So far we've...
-retiled one bathroom floor
-had my folks for a four-day visit
-helped some friends who are moving to Georgia tomorrow pack up and load their truck
-built a 4' by 16' raised bed for the garden
-spent a couple of hours by the lake flying kites with the family that's moving tomorrow

I don't want it to look like I started blogging just so I could use the phrase "go Garver" in reference to myself, so I won't say it. ;-) But we are having a lot of company the next two weeks, and we're trying to get a few repair jobs done around the house and put in our garden before it gets too hot, so I might not be around much for a week or two.

Happy Spring!
I love spring. I am so ready to get my garden going. We are building a raised bed four feet deep and 16 feet long for my tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans, and whatever else we grow this year.

The biggest thing I dislike about being in the military is that I have to start my garden from scratch every two or three years, and some years we don't get a garden at all.

My husband has two years left before he retires and we shouldn't have to move again before then -- unless he makes master sergeant. Then we'll probably have to move at least one more time. Well, Barb and I have been trying to figure out how to get my family moved up there near her. Maybe this will do it! ;-)

Conversation with my 4 year old
"Mama would you tie me?" (referring to the sash on her dress -- a frothy concoction of yellow and white taffeta and organza bought by her grandmother)
"Sure."
"Mama, how clock is it?"
"Umm, it's almost 11:30."
"Thank you."

A few favorite online resources
I hope to get these links up on my sidebar someday, but until then...

Education
Christine Miller's Classical Christian Homeschooling has information on classical education, suggestions for teaching the trivium, lists of recommended curricula, book reviews, ideas for teaching young children, suggestions for changing over from another od, plus tons of links to everything from archaeology and theology to semantics and politics.

The Underground Grammarian Richard Miller's articles, newsletters, and books online. My favorite is the book Graves of Academe: Why can't our nation read, write, cipher, or THINK? The Underground Grammarian takes on the American education establishment.

Art
Carol Gerten's Fine Art Museum has works of art listed by artist's name and by nationality & time frame, so if you're looking for something in particular it's fairly easy to find. She also has a featured artists section with biographical information on over 150 artists, plus examples of their work. My favorite is Jan Vermeer.

The National Gallery of Art has a lot of cool stuff to look at, but it also has a gallery shop where you can buy reproductions, posters, books, and more. Be sure to check out the the online tour of Vermeer's "Woman Holding a Balance."

Just for fun
The Lord's Prayer in Old English with a sound file so you can hear it! Hey, I've learned the Lord's Prayer in Latin, so why not Old English? I'd like to memorize it this year.

Blog from the past.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Thanks to Gideon for the link.

Poppet alert!
At the danger blog. Scroll down and hit the link that says "Geneva Jump."

What makes a good worship service?
Yesterday, I made a joke about Vogon church services over at Valerie's blog, so today I thought I'd describe what I think is an ideal service.

For about a year after we first moved here, we attended Covenant OPC in Abilene, and I loved the liturgy they used -- it borrowed elements from the Anglican service.

The pastor opened the service with, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and the congregation responded, "Amen!" I love the way the service began with the pastor declaring the name of the One who has saved us and called us to worship Him.

After a hymn and a prayer, we confessed our faith saying the Apostles' Creed every Sunday for one month then the Nicene Creed the following month.

We confessed our sin using the Psalms, and the pastor gave the assurance of forgiveness. We responded by singing the Gloria Patri.

The pastoral prayer was followed by all of us praying the Lord's Prayer together, then we sang another hymn, followed by the offering, the Doxology, scripture reading and prayer, then the sermon.

On the second Sunday of each month we had the Lord's Supper.

This liturgy draws the congregation into worship so well -- the confessions of faith and sin, the assurance of forgiveness and the prayers and hymns prepare the Christian to hear God's word and to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The whole service was like a conversation between the Lord and His people with God calling His people to Himself and the people responding and drawing near. The Anglicans are good at liturgy, but I think that their weakness -- the 10-15 minute homily -- is the Presbyterian's strength -- the 30-45 minute exegetical sermon. In this type of service you get the best of both.

There are only two things that would improve this service in my opinion: having Communion every Sunday, and allowing young children to come to the Lord's Table.

Valerie redecorated for me.
Isn't it pretty?

I've been repotting my houseplants. I have an aloe vera that a friend gave me last year that has had four babies, so I put them in a new pot. I would like to pass them along to a friend after I've made sure they survived the repotting process. I also had a few things that needed to be top-dressed; John and Mary Rose helped me with those. Katherine had cut a branch off of the ivy that's growing on the telephone pole in our back yard, and we've had it in a glass of water for a couple of weeks, so we potted it today, too.

I had to buy a new pot to put my snake plant in. This poor plant was given to me when we lived in Alabama. It traveled to Virginia with us, where its pot was broken during the move, so it was temporarily put into a disposable plastic drinking cup. Three and a half years later, it came to Texas with us, still in the "temporary" pot. All those years it sat on my kitchen windowsill where it got plenty of sunlight, but other than that it was neglected. I'm terrible about remembering to water my plants -- I keep them on the kitchen windowsill so I'll see them every day while I'm doing dishes and remember to water them. They get watered three or four times a month. This poor snake plant, because its temporary pot was so light, and because the thing was usually dried out, was so top-heavy that it often fell over. By the time we moved here it only had about half the amount of soil in it that it should have had, so I got some dirt from the back yard to fill it up with. And I tried harder to remember to water it. Fresh dirt and water once a week made it so happy that it began growing, so about three months later, I finally put it into a real pot with fresh potting soil. That was about a year ago and it has grown so much that I had to buy a larger pot to put it into. Grace helped me repot it this afternoon -- it was actually pot-bound.

So now you know why this plant is also called the iron plant. You also know what to get your friend with the brown thumb.

I think the phrase "go Garver" needs to be redefined.

At this point, to micro-blog seems like a possiblity.

Be sure your sin will find you out.
Numbers 32:22b

My kids hear this verse fairly often. I tell them that it is one of my regular prayers for them because I love them and I don't want them ever to get away with sin. These are comforting and encouraging words! They remind me of Hebrews 12. "For whom the LORD loves He chastens... [chastening] yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

It is the mercy of God that He does not leave us in our sin, but that He humbles us, chastens us, and brings us to repentance.

I just sent an email to a brand new homeschooling mom who got my name from CottageSchool.net. She emailed me the week that Lilian was born asking advice on getting started with teaching her 7 and 5 year old children. I hope to hear back from her soon - that's one thing I really enjoy doing. Giving advice.;-)

This is my first post to my first blog and I really wanted to say something intelligent and impressive, but it's too hard to type while holding a two-month-old! Lilian is two months today; I can't believe how quickly it goes by. My Daddy always said that the older you get the faster time goes by and now I know what he was talking about.

In the future, I hope to publish book lists, and links to my favorite homeschooling and theology sites.

I'd also like to create my own design for this blog, but first I have to have web space and an FTP thingie. Any ideas?

BTW, John, I picked out my template before I saw your blog, so I'm not copy-catting you! ;-)