I wrote once before about TeamMASCOT.com, the business my husband and I run. Mostly he programs/designs and I pack/track orders/keep customers happy. It’s part of what I do every day. I’ve been thinking for a while about this, and was inspired when I saw that Crimson Wife is a 3rd generation Red Sox fan! It put to rest my fears that my readers would have no interest in receiving sports merchandise!

Why the contest? I want links to my business, of course. TeamMASCOT is in need of links - it’s a competitive industry, and we’ve been lazy about marketing, to be honest. So, without further ado, here is how it works:

1. The first 20 people to post an article on their blog about their favorite sports team will each get to choose any item/items up to $20. Free shipping, and if it’s in stock, will ship within a day. If not in stock, I usually get shipments of new merchandise within 2 weeks.

2. The blog post can be funny, informational, serious, satirical, whatever you want! But it must be a team in a league we carry: NFL, College, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, and NHL. When you are on the TeamMASCOT site, scroll across those leagues at the top of the page and choose. Then, the individual teams will be listed in a sidebar on the right. It’s a simple site to navigate, but let me know if you have questions.

3. The blog post must include a link back here to Diaryof1.com, so I know you did this, and email me as well at blessedinthewest at yahoo dot com, because my links don’t always show up for a while. Your blog post also must include a link to the item or items on TeamMASCOT.com that you wish to win - again, the total value should not exceed $20, and shipping will be FREE as well.

4. The first 20 entries I receive will win, it’s that simple. Contest ends on the 4th of July.

5. When I receive your email, I will email back to let you know you were among the first 20, and I’ll need your shipping address.

6. When the contest is over, I’ll do a blog post with links to all of the winners, so everyone can read about your team, and throw rotten eggs your way if you’re a Steelers fan (haha).

I walked through my eclectic house this morning and took some pictures of the random sports merchandise items I’ve collected. Samples from vendors, returns, slightly damaged merchandise, but all useful things I needed in my home. Here’s a peek at a few things I found:

Under my kitchen sink:

In my kitchen cupboards:

On my son’s bed:

In my living area:

The funny thing is, we’re really not die-hard sports fans, but touring our house you’d really think so! And teams you see on display here we may not even care for, so don’t be fooled. We are however, Cowboys fans. :-)

Let the sporting begin!

Ping was a little duck who lived with his huge family on “a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze River.” Fearing the spank the last duck receives upon returning to the boat each evening, Ping hides. He gets lost and has several adventures before reuniting with his family.

One of the adventures involves coming across some trained fishing birds with rings around their necks to prevent them from eating the delicious fish, and so they dutifully carry the catch to their master. The constraining rings prevent them from eating anything but small morsels. This scene evokes such sadness in me, and can be interpreted on many levels. My kids have actually never commented on this episode and they take it literally and matter-of-factly, for now. But I think I’ll have a discussion with them soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot about church issues lately, as well as education. What are the rings placed around our necks? Is it constraining to sit under one head teacher who predigests material for us? Has this “objectivist” type of learning, as Debra Murphy discusses in her article Worship as catechesis: Knowledge, desire, and Christian formation, twisted what it means to “know” something?

What if we could enjoy the whole, delicious fish, and not some pasty morsel? How marvelous that would be. What would it look like? How can we remove rings from around our necks? I honestly don’t have the answers, but I’m exploring. Murphy argues that the objectivist view of knowledge needs dismantling. No longer should knowledge be the transfer of educational content from teacher to pupil, but some kind of community experience that repairs the disconnect between what goes on, for example, in the church and what happens in the outside world.

Believe it or not, we may need to return to the Middle Ages for an answer. Jeffrey Stout, in his book Flight From Authority, traces how the Middle Age experience of strong community, intertwined with the authority of religious institutions and human inquiry, gave way to the Modern experience of a “flight” from this authority, leaving us today with what he calls “scientism” and “logical positivism,” in which any belief which cannot be certainly proven is folly, and the human conversation in the process gets removed. That’s a mouthful, folks, and I hope you follow what I’m trying to say! I’m not a scholar, but this is my understanding.

I haven’t read the full texts of these works I mentioned, but will do so in my quest to find something tangible I can do. Yes, something I can do and you can do, not just a philosophical conversation. The Story About Ping got me thinking. And thinking alone is fruitless. Will someone be willing to read with me, with an eye toward something new? I understand that a real shift in the paradigm may take centuries. It took centuries to get where we are now, after all.

The Carnival of Family Life is up at Everyday Disasters.

The Carnival of Principled Government is up at Principled Discovery.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Homeschool Hacks.

The Christian Carnival ii will be up tomorrow at Chasing the Wind.

photo credits: Deschutes County Fair

The same problem the larger society has in regard to family exists in the church as well. Our American culture, indeed many other modern cultures, has seen parents relinquish their parental obligations, and quickly we’ve observed public schools and other public institutions take on the surrogate parent role along with the attitude of “leave the schooling to the experts.”

At the bottom of this phenomenon is a disregard for the family unit. One of the reasons I homeschool my children is in an effort to preserve my family, because there does not currently exist a widespread school model that does so. Segregating children by age, locking parents out of curriculum decisions, endowing teachers with greater authority in the system than parents - these practices all serve to undermine the family integrity.

I’m used to this in the public sector. So, when I arrived at Vacation Bible School and wanted to walk my kids in myself, meet their crew leaders, and follow the children to their stations so I could get a handle on the physical layout of the place, I was met at every turn with: “Are you lost?” “Can I help you find something?” “Is there something you need?” No, I just have a four year old child that I refuse to drop at the door with strangers.

Mind you, I had never been to this particular church before, so as a responsible parent, it seemed like a no-brainer to want some information and get a feel for the place. The staff was excellent and I ended up having no issues with the place, BUT. I stuck out in the crowd like you wouldn’t believe. Out of almost 200 kids at this event, I was the ONLY parent to be lurking around, and I know that half the kids had not been to this church before, either.

Does this mean that all those other parents are bad, bad people? Does this mean the church people are inconsiderate? No. It means our modern culture has succeeded in enculturating the citizens with a very wrong view of family, responsibility, and society. Our institutions have taken over the familial role. No longer do parents rule - and yes, they should. Now, instead of society and culture fitting into its proper place within the family, the family is required to fit into a proper place within the culture, and it’s a subordinate place.

I have a huge problem with this, folks, and I wish more people did. Yes, I know, it would have created a log-jam at Vacation Bible School if every parent were like me, wanting to be a little more involved and present. So, you change the paradigm. Maybe you have a parent/child session on day one. Maybe you make parents fill out a criminal history check and offer them the opportunity to be present (sad, but this is what it would take). Maybe you limit the number of children who can attend so there is more room for whole families. Or maybe you just put on your own family-friendly Vacation Bible School.

“Goat milk!” he exclaimed. Of course. I’d been teasing him for the past two weeks with the goat milk, entreating him to “just try it.” I’ve been buying the goat milk from my friend Catherine, who had more than her family needed. She is the Home School Mom that Heidi aspires to be. She milks her own goats, makes cheese, churns butter, grinds flour, sews dresses, and has five barefooted children running about that I swear just walked off the set of Little House on the Prairie. I’m not talented or patient enough for any of those endeavors, but Catherine will be training me to milk the goats for when she’s away on vacation.

So my husband knew the second I made the sly comment that he’d been tricked. By a Nubian. The Nubian goats Catherine owns produce a milk which has a very high butterfat content, giving it a better flavor than the milk of, say, an Alpine breed. Such a good flavor, apparently, that non-sophisticated milk drinkers can’t tell the difference between Nubian goat milk and the milk of, say, a cow.

My children have been unknowingly drinking the goat milk as well. Not a complaint or a passing doubt. Ah, but the minute I say “have a glass of goat milk,” it’s all protest. Some things are better left unsaid, and a little trickery can be a healthy thing. Literally quite healthy, indeed. Compared to cow’s milk, goat milk offers superior digestibility of both fat and protein content and there is a natural homogenization of goat milk. Not to mention the scores of vitamins and minerals.

And did you know that my fair Oregon is one of the few states where one can legally purchase raw goat milk commercially? Go Oregon! And watch out - you, too, could be tricked by a Nubian, especially if you come to my house. Would you like some milk and cookies, dear?

He is very smart and he’s building a house for us.
He is very nice for taking us special places and doing special things with us.
He plays games with us and teaches us about life.
He sings with us.
He got us a puppy.
He teaches us about science and about God.
He teaches us to ride our bikes.

Here is “Cowboy Dad” with our boy plugging his ears because the well drilling is soooo loud.

Our kids fight over time with Dad, and usually the ones left at home with Mom are in tears! When your turn for alone time with Dad comes only once every 4 turns, it seems forever. Whether it’s going out to breakfast with Dad, helping him for the day at the property, or just running errands around town, it’s always a treat.

I love this father of my children for so many reasons. He loves me without fail, we share a passionate love of God and His Word, he has that creative artist temperament which means he’s ever-so interesting, he’s nearly always the first to say he’s sorry, and he’s smart enough to read all the Oregon code books on construction so he can build a house himself even though he’s never done this before.

Our girls are his princesses and our boys are his handsome little men. I do not want Father’s Day to pass without him knowing that I deeply respect him as a father, even though, like most people, he sees his shortcomings and wants to do more, be more. All of our children have such a healthy sense of who they are because of his presence. And they have a fantastic sense of humor, because he can be a clown and downright goofy. Good thing, because I’m such a bore. :-)

This is a great photo to add to our Father’s Day Tribute, because it captures a beautiful moment. My husband is definitely the game-player of the family with the kids, and evenings are often spent with chess, checkers, Candyland, whatever. Not to sound Leave it to Beaver-ish, because we are not, but this past year of being TV-less has allowed for a lot of evenings to be freed up for this sort of thing.

What you see there is a Will Primos Elk Hunting video in the background (Dad has taught all the kids how to do an elk call) and a chess game in the foreground. I think elk hunting is right up there on my husband’s list of favorite things to do, and he does a good job of including the kids, even though they can’t hunt with him yet. They actually love these videos!

Just give the man some shrimp and red wine and he’s quite happy. See, he’s taught his daughter to be totally goofy, too. Good, a picture including Connect Four. With the young ages of my children, this game gets a lot of table time. Thanks, Dad, you gave this to the kids for Christmas, along with most of the games we own. Good memories.

I remember almost four years ago when my husband had a grand mal seizure, quite unexpectedly. I was there, and never having seen one before, thought he’d had a heart attack and died. He appeared to be unconscious, lifeless, blue-ish…Your life really does flash before your eyes when something like this happens. I thought of raising my children without their father. I was in total shock. He told me later that having me at his bedside in the hospital, completely focused on him, absorbed in him, and holding him with such tenderness, was so meaningful, and he felt so loved.

I was a bit taken aback, because I thought I always did those things, I thought he knew how I felt. But don’t we all need to hear, out loud and unmistakably, that we are much loved and irreplaceable. So, dear husband and father of our children, on this day which honors you, I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE AN OUTSTANDING FATHER.

I grew up on Route 666, the Devil’s Highway (thank the good Lord it’s since been renamed to U.S. Route 491). Rt. 666 ended in Douglas, Arizona, bordering Agua Prieta, in Sonora, Mexico. My three older sisters attended the local high school in Douglas, and praise God I got out of that hell-hole after 8th grade before I had to go there.

I remember in 1990 when U.S. Customs officials discovered the most sophisticated underground concrete tunnel between Agua Prieta and Douglas…responsible for the trafficking of many thousands of tons of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S., right down Rt. 666. I was gone by then, but not at all surprised by this discovery.

Back then, Rt. 666 was perhaps the greatest drug trafficking avenue from Mexico. We couldn’t put a stop to it then, and look where it’s got us. The drug cartel activity is reaching desperate proportions - do you recall the Cananea shootings last month? Just southeast of Nogales, AZ, nearly spilling over into border towns, were 50 out of control Mexican drug hit men, killing police officers and others who were targeted for betraying an agreement with a drug cartel.

My childhood crush was Ernesto Hermosillo, the cutest Mexican boy I knew, and the kindest and smartest boy altogether. I can honestly say I survived living in Cochise County, Arizona without a trace of racist attitude toward Mexicans, despite my incredibly racist father who rambled on about the “damned wetbacks” and refused to let me play with Marianne, the only black girl in the entire county. Maybe it was because we were so dirt poor (I literally lived in a shack with a dirt floor, until it was upgraded to concrete way before this was fashionable) that Ernie’s quonset hut looked really nice next to my shack.

So, the piece of immigration reform now on the table that relates to border security…that’s what I’m interested in. I have absolutely nothing against good Mexican people, and I still love Ernie, wherever he is, but I want legality, I want safety, I want zero tolerance for drug trafficking Mexican cartel thugs.

As my husband and I were just discussing this issue of immigration, he said the heart of the matter is really wages. We make all the illegals legal, and we suddenly have to pay them a fair wage. Can our country handle that? I said, why can’t Mexico just reform their country enough to make it nice enough to not want to leave it? Ah, here is the real issue. Mexico is corrupt. Too corrupt to reform its country.

We philosophized about why this is. To us, the answer is obvious. Nations that forget God will fail. We named several countries off the top of our heads that are corrupt and riddled with unsurmountable problems, that have forgotten God. African nations, China, Russia, Latin America, ….

Back to immigration reform and border security. There appears to be no immediate chance for Mexico to undergo an overnight no-corruption makeover. Do we want children of a corrupt father spilling over the borders? I don’t know, I had a corrupt father but does that make me corrupt? Do I want secure borders? Absolutely, and I’ll pay the price for it. If the Hermosillos are locked out, along with the drug lords, so be it. The current immigration bill would commit the most resources to border security in U.S. history, and that gets my vote. Rt. 666 has a new name, let’s give it a new image.

In two hours, the well-driller begins his quest for water on our Central Oregon ranch-to-be. This is the desert, my best beloved (been reading too many Just So Stories), and some of my desert dwelling friends have been known to drill over 700 feet in search of those refreshing underground deposits. Perhaps, great divining was used and he hits the right spot.

We’re off to the property with camera in hand to capture a geyser, we hope. I’ll post pictures later.

The Carnival of Homeschooling “Fun” edition is hosted by Kris’ Eclectic Homeschool.

The Carnival of Family Life 58th edition is hosted by MamaBlogga.

The Christian Carnival 176 is hosted by Nick Queen.

The Carnival of Principled Government 7th edition is hosted by Principled Discovery.

That’s all for now. I don’t have time to highlight my favorite posts out of these, but do go read as you have time.

“And A is red.” This announcement from my son would have gone completely unnoticed by me, except for a very bizarre coincidence. Just about 20 minutes earlier, I had visited my cyber friend Dana, and clicked through to a link from commenter Julie. I glanced at a recent post by Julie, The Color of Thoughts, wherein is mentioned by commenter Bobbie that there exists a human gene that causes words to actually be a color.

We all know that kids say crazy things, and with the never ceasing chatter over here, I honestly would have paid no heed to, and likely would not have even consciously heard, my son’s color comment. So, sincere thanks, Dana, Julie, and Bobbie, for that string of discussion I trailed.

I began interrogating my son. What do you mean when you say the letter A is red? Are whole words colors? Are other objects associated with colors? Are numbers colors?

He informed me that he just sees the color in his mind, and that only letters have colors, not words. I began working through the alphabet with him. He sees A as red, B as yellow, C as blue, D as brown, E as yellow… Call me a cynic, but I wrote down the color associations he gave for each letter, and went back and quizzed him over and over to see if he came up with the same responses. You bet. A is red, B is yellow, C is blue.

We all should know what I did next. Google. There is a name for this phenomenon, and it’s called synesthesia - a neurological condition in which two or more senses are coupled. My son appears to have grapheme-color synesthesia, where an individual’s perception of numbers and letters are associated with the experience of colors. Guess what else wikipedia said? A is likely to be red. While no two synesthetes will report the same color associations, there are some commonalities.

Hey, my son is in good company. Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman was among those with synesthesia. Wow, I’m just beginning to look into this (obviously!), so if anyone out there has some information or advice for me, I’d love to hear from you.

My gift to the kids this past Christmas was a Puppet Theater. You really don’t need a store-bought model, but I found a sale and we’ve dramatized over this enough to pay for it several times.

We began with about a dozen puppets I gathered from various stores, and I’m such a frugal shopper that I found them all for between $1 and $5 - and some free, if you count the socks and gloves. I’m still on the lookout for some reasonably priced little boy and little girl (normal-looking children) puppets, so if you know of a deal, pass it on. I will not pay $15 for a puppet, so don’t bother passing that information along.

Our initial “plays” consisted of bopping the other’s puppet over the head and spiraling into wild screams and laughter. This is all good, but sometimes you want a little more. :-)

Occasionally, I visit the Well-Trained Mind swap board, and that’s where I discovered our first scripts. Thank you, Kristin!! There’s this amazing homeschool mom on a farm in Nebraska, Kristin Greenhalgh, who’s written several Christian-themed Puppet Script books. I ordered every single one, and you can find them here. We’ve performed several of these, and most are perfect for 1-4 children of a variety of ages, maybe ages 6-12. My favorites are The Reason for the Seasons volumes, covering every holiday from Advent to Yom Kippur.

I told Kristin many months ago that I’d review her books here, so considered them reviewed: A+. Along with the Seasons scripts, Kristin has written Walking with God, 16 short scripts depicting important steps in the Christian walk. We like “Taming the Tongue.” Her scripts aren’t cheesy or tacky like some I’ve seen, but have very age appropriate dialogue. The third series, Living Like Jesus, includes 20 short scripts teaching Christ-like character traits and virtues. Great discussion questions follow each script, and when I say short, they are 1-2 pages long, perfect for young performers.

You may also be interested in some online scripts that you can download for free. Reader’s Theater Editions has dozens of free scripts adapted from stories written by Aaron Shepard and others - lots of myths and tall tales. Reader’s theatre is different from puppet theater, but I’ve easily modified them. My kids especially enjoyed taking to the stage with The Baker’s Dozen.

Acting and playmaking is such a wonderful, creative outlet for children. For homeschoolers, consider practicing a play with your own family or joining with another family, and put on a show for friends and relatives. You certainly don’t need the traditional “school play” model preventing your homeschooling kids from putting on a grand production!

I really didn’t know that mold could entirely cover a little boy’s pair of pants in one short week, but folks, it’s stinking true. The pants got thrown in the laundry pile wet, soon were covered with other foul clothing, and forgotten. Until today. They are not savable. Nor is the little pink dress that was smothered under them. Some surrounding whites are savable with bleach, but such are the repercussions of laundry procrastination.

Hmmm, gets me thinking about other procrastinations and other consequences….better get to work over here, on things both seen and unseen.

The house we’re renting is situated on a property that’s the location of an old two room school house. The old school is still standing and in excellent repair. Here we are in the gym, having church together!

Dad in his t-shirt and jeans, coffee in hand and Bible on the lap, led us in worship and read a passage from John. We talked, in between the kids skipping and the dog chasing, and just enjoyed being together and having fellowship. It was good.

Is this the future of church for us? We don’t know for sure, but you’ll find our family out here for the summer, anyway. Come and join us anytime for Church at The Old School!

Look how spacious and beautiful this gym is. There’s a cafeteria-style kitchen, two generously sized classrooms, two bathrooms, and the most gorgeous scenic murals painted down the hallways. Just an old country school.

Our own property where we’re building our house is just five miles from here, so it’s quite convenient. More than once we’ve thought of how we could make use of this unique complex with the school, this big house we’re living in, and the smaller, original house where perhaps the schoolmaster lived. Just dreamin’ and praying. The owners have tried for years to work with various groups and boarding school-type organizations, but always, ultimately, to no avail, and alas the property sits unused. We’ve had some discussions with them…they are open to some prospects we put forward.

So here we are. Keep reading and discover this journey with me.

Random catch-up. June allergies have hit me in full force. I’m out in this big valley surrounded by fields of hay-fever, er, hay and such. I shouldn’t complain, because I moved to Central Oregon from Eugene, right downwind from the “Grass Seed Capital of the World.” Now that was unbearable. I blame my terrible allergies on my mother, who didn’t breastfeed me. Ah, can’t really blame her, I was born in a generation where breasfeeding was not at all trendy. But trendy or not, don’t ever expect sympathy from me if you’re tired of nursing your baby after your obligatory six weeks.

[This paragraph used to be about a certain difficult situation, which my sensitive (when did that happen? :-)) husband thought maybe shouldn’t be discussed here. So what you get now is that I continued to struggle this week with a relationship that I thought was moving forward into some degree of restoration, only to discover that it may actually be worse than I thought.]

Last week alone I overdrew my bank account, had several bloody noses from all that allergy-driven nose blowing, missed an important appointment, broke a dish, incurred countless angry customers who couldn’t get through on my business phone (that wireless problem), allowed laundry to pile up to my eyeballs, let the [edited: relationship issue] drag me into a fierce battle between depression and condemnation, and man, I’m feeling beat-up.

Wireless is touchy and so am I. I need to go get a good dose of amazing grace, so Lord, here I come.