Random thoughts

...that occurred to me as I watched the dedication of the Billy Graham Library on TV this afternoon.
1. Oh, those poor people. It's SO HOT!!
2. I wonder where Amanda is sitting?
3. Billy looks sad to be there without Ruth.
4. Oh, that's what Governor Easley looks like. (too much NPR...no pictures!)
5. I'd like to see Bill Clinton and Al Mohler in a formal debate on "What it Means to be a Southern Baptist."
6. One of the reasons I love George H.W. Bush is that he pokes fun at himself a lot.
7. Where's Amanda?!
8. OH WOW! JOEL OSTEEN IS THERE!!!! ( you can decide if that's excitement, shock or dismay)
9. George Beverly Shea is 98 and he still sings like that?! That's amazing!!
10. Good for Billy for saying it's not about him. The Lord has used him to be sure, but God deserves all the glory.

"And give Him the glory, great things He has done..."

It's that time of year again

Televised on ABC tonight will be the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I'm a fan. I've always thought that maybe I would get our kids into it. Last year, after watching the bee, I read American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds. If you have "word nerd" in your background, I highly recommend it...it was an excellent book, and very entertaining. The author recounts the history of the English (American) language, and talks about the roots of the spelling bee as we now know it. He then follows five top competitors through their preparation process, early competition, and finally, the national bee.
To be honest, I don't know if David and I have it in us to be spelling bee parents. What a pressure cooker on your little kid. I think David would have to stay in the hotel because of his nerves, and when our kid got out I would start an argument with the judges over the word's root language or something. They would probably have to remove me.
But even if you're not a "word nerd," turn the competition on tonight. You'll be amazed at the skill that these students have. To hear a word, properly understand how its context in a sentence and its roots affect its spelling, and calmly recite its proper spelling in front of blazing TV lights, cameras, and an audience of millions (not to mention the hundreds sitting in front of you, most of whom also know how to spell the word!) is an amazing skill and is a tribute to the children's and parents' dedicated study.

Confession: I still feel a little pat on my back when I run spell-checker and it says "No Misspellings Found."

Housefly Carnage

Ladies, take two minutes

to read this post at Titus2talk. You won't be sorry.

Overheard

Mommy and boys praying before bed. Mommy prays for all four boys by name, asking the Lord to make them men who love His word and want to obey Him. She prays for the Lord, if He chooses, to bring them wives who love the Lord so that their families will glorify Him.
After the prayer is over, she looks up to see a teary Ben in the top bunk.

Ben: But when we are grown up to be men, why can't we stay in the same family?
Mommy: Well, when you grow up you will probably want to have your own family, but I will always be your mommy and Daddy will always be your daddy.

(Ben is not convinced and continues at the brink of tears.)

Mommy: You can come visit us anytime you'd like, but you can have your own wife and your own little children, and be a daddy and a husband just like Daddy!
Ben: OK.
Mommy: But it's a long time until you have to leave, Ben.
Cameron: Yes, we have a lot of fun birthdays before then!! And Christmas...(trails off, no doubt anticipating many presents)
Ben (now completely recovered): OK, goodnight, Mom.

O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile

1. O come and mourn with me awhile,
O come ye to the Savior’s side
O come, together let us mourn,
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

2. Seven times He spake seven words of love;
And all three hours His silence cried
For mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

Chorus: O love of God! O sin of man!
In this dread act Your strength is tried;
And victory remains with love;
Jesus our Lord is crucified!

3. O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were:
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

4. A broken heart, a fount of tears,
Ask, and they will not be denied;
A broken heart love’s cradle is:
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

And victory remains with love;
Jesus our Lord is crucified!

Mothers of the Wise and Good

After a long vacation, this series has returned to Fridays. :-) If you would like to read the previous entries, scroll down to see my "labels" in my sidebar and click on "Mothers of the Wise and Good."

Today's chapter was on John Newton and his mother. Newton was yet another child to be blessed by a godly, devout mother only to lose her early in his life. She died when he was six. Lest we think that her influence on her son was minimal, however, we can listen to his praise of her:

"When I was four years old, I could read (hard words excepted) as well as I can now; and could likewise repeat the answers to the questions in the 'Assembly's Shorter Catechism,' with the Scripture proofs; and all Dr. Isaac Watts' smaller catechisms, with his children's hymns."

While his mother may serve as a positive example, his father may teach us by his negative one. "His father was too stern, and kept him in a state of fear and bondage. His distance and severity greatly lessened his parental influence, and powerfully inclined the youth to break the yoke of early discipline, and to forsake the way of God."

Newton, as the author of "Amazing Grace," should be familiar to us all, but if you do not know the story of his conversion aboard a ship bound for England, please refer to the biographical article at the end of this post. I must highlight a few of Newton's quotes here:

On praying for the Holy Spirit's help during his conversion:

Upon this I reasoned thus -- if this book be true, the promise in this passage [Luke 11:13; speaking of the Father giving the "good gift" of the Holy Spirit] must be true likewise. I have need of that very Spirit, by which the whole was written, in order to understand it aright. He has engaged here to give that Spirit to those who ask: I must therefore pray for it; and, if it be of God, he will make good on his own word.

(Here I love the perfect intersection of spiritual transformation and mental enlightenment. God calls individuals using mind and spirit!)

Newton was ordained bishop of Lincoln in 1764 and ministered for more than forty years. He exercised care over his congregation as well as the poor and destitute of the community.

On the constant interruptions to his studies:

I should be glad, indeed, to do greater things, but I will not neglect this. When I hear a knock at my study door, I hear a message from God. It may be a lesson of instruction; perhaps, a lesson of patience; but since it is His message, it must be interesting.

(Here we see his pastor's heart and understanding of God's will for him in every "mundane" hour!)

Burns (the author) speculates that perhaps if Newton's father had shown the same amount of devotion, love, and piety as his mother, Newton might never had descended into the rebellious period he experienced before his conversion. "It is highly important that both parents should unite in the spiritual care of their children; that they may see their comfort and usefulness through life, and at last, present them with joy before the God and Father of all."

And to that I must agree!! No amount of energy I exert over my children's life can substitute for their father's constant love and spiritual oversight. It is in parenting that I see so much of the wisdom and beauty of God's design for the family. I am so glad I do not parent alone!

A brief biography of John Newton by John Piper
A small collection of Newton's writings

A little Jane Austen to brighten your evening

McCovey Cove

I loved watching these people when we went to Giants' games in SF.

Still more pictures

I can't believe I'm still posting pictures from our trip north, but we took a lot!!

Here are some photos from a trip we took to the Worcester Ecotarium, which is a science/nature museum that my sister and I used to visit when we were children. Now we had the chance to go back there with Mom and Dad and all the kids.


We did our best to supply Mom and Dad with a great variety of grandchildren. Tracy and her husband Colin have three girls, and we have the four boys.
(I am beginning to consider sticking out my tongue in Cameron's wedding pictures)


Looking (?!) at the foxes



Riding the train. Here are Aisling (5), Mara (3), and Cameron waiting in the last car.

Where's Jonathan?

Not even Solomon

This beauty greeted me as I went out to water the garden this morning. It popped open overnight!

"...not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these." Mt. 6:30

For Bibliophiles like me

Here is C. S. Lewis's answer to the question of why we enjoy reading:

The nearest I have yet got to answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself. And even when we build disinterested fantasies, they are saturated with, and limited by, our own psychology. To acquiesce in this particularity on the sensuous level—in other words, not to discount perspective—would be lunacy. We should then believe that the railway line really grew narrower as it receded into the distance. But we want to escape the illusions of perspective on higher levels too. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. We are not content to be Leibnitzian monads. We demand windows. Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is “I have got out.” Or from another point of view, “I have got in”; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside.

Literature enlarges our being by admitting us to experiences not our own. They may be beautiful, terrible, awe-inspiring, exhilarating, pathetic, comic, or merely piquant. Literature gives the entree to them all. Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom realize the enormous extension of our being that we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense, but he inhabits a tiny word. In it, we should be suffocated. My own eyes are not enough for me. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or bee.

In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

[HT: Chris Brauns]

C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 137–141. Cited in Jerram Barrs's essay, Christianity and the Arts.

Eight things

I've been tagged by Shawnda! I need to inform you all of eight things about myself that you might not know. This is pretty difficult because I know my readers are a combination of family who've known me all my life, and friends who spend a lot of time with me now.

Here are the rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. I prefer to knead bread by hand than in the mixer.
2. My Starbucks order is "Grande nonfat iced vanilla latte." (decaf if it's afternoon or evening, and full-fat if I'm feeling indulgent)
3. I have a mole dead-center on top of my left foot. It's always been there.
4. I was born a week late.
5. One of my favorite authors is Edith Wharton. I am reading The House of Mirth right now.
6. I use two infomercial products on a regular basis: Proactiv and the Showtime Rotisserie Oven.
7. I took tap dancing lessons for my entire childhood, until I graduated from high school.
8. I love to wear high heels.

Is it strange that three out of the eight are foot-related? What does that mean?

I tag:

Beth
Nicole
Melanie
the Blacks
Rachael
Kristin
Lisa
Stacey

More pictures

This was taken at my mom's house...
She has a rooster toy in her kitchen that crows every time you push its chest. Jonathan gave us this surprised look EVERY time it happened. Even the twentieth time and after that.

See?

Looking to relocate?

Castle for sale

Overheard

Ben's reading lesson this morning included the following sentence:

Fay will lay a cloth on the sand and bask in the rays of sun.

(he's learning to read long-a vowel pairs right now)

Mommy: "Do you know what 'bask' means, Benny? It means to lay out and enjoy the sun."

Ben: "But we don't enjoy the sun, we enjoy God."

So then we got to talk about how enjoying the things God has made can mean enjoying Him, too.

Mother's Day tidbits

My Mother's Day was not one for the record books...no fancy dinner or anything, because we were driving home to Charlotte. That's OK....David thought ahead and purchased a few gifts for me before we left Keene. Here is a picture of the present my family gave me, and here's a little something else they gave me. I love both gifts!

Also, my mom sent me this mother's article -- "Someone Is Missing" -- saying it reminded her of me. I laughed out loud when I read it.

And to conclude, here's an email I received from a friend.

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth?

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

Neighbors

In Brattleboro, these two locations are directly across the street from one another. I wonder what that's like.

Pictures

Here are some photographs of the area where we spent the past three weeks...

Here are the bridges spanning the Connecticut River, which divides Vermont from New Hampshire. Andrew called the one on the left (older one) the "muddy bridge." I am pretty sure it was rust, not mud. :-)


"Stop Eating Animals"
We saw a lot of...creative...bumperstickers in Brattleboro.


Brattleboro's Main St. architecture


Local bead store

A Public Service Announcement -- read with caution.

Because of the gross-factor, I've debated long and hard about posting this, but the possibility of helping someone else has won me over.

If you've been following our ongoing health saga, you'll recall that I have had strep throat four times since December. One occurrence of it was when we were in New Hampshire two weeks ago. At that time, we were of course racking our brains thinking, "where is it coming from?!" It is possible to carry strep without manifesting symptoms, so I started looking on my family with a suspicious eye.

I had all four kids' throats swabbed (David has already been tested), and they came up normal. It was at this time that a coworker of David's mentioned the existence of this phenomenon known as "rectal strep" (Perianal Streptococcal Dermatitis) Here are the symptoms if you're interested. After reading up on it a bit, I suspected one of the kids had it. I asked my pediatrician's nurse about it, and she said yes, that they saw it all the time. This past Monday, I had one of the kids tested and in twenty seconds, the rapid strep test showed the presence of strep bacteria. He is now on amoxicillin.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I'm back at my doctor's office thinking I might be coming down with it again. Now, technically, this could still be from the rectal strep, since strep has an incubation period of 2-5 days and he was still contagious until last night (48 hours on antibiotics). My strep test came up negative, and I feel mostly normal today...I am extra sensitive lately, as you might expect. If I get it again, my doctor and I agreed that it's time to see an ENT.

The odd thing is, the doctor had never heard of rectal strep. She asked three other doctors in her practice, and no...they had never heard of it, either. She said she'll be swabbing some more diaper rashes from now on. I was glad we had asked at the ped's office first. Every article I have read on the internet says how often the disease is misdiagnosed or ignored...just like I did with this rash! I thought this poor boy just wasn't cleaning himself well enough after using the toilet.

If your child has a persistent diaper rash that is only partially helped by the usual remedies, you might consider having them tested for strep, too. I hope my experience helps someone!!

Well-kept secrets

My favorite radio station in Boston now has a "listen live" feature....WBOS 92.9
Think a mix of U2, Sting, REM, Everlast, Green Day, Macy Gray, and John Mayer, with random 80's and new music thrown in. And the DJs are witty and quiet. Shhhh...

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Write to them and request a catalog. Good books cheap from a small company.

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Sweet little town. I student-taught there, and David and I love to drive around there. There's also a "Keller St."

Cabo Fish Taco in NoDa (Charlotte). I'm not sure that this is such a well-kept secret, but if you're my friend and you haven't eaten there yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! The shrimp tacos are my recommendation.

More pictures

While we were away, David and I got the chance to have a date in our old stomping grounds...

Awaiting the red line

the T

checking out the calendar at Club Passim

street performers at Quincy Market

me on the couch at Urban Outfitters



green space abutting the North End and Quincy Market
--side note for those who are familiar with Boston--
this was our first visit to the city since the Expressway was completely torn down. That end of the city is completely different! You can actually walk from Quincy market to the North End without feeling like you're taking your life in your hands. It's quiet...it's open...amazing!
But the farmer's market at Haymarket Square probably isn't the same without everyone screaming to be heard...


Christopher Columbus all decked out for graduation

Special thanks to our capable grandparent babysitters, Pop and Gramma!

A Day in the Life...

Many of you have asked how we are surviving in a hotel for so long, so here's a picture of what we've done. It hasn't really been hard.

Mom and Dad get up first, shower, get ready, and then the kids get up and get ready. Our hotel has a nice breakfast every morning, so we either go to breakfast with Daddy, or if he needs to be at work early (or if, more likely, we're running late), we head upstairs around 8:00. The boys sit down at a white-clothed table in a dining room here at the hotel, and Mommy runs back and forth, wildly completing breakfast orders (bagels? muffins? cereal? fruit? egg sandwiches?). This part of the day has done well in practicing their restaurant skills. Usually while we're sitting there, our housekeeper, Mo, comes in, makes her daily iced coffee, and asks when would be the best time for her to clean our room. We clean up, come back downstairs, brush teeth, and usually head out for an adventure.

Our adventures have included...a trip to the Y, trips to the Suds Bucket laundromat, a visit to Robin Hood park, a visit to Brattleboro, VT, a walk around Main Street (this is a popular one with Mom and boys), and our visits to the covered bridges. Then we usually return to the room for lunch (yogurt or sandwiches, stored in our little fridge). Andrew and Jonathan lay down for naps in the sitting room/boys' bedroom, and Cameron, Ben, and I squish into the bedroom together. Then we do school, read, find cool things on the Internet (Matthew's new music video has been a popular choice), and watch the Food Network. Cameron is now a big Rachael Ray fan...we happened to be in a kitchen store last night, and Cam said to David upon seeing a picture of her, "Rachael Ray makes all her meals in THIRTY MINUTES!". (Like I told David, at least I'm not watching soap operas, and if their culinary tastes improve, then I think I've done well.) Yesterday most of our afternoon time was taken up with shoe-tying lessons.

After naps, we sometimes will go out again until Daddy returns and we decide where to go for dinner. By the time we get back, it's bathtime or bedtime.

So there you have it! What makes it manageable is that we have a lot of space. The people here at the hotel have been more than accommodating. If we have reason to return to Keene, we will definitely stay here again.

Bridges

Thanks for bearing with me while I took a respite from blogging...I have strep throat again. Long story. We're working on getting it figured out.

This morning we got an early start and took a drive around the area. There are seven covered bridges in the area, and we saw five of them today.

Here are some pictures.

This bridge was rebuilt in 2001.
"$5 fine for riding or driving over this bridge faster than a walk."
A couple bridges had this same sign...so remember to go slowly!!

Two of the bridges had this cool latticework on the sides so it wasn't all dark inside.

Andrew figured out that he could see the water underneath the bridge at the last one.