Another month gone…this year is flying by. This is the first evening of my solitude. I must not stay on the computer to long. *What the Bible Says about Healthy Eating* arrived from PaperBack Swap today. I was excited that it looks NEW so I can put all my very own marks in it. {G}

Hmm….what did we do today. We turned the quail eggs - twice. We finished school. We are spending a couple of weeks studying Africa in the late 1800’s. It was fun to pull out pictures of myself in Africa and show the Arielle and Nolan my African dress. They were much more impressed with it than the picture in the DK dress of “traditional African embroidery”. Studying Africa has reminded me that THEY carry their babies on their backs tied around with a lapa and surely I can figure out something similar with the sling. We are reading *Trial by Poison* and enjoying that. I realized when looking over the books we’ve read this month that I need to do more missionary biography reading to the younger ones. I forget that the older ones heard them but not the younger ones. They need to know what a real hero is.

We spent a couple of hours at the park today. We had yummy spaghetti for dinner….that sauce is GOOD and well worth the time to simmer for 4 hours and such. I have a couple of gallons of it in the freezer now….4 quart size bags for Cy to use for his lunches and several big bags for 3 more family meals. Jamin and Jared did weights after dinner and the four younger ones and I went for a bike ride. Mike removed Nolan’s training wheels and he is doing great. He did fall into a patch of cockleburs today at the park….ouch. I’m wondering if I can get back to a.m. and p.m. walks…..

Zander had a rough day today. Change is always hard for him – maybe that is it. We had the time change and then Mike left this a.m. He told me that Mike is “chasing Bre and Krista”. I sure wish he understood where the girls are. I guess in time, he will. Oh – at the park he needed to go to the toilet….BUT he decided the outhouses were far to gross. I offered to drive him home but he said he didn’t need to go. 15 minutes later I looked up to see him buck naked aiming at the base of the teeter totter. Oh goodness! My GIRLS never did these things. I can’t think of a thing off program he has eaten so this must be change and the ole sin nature…consistency that’s what I need. Balance of grace and justice.

I need to spend some time working on setting up web order for our co-op. I am determined, however, not to spend hours and hours on the computer….I have plans for my quiet evenings…reading, studying, praying and thinking.

Here’s my list of March books completed:
Staying Well – Richard E. Ecker
Discover Your God-Given Gifts – Don & Katie Fortune
Homesick – Jean Fritz

Not near as impressive as earlier months….nothing really FUN…time to find another Penn Dutch Inn book to read. {G} I’ve also been working through the Feingold book and that one is taking me some time….

*Staying Well: Why the Good Life is So Bad For Your Health* by Richard Ecker. This book was published in 1984 by Inter Varsity Press (no photos available). Mike was assigned this book while he was working on his master’s degree. We recently found it while going through a box in the garage and I decided to give it another read.

He begins the book by challenging the assumption that we are living longer these days. His stats show that if you survive infancy the expected life rate isn’t much higher than its been for generations. We’ve conquered diseases that struck fear into our ancestors but we’ve replaced those diseases with a 50% increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer has tripled and 1 in 5 Americans develop adult –onset diabetes (which NOW 20 years after this book was written is setting in with children).

The basic premise of this book is that God expects us to be good stewards of our health. He says that Christians are responsible to make the tough choices. Mr. Ecker states that we have allowed satan to entice us to make lifestyle choices that lead to degeneration.

Mr. Ecker states his goal in writing this book is to: “explore the tremendous influence our choice of lifestyle has on health, well-being and life expectancy; to demonstrate some specific kinds of lifestyle changes we can make to avoid unnecessary disease; to assess such changes in the light of commitment to responsible Christian stewardship; and to provide a scripturally sound strategy for implementing desirable changes.” He succeeds in his goals.

This book was a bit heavy on facts and stats in places, but is easily understandable. I especially found the section on aerobic and anaerobic exercise to be interesting. I know there are many books out now on Christian Health….but this little book seems to have laid out the principles over 20 years ago.

*On the Banks of Plum Creek* by Laura Ingalls Wilder

By Nolan: We started reading these books when we were doing people traveling in covered wagons for school. Mom likes these books. I like them too. I like the stories about the storms, grasshoppers and the animals that attacked.

I (De’Etta) have enjoyed this book in the series, most, so far. I found it interesting to read this account of the long blizzard that Pa was lost in after having read *The Children’s Blizzard”. I think that many see the Little House series as the sugar-coated television program of the 80’s (or was it 70’s?). The books are not sugar-coated. Laura writes plainly of the “children who froze stiff” and of not only the good times, which we romanticize, but also the trials and problems of living in the mid-west in the 1800’s, which we tend to forget.

On a personal note, reading about Ma teaching Mary and Laura with nothing more than a slate, a Bible and a nature book of some sort inspired me. It is so easy in the homeschooling movement to think that we must find the right book, curriculum, or tool in order for our children to succeed. We must find the right teaching style, motivational tool etc. Generations of Americans taught their children with a few books and loving over-sight. This reminds me again that what my children need most is consistent time with me…learning together and not the latest and greatest NEW and IMPROVED curriculum.