bekahcubed – Page 88

WiW: Bits and Pieces

February 13, 2012 1 Comment by bekahcubed

I have officially discovered that highlighting something on Facebook using Diigo accomplishes exactly…nothing. So the great quote I had (that I can’t remember who posted) is lost.

So here’s a modge-podge of other quotes:

“RT @BurkParsons God doesn’t accept me just as I am, he loves me despite how I am; he loves me just as Jesus is.”
~Powlison, retweeted by Nateoh

Love this. So true. God doesn’t accept my sin–He paid for it. He doesn’t just look over my sin–He gave me His righteousness instead.

“The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”
~Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

Almost incomprehensible, the Incarnation is. But I am so thankful that the Son forever became fully man, while remaining fully God, that I might no longer be estranged from God.

And, somewhat off the topic, this week I taught my 2nd and 3rd graders about God’s justice and mercy, the penal substitution, and explained how Jesus didn’t physically “go to hell”.

The kids were tracking. I think we underestimate what they can learn.

My dad, however, commented: “So when are they going to give you fifth, sixth, eighth graders?”

No idea, but whatever age I get, I’m going to keep pounding home my point, like a broken record: the gospel is on every page of Scripture.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Books

Cybils Nonfiction Picture Books

February 12, 2012 6 Comments by bekahcubed

This year’s Cybils Nonfiction picture books was heavy on the nature/environment theme, with a whopping five out of the six titles falling under said theme.

I read four of the Cybils finalists, three environmental/nature ones and the lone non-natural book.

Cybils nonfiction picture books

All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson is a poetic celebration of the water cycle, with text that TaP dAnCeS and sprays with different fonts and sizes of fonts. The illustrations flow in semi-abstract fashion.

This is a great conversation-opener, but will require conversation about the water cycle, since it doesn’t so much explain as it eludes to how the water cycle works.

Can We Save the Tiger? written by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Vicky White tells about animals that are extinct, animals that are endangered (like the tiger), and once endangered animals that have been preserved. The illustrations are classic nature notebook stuff–highly detailed black and white shaded drawings with the occasional colored bit.

This book did a nice job of balancing the interests of animals with the interests of humanity–and talking about the difficult decisions stewardship of the earth involves (not that it uses the term “stewardship” to describe it.)

Thunder Birds by Jim Arnosky is classic Arnosky, featuring fantastic nature drawings. This title showcases the avian predators in their fierce glory. The fold-out pages often allow for life-size drawings of bird heads, accompanied by statistics about each type of bird and a narrative piece about Jim’s (and often his wife Deanna’s) experiences with each bird.

This is the least narrative of the books so far, meant more for browsing and reading in short snippets than for reading aloud all in one setting. The fold-out pages are fascinating and it’s fun to have a glimpse of the size of the animals–but I fear the format isn’t as durable as a normal two-page spread.

I enjoyed all three of these books, but something about them rubbed me a little wrong. It took me a while to identify it, but I think I finally figured it out.

In an age where we eschew “moralistic” literature and (rightly?) consider the Victorian morality pieces to be pedantic, we seem to have no problem allowing environmentalism to be the new morality. As long as it’s environmentalism we’re championing, it’s just fine to moralize.

Thus, All the Water in the World ends with the injunction “All so precious–do not waste it. And delicious–we can taste it. Keep it clear, keep it clean…keep Earth green.”

Okay, I’m all about keeping water clean and keeping Earth green. But this feels a little bit like propaganda. I guess I’d rather children’s books (which are meant for an audience that doesn’t really have much judgment) focus more on facts and less on persuasion. Or something.

Which probably explains why my favorite of the four I read was Carlyn Beccia’s I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat. (Although the fact that I’m all about medicine may also contribute to my attraction to this title.)

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat is written in quiz format, asking the reader to identify which of the proffered historical cures might actually help. The following pages walk through each cure, answering “Yes” “No” or “Maybe” to whether the cure would work and giving a brief history of the use of that specific “cure”.

This was a fascinating and imaginative book. It’s gross enough that boys should really love it and not gross enough that girls won’t read it–a perfect mix.

These books were all Cybils NonFiction Picture Book Finalists. I read them as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. If asked to rank the books, I’d put I Feel Better at the top of the list, followed by Thunder Birds and Can We Save the Tiger?. All the Water in the World ranks last in my book, but basically just because of that bit I quoted above. Apart from those few lines (which interrupt a beautiful book), I’d recommend all four titles.

None

We have a winner!!!!

February 11, 2012 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

Addie doll with carpetbag

Winner! Congratulations to Miss Natalie who has won the Anne of Green Gables inspired carpet bag.

Natalie said:

“Dear Becca,
I love your sense of style!

Your friend,
Natalie”

Why thank you–and I love spending time with you betwixt Sunday School classes.

Thanks to all who played–it was fun having my first little giveaway!

Flashback Friday

Flashback: To Another Era

February 10, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

Prompt #6: “Were you enamored with another era as a child? Is there a time in history you thought it would have been fascinating to live in? Why?”

My answers are simple: Yes, Yes, and because I read it in a book.

When I was in my early elementary years, my Social Studies book had a unit on American Indians–and I was absolutely fascinated by it. I spent long hours poring over that book, books from the library, and most especially the article in the Compton’s encyclopedia about American Indians.

I guess I don’t know which “era” particularly I was interested in, but the “American Indian” lifestyle was what I wanted. Of course, I freely mixed between tribes in choosing what I wanted to emulate.

I would have a Hopi dwelling, an adobe pueblo in the cliffs. I’d wear moccasins (I tried rather unsuccessfully to make my own using some brown fabric I’d found in my mother’s stash.) I’d make beaded buckskin clothing and weave beautiful blankets. Of course, I’d eat pemmican. Naturally. I was an old pro at making it with the maple buds that littered our driveway.

In those days, I loved to practice “stealth”, sneaking up on siblings or otherwise like I would on an animal I was hunting. I also practiced running like the wind, making endless circles around our darkened church sanctuary while my parents were having Bible study in the fellowship hall.

Later on, pioneer days appealed, fueled by my love of the Little House books and Janette Oke’s “Love Comes Softly” series.

I wanted to build a house from logs found by the crick bed, chink it up with a nice mud plaster. I wanted to stuff a tick with feathers or hay (my romantic ideas didn’t really consider allergies those days). I wanted to kill a chicken and boil it, to sun-dry wild-grown fruit, to make cheese from my own cow’s milk.

Thing is, this particular yen didn’t die.

I don’t yearn for those days anymore (since my romantic view has tarnished somewhat and realizes that being a pioneer would be HARD work)–but I still want to do all that stuff.

Reality shows were just beginning when I was in high school, and I dreamt of a show that I’d be on that would let me pretend to be a pioneer for a month or a year. (Eventually, I think PBS did create a similar show, but I haven’t seen it.)

Now, as I window shop for houses, my heart is often pulled to those properties with a house that’s not at all a house of my dreams but that has the luxury of 19 acres or 23. A crick. Outbuildings.

I could keep a cow, I think–fresh milk for making cheese. (Yeah right–my family comes from dairymen, and keeping dairy cattle is seriously hard work.) I could heat my home with wood I “make” myself (as my family calls it when they ask my grandparents if they can come up to “make wood”.) I could grow everything I need to live on, keep bees for honey, maybe get sheep and take up weaving.

Never mind that keeping such a home would be a full-time occupation for more than one person–and that it’d probably leave little for paying the infernal property taxes. It’s still a pet dream of mine–to escape into back-to-the-land pioneering.

Of course, I have to make a living, so these imaginings stay in the realm of imagination. But this year I have a plan to do some of my pet projects. I have a friend who keeps chickens and I plan to buy one. I have some whipping cream ready to be churned to butter. I have recipes for cheese and some rennet stored up. I’m gonna be a pioneer some day, you just wait and see.

Flashback Friday

Flashback Prompt: Looking Back (Way Back)

February 9, 2012 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

Surely I’m not the only person who has at times wished she belonged to another era. As I’m reading Little House in the Big Woods, I’m reminded of some of the times I wished I lived in while I was still a child. Thus this week’s prompt:

Were you enamored with another era as a child? Is there a time in history you thought it would have been fascinating to live in? Why?

Books

Easy Reading Cybils

February 8, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

After reading two of the “Easy Reading” Cybils finalists, my conclusion is sure: I hope any children I might have pass VERY quickly through the easy reading stage.

Easy Reading Cybils

Dodsworth in Rome by Tim Egan is like a remarkably muted Amelia Bedelia. Dodsworth and “the duck” arrive in Rome. Dodsworth announces their destination: “Rome!” So the duck begins to roam.

The two visit the famous sights of Rome on a motor scooter, the duck with his eyes tightly shut (riding on a motor scooter can be rather scary, you know). They visit the Sistine Chapel–and the duck tries painting a duck on the ceiling. They visit a flea market, where the duck warily watches out for fleas.

Things happen. The duck is mildly amusing. The book overall is rather boring.

I don’t think it’s the book’s fault so much as the genre’s.

Frog and Friends is slightly more interesting–each chapter acts as a discrete story, similar to a story one might find on the typical picture book shelf.

Frog and his friends find a balloon and try to figure out what kind of animal it is. They grab ahold of its tail and get the surprise of their life when a gust of wind sends them sailing through the air aloft–until the balloon pops. They give the pieces a decent burial, sadly realizing that they will never know what the THING was.

In the next story, frog is gifted a scarf that he immediately pronounces as “perfect”. When he discovers that it’s not so perfect, he regifts it to someone else, who also announces it perfect only to find that it’s not. The regifting continues until frog gets it back. This time, the gifter provides some scarf-tying assistance and the scarf is at last deemed perfect–and truly is.

Finally, a hippo runs away from the zoo and decides to hang out in frog’s pond for the rest of his life–something frog’s not so sure about. How can frog show hospitality while still convincing the hippo that maybe he doesn’t want to stay quite so long?

The individual stories that made up Frog and Friends are cute, while not particularly spectacular. But I rather suppose that’s how it is with Easy Readers.

The mercy, I suppose, is that these readers are supposed to be able to be read independently–so as long as your child can do it on your own, you won’t have to put up with it too long. Even so, I hope every child makes it quickly through this stage and on to books with actual plots.

These books were both Cybils Easy Reader Finalists. I read them as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. Clearly, I’m not a fan of the genre–but Frog and Friends was amusing and it’d be my pick for winner (of the two I read). I can’t help thinking, though: “If these are the best of the best…” Yeah. Scary.

Books

Cybils Fiction Pics

February 7, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

Do you know who Jane Goodall is?

If you’re like me, you’d answer that question in the vaguest of terms: “Isn’t she the environmentalist… likes monkeys… kind of homely?” (And now you’ve discovered my sad secret: I judge famous people by their looks–or at least classify them by their looks.)

Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell

Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell doesn’t give that much information about Jane, but it’s enough to get a child interested, I think.

This picture book tells of the young Jane and her stuffed chimpanzee Jubilee. Jane loves to be outdoors and wants to learn everything she can about plants and animals.

She dreams of someday going to Africa, where she’d live with and help the animals.

Each double-page spread contains only a few lines of print on one side of the page and a softly colored illustration on the opposite side–until the last page.

“At night Jane would tuck Jubilee into bed, say her prayers, and fall asleep…
to awake one day…
to her dream come true.

The final page, with that final line on it, bears a photograph of the grown-up Jane holding hands with a chimpanzee in Africa.

The second Fiction Picture Book Finalist I read couldn’t be more different than the first.

Where Me…Jane has muted colors, Press Here by Henre Tollet has bold colors. Where Me…Jane is written in past tense, with little action, Press Here is written in present imperative.

Press Here by Henre Tullet

The picture: A bright yellow dot in the center of the first page. The imperative: “Press Here and Turn the Page.”

One dot turns to two.

Press again, the next page has three yellow dots. Rub the dot on the left and it turns red.

In this high tech world where children play on iPads before they’re potty-trained, Press Here is a delightful bit of magic.

With nothing more than pages and dots, Tullet creates a world of interactive fun.

But unlike with the iPad, this book lets kids see the mechanism–and be the mechanism. This is to the iPad what a flip-book is to cartoons–and (in my semi-Neo-Luddite mind) is ten times better than any “technological marvel.”

Press Here has advantages beyond its novel concept, though. The primary-colored dots overlap to form secondary colored segments (like a Venn diagram, anyone?) The instructions help the child learn right and left (they can tell they picked the wrong side if the colored dots move in the wrong direction). At least one spread allows kids to do some trouble-shooting with pattern recognition (which dots are out of order?)

Mothers will delight in sharing this little book with their children–and will find endless ways of turning the simple text and even simpler graphics into learning opportunities for their preschoolers.

These books were both Cybils Fiction Picture Book Finalists. I read them as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. For the record, I’m rooting for Press Here for the big one.

The Week in Words

WiW: A Line Where Life Breaks in Two

February 6, 2012 5 Comments by bekahcubed

At long last, my library trip has yielded a treasure-trove of Cybils nominees. Which means I’m frantically reading nominees from each category, hoping to still accomplish my original goal (of reading one book from each category.)

So far, Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu has completely stolen my affections. It’s fantastic.

“She stood looking at the line of trees that demarcated the woods as clearly as any doorway. Uncle Martin was right. She knew it at that moments. There were secrets, and there were witches in white, and somewhere there was Jack.

She wished he were with her now.

Hazel had read enough books to know that a line like this one is the line down which your life breaks in two. And you have to think very carefully about whether you want to cross it, because once you do it’s very hard to get back to the world you left behind. And sometimes you break a barrier that no one knew existed, and then everything you knew before crossing the line is gone.

But sometimes you have a friend to rescue. and so you take a deep breath and then step over the line and into the darkness ahead.”

~Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Have you met one of those lines, a line where life breaks in two?

Will you step into the uncomfortable to go on a mission trip? Will you break off that relationship you know you shouldn’t be in? Will you venture into an unknown city? Will you give up your most cherished dreams?

You stand at the line, indecisive, knowing that what you decide will change your life.

Behind lies comfort, life as it’s always been. Predictability. Safety. Concrete reality.

In front lie only questions.

Will you go?

Will you risk having your life broken in two?

I’ve stood at the line many a time. Will I go? Will I venture? Will I enter the unknown?

Sometimes you have a friend to rescue–or sometimes you realize that the friend beckoning on the other end wants to rescue you.

So you take a deep breath and then step over the line and into the darkness ahead.

What are some of the lines you’ve stepped over–and why did you cross them?

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week–and Amy’s Armchair Cybils where we’re reading Cybils nominees.

2012

2012: Week 5

February 5, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

White Hat with a Bow (115), Gibson Roll (114)

Wear a Gibson Roll
Wear my white hat with a bow
Teach Amos and Obadiah
Clean my toiletry holder
Clean and organize my linen closet
Clean and organize my vanity
Make Buffalo Chicken Pizza (Conclusion? Hot but good.)
Make Ooey Gooey Caramel Pumpkin Blondies (Majorly delish.)
Make a paper heart chain
Send Kayteeeee a birthday card
Send Mom a birthday card
Text with my brother Tim
Sew with G
Make an item for my Anne collection
Facebook Chat with my sister Grace
Read a chapter of Proverbs a day for 31 days
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #146-The Problem of Doubt #1
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #147-The Problem of Doubt #2
Participate in the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge
Host a blog giveaway
Write a Flashback post about getting my ears pierced
Close children’s picture book author Maribeth Boelts
Close children’s picture book author Paulette Bogan
Close children’s picture book author Ellen Bogart
Close children’s picture book author Gary Bogue
Close children’s picture book author Susi Bohdal
Close children’s picture book author Max Bollinger
Listen to Science News Flash: Sudden Emergence of Bipedalism (July 21, 2011)
Listen to Science News Flash: Ancient Biblical Cities Unearthed (July 22, 2011)
Listen to Science News Flash: 2012 Doomsday? Believers in Mysterious Planet Nibiru, Comet Elenin Await Earth’s End (July 27, 2011)
Listen to Science News Flash: Extrasolar Planet is Darkest Ever Seen (Aug 15, 2011)
Listen to Science News Flash: Is Our Universe One of Many? (Aug 17, 2011)
Poke Grace (literally)
Catch a snowflake on my tongue

Catching a snowflake on my tongue

Flashback Friday

Flashback: Holes in my head

February 3, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

Prompt #5: “Have you ever had your ears pierced? Where did you go to do it? Who went with you? What were the first earrings you bought yourself after you had this done?”

If I remember right, Anna and I didn’t have an official “age” for when we could get our ears pierced; but our cousin, who is seven months old than me and seven months younger than Anna, did.

Newly pierced ear Ariann could get her ears pierced when she turned eight.

So Anna and I did too (I think).

I don’t remember, actually, whether we each got our ears pierced on our respective eighth birthdays or whether we both got our ears pierced on the same day sometime in the general vicinity of one or the other of our eighth’s.

I do remember though, the events that took place shortly after getting my ears pierced around age eight.

I was standing up in the dining room, probably clowning around, talking with Anna, who was draped over a dining room chair coo-cocky. Her leg was over the chair, her bare foot making circles in the air.

Whether she initiated it or I did, I do not know, but somehow her toes got caught in my brand new earrings–and pulled.

A little rip in the ear and having earrings wasn’t quite so fun.

I dealt with the crust and goo and pus and infection for a while, but finally gave up on the matter, taking out the studs and not replacing them.

It was a rather short-lived adventure.

Every so often, for a special event, I’d stick a needle through my ear–open it up just enough to wear earrings for a night. But those times were few and far between, and always ended with another bought of painful infection.

I let them close up for good and rarely thought twice of it.

Newly pierced ear Until I decided I wanted to try to do 2012 things in 2012.

I figured, why not?

So Ruth and I read a few WikiHow articles.

I turned down my sister’s offer of Lidocaine, smeared Anbesol on my ear, numbed it with an ice cube for good measure.

Ruth sterilized the needle with a lighter, dropped it in a rubbing alcohol bath, put on gloves over her washed hands.

I prepared the potato and held it to the back of my ear. Ruth found the trace remnant of my previous holes and pushed the needle through the scar tissue into the potato.

I grabbed the needle from behind while Ruth extricated a stud from the alcohol bath. I removed the needle as slowly as I could, pulling it all the way through the back rather than returning the now-contaminated needle through the hole again. Ruth followed my extrication as carefully as she could with the stud. We anchored the stud in place with the earring back, and turned to the second ear.

It was relatively quick, painless, inexpensive, and rather a priceless experience.

Best of all?

Newly pierced ear

A week and a half out, my ears aren’t flaming red, aren’t seeping pus, and aren’t painful to touch.

Instead, when I look in the mirror, I smile at my gorgeous new earrings, and thank Ruth for joining me in my 2012 adventure!