It was a Happy St Patrick’s Day!

The devotion today was about the real St Patrick. His name is Maewyn and he was uneducated. At age 16 he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish bandits. During his captivity he became closer to God. He escaped after six years of captivity and studied in a monastery. He returned to Ireland to convert pagans there. Patrick devoted his life to serving Christians and building schools and churches. Be sure to thank God for devoted missionaries like Patrick. God used him and a multitude of others (maybe even you) to spread the “good news.”

The Purpose Driven Life reading today was the start to purpose five. You were made for a mission was today’s theme. Our ministry is our service to believers, but our mission is service to unbelievers. Our mission is to continue doing what Jesus was doing as his mission on earth. That is the great commission. I laughed out loud when I read what Rick Warren wrote, “It’s the Great Commission, not he Great Suggestion.” Our mission should be looked at like a wonderful privilege. Telling others about eternal life in heaven is the greatest thing we can do for them. Our mission had eternal significance. Our mission gives our lives meaning. God’s timetable for history’s conclusion is connected to the completion of our commission. So many people want to know when Jesus is coming back. Well, it should be when every person has heard the good news. For anyone who has read this book day 36 has the story of Rick’s dad on his death bed. He’s having nightmares and calling out, “Got to save one more for Jesus.” We should all be so faithful and obedient as Rick’s dad.

Today’s geometry lesson was not nearly as painful as yesterday. Today it reviewed the different types of lines and they are: intersecting (lines that cross or meet at a point), perpendicular lines (form a 90 degree angle or a right angle), parallel lines (never intersect or they are side by side.) Then it quickly moved to geometry angles. I emailed Jeff the list of geometry angles and made a comment that it was like a foreign exercise routine. (I just picture some big Swedish lady yelling out the commands…Acute! Hold it…hold it…and breathe. Obtuse! Holding…and breath!…AGAIN!) The angles are: Acute, Right, Obtuse, Straight, and Reflex. They did teach us a great way to remember the different angles degrees or points. The sentence is…Alligators Rest On Sunny Rocks. That’s the order if you will. Then if you combine that with a clock it’s really fairly simple. So if "0" is noon, then "180" is 6:00. An acute angle (F or E) is anytime between noon and 2:59. A right angle (D) is exactly 3:00. An obtuse angle (C or B) is between 3:01 and 5:59. A straight angle is 6:00. And last but not least a reflex angle is anytime past 6:01. (Got it? OK test time!) We started another lesson but stopped it because we needed to purchase a protractor. (We went out and got one. We’re now armed and ready for combat with geometry.) I told Jeff how quickly JD absorbed all that information and what a good teacher he is to explain math to me. (Yeah, this home school thing is really working out well.)

JD did another word bank lesson independently again. Today’s words were eminent, brash, and bawdy.

We opted not to do the journal lesson today because we were having such a good day and we had errands to run. I made a deal with JD that if I cancelled the journal lesson would he work doubly hard for me tomorrow. Before he answered he asked, “Wait! Does that mean I have to do journal tomorrow?” I said, “No you just have to give me a great attitude and do all your lessons as well as you can.” (We signed the deal.)

The history lesson was based off of the History Channel. They did a documentary on Charles Lindbergh. He's the first guy that ever did a non-stop flight from New York to Paris. He earned $25,000 for that. We learned a lot of interesting facts about Mr. Lindbergh. I typed up a document with some questions from the documentary and a biography on-line. He'll do that tomorrow.

Today during music I asked that JD just write me a song. We he didn’t write it or make one up. He just started playing “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee” by ear! And not just the chorus. Here take a listen for yourself. We had to film this a couple of times to "get it right" and bleep out the anger when he got it wrong. But look at him. What you can’t see is the tongue sticking out to concentrate. The movies before he was rocking back and forth on the organ bench. This time I think he was showing off by not even looking at the stink'n keyboard. Did I mention he plays by ear? So he practiced this today during music and ta da we have a beautiful song played by an 11 year old child with absolutely no piano lessons.

We checked the four slices of bread from yesterday's experiment and I'm happy to report we are not yet producing penicillin in my house. In other words, there's no mold to behold.

The homemade paper art project from Monday is finally dry. It is very sturdy paper. It took the help of a blow dryer last night and staying out over night to completely dry. I think I'll get a good picture of JD and I together and use the homemade paper as a mat.

I've been spending a considerable amount of time preparing the Sunday School sample for Lifeway because the clock is counting down for the deadline. So pray that I turn in a great sample and on-time.