Inspiring – Page 58 – Home's Cool!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Inspiring, Wisdom

An Odd Egg

Posted on March 21, 2011February 22, 2017 by Katharine

What a difference in these two eggs! Each appeared during this flip-flop season we call “spring”.

Spring is such a time of turmoil in our area—flower and leaf buds popping out everywhere, new birth, chickens beginning the new laying season, tornadoes—I wonder how we survive it.

Spring’s natural beauty forces us to love her. The amazing fragrances and forms of blooming things, the pearlescence of eggshells and the fragility of baby chicks, the mew of kittens, the peeping of hidden frogs, all work on us, draw us to that perennial love affair with spring.

So we roll up our sleeves, kick off our shoes, and pull our hair up into ponytails to catch the sun on our skin. We pull weeds, freshen flags, mow too soon, plant too soon—anything to be outdoors, to come inside smelling like spring. We paint lawn furniture, divide potted plants, and attend herbal festivals, filling our lives with projects to prepare us for spring.

But no-yolk and double-yolk eggs most remind me of spring. My dad had a collection of odd eggshells that appeared on the same day as tornadoes. He always said the tornado scared the hens and caused them to lay odd eggs. I think he believed that. Maybe it is true. He labeled each shell with the date of its corresponding tornado and displayed them on egg cups, for which they were far too large or far too small. He always loved curiously humorous events.

He’s been gone, now, about 12 years. So much has changed. I doubt he ever guessed I’d be telling the whole world about his eggshell collection, one day. I doubt he ever guessed what an impact he had, in the daily humor of life.

But I do not doubt he lived life, squeezed everything he could out of it, love it, with one hand held palm-upward, trusting, waiting for some blessing to fall into it, be it only an odd eggshell.

And he was not disappointed.

Inspiring, Scripture

Weekly Photo Challenge: Spring

Posted on March 21, 2011April 19, 2011 by Katharine

Look what my camera did to a perfectly sultry spring dawn!

Like a Bridegroom

Coming Forth from His Pavilion

In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion . . . It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. Psalm 19:4b-6

We are fighting a discouraging case of bronchitis here, but did have time to send a couple snaps of this glorious sunrise on this hot spring day. Enjoy!

Inspiring, Scripture, Womanhood

Sunday Scriptures – Spring

Posted on March 20, 2011March 19, 2011 by Katharine

Listen! My lover!
Look! Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle or young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice.
My lover spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.”

– Song of Songs 2:8-13

On another note: Friends, please pray for my son who is in a position of having to fly to Shanghai this Monday, via California, over Japan. Thanks.

Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Why Do People Put Their Children in Schools? Part – 3 – Can We Fix the Schools?

Posted on March 19, 2011June 6, 2014 by Katharine

From all the research that has been done, I think we might, might, might be able to make some progress solving the problems in governmental institutionalization of our children. It would take drastic change, though.

No matter what you are thinking, I meant more drastic than that.

Most classrooms have far too many children in them.

Instead, each classroom would have to reduce to only around 5 children per adult. Many homes have something like that, and national research shows it is the best way to learn. It certainly would be more natural. Some high school children might make do with 10 to 12 per adult, if they were mature .

It’s how the ancient Greeks taught.

Most classrooms have all same-age children in them.

Bizarre! Instead, each child should be allowed to receive the gift of relationships with vastly different-aged others. Most homes have that and the learning potential is expanded when the students are of differing levels of learning. Especially the older ones would learn, truly learn the subjects if they were, in this more organic approach, occasionally in positions to help teach.

We do learn most when we teach, right?

Most classrooms labor under the false assumption that touch, being sexual and subject to lawsuit, should be prohibited.

Instead, we all should acknowledge what we instinctively know, and has been proven, that hugs and pats and other touch, including light corporal punishment, are part of socializing and leaving them out is wrong. Most homes have touch. Remember, orphans who are never touched die, whereas touched children are healthier and grow taller.

To protect the child from the occasional bad teacher, and the teacher from the occasional bad parent, of course video cameras in every room and every hall would be essential. That way, any teacher or child who doesn’t care about God, could realize that Big Brother is also up there.

We have the space, really. We are closing schools every day because we’ve aborted zillions of the children who could have filled them.

We do not have enough teachers, but how quickly they would come if they learned we’d solved the discipline problems, wouldn’t they!

It would take a large staff of volunteers, but what better place to volunteer! Lots of families have become single-income these days, so one spouse must be somewhat free. Then that parent could discover the joy of watching or even helping his or her own child learn things of great value, even about volunteerism. It would be a whole lot like home schooling, and might even get the better results of homeschooling, but would happen at the school.

Or, we could just send them all home, which would be lots more cost effective.

Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Why Do People Put Their Children in Schools? Part – 2 – The Solution

Posted on March 18, 2011December 31, 2015 by Katharine

Reasons for being at home Children need to be in homes.

Arresting thought, isn’t it.

If there exists any type of divine design, then for argument’s sake, we must think that children were put into homes for a reason.

But even those who cannot swallow the idea of a God must consider why all creatures seem to have evolved to higher and higher plains while passing through a home- or family-type stage, and the higher the plain, the longer the prerequisite familial stage, with homo-sapiens needing a family for the longest time of all.

It is worth a thought.

Many who have given it a thought have withdrawn their children from the bedlam outside the home. Then—surprise!—their children begin auto-correcting their psyches, learning more, retaining more, doing more with it, and growing up to be more productive.

I am not making this up. It is heavily-researched scientific fact that no thinking person should ignore, especially if that person cares about children, about the state of his country, or about the future at all.

And before we continue, we must define a home: a set of parents who function adequately, with each other and with their children, as mom and dad. To use a broken, dysfunctional, or abusive home as a reason for schools is as fair as using a broken, dysfunctional, or abusive school as a reason for home schools.

But bad schools are not the reason to homeschool.

CHILDREN are the reason to homeschool.

If you have them, you should.

Today’s children are being destroyed in schools. They were not made to be in schools and do not thrive there. They are tormented daily, growing warped personalities we see depicted in the worst national headlines.

And they’re not allowed to pray

Putting children into a school is asking them to pass the socializing test before ever receiving any instruction, correction,or reinforcements about HOW to socialize. They encounter children even less trained than they are, with no chance of escape from this zoo.

Sink-or-swim is often a great way to drown a kid.

The typical classroom is sink-or-swim. When drowning, it is natural for the inexperienced to attempt survival by pushing down on other swimmers.

Just natural.

Empathy is the natural product of a home education. Each older child who cherishes the home’s newest infant later has patience with that same child doing wrong, cares if that sibling falls down, laughs with—not at—that little one.

Resilience is another natural product of a home education. Encouraging, even requiring social resilience, leads to practice in resilience. The old “get back on the horse” motto prevails and in time, becomes instilled. As the child matures, he develops the ability to keep going, no matter what, if only someone has taught him how.

Confidence is another natural product of a home education, and it is born of hope. A child who is dumped at the door of an antagonistic, institutionalized experience has no hope. A child who has a mommy who will keep everyone on a good social plane while they learn, just because she loves them, has hope and learns confidence.

Tomorrow, part 3 about how to fix the schools. See ya’!

Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring

Weekly Photo Challenge: Home

Posted on March 16, 2011December 7, 2014 by Katharine

My Secret Recipe for a Home

Winter’s laundry hanging by the wood heater.

Homegrown bouquets.

Porch plants sharing spaces with us in winter.

A teakettle that whistles.

A coffeepot, not a coffee maker.

antique drip through — Antique Drip-through

A few herb plants growing around the house.

A garden plot.

A rosebush or two.

roses — Scented Rose Bushes Getting Ready to Bloom

Homemade curtains and crocheted do-dads.

Quilts made by someone you know.

Lots and lots of ancient books.

Art made by someone you know.

wolf — My Teenage Daughter’s Lobo Portrait

Little places for the little people you love.

toddler chairs — The Reading Readiness Room

A well-worn broom.

Floor lamps, pillows, afghans, lace, birding books.

Oh, and lots of love, laughter, tears, and prayers.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Spring into Cleaning with – Eventualities

Posted on March 15, 2011December 2, 2017 by Katharine

Another reason we practice Spring Cleaning has little to do with clean.

Read:

The next in line for the Spring Cleaning ritual in our home is the bookcase area. We own enough books to fuel a small school, because we were once exactly that. You may wonder why I do not store some of them —

I have.

Let’s pretend, though, that yesterday’s scenario has aged five years, and the three imagined daughters are now 12, 10, and 7. You’ve been practicing inclusion of these girls for five years and now you are ready to tackle these bookcases. Your conversation might go like this:

Girls, help me get a couple of these bookcases done today, okay? Mary, get the dusting spray, the vacuum, and the paper towels. Hmm, I think we need this table cleared to stack the books on it. Can you take care of that, too, Mary? Thanks.

As we put the books on the table, we’ll stack them all in the same direction and then we can vacuum the tops of them all at once. Oh, yes, we should align the tops of them to make it easier. And keep them in order, so we won’t have to reorganize them. I think this will work.

Okay, let’s see if we can do two units in a half hour. Set the timer. Go!

Look at this old crocheted bookmark from Grandma—I want to clean and starch it. Set it aside for later. Someone make a note; we need to reinforce the spine on the “B” volume of this encyclopedia.

Thanks for collecting all our supplies, Mary. Can you attach the hose and the duster? Good.

Let’s hurry, here. It’s a big job. Susan, can you see the top shelf or do we need the step stool. Go get it, then, Leah. I want you two on the dusting job and I will vacuum the books. Try hard to keep the spray off the floor. It can be dangerously slick. And be sure you wipe the corners well and get all the spray wiped off.

Okay, start handing me books, in order, and I’ll restack them in their places. This is going well, time-wise, but I think we’ll stop in the middle of the second bookcase, so we don’t go overtime. No need to wear ourselves out with such heavy work.

No, I think we’d better stop short of that. There’s always tomorrow. Let’s call it done for now, and have some tea, okay? Then I want to show you all how to wash a delicate piece of crochet. Mary, you take care of the vacuum. That’s my girl.

Oh, how good it is to have all your help, girls! I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Can you see how, since the girls have received diligent training, they have become like extra arms and legs for the mom? Not only that, but also, they are learning good, quick, efficient work habits they can take with them into their futures.

In exchange for all the training you gave them before, you now are reaping great helpers. They, in return for their help, are receiving a gift many people lack: the ability to be diligent, reliable, trustworthy, hard-working members of their future worlds.

Wherever they go, whether into marriage or some other career, they will be ahead of their peers and rise quickly to betterment at every possibility.

It’s worth 30 minutes of my time.

How about you?