82 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-11-16”

  3. Grape hyacinth!
    Grape morning to you, too!

    Looks like it’s going to be March in April again here today.

    This morning Art slipped on the bottom stair (of our split level) and his ankle is not feeling too good. I have an old cane from my parents that I gave him to use just in case. It could have been so much worse if he had slipped on the top.

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  4. Good morning, Annms, and Linda.

    I’m glad Lindsey is better. She has been through quite a lot!

    I don’t know the answer to the baseball question, Linda. Is it a trick question or sincere? I think a lot of people have strong emotions about the Atlanta Braves changing from their downtown location to the affluent Cobb County area. When I worked downtown, we could get tickets and walk over to the stadium from our office. I imagine it will be difficult for some people to attend now. But money has its advantages.

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  6. Michelle, I left info for you at the end of both the Daily and the Prayer threads yesterday.

    You can get lodging at Covenant College on top of Lookout Mt. at their “cottages” which are not luxurious, but are reasonably priced and fun in a quaint kind of way. The Chapel and the Great Hall are nice to visit.

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  7. Morning all.
    A disgruntled sort of day. As I was leaving this morning I put on my light jacket and looked down an the sleeve of my newest blouse had been burned. As I looked at it my haus meri said the iron was too hot and I wasn’t here to tell so she said sori. Just little things, no big deal, but a bit disconcerting still. Store still closed. Time for some sleep.

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  8. Good Morning….it is still dark here, had a tad bit of rain overnight…none of the 3 inches of snow they predicted! Lovely grape hyacinths…my favorite…and unfortunately they are a favorite of the deer around here as well….they ate all of the ones I planted on the hill down by the road!

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  11. 😦 Nobody stole my weed whacker.
    Just kidding. But I have been hauling it around in the back of my truck since Thursday
    The SS lesson yesterday was Ananias and Sapphire. Subject was “Integrity”. I used the trimmer as an illustration.
    My trimmer looks the same, starts the same. When you start it, it runs the same and you think you can use it.
    But it won’t cut anything. I can stop it with my foot. It lost it’s integrity. Everything looks fine, but it really doesn’t work..
    The guy at the shop says it’s the clutch. It will cost $40 to fix. It is 15 years old.
    I bought a new one for $103 Saturday.

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  12. Isn’t there a way to fix something scorched with vinegar?
    Why is it we always want what we can’t have? It is too hot here for hyacinths to grow.
    Yesterday was a beautiful day. I slathered up in sunscreen and sat outside. Oh, I worked in the flower beds a little too. Eventually I decided I had enough sun so changed into loose white linen pants and some sort of special long sleeve shirt Mr. P had gotten me what blocks the sun, yet keeps you cool. I napped in my adirondack chair for a little while. It was wonderful, listening to the birds, never really falling asleep, just dozing.

    I awoke to a long list of things to do today. Best get to it.

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  13. I see that yesterday Michelle told you her travel plans. I have been tagging her on FB with all the “best ____________ restaurants in Alabama”. Several are near me.
    Peter, she won’t be here for lunch so Sugar Kettle is out. If she gets tomato pie I will have to make it myself. 🙂
    Michelle, it would be a waste of a good appetite to come to the South and eat at Cracker Barrel! If you want the full southern breakfast I can send you back to the Sugar Kettle or to the Waffle House, or Mr. P can make sausage gravy and biscuits for you. I know he is from Maryland, but his mama was from Alabama.

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  14. Oh, Michelle. If you want a good meal at reasonable prices, Kim’s Sugar Kettle idea is the way to go.

    Linda’s QoD: She must mean the Orioles, since that’s her team, and she likes to rub it in to AJ.

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  16. I have already given my two cents, Michelle, but another place occurs to me. If you have never seen the Opryland Hotel, it is worth seeing. There is a river that runs through it, shops, restaurants and beautiful murals in the upper floor. You can wander through the atrium area enjoying the beautiful foliage. They used to have a light show, but I am not sure if they have that any more. They will charge for parking outside, otherwise you are free to wander.

    I have not been there for several years. The last time we were there, there were four proms being held in the hotel.

    I am sure your Murfreesboro friend is well aware of what is close to where you will be. You can really walk to so much, if you are on Broadway. The Music City Hall of Fame is only a few blocks away and can be entered without really going into the museum.

    I also have been in the Parthenon. The statue gave me the heebie-jeebies. It gave me a clearer understanding of how these must have influenced who communities. 😦

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  19. Good morning. Glad Lindsey’s able to go back to school, Ann.

    How ’bout them Orioles? 🙂 Don’t know much about MLB, but I’m looking forward to the winged variety of orioles to show up in my back yard in a few weeks anyway.

    I saw my first Bernie sticker on the car parked next to mine when I came out of the polling place after voting in my state’s primary. 18-year-old, who was with me and voting for the first time, remarked, “We know who that guy voted for!”

    Eight-year-old, after her sister and I arrived home after voting, asked in all excitement, “Is there a new president now?!”

    Oh, don’t we wish. 😉

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  20. Yep, the Opryland Hotel is well worth seeing. I have only seen it once or twice, though, and never at Christmas when they do the light displays. In fact, I haven’t seen it since they rebuilt it after it got destroyed by the May floods a few years ago. I tried and tried to get my husband to go with me, and so did his sister (who stayed there for a conference), but for some reason he and I never did go look at it. (And I even knew the locals’ secret of where to park where you didn’t have to pay for parking, though they might have closed up that loophole with the rebuilding.)

    My husband wanted to go inside the Parthenon because he thought the statue sounded cool. I told him not till after we were married (there’s also a lot of naked statuary around, and I thought that would be pretty embarrassing before we were married), but that I’d seen it once and didn’t need to see it again, that to me it was just sad to see a huge idol. The outside is better, and it’s free to see the outside.

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  21. Wow. The West Coast really doesn’t want you to leave if they get you there. I am checking flights for our trip to JH Ranch (please remember to pray for us when we go or as we are preparing). I can get us into San Francisco by noon or I can get us into Sacramento late afternoon. I can’t leave either one until Midnight on the 10th or 11th. One way I can spend the wee hours of the morning in Chicago, the other in Dallas arriving New Orleans or Pensacola at 8 am. I have navigated Dallas a few times. I have never been through Chicago.

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  22. Yesterday, just before the worship service started, 18-year-old daughter was sitting next to me and whispered, “Today is five years since I was confirmed.”

    We had a brief but nice time reminiscing about our confirmations, as well as our confirmation passages. Hers was “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

    Mine was Psalm 37:5 — “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”

    I’m meditating on that verse today, as I have often over the years. Today is 40 years since my confirmation day. April 11, 1976. Hard to believe that much time has gone by since then — I remember the day well, as a thirteen-year-old eighth grader.

    God has been so faithful and merciful to me. I don’t deserve His good gifts.

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  23. Question for homeschooling moms (and/or dads): Do you have any problem with your kids reading stories in which the main characters attend school (presumably public school though it is never stated either way)?

    I ask because a few years ago I wrote two books, the beginning of a series, about a ten-year-old girl (with two younger siblings), and I had no success in getting the books published. (The market for children’s books is extremely flat.) Everyone who reviewed it said that books for children have to have a twelve-year-old, not a ten-year-old, because the publishing world insists on that because of how reading ages are divided. (Well, Ramona was the age she was, and so was Laura in Little House, and so forth. Only twelve and up is a new rule, and obviously one that children themselves don’t listen to.) I finally caved to pressure and decided I could make her twelve if people insisted.

    But I’ve decided that with the slim chances of ever getting it published, I’m more inclined just to self-publish (and go ahead and keep her ten in the first book). Problem is, my own sister would not let her children read the books a few years ago, because as squeaky clean as I’ve kept them, the children attend school and that is such a bad thing that the books are trash. I know she is “extreme” both in her views and in how tightly she regulates her children’s reading. (She banned one or more of the children’s books published by one of our brothers, as well.) And the reality is, I just can’t write these books from a home-schooling perspective, nor do I want to. Friction with the child’s peers is part of the storyline. And I haven’t homeschooled children, and can’t realistically write such a story. But will that “doom” the books for a large percentage of homeschooling parents? Is it worth even trying to sel-publish?

    Never mind, I just remembered–the issue for my sister wasn’t that the kids attend school, it’s that their mother works part-time in the school library. I even had the mom explain in the second book that no, she doesn’t want to go and work for the bigger library since she is choosing a job that is close to her kids and where she is off work the same days they’re off school . . . but just the fact that she works outside the home for pay (part-time, during the school day, the same place her kids are–deliberately as child-friendly a job as I could possibly give her, as a good example for readers) makes the story one that needs to be censored. Would it be a tiny percentage of homeschooling moms who would be that sensitive (I don’t mean that word pejoratively), or did I write books that no homeschooling parent will allow in their house? (The same brother who had some of his books banned from my sister’s house also wrote one series in which his children start the series going to school, but their mom realizes her mistake in about book three, and after that they’re homeschooled, so his would be OK.)

    I haven’t even touched the manuscripts in years–I pretty much had them ready to publish, but I think I want to undo her change to age twelve–but if anyone wants to see one or both of them, e-mail me. The kids who did read the books loved them, but those kids knew me . . .

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  26. (Some of my children have read the Harry Potter books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and the Ring trilogy, that series about Katniss, Little House on the Prairie, G A Henty books, John Grisham, war books, October Sky, etc….sssshhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!)

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  27. You all are seeing your first Bernie stickers? They’ve been prevalent around here for going on a year, i think.

    Bernie, Bernie Bernie.

    Bumper stickers everywhere.

    Two neighbors have had his lawn signs for a couple months now. I even saw a big Bernie billboard off the freeway the other day.

    The younger reporters I work with all love him (though they’re appropriately quiet about talking politics in the newsroom).

    And a couple of the young teens at a baby shower I attended a couple months (they were on the Muslim side of that family) wore “Feel the Bern” T-shirts.

    Bernie, Bernie Bernie.

    He’s hot.

    I was behind a big pickup truck with a Rubio sticker the other day, the only one of those I’ve ever seen.

    I smiled. Wistfully. Sigh. Oh well.

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  28. Thanks, Mumsee. Most of today’s children’s books intentionally have one PG scene; I’m guessing that they think kids enjoy having an “edgy” scene and moms will forgive it if it is just one. But I was so careful to include nothing that would offend parents or corrupt children, and to have my choice to have the mom work half-days at her children’s school be the element that pushed it into the R category rather floored me. I mean, in the real world most moms of school-age children work full-time, and I was so careful to have my mom be a good role model of a family-first mom (even if she didn’t homeschool) that it never occurred to me that choice might cause problems.

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  30. The only Hillary sticker I’ve seen recently was on a car driving by a “Baby Boomer” woman — who looked very well to do and officious, talking on a cell phone as she drove her new-styled VW Beetle along the Hollywood Freeway.

    I’ve seen only 1 Trump sticker, although a couple of the rough-around-the-edges guys at the dog park are fans of his and even have the red trump “hats.”

    Janice, hope you feel better and Art’s ankle heels. Worst sprained ankle I ever had was from around 10 years ago. I was running late and heading out for work, loaded down with a work bag and other items — along with the dogs whom I had to drop at the groomer’s before going to work that day.

    And I was wearing clogs.

    Talk about a set up for disaster.

    The dogs were so excited that they bounded over onto the front lawn and then headed straight for the concrete steps leading down to the sidewalk, pulling-pulling-pulling on their leashes as I held on and tried to keep up.

    Stupidly, I decided to take a short hop over the edge between the lawn (I had a lawn back then, amazing) onto the steps.

    Mid-air, I thought “Well this was stupid, I will never land on my feet.”

    I was half right. I landed on one foot. Which promptly twisted and crumpled, sending me tumbling down behind and on top of it, landing in a heap.

    Ouch.

    So there I sat, battered and bruised, on my front steps, in so much pain I felt like I was going to get sick, the dogs just staring at me wondering when we were going to get going again. Come on, come on, come on, already, they pleaded with their eyes.

    The rest is a blur, but I recall going in to ER and my neighbor, the nurse, coming over to help wrap it for me later. I didn’t do well on crutches, but at least nothing was broken.

    Now they give people those cute little knee scooters.

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  32. Cheryl, as a former homeschooling parent (my children are grown now) I wouldn’t have any problem with the books you described. There are some people out there who shelter their children from anything that doesn’t meet their ideals, but I think they’re in the minority. My guess is that anything you would write would be welcome in most homeschoolers’ homes.

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  33. I was as surprised as Donna by the “first Bernie sticker” comments. Ann Arbor is a university town and a liberal one (maybe that’s redundant). Bernie stickers are everywhere, far more than any other candidate’s.

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  34. We had a couple over the other day and fourteen year old daughter was asked what she was reading. It happened to be one of the Wrinkle in Time series. The woman told daughter how horrible it was for her to be reading imaginary stuff like that. And nothing could be worse for her than the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings and it was all not good but she should read Francine Rivers and the like. I pointed out that I was very opposed to romance novels and could never encourage my child to read them as it gives a false expectation and attempts to stir up love before its time. I don’t think she agreed as she is an avid romance reader.

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  36. Cheryl, a few years ago Eldest Niece made a little humorous video clip about excuses for not doing homework. She showed such sophistication in her portrayal that I asked how she, who has been homeschooled her entire life, got the idea. She looked at me like I had three heads and said, “I read books.” She, like Mumsee’s children, has read Harry Potter, the Hunger Games series, The Lord of the Rings (her father actually read that to her when she was about five, and she loved it), Narnia, etc. We as homeschooled children read all the time about children attending school. Oddly enough, it never made us want to attend school.

    The publishers’ rule about only twelve year old children is strange. Eldest Niece loves to read a mystery series by Alan Bradley about an eleven year old sleuth called Flavia de Luce (it is more mature than I would recommend for just any eleven year old, but a girl who reads the Hunger Games with discernment can handle it). The series has been quite successful, enough that there are now eight books or so in the series and more to come.

    By the way, my mother worked part time in a public library branch for a few years while she homeschooled us. We used to take our school work and sit in a backroom while she worked and we got out and read many books. I always attribute those days as the reason why a library feels like a sanctuary to me.

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  37. I am an avid romance reader because I like happy things. I also read biographies and mysteries. I pretty much will read anything. I even have Grace Livingston Hill books and when I am feeling a little sentimental and long for the past I will read her books. In every one of them someone gets saved, they fall in love, and live happily ever after.

    http://www.gracelivingstonhill.com/

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  38. I like romance as part of the story. A detective story that also has a romantic element, for example. But romance novels that are just that are sappy, unrealistic, and set women up for false expectations. I’ve heard them called “female porn.” They don’t add anything to a girl’s knowledge or life experience, either. A novel set in the days of the Holocaust (well researched to be accurate) can add to her understanding of history and her concern for other people. But a sappy romance novel is at best a waste of time; at worst, it’s actively detrimental to her well being, and that of her family.

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  39. I liked Grace Livingston Hill books, many years ago.

    Currently reading Ted Dekker’s “The Slumber of Christianity”, Qureshi’s “Answering Jihad”, Katz’s “The Art of Fermentation”, MacArthur’s “Twelve Ordinary Men”, and Sax’s “Girls on the Edge”. I get about three words per day. It may take me a while. Lest you think bad things, Sax’s book is similar to “Boys Adrift” in that it discusses some of the many things helping girls to make the wrong decisions as they grow up. The boys book looks at the problems of certain video games, drug use, educational problems, and prescription drugs as they contribute to boys growing up with no ambition. (We have had one of those).

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  40. Kim, I would agree with Cheryl for the most part, as I enjoy romance best when it is found, say, in a Dickens novel, but isn’t the main focus of the book – Charlotte and Anne Bronte’s and Jane Austen’s work are exceptions, due to the context and comment upon the romance. Nevertheless, occasionally I will read a sweet romance story just for relaxation. My mother and I both like the occasional Georgette Heyer – as long as the hero isn’t too much of a rake – (I recently read her Heyer’s Cotillion) but we both agree that too many of such books is like eating too much candy. There are a whole host of old books that are now in the public domain and many of those written around the turn of last century are just that kind of sweet romance. I was able to dig up one of them which my mother remembered discovering in an old cottage she was staying in as a teenager, called The Rose Garden Husband. She really enjoyed hearing an old and long lost acquaintance being read to her. If you have an ereader, you can download it and other such books in EPUB format (Heyer, sadly, is not yet in the public domain) at Gutenberg.org.

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  41. Thanks, all. Roscuro, I understand (but don’t agree with) the idea that characters should be 12 and up. The theory goes that children only read about characters their age or older, not younger. (That obviously isn’t necessarily true, but it may be largely true.) And of course books need to be published in understandable categories so that bookstores and libraries know where to shelve it. So, books written for 8-12 year olds (I think that’s the age classification, something like that) need to have main characters who are between 12 and 14, not younger. In theory, I understand it. In practice, I think it’s way too formulaic. Add the fact that virtually every book has one boy and two girls (or vice versa) in order to gain both male and female readers, in spite of the fact that in real life it’s not that common for groups of three kids, mixed genders, to form friendship trios, and it’s just too artificial.

    Girls are more likely to read books with boy main characters than vice versa. Amazingly, while there are many books about girls and horses and many about boys and dogs, there are very few books about girls and dogs. (And most famously most dog books end up having the dog die.) So I’m writing about a ten-year-old girl and her dog, breaking all kinds of rules, but not having a stereotypical book.

    It seems to me that even if you think that all children should be homeschooled, or no child should ever have a sleep-over, or that mothers shouldn’t work outside the home, or whatever, life reality is a mix of perspectives, and it doesn’t hurt for children to see them (within reason–you wouldn’t want your young daughter reading a first-person narrative about a prostitute). I do find it interesting that one very common element of everyday life pretty much never makes it onto the pages of books: the television set.

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  42. Then there’s the Bible ….

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHALLENGED_BOOKS

    ____________________________

    NEW YORK (AP) — On the latest list of books most objected to at public schools and libraries, one title has been targeted nationwide, at times for the sex and violence it contains, but mostly for the legal issues it raises.

    The Bible.

    “You have people who feel that if a school library buys a copy of the Bible, it’s a violation of church and state,” says James LaRue, who directs the Office for Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association, which released its annual 10 top snapshot of “challenged” books on Monday, part of the association’s “State of Libraries Report” for 2016.

    …. LaRue emphasized that the library association does not oppose having Bibles in public schools. Guidelines for the Office for Intellectual Freedom note that the Bible “does not violate the separation of church and state as long as the library does not endorse or promote the views included in the Bible.” The ALA also favors including a wide range of religious materials, from the Quran to the Bhagavad Gita to the Book of Mormon. LaRue added that the association does hear of complaints about the Quran, but fewer than for the Bible. …

    ______________________________

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  44. Oh, I love talking about reading. I think I’ve mentioned before how my father and I have switched roles, as he used to read to us when we did the dishes, and now I read to him and my mother as they do the dishes. I just finished reading to them O Henry’s only novel, Of Cabbages and Kings. My father really enjoyed it, and observed that there is a resemblance between O Henry’s male characters and Rudyard Kipling’s – I pointed out that they wrote during the same era. I read to my mother books like those I listed above on the evenings when my father isn’t around.

    In addition to that, I’m trying to keep up with Eldest Niece’s reading list, as I know she likes to discuss what she is reading, and also because I am helping to monitor her reading – when a child reads so far above their age level, sometimes they need an adults input into what to avoid. So that means that I’m reading things like Flavia de Luce and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (read two books of each last week) – I’m trying to read Harry Potter but the hold wait is very long at the library. I love being able to borrow ebooks via the internet.

    Then I’m reading for my personal information, so right now I’m reading the influential documents of Western government and economy, and am currently plowing through John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government (if you want to know what document most influenced your Declaration of Independence and Constitution, look no further – the language is almost identical in places) and Machiavelli’s The Prince, which deserves its ill reputation. I’m also continuing on my read through of the early church father, on the second volume of Irenaeus’ Against Heretics. The first volume went into detail about the Gnostic beliefs, and it was very eye opening. Here again, public domain ebooks have made so much available to those without much money.

    I’m also reading, sporadically, one of the earliest English novels by Samuel Richardson (17, Clarissa. It is in nine volumes, so it takes a while (public domain ebook again). Its interest for me lies chiefly in its picture of society at that time. I’ve already read Richardson’s Pamela, which I found interesting for the same reason, but thought the ending was highly unrealistic and improbable. It had a happy ending, and Clarissa, I know, has a tragic ending; the scenarios in both books point to tragedy. I’m constantly rereading old friends, so I don’t really include them in my current reading list, although I’ve just been revisiting some of Chesterton’s short story series.

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  45. But Roscuro and Cheryl, I so seldom eat candy. Reading a nice bit of fluff where everything ends happily is a nice diversion every once in a while. Most of Grace Livingston Hill’s writings were before and during WWII. I love historical romance because I always end up learning something about that time period.
    Since Christmas I have been plowing back through all of the Alex Delaware books by Jonathan Kellerman with occasional jaunts off in other directions.
    I am also reading When The Past Is Present by David Richo about healing the emotional wounds that sabotage our relationships. My priest used it in last Sunday’s sermon so I have had it since last Tuesday and have only finished Chapter One which prompted me to send an email to my priest telling him I wasn’t sure if I loved him or hated him….I was really having to concentrate and take notes.
    I am also supposed to be journaling 3 pages per day which is really hard for me…I have trust issues and no shredder.

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  48. Enjoy! By the way, Kim, when I was reading O Henry’s Cabbages and Kings, which is set in a fictional banana republic, he mentions a steamer coming down from Mobile, Alabama.

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  49. Cheryl, when I read the last line of your post @ 2:10, I immediately heard a line of the Oompa Loompa’s song from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: “Never, ever, let them near the television set… Or better yet, just don’t install the idiotic thing at all.” Roald Dahl certainly mentioned the television, but never in a good light. I think authors have a natural antipathy toward T.V. – not necessarily extending to films – perhaps because it is something of a rival.

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  50. Roscuro, there is also nothing book-worthy about sitting in front of a television set. What do you say? They watched a TV show and laughed a lot?

    Kim, one big danger of romances is when it makes you dissatisfied with your life as it is. You’re not married, and you could have this perfect man. Or you are married, but you could have this perfect man. If it doesn’t do that, then I think (in moderation), it’s fine. A couple of years ago, a lady from church was having a birthday, and she invited a bunch of us women to her house to celebrate, not with a party but with one of the classic love stories in movie form. (I forget which one, “Pride and Prejudice” or one of those.) And no part of me was comparing that man to my husband and finding my husband coming up short. Instead, I was feeling so amazingly blessed that I finally have my own very good man, and for most of the movie I longed for him, couldn’t wait to be back in his arms. So it reawakened gratitude, and was a good movie with a sweet group of women, and so it was good. If I were disappointed in my marriage (or single and really disappointed by being so), then even that movie might not have been an ideal choice. For women in a bad marriage, I know that romance stories can fuel discontentment–I’ve heard them say so.

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  51. Cheryl, 11:39, good questions. Here are my answers:

    Do you have any problem with your kids reading stories in which the main characters attend school (presumably public school though it is never stated either way)?

    Once upon a time (no pun intended 😉 ), yes, I would have had a problem with that. There were some legalistic influences in the broader homeschooling community that held sway with me for a while. (The link I’ll post at the bottom of this post, if I remember by the time I get there — ha! — will show you more fully some of the stuff I was believing in our early homeschooling years, if you’re interested in reading it.)

    But will that “doom” the books for a large percentage of homeschooling parents? Is it worth even trying to sel-publish?

    I don’t think books about children going to traditional school will “doom” those books, except maybe (probably) among homeschooling parents still caught up heavily in legalistic thinking, of which there seem to be fewer now these days, thankfully, than there were back, say, ten years ago. At least that seems to be the trend now among people I know, who are increasingly casting more of a wary eye toward philosophies that severely limit many types of literature for children.

    I would enjoy reading a self-published book of yours, Cheryl, and I’m sure I would not be the only one.

    Would it be a tiny percentage of homeschooling moms who would be that sensitive [about a mom working part-time outside the home for pay]…or did I write books that no homeschooling parent will allow in their house?

    I’m inclined to think that only a small percentage of homeschooling moms would find that scenario in a book objectionable. This homeschooling mom would allow such a book to be read…now. 🙂

    Anyway, here is that link I mentioned above, to one homeschool company’s page talking about how they select literature they’re willing to sell. I used to order from this company regularly, but have not now for many years. Fairly lengthy reading, and while there is merit to some things they say, there are a lot of very questionable assumptions. Too much “If you let your kids read this and this and this, the likely result will be…bad stuff,” essentially.

    http://kofcompany.com/butterandhoney/how-do-we-pick/

    Note especially #9, Cheryl, which is relevant to the part of your post where you mention your sister objects to the whole mothers-working-outside-the-home-for-pay thing. These authors have a very dim view of women working away from home, particularly when the mother is not in a position of having to work.

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  52. I would have had no problem with my son reading your books, Cheryl. I did discourage him from reading Harry Potter at the time because I had no way to know what direction they would be going. I know he has since read at least some of them. He read many books,and one thing we did was get a listing of the Newberry Award winners so he could read those. My other guide for his earlier reading was the book, Honey for a Child’s Heart. Has anyone else used that? Great book!

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  53. As for romance, I like something like what Michelle wrote, Bridging Two Hearts. I also read\listened to Redeeming Love this past year and feel it has good lessons in it, but it would be only for older teens, maybe seniors, in my opinion.

    Son liked Tolkien so much that he imitated his style of handwriting and lost the beautiful Calvert script I had taught him. I think he would have loved to have been in the Inklings group.

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  54. Michelle, Art says he had the best breakfast he’s ever had at the lodge at Desoto State Park (AL). I think we stayed overnight there early on when Wesley was at Covenant and we wanted to do something special for his birthday.

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  56. No wonder I am so unhappy. I have had to work outside of the home most of my life and I have read all the wrong books.

    In better news I have found flights that work for BG and me going to California. Many of the hotels near the New Orleans airport have this deal that if you spend the night and take an early flight they will let you leave your vehicle and have a free shuttle to the airport. We would leave NOLA at 6am and arrive in Oakland at 10:40 am. Coming home is going to be a bit more interesting as we will get back at 1am on Saturday morning but that will give us the whole weekend to rest. Plus the ranch recommends the drive time to and from the ranch for togetherness. If we don’t kill each other in that week what’s a few more hours to get home?

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  57. Janice, I think that Eldest Sibling has used that book, at least I seem to remember seeing the title.

    6 Arrows, that link gave me flashbacks. I am so glad to be free of all that burden. My mother didn’t impose such rules on us in the early years, but the infamous program that we used later on did suggest just such rules. I spent the rest of my childhood and my early teen years trying to not break those impossible rules. I loved to read Dickens, but I felt guilt racked at times for doing so. I got rid of a beautiful book of innocent animal stories because of just such suggestions. In fact, there were a lot of books we enjoyed in childhood which were gotten rid of, not by our parents, but by us because we felt obligated to by the program.

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  58. 😦 No Zane Gray western nor Mark Twain novels?

    😦 My new weed whacker is heavier than my old one and you have to keep your finger on the throttle all the time. (I didn’t on the old one, it would cut while on idle.)

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  59. Chas, Western novels have not come across my path very often. I found one in the compound library when I was in West Africa by Louis L’Amour; and there was one among the old books we’ve always had around the house featuring Hopalong Cassidy, which was clearly written many years before the film series (it was yellowed with age and cloth bound like a book from the turn of the last century). So, I read them when they cross my path, but they do not often do so.

    Mark Twain, on the other hand, has been with me from my childhood. I can remember my father reading The Prince and the Pauper, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to us; and then I read them when I got older – all except A Connecticut Yankee, which I found to be so bizarre that I gave up. I have also read his Life on the Mississippi and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, which is a very odd book. I think my father made an attempt to read us Puddinhead Wilson and the Mysterious Stranger, but they are really not for children and they confused me. I tried to read them later on, but they really are quite dark and confusing books, certainly not the best of Twain.

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  60. I am shadowing a sales rep( for the company I interviewed with last week) tomorrow. I really wish I could get excited about this but I am so afraid of doing something I won’t like and being a failure…again.
    Yesterday it hit me that perhaps I should go to a trade school and learn to do something completely different than what I have always done.

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  61. My daughter lived near the Parthenon and we walked to the park with our grandson in a stroller. It would have been a nice walk, if it didn’t end up to be so hot. We were most grateful for the McDonalds that was close by the park. It was not the closest park or him to play in, however.

    Same daughter worked at the Opryland Hotel when she first moved to town. There are tunnels in the hotel for the help, who are not to be seen. She did not work there long, since there were far better jobs to be found.

    I like a variety of books and agree with Kim. A little candy now and then does no harm. Francine Rivers has some other types of books also. However, no believer should limit themselves to ‘Christian’ books, IMO. Same for ‘Christian’ music.

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  63. The point of my comment was, don’t come into my home and tell my daughter what I have approved for her reading is trash. And certainly don’t tell her to read things that would be highly detrimental to her. Romances are fun, though some of them are quite a bit trashier than I need to fill my brain with. This particular woman, for years, has been very outspoken about all of the ways I am wrong in my child rearing, directly to my children. Her husband on the other hand, has been extremely supportive so we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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  64. Mumsee, yeah, that’s wrong. If you don’t agree with a parent, tell the parent, not the child.

    6 Arrows, that website is scary stuff. I’ve been looking at several of the reviews on their lists of bad books: http://kofcompany.com/butterandhoney/category/not-so-good-books/

    They show a lot of ignorance and a lot of carelessness. The one about Lord of the Rings was uniquely astonishing. The author, first of all, tells us that he (she?) cannot stomach reading the books. Um, can your child get away with that in writing a book review? “This book is so bad I didn’t dare read it, and I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t read it either.” He spends a lot of time telling us Tolkien wasn’t a Christian because he was a Catholic, that he was a member of the Inklings along with C. S. Lewis (who was also bad and not a Christian, and who was a Catholic even though he wasn’t), and spends a vast amount of time telling us that LOTR isn’t allegory (no, it isn’t) and that those who call it allegory are confusing good and evil. (What? Allegory is Scripture and everything else is of the devil?) It is about the worst interaction with a book I have ever seen in my life. Excellent fodder for a logic class, perhaps.

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  65. PS For anyone who thinks yes, LOTR really might be of the devil: Goodnight Moon is also on the naughty list. As is anything with talking animals (new age) or witches (it somehow never occurs to them that presenting witches as bad–as C. S. Lewis, for example, does–isn’t exactly recommending it as a career choice . . .

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  66. Most of the books I read are Christian. Since all of the television I watch with husband pretty much either neglects faith or paints it in a negative way, except for Blue Bloods which does have the family meal scene with the blessing being said, I feel like my book reading is more like my reality that the far out television fiction that puts forth the idea that people don’t even have a spiritual side.

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  67. Cheryl, the irony of people who make blanket statements like that is that they end up condemning that which is unquestionably good. After all, the Bible has a talking animal and a witch 🙂 Books, like everything else in the world, require discernment and one could have a book that met all their principles for good books and yet it could still be evil.

    Mumsee, I agree. One of the people who helped make us question the goodness of the books we read was another homeschooling mother who found evil behind everything that was fun – Christmas, fairy tales, popular toys – it was all part of some Satanic plot. My siblings afterwards commented that going to that house seemed like going to a very dark place.

    The only books I’ve read by Francine Rivers were the Mark of the Lion Series and The Atonement Child. The first two books in the series were thought provoking, although I thought they could do with a little less vivid description at points (sometimes, less is more). The third didn’t seem very authentic, and I wasn’t convinced by it. The Atonement Child was a solid read. However, none of them are appropriate reading for a fourteen year old. I found them mature reading in my twenties.

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  69. We are having a slow and gentle rain. It’s just the kind that is nice to go to sleep by. I just had some dry cheerios and applesauce for dinner.My tummy is still not doing the best, but it’s trying to be better.

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  70. Roscuro, flashbacks for me, too. I reread that list before posting the link — it had been years since I’d read those guidelines (they’d always have it in their print catalog they distributed every year) — and much of it made me cringe today, recalling how I’d bought into how Christian-sounding their philosophy seemed.

    #7 especially struck me today:

    7) Does the flavor of the story and its characters leave a child thinking that he has a right to “pursue his talents”? This is a nicer way (more deceptive) of saying that there are righteous, justifiable reasons that a young person is dissatified with his lot in life—that his life is not fair—that he really has no responsibility to have character in the situation in which he finds himself. This is the idea that young people are to look for that in which they can, for their own sake, excel, or find glory, or find enjoyment. In the world’s more oft used terms, “You only go around once in life. Get all that you can get.” Will the reader get the impression to employ diligence in all, or to employ diligence in the pursuance of glory, gain, and enjoyment?

    Where to even begin with that one? Absolutely full of assumptions, like pursuing one’s talents is a “deceptive [way] of saying that there are righteous, justifiable reasons that a young person is dissatisfied with his lot in life”? Ridiculous.

    Your parents were wise to not impose such restrictions as those found in that list.

    Cheryl, I’d read a few of their book “reviews” years ago. I haven’t read a whole lot of fiction over the years, but I had read and enjoyed the first two books in the Little House series as a child. I also read the whole series to my oldest two and did a unit study on the series when 1st and 2nd Arrows were in grade school. We loved those books, so when I read KOF’s review some years after that, it just struck me as bizarre.

    I don’t remember if I read anything of theirs about the Chronicles of Narnia, if they review that series, but their stand on most fiction in general influenced me enough that I did not read any Narnia to the kids or for myself during those years when the oldest two were still being homeschooled, even though I thought, from reading other reviews, that the series sounded good.

    The youngest four and I are now remedying that situation. 🙂

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  72. Such a peaceful late afternoon at the dog park: cool (not cold), sunny, probably 10-15 dogs, many of them huskies, romping and playing, Cowboy chasing a girl terrier in a pink harness he became quite obsessed with but couldn’t hang onto for very long …

    Just one of those restful hours outdoors.

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  73. Homeschool reading lists…my girls read everything. I remember liking the Rod and Staff readers, as they did not have all of the drama that others did. I can remember other moms banning part of the Jeanette Oke books because the main character was not repentant enough. One of my girls read all the Louis L’Amour books, along with Ben Green. Today, my eldest and youngest daughter’s are voracious readers. My middle girl reads to learn, not for pleasure. All of my grandchildren love to read. You would have thought I gave 10 and 12 year old grands a treasure when I lent them a big poetry book.

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  76. Been a long time since I nabbed that one.

    Janice, my wife used Honey for a Child’s Heart when our children were little. It’s a wonderful resource. The author, Gladys “Rusty” Hunt, was also in our church and a much-loved mentor to my wife.

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