My father-in-law likes to sit on his deck and watch the birds in the morning. He knows several individual birds by sight and has named them. My boys like to sit with him during visits and share that special time with Pap. Sometimes, between visits, they talk about birds on the phone. There have been bird books, houses and feeders for presents. Thursday morning my older son told me he saw a bird fly out of the bird box. We looked inside and there are 5 bluebird eggs! I have been noticing the bluebirds lately, but didn't know they had anything "going on." Actually I have seen more birds this spring than I remember from last year. I have been wondering if it is because there has been some logging and development growth close by this year. We have also been seeing deer and never had before. So I did a little research and found out that bluebirds are in danger. Their numbers have been significantly decreasing, by 90%, in the last 150 years or so. NC has a bluebird conservation society, as do other states. The former owner must have known that because there are 3 bluebird boxes on our property. (I did not know they were for bluebirds until I started this research.) So we took some pictures of the eggs and nest and plan to keep a bird journal of what happens. We will also clean up the other two bird boxes and see if we can't attract some more couples. What an exciting thing to happen to this bird watching family!

I haven't posted in a while because this past week I was practicing the discipline of taming my tongue. I am in a spiritual growth group and once a week we choose an activity to practice a disclipline. This week I chose to "only speak when necessary". It has been extremely difficult for me. I felt like that included email, blogging, snail mail, and speech. So I have tried to only respond to inquiries that required a response. Here is what I learned:

• I like to talk, NEED to talk, more than I realized.
• I was more aware of what I was saying when I was talking.
• Failure is a learning process. At the beginning of the week I would say something and think how I had failed, because what I said was not necessary. But as the week went by I was able to hold my tongue more.
• Talking wastes a lot of time.

One funny thought...I was working in the garden on Saturday and wishing my youger son would come out and talk to me so I could talk as well. The funny thing is, I often wish he wouldn't talk so much!

"That was so much fun, Mom!" What a wonderful thing to hear from your child. My 9 year old really enjoyed flying kites this weekend. He loved being better at it than others; the boost of self-esteem that he needed so badly this week. He liked seeing the kite soar so high that you couldn't see the string any more. He liked the bright colors against the blue sky. And, he said, he liked the feeling of control he had over something. He could make the kite fly higher or lower, change it's direction, even make it dive. Then he said something that has been in my mind since, "But you only feel like you are in control. If the wind stops or changes there is really nothing you can do about how it flies." Isn't that Life? You can go along for quite some time feeling like you are in control. The colors are pretty against the sky, you go where you want and do as you please. Then the wind changes. You are thrown out of kilter and there is nothing you can do about it. You aren't in control after all. A lesson to learn at any age.

What a fabulous weekend. My husband didn't have to teach at the college this weekend, so we got to have a little "spring break" as a family. We just did things around the house on Friday evening. Saturday we took the boys to a local christian book store to see the premiere of the new Veggie Tales DVD. We left there to pick up a little KFC and go to a church picnic at the town commons. The kids flew kites and played games. We visited and ate and helped with the kites. Then after church today, we flew kites some more. I borrowed a billy goat from the neighbors, in hopes that we will get some kids. Then the boys and I picked up branches out of the yard and made a camp fire to roast marshmallows. I worked in the garden and have about 2/3 of it cleared of weeds and grass from last year. I watered my new fruit orchard and watched over my flock of chickens. We saw some deer at the edge of the wood and yesterday I bird watched with my younger son. I'm sure the farmer driving by on his tractor thought I had flipped my lid. I was sitting on the roof of the fort and Amos had gone in to get something for his back pack. So it looked like I was out there by myself. I am so very abundantly blessed. Thank you God for this weekend. You are so very generous.

I am currently reading A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson. It is a devotional book about the Psalms of Ascent. The following is about Psalm 122. "...That is the reality. That is the truth of our lives. God made us, redeems us, provides for us. The natural, honest, healthy, logical response to that is praise to God. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being. But very often we don't feel like it, and so we say, "It would be dishonest for me to go to a place of worship and praise God when I don't feel like it. I would be a hypocrite." The psalm says, I don't care whether you feel like it or not: as was decreed, "give thanks to the name of the Lord." I have put great emphasis on the fact that Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But I have never said that we worship because we feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians only worshiped when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship that went on. Feelings are important in many areas, but completely unreliable in matters of faith. Paul Scherer is laconic, "The Bible wastes very little time on the way we feel." We live in what one writer has called the "age of sensation". We think that if we don't feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different, namely, that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act which develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God which is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured. Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God- it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship- it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week. The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security. Our every day needs are changed by the act of worship. We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security."

About 8 years ago, when we lived in the Philadelphia area, my husband worked nights. We had a baby, about 10 or so months old, and he would cry so fretfully at night. Being new parents we didn't know what to do, and had been told to let him cry so he "can learn to sleep through the night." Then when the in-laws came to visit, they said that something was frightening the baby while he was asleep. Soon after that, at the advice of an older man, we began praying that the evil that was frightening our baby would stop. Sleep began to be peaceful soon after. Not long after that, when my husband would be at work, I started having a feeling of something evil being in the apartment. I didn't think it was my imagination. There would be a difference in the air and sometimes I would get a glimpse of something like a red light flashing past in the other room. I started telling the "presence" that it couldn't come in here because we belong to Jesus Christ. It stopped coming. I haven't thought about that in a long time, but 2 weeks ago it came rushing back in on me. I was atttending a seminar on prayer that my husband was teaching. During one of the practice sessions Jesus came and sat across from me. He told me that he heard me in Philadelphia when the evil was around me. Then he came around to my left side and put his arms around me and let me rest my head on his chest. What a feeling of pleasure and peace. I don't know why Jesus wanted to tell me that now. I am hoping that it doesn't mean it is about to happen again, but whatever it means, I am happy to know that Jesus hears me and is concerned.

When we left the last home I planted a bunch of things to try to help the selling of the house. It looked so nice and I vowed to not wait the next time. So yesterday I bought some trees. The purpose was three-fold. I want some trees to help hide the housing development that is going in across the field from us. I also think it will help the field look nicer and provide some shade for the animals. I have also wanted some fruit trees for a long time so we can harvest the fruit. I got 4 apple, 2 pear, 1 plum, and 1 peach. I also got some grape and blackberry vines and some blueberry bushes. People might say we are a little "fruity" now. I am looking forward to the fresh fruit in a couple of years. When I told my husband what I spent I asked if it was worth it. "Are you worth it? Yes. Are the trees worth it? No." I told him to imagine the trees are me, because they will make me very happy. I will plant the trees this week, starting this afternoon. The weather is gorgeous here. A lot of trees are in full bloom and many others are popping out. Now that we are over the flu, I should be able to get back to the garden again as well. I love working outside! The kids are enjoying it too. They have been outside since they got up this morning and are still playing quite hard. I told them we will have book lessons after supper tonight. Enjoy the weather while you can. Another advantage to home schooling. Thank you God, for spring, new trees, land to play on, and kids to enjoy it. You have blessed us abundantly. May I never quit praising you or take this for granted.

Our family has been suffering a local virus for about a week now. One family member has remained unaffected- remarkably. It is fever, aches, and chills. I continued to work through it and so it is still lingering. I just finished a book, Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America. The author spent a month each in three different cities and tried to make it on hourly wage jobs. One of the bosses was very reluctant to let anyone miss work. He said, "You just have to work through it." How long can you continue that kind of life though? There were several points that stuck with me, but the sharpest was housing. Poverty level is based on food prices. Therefore, minimum wage is based on food prices. But the price of housing has not at all stayed connected to the price of food. So many working poor are that way because of housing costs. I have noticed around here that there are not any houses in our price range any longer. The Lord certainly blessed us with this house and land last year. Yet, we are a very middle-income family. There should be affordable, good housing available. But the city is growing and all of it has been taken quickly. If it is anything like the book, I am sorry for those who got here a year late.