Praiseworthy Website: The Art Tea Life

This is actually a sneaky way to post about St. Patrick's Day again!!! The Art Tea Life is a very creative blog that I read frequently. Her post last Wednesday on "Wearin' o The Green" gave a wonderful poem and account of Irish history that I wanted to share it with you. The Irish flag displays a green bar to represent the Catholics and an orange bar to represent the Protestants and a white bar to represent the peace between the two. Art Tea Life's post helps us to understand why even though we are Protestants wearing green is a wonderful thing to do!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

May the wisdom of God instruct me;

The eye of God watch over me;

The ear of God hear me;

The Word of God give sweetness to my speech;

The hand of God defend me;

And may I follow the way of God this and every day.

-St. Patrick

Make a library run and try out these books with your kids today:

St. Patrick's Day - Mary Cantwell

St. Patrick and Irish Christianity - Tom Corfe

Saint Patrick - Ann Tompert

Goodbye Sweet Lucy

Jane and Lucy,
originally uploaded by jillpettis.

This is a picture of my Great Aunt Jane and her sister my Great Aunt Lucy. Lucy has the black hair. Lucy passed away last Saturday and in honor of her I'm posting her recipe for Apple Cake. My Aunt Jane loved Lucy's Apple Cake so in a way I'm honoring them both!

Lucy was an interesting person. Her temperament was not all that warm, but she had a hearty laugh and loved her grandchildren. At the funeral they said things like, "she let us get toys out all over and never said anything about it." That's something coming from a woman whose house was spotless every single time I entered it. Really, her floor was SHINY! You could quite happily eat off it as they say. And her BLACK hair was always perfect.

When their mother passed away Lucy said to Jane, "we're the old ones now." Looks like I'm one generation away from the old ones now myself. I thank God that I knew them and I hope that they, their mother, father, sister and brother are having a wonderful homecoming.

For me, I'll just have to wait to see them. But at least I can have the cake.

Lucy's Apple Cake

4 cups chopped Apples

3 cups flour

1 cup oil

2 beaten eggs

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup flaked coconut

Mix apples and sugar and let stand a few minutes until juice forms. Sift flour, soda, salt and add to apples. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Pour into a tube pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.

St. Patrick's Day ideas

My mother is quite a lover of all things Irish. She has Irish heritage and has always loved the people and the culture. I grew up in a house where we celebrated St. Patrick's Day in a family way with good food and drink. The celebration of St. Patrick's day with parades and parties is really mostly an American Irish invention. In Ireland it is celebrated as a holy day to remember Patrick. I have chosen in my own family to celebrate this day by teaching my children about the Irish culture and people and by remembering a man who obeyed God by bringing the gospel to a group of people who had enslaved him. I find this aspect of Patrick, the missionary, to be very inspiring and worth reflecting on every year. In the hopes that you will share this message with your family I have included her a few sites worthy of mention:

The BBC has an excellent program for learning Gaelic, the original language of Ireland called Giota Beag. You can find other links to Gaelic learning here as well.

Lisa Volrath at her site Ten Two Studios is featuring one of her marvelous countdowns. This time featuring downloads for St. Patrick's Day paper crafting.

When I was younger I watched the Masterpiece Theatre's production of The Irish R.M. The ever praiseworthy Librivox is currently at work producing a free audio of this delightful book which isn't finished but you can get started on the finished chapters here.

Last year I posted on my favorite meal for St. Patrick's Day which is the American Irish Corned Beef with cabbage and potatoes. You can read my recipe for Irish Soda Bread here.

jaminacema has a great activity to teach the trinity with a shamrock just as Patrick did here.

Soon I'll post a book list of some of my favorite children's books to read for this day. But until then I hope you'll enjoy these links!

Praiseworthy Food: Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday in the church calendar. Traditionally Christians fasted from meat products as a way of experiencing a sacrifice to commemorate the sacrifice Jesus gave for us. This meant that the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, they would need to use up all of their animal products such as milk, butter, eggs, etc… Pancakes were perfect for this so pancakes have become associated with this day.

Happily, IHOP has also designated this Pancake day and is giving away a short stack of pancakes to every guest. This is an effort to raise money for The Children's Miracle Network and they are asking for donations. Check it out on their website and head over to enjoy a short stack in observation of Shrove Tuesday!

Praiseworthy food and toys!

I just received my new Braun Powermax 2050 blender in the mail from Amazon. My old blender broke and this was rated a best buy from Consumer Reports and only $39! I celebrated by making the following which comes from the Disease Proof blog.

Chocolate Smoothie
5 oz. organic baby spinach
½ cup soy milk
½ cup pomegranate juice
1 medium banana
1 Tbsp. natural unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups frozen blueberries
1 Tbsp. flaxseed, ground
First, liquefy spinach in soy milk and pomegranate juice in the blender. Add all remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Serves 2.
As son told my daughter, don't turn your nose up at it until you've tried it. Instead of five ounces of baby spinach I used a head of romaine and my son (age 6) and I are sharing. I promise you will not taste the greens AT ALL. The chocolate is in my opinion overkill. You could easily make it without and just have a banana blueberry smoothie. Those of you who have people who don't like greens in your life try this. I used regular milk too by the way.

http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator/

Celebrating Lent

This last December my family celebrated the season of Advent in order to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We did this through weekly devotions centered around our Advent wreath candles. It was a wonderful family time and a good learning experience for my children.

One of the sites that I gleaned good information from was Advent for Evangelicals which was written by Lindsey of Just Enjoy the Journey. I like many had hoped that Lindsey would start a similar blog for Lent. Apparently, I was not alone as she recently posted on JETJ that others had been asking for the same thing. Well, she is not creating a blog but she will be posting on JETJ about her family's observance of Lent this year. She has recently posted several links to sites with information about Lent.

For those of you who may be wondering about Lent there is an excellent article about why many Protestants don't celebrate Lent but should here. Lent is the church season before Easter designed to prepare Christians to celebrate the death of Jesus. It begins next Wednesday on Ash Wednesday. Easter is really the big celebration for Christians as the death of Jesus as a repayment of our sins is what makes us right with God and secures our eternal life with Him. Much as the Jews slaughtered lambs for their sins, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for us.

I'm looking forward to finding ways to spend time with my family observing Lent and remembering the sacrifice Jesus made for me. I hope that you will join me as well!

Responsiblity

Tammy Cardwell, a self publisher, has written a very thought provoking article on her website. It's about the responsibility of homeschoolers to honor copyrights. When I was teaching in the public schools teachers were held to strict standards of what they could copy or not copy from textbooks and other materials. But there is no office staff looking over the shoulders of homeschoolers. Many of the people whose materials I have reviewed and we all love to use are written by people just like us, homeschooling parents in search of just the right material to teach their child. Many publish their materials to help support their families and keep a mom at home to teach the children. So in support of these authors, I urge you to take a minute to read this article, "Theft By Any Other Name."

Praiseworthy Book Review: My Brother Martin

For every holiday I get a stack of books out either from the library or my own personal collection. I leave them out so my kids can grab one for a free reading or I can read it to them. It's a great way to learn more about history and important people and events. I get this book every year at this time as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This book looks at the early life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through the eyes of his older sister Christine King Farris. It’s a delightful glimpse of the simple life in the Sweet Auburn community of Atlanta, Georgia where the King family lived. Mrs. Farris talks about MLK from his birth sharing family stories and recreating the world of MLK’s early days. She shows us his family, a loving Christian father, mother, Grandfather and Grandmother that taught the children obedience and love. A world that formed him into the great man he would become.

This book touches on racism and is an excellent introduction to the topic of racism in America. My daughter loved it at 6 years old and at first didn’t believe that the America described was our United States of America. My Brother Martin was an excellent vehicle to start this discussion with her. The tragedy of his death is not described, but since I know the full story I found my eyes welling with tears several times during the reading.

The illustrations of the children’s early life are sentimental and sweet. The colors are brilliant and the style is realistic. When showing MLK later in life the images switch to black and white and are the familiar images seen frequently in books and on television. This is an excellent tool to help children connect MLK the iconic historical figure to a real boy that grew up to tell the world of his dream.

The first time we read this my then 4 year old son, 6 year old daughter and I loved it. The text makes you feel like you are at the knee of your own Grandmother and the illustrations are beautiful and make you want to linger over each page. It is a book we will read again and again.