TreasuresInTerraCotta

Now that we're finished with Ruth what's your plan?  If you're anything like me, you might have to admit that on a random Thursday you discover that your Bible hasn't moved from the bag you carried it to church in on Sunday.  Our pastor challenged us to read 30 Days Through the New Testament.  It's a pretty aggressive reading plan, but I'm going to do it in March.  Is anyone with me? Here's the schedule.    1. Matthew 1-9   2. Matthew 10-15   3. Matthew 16-22   4. Matthew 23-28   5. Mark 1-8   6. Mark 9-16   7. Luke 1-6   8. Luke 7-11   9. Luke 12-18   10. Luke 19-24   11. John 1-7   12. John 8-13   13. John 14-21   14. Acts 1-7   15. Acts 8-14   16. Acts 15-21   17. Acts 22-28   18. Romans 1-8   19. Romans 9-16   20. 1 Corinthians 1-9   21. 1 Corinthians 10-16   22. 2 Corinthians 1-13   23. Galatians - Ephesians   ...

As a mother, I admit that I am somewhat deficient in fostering "pretend play."  I rarely give voices to Little People or personify trucks and trains. And until recently my kids have shown no interest in dress-up play, even though we have a trunk full of hats, necklaces, masks and other dress up clothes. Sure, our kids like to dress up on Halloween.  And they even dress up at the Children's Museum and for birthday parties . A few weeks ago Calvin and Andrew got masks in a Kid's Meal and they have been wearing them non-stop. One thing lead to another and I decided we should have a costume party in February!  Uncle Ted had a birthday last weekend and if there are two things that I associate with Ted it's costume parties and chocolate cake.  So a thirty-something was given a dress-up party! Calvin and Andrew as Knights.  I made those costumes years ago for our favorite neighbor boy who did, in fact, love dress-up. " Super Hero E" and a princess/dan...

For over a week now I have been living without a printer.  It suddenly stopped sucking up paper and, of course, this happened immediately after I installed a new ($50) ink cartridge. I even took it to our computer shop to see if it could be fixed because the scanner portion was still working.  As you would guess, replacement parts are more expensive than a new printer. Even though I have saved a small forest by not printing things that I can, obviously now, live without, I'm not sure it is going to off-set the the waste generated by buying a new printer.  And why don't these things last longer??  I understand the market, but I don't like it! Anyway...living (and homeschooling) without a printer has been a good exercise.  We do not rely heavily on "print-ables" or worksheets for school, but I can see even more places we could cut back.  I can live without printing the crossword, I can take notes by hand, I can draw, I can save recipes and look at them el...

Here we are at the end of our Ruth study already.  I feel like these six weeks have flown by and I am sad to be saying good-bye to Ruth (at least, for now).   If you've been reading along in Ruth without the workbook I want to add a few verses to round out your study.  I would enco urage you to read Matthew 1:1-16 paying attention to whose genealogy is recorded, how it overlaps with the genealogy listed in Ruth 4:18-22 and where Ruth fits in.  As the study author points out, these verses introduce "a name that comes after King David, where the Book of Ruth leaves off--the name that is above all names."  This is truly "the crown of our story." Way back in Week 1 as we began our work in this little book of the Bible I was impressed by Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.   I suspe...

As I mentioned I am not an experienced, prolific, popular or even frequent blogger.  So it came as a total surprise when out of the blue I was contacted by Compassion International and asked to consider adding a Compassion widgit to my site. Save Children So after prayer and consideration, I am pleased to draw your attention to the new button to your left.  Please check out Compassion and their incredibly comprehensive and successful children's charity. Here's a summary from their annual report: Compassion, a Christian child advocacy ministry, tackles global poverty one child at a time.  The ministry serves more than 1/2 million children in 26 of the world's poorest countries.  Recognizing that poverty is more than a lack of money, Compassion works holistically through the local church, using a unique combination of spiritual, economic, social and physical development programs in more than 5,250 child development centers.   We'll talk more a...

This week we worked through Ruth 4:1-13.  We witnessed some unusual Jewish customs, heard Boaz proclaim his intention of redeeming Ruth, heard a blessing proclaimed by the town-folks, and got a quick summary of the marriage and subsequent birth of a son. Part of the introduction to this week's lessons addressed a ministry in the Amazon called "Ray of Hope". The people of this ministry have sacrificed their lives, looking for a Ruth in the eyes of every Amazonian they meet. ... And [God] often uses generous, radically kind people like Boaz to find them... (p 117) Related to that, is the one question that struck me this week.  It is a question that probably doesn't have a specific answer, but it will allow us to think about Boaz, especially as a redeemer. Why did Boaz show Ruth such kindness? (p123) I would love for you to chime in. Homework: Session/Week 6; Ruth 4:14-22 This is our last week of study together. I can hardly believe it has gone by so quickly....

I am an inexperienced blogger. I write sporadically. I use a free blogging web-site.  I have not done a tutorial. I have not attended a blogger conference.  And I have had at least three reader's comments "lost" recently.  I am so sorry about that!! I do not know why this is happening.  I have double checked all my setting to allow comments. Even anonymous comments but the problem seems to persist.   Today I have made a small change so that the comments section will pop-up in a new window instead of at the bottom of my site.  Maybe this will help.   If you make a comment and it doesn't appear, please let me know.   Or just forgo all the blog-related-comment-mumbo-jumbo and email me directly!   I like hearing from you.  

My sister and I have two boxes of maternity clothes that have made the rounds for our combined six pregnancies. Those boxes have also been loaned to at least two other moms for three pregnancies and many items came to us used. We would like to think we are frugal! My two boys were due in September and October, both warm weather months in Arizona, and obviously preceded by many months of warm weather. Two of my sister's kids were also born in the summer, so we have an over-representation of sleeveless shirts, capris, knit tee-shirts and so on. So this is the first time I've actually been able to enjoy the few long sleeved maternity clothes. Here are a few highlights from Pregnancy Week 28...the week it was 20 degrees in Tucson.

We celebrated 100 Days of (home)School last week. I found a ton of great ideas on-line, so here are a few of the activities we chose. -Counted to 100 -Counted by 10s to 100 - Made 100 Snack Packs with 10 each of 10 different ingredients. Calvin did a great job counting, Andrew did a good job filling his bag with M&Ms and marshmallows. Notice the close supervision by the penguins we made for "Pp is for Penguin" week. - 10 stacks of 10 books each -Predicted the weight of 100 items; weighed; charted. -We also talked about who's ages would add up to 100, but we didn't actually do the math. I loved the idea, but the concept seemed a little too far outside of Calvin's grasp. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how many days we've been doing school. We started school way back in July because we had our curriculum , Calvin doesn't know your not supposed to start school in July, and in fact our local school district does start school in July. Now we ar...

I know that 20 degree weather is hardly cold for most of the country, but it certainly does cause this 360-days-of-sunshine-town to come to a screeching halt. Water mains broke all over. Schools are closed. Water is frozen or pipes broken at homes all over town. The gas company can't meet the demands. Plumbers are working over time. Our infrastructure was not built for this kind of cold. Someone said to me, "This is good practice in emergency-preparedness." And I agreed. But in my own small world, this is what I experienced in this small "emergency." A friend offered (on Facebook!) to open her home which still had water and heat to anyone who needed a warm place to say. The church down the street opened it's doors for the night. My brother-in-law was out of town when neighbors called to say water was gushing at his house. Another friend offered her house when she heard sections of town had lost gas service. Our neighbor was fixing his heater and water l...

We are slowly making our way through Ruth, covering Ruth 3:1-18 this week. This week we heard Naomi unveil a crazy plan, we traveled with Ruth to the threshing floor, we witnessed another interaction between Ruth and Boaz (this one proposing and promising marriage!) and we took a collective gasp upon hearing that another man stood between Boaz and Ruth. I think it's safe to say the plot thickened. I hope you are enjoying Ruth as much as I am. Today let's talk about prayer. If there is anything I have learned from my Thursday Bible Study girls it is the power and importance of prayer. We have prayed for the usual breadth of concerns that are often brought up in well-acquainted groups. We have stopped in the middle of lessons to pray for specific needs. We have put aside the lesson all-together in exchange for a time of focused Bible-based prayers. We have "laid hands on" and prayed for more than one amongst us. We have even been prayed over "in-tongues....