True Woman | Nothing Left to Give

This is from the True Woman Blog which is a ministry of Revive Our Hearts.  As someone who struggles with fatigue, I found this blog entry to be very encouraging.

True Woman | Nothing Left to Give

Book Review: Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

I enjoyed this book; it was like a vicarious vacation to Italy.  Yet, Frances Mayes wasn't vacationing in Italy, she was living there.  It started out as a vacation…several vacations to Italy…eventually she decided that she loved it so much that she bought a house there.  She worked as college professor and was free to live in Italy all summer.  So she took the plunge and bought a dilapidated old stone home in Tuscany.  This book is the story of renovating the house, living in Italy, eating, drinking, gardening, sight-seeing, and life.

I loved the description of the Italian way of life; the food she ate and cooked; and the garden she planted.  She even includes some recipes in the book. 

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Tuscans are of this time; they simply have had the good instinct to bring the past along with them.  If our culture says burn your bridges behind you - and it does – theirs says cross and recross.”

“What we never knewis the tremendous resurgent power in nature.  The land is implausibly regenerative.  My experience with gardening led me to think plants must be coaxed along.  Ivy, fig, sumac, acacia, blackberry can’t be stopped.  A vine we call ‘evil weed’ twines and chokes.  It must be dug out down to its carrot-sized root; so must nettles.  It’s a wonder nettles have not taken over the world.”

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week...

I have not been feeling well which means not much of anything has gotten done. 

In our homeschool this week...

Since I haven’t been feeling well…we didn’t get much school done either.  My kids got all their online class work done but everything they do with me didn’t get much attention.

My favorite thing this week was...

My fourth grader had to do a presentation about the sun for her co-op class.  She’s never done a presentation before and required lots of help.  I was resting and when I finally dragged myself into the schoolroom to give her a hand, there where my older two daughters helping her find interesting facts about the sun and printing out pictures for her display board.  Love it!

What's working/not working for us...

It’s not working that I’m not feeling well.  :P  Besides that I have been happy with this school year so far and our curriculum.  I THINK I’ve finally given up my perfectionistic attitudes about homeschooling and have learned to ride the ups and downs of each day.  After 14 some years of homeschooling, I find that it is a constant “falling off the horse” and getting back on again.  It doesn’t look like the cover of the Teaching Home….and if you know what the Teaching Home is then you have been around for quite a while.  :)  But it’s all of God’s grace…and sometimes I think that, no one is more familiar with God’s grace on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis, than a homeschooling mom.

  

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

I have tried to follow the Classical Method of educating my children in our homeschool.  It is a lofty goal and I fall far short.  As I study Classical Education, I find that there are different understandings of it in the homeschool community.  I see two camps.  The first I call the Nouveau Classical Educators or what I also like to call the "drill them and kill them" crowd.  Then there are those that seek to find the ancient definition of Classical Education which focuses on literature, dialogue, and the training of the appetites.  This is the camp that I try to align myself with.  The more I understand what true Classical Education is the more I see that Charlotte Mason was a true Classical Educator. 

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

“Christian Classical Education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty by means of the seven liberal arts and the four sciences so that, in Christ, the student is enabled to better know, glorify, and enjoy God.” Andrew Kern of CiRCE Institute

Grass Pond Farm

Darlin and her calf

That’s the name of our beef farm. We are working on getting our website up and running soon.  Until then…here’s a little introduction to our farm:

We are a family oriented Hereford farm located in the rolling hills of northwestern New Jersey’s Sussex County. The family consists of Andy, his wife Sheri and their four kids all of which (with the possible exception of mom) are itching for the 2011 show season to start.

We’re pleased that after clipping and fitting for us since Keystone in 2009 Josh joined us full-time as Farm Manager in November 2010. Together we’re working to produce Hereford cattle that will work and show.

For 2011 we expect calves out of 20 registered Hereford cows and 8 recipients. Look for us at 10 or so regional cattle shows this year starting with the Big East in May.

As for recent acquisitions we’re real excited about BOYD PAULA 0058, a February ’10 Bailout heifer we purchased from the Boyds at their 2010 Breeder’s Cup Sale and about the potential of the seven cows we recently bought from the Passwaters in Delaware including STC LOADED LADY 31, HAWK WRB KO CLARABELLE 0606, and JJD VICTORIA 6007 ET (a flushmate to JJD MR GOLD). Last but not least we we’re excited about the new young herd sire, HCC ADVANTAGE X24 that we bought half interest and full possession of from Hausher Cattle Co. last year at KILE. Advantage went on to win his class at the 2011 NWSS and impress more than a few in the barn in Denver. Look for him on the show road in 2011 and in our ad in the 2100 Hereford AI Book.

To keep it all real we finish and sell for freezer beef about 12 feeder cattle per year along with a like number of hogs. If you’re interested in our natural meats raised without hormones and sub-therapeutic antibiotics, please send the marketing department (Sheri) an email at GrassPondFarm@nac.net and we’ll put you on our customer email list.

We hope to have our website up and running very soon at www.GrassPondFarm.com.  In the meantime you can contact us at GrassPondFarm@nac.net

So Heavenly-Minded No Earthly Good?

"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this." 

C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, chapter 10).

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

I'm joining The Homeschool Chick with her weekly Homeschool Mother's Journal.  Here's my entry for the week:

In my life this week...

We had Spring Break last week and went to Quebec to ski.  It was lots of fun but this week we had to face the music.  The girls had lots to catch up on for their online classes.  I had trouble getting out of vacation mode and getting back into “real life”!  So for me, most of the week was spent unpacking, doing laundry, grocery shopping, catching up on my To Do list.

In our homeschool this week...

The girls got all caught up and we did the main subjects.  But as usual History, Logic, Morning Time and all those important things…at least I think they are important…didn’t get done.  Sigh!

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We are seeing WAY too much of our orthodontist.  The older two girls each had an appointment this week on different days.  Ugh!  I don’t like having to leave the house so much…I do much better all round when I get to stay home.

My favorite thing this week was...

Date night with my hubby.  He’s the best!!

What's working/not working for us...

Math U See is working great for us!   I am so impressed by it and wish I had been using it the last 13 years of my homeschooling career.  What’s not working….finding time for History and Morning Time.  I feel like if we could just get up and moving a little earlier then we might have time for those very important things.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

It’s time to start planning next school year for my sophomore soon to be junior in High School.  Is Chemistry a required subject for High School?  What is the minimum requirement for science when applying to college?  My daughter’s strengths lie in the area of English rather than Math or Science.  She has taken Biology and Marine Biology (both lab sciences) in High School so far.  I wonder if she must take Chemistry. 

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

“The ability to speak exactly is intimately related to the ability to know exactly. “

Wendell Berry, “Imagination in Place”

Five Question Friday

I decide to participate in My Little Life's Five Question Friday.  Ok, it's Saturday...so I'll do better next week. Here are my answers to the five questions:

1. Have you ever testified in court? For what?

Never…thankfully!

2. Do you still have your wedding dress?

I still have my wedding dress.  It’s up in the attic all cleaned and boxed up by a professional dry cleaner.  But I always wonder…did they really put my dress in there.  Could they have mixed things up and put someone else’s dress in the box?  I’ve never opened it because I’ve been afraid that it will wreck the preservation of the dress.  Maybe I should peak now that it’s been 25 years!

3. Is there a special place you like to go when you're happy, sad, stressed, etc.?

My bedroom.  It’s my little refuge from the world.  It’s quiet and peaceful since the kids usually stay out of there.  And it is clean and picked up for the most part. 

4. If you have kids, do they sleep with you? If you don't have kids...will you let your kids sleep with you when/if you have them?

Absolutely not!  I have 4 kids and none of them ever slept with me.  I REALLY need my sleep and I can’t imagine getting any with a baby or a kid in my bed.  My husband’s lucky I let him sleep with me.  J  I always kept my babies in their cribs and I would get up at night to feed them when needed.    They all slept through the night pretty quickly so I didn’t have to get up that much.

5. Do you watch late night TV?

We don’t have a TV anymore…which has been a wonderful blessing.  I’m glad we got rid of it!

Let's hear it for Doctrine!

"Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as 'a bad press.' We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine-'dull dogma,' as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man-and the dogma is the drama."

Dorothy Sayers

Miscellaneous Musings on Monday

Vacations

We just got back from a wonderful vacation at Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.  There is a great little ski village set up right on the ski slopes.  Andy and the kids could put on their ski boots and carry their skis about 100 yds up to the lift.  I however stayed behind and read, watched TV, shopped and had a pedicure.  I’m not much of a skier. 

But sometimes I wonder if vacations are worth it.  All the work to get there!  And now that we are home we are playing catch up.  The girls missed 3 days of online classes so they had to hustle to get caught up.  And I’m still in vacation mode, having trouble getting motivated…so I blog.  J

Blogging

Speaking of blogging…I’ve been trying to decide if I want to continue.  I don’t want to waste precious time.  But I’ve been thinking that it is helpful to see what I’ve been reading written out.  I see that I’ve been reading too much fluff this year and it is motivating me to read some more serious stuff.  I also think having a blog to keep up with will help me think deeper thoughts…since I will need to say something here from time to time.  So, for now, I will continue to blog.

Daylight Savings Time

And now for some deep thoughts…I feel jet lagged from the time change.  Someone must come up with a name for this malady.  At any rate it sure is nice seeing the sun out later in the evening. 

Preparing for Resurrection Sunday (which I suppose is called Lent)

I’m reading The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders along with the Revive Our Heart broadcast.  They are going through 1 chapter a week up to Resurrection Sunday.  Won’t you join us!

Ministry Beyond Your Front Door

Revive Our Hearts’ blog has an entry that talks about ministering to others despite having a family.  I think she has a point.  I really have no other ministry besides my family for now.  And I do want my children to have a service mindset and a concern for the lost.  At the same time, if I neglect my children and their education because of ministry then I’ve failed in my most important calling.  Something to think more about and wrestle with.

Church

I’ve been thinking lately about the church and worship and what it should all look like and what has become of the modern or post-modern church.  Here are some interesting thoughts from Carl Trueman from the Reformation 21 blog. 

“Finally, I worry that a movement built on megachurches, megaconferences, and megaleaders, does the church a disservice in one very important way that is often missed amid all the pizzazz and excitement: it creates the idea that church life is always going to be big, loud, and exhilarating and thus gives church members and ministerial candidates unrealistic expectations of the normal Christian life.  In the real world, many, perhaps most,  of us worship and work in churches of 100 people or less; life is not loud and exciting; big things do not happen every Sunday;  budgets are incredibly tight and barely provide enough for a pastor’s modest salary; each Lord’s Day we go through the same routines of worship services, of hearing the gospel proclaimed, of taking the Lord’s Supper, of teaching Sunday School; perhaps several times a year we do leaflet drops in the neighbourhood with very few results; at Christmas time we carol sing in the high street and hand out invitations to church and maybe two or three people actually come along as a result; but no matter — we keep going, giving, and praying as we can; we try to be faithful in the little entrusted to us.  It’s boring, it’s routine, and it’s the same, year in, year out.   Therefore, in a world where excitement, celebrity, and cultural power are the ideal, it is tempting amidst the circumstances of ordinary church life to forget that this, the routine of the ordinary, the boring, the plodding, is actually the norm for church life and has been so throughout most places for most of the history of the church; that mega-whatevers are the exception, not the rule; and that the church has survived throughout the ages not just – or even primarily – because of the high profile firework displays of the great and the good, but because of the day to day faithfulness of the mundane, anonymous, non-descript  people who constitute most of the church, and who do the grunt work and the tedious jobs that need to be done.   History does not generally record their names; but the likelihood is that you worship in a church which owes everything, humanly speaking, to such people.”

Fun Quote

"Laughter is like changing a baby's diaper.

It doesn't change things permanently,

but it makes everything OK for a while."

Author Unknown

Book Review - "Island of the World" by Michael O'Brien

I finished reading Island of the World by Michael O’Brien.  It took a couple of weeks.  I read it on my Kindle and it seemed long…so I looked it up on Amazon….. 850 pages!  Island of the World is one of the best books I’ve ever read.  It’s difficult to put into words how the book touched me.  It’s a book that goes deep down into your soul.  I wanted to read it fast because I wanted to see what happened next…and yet, I wanted to read it slow because it was full of profound thoughts and insights.  It’s like no other book I’ve read before.  It is beautiful and devastating at the same time.  Ultimately it’s about redemption and forgiveness and it’s about finding peace. 

Here is a synopsis of the book from Amazon:

“Island of the World is the story of a child born in 1933 into the turbulent world of the Balkans and tracing his life into the third millennium. The central character is Josip Lasta, the son of an impoverished school teacher in a remote village high in the mountains of the Bosnian interior. As the novel begins, World War II is underway and the entire region of Yugoslavia is torn by conflicting factions: German and Italian occupying armies, and the rebel forces that resist them—the fascist Ustashe, Serb nationalist Chetniks, and Communist Partisans. As events gather momentum, hell breaks loose, and the young and the innocent are caught in the path of great evils. Their only remaining strength is their religious faith and their families.

For more than a century, the confused and highly inflammatory history of former Yugoslavia has been the subject of numerous books, many of them rife with revisionist history and propaganda. The peoples of the Balkans live on the border of three worlds: the Islamic, the orthodox Slavic East, and Catholic Europe, and as such they stand in the path of major world conflicts that are not only geo-political but fundamentally spiritual. This novel cuts to the core question: how does a person retain his identity, indeed his humanity, in absolutely dehumanizing situations?

In the life of the central character, the author demonstrates that this will demand suffering and sacrifice, heroism and even holiness. When he is twelve years old, his entire world is destroyed, and so begins a lifelong Odyssey to find again the faith which the blows of evil have shattered. The plot takes the reader through Josip's youth, his young manhood, life under the Communist regime, hope and loss and unexpected blessings, the growth of his creative powers as a poet, and the ultimate test of his life. Ultimately this novel is about the crucifixion of a soul—and resurrection.”

A few quotes from the book:

“We are born, we eat, and learn, and die.  We leave a tracery of messages in the lives of others, a little shifting of the soil, a stone moved from here to there, a word uttered, a song, a poem left behind. I was here, each of these declare.  I was here.”

***

“In this world are many people who do not master their bodies.  Such people say that no one can tell them what to do, not even God, and they think that in this way they have no master.  In the end they become slaves to anything.”

***

“’I’m saying that through genuine culture man can know himself, even in nations where his identity is denied.’

‘But what do you mean by genuine culture?’

‘The beautiful and true!  In music, in poetry, in literature, even in novels without political or historical references, we can apprehend what is not immediately known through rational thought or the accumulation of objective facts.’”

 ***

“’Culture is the last refuge, the sanctuary, the human place in the midst of the surrounding dehumanization.  Through the arts man is able to know himself, even if only on the intuitive level.  He senses his own worth, even when he cannot articulate is.’

‘Can a poem or a song defeat a tyrant?’

Defeat a killer, defeat atrocities, defeat the bottom falling out of the universe when you least expect?

‘Yes. Yes, it can, given enough time.  When a work of art is both beautiful and true, man’s freedom is strengthened by it – both his interior need for freedom and his capacity to seek a rational understanding of it.’”

Five-a-Month goals – March

I didn't do too well on my goals this month. Hopefully I will do better in March. Here are my February goals and how I did:

I will have a Quiet Time where I read my Bible and pray every morning.  I am using a Read thru the Bible in a year plan…and I’m already a week behind.  Sigh!  I used to be very faithful with my Quiet Time but in the last couple of years I've gotten away from it.  I notice a big difference in my walk with the Lord when I’m not spending some quality time with Him every day.

I didn’t do too well with this one.  I’m now 2 ½ weeks behind on my Read Thru the Bible in a year plan.  :P  Although I have to say, I’ve done better these last few days.

I will follow my diet of low-carbing; taking in more healthy fats like coconut oil, ghee and raw butter; eating nutritionally dense foods and no snacking every day…except when we go away on vacation.  Then I will cheat with a little wine.

I’m doing pretty well here.  I did cheat for about 4 days out of the 28 in February…which for me is amazing!

I will exercise 5 times per week using the PACE program.

Still need lots of work here!

I will faithfully school my girls and cover every subject that is scheduled for that day.

We had one really bad week this month but we are back up on the horse now.

I will finish reading 2 books this month.  This is a small goal but I think it’s a good place to start.  I love to read and usually have several books going at once but I’m not good at finishing those books.

I finished my 3 books this month!  One was about 850 pages long, Island of the World but Michael O’Brien…which is one of the best books I've ever read.  I also read, Incognito by Suzanne Allain, only 200 pages and probably one of the worst books I have ever read. And lastly, I read The Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan which is 416 pages.....and it was not bad but not great. :)

So for this month, I’m going to keep working on the same goals and I hope to report back that I did much better.