“Learning is more important than grades.”

One of my favourite quotes from Little House on the Prairie is the above. I believe Pa says it to either Mary or Laura in the episode of Four Eyes. When I was public schooled back in my younger years, the center of my schooling was the grades, it would not matter if I didn’t know a thing but if I somehow made good grades it would be alright. But when we started my schooling at home in the comforts of true learning, the learning was the most important. Since the joys of educating at home, learning has meant more and is such a wonderful opportunity.

Yesterday, after a trip to the vet, piano, a trip to the library, my mother and I went to our weekly gathering with my aunt G, cousins Breezy and Emily, Auntie Robin, and my Granny. Mom and I arrived first and while we were there Granny was taking pictures of the deer that had gathered, around maybe 15 or so, in her fields across the road. I was then given instructions to slither across and get some close up pictures. I went across the road, then a little farther, then a little farther, and then a little farther. The deer didn’t budge. Meanwhile my aunt G. was arriving and saw me across the fields extremely close to the deer. She decided to take pictures of me taking pictures- our family loves cameras.

This first pictures is humorous for there are multiple deer just in front of me and….what am I looking at?

I then straightened up and kept clicking away at the deer.

My mom is a quilter. She quilts by hand, machine, and love. Her excitable ties to fabric is just one of her loves about quilting. So, a few days ago, she decided that we were going to make a quilt together, since we have plenty of opportunities to be using our hands; readings during school, while watching movies, during our nightly bible reading, etc. So we began two days ago and have been cutting out 2 inch squares of fabric and sewing them together to make pairs, and then we’ll make fours, then eights, etc. until we have a big comfy quilt to let all of our cares fade into. We don’t know if it will go into my hope chest or in our blanket basket for everyday use.

We have only been working on it for two days and this is how much has been completed in a leisurely pace. We think it just might get finished before we thought…

When we hear sin we think of God’s commandments against them and then almost a direct link in thought of murder, lust, adultery, theft, idolatry, and dishonour. However one sin that is mostly disregarded until we stumble upon it is gluttony.

Gluttony: greedy or excessive indulgence

Gluttony is not necessarily a lust for food but anything that we over indulge in. No matter what it is, God tells us that it is better to take a knife to our throats than to be a glutton. (Proverbs 23:2) Today our society is filled with gluttony of all shapes and forms. We are to indulge in anything as much as we want as long as it makes us happy, but as Christians who follow Christ we are to deny ourselves the sinful pleasures of what we want.

In our morning Bible studies, Mom and I have been going over gluttony and I have been convicted more and more through the daily lessons about my gluttony for food. I realized how much I indeed take more than what I need and in a way that is not healthy. I used to take another homemade cinnamon roll just because and a few more instances were the same, however after studying the hatred God has for gluttony, I have become more aware of the daily plunges that I usually take.

And I do not want to be “semi fasting” and take everything to the extremist levels, but God has set standards for us to follow in our walk. And most of gluttony is in the heart not necessarily the hand or mouth. God also knows every situation that we find ourselves in and knows the right course of actions, therefore He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us through standards that do not seem to pin point  clarity.

I have made a little memory list about how to try to keep myself from gluttony of food:

~when eating take only what you need and try your hardest not to take a second when you are well and full
~think about if God would consider your eating habits  the same as gluttony
~Pray to God to help you with gluttony - to avoid and heal from it
~think about more than the moment - if it isn’t helping in the long run it won’t due much good in the short

As a reader, history lover, writer enthusiast, and avid dreamer I sometimes ponder a little too much what my life would’ve been if I had been born a couple centuries earlier. And since I have a very active imagination, it is sometimes easy to lose my focus on something for I can will dream about it until it is almost material before my eyes.

But what happens when I let my dreams and imaginings get away with blocking out things that are important. Is it possible for me to dream too much about trying to wish myself into a different age? I have come to the conclusion that it is possible. I can dream all I want, but I am not eagerly accepting God’s will to have been placed in the exact day and age that He has put me in, in the right manner. He has a purpose for my life far greater than my own will.

So the next time you or I “Oh if I had been born____!” we need to remind ourselves that it is okay to admire the age we want to live in, but not to go too far as to silently slip into your own world without remembering that God has placed us here and now without any mistake.

Accompany Your Wife to Church

Never let your wife go to church alone on Sunday. You can hardly do a worse thing as regards her good opinion of you, and the well being of your household.It is a pitiable sight to see a young wife going towards the church door unattended, alone in the midst of a crowd, with her thoughts dwelling, it may be very sadly, on the time when you were proud to walk beside her. Remember that the condition of a young bride is often a very solitary one; and that for your sake she has left her parent’s roof, and the companionship of her brothers and sisters. If you are a professional man, your wife may have to live in the neighborhood of a large city, where she scarcely knows any one, and without those agreeable domestic occupations, or young associates, among whom she had grown up. Her garden and poultry yard are hers no longer, and the day passes without the light of any smile but yours. You go off, most probably after breakfast, to your business or profession, and do not return till a late dinner; perhaps even not then, if you are much occupied or had to keep up professional connections. It seems unmanly, certainly most unkind, to let your young wife go to church on Sunday without you, for the common place satisfaction of lounging at home.

A little bit from my decorum book that speaks on accompanying your wife to church. I just chuckle at the sentence about her garden and her homesickness- it is so old fashionly adorable.

“One of the most amusing and inexpensive pleasures for a creature is the echo.”

from the mind of the Painter

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.