My Own Thoughts

I teach the fourth grade class at my church and this morning our lesson was on Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers. (Luke 17:11-19) In reference to this we also discussed the stories of leprosy in the Old Testament (Moses’ hand, Miriam, and Naaman). In the Naaman story, Elisha’s servant and his family are cursed [...]

An article by Dr. Charles made me want to go find an old fashioned pharmacy and give my business to it. If there’s one in my area, though, I don’t know about it.

I got a phone call from R, who’s off playing in Vegas. He said, “I had a car wreck. I need the insurance.” I said okay and headed out to get the information. I’d actually made it all the way across the house before I even thought to ask, “You’re okay, right? You’re not hurt?” [...]

One of my students was absent last week. He came to class yesterday and said he would be absent on Thursday. I laughed and asked, “Are you ever coming back?” But then he said he was going to a funeral in Alaska. His friend died in Iraq. I don’t know who his friend was, but [...]

Many people, including me, are annoyed by the BCE and CE that has become the “standard” for dating in modern textbooks attempting to deny Christ. But I found an interesting tidbit. The Masons, in the 1700s, used a dating system of “BCE” which was “Before the Christian Era” because they believed (probably rightly) that Jesus [...]

Today is the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquakes and fire that destroyed much of the city. Here is a picture taken five weeks after the earthquake from a tethered balloon. For some fascinating personal accounts, and some audacious ones (the first man went from his home to his office, secured all the company’s [...]

After two months of doing nothing on my books, I went through and gave the first novel in the trilogy a stiff paring down. I dropped 30,000 words from it so that it will read faster. I could probably drop more, but at least this way the story should get a better reading. In addition [...]

Just yesterday my husband was decrying the theft/adoption of specific words with specific meanings to mean other things by certain groups of people. He spoke of three which have lost the meaning they had when we were young, sometimes leaving no word to replace them, and become something else. I am not going to say [...]

also known as Easter. I enjoyed the song service our church had in place of Bible class this morning. And we had a full crowd this Sunday, even though many people were out of town and visiting. The sermon was an eye opener as well, speaking of the custom of covenant making in the Old [...]

24 days after having gotten off my allergy foods, I ate some again. The last time I got off the allergy foods, I was off for about three months, then I ate food which had the allergens in it. About three hours later, I had debilitating headaches, my back went out, and I had trouble [...]

If I do not register E for the THEA before tomorrow at 5, he will not be able to take it until June, when I will not be available to deliver him to the test… Could someone take him if I can’t? Probably. Though I don’t know who. He graduates in 2009, still. But he [...]

It’s an excellent book. The second prequel in a series to what are some of my favorite novels. I recommend you read them in the order I did, starting with Agent of Change. Then Carpe Diem. Then Conflict of Honors. (Though it is earlier than AofC and may not be any odder to read in [...]

Live Science has an article which says that scientists can predict your shape simply by looking at your genes. From that you would suppose there is no use in exercising, in eating right, in staying healthy. But I’m going to ignore those findings and say that being overweight, while partially a function of genetics, can [...]

-even though they took it from you in the first place- is probably not the best idea. Spunky Homeschool points out why Dutch women may be getting fined soon for staying home. And she mentions, in passing, as a throw away line, that feminism was never about giving women choices, but about making choices for [...]

April 10, 2003. “At this moment, the regime of Sadam Hussein is being removed from power, and a long era of fear and cruelty is ending.” Thank you, Mr. President, and all those men and women of our armed services who made this statement true and lasting.

Okay. That last post was enough of the odd grammatical phrasing. But, I recommend the books from Liad highly, despite the occasional unique presentation of information. They are science fiction and have no relevance to the real world that I am aware of, which, I think, makes them rather more intriguing.

The Imperfect Homeschooler has an excellent post on the Opportunity Cost of Homeschooling. What would I have made over the years if I’d been employed full-time? (This assumes no loss of job in that time, but academics is fairly steady.) For some reason the public information on salaries is now limited to those with a [...]

again. My newest niece, AK, was born last evening. If her Nanna and Poppi hadn’t come to town, she would have been born at home. But since they did, they were at the house and watching AK’s big brother and sister so AK’s mom and dad could go to the hospital. Her mother had an [...]

An article on a modern day Salt Caravan: In the great Saharan desert, the extraction and transportation of salt is a business that has changed little since the middle ages, and camels continue to be an essential part of it. On the edge of Timbuktu, in western Africa, where the city blends into the Sahara, [...]

Discovery.com tells of an archaeological find- a pillow. a 4,000-year-old Egyptian pillow made out of woven plant fibers that were encased in a wax coating. The rare artifact, which dates to 2055-1985 B.C., suggests Cleopatra and other well-known ancient Egyptians may have snoozed on relatively fluffy pillows that perhaps biodegraded over time, leaving the hard [...]