Nature Study Blog

I have been thinking of some ways to incorporate more nature study into our days. I find that schooling straight through just does not work for us. We do much better if we do a subject or two and then go outside for a bit; even if it is just for fifteen minutes. I'm not sure how I found this Nature Study Blog, I'm pretty sure that I have even seen this banner on some of the sites of my "blogfriends" but I absolutely love it and plan on getting started this weekend with the first project.

My chidren have been observing more just on their own (noticing sunflowers as we drive, spotting new birds). We went to a garden center once and met a lady that talked about finding caterpillars on milkweed. Ever since then my daughter has been looking for milkweed and caterpillars. We may just soon find one!

Do you spend a lot of time in nature? Can you identify the birds in your backyard? How about flowers?

Exalting His Word

One of my new favorite things to do is watch/listen to 3abn online. At first I really only watched Kid's Time with my kids and then I would catch a few shows if we left the computer on. One day while I was working, I heard a show entitle "Exalting His Word" with Shelly Quinn. In this show, Shelly teaches you how to take scriptures and turn them into affirmations. Yesterday's show was entitled "Glimpses of Grace That Stirred My Heart". Here is what she shared:

1. God has a brilliant plan for your life and that plan is to prosper you
Jeremiah 29:11

2. I didn't catch what she said for #2 because of (loud children background noise), but here are the scriptures.
Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:11, Romans 4:17, Jeremiah 1:12

3. God's Word is Life
Deuteronomy 32:46-47; Matthew 4:44

4. Abiding in His Word will give you the mind of Christ
I Corinthians 2:16

5. Trust in God with all your heart
Proverbs 3:5

6. God will empower you, He will cause you to be what He has called you to be
Phillipians 2:13; Hebrews 13:20-21; Phillipians 1:6

7. Everything God does is for our eternal benefit
Romans 8:28-29; II Corinthians 3:18

8. You are included in Christ if He is your Saviour
I Corinthians 1:30

9. You are who God says you are
II Corinthians 5:17, I Corinthians 15:10

10. You partake of the divine nature by partaking of His promises
II Peter 1:3-4

11. All of His promises are yours-here and now if you pursue His way.
II Corinthians 1:20

12. Obedience is the pathway to blessing
Hebrews 10:36; James 1:25

I pray that you will be blessed as much as I was by the promises in God's Word.

Update On Baby Finches

The baby finches in the backyard have hatched! We were in the kitchen enjoying some scalloped potatoes and veggie cutlets (recipes to come later ) when my daughter noticed some movedment in the bird nest. The mother had just come to feed the babies and their mouths were wide open. We will be watching closely to see how long it takes them to mature and fly away. More updates coming soon!

The Boxes Are Gone!!

Ok it finally worked!!! After a tip from Darcy I went back and tried to remove the boxes from my signature again. This little script, border:1px $bordercolor, was the culprit and when I totally deleted it the boxes went away. YAY!!! Now I'll just keep playing with different signatures until I find one that "fits" my personality. I just realized that there are pages to choose from! Who knew??? Can you tell that I'm getting a little excited about making over my blog? :-)

Stranger Than Fiction

Two months ago I ordered my daughter's next handwriting book so I would have it when she finished the other one. About a month after ordering it, I hadn't received it yet. At first I thought maybe I was just being scatter-brained and hadn't called to order it after all. So I called and sure enough the owner of the family owned store remembered that I had placed the order and remembered sending it out to me. I asked him if he had ordered it media mail and he said yes and asked me to wait another 10 days or so to see if it came.

Another two weeks passed and no book. I called back to let him know that I still had not received it and to see if it had been returned to him. He said that he had not received it and that he would send a new book out right away. I got the new book 2 days later.

I took my kids to a birthday party today and on the way home I stopped to check the mail. Guess what I found. The handwriting book. And course I not writing this story to tell you that I ordered a hanwriting book twice and got both copies. I could not believe what I saw when I opened my mail. The package had been burned! Never in my whole life have I seen anything like it. It was in a plastic bag. It was wet, and it was burned.

There was a letter enlclosed and here is what it said:

Dear Postal Customer,

On March 24, 2008 a postal contract vehicle carrying mail to the *** Processing &Distribution Center was involved in an accident which resulted in the vehicle catching fire and destryoing some mail.

Any mail that was not completely destroyed has been recovered and transported to the *** P&DC to be re-processed. Mail containing a legible address or return address will be re-processed and delivered as soon as possible.

The enclosed mail piece was addressed to you or, is being returned to you because we cannot determine who the mail piece should be delivered to due to a missing or incomplete address.

The loss or delay of any piece of mail is frustrating to both the Postal Service and our customers, and we aggree that incidents such as this should not occur. We realize that your mail is important to you and that you have very right to expect it to be delivered on time and in good condition.

Please be assured that we are constantly working to better meet your expectations and our service standards. You are a valued customer and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.

I am a firm believer that things do not just happen by chance. I have no idea why it was my mail that was burned on the truck and why the address was still intact so that they could still send it to me, but I am sure there is an object lesson in here somewhere. I pray that the driver of the vehicle was not injured and am lifting up prayers in the event that he or she was.

Learning to Tweak My Blog

I'm learning new things about making my blog look prettier thanks to Kysha! I learned how to add my signature in. Now if I could just figure out how to use Paint.net! At any rate, tell me how you like my new signature.

Ok, now how do I get rid of this box around the signature??

Wordkeeping Update-Final Day

Today is the 21st Day of the Wordkeeping journey. The object of the 21 days was to "prompterize" 200 scriptures; 10 scriptures a day and then a final review on the last day. Of the 200 scriptures, I am able to say a little more than 100 of them with the prompts. I did very well the first couple of days and then I got behind and spent a few days playing catchup. Instead of trying to play catchup, I probably should have just jumped in where I was. There is something very phsycologically devastating about being behind and having to catch up!

My 10 year old, who only participated for a few days was able to say 50 of the texts using the prompts. Wow! So this is definitely a method that I will be using for her and encouraging her to use on her own in her personal devotion time.

Just so you understand the idea of what prompterizing is, I will include a few texts below with the prompts. You use the first letter of each word to help commit the scripture to memory. If you can say the scripture, just by looking at the letters, then you have it "prompterized". The ultimate goal is to be able to say it from memory and know where it is found.

Gen 1:1 ItbGcthate
In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth

Numbers 6:24 TLbt, akt
The Lord bless thee and keep thee

I must say that the first day or two was a little challenging trying to get my brain to look at these letters and form words, but once my brain "caught on" it was a sheer delight.

Words

One of the things that I love about reading and tutoring on-line is that I come across some great words. I realize that I have a love for words. There are some things that you cannot properly describe without the write word!

Today as I was tutoring, a student logged in needing help with synonyms for the word truculent. At first glance I thought they had misspelled the word translucent! LOL

Then I was reading my girlfriends blog and she used the word cacophonous. She said it just popped into her head. I guess it wouldn't surprise you to hear that she is a Doctor of Neonatology!

I don't mind having to pull out my dictionary to figure out what someone is saying. I quite enjoy it. :-)

Have you heard any good words lately??

Bible Bowl Competition Update & Wordkeeping

The Bible Bowl Competition this weekend went well. Three of our four teams advanced. The Junior team lost by only 10 points. It's so exciting to watch young children recall what they have been reading or listening to in the Word!

Jasmine played on the Junior Youth Team that represented our church and Christopher got a chance to play in an exhibition game for children ages 6-9. There is no bracket for his age group at the National Level, but they are working on piquing the interest; the younger the better! Just think of it, by the time Jesus was 12 years old, he was able to confound doctors and lawyers. Wow!

I have not studied like I should, but have committed to read as much as possible before our next competition June 21st at Camp Meeting. I made a set of cds that have only the books we are studying to listen to in my car. They are narrated by Alexander Scourby. He's my absolute favorite to listen to reading the Word. I love his voice and the emphasis he puts on particular words. I find myself noticing things I never noticed just because of the way he reads it.

There were several questions that I knew the answer to because of my journey with Wordkeeping, how exciting! If you are interesting in growing spiritually and having a peace that passes all understanding even in the midst of trials, I admonish you to become a Wordkeeper! He will keep you in perfect peace, if you keep your mind on Him! Isaiah 26:3

Bible Bowl Competition This Weekend

My first Bible Bowl Competition for the year will be held this weekend and I am not ready! I originally joined Bible Bowl because I was not studying like I know I should have been and figured that if I had to compete, hen I would at least have to read or be very embarrassed. So in order to not be embarrassed and at least be able to participate in the games, I read. After a little while it became very exciting and I was reading my Bible everyday and learning things I had never known about stories that I thought I knew well. For instance, did you know that Sampson had a wife before he met Delilah? And that Delilah was never his wife? Who knew??

At any rate, once I got started reading my Word, God started showing me other things and then I wanted to study those things so I wasn't studying my books for Bible bowl. The good news is that through my study, I still come across things that happen to be in the same books that we are studying for Bible Bowl, but the best news is I am studying God's Word!

I tell you there is something life changing about the Word. It can be dull and boring at first, but just keep on reading and sooner or later it will become rivers of living water. I'm not sure how I ever made it without it. Maybe that's why I almost lost my mind!

You want peace? Claim the promise of Isaiah 26:3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

God is good ALL the time!!

My First Sermonette

This past Mother's Day, I gave my first "sermonette". The theme of the weekend was "A Mother's Love" and the title of my message was "The Love of a Godly Mother". I used the story in I Kings of the two women that fought over a baby. When the King suggested that the baby be cut in half, the real mother opted to give him away rather than have him die. Any good mother would have done the same. Then I used the life of Hannah from I Samuel to demonstrate the life and love of a godly mother.

What makes Hannah such a godly mother you may ask?

1. She fits the profile of love found in I Corinthians chapter 13
2. She was a praying woman
3. She dedicated her child to the Lord for as long as he was alive
4. Her life reflected the power of praise

I know that Mother's day has passed, but godly mothers are on duty everyday. :-)

If you really want to make a difference in the life of your children, one that will last for all of eternity, walk in love, pray for your children, dedicate them to the Lord, and make sure your life reflects the goodness of God.

God has promised in Proverbs 22:6 that if we train up a child in the way that he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it.

Next to the love of God, there is no love on earth more powerful than the love of a mother. Have you told your children that you love them today?

The Birds

Evidently I have a house design that the birds love. I have never lived in a house where birds made nests until I moved to Texas. I bought a lovely plant, the third plant that I have bought to put on my back patio and the birds seem to love it as much as I do!

So I have been fortunate enough to have House Finch's make my plant their home. :-) I take the plant down every day or so to see if the female has laid any new eggs being careful not to touch the nest. I learned the hard way last year that if you touch the actual nest, the birds will abandon it. Who knew??

Happy Mother's Day-A Mother's Love

A MOTHER'S LOVE

(Cliff Owens)Johnnie Ray & Timi Yuro -

I have seen a rainbow circle across the sky

I have stood on a mountain and watched an eagle fly

I have seen trees in a meadow shelter a morning dove

But I haven't seen anything to match the wonder of a mother's love

I have seen a sunset more beautiful than gold

I have stood by a rosebed and watched the leaves unfold

I have seen so many wonders and blessings from above

But I haven't seen anything to match the wonder of a mother's love

No I haven't seen anything to match the wonder of a mother's love

Wordkeeping Update

A few days ago I signed up for Wordkeeping. Today is day 8 and it has certainly been a journey. It's amazing how many texts I am familiar with, but can't quote verbatim; or how many texts I thought I knew, but in reality it was only half of the text. I made some cards to help me quiz myself. I'll post some pictures when I get my camera charged up.

What do you do to memorize scripture? Is scripture memorization important to you? Do you think it should be a "staple" in the life of a Christian?

Sweet Roll Recipe

1. Make One Loaf Bread Dough and roll out into a long rectangle. Apply a thin layer of Date Spread over the surface leaving 1/4 inch along one long edge free of spread.

2. sprinkle entire surface liberally with raisins. (Dried cranberries and other diced dried fruits make it extra-special!). Roll up the long way like a jelly roll and pinch seam closed.

3. cut 1-inch rolls by cutting all the way through with a sharp knife or scissors. Place rolls with cut side up on a lightly oiled cookie sheet, shaping into a circle and flattening slightly with hands. Let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled.

4. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Lightly brush tops with pure maple syrup while hot (optional). cool on a wire rack then place in an airtight container until ready to eat.

Makes 20 rolls.

Sweet Rolls

When I visited the Chuljians last August, I learned that Mrs. Chuljian serves "Happy Packets" every Sabbath Morning for Breakfast. Her tradition is to serve these little rolls with all types of butters (peanut, almond, pecan, coconut), applesauce and bananas. You top the rolls and have at it for breakfast.

I was so impressed with how they tasted that I said that someday I would try it. The cookbook that I recently purchased has them as a recipe. The title of their recipe is Sweet Rolls. I made them this afternoon. Jasmine rated them 5 Stars Christopher gave them 6 (out of 5!) I guess they really enjoyed them.

We will have them in the morning for breakfast along with applesauce and peanut butter. Yum!

I will post the recipe soon.