The View From Africa

My friend Erica's support video...



You can find Erica at The View From Africa.

Leap Day Miscellania

• Al Mohler expresses my thoughts exactly about the skyrocketing number of ADHD cases in the U.S.

• Sometimes when I am out on my walk, listening to my iPod shuffle in the morning, I think, "Am I greeting people in a 'headphone' voice?" You know, the yelling voice that you don't realize you're doing?

• Swimming lessons started this week. Nary a tear was shed. And there was great rejoicing in the land. Pictures to come.

• If you haven't read it yet, be sure to check out C.J. Mahaney's take on Andy Pettitte's "confession."

• Derek Webb-prompted conversation from the van yesterday:

Andrew, hearing song chorus, "I Hate Everything But You,": "Is he talking about God?"
Mom: No, honey, I think he's talking about his wife, Sandra McCracken.
Andrew: Oh. Is she home?
Mom: Um, I don't think so because the song says, "Baby, come on home...."
Andrew: Maybe she went to the store.

He Can Just Play

On a plate there were some sweets: 1 chocolate, 2 mints, and 2 toffees.

Peter has eaten one sweet more than Julie.

How many sweets has Julie eaten if there is nothing left on the plate?

Julie has eaten ___ sweets.

This was on Cam's math page yesterday. The only picture is one of an empty dish. He had no problem answering this question...he just looked at it, thought for a moment, and then wrote the answer. I, on the other hand, had an initial reaction of "WE MUST WRITE AN EQUATION! X=THE NUMBER OF SWEETS JULIE HAS EATEN." Fortunately for Cameron, I bit my tongue. He just gets it.

I love seeing his little mind already wrap around algebraic concepts in first grade!

And this reminded me of a conversation that Matt Damon and Minnie Driver once had in Harvard Square:

Will: Do you play the piano?
Skylar: A bit.
Will: Okay, when you look at a piano you see Mozart, right?
Skylar: I see "Chopsticks."
Will: Beethoven, okay. He looked at a piano, and it just made sense to him. He could just play.
Skylar: So what are you saying? You play the piano?
Will: No, not a lick. I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals, and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway, and I can't play the piano.
Skylar: But you can do my [organic]-chem paper in under an hour.
Will: Right. Well, I mean when it came to stuff like that... I could always just play.

The Bright and Shiny Kelly Will Return Tomorrow

I love the blogosphere, because sometimes when I am feeling a certain way, I run across an entry that expresses what I'm feeling so much better than I could ever express it.

Take this morning for example. I visited my doctor this morning for another run at a yeast infection that's lasted about two months now. It's been a battle not giving into fear, frustration, and despair while I wait out the treatments under the advice of my OB and my naturopath. Sometimes I have won this battle; sometimes I have lost.

And then I read this from Bigmama, along with the accompanying comments, and thought..."I'm not alone in feeling this way, even though I feel like I am crazy and unspiritual."

The other major, HARD thing that has been going on for about the last year in our lives is that we're now between churches. I haven't blogged about this at all. But the last year -- apart from the strep throat drama -- was one of the most spiritually draining of our entire lives. Many of our convictions regarding what the 'church' should look like were put to the test over months of conversation. And it resulted in our leaving the little church that we called home for about three years here in Charlotte (ever since we arrived). It was unquestionably the right decision, but it didn't make it a happy, pleasant thing to do.

So now we're in that lovely stage known as "church-hunting," which as anyone who's done it could tell you, is an exhausting proposition. We've committed to spending about a month at each church we're considering so as to get a big picture instead of just a Sunday.

And this morning I read this from Becky and thought, "I am not alone in feeling this way."

So thank the Lord for the blogosphere today on my behalf. It brings us into community, and today I felt community with a woman in Texas, who I don't know, and a woman in New Jersey, who I haven't seen in years.

Pet Peeve

I was watching some highlights from last night's Democratic debate and TWICE I heard Barack Obama say "Mass-a-TU-setts."

Grrrr...

Spring Garden, continued

I found the square-foot gardening method to be very kid-friendly as we laid out our garden this morning. It was easy to explain that the seeds we'd already planted were in the "fluffy" soil on the other side of the lines and point out the squares that were safe for the kids to step in. We planted square by square, and backed our way out of the garden.

Laying out the grid

My little helper

The work crew -- they really enjoyed themselves today! They weeded, dug holes, planted seeds, and made friends with earthworms. Our Handbook of Nature Study gave us a new appreciation for the unsung "farmers" of the soil.

Grow! Grow! There are many hungry people waiting to eat you!

"You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth...."

Psalm 104:14

Today...

was a great day for gardening! We planted our entire spring garden today. Broccoli, lettuce, spinach, carrots, and snap peas all went into our soil today. I really went crazy with the mushroom compost this year, so I am interested to see what happens. It was also my first time using the square-foot method. More info and pictures later!

Gramma's Birthday Party

My mom turned 60 this past Tuesday, and Dad threw her a party on Saturday, while we were up in Massachusetts.

The cousins...Cameron, Aisling, Mara, Ben, Jonathan, Andrew and Rhiannon on top

The spread from O'Connor's

Centerpiece

Mara posing

Help Find Nicholas

This is a friend of my friend, Michelle. He disappeared after work in Seattle, Washington on February 13th. He has two young children and his wife is expecting their third child in October.

Here's a clip with more information. The reward has since been increased to $15,000.



Young Dad's Disappearance Does Not Add Up

Please pray for Nicholas' safe return to his wife, Christine, and their children, and of course if you have any information, please call the authorities.

Vote or Die!

Remember that slogan? How strange.

I visited the OB today and he scheduled me for my 18-week ultrasound on March 12th. That means that you have about three weeks to vote in the poll I've posted in the sidebar. Votes are completely anonymous, but I'm pretty sure the poll will only let you vote once.

If you pick correctly, you win the satisfaction of knowing you made a lucky guess. :-)

Ah, Williams Sonoma...

why are you such GENIUSES??!! This is so cute!

Easter nest with truffled eggs

The New England Aquarium

I have wanted to visit this place with the kids forever! I think I was as excited as they were.

The New England Aquarium, our destination on Friday

Harbor seals (they're in a tank outside). This one is swimming upside-down.

My favorite, the penguins

They had a special exhibit about jellyfish

Umbrella jellies

Myrtle, the 67-year-old sea turtle

Divers in the giant Ocean tank

After we had our lunch, we saw the penguins get their lunch

It was a beautiful day in the city...sunny and not too cold

Going to Boston

On the giant escalator at the T station

I found it funny how attentively Andrew held the railing

And off we go...

The Drive Home

Heading East on the Massachusetts Turnpike, back towards central Mass

We took a small detour up to the Yankee Candle factory outlet store

There's a train that goes around the whole, HUGE store

and this gives you a sense of what's inside...room upon room of it

oooh...penguins

More Christmas villages

Oh, and there are candles.

A Trip to the Farm

Last Thursday we went to Hillsdale, NY to visit my grandparents. My mom grew up on a dairy farm and Nana and Pop still live there.

Nana and the boys

Pop took David up to the gunroom and showed him countless pictures of dead animals. This is an unquestioned sign of approval from my grandfather.

Jonathan made friends with the cats.

Pop, Nana and the boys

...and we're back

We were out of town for the last ten days, since David had a work assignment up in NH and we took the rest of the week to hang out with my family and celebrate my Mom's birthday with her!

There are many, many pictures to come, but for now I'll let you chew on one of the fruits of my trip: my reading list for 2008....at long last...bold print indicates a re-read (which means it was really, really, good the first time around).

• Humility C.J. Mahaney
• A Mother’s Heart Jean Fleming
• The Excellent Wife Martha Peace (with Laura)
• Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart John Ensor (with Erin)
• Disciplines of a Godly Woman Barbara Hughes
• Shopping For Time Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters
  
• Jonathan Edwards: A Life Marsden or Iain Murray’s biography of Edwards
• Jane Austen’s letters
• Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
• Stepping Heavenward Elizabeth Prentiss -- book study (I read this about once a year. This time I've purchased a Bible study that goes along with it)
  
• Worldly Saints Leland Ryken
• When People Are Big and God is Small Ed Welch

Want a Deal?

On Thursday mornings, LL Bean's website offers a "Thursday Morning Markdown." It is usually an article of clothing at a significantly reduced price.

For example, today's deal is this women's jacket:


It's usually priced at $119.00. This morning you can buy it for $29.00.

These deals usually go fast! You can find them by shopping the "sale" portion of the website, and then clicking on "Thursday Morning Markdown."

Tobacco Road

For those of you outside of NC, you must know that today is a bit of a holiday in North Carolina. Tonight at 9 p.m., Duke and Carolina match up for the first time this season. They will meet again at the beginning of March.

The rivalry is so big that one attendee of our SuperBowl party Sunday night actually came wearing Carolina blue, "preparing for Wednesday night." There is no February sports lull in the Southeast...February is when college basketball can finally take center stage, where it belongs. Oh, and there's a little sport called NASCAR that's beginning its season this time of year, also.

The beauty of both of these sports to me is that I have no dog in the fight, so to speak. I can sit back and watch the competition for what it is.

Over the last few months, you may have noticed that my blog has grown strangely quiet on the topic of sports. The shortage of conversation here is an inverse picture of what has been happening around the house...David and I have been talking sports a lot. But not the usual, "who will win/who's the better team/what's happening with my team" kind of conversation. It's been a lot of conversation about what influences us in choosing our teams...what it shows about our character, etc. And we've reached a conclusion.

It is far, far, easier to watch sports for excellence in competition, character, and true greatness, when you don't really care who wins.

I'll give you an example. Far and away, I would rather my children imitate a man like Tony Dungy than one like Bill Belichick. But because of the arbitrary fact of where I grew up, I somehow (until this year) felt compelled to somehow defend Belichick being a slimy rule-bender. Like I heard Rodney Harrison say on Sunday, "People say I'm a dirty player. Football's a dirty game." Well, OK.

But I don't like that. And I don't agree. And now that my children are playing competitive sports, I don't want them to think that way. I want to develop a sensitivity in them that says, "that's not outstanding, God-honoring play."

So when football season began this year, David and I decided to just stop talking about who we were rooting for. Instead, we asked the kids who they wanted to win.

And a funny thing happened.

They developed interest in all kinds of teams. Granted, they are young, so their "rooting" decisions mostly depended on what color the teams were wearing, or at whose field the teams were playing (we had to eventually tell them that just because you're the home team, doesn't mean you win. The Carolina Panthers were helpful on this point.).

There's a poster hanging on the door to Cameron and Ben's room right now that has the logos of many different teams. It was drawn by Cameron, and it includes NFL teams as well as at least four college teams.

I think at this point -- maybe even more than last year, when their mother and father were pumping them full of Patriots and Broncos "kool-aid" -- they are more ready to watch a game and say, "that was an arrogant thing to do," even if it was something that their chosen team did. They are more ready to watch Tim Tebow and recognize his worth as someone to emulate because he wins with humility instead of the mere fact that he won the Heisman.

Even Tom Brady knows that there's far more to life than victory in football. I just wish he knew what it was.