1.

Started the day with husband arms wrapped around me and tiny girl curled up in my own.  It is going to be a very good day. 

2.

This study on the significant rise in myopia over the past thirty years was in the Parade section of the paper last Sunday.  Some suggest that:

  "Societal trends may be
playing a part. Far more children today grow up in front of computers
rather than on baseball fields; instead of tracking down balls hit from
afar or seeking out each other in sprawling city parks, they're
following the movements of a cursor only a foot or so from their eyes.
Such early activities, Vitale said, shape visual acuity."

You know what that means don't you?  Dr Raymond Moore and other 'better late than early' camps may just have it right after all.  It is a shame Dr Moore is not with us yet to see his theories proven correct. The rest of us ought to take note.  Backing away from the computer is not enough.  Time spent using our distance vision is more important.  

Short answer?  

Go outside. This is good. : )  

 

3.

"Photography is a foreign language everyone thinks he speaks," once commented Philip-Lorca diCorcia. If you are interested in becoming truly fluent these tutorials are a good place to start:

Kaboom

SmugMug help

Digital Photography School - sign up for the weekend challenge mailing!

4.

Thought about this verse this week:

"…to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored."  Titus 2:5  

We tend to disregard verses that we have heard a thousand times but I think this bears a second look.  Do you have a question about curriculum? About home management? About childrearing? The answers are not here nor inside this screen anyplace. They are only to be found on your knees, in your home, with your family.  As one mom lamented, before she truly took this verse to heart she was constantly telling her kids "Just a minute" while she sat at the screen "looking into all the world" for the answers to her questions.  : / 

There is merit to the idea of letting information 'rest'. God knew what He was doing when He gave us all this work to do. It provides good respite from over-thinking and keeps us busy in our own homes with the work He gave to us, which is where our focus ought to be. The unexpected result of diverting our attention back to manual labor is that often when we return to the question at hand the answer is often very clear. If not, and we are blessed to have one, husbands have an uncanny knack for discerning the answers right quick. Other moms, no matter how seasoned,  have not been given the grace to make decisions for our family.  And vice versa.

And vice versa. 

Your way is probably the right way, as Anna of Pleasant View Schoolhouse says. At least this is what I have thought this week. 

5.

Birds of a feather, flock together, right below my kitchen window. Looked out the other day and there were dozens of um, whatever these are. Theresa? Macbeth?? One of you must know. I caught them just before they noticed me and took off all at once as a group. And look, you can't really tell how spotted up my window is either.  Cool. 

 

6.

A very funny video for you married types.  HT Joanna from FB ; )   I laughed hard.  Laughing is good. But you may have the chorus running through your head for days.  Its like that lol. 

7.

It is Valentine's Day Sunday. A very good day to review what love is.  Our friends and Aidan's Godparents Ann and Mike were teaching catechism class for second graders many years ago.  The director insisted they must create and post a set of classroom rules.  They were puzzled at first and then settled on a poster board with verses from 1 Corinthians 13 .  Ann related that after rereading this passage it pretty much covered anything that might arise.  Love is patient, therefore we can wait our turn – wait for the bathroom – wait.  Love does not boast, even when one does something much cooler than one's neighbor, nor is it jealous when tables are turned.  Love does not insist on its own way, even when that way seems exceptional. It does not delight in evil.  We do not relish seeing our neighbor fall. It keeps no record of wrongs.  Messed over?  It happens.  Let it go. Irritable?  Don't be. 

Yes, Ann and Mike were onto something.  I always said I was going to copy down the whole passage and use it as our primary character training tool – for myself first.  The older I get the more wisdom I see here.  For Valentine's Day the best gift I can think of is to really REALLY think hard on this definition of love and see how I am measuring up and what needs improvement. Heaven knows there is room for improvement. Heaven always knows. 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, 

but have
not love, 

I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. 

And if I have
prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have all faith
so as to remove mountains, 

but have not love, I am nothing. 

And if I dole
out all my goods, and 

if I deliver my body that I may boast 

but have not
love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering, 

love is kind, 

it is not jealous, 

love does not boast, 

it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous, 

it is
not selfish, 

it is not irritable, 

it does not enumerate the evil.

It does
not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth  

 

It covers all
things, 

it has faith for all things, 

it hopes in all things, 

it endures in all things.

Love never falls in ruins; 

but whether prophecies, they
will be abolished; or 

tongues, they will cease; or 

knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.

But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be
superseded.  

When I was an infant, 

I spoke as an infant, 

I reckoned as an infant;

when I became [an adult], 

I abolished the things of the infant. 

For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face
to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known. 

But now remains

 faith, hope, love,

these three;

but the greatest of these is love.