Today is my husband's birthday

We celebrated in my class today both Schaeffer's( yesterday) and Ken's birthday with brownies ( mix)  with this icing on top from a former student. I omitted the marshmellows and nuts. It is just
delicious as plain chocolate frosting!

Frosting
 

1/2 cup butter

4 Tbs. Cocoa

1 lb or 4 cups confectioners sugar

1 Tbs vanilla

pinch of salt

6 Tbs. buttermilk

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

1 cup marshmallows (optional) 

In sauce pan mix butter and cocoa but DO NOT BOIL!!! when butter is melted then take from heat and add all but the nuts and marshmallows. pour over WARM brownies. Let cool for 5 minutes then top with nuts and marshmallows!

They are very yummy reheated in the microwave with a scoop of icecream on top!!

Brooklyn Sketchbook Project

I finished  my Brooklyn Sketchbook Project  this morning . The  theme I selected: Filled with Stories.  I still need to take photos and get it in the mail today. Deadline for posting it is tomorrow. My favorite page is the back one. I have a DATE DUE from an old book on that page with all the dates marked out from the 1990's. Then I put Jan 31, 2012. 

Today is Francis Schaeffer's 100th birthday. What a legacy we still have from L'Abri, books, lectures, biographies of this family. For the Children's Sake was the first book I read in 1994 when I started homeschooling. The following year Susan Schaeffer Macaulay was here for a solo conference. Amazing....abundant ....grace.

“We discovered that L’Abri wasn’t going to be easy. But we hadn’t asked for easy. We asked for help. We asked for truth.” Edith Schaeffer

 

Death Comes to Pemberley

In a letter from Lady Catherine is this funny line. 
I actually laughed out loud:

 " I shall convey your news to Mr. Collins since it cannot long be concealed.  As a clergyman, he will wish to send you his usual depressing words of comfort, and I shall enclose his letter with mine but will place an embargo on its length. "   ( p. 151)

Spring Friday in January!

Daffodils on our walk today. Really. It is still January. 

Quote that my students heard, discussed, copied  in their journals , and then wrote about it:

"The essential disciplines of emerging leaders provide  them with an ability to see beyond the constraints of present circumstances to the possiblities of the future. They stir up in them a hunger to see what is in terms of what ought to be. They provoke in them a passion to live life beyond the limits imposed by the tyranny of the urgent."

 by Tristan Gylberd

Habits matter.
Work matters. 

The tyranny of the urgent presses in even on 14 - 18 year olds. (My students' ages.) Living beyond that is where the balance is. Like today's walk at the end of a busy week. Needed for thinking time with my husband.  Laundry needed to be folded but ....... the tyranny of the urgent. The busyness of a home.

How about you? What are your habits of discipline? 

Lectio Divina.  Drink from it. 

You find the time to do what you are called to do. You have to have Lectio Divina to do that. 

Thank you , Tristan!

The Sun is out....all day!

Everyone is out and about. 

The sun is out.

All day. 

Warm.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world”
- Thorin to Bilbo Baggins

Checked OFF

I finally got my Fall Semester grades done tonight for my English high school class. One of the best classes I've had with 11 students. They love to talk, connect big ideas, and are reading The Odyssey now. I will not 
correct the names , even the title! So they are looking for Honda vans and loved what the word means: odyssey.   " So that is why Honda named the van Odyssey!"

Update to the TO DO list

Suits .... the groom of the June wedding just picked out suits to buy.

Not long and the two weddings will become one. 

To Do list gets shorter then longer!