It’s been a few years since our children have made a movie, but they’ve been planning one for about three years. They finally figured out how to do it, and got it made in February. Somehow, I forgot to post it then, so here you go. I love this one!
Book Review—None So Blind
About the Book
Book title: None So Blind
Author: Chautona Havig
Release date: September 29, 2013
Genre: Contemporary
My Thoughts:
One thing I love about Chautona Havig—and something that always amazes me about her—is her ability to take a very improbable scenario and make it sound quite plausible. For example, what if you woke up one morning and had no idea who you were and where you were, and why a strange man was in bed with you? That’s what happened to Dani Weeks! I was quite intrigued by her struggles, and the way she tried to reconcile her former personality with her present one. I’ll have to admit that my toes were stepped on a few times as Ella (she changed her nickname to reflect that she was a different person) learned what a lazy person Dani had been. I loved this book, and am really looking forward to reading the sequel soon. To read a longer review I wrote, click here.
The Author’s Synopsis:
Dani and Ella Weeks–two women who share one thing in common. The same life, the same family, and the same body.
When Dani wakes with no knowledge of who or where she is–no memories of her life at all–David and Dani Weeks discover that “til death do us part” takes on an entirely unexpected meaning. Practically speaking, Dani died. But she didn’t.
What’s a gal to do?
In a desperate attempt to separate the old life from the new, Dani insists on a new name, a twist of her old one–Ella.
Ella’s doctors can’t explain what happened. Her children can’t understand why she doesn’t know them. David, her husband, finds himself torn between admiration for the “new” version of his wife and missing the woman he’s known for over fifteen years.
Will Ella ever regain her memory? Why does their pastor suspect it’s one great hoax?
About the Author
Chautona Havig lives and writes in California’s Mojave Desert with her husbnd and five of her nine children. Through her novels, she hopes to encourage Christians in their walk with Jesus.
Guest post from Chautona Havig
“Who are you, again?”
“I’m Joe’s, daughter. Vyonie.” My sister pointed to me. “This is Chautona.”
For some odd reason, the niece she spent the least amount of time with, Aunt Doris remembered—somewhat. But she didn’t remember Vyonie from what I could tell. She smiled at me, that amazing, sweet smile I’d never forget. She asked how I was. I always thought that Mrs. Sanderson—mother of John, Alicia, and Carl on the TV show, Little House on the Prairie—looked and sounded like Aunt Doris. Of course, that memory of me didn’t last. A minute or two later, she gave me a big smile and asked if she knew me.
It gave me a picture of what it must have been like for my character, Ella Weeks—to wake up every day with these children there—children who knew her, but she didn’t remember. The hurt she caused every time she had to struggle to admit she didn’t know something she probably should—again. So, I thought I’d ask her to tell us about it.
Ella: People often assume that the worst part of losing my memory are the memories that disappeared, too. But it’s not. A much as I’d love to remember my wedding day, my daughter’s first steps, my son’s first words, or that moment I realized I was pregnant with my third, those are blessings that I don’t think about often. No, what hurts most is seeing the pain in my children’s eyes when they need me to remember something and I can’t. For me, not remembering their first day of kindergarten is an inconvenience. For them, it’s a further reminder that if they didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t know them. That without them pushing themselves into my life, I wouldn’t care about them any more than any other human in my path. I do now, of course, but not at first. I hate that they heard David say once, “…she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t know our children. She tries, but she could walk out of our lives tomorrow and never miss us.”
Living so close to it every day, I missed those little bits of pain that I inflicted without meaning to, but when I went with our Bible study to a nursing home and visited with the residents, then I saw it. Women with tears running down their cheeks as loved ones patted their hands and tried to comfort. I heard one man offer to find a woman’s father. She squeezed him close and whispered, “It’s okay, Daddy. I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The man promised to try to find her father in the meantime.
Those people there—most of them didn’t realize they didn’t remember someone important. They didn’t struggle to remember this or that. Their dementia had gotten bad enough that their lives had gone from constant frustration to, by comparison, blissful oblivion.
And their families withered with each forgotten face, name, moment.
That’s what my “episode” did for my family. It caused them pain that just resurfaced every time something new happened. Pain that I didn’t know I inflicted. And since that visit, I have a greater compassion and awareness of just how amazing and powerful memories are.
I also have a greater appreciation for those beautiful words in Isaiah when the Lord promised… “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.”
You see, there’s a lifetime of the sins that Jesus died for buried somewhere in my brain—or, at least at one time there was. I know that those sins were in there, because the ones I committed yesterday are there today. The ones I’ve already confessed and been forgiven for—I beat myself up for the next morning. A week later. A month. But the Lord has wiped them clean. I just keep smearing them back out there again as if to say, “But You don’t get how BAD I was.” Yeah. The arrogance, right? Because an almighty, holy God can’t possibly understand how sinful a sinner that He had to DIE to save from those sins… is. The arrogance? That’s an understatement.
But all those years before that horrible morning… gone. Maybe I stole something. I don’t know. It was forgiven, wiped clean, and then wiped from my memory. I can’t rehash it with the Lord over and over. I can’t drag it back up like a wife who won’t let her husband forget the one time he forgot her birthday. I can’t use it as a whip to beat myself up with. And I think there’s something beautiful in that.
Do I wish I could stop hurting my family with my blank past? Of course. But am I also grateful for a living picture of the fresh start the Lord gives His people at salvation? Definitely. I hope I never take it for granted again.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review, which I have given. I was not required to write a positive review and have not been compensated for it in any way. All opinions expressed are my own.
Click here to purchase your copy.
Correction—Back to Kaikoura
I’m sorry about the missing picture from the post about going to Kaikoura for the first time in a couple of months. I mentioned a broken shipping container, but forgot to add in the picture; that particular photo came from Mr. Diligence’s memory card and I got it from him later. So, here it is.
Product Review–Adventures of Rush Revere
I’ve been seeing references in various places to the Adventures of Rush Revere Book Series, and was thinking I’d like to read some of them so I could review them for Esther’s website. When I had the opportunity to sign up for a review of the Adventures of Rush Revere #1 New York Times Bestselling Book Series by Rush and Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, I grabbed the chance. I found these books interesting, but not a great fit for our family. For the most part, the history seems to be quite accurate; I noted below where I was in question about it. This is a creative way to teach history and make it fascinating! What I don’t like so much is the magical aspect. The main character, Rush Revere, a history teacher who dresses like Paul Revere, has a magic horse who can take people through a time portal to any time in American History. The horse starts running, saying the words, “Rush, rush, rushing into history,” and a swirling yellow and purple circle opens up in front of them. Whoever jumps through quickly, before it closes up, is instantly transported to the time and place they chose. The horse can also stop time briefly.
These books would be good for roughly 8-15-year-olds who enjoy fantasy, history, and adventure all mixed up. The books are beautiful; they have good, solid hard covers and the pages are lovely heavy paper. One thing that made this fun was receiving the books tied up with a blue ribbon! It was so pretty I took a picture.
Read my full review here.
Video–Happy Hill Farm
This is a video Esther made many years ago, before we moved to New Zealand. She did a short tour of our farm, plus some fun bits of her brothers playing. This is quite a keepsake to us; we love to watch it every so often.
Back to Kaikoura!
The highway to Kaikoura was closed just before Easter, when we had two back-to-back cyclones. The cliffs that were already weakened from the earthquake did some more slipping, and a hillside that hadn’t moved before came down. We had about given up hope of getting to church in Kaikoura before leaving on our trip to America, so we were quite happy to learn that the road was to be opened for a week and a half over our last weekend in New Zealand! It was wonderful to get to see our friends there again, after missing 10 Sundays there.
We had to stop at a light near Barney’s Rock, which gave us a good look at a slip that happened during the earthquake in November.
This hillside slipped more in April.
During one of the cyclones, this hillside slipped so much more that the containers, which are filled with rocks, chained together, and bolted to the cliff, were being pushed out to sea. Five of the containers were unhooked and removed so they wouldn’t be lost.
The new slip. They built a new one-lane road over the seabed for temporary traffic.
We were impressed with the size of the boulder that obviously hit this container. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the way when it came down!
May 2017
And the rest of the pictures from May! This is a fairly common sight in the morning; here Mr. Inventor is doing his typing lesson while his cat keeps him company, and Mr. Sweetie is trying to get himself started on his Math in a cozy spot in front of the fire.
After a heavy rain, the underground cistern overflowed, so Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle one morning. Great fun, that is, until she got muddy—see the picture below! Then, she was done. Because the cistern was overflowing, and we had no need for the water, I let the boys pump it out to the duck pond. They forgot to turn the pump off at bedtime, though, and Esther discovered it sucking air the next afternoon when we were away! Oops. It’s refilled now, though. Quite a contrast to a few months ago, when we were saving water in every way we could. We’re so thankful for rain!
Mr. Sweetie was playing with a candle one day. The wick was long enough he was able to get it to curl around like this, and he wanted to take a picture of it.
On chilly days, the fire is a main focal point.
I’m not sure what these two were up to. They made a line of the Childcraft books along the hallway. And the blankets wrapped around them? I don’t have a clue!
Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination again.
Product Review—MarshMedia
Some reviews are more popular around here than others. When I first read the description of MarshMedia, I was not interested. Then, I got an email virtually begging for more reviewers, so, reluctantly, I signed up. We have been watching a movie a day while we eat lunch, as we have time. It tends to be difficult to find time for movies in our house. 
MarshMedia offers short (15-20 minute) videos on various topics for schools to use in their health education programs. They have 54 vidoes about hygiene, health, puberty education, safety, immune system disorders, head lice, nutrition, etc. Though MarshMedia has offered their videos to schools up to this point, they are now wanting to reach out to the homeschool community. If you wish to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce the MarshMedia curriculum to your home schooler click on this link for more information: https://marshmedia.com/pages/homeschools
There are the most about puberty, a few of which I have watched. We also watched a couple from the hygeine topics. The one about protecting your hearing was unanimously voted boring, unfortunately. So was the one about head lice, although there was some interest, since a family we know had problems with them recently. Once I discovered the Character Education movies, though, under the Guidance tab, there was more interest in watching these. The Character Education ones each feature an animal who acts in pretty natural ways as he narrates the story. Stanley’s This is the Life was about a bear who found a snack inside a camper whose door was left open, and found himself transported to a place far from his mountain home. He discovered a drive-in theater and found lots of food there, but after awhile he realized that he wasn’t feeling good anymore. The moral of the story is obvious! Feathers at Las Flores was a fun story about a talking parrot at a cafe in Florida who repeats what he hears—with disastrous results. We found it quite funny, and I was able to refer to the story when one of my sons was tempted to gossip a day or two after watching it. We also watched Inger’s Promise, about a reindeer in Lapland who learned to be reliable. The best part of that one was the glimpse at life in a fascinating culture. These movies are not quite animated, but almost; the camera zooms in and out on a painting, and moves around the painting or from one illustration to another, as the story is narrated. The pictures are lovely and fairly realistic.
As I said, I watched a few of the Puberty videos myself. I wasn’t comfortable with showing them to my boys. They aren’t very explicit, but there are line drawings of undressed people, showing the changes that occur in the human body as they mature. One thing I did appreciate about the one, A Baby is Born, was a quote near the end. It was something about that you are born either a boy or a girl and cannot change that. Not politically correct now, it seems, but certainly the truth!
My personal opinion? If you want or need to come up with a health education course, MarshMedia’s videos would be a great resource. For our family, they aren’t very helpful. Take a look and see what you think!
Product Review—K5 Learning
My 5-year-old has been asking for school, and begging me to teach him to read. I’ve given him the attention I could, but I wasn’t sure he was really ready to learn to read, so I haven’t been pushing him at all. When the opportunity arose to review K5 Learning, I showed it to him and asked him if he wanted to try it. He was excited to do this online program, and couldn’t wait till I got the information about logging in to do it. He faithfully does his “school on the computer” every day, and wants to do the worksheets, too. 
There are three parts to the K5 Learning. Mr. Imagination has only been using the Reading and Math; he’s too young for the Spelling. He is doing very well with the Math part. I usually just let him do it by himself, because I’m busy helping the older boys with their schoolwork when he does it in the morning, but a couple of afternoons when I’ve been working in the kitchen he has wanted to do his school, so I’ve gotten to observe. I couldn’t believe what he was able to do! He was supposed to put numbers in order the one time, and they gave him 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. He did it correctly without hesitation. He was also supposed to use the greater than and less than symbols (> and <) that day. He had a little more trouble with that, but caught on pretty quickly. Yesterday he was working on addition on it, and when he finished he came running into the kitchen saying, “Two plus two is four!” I quizzed him on a few other simple facts and he figured them out pretty fast, too.
On the other hand, he’s having more trouble with the Reading section. I can’t tell that he’s really learned much there although he picked up rhyming words very fast from working with them on there. I’m guessing he is dyslexic and that reading will be a little harder for him. It does seem like K5 Learning does not start at the very beginning; my impression is that even Kindergarten starts with some prior experience presupposed. They do say they are a supplementary course, rather than a complete curriculum. My impression is that they spend more time working on sight words than phonics.
There are worksheets to go with each lesson. You can actually use the worksheets without having an account. Mr. Imagination loves doing them, and has done very well. On the sign-in page, worksheets are suggested based on the lessons the child has been doing recently. (It looks, though like he didn’t understand what he was supposed to be doing on the one page here!)
In my opinion, if you have a child who wants to play games on the computer, and you want them to be doing something educational, K5 Learning would be a good choice. As a replacement for other schoolwork, I don’t think it’s a very good choice. One thing that would make it a lot better would be the ability to choose the lessons you want your child to do, and to be able to start them where you want them. As it is, if you want them to be working at a different level from where the program puts them, you have to contact the website. I did do that when Mr. Imagination started out, because the math he was being given was too advanced for him. I asked them to reset him at the beginning of Kindergarten (he had tested between Low Kindergarten and Low 1st grade for reading, and Intermediate Kindergarten to Low 1st on their assessment), but when he got on again the next time he was still at the same place he had been before.
Mr. Sweetie has also used K5 Learning a few times. He mainly does in the evening after his chores are done, when he feels like playing on the computer. He has mostly done the reading part. He’s been given exercises like finding the main idea of a paragraph, or figuring out the meaning of words. They spent a lot of time having him do reading comprehension exercises. I did enjoy the opportunity to have him do the assessment and get a bit of an idea where he is academically. He tested from just below to well above grade level in the various areas they tested. Nice to know he’s average!
Since I don’t have anyone doing the spelling part, I took a look at it myself. There were two areas to choose from, Vocabulary Tutor and Spelling Tutor. In Vocabulary Tutor, you are given a definition and a sample sentence, and must determine what the word is. They do give you dashes to show how many letters are in the word. The Spelling Tutor is similar, except that they pronounce the word for you. In both cases, you have to spell the word correctly before moving on. They seem to be coordinated; for example, I misspelled a word on the Vocabulary part, and that was the first word when I switched to the spelling part.
My final opinion: There are pros and cons to K5 Learning. I like that it is self-directed; I don’t have to help my boys with it much at all. When they want to play something on the computer, they have an educational activity to do. I don’t like that it is sight-word based rather than phonetic. Also, you must keep in mind that it is not a complete curriculum, but supplementary. The part I don’t like about using as a supplement is that you can’t choose the lessons you want them to do. If you’re interested in seeing if this program is a good fit for your family, they offer a 14-day free trial. Up to four students are allowed per account.
Little Miss in May
This is a busy little girl. She’s always looking for things to do, especially if they feel like she’s helping with something. Here, she found the tomatillos I had just washed, and spent about half an hour transferring them from one container to another and back again.
Little Miss is happy—but is the cat as happy? This cat is extremely tolerant of her tormenter. She’s only scratched Little Miss a couple of times, and she is mauled daily and hauled around a lot.
Two little people in a boat!
This little girl doesn’t like having her hair in ponytails. I put the rubberbands in to go to church, and tell her she can’t take them out till after church, and she mostly leaves them. One day, she brought me five rubberbands and wanted them all put in! Silly girl. They didn’t last long, though; she soon pulled them out.
“Want to take this book to ‘Merica! Read it wif Gamma.” She has no idea what an airplane is, but she’s pretty excited about the upcoming trip.
She got one of my coverings out of my drawer and put it on. She was pretty pleased with herself!
She unloaded an entire shelf of books the other day, onto the couch. When I told her she would need to put them away, she sat herself down and said she had to read all of them first.
