Ummm....

My grandparents are coming from the Mid West to visit, this weekend, through the middle of this coming week. I'm excited! They are supposed to be coming, around... well... They were supposed to be here by now...

:-/

Mom and grandma are going to look at light fixtures for the house, as well as kitchen appliances (like a refrigerator, stove, etc.)
One of my four cousins (from dad's side of the family, and the only "boy cousin" on this side of the fam.) are coming with them, which Miester Man and Banana are both excited about.
So, the coffee is hot and ready... and waiting... And the house is cleaned, sparkling, ready... and waiting... And mom is sick again :(
She's been fighting stuff for about a week, and of course, the cold-like-symptoms make them self oh-so-much-more-apparent. Zicam, tea and vitamins have become our close friends this year. Maybe to the point of being a little too close...
"Too close! A little too close!" (Aladdin)

And look who pulled into the drive!
My excitement is making butterflies form and flap, hyperactively, in my stomach, and I can't seem to type fast enough.... Gotta run!

Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Miss Elisabeth!

Three Hit-'N-Run Lines....

I just realized...

"Run! Definitely run!"
~Avatar~

"Swim away! Swim away!"
~Finding Nemo~

"Run... ANYWHERE BUT HERE!"
~The Incredibles~

What is with all the running? I was scanning through all my mental-files of movie lines for an email I was sending a friend, and all three of these filled my mind. I had to laugh! Seriously people! What's with the running?!

Anyone have any insight?

Blessings in Christ,
Miss Elisabeth

P.S.
"She is runn'n, a hundred miles an hour, in the wrong direction..."

A) Does this mean she was running down a road with a "wrong way" sign on it?
B) After all the times our local radio station has played it, this kid has been running a looong time! (I don't think a human can physically handle all the running she has done, in one life-time)
C) I do like this song, but I actually enjoy listening to the artists....
D) No, I'm not slamming the song.... but after hearing nearly every-other day since the album first came out, I could live without it...
E) I am SO GLAD if this song ministers to you! Praise the Lord! God be the glory!! Please don't sing this song around me!
F) I guess that's four hit-'n-run-lines... not three...

A month?! REALLY? ALREADY?

Wow! I cannot believe it's been an entire month since I last wrote on here!! Goodness gracious! Time flies! Or, as my dear, loving, beloved, cherished (great) grandmother tells me (whenever I talk with her on the phone) "wait until your my age! You go to sleep and you wake up ten years later..."
EEK!
That kind'a (totally) happened this month (doesn't it happen every month?)
So, I'll just try to sum up what has happened this month in a point-by-point manner :)

• A group of home-school families (including mine) went to a local symphony on the first of this month. It was phenomenal! Miss Banana thoroughly enjoyed the ballet, which accompanied the fantastic music. The afternoon was spent at a local out-door nature campus where the younger children in the group snow-shoed, and bird watched (who knew there were birds to watch in the Gr. Plains winter?!). The older people in the group went cross-country skiing.
• The builders have totally torn out all the (inside of the house's) walls, replaced the stair case leading from the back door into the house; gutted the bathroom(s), replaced walls upstairs, and switched around/ took out closets in (all) the rooms upstairs. They have also replaced the front porch window, which looks absolutely beautiful (and unfortunately the computer will only allow me to upload so many pictures today :-P). The house smells wonderfully like a construction sight... aahhh... fresh cut wood...
• The younger three kiddos found a raccoon hang'n in the loft of our barn at the property, and exchanged curious stares for several minutes. I joined the younger three up in the loft, where the masked bandit looked at us like we were the strangest creature to walk the face of the earth, and how dare we disrupt his nap! (The creature was huge, and 'twas quite the experience!)
• Mom drafted me into doing science with Banana and Miester Man.
• The outcome of the above? I typed in the term, "butterfly" on our library catalogue search engine and (literally) clicked "request copy" on every informational-related book regarding butterflies (and moths)... We went to the library, I picked up the books, and then extracted every book I could find in the adults section of "butterflies" (yes, including those huge 24x30" dinosaur-sized books with all the waaay-cool-too-up-close-and-personal/organic-pictures)... we read all of them!!!

- I am sorry the photo is upsi-down...

• Miester Man and Miss. Banana then made copies of all the factual information we could find in the butterfly/ moth books (butterflies anatomy, life-cycle, grammar, etc. and so forth)

(yes. . . I am hiding from the camera behind a

Muppet/ picture of a butterfly that my youngest sister made . . . and? . . . your point? . . .)

Miss. Banana, always the first to find any sort of creepy-crawly (and promptly adopt it as "hers...") found this lovely little monster.... I mean... ehem, critter, in our kitchen... ew.... And it's still alive... in our kitchen... in a Tupperware container. I am not yet convinced that it is (actually) a caterpillar, but that doesn't matter to Banana. She insists that it's "a baby butterfly," and the cruel elements of earth would destroy it if she let's it back into it's natural habitat (which in fact, would happen, due to the incredulously mean-cold-weather, which has improved over the last couple of weeks).

• Upon completing reading the mountain-of-books, creating a colorful binder of pictures and facts regarding butterflies, getting in arguments with the kiddos over what butterflies they have in fact actually seen in really life and the ones they haven't (because they're in a rain-forest somewhere, and Banana and Miester have seen only parts of the States), getting bugged out by bug-zilla, and over-saturating my brain with fun-yet-bizarre-yet-fascinating-and at the same time really weird information about this (wonderful) earth God has created, I threw myself at Pax Romama's feet (A.K.A.: "Mom") and begged her to un-enlist me (otherwise known as "fire") from this project...
• Mom laughed, took a picture, and proudly displayed it all over kingdom come (/ the Internet/ her blog)
  

(L-to-R: Feche Boy with a butterfly on his shoulder, Miester Man thoughtfully comprehending the world with a fellow Monarch-wanna-be)

• To ease the rift in our (mom's & my) relationship, Pax Romama sent us (her resident-posterity) to The Butterfly House.
  

(L to R: Hannah touching a very curious looking, yet cute black butterfly :) and on the right a butterfly has "rested" (??? butterflies don't "sleep!!!!) on my shoulder

• I've started reading (and intend on completing) Timothy Ferriss's The 4 Hour Work Week, am more than fascinated, and thoroughly enjoying it, yet don't have a clue what sort of entrepreneur-type-business I would start, if (a seriously hypothetical "i-f") I were to theoretically (someday) start a business (far down the road from here!)
• After reading many (stupid) books on "self help" (it's always curious to me that people actually pick up these books to help themselves) I've sworn off every and all book with this sub-title donning a semi-perfect-looking-homo-sapien ["stupidstickfigureswithpoofylips... PAH! I am used to" reading about "(for) gods!" (raises hands, dramatically in the air)... like Brother Andrew, Mother Theresa and Corrie Ten Boon]
• There is another book I started reading title... "Living O," I think.... but the author escapes me... It's rather fascinating. A non-fiction, about a 30-something year old gal, who challenges herself to live an entire year off the advice of Oprah Winfrey (to the letter). For someone (like myself) who is not in the loop of cultural fads, this is a highly captivating read, and I'm more than intrigued to complete the book (as soon as mom is done, which should be sometime late-tonight or tomorrow)

I hope that's a good up-date for y'all who are interested... Jeesh... Sorry it's taken me so long to actually log on a write something worth substance! It's been a crazy year (almost four-months into 2010 - isn't that just crazy-insane?)

Something that has crossed my mind, which I've been unable to shake, is a challenge for myself. Totally non-conventional, perhaps a little (lot) crazy and it's not going to get me into any popular nothing (but at the rate I'm going, I've just given up on that all together *laughs*). An idea has struck, bouncing between my ears, settling slightly here and there, but for the most part remaining rather firm (this is usually a good indication to me that God is trying to tell me something, and that I ought to pay heed!). The idea goes something along the lines of this:

• Get "unplugged" for a year: no texting,
• cell phone,
• Facebook (closing my account).
• Not reading any type media that's not immediately relevant to my life now
• Internet,
• news paper,
• magazines.

What I would Hope to Accomplish?

• Being more creative in my research (not using Internet, at all)
• Being more pro-active and deliberate in my search for news, current events and politics (not passive-aggressive, as I see surfing the web and emails appear (to me) to be).
• Face-to-face,
• personal
• one-on-one in my interactions with other people
• Using this as an experiment to see how a semi-young-adult/ post-teenager would "survive."

I would not close my blog account, as this would be a way to "note" the progress/ information that's gathered through this experiment...

Anyhoo, so much to think, do, act upon, say, proclaim, announce... HA HA! But I must go no.

God richly bless and keep you,

Miss Elisabeth

Disclaimer: There have been some complaints about the spelling of my blog (e.g. family, friends, etc.). However, this cannot be helped. I have done my utmost best to correctly spell and use the English Language in the most correct way possible. However, there is not perfect way, and being a person from "the younger generation," I don't see how this can be helped . I do use "spell-check," which is based upon each programmers opinion on the "correct" way to spell a term (the term "correct," itself, is a highly relative term that has little meaning in today's society, I have found, much like the terms "organic," "fashionable," "100% natural" and "normal." If you do not understand what I am saying, please look up these terms in a Websters 1800's dictionary, and compare it to the way modern society defines these terms, then compare these two definitions with the way modern society uses these terms. ) Thank you!

Poetry, by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

A Psalm of Life

By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!-

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrows,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, tough stout and brave,

Still, life muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on he sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

Think Goose!

Yesterday afternoon and evening our family had a "Family Meeting," as our family gatherings is called when there is a more formal purpose to the event.

The discussion that followed our "Family Meeting" announcement, was somewhat, okay totally unconventional.

Questions such as "what do you see lacking in your life? What would you like to be doing that you are not doing now? Are you able to fulfill all that the Lord has placed on your heart, what/how? What do you feel you need to be doing that you aren't able to do because of the circumstances and resources (or lack there of) in our life right now? If there were one place in America that you would like to live, where would it be? If there were one place in the world that you would like to live, where would it be?"

Personal questions, such as these, were then written down on a white-board, thanks to my wonderful mother (who's long-hand is actually legible, unlike most of the rest of us), and then dictated into one of my note books, thanks to myself (whose hand writing can either be legible or mistaken for a code, depending on the speed and mood at the moment :).

As mom wrote onto the white board, and I moved all that was white-board-writting onto hard-cover (using the method of note-taking, of course), I began to notice some startling similarities.

For starters, where we would like to live:

Miester man stated that he would like to continue living out on "the acreage," and he "really hadn't thought about living any where else." (We moved there when he was three, and my baby sister was an infant).

My youngest sister responded with "I would like to live in Ohio, and if there was any where in the world that I would like to be, it would be Florida... It's so warm there, and it is beautiful! So many trees and plants! And palm trees are beautiful" (she has never been to FL before ;) We thought that was so cute!)

Theoderek's answer was simple, "Either Texas or Alaska" (way to give us an example of "juxtaposition," bro!) "and either Mongolia or Africa, are the places I would like to live, if I could, any where in the world."

Me, myself and I, answered with absolute clarity of mind. "I want to live in the South West(Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico area), or, definitely Israel." I can say the latter with complete confidence in myself. Israel is a place I have wanted to live, at least for a short time, since I could comprehend that the world is a humongous globe that has hundreds of places to be discovered (by quizzical little girls, that is :)

Mom responded, surprisingly, nearly exactly the same way I did. "Southwest area/ Northern New Mexico, Northern California, or Israel..."

Gosh! Do Great Minds Think Alike, or what?

Dad, after truly thinking about it, confessed that there was actually no particular place that he would like to live more than any other place, but that he would like to like in Israel for a short time, because of political unrest, violence, war, etc. It being a war-torn, conflicting, highly political country and all, making it rather unsafe for Americans (but I still want to live there some day...)

We then discussed what each of us "thought this family was about." What is it that we each feel is an important part that makes up our family.

Again, the similarities were most surprising.
More than once the phrase "we're about education" was mentioned, at least by the older people in the home. The two Little's (Miester and Banana) really didn't understand what was being discussed, and decided that blowing up Polly-town with Bionicles was a lot more fun than listening to "what our family is about." (of course Banana objects, stating that Bionicles are "stupid" and "don't do that to my set up!" Which ended in a bickering match. But hey, it's family bonding, right? I'm just kidding... sort 'a...)

Dad is also fascinated with the Hebraic culture/ church, and has a heart for supporting this. The Hebraic culture is very much family based, and so we as individuals (and therefore, as a family) agreed that this, also, was highly important to our family as a whole.

All this similar thinking takes me back to recall 'The Aristocats,' when the geese, Amelia and Abigail Gabble are telling the rich family of cats how they are to behave, when Amelia and Abigail give them direction...
"Think goose....." "Yes, my dear, think goose!"

The mother cat replies along the lines of, "Think goose?"

The "Think Goose," concept entails waddling (like a goose) and following in line, behind none other than the Gabble Gals. In perfect sync the group of two geese, two cats and three kittens follows to the music, in perfect sync, waddling their way into town. How charming!

As a family, we, in a sense, are called to, "think goose."

Think as one. Through thinking as one, we will, eventually, act as one. One family. One body. One movement. One earth-rumbler... Well, okay, maybe it doesn't have to be quite that dramatic, but it certainly wouldn't hurt... :)

What better way to begin this process than with sharing our dreams: dream for ourselves, dreams for the familyl What resources we are lacking which is keeping us incapable of completing those dreams. And then, of course, acting on these dreams. Acting on the next step to completing our family dreams, and individual dreams....

And what better time, than now. A time where we, as a family, are in the midst of a serious life-shift.

What better time to hear, listen to, look and consider who is feeling and what it is that causes unhappiness in our family... No better time "Than the now..." (Edna Mode, 'The Incredible's)

And you, my friend, what better time to grow as an individual, grow as a family, and share your dreams, than "The Now?!" So your family, too, may "Think Goose!"

God richly bless and keep you safe, bless and protect your family, and lead you into His Divine wisdom, in all that you do!

Miss. Elisabeth

Crowned!

By Julie Linker. (Actually there is no exclamation point in the title of the book, I just added it to look more impressive)

I absolutely adore Julie Linker's writing style in this witty, yet down-to-earth, and a bit too organic, fictional novel. The "journal style" writing that Linker exudes in this books is a lot of fun, creating a real-life world for the audience to jump into, both feet!

Basically, the book is about a 16 year old young woman, Presley Ashbury, a Pageant Queen, defining herself as a young woman over the course of a two week period, proceeding her big "Pageant Day."
Of course, there is a terrible and vicious villain, Megan Leighton, a tall, long-legged, dark haired, "freaky green eyed" task-oriented sixteen year old, who is absolutely determined to win the crown and defeat Presley.
And, to add to the "duh," affect (which is rather witty), there are two gorgeous young men involved (you've gotta love a book with handsome, masculine, buff, and "brotherly" young lads!! - lol). As every (smart, involved with teenagers, especially girls) knows, when two girls are involved, and two "hot" young men are involved (young men who the girls like) there is usually trouble brewing.
And, of course, the trouble brewing definitely gets mixed in with the whole Pageant affair.

Stunning insight into the minds, and world of our young ladies, in today's culture. It's right up there in my list with "The Body Project," as far as research in the realm of the adolescent female is concerned. It also has some, quite surprising, yet at the same time 'duh,' information regarding the whole pageant system.

**Spoiler??? Alert (as in, it spoils the innocence of the book)**
- The b-word is used to describe young woman, on more than one occasion. If b---- isn't used, then "slut," is. Name calling is, apparently, a national sport amongst our teenagers.
(And today, we'll be scoring on
a) creativity,
b) profanity
c) harshness
d) personalization... no offense... wait... if your offended, maybe you too should reconsider your use of your Mother Tongue.)
- Sexuality and intimacy with the boys/ young men is discussed.
- At the pageant the girls share a hotel room with one other girl. Think dorm rooms. It's pretty realistic (in Presley's case, who shares a room with Megan, rather traumatic, and graphic)
- I would basically rate the book a PG-13 for Language, sexual scenes, and some violence (fantasizing slapping someone/ killing someone, being slapped, etc.)
- Would be a sleazy book if it wasn't a) so darn funny, b) quite true to the dog-eats-dog life young woman grow up in, today.

I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in learning more about the adolescent female-teen, pageants or just need a good, light hearted, sappy, "brain candy," laugh :)

"By 1995 American women and girls were spending more than $100 million on "cellulite busters," at $60 a tube."

"Liposuction has become the most popular kind of cosmetic surgery in the United States."

"I really had little to teach them (adolescent girl students) about what it means to live in a culture of unrelenting objectification where women's bodies are used to sell everything..."

"One million teenage girls get pregnant in America every year... only 45% of the pregnancies come to term and are cared for by the biological family."

"In America, girls under fifteen are at least five times more likely to give birth than girls of the same age in other industrialized countries."

I can go on and on with the stunning statistic given in this incredible book, about the evolution of the American girl: From corset laced to promiscuity. Joan Jacobs Brumberg uses the diaries of girls from the late 1800's to the mid-1990's as the back-bone of her incredible essay on what has happened to American teenage girls, and how

there really is a need to educate them as females.

How our culture has really "dropped the ball," figuratively speaking, in regards to training up this young women in how to be wise in their decisions as young women, how to act responsibly, think maturely, and realize that when their sexuality, being powerful, ought to be protected, and then how to protect it.

Starting with Menarche, Brumberg goes through the (rather short) list of ways young women are expected to make themselves presentable to the public (which should, more appropriately, be stated as "perfecting themselves for the ever-watching media.")

From the first signs of puberty (or menstruation) to the flaw-less skin-look; from svelte, dieting and image identity to the birth of shapeliness; from the cultural obsession with showing the pelvic bone in "trendy" jeans and swim-suits to head to near-toe piercings...

Brumberg covers all those bases which define the modern-female adolescents sexuality, how it has evolved, what America's concerns SHOULD be, and what we, as individuals can do to help the younger generation be more knowledgeable in who they are as young-feminine human beings.

(p.s. the only reason I finished this book in two days was I was, quite literally, obsessed with Brumberg's ideas, and simply captivated by the statistics and history this book is saturated in)