Illustrations

My daughter likes to draw pictures of the things that go on around here sometimes. We have a huge chalkboard up in our dining room for when I was schooling the kids. It still gets used a lot so I'll probably leave it up.



A thing I do when one particularly persistent child of mine won't stop asking me about something over and over and over again is to make completely empty and ridiculous threats. (These are always said in a manner that there is no way he takes them seriously).



So the other day he was on me about something and I told him if he didn't stop asking, I was going to take all his stuff and put it in the field. (There's a corn field next to our house).

She really does have a dark sense of humor. 

Then later that week, I ran across this comedy bit along the same lines. The relevant part is from 1:00-2:11.

Have a great weekend!

Checking In

Seriously. 

It's also been very very busy around here. I'm actually working more than we initially wanted me to, but the money has been so helpful that I decided that it was worth it to pick up an extra day, especially with all the back to school expense. I really had no idea how much it would cost and I'm very glad that I had plenty saved up. There are a couple more things I need to get still, but we are pretty well set. 

Three will be going to the public school school, two will be doing online school and one a part time home and part time there thing. I got his books in the mail Monday and looking through them, it seems that I will need to be more hands on than I thought. It makes me a bit nervous, but it all makes me a bit nervous.  

The three public schoolers start on Monday and the others a couple of weeks from now.I honestly don't know what is going to happen with school. I don't know if it will be successful, or a huge mistake, but here we go. 

God is Love

I was at the school today finalizing registration for the three that are going to be attending in a couple of weeks. To my great relief, it went really well and the principal and nurse remembered us from the Kindergarten round up last winter and were really nice.



Another parent was wearing a T shirt similar to this one I found on the web:

It reminded me of this:

Quite a message.

Good news.

Sunshine

(Warning: some language at the very end- not in the main video itself).

Finite Atticus's deconversion series is also very interesting. Completely NSFW or children, but check it out, too.

Lying

Why is it that lying just comes so naturally to little ones? Before, I saw it as clear and concrete evidence of the totally depravity that I believed was inherent in the human race. But if that is the case, why are most little kids so loving and compassionate when it comes to other things like animals, friends, siblings, parents.


Case in point: my five year old spent a couple of nights with her grandmother and her cousin who is two years her junior. The reason for this sleepover was that my sister was in the hospital having a baby. My mom told me how my daughter acted as a big sister to her cousin, helped her to the bathroom at night, and comforted her when she got homesick. It must have been very cute.

However, she's taking to lying lately.


We've had two occasions of it in the last month and both times the lying seemed to serve as a self-preservation mechanism. A broken doll and a broken razor were found, I knew darn well she was the offender and she denied it completely.


After telling her I knew she did it and asking her why she lied about it, she said she lied because she was scared. I sat her down and explained that lying was way worse than breaking something in terms of getting in trouble. I told her that she's allowed to make mistakes, but not allowed to lie and that big girls take responsibility for their actions. After the second talk I told her I expected this from now on.


Her big sister also told her that things can be replaced, but if you lie all the time no one will believe anything you say.




We'll see how it goes next time.

A Lunch Conversation

"You should never break the portal when you're in the Nether. That's a horrible, horrible idea."

(Sage Minecraftian wisdom passed down from the elder child to her young brother.)

Circle

Last summer I was conversing with my sister one glorious afternoon as our little girls played nearby.


At that time it was almost impossible to talk about any of this to anyone without coming unglued, but I know my sister is totally non judgmental and I needed to tell someone.



I had still not come right out and said I don't believe it to anyone, but I came as close as I had thus far that day.



My sister believes in God or the idea of a higher power, but certainly not the narrowness of Bible God. She never tried to convert anyone either, something I always did. Because of course, I knew the TRUTH.



She would often say in these attempts of mine that no one knows what happens after you die.

Well of course we do, it's in the Bible.

She would humbly suggest that maybe God wasn't angry at the gays.

Again, Bible, duh. 




So that afternoon when I suggested that what could be known of God and what was in the Bible was just circular logic, the look on her face was pretty much, finally.



She had never been one to have her mind bound by anyone or anything, so she couldn't understand the way I could believe without question the Bible's (and Christianity's) corner on the truth. And I could never understand why she would want to risk eternal peace and happiness by not converting to the One True Faith.


And that day I broke out of that circle out loud.

A Life's Work

I was going through the closet where I keep my home-school materials today while getting a bunch of them ready to ship. I also found a pile of Bible study materials that I once cherished and now just don't know what to do with.



It's a huge pile, too- like a good 4 inches thick. I thought about throwing them out, since the presence of them brings back the guilt and shame of just ducking out of things like I did regarding our old fellowship. But on the other hand, I once so admired this man's teachings and true love for what was true. He is someone that I very much felt a strange bond with even though we had never really spoken. I guess it was because  I had a bit of a "theological crush" on him (or more specifically the teachings). He was very dispensational and I think a bit of a closet Calvinist.


So for now there they sit. A huge pile of this man's life's work in searching out the mind of God.