Blessed By Books

Last night while I was reading I was suddenly overcome by an immense feeling of gratitude for the books God has placed in my life.  I knew that I wanted to post about it today, but then I remembered that today was Wordful Wednesday and I had wanted to participate this week. Lucky for me, the topic for today is: "I am Grateful".  The list of things I am grateful for is quite long, but today I will focus on this one.  I am grateful for books.  Books have been the catalyst for change in my life more than probably any other factor.  I love this quote about the work of books in our lives.

"A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul." ~Franz Kafka 

I have found this to be so true in my life.  Obviously, the books that have had the most profound influence on my life have been the scriptures.  The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price are my foundation.  Reading from the scriptures daily gives me the strength and perspective I need to get through each day.  They center me.  I love the way that every time I read them, I can find something new, not because the words have changed, but because they have changed me, and I am now ready to receive additional light.  

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life."" ~Helen Exley  

My life has been changed considerably by the reading of a book.  I was led to home school through the reading of a book.  I never would have considered it before I read "The Well Trained Mind".   Reading that book altered my perception of what my children needed versus what they were getting from their education, and helped me see how I could give them better. As doubts arose, I was led to read "Dumbing Us Down"  which helped me see the wisdom in keeping my children home, not just for the academic benefits, but for the social as well.  

"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves." ~E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951

It has been amazing for me to recognize, that as my mind and heart have been prepared to receive the "next thing", God has placed the right book in my path.  With homeschooling I was led to "A Thomas Jefferson Education" when my children and I were beginning to burn-out with The Well Trained Mind.  Once I gained a greater perspective of making learning a more natural part of  home life, I was prepared and was led to read, "A Charlotte Mason Companion", and then Charlotte's own writing on education.  Her "gentle approach" to learning was just what we needed.  Just recently I have been feeling another push to get me moving out of my comfort zone.  I went to the library yesterday to pick up some books I had wanted to read, and happened upon a book I had never heard of before, but it was calling my name.  It is called "Help for the Harried Homeschooler".  I probably don't need to explain why it was calling my name, it has me written all over it, but what I found inside has been quite unexpected and just what I needed.  The section on Character Training has been very enlightening (I will share more about that in a later post). 

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Homeschooling books aren't the only ones that have changed my life, there have been "spiritual books", like "Approaching Zion" and "Mere Christianity".   Although I consider every book that changes me to be spiritual on some level.  "All things are spiritual to God."  There have also been "political books" such as "An Enemy Hath Done This".  All of these books and many more have shaped me into the person I am today.  I am so grateful for the great minds that have gone before and have shared their wisdom in a book.  

"Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life." ~Jesse Lee Bennett

My Thanksgiving Menu

I love Thanksgiving!  I love that it ushers in the Christmas season, allowing us the opportunity to reflect on our many blessings, hopefully giving us the perspective we need to more fully rejoice in the true meaning of Christmas.  I love that it is a time for celebrating with family.  I love the family football games and (this year) 5k runs.  I love the post-Thanksgiving "redemption" bike rides.  But I have to admit my favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the food!  A few years ago we started a new tradition.  Since we always spend Thanksgiving day with our extended family we never got any leftovers, and in my opinion, Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without Turkey sandwiches and all the other delicious leftovers.  To remedy this situation we decided to have our own Thanksgiving meal on Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. A couple of days ago I went shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner, so I thought I'd share our menu.  Every year I do a Spice-Cured Turkey.  The recipe says to let it cure for 24 hours, but I do it for 72 hours.  It is the best!  They're always moist and very flavorful.   Rather than using the Apple-Chestnut Stuffing in the recipe, I use a Cornbread, Apple, Cranberry, and Sausage Stuffing. (Recipe is at the end of this post.)

It is my husband's favorite.  I like to experiment with new recipes, but he won't let me touch the stuffing!  

For side dishes this year we will be having Butter-Pecan Sweet Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts with Vinegar-Glazed Red Onions, and Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes.  For dessert this year I was asked to bring pies to my family's on Thursday, so we will have those leftovers with our dinner on Saturday.  I'm trying two new recipes and one tried and true one.  The two new ones are Pumpkin Maple Pie Supreme, and Pecan Pumpkin Pie.  

The other is one of my favorite fall pie recipes.  It is Autumn Harvest Pie.

The combination of sweet and tart wrapped in a pate brisee crust is divine!  I'm getting excited just typing this!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We will have two!

Cornbread, Apple, Cranberry and Sausage Stuffing

Cornbread (recipe follows) 1" cubes

1 lb. sweet Italian Sausage

4 red onions, chopped

1 c. dried cranberries

1/2 c. chopped fresh sage

1/2 c. butter

8 celery stalks, chopped

1 1/2 C. half and half

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place cornbread cubes on baking sheet.  Bake until dry, about 20 minutes.  Cook sausage in large sauteé pan over medium heat.  Put in small bowl.  Melt butter in same pan.  Add onion and celery, cook over medium until onion is translucent, 10 -15 minutes.  Add apples and cranberries, stir.  Cook until apples are soft.  Add half and half and cook for three minutes.  Place in large bowl and add sage, cornbread and sausage.  Cool completely.  Can be refrigerated 2 days before stuffing in bird. Fills 16-20 lb. bird.

Cornbread

2 T. butter (for pan)

1 1/2 c. cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/4 c. milk

1 egg

1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. course salt

1 T. molasses

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Butter 8x8 pan.  Mix dry ingredients.  Combine remaining ingredients.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients just until combined.  Pour into pan and bake until golden about 25-30 minutes.  (This is a very dry cornbread.  Not one you would want to eat, but perfect for stuffing.)

Change of Course

I have been meaning to post about this for a few weeks, but haven't been able to find the time to do so.  For that matter, I have been meaning to post about a lot of things that I haven't. Someday life will slow down, right?  Anyways,  four weeks ago, (we were then in our 8th week of this school year),  I decided rather impulsively that we needed to change our course work for the year. Living Books Curriculum was having a big 50% off sale and I liked what I saw on their sample pages.  I have loved the literature selections on Ambleside Online, but I have had a hard time filling in some of the gaps on my own.  I like that LBC focuses on American History and world history every year and they seem to add in more living books in history, especially in 4th and 5th grade.  I also like that they include a lot of hands on activities and and map work (with maps that they provide).   I still prefer some of AO's book selections to LBC's, so I am in the process of coming up with my own combination of the two plus a little bit of my own.  Our first few weeks of this new plan have been very successful.  I think the kids and I have really been enjoying the change.  Here is a look at our new basic daily schedule. 

 I will try to post a copy of our course work once I've finished compiling it.  I think the best part of this whole transition is that it has gotten me to take a fresh look at our approach to education and make efforts to get rid of what wasn't working and add things that we were lacking.  That is one of the great things about homeschooling, you have the ability to tailor things to meet your children's needs.  

So, what are your favorite educational resources? 

What was he thinking?!

So, today G. Diddy came to me with grey sticky stuff all over his cheek and eye .  

Me, "G., what is all over your face?"  

Him, "Gum."  

Me, "How did you get gum on your face?"  

Him, "I put it there."

Me, "Why?!"

Him, "I didn't know it would get stuck."

I had to laugh!  He is 6 1/2.  I thought we were beyond incidents like this.  Apparently not... Thank heavens for peanut butter.  It got off most the mess.

He is missing half his eyelashes on his right eye though.  Kids!?!

Wordfull Wednesday: Politics

Yes, I am going to tread into the political realm again.  Chocolate has been doing these Wordfull Wednesdays for a while and I have wanted to participate, but keep forgetting.  This week's assignment was to pick the most important issue for you from the following list and write about it.  The choices were Abortion, Economy, Education, Immigration, Marriage (just between one man and one woman or should gays be allowed to marry?) ,War (Iraq, Afghanistan, or war in general). I love that she chose this topic and that such varying views are being expressed.  I believe that one of the biggest reasons that we are in the current political mess we are in in this country is that we have stopped having healthy political discussions with people of varying political persuasions. We take too much information from the media and "Party Propaganda" and spend too little time researching the issues for ourselves.  

As for the topics, these are all important issues for me, but I can't really say that one is most important. As I have studied our country's history and have gained a greater understanding of our divinely inspired constitution, I have realized that all political questions can best be answered by looking at the proper role of government.  One of my favorite guides to understanding what that proper role is, is this article by Ezra Taft Benson.  If you have not read this, please do, even if you don't espouse all of Benson's political ideals.  This is a concise and well reasoned view of government that every person should read.  

With an eye to this standard, I will attempt to express my ideas about the issues.  

Abortion: “Are there not, in reality, underlying, universal principles with reference to which all issues must be resolved whether the society be simple or complex in its mechanical organization? It seems to me we could relieve ourselves of most of the bewilderment which so unsettles and distracts us by subjecting each situation to the simple test of right and wrong. Right and wrong as moral principles do not change. They are applicable and reliable determinants whether the situations with which we deal are simple or complicated. There is always a right and wrong to every question which requires our solution.” (Albert E. Bowen, Prophets, Principles and National Survival, P. 21-22) Taking the life of an innocent being who has no choice in the matter is not "freedom of choice"  it is wrong.  As many have said before me, I believe in freedom of choice.  A woman has the freedom to choose whether or not to participate in an act that can lead to pregnancy.  Once she heads down that path she has made her choice and must live with the consequences.

Economy: I agree with Crabapple Farm in that the economy is best left in the hands of the people.  In the words of Henry David Thoreau, "This government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. IT does not educate. THE CHARACTER INHERENT IN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAS DONE ALL THAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED; AND IT WOULD HAVE DONE SOMEWHAT MORE, IF THE GOVERNMENT HAD NOT SOMETIMES GOT IN ITS WAY. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it." (Quoted by Clarence B. Carson, THE AMERICAN TRADITION, p. 100; P.P.S.N., p.171) There are so many things that have contributed to our current economic situation, but most of it can be traced back to the federal government meddling in affairs that it has no right to be involved in.  I whole-heartedly agree with President Benson's 

"A FORMULA FOR PROSPERITY
The principle behind this American philosophy can be reduced to a rather simple formula:

1. Economic security for all is impossible without widespread abundance.
2. Abundance is impossible without industrious and efficient production.
3. Such production is impossible without energetic, willing and eager labor.
4. This is not possible without incentive.
5. Of all forms of incentive – the freedom to attain a reward for one’s labors is the most sustaining for most people. Sometimes called THE PROFIT MOTIVE, it is simply the right to plan and to earn and to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
6. This profit motive DIMINISHES as government controls, regulations and taxes INCREASE to deny the fruits of success to those who produce.
7. Therefore, any attempt THROUGH GOVERNMENTAL INTERVENTION to redistribute the material rewards of labor can only result in the eventual destruction of the productive base of society, without which real abundance and security for more than the ruling elite is quite impossible."

Education: I love this quote by Max Victor Belz, "I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but if I had to choose, I would prefer that to their being educated by the state."   I am in total agreement.  The government is notorious for making worse, anything it tries to tamper with.  I found this website that says it perfectly. "For more than three full lifetimes — the 220 years from the 1620s to the 1840s — most American schooling was independent of government control, subsidy, and influence. From this educational freedom the American Republic was born.
Now, after 150 years of tax-financed schooling, we see more and more children failing to grow into responsible, caring, competent adults. A movement is growing to reclaim the American tradition of family responsibility in education by returning to the separation of school and state."   One last quote by Sir Walter Scott, and I'll leave well enough alone.  "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."

Immigration: “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. ” (John Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government, II, 57: P>P>N>S., p.101)  I believe the freedoms of our country should be available to all who wish to enjoy them, but there is a right and lawful way to obtain that freedom.  Those wishing to reap the benefits should be willing to pay the price and go through the proper methods to do so.

Marriage: I refer to the quote in abortion.  I believe that "Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God."  (The Family: A Proclamation to the World) Anything else is wrong, and makes a mockery of this divinely mandated institution.

War: This is one area where my views have changed dramatically as I have studied the intent of the founders of our nation.  I used to believe the rhetoric that it was our duty to "promote the cause of freedom" in foreign lands.  I now appreciate the comments of John Quincy Adams when he said, "[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom."  We can plainly see the wisdom of his statements as we calculate the needless loss of life in our most recent "war" that has no foreseeable end in sight, and whose merits are much less clear than they seemed to be at the outset.

I realize this post is rather long winded, but I am passionate about the cause of freedom.  Our country has strayed so far from the principles of freedom established for us by God through the "Founding Fathers", but I have hope that we will soon wake up and see the error of our ways.  I have seen many encouraging signs of this in my travels through the "blogosphere".  The real answers lie in us, as a people, becoming educated in the principles of freedom.  

I'll leave you with one last quote from President Benson, "An ounce of energy in the preservation of freedom is worth a ton of effort to get it back once it is lost. Today you cannot effectively fight for freedom and not be attacked, and those who think they can are deceiving themselves. While I do not believe in stepping out of the path of duty to pick up a cross I do not need, a man is a coward who refuses to pick a cross that clearly lies within his path.

A man must not only stand for the right principles, but he must also fight for them. Those who fight for principle can be proud of the friends they’ve gained and the enemies they’ve earned. We face days ahead that will test the moral and physical sinews of all of us. Those who hesitate to get into this fight because it is controversial fail to realize that life’s decisions should be based on principles, not on polls.

The basic purpose of life is to prove ourselves, not to be
with the majority when it is wrong.

In due time, when each of us has had a chance to prove himself, including whether or not we are going to stand up for freedom, God will interject himself, and the final and eternal victory shall be for free agency. And then shall those weak-willed souls on the sidelines and those who took the popular course lament their decisions.

(Anyone) who retreats from this battle jeopardizes his life here and hereafter. Seldom has so much responsibility hung on so few, so heavily; but our number are increasing, and we who have been warned have a responsibility to warn our neighbor. The fight for freedom cannot be divorced from the gospel. "(Pres. Ezra Taft Benson - CF Apr 1967)