills to be able to grill chicken, venison, vegetables, etc. without having to fire up the bbq pit.  I have an uncle who hunts and fishes a great deal.  He’s so cute.  Just a good ole’ East Texas boy.  I was picking his brain for ways to cook venison and he said, “Well, we just season it a little and throw it on the Foreman.”  Throw it on the Foreman.    I don’t know why that tickles my funny bone so much! 

Our Sunday sermon was good.  I love our pastor.  He’s another good ole’ Texas boy.  Loves Jesus, keeps things simple.  Here’s the sermon:

1.  The blood of Jesus identifies us as God’s own.

2.  The blood of Jesus protects us.

3.  The blood of Jesus sets us free.

(Scripture reference:  Exodus 12: 21-23, 29-31)

Of course, that simple beauty was followed with the fact that we must take action by choosing to accept God’s gift the same way the Hebrews had to take action by painting the doorposts with the hyssop so their homes would be passed over.  It was a really good sermon.

Oh, and something exciting and yet rather scary news . . . we’re going back to homeschooling next year.  I don’t have time to explain it all right now, but I will in a later post.  I think we’ll be using the A Beka curriculum to start out — the work text type format will help in the transition from public school to homeschool, since that’s the type of format she’s used to right now.

HOWEVER, I am attending the Southeast Texas Homeschoolers Association Conference in June and am excited about finding out what all else is out there!  I’m a big fan of Susan Wise Bauer and her book The Well-Trained Mind, A Guide to Classical Education at Home.  So I’m hoping to use the summer to research things and figure out how to transition to a more classical education in mid-stream (i.e., fourth grade).  The awesome thing about homeschooling is WE get to tweak it to fit our goals.  And Texas is very homeschool-friendly.

Well, I really better go for now.  More later.

You know what keeps going through my mind regarding Terri Schiavo?  I’ve stopped thinking about the legal maneuverings, because I honestly don’t see any happy ending for this story.

What I keep thinking about is Terri’s mom standing by her daughter’s bed, wanting to cradle her in her arms the way she probably did when Terri was a tiny baby only minutes old.  Feeling like a failure because she wasn’t able to protect the little girl she brought into this twisted world.

While there’s not a whole lot anyone can do for Terri anymore (besides pray that she won’t suffer too terribly much longer), I hope everyone will focus their prayers on the Schindlers and somehow let them know that they fought the good fight, that they did fine by their daughter despite the outcome. 

Well, I’m excited.  It may not seem like a big deal, but my husband and I started the South Beach diet a little over a week ago.  As of today, I’ve lost 7 1/2 lbs.  I have a long way to go, but it’s a good start . . .

Here’s an interesting article by Charles Krauthammer about the Terri Schiavo battle in Florida.  I don’t want Terri to die without more investigation.  And that’s basically what this fight is about (IMHO).  Those fighting for Terri’s life are really only fighting to give her a chance to recover.  I think there’s something to the stories abounding that with proper therapy, she might recover a great deal of her abilities.  And I think it’s very suspicious that her “husband” (quotes to emphasize his total disregard of his marriage vows “for better or worse, sicker or poorer” and eagerness to jump ahead to the “til death do we part” part of the vows) . . . anyway, I think it’s very suspicious that he has denied testing to confirm whether or not Terri has a chance of full or partial recovery.

Talk about the basis for one of those “story in true life” books . . .

Husband and wife get into argument because, oh husband’s stepping out on wife or maybe something as small as wife spent too much money on something.  Husband goes into rage, chokes wife but doesn’t kill her.  Wife ends up, well you’ve heard the theories out there.

I really think there’s something to the idea that he doesn’t want her to get better because then she might talk.  And tell.  I mean, if there’s really no chance of her recovery — tests would only confirm that and he could do whatever he thinks she’d want with a CLEAR CONSCIENCE.  But I honestly think it’s his conscience that won’t let him do that.  There’s something that those tests would disclose that he doesn’t want anyone to know.

Of course, this is just my opinion . . . but I think it’s a pretty level-headed, non-emotional opinion. 

Hey, Michael Schiavo — allow a couple of cat-scans and a proper evaluation by people who don’t belong to the Hemlock Society.  If all that information comes down to the same conclusion — that there’s no one home, then maybe . . .

But you’re still a skunk for stepping out on your sick wife, shacking up with another woman and making kids who will have a very difficult time ever being proud of you as their dad.

I’m still alive, but very busy.  Have several window jobs going (this is good!), plus family obligations, etc.  Stayed up til 3 a.m. just trying to get caught up on the laundry.  Sheesh!  More to do today — I have to drive up to my mom’s (40 miles) and take her to a doctor’s appointment because my sister has to take her kids to dentist’s appointments about the same time as my mom’s appointment.  When we all get home from our various appointments I’m going to help my sister set up her new computer.

Isn’t that FUNNY!!!!  (Since you all know from my previous posts that I’m NOT a computer person.)  Seriously, it’s the first new computer she’s ever had and she’s never set one up — mine was pretty easy when I got it a couple of years ago, so I think we’ll manage.  She could do it, but she’s just nervous.  Silly girl.

Hopefully more later . . .

Don’t know if it will work this time, but this is a photo of my dream home.  A UK builder is developing properties in the Houston area and I went through this model home last week.  It was furnished exactly the way I’d furnish it.  I just need to pack my suitcase and get the key.