love to paint

Last night, my daughter hosted a book group discussion about The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry .  I looked on the web for some questions, but couldn't find any, so I asked her to write her own list of questions.  She did (and I added on the last 3).  Here's her list in case anyone would like to use them for a literature unit or discussion group. The Birthday Ball Discussion Questions 1.  When you first looked at this book, what did you think this book would be like? 2.  Would you want to be in the princess' shoes?  Why or why not? 3.  Which character are you most like?  Why? 4.  If you lived in the princess' country, would you want to be nobility or peasantry?  Why? 5.  If you could change anything in this book, what would you change?  Why? 6. The princess' parents are both unusual.  Can you name some strange things about them?  Compare them with your parents.  What are some differences between them? 8. ...

I have been wrestling with some deep questions and confronting legalistic ideas that have haunted me for several years.  These questions have lingered, but I've been able to fight them for the most part. Warning! Rabbit trail ahead... Last night, I followed the instructions I'd given my teenage photography students in the fall.  Put together you pictures in a portfolio so that you can look at your pictures easily.  You can look back and forth over time and remember what God has shown you.  I've been trying to figure out how to store enlargements that I order of my pictures and I think my husband and I've come upon a solution.  I've made the portfolio for my 8 x 10s and 5 x 7s.  I'm going to get two larger artist portfolios and a rack to store them in for my larger enlargements. As I sorted through my pictures, I had to choose how to categorize them.  It was interesting to try and group my pictures.  One of the groups I formed was portraits, ...

My oldest daughter stopped taking piano lessons in October, so I realized yesterday that I needed to have a better plan for music for her for the rest of the year.  I sat down this morning and started forming  a plan.  My younger kids are going to do these lessons with her even though they are both currently studying instruments. So, I'm putting together a plan.  First we're going to study the instruments in the orchestra.  Then, we're going to look at the periods of music history and then finally composers.  We're going to do a lesson every Friday am or every other Friday for 30-60 minutes.  I've found some awesome free resources online that have helped me put together a whole notebook.  Here's what I've found... We are going to start with the Orchestra .  Here's our instrument pages: http://www.tlsbooks.com/mymusicalinstrumentbookb.pdf  are the first pages.  I'm using the cover page and then the first page from here:  h...

While on vacation, we went into Whole Foods one day.  My husband and I had not been to one in a long time.  I was shocked by the prices... 6 bakery hamburger buns for $6.  There were ten kinds of salt and maybe one of them was iodized.  It was interesting.  There was a full barista coffee bar in the center of the store.   As we were standing waiting for our coffee next door at Dunkin Donuts, my husband made a comment to me that took me by surprise.  He said to me that he had realized while shopping at Whole Foods that the store and its shoppers were fueled by fear--fear of what their food would have in it if it wasn't pure--without iodine, preservatives, nonorganic... food.  I'm not saying it's a bad thing to eat food with less preservatives, with whole grains, less salt, without msg... they are all good things.  But, I know that fear can be consuming.  It can be masked by good intentions.  But, if it's at the root of why we're do...