Spring has Sprung...

I love springtime in Texas. The shades of green are numerous. Everywhere you look you see trees budding, flowers blooming and birds nesting. This is probably the best time of year to live in Texas. Springtime always makes me want to garden, to get out of the house and into the open. I even love the weeds at this time of year. My favorite springtime activity is to go wildflower hunting. Thanks to Lady Bird Johnson we have wildflowers springing up all over the highways. Of course, no spring would be complete without pictures in the bluebonnets. My sisters and I will drag husbands and kids kicking and screaming to some highway field and make everyone squat down to get a good picture. Because we're making memories..."whether you like it or not!" Ahhh...springtime!

Hey...watch this!

Dads and their toys. Jim had a great idea for cleaning out the patch inside the old chicken coop fence. Why not burn it away? I wonder if he had to fill out a background check and wait 3 days to buy the flame thrower? B. was standing ready to grab the hose if necessary. Men...whaddya gonna do?

SMART CHILDREN...Misguided Parents

Check out the article below. Someone has studied the effects of telling children that they are smart. It turns out that's the worst thing you can do for a child. The better option is to praise them for the effort.

http://tinyurl.com/yo73qb

I have noticed some of the same effects in my daughter T. I've always told her she's smart, but if the task is hard she just gives up. Turns out that's a natural response for children who are told that their smart. For these children, they would rather not risk failure than try something new. They often need more assurance, etc.

Anyway, check it out. Turns out the self-esteem gurus were wrong...another strike out for the left. Hmmm, what are the public schools going to do with all that self-esteem curriculum they invested in?

NEWS AT ELEVEN!!

Peter the Cat snuffs out Peter Cottontail

During school on Friday we received a rather gruesome present from our "berry, berry bad kitty". Peter the Cat brought a baby rabbit that was about 5 inches in length to our back door. He was so proud of his catch and the girls were so horrified. The rabbit was still alive and tried to run away while Peter was trying to spit out rabbit fur. He proceeded to eat ALL of Peter Cottontail except the head. We couldn't watch the carnivorous cat enjoy his sumptuous meal. When we returned later to the scene of the crime all that was left was a trail of blood and a bunny head. Peter then came inside laid down and took a nap. Not long after this the Grandview rabbicide team was reading Peter his Miranda rights!

We went this last weekend to see "Amazing Grace" the story of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce worked for 20 years as a Member of the British Parliament to end the slave trade and eventually slavery. The movie was phenomenal. I had read about Wilberforce in a Christian History magazine about 10 years ago and knew him to be an amazing man, but I didn't realize that he was such close friends with William Pitt (the Prime Minister), Olaudah Equiano (the slave who bought his freedom and wrote about his experiences on a slave ship) and John Newton (the former slave trader who was converted and eventually wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". I would highly recommend this movie. It is so well done.

Of course I dragged my husband and children to the movie. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from T. who had just checked out a book from the library and wanted to read that instead. It didn't help that we went to the cheap $2 theater in Cleburne. There's a reason its only $2. The film must have been formatted for a wide screen and played on a full screen because all the people were short and fat and looked like hobbits. Then, in most of the scenes you could see the boom mike used in filming just above the actors heads. So distracting. We asked for our money back then drove to two more theaters before we found one that was showing it.

B. and I really liked it. A. said she liked it and T. of course said she didn't like it. But I think she was determined NOT to like it. I think it was a little above their heads but it still exposed them to a great man. I will definitely buy this one when it comes out on DVD.

I am currently attempting to slog my way through Tolstoy's "War and Peace". It's one of my life goals...to read all the classics. The story is actually pretty good when it deals with the Rostov family, however, the war with Napoleon gets long. I must admit though it is giving me a more clear picture of why Napoleon was despised by the European royalty. I loved "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. If I had my life to do over I just might major in Russian Studies. I find them fascinating.