one of many reasons why we homeschool

Watch THIS.

unauthorized use of government property

The girls got their hands on my stash of free Priority Mail boxes which I use for eBay sales.

contemporvant

I laughed until I had tears in my eyes...but honestly, it's so sad because it's so true. We're NOT going to look for THIS church when we move.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

please Lord, give me some ambition...

59 days and counting to our move from the Brown Desert to Urban Sprawl and Eastern Green.

I have closets to clean, drawers to empty, toys to sort through, and...NO AMBITION. I wonder, honestly, if I'm just a bit depressed about the whole thing. It's normal, I suppose. Please friends, would you pray that I would have some ambition!? (I'm NOT being facetious...).

I've all but put school on hold for now. Ingy is reading like a champ, and I'm confident that she'll hit 1st grade with a great leg-up, whether it be in a formal school setting, or continuing to home school. My sole Kinder goal was to have her reading reasonably well. Math, writing, formal crafts all happened along the way, but they weren't part of the end-goal. So I'm encouraged to have met that one milestone.

great, but guarded news, about Baby Solomon

My friends Vince and Kirsten have encouraging news to report... Kirsten says it so much better than I could, but to summarize, Solomon's latest EEG shows amazing improvement over last week's post-seizure EEG! All praise to the Lord who heals!!

friday fringe recap - Northwest Passage

I kind of felt at home watching this episode -- being from Washington State, and all. I grinned at Mr. BikeMan when I saw "Snoqualmie, Washington" on the GPS readout in Peter's rental car. Been there a million times. So did anyone else feel the Twin Peaks vibe? Pie and coffee in a small-Cascade-range town coffee shop, out-of-town FBI agent, cute waitress, body dumped by the river, tall evergreens swaying in the wind coming down from the Cascades peaks? And how about that soundtrack by Mike McCready of Pearl Jam? But what was with "Noyo County, Washington?" What in the world does THAT mean? Other than simply being fictitious, it must have some significance - inside joke? a hint?

I know there were lots of hints in this episode, but I was knitting and mostly listening to dialogue...I'll have to re-watch to catch Easter Eggs. I never saw The Observer last night. I bet he was at the crown in the diner, though.

Favorite (Walter) quotes (aren't the best ones always uttered by Walter?):

"Potassium bromate! This supermarket is trying to kill us!" - Walter, reading the label for toaster pastries (He must've just watched Food, Inc... LOL)

Walter: "What am I going to do? Call you every time I run out of pudding pops? ... I need to learn to care for myself. If Peter doesn't come back, they'll send me back to the hospital."
Olivia: "I won't let that happen."
Walter: "Thank you ... and I do need pudding pops."

swagger wagon

10 reasons to quit facebook

If you've been following me for a while, you know how much I truly despise Facebook. A while back, I heard the perfect description of Facebook as "drive-by-friendship"... you wave at your friend as you drive by, but no real relationship is maintained.

So I did IT today. I deleted my account. "Wait," you say, "you can't delete, you can only deactivate." Well, that's just not true...! "They" just don't want you to know how. It's very easy, and while it does take 20 days to take effect, I believe I have successfully done it.

Here is an excellent editorial/education on the assault on privacy that is Facebook.

If you aren't interested in knowing the why, and just want to know HOW TO DELETE, here's link.

how to write a truly awful worship song...link

This is a spot-on blog post by Mark Altrogge about the dubious talent of writing a bad worship song. (I'm Stephanie J. in the comments, by the way.)

I get frustrated by church worship music with a melody that is impossible for the congregation to sing, therefore rendering the worship song as PERFORMANCE by a WORSHIP BAND on the stage. That is not congregational singing. That is a concert.

There are many poorly written hymns as well -- with registers so high that only a coloratura soprano at The Met could sing. But generally speaking, the reason hymns are so easy for a congregation to sing, is because the melodies are EASY to sing. There are many modern hymns being written as well. Check out gettymusic.com.

countdown to the big move

It's almost here again - the dreaded/wished-for 3 year mark. Military families will understand this sentiment - I start to feel itchy around 2 1/2 years after we've been somewhere. I'm a little nervous - it's a general sense of apprehension more than anything else.

This move is Eastward (let's keep it general...); for the first time, we have not been posted west of the Mississippi. We'll be almost as far from our families as one can be in the continental US, and our parents are aging. This move means a 5 hour (minimum) airplane ride back home to Seattle.

This move is causing a keen sense of loss to our girls. Last time we moved, they were clueless -- it was just a big adventure and meant new toys for the car ride (though they did feel sad about leaving their friends).

This move, Ingy Badingy will be starting first grade in the fall (we are considering public school this time rather than homeschooling - another source of apprehension for me).

This move, we own a home -- and we have to rent it out.

This move, we are renting a U-Haul for our nicest furniture -- we don't want to see a repeat of our last military move. The movers treated our (nice) stuff like garbage.

This move will mean separate vehicles for Mr. and Me. He will take charge of the U-Haul, while pulling one car, and I will drive the wagon with the girls -- with a movie player and large library of DVDs ready -- for my sanity's sake.

It gets harder every time, although I will not miss the heat, dust and desert creepy crawlers.

So, as of today, it's 63 days and counting. Off to clean another closet.