How Great is our God!
Here in the Nyveldt homeschool, we are currently studying ancient history, specifically, Egypt. Being the type with an inquiring mind, I was prompted to do some more research about how and where the Hebrew nation fit into the Egyptian timeline. I was curious to know if there were any significant marks and effects left by the supporting role of the Jews in Egypt from a secular point of view. I was not coming up with too much until I compared a timeline of ‘key dates of ancient Egypt’ and a timeline of ‘Jewish history’. From the World History point of view, 1550 BC is noted that Egypt, in a phase called the ‘New Kingdom’, is at it’s largest and wealthiest. On the Jewish timeline 2216 (1546 BC), Joseph was sold into...
Fear No Eagle
It is always quite humorous to hear the botching of perfectly good lyrics, words and phrases that children come up with; sometimes eyebrow-raising, even embarrassing, but yes, always funny. I spent a good deal of time today thinking about how one of my children has interpreted a certain verse out of Psalms 23. “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eagle” Perhaps it begs some explanation as to why a small one would hear, absorb, and conceive this as making sense. A while back, my husband procured a game for the kids to play on the Ipad called ‘Oregon Trail’. In this game, you choose your characters and various criteria about food, money, and I don’t know what all, as you travel by covered wagon...
Church Retreat
October Sundays have to be my very favoritest days of the year; 4-5 crisply clear, invigoratingly warm days sandwiched between coolishly cold nights. (btw, sometime I like to make up words) I am always sad when it rains on an October Sunday. I feel like I’ve been robbed, so glad not to be robbed this time. This weekend was the perfect showcase. For me it did not get off to such a glorious start since I did not so much think about packing until 9 am Saturday morning and we cannot even begin to get a family of 6 out the door in one hour without more forethought. So I rushed around (just for the record – not in this order), yanking a comb through my daughters hair (gave up and ordered her into the shower to try and tame/detangle the bush) threw random...
Too Nice a Day to Work
“I wish days like this would last forever” and “It’s too nice a day to work”. Thoughts that ring down through the years for me. Thoughts that I associate with my Dad, with a smile attached. And of course I tried to cram way more work into such a gorgeous day than the children would happily endure, so after tiresome *gasp* indoor school time and washing too many windows, on a whim I decided to make hotdog sticks. The kind my Dad made, and I thought a lot about him as I crafted. As usual, two of the kids were under my feet crafting their own hatchets and I don’t know what all, while the other two sat in a 1/2 bushel box (yes, it looked really funny) playing a pretend game of cards and fighting over the rocking horse that has...
Aquarium, October 2011
We headed down to the aquarium in Baltimore yesterday and had a nice time. As usual, the children’s favorite part was the dolphin show, but Al and I agreed that the octopus ‘stole the show’. I will mostly let the pictures suffice to show the day since I am not much of a writer anyway. But be forewarned that it is very difficult to take pictures at most places in the aquarium as it is very dim lighting. As usual, click on any picture to see it larger. waiting for the dolphin show tricks on the water tricks out of the water tricks in the water Hello! We loved you too! The octopus was amazing, although an aquarium employee kept guard so that no one would use flash when taking pictures. Apparently it scares the ‘pus into squirting ink...
DIY For a Sweeter Life
A few weeks back, I was discussing with my sister the momentous subject of, are you ready for it? Dishclothes. This time of year they are gross, no doubt about it. I guess it is the cumulative affect of much use and humid weather so that they don’t dry out well and the bacteria starts to grow and Grow and GROW! Repeated washing will not help. I here want to offer you the life-changing solution. I can guarantee it will make your life sweeter. No backing to that guarantee though, you might just be contrary and I can’t do anything about that. And on top of a better life, this has the added advantage of being much greener than, say, buying new or using bleach (which doesn’t necessarily solve the problem anyway) So here it is: Put some water in a...
Out of Hot Water
We never were really in hot water but we sure are out of hot water right now. Last week’s flooding completely submerged our furnace. It is the only thing of real value to be destroyed by the rising waters. Frankly, I had no idea that being submerged would ‘total’ our furnace so I was not particularly distressed about it. But now we find the furnace needs to be replaced. And I also find that I really do like having running hot water, because at the moment, we do not. The furnace was our source of hot water. To find oneself in this situation, we have a marvelous set up though. The apartment part of our house has an electric hot water heater. Our generous tenant doesn’t appear to mind that we pop in every now and then to shower. So overall, we...