An Orderly Universe

"...All physics is rooted in the notion of law--the existence of an ordered universe that can be understood by the application of rational reasoning."

- Paul Davies, introduction to Six Easy Pieces


"If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."

- C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven

A Bit of a Mix-Up

Miss M likes the Hawaiian calendars and pictures that her Tutu (grandma) sends us, and she enjoys Mommy's dance class and watching the Merrie Monarch competition DVD's that we order online.

She also loves the part of our morning devotions where we sing, and has started singing her favorite songs later during the day, especially Jesus Loves Me, and one that we just now figured out. It's Holy, Holy, Holy . . . but she's been going around singing at the top of her voice, "Hula, hula, hula!"

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

I've had three boys, and they all used to as me to draw pictures for them: a car, a truck, a dog, a ball. One son used to ask me to draw pictures of his sippy cup.

Miss M asks me to draw a "meow-meow" ( kitty), "flah-luh" (flower) or "buh-fly" (butterfly).

It's a whole new experience. Butterflies and flowers are much easier to draw than trucks!

A Baggins Birthday

Yesterday was Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. We had a small party with some friends, dressed up, got into character, and had cake. We toasted Bilbo and Frodo with sparkling grape juice and read the song in praise of the halflings from RotK.

Long live the Halflings! Praise them with great praise! ... Praise them! The ring-bearers, praise them with great praise!

A toast

The cake with a replica of the ring. Though on second thought, I don't know why we'd want to celebrate it.

How a Homeschooler Prepares for a Hurricane

This is a post from one of my favorite blogs, The Beehive. It's about taking care of what's most important.

I have a sister in San Antonio and many friends in the Dallas area, so I'm watching the storm news anxiously.

A Birthday!

I'll let Tim post more about this.

Tea Time!

Last week's tea - there was cinnamon toast, apple slices, almonds, organic cheddar cheese, and healthy-ish cookies. The tea was a blend of berry teas.


Miss M's was one apple slice, a wedge of plain bread, half a wheat-free chocolate sandwich cookie minus the cream, and a wheat-free chocolate chip cookie. And a spoonful of tea at the bottom of her Fisher Price tea cup. :)

The Wind

I wrote this for a creative writing class I'm taking:

Summer turns to autumn,
Leaves begin to brown;
With a rush of branches
The wind comes dancing down.

She teases all the trees--they
Toss their haughty heads,
Dropping summer's raiments
Upon the grassy beds.

She races to retrieve them--
Gives chase across the lawn--
Twirling, spinning, whirling
Until her breath is gone.

Only for a moment:
She soon returns to play,
Chasing with the faded leaves
The fading year away.

Autumn turns to winter,
Golden turns to grey
I see the changing colors--but
I saw the wind today.

My Active, Inquisitive Toddler

Miss M is so alert and eager to learn and do everything! She can be a handful. This morning she wanted to try to get into her sippy cup--which she did. Orange juice was all over the floor, and her favorite bear is recuperating in the bathroom as a result. So now she's carrying around a stuffed yellow chick, cooing to it, asking, "aww, hurt?" and trying to nurse it. Then she wanted to "tuh-low" (color), so I got down her pencils and we drew a kitty and a teapot (she can say 'teapot' perfectly clear!) The phone rang, Daddy wanted to know if I needed anything from the store. In the couple of minutes while I was on the phone, she had gotten into something. She came out wiping her hands on her onesie, saying, "diddy" (dirty). Her chin was dark berry-stained. My mind raced. Had she eaten something poisonous? Did she find a marker and suck out the ink? Her tongue was stained. too, and her fingers. Then I saw the purple pencil with the lead broken off, and I knew what had happened. Luckily, they're non-toxic pencils!

She's quietly going through her toy dishes now. Daddy just came home with stuff to make pasta for dinner. That excited her. She's shouting, "PAH-duh! PAH-duh!" and hurrying to put her dishes away so she can eat. I guess she doesn't realize that it takes time to boil the pasta and heat the sauce.

I'm a Pirate!

My pirate name is:

Mad Dog Rackham

Part crazy, part mangy, all rabid, you're the pirate all the others fear might just snap soon. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Ahoy!

This here be Talk Like a Pirate Day. A fellow buccaneer gave me this site, and I fixed me'self a proper moniker fer' a gentleman of fortune.

My pirate name is:

Mad Tom Cash

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Set yer course to the Great Scot's post at the Beehive if'n ye be a landlubber lackin' lingo.

My New Computer Wallpaper

Isn't it cute? Tim found it for me by doing an online search for kitten wallpapers. The wallpaper I had before (below) is a sketch by John Singer Sargent. I loved it, but after months of seeing it every day, I woke up yesterday and could no longer stand the sight of it. I think Miss M will love the new one, and I rarely get tired of cute kitten pictures.

Dumbo

Miss M saw this for the first time this evening. We haven't seen it in a long time, I'd forgotten what a great movie it is. Every minute of the animation is well-done, the songs are catchy, and there are so many little details and jokes worked in so that there's always something interesting going on, even if you've watched it a million times. They must have had such fun making that movie!

Miss M liked it okay. A Madeleine cartoon came on next, and she actually liked that one even better. LOL!

Character is Destiny, ch 1 - Thoughts

I read the first chapter of Character is Destiny yesterday. The main points seemed to be these: 1) there is a difference, not always recognized now, between personality and character; 2) we (and we alone) can change our character, or make the decision to; and 3) it is impossible to improve society without first improving personal character.

The reading also got me started on this thought:

Let's say Joe, a man of good repute and good character, is accused of stealing. "Oh, that's impossible," says his good friend Chloe, "Joe could never do such a thing--it's not in his nature."

The Christian and the Humanist have different replies to this. The Humanist says, "You're right that evil as such is not a basic part of human nature, but--well--we all get into a tight spot sometimes, and it's certainly possible that he did."

The Christian says, "You're wrong; evil is a basic part of all our natures. We're all capable of it. But good character (such as Joe's) is good character because it can be relied on not to. You see, I could, in theory, willingly jump off a skyscraper tomorrow. But the odds against it are so great that it's well-nigh impossible. True character is reliable."

The Humanist thinks the man is basically good, and then decides not to trust him; the Christian knows he is basically evil, and decides to trust him in spite of it.

View from the Backyard

Do I Need a Title?

Today has been a really nice day. Our second day of school went smoothly, we had a nice tea (Miss M was even well-behaved and smiling), I finally heard from a friend I'd been worried about because I hadn't heard from her in a month (she'd gone on a last-minute vacation to the beach!), and I got a whole chapter of images posted for a book that's going online. The weather is beautiful, and J took Miss M out in the backyard. I made a vegan 4-bean chili with rice in the crock pot and it came out okay. It's nice to have a warm meal all ready at that point in the day when you're through school but have evening stuff to do and you're already a little tired and really don't feel like tackling a meal. To open the crock pot, and there's a good dinner, all ready, is great! And it makes the house smell good all day!

Today is much better than yesterday. I was overwhelmed to the point of tears, I seemed to be drowning in projects, a house that needs de-cluttering, and I still hadn't gotten everything ready for school. The funny thing is, nothing has really changed. Maybe I had a good night's sleep? I don't know.

Miss M woke up with a rare runny nose and her mood hasn't been very good all day. I think she has a cold. She was restless all night, she kept waking up and fussing like she was irritated. I think maybe she was annoyed that she was congested.

Last Day of Our Summer Vacation

I could get sentimental about that. I could write a long post about it. But I think I'll quote instead.

"...But now...everyone felt their term-time feelings beginning again, and they were all rather gloomy and no one could think of anything to say..."

"I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. ...By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want."

Although I hope that it won't be *six* hours a day. Not of rigorous academic study, at any rate. I suppose that, in a way, every minute of every day should be devoted to education...


Virtual M&M's to the quote identifier. (See's on backorder.)

Modern Art-sy-ish-stuff and Progress

I overheard J telling L about the art books he had been looking at. He commented that art history seemed to start poorly, got better and better, then degenerated into randomness--"splotches of paint".

This progression--from an art's simplistic beginnings, through perfection and refinement, to a high point that then degenerates into more and more chaotic work--can be seen not only in painting, but in sculpture, music, poetry, dance, and almost any other art form you can think of.

I said "chaotic." It's often called "modern" or "progressive" (which mean the same thing in this context), or "abstract" or "avant-garde*." Those who wish to defend it might say that it's a physical expression of abstract thoughts or feelings (generally feelings, which are less orderly); they might also say that it is a free expression of the artist's independent spirit. I say it's still chaotic.

What is the reason for the change? There are many and complex reasons, but the central one is atheism. As men lost belief in a orderly God they lost belief in an orderly world. Evolution is another: the idea that all life is the result of random chance is a good reason that art should be the result of random chance. (Or at least look like it.) Pessimism is another reason (though it is also a result): we believe much more in the grittiness and pointlessness of life now than we did five hundred years ago--and that is a good reason that art should gritty and pointless.

People nowadays seem to have art and science confused. They hail progress in both as if it were equally good and beneficial. But it's not. When science progresses, we learn more about the world and get nearer our goal of full understanding. When art progresses, we move away from truth, which is the goal. Look at it this way: if you were standing in the very middle of the city of Truth, then any progress you make would have to be away from it. Once perfection is reached, any change is for the worse.

("Stone him! stone him!" they cry, "He's trying to stop progress! His Christianity is trying to send us back to the dark ages!" If you mean scientifically, then that is complete nonsense. If you mean artistically--I say, "Why not?")

But back to my brother's comment, the thing that seemed to key him off most about modern art is that it's unrealistic. All I can say is, "Amen!"



* "Avant-garde" is related to our word "vanguard," the foremost part of an army. It means radically new and original, innovative, and pioneering. This is good when applied to science, but bad when applied to art. Or government. Our founding fathers consciously tried not to be innovative when they created the Constitution--they disliked the word and idea.

I Bought a Crock Pot

Just another way to bring more enjoyment into our family life.

I'll be spending the weekend looking for vegetarian crock pot meals that aren't too dependent on processed soy products.

Well, I guess maybe a little chicken wouldn't be out of the question.

The famous person in history I most agree with:

C.S. Lewis
British Scholar and Novelist. 1898-1963


Find out which random famous person in history you most agree with!
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Now I wonder--I wonder...I wonder why that might be. Hmmm...

School Scheduling

We plan to start school on Monday. We would have started this week like everybody else, but I wasn't ready. I feel like the long glorious summer that I had hoped to use to tackle a few projects is gone, and not much got done. In fact, I never even got our schedules ready. I like to have a 180-day scedule that lists which books will be read, how much, and reminders for daily things like copywork and math. I make out a list of each day, which subjects will be done each day, and then I use the Ambleside Online 36-week schedules to copy/paste books into their appropriate slots. When I'm done, I have full daily 36-week schedules for each student so everybody knows exactly what to expect, and what they're supposed to be reading that day. It makes the whole year a lot smoother, and prevents me from letting the year slide into unschooling (which, for me and my low energy and temperament, would mean undisciplined laziness and eating pop tarts by the TV all day).

I spent yesterday planning our school schedules. I started around noon, and I went to bed after midnight. I had finished the second schedule. It doesn't always take that long, usually I can have them all done in an afternoon.

But one of the online 36-week schedules needed work. A history book had been switched out and needed to be scheduled in chapter by chapter, which messed up the chronological sequence of another history book, so it also had to be re-worked. A couple of the books had never been scheduled to begin with because, at the time the schedules were posted, the person who did the schedules (me) didn't have the books. So that's what took so much time. After I had the online schedule fixed, it was a quick process of copying/pasting from it to my own personal daily schedule.

I finished late last night after the boys were in bed. J's schedule is done; you can see everything he'll be doing in sixth grade here. L's schedule needs to be permanently affixed somewhere if we don't want to spend twenty minutes every morning looking for it. So I taped it up (all 15 pages) where he'd be able to look at it easily, but Miss M can't reach it and rip it down. I didn't tell L where I had taped it, so he got to play Find The Schedule after lunch. It took a few clues, but he finally did find it. It was taped to the inside of a lower cabinet door in the kitchen, one of the cabinets with a child-proof latch. I originally wanted to tape it inside the cabinet where L keeps his school books, but the latch takes a few seconds to put on, so that door gets left open a lot. Miss M would have it ripped down in no time. She likes paper.

I have one more schedule to go, Tim's Year 10 one, but I expect that to go go pretty quickly. Our biggest challenge this year is that we're taking a class at our local homeschool group's co-op for the first time. It's every Friday morning, which really puts a crimp in our schedule.

which random famous person in history do you most agree with?

Friederich Nietzsche
German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of
culture, 1844-1900.


Find out which random famous person in history you most agree with!
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I vaguely remember learning something about this guy in a jr college philosophy class, and not thinking much of him. But I can't remember why. Now that I apparently agree with him, maybe I should find out. LOL!

September Evening Sky

Cresent moon with (in order of brightness) Venus, Jupiter, and Spica. Thanks to Randi at I Have To Say for the tip.

Peter Rabbit

I read Miss M. Peter Rabbit for the first time today, a momentous occasion. She summed up the book in two words:

"Run, bunny!"

Toddler Language Lessons

Miss M was playing with her brother's toy vehicles this morning.

She brought one to me and said, 'oo-pane.' I corrected her.

'No, that's not an airplane, that's a helicopter.'

'Hey-per?'

'No, helicopter. Say heli.'

'Heh--ee.'

Say copter.'

'Copper.'

'Now say helicopter.'

'Copper Lopper!'

I like the new word! :)

Barnes and Noble University

I found this at I Have To Say blog. It looks like something I could do sometime in the future, so I'll be saving the link in my favorites.

"Barnes and Noble University's on-line classes start on Tuesday. Most of them are free plus the price of a book and they have a wide variety of subjects such as: The History of Western Culture-1500 to the Present, The Art of the Short Story, Exploring Herbal Medicine and Web Pages Made Easy. These classes are worth a look for yourself or for your high-school students."

"Free plus the price of the book" . . . wow, what a concept. It reminds me of a curriculum I've heard of somewhere. ;)

Can't Keep Still!

It's getting to be nearly impossible to get pictures of Miss M. When I get her outside in the nice lighting, she's here, there, running to a get a stick, stooping to pick up a rock, turning to point to a butterfly . . . oh well, I did the best I could. More of the same on her page.

Modern Retro Housewives

I wanted to save this article to show a friend, I found it on the Got Me a College Girl blog.

The article is about the joy of being a Modern Retro Housewife. I enjoyed the article, but the dress code scares me.

Altariello Nainië Lóriendessë

With thanks to Professor Tolkien for creating the beatiful elvish language. And apologies to the elves in my audience whom I have offended by my poor pronunciation. The poem's text, along with the translation and an analyzation, can be found here.

Picky, Picky!

I found out today that Internet Explorer has spelling prejudices. When you tell it (in the CSS code, and I assume the HTML code too) you want "grey," it refuses--ignores it and displays the user's default color instead. But "gray" it will accept with pleasure.

(Is this because of dictionary-exposure-challenged programmers? Is it subtle anti-British discrimination? Anti-British-spelling-sympathizers discrimination? Is Tim reading too much between the lines?)

I realized this when I checked out (in IE) a page I had created and posted some time ago; the links were a bright shade of purple which didn't quite match the rest of the colour scheme. Excuse me--color scheme.

Who Has Seen the Day?

Who has seen the day
Falling into night
And kissed with every quiet breath
The swiftly-fading light?

Fear not; falter not
For the sun will rise
And in the morning a new day
Will greet thy shining eyes.

Who has seen a life
Fading into death
And mourned with every passing day
The swiftly-failing breath?

Weep not; sorrow not
Though a life may end--
For surely as the darkness falls
The day will come again.

This Month's Books - August 2005

It has been a fun month of reading. I was introduced to Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Catherine Morland, and explored deeper the wonderful realms of C.S. Lewis's imagination and Jane Austen's 18th century England.


The Life of Thomas More by William Roper (More's son-in-law)
Actually a re-read, but I had forgotten a lot. It has some strict biography mixed with anecdotes from his family and personal life, as well as the tale of More's friendship and disagreement with (and eventual execution by) Henry VIII.

Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
My first Sayers novel. A well-wrought, exciting and rather unusual mystery.

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
A collection of short mysteries solved by the equally short Father Brown: a very likeable man with a turn for theological philosophy and criminal cases. Chesterton's "uncommon sense" shows through tantalizingly. I must read some of his apologetic works...

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The same as the above, only more so (if possible).

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
A series of short stories, each based upon a theory or principle of modern science. The principles themselves are sometimes questionable, but the stories are very entertaining--if very strange, in a way that reminds me of Madeline L'Engle or Lewis Carroll. Some mild sensuality appears in the love of the quantum particles, mollusks, dinosaurs et cetera that make up the characters of these stories.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
A well-written story (no surprise there), witty and entertaining. Miss Morland is a different heroine than I am used to in Austen--more naive, perhaps. I confess I prefer Lizzy...but a good book all the same.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
There's so much I don't know where to begin. Several levels of enjoyment: wit and humour, "knowable" characters, and a surprising plot (even if you know it already). Much food for thought, too: the prudence and imprudence of Elinor and Marianne, the intricate characters with understandable motives and morals, and even Marianne's romantic opinions on poetry, life and cliches.

Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis
A collection of essays and short stories. Lewis's opinions on film, fairy-tales, criticism (et al.) are enlightening, and his short stories are interesting. Did you know he started a novel about Menelaus and Helen after Troy?

AO Curriculum Help for Katrina's Displaced Families

It's not enough, and it was a rush job, but it's something. Hopefully, it helps families who lost their homeschool materials in the hurricane.

"A free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they've lost in a disaster, and also for churches and other groups needing to set up temporary schools for children who may not have been homeschooled. All texts and teaching materials needed to implement this plan are free online. The only things you need are access to a computer and printer, paper and pencil."

http://www.amblesideonline.org/HELP.shtml
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