Faith, Family, and Hope

This evening my hubby and I watched Larry King Live. He interviewed Stephen Curtis Chapman and his family. They spoke of the recent tragedy in their family. Earlier this year, they lost their daughter, Maria, in a terrible accident. If you didn't see the show, you can read the transcript.
I was so touched by this interview. The family clearly was still grieving but despite their grief, you could see that their faith was so evident in every word they said. They spoke with such passion and you could truly see that they were sharing their heart.

Some of the things that really touched me were:

• As he is being driven away from the house to meet the LifeFlight Helicopter at the hospital, Steven Curtis Chapman has the person driving stop the car, SCC rolls down the window and yells out to his devastated son, "Will Franklin, your father loves you!" What a beautiful lesson: Despite the pain, fear, and devastation that he was experiencing, he was able to look at his son and recognize that his pain was even greater than his own and pause for a moment to express his love and forgiveness. That is powerful!
• A quote from SCC's wife, Mary Beth: "...when it got to the darkest, darkest point, and we went as far down as we could, we might not have even landed feet up, might have landed right on our face, but the foundation was solid and it was there. And we landed and it's a day at a time. " Wow, to have such a strong foundation that not even the death of a child can shake it. I want to strive for that!
• There was a video of the oldest son, Caleb, at the memorial service. Here is the quote from him, "...we prayed for healing for Maria. But he healed her in a way that we all didn't like. But he's going to heal my brother in a way that I think we're all going to like a lot." The lesson of hope is so evident here. Instead of anger and blame. Caleb does not point an accusatory finger at his younger brother, he holds on to hope that God will restore their family and that that restoration will be a beautiful transformation.
• Seeing Will sit there surrounded by a family that loves and supports him. Many times, you see a tragedy such as this tear a family apart. Not here. I can only pray that I be reminded of this lesson in the years that come. Adversity and trial will come. Instead of clinging to anger, resentment, and guilt, I hope that I can cling to faith, family, and hope.

I am deeply moved by the beauty of a family setting down together during their darkest hour to give hope to others. This did not seem like a publicity stunt to me. It seemed like a family that wanted to share their hope and faith so that others, when faced with similar tragedy, can cling to that same faith to sustain them.

Piano Bench Climber

Today, I learned that my little guy can climb up onto the piano bench - all by himself!

His big sister was playing (banging) the piano, something she does a lot. He usually crawls over, stands up and reaches up for the keys. He has been perfectly content playing this way...until today. He worked and worked at getting his little legs up there until he had wiggled and hoisted his body up onto the piano bench. He was so-o-o proud of himself when he make it up there. He turned and gave and enormous smile that said, "Look what I did, mama! Look how high I am! Oooh, I get to play up here with my sister!" He was indeed a proud little boy and his sister was equally proud of him!

Once situated, they banged and banged away on our old rickety piano making beautiful music for their mommy!

Cry, The Beloved Country

I just finished reading Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. I enjoyed the book but I found Paton's writing style very difficult to follow. It was a beautiful and thought provoking book. I learned a lot as I read it. I learned about the history of South Africa but I also learned a lot about myself. I found the story made me think long and hard about the way that society views social classes and the obstacles that are in place to keep each social class in it's place whether one wants to or not.

I will not try to summarize the book for I cannot. It is too deep, too complex for me to do it justice. I will leave that to the literary experts.

I can however, recount what I learned. In addition to what I listed above, I learned a whole new vocabulary. Words like Kumalo, Umfundisi, or Umnumzana are definitely words that I didn't know before reading the book. Not knowing these words was probably part of my difficulty following the story. And, that leads me to the BIGGEST thing that I learned from the book: Read the entire book. I mean the entire book.

In my haste to start the book, I skipped the author's notes at the start of the book. Had I have read this I would have read the following quote: "For the benefit of readers I have appended a list of words at the end of the book, which includes by no means all the strange names and words that are used. But it contains those, a knowledge of the meaning and approximately correct pronunciation of which should add to the reader's enjoyment."

Yeppers, that information would have been helpful. Instead, I only found this list of words after I finished reading the book. So, if this is a book that you are considering reading, please know that there is a very helpful list at the end of the book. I suggest using it as you read the book. It would have been most helpful for me! Don't make the same mistake I made...learn from my mistake!

Aggression Cookies and Other Kitchen Fun

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I am not very creative in the kitchen. I know that there are many people who just love cooking. I am not one of them. My husband is and I am content to leave it that way.

Well, today was a rainy day and I decided to pull out The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. She has a section titled "Rainy Day Play." I thought I would peruse the section and get some ideas for our rainy day. I never made it to that section. I opened the book to the "Kids in the Kitchen" section. I found a recipe that caught my attention: "Aggression Cookies." No Kidding. That's the name of the recipe! Kuffner boasts on the page, "This is truly one recipe your child can make all by himself." Hmmm, I doubt that, I thought, but we'll give it a try. I had all the ingredients already on hand. The best part of this recipe is that all of the ingredient can be eaten without cooking. There are no eggs and thus, no salmonella fears.

After you measure all the ingredients, the directions say, "Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl and let your child really go at it! Pound, punch, and knead the batter- the longer and harder the dough is mixed, the better the cookies will taste!" Boy, did my daughter have fun! At first she was hesitant, but after some encouraging, she did exactly what the directions said.

After much dough punching, squishing, and eating. We rolled the dough into balls and waited while our cookies baked.

The end result was quite impressive. I had my initial doubts but they are really yummy, oatmeal cookies. My hubby said that he could quite easily eat every last cookie in the cookie jar. They are quite addictive.

Now, generally, I can only manage one recipe a day in the kitchen. However, the success of the cookies gave me confidence. I took the recipe from the other night for Savory Parmesan Bites and modified it a bit. I made half of the batch like the recipe but the kids didn't really like the red peppers and we're on a real Pesto kick around here lately. So, I got creative with the recipe and made my own. We'll call them Savory Cream Cheese Pesto Bites. Both kids loved them and my hubby said he liked the new recipe as much as the original.

I tried one last recipe today. I found this recipe looking for ways to use our crop of Basil. My husband loves summer salads. I don't like vinegar or mayonnaise so I'm not a huge fan since most salads contain one of these two ingredients. I saw this recipe today and knew it would be a hit with my hubby. I omitted the Balsamic Vinegar until the end so that I could take out some for the kids and I to eat plain. My hubby really liked it. My son and I liked it without the vinegar. And, my daughter hated it both ways. She had it in her mind before she even tasted it that it would be yucky. We have a reunion to go to next weekend and I think that this will be the dish that I bring to pass. Easy to make, summery taste, and nothing to spoil during the heat of the picnic.

As we sat down to eat dinner, my husband asked me if I realized that I was serving a completely vegan meal. Believe it or not, I hadn't realized that fact.

After dinner, I asked my meat-loving hubby if he enjoyed his vegan meal. His reply was that his belly was full and that everything was delicious. That, my dear, is the right answer!

Garden Visitor

Today, I was out in the garden weeding, inspecting, and such. I noticed that something was eating our tomatoes. Two of them had been eaten over halfway through!

I reached in and turned and twisted the branch that the tomatoes were on to see if I could find the culprit who was eating them. Then, to my horror, I realized that I wasn't holding on to the branch. Look closely at that picture above. I was holding the culprit!!!

May I introduce you to our garden visitor? This, tomato loving creature, is a Tomato Hornworm. Yikes, he's huge!!! If we stretched him out he would be just over 4 inches long!!!

I looked online and called our Extension office to talk to a Master Gardener. I learned that these green guys will eat all of my tomatoes if I don't destroy them. Destroy them?!?!? How the heck do you destroy a 4 inch long green guy? The master gardener say that I should just step on him. Step on him! I can't do that. Gardening is supposed to be this nice wholesome activity to do with my kiddos not a vicious activity involving the destruction of huge caterpillars. I can't even begin to tell you how my imagination has played up this destruction of caterpillars. I can envision 4 inches of Tomato hornworm innards exploding under my foot. I just can't do it.

My hubby says he could try to take the green guys fishing.

My daughter says we can just keep him. She knows that caterpillars turn into butterflies and she is fascinated by the thought of how big a butterfly he would be.

I say thankfully we only have one. I am hoping and praying that there won't be more. I really don't want to spend my days plucking big green guys off of my tomatoes. Heck, I don't even like tomatoes. I've been wondering what we are going to do with all of our tomatoes since we don't like them fresh from the garden. I was hoping that we could bless others with our bounty. I was hoping that I could convince my kiddos that they were yummy. I was hoping that I could learn to can and have canned tomatoes for chili and stew this winter. I was hoping that I could learn to make tomato sauce. I was hoping. I was hoping. Now I am just hoping that it will all disappear...the hornworms, the tomatoes, all of it. We only have one but the Master Gardener assured me that if I have one, I most assuredly have more. MORE! I have to pluck them out daily by hand. BY HAND! I have to destroy them by squishing them. SQUISHING THEM! I really don't want to deal with this. Yuck!

One last picture to leave you with...

Caterpillar Crap!!! Did you ever wonder what recycled tomatoes look like? Well, there you go! After just a few hours, this big guy deposited quite a load of poo! Yuck, I can't believe I have to deal with this!!!

Curriculum Decisions

Today at swimming lessons, I was talking to another mother about homeschooling curriculum. She is pulling her oldest child out of public school and plans to home school him and his siblings. She has been researching curriculum and told me that she thinks she made up her mind. She told me about the curriculum that she is leaning towards and her reasons for choosing it. She will probably uses Rod and Staff Curriculum for their first year of homeschooling. She had some very valid reasons for why this is the curriculum that she thinks will work best for their family. I love to hear others discuss their rationale for choosing curriculum.
I went home and read a lot online about Rod and Staff. I don't think that we will consider it for our home but I did learn a lot about it. It is interesting to discuss with other parents what works and doesn't work for their family situations. It's really interesting that despite the fact that we probably will be using very different curriculum in our homeschooling settings, we respect the reasons that we each have for choosing what works for our family. I can totally understand her logic in choosing this curriculum but I can't see it working for us. We each respect that. When I was teaching, teachers would get so stubborn about what they felt was the best curriculum or method of teaching. Homeschooling parents that I've met so far haven't been that way. They might have their mind made up but they are respectful of the choices that each family has to make.

Sit Down and Dance

Today, we went to see Jim Gill in concert. We don't own any of his CD's but they are usually one of our first picks when choosing CD's to bring home from the library.

The concert was really good. He sounded just like he does on his CD's. This is a pet peeve of mine. It drives me nuts when I go to a concert and the band sounds NOTHING like their CD. The concert was held in a band shell in a park. We brought a blanket and snacks and settled in for the show. His songs are fun and get the kids up and dancing. The problem...sweltering heat and humidity! He tried his darndest to get the kids up and moving but most just sat there wilting in the heat. We were in one of the shady spots under a tree and we were still hot. I can't imagine how it was for the pour little ones without shade!

Despite how much she loves Jim Gill's songs, this was the highlight for my orange-loving daughter...

My son enjoyed moving around a bit more than his sister, but this was the highlight for my little climber...

It was enjoyable and we would definitely go see Jim Gill again. We just would choose a cooler day or an indoor, climate controlled venue. Although despite the heat, his music did get through to me. I've been singing I Took a Bath in a Washing Machine all day. I can't get it out of my head!