What kind of Man was Boaz before he got married?

Last night was our last night of college class. I got the homework done completely for one of them but still have to turn in some for the other one. We had to cover 3 chapters last night very quickly, but it was still good. I really loved the covenant class. It totally changed my mindset about practically everything I read in the bible now. Stuff I never really understood before is totally clear now. The next class doesn't start until January. It seems so far away! I still have plenty of other stuff to do to work on my degree though. If anyone wants to take a class in the winter with me, I will get a discount. :) The next class I am completely excited about is on the tribes of Israel. The teacher is so cool.

We had special music at chapel last night (John & Judy Chapman) and it was extremely good. She (Judy) got her Bachelors of Divinity last night too. It was a total surprise to her. They will have a big ceremony later, but it was encouraging to see someone reach a goal and press onward. Afterwards, a couple of other gals and I went to have coffee at Perkins and chat. They took a 1/2 day off today so they could sleep in after we went out. I didn't get home till late.

Edgey said Jesse will probably not want to do school with him ever again- LOL. The punishment for the kids if they don't get school done with mom is to do it with dad that night but they have to do double. Jesse said he wanted to do it with dad so he could do double and catch up with Sissy. The double thing ended up backfiring on us (not really a punishment in his eyes) so I told Edge he would have to make it undesirable to get the right effect. Edgey was tough on him and made him rewrite a couple of handwriting lines and said he was crying a couple of times. Jesse is going to give his sissy a run for her money too.

Ethan made his lasagna last night. They actually saved me a couple pieces and it looks like it turned out great. So I can't wait for lunch time. I guess I could eat it for breakfast instead.... I'm not sure about that. Lasagna & coffee ? That sounds like heartburn waiting to happen.

Today we have to do world history and it is on Egyptians. The activity is to wrap up your sibling in toilet paper to simulate a mummy. That ought to be interesting. Can't wait to clean that up. I wish there was an eye rolling icon so I could express my thoughts better.

The Robert Frost poems went well yesterday. But I tell you, I don't even think I would have completely understood the poem "The Cow In Apple Time" if there weren't very cute expressive pictures in the book to help me understand it (click on that link to see the cute cow). The kids really liked them.

Elizabeth starts a new math workbook today and actually she should be in a new reader again too, but I am having her go through McGuffeys primer to make sure she really understands rhyming and vowel sounds. She had a tough time reading something fairly simple yesterday. Everything in the story had a short "a" sound and she was trying to make some of them long. I'm not sure if she was doing it on purpose or not. She did make her own poem yesterday without my help and it was cute.

Well, coffee is going....

If you get a chance to read this one.... do A fish called lucky This chic's blog is funny.

Answer to title: Ruthless

Give Satan an Inch & He'll Be a Ruler

Edgey's Auntie came over last night for dinner. I did a home-ec class with Ethan and he made meatloaf and hashbrown casserole while I told him how to do it. He likes that kind of stuff. Maybe by the time he's 14 or so, he will be able to make us some major dinners. :) He did kind of gross out when he actually had to mix it by hand. Ha. Train, train, train. Tonight Edgey is going to teach him how to make lasagna. He has been asking how to do that. We make the kind you just throw it all in the pan and let it bake. We don't boil noodles first or anything. It has always turned out great. So I guess I will miss out on that dinner. Last week he made Chicken Tetrazzini but did they save me any? NOOOOOO...... I get punished because I was at class. I told them they had better save me a piece of lasagna. It will probably be a little 2x3" piece or something.
After Auntie left, we finished up with our school that we did not get done. It was actually kind of nice to have the little break in between. We did history and then science. We learned about vascular plants and the kids enjoyed it because they got to go out in the dark and find a couple of leafs with veins in them. Then we glued them on paper and labeled them to put into their notebooks. The only problem I noticed was that they didn't go very far to find them and ended up pinching off a few of my coleus leafs. Turkeys! They are cool though because they are fuzzy and purple and show the veins in the leaf well.
Elizabeth is certainly giving Ethan a run for his money in memory stuff. She remembers most of the stuff we read and we had a little review history quiz today and I made it like a contest and it was Ethan 8 vs Eliz 7.

Today we got to read some Robert Frost poems. I went to the library and got a couple of books that are actually his poems that they have illustrated. Very cute. We read through a couple of them the other day and Ethan asked me if he was a christian because he refers to the garden of Eden and just the way that he writes. So I got a little children's biography to read to them too. I guess I never realized he recited one of his poems at Kennedy's inauguration.

Jesse didn't want to do school today so he got to do it with his daddy tonight. I will have to let you know how that went because I haven't talked to Edgey yet... he's in bed.

Never Give the Devil a Ride - he always wants to Drive

The weekend was nice. I got to go to worship practice on Saturday. Then we went to Ryans Steakhouse for Ethan's birthday lunch. Ethan's friend Brendon came with us and spent the night as a surprise for Ethan since we didn't have a huge party for him. We got him his skateboard, some Tony Hawk clothes, a pair of NSS skateboard shoes and a couple of other skateboard shirts. They pigged out on mac & cheese and mashed potatoes and desserts. Some of our family came to eat lunch with us.

Saturday afternoon I got to go shopping but didn't really find much. I did find a new shirt that I had to have. As much shopping as I do, I have a hard time finding things that I really like and have to have. When I got home, Edgey and I watched a movie that was cute.... She's The Man.

The boy's stayed up till around midnight before they went to bed. They were watching some Jackie Chan movie, eating popcorn and a whole bag (14oz) of m&m's. Oink. Like they didn't have enough sugar at the buffet thing anyway?

Sunday was Church and I got to sing again. Then, we were supposed to go jet skiing but the weather was cruddy and too windy to go. It really didn't even get very warm. So we ended up giving the kids the picnic food that we had packed for them and they ate that on the way home from church. They were so tired that we made them all go home and take a nap. We went and had Chinese food for lunch and when we came home we had a nap too, in the lazyboy chairs.

We watched another movie when the kids went to bed. It was called Aquamarine and about a mermaid. It was cute too. Then Edgey went to bed and I had to get school stuff ready for the kids for Monday. I stayed up late since I had a nap.

This morning Edgey came home to get something for his job and we were still in bed. Elizabeth was up but she had not done her list. Ethan didn't set his alarm and I don't know what happened to mine because I hit snooze and then it didn't go off again. Hmmmm.. He wasn't very happy.
We got up and started doing school. Then the bug dude called and wanted to come do the 30 day follow-up. So that interrupted everything because they have to figure out what he is doing and ask questions and he had to show them how their mouse traps work and give a little safety lecture. I actually saw a stupid mouse the other night... already. It wasn't even cold out yet. Praise God for old houses. I am not complaining.

School is pretty much done. I am babysitting for my friend's daughter while she visits her mother in the hospital. It seems kind of crazy for a Monday. I hope it's not an indication for the rest of the week. Tomorrow night is the last night of class so I need to finish up some of my homework for that.

I'll try to write something profound for tomorrow.

TGIF

Well, we have almost made it through a whole week of school. Yay! I went to bed early last night and since my body is not used to sleeping a whole lot, I was up by 5 a.m. twiddling my thumbs. So I got up and had my quiet meditation time, a load of laundry and then did some of my college homework in the quiet..... I like quiet. Guess who was up by 7 a.m. ???? Bet you can't guess.
Actually Elizabeth and Edgey were both up early.
Elizabeth wanted toast and juice for the 3rd day in a row. So I made toast for breakfast. Sometimes she thinks of the strangest things. She wanted to know who made the Tootsie Roll.
Luckily I was already on the internet so I just googled and came up with answer. She says, "you're so smart mom." .....Right..... "No, I just know where to find the answers."

So I am stuck at a question on my test right now... and maybe its just because I don't want to think anymore. Question: There are many stresses in ministry. Relate a few that you see.
Or maybe it's because there are soooooo many stresses in ministry that it's too hard to decide which ones to pick. Maybe I should take a poll and see which ones are the worst. Would anybody answer? How about death to self..... that would just cover a multitude of stresses.

Tomorrow is Ethan's birthday. He will be twelve. I keep thinking that this should be a big milestone. Maybe next year...... he will be 13. That's when the jewish boys have their Bar Mitzvah's. That means "son of the covenant". The coming of age when they are held accountable for their own actions.
He wants to go to Ryan's Steakhouse for lunch. That is his favorite place to eat at the moment. So that is what we are going to do tomorrow. I invited my family to come eat with us. Other than that we are not going to have a big party or cake. Ethan wants the desserts there anyway. I didn't have parties for any of them this year. We did last year. Have to keep everything even or they will be like "I didn't get a party and Ethan did. No fair" or "Why didn't I get a birthday cake?" Next year I will try to have parties for all of them. They always want to go to Chuck E Cheeses and it's so expensive and the pizza tastes nasty anyway. What a waste of money.

He also wanted a skateboard for his birthday. He has a cheapo one but he wants a nice one - so that is what we got him this year. Skateboard, skateboard shoes and a skateboard shirt. We are hoping someone buys him a new helmet and knee pads. He "lost" his other helmet.... I wonder. I think it disappeared because he didn't like it.

Well, he woke up now, so I better get this off the screen in case he sees what his present is.

Blessings,
-KP

I am such a knucklehead sometimes. Last night I could not go to sleep AGAIN. I wonder if I need some ambien or something. I realized I had no contact solution left and was disgusted.... so I made a midnight wallyworld run. I was there till around 2 a.m. Came home, unloaded and then went to bed. I had to look at hairdryers because mine blew up a couple of days ago. It still blows cold air so I can use it for now, but not for winter time, no way. Oh, and our microwave blew up on Tues night.... did I tell you that already? It started smoking and then won't heat anything up anymore. Great! Time for a new microwave. Just when we were going to get the trampoline again. God must not want us to have a trampoline or something. Everytime we get enough money to get it, we have to spend it on something else whacked.... like bug spray and now a new microwave. Grrr..... count it all joy. Happy, happy, joy, joy....

Elizabeth is watching whiny Caillou on PBS until its time for school to start. Ethan is not awake yet. I will probably have to go pour ice water on him or something drastic. Jesse and I got home so late that I am letting him sleep in today. He is so funny. When I told him I was going to let him sleep in, he said, "Yeah, I get crabby and cry alot if I don't get my sleep, don't I mom?"
Of course I agreed with him.

Well, I guess I better wake Ethan up and get school going...... Later!

1 Potato 2 Potato

Today was a good day. Even if it was bad, I decided to try not to whine too much about anything. I don't want to go around the mountain too much and definitely don't want to be swallowed up by the earth. At least I didn't have to drink a whole pot of coffee. :)

School went pretty well. Jesse is remembering his letters much better and I doubled up on the 100 easy lessons in reading until we get back to where we were. We worked on the letter L today. In his curriculum we are supposed to do a letter per week, but I don't think he needs a whole week to learn some of them. Tomorrow I have to go outside and find a plant and cut a leaf off the plant. Then I have to talk about how most of the leaves are happy on the plant but the one I cut off decided he didn't like it and wanted to be free. He doesn't want to be part of the plant anymore. Then I have to put the leaf somewhere else because it likes it "better" over there. Anyway, by monday, the leaf will be shriveled up and dead. Then we have to relate it to us as the leaf and God as the plant. If we try to live aside from the plant (God), we will die.

Elizabeth will be starting her new reading book. She finished her last story in the old one finally. She was supposed to finish it before summer, but it didn't happen. We did have a struggle in her math today. She goes through these periods where she just decides she can't do something and piddles around and won't do it. So I asked her if she could count and she said no. So then I asked her if she would like to start over again with Jesse and she said no to that too. Then she started crying. So, then, I had to start counting all the pictures with her. Talk about needy. What is frustrating is that she is beyond all of that and I'm not sure what lesson I am supposed to learn from it. Grrr.

Ethan hurried today and finished with his stuff so he could go riding his bike with the kid down the street. Today was the last day before school starts in DSM. I will actually be glad because the more he hangs out with the kids around here, the worse attitude he starts to get.

When we were finished, the 2 younger ones put on a puppet show for me with the potato heads. Unfortunately I was sitting in my lazy boy when I was watching and started falling asleep. Jesse had to remind me tonight that I fell asleep during the puppet show. I don't really think it had a point..... it was a long, drawn out, detailed storyline. Kind of reminded me of a tennis match or something. zzzzzz

Church was tonight and Edgey got home so late from Newton he didn't want to go. He was tired too. They did baptisms tonight at the pastor's pool. Jesse went with me. The other 2 stayed home with their dad. After baptisms, Jesse was starving and wanted to go out with me on a date. I told him to pick what he wanted and he wanted to go to Cici's pizza. Luckily it stays open till 10:00. So we ate pizza and he was happy. He wanted to go to the game room and there was a Galaga machine back there so I changed out a dollar and let him play a driving game and I played the Galaga game. I kept winning - about 10 rounds so he was getting mad cause I was still playing and he used up his tokens. We closed out the place and went home. I had to stay up for a little bit because pizza is not the best thing to eat right before going to bed (at least for old people).

Oh - and for all you weirdos out there who like to play with bubble wrap. Here's a website for you! It's great! http://www.saab-stuff.com/pop.swf

Confucius say: two wrongs not make a right -- three lefts do.

Another day.... This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.
More school today. I still did not get up to have quiet time before Elizabeth woke up. I don't know what it is with her. She is almost always up early. Maybe I will pray for her to sleep in. You know sometimes it's amazing what God does when we ask... Like when I ask him to wake me up instead of setting my alarm. He does it. It's kind of like asking my husband to do it. God loves me just as much and more.
I had Elizabeth go get the boys up later. Ethan was sleeping through his alarm and Jesse can sleep through about anything so he didn't hear it either.

We caught up on history today. We were discussing how the Sumerians had written this Epic of Gilgamesh that had a part of the story that was almost exactly like Noah and the ark. Only when the "hero" and his wife survived the great flood, they were made into gods.

Tonight I had college class. Edge did home-ec with Ethan while I was gone. I am not sure what they decided to cook but the kitchen was a mess when I came home tonight. I only have one more week of actual class.... it went so fast. I sang tonight at chapel time and there were several people crying. The song I did was kind of in line with what our pastor has been talking about.... just trusting in God for his plan for our lives. When we don't understand what he is doing, when we can't see his hand in the situation, we need to trust God's heart. The first time I ever heard the song, I guess I was crying too. That's probably why I ended up buying the track... hmmm.

Tonight I had a strange experience in class. I guess visuals help when teaching sometimes. Anyway the teacher was talking about justification and righteousness. She pretended we were in the court room on trial for our sins, for which we are completely guilty. She had a gavel and pounded it on the podium. It was really dramatic and made the point. She also had on a judges black robe and was pretending to be Jesus. And even though we are guilty for our sins, Jesus already paid the price..... so she took off her robe and came and put it on my shoulders. A robe of righteousness. It was an emotional revelational moment.... we are completely covered in righteousness because God sees nothing but HIS righteousness.

I think if I get to heaven and God lets me do what I want to do, I want to be one of the heavenly choir voices that stands around and sings Holy, Holy, Holy and Worthy Worthy is the Lamb.

Blessings,
-KP

1st day of School

Well all in all, the day went well. I asked Edge to wake me up before he left for work this morning, which he did.... his alarm went off at least 3 times as he kept hitting snooze. Finally I just sat on the edge of the bed and pretended to get up. That usually gets him going because he wants to beat me into the bathroom. So he headed in there and when he came back in the bedroom he informed me he had turned on the lights in the kids' bedrooms so they would wake up. Well, it was only 7:10 and I wasn't too ecstatic about the kids getting up that early, so I went and shut them back off. The whole purpose to me getting up before he left was so I could have a cup of coffee and some meditation time to adjust my attitude. I reminded him that I just asked him to wake me up before he left and not the kids... he wasn't too happy about that, saying something about being sorry for living or something like that.
I finally went to the bathroom and when I came back in the bedroom.... Elizabeth had come in and crawled into my side of the bed. No quiet time for me. Oh well. She and I had a cup of coffee and breakfast while I tried to make sure all was in order for the day.
Then Ethan who had a 'tude because someone turned on the lights in his room, came down for the morning. He had set his alarm and was upset because he couldn't sleep until his alarm went off. So we were all off to a great start for the morning. There was only a little bit of the sugar cereal left so Elizabeth was excited because she got it.... and was reciting the saying "early bird gets the worm" to her older brother. Ethan frowned at her, but there was enough for him to have an entire bowl also. Not so for Jesse. Jesse just got a few dry cereal pieces and then requested a cheese stick. He did not complain though. He much rather prefers to have cheese sticks or yogurt in the a.m.
Me - I just had coffee..... if you read from yesterday, you know why.

So we got through the lessons, except history because by the time lunch was over and I ran an errand and got back. I HAD to have a nap in the chair or I would have fallen over. So I will have to double up tomorrow on that one.

I purposed this year to really try to memorize bible verses for myself and all the kids. So I ran across an index card system on the internet and I made one for myself. So we worked on our first verse for the year. I told the kids it was the main reason we were going to learn and memorize verses. They seemed excited and when Edgey asked them their verse at supper, they at least had the main meaning/reasoning behind it and remembered some of it.

Our verse:
Psalm 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Jesse didn't remember any of his sounds except s, m, and a. So we had to start pretty much over with review. Elizabeth did well on her reading after very little all summer. Ethan did ok too. I chalked it up to a good day.

It's going to be a great week!!!! Tues night is class and I am going to sing at chapel time. Hopefully all will go well. They said that the CD player cuts out sometimes..... just great. Oh well. Whatever. God is in control. If he wants it to cut out on me, I guess it will just cut out on me.

Blessings -KP

Crazy?

There must be something wrong with me..... I am wide awake since being up at 5 a.m. for work and I can't go to sleep. School starts today and I will be wiped out before lunch is even thought about.
Am I crazy? It was a long weekend with work... seemed very busy even though we had an extra nurse on. Our rooms were full. We also had to go do a scavenger hunt in our new building to make sure we knew where everything was before moving over there next weekend. Thankfully, I will not have to be there for that. I actually get a weekend off (first one since the June wedding). YEAH!!!! I hope it is nice on Sunday because I want to go ride around on some jet skis. I can't wait. It's something Kim Possible would do. Except she would look much better in a swimsuit. LOL. Maybe when I was 14 or something, did I ever look like that.



It's going to be a good week. It's going to be a great week!
Later -KP

Back to School

I am getting ready for back to school. Since I actually took a break from it over the summer, I am looking forward to getting back into a real routine instead of running around to the park and swimming all the time. I have been trying to figure out how I will fit everything into the schedule and still be done by noon. That may be a bit hard.

Jesse and Ethan went and got their shots. Ethan had to have his tetanus and some meningitis shot that is new....(great). Jesse had to get his final 5 year old shots even though he just turned 6. The nurse looked at me like I was a bad mom. She raised her eyebrows and acted like it was all a big deal and he was soooo far behind. WHATEVER. The doctor told me he was all up to date except the last one and that is what we were coming in for. If I wait long enough, they can give him the shot that is all in one so we don't have to have so much mercury preservative put into his little body....you know the stuff that causes ADHD and autism, etc....I am a nurse and I do have my reasons. So Jesse got his 2 shots and screamed and cried for 5 minutes, then it was done. I even had Ethan get his shots first so Jesse wouldn't freak. Ethan did awesome. Didn't even flinch. So Jesse jumped up there and I had to hold his little hands and the 2 nurses stabbed his legs at the same time. He kinda plays on his baby status and the crying lasted longer than was probably necessary. Anyway, he picked out 2 stickers (one for each shot) and now we are school legal. That is a good thing, because he had told me sometime during the winter he wasn't doing school anymore because he didn't have his school shots yet. Some nice person had told him he had to have shots to go to school. The things they learn from other meaningful people.

So, I was up until 3 a.m. last night getting ready for the school year. Trying to see what has to be done separately and what can be done with all 3 together. I have to do reading separately with all of them and probably Math too, but history, science, bible, geography, music & artist studies can all be done together.

We have been teaching Ethan how to cook off and on. That is one thing I will work on more this year with him. So far he can make eggs, macaroni, grilled cheese, other sandwiches, spaghetti, hot dogs, hamburgers and start the charcoal grill... basic stuff he likes to eat. I was looking at some homemaking curriculum that teaches how to make bread from scratch and whole grains and stuff that's good for you. He thought that sounded fun and really wanted to do that.

I have to turn in paperwork this week and set up an appointment with my supervising teacher. So back to work.

Hope you are all enjoying the summer days......