They were my kinfolk, my people - many of whom I'm still friends with today, though we've scattered across the country, spilling out in different directions as fast as we could once we'd tossed our graduation caps in the air.
More Than a Song: Randy Stonehill
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I just reviewed Randy Stonehill's 2020 album Lost Art of Listening at Random
Acts of Roller. Two songs from the album are performed by Sir Stonehill and
hi...
The Lost Art of Listening (to an Album)
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I n late 2020 Randy Stonehill released a new album entitled “Lost Art of
Listening”. Christmastime 2020 I became the fortunate recipient of said
album. I w...
Going to my First Indy 500
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When I think Indy, I have to admit that I am much more prone to think of
Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. or a movie or music project without the backing
of a st...
Today was my folks' 50th wedding anniversary. We celebrated with a big picnic at a nearby forest preserve. It was really nice to see all the extended family and friends who came out to celebrate! My parents renewed their wedding vows, and even had their best man and maid of honor standing up with them. My brother also gave a nice speech. The "show" aspect of the picnic ended up with 10 of their 11 grandchildren doing a dramatic reading of Dr Suess's book, "You're Only Old Once." The book is hilarious! It was enjoyed by everyone. It was nice to see the older cousins helping out the younger cousins with reading their parts. It's a blessing to have a heritage of marital longevity to remind us to keep the course. Amy's parents celebrated their 48th Anniversary last week, so I'm glad to see it runs in the family.
Yesterday we went on a hike. Besides swimming and biking we are trying to take a hike once a week. Yesterday we went to Raceway Woods, which was a speedway in my town in the 50's and 60's and the remains of the racetrack now make a number of great trails.
I made Bunny Girl write a post about the hike. Her blog at homeschoolblogger wasn't coming up so I had her write at old blog. I decided to lead by example. and post about the hike as well.
This picture was posed. I actually had everybody turn around and hike back to me. It was either that, a picture of their backsides, or me running up to catch them.
We are spending 1-1 1/2 hours each morning working on reading and writing. We are using some super old-fashioned, but highly effective and engaging SRA cards for reading (with a little writing) and then using story starters from www.thewritesource.com to elicit some creative writing. Some handwriting for those who need it is also snuck in, along with typing for the oldest. Our 12 year old is expected to write 5 paragraphs, our 6 year old writes 3-5 sentences, and our struggling 10 year old is writing 5 sentences. It's going swimmingly, oh, and we are spending the rest of our days, well, swimming :). We're doing a few fall/winter/spring neglected jobs around the house as well, and teaching some kitchen skills too. Oh, and let's not forget the continual read-alouds at lunch. I think we, as home educators, need to admit the truth: school is never over! And we like it that way!
We were visiting a church yesterday, when the pastor said to tell person sitting nearest that they are not perfect. I was sitting nearest to Spider Droid and I decided to switch it up a little. So, I leaned over and said "I'm not perfect." S.D. leaned back into me and uttered one of his new found favorite phrases: "Not my problem."
In his own 10 year old obnoxious laden way he nailed it right on the head. My imperfection is not ostensibly any other person's problem. Later in the sermon, the pastor spoke to that issue by saying that God loves you. God's love is the only way to perfect the imperfect. I am so glad that when Jesus made a way to deal with my imperfection, He uttered "It is finished" rather than "Not my problem."
