Tuesday Musings

Musings - "Thought and thinking are mental forms and processes, respectively ("thought" is both)."

Just going to set the timer and write for a while. Maybe 15 minutes: Here I go:

I slept in until 7:45 this morning. I had such a productive day yesterday. I just know when day is going to be productive. Something hormonal courses through my veins, and it is almost compulsive. I figure I need to grab that and run with it while it is there. Good thing I did because it was there yesterday day and gone today!

My house is in pretty good shape on the inside. I am not touching the garage though, and maybe I should. Then I would know where things are in there, but I feel like it is more George's territory, and I don't want to insult him by cleaning up "his" garage. :)

The thing I always put off is the filing. So, I decided to just attack it. I put my iPod on with Baroque music, and I plugged along until I was finished. I decided that I would not fire up the computer until it was done. Finished in no time. Makes me wonder why I don't just do it as I go along or have a weekly time where I file for fifteen minutes. How about "Filing Friday for Fifteen" I can call it 4-F! Laughing out Loud! Yes, "time for 4-F." I'm there!

I also cleaned both bathrooms, reorganized the linen closet, did four loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and culled out all those records we got from Jan W. (why did we do that anyway?).

In the process, I listened to The City of God for all the work that didn't require reading (i.e. filing). So, I have less than 200 pages to go!

Lisa even took my kids to tennis and brought them home. Oh, she even got me milk! Man. What a great friend!

Then, on top of all of this, my kids and George went to video class for three hours. So, I took a walk and had time to myself.

Monday was awesome. Now, I am just sitting here for Tuesday. I sort of overdid it on my back too. So, I can't do the labor stuff today (but the house is clean anyway). I am going to walk with Rebekah at 10 am and take my kids (and Jake) to tennis at 12 and drawing at 1:30. I think I will go lift and do cardio while my kids are in drawing since that is a great time of day at the club. I can read there without a bunch of noise (those raquetball players are loud and annoying) in the background.

I am really enjoying The City of God. I can see why people like Augustine so much now. Confessions didn't really convince me, but this book has convinced me. He is great. I am reading an abridged version, but i have the unabridged on my Kindle. So, I do read beyond the abridged sometimes. After I am done with TWEM, I will read the unabridged. It is good in the abridged though because it has summaries of the chapters it skips.

Hasn't it been fifteen minutes yet? I am ready to be done with this and go on to other things. I didn't watch the clock to see when I started.

Oh well, I am done anyway.

The Quiet Takes My Breath Away

Even though my kids have their "domain" in the basement, and they are pretty quiet kids, there is something so very soothing about having nobody here right now. George (the sweetheart) is taking his lunch break to take them to the orthodontist and on an errand. So, I am here for a bit by myself in the quietness of the morning.

I love it.

TWEM Classics: 103 out of 154 (67%)

I FINISHED THE ANCIENTS!!!!!

Chronology of Classics in The Well-Educated Mind

Ancients (15 out of 15)

BC
2000 Epic of Gilgamesh/Ferry/Poetry
800 Iliad (*+ T)/ Homer/Lattimore/ Poetry
800 Odyssey(*+ T) /Homer/Lattimore/Poetry
600 Greek Lyrics/ Lattimore/Poetry
458 Agamemnon(*+ T)/ Aeschylus/Drama
450 Oedipus Rex(*+ T)/ Sophocles/Drama
441 Histories/ Herodotus/ History
431 Medea/ Euripedes/ Drama
400 Birds/ (Clouds – T) /Aristophanes/ Drama
400 Peloponnesian War(*+ )/Thucydides/ History
375 Republic(*+)/ Plato/ History
330 Poetics(+)/ Aristotle/Drama
65 Odes of Horace/Poetry
AD
100 Greek Lives/Roman Lives by Plutarch

Medieval Times (15 out of 19)

400 Confessions*+ T Augustine Fitzgerald Autobio
426 City of God+ Augustine History
731 Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede History
1000 Beowulf* Poetry
1300 Inferno*+ Poetry
1300's Everyman Drama
1350 Sir Gawain & the Green Knight* Poetry
1386 Canterbury Tales* Chaucer Poetry
1430 The Book of Margery Kempe Autobio
1513 Prince*+ Machiavelli History
1516 Utopia* Sir Thomas More History
1564 Sonnets Shakespeare Poetry
1580 Essays+ Montaigne Autobio
1588 Life of Teresa of Avila Autobio
1588 Doctor Faustus Marlowe Drama
1592 Richard III Shakespeare Drama
1594 Midsummer's Nights Dream* Shakespeare Drama
1600 Hamlet* Shakespeare Drama

1600 Poems* Donne Poetry (British)

Early Modern -1600-1850 (23 out of 33)

1605 Don Quixote*+ Cervantes Penguin Novel

1611 Psalms KJV Poetry

1641 Meditations+ Descartes Autobio
1667 Paradise Lost*+ Milton Poetry

1666 Grace Abounding Bunyon Autobio
1669 Tartuffe Moliere Drama
1679 Pilgrim's Progress* Bunyon Novel
1682 Narrative of Captivity & Restoration(T) Rowlandson Autobio
1690 True End Civil Government Locke History
1700 Way of the World Congreve Drama
1726 Gulliver's Travels* Swift Novel
1754 History of England, V.5 Hume History
1757 Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake/Poetry (British)
1762 Social Contract+ Rousseau History
1773 She Stoops to Conquer Goldsmith Drama
1776 Common Sense (T) Paine Dover History
1776 Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon Wormsley(Ab) History
1777 School of Scandal Sheridan Drama

1781 Confessions* Rousseau Autobio
1791 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (T)
1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women+ Wollstonecraft History (British)
1798 Lyrical Ballads* Wordsworth, Cooleridge Poetry (British)
1813 Pride & Prejudice*+ Austen Novel
1819 Odes* & Poems Keats Poetry (British)
Longfellow Poetry (American)
Tennyson Poetry (British)
Whitman Poetry (American)
1835 Democracy in America* Tocqueville History
1838 Oliver Twist Dickens Novel
1847 Jane Eyre Bronte Novel
1848 The Comunist Manifesto+ Marx&Engel History
1850 The Scarlet Letter* Hawthorne Novel

Modern History (1850 to present) ( 50 out of 87)

Rossetti Poetry (British)
1851 Moby-Dick/Melville/Novel
Uncle Tom's Cabin/Stowe/Novel
1854 Walden/Thoreau/Autobio
1857 Madame Bovary* Flaubert Novel
1860 Civilization of Renaissance Burckhardt History
1861 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Jacobs Autobio
1866 Crime & Punishment Dostoyevsky Novel

1850- 1866 * Dickinson Poetry (American)
1872 Dunbar Poetry (American)
1877 Anna Karenina* Tolstoy Novel
1878 Return of the Native Hardy Novel
1878 Sandburg Poetry (American)
1879 Doll's House Ibsen Drama
1881 Life & Times/Narrative of Frederick Douglass * T Autobio
1881 The Portrait of a Lady* James Novel
1883 Williams Poetry (American)
1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* Twain
1895 The Red Badge of Courage Crane Novel
1899 Importance of Being Earnest Wilde Drama
1901 Up From Slavery Washington Autobio
1902 Heart of Darkness* Conrad Novel
1902 Hughes Poetry (American)
1903 Souls of Black Folk DuBois History (American)
1904 Cherry Orchard Chekov Drama
1904 The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism Weber History (German)
1905 House of Mirth Wharton Novel
1907 Auden Poetry (American)
1908 Ecce Homo Nietzsche Autobio (German)
1913 Poems* Frost Poetry (American)
1921 Queen Victoria Stachey History
1922 Larkin Poetry (British)
1924 St. Joan Shaw Drama
1925 Mein Kampf Hitler Autobio
The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald Novel
Mrs. Dolloway Woolf Novel
The Trial* Kafka Novel
1929 An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Gandhi Autobio
1932-1963 Sylvia Plath Poetry (American)

(1865-1939) William Butler Yeats (Irish)
Auto of Alice B. Toklas Stein Autobio
Born 1934 Mark Strand Poetry (American)
Born 1929 Adrienne Rich Poetry (American)
1935 Murder in Cathedral T.S. Eliot Drama
1937 The Road to Wigan Pier Orwell History
1938 Our Town Wilder Drama
Born 1939 Seamus Heaney Poetry (Irish)
The New England Mind Miller History *

1940 Long Day's Journey into Night O'Neill Drama
Native Son Wright Novel
Born 1940 Robert Pinsky Poetry (American)

1942 Stranger Camus Novel
1944 No Exit Sartre Drama
1947 A Streetcar Named Desire Williams Drama
1948 Seven Story Mountain Merton Autobio
1949 1984 Orwell Novel
Death of a Salesman Miller Drama
1952 Invisible Man Ellison Novel
Waiting for Godot Beckett Drama

1955 The Great Crash Galbraith History
Surprised by Joy C.S. Lewis Autobio
1956 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) Poetry (American)

1956 Seize the Day Bellow Novel
1959 The Longest Day Ryan History
1960 A Man for All Seasons Bolt Drama
1963 The Feminine Mystique Frieden History
1965 The Autobiography of + Malcolm X Autobio
1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez Novel
Rosencrantz & Guildenstein Stoppard Drama
1972 If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Calvino Novel
1973 Journal of Solitude Sarton Autobio
Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn Autobio
1974 Roll, Jordan, Roll Genovese History

1974 Equus Shaffer Drama
1977 Born Again Colson Autobio
Song of Solomon Morrison Novel
1978 Distant Mirror Tuchman History

1978 Jan Kenyon (1947-1975) Poetry (American)
1982 Hunger of Memory Rodriguez Autobio
1985 White Noise Delillo Novel

1985 Rita Dove (1952- )Poetry (American)
1987 All the President's Men Woodward & Bernstein History
1988 Battle Cry of Freedom McPherson History
1989 Road from Coorain Conway Autobio
1990 Possession Byatt Novel

A Midwife's Tale Ballard Autobio
1992 The End of History & the Last Man Fukuyama History
1995 All Rivers Run to the Sea Wiesel Autobio

(*ITC, +D overlap, T)

ITC= Invitation to the Classics D=Denby's Great Books T = Thelma's Library

The Shaped Up Summer

Well, it is a FREE summer for me, but I did sign the boys up for some fun things this summer:

Corvallis Community Television Video Production Course - actually, George is doing it with them. It will be a fun time for me to have Monday nights free and clear. :)

Realistic Drawing - Benton Center course with Mark Allison

Tennis - two weeks in July

So, why am I awake at 12:45 am?

Maybe I drank Lady Grey to late in the day

Or maybe the movie premiere has caused me to stay

Awake until now and cleaning up things

Browsing collectible my inheritance did bring

OK, that is enough with the rhyming. This is enough! The movie premiere was really great. I was very impressed with Bethany's editing and sound on The Road to Freedom.

Yesterday was a lovely day:

Up early to spend two hours of solid time in the Word

Morning walk with Michelle

Prayer processing after walk

Iszler's clan over for movies downstairs with the kids and talking and prayer with Kim

Took kids to Haberman party for four hours of birthday and water fight fun!

Returned microscope to Barb

Went to Jamocha Jo's

Prayed, processed in the promises of the Word, and listened to poetry as I drifted off to sleep

News as George fixed me hummus and flatbread (Have I mentioned I have the best husband in the world?)

Premiere

Cleaned out closet! A goal achieved!

Looked up collectibles I acquired because no one wanted my mom's stuff, and I am sentimental. Now, I have NO IDEA what some of these things are. What is HALL China? What is Strombergshyttan Thick Walled Scandinavian Glass Vase?

Who knows. I think I am finally getting tired.

I loved yesterday. I really and truly loved yesterday. :)

Poems, Prayers, and Promises

This John Denver song wafted through my head as I sat down and thought about what I would like to do with the next three hours of silence while my kids are out of the house for a birthday party. I did come down to three things I want to do:

Poems - Listen to some more of "Song of Myself" a massive poem in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

Prayers - This really is what I will do first. I just prayed with one friend an hour and a half ago, but there is so much on my heart after a conversation with her mid-day and a walk with another friend this morning. Sometimes all you can do is pray and hope that wickedness will not prevail and to remember God's desire:

"“Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’" (Ezekiel 33:11, NASB95)

I can pray that wicked people will see the light and LIVE rather than spreading their wickedness.

Promises - More time in the Word is always a good thing! I am LOVING Isaiah and getting so much more out of it than I have ever gotten before. Praise be to God for His gift to me of the Bible Book Club that keeps me accountable and learning daily.

So, off to Poem, Prayers, and Promises!

Summer Reading List

This is possibly overly ambitious, but why not?

(Finished ones in RED)

AD

100 Greek Lives/Roman Lives by Plutarch

426 City of God by Augustine

731 Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede

1580 Selected Essays by Montaigne

(This will complete the Ancient and Medieval Time periods)

1835 Democracy in America by Tocqueville (not Am Lit but related)

1850 Whitman Poetry (American)

1872 Dunbar Poetry (American)

1878 Sandburg Poetry (American)

1881 Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Autobiography

1883 Williams Poetry (American)

1902 Hughes Poetry (American)

1903 Souls of Black Folk by DuBois

1907 Auden Poetry (American)

1913 Frost Poetry (American)

Book club:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami

That is it! My Amazon Kindle 2 makes this so FUN too!!!! I can read with large print while I am working out! I can switch it to text-to-speech when I need to run an errand too.

Feeling No Hope for Days Gone By

That sounds so deeply sad, but I guess I should elaborate.

I went to Lamppost today, and I was the last person to post there early last night. Gone are the days of Trapdoor Society where you would leave a post and ten people would respond to what you had said and the dialogue went on for days. Now, I think there are eleven people there where there had been probably 50 regular posters and another 50 occasional posters and another 50 lurkers!

It makes me sad, but you know what? It is peaceful! Gone are the days of provocative posting that always ended in a big conflict, lots of tears, and people calling me on the phone. Gone are the days when people would post a "zinger" to me that would sting me to the core and make me sad because I felt very misunderstood. Gone are the nasty emails! In fact, I got my last "nasty" one (from that person who was usually nasty to me, but now is very nice because the drama in her marriage is now known) the night before we left our church. We got all the drama out of our life in less than 24 hours between June 15 at 8 pm & 16 at 3 pm (when we walked out the doors of our church for the last time!).

No more drama in both areas is a very good thing.

There was so much drama in that online community. Now, everyone gets along, but they aren't very committed to the group.

In looking at the 17 people in the retreat picture from seven years ago in South Carolina (before everything hit the fan), we have:

5 divorces

2 separations (One of which is already headed to divorce. The other is hopeful)

1 separation but back together and rocky

3 undetermined, but rocky, at best

6 still together and strong

I asked one friend, who is separated, whether she thought that some of her marriage difficulties played into her posting, and she said, "Most definitely."

So, all that to say is that there was a ton of drama on the board, but it had much to do with the drama playing out in their homes that we could not see.

I do miss the stimulating dialogue, but I do not miss the drama.

The online community has also dispersed to things like Facebook, and I don't mind. Facebook is friendly. I like the occasional "hi" on Facebook with those old and dear friends, but I also like how Facebook integrates my local friends. They even interact with each other, and that makes me smile.

Some of those online people still congregate on Facebook in the form of "tagged" notes. Last week, one of them had a tagged note with a great quote. I wasn't included, and it stung a bit, but I guess there was a reason for it. It seems like there are little splinters of people in the group maybe based on their life changes. While walking on the beach with Julie, she told me about someone's "guy" like I already knew, and I knew nothing about it. This was my rhetorics partner from the TWEM classics, and we had shared deep things. Now, she doesn't even tell me there is a "guy" in her life after her divorce (maybe because she told me that this guy was out of the picture when she was separated from her husband, but I guess he really wasn't).

So, a part of me is out of the loop, but a part of me doesn't mind not being a part of the drama anymore. Nobody reads this blog anymore either. I am not part of most of their "blog rolls" either, but I think they all still like me. So, I think I have good individual relationships with all of them. I am just not "in the group loop," and that is OK.

Just musing on a Thursday morning! Off to Isaiah.

How Many of These Classics Have You Read?

I've only read 20 out of these 100

This is based on the Penguin Classic's list of "100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die". http://www.listsofbests.com/list/11632. Its for people reading them, wanting to read them or wishing they hadn't read them LOL.

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. Diary of a Madman and Other Stories - Nikolai Gogol
3. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
4. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky YES
5. Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
7. Spy In House Of Love: V4 In Nin'S Continuous Novel - Anais Nin
8. Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H.Lawrence
9. Venus in Furs - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
10. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer YES
11. The Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoevsky YES
12. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad YES
13. Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming
14. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
15. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
16. A Room With a View - E. M. Forster YES
17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
18. Don Juan - Lord George Gordon Byron
19. Love in a Cold Climate- Nancy Mitford
20. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
21. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
22. Middlemarch - George Eliot
23. She: A History of Adventure - H. Rider Haggard
24. The Fight - by Norman Mailer
25. No Easy Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
28. Notre-Dame of Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) - Victor Hugo
29. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
30. The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
31. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Bram Stoker's Dracula - Bram Stoker
33. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley YES
34. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
35. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
36. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
37. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
38. Baby doll - Tennessee Williams
39. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
40. Emma - Jane Austen YES
41. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
42. The Odyssey - Homer YES
43. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck YES
44. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
45. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll YES
46. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald YES
47. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
48. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
49. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
50. Against Nature - Joris-Karl Huysmans
51. The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X
52. The Outsider - Albert Camus
53. Animal Farm - George Orwell
54. The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
55. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
56. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
57. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
58. The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
59. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
60. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
61. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
62. Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - Hunter S. Thompson
63. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens YES
64. Another Country - James Baldwin
65. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
66. Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk - William S. Burroughs
67. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
68. Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
69. Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac
70. Monsieur Monde Vanishes - Georges Simenon
71. Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell YES
72. The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey
73. The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli YES
74. Bound for Glory - Arthur Miller
75. Death of a Salesman - Georges Simenon YES ? (Author?)
76. Maigret and the Ghost - Georges Simenon
77. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
78. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
79. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan, Sir Doyle
80. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
81. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert YES
82. Therese Raquin - Ãmile Zola
83. Les Liaisons dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
84. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne YES
85. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy YES
86. I, Claudius : From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 - Robert Graves
87. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
88. The Beggar's Opera - John Gay
89. The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
90. Guys and Dolls - Hal Leonard Corporation
91. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Iliad of Homer - Homer YES
93. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas YES
94. From Russia with Love - Ian Fleming
95. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
96. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
97. The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
98. Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
99. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
100. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis

Chip Ross Park Loop Trail

We did another trail today to Chip Ross Park, but Sheri and Adam knew a longer route to take. It was very nice. It took 1 hour 4 minutes, and we burned 500 calories! WOOOHOOO!

Silver Creeks Falls Trail of Ten Falls

Silver Creeks Falls Mosaic, originally uploaded by carolfoasia.

What I did last Friday. I love living in Oregon!

TWEM Classics Left

AD
100 Greek Lives/Roman Lives by Plutarch

426 City of God+ Augustine History
731 Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede History
1580 Essays+ Montaigne Autobio

1600 Poems* Donne Poetry (British)

1754 History of England, V.5 Hume History
1757 Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake/Poetry (British)

1776 Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon Wormsley(Ab) History

1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women+ Wollstonecraft History (British)
1798 Lyrical Ballads* Wordsworth, Cooleridge Poetry (British)

1819 Odes* & Poems Keats Poetry (British)

Tennyson Poetry (British)
Whitman Poetry (American)
1835 Democracy in America* Tocqueville History

1848 The Comunist Manifesto+ Marx&Engel History

Rossetti Poetry (British)

1860 Civilization of Renaissance Burckhardt History

1872 Dunbar Poetry (American)

1878 Sandburg Poetry (American)

1883 Williams Poetry (American)

1902 Hughes Poetry (American)
1903 Souls of Black Folk DuBois History (American)

1904 The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism Weber History (German)

1907 Auden Poetry (American)
1908 Ecce Homo Nietzsche Autobio (German)
1913 Poems* Frost Poetry (American)

1922 Larkin Poetry (British)

1925 Mein Kampf Hitler Autobio

1929 An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Gandhi Autobio
1932-1963 Sylvia Plath Poetry (American)

(1865-1939) William Butler Yeats (Irish)
Auto of Alice B. Toklas Stein Autobio
Born 1934 Mark Strand Poetry (American)
Born 1929 Adrienne Rich Poetry (American)

1937 The Road to Wigan Pier Orwell History

Born 1939 Seamus Heaney Poetry (Irish)
1938 The New England Mind Miller History *

Born 1940 Robert Pinsky Poetry (American)

1948 Seven Story Mountain Merton Autobio

1955 The Great Crash Galbraith History
Surprised by Joy C.S. Lewis Autobio

1956 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) Poetry (American)

959 The Longest Day Ryan History

1965 The Autobiography of + Malcolm X Autobio

1973 Journal of Solitude Sarton Autobio
Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn Autobio
1974 Roll, Jordan, Roll Genovese History

1978 Distant Mirror Tuchman History

1978 Jan Kenyon (1947-1975) Poetry (American)

1985 Rita Dove (1952- )Poetry (American)
1987 All the President's Men Woodward & Bernstein History

1990 A Midwife's Tale Ballard Autobio
1992 The End of History & the Last Man Fukuyama History

Recap of the 2008-2009 School Year

I am going to be better about blogging here. Here is the run down of the school year that just ended:

HISTORY - Big score with a combination of Biography of America from Annenburg Media, the CLEP US History I book, The History of US by Joy Hakim, and the history component of the American Literature class. My kids are studying for the CLEP now. We only got through Reconstruction, but we are good with that. We tried to follow along with the American Literature timeline, and she really spent a very short amount of time after Reconstruction.

AMERICAN LITERATURE - Big score here too. Thelma English is the bomb. I was able to edit out her tangents on the lectures, have the kids take the quizzes in the quiet of their own homes, and leave enough time for a little more freedom for the two hour class time as a result. We all learned so much about the different eras of literature. My kids really loved it. They especially liked reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn. Two thumbs up.

They read author biographies and syllabus (300+ pages), and books. Here is a list of the "works" they read:

"Mayflower Compact"

"Arabella Covenant"

"How to Spend a Day with God"

"Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson"

"Narrative of Jonathan Edwards"

Declaration of Independence

Constitution of the United States

Anna Bradstreet - To My Husband and Other Poems
Thomas Paine- Common Sense
Benjamin Franklin – Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Ralph Waldo Emerson- "Self Reliance" and "Nature
Henry David Thoreau – "Civil Disobedience"
Henry David Thoreau – Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Just 25-35 pages)
Frederick Douglas – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas
Louisa May Alcot- "My Contraband" and "A Night" (they thought they were boring)
Mark Twain- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (loved)

Mark Twain- Humorous Stories and Sketches (loved)
Great American Short Stories (including Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart, Melville's "Bartleby", Harte's "Luck of Roaring", London's "To Build a Fire", Hemingway's "The Killers", Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown", Crane's "Open Boat" and "Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", Steinbeck's "The Red Pony".)
101 Great American Poems (Just Poe's "The Raven", Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!", Crane's "War is Kind", Dickinson's "Stop for Death".)
O’Henry- (W.S.Porter) The Gift of the Magi
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin (their favorite)

ENGLISH/WRITING - The kids had fifteen writing assignments for the American Literature class (I skipped one and adapted another though). Paul did Daily Grams and Michael did Nitty-Gritty Grammar review.


MATH - Bob Jones Geometry and Pre-Algebra. It wasn't broke. So, we didn't fix it. Michael will switch to Teaching Textbooks Algebra II since I got it for only $30 used! It is also beyond my schooling. So, he will need the tutoring. Paul will do Algebra I.

SCIENCE - Michael completed the entire Cornell Handbook of Bird Biology (Michael says it is "No handbook. It is so huge!). I am going to order the tests now and have him do the course of certification because some colleges accept it as credit. Paul started the BJU Biology, but it is a high school text, and he just wasn't ready for it. I am going to switch him to Apologia Biology next year because that is a little bit more user-friendly for him. He isn't as much of a science guy as Michael. We started the Biology lab in co-op, but they used a different text, and it was too much work to have to match the two courses. Consequently, Biology lab will be a part of summer school, and I am going to get GEORGE to handle it by doing "Biology Blitz" Saturdays where we do a bunch of labs in one day. It should be fun for them to do together. :) Sherri is selling me Adam's book and lending us his cool microscope. :)

BIBLE - Michael just informed me that he finished the Pentateuch! My goal is to have them read through the entire Bible by the time they are done with high school. They both read through the New Testament last year. So, they are on their way. Paul is in Exodus. They are also journaling daily. :)

READING - My kids still do a "DEAR" time, and I think this gets lost in schools and even homeschool with the onslaught of more rigorous subjects.

Michael's Pleasure Reading:

The Tin Woodman of Oz
Rink-i-Tink in Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Case of the Blazing Sky
The Quest for the Great White Quail

Paul's Pleasure Reading List:
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Tripod Trilogy
Hank the Cowdog (about 5 of them)

CO-OP - They did American Government in the fall with many presentations. That was really healthy for my kids to get in front of people. Paul did great for his first time. Michael was very well prepared for both and had fun doing video with Adam and Joe for his Bill of Rights talk. They switched to Critical Thinking with Nikki and learned quite a bit (she is a very good teacher). They had a debate unit too and debated some aspect of renewable energy production. Then, we finished up the year with studying the history of the abolition of the slave trade using the movie Amazing Grace as a springboard. It worked out nicely, but it was too much for me to do that AND the American Literature class on the same day.

MOVIE MAKING - Another aspect of the co-op was the movie Road to Freedom written and directed by Bethany. Michael had a minor part, and Paul helped hold the boom microphone during those scenes. It was quite a bit of time and driving around, but it was really fun for the kids. Two thumbs up (even though is was sometimes a royal pain to have so many last minute schedule changes). Thinking about signing them up for the Corvallis High School film making camp so they can use their equipment. The boys also did movies with their friends every other Friday and one Saturday a month

PLAYS and FIELD TRIPS - We didn't do that many field trips this year. Trying to think of any? We did go to about four plays. This is much less than we used to do, but the kids are getting too old for some of the ones that are offered. So, we are good with phasing that out since we had their "fine arts" in the movie making.

DRAWING - Shannon P. led a drawing class that was really good. I didn't particularly care for the hassles associated with the Tuesday School, but the kids learned some wonderful things, and I am still looking for a teacher for Michael and Paul to improve their drawing/art talent.

PIANO - Paul did great at the slower pace of every other week. We liked this much better and combined it with our Dial-a-Book days to combine the driving time (so green!).

TYPING - Mavis Beacon

COMMUNITY SERVICE - In addition to our regular Dial-a-Book twice a month, we served at the Southside Youth Outreach dinner twice and Benton Food Share twice (labels for their mailing and postal workers can drive). We also raised money and walked in the Alzheimer's Walk in Eugene. It was a good year.

WHEW! This post has taken me entirely TOO long, but it was fun to review the year.

Tuesday Musings

I don't write here as much as I did back in 2006-2007 when I was still processing my "detox" from an unhealthy situation. Now that I have such healthy leadership and caring church family, there is not the need to process a bunch of stuff. Thus why I don't journal here as much. I should do it more though because when I started this blog is was all about what I was learning with my kids.

The year of 2006-2007 was a journey to wellness emotionally so that was the majority of my musings. It was amazing how much I was stifled and held back from emotional health because of the environment that I continued in for so many years. I knew that it was REALLY unhealthy for the last fifteen years of it too! I guess I am just an eternal optimist about things like this.

Well, there went my morning. I was planning on journaling here for a while, and E. Smith called, and we were on the phone for 1 1/2 hours.

Ack!

Musings at 1:15 am

Another night where I can't seem to get to sleep early. I am not restless or stuggling with a thing. Just enjoying some time in the Word and don't want to stop. I suppose that is a good reason to stay up. :)

Speak Lord, I'm listening!

Finished with The Well-Educated Mind Dramas!

It took me about a year, but I got through all of them!

In Prayer

I am on the verge of Spring Break and am looking forward to an extended prayer time! I love this poem from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions that we read in American Literature yesterday.

In Prayer

O LORD,

In prayer I launch far out into the eternal world,

and on that broad ocean my soul triumphs

over all evils on the shores of mortality.

Time, with its gay amusements and cruel disappointments

never appears so inconsiderate as then.

In prayer I see myself as nothing;

I find my heart going after thee with intensity,

and long with vehement thirst to live to thee.

Blessed be the strong gales of the Spirit

that speed me on my way to the New Jerusalem.

In prayer all things here below vanish,

and nothing seems important

but holiness of heart and the salvation of others.

In prayer all my worldly cares, fears, anxieties disappear,

and are of as little significance as a puff of wind.

In prayer my soul inwardly exults with lively thoughts

at what thou are doing for thy church,

and I long that thou shouldest get thyself a great name

from sinners returning to Zion.

In prayer I am lifted above the frowns and flatteries of life,

and taste heavenly joys;

entering into the eternal world

I can give myself to to thee with all my heart,

to be entirely at thy disposal,

having no will or interest of my own.

In prayer I can intercede for my friends, ministers,

sinners, the church, thy kingdom to come,

with greatest freedom, ardent hopes,

as a son to his father,

as a lover to the beloved.

Help me to be all prayer and never cease praying.

Peace

You know, it has been a long time since I talked about my heart wellness. Not sure what to say other than, I just don't have the angst that I had just a few short years ago. June 16, 2006 was my departure from crazymaking dynamics, and we give glory to God for leading us into healthy relationships ever since! It hasn't been without heartache and sorrow through the last 2 years.

Our Hope Alone

Discussions with Bible Book Club on Monday night about Ecclesiastes and a long talk with Kim about the possibilities of losing everything in this economy prompted me to read the interchange between Jemimah and Job in both settings.

From The Misery of Job and The Mercy of God by John Piper:

"So you think God was kind to make
You sick," Jemimah asked, "and take
Away your health and all your sons
And friends, and daughters--all the onesYou loved."

"Jemimah, what I think
is this: The Lord has made me drink
the cup of his severity
That he might kindly show to me
What I would be when only he
Remains in my calamity.
Unkindly he has kindly shown
That he was not my hope alone."

May He be our hope alone.

Quote from Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren F. Winner

Her thoughts on the Jewish marriage ceremony compared to Christian ones:

The vows in the Jewish wedding ceremony are simple. As the groom puts the ring on the bride's finger, he says, "Behold, you are consecrated to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel." Then comes the reading of the ketubah, a contract dating at least to the second century CE. The traditional version names the date and place of the wedding, and then details the monetary settlement the groom will owe the bride in case of divorce . . . I remember once upon a time thinking that this was a very grave but profound and insightful way to begin a marriage , this recognition of the possibility of failure. I now feel discomfited when sitting through this segment of Jewish weddings, when it is laid bare that I am indeed watching a contractual agreement, not a sacramental covenant; and I have to remind myself that Hebrew Scripture, Old Testament permits divorce under many circumstance. It is only with Jesus' stern words to the Pharisees that divorce became a very occasional exception to the ever more normative lifelong marriage.

"In this nuptial particular, I feel that Christianity tells the best story. But theology, I realize, is different from sociology, and the statistics --which show evangelical Christians divorcing at a rate just slightly higher than that of the rest of America -- suggest that however perfect in theory, that something about Christian marriage-making (Or, at least, Christian marriage-keeping) does not work. And here is where Jewish nuptials, depressing ketubah makes my shoulders tense up, everything that surround the ketubah makes good sense. I wish we could import some of it to the church."

". . . Under the chuppah (four cornered canopy that symbolizes among other things "the sure protection of God's love."), after the exchange of rings and the reading of the ketubah and the pronouncing of blessings, comes the famous breaking of glass--the groom crushes a goblet (wrapped in a packet or bag, of course) under his feet. The broken glass warns of the frailty of marriage. It also recalls the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, a somber comment of Jewish history that should be remembered at even the most joyous occasions. Another interpretation hold that the loud crunch of the glass scares off all demons who might have been hanging around, plotting to trip up the wedding party . . ."

The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God by John Piper

"He is not poor nor much enticed
Who loses everything for Christ.
It won't be long before the rod
Becomes the tender kiss of God."

Between Two Worlds: I Think My Wife's a Calvinist

Between Two Worlds: I Think My Wife's a Calvinist



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Why Thoreau Lived at Walden Pond

Walden's "Where I Lived, & What I Lived for," he describes an additional motive...

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Notes from the conclusion of Walden

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. "

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his compainions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults, even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may have perhaps some pleasant, thirlling glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's above; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. . . Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage . . . It is life near the bone where it is sweetest . . . Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”

"I delight to come to my bearings -- not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may --not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by."

"As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect."

Other Famous Quotes from Walden

" The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

(Explanation from Sparknotes.com: This sentence, which appears in the first chapter, “Economy,” is perhaps the most famous quotation from Walden. It sums up the prophetic side of Thoreau that many people forget about; he was not just an experimenter living in isolation on Walden Pond, but also a deeply social and morally inspired writer with an ardent message for the masses. His use of the word “desperation” instead of a milder reference to discontentment or unhappiness shows the grimness of his vision of the mainstream American lifestyle. He believes that the monomaniacal pursuit of success and wealth has paradoxically cheapened the lives of those engaged in it, making them unable to appreciate the simpler pleasures enumerated in Walden. But the unpleasantness of American life, according to Thoreau, is more than simply financial or economic, despite the title of his first chapter. “Desperation” is also a word with deep religious connotations, the “lack of hope” that, according to Dante (one of Thoreau's favorite writers), was inscribed on the gates at hell's entrance. The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's Protestant spiritual classic and a bestseller in the New England of Thoreau's day, features a hero who passes through a bleak lowland called the Slough of Despair on his way to meet God. By asserting that most humans have gotten stuck in despair, Thoreau is implying that they are unable to continue farther on their pilgrimage toward true redemption.)


From Conclusion: "It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar."

Wednesday Ramblings

It has been two weeks since I have posted anything. Since that time, we have had lovely visits from Shane to speak at the Perspectives course and Julie to go with me to the beach. We went to Bayshore Bella Vista and enjoyed good food and deep talks about life. Middle age is so grand.

When we came back to Corvallis, we went to the Darkside for Doubt. Did he do it or didn't he? That is the question. Julie thinks he did. I think he didn't. Mainly because I am a Jane and she is a Lizzy!! LOL!

I came back tired though and have been sick since I came back. I am reading Walden and listening to Uncle Tom's Cabin with my kids on a free LibriVox recording. It is the same guy reading it, and he is GOOD. I can't believe he would be an amateur! It is all free.

Wednesday's Goals

Burn more energy than I consume
Read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Papa's Wife
Pray through and post Job 27 on BBC. Pray for those needs pressing.
Meet with Nourieh for Genesis
Prepare for Sunday's class
Workout with George at club and fix something healthy for dinner
Load of laundry

(I did everything but the load and Papa's Wife, but I did the load on Thursday)

Twas The Month After Christmas

Twas the month after Christmas,
and all through the house,
Nothing would fit me,
not even a blouse.

The cookies I'd nibbled,
the chocolate I'd taste
At the holiday parties
had gone to my waist.

When I got on the scales
there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store
(less a walk than a lumber),

I'd remember the marvellous meals I'd prepared;
The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,
The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese
And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please."

As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt...
I said to myself, as I only can,
"You can't spend a winter, disguised as a man!"

So, away with the last of the sour cream dip.
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip.
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
Till all the additional ounces have vanished.

I won't have a cookie, not even a lick.
I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick.
I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie.
I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.

I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore...
But isn't that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot:
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet!

If They Had Lived to See This Day

"In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work." - Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery




It is in the Providence of God that I would be reading these books the week prior to the inauguration of the first black president of the United States of America. Could they have even dreamed of this day?

Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington both rose up out of slavery by hard work and industry and better the black man and woman. Their lives were inspiring.

My children and I watched a video from the Biography of America. You can register for free and watch the important video on "Slavery." I wept through most of the 26 minutes.

100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die

This is based on the Penguin Classic's list of "100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die". http://www.listsofbests.com/list/11632. Its for people reading them, wanting to read them or wishing they hadn't read them LOL.

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. Diary of a Madman and Other Stories - Nikolai Gogol
3. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
4. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
7. Spy In House Of Love: V4 In Nin'S Continuous Novel - Anais Nin
8. Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H.Lawrence
9. Venus in Furs - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
10. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
11. The Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
13. Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming
14. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
15. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
16. A Room With a View - E. M. Forster
17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
18. Don Juan - Lord George Gordon Byron
19. Love in a Cold Climate- Nancy Mitford
20. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
21. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
22. Middlemarch - George Eliot
23. She: A History of Adventure - H. Rider Haggard
24. The Fight - by Norman Mailer
25. No Easy Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
28. Notre-Dame of Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) - Victor Hugo
29. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
30. The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
31. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Bram Stoker's Dracula - Bram Stoker
33. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
34. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
35. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
36. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
37. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
38. Baby doll - Tennessee Williams
39. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
40. Emma - Jane Austen
41. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
42. The Odyssey - Homer
43. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
44. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
45. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
46. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
47. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
48. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
49. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
50. Against Nature - Joris-Karl Huysmans
51. The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X
52. The Outsider - Albert Camus
53. Animal Farm - George Orwell
54. The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
55. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
56. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
57. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
58. The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
59. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
60. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
61. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
62. Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - Hunter S. Thompson
63. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
64. Another Country - James Baldwin
65. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
66. Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk - William S. Burroughs
67. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
68. Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
69. Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac
70. Monsieur Monde Vanishes - Georges Simenon
71. Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell
72. The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey
73. The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
74. Bound for Glory - Arthur Miller
75. Death of a Salesman - Georges Simenon
76. Maigret and the Ghost - Georges Simenon
77. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
78. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
79. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan, Sir Doyle
80. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
81. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
82. Therese Raquin - Ãmile Zola
83. Les Liaisons dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
84. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
85. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
86. I, Claudius : From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 - Robert Graves
87. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
88. The Beggar's Opera - John Gay
89. The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
90. Guys and Dolls - Hal Leonard Corporation
91. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Iliad of Homer - Homer
93. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
94. From Russia with Love - Ian Fleming
95. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
96. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
97. The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
98. Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
99. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
100. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis

What Have You Done?

From http://meditativemeanderings.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-have-you-done.html who got it from other people.

01. Start your own blog — Yes
02. Sleep under the stars — Yes
03. Play in a band — Yes, sang with one, but that is my instrument
04. Visit Hawaii — No
05. Watch a meteor shower — Yes
06. Give more than you can afford to charity — Yes
07. Go to Disneyworld — No
08. Climb a mountain — Yes! Canadian Coastal range in the fog, no view, but life is the journey not the desination!
09. Hold a praying mantis — Yes
10. Sing a solo — Friends think I can sing in their weddings
11. Bungee jump — Nevah!
12. Visit Paris — No
13. Watch a lightning storm at sea — YES, from the coast and airplane
14. Teach yourself an art technique — Yes
15. Adopt a child — No
16. Eat sushi — YES, with Ginny and Lorraine
17. Walk to the top of the Statue of Liberty — No
18. Grow your own vegetables — Yes (mostly George, but we are one)
19. See the Mona Lisa in France — No
20. Sleep on an overnight train — More times than I care to remember. Europe!
21. Have a pillow fight — Yes
22. Hitch hike — Nevah!
23. Look at the rings of Saturn through a telescope — Yes
24. Build a snow fort — Nope
25. Hold a lamb — Nope (do stuffed ones count?)
26. Climb to the top of a lighthouse — Yes (Newport, Oregon)
27. Run a Marathon — Want to walk one
28. Ride in a gondola in Venice — No
29. See a total eclipse — Yes
30. Watch a sunrise or sunset — Yes
31. Hit a home run — YES!
32. Go on a cruise — I am going on May 18th for the first time!
33. See Niagara Falls in person — No
34. Visit the birthplace of your ancestors — Just Sweden. Penn some day
35. Visit an Amish community — No
36. Teach yourself a new language — Yes (Malay)
37. Have enough money to be truly satisfied — Yes
38. See the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person –No
39. Go rock climbing — Just on a wall
40. See Michelangelo’s David — Oh, some day I dream
41. Sing karaoke in public — Sang "Silent Night" and Carpenter's "Close to You" with Nancy Casady. It was piped through the whole shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur! LOL!
42. See Old Faithful geyser erupt in person — No
43. Buy a stranger a meal at a restaurant — Just Starbuck's
44. Visit Africa — No
45. Walk on a beach by moonlight — Yes, Malaysia was the best!
46. Ride in a helicopter — No
47. Have your portrait painted — No
48. Go deep sea fishing — No
49. See the Sistine Chapel in person — Someday
50. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris — Not yet
51. Go scuba diving or snorkeling — Yes, snorkeling
52. Kiss in the rain — Yes
53. Play in the mud — Yes
54. Watch a movie at a drive-in theater — Yes
55. Be in a movie — No, but I was no Channel 7 New in LA once
56. Visit the Great Wall of China — No
57. Start a business — Yes
58. Take a martial arts class — No
59. Visit Russia — No
60. Serve meals at a soup kitchen — At a kids dinner outreach
61. Sell Girl Scout cookies — Ye
s62. Go whale watching — Only from the shore
63. Get or send flowers for no reason — Yes
64. Donate blood, platelets or plasma — Yes
65. Go sky diving — Nevah!
66. Visit a Nazi Concentration Camp — No
67. Adopt a pet from a rescue shelter — No
68. Pilot an airplane — Nevah!
69. Save a favorite childhood toy — Yes
70. Visit the Lincoln Memorial — No
71. Eat Caviar — I think but have blocked it
72. Make a quilt — YES!
73. Stand in Times Square — No
74. Tour the Everglades — No
75. Visit the Viet Nam Memorial — No
76. See the Changing of the Guard in London — No
77. Drive a race car — No
78. Ride on a speeding motorcycle — Yes
79. See the Grand Canyon in person — Yes
80. Publish a book — No
81. Visit the Vatican — No
82. Buy a brand new car — No
83. Walk in Jerusalem — No
84. Have your picture in the newspaper — Yes
85. Read the entire Bible — Yes
86. Visit the White House — No but love the C-SPAN documentary!
87. Kill and prepare an animal for eating — Yes
88. Hike the Appalachian Trail — No
89. Save someone’s life — No
90. Sit on a jury — No
91. Meet someone famous — Michael W. Smith, James Taylor, Elizabeth Eliot, Jo Shetler, Ronald Reagan walked by me
92. Join a book club –Oh, my guilty pleasure - three of them!
93. Own an iPod — Yes
94. Have a Facebook page — Yes
95. See the Alamo in person — No
96. Swim in the Great Salt Lake — No
97. Cross country snow ski — Yes
98. Hold a snake — Yes
99. See DaVinci’s Starry Night in person — No
100. Read an entire book in one day — Yes (many times)

Job 9:1-13

Job 9 (Amplified Bible)
Job 9:1-13

1THEN JOB answered and said,
2Yes, I know it is true. But how can mortal man be right before God?
3If one should want to contend with Him, he cannot answer one [of His questions] in a thousand.
4[God] is wise in heart and mighty in strength; who has [ever] hardened himself against Him and prospered or even been safe?
5[God] Who removes the mountains, and they know it not when He overturns them in His anger;
6Who shakes the earth out of its place, and the pillars of it tremble;
7Who commands the sun, and it rises not; Who seals up the stars [from view];
8Who alone stretches out the heavens and treads upon the waves and high places of the sea;
9Who made [the constellations] the Bear, Orion, and the [loose cluster] Pleiades, and the [vast starry] spaces of the south;
10Who does great things past finding out, yes, marvelous things without number.
11Behold, He goes by me, and I see Him not; He passes on also, but I perceive Him not.
12Behold, He snatches away; who can hinder or turn Him back? Who will say to Him, What are You doing?
13God will not withdraw His anger; the [proud] helpers of Rahab [arrogant monster of the sea] bow under Him.

2008 Movies and Documentaries

DECEMBER
72. It's a Wonderful Life
71. A Muppet Christmas Carol
70. Ballykissangel: Season One
69. Can't Buy Me Love
68. Australia (Epic grandeur)
67. Two Weeks Notice
66. Sergeant York (GREAT!)
65. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
64. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
63. Elf
NOVEMBER
62. Kennedy (PBS TV Biopic)
61. A Man for All Seasons
60. Saved!
OCTOBER
59. High School Musical 3
58. Moliere
57. Foyle's War Final Season
56. Flash of Genius
SEPTEMBER
55. John Adams (Best of the Year!)
54. Stand by Me
53. Ever After (A Great Escape!)
52. Nanny McPhee (ADORABLE!)
AUGUST
51. Your Love Broke Through:Keith Green Story
50. Jaws II (Why?)
49. Nim's Island (on plane)
48. Leatherheads (on plane)
JULY
47. Hancock (Mindless Sci Fi Will Smith)
46. Mama Mia (Brosnan cannot sing)
45. The Cherry Orchard (Dench is amazing)
44. The Importance of Being Earnest (Redgrave ROCKS!)
43. A Doll's House (Bloom and Hopkins)
42. Mystic River (edited AMC version)
41. Picture Perfect (edited TV version)
40. Hamlet (Kevin Kline Version)
JUNE
39. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
38. WALL-E (Pixar Cute!)
37. Hamlet (2/3rd of Olivier version)
36. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Kline, Pfeiffer version)
34. Richard III (Olivier version)
33. Sense and Sensibility (Hilarious Emma Thompson Commentary)
32. Miss Austen Regrets (Masterpiece rewatch)
31. Sense and Sensibility (Masterpiece rewatch)
May
30. Cranford (Masterpiece)
29. Juno
28. Prince Caspian
27. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
26. Pride and Prejudice (Knightly version)
25. Anne Frank Biography
April
24. Northanger Abbey (Rewatch of Masterpiece)
23. My Boy Jack (Masterpiece)
22. Sense and Sensibility (Masterpiece)
21. The Way We Were
March
20. Exodus Revealed (Documentary)
19. Emma (Masterpiece)
18. Barak Obama Biography
17. The Odyssey (Hallmark - good)
16. The Ultimate Gift
15. The Adventures of Oicee Nash
February
14. Oedipus Mayor
13. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
12. Planet Earth:11 part BBC mini-series
11. The Teaching Company: Odyssey
10. Miss Austen Regrets (Masterpiece)
January
9. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
8. Mansfield Park (Masterpiece)
7. The Kite Runner
6. Northanger Abbey (Masterpiece)
5. Atonement
4. Persuasion (Masterpiece)
3. Charlie Wilson's War
2. Luther
1. Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre)

2008 Books

DECEMBER
84. A Christmas Carol
83. The Jesse Tree
82. Jotham's Journey
81. Voltaire and Rousseau by Charles Sherover
80. Giovanni's Light
79. Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People
78. The Star Across the Tracks
77. Nature by Emerson
76. The New Nation by Joy Hakim
75. The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde
74. The Fourth Wise Man by Summers
73. The Story of the Other Wise Man by Van Dyke
72. Esther! Year One Done
NOVEMBER
71. What Ever Happened to the American Dream?
70. Nehemiah
69. Ezra
68. Self-Reliance by Emerson
67. 2 Kings
66. From Colonies to Country by Hakim
65. The Social Contract by Rousseau
64. Meditations by Descartes
63. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
62. A Man for All Seasons by Bolt
61. Utopia by Sir Thomas More
OCTOBER
60. True End of Civil Government by John Locke
59. The Road
58. Personal Narrative of Jonathan Edwards
57. Paradise Lost by John Milton
56. 1 Kings
55. Common Sense by Thomas Paine
54. Permission Evangelism
53. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
52. Making Thirteen Colonies by Joy Hakim
SEPTEMBER
51. 2 Samuel
50. The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur
49. Frankenstein (Surprisingly good!)
48. The First Americans by Joy Hakim
47. Brothers Karamazov Cliff Notes
46. 1 Samuel
AUGUST
45. The Shack
44. Ruth
43. Judges
42. A School for Scandal by Sheridan
41. The Way of the World by Congreve
40. She Stoops to Conquer by Goldsmith
JULY
39. Joshua
38. Political Theory: The Classic Texts and Their Continuing Relevance by Joshua Kaplan (audio book)
37. The Republic by Plato
36. The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov
35. A Doll's House by Ibsen
34. The Landmark Thucydides: Peloponnesian War
JUNE
33. Deuteronomy
32. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
31. Hamlet
30. The Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare
29. A Midsummer Night's Dream
28. The Prince by Machiavelli
27. Richard III by Shakespeare
26. Doctor Faustus (Sold his soul to the devil)
25. Everyman (Medieval Morality Play)
24. The Canterbury Tales
MAY
23. Numbers
22. The Odes of Horace (selections)
21. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
20. Sense and Sensibility
APRIL
19. Leviticus
18. Northanger Abbey
MARCH
17. Exodus
16. Landmark Herodotus: Histories
15. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
FEBRUARY
14. Birds by Aristophanes (Webb)
13. Medea by Euripides (Morwood)
12: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (Fitzgerald & Fitts)
11. Eumenides (The Good-Minded Ones) by Aeschylus
10. Choephori (The Libation Bearers) by Aeschylus
9. Agamemnon by Aeschylus (Vellacott Trans)
7. Genesis
8. Greek Lyrics (Lattimore Translation)
6. The Holman Old Testament Commentary: Genesis
5. Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer
4. The Odyssey (Lattimore Translation)
JANUARY
3. The Glass Castle
2. Peace Like a River
1. A Thousand Splendid Suns

Quiet Time Notes from Day of Prayer and January 1 & 2

Day of Prayer

You have given me "rest on all sides" (2 Chronicles 20:30). Yahoo! I love the "culture of peace" I am in!

You act on behalf of the one who waits for You (Isaiah 64:4).

Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired
They will walk and not become weary (Isaiah 40:31).

Pray for the "welfare of the city" of Corvallis (Jeremiah 29:7)

These are all books I will be in this year for the Bible Book Club. Interesting.

January 2

You must increase,
I must decrease (John 3:30).

"Satan dines on what we withhold from God." Francis Frangipane, The Three Battlefields

2008 Slideshow

I spent most of the day working on the BBC 2009 schedule and adding the last photos to my Carol365 blog and my Flickr 365 2008 photo set. So, I am adding it here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!