May 3, 2010
April 30, 2010
Community Garden, A Boy's Paradise
Here is my friend's property. It is a beautiful farm! Our garden is shown in some of the pictures. R.H. has goats, chickens, guineas(the birds) and a great owl! I spend at least one day a week here working in the garden with the boys and then hanging out with R while the boys play. Love it! The house was built in 1858 and was originally the local post office and home of the postmaster. So awesome inside! The buckets and jugs of water go from my home to the garden since we haven't seen much rain as of late. We do have blue rain barrels ready for the next downpour. Praying to see a good soaking rain soon!
April 20, 2010
When the World Turned Upside Down
October 24, 2009. The day my world turned upside down.
Since that day, I have discovered something that I never knew. I have true friends.
I mean REAL friends. The kind that say you can call at 2:30 in the morning just to talk, and they have their cell phone right by the bed in case you do. The kind that will call you every morning just to "check in" and make sure you're okay. The kind that will spend the night with you when you just can't be alone and make it into a "fun sleepover." I had kept people at arms length for so long, that I am still amazed by their love. I hope that everyone can experience that kind of face to face love during their lifetime. I know it has changed me in a way that nothing else could.
Since that day, I have discovered something that I never knew. I have true friends.
I mean REAL friends. The kind that say you can call at 2:30 in the morning just to talk, and they have their cell phone right by the bed in case you do. The kind that will call you every morning just to "check in" and make sure you're okay. The kind that will spend the night with you when you just can't be alone and make it into a "fun sleepover." I had kept people at arms length for so long, that I am still amazed by their love. I hope that everyone can experience that kind of face to face love during their lifetime. I know it has changed me in a way that nothing else could.
Organic Community Garden Adventure
I am so excited!!! Along with four other families, we are planting a HUGE community garden. My friend, Rachael H. has the land. We've built a fence, tilled, dug rows, planted, spread mulch and will plant some more tomorrow. So far we have potatoes, onions, peas and tomatoes. I will be there with the children bright and early!
This is such a fantastic opportunity to teach the children to garden and help them to understand community, service and then reap the rewards by the bounty that we will share. We have a schedule and each family has a planting, upkeep and watering day...depending on the current needs.
Our challenge has been keeping the garden watered. With a definite lack of "April Showers," our rain barrels are dry and we can only use limited water from Rachael's well. So, I have been filling 5 gallon buckets from my well. I put them in the back of my Honda minivan and drive the five miles to Rachael's (that's nothing out here in the country...no stoplights. :-) The kids and I haul the buckets to the garden and carefully move down the rows. Right now it takes about 6-8 five gallon buckets to give each row a little drink. But Praise the Lord! It is raining right now. Yippee!!!
I'm planning to take pictures soon and will post them on the blog. I can't wait until I can take pictures of the boys picking bugs off the plants.....a definite need in an organic garden. Somehow I think it will be a joy for them. Just think of it! Mom is ASKING them to play with bugs....please!
This is such a fantastic opportunity to teach the children to garden and help them to understand community, service and then reap the rewards by the bounty that we will share. We have a schedule and each family has a planting, upkeep and watering day...depending on the current needs.
Our challenge has been keeping the garden watered. With a definite lack of "April Showers," our rain barrels are dry and we can only use limited water from Rachael's well. So, I have been filling 5 gallon buckets from my well. I put them in the back of my Honda minivan and drive the five miles to Rachael's (that's nothing out here in the country...no stoplights. :-) The kids and I haul the buckets to the garden and carefully move down the rows. Right now it takes about 6-8 five gallon buckets to give each row a little drink. But Praise the Lord! It is raining right now. Yippee!!!
I'm planning to take pictures soon and will post them on the blog. I can't wait until I can take pictures of the boys picking bugs off the plants.....a definite need in an organic garden. Somehow I think it will be a joy for them. Just think of it! Mom is ASKING them to play with bugs....please!
Sugar Doll Award
Okay, Alleyn, you got me. My first post in months. Hopfully the new beginning of my blog!
I am to list 7 things about myself and then pass this award along to 7 other blogger ladies!
1. I love words. I like to look up words in a thesaurus and think of sentences.
2. I want to be a memory-keeper, but I am hopelessly behind. I have a scrapbook for each child, for our homeschool and a general one for the family. When all the children are grown, I will work on them. Or, in the southern tradition, "I'll think about that tomorrow." ~Scarlett O'Hara.
3. I am taking the next course toward my certification as an NILD Educational Therapist. Pre-course work now consists of lots of reading and writing response papers, recording a therapy session with one of my students and doing a self-critique and then off the Pennsylvania for the last two weeks of June.
4. I read most books in about two days. (I'm not much on sleeping :-)
5. I love to write! I do not like to type what I write. I fill up journals and just today almost had a panic attack when my pen ran out of ink! Seriously!
6. I play the violin.
7. I like to eat cucumber slices with hummus for breakfast.
I am to list 7 things about myself and then pass this award along to 7 other blogger ladies!
1. I love words. I like to look up words in a thesaurus and think of sentences.
2. I want to be a memory-keeper, but I am hopelessly behind. I have a scrapbook for each child, for our homeschool and a general one for the family. When all the children are grown, I will work on them. Or, in the southern tradition, "I'll think about that tomorrow." ~Scarlett O'Hara.
3. I am taking the next course toward my certification as an NILD Educational Therapist. Pre-course work now consists of lots of reading and writing response papers, recording a therapy session with one of my students and doing a self-critique and then off the Pennsylvania for the last two weeks of June.
4. I read most books in about two days. (I'm not much on sleeping :-)
5. I love to write! I do not like to type what I write. I fill up journals and just today almost had a panic attack when my pen ran out of ink! Seriously!
6. I play the violin.
7. I like to eat cucumber slices with hummus for breakfast.
September 18, 2009
Thankful For Strong Servant Leaders
I am thankful for the Biblical preaching and strong servant leadership at Church of the Redeemer, PCA where we are members.
Read about the Evangelical collapse here: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2009/03/evangelical-collapse-revealed.php
Read about the Evangelical collapse here: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2009/03/evangelical-collapse-revealed.php
Mom, how many words are in the English Language?
On the surface, John Michael seemed to pose a simple question...one that of course, Google would be able to answer. Right? However, this is what I found that lead into a one hour....yes, that's right, I said a one hour discussion on all the possiblities.
There are many problems in knowing even how to COUNT "words" -- some of which are mentioned below. But what we CAN say is that there is NO English dictionary that includes every word. This is for many reasons, including the fact that even "unabridged dictionaries" do not include all the scientific names in use, and cannot keep completely up to date with every word, since new ones are always being coined.At any rate, the number of *dictionary entries* in the most extensive unabridged dictionaries is slightly under a half million, so that would be a reasonable baseline and an estimate of a million is understandable, though not necessarily all that helpful
Anyway, here's where the problems begin. The question is WHAT do you include as a "distinct word" to list?
For instance:1) RELATED FORMS a) Do you count just the 'root form' (called a "lexeme")** or all the forms that are derived from it? e.g., do you just include "find" or do you add in the various forms finds, finding, found as separate words? Do you count "finder" separately? (and also the plural and possessive forms? b) Do you count noun & verb forms of the same root? c) When do you treat the different meanings of a noun (or any other word part) as a distinct word? (cf. "run" with the meaning "creek", "flaw" (as in a stocking), "scoring play in baseball", etc. )
2) COMPOUNDS a) How do you count COMPOUND words - you have "run" "away" and "home" -- are the nouns "run", "runaway" and "homerun" distinct? b) Related to compounds -- What about NUMBERS -- you can create new numbers ad infinitum! Does each one count as a new word? (More likely you'd want to count just one [or zero!] to twenty, thirty, forty...hundred, thousand, etc.) c) How far in series like "greatgrandfather" "greatgreatgrandfather" etc are we to count?
3) WORDS OF LIMITED USEa) DIALECTS - when a word is found only in one or a limited number of dialects, do you count it?b) technical terms limited to one field (e.g., medicine, law)c) foreign words (when are they added in as "English words"?)d) Archaic/obsolete/rarely used words -- when do we stop counting these (Does anything that has EVER been an English word count?)
Yes....we did discuss all of the possiblities and made multiple words lists. You know what? It was awesome!
There are many problems in knowing even how to COUNT "words" -- some of which are mentioned below. But what we CAN say is that there is NO English dictionary that includes every word. This is for many reasons, including the fact that even "unabridged dictionaries" do not include all the scientific names in use, and cannot keep completely up to date with every word, since new ones are always being coined.At any rate, the number of *dictionary entries* in the most extensive unabridged dictionaries is slightly under a half million, so that would be a reasonable baseline and an estimate of a million is understandable, though not necessarily all that helpful
Anyway, here's where the problems begin. The question is WHAT do you include as a "distinct word" to list?
For instance:1) RELATED FORMS a) Do you count just the 'root form' (called a "lexeme")** or all the forms that are derived from it? e.g., do you just include "find" or do you add in the various forms finds, finding, found as separate words? Do you count "finder" separately? (and also the plural and possessive forms? b) Do you count noun & verb forms of the same root? c) When do you treat the different meanings of a noun (or any other word part) as a distinct word? (cf. "run" with the meaning "creek", "flaw" (as in a stocking), "scoring play in baseball", etc. )
2) COMPOUNDS a) How do you count COMPOUND words - you have "run" "away" and "home" -- are the nouns "run", "runaway" and "homerun" distinct? b) Related to compounds -- What about NUMBERS -- you can create new numbers ad infinitum! Does each one count as a new word? (More likely you'd want to count just one [or zero!] to twenty, thirty, forty...hundred, thousand, etc.) c) How far in series like "greatgrandfather" "greatgreatgrandfather" etc are we to count?
3) WORDS OF LIMITED USEa) DIALECTS - when a word is found only in one or a limited number of dialects, do you count it?b) technical terms limited to one field (e.g., medicine, law)c) foreign words (when are they added in as "English words"?)d) Archaic/obsolete/rarely used words -- when do we stop counting these (Does anything that has EVER been an English word count?)
Yes....we did discuss all of the possiblities and made multiple words lists. You know what? It was awesome!
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