New Life'n

Know any little trees...

...in unlikely places, producing lots and lots of pinecones? (HT Wizard Academy)
   

How to raise a smarter kid

It's normal stuff:

"breastfeeding for at least a year, limiting early television exposure and investing in musical training for young kids...normal, everyday play and activities, such as building a fort or going to the supermarket, are conducive to learning because they are social and meaningful."

"There are two things that are highly underrated in parenthood — nutrients and love."

"It is in the moments of quiet that children learn to fill their own spaces and discover the extraordinary...If we run all our children's activities all the time, then we run another risk, and that's that we never let our children fill their own space. Later on, we call that leadership."

Read the whole thing

Waiting for Belinda

I'm so excited, but it's kinda silly.  Brenda and I hardly ever go to movies or watch DVD's.  Last weekend we finally watched Seabiscuit--we'd had it for months (borrowed from daughter).  We sat on the sofa and snacked and snuggled.  I loved it.  Later, I asked her, would you rather go to a movie or watch at home?  She said home; easier, more personal.  Hmm...

So I went online and signed up with Netflix where we can pick movies online and they'll mail it to us.  When we send it back they send the next one on our list.  And I am so excited because I found Johnny Belinda which has been her favorite movie for so long, but I've never seen it (or even heard of it, except from her), and now it's on the way.

It's not exactly a romantic comedy chick-flick.  I picture it wedging itself into her one afternoon on TV when she was 12 or so; what was going on that day?  What was she thinking and feeling?  Was she alone?  Did she tell her sisters to shut up because they laughed at her tears?  If she'd seen it a day earlier or later (or an hour), would it still have grabbed her like it did?  Maybe it's not the thing, but how the thing makes you feel at that moment that burns it into your personality forever.

Even though we've been married 33 years, I feel like I'm going to learn something new about her when we see it. 

What church was like 1,851 years ago

   

--which was about 120 years after Jesus lived.  The fellow who wrote this was later killed for being a Christian.  I'm noticing what they did with their money...

And on the day called Sunday there is a meeting in one place of those who live in cities or the country, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president in a discourse urges and invites [us] to the imitation of these noble things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers...

Those who prosper, and who so wish, contribute, each one as much as he chooses to. What is collected is deposited with the president, and he takes care of orphans and widows, and those who are in want on account of sickness or any other cause, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers who are sojourners among [us], and, briefly, he is the protector of all those in need.

We all hold this common gathering on Sunday, since it is the first day, on which God transforming darkness and matter made the universe, and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturday, and on the day after Saturday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them these things which I have passed on to you also for your serious consideration. 

Now THAT'S a big screen TV

I gotta get me one of these.  (It's pretty much over after the lady runs, unless you understand Japanese...)

The great motivator

Boys know you find the coolest stuff in the mud

In this case, a 1,000 year old cool thing that reads like today's headlines.
A bulldozer operator is minding his own business, when:

"just beyond the bucket of his bulldozer, he spotted something."

The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.

(HT worldmagblog)

"A person is not always a human being but is a human being always a person?"

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost spends a lot of time working and thinking in the bio-ethics field.  He's a very good thinker.  You'll have to click the link to follow his logic-train to this conclusion:

The reason why it is wrong to kill philosophy professors in their sleep is the same reason it is wrong to destroy embryos: moral people do not kill innocent human beings.    
   

How to photograph a child's birthday party

I think #2 and #9 will help me the most. 
 

The lady who took this picture has gotten so good at it, she's gone into business.
 

"But I don't watch that show"

(...overheard from a 4-year old refusing to wear Bob the Builder underpants)