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God’s Perfection in Mathematics

June 3, 2016 by Esther Filbrun · 3 Comments

Squares 01

One evening about a month ago, my six year old brother asked a question that was designed to stump the oldest of us. “What’s fifty times fifty?” He loves starting with the hardest number to multiply that he can fathom, and then multiply that by itself, the new number by itself again, and keep going—until even the calculator groans and returns an E+, ‘Overflow’, or simply starts showing uninterpretable decimals.

But since fifty times fifty isn’t too big, I set it up on the whiteboard for him and gave him the answer. “Two thousand five hundred.”

Reading, Art, and Guilt — a Guest Post

September 8, 2015 by Esther Filbrun · 1 Comment

Twice in the past two months I have had an “ah-ha!” moment. Both times, I suddenly had an answer to something that I had been feeling guilty about for years.

I was reading by the time I was three years old. When I was a baby, someone gave my mom a book, something about “Teach Your Baby to Read.” I was the first baby, so she had time, and she made flashcards to put on objects all over the house. I can’t remember not being able to read, and I’m guessing maybe she eventually regretted teaching me that young, as I quickly developed an addiction to reading! I remember being excited to start first grade, but then being very disappointed because the first day of first grade the reading lesson was simply, “God.” I was reading whole books by then! I spent hours and hours reading thousands of books as I grew up, and put that love of books to good use when I started a bookstore in my late teens. However, after I got married, little by little I started feeling guilty for loving to read, and guilty for taking time to read when there were other things to do, as there always are. Comments some people made such as, “I only ever read the Bible and ___________(church paper),” or, “Reading is a waste of time for me,” added to that feeling of guilt. I still read, because I can’t make myself stop reading, but always with a slight feeling of guilt.

Reading, Art, and Guilt

Last year, my daughter came in from her bedroom one morning saying that she felt like the Lord had given her an idea. She wondered what I thought of a website devoted to book reviews. She would include warnings with the reviews of anything that parents might want to know about the book before giving it to their child, and build a search function to help parents find books about a particular area they were studying. After we all prayed about it, she built the website, and soon I started writing some reviews for her of books I read to myself or aloud to the other children. Still, I felt somewhat guilty about loving to read!

Midweek Mix-Up — the Cold War and a Free Outlining Course

July 1, 2015 by Esther Filbrun · Leave a Comment

Hello again! In today’s midweek mix-up, I’ve got some great resources for you, as well as some fascinating books I’ve been listening to lately.

Reading this week…

I haven’t actually “read” much this week—mostly because I’ve been doing quite a bit of computer work, and when I’m doing that I can’t read. But I have been listening to a lot of books, and I suppose that counts as well!

Amy Carmichael: Rescuer of Precious Gems, by Janet & Geoff Benge

Amy Carmichael: Rescuer of Precious Gems, by Janet & Geoff Benge
Progress: Finished (last week: 89%)

This is a beautiful retelling of Amy’s life. There was a lot about her early life, which I enjoyed immensely—often, we tend to hear the most about her time in India, and little about the rest of her life. I hadn’t realized before that she spent a while working in Japan before eventually being called to India, so that—along with the legacy she led and left behind her—was very encouraging for me. Highly recommend this biography—I’ll be putting a review of the book on the main site after a while.

Midweek Mix-Up — Pride and Prejudice and a Free High School Biology Curriculum

June 25, 2015 by Esther Filbrun · Leave a Comment

Welcome to another round of midweek mix-up! I’ve been doing a lot of reading this past week, beyond a few breaks to do other necessary work and spending some quality sibling time.

Books I’ve been reading this week:

The Sound of Diamonds, by Rachelle Rea

The Sound of Diamonds, by Rachelle Rea
Progress: 45% (last week: 24%)

This story has grown more interesting, and the romance thread has grown stronger, too. I’m taking the opportunity to study how romance books work, and will find it interesting to see how the story ends.

Midweek Mix-Up: A Full Week, and Scripture Memorization

June 10, 2015 by Esther Filbrun · Leave a Comment

Hello everyone! Welcome to this week’s version of midweek mix-up! I’ve had several full days of work this past week, so I haven’t had as much time to read as I had last week. That’s okay, though, because it’s good to learn that sometimes life just happens. This way, I have the chance to really appreciate the time I do have to work and read—even if it is less than I would ideally like.

Books I’m reading this week:

The Sound of Diamonds, by Rachelle Rea

The Sound of Diamonds, by Rachelle Rea
Progress: 24% (last week: 15%)

The tension is rising. There is definitely going to be a romantic element in the story, but what proportion it takes is yet to be determined. So far, Gwyn has narrowly escaped death, had her worst fear realized, and is now hoping that a lie will get her across the channel to a semi-safe country.

Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, by Gary Paulsen
Progress: Just finished.

Grandma read this onto mp3 for my brothers, and I just finished listening to it today. Technically, no, I didn’t read it—but it was close enough I think I can count it as actually having read it.

Winterdance is very well written. The story is about a man who ran the Iditarod—the huge dog race in Alaska. It tells of him starting with hardly any knowledge at all about dogs, or the race, or anything—and how he somehow blundered his way to Alaska and ran the race. Fascinating adventures, and apparently it actually is a true account.

There were a few words I wouldn’t use through the story, and Grandma said she did leave one paragraph out because of its content—the story was fine without it.

If I can get this book in print, I’ll definitely be reviewing it—it is a beautiful story of dogs, the relationships you can have with them, and a very humorous account of a rookie running the Iditarod for the first time.

Useful posts this week:

  • Conflict Vs. Tension – A Guest Post by Melissa Tagg! — Very encouraging! I love how she explained conflict vs. tension, and applied that to life as well as to writing. That note at the end was also very encouraging—somehow, involving God in everything we do really does add a lot of depth to our lives.
  • Submission – a Heart Matter — I especially loved this note near the end of the post: “…Personally, I know that my father doesn’t like us to wear the color black. He has never said ‘thou shalt not wear black’ but because that is his desire, we try to honor him in that.” I love seeing some of the small ways I, as a young woman, can learn to submit!
  • The Go Teen Writers Summer Writing Challenge and a Giveaway — This is partly a guest post, partly a challenge. The guest post part is pretty interesting—Lydia Howe (aka Aidyl Ewoh) is telling how she wrote 100 words every day for 1,000 days, and how we can do the same. In that time, she traveled to three different continents, published three books, and fought Lyme’s disease, along with other adventures. The challenge is designed to help you get some work done in the next three months. I’m seriously considering joining—I always find the Go Teen Writers challenges extremely helpful.

Resource of the week:

Ever wanted an easier way to teach your child memory verses? Say hello to FreeBibleMusic.com! The songs on here are free to download and use. There are three different artists that helped create this “Scripture song bank”—Abigail Miller (I love her music!), Buddy Davis, and Kirk Gable/the Kirk Gable Band.

FreeBibleMusic_screenshot

Out of the sixty-six books of the Bible, there are only twelve books that there are no scripture songs for: Ruth, 2 Kings, Ezra, Esther, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Philemon, and 2 John.

Also of interest—there is a small section of stories for children on this site. These stories were apparently written and then acted out by Lydia Howe—the same girl who just passed the 1,000 day mark above—and her family. The twelve stories are roughly five minutes long each, and are fun adventures your children will enjoy.

Writers: What was the last writing challenge you participated in?

(For me, this would be Camp NaNoWriMo in April—I failed horribly.)

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