I am one of these people who reads anything with words on it. I’ve been like that since I started reading.  My mom says she could once leave notes and lists all over the house…but then Melissa learned to read.  Truly, it’s a horrible thing to simply read anything without thinking about it.  Because you always read things you wish you hadn’t.

            I was having a discussion recently with a friend about serving wine at communion (something we have faced at two churches we visited here in Indiana).  I think we came to an agreement, based upon G.I. Williamson’s explanation of the shorter catechism question #9, that innately wine is not evil.  (After all, it can’t jump out of the cup on its own accord and attack you.)  My friend pointed out that in America we lean towards the idea that avoiding it completely staves off the temptation of becoming drunk.  Perhaps we’re too cautious, but I would have to say I would rather avoid wine completely than try it and find myself addicted.  I have many other temptations in life to stave off without adding alcoholic beverages to the list.

            Reading is one of those temptations.  I have gotten a lot better with averting my eyes at the check-out in stores (would you like to know how many calories are in a piece of gum?), or not picking up certain books at the library (although cookbooks are usually quite safe to randomly flip through).  As far as my internet habits, I’m not a surfer of the web unless I am researching something and even then I try to be cautious. I stick to the websites I know or people I trust suggest to me.

            I know most people who read my blog go directly to it and never look at anything else on xanga.  I primarily stick with my own blog and the blogs of my friends, but whenever I log off I get taken to xanga’s main site. And I have had it with the junk people blog about that is advertised there.  Our Founding Fathers did not give us freedom of speech or the press to talk or write about anything under the sun.  Those men wrote more pages than we could ever hope to jot down in a lifetime, but you’ll find very few things they wrote that are completely untoward.  Even in their letters to their wives or closest friends.  Yet today people post things on the internet that can make you sick. 

            I’ll never be the one who stands up and single-handedly cleans up the internet, but I can be careful about what I am reading, supporting, and encouraging other people to read.  So, starting next week, I have a new blog site.  No doubt people who use this service blog for evil as well (“the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”), but at least by using this domain I will lead myself and my readers only to what I post.  And may what I post be glorifying to God in all ways.

 

www.nhbooklover.blogspot.com

 

 

This week I discovered a word that describes me quite well:

 

            pedant: a person holding books in esteem

 

Don’t you just love new words?

Exhausted.  Who would have known that going to a basketball tournament all weekend was so exhausting. And I didn’t even play.

 

This weekend was my sisters Jenny’s and Abby’s basketball tournament on their “home turf”.  Which means the team families were the hosts of the games.  We girls really had it easy.  There were only six teams in our tournament while the boys were playing twice as many teams.  (Let’s just say I’m glad my brother’s not old enough for varsity yet.)

 

Officially, I was the hostess.  Which means…well, I’m not exactly sure what that means.  It certainly doesn’t mean that I knew what I was supposed to be doing. Or that I knew anything about what was going on, no matter how many times someone asked me.  Or that I did anything of huge importance.  Mostly it meant keeping up the brackets as the teams progressed or digressed.  It meant photocopying the stats after every game because I knew how to run the copy machine (thanks to my years as a secretary).  And it meant I had a very important key in my pocket. The key that opened every room in the entire/church school; but most importantly it opened all the classrooms the girls were using as their dressing rooms.  If a key can make one feel important, I guess I was important.  (Wow! What do you know?  I can unlock a door!)

 

All around, the tournament was successful.  Jenny and Abby won their first game which was very exciting, but they just barely lost their second.  The third was even worse (to their credit, it was against one of the best teams in the league).  But at least my sisters played basketball. I watched one game today when the girls were playing…well, I don’t know.  Something akin to basketball/football/rugby/boxing/wrestling.  Okay, it was a tight game. 30-32 was the final score.  But when one team is called the Lady Warriors and the other the Lady Hawks, let’s try to be ladies, huh?

 

I’m sure I’m not half as tired as the girls who actually played today, but I sure am tired. Which is why I’m posting this a bit late.   And now I think I’m going to go enjoy some ice cream, a movie and bed. 

 

Ahh, sleep!

29 years today…

 

 

 

 

And I still wake up like this.

 

(Just not as cute.)

 

            I don’t know where our Valentine “traditions” got started, but we enjoy them.  We like ordering out for pizza (this time some heart shaped pizzas from Papa John’s), and mixing punch, and Dad always buys us an ice cream cake to enjoy.   Of course there is candy. Sometimes we get each other candy to go with the Valentine’s we cut, or stamp, or have laying about the house already made.  Then we also have a candy hunt.  The candy differs from year to year, but almost always included Snickers.  (Which are the “hiders” – Mom’s – favorite.)  We also usually get a movie to share, but this year we got something better: the Wii balance board and games.  We laughed ourselves silly last night watching each other on it.  You should have see Abby hula hoop!  (Or maybe you should have seen Caleb “coaching” her with the hula hoop!)

            But by far the favorite thing we do is have a scavenger hunt for new books.  Mom takes great pains in writing out all the clues, hiding them about the house, and then hiding our new book (or books) itself.  Usually the clues include a mad race up and down stairs, causing major traffic jams on staircases that are simply not built wide enough for speeding traffic.  The clues usually aren’t too difficult, yet confusion sometimes arises.  Like last night.  I was finished, sitting at the table flipping through Janette Oke’s newest book I can’t wait to read.  Caleb had also finished, but he was around annoying Abby who was just coming to the end of her search.  Jenny and Grace were working on their final clues. Grace was scrounging around near the piano.  Jenny came out of Mom and Dad’s room with a large quilting book in hand, a little bit of confusion on her face.

            “Um, Jenny,” Mom and Dad sat at the table watching the mass chaos.  “That’s a library book.”

            I think Jenny was relieved.  The three of us sitting at the table roared in laughter that Jenny had picked up one of Mom’s library books, sincerely thinking it was her newest prize. 

            Meanwhile, Grace was shouting from the piano area that she couldn’t find what she was looking for, the clue didn’t make any sense and if it wasn’t there, then where else did Mom keep her cookbooks.

            “Cookbooks?” Mom echoed. “That’s not your clue.”

            Where the mix-up exactly happened I don’t know, for Grace’s first clue explicitly stated that all her clues were written on blue paper yet she had picked up a yellow paper at her last stop. Which was Jenny’s clue.  So, Jenny’s book was really among the cookbooks while Grace’s book was near where Jenny had picked up the quilting book.  Finally, they found what they were looking for.

            You would think that as we get older, we would get a bit smarter.  Think again.

            Anyhow….

 

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!