A Poem: March 11th

March 11th

written 3-11-93 Russia

Two days before my Brother's birthday

Eleven days before my Dad's

Yesterday, it meant only tomorrow

In a few hours, the roles will be reversed

Just another day

Life in another country

New experiences each day

Man has a way

Of making the extraordinary

Commonplace

Russia

Living in former Godless Russia

As a missionary

I've preached at church services

In old communist buildings

But today is just a day

Not special
Today I spoke to Russian students

Little spiritual knowledge

But much curiosity

But today is just a day

God forgive me

Next Time: In praise of Home School Kids Write

Collecting State Quarters (Crazy Dave's Give-a-ways)

I started two valuable collections in 1999.

I started my collection of children and my collection of state quarters. Legally, I can only give one of them away on the Internet. Before I tell you about my state quarter give-a-way, let me tell you why collecting state quarters works for me.

When the quarters first came out I got one of those Extra large size books for a family collection. I enjoyed collecting so much that I decided to get 3 smaller size books for each of the children. In the apartment years finding quarters was easy, I'd go through the quarters before I used them in the laundromat. I also paid $8.00 in tolls a week mostly in quarters so I had plenty to work with. Getting A transponder for tolls and buying a house with a washer dryer nearly killed my quarter collecting. But I trudged on. Anytime we got change in our house I sifted thought it quicker than (insert speedy reference here).

Then a couple years ago the kids wanted to start getting an allowance. Perfect. That requires me each payday get a roll or two of quarters and sort through them before the kids had a pay-day of their own. The kids always exuberant when we find new quarters. It is interesting how their personalities manifest themselves in which state coins they like. Emma likes Kentucky because of the horses, and prefers other coins with animals on them. She is a little upset that no state has the motto "The bunny state" with cute little rabbit coin to match. Charlie likes Indiana because of the Car, Ohio and Florida because of the Astronaut stuff. I had to stop Lucy from putting a nickel in her mouth today so she hasn't really acquired a taste for quarters yet.

So when the Hawaii quarter came out at the end of last year we waited in anticipation to complete our collection. They didn't come to our local bank until February. By then we already had the 4 we needed to complete our set. But that wasn't enough for me. I still had the collecting bug so I have in the past 2 months collected a 5th set just for the fun of it.

So that's why State quarter collecting works for me. To find out what works for other people go to Kirsten's Works For Me Wednesday site at We Are That Family. But before you do, I want to tell you in honor of today being my 50th post I am giving a collection of all 50 state quarters away.

You could use them to start a collection of your own. Or that's $12.50 you can use to stimulate the economy. Or you could use them to learn how to flip quarters from your elbow and catch them in midair. Click here for a demonstration.

To enter just leave a comment on this post or on my face book feed of this post. The sidebar has the official rules. The contest runs until 8:00 p.m EST 3/23/2009

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Next Time: March 11th

And the winner is ... me.

My wife is an optimist when it comes to contests. Any time there is a giveaway such as $5,000.00 given for doing a phone survey for your latest meal at Bob's Taco Barn, Amy is certain that we won. This is often before we even enter. The truth is we often enter but hardly ever win.

Now, in the blogging world, there are give-a-ways galore. I even host one on this very blog. (Check our next post for more details.) Many enter, few win. I don't often tell Amy when I enter, because otherwise she would be devastated with how often we are not slated to win.

Now for those of you who don't know, Amy loves Cheetos. That is even her screen name in a few places here on the world wide web. So when Carma of Carma Sez was giving away a huge bucket of Utz Cheese balls, I thought to myself, "That's for Amy." It turns out that these particular cheese balls don't have riboflavin, the ingredient that gives Cheetos it's Cheeto-ness. But it's not like we were going to win them, was it?

It turns out we won! Here is Carma's post announcing the winner of her giveaway.

Carma's only contingency was that the winner get a picture of them and the cheese balls at a popular regional locale. Well across from my local Walmart there is what remains of mine and then my kids', first amusement park: Santa's Village. And to celebrate winners, I of course had to wear my 2005 World Champions Cap.

Thanks Carma from all of us for all the Utz. MMMM Tasty!

Next Time: Crazy Dave's Give-A-Ways State Quarters.

Unbelievable (A Family of 5, irresponsible?!?)

I had a few free minutes a couple of nights ago and decided to do a little googling. I googled "I have three children", because a) I have 3 children and b) I thought I might find a couple cute little blogs or websites with like-familied people.

What I found was extremely troubling. First, I stumbled upon a website called the Responsibility Project. It seems to be one of those old fashioned bulletin board type chat rooms where people post on a variety of topics. Well, someone posted on whether having three children was responsible or not. I was astounded by what followed.

One person began her post ...

"The single most effective thing an individual can do to help the environment is not to have children." Many disagreed, many agreed.

One 14 year old stated ... "I have no problem with abortion, if a kid has no memories or consciousness, it isn’t a human being. If the baby is unwanted then killing it isn’t hurting anyone. "

After that it was a free for all.

I then viewed the original article that spawned all this discussion. It was an article about how having three children is now only achievable by the extremely rich, how many people desired to have more than two children but simply could not afford it. What I found extremely interesting, was how the columnist defined necessities ...

"Consider raising a single "luxury" child. By luxury, mind you, we're not necessarily talking hedge-fund rich, merely able to afford and "raise right." And the pressure to do that, even if you're not uber-wealthy, has become overwhelming. From the moment the heartbeat blinks across the sonogram screen, Big Baby starts in with its pleading and conniving: I'm your child! How can you spare any expense? Don't you care?"

Finally, I looked at another listing for parents of three child and found a study from Psychology Today from 2005, (Which would really make it Psychology Four Years ago, but I digress) showing that additional children don't make parents any happier than their initial child. Yipes.

It was unexpected and unsettling to have Google treat me this way. I started out by looking for people with 3 kids like me. Instead, I found people who found having 1 let alone 3 or more children irresponsible. I found people who found raising children a luxury. And I found people who thought raising children would bring them happiness. In retrospect, I am not quite sure why I was surprised.

We live in what many call a materialistic age or world view. The three responses to large families that I found are all aspects of materialism.

The idea that large families are irresponsible to the environment stems from the basic tenet of materialism: Material is all there is or, as Steven Eyre put it in his excellent 1992 book on world views: Defeating the Dragons of This World, "Matter is all that matters."

Now there is nothing a matter with matter. You could say that I'm not antimatter. It's just that all this talk about matter without a maker makes matters worse. God created the material universe. Taking God out of the equation as we have, makes ideas like the ones I read at The Responsibility Project perfectly understandable.

The second tenet of materialism is what Eyre sums up with the motto "you are what you own." This explains why people put a high price tag on children. I read more than one account of people who wanted to have a larger family but could not afford to raise them in the "modern western lifestyle." We don't need to raise designer children. We need to raise children to know their designer.

Finally, if the material world is all that there is, it seems natural that we would seek fulfillment from our things, the people around us and the people we make. The divorce rates now make perfect sense to me. If happiness is the grail that we are searching for, I am surprised that 1/2 the marriages survive. But if there is something outside the material universe, such as, and I'm just spit balling here, the God who spoke that universe into being, then perhaps it is that God and not our possessions, or the people around us, or the children that God entrusts us with, that our well being comes from.

Next Time: And the winner is ... me.

Calculating my Tips

Works for me Wednesday is having a best of edition this week. So I calculated my tips and this is what I am most proud of ...

Originally posted 2/17 for Shannon's final Rocks in My Dryer WFMW

Today, I would like to tell you all why Works For Me Wednesday works for me. As a stay at home, home school dad, a few credits shy of his Home Ec. degree, WFMW gives me the first clue on topics I know nothing about, and the next step in areas that I am growing in.

WFMW is also, one of the best formats for me to do my writing. I like sharing what things my family has done that make our life more productive and enjoyable. I love seeing the comments on my blog that there are others who can find them helpful as well.

Here is my WFMW routine:

1) I keep a list in my notebook of future WFMW posts. My goal is to have at least 4 post ideas written down at the beginning of each month, so I am not scrambling at the last minute for an idea. As of today, I have post ideas from now until 4/22/2009.

2) Sometime Monday evening or Tuesday morning I write my post for that week and save it as a draft. This morning when I began to write about gloves, I noticed Shannon's above referenced post and took this idea, which was 3 weeks away from my notebook.

3) When I come home from my Tuesday night home group, I publish my post and wait for Shannon to post hers. My goal is to be one of the first 25 posts on the list. My secret ambition, is to be in the top 10 every week. My dream, is to be the first one on the board. My dream that is so special you don't say it out loud (I am only writing this, NOT saying it out loud), to be asked to headline and be a guest blogger on WFMW. That's not gonna happen. But, I was #8 last week.

4) After WFMW is posted and I am linked to it, the real fun begins. I read all the posts linked before mine. I always try to leave a comment where appropriate. As a man, I would feel very silly commenting on posts about make-up.

5) When I get to mine, I will sometimes read a few more before retiring for the day. On Wednesday morning, I check my post for comments. I will then read those posts, If I have not already. I spend the rest of the day between school and home stuff checking out as many posts as I can.

6) I am always looking for one idea that I can implement immediately. A month ago I discovered two I liked ,one was about a system that e-mails reminders to you and another that tells you how to clean out a microwave. I just got a reminder e-mail to clean out my microwave.

So, that's why WFMW works for me and why I am so glad that Shannon started this tradition that Kristen is continuing. Blessings to you both.

To see more of the best of WFMW be sure to stop by We Are That Family.

Next Time: Unbelievable! A family of five, irresponsible!?!