Our House

Finally, a picture of our house. We're mostly settled in, pictures up on the walls and boxes unloaded. We have more flowers on the porch than when I took this picture. There's also a deck off the back and a two-car detached garage that you can't see in the photo. All in all, we feel very blessed to have this house.

Don't know if this means I'll be blogging more or not, but hopefully!

Exposing Darwinism's Weakest Link

It's June 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book's FIRST chapter!

The feature author is:

Kenneth Poppe

and his book:

Exposing Darwinism's Weakest Link: Why Evolution Can't Explain Human Existence

Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A career biology instructor, Kenneth Poppe holds a doctorate in education and taught in secondary schools for more than 25 years. He is now senior consultant with the International Foundation for Science Education by Design (www.ifsed.org). In addition to working in teacher education and assisting in DNA research of stream ecology, he has authored Reclaiming Science from Darwinism.

Product Details:

List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736921257
ISBN-13: 978-0736921251

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

The majority is not trying to establish a religion or to teach it—it is trying to protect itself from the effort of an insolent minority to force irreligion upon the children under the guise of teaching science.

—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN


BRYAN WAS THE ATTORNEY FOR THE PROSECUTION AT THE 1925 “SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL” IN DAYTON, TENNESSEE THAT MADE EVOLUTION A HOUSEHOLD TERM. THE ABOVE WORDS ARE FROM HIS
WRITTEN CLOSING STATEMENT, WHICH WAS NEVER READ IN COURT.

1

EXAMINING YOUR FAMILY TREE

A Monkey for an Uncle?

Click here to read the first chapter. You'll have to scroll down a bit.

Do Hard Things

Which would seem to include, for me, updating my blog. I do have a good excuse. Right after Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing I moved. Only about 30 minutes away and nearer my church but to a different time zone. And the kids are still playing soccer in the old time zone. Needless to say, most nights I'm not getting home until almost 8 and then scrounging around in boxes and cupboards trying to remember where I've put things.

So. Hopefully things will soon be better. Or I'll lose my mind. One of the two.

I recently joined the NON First alliance and I really enjoyed this first book by the Harris brothers. I'm about half way through it and found it had great things to say to teens and adults. I hope to post a more thorough review later, but needless to say, I'm going to be recommending this book to the teens I know and to our church youth leader. Below you can find a bit more on Do Hard Things and the Harris brothers and even a taste of the first chapter. And hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later!


It's May 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book's FIRST chapter!

The feature author is:

Alex and Brett Harris and their book, Do Hard Things:

ABOUT THE AUTHORs:

Alex and Brett Harris founded TheRebelution.com in August 2005 and today at age 19 are the most popular Christian teen writers on the Web. The twins are frequent contributors to Focus on the Family’s Boundless webzine, serve as the main speakers for the Rebelution Tour conferences, and have been featured in WORLD magazine, Breakaway, The Old Schoolhouse, and the New York Daily News. Sons of homeschool pioneer Gregg Harris and younger brothers of best-selling author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye), Alex and Brett live near Portland, Oregon.

Click here (you might have to scroll down a bit) to read the first chapter.

Bad Blogger Outta Town

Not that you'll miss me since I haven't been posting much (okay, AT ALL) lately. But this time I have a good excuse. I'm actually in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing (not to be confused with my son, AKA Calvin).

Michelle and I got in last night and helped Coach and Kimberly set up the Relief booth then had dinner and a lot of laughs with them.

I've already decided that Michigan has odd driving rules. You can't make left turns at lights, but you make U-turns in the middle of the street. Huh? And when you are waiting to make a left turn on a green arrow, the light flashes red instead of a steady green. Very bizarre.

I've also decided I've stayed at too many motels. At breakfast, I seemed to be the only one who knew you had to turn the self-serve waffle maker over to get it started. I had to help several people. Mostly, it was the incessant beeping of the waffle machine that was driving me nuts and I was trying to stop it. But it appeared that I was being nice.

Not sure when I'll post again, but I'll be sure to update you on my experiences here. With Michelle and I together, who knows what will happen.

The Kroger Art Gallery

You gotta check out Jeanne Damoff's post today at Master's Artist.

I've always loved how she finds beauty in the ordinary, and this post just expresses it so beautifully.

Plus, I would have paid money to see her taking pictures in the produce section and seeing the expression on the other shoppers' faces.

Did I mention I envy her her camera too?

Laughter as Carbonated Holiness

That line comes from this Christianity Today article. It also contains this gem:

...laughter is the Elmer's Glue that attaches us to the goodness that inhabits this world, and to the gladness that hints at the world to come.

I found the article particularly timely after one of my favorite young people said last night, "Jennifer loves to laugh." Yeah, I do. And I have a lot to laugh about, thank You, Jesus.

Anything made you laugh lately? Share, because you can never have too much laughter.

"Heart Surgery" up at Mused

My short story, "Heart Surgery" is up at BellaOnline's literary magazine, Mused.

I have to admit, it's pretty cool seeing my name up there. My only regret is that the submissions process stripped the italics out of my work and apparently they didn't make it back in, so I think that makes the time shifts in the story a little more confusing than they need to be. But still, it's pretty awesome to see my story in print and the photo that accompanies the story is just right on.

Check it out if you have some time. I'd love to know what you think.

Wordless Wednesday

Can you tell I'm ready for summer?

Tackle it Tuesday

I'm sorta done tackling the flu, though I have that lingering, nagging cough that I would be so happy to be done with.

Today I'm going to be out of the house running errands that have been piling up: getting dog food (the dog has to have special prescription food because he's allergic to everything else--he's so high maintenance), having lunch with a friend, getting the car inspected, shipping stuff off to sell on eBay, and going grocery shopping.

Makes me tired just thinking about it! But I know I'll be so glad when it's done. And the kids can stop whining that there's nothing to eat :)

Heard in the Hall

Because I'm still fighting this flu/bronchitis thing, I've been coming home from work and crashing for a nap for a couple of hours. I was in that weird state between sleep and wake when I heard "Calvin" outside my bedroom in the hall.

"Santa, you're sentenced to the lava pit. Any last words?"

Santa: "Merry Christmas everyone. Try to have a Merry Christmas without me."

Then assorted sounds of wailing and crashing. I'm guessing Santa went into the lava pit.

So at that point I'm up and awake. But you know, I have this short term memory problem, so by the time I stumble out my door I've forgotten about Santa. Until I step on him. Then I'm about ready to send him to the lava pit too. He was a little plastic pencil topper and he hurt!

I'm still not sure why Calvin sent Santa to the lava pit, but he's definitely inherited my warped sense of humor.

Quotable Quotes

I think credit for this grammarial gem of a blog goes to Neil Gaiman. But heck, I've had it in my file so long I can't be sure. However, it's funny and worth sharing if you're fond of words and grammar.

Or even if you're not. Reminded me a little of the Chris Farley SNL character who kept making quote marks in the air with his fingers and telling the kids they were going to live in a van down by the river. Is there a law against abusing punctuation marks?

Check it out.

And tomorrow, maybe I'll tell you why Santa got sentenced to the lava pit. Never a dull moment around my house.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless seems appropriate today since this flu has left me with little voice.

I'm so ready for summer and this picture of my kids on a covered bridge reminds me of that. Of course I look at it and see how much they've grown in the nine months since I took that picture. And they're being loving to each other!

Not Tackling Tuesday

Usually I'd have a Tackle it Tuesday post up here today, but the only thing I'm tackling today is the flu, the nasty respiratory kind that sends me into a coughing attack every few minutes.

I hate being sick. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Did I mention how much I hate it? And it's not like you can take a day off from being a mom, so I'm playing hurt. Ah well, this too shall pass, but probably not soon enough for me.

Posting may be thin this week. Or it might be cold-medicine induced rantings. Guess you'll just have to find out.

Reading for Comfort

Happy Leap Day!

I'm not having a lot of time to read lately (see that Midwesternese slipping in there?). Pretty much just before bed. And then I listen to books on CD while I'm driving to and from work and various other places in the Heartland.

I've got a lot of design projects going on right now. I've not had to be so creative on a deadline so consistently for such a long period of time before. And by the time evening comes, I don't have much attention span left. There's probably more to it than that but I'm too creatively depleted to think of what it could be.

So I find myself turning to my literary equivalent of comfort food: suspense novels. Now this ca be a bit tricky because I get nightmares easily so I have to have more suspense than horror since I'm reading right before bed. Maybe letting my mind turn over a different kind of problem--a who dun it, one I'm not likely to face in life--gives my brain a break from the problems it does have to solve. I don't know.

And it's not to say I don't still have a taste for my more literary favorites. But after a long day, I'd rather have a good pizza than a gourmet meal.

Though I'm thinking by next week, a steak is going to sound really good.

Tackle it Tuesday

Today we have a snow day. Lots of heavy snow! I hope the power doesn't go out.

I have a lot of miscellaneous tackles, those kinds of things that are perfect to get caught up on on a snowy day, like cleaning under the couch cushions and vacuuming the baseboards in the living room.

But my big tackle for the day is finishing my taxes. Ugh! :( At least I know I'm getting money back which makes the process a little less painful.

I also put some ribs in the slow cooker with onions and barbecue sauce. I'll let you know how it turns out. The house should smell really yummy in a couple of hours.

Happy tackling!

A Passion Most Pure--a Review

A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman (Revell)

I have to admit I'm a historical fan from way back. But I have a Bachelor's in history so I get picky about details that are wrong and pull me out of the story. So while I like historicals, I find it hard to find ones I can fall in love with.

A Passion Most Pure fits the bill. The spicy sassiness of Deanne Gist and the sweeping saga feeling of Gone with the Wind, A Passion Most Pure manages to capture the World War I era while still creating characters that we love, relate to, and root for. While the page count may seem high, there is no fluff or padding here. You come to feel like part of the family and the pages just breeze by.

On a personal note, it was fascinating for me as a crit partner to see the progression of this novel from manuscript to finished-novel form. It was a bit like looking at a scrapbook of our crit group, remembering the changes and brainstorming we'd done over certain parts. Other parts were new, but I could see that they were the fruit of the seeds Julie had planted in earlier versions of the manuscript.

All in all, it's like standing on the sidelines cheering as your friend finishes a marathon you saw her start.

Congrats, girl! You did great!

An Acceptance at Last

I got some good news Saturday. My short story, "Heart Surgery" was accepted by Mused, the online literary journal of BellaOnline.

This thrilled me to no end. First, of course, because it was an acceptance and those are few and far between in my life lately. But this piece has an interesting history. I submitted it to a Christian contest last year where it didn't place (but fellow Misfit Angie Poole did).

Also, it was the seed that started the novel I'm currently working on. I don't normally consider myself a short story writer. But as I have less time to write, I find that it is an interesting way to play with characters and story ideas.

But what I think is really cool is that Mused is a secular publication, an area I've been thinking about moving toward. So it was wonderful feedback that my writing can succeed in the secular women's fiction world.

I'll post the link to the issue when it comes up, around March 21 I believe.

Biddy Basketball

As I've mentioned before, Hoosiers take their basketball seriously. And they start them young. Calvin (not his real name) started playing biddy ball last week for Pre-K and K. He's one of the oldest, already being 6, but still one of the shortest. Wait for the growth spurt, Son, around 9th grade.

Unlike other little kids sports where all the kids move in a pack following the ball, their first game actually looked like a real game with dribbling, shooting, running up and down the court, and falling on the ball.

The cutest thing is how they teach them to play defense. They give them and an opposing team member matching armbands and that's who they're supposed to guard. Calvin of course thought his was either a Power Ranger or some super power wrist band and kept pointing it at the other kid. Not sure if he thought it would vaporize him, or what.

Of course like other little kid sports there were kids not paying attention, kids who didn't wnat to play, and parents "coaching" from the stands. My personal pet peeve. Let the kids have fun, okay?

There was some confusion over which basket belonged to which team. And the ceiling started to leak which lead to an interesting variation on the sport: Parents had to stand on towels in the leaky spots.

Personally, as long as Calvin can run off some of his energy that builds up from being cooped up inside all winter, I'm happy. Otherwise he tends to be a little too much like the creative-but-destructive Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes (thus, the nickname).

Wordless Wednesday

In keeping with my theme to post non-wintery pictures, here's one I took last year of an Arizona cotton field at sunset. Ah the sun! I miss it!

Tackle it Tuesday

My tackle this week was to cook 7 meals in advance. I like to do this because afternoons are my low energy time. Defrosting and throwing something in the oven is right up my alley. And 7 meals can easily last us two weeks.



I use Cyndy Salzmann's book The Occasional Cook because she gives you menus, recipes, shoppings lists, and a game plan. It cuts down on the thinking for me.

For this week I made Nebraska Shepherd's Pie, Taco Soup, Barbeque Cups, Chuckwagon Quesadillas, Porcupines, Swedish Meatballs, and Sloppy Joes. All are family friendly.

I photocopy the recipes to use on the counter while I'm cooking because I'm a messy cook and I'd rather replace a splattered photocopy than a whole cookbook.

The whole thing took me 2.5 hours including clean up, which works out to about 20 minutes a meal. Quite a time saver!