We are due for yet another cold blast the early part of this week. Temperatures may reach the 30s at night again. Is this the last cold blast of the season? Who knows.



Meanwhile, it may actually hit 82 degrees today. This is a day for the children to plant their vegetable garden, and for me to pull weeds, and for Self-Reliant Man to work on replacing the alternator in our family sedan.



Returning from a homeschool field trip this week, I ran into car trouble. In retrospect, we now realize that the alternator must have failed and the car battery ran down gradually on the way home from the field trip. We approached a McD*nald's and I noticed that the dash wasn't working right. The gauges were working intermittently. After leaving the McD*nald's we started the car and headed for home the most direct way we could. The gauges and radio were intermittent and finally shut down altogether. Then as I kept driving, the transmission started acting strange, with rough shifting. At one point, when I really wanted to get it all the way home, I realized I wasn't going to make it and pulled into a church parking lot. I called Self-Reliant Man at his office, and he showed up and figured out that I had run my battery almost all the way down; that at 97,000 miles, the alternator was due to fail. So long story short, he had me take him back to work and return home in his car. Then later during dinner at home, he charged up a car battery and we returned to our car with that battery and got the car home. Today he is looking into replacing the alternator himself.


Please note the new "Cast of Characters" in the sidebar. You will see that my husband's nickname of Self-Reliant Man is well earned.


But I began by talking about winter in Florida, even as Spring is showing its approach. But here I shall be like Ch*rles Osgo*d and leave you with some peaceful photos of our home and yard during some of the many early morning frosts we had this year.

Baby Girl has been complaining a lot lately about what she calls "neck aches". She had me confused, because I thought this was her five year old term for "sore throat". But I have been noticing a pattern: she often complains about neck aches when she is in the car booster seat, and her neck is in an unnatural position. Today, when she was doing her lessons, she was engaged in an activity long enough to complain once again of a neck ache. She always points to the back of her neck when she experiences this.

So I did a little analysis, and began a line of questions, and turned up this conclusion: Baby Girl has been reading so many books lately, but she has always been holding the book very close to her eyes. And when she does seat work, she often bends her head down close to the paper to write. I thought this was just a little habit of hers, but now I see that she is having difficulty seeing.

So we did a little test. I kept changing the distance between her eyes and the pages of a book. It looks like she cannot see to read until she is very close to the page. Could she be so dramatically nearsighted?

She was checked out at the optometrist 18 months ago, and she did fine. What would the result be now? Looks like I will have to schedule another appointment.

She did start to cry, though. When I asked her why, she said "I won't look good in glasses."

Now where on earth would she ever get that idea?

For those of you who are following this topic, here is the third question:

Question #3: Do the congregation's small groups -- including youth groups -- hold you and your children accountable, support you in your times of weakness, and pray for you consistently?

Does the congregation even have small groups? If so, do the members know one another well enough to hold one another accountable, in love? Are small groups merely a forum for members to share feelings? Do youth groups offer an alternative to feel good self-esteem programs? This issue of mutual accountability, indeed, can be mighty dangerous territory. Make sure to inspect 1 Thessalonians 5: 11-22 to see the spirit in which we should relate to one another in the church. Here is that passage:

¹¹Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

¹⁹Do not put out the Spirit's fire; ²⁰do not treat prophecies with contempt. ²¹Test everything. Hold on to the good. ²²Avoid every kind of evil.

How's it going? You mean the New Plan? The NP? The four day per week screen time fast?

I'm glad you asked.

First of all, the reason I am reporting on it, is that I have been completely successful so far in living by my NP. I went last Thursday and Friday, and this past Monday and Tuesday without spending any time on the Internet. That's not to say I did not spend any time on the computer, though. It turned out that both of my children had online math and computer skills lessons (through Calvert School) on some of these days, and I helped get them connected to their lessons. I also had a dear friend over on Friday, and I helped her find some websites of interest while she was here. But other than that, I was good good GOOD!

What have I discovered so far?

I discovered that I am actually beginning to look forward to the screen time fast days. These days have required me to be more creative about my spare minutes. Normally, if I had 5 or 10 minutes of spare time, I'd sit down in front of the computer without even thinking if there might be a more worthy alternative. But now that the Internet was off limits, I had to think about better uses for those windows of time.

Here are a few things I did instead...

1. Wrote two letters. Yes, letters, as in pens and stationary. It felt weird, but it felt good, too. I had rediscovered the art of letter writing, and I was proud of my small accomplishment.

2. Began working on The Global Puzzle with Little Son. We had this around a long time, and it was beyond my son's emotional capabilities to put this puzzle together by himself. We are now enjoying doing it together as a team.

3. Kept up with decluttering the house better than normal.

4. Had the laundry folded and put away before Daddy got home from work.

5. Got more reading done. I always have a stack of books I want to get to but never do. I actually even got a chance to read an article in The Old Schoolhouse magazine.

6. Took a walk with the kids to the mailbox and back (0.4 miles round trip).

And that was in just four days of screen time fasting. Imagine the possibilities for the rest of my life... I think there is a message here somewhere.

I'll continue to let you know how it goes, but no earlier than Saturday!

Peace to you.

Today was the first wave of violin competitions for the year. We began the weekend by helping out our neighbor, and boarding their two black standard poodles for the weekend. This has proven to be an exciting time for our own doggy, having neighbors moving in for the weekend, but all in all, he has been doing okay. But it is the first time we have had three dogs in our house.

This morning, we left at nine o'clock to head over to a local school for the FFMC string competitions. Baby Girl performed her two solo pieces at 10:40. Little Son then performed his two solo pieces and his concerto piece around 11:00. We then took a break and had a brunch at P*rkins, then followed up with a trip to the local Super W*lm*rt, and returned to the school at 2:30 in the afternoon for Little Son to perform two pieces as part of his boys' chamber trio. It was probably five o'clock when we rolled into our front yard.

In general, the children felt that they did well, although Little Son, especially, was very self-critical. Perhaps he didn't do the perfect job he set out to do, but he did play very well in my estimation, and the experience taught him a lesson about his need to focus well. I believe that both children achieved the ratings they needed to be admitted to the statewide finals. We will find out on Monday; and this week, we need to focus on another competition for Little Son next weekend.

But I have decided that the simple life is never going to arrive unless I reduce the screen time in my life. So this is the New Plan (NP). No non-essential computer time on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Period. Catch up on the other days. No internet shopping on those days, either. If the book looks really interesting, and I just have to order it . .. .. .. . well, if it still isn't interesting in three days, then I certainly didn't need it. I have already ordered books on a whim, and forgotten completely about them until they arrived in my mailbox. The NP should help that.

I have already frittered away precious spare time in my life, one hour at a time. The NP should help that, too. Oh, and I have whined that I don't have any spare time in the same week.

With the NP, when I do have a spare minute or two, rather than tapping the mouse to wake up the monitor, I will instead think about all those little things that I intend to get to around the house, but never do. Or I will simply read more books and fewer online news articles. This controls the rate of flow of information into my brain, limiting it to a manageable amount, that I can actually process it and respond if appropriate.

With the NP, maybe I won't be such an attention deficit mom. Web surfing was causing my head to spin as I followed impulse upon impulse down alleyway after dark alleyway.

It was frightful.

So we shall see.

I hope that through cutting back and scaling down my electronic media consumption, I shall at last attain a glimpse of the simple life, once and for all!

Just an update on a few things in the life of Mighty Oak Country School.

1. We just returned from another nice camping trip to Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park in the northern part of our state. It is a unique place, with hills, and a small canyon, or ravine, that is 65 feet deep, formed by the outflowing of ground water in the form of springs. The weather was perfect for half of the trip, and rain showers for the second half. This forced us to take a new view of camping and the use of our van, as we actually found ourselves preparing and eating meals inside the van for the first time, and spending more time in there than ever before. We managed, but we had to plan and be careful. There was much card playing and book reading. But it was a different way to enjoy camping, and as a family, we did better than I envisioned we would.

2. Little Son is sick right now, and perhaps Baby Girl will be soon. So we are laying low this week, hoping for as much improvement as possible in time for Saturday and all the violin competitions. Little Son has had to master five separate pieces for three competitions, and Baby Girl has mastered two pieces for a single competition. I guess that means Mommy has had to master seven pieces, in a vicarious sort of way!

3. Some new convictions are forming within me regarding the use of electronic media in our home. I could post another time at length about this subject. We already don't watch cable or broadcast TV, and view about one DVD per week as a family. But other convictions have been forming within me about computer use, and the way some of the non-essential computer time tends to usurp the little spare time I have. In a way, it isn't much different than TV, and I need to take a new approach to limiting it. So for now, I am considering a self-imposed moratorium on Internet use for 3 or 4 days out of the week (Wednesday is not one of them). These are, indeed, important days in our lives, especially at this stage of our children's lives, and I want to grab life by the horns. To the extent that screen time is stealing from what could be better for us, I don't know, but I will only find out if I try a change.

So the result is that posts to this blog will probably be less often (one or two days a week, such as has already been this month) and hopefully of greater quality! Hope you understand.

Continuing my reading of Marva Dawn's book (see Part 1 of this topic) I encounter the second question pertaining to churches.

Before I begin, I did get a comment to my last post from a reader expressing her frustration that she needs to compromise on the church criteria in the city where she lives. In particular, she wrote " If the doctrine is correct, the format is worldly, if the format is family friendly, the doctrine is legalistic. I have to choose which I'm willing to live with and which I'm willing to give up. That long-term sense of compromise is draining." I can fully understand this. We, too, live near a rather large city with dozens upon dozens of churches of all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Yet, upon closer examination, over 90% of them can't even be considered by our family, and the remaining small percentage, upon closer examination, reveals churches that are entirely too comfortable with the culture of the modern world. Ahh, maybe it's just us. But I am having my internal struggles right now with possible new convictions arising in my life about worldliness in the church. And then picking up this new book, quite accidently, is continuing to deepen those questions for me.

But let's get on to question #2:

Does the pastor preach sermons and do the leaders teach classes that rebuke and challenge you and your children? Do the elders admonish you?

Funny I should read this now. We were just admonished for the first time this week by our elder of the church from which we are moving away. Not for anything morally wrong, but instead because we are considering leaving. Because we are visiting other churches. It has just added to the guilt and pain I already feel over this choice.

The author of the book adds that she doesn't see much loving admonishment in churches these days, perhaps because we are not willing to receive it. How true that is! How easy it is to get insulted and defensive when someone criticizes us, and when it comes from the church, the church is at a disadvantage because we can always jump ship and move over to another church down the street that accepts us as we are. If a church were to admonish us over a significant issue, like substance abuse, or "lifestyle choice", how quickly would we be jumping in our car and flying across town to the church that would surely accept us without judgment (and there are many). So yes, the church is always at a disadvantage, if numbers are the most important thing to them, and not God's heart.

So how have we received this admonition, this week, before our children? Humbly? When an elder reminds us of our vows, and we discuss this with our kids, how do they see it? What were our vows to our church? Were our vows intended to be lifelong, like a marriage, "through thick and thin" as our elder sees it, or did we ever interpret our church vows that way? What if we feel our church has failed us? What if our church doesn't seem to make decisions and govern with wisdom? What if there is wastefulness, imprudence with funds, and chasing after various winds? Especially when we try our best to be thoughtful about decisions in our personal lives?

These are the questions that have flooded our hearts, minds, and family discussions in our home lately.

Ms. Dawn writes "declining numbers in churches make us afraid to take the risk of discipline" and "clergy are overwhelmed by 'administrivia' and do not devote much time to meditation on the Word and prayer". I'm afraid these are sad truths, too, and for those in small churches, often the pastor is part-time, and devotes the majority of his mind and energy to other pursuits, leaving little mental energy left to thinking about the life of the congregation. I now see the advantages of a full-time pastor over a part-time one.

No real answers here today, folks, but lots of things to think and pray about.

I am reading a book called Is It a Lost Cause?: Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children written by Marva J. Dawn. She is a theologian, musician, and educator who has written several books pertaining to worship within the church. I thought I would pick up this book, although it is a bit older, because this particular book talks more specifically about the church's role in the nurture and biblical formation of our children, a subject that is near and dear to my heart and that of many of my readers.

At one part of the book, she brings up ten questions to check whether our churches are, in her words, "biblically formed". She comes from a different denominational tradition than I, so her terminology is a little bit unfamiliar, but I think she is talking about whether churches conform the the scriptural mandate for the church.

So without much ado, I will begin to write on these ten questions, a little bit at a time, for I feel they are thoughtful and intelligent questions, and worth careful, unhurried thought.

Question #1: Does the pastor preach the whole counsel of God and not just what is politically correct? Do the congregational leaders urge you and your children to wrestle with the whole Bible and not just read the parts you like?

I think about this question in terms of whether the church is teaching a balanced view of God, so that we can attempt to better know in full the God we worship. Does our church teach mostly a warm, fuzzy, comfortable picture of God, without giving adequate attention to other aspects of his character, like his holiness, his wrath, his absolute perfection that cannot tolerate sin, his omnipotent authority, his sovereign dominion? Do we see the ruling arm of power, that is also the tender arm of a shepherd carrying us? Do we see the mercy and kindness of Jesus alongside his anger against hypocrisy?

Is the pastor willing to preach about the hard sayings of Jesus as well as his promises?

And do we take the opportunity to allow ourselves, as adults, to be trained by our churches in righteousness, as well as discuss these things with our children?

I am pondering these questions personally, as our family is between churches right now, and I know that this is, or has been, the case with some of the readers of this blog.

I will try to write more on this topic in a "near future" post.

It has been a full week here, and I have not posted in several days. Finally, today, I wanted to share about our camping trip of 11 days ago. It really was one of the most restful camping trips we have taken to date. We did not pack it with activities; we just let the ideas come to us while we were there. It helped that our campsite was a short stroll to the beach, for we were camping at Anastasia State Park near St. Augustine, FL. The weather was very nice. Although the first night was chilly (lower 40s) we were toasty warm in the van during sleeptime, and that was the most important thing.

As usual for every trip, we tracked license plates. On this weekend, we spotted license plates from 27 states and 3 Canadian provinces.

Here are some photos of the experience..


This park is so unique and beautiful for our state.








Little Son found so many treasures on the beach, including this shark's tooth.








The children were entrepreneurs once again, this time trying to sell seashells by the seashore. Eventually they had to lower the price to "free", and even then there were no takers. Finally, a friendly camper from Nova Scotia "bought" some shells from them for a dollar. We didn't quite witness this; just heard about it afterwards.




An intact sand dollar found at the water's edge.









Baby Girl was a bit squeamish about holding that live star fish. We saw several plum and cream colored star fish that weekend, and Little Son was always careful to throw them back into the surf.







A shot of Mommy at the beach with children, decked out in sweats because it was quite windy!








DH alternated between cook and campfire tender much of the weekend.








We walked to a Farmer's Market nearby and enjoyed some live music.









This is Baby Girl walking back from the Farmer's Market with her beloved brother, in the way that she knows best. At this particular moment, Little Son is actually returning some of the affection. Quick! Click!






And for an aside, I wish to announce that my DH is the best DH on earth. Not too many men would keep their mouth completely shut and not even appear slightly annoyed by a blunder like the one I made on the Sunday of that camping trip. Like I said, the trip had been restful and uneventful. Late that Saturday night, as I lay falling asleep in the van, it occurred to me that I had not packed any feminine products for this camping trip, and darn it if I wasn't "due" by about now. Early Sunday morning, around 7, I made my early restroom run and returned to the van to announce that we had to go shopping immediately. No breakfast at campsite, nothing, until after we could stop at a supermarket or Walgreen's or somewhere. Of course, going shopping meant disconnecting everything in the van from the campsite, A/C hookup, electrical hookup, and strapping the A/C unit securely before driving away, removing and packing away all the window coverings, and securing the futon. About 30 minutes of work. And then undoing everything at the end of the day before retiring for the night, another 30 minutes. Then, we did eventually find a supermarket off the island. At that point, there was no point in going back to the campground just to make breakfast, as we were all hungry enough to eat nails (and feeling cranky as well, although DH never let on) so we drove, and drove, and drove, and DROVE for what certainly seemed like an hour, and who knows how many miles, in circles in and through and around St. Augustine looking for a Panera Bread and never actually finding one and having to settle for Dunkin Donuts for our Sunday morning repas. Phew. And never once did DH make a snyde comment, sigh, act annoyed, act cranky, or act smarter than his wife, even though he had EVERY REASON TO! If the situation had been reversed, I honestly don't know that I would have demonstrated such longsuffering. These are things I need to always remember. Forever.