Just checking. [grin]
Hangnails
Here is a quick update since I didn’t post yesterday.
SPS: I’ve been up before 6:30 am every weekday morning for the past two and a half weeks. To most of you, that doesn’t sound like a big deal. Believe me when I say it is. And immediate shower then quiet time/Bible study (before checking email!) almost every morning. Yes. It has been difficult to get in much reading time, now that I’m trying to get to bed earlier each night.
Good food: I am still staying strong. It’s only day 10, but I have a good feeling about this.
Geography: I spent some time drawing and coloring a larger map today with a little more detail. Still not from memory, and I have a long way to go!
:: Blessings of a Life Interrupted by Angelina Stanford @ CiRCE (The opening quote by C.S. Lewis is one of my favorites. Go read it.)
“And then it hit me. I wasn’t managing to teach my kids in spite of life’s interruptions; I was teaching them something far more valuable. I was teaching them how to live life. Real life. The life that is messy and is filled with unexpected difficulties. Not the “real life” that only exists on paper and in my imagination. The real life that I never experienced as a child and was completely unprepared to encounter as an adult.”
:: Where all New Year’s resolutions go to die @ The Art of Simple
“You have a choice. You can make this your excuse or you can make this your story.”
Rabbit Trails
:: Why I Want to Be George R.R. Martin’s Neighbor @ The Rabbit Room
“In my life of reading, moviegoing, listening to music, and studying visual art, I have encountered truth, beauty, and mystery as much in the work of non-Christians as I have in the work of Christians. I’d even go so far …as to say that the truth and beauty I have found in the work of unbelievers has strengthened my faith even more than what I’ve found in “Christian art.” And that’s to be expected. I believe that we are all made in the image of God, and that eternity is written in our hearts . . . in all of our hearts. Thus, when anybody achieves any kind of beauty or truth in their work, that goodness is from God, whether the artist likes it or not.”
:: The Dark-Tinted, Truth-Filled Reading List We Owe Our Kids by N.D. Wilson @ Christianity Today
“Shelter your children. Yes. Absolutely. But use a picnic shelter, not a lightless bomb bunker, and not virtual reality goggles looping bubblegum clouds. Feast with them on fiction in safety, laugh with them through terrible adventures seething with real weather. They should feel the wind and fear the lightning and witness the fools and heroes—and yet stay protected. In your picnic shelter, pack stories that bless the meek and shatter the proud. Stories that use hardship to burn away the dross in characters. Stories that honor the honorable and damn the damnable.”
:: The Beginnings of a Dark-Tinted, Truth-Filled Reading List @ Story Warren (Good comments, as well.)
:: Books for Boys – A Show and Tell @ Story Warren (Great list.)
Creativity
:: The Art of Andres Amador (Spectatular!)