We have returned from our camping trip. I am really behind on blog reading, having found a list of 60 unread posts on my reader. I haven't had the time to leave comments, either. I guess I follow too many blogs!


This week, I am preparing for a homeschool field trip Saturday evening to our pasture to view the winter constellations. The evening promises to be crystal clear and cold. I will post about our camping trip when the dust settles. Thank you for your patience.

Ruby red grapefruits, anyone? They're yours for free - you need just pay shipping! Little Son had the foresight to go out and pick off all the remaining grapefruits and tangerines from the trees before the hard freeze came. The fruit came out great this year, due to the unusually cold November we had.

Baby Girl prefers the cute little tangerines. She said "awwwww" when she saw this little one.

Tonight is supposed to be even colder than last night was. Winter in Florida.

Did you hear about the 6 ton ice sculpture somebody made in Fairbanks, Alaska? It is a statue of Al Gore shivering! Cute!

Many of the blogs I have been reading are showing photos of your children building and posing with their snowmen. So I thought I would include one as well.



Who says we don't have snowmen in Florida?

We turn on the TV at Mighty Oak Country School for four reasons: Olympics, severe weather, space shuttle launches, and inaugurations.

So it was on today.

During a talk radio show this afternoon, I heard one gentleman say that he refused to watch the inauguration because he had significant political differences from the new leadership. I don't care what your political views are, or to what extent you approve or disapprove of the events of this day. Barring inability to watch TV due to responsibilities or employment, how could you stay away from viewing the inauguration?

The inauguration is another opportunity for me to share with my children what makes our country great. The fact that our country, for over 230 years, has had peaceful transfers of power from president to president is reason to rejoice. This is a blessing that was unheard of in centuries past, and in some nations remote from ours even today. We take it for granted, but for most of history, most of the time, either leadership was passed on to a king or emperor's firstborn son, or seized by another through war, strife, murder or bloodshed. Fortunately, this is unknown in our country, in our time, and in many free countries today. You could say it all began with our Constitution.

The peaceful transfer of power every four to eight years --- Thanks be to God! Let us not take it for granted. Let us pray it never changes!

Not quite. I certainly have more pressing things to pray for than that. But I did get quite a bit of satisfaction out of reading this column today:

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2009/01/its_time_to_pray_for_global_wa.html

We can probably guess that combatting global warming would be a ball and chain on the world economy. The proposed methods of reducing man made climate change would directly increase the cost of energy in all forms. When you increase the cost of energy, you place great strain on the world economy. Look at the fallout from last summer's gas price. It did a world of damage.

Man induced global warming is a hoax, and worse, the methods proposed to address it will take us all down fast. Pray for global warming? I pray that global leaders will see the truth about it before it is too late.

Lisa at Pockets of Time tagged me to participate in a meme on her blog. I decided to choose an easy meme called picture tag that has the following rules:
1. Go to your 4th folder where you store your photos.
2. Select your 4th picture (no exceptions)!
3. Post the picture with an explanation and link it back to your tagger.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same!!

Today I found out the name of the family whose house burned down yesterday. It turns out that, although we don't know them, they are members of a church that we belonged to many years ago. Six folks were living in this home, and a camper has since been donated for three of them (the parents and their child). Another home in a nearby town has been offered to the remaining three (grandma and the child's two aunts). It turns out that the fire started from a ceiling fan in the child's bedroom. Fortunately, she was sleeping with her mom and dad that night! Nobody was hurt, although the fire gutted the house.

So today I went to the office of the local church where my kids attend AWANA and learned more about this family's situation. The administrator there told me about a great resource where she registered this family. It is called www.TakeThemAMeal.com . Whenever you know of a family that is in need of meals, you can register them securely at this website, and then give the password out to any potential meal donors, who can sign up for available dates and read instructions regarding dietary restrictions, etc. This is a pretty neat idea!

When I moved to my present state of residence, I was also in a suburb of a large sprawling city near a state university campus. So from time to time, I would heare references to places near our neighborhood. Yep ~~ the media, and too often the crime, was getting closer.

So imagine my surprise this morning when my radio alarm went off. I was listening to a traffic report and it mentioned the cross street intersection at the end of my little dirt road, mentioning our little street by name! Our little dirt road, way out in the country, apparently too short to be called a "road" and instead called just a "point". Supposedly a building was on fire. I donned my fleece jacket and went outside in the 43 degree weather to see what was the matter. Hmmm. Nothing I could see from our yard. I checked our own barn - nope, okay. Not even a plume of smoke, no smell, no flashing lights, no noise. Then I checked the city newspaper website, and sure enough, a little down the road, both lanes are supposedly blocked due to "fire activity". Maybe it is a cat in a tree? Talk about a good excuse for DH to roll over and go back to sleep: "Boss, didn't you hear the radio this morning? It was all over the news."

POST SCRIPT: I thought the above image would be a good attention getter, just like the radio report was for me. Not too many things would make me run outside in the dark morning at 43 degrees.

UPDATE: At 9:30 a.m. - THIS WAS NO JOKE. A family actually lost their house overnight. DH passed it on the way to work, about a third of a mile from our house, and he said the house looked like it had been burned up inside, although the outside walls were okay. The roof was burned out. How sad!!! The fire department must have put the fire out by the time I was looking down the road early this morning. When you live in the country, you have to consider that there are no fire hydrants near your house, and this can really make a huge difference. The fire station is less than a mile from here, yet a house was lost.

Now I look above at how casually and flippantly I wrote this morning's early post, trying to inject some humor, and now realize that a family near us lost their home today! Yet another reminder to me how quickly and dramatically things can change in life.

And, blessedness for me, Baby Girl still loves to do her first grade work, especially math. She just whips through the math pages, and would keep working through the book if I allowed her. This is a huge relief for me!



Admittedly, lessons do take a long time to accomplish fully each day. I begin with Little Son around 8:45 by introducing each subject lesson to him. Then I cut him loose to do his independent work by anywhere between 10:30 and noon. (yesterday it was noon because of a composition and a science experiment). This is the time when I work through the entire lesson with Baby Girl.

But it can still take several hours for Little Son to say he's "finished" with his independent work, mostly due to daudling, having a long lunch in between, and seeking out any interruption that he can. But, at least I am not sitting with him while this happens, so I am maintaining my sanity. Hopefully it will click with him one day that the only way to get the work done is to stay focused and do it!



Oh, and did I mention that we go through a couple of iterations of my marking mistakes and he supplying corrections?

All in all, no complaints here -- I am just adjusting to it all!

Little Son brought back the mail from the mailbox (which is at the far end of our street) and it included a letter for us signed from Dr. R. C. Spro*l himself. It pertained to our visiting his church recently. We visited a week ago, as it is a half hour from our house, and we have been looking at churches (although I am still not convinced that we need to leave our existing church). Anyway, you could say that it was practically love at first sight for my DH when we experienced the worship service there. It is an unusual place, for sure. The ambience of worship was aptly described in a recent blog post I read from someone who visited that church back in July. Although I am urging my DH that we should keep visiting different churches, he really wants to return to that church ~~ again and again. We shall see. We definitely need guidance.

While I am not a regular listener to Steve Brown, Etc., I happened to stumble onto his program website this week, and lo and behold, he just did an interview with Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe.

Dr. Ross is the best!

Here is a guy who is an astronomer and astrophysicist, very well educated in the pure sciences, able to discuss in detail ideas and concepts that exist totally outside most of our weak and limited minds.

Here is a guy who was not a believer in Christianity, or any religion, and set about years ago to study the various holy books of the world's religions to see if any of them held up under comparison with what he calls the "scientific record", that is, everything that modern science believes to be factual. And guess what? None of the holy books held up except one - the Holy Bible.

Here is a guy who can explain intelligently how modern science, and the literal, exegetical interpretation of the Bible (yes, including the book of Genesis) are in agreement!! And yes, like myself, Dr. Ross believes the age of the earth is a lot longer than 6,00o years.

I, myself, am a retired electrical engineer with extensive college study in the pure and applied sciences. (Of course, once those pure sciences started to get too difficult for me, I was thankful that my major was in the applied sciences). Regardless, I have an extensive science background. I very much appreciate anybody who can logically articulate the corroboration between modern science and the Bible, and how every new finding of science further cements that agreement. After all, God is the ultimate author of scripture, and He is the creator of the natural universe. Wouldn't they agree?

The first Hugh Ross book I read was The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis. Well, let me tell you that I wanted to read more and more after this one, although I admit that not all of his books are as easy to read as this one was. This book opened up a new world of appreciation of science for me. I already appreciated the Holy Bible, but now I can approach the topics of science and prehistoric natural history with my children without fear and intimidation.

Anyhow, I highly recommend the materials of Reasons to Believe, including the above book. There are many others to read, if you have the time and the inclination. Also, I recommend this blog (Old Earth Creation Homeschool) which is produced by Theology Mom, a like-minded homeschool mom like myself. (qualification: her mind is more full of good stuff than mine is, I am convinced. I'm just an ordinary violin mom, not Theology Mom).

Just another reminder to all of us that Christians do not need to check their brains at the door!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!!

Somehow I stumbled onto an online video from a professional photographer giving tips on photographing Christmas displays. So I tried out his advice. Basically, he said to:

1. Turn off the flash

2. Set the exposure high, like ISO 400 or 800 (or on my camera, +2.0)

3. Experiment with the white balance until you find what looks best. In my case, I set it to "incandescent" so that my photos wouldn't end up with too much of a yellowish tint.

4. Use a tripod, if available, to prevent blurring

5. Photograph the house around dusk, before it is fully dark, to get the best effect.

I set about doing these things, and had a good time experimenting, both indoors and out. Here are the results: