Coffee Break’s Over, Everyone Back On Your Heads

I quit.

I’m sorry, I’m weak. I’ve given up the fight for good and fallen back to the dark side.

Yes, I uninstalled Linux and reinstalled Windows XP.

Again.

This is the third time I’ve tried, and every time I just end up spending more time trying to figure out what the heck just happened to my computer than I am doing anything useful with the computer. Maybe if I had done this when I was younger and had more time to spend just messing around it might be worth it. But, as it is, I hand my paycheque over to Bill himself and move on with my life.

I’m not stupid. I’ve been a computer geek for 25 years. I fix friends’ Windows PCs for them on a regular basis. With Linux, when I can’t figure out what the problem is with a computer and it will take days to work through the issue on a forum somewhere (if I even get an answer), I throw in the towel. My alpha geek status drops a notch and I trudge onward.

Sigh.

I say “I’m going back to Windows XP” and this prooftext comes to mind:

44:10 He replied, “You have suggested your own punishment! The one who has it will become my slave, but the rest of you will go free.”
– Gen 44:10

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To quote MrPages: Bit by bit.

And that is how I am tackling the Word of God in our home school.

Currently we are working our way through Matthew, bit by bit.

Each day we read a segment of the scripture, discuss it, and then do something in our notebooks. Some days I am more creative than others.

Today, we read about being salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16) and the creative bug in me came up with votive candle holders decorated in tissue paper and salt. (Similar instructions can be found here. When all the tissue paper was glued on, we painted a final coating of glue over the outside of the jar and then rolled or sprinkled it in table salt. When it was dry, I gently brushed the excess salt off.)

We enjoyed the results with a candlelight meal last night. This morning we printed out the following collage and the children glued a copy in their notebooks.

Salt and Light

13″You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

14″You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5: 13-16

I am a health-nut. My husband’s family all struggle with cholesterol problems. A few weeks after I got married, I began my nutritional journey into ways to help ensure my husband will be around as long as God will allow.

My husband followed me on this journey, although not always as enthusiastically as I might have liked.

It was with great mirth that I read the little encouraging email he sent me a few days ago:

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Now I’m off to my Rosetta Stone Language Lesson! (available for free through our local library!)

As a follow up to my last post about ad-blockers and site content, I want to post a link to an absolutely amazing post by Tim Challies over at challies.com

He discusses a new report from The American Psychological Association about the damaging impact that p*rn has on the social and mental development of children and teens.

I really hate blog posts that just say “LOOK AT THIS GREAT POST OVER HERE!” and don’t add any major value but this one is worth breaking my own rules to publicize. I can’t think of much value I could add to what Tim and the others have to say.

Show this to any parents you know.

I love Adblock Plus. It stops almost all the ads before I even see them. Anything that gets by, I can right click, add it to my block list and I never see it again. I have my personal copy of AdBlock Plus tuned to remove ads from all of the sites I visit regularly. I rarely see anything but text on those sites.

Yesterday I was showing MrsPages a link on a website that I check often during the day. I was at her computer upstairs, so it didn’t have AdblockPlus set to remove all of the ads and sidebar images like my PC does. I was shocked at the content of the sidebars and ads from this site. I was actually embarrassed to pull the site up and show it to my wife.

It got me thinking: Perhaps the ad blockers and pop-up stoppers aren’t particularly good things. Perhaps the ads and sidebar content on a site are a good indicator of the quality of rest of the material there. They are a barometer to measure if I should be reading content from a site.

So, if I get funny headlines and news commentary from a site that also promotes p*rn, what kinds of things am I getting from the articles without really realizing it? By hiding the p*rn ads, I fooled myself into thinking that the site was now “safe”. It’s like thinking I can go hang around in a brothel for the conversation if I don’t actually partake in any of the business that goes on there.

I just cleaned out my RSS feed list. I’m also thinking about turning off adblock. If a site has something I want to block, perhaps the better solution is just not to go there.

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
–1 Cor 15:33

I just don’t quite understand people who’d prefer this:

to thirty below zero Celsius. I just don’t get it.

For those of you who aren’t Prairie Canadians, let me define some terms. Thirty below is very cold. Thirty below is also incredibly dry. Here on the Canadian Prairies, when it gets to be thirty below there is very rarely any wind at all. Sun dogs shine in a perfectly clear blue sky (it’s too cold for clouds). It’s easy to dress up for that kind of weather. A few layers and you’re good. The primary point of this whole little rant, however, is that there is no snow. It’s too dry and cold for snow at that temperature.

Right now, we have temperatures just below freezing, cloudy skies, a strong wind blowing the dampness right through anything you can wear, and it has snowed at least ankle depth each of the last few days. Areas around us had blizzard warnings and closed highways.

All around us I hear people happy that the cold snap is over. “Finally some nice weather!” they say through teeth chattering in the damp chill. “Great to have the warm weather back!” they shout across to me between grunts as they heave shovel-loads of wet snow off their driveways.

Bah. Gimme the deep freeze any day.

One of my favorite Psalms says:

Sons born during one’s youth are like arrows in a warrior’s hand.
How blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!
They will not be put to shame when they confront enemies at the city gate.
– Psalm 127:4-5

I think if David had ever seen snow, he would have been far less concerned about shooting and more about shoveling. The “enemy” is blocking the city gate waist deep and needs to be moved, boys, hint hint. I dream fondly of the day when I can task my (not-)soon-(enough-)to-be strapping teenage boys with the snow clearing tasks. After all, that’s the reason I wanted boys*.

*Not really**.

**Well, sorta not really.

Isaiah is a book of judgment and hope, prophecy and promise. Dennis Bratcher remarks that it is “primarily concerned with the failure of the nation, and especially its leaders, to be faithful to God.” And yet, my heart echoes Allen Ross more fully when he states that “the common theme is the message of salvation.”

Failure and salvation.

What more is there to my relationship with God.

What more is there to my marriage.

What more is there to my parenting.

Time and time again I am faced with my ineptitude, my sin, my failure.

And time and time again, God promises and produces salvation. And yet, not just salvation, but restoration.

I who have lost myself in the slew of sin am saved and restored to glory beside my King.

And that is a beautiful thought thats brings me great comfort.

(Steve Bell sings about that comfort in Comfort My People.)

For more Beauty about Isaiah, visit Onward and Upward for this week’s Carnival of Beauty.

But the aim of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 1 Timothy 1:5

Now I’m not exactly sure how to go about doing this, but for the smaller annoyances, I am going to work on speaking softly and gently and making sure I make eye contact with my children and smile.

On the more serious items, I want to make an effort to sit down with the child, make pleasant physical contact and ensure I pray for wisdom - preferably aloud so that my children can see my faith in action, and know where my source of wisdom comes from.

I can only love unconditionally if I am willing to let God love unconditionally through me. (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!)

There was a box in the basement full of spare parts to a whatchamacallit that we don’t own anymore. It was on the floor of the basement between the stairs and my office. Only now that it’s gone do I realize the mental energy that it took to avoid thinking about it. I blocked it out of my sight every morning and evening. I stepped around it and never really noticed it. If I calculate it out, including lunch and bathroom breaks, that box had made me walk at least 3 extra kilometers in the last couple of years.

Now that it’s gone, I feel lighter somehow. The open space on the floor truly makes me smile. Not only do I have less distance to go, I step lighter while getting there. The day before it left, if you’d asked me what was on the floor in front of my office, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Was there even anything there? The amount of denial that went in to simply having that box sit on the floor is incredible.

I want to save an emotion in a bottle. Just one. I want to save that feeling I get when I walk straight across a large open space on the basement floor that I’ve been walking around for nearly as long as we’ve had the house.

I want to keep the lightness and joy that comes from having the donations door at the Goodwill close between me and the boxes of junk that I’ve been hosting in my basement and in the back of my brain for longer than my 11 year old has been talking.

MrsPages always laughs that I have a song lyric to go with any situation. I wish I had more scripture up there, but sometimes the song lyrics work too:

It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find
From the things we leave behind.

– Michael Card, from his truly incredible album Poiema.

I’ve been noticing a strong trend in the blogs that MrsPages and I read.

Blogs about family by women can generally be described by choosing one or two topics from the following list:

• Here are some wonderful things we did today, and here’s a cute picture.
• Here are some things that I really struggle with.
• Here’s a nice graphic and a pleasant thought to go with it.
• Here are some things that I’m praying about and really working with God on.
• Here are some great suggestions to deal with a household problem.
• Here’s some affirmation!
• Here’s how my family spend some quality time together.
• Here’s a link to something from this list on the blog of another great woman!

Blogs about family by men can generally be described by choosing one topic from the following list:

• Here’s something I did with my computer.
• Here’s some deep theological commentary.
• Here’s a link to something that’s happening in the news.
• Here’s something I did with tools.

I really struggle with this. My blog isn’t written to be some fabulously useful tome of wisdom and knowledge to unite all of mankind in peace, understanding and the sharing of ice-cold Coca-Cola. I know, however, that I don’t want to be a cliche ‘man blogger’. I don’t want to host the kind of blog that you can read for a year and be full of information but have no idea who I am and who you are and why it matters that you know who I am and who you are.

I want to do some of those things that the women-folk do.

I want to talk about what I struggle with. I want to share great suggestions for improving family life. I want to talk about the things I’m praying about and how God is showing me answers. I want to talk about my kids and show pictures.

If you know of any men blogging real life with their families (Christian or not, homeschooling or not) let me know. Post them in the comments.

And then, boy do I want to share about my latest Ubuntu Linux install…