Quilt - day 1

(I took these pictures at night... the green isn't that dark)

2 a day keeps the doctor away.
Or something like that.

My goal is to finish a quilt in a month.  I am missed quilting and sewing.

I've set a goal of two squares a day. These have a very MR ducks feel to them. Hmmmm. Let's keep going and see what happens.  It can only get better from here.

Goal: 35 blocks
Finished: 2

Fall is Here

Fall has finally arrived in all its crisp, cool days. The boys spend much of their days running around the yard, raking leaves, digging holes, riding their bikes, and building forts. Picnics outside are usually requested (and it beats cleaning up after the crumbs inside - I am happy to let the ants do the cleaning outside). 

This branch fell during the last storm and it has been many things already, a playground, a grocery counter, a fort, a tent. I love their imaginations.  

He's as jolly as ever and becoming such a boy.  He's my roughest, toughest tumbler yet. Watch out world. 

2018 - book 53

I liked some parts of this book.  I didn't like others.  Overall, it had some great ideas for homeschooling that I will use as the basic for some things that we do.

As I am learning with a bunch of books this year, take the meat and throw out the bones.

** Yes, this is book 53. I have already posted my 52 until the end of the year and don't feel like shifting them. So I am just going to start adding these in on Wednesdays.

2018 - Book 48

Pages 87

Short. Useful.

Dreaming of quilting again

Do you think I could make this quilt in a month?
I would have to give up reading...
And it needs to be bigger, so I will have to work on some adjustments...
hmmmm...

2018 - Book 47

Pages 106

My MIL gave me this book years ago and I picked it up as I was recently planning a camping trip for the family.  It has all sorts of great tips for camping with kids (from travelling to cooking and activities).  I used it to jump start my lists for planning and to gather some good ideas to keep the kids busy and happy.

Happy Camper Principle Number 1
Camping happily requires what you need to camp happily.

AKA You need to decide what makes your family happy and will keep them happy.

For example: I would be perfectly happy sleeping in a tent on the ground. My husband - not so much.  But we don't need a giant camping trailer or a lodge. Normally, we would borrow my parent's pop-up camper and be perfectly content.  But this was a short, spur-of-the moment trip and we just decided that it was be simpler to rent a mini cabin at the state park. It was $20 more a night, but we didn't have to drag a camper along and there was electric.

Happy Camper Principle Number 3
Everything should be fun ... so make it so.

I think she also mentions making sure everyone is fed.  I learned in my 6 hour car ride (by myself with the boys) this summer that food is SUPER important.  So are trips to get out and stretch our legs.

Five things

1. I miss blogging. So here is something short. 

2. Age two is my favorite age.  I'm on round three and it is just as great as I remembered. They are the perfect size to sit in your lap and everything is still exciting. Exploring the world with them is just wonderful. 

3. I will be sad when Warbie turns four this month because he will stop excitedly proclaiming, "THREE, like I am threeeeeeeee!!!!!"

4. Ages four and five are moody. But I love them still. I just really love the little years and wouldn't trade them for anything.  

I just finished a great book on raising children - it is in my trilogy of best child books. I'll review it later this year. It has given me SO much to consider while interacting with my kids. And this that alone it might be the best of the three for knocking me off my self dependent throne and helping me rely on grace. 

5. There were 52 people at ESL last night and 17 kids. Guys, I'm out of space and staff and the people keep coming. It is a bit overwhelming.  Maybe that is one reason the book on grace hit home so much. It is not about me. I can't solve all these problems. I can't convince people to teach. Come Holy Spirit and do your work through us.  Pray for wisdom. 

Bonus: My children might be cats. Today my watch caught the sunlight and they saw the reflection on the ceiling and chased it all over the room for a least fifteen minutes. I made the mistake of shining directly into Martin's eye and then he figured it out. Then the sun went behind a tree and the fun was over anyhow. It was hilarious.

2018 - Book 46

Pages 90

I love a book with questions at the end of the chapter.  I will probably read through this again soon and try to write more thorough responses to the questions.  This is would be great for a discussion group or just to study as a couple and think about your parenting methods.

You are about to see a whole mess of books about raising children come through.  I am on a parenting kick.

2018 - book 45

Pages 375

I used this for devotionals in the morning.  Piper takes all the words of Jesus and categorizes them into 50 groups. Then he writes a short devotional based off of each topic.  Future Grace is slightly better, but this one is also worth the read! If you want to borrow my copy, let me know.

2018 - Book 44

This books was excellent and I think that every pastor and Session member should be required to read it so that they would be better equipped to minister to hurting people.  I relied heavily on this book for my lesson on Grieving with those that Grieve for Sunday School this year. 

I cannot recommend this book more highly.  It is a must read. It is hard to say that a book on grief is the best book I read this year, but it is probably the most helpful (in ministering to other people).  But then the Gospel Comes With A House Key was also really good.  Read them both. 

Hi!

Guys, I have been slacking at blogging.  It isn't that I don't have anything to say. It has just been so busy recently.

I spent the later half of the summer creating a website and Facebook page for our ESL ministry.  Then there were forms to update and flyers to create and handout and interview processes to approve. I am blessed with some great staff members that take a lot of work off me.  But the emails each week are quite enough to keep me busy.  This year we are having classes on two nights and in two different locations.

In September we were supposed to go to OBX with my family for a week, but hurricane Florence came through and closed a bunch of roads and cancelled the trip.  So we just hung out at the house instead and had a quick trip to a closer beach for a couple nights.

September was also the National Folk Festival.  It rained almost the entire time, but we loved it. I was a naysayer up until the night before when I looked up the schedule and saw they had acrobats and a puppeteer. We went in the rain on Saturday and the boys begged to go back on Sunday. So we did.

We started officially doing school this year. So there are books to read and lessons to plan and field trips to go on and science experiments to do.  Science and math are our favorite subjects around here.  They are so easy to build into life.  Right now we are growing a sourdough starter and we have a pet tree frog. A few weeks ago we had a caterpillar.  We had been studying airplanes through the century and were looking forward to visiting Kitty Hawk on our way to OBX, but plans changed and we just made paper airplanes instead. :) That is the great thing about home schooling; we are flexible.

Jared is back in school too. He takes two classes a semester for his MBA.  Three down, seven to go. I wish I was back in school. I am slightly jealous of all his Excel Spreadsheet homework. He has also had jury duty this month. He has always wanted it and the first day he went in he was picked for a 7-10 day trial. I think he has had his fill of jury duty for a while.

I am teaching a Sunday School class at my church this year with two other people. It is on friendship. the topic didn't appeal to me, but I am having fun pulling in a ton of extra resources and expanding the scope of the class. We are five weeks in and we have already read some Gutherie, Piper, Welch, Beeke, Bonhoeffer, Powilson, Rendall-Risner, Butterfield, and a few more. It has been good.

The boys have been active. They love to play outside and we try to get out at least once a day.  Usually they require a bath afterwards. Oh well. Germs are good, right?  Warbie stuck two sunflower seeds up his nose this week and took us to the ER.

That's about all.

This feels like a Christmas letter. ha.

P.S. I updated my books for the year. I back-dated a few and schedule the ones through the first week of December.  I am up to 51 for the year. It is pretty exciting to be so close to reaching my goal for the year. Woohoo.

Mending Pajamas

The majority of sewing I do these days is like this.

The feet had holes in both of the toes and that bothered Meems. I chopped off the feet and quickly sewed some bias tape around the legs. Good as new!

2018 - Book 43

Pages: 71

Excellent little book! I am leaning heavily on it for the Sunday School.class I am teaching. The chapters are short, the questions great starting points, and the information is useful.

And if you live close to me and want a copy, I have one more left.  Let me know and I will give it to you.  I get these great deals from Westminster Theological Seminary's Bookstore and I can't pass them up.  This one was much cheaper if I bought a set of 5 (why would I need 5 copies?).  I don't know, but they were books and they were a good price and a great author and I bought them.  I buy a lot of books from them. So many books. I think 5 more arrived this last week.

2018 - Book 42

Finally Alive
John Piper

On Kindle

I liked the first five chapters.  It felt more like a bunch of essays that were put together than a book. There was good information in it.  But it was not one of my favorite Piper books.

2018 - Book 41

Pages: 179

This has a bunch of great questions at the end of each chapter that I look forward to using with my kids later in life.

2018 - Book 40

Pages: 222

2018 - book 39

Best Christmas Pageant ever

Audio book.
Length : 3 hours

2018 - book 38

Pages: 337

2018 - book 37

Pages: 322

Excellent book! He references Brother Andrew from the Bible Smuggler book I read earlier this year. I like when books overlap. 

Lots of reviews have been written about it online. 

Here is a good one:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/the_insanity_of_god/

2018 - Books 35 and 36

I challenged myself to read the Bible in 9 months this year.  I finished in 8 months! I count the Old and New Testaments each as a book because there are a lot of pages.  I use the Reader's Bible in ESV most of the time.

I am doing a Bible study in John in the Fall and so I have been focusing on some deep reading of that.  I'll start reading through the Bible again towards the end of the year.

Pages: 1800

2018 - Book 34

Back in June we went to DC for three days.  It took 4 and a half hours to get home (that isn't normal). We listened to all of Paddington (read by Jeeves).  It is a cute story and I look forward to reading it again to my boys when they are a bit older and reading more in the series.

Time: 3 hours

2018 - book 33

Pages: 191

Look, another book written just for women.  How do I keep finding myself reading these? 
(I read this book as part of a group study. )

You all know I don't like books written just for women... but this was the best book written just for women that I have read this year.  The best benefit I can see of this book is the discussions that could be have after reading this book as a group.  There are lots of ideas for weeping with those that weep and rejoicing with those that rejoice.  I would like to put some meat on the bones and discuss it with people that have been through situations that they needed someone to rejoice with them or weep with them. 

Overall I liked the book for what it is.  However, I couldn't help but think about all the books she quoted from and wishing that I was reading those instead. It is an overview of friendship books.

These are two of my favorites off the list (and they could be read by men or women):
Life Together - Bonheoffer
Relationships a Mess Worth Making - Tripp

I thought those two books were both excellent resources on friendship and working together in the body of Christ. She quotes from those two more than any other.  I highly recommend them both!

She also quotes from (I have read some of these and some I want to read or have in my to-read basket of books):
Jerry Bridges (True Community)
Phillip Graham Ryken (The Communion of Saints)
Tim Keller (The Reason For God)
Francis Schaeffer (The Mark of A Christian)
C.S. Lewis (Letters)
J.I. Paker (Knowing God)
Ed Welch (Side by Side)
Jonathan Edwards
John Calvin
Charles Spurgeon (Sermons)
Susan Hunt
The Westminster Confession
Joel Beeke (How Should We Develop Christian Friendship)

Lots of good information. It was well put together. It isn't a bad little book.  I read it in two days.  It is an easy read.

Note: The study I read it for is a Sunday School class.  Big surprise here: I don't like books for women and I also don't like Sunday School classes only for women. The men are doing their own class and a different book.  I think it would have been more beneficial if we had both read the same book on friendship (either the Bonheoffer or the Tripp book would have been my votes). That way we would be able to discuss it with one another on the way home or as we saw each other during the week.  Reading different books takes away the camaraderie. It makes us on different pages (literally). 

2018 - book 32

Pages: 358

This book! Add this to the pile of books that will be required reading for my children when they get older.

It will join these others:
King Leopold's Ghost
The Shallows - What the Internet is Doing to Your Brain
The Color of Law
Alone Together
I'm probably forgetting some...

I knew nothing about how the American Indians were treated in our nation. It was never mentioned in any of my history.  I picked up a couple books about the Trail of Tears from the library and browsed through them before settling on this one.  It was a bit dry in parts, but overall did an excellent job of covering the history of the Cherokees and the US government.

The way the US government treated the American Indians is disgraceful.  They double-crossed them and lied to them over and over and over again.  It is interesting reading history because you start to see people in a different light.  We tend to group all the early presidents in a group and think of them as "good".   But we are all sinners in need of a Saviour and without Him we are hopelessly lost.

I fell like I need to read a biography of each of our American presidents to get a better picture of their lives. There are so many things I want to read about.  A book gives such a better picture then a wikipdia page article. 

2018 - book 31

Pages 244

I liked this book.  There are no perfect parenting books (other than the Bible).  I find it helpful to read a bunch of different ones and pick things that apply to my children and me.  A friend lent this one to me and I learned a few things.  I passed it on to another friend when I finished. 

2018 - Book 30

Pages: too many

I don't have a problem with much of the content.  I found the authors writing style annoying.  The most obnoxious thing about the book is the formatting.  My eyes hurt from looking at the various fonts and sizes.  The bold and the italics and the underlining...

It bothers me when authors underline, highlight, italic, and bold parts of Bible verses that back up their ideas. The visual clutter really gets in the way and makes my brain distracted from the text. 
 

So, the book was okay... not my favorite...not the absolute worst.  There is good material mixed in with a bunch of extra words.  It isn't one that I will be buying lots of copies to give out to friends. 

I can't think of anything that I learned from the book.  I give it a mheh review and add it to the donate pile. 

End-of-the-semester

I pick a book for my staff each year. This is one of my favorites.

In previous years I have given out:
* When Helping Hurts
* Dispatches From the Front - Tim Keesee

I haven't decided what I will give out next year.  It will depend on what Westminster Theological Seminary's bookstore has one sale. Do you get their emails? I want to buy all the books they recommend.

2018 book 29

Charlotte’s Web
E. B. White
Pages 180

I bawled my eyes out reading ahead in the book while the boys played when Charlotte is left at the fair to die alone. This (and the Hobbit) are enjoyable children’s books to read. They are so well written that I would gladly read them again. I love all the characters in the book, Wilbur, Fern, the sheep, the geese, Templeton, and of course Charlotte. How can you feel so much for a spider? The boys seemed to like this one too. They had lots of questions.

As a comment... I think growing up on a farm has advantages. There is so much to learn about life from observing the seasons and crops and life and death of animals. Our children are so far removed from the food cycle and mating cycle. I don’t know what I am trying to say. Something about how computers and technology don’t always make the quality of life better. Things are more sterile and compartmentalized. I want to expose my kids to real life as much as possible (hiking in the woods, exploring creatures at the beach, catching snack, collecting eggs from chickens, hatching tadpole eggs, etc.). I don’t want them to just read about thing. I want them to see them and touch them and smell them. We lose something when it is all flashing lights in a screen. In some ways we lose closeness from God in technology. Sure, there are tons of resources on the web. But there is something awe inspiring about nature and the stillness of sitting on a porch watching a sunrise or watching a frog swim or observing a plant growing. It helps me focus my mind on who created it.

A sewing project

A friend of ours is having a baby in August! They asked for some teethers like the ones that I made my boys.  Since they don't know if they are having a boy or girl I made two.

 

And look, I used my labels again!!

 

(I actually made these while Jared was studying for his Spring finals... )

I am so far behind is uploading pictures.

2018 book 28

The Diciple Making Parent
By Chap Bettis
Pages: 260

Excellent parenting book. I really appreciated all the ideas for questions that he had to engage your children in conversation and get to know their hearts. Beeke’s 70 Page book on parenting is still my favorite because of the length and depth. But this one is near the top of my list for best parenting books. No one book is perfect and I find it useful to read a bunch and pick out the parts that apply and move on to the next book.

I think this book would make a great study in a group.

A doll cloak

I made this doll cloak for two of my nieces.  I never owned an American Girl doll, just this well-loved Cabbage Patch doll. His name is Dale.  A friend of my parents won him in a raffle before I was born and gave him to me. This was back in the day when they were worth lots of money.

 

My sister gave me my own labels this year.  How fun is that?!?  I have always wanted some. 

 

And here it is actually on the doll.  :)

 

I had grand plans of making several dresses and accessories, but I ran out of time.  The box sat in my room for over two months while I waited for time to make more things.  Finally I shipped it off with just the cloak.  I miss sewing.  I hope to do some more of it soon.  

2018 book 27

Praying the Bible
Donald Whitney
Pages: 96

This book is excellent. Super short. But direct and easy to follow. I am probably going to buy copies of this to hand out to friends. I really enjoyed it.

This fulfills my goal of reading one book on prayer each year. :)

2018 - book 26

What’s the Difference
(Manhood and womanhood defined according to the Bible)
John Piper
Pages: 82

A short little book on the role of men and women in the church for single or married people. It would be interesting to discuss this in a group setting with others, to encourage each other to follow the Bible’s commands and challenge each other where we fall short.

A quote:
My earnest prayer and challenge for you is...
13. That you developed a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short , that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, and hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all of your might and maximizing your joy in ministry to people’s needs.

2018 - Book 25

Pages: 150

This is the best Martha Peace book I have read this year (of 4). Each devotional is two to four pages long and is followed by a list of questions on the topic.  There are about 10-15 questions for each chapter.  It is a good conversation starter. My favorite part of the book is the two to three books that are suggested as resources on each topic.  I like that you could go do further research on them if you wanted.  I haven't seen that in many books and I always appreciate book suggestions.

2018 - Book 24

Pages: 190

I read this to the boys. It is cute, but kind of silly. 

2018 - Book 23

Pages: 230

I heard the author interviewed on Fresh Air last year and knew I wanted to read this book. He was discussing all these housing policies that I had never heard. Crazy stuff. Information that we should all know and struggle with. How could former generations have treated people so badly? And how do we do the same thing these days?   It is an excellent book (a bit dry - it is written by a lawyer after all). My children will be reading this book for school when they get older.

The book discusses how many administrations (since slavery was outlawed) have continued practices that have discriminated against people of color.  FDR was one of the worst.  The housing part is so interesting.
* Did you know that returning WWII veterans were denied housing loans by the VA if they were black?
* Did you know that many neighborhoods created covenants that banned the sale of a home to a black person in that neighborhood (and that many of these were sponsored by churches and colleges)?
* Did you know that the FHA would only loan money to developers that would build all white communities and promised to not sell to black people?
* Did you know that when FDR built many of the interstates in the country that they went through black communities and that the government did nothing to help them find alternative housing after they demolished their houses? This forced them to double and triple up in the areas that they were allowed to buy houses in.
* Did you know that projects used to be for middle-income people?
* Did you know that governments would either evict blacks that moved into a white community or allow people to harass them until they moved?

I didn't know. I put it on the list of books that every one should read. It is in my top 5 for this year (I think I have more then 5 in my top 5 by now...)

Here is the author's webpage to read even more of his writing.
I found this article especially fascinating: Five Social Disadvantages That Depress Student Performance (Why Schools Alone Can't Close Achievement Gaps). 
The part about lead poisoning is interesting.

And again I am left with wondering what I can do about this...

2018 - Book 22

Pages: 190

Jared read this to me while I was working on various projects around the house. I read it for the first time two years ago. It is excellent! The Devil character is so creepy. The book always makes me think.

Sunrises and Sunsets

Sometimes I dream of owning a house that overlooks a field and where I can watch sunrises and sunsets from a porch, in my rocking chair or hammock. I probably won’t and I am okay with that. I’m okay with seeing the occasional sunrise or sunset at a friends house or on vacation or on a walk. Because sunrises aren’t the ultimate thing they simply point us to a greater beauty. And what is coming is going to be so much better.

So often when I find myself longing for something it is because it is pointing to something greater. And if I never get to experience the reflections and small glimmers of the ultimate beauty in this life it doesn’t matter because some day I will be able to experience in full. Thinking about these things puts my priorities in order. I don’t have to chase after fleeting pleasures of this world. I don’t need to have it all now. I don’t need to see every sunrise and every sunset.

Now I see but dimly.
Then I shall see face to face.
Now I know in part.
Then I shall know fully.
(Paraphrase) 1 Cor 13

2018 - Book 21

These are the three books in the trilogy. 

The copy I found at the library looked like this.
pages: 250

The boys both loved this trilogy.  We read it in four days. The story and the illustrations are delightful.  The boys were intrigued by the map in the front and back of the book. The story follows a little boy that goes on an adventure to save a baby dragon and the adventures they have together. The boy and animals can talk to each other (that is never explained). The boy leaves home several times for several days or weeks and the parents are perfectly fine with that (that is also never explained).

It was a fun read. We were gifted the books on cd for Christmas and are saving them for a car ride this summer. Do you have any other suggestions for books on tape for kids in a car? I really want to do the Narnia radio theater, but I don't think they are quite old enough... I don't want to ruin it by reading it too early.

2018 - book 20

Pages: 360

5 million people in Ukraine died in the 1932-1933 famine. It was one of several that the USSR used to purge Ukraine of its history, language, and leaders. This one was the worst. 

It was a little slow getting into this book. There was a lot of background information about Ukrainian and Russian relationships in the years leading up to the famine and of several earlier famines caused by Russia. But after that everything else is fascinating, tragic, and awful. Awful in a way that you can't stop reading and wish you could stop what is happening.  

Russia still denies the famine happened today. The last two chapters on the effects of the famine on future generations and politics today is some of the best information in the book.  It really helps frame some of the events that happen in the world today and makes them easier to understand. 

As a side note: This is also the second book this month (April) that I am reading that mentions FDR in a negative light... maybe I should read more about his presidency.  

It rained for five days and five nights.

I love rain. I love grey weather. I love sleeping with the sound of rain. I love playing in the rain and splashing in puddles and getting soaked. We have had five days of steady-never-let-up-crazy-rain-all-day weather. Five day. Five nights. My parent's field has ten inches of water and all my tomatoes and potatoes and strawberries and watermelons will die... my neighbors' yards are flooded... it is a little much. All of the bugs have had enough and are starting to seek dry land (aka my house).

In a more positive spin, because my parent's field flooded thousands of frogs decided it would be a good place to mate. The boys and I caught four pairs of frogs and let them lay eggs in a container. Hopefully we will have baby tadpoles in a week or two. It is more interesting to study the life cycle of frogs with a real life example.

2018 - book 19

Pages: 139

Read to the boys. 

Not a huge fan. 

How is this a classic?

Hiking

We've been doing a lot of hiking (when we are battling stomach illnesses or colds). And we picked the first strawberries of the year.

2018 book 18

Pages: 220

My book loving friend, Caitlin sent me this book hot-off-the-presses. I was as excited as the pictures show and equally surprised. It is wonderful when a friend "gets you" and what you love! Thanks so much, Caitlin. 

This book was amazing and challenging.  I hope to put some of it into practice soon.  I am mulling over and praying about a bunch of ideas. It is exciting (and terrifying) to be on the brink of maybe starting something new. ESL feels like that right now too. 

This is one of my top five books this year.  You should go read it. I'd love to discuss it with you if you do.

I quickly went and purchase 5 more copies to give to friends. :)