Today was my day to judge speeches at the Nationals for the NCFCA (National Christian Forensics and Communications Association – whew!). I judged a couple of years ago at the Regionals and had a blast, so I jumped at the invitation to judge at the Nationals (which are being held in Birmingham). The NCFCA is a very large, very well organized speech and debate association for homeschoolers. I think it must have just been getting started when I graduated, because I had not heard of it until after I was out of school. However, it has become “all the rage” in the past few years with many of the homeschool families that I know.

Disclaimer: I greatly respect homeschoolers, was homeschooled myself, and plan on homeschooling my child(ren). Everything I say below is meant in fun and is not meant to negatively shade homeschoolers in any way.

Being a former homeschooler (all 12 years! Never “went” to school until college), it’s always interesting to “resubmerge” myself in the homeschool culture. And every time that I do, I am always very aware of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the last nine years. What I remember about “homeschooling culture” was that I, known as a complete goody-two-shoes by all of my non-homeschooling friends, felt like the complete rebel and very worldly in homeschool world. Mainly because I didn’t wear denim jumper dresses with tennishoes and tall white socks, talk quietly (or not at all), and wear my hair extraordinarily long and very unkempt. Oh, and I wore makeup and shaped my eyebrows .

Not to say that there weren’t other homeschoolers “like me”, in fact, and all of my friends were “like me”. But anytime I went to some sort of homeschooling conference or get-together, I certainly felt outnumbered.

I was one of those homeschool kids that could pick out any other “homeschooler” within 500 feet, but would have completely freaked out if I thought that anyone else could pick me out of a crowd as a “homeschooler”.

ANYWAY, the world of homeschooling is definitely becoming more modern. Not to say that you can’t still easily find those socially and physically awkward kids – they are definitely still there (and to be honest there are those kids in all schools – ever seen “Beauty and the Geek”? I haven’t heard of any of those guys being homeschooled yet), but there are many more “modern”, “normal” kids homeschooling. So much so, in fact, that I went to meet my Mom at a homeschool DANCE last year and was, first of all, amazed that homeschoolers were dancing (we’ve come a long way from denim jumpers), and second of all, amazed at all of the “goth“, “emo“, and other types of ultra-mod, ultra-cool kids that would have made me look like a “homeschooler” compared to them.

Today was another opportunity to see the “new homeschooling culture” – there was quite a lot of kids that you’d never be able to pick out of a crowd as a homeschooler, but there were also still some more “typical” homeschoolers.

Disclaimer section over. Now for the unbelievable amazingness of these kids:

What astonished me was the level of preparedness and knowledge that these kids had to have to do what they did today. I judged Extemporaneous speeches, which means that they are given a choice of three topics thirty minutes before giving a seven minute speech about the topic that they just laid eyes on for the first time. They all had an introduction, stated the question, had two or three well thought out points, and a conclusion. AND, they have to have multiple sources and properly cite them!! The ones I heard quoted at least 6 different articles or books. From what I’ve heard, these kids have boxes of magazine and newspaper articles with them to hopefully be able to find articles that relate to their speech (I do not think that they are allowed to use the internet during their 30 minute prep time). Sounds pretty hard, right? Oh, but it’s so much harder. Here are the topics that I judged today :
1. Will Saakashvili’s election promote Georgia (the country, people) to NATO membership?
2. Can the new administration in Kenya clean out years of corruption?
3. Can Malawi’s agricultural success be repeated throughout the continent?
4. Will recent election successes move Serbians away from the recent deadly tensions?
5. Can anything end Mugabe’s reign of power to end the violence in Zimbabwe?
6. Will South Africa get serious about fighting crime after the disbanding of their special forces?

OK – I admit that I could not have put together a single intelligent paragraph about any of these issues. I just don’t stay in tune to international situations. I was particularly glad that the following question wasn’t chosen by one of the students: “Is the international community finally making headway with the Janjaweed?” because I would have thought it was some sort of war on drugs issue. For those of you as uninformed as me, after looking it up, I discovered that the Janjaweed are armed gunmen in Darfur, Sudan, and Chad.

So, you are wondering, “how were you qualified to judge??”, and I can say that I think I did a pretty decent job – I remember quite a bit from my speech class in college (which is really amazing, considering that I have a very poor long term memory), and so I was able to judge them on their technique, ability to clearly state and follow their outline, and, since I knew nothing about their topics, I could judge their ability to educate and convince me all at once. It was a very fun experience – I wish I could judge more of the events this week, particularly humorous interpretations and duo interpretations sound like fun to me. If you want to judge, it’s going on all week long at Berry High School and they need over 1,000 judges. Sign up at NCFCAjudges.com or email me for more info.

Altogether, I was blown away by the talent, preparedness, poise, and abilities of these kids!! From their abilities in public speaking, it looks to me like the NCFCA’s underlying purpose is to prepare a WHOLE bunch of homeschooling kids to run for president one day, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Especially since they wear makeup and shape their eyebrows nowadays. ;)

We took Ali to the beach right over the bridge, which is great because it is shaded by the bridge. Also, it’s on the bay side, so the waves were gentle “lake” waves. Ali LOVED it. She had a blast! The pictures will commentate enough, so I’ll quit now, and let Ali tell you about her trip to the beach!

Sad news – Eli can’t come home today. His heart rate dropped in the middle of the night, so his 5 days of heart rate monitoring start over. He won’t get to come home until at least Thursday. JC and Lindsay are very disappointed, but know that its definitely better that it happened there than at home. Be praying that he will have an awesome five days and will be completely ready to come home on Thursday!

I am relaxing on the couch, sipping a caffeine-free coke, watching the sunset over Wolf Bay at Orange Beach, and blogging – my favorite hobby. It’s completely quiet. Ali’s asleep, Chris and (his Aunt) Kitty are gone to the store, and Unka Leo is down in the basement working. Ahhh. . . it was all worth it.

OK – I have to admit – I have been not really looking forward to today, because every time we take a long trip in the car, I never know how Ali is going to do – especially regarding naps.

I am blessed with a child that naps very well (usually), but that also means that she needs her sleep. However, she naps very well with a caveat – in her bed, in the dark, with her noisemaker on. So, car trips are always a 50/50 shot at best.

At the beginning of the week, it was an AWESOME nap week. She was laying right down and going to sleep (no long pillow talk conversations with herself like usual), and she was sleeping over 5 hours in two naps. I actually almost blogged about it Tuesday night, but then decided not to because I didn’t want to jinx myself. Apparently, it IS the thought that counts, because I was definitely jinxed. She skipped one of her naps Wednesday AND Thursday – VERY odd for her. She is 98% consistent on taking two naps a day (and NO, Dad, I don’t know that stat for sure – just a guess. It’s not on my stats page). So, I REALLY wasn’t sure how today would go. Then, this morning, as I had suspected might happen, she didn’t fall asleep for her morning nap. Now keep in mind, Ali is nearly never awake for more than three hours at a time (I told you she liked her sleep). She woke up at 7:30, and we left for the beach at 12:15, completely napless so far. I figured maybe it wouldn’t take her long to fall asleep. However, Daddy mentioned that we would be stopping for “fries”, and her excitement about fries kept her hopping ’til we got to Arby’s. She had her fries, and then I settled her in for a nap. No luck. One hour, two hours, a poop. . .somewhere in there I got stressed. So after changing the diaper, I had an eye to eye with her, and told her that Mommy needed her to go night night. Soon after that, at 2:15, she FINALLY fell asleep. For 45 minutes. Oh well. At least she got some sleep.

When I finally admitted to myself that she wasn’t going to fall back asleep, I got out our “experiment” – the portable DVD player. Ali has never had any interest in TV – won’t really even look at it. This probably is more due to the fact that we rarely have it on while she’s awake than her lack of interest. But we thought, maybe, just maybe, if she was a captive audience stuck in a carseat, it might help make her journey more fun. Sure enough, she was mesmerized! We put in Veggie Tales first, and she LOVED it – she rocked back and forth to the music, clapped, laughed, sang, and screamed in glee! It was a HIT. We had just as much fun watching her love it! After that, I put in Baby Einstein (I had come to the conclusion that they were mind-meltingly-infantile because the one I had watched was horribly dull, but our small group told us we needed to try a different one – that some were really good. We have about 5 that we had never opened, so on their advice we gave it another try). She liked it, and was still intrigued for a while, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting to her as V.T. Could be that V.T. was first, and so it got the best of her attention, but it really seemed clear that she prefers dancing, singing vegetables to beng an Einstein.
All in all, the trip wasn’t bad. Ali didn’t cry at all (she’s really out of the crying phase – for now. I’ve heard that comes back around two years old. . . ), and she just whined a little, but nothing that animal crackers or Elmo couldn’t solve. If it weren’t for me getting stressed and worrying about her making it through dinner without having a breakdown (which she hasn’t had in ages – I don’t know why I still worry about that), it would have been a perfectly pleasant trip! But I got over it and we enjoyed the rest of our trip.

I don’t know why I worry so much. Ali really is a joy – she is in such a wonderful phase. She hardly fusses, is obedient and submissive, and is very, very happy. One day, hopefully, in my search to be more subjective, I will learn to chill out. See, now I’m worried that I’m going to jinx myself again, talking about what a joy Ali is. Chill…chill. :)

We’re planning on taking Ali to the beach tomorrow, so I’m sure I’ll have some fun pictures to post! And, stay tuned for updates on Baby Eli coming home!!!

JC and Lindsay just got a call from the hospital, and Eli gets to come home tomorrow!!!! YAY!
We are leaving today to go down to the beach for the weekend, so I won’t be around for his homecoming :(, but HOPEFULLY they will take some GREAT pictures (hint, hint, JC, Lindsay, Mom and Dad!!), and I can post them from the beach, or when I get back!

Before I get to today’s blog, I owe a picture of adorable puppies!!! These are my pup-nieces and pup-nephews! Aren’t they cute? Don’t you want one?!?!?

Now, to today. Today was a Zoo day!!!

Ali and I had to stop by work (job #1 – Slappey Telephone) before going to the zoo, though. Bill (Slappey) made a second comment in a week about Ali being a productivity stopper (joking – or at least half joking) because everyone quits working and plays with her for a minute. I explained to Bill that she was nothing of the sort! In fact, she was quite the Morale Booster for the company! I told him that the whole accounting department could be glum and stressed out, but as soon as we came in the building, there were screams of glee and immediate smiles and cooing! Immediately, it was like a lightbulb went off in his head – “OH, this baby is GOOD for the company.” So he insisted on making a sign and putting it on her back:
He is infamous for spelling things wrong, and on his first try, he wrote “Slappey Moral Booster”. I told him that he needed to add the “e” – that she was definitely a Morale Booster, not a Moral Booster, unless you wanted to say she was an example of what happens if you’re not celibate. ;) However, he said he’d pay for it if I would get her a t-shirt made that said “Slappey Morale Booster” on it.

So after we left the office and I managed to un-paper-clip Ali’s sign, we headed to the zoo to meet AJ and Ashley!! It was a HOT day for the zoo, but it was still fun! Chris would have totally laughed at Ashley and I, as we both had on long pants. Chris wears shorts every day of the year, including to work, as long as it is above his official cutoff of 50 degrees (which is most days in Alabama).

Anyway, here is a picture of the girls holding hands in the butterfly exhibit: I have been dying to go into the Lorikeet exhibit, because I have NEVER gotten to go in there before, and it looks so fun!! You pay $1.50 for a little cup of “nectar”, and you go in and all the birds land on you and drink the nectar. So we bought the nectar and headed in. Ali was a little taken aback by the birds landing on me, but she was also intrigued. Of course, being the adventurous Mommy that I am, I handed the little cup of nectar to my 17 month old so that the birds would land on her. What does she do? Well, of course, being a 17 month old, she immediately dumps our nectar onto the ground. No more nectar. However, the birds would still come to me for a minute, until they realized that I had nothing for them. Here are a couple of pictures of me holding a Lorikeet for Ali to look at (and Ali holding our now empty cup of nectar):
I want to go back and stay in the Lorikeet exhibit longer. And try to hold onto the nectar next time. It was really fun! And Ali really enjoyed watching, if not touching or holding, the Lorikeets.

Ali in the Kangaroo exhibit: “Big Zoo, Little Girl”It was almost time to leave, and I wanted an opportunity to play with my “continuous shot” feature on my new camera. So, I told AJ to give Ali a hug. Here she is going in for the hug. . .
The hug. . . .
And, the double fall resulting from the hug.

All in all, we had an awesome time at the zoo! Ali was sure to tell everyone bye-bye by name – “bye bye Tiger, bye bye AJ, bye bye Zoo. . . “.

Hello, Eli Readers!!

I just talked to JC and got the update on Eli. He is still eating great – 45-50 cc’s! (45 cc’s is 1.5 ounces.) He is up to 3 pounds, 12 ounces! JC said that they could really tell how much he has grown, and that is very encouraging.

However, he probably will not get to come home on Friday, but they are still hoping that he will be able to come home this weekend. Although he has not had to go back on any medication, he has to be able to be in an open crib for two days (without his body temperature being regulated). The way it works is that they gradually decrease the temperature in the isolet (the plastic box) as his body temperature can keep up with it. When they get the temperature down to room temp and he can hold his body temperature, they put him in an open crib. They decreased the isolet almost to room temperature yesterday, but then his body temperature started falling. Since then, they have had to keep his isolet warmer than it was because he hasn’t quite caught up from his temperature drop yesterday. So, the prayer request is that they will be able to get him to room temperature soon and that he will be able to hold his body temperature consistently!! I know that they would really love for him to come home soon, but at the same time, they want to make sure he is ready to come home before he comes home.

JC and Lindsay are doing well, but they are TIRED. Going back and forth from the hospital on top of work is keeping them running ragged. Pray that they can get some rest and rejuvenation. Also, they still have a lot that they want to do at home in preparation for Eli’s arrival.

. . . the power of the mind.
Both Chris and I had opportunities/situations today where we realized how very powerful our attitudes are to our own wellbeing and to the wellbeing of those around us. It seems to me that 75% of a person’s happiness in a given situation depends on the attitude they have about it, and the attitudes that others sharing their situation have about it.

I know that so far this sounds like a bunch of self-help, “power of the mind” mish mash, but it’s not – it is completely scriptural.

I remember that my Mom had a framed piece of art when I was growing up of Philippians 4:8 –

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

– and I remember always picturing in my head 18th century Puritans from books I had read who were only supposed to think “holy” thoughts on Sundays – and how bored they always were in said books. That verse just always seemed so dull and pietous when I would read it, and I was not at all interested in being so very “holy”. But, in the past few years I have discovered that it is a verse that is as much for our OWN good and health as it is for our holiness. It’s amazing how many scriptural principals that our really for us instead of God!! :) It seems like every time that God teaches me something about His Word, He shows me how it benefits ME, not just Him.

Back to the point: when I am positive, when I am looking at things through the light of Christ and the perspective of Eternity, I am automatically happier, more fulfilled, less anxious, less stressed, and more useful to God to speak into the lives of others. When I am allowing myself to focus on the negatives and think about all the problems in my life, I am completely useless to God, so fragile that the least bit of rocking my boat sends me into a tailspin, and I am downright miserable.

I have had plenty of both of these states of mind in my life.

But in particular what I have been thinking about today is how our thought patterns affect those around us nearly as much as they affect us. My thought patterns lead to my attitude, which leads to my reactions, words, and body language to others. And whoever I am around, I am practically oozing my thoughts out onto them at all times, and covering them with my attitudes. I have the opportunity to be an awesome encouragement if I am keeping the Mind of Christ, or I can be an oppressing force of negative worldview if I am allowing myself to wallow in negative thoughts.

Moreover, I have learned that if my own situations and stress make it difficult to be positive, I can still consciously make the effort to reflect Christ’s Light to others rather than making them share in my current stress. I have been good and bad at this in different times of my life for sure, but since we’re focusing on the positive, I will use my best run at this as my example. I think that the time that I had the most victory in this area in my life was when I was an Accounting Manager. I felt all too much the responsibility and stresses of my job, but just as strongly I was aware of how much my attitude and perspective on my job directly affected my employees. I had my days where I let my stress show through, but for the most part, I dealt with my stress at lunch with God and my Bible at the picnic table out back. I was able to (hopefully) set the tone for my department of positivity, and not fussing or backbiting or complaining. It was actually some of the hardest years in my life, but through God’s Grace, He constantly reminded me that it would be better for me and for those I was responsible for if I did not allow my stress to bleed through to my attitude.

I want to be more aware of this on a daily basis like I was then. My happiness, positivity and joy for life will directly affect my family, my friends, and my co-workers.

Here are some more verses and thoughts on it:

Psalm 13:1-3
How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.

I think that I prayed that verse many times during those difficult years of work. It isn’t fun overcoming your thought life and keeping it from ruling your life. In at least two other specific times in my life I allowed my thoughts to get the best of me and the enemy definitely triumphed over me. Those were the most miserable times in my life!
I want God to cleanse my mind and renew me to think THROUGH Christ and not of myself!!

Psalm 94:11
The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile.

How true. Our thoughts will almost always lead us into trouble without God’s hand governing them.

Ephesians 2
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Through God’s grace to us who have looked on Him for salvation, we have been freed from those thoughts!! We can live in freedom by accepting God’s gift and living through Christ!

Romans 13:14
clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

. . . but we must still CHOOSE not to dwell on ourselves.

Ephesians 4:17-18
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Living according to our own thinking leads to ignorance and hard hearts!

And finally, the whole passage in context,
Philippians 4:6-9
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

What an amazing promise!! God will guard our minds in Christ Jesus if we ask him to!!! He will help us have right thoughts and positive attitudes!!