Gifts around the Clock

Today’s JOY DARE was to find a gift before nine, a gift before noon, and a gift after dark.  Here are mine:

61. before nine-got to school safely though the roads were icy, and a student held the door for me

62. before noon- a student I don’t even have in class anymore saw me, crossed the hall and gave me a big hug, and then went on his way. That was a God moment!, and

63. after dark–the laughs we share at aqua zumba, where it is OK for middle-aged women to shake, rattle and roll 🙂

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Childhood and Play

I just had to share this since, well,  I work in a school and see examples of what it talks about every day.

Books and Vacation

As I mentioned, I haven’t had a lot of down time this summer, so I am trying to catch up on my books.  Here’s what I have completed since Monday:

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

The Postcard by Beverly Lewis

Here’s what I have to go:

Pilgrim’s Progress–I’m half-way through.  I was reading it to the hubby in the van.  I like it, but it’s not an easy read and is therefore not on my list for Glenn IV’s Christmas like it was.  He’d be relieved if he read my blog.

Understanding the Times by David Noebel.  It’s a weighty tome and one that I will need time with.  God has laid (lain?-I really need to learn that) a huge burden for young people on my heart this year, and I need to learn what threatens them.  Read Already Gone –you’ll see what I mean.

I want to finish The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, but the problem is that I read this aloud to the hubby and there are some romantic parts that, although appropriate scenes between a husband and a wife, I will not be reading with my father in the van.  Call me prudish.  People have before.

Then there’s The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies, Homeport by Nora Roberts and Naked in Death by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts). 

The convention lasts through Saturday.  We plan to be home August 1.  School starts August 10, but, Lord willing, we will be moving the daughter to accommodate her new job during that interim.  She had planned to visit the week of August 9.  Did I mention school starts August 10?  The daughter wants to can green beans, and I am supposed to go to WVA to make Grandma Nuzum’s green tomato relish with my cousins.

How much can I get done?????

Reading with Expression

Last weekend, we visited the son and his family, and I started to read a story to the 7-year-old, who stopped me and said, “Grandma, don’t read with expression.  You’re not supposed to read with expression.”

What?!!!

The daughter-in-law says this philosophy comes from his school, and I am a little concerned.  The child reads, but he is quick to inform me that he’s not too thrilled with anything that isn’t a graphic novel or at least has a lot of pictures.

The son has a plan for dealing with this, but the hubby and I have been brainstorming because we pick the 7-year-old up tomorrow to spend a week with us.  The boy knows that his grandpa and I read aloud when we travel, so I rescued a copy of Davy Crockett from my dad’s basement and I have a copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz, too.  The grandpa and I were thinking we might read from these while we’re traveling as well.  This child listened to us read Atlas Shrugged last summer, and he asked questions, too.  I know he’ll at least listen if we read.

The boy has had a hard time in first and second grade, and I think there are some obstacles to be overcome.  I have a bag ready for him in the van with colored pencils, mechanical pencils, and a journal, so that he can record what he sees (a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid).  I made him maps of everywhere we are going, too.

Maybe the 7-year-old was just having a bad day when he asked me not to read with expression, but kids used to be graded on whether they read with expression, didn’t they?  I don’t know how much difference a week can make, but I am hoping the grandpa and I can change his mind.

Reading just ought to be fun, you know?

Worldview Weekend

The hubby and I are attending a Worldview Weekend Conference in Indy tomorrow.  We have begun to wonder, recently, how our views are skewed because of the society in which we live, and this conference seems like a good way to explore that.  The topics include:

Six Worldviews That Rule the World; How This Can Be The Greatest Hour For the American Church; How is the Worldview of Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Alice Bailey, John Maynard Keynes, John Dewey, Julius Wellhausen, and Friedrich Nietzsche Impacting Your Life and our Children? Understanding the Spiritual Battle Taking Place in America and Around the World; How to Prepare the Remnant For What is Coming; What The Bible Has to Say About The Coming One-World Religion, One-World Economy and Global Governance; How This Happened to America, Where We Are Going and The Biblical Response; The Radicals and Their Worldviews Ruling America From the Grave and How Every Teen and Adult Must Respond To Be Protected; Refuting Evolution; Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism; Understanding the Spiritual Battle Taking Place in America and Around the World; Why is Communism growing around the world and in America? What is societal evolution and what is spiritual evolution and how is it impacting you?

There’s a free worldview test you can take on the Worldview website, and I took it last night.  In many areas, I came out with a strong Biblical worldview, but in a few I came out as moderate and  in one area, education, my views were classified as secular.  I am more curious than ever now, as education is where I have spent the majority of my life.

My friend Carol over at Write at Home blogged about truth a while ago, and I don’t think I can improve on what she said.  Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  If my views have differed from that, I am hoping this conference will help me adjust them.

This post is a part of Spiritual Sundays.  If you would like to read more posts, click here.

Cons and Pros of Technology

Yesterday, I was holding up the door of a store when it opened.  I had traveled almost twenty miles to buy a sweater while they still had what I wanted in stock.  (Have you noticed that stores don’t carry nearly as much stock as they used to?)  Anyway, sweater in hand, I walked to the cash register only to be told that their computers were down and I couldn’t buy.  I couldn’t even pay cash because there is no longer a form on which the salesperson could write an official receipt.

Today, I had to take the sixth and seventh roots of numbers in order to prepare for my math class, and I was stymied.  Enter the graphing calculator.  I have always had just your basic calculator, although we bought scientific calculators for the kids when they were in high school.  Calculators were just coming in when I was in college the first time, 1969-73.  When I took my stats class, you only had half the time to complete the test if you had a calculator.  Few people did; I took my test without.

That said, though, I was amazed at what the graphing calculator can do.  It can take the nth root of a number that is raised to a fractional power like 1/2 or 1/3.  It can square numbers or take square roots (at least it could after I found the right button to push).  I bet there is even a way to work with variables on those calculators, although I have not discovered it yet.

We’ve gotten used to all of this technology and, I have to admit, today I was really grateful.  I still wonder, though…if the system crashes and the batteries run out, will we be able to function as a society, or will things be  confused like they were at the Tower of Babel?  Once all the Baby Boomers retire, who will even know the old ways?

Obsolescense

Do you like to hold books?  To touch them?  To swap them?  As I have said before, I used to be an English teacher.  I eat with English teachers.  We all feel that way about books, and we are all mourning the closing of the local bookstore at the mall.

But maybe we just have to go with the times.

The head of the English department got a Kindle for Christmas, and she was showing it off at lunch today.  She has a leather case for it, so you can hold it like a book.  She passed it around, and we were all impressed.  Evidently you can’t download the pictures from books, although she does have a picture of Ernest Hemingway as a screen saver. It was easy to turn pages, and the pages looked like book pages, not all in Times New Roman as I had envisioned them.  The Kindle will even read to you with a synthesized voice.

I was sort of on board.  You can download old books for free, and any book, evidently, for $9.99.

And then…

One of the other teachers my age looked at the thirty-somethings and said, “Save your books, girls.  Otherwise your grandchildren won’t know what they look like.”

Really?  Is that the way we are going?

What about the pictures?

And what will happen if the Kindle (or the other electronic media that is supposed to house printed literature) crashes?

In the old days, people used to memorize to keep their important literature, but I think we can all agree that memorization, for the general public at least, is a lost art.

So if the system crashes, where will we, as a society, be?

I don’t know.  I’m just asking.