thanks.

Waste Not

My small group has been reading the book by John Piper "Don't Waste Your Life". I recommend this book to anyone, but I am not going to talk so much about the book but more about a decision I made because of reading the book and feeling a tugging at my heart. I decided to give up television and facebook for a week. Not so hard, you might say. Well, it honestly wasn't. But I've had quite a few people ask me "Why?" so I thought I'd explain. First, I read this from Piper's book:

"Television is one of the greatest life wasters of the modern age....The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacit of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why.

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk....Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death."

-John Piper Don't Waste Your Life
It got me to thinking about the reasons I watch tv and get on Facebook. I couldn't really come up with any GOOD answers. I guess the biggest reason is to literally waste time. Most shows I watch are not quality, informative programming. They don't do much more than to provide a background for whatever else it is I'm doing. Or not doing. Sometimes I turn on the tv when I'm bored. Because it's there. It beckons "turn me on, I'll help keep you mildly entertained for a while". The same is true, for the most part, for Facebook (oh sure, I keep up with friends and family far away, but mostly, I just got on because I was wanting to waste some time). Thinking all this over I came to the conclusion that I have so much more LIFE to be living and that I am called to live it, not waste it. So for a week I watched no tv and did not get on Facebook. Oh, I fretted "What if I miss something?", "What if someone tries to contact me and thinks I am rude for not replying?". Well, those are silly reasons. Guess what? A tornado hit the city I live in, people tried to contact me, and I didn't get on FB or turn on the TV. And I'm still here. My friends still like me. The tornado would have come whether or not I knew about it. The destruction would have been there whether or not I turned on the tv to gawk at it like a rubber necker at an accident. So, I gave up Facebook and tv to start living life a little more. What did I do? How did things differ from before? Now that it is over, have things changed? Well, I spent more quality time with my daughter, dog, and husband, spent more quality time in the Word, and was able to find time to do more things for others, even silly things just to say "thinking about you". Today was day one of being back to 'normal'. I turned on the morning news for a little while, checked Facebook, even uploaded a video! But my attitude about it was different. It wasn't something I was doing just to waste time, I had a purpose, I fulfilled that purpose, and I moved on. Do I think I had some sort of "problem" with TV or FB? No. No more than any of you reading this. Do I think I am better than anyone for having given it up? Of course not. I do think I am a better ME, though. So, if you ask "why?" there you go. My life is being shaped and changed so that I live each day in an effort to glorify God and use this life wisely! And by the way, the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon (By Bill Watterson) has always made me laugh and is so appropriate I had to include it!

Messy

Sometimes life is messy. Literally and figuratively. When life (and children) give you messes, take a picture because then you'll laugh later!

Harper "reading"

Harper's favorite book currently is "Hurry Hurry" by Eve Bunting. In fact, we've read it so many times that she has memorized parts of it. Here she is "reading" it with her Daddy! (And no, we did not use 'Your Baby Can Read').

Happy Halloween!

Here is our sweet little chicken... she thoroughly enjoyed her costume and even liked to dance in it, which was super cute because all the feathers bounced. Thanks to Martha Stewart for the cute, easy, costume idea!

Chatter box

So, all non grandparents and non SLP's will probably not be interested in this post. However, this is the best way for me to keep up with all of Harper's developments. Harper is beginning to enter that 'language explosion' period. She is learning new words almost every day now. My favorite language development is that Harper (finally!) says 'mama' consistently!!! Not just when she wants to eat, but when she wants me to pick her up, when she just wants to see me, when she wants a kiss- she says mama! Yay! She also learned to say Poppa, which is what we call Jason's dad. Since he helped us with the yardwork she occasionally points to our new sod and says 'Poppa' as well! Usually she whispers it when she says it, which is so funny. She says 'go' all the time now. She uses it for different things, like when we are leaving daycare she usually says 'go!'. Then she says 'go' in response to 'ready, set...' when she goes down the slide. She says 'go' when we are grocery shopping when she thinks I've stopped the cart too long. So funny! She says 'hot' and 'hat' now. I don't think I've logged those before. She is so funny everytime she gets near the stove she waves her hand in front of her and says 'hot' with the final consonant! We have hats hanging by our garage door and she says 'hat' and touches her head which means she wants to put one on. She also tries to say 'War Eagle'. She waves her hand around in a circle in front of her and says "whoaaaaa"! She says 'shoe' very clearly now and labels any shoes she sees at home. She also likes to try to put our shoes on. She says 'yes' every now and then when we ask her a question but that isn't consistent yet. She now says no, too. My LEAST favorite word. Most of the time she says it to Toby. She actually spanked Toby one day after we had fussed at him for trying to eat Jason's dinner! We told her 'be gentle' and she petted him sweetly and hugged him. She also says 'nuh nuh nuh' if you pick her up and she doesn't want to be held. She said 'bus' yesterday when we left her daycare and she saw the bus they have parked there. She says door, but it sounds more like 'doh'. She has been imitating several two word phrases, as well, including 'go car', 'hi daddy', and 'close door'. She says 'hey' now when she picks up one of our cell phones and will whisper 'hey' while waving to people we see at the grocery store. She continues to be social and loves meeting new people. However, when in a new environment with lots of people she usually has quite the serious face and likes to just watch and observe for a little while before making friends. Physically she is now able to climb...anything. She climbs up steep stairs, climbs the ladder to her play set, tries to climb our bookshelf. She runs faster and faster each day (occasionally away from me!). She is still snuggly and still loves to eat everything. She still loves to read and in her favorite book (Hurry Hurry) she actually tries to read it out loud by herself and babbles the correct number of words and syllables per page (i.e. on the page that says 'Hurry, Hurry' she says /h^d^ h^d^/ and the page that says 'Ready? Read?' she says /rE^ rE^/). Sorry to those of you that don't know the IPA. It's fun to learn! I am so amazed by this little girl and my prayer is that I can be delighted in all she does and that in everything I do I can do it for God's glory. John Piper says even changing diapers. I'll keep working on that one! ;-)