Winter in Your Heart?


Does it feel like winter in your heart?

Are you asking the question: “Is love alive?”?

You might like the following video and song I found.

The meaning reminds me of the last part of Bette Midler’s song “The Rose”.

Some say love it is a river
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you its only seed

It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun’s love
in the spring
becomes the rose

I found this video at a blog called Storybook Woods. This was my first visit there, and it looks very good. Lots of homemaking tips and craft ideas. Her blog is very artistic and beautiful. And it sounds like she has written a book. I haven’t read it, so I can’t recommend it, but you might want to check it out!

Update:

I’ve read the first chapter, and I feel sure that Wren Bay is a wonderful book.

Check out this promo video that Clarice’s daughter put together for it:

Patrick, Our Noble Son

Patrick has conquered many enemies and overcome many obstacles.

This is his most recent victory.

I'm tired of cutting his hair. Maybe I'll just burn it off!
But, seriously, today we celebrated a solemn occasion - Patrick's 15th birthday and what we called his Bar Mizvah.

His birthday was actually in September, but he didn’t want to celebrate it until we had moved to our new place. We all knew that we were leaving Illinois. We just didn’t know when or where. So, not only was Christmas postponed. His birthday and ceremony of passage to manhood were also put on hold.

Patrick couldn’t believe how many candles were on his cake. He thought I had put too many on there. He counted them. They all did some math in figuring out that there were three rows of five! He said it made him feel old to see all those candles on his cake. Oh to be so old again!

Patrick’s Bar Mizvah from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

I said a few words about the growth and maturity I had seen in Patrick, especially over the last three years. I mentioned some of the character qualities that I appreciate in him, especially the way he’s not afraid to do hard things. I affirmed him in the gifts that God has given him. And I emphasized the fact that his spiritual growth and development is the most important area of growth and that I have been very pleased to see how he is growing. I read many verses to him that the Lord gave me for him.

These words are all written in his notebook in which I write a letter to him every year for his birthday (more or less).

The little ones were not too sure about what was going on, but they stayed pretty patient through our ceremony.
This is his purity ring. It says "I am my Beloved's. My Beloved is mine." In Hebrew and in English.

I ordered this ring before his birthday from C28.com and saved it to give to him today. I don’t know why he is holding Jesse’s hand next to it. I don’t think he’s planning to marry a doll.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep everybody on task!

Abby's cuteness and loudness provoked Shawn to grab her and try to settle her down on his lap

We made it through the ceremony. Then we ate the yummy chocolate pudding cake and ice cream. After we finished eating, I realized that Emma was no longer with us. She had snuck off to play a computer game. She was the one who bugged me the most all day about when we were going to start the party. And she made it through the less exciting part and then missed the cake and ice cream! She came in when I was the only one left at the table and said she wanted some cake. Fortunately, there was still some left.

I really like how it went today. I got some inspiration and ideas from this website, Raising a Modern Day Knight. I listened to Robert Lewis’ book on tape several years ago. So we did a ceremony for Shawn when he was 13 back in Ohio. We did it at his 13th birthday party. My mom and dad thought that it was kind of strange and that Shawn was too young to be told that he was becoming a man, but I think it was really good and set Shawn on the right path.

Today’s ceremony for Patrick was the right timing for him, I believe. He seems to agree that he’s ready now. I believe the Spirit of God led me in the way we should do it. I love the ring he chose. I love the words on it, the fact that it says them in Hebrew and the meaning that can apply to his relationship with God and his relationship with his future wife.

“I am my beloved’s. My beloved is mine.”

For now that is wholly about God. But I brought out the fact that he is committing that he will remain pure before God, before his family, before his parents, and he is promising his future wife (if it’s God’s will that he marry some day) that he will remain pure.

The plan is for him to give his purity ring to his bride at his wedding, and hopefully she will have one to give him. But he said his ring is so cool, he will want it back. So I told him he could get it back from her after the ceremony! With the inscription on it, it is a ring he should wear his whole life, so I thought that would be appropriate.

One thing we didn’t do that I just thought of while I was writing this post is to pray for him and bless him. We did that with Shawn. I forgot about it today. I think I’ll get the older kids together, at least, and have Gary and Shawn bless him and pray over him. We can do that yet tonight.

We did pray over Patrick the next day. It was very precious. Gary prayed, then Shawn, then I did. I think Patrick was really touched by our prayers. I’m glad I remembered. He told me that he wondered why we didn’t do that when I gave him his ring. I just have some fuzzy brain times that clear up after a while. I’m thankful that God helps with everything. When I’m weak, then He is strong. His grace is sufficient for me.

Passport to the World

Here is a fun opportunity to study countries of the world together with friends while earning chances to win a copy of a great new book.

Come join us at Christian Home School Hub for this fun study.

For 26 weeks we will be traveling to 26 destinations around the world, exploring and sharing as we go. Our itinerary will follow Craig Froman’s newly published book, Passport to the World, which is an A to Z guided language tour. Each week of our journey, 1 traveler will win a copy of Passport to the World, compliments of Master Books.

Here’s how our journey will unfold: Each week, a ‘ticket’ will be displayed at Christian Home School Hub showing the week’s destination. We want to find as many educational websites, activities, crafts, recipes, worksheets, etc. as we can about each destination!

To earn entries into each week’s drawing, all you need to do is share what you’ve found in the ‘Destination Share Box’ at the portal at Christian Home School Hub. Each web link, craft, recipe and activity you share with us will earn you an entry into that week’s drawing! There will also be other ways to earn entries each week, so watch for those as well!

I’ve already seen some great pictures of sites in Armenia and learned a little bit of its history just by doing some searches for this week’s ticket. And Craig Froman’s blog has some great Geography activities, too.

Lynda Ackert of the Christian Home School Hub has even developed some neat activity pages to help us study and report on what we discover along the way. She graciously gives us these pages for free at the portal here.

So come along with us on this learning adventure and get a chance to win a great Geography/Social Studies book.

Science for Snowy Days

Garrett is demonstrating how the moon moves around the Earth and the Earth moves around the sun. We got this from here. It’s an extensive lesson plan. I used pages 26 and 31 from the appendix. I may go back and get some more from it.

The planet page that he colored is page 31 from the lesson plans I mentioned above.

We read this book to learn about each planet and see how to color each one. It’s from a Christian viewpoint.

I saw an opportunity for copywork, so I seized the moment! I wrote about the amount of time it takes the moon to go around the Earth being a month, and then had them copy it on our story paper. Then they each drew a picture at the top. Lots of skills being used on one assignment.

They did a good job of copying. Their handwriting is improving, and I was able to help with some problems they were having.

Fiona loved the drawing part!

Garrett is enjoying drawing a lot more than he used to.

We made this booklet last week about Snowflakes. We started it the same day we made our snowflakes. We got it from Enchanted Learning.

As you can see, Fiona enjoyed drawing in the Snowflake booklet, too.

We only made one booklet, and Fiona did most of the copywork, so I will let her keep it in her notebook. But I made sure that Garrett knew the information, too.

I did some kitchen science and made my second batch of bread (ever in my life!) I explained a little about how the yeast works, and now Anna is a bit squeamish about yeast being living organisms and moving around in her bread. Sigh. She likes Science, but she is easily grossed out. She’ll just have to get over it.

She worked on her Science alongside us at the kitchen table. She’s using Apologia Exploring Creation with Physical Science. She’s studying the Earth’s atmosphere.

The twins and I already studied that from A Child’s Geography by Ann Voskamp. But she’s getting into it in just a little bit more detail. 🙂 She’s studying for a test right now. She had her iPod on, so she could drown out all the noise we were making.

It was a good Science day for us.

We have been enjoying our Science studies during this SNOWY weather we’ve been having.