Life in General!

  The history of Father's Day is very interesting indeed.  In 1909 one lady tried to start it as a holiday in Fairmont, West Virginia, in a way to honor 361 men, 250 of them fathers, who had lost their lives in a tragic mining accident.  Due to so many other activities and celebrations of July 4th, the holiday did not get the recognition it needed.   Just a year later, another young lady in Spokane, Washington, wanted to honor her father, a Civil War veteran, named William Jackson Smart.  She wanted to honor him for his raising her and her 5 siblings ALONE!  A single dad of six!  Imagine that!   She spoke to her minister about a special service recognizing fathers.  He was unable to do that the first Sunday of June, which was her father's birthday.  He planned to hold a special service the third Sunday in June.  Other ministers heard of his idea and followed in suit.    The actual holiday was not made official until 1972!...

  Mother's Day is a special holiday that dates back to, of course, the Greeks and Romans!  It seems like there are always one of these two people groups involved in holiday histories!  Anyway, I read a little bit on this on the   History Channel website , and I find the story pretty interesting!   Turns out the lady who wanted to have Mother's Day recognized as a holiday in America fought for part of her life to have it renounced as a holiday.  Quick story -- she had started a group where the ladies got together to learn to properly care for their children.  It was seen as a way of peace-making seeing that the time period was near the time before, during and after the Civil War.  The ladies hoped their coming together from both the Union and the Confederate states would promote that sense of peace and reconciliation!  Well, as usual, the card, flower, and candy industries wanted their "cut."  So, the commercialization of the holiday beg...

  Today is a day of both sadness and joy in the lives of Christians everywhere.  Good Friday is the day when Jesus was beaten, bruised, rejected, torn, and ultimately hung on a cross to suffer, bleed, and die.  The ones who did not love Him, more or less hated Him, were glad to see this day come.  His mother, family and friends sobbed uncontrollably that day, I am sure!  They watched as their innocent Loved One was beyond cruelly treated.   Why did this have to happen? Jesus came into this world with one task, and one task only -- to ultimately die on the cross to bridge that gap that separated us from God.  It was a horrible death - just horrible.  I have heard pastors over the years described the things were taking place in His body as he was dying on that cross.  It tears my heart to know that while He was on that tree for you and for me that He saw me.  He saw me in my angry state, my pitiful condition - my times when I wallow in th...

  We have Irish heritage in our family.  I think of that especially on St. Patrick's Day.  I don't know the background of this holiday, so as usual, I have looked it up.  (fyi - I'm listening to Rod Stewart singing "Forever Young" while typing this :)     This date is the traditional date on which Saint Patrick died.  It is a recognized day for which to commemorate Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland.  It is said that he used the shamrock to explain the Trinity!!  As a homeschooler I think that is a pretty neat thing -- those things are all over in the spring/summer!!  Anyway, St. Patrick's Day is a time where Lenten restrictions are lifted for that day.  Celebrations are held all over and recognized by many denominations.  For several years now there have been many celebrations that last for several days.  I have gotten this information from this website .  It is an interesting read - I will tak...

I had posted earlier that we were going to do a project on the days of Creation.  I had posted an idea that I saw on  Pinterest .    I showed the idea to Sarah, and we came up with a book.  We did our activity a little differently than the one I had seen.  She and I talked about the days. I wrote down what she said, and she copied it.  She drew the numbers above the sentences.  We looked together through magazines for pictures that would go with what was created on that day.  Sarah then took her pictures and made kind of like a collage on the number. It was fun and not too hard - except for the extra help from our 3 year-old!  LOL!  I would love to do something like that again.  It was a good first experience with notebooking.  I think I will even try this with my older daughter with some of her studies! As usual I try to find a little song to go along with the post.  This is a cute little song that I came acros...

  A typical Valentine's for most is to go out for dinner, a movie and have some flowers and candy.  Ours had the dinner and candy, but after that we went to our friends' house and practiced for a singing that we would have at our church.  It was late when we got home.  As we went up our hill, we came upon a bunch of emergency vehicles, fire and smoke.   The first thing I thought was, "Oh Lord!  Our home is on fire!  Bear is in the bathroom!  Our things are gone!"  When we got over the hill, we were so glad to see that we were not losing our home.  Due to the high winds that had been blowing that day, a power line had come down and caused a brush fire.  That fire burned 6 acres!    We safely got into the house and began to find candles and flashlights.  We had to settle everyone in as best as we could - remember we have 5 children and that night had a friend spending the night :0).  We were too excited to ge...

  Well, another Valentine's Day is approaching.  Some people see it as a conspiracy of the candy, card, flower industries.  I never have looked into what the history is behind this special day.  All I know is that from the moment I realized that I got candy and cards, I LOVED that day.   I just read a little on the subject.  The pagan side of it is just gross - I definitely don't like the information there!  The saint side of it is interesting.  There were two thoughts on this - one that the person was trying to free Christians.  This story also mentioned that the Saint Valentine may have fallen in love with one of the people he rescued.  The second story was one where the Saint helped people get married even though Emperor Claudius II said that young men were not to marry - made it a law!  Very interesting!   I didn't know about the ideas behind Valentine's Day.  My thoughts on it are ones of love toward my family and f...