THE MONSTER STACK
OK, I really ought to be doing something else, but I don't want to yet, so I thought I'd share the Monster Stack by my bed, waiting to be read. Maybe if I mention them they won't give up on me, or sneak up on me at night and smother me. :-)
On My Bedside Bookcase: (yes, others have stands, I have a bookcase)
Wanderings, by Chaim Potok

The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Wyss (read)
Rob Roy, Walter Scott
The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald
At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald
Then There Were Five, Elizabeth Enright (read)
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Venerable Bede
Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel
The Tainted Relic, The Medieval Murderers
Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
The Book of Lights, Chaim Potok (read)
Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (attempted and failed)
The Once and Future King, T.H. White (began but never finished)
Jane and the Genius of the Place, Stephanie Barron (read)
The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle
For Packrats Only, Don Aslett
Founding Father, Richard Brookhiser
Real-Life Homeschooling, Rhonda Barfield (read)
We Die Alone, David Howarth (read)
The Story of My Life, Helen Keller

Whate'er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part, David O. McKay
The Christmas Books, 2 vols, Charles Dickens
The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley
Hans Brinker, Mary Mapes Dodge
Foxe's Book of Martyrs, John Foxe
Joan of Arc, Mark Twain
Our Sacred Honor, William J. Bennet (read)
From Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun
Longitude, Dava Sobel (read)
What Latter-Day Stripling Warriors Learn from their Mothers, Ardeth Kapp (read)
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (read)
More J. Golden Kimball Stories (read)
Essays for Prospective Missionaries, Grant von Harrison
Defining the Word, John Tvedtnes (read)
Beloved Bridegroom, Donna Nielson (read)
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (read)
Discover Your Children's Gifts, Don Fortune (read)

There, think that'll keep me busy for a while? I won't tell you what's next, because they might hear, I never tell them so I don't get their hopes up. Disappointed books are tough customers. You can talk, though, they won't hear you. ROFL

Quote of the Day:
Kindness in words creates confidence; kindness in thinking creates profoundness; kindness in giving creates love. Lao-tzu

What I am Reading Today: The Lord's Holy Days: Powerful Witnesses of Truth. My dear friend Becky told me about this book a while ago, and I'm just now getting around to reading it. It is amazing. It's connecting dots for me that I didn't even know were there. Heady stuff.

What We Are Watching . . . Again: OK. I'm really not a movie-crazed person. But all the male people in my house . . that is, everyone except me and one girl snake . . really like movies. So when I was in Nauvoo I picked up a video for them. I wanted to get them "Esther" from Liken the Scriptures, but it wasn't out yet. So I just grabbed something with boys on the front--"Follow Me, Boys", a Disney flick from the 60's with Fred MacMurray and a young Kurt Russell. OH, my. This is a truly great movie. It's based on a true story (and an out-of-print book I'm trying frantically to find) of a man who moves to a small Iowa town and begins a Scout troop to keep the boys out of mischief. He ends up marrying but being unable to have children, so he really adopts and gives his heart and soul to these boys. It shows through the years how he gave his time and love, and then at the end shows how much this was appreciated and meant--generations of boys now grown show up to honor him and what he gave to their lives. We laughed, we cried, we put it in again . . . and again. Fun Scout memories, boy hijinks, a campout that finds itself in the midst of "war games" during WWII--wow. It's like "Mr. Holland's Opus" except even more wholesome, even more self-sacrificing--and it came first! LOL They always tease me about "chick flicks" Well, this is a "guy flick" but one I love too. They just don't make them like this anymore. Highly recommended!

The boys decorated these candlestick holders, then we burned candles and measured how far they burned in an hour, marked off other candlesticks, and made these candlestick timekeepers, as part of our Middle Ages study. The boys were surprised at how well it worked, but they wanted to find a way to fix an "alarm" at the end of an hour or something.

Last night, for Family Home Evening, we dressed PMM in the Armor of God. It was pretty cute! Although his brothers got a little carried away throwing "the fiery darts of the wicked" at him. :-)

Tallman found this quote in his copywork book and showed it to me after he copied it:
Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates I love it! Now I have a classical reason to simplify. :-)

First day of spring in Iowa! The maples are budding, the daffodils have sprouted . . . and we are expecting ten inches of snow. Joy. :-)

I just returned last night from the most amazing weekend. A hotel in Nauvoo, IL, decided to organize a women's conference around a re-enactment of the organization of the Relief Society in 1842 at the Red Brick Store, Nauvoo. I got lucky and blessed enough to get to attend. It was a tremendous event, and a dear friend and I drove over on Friday. The theme of the conference was "Building Upon Our Legacy" and much of it focused upon what we can learn from the women who lived here, who participated in organizing the Relief Society.
I wish I could write about every speaker, every event. Sister Anne Wirthlin, temple matron at the Nauvoo Temple, gave a lovely talk "In the Company of Angels." She repeated the oft-quoted line of the Prophet Joseph Smith, that if the Relief Society sisters lived up to their privileges, the angels could not be restrained from being their associates. This promise is ours as well--are we living up to our privileges?
Sister Kathleen R. Cook from Palmyra, New York, gave a wonderful talk on Finding Unity in Our Diversity. Sister Cook is a wonderful speaker! I have so many notes from her talk. I'm transcribing some tidbits here:
"History is philosophy taught with examples." Bolingbroke
"Remember" is in the Book of Mormon 240 times
"If you and I think exactly alike, then one of us is unnecessary."
What do studies of the natural world reveal about God? "An inordinate fondness for beetles." J.B.S. Haldane
Unanimity is NOT uniformity
What makes a father threaten to disown his beloved children? "If ye are not one, ye are not mine."
Sisterhood does not mean sameness
There is no one "Perfect Mormon Woman" but working together, adding our gifts together, we can ADD UP TO ONE!
Common ground of love for the Lord invites our love of each other
We want to be a mosaic of Saints, not a melting pot of American stew
Apply the 13th article of faith TO EACH OTHER: "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy about YOU, I will seek after it and find it"
We all got to attend a re-enactment of the first Relief Society meeting, with costumed sisters portraying the sisters present, and Dallyn and Rachel Bayles portraying the Prophet Joseph Smith and Emma (they did this as well in the Nauvoo Pageant last summer, and will do so again this summer) This was just magic! I forgot for a time about being in a stuffy room on a hard chair--I was THERE. The man portraying John Taylor had an English accent. I was pretty surprised when it was over, to find myself in modern clothing there. It was very powerful! I was so moved by the video shown at Relief Society Conference last fall, and this was terrific also! What a terrific heritage and legacy we have as sisters. I'm so proud to belong to the same organization as these ladies began.
There was a concert of lovely music, including Dallyn Bayles, followed by a Chocolate Bar Pajama Party with the most delectable food, including two chocolate fountains and some very delicious and decadent sweets! The next day, we had a seminar with Douglas Brinley, "What Can Joseph and Emma Teach Us About the Marriage Relationship?" that was fascinating. I had to leave it early to attend a temple session with a dear friend receiving her own endowment; I also missed the talk by a descendant of Joseph and Emma named Kim Smith Davis. But I did get to hear another descendant of Joseph and Emma, actually the first of their posterity to be baptized, named Gracia Jones. Sister Jones gave a most powerful talk on her great-grandparents. A friend and I had actually just been discussing, "What do we think about Emma? What do we teach our children?" I was so moved by Sister Jones' presentation, about how she described her own conversion, her own personal struggles, and her current mission to teach and reclaim Emma's children. It's a good thing I wasn't wearing eye makeup. Sister Jones wrote an article on Emma which was published in the August 1992 Ensign, I'll be going to print that off in a minute!
We also got to see the new movie about Joseph Smith that has been playing in the theater in Salt Lake and some of the visitors' centers--fortunately for me, including the Nauvoo one. So we all got to see it. A sister who had seen it before warned us it was a multiple-tissue event. She was right. It was incredibly powerful.
We were presented a spiritual feast, and I hope I can take it all in and process it and make it part of myself. I was so busy I almost didn't go, it seemed selfish to take so much time just for me. But I've been so blessed for going.
This is going to be an annual event! I'm so excited, an annual women's conference within MY reach, my ability to travel easily!

More Mitten Strings

"Home is no longer just a place to eat and sleep, but a school for our souls and spirits."
Quoting Mother Teresa: "We must not think that our love has to be extraordinary. But we do need to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. These drops are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being quiet, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. They are the true drops of love that keep our lives and our relationships burning like a lively flame."
Kenison describes a typical over-scheduled weekend, then goes on to ask: "Is this what we mean today by family life? Is it really the way any of us want to live? I think not. Why, then, do we try to do so much? Why, as one friend put it ruefully, are we 'dervishing through life'? . . . I am convinced that one reason we try to do so much is because we are afraid."
I must admit that I'm feeling dervished. This book has just brought out in stark relief something I am not sure I want to face: I am not satisfied living in such a perpetual rush. At first I felt valuable and useful. Now I feel flattened by the weight of demands. I want carefree mornings reading and learning with my children, baking bread, doing gentle nurturing things. I want long walks. I want picnics at the nature center. I want evenings stretching before me peacefully. At least some of the time! I do not want every moment crammed. I am tired of saying to my children, "Hurry up! We have to X and Y and Z before 2." I am exhausted from living in such a mass of stuff that I cannot possibly take care of, consequently it is all always a mess. I am angry that Saturdays to spend as a family seem completely nonexistent--someone is always somewhere. What is the most frustrating is that the "things" we are doing are mostly good---work, Church service, attending the temple, Boy Scouts, visiting and home teaching, what I euphemistically call "opportunities for personal growth" but what really feel to me like lead weights . . . One thing that has always been a "given" in my family is evening time reading good books. We used to get through a huge stack of good books in a year! Now a good week is a week we had two nights to spend fifteen minutes reading! If I weren't already so tired, I'd have a temper tantrum.
There. That's my second official Blog Rant.

What I am Reading Today:
Mitten Strings for God, by Katrina Kenison
I really needed this book. I am always complaining at how "imposed from without" our busy-ness is, but don't always pause and take a moment to try and find ways to center ourselves despite the outside demands I can't get rid of. To tell the truth, I'm guilty of racing on to the next thing, myself, and thinking of what else I need to be doing, even when what I really want are moments of connectedness with my family.
Kenison says, "We do too much and savor too little." "I have found that it is much easier for me to stay busy than to make a commitment to empty time--not surprising, perhaps, in a culture that seems to equate being busy with being alive." "When I come to a stop myself, when I draw a circle of stillness around me, my children are drawn into that peaceful place. They visibly relax, as if my very calmness nourishes them." She makes a strong case for reducing the extraneous noise of our lives--now I'm a mom of 3 boys. It's never going to be NOISELESS here until they leave home. But I have felt for some time that we don't need the constant noise we add in--TV, radio, constant music. Ack! And I do like music. But I've gotten so that I crave a little quiet. No one ever wants to just listen to birds or neighborhood noises anymore. I've lately focused a lot of my ire on the TV, much to my dh's dismay. But it makes me feel jittery to have it always on! I feel unnerved, and I know it isn't good for the rest of the family either, even if it is "easier." Sometimes I have dark fantasies of tossing it and the computer games out into the back yard and attacking them with a sledgehammer. :-) Kenison quotes Thomas Moore (note the two O's, lol) as saying, "The vessel in which soulmaking takes place is an inner container, scooped out by reflection and wonder." I believe we shorcircuit this process by the continual noise, and I believe modern humans suffer for it. We don't know ourselves anymore. We aren't truly in touch with our thoughts or with the thoughts of those around us, because we continually drown them out with perpetual noise. Kenison writes "In our house, eliminating television cleared a space for the things we really care about." I believe that TV leaches into spaces that we don't even realize, making us think we have "no time" even when we do. Kenison's son Henry said, "Just say that TV fills your head up with other people's ideas, which means that you don't have as much room for your own. Also, it's a waste of time." Wow. I have to admit, I wonder what I'm missing. I'd like to find out. :-)

I've been told before by parents of teens how critical it is to talk when THEY want to talk. OK, tallman isn't quite a teen yet, he's only 12, but he's 5'11" so I'm counting him. :-) The other day when he was really struggling about the snake, really grieving, I kept going to him and asking him if he needed anything, if he wanted to talk, or what. He never did! But I suppose because I was extra-sensitive towards him that day, because I was thinking of him a lot, I really noticed how he'd show up behind me at odd times--while I was folding laundry, fixing dinner, on the computer. I'm grateful that because I was more aware of him that day, I put down what I was doing and listened, for those are the times he communicated, and I'd have missed it. It makes me wonder what I might have missed previously when I wasn't as focused on him. New resolution-try to be aware of this in the future!
Calandria is trying to get us all moved to a compound near Charlottesville VA. Sounds great! My "previous dream" is Lawrence, KS. I grew up not too far away and it's always been in my mind a mecca of culture, while still on the prairie. Although the joke is that there's ONE mountain in Kansas, and they build the University of Kansas on it--then put all the parking at the bottom. LOL Plus there's the basketball team (GO JAYHAWKS!!!!!!!) See here for pictures of downtown Lawrence. I used to drive in to Lawrence in the early 80's and stock up on foods that the grocery store in my hometown would not carry--like yogurt and bagels. LOL
But Charlottesville could work too. I'll be posting lots of pictures of Virginia, I'm sure, after I return from the LDS-EHE conference.

Requiem
We got a sad phone call this morning. A few weeks ago Tallman gave his snake Copper to some good friends so he could have room for a new snake. For a picture of Copper click here. Sadly Copper hadn't done well in his new home; he'd refused to eat, and the last week or so he really began going downhill. Tallman had visited and tried to help, but Copper just wasn't responding. In our area, none of the veterinarians will treat snakes, so there wasn't really much we could try to do. This morning we found out that he died during the night. Tallman is heartbroken.
I'm sad for him, and I hate to see animals sick or hurt, and Copper was obviously ill, we just had no way to help. Tallman has a new determination, however--he told me he wants to become a veterinarian and serve in an area where few vets will treat exotic species. That way he could help make sure things like this didn't have to happen.
I once nearly drowned Copper when he bit Tallman and wouldn't let go, yet I'm sad that this had to happen. I've had upset young men on my hands all day. We suspended much of "regular" school, to read what prophets had written concerning the souls and eternal destiny of animals, and to write memorials of Copper. We plan on burying him with a commemorative garden path stone which we will make, and perhaps a donation in his name to the humane society, or a reptile treatment book donated to the public library.
It's been an eventful day. How grateful I am that we can take this time together now, that we have flexibility in our schedules. I hope Tallman can be comforted. It's odd, how much we learn from the "difficult" situations which we would probably avoid if we could. But I can see growth and thinking going on in my son that happier days just doesn't bring. Still, I wish I could make it all better.

Oh, May My Soul Commune With Thee

Oh, may my soul commune with thee
And find thy holy peace;
From worldly care and pain of fear,
Please bring me sweet release.

Oh, bless me when I worship thee
To keep my heart in tune,
That I may hear thy still, small voice,
And, Lord, with thee commune.

Enfold me in thy quiet hour
And gently guide my mind
To seek thy will, to know thy ways,
And thy sweet Spirit find.

Lord, grand me thy abiding love
And make my turmoil cease.
Oh, may my soul commune with thee
And find thy holy peace.

Copyright Lorin F. Wheelwright.

This is the hymn I'll be memorizing for March; I don't know it well yet, I've never heard it sung outside of my CD's, but I need its message!

Shakespeare After All
I just had to laugh this week. When I first planned out this school year, I decided to add in one term of learning ABOUT Shakespeare and Plutarach, then read Term 2's Shakespeare play (The Merchant of Venice), then read a Plutarch's Life for Term 3. I had this secret fear that the boys would hate both, and I needed to ease them in. When I was young, I loved reading Shakespeare--I first fell in love with the Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare, then some funny books (Twisted Tales from Shakespeare), then actual plays--until I hit high school and we read them as assignments. We would take a play at a time, and take turns reading, slowly, stopping to define every word. Ugh! The high school version of Chinese water torture. Drip, drip.
So I was a bit nervous. Silly me. The boys immediately took to it, had favorite "characters" that they always wanted to read (Cheery LOVED Gratiano).
When typing up this term's assignments, I put Plutarch's Life of Poplicola in place of the Shakespeare reading, though. I had instant protest. I tried to satisfy them by saying we'd read the Lamb's Tale for the 3rd term play, The Winter's Tale. No go. They want to read the whole thing! I told them we'd need to spend evening time on it. They said good, they'd like that better, Daddy could read too. (They had made me save the big courtroom scene in Merchant of Venice for when Daddy was home). I protested that I hadn't bought copies of the play for all of us. (I overdid it with Merchant of Venice, and bought three copies of the No Fear Shakespeare books, which it turns out we did not really need). They went hunting online and found copies of the play that we could download to our Palms for free.
So I quit protesting. Dh will help us get the downloads on our Palms, from which we'll read the play. I might print off a public domain copy, just so I can "see" more than a few lines at a time (helps me decide who ought to read what part); and I'll download the online Sparks notes to have on hand.
My friend Stacey encouraged me to just read the plays; she said she thought the boys would enjoy it. She was right. :-) Again. :-)
So, let the play begin!

Miscellaneous Musings for the Day

What we are doing: Being outdoors! It's nearly 70 degrees today. We finished our ITBS testing and have been reveling in fresh air.

What We've Been Watching: Backyard Habitat on Animal Planet. Problem: this is creating extreme Yard Envy. I look out at my gloomy impossible back yard full of garage, broken swing set and three enormous "weed" trees, reflect upon my inability to grow anything but dandelions, and have a pity party. *I* want a cool bird habitat with a pond for frogs and salamanders and a hummingbird garden with cardinal flowers and trumpet vine. *I* want bird feeders that keep the grackles and starlings out. *I* want goldfinches and orioles and bluebirds, butterflies and chipmunks and deer (as long as they walk gracefully by, and not munch or leave calling cards) Wah!

What We've Been Reading:
Out loud, we are reading Adam of the Road. I began the utterly, exquisitely perfect North to the Orient by Anne Morrow Lindbergh this morning. I am rationing it, the way one does with a box of Godiva chocolates. All of it at once might make me drunken! At least it's calorie-free. I can't possibly blog my favorite passages as I'd have to type in the entire book. Tedious. Just go get it. :-)

Breaking News of the Day:
SimplyCharlotteMason.com just released their new, graded studied dictation exercises for spelling. I downloaded the sample and it looks terrific! I can hardly wait to have studied dictation/spelling simplified at my house--no more hunting up passages with the "right" words, it's already been done! See here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/progress/index.php/spelling-wisdom/