Half-Pint House

DPP: Day 13

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold.

I've been MIA on the blog for a few days which means I just posted a bunch of giveaways and then ran away. Sorry! Jenny was here and, well, nothing else mattered this weekend.

Jenny moved in with us when she was 18. One week after she moved in K8 was born. She only lived in our home four months or so, but it was long enough for her to become family and family she will stay.

We don't get to see her nearly enough, but you know the type of friend you just pick back up right where you left off? Jenny is that kind of friend to our family. We love her. We're so glad she came to visit us this weekend and we're sad she had to go back to Colorado.

Jenny, you are welcome back any time. And you don't even have to do any dishes. Love you.

Visit the Treadways for more from the December Photo Project.

Think: Links

My online buddy, Catherine from Australia, has made the most awesome note cards EVER using a vintage children's storybook she found in a second-hand shop. She's giving a set away, but I'm not telling you this because I want to enter her drawing. I'm telling you because you need to see this wondrous piece of awesomeness. Go!

Aslan's Library is a relatively new site for reviewing "beautiful and true theological books for children." I know Haley from back in the day and she's doing an awesome job on this with her friend. Check it out!

The end of the textbook? What's next? No books at all? Will our house become a museum or just terribly out of date like when you walk into someone's office and see a wall of old cassette tapes still in place as though 1987 is going to ring your doorbell and just walk right back in?

Speaking of cassette tapes, if you recognized yourself in what I just said, you need to see this one. They really aren't coming back. It's time to let go.

Does your daughter suffer from high self-esteem?

Michael W. Smith is coming to St. Louis in December and our sweet family friend Jenny is flying here to go to it to visit with us. I'm planning to go with her. Because friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them.

Jenny is also a long-standing fan of Keanu Reeves. Whoa.

Speaking of Keanu Reeves, when I was in high school, my sophomore history teacher, Coach Wilson, showed us Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in class. My parents' tax dollars at work...

And that's about all I've got today. Anyone else discover anything worth sharing this week?

 

Joe's Place

I've mentioned Joe's Place before, but it's been a year or so.

In a nutshell, it's the combined effort of one local public school district plus one local church to make a lifelong difference in the lives of boys who otherwise wouldn't stand a chance.

Spend your next almost four minutes watching this and be inspired:

 

Dan and Alyssa Reeve are the house parents and they are pretty amazing. More info on Joe's Place can be found here.

Quotes on Friendship

We finally finshed reading Charlotte's Web today. I say "finally" because we started it in August and then somewhere along the way we lost the book. I found it yesterday and made sure we finished it in a hurry so we could move on to the next one on the list that we should have read the first week of September, but I digress...

I have two favorite quotes from Charlotte's Web that I remember loving the first couple of times I read this book. They are worthy of sharing and so I wil.

Unless you've been under a literary rock, you probaby have a general idea of the story of Charlotte and Wilber. At the very end of the story, right before Charlotte informs Wilber she's about to die, they have this conversation:

    "Oh, Charlotte," he said. "To think that when I first met you I thought you were cruel and bloodthirsty!"

    When he recovered from his emotion, he spoke again.

    "Why did you do all this for me? he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."

    "You have been my friend, replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this traping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

This speaks to me on a very deep level. In this age of keeping things even and people not being able to serve one another without exchange of like-service in return, I long for lasting friendships that say, "You know what? What is life? We live a little while and then we die. It's messy. It's complicated. And if I can do anything at all to easy the mess and complication in your life, even for a few hours, that's what I want to be about."

Amen?

Then there's the classic from the very last page:

"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

*Love*

Do you have any favorite quotes on friendship?

 

 

 

Celebrity Sighting!

I have a bunch of stories to tell from our time in Colorado this past month, but one that I want to be sure to post tonight. I met a cyber-celebrity on my trip.

We had a great visit. And we had our photo taken together:

Then we had our photo taken together again. This time you can see that really there are three of us in the photo:

But enough of this keeping you in suspense. The cyber-celebrity of whom I am speaking is none other than the eloquent Gretchen of Lifenut fame. And I was able to meet not only her and her soon-to-be-born baby, she was kind enough to bring her entire entourage down to Colorado Springs for an interesting lunch meet-up at the Squeak Soda Shop. Here's the whole Mopsy crew:

My family tried to one-up them in the attention grabbing department by breaking one of the glass vials of flavoring the shop keeps accessible for customers to sniff, and thus choose, which soda they want to create. I smelled like Lemon-Lime Rickey for the rest of the day.

Not to be outdone, the Mopsy family came back with a one-two punch by tossing an 8-ounce Lemonade Stand overboard.

We stood even on the number of times the mop had to be employed by a Squeak Soda Shop employee.

As a little aside, the Squeak Soda Shop does not charge extra for use of their mop, employee included.

Gretchen and the entire Lifenut crew, thanks for coming to Colorado Springs on a sunny day in July. I enjoyed meeting you (finally) and am confident that had we not moved away from Colorado five years ago, this meeting, and possibly more, would have taken place much sooner.

I'm looking forward to reading the news of your newest Mr. Baby.

Overheard

My two youngest kids are in the kitchen watching an old Miss Pattycake dvd they unearthed and I just overheard this conversation:

K7: She has a GREAT house.

E5: Yeah, I wish we had a house like that.

K7: Me too. If I had a house like that I would totally teach preschool in it.

A Few Things

1) I posted the link to the Chapter 11 discussion of Through His Eyes; God's Perspective on Women in the Bible last night, but something went wonky this morning and I pulled it down. I'll fix it later but in the meantime, here's the link again.

2) I have a post up on WORLDMag.com right now on marriage and the governor of South Carolina.

3) Craig's home. Yay!

4) That bit about live interactions versus virtual ones? It is still happening and getting better. I have a couple of friends getting together on Tuesday nights to watch the Institute for Excellence in Writing Structure and Style DVDs. The videos last between 80-120 minutes each night, yet our time goes from 7-11. Because we talk and talk and talk until about 9 and eventually turn on the DVD to fulfill our "purpose". Really? The video series is fantastic. But the fellowship is even better.

5) My Classical Conversations group is growing and growing and growing. I'm getting excited and nervous.

6) We're going to the farm tomorrow night with some friends for a little pre-July 4th fun. We'll come back to STL Saturday afternoon and this year I AM taking the girls to see some kind of display somewhere. Last year we didn't do that and they really wanted to and even now I can't remember why we decided not to do that, but I don't think it would hurt anything to do it this year so I'll figure it out.

7) That is all for now.

Happy 4th of July weekend!!

My Two Favorite Masters Graduates and One Pretty Sweet Cake

My camera doesn't take photos in dark rooms very well, so all the pictures I took of Craig walking across the stage are pretty terrible. I did get a good one of Craig and Andi Ashworth after the ceremony was over:

Chuck Colson gave the graduation address that night. I hadn't heard him before and as he was speaking, I kept remembering a comic book I had growing up called "Born Again" with Chuck Colson's face on the cover. For the longest time I wasn't sure if his story was true or not true because it was in a comic book. Somehow I ended up realizing it was true. This isn't relevant at all to this post, other than to say the whole night I kept seeing Chuck Colson as I remembered him from the front of that comic book:

The next day we had a party. It was fun, but wouldn't you know it, I didn't remember to take a single picture the whole night. I did take one of the cake before the party, though:

Whew! And that's a complete wrap on seminary for 2008-2009. Craig will most likely finish his second masters next year (the Masters of Arts in Educational Ministries). I may or may not finish the Graduate Certificate (Covenant had to stop giving free tuition for those of us in the lowly Grad Certificate option). I may get "grandfathered" in, but probably will not. That's okay. I've come a long way in accepting where I planned to go with a degree and where I ended up. I'm happy with the classes I've been able to take and I'll be happy either way, certificate to hang on the wall or not.

For those of you who came last night, thanks. We had folks from Westminster, Crossroads, Covenant, family, and friends not necessarily associated with school or church. It was lovely to have everyone, and we especially enjoyed all the kids playing together in the backyard.

Craig is taking a post-graduation nap right now and we have a lot of leftover cake to eat tonight. I think we can handle it.

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. I went out with a bunch of ladies last night to The Cheesecake Factory. I knew a handful of them, didn't know another handful of them, had a great time with all of them. I'm telling you I was a joking extrovert last night. For almost three whole hours. It was a lot of fun.

2. I will pay for my attempted extroversion today. But I'm okay with that.

3. In college I made myself score high on the outgoing scale for two years. I *thought* I was an extrovert. I acted like an extrovert. I didn't own my true personality until my junior year. What a relief. For the next 15 years I've scored as an ISTJ on the Myers-Briggs scale. Three days ago, Craig and I were flipping through a book on the Myers-Briggs temperaments. As I read over the ISTJ again I had an epiphany: the description didn't totally fit me. We read over the profile of the ISFJ and guess what? My personality has changed again. Or maybe that's the way it's always been but I've been in denial. Folks, I'm an ISFJ. Wow.

4. Craig's still an INTJ. Always has been, always will be. You can find out what you are by clicking here. What are you? Do tell.

5. In other news, I have a pet peeve of the blogosphere: I can't stand being referred to as "internets" on anyone's blog. I'm not an internet; I'm a person. A person's a person no matter how small. Incidentally, I'm not thinking of anyone in particular as I write this, but I feel the need to come clean. If someone I regularly read and know in real life does this, I forgive, but if I'm checking out a blog for the first time and come across this misuse of the English language, I'm so out of there. There. It's out. What are your blogging pet peeves? Please don't say, "Misuse of the comma." We've established already that I have issues in that department. That's why I have an editor.

6. Just found this Trader Joe's song from Corrin's twitter feed. Hilarious.

7. I brought home one-sixth of a butchered cow today. This is our second time to particpate in a group cow purchase. The poor guy sure is tasty; he's one of those all grass-fed, hormone-free varieties. Last time we had one, someone accidentally left the freezer door ajar and we lost a fair amount of the meat. I think I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. The loss of all that meat made me cry. I now check the freezer door seal every time I walk down to the basement.

7b. I had to google "door seal" because the spelling didn't look right when I typed it there. Apparently it is, though.

7c. When I have to google simple words like "seal" for spelling it means I'm tired. Gotta go now.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jennifer's Conversion Diary.

A Time to Talk

A Time to Talk
by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
and shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

The church we've been attending is going through a series on community building. It's been good, and, in light of some significant changes we're in the process of making as a family, very timely.

It is easy for me to hide in my house behind my responsibilities and behind my personality. However, I'm finding that not only do I do myself a disservice with this behavior, but I'm less inclined to allow my children the freedom to build community with their friends as well. It isn't exactly that we don't have time; I just don't choose to make the time we do have work to that advantage.

Tonight I'm joining the ladies from the small group for coffee. Tomorrow night I'm going out with a group of like-minded homeschooling mamas I know.

It's time - time I normally reserve for jammies and reading and computer and sewing and...me. I've missed out in real life by not pursuing these opportunities. Tonight I will attempt to begin to change.

I will take a time to talk. I will slow my horse to a meaning walk. I'm thrusting my hoe in the (frozen) ground and going up to the stone wall.

I hope for a friendly visit. And also for community to begin in my heart and in my life.