A Wildflower Morning

I wrote a guest post for a favorite homeschooling site for SDA homeschoolers, about project time in our homeschool.   Would you care to join me there ? 

   As I walked up to the front porch porch of Pohnpei SDA Church, I was very happy to find piles of and piles of zorries still there.  Church is considered a holy place, the place to meet with God, and just like Moses at the burning bush, shoes are removed before entering the church.  For those of you not from the islands, zorries are what Americans call flip flops,  except for the Pohnpeian ones are much more durable, and cost less then those at cheap department stores in the states.  Unfortunately I missed getting a photo of those practical foot protectors, but I have the memory strong in my mind. The church looks much the same as when I taught at the school in the late 80's.  They added a lovely stained glass window, and some new curtains.  But the benches are still the same, as is the fellowship hall, which was just built when I was there before.  I sat down and a flood of memories overwhelmed me.  Did anyone else sense what a precious privilege it was to be in churc

 We've had Cookie in our family for just over one year now.  What a lot of blessing and fun she's brought to our lives.  I caught her napping yesterday, but most of the time she's a ball of energy.  Araya has her in a service dog training program, and she even gets to go to church now.  She's one amazing Cookie. Last year at about this time we took Cookie camping with us, just a day or two after we got her on September 5.   She was almost three month old then. Take a look at this old post to learn about her first adventures.  Cookie fits in the knapsack.  Cooke goes Canoeing.  She fits in the life jacket just fine.  Waiting in the sunshine for Araya, showing early potential to sit and stay, inspite of being an English Jack Russell. She's bigger now, with longer hair, and even more personality.  She's a blessing to our family, and we count her as a gift from God. Read what Araya has to say about Cookie at her blog .

 Watching the September harvest moon rise over the hills from a tiny sliver to round fullness.   "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"  Psalm 8:3,4.   Psalm 104 1  Praise the Lord , my soul. Lord my God, you are very great;      you are clothed with splendor and majesty. 2  The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;      he stretches out the heavens like a tent 3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot      and rides on the wings of the wind. 4  He makes winds his messengers, [ a ]      flames of fire his servants. 5  He set the earth on its foundations;      it can never be moved.   19  He made the moon to mark the seasons,      and the sun knows when to go down. 24  How many are your works, Lord !      In wisd

I love this old fashioned photo I found online.    Four cute kids standing in front of some endangered lady slippers.  Who are these kids, and why were they asked to hold these signs.  I hope their message made a difference for these special wild flowers. I'd love to give the original photographer the proper credit for it.  I will give it the best credit that I have at this point.  http://gardenofsimple.tumblr.com/post/1126493967/aresohappy-via-raising-romulus.  If anyone one can help me the original source I would appreciate it.

To start the morning out, I was banished from our home.  The kids were working on a surprise, and they didn't even allow me to be in my bedroom to wait.  So, I went to garage sales (there aren't many on a Mother's Day morning, but I scouted them out anyway), I bought gas, and went back home.  They said they weren't done yet, only 10 more minutes though.  So Rob took me on a 20 minute walk.  They weren't done when we got back, so they sent me to my room this time (am I in "time-out"), and around 30 minutes later I was finally called for breakfast.   Ok, it was  worth it, waiting for breakfast until 10:30 A.M. this morning.  My kids made a gourmet meal for me, nicer then the finest restaurant around, and there is not chance of me getting "glutened' here. My plate looked like a serving platter itself.  They made Baked Hashbrowns in a heart shaped pan, and then filled the center with my favorite recipe of scrambled tofu, garnished with fre

For those of you who remember jolting around in the back of a pickup truck over those horrible, un-paved roads around the island of Pohnpei, I have good news.   The road that rings Pohnpei is now completely paved.  The whole way!   Except for some of the older sections that need repaved again, the road is pretty smooth and nice.  It only took a couple hours of driving to get completely around the island.  Some of you might remember how we rated the jolts on the Richter Scale, as if we were measuring the power of an earthquake.  I believe that we would have called it a 10.0 if someone had been launched out of the back of the truck.  Thankfully that never happened, but I do remember some potholes taken at great speed that bruised up most of us, shaking our brains real good, likely causing the poor memory I have today. One of the coolest things we saw on the trip around was the Kittie Church.  Some of my sweat was invested in the footings of this church.   I