Place of Promise

Late in August it appeared that we were going to get to go to Ken Ham’s Creation Museum and to visit my dear friend in Springfield, Illinois. We were so excited and she sent me the web page for their new Abraham Lincoln museum, I enjoyed browsing it but knowing who I am and how I’m wired I knew that books in the book shop would be a big temptation. So, I checked this one out from our public library to preview in advance so as not to waste my money and all.

Well, as things go, we didn’t get to go but I did thoroughly enjoy this book. It is a novel, but a very seriously researched novel, so although it reads like a novel it has the feel of being true.

I know Mary Todd Lincoln has a well deserved reputation for being a difficult woman- but my sympathies for her began years ago when I read I, Mary by Ruth Painter Randall. The Emancipator’s Wife draws you in right from the start with the gripping drama of her arrest and trial for insanity. Betrayed by her only surviving son and stripped of her rights she is institutionalized for about 3 months. Her story unwinds during those 3 months through flashbacks.

Was she insane? I don’t know, she always was known as difficult,scheming and unpredictable. She endured so much pain though- the deaths of 3 of her 4 sons, her husband being murdered at her side, the whole debacle of the Civil War and all that entailed of family estrangement, the Chicago fire…. up against all that is her obsessive spending, necromancy, fiery temper, debilitating headaches, female health problems… It seems the insanity verdict was a wake-up call for her to pull herself together.  And she did, on June 15, 1876 the court reversed its decision, affirming her sanity. She never again allowed herself to fall in the deeps of those weeknesses she so struggled with.

As a novel would have it there is a fictional sub-plot running through the story of a runaway slave who becomes involved in Mrs. Lincoln’s life at significant times- I finished this book a few weeks ago and can’t find the direct quotes but, early on in the book Mrs. Lincoln asks this runaway slave what he would do with his freedom if granted. He becomes defensive and annoyed with her- as if a person had to have a worthy plan for deserving freedom, as if freedom were earned, as if it was in the power of some to withhold freedom from others. Towards the end of the book he is in a postion to help her regain her freedom and he, likewise, asks her what she will do with freedom- and as she thinks, her response mirrors his quite strongly. I wish I had marked the specific quotes but didn’t realize their sigificance until I was reflecting on the story. Makes one think, the irony of her losing her freedom because after all she was the Emancipator’s Wife.

5 stars

We have done this scedule for 2 weeks now- and it’s working!!! Even sick ;-P We’ve had head colds here this week but still managed a good deal of quality work. The asteriks are for the books/subjects we do together. 

September 2007  Grade 7  1^st quarter schedule:

 Monday:             

*Bible memory, Poetry, Home Comforts

Copy Book

Math

I, Mary – 1 chapter w/ written narration

*More Than a Carpenter

Zoology- w/narrations and notebook entries

*Pride & Prejudice

Geography/history w/ J

LLATL

 Tuesday:           

*Bible memory, Music (Marsalis), Nature walk & notebook

 Copybook

Bible – Genesis 1-11 Exodus 20 w/Hold That Thought Notebook

Math

Story of the World – ½ chapter w/ written narration

Ordinary Genius

Zoology – w/narration and notebook entries

*Pride & Prejudice

W/ J stuff

LLATL

Rosetta Stone

Wednesday:           

*Bible memory, Art- Da Vinci, Signs & Seasons

Copybook

Bible- 1 chapter per day w/ notebook entries

Math

I, Mary- 1 chapter w/ written narration

*More Than a Carpenter

Story of the World – ½ chapter w/ written narration

*Pride & Prejudice

W/ J stuff

LLATL

Rosetta Stone

Thursday:           

*Bible memory, Arts & Crafts(clay or paper)

Copybook

Bible – 1 chapter w/ notebook entry

Math

Ordinary Genius

Freckles- 1 chapter w/ written narration using narration cube

*Pride & Prejudice

W/ J stuff

LLATL

Rosetta Stone

Friday:            

*Bible memory, Signs & Seasons, Home Comforts

Copybook

Bible

Math

Freckles- 1 chapter w/written narration using narration cube

*Pride & Prejudice

W/ J stuff

LLATL

Rosetta Stone

The school year is well under way. Only one scholar left to teach….Tomorrow I will post the schedule we are using. It seems to be working fine. I’m always second guessing myself am I planning too much or too little? It’s easy for me to go overboard but this plan seems workable. It’s a barely recognizable Year 6/grade 7  from AmblesideOnline 

 ENGLISH:                 

Poetry:  Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg

Reading: selections from free reading list

Literature: Pride & Prejudice; Sense & Sensibility; The Hobbit; Animal Farm

Copybook & Penmanship:  daily

Oral & Written  Narrations:  daily

Grammar & Spelling: Learning Language Arts Through Literature- green book, Common Sense Press, 1992

MATH:                      

Saxon Math 76;  Saxon Publishers, Inc., 1992

 Money Matters for Teens (11 – 14) by Larry Burkett

 SCIENCE:   

Exploring Creation with Zoology 1; Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. 2005

Signs & Seasons: Understanding the Elements of Classical Astronomy; Fourth Day Press, 2007

 Biographies: 

Ordinary Genius- by Stephanie McPherson;

Archimedes & the Door Of Science – by Jeanne Bendick;

Galileo & the Magic Numbers

 Nature Study- weekly nature walks and notebook entries

SOCIAL STUDIES:   The Modern Age: 20^th Century-

The Story of the World volume 4 by Susan Wise Bauer;

TruthQuest History: Age of Revolution IV (America and Europe, 1865-2000)

History Tales & Biographies-

Trial & Triumph by Richard M. Hannula

A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness

Genesis: Finding Our Roots by Ruth Beechick

Never Give In: Winston Churchill  by Stephen Mansfield

Geography-

Explore the Holy Land by Ann Voskamp

LIFE SKILLS & TECHNOLOGY:    

Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House By Cheryl Mendelson

Regular computer usage. videography

 HEALTH:                 

I Am Joe’s Body by J.D.Ratcliff

 MUSIC:                     

Composer study: Handel, Ives, Stravinsky, Marsalis

Folk songs, hymns

  VISUAL ARTS:           

Artist study: Leonardo Da Vinci; Rembrandt van Rijn;  Jan Van Eyck

jewelry, clay, weaving, origami and other paper art

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: 

swimming, bike riding, outside play, and other seasonal activities

LIBRARY SKILLS:  regular use for pleasure & study

OTHER:                   

 Foreign Language: Rosetta Stone- French

 Bible:  How To Be Your Own Selfish Pig by Susan Schaeffer Macauley

Beautiful Girlhood by Mabel Hale

More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell

The Holy Bible: Genesis 1-11; Exodus 20; John; Romans; 1Corinthians 15;  and Revelation 21-22

Memory Work: Genesis 1 – 2:3; Exodus 20:1-17; John 1: 1-5; Romans 12; 1Corinthians 15: 33, 51-57; Revelation 21: 3-4, 22-27

"I hate pleasure. Cocktail parties, air travel, silk underwear, late-night banquets, lying on the beach, ring-side seats, disco music, and anything jolly. I’m not especially puritanical; that word doesn’t come close to describing or explaining my negative feelings. Nor am I other -worldly, ethereal, or whatever you want to call indifference to the five senses. I just don’t think the common notion of pleasure retailed by the ad-men and enforced by peer preasure comes close to whatever it is that makes me happy(whatever that means).

"Being happy is dirt under your fingernails, wearing old clothes, having a good idea get better the longer you work at it, starting a new bed, giving plants away, and listening to rain….

"Gardener’s must take their pleasure where they can find it, often alone; their high points are little spots of color, tiny oases of neatness, a whiff of perfume, hairs on a leaf, everyday pleasure."

I picked up this gardening book today at the library, "The Opinionated Gardener", and while browsing through it came across this little essay on pleasure and happiness. Made me smile, it did. I can relate to this guy- except lying on the beach is a definite pleasure for me, and even though I do enjoy giving plants away I also like to be given new plants to play with…..

I have been having a good time in my gardens this year. Even though we’re rather in a drought here, it sure beats the very soggy, cold and not very nice summers we’ve had in recent years. I started, with much help from Jack, a large circular herb bed right smack in my "close to the house backyard" (we have a pretty large yard). It doesn’t have a lot in it yet but what is there seems to be doing good: lavender, rosemary, chives, echinacea, parsley, thyme(2 kinds), sage, russian sage(one large right in the middle), hyssop, lemon basil, calendulas, and nastertiums……and there is plenty of room for more!

Between the back door and the outside cellar entrance has been a muddy weedy triangle the animals make a mess of. Last year I put some overflow plants there, fenced it off a bit to discourage the dog,  and they took over and it is looking very healthy and green there this year. In that bed is lemon balm, echinacea, tansy, chocloate mint, balloon flower, sundrops, and a few annuals. I’m greatly encouraged. Since moving here, near the river, I have had trouble growing things, too many bugs and slugs and molds and fungus’, but the lack of rain this year has allowed me a fighting chance to keep up and it brings me pleasure.

I haven’t posted anything in almost 2 months! There is a couple of reasons for that. First Homeschoolblogger got troublesome and Jack was going to help me move my blog somewhere else. We didn’t get around to that yet.  Also life has gotten really messy here.  It’s still messy with no end in sight, I may blog about it sometime but not right now.

This is sort of a test post, something short that I don’t have to compose in my head, in case it gets lost in cyberspace.  See, I’m going to share a portion of an A.W. Tozer essay. The essay is about the lack of spiritual discernment.

"Mere evangelism is not our present need. Evangelism does no more than extend religion, of whatever kind it may be. It gains acceptance for religion among larger numbers of people without giving much thought to the quality of that religion. The tragedy is that present-day evangelism accepts the degenerate form of Christianity now current as the very religion of the apostles and busies itself with making converts to it with no questions asked. And all the time we are moving farther and farther from the New Testament pattern.

"We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement-mad, paganized pseudo-religion which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends.

"When the Roman church apostasized, God brought about the Reformation. When the Reformation declined, God raised up the Moravians and the Wesleys. When these movements began to die, God raised up fundamentalism and the "deeper life" groups.

"Now that these have almost without exception sold out to the world- what next?"