Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Cooked/Cooking

Posted on May 19, 2007 by Barbara Harper

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This is Jim, Master Griller. 🙂 You can see part of Suzie, the dog, to the left waiting for her portion.

Jeremy and Jason several years ago helping to make Christmas cookies:

And Jesse, making a “rainbow cake” for a contest. Our church has “family camp” on Wednesday nights during the summer, with a fellowship afterward with different types of foods each week. On certain nights, like cake or pie nights, there is a contest for different age levels, and this was Jesse’s entry for the kids’ division. If I remember, you just make a regular yellow cake mix, then divide it into 3 parts and put different food coloring into each bowl; then pour each bowl into a bundt pan, and as it rises and bakes it looks like a rainbow. I am not sure why Jesse’s expression is such as it is. Maybe he is protecting his creation from predators before the contest. 🙂

And with my hands in the middle picture and me in the background in the picture above, there you have the whole family cooking.

That’s one way to learn….

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Barbara Harper

A couple of days ago my usually-sunny Jesse looked a little perturbed when he got into the car after school. A substitute teacher had assigned the class to write a story using their vocabulary words, due the next day. I don’t know if his consternation was due more to the “that’s not the way our teacher always does it” syndrome or to the fact that he had so short of a notice, or what. We got home and he chilled out in his usual after-school fashion by getting a snack and watching cartoons for a little while, then playing video games.

He usually does homework after dinner, but for some reason we both got distracted and forgot about it until 9:00 — an hour before his bedtime. He rummaged around his backpack for his vocabulary book before shamefacedly telling me he had left it at school.

I was not pleased, to say the least, and my expression surely showed it, because he apologized immediately.

Now — we only live about 3-7 minutes away from the school, depending on traffic and red lights. And I have a key to the building he would need to get into to get his book. The last thing I wanted to do at 9:00 p.m. was go out in the dark with a thirteen year old to unlock a building a retrieve a book. Something I wrestle with often as a parent is when to let a child take the consequences of his actions and when to jump in and help. I didn’t say anything for a few minutes as I mulled this over.

Then Jesse came up with the idea of calling a girl in his class whom he knew to be “responsible” and asking her for the words and definitions. So she graciously read every vocabulary word and its definition over the phone while he wrote them out longhand.

He then came back to his backpack to get out the paper to start writing his story and found — his vocabulary book!

We all had a good laugh about it and teased him that at least that was a good way to study his vocabulary. Hopefully this will also spur him to check to make sure he has all the books he needs before he comes home. I was especially glad I hadn’t taken him to school at night to get the book that was safely home! And I learned yet again to give them a few minutes to work out a solution before providing one.

Beware of pop rocks

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Barbara Harper

This afternoon a friend forwarded an e-mail to me warning about drugs that look like strawberry “pop rocks.” I am usually skeptical of those kinds of e-mail warnings and checked, as always, Snopes.com — and was surprised to find that it is true. You can read the whole entry at snopes here. It comes not only in strawberry, but also in chocolate, peanut butter, cola, cherry, and orange versions.

Children should know not to accept candy from strangers anyway, but it would be good not to accept anything that looks like pop rocks even from friends for now.

(Clarification: This isn’t talking about the Pop Rocks candy you buy at the store — just the kind that someone else might offer you.)

Which Jane Austen heroine are you?

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Take the Quiz here!

:: E L I N O R ::

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Booking Through Thursday: Bookless

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Barbara Harper

The question for today from the Booking Through Thursday site is:

It happens even to the best readers from time to time… you close the cover on the book you’re reading and discover, to your horror, that there’s nothing else to read. Either there’s nothing in the house, or nothing you’re in the mood for. Just, nothing that “clicks.” What do you do?? How do you get the reading wheels turning again?

I honestly can’t imagine that ever happening. 🙂 I have a stack of books waiting to be read, a few more on the shelves for “some day,” and several magazines piled up. I also have a list of books to check out compiled from other people’s reading lists that I have seen on the Spring Reading Challenge or on people’s sidebars.

I always have to-be-read non-fiction, which takes me longer to slog through, and there have been times I have no new fiction in the house (I’m usually into a couple of books at the same time, one of them always fiction). Then I might go to the Christian bookstore and just look around and see what looks interesting. I also have some I want to reread, like Jan Karon’s Mitford series, so that’s another possibility.

And…sometimes I just need to give reading a break and do something else. But those breaks don’t usually last long. 🙂

I forgot about the last couple of Booking Through Thursdays — I actually read the questions and planned to think about it and answer later — and then forgot. 😳 They had to do with whether we read in public or not and why, and where would we not read. Sure, I read in public — why not? 🙂 It helps pass the time, especially in places like doctor’s offices, airports and airplanes, etc. Sometimes I’ll read if I am eating by myself in public because I feel awkward sitting there alone — but sometimes it would feel more awkward to open a book in a restaurant. But I usually try to avoid eating out alone.

Choosing not to read in public has more to do with appropriateness or rudeness rather than location: I wouldn’t read a book in church (except the Bible passage while the preacher is reading it. 🙂 ) or at a play or concert or speech where I am supposed to be there to listen to what’s going on. And even in airplanes and doctor’s offices, sometimes it is rude to keep my nose in a book and ignore someone next to em who is trying to strike up a conversation.

Thursday Thirteen: Favorite Puns

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Barbara Harper

1. When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.

2. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but she broke it off.

3. Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.

4. Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.

5. Sea captains don’t like crew cuts.

6. He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.

7. Once you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.

8. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.

9. You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

10. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

11. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

12. A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.

13. When you dream in color, it’s a pigment of your imagination.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Wordless Wednesday: Rose Bouquet

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Barbara Harper

See more WW entries at the Wordless Wednesday HQ and 5 Minutes for Mom.

Works-For-Me Wednesday: Preparing for Errands

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Barbara Harper

This really should go without saying, but it is something I still forget to do, and it causes such frustration!

When you know you have errands to run the next day, prepare for them the night before, or at least some point before you’re getting ready to leave.

I do usually do this now, after years of not doing so and running into so many problems either getting out the door late and frustrated or forgetting what I needed til I was actually on the road. But I still forget sometimes. Recently I wanted to get a curtain rod, but didn’t have the measurements I needed before I got ready to go, so I was delayed getting out by having to stop and take the measurements and write them down. I was heading out one day to Michael’s and almost forgot the 40% off coupon they have in most Sunday papers. Argh!! Just a few minutes of thinking through what’s on the agenda and what’s needed to accomplish it and then getting everything as ready to go as possible and putting it in or near my purse ahead of time makes the errand itself so much more pleasant and peaceful.

As always, you can find a wealth of tips on Wednesdays at Rocks In My Dryer.

Afraid? Of What?

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I’m not sure why, but it has been on my heart for weeks to post a poem about not being afraid of death. I hope that’s not an indication that I or anyone I know is going to die soon! 🙂 I have to admit I have struggled with this, even in the years since becoming a Christian and being assured of where I would go. The way I heard it explained one time was that when it comes to die, God will give us the grace to do so. We don’t have the grace to do so now because it isn’t time yet. So I trust that when it is time, the grace for it will be there. Plus the biggest reluctance about death would be leaving family, not seeing kids grow up and grandkids. I know if anything happened to me the Lord would take care of them — it’s just that I want to be here to be a part of their lives. I think probably every parent feels that way.

This morning this poem and this post came to mind again, and then in my Daily Light devotional book, the morning reading for today was all about death and heaven.

Hmmm!

So, here is the poem I mentioned. It really ministered to my heart. According to one source, it was written by a missionary named E.H. Hamilton after he heard that his friend and colleague, Jack Vinson, had been martyred and had fearlessly told his captors that if they killed him, he would go straight to God.

Afraid? Of what?
To feel the spirit’s glad release?
To pass from pain to perfect peace,
The strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
Afraid to see the Saviour’s face,
To hear His welcome, and to trace,
The glory gleam from wounds of grace,
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
A flash – a crash – a pierced heart;
Brief darkness – Light – O Heaven’s art!
A wound of His a counterpart!
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To enter into Heaven’s rest,
And yet to serve the Master blessed?
From service good to service best?
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To do by death what life could not –
Baptize with blood a stony plot,
Till souls shall blossom from the spot?
Afraid? Of that?

“If you knew what God knows about death,” wrote George MacDonald, “you would clap your listless hands.”

Let me stress, though, that only those who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord can have that assurance and confidence. If you have not yet done so, would you do so today? You can read more about it here.

A little peek

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Last night our ladies’ group worked on some decorations that will be incorporated into centerpieces at our ladies’ luncheon in June. The theme is “The Heart of the Matter,” taken from I Peter 3:3-4: “Whose adorning…let it be the hidden man of the heart.” Our colors are pink and chocolate brown.