Busy day

The devotion today was about a song George Friedrich Handel wrote called Messiah. Jesus Christ came as the Messiah. Christ is the Greek word that means Messiah. He is the one and only one.

The Purpose Driven Life reading was called Growing Through Temptation. Did you know if we become proficient at resisting temptation it could actually become a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block? I like that one day I’ll have stepping stones, but not just yet. One day I will have a produce stand, but again, not yet. The fruit of the spirit matures and ripens slowly. (Bummer) Character development of these fruits always involves choices. God teaches us to love by putting unlovely people around us. After all it takes no effort on our part to love those that are loving to us. God develops peace within us by allowing times of chaos and confusion. How do you react in these situations? Of course Satan has to have his words regarding developing Christ-like characteristics. He preys on our desires and tempts us with that bait. He plants seeds of doubt about God’s laws. He is extremely deceptive. And this causes us to be disobedient to God. When we do fall into the temptation trap, it is not the end of the world. Don’t be intimidated by temptation. Think of temptation as an honor. That means you must be doing something right for Satan to keep his thoughts on you. Temptation is only a sin when you give into it. If you spend your time around those traps, recognize your pattern of temptation and prepare for it. My favorite way to get out of temptation is to say a short prayer requesting God’s presence. I have complete faith that God will defeat Satan here on earth and he would do it just for me. (I took that picture of the apple on the bible.)

Today in algebra we learned solving equations using multiplication and division. They are very similar to adding and subtracting. You just do the opposite that you would to solve the problem if all the numbers were present. We finished algebra today and we will be moving onto “Measurements” tomorrow. (Finally something I know. Did you know 3 teaspoons equals 1 tablespoon? I answered that correctly during a “Are you smarter than a 5th grader” show.)

There were a lot of distractions at the house today so we got very behind in school. The social studies was short and sweet. I sat with JD and looked through an entire atlas to see what capitals are assigned to what state. Then he picked three more states to write facts about. Today he picked: Washington, Maine, and Kentucky.

Because of the distractions and birthday shopping still left to do I scraped the email/snail mail lesson as well as the science lesson. However, during our shopping trip I picked up a cool product called Insta-snow. We messed around with that for a while. One little scoop of Insta-snow and two ounces of water produces 1 cup of a cool material that looks like snow. We’ve frozen it and thawed it with salt. Its real name is sodium polyacrylate (polymer.) It’s the same stuff that they put in diapers to soak up all that…um…you know.

The language arts lesson was a review of comprehension skills. Today he practiced summarizing again. He scored a 100% on the quiz. (Yippie)

We left the house today at approximately 1:10 PM for another shopping trip. Man what was I thinking with this Mad Scientist party. So many places too little time. I must not be in the right frame of mind today, because I dragged Jonathan all around Fayetteville and heard about it all day. (UGH!) First stop Candy Store. I told him we we’re only shopping for rock candy for the goody bags. I scored big time when I found test tube candy. Jonathan moaned a bit so I said, “Okay, $2.00 of candy for you and that’s all.” Next stop Everything’s a dollar store. I warned him again that it’s only for birthday stuff. We were in and out in a pretty good time frame. Third stop, was (get this) Toys R us for some Insta-snow. This was heart breaking for JD because each time I went somewhere I made it clear that it was for birthday shopping only. Oh did I hear about it. “Mommy, why did you take me to Toys R us and so I could see all the things I want?” (Note to self - This is the last time I take him shopping for birthday supplies, because if memory serves me right, I had the very same problem last year.) Then we went to Hobby Lobby again for the second time in one week. I had seen Insta-snow on the internet for $5.00, but when you figure in express shipping there’s at least another $10.00. So I bought the Insta-snow for $16.00 at Hobby Lobby and skipped the “hoping it arrived on time” time. Our last stop was Wal-Mart. I started to say, “Remember only birth…” When he interrupted with, “I know, only birthday stuff.” I was just asking for a Migraine I guess, because I had to go to the toy isle for a rubber frog. (I didn’t find one by the way. Drat!) I picked up a few things and FINALLY headed home. I thought JD was going to fall out. I was walking really quickly in each store but I told him we had to hurry today to be back in time to get his friend off the bus. You would have thought JD ran a marathon the way he was complaining about ALL the walking. (I guess it’s payback for the nearly 11 years of keeping up with him.)