Our weekend

Friday: We watched most of the inauguration coverage in between dropping off and picking up our car for some repairs.

Saturday: The Lambs began confirmation class. Pastor taught about commandments 1-5. He spent a long time on "You shall not murder"-explaining it in terms that the children would understand. I am enjoying my refresher catechism class when I am able to attend with the Lambs.

After confirmation we participated in Fort Wayne, Indiana's March for Life. First we gathered for prayers and speakers. The speaker included Stanton Healthcare in Boise, ID in his talk. Then we marched together through downtown. The weather was unbelievable, it was in the 60s!

Sunday: Lamb 2 and 3 sang this Gerhardt hymn with the Sunday School children during our church service. I thought it fit very well with our other events this weekend. I am printing one verse here, but I encourage you to read through all the verses of this wonderful hymn. I love that the Lambs are learning this in Sunday School.

Why should cross and trial grieve me?

Christ is near with His cheer;

Never will He leave me.

Who can rob me of the heaven

That God's Son For me won

When His life was given?

LSB 756:1

This afternoon Ram took the Lambs to the park for a little while. Then he studied for one of his classes. I worked on a Shutterfly book while I had a code for a free one. I completed our family album for 2015. I am hoping to complete our family album for 2016 before the end of January while I have another code for a free one.

Tomorrow we are back to regular schedule after a crazy week of Symposia at the Seminary and Ram beginning his first classes. We are all looking forward to a "normal" schedule again.

The Man in the Middle

Timothy Goeglein was a member of my former church in Fort Wayne. He worked in the White House for President George W. Bush. We were so sad to hear about his plagiarism and resignation. We trusted in God, but were worried for him and his family when he resigned his job.  He has written a book that gives an insider's view of Bush's time in the White House. The book is called The Man in the Middle. Here's a video by Mr. Goeglein. He is now the vice president of External Relations for Focus on the Family.
I preordered my copy today. When are you going to order yours?

HT: Rev. Joel Brondos

Postings about our homeschool schedule should continue tomorrow.

MN government shut-down...

began today. I don't think it will effect my family, but it will be interesting to see. I think government impacts our every day lives more than we think. I know some church member's jobs will be effected.

I was outside this morning trying to deal with the out of control weeds in the garden after all the rain that we've had. I'm happy to say it's not perfect, but it's back to a manageable state. The edible weeds were plentiful in that jungle garden. I hated to waste the good weeds but I needed to finish the job quickly. Lamb 2 was the best help in the garden. It was hot, but not unbearable like yesterday. Then we had a thunderstorm this afternoon so I was glad the weeding had been completed and the plants had a good soak.

I came inside after working in the garden and remembered it was July 1. We don't have TV so I hadn't heard if the state shut down or not. It only took a couple of clicks on the internet to hear that it was shut down. Not the news I wanted to hear, but I wasn't surprised. We've only lived here 8 years and this is the second shut down for us. It's very different than growing up as a Hoosier.

Gas prices

Tuesday it was $3.82 a gallon here. I read an article that was surprised that Americans bought 3.6 percent less gas last week than they did a year ago. They were surprised about this because retail sales went up and jobs were gained and people usually cut back on gas as a last resort.
This doesn't surprise me at all. People have already the last few years cut back on everything that they can. Since they are staying home more to conserve gas, they are going to need to buy more groceries and entertainment for home.
I know that we are not making one single extra 7 mile trip to town that we don't need to make. Ram's paychecks sat here for over a week because I didn't want to make an extra trip to town to go to the bank. Unfortunately this has hit at a bad time in our family. Ram just had to make two trips 1 1/2 hours away to get some work done on our cars at a dealer-one was a recall that our minivan sliding doors could potentially catch on fire, one was some work that needed to be done under warranty. I'm doing extra trips to the doctor for prenatal stuff. Lamb 1 needs caps on his teeth so it's another trip 3 hours away to the dentist.
In a speech Obama gave recently, he encouraged Americans to get rid of their gas guzzlers. We have already done that. When the whole family is going we take our minivan that gets better gas mileage than our old SUV. When just some of us are going we always take the car that gets better gas mileage than the minivan. Sometimes it is a pain to move car seats to do this, but we do.
It is not an option for my family to take the city bus or walk instead of driving. The bank, grocery store, hospital, etc. are 7 miles away. In order for Ram to do Sunday morning services he travels 42 miles round trip. He can walk to visit the members that live in our small town, but more than 2/3 of the members of our churches do not live in our small town. The nursing homes and hospitals he has members in are 7 or 15 miles away and others are farther. He has 3 trips this week to the town 45 minutes away to conduct church services and other meetings.
Our churches will do what they can do for mileage for their pastor and we have money in savings so we won't go hungry over buying necessary gas. It just frustrates me that government forgets that there really is a big portion of the United States that is not in a city. Because we are not in a city, it is a necessity to have gas, not a luxury.
On top of it all, this week our bank has "teach your child to save week" and we are making daily trips to town for the Lambs to make deposits and do the activities at the bank. I find it very ironic to be spending 14 miles of gas daily so the Lambs can learn how to save their dollars! On Tuesday we were already making a trip to town, but all the rest of the days will be a special trip to go to the bank. The Lambs enjoy this week at the bank tremendously so even if I cringe as I drive past the gas station daily with them, we'll do this daily.
Rant by Ewe is over now. Back to being thankful that we have a car and a minivan to drive and so far have the resources to buy gas to drive them and Ram has a full time Call as a pastor...and the list could continue.

I voted today!

Our town is so small that EVERYONE mails in their ballot, there is NO polling place. We received our ballots earlier this week so Ram and I voted tonight. We witness each other's ballots. When we first moved here I found this so strange after living in a big city. Some years I have forgotten the election day since we voted so early.
It is going to get very annoying if we receive phone calls or junk mail campaigning for the next month when we've already voted.
At local parades this year, I allowed the boys to take several stickers for one particular political candidate and none for the candidate that was not 100% pro-life. At the last parade one of the candidates recognized our family and asked how many parades we go to. We didn't go to that many parades, but he remembered our family's support.
It also was interesting that after 7 years here we knew most of the people running for local offices. When we first moved here I had no idea who to vote for.
I was glad to get this task done so it's not one more thing to do while Ram is recovering from surgery.
In other news, our small town is going to pay $1500 to get street signs in our town. You read that right, we currently have no street signs in our small town. If you want to know where some one lives, you stop at the cafe or the bar or the post office and ask. The UPS man often does that. We learned the hard way that the FedEx man doesn't stop to ask, he just leaves it at the house that he thinks is the correct address. Thankfully it is a small town so when a package turns up at the wrong house, those people call and tell you the package is at their house. I don't know if the street signs will make it easier or more difficult for people that live here. They've been doing their system for years!

I'm not making this up!

We received the State Primary Ballot yesterday in the mail so I filled it out right away before I forgot about it. I had to search the internet a little bit to find out about the candidates for attorney general. Somehow they aren't mentioned in the news like the candidates for governor. I was glad that our ballot was mailed so I could educate myself a little before I voted. Our ballots are always mailed to us when we vote-there is no polling place for us to go to. This really surprised me when we moved to this small town.

I had to laugh when I saw this on the ballot. Ole' Savior and Todd "Elvis" Anderson are running for governor and lieutenant governor.

That is my...

Representative Collin Peterson was the only congressman from the state of MN that voted no for health care reform on Sunday night. I sent him an e-mail thanking him for thoroughly reading about the issue and voting for what made sense to him for the people of the 7th congressional district. I plan to send him a written letter too. The entire state of MN is primarily DFL (Democrat Farmer Labor) so I'm sure he is receiving lots of negative comments for his vote. I will remember his vote at election time.

Family update

*Our babysitter, Graceann, was able to come babysit today. The last time she babysat was around Christmas time. I was very thankful for her help, especially when she took all 3 Lambs to the park. They did play doh for a long time too. They haven't done play doh for a very long time. She is homeschooled (high school) so it looks like she may be able to come back more regularly now. This is Ram's long day visiting people so I was thankful for another person over age 5 to talk with for the afternoon too. Lamb 3 seemed to do ok with her too. I was afraid he might not remember her and get scared. It helps that I stay home while she is here. Hopefully I can get lots accomplished while she is here.

*When I taught in IN, I had laminated prayers for my classroom. I found the mealtime prayers (from the catechism) but I have looked everywhere I can think of without finding the morning prayer. I finally gave up and I needed to type up the evening prayer any way so I typed them both (without laminating) and hung them up. I hate it when I can't find something I want. Then I want to drop everything and clean out things until I find that thing I'm missing. Life doesn't work that way for a mom though.

*Tonight we are going to a wrap up for a visit your local park program. We will take a picnic supper. I made a photo book with photos from the parks. This was not required for the program, but it will be a nice memory for the boys when we are in the middle of a MN winter. It was a great idea-free to go to your local parks. I had no idea the small town 7 miles away had 7 parks. It was a good thing they gave us a map or we never would have found a few of the parks. The Lambs enjoyed going to the parks. Lamb 3 even cried when we left the last park. We had a slow start because I sprained my foot early this summer and then we were gone a lot in June and July, but we were able to go to all the parks before the deadline tonight. The weather has been cool and it will be nice for tonight even though it is very humid.

*Ram and I listened (we didn't call in) along with 10,000 other Minnesotans to Senator Klobachar's tele-town hall meeting about health care last Sunday. If you care to listen it is on her website here. One of the several things that she said that I didn't like is that "her" plan would save us 50 billion dollars. She has no concept of how much debt this country is in. 50 billion is about half a percent of 9 trillion. Plus she kept saying that Medicare was important to her because her parents are on Medicare. So what? Is she volunteering to have the same health care plan as us? When I tried to call her and leave a message, her voice mailbox was full. I'm in the process of writing her a letter. In the letter I am going to encourage her to read every word in whatever health care bill the Senate comes up with plus read every word in the Constitution.

*Ram turned in our boxes we put together for LLL Global Care Packages today. I volunteered when we moved here to be the chairperson for our tri-parish for this program. They have changed the directions several times for this program. Some years we put together boxes for new mothers. Most years we did boxes for school children. I remember even helping with this program when I was teaching in IN. So I have been involved several years. They recently announced they are no longer doing this program. In a way I'm thankful to reclaim a part of my room that kept the supplies while they were gathered from the churches. I'm also thankful because I don't have to figure out new rules each year. But I'm sad after so many years and what I thought was a great program. Lamb 1 helped as soon as he could walk. Our church needs programs like this to make it helping people in other countries more personal. I know there is a lack of funds and personnel, but it's too bad. I hope and pray that they can do this program again.

*This morning I wrote out a schedule for Lamb 1 with clocks (Target $1 find). As I read the schedule to Lamb 1, he had a question for everything. Why do we have to do school? Why math? Why schedule? It would drive a teacher crazy. I'm preparing him for a schedule because there will be a few things that he has to do without Lamb 2 like handwriting. He hates to do activities without Lamb 2. Many will stay the same as they have been for years at our house like 3pm snack time. I'm trying to prepare him mentally for a schedule even if we don't follow it exactly each day. Thank goodness he is going to be homeschooled, he would hate a school schedule and drive the teacher crazy. At least if he drives me crazy, I'm already half way there because of raising him the last 5 years!

*I have thought about a lot of blog topics recently but freezing corn, canning beets, making zucchini cupcakes etc. has taken priority. Hopefully I can post photos from our park program wrap up tonight soon.

I caught the Lambs...

Tonight we were late getting to bed after a long afternoon at the county fair, making supper, and taking baths. The Lambs were upset with me because there was no time to read books. Their bedtime is 8pm and they didn't get to bed until 9:30pm. I sent them to do one more thing to get ready for bed. They didn't do it. I caught Lamb 1 "reading" the best he could to Lamb 2. They were so cute sitting in my chair just like I read to them. But they were told to do one more thing and then go to bed. Since they didn't do that, they were in trouble. I hate being a mean mom when they do something like this and are so cute!
We have had a busy weekend. Yesterday evening we finished going to the rest of the parks for that program that ends on Tuesday. Today we went to the county fair and Lamb 1 participated in his first tractor pull, Lamb 3 looked like he was going to win the diaper derby but another girl beat him, and everyone enjoyed petting the animals and all the other fun at the fair. Tomorrow we have church, a parade to watch in the afternoon, and at 7pm one of our senators is calling for a tele-conference about health care reform. Plus we were given a huge bag of corn yesterday and somehow I have to find time to deal with that. Finally, I have to try to get our photos together and make up books for the boys for the park program by Tuesday. The Lambs have all had a lot of fun and lots of fresh air, but too many late nights. I'm already dreading tomorrow morning to get up for church.

Dear President Obama

Esther pointed out this blog post by Amy to me. I told you in this post that I was gathering my thoughts to write to my congress people. Amy makes some great points here. I hope she really sends a copy to the White House and her congress people. I think we should all should all write letters to the White House and our congress people like this one. I finally have both my senators so I know to whom to write! Writing my letters is on my to do list this week. Please put it on your list this week too.

Obama's "helpers"

My friend Darin told me this was on the official Obama website. This is a direct quote.

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

I was just getting ready to post some of my thoughts about Obama's health insurance reform on my blog. I'm still processing my thoughts.

Obama's body language

IN Jane pointed out an article talking about Obama's body language in a recent photo. Then they make connections to the health care reform plans. I'm very thankful IN Jane pointed out this article. Lord Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy-especially on the elderly with this administration.

Check this out

Cheryl had a pretty neat link to a You Tube about Obama. It puts a different kind of perspective on our National Debt. I'm amazed people can figure this out in terms we can understand and adjust for inflation. Unfortunately, the information didn't surprise me. No wonder why there were so many TEA parties!

Obama's Joy Ride

Thanks Cheryl, for pointing this link out to us!