out of the miry clay: July 2011

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

prayer requests

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 14:1, 18, 27

Wow, I cannot believe how many people have such major trials in their lives right now. I have a long list of prayer needs in my daybook, but please add these ~

Hiromi in Japan (near the Fukushima nuclear plant) lost her beloved boyfriend just this week. He died in his sleep I guess. Thankfully he is with his Savior.
Angie's niece 1yo Kaylee is having surgery this morning, putting in a life line port and a dialysis port.
Heather's mom is having a mastectomy today.
Mrs. Freyermuth's husband Virgil passed away last Thursday ~ So thankful for these two dear saints who began the Joy Club children's ministry many years ago.

My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word. I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.
Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.
I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

Psalm 119:25-32

Monday, July 25, 2011

daybook 7/25/2011

FOR TODAY

Monday, July 25, 2011

Outside my window...

Sorta sunny, sorta cloudy. I guess I should be baking?

I don’t think we have a heat advisory today/this week ~ Thank you, Lord!

I am thinking…

Why do I save so many school papers?? Just so I can abuse my finger nails trying to load them into paper folders? I’m telling you, those prongs are getting shorter ~ I can’t get nearly as much into one folder as I used to do.

I am thankful to God …

for this big, beautiful, dirty, disorganized house. Finished or not, I will choose to be thankful now.

I am praying for...

… Angela & Jared and family ~ one of their newborn twins was called to heaven earlier this month. Such heartache, but God is faithful. The family has known much of God’s grace amidst their tears.

… 6mo Ruby (friends of friends in Wisc) ~ suffered a very serious head injury last month

... the Rettigs and the church in Prague ~ on furlough for a few more weeks ~ It was a joy to be with them last Sunday! :-)

… the sale of my mother-in-law’s home

… Amber’s dad ~ hospice

… Grant S.

… people who live and work in Japan

… Cinnamon ~ her Army hubby is HOME from Afghanistan, her Marine son is headed for Afghanistan!

… Amy W., a young wife/mom with cancer

… Sarita & Jeff need visas for their return to Israel

… Michelle B., recovering still from her gall bladder surgery :-\ ~ in France this week :-)

… folks in Joplin, MO, and along the Missouri River ~ so hard hit with tornadoes and flooding this year

… the A Family, on furlough from their field of ministry ~ such a blessing to see them again!

… Gina’s family ~ in their loss of Jason as he rescued his own children from drowning

… Lea’s dad ~ in the midst of a serious health crisis

… Kari’s dad ~ had triple by-pass surgery in June

… Laura

… and especially marriages ~ meant to last a lifetime

From the learning rooms...

I need to finish with Ancient Rome, so we are ready to move on to the next era. I did read to them this morning at breakfast! Yay me!

The Cattleman is charging into ‘next year’ without the rest of us. Go!

The olders are still whittling away at the remains of last year’s work.

From the kitchen...

I have cooked chicken to make something with. Something without salsa, so I’m at a loss… but thinking rice, veggies, soy sauce (Bragg’s)

Miss Music Box insisted on serving us some Brazilian-style pizza last night ~ not bad, but I’ll pass on green olives any and every day.

I am creating...

a clean (as in, stuff put away) school room. While I sit here. Am I amazing, or what?! Ha

I am going...

to get up and resume my school room project. soon. I need a recipe inspiration for supper first. Hopefully allrecipes.com won’t disappoint me.

I am reading...

for a summer Sunday school class ~ Choosing Forgiveness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I recently started Bruchko by Bruce Olson

Last night I read a Grandma’s Attic book after sitting by the Cowgirl in the van…

I am hoping...

we can get a little family vacation in August. Tim is still rather captivated by the re-enactment at Wilson’s Creek, Conny ~ But I don’t think we’ll be sleeping in tents for $250 each.

I am hearing...

Miss Music Box doing her thing at the piano

Around the house...

lots of “opportunities”

One of my favorite things...

berries fresh from the Berry Patch

Pondering these words...

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned. ~ Peter Marshall (borrowed from Mrs. Santos ~ Thank you!)

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. ~ George Patton

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Today ~ Girls have drive time with Mr. B. while the Popper goes to the chiropractor, more errands

Tuesday ~ Playtime for the Youngers while a friend has a doctor appt.

Wednesday ~ Repeat Monday plus midweek service at church

End of the month accounting duties and more exciting tales of adventure coming your way…

Here is a picture for thought...

a moment from last summer’s moving adventure

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord,

that thou fulfil it.

Colossians 4:17

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

~ Find more Daybooks at Peggy's ~

Saturday, July 23, 2011

You must listen to or read this!

Ron Paul to Congress: If Debt Is the Problem, Why Do You Want More of It?

Transcript

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, the Congress is concerned about the debt, the people are concerned about the debt, the markets are concerned about the debt, the world is concerned about the debt and what we’re doing here today, because we live with a world fiat dollar standard and so the whole world is engulfed in this very serious problem.
I do not understand, though, that if the debt is the problem – and I agree, the debt is the problem – that for us to come here and raise the debt by 2.4 trillion dollars is the solution. That just baffles me. I think it’s a distraction, because when a country gets indebted to the degree that we’re indebted, the country always defaults. This is historic, especially if the country is a significant country. On occasion, a small country will quit sending the checks and they’ll go bankrupt; we’re not going to do that, but we will default because the debt is unsustainable.
This year it is said that we have a debt increase of 1.6 trillion dollars, but that’s not true. If you count what we borrow from the pension funds, the Social Security and highway funds, it’s 2 trillion dollars. But if you include the increase in the entitlement obligation, it’s 5 trillion dollars. So this is a huge, huge problem.
But the argument here is, how do you default. And it is said that if we don’t raise the debt limit, we’re going to default and not send out the checks. I don’t believe that for a minute, somehow or another the checks are going to go out.
But if you really wanted to live within the technicalities of law, there’s a very simple thing you could do. We owe the Federal Reserve 1.6 trillion dollars. Well, that’s not a real debt – they bought those treasury bills with money out of thin air. We could just write that off or quit paying the interest, tide ourselves over and get down to serious business to cut back and live within our means. And that would be a solution. But to increase the national debt will only encourage another type of default, and that’s what we’re going through. We’re engaged in the most difficult and a very bad way of defaulting; and that is through the destruction of the currency. Today we have an inflation rate of 9%, and that is defaulting. So if a government can default and print money, and if they can get a 50% inflation rate over a period of time, they’ve cut that debt in half. That is the goal, that is what’s happening, and that is very, very serious.
Just in these last 3 years in dealing with this crisis, the dollar has been devalued 50% against gold, and gold, of course, is the best measurement of the value of a currency and it’s been that way for thousands of years and it cannot be denied because it’s economic law. So we are defaulting, and when the American people go out and start buying goods and services, like they are now, they’re recognizing it costs a lot of money. So right now, we’re in the early stages of rampant inflation, which means we’re going to be hit with higher prices and higher interest rates. That is going to be a tax. So I see the only solution, and that is to cut spending.
Now the reason we don’t cut spending is one side loves entitlements, and the other side loves war. And even this token attempt of a 100 billion dollars of cuts when we have this huge, huge deficit… But there’s no mention of cutting military spending. I don’t want to cut defense spending. This military spending doesn’t defend us, it makes things worse.
Our problem in this country doesn’t come only from the Congress, it comes from the people! The people still have a strong appetite for big government programs. They’re not willing to cut, they think government can take care of us from cradle to grave, and that we can be the policeman of the world. So someday, we as a country, we as a people, and we as a Congress, will have to say, “What should the role of government be?” The founders had a pretty strong suggestion, they wrote a constitution that said the government should be very limited, and the government should be protecting our liberties and providing national defense and a sound currency. We don’t do any of that. We’ve embarked on a course that was destined to end badly and this is where we are today.
So if we don’t understand this, this default will not be because we don’t send out the checks – we will send out the checks – it will be defaulted on because people will get their money back, or they will get their Social Security checks, and it won’t buy anything.
That is much, much worse than facing the fact that we not raise the debt limit and work our way out of this. That is devastating economically, and it’s devastating politically, because if we just saw a taste of what happens, how the anger is built when you see other countries in Europe now defaulting and can’t pay their bills. So this is more significant than ever, because we provide the reserve currency of the world.

Friday, July 22, 2011

more pics of our July

Fresh blueberry cream pie (actually baked, but you start with fresh blueberries ~ I didn’t name the recipe) Tim wants me to make it with cherries instead. Someday when I have fresh tart cherries on hand.
The Popper preferred the blueberries; Tim favored the creamy custard; so they shared their pieces.

Tim located a capable but infrequently used tractor at the farm. That with the bale fork he bought made a good tool for moving the new crop of round bales. That’s the Computer Geek at the wheel, getting some driving practice. (Without me along. woo hoo!)

Evidence we fed the birds earlier this year : )

While I was out yesterday evening, Miss Music Box gave some bread-making lessons …

(and took numerous photos while they were at it)

The Cowgirl also made potato buns!

Miss Artist couldn’t resist a few pics of today’s treat of bing cherries. Yum.

I was momentarily deterred from making hummus by the price of the bottle of tahini. However, the little container of sesame seeds was only 50 cents last week ~ very much worth a try! The internet proved helpful when I found Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice ~ Reeni’s recipe blog has close to a bzillion recipes, including homemade tahini and hummus! I forgot to toast the sesame seeds first, but they did grind up fine in my coffee grinder (used for flax seed usually). The kids (who like hummus from the store) decided the homemade was even better :-) Score! Tim might be happier if and when I attempt her recipe for falafel or skillet flatbread. Yum. Bring on the gyros!

How can the Popper smile

while Tim is holding her up by her ears?!?

a day in the [crazy] life

Yesterday was the last day of Driver’s Education Class for Miss MusicBox and Miss Artist. woot woot! We were out the door shortly after 7:30am to get them to Ames for the final 2.5 hours of class with Mr. K. (followed by 2 hours of driving with Mr. B.)

The Computer Geek came along at my insistence. After stopping at Fareway for few groceries, we headed to the DOT’s driver’s license station. Yikes, there must have been at least five people in line before the doors opened at 8:30, because we were about number twelve arriving at 8:35. Shortly before 10am, he had his learner’s permit in hand. Whew. “Busy place” is an understatement.

I had decided we ‘needed’ some fresh blueberries, so we headed off to the Berry Patch by Nevada. (Note to locals: several streets south of Campustown are ripped up for repairs :p so don’t try to go that way. ahem.) We eventually arrived at the Berry Patch, where the two Judys proceeded to talk us out of buying the pre-picked berries… You’ll have a bucket full in 20 minutes! Picking blueberries IS relatively easy, but I had the wrong shoes so my foot is still sore from squatting. At any rate, almost five pounds of delicious yummy blueberries were now ours! On to the raspberries. Here I lost my gumption for digging through the thorny canes quickly, but we still came away with a little more than an pound ~ (almost) enough for a batch of raspberry jam. (and yes, delicious is the key word ~ We’re talking fresh fruit, Julie G.!)

By now it was 11:30am, and we were hot and tired …and without a water bottle! :-\ The GG said he had his (Huxley store-only) Dairy Queen coupon along, so we drove to Huxley for blizzards. But no water. {duh} Zoomed back to Ames to pick up the girls from their drive time and give them some melted Passed their tests at Driver’s Ed Celebration Blizzards. We made it home by 1pm… for lunch. Who’s hungry?! Just oh-so-thirsty.

After freezing most of the blueberries and mixing up the raspberry jam (with a few wild black raspberries and some strawberries added), I tried for a quick nap. Which ended a bit earlier than planned due to an unsolicited and unanswered phone call. :p I’m looking forward to getting the August GOP Straw Poll over with, but I suppose the phone calls won’t end until November 7, 2012.

Who would you vote for??

I needed to return to Huxley for the Azure Standard delivery. I left the older girls at the farm office to clean while I ran that errand. (I’ll be back. Ha.)

But when I arrived at Jenny’s house about 5pm, she told me the truck would be delayed until at least 6:15pm. (Jenny now has my phone number : )) I called a couple other friends and Tim to inform them of the delay. I decided to wait for the truck. Jenny learned it might be 7pm before they arrived. It was nice enough (Joy!) to just sit in my van, but I’d come without a book to read, etc. I wasn’t hungry enough to get a Subway sandwich (and I had spent too much at DQ earlier!) I opted to hang out at the local library. I read the DesMoines Register for an hour, then returned to sit at Jenny’s, listening to Simon Conway on WHO-Radio mourn the end of our manned space program. At 7, several others arrived and we all stood around the driveway chatting… Jenny offered chairs for the old fogies (me), and I had a good time catching up with Wendy and getting to know Heidi. Sometime after 7:30 ~ maybe 7:45? ~ the truck actually arrived, and we had our order unloaded in about ten minutes. About 8pm I left Huxley for home. Where I found the girls baking potato buns and bread… and no one had eaten supper yet?! (except Tim who’d gone out with a friend for a Smash Burger)

I was the first one asleep in the house. Only wakened briefly by a loud and bright thunderstorm about 2am… And then it was time to rise and shine again…