Month: November 2008

I like to plan things.  I may never execute my plan, I may never hope to see it as a reality, but I still enjoy planning things. I love to share my plans with people, even though they don’t always love to hear them.  My poor brother has endured thousands of party schemes and outfit ideas.  I like to set goals too, but the ‘setting’ is much easier than the actual undertaking and achievement.  My diary is solid proof of that!  Anyhow, Thanksgiving day is in 2 weeks and 6 days and I have already started to put together a menu and a shopping list. I am very, very excited! Since Christian and Dad are not exactly partial to hearing my plan, I thought I’d share it on the blog.

Menu: (With the people who are making each dish put in parenthesis)
Turkey (Collaborative effort)
Cranberry Sauce (Out of a can (tee hee), or Grandpa makes it)
Grandma’s Gravy (Not sure whether Grandma will actually make it or not…)
Spicy Mashed Potatoes (Grandpa’s specialty)
Dinner Rolls (Christian, the dinner roll expert)
Sweet Potato Casserole (Christian)
Salad (Christian)
Some sort of vegetable, I’m thinking green been casserole (not very appetizing, but it’s a classic) or asparagus with garlic (Kelly)
Ambrosia Salad (Kelly)
Fresh Baked Bread (Kelly)

Dessert
Fancy Apple Pie (Kelly and Christian, with some help from Martha Stewart 🙂 )
Pumpkin Pie (Kelly and Christian; I was trying to decide which one to make, but it was so hard that I just chose both.  I think I’ll make them ahead of time.)

I have a chronological list of when we should prepare each dish, but that might be pretty boring to read.  Oh, and I did consult this list with Christian and he’s fine with it! Anyway, Grandpa already told us he’s making the mashed potatoes and he’s always been the cranberry sauce guru.  And Grandma’s gravy recipe is amazing.

So I think we’re all good! The only thing that really has me worried is the centerpiece…

We ran like crazy for the last month. The trip to Mexico, Cousin Julia’s visit, and the excitement of the election are now over. Tonight and this whole weekend, we plan to do nothing more than hang out together as a family. That will include comic drawing, McDonalds for breakfast, a trip to Costco, and some quality time at the bookstore with hot cocoa for the kids and coffee for Lorena and I on Saturday morning. We will talk Kelly into baking us some bread. If the weather is nice, I think tomorrow would be a good time to give both Kelly and Christian a lesson on how to grill steaks. I need to work up lesson plans for the next couple of weeks that includes the new ACT preparation materials we plan to buy on Saturday. I also need to get my materials ready for our annual meeting with the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education on Monday. The following is Christian’s rendering of the Betty Blonde comic strip characters. I thought I would post it as I thought it was nice and I did not have much to say this morning.

Update: Christian, check out this search engine. Amazing. It makes associations and suggestions on searches.

November 6, 2004 – Wayne the Mexican (comic strip)
November 7, 2004 – Rocket launch (photos)

I loved Kelly’s post from yesterday and the wonderful comments Eric wrote below it. I think he expressed the feelings of a lot of right thinking people in those comments. His links to web pages here and here about Solomon Asch’s conformity were especially enlightening. Then, when I got into work this morning, I found that I had come to Jeremiah 5 in my bible reading. It is amazing how timely these reading have been. You would almost think someone planned for me to read them when I did. I highly recommend reading Kelly’s post, Eric’s comments, the pages on Asch’s conformity experiment, and the first five chapters (if not more) of Jeremiah.

We left all formal academic pursuits behind for two weeks in October to go to Mexico to visit Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita. Those two weeks are probably the most educational weeks of the year. It was all Spanish all the time with visits to museums, concerts, and natural wonders, Mexican cultural immersion, etc., etc. Kelly got sewing lessons from Grandma Conchita. Christian installed Xubuntu on Tio Lynn’s computer which truly qualifies as a piece of trash and got it to run orders of magnitude more robustly and rapidly than it ran with Windows XP. It was wonderful. We got a little behind with all the upheaval, but should be completely back on track by the end of the coming weekend.

The only deviations we are making in our homeschool plan are associated with the ACT college entrance exam both Kelly and Christian will take on February 7. Kelly will take the optional writing portion of the test while Christian will take only the English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science portions. We had not planned to cover Trigonometry until after the test, so I will add some introductory Trig material for both Kelly and Christian. I will also add some ACT writing preparation to our normal coursework which should be good for both of the kids even though Christian will not take the optional writing test for the first time until next year. Christian is taking the test as part of the Duke TIP program. We have received the paperwork from the ACT people, so we are all set to go.

Update: If they actually get under $200, we will get one for homeschool!

November 4, 2004 – Lorena’s math proficiency test
November 5, 2004 – Kelly wins writing contest (Photos)

I wore my special patriotic stars and stripes T-shirt, I updated my status on Facebook with McCain/Palin cheers, I even baked chocolate chip cookies!!!  And all for naught I suppose.

But do you know what? It’s OK.  It’s OK to lose every once in a while, even if it means giving up the leadership of the country you love to a Democrat (Democrats, read ‘Democrat’ as ‘Republican’ or ‘President Bush’ or whatnot. You might understand how I feel then. :D)   In spite of it all, I agree with what Dad says. I am not of this kingdom.  If God chose Barack Obama to be my president, then that’s good enough for me.  I just need to remember that there’s a divine plan underneath all the turmoil. Anyway if things get really bad, I can always count on being half Mexican. I’ll just hole up somewhere in rural Monterrey and wait for things to settle down.  🙂

On another note…

So there’s a little bucket of ‘wise’ and/or ‘witty’ quotes on the counter at the Y.  You take one after you are done working out.  Yesterday mine said something like:

“Tolerating other people’s principles is only possible if you have none of your own.”

I forget who said it.  What does it mean?

We did not stay up last night to listen to the election returns. It did not go so well for our side. Notice from the 2004 posts below that life was a lot better four years ago. Still, the sun came up this morning, I made it to work, the kids started their homeschool, and Lorena started her day managing the household. It was pretty disconcerting to read Jeremiah 4 in my bible this morning because it talks about what would happen to Judah and Israel because they turned their backs on God. It was also very clear that the remedy for such a coming disaster is to turn to God. Lorena and I had a very good talk after we saw the way it was going about the necessity and importance to keep our focus on those things over which we have control, the principle one being faith in God.

Hebrews 11:6 – But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

The reason I am most often disappointed when an outcome is not what I want it to be is that I forget who is really in control. God lets happen that which is part of His plan, not mine. The really good corollary, though, is the verse above. All we have to do as individuals is seek him. The other good part is that the demonstration of saving belief is the sacrificial love we have for Him and for our neighbors.

It is truly good to be alive, even in times such as these.

November 2, 2004 – Election day – Viva Bush!!!
November 3, 2004 – Bush Wins! (Photos)

I did not post on the weight loss death match for a couple of days, so when I checked this morning I saw that Brad (Bradley Lemond) Joyce had joined the chart. WELCOME Brad! Lyle is going strong, too. Now all we have to do is get Warren up and going again. I was down 40, but now I am only down 35. I have no excuse. I would really like to be down 52 pounds after a year. That would be a pound a week for a year. The one year anniversary of our chart is on February 1. They have changed the name to “Weight Loss GET HEALTHY Match”, but it just does not have the same ring to it, not to mention the level of intensity, of “Weight Loss DEATH Match”. We are going to have to negotiate this. I say, “Lose weight or die!!!”

It is election day. It is an amazing time to be reading the book of Jeremiah in the bible. I do not know why I did not know that Jeremiah was called to be a prophet as a child. With the election going on, I have thought a lot about what the world will be like for Kelly and Christian. It was good for me to realize that God has a calling for people even in the bad times, probably especially in the bad times. God told Jeremiah that everyone in power would be against him, but to not fear because God would be with him. Another thing I do not know why I did not know was part of the time Jeremiah prophesied occurred during the reign of Josiah, one of the good kings of Judah. He saw the decline of Judah from the prosperity of Josiah’s reign until Judah was carried into captivity during Josiah’s son Zedekiah’s reign. Still Jeremiah remained faithful to his calling. The upshot, as many had previously noted, is that God is in control of all of this. We have had some might good times here in America for a good number of years. The moral and ethical decline has accelerated since the time of my youth. Only God knows what lies ahead.

Nevertheless, I have lots of hope that John and Sarah can pull this thing out. The thing to do is ignore the main stream (or as Rush says, the “drive-by”) media. They lie a lot.

Update: I highly recommend this very timely post from our Cuban friend, Jorge.

November 1, 2004 – Harvest party (photos)
November 1, 2004 – Bebe de Oscar y Diana (Photos)

John J. Miller of National Review‘s phi beta cons blog linked to a very interesting article at the Inside Higher Ed website about a tenured college professor at a liberal arts college who has given up on the system. He says,

After too many years at this job (I am in my mid-40s), I have grown to question higher education in ways that cannot be rectified by a new syllabus, or a sabbatical, or, heaven forbid, a conference roundtable. No, my troubles with this treasured profession are both broad and deep, and they begin with a fervent belief that most of today’s college students, especially those that come to college straight from high school, are unnecessarily coddled. Professors and administrators seek to “nurture” and “engage” and they are doing so at the expense of teaching. The result: a discernable and precipitous decline in the quality of college students. More of them come to campus with dreadful study habits. Too few of them read for pleasure. Too many drink and smoke excessively. They are terribly ill-prepared for four years of hard work, and most dangerously, they do not think that college should be arduous. Instead they perceive college as an overnight recreation center in which they exercise, eat, and in between playing extracurricular sports, they carry books around. If a professor is lucky, the books are being skimmed hours before class.

How do I know that my concerns are not unique to my employer, or my classroom? My students are brutally honest–they tell me with candor and without shame that their peers think of college as a four year cruise without a destination.

This weekend, I had the pleasure to discuss the state of the education system with my niece Julia.  She just completed a degree in education at an Ivy League school. She is very passionate about her chosen field of study and expects to continue on to graduate school after she works for awhile.  I am confident she is a great teacher. It was good for me to speak with her because it has helped me focus on what I want for my own children.

It seems that many students view a university education as an end onto itself with the social aspects of the schooling on par or even more important than academics.  A degree is viewed as a higher goal than the learning required to achieve the degree.  It is made the more frustrating because of the many politically correct classes that both denigrate the values of those who hold to a Christian worldview and elevate fringe behaviors that are reliable markers of a civilization in decline.  So, the options available to us are over-priced private schools run by organized religion that provide an education that, while not perfect, are more or less in line with our worldview or government run schools that are reasonably priced, but require attendance at hedonistic brainwashing sessions.

All that, and it turns out that the people who teach the classes are more interested in leading a cushy life than teaching students while the students themselves are generally more interested in self-actualization and partying than getting an education.  This is going to take some additional thought.

Update: I like this article a lot.

October 28, 2004 – Dayanita and her parrot (photo)
October 29, 2004 – Harvest party tonight