I have decided, after some reflection, to shut down this blog.  Well, not entirely - I think I will use it to post interesting things I've read or commentaries on society. 

God bless, and see you around the net!

Well, I've been censured.  And censored.  Someone (s/he-who-shall-remain-nameless) has told me that I am to leave all references to this Someone and my interactions with this Someone off my blog and off the internet.  So henceforth, this Someone shall not be talked about on here or elsewhere.  And for that Someone reading this, does this suffice? 

It snowed today.  Everyone was so excited, especially the kids.  We hardly ever get snow here so things shut down and everything stops.  It seems so silly after having lived in Wisconsin for so many years.  The snow never stopped anything over there - of course, they were much better equipped to handle it than we.  The children are hoping for a snow day tomorrow which is a definite possibility if the roads are icy in the morning.  I do love fresh fallen snow, it is so pretty.  Poor Nate!  If he had stayed on another week or so, he would have been able to see falling snow, which was his wish!  Right now he's in India, I'm sure enjoying himself tremendously.  I haven't talked to him since New Year's and text messaging doesn't work anymore.  He has to be looking forward to going home though.

I volunteered in Emily's class today.  It's a lot of fun.  Tomorrow I have to go to Ethan's class, providing there is school.  The kindergarteners are so cute!  I was in Wal-Mart the other night and I heard this tiny voice say, "Hi Miss Jeanette!"  It was one of the boys from Ethan's class and he had to come over and chat with me for a while.  Too cute.

Emily is going to be performing in a concert at the end of January.  It's a fundraiser to raise money for the local seminarians done by the Serra Club (not to be confused with Sierra Club).   I do their web site.  She doesn't want to do it, but doesn't know that I've signed her up for it.  Emily never likes the idea of performing but once she gets there she has a wonderful time and always enjoys it - so I've taken not to telling her and we just show up.  Works much better that way.  LOL  She is so talented.  Her piano playing ability has almost surpassed mine and she has only had about 10 lessons!  She enjoys it a lot because she is so creative.

Ethan starts Mad Science next Wednesday.  It's an after-school class, that teaches the kids about science.  He gets to do experiments, concoct things and blow stuff up.  A little boy's dream!  I want to go too, I wonder if parents can sit in and audit the class...

Currently Reading Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments Expanded & Updated By Randy Alcorn see related

I am purging my house.

I typically do this at least once every two or three months, but have not done it in a couple of years mostly because - as those of you who have battled depression know - I haven't really cared to do anything about the clutter lately.  Well, it must be a good sign because I have a trunk load of stuff ready to give to St. Vincent de Paul.  I like giving to them better than Goodwill because they give away everything they get, they don't sell it and so often it seems that Goodwill is out to make money.  Sure, they hire low income and disabled people which is admirable - but the whole debacle with their CEO has left a bitter taste in my mouth.  So, St. Vincent de Paul it is. 

Anywho, I finished cleaning out the coat closet which was packed to overflowing, the linen cupboard, the pantry, the fridge and Ethan's whole room.  Still left is Emily's room, my craft cabinet and bookshelf, the kitchen cupboards.  I've given up on the computer room and Mike's bedroom.  He has it so packed with computer equipment that I've had to move out - including my clothes.  Oh well.  I told him as long as he confines the stuff to those two rooms, I'm fine with it.  Anything that makes its way to the rest of the house gets thrown out!  He didn't think I was serious, but he's missing a few things that he'll eventually find out about (he has so much stuff he doesn't even remember half of what he owns!)

Ooops, I gotta run and pick up Ethan from kindergarten, so I'll finish this post later...

Currently Reading The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World By David Gibson see related

Je suis fatiguee...

Why am I speaking in French you may ask?  Dunno, maybe because I can, or maybe because my cousin Nathan is currently in gaie Paris sipping le vin and eating les baguettes.  My aunt and uncle tried calling him at his hotel but apparently no one in Paris speaks English - or rather, refuses to speak it so they weren't able to get through.  I'm not sure how he's managing although I think he does speak a little French, probably enough to get by.  Finally, they received an email from him saying that he was trying to call out but unable to do so and that he's having a blast.  Good thing because if they didn't hear from him I was going to have to scrape off the rust from my French and call over there.  I actually speak it fluently, but couldn't be bothered faking a French accent, and I hear that that's one of the things they hate the most - Americans speaking French with an American accent! LOL  I visited Paris when I was young, but I didn't make much of an impression on me because it's just a vague memory.  

One of the good things about growing up in Africa - I had to take a foreign language - it was either French or the local language and so I figured French would be more useful, so I've been speaking it since I was 10.  Children pick up languages very quickly.  It has come in pretty handy - especially when learning Spanish which is very similar - I was able to learn that fluently as well - and the knowledge of those two languages helps in deciphering Latin and Italian.  I'm having trouble self teaching Greek - that is an interesting language, difficult and foreign.

Anyway, I digress.  The real reason I am speaking French is because I'm tired having only gotten about 3 hours of sleep last night and I'm consequently feeling very loopy.  I don't know why, I just could NOT sleep.  I tried watching TV, reading, nothing helped.  Finally, I just twiddled my thumbs until I fell asleep.  But now I'm feeling it.  Ugh.  Mike's putting the kids to bed but I still have a ton of work to do on the web sites that I have neglected for so long.  Obviously I'm procrastinating otherwise I wouldn't be blogging.  Oh well.

Sigh.  I suppose I must go.  Au revoir et adieu pour maintenant...

Currently Reading A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind By Michael O'Brien see related

Are Christians Intolerant?

I just finished a fabulous book by author Michael O'Brien called "A Landscape with Dragons".  It's about how the fairy tales of old:  Snow White, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty - that had classic themes of good vs. evil - with good always winning out over evil, are being secularized by our media and society and are being presented as no longer evil but simply misguided or in need of love.  Fabulous book - I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in what their children are reading in books and watching on TV.  His concluding chapter is pretty awesome and I'm pretty sure I'm not violating any copyright laws by copying part of it here:

"Are Christians Intolerant?

I realize that to use the word intolerance is a risky business, for it cannot help but conjure up visions of religious and racial hatreds or the specter of grim moralizers judging their neighbors (and who has not felt the sting of those tongues?).  Moreover, it may well be asked if such a tainted word can be properly used to describe a characteristic of God.  He is, after all, rich in mercy and slow to anger.  But it must be remembered that both the Old and New Testaments speak of times when the justice of God must act - for he will not permit evil to devour everything.

The early Christians were not squeamish about political incorrectness.  They knew firsthand that sin meant death to the inner and the exterior life of man.  Most of them were converts from paganism, for their world was almost entirely pagan.  They had known the effects of falsehood at work in their own minds, hearts, and flesh.  They knew that they had been rescued by God's intolerance of their bondage.  They exulted in the glorious, shattering good news that Christ was real.  He was not a mere theological abstraction or just another deity in an idol-crowded world.  He was the one true God, and he was life!  That awareness has waned in our era, partly because most people no longer feel endangered by the world of evil, by the possibility of personal slavery to invisible forces or servility to their own fallen natures.  Nor do they consider for a moment that a totally paganized society might one day reinstitute an external form of slavery (though, no doubt, it would call it by a more attractive name).  But we must understand the lateness of the hour and the urgency of the crisis.  My parents' generation struggled with a culture that was losing its spiritual sense; my generation had to struggle with a despiritualized world, and our children must now struggle with a radically dehumanized one.  A society that systematically destroys millions of its children through abortion, and in which so many young people take their own lives and take each other's lives is already far gone.  Modern man is struggling under a cloud of despair that "spreads and spreads".  He has lost the mystery and wonder of being that the eye of childhood knows so well.  He has been cheated of the real adventure.  He has not known joy.  He is now cut loose to stagger about his landscape, his apparently "real" world, in search of his own lost face.  Because it is impossible to sustain this unbearable world view for long, he must flee from it into the distractions of sexual immorality, distorted fantasy, the macabre, violence - and, in the worse cases, into cultic religion.

A society sliding back in paganism may try to reassure itself that it is in no worse condition than a society crawling out of paganism.  Like two travellers going in opposite directions on a road, for a brief moment they share in passing a common point.  But the end of the road for each is very different.  The convert from paganism has known darkness and has turned toward the light.  Our society has known the light and is turning back toward darkness.  This is the crucial difference.  It is into the core of this difference that we must speak if we wish to re-evangelize the world.

Travellers from the realm of darkness state loudly and clearly that the land which the lapsed or lapsing Christian is travelling toward is in fact a land of death and degradation.  They have been there.  They know.  When they tell us that few leave that land, that none finds happiness there, and that it is a world of shifting illusory images, they can sound, yes, intolerant.  But this intolerance is the intolerance of the physician who has seen an epidemic ravage a people.  He is prejudiced against deadly viruses.  This is the intolerance of a mother who fiercely protects her little ones from predators.  She suffers from a bias against rattlesnakes and wolves.  This apparent narrowness is the wisdom of those who have known many roads and have found only one sure route out of the regions of desolation.  What such pilgrims have to tell us can sound hard.  But their word is true.  The Christian's task is now to rediscover a firm commitment to this truth and to show how it can be combined with an effective love of our neighbor.

It goes without saying (although in these confused times it may need repeating) that the urgent need for truth does not mandate us to go rushing about, tearing into our neighbor or our enemy, delivering harsh lectures to this or that erring soul.  In the true Christian meaning of the word charity, we are to love the personhood of each and every individual human being.  This does not mean, however, that we should remain paralyzed and silent regarding acts and ideas that are killing us (and are killing the perpetrators as well).  That is not Christian charity.  We have a right and a duty to speak the truth with simplicity and calmness, clearly and fearlessly, without rancor or personal condemnation, wherever untruth invades the life of our family."