I just have to share this video! I have watched it several times and it just makes me giggle in delight every time.
I love this girl's confidence! She has confidence in who she is and isn't afraid to just go and do and try and be. I would love for everyone to live with that kind of confidence.
(P.S. My daughter can't stop commenting about her glasses. From the 8th grade until after all of my children were born, I wore glasses that big! Once upon a time, that was normal!)
I love, love, love having a recently returned missionary at home. It's not just because I missed him like crazy and now I get to hear his laugh and see his smirks and smiles, either. It's because of the discussions we have and the ideas and lessons he's been sharing from his two years of amazing personal growth.
After some rousing family discussion today as I prepared and we ate Sunday dinner, my son said that he wanted us to listen to this talk on Self Worth from Hyrum W. Smith. I loved it and learned several new things. I'm going to have to listen to it a few times for all of it to sink in. (He had it mostly memorized!) I heartily recommend it for individuals, families, through personal study or homeschool or Family Home Evening or whatever.
Whether you want your children to understand the cotton factor in slavery and the Civil War in United States history, or you simply think they should know where their T-shirts come from, here is a great hands-on activity you can get from Cotton Classroom. Your kids will never forget it.
Order the amount of raw cotton you need for the number of students you have. The "Cotton Sample" was plenty and then some for my family.
Divvy out piles to your children and tell them they need pick out all the seeds and burrs and particles.
The cotton must go from this:
to this:
It's tedious, time consuming, will likely make their fingers sore, and it will give them a new real-life perspective on slave tasks, the cotton gin, and work. They also might stop taking clothing for granted.
In addition to the educational reading/helps at Cotton Classroom, here are some videos I used to further understanding.
"Understanding the Cotton Plant and its Physiology"
If you have an apricot tree like we do, you know how precious the apricots were this summer. It has been years since an ill-timed freeze or hailstorm didn't destroy the blossoms or crop. And, if you have an apricot tree like we do, you also probably had way more apricots than you knew what to do with.
Here is my grandmother's recipe for apricot jam. It's not your ordinary apricot jam; I made some of that, too, but also wanted to switch things up a bit.
Orange-Apricot Freezer Jam
5 cups ground apricots
2 cups crushed pineapple
7 cups sugar
2 small packages orange gelatin
Boil fruit and sugar together for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the gelatin. Cool, then put in containers and freeze.
I always have mixed feelings about summer. First of all, I really don't enjoy temperatures anywhere above about 80 degrees, and even then I need a breeze. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have this ingrained idea that summertime should equate to "the lazy days of summer," yet I don't seem to have many of those, and that idea is in direct opposition to Aesop's fable of "The Grasshopper and the Ants," which is also ingrained in my head. This often leaves me feeling raw, as if I'm in the middle of a great tug of war between multiple personalities!
Being a baseball family, summertime is packed with travel, travel, and more travel, and a lot of late nights under the lights of ballfields. While I love the inspiring changeup of seeing the world through a roadtrip and being in different places, and I love watching my kids play ball, the work is stacked up when I get home and all those late nights make it hard to get up and get the outdoor chores done in the cooler morning hours.
I love a rocking and rolling summer thunderstorm and the positively delicious aroma of rain on the wind as it kisses the dry earth. I love the heavy perfume of a patch of petunias and the invigorating smell of a just-mowed lawn or a field of cut hay. I don't like mosquitoes, earwigs, grasshoppers, and fruit flies. It's a mixed bag, for sure.
I wouldn't trade four distinct seasons for anything, though. Each has its blessings and banes. As always, gratitude and attempts at balance go a long way in a happy life.
As August slips away, I like to look back and see where I've been and what I've done so I know the summer didn't just pass me by and leave me wondering "Where did the summer go?" Even acknowledging small delights and happy surprises keeps the scales of joy and contentment tipped in my favor. Here are a few highlights of this year's summer.
A round of family Frisbee golf in a canyon park, with the inevitable retrieving of a stuck Frisbee,
which was followed by the inevitable Insta Care visit for a tetanus shot:
Ma and Pa Swallow, returned to raise another brood on my front porch:
Encountering an entire bush in motion with moths...
...and catching one!
Embracing gravity with friends:
Reflecting on the ways that God keeps his promises:
Seeing sacrifice and perseverance pay off:
Summer night lights:
Shoshone Falls:
Seeing, smelling, touching, tasting red:
Simple joy in a cute pair of festive shoes (and, no, I don't have another pair exactly like this :) )
FINALLY having a close encounter with a muskrat, after nearly a dozen wetland field trips:
Being torn between watching the ball game and watching the osprey who were watching the ball game:
Experiencing triumph in tests and trials, gratitude for miracles and medicine, recognition and respect for the power and reality of the priesthood, and witnessing the wonder of the human body and its ability to heal:
My first (very cool) encounter with a Western Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar:
Apricots! Early spring weather finally cooperated to give us a great summer harvest:
Peachy paradise in crepes and smoothies and in juicy goodness dripping down my chin and wrist:
A sweet-tart plum harvest turned into jelly and fruit leather and more smoothies:
Watching my boy bloom where he's planted:
Celebrating another year of marriage:
Discovering a "new" swimming hole:...
...and meeting the swimming hole's local residents:
Conquering some personal fears and inhibitions and loving it:
Getting one missionary ready to leave:...
...and welcoming one missionary home:
Having the whole family together again:
Some additional highlights include some media that was particularly special this summer.
Here Comes the Boom is not a new movie; it's been around for a few years. We didn't know anything about it, though, until one of my kids saw it on the shelf at the library and checked it out. We. Love. This. Movie. Besides being funny and entertaining, it has some good messages and things to think about, especially in the realm of education and inspiration, as well as the American Dream and citizenship.
The following videos are to songs that meant a lot to me this summer. I'm not necessarily recommending the videos because as I've posted previously, videos often ruin songs for me (though I do like these ones). But they're the easiest and most legal way to share music. So, if you don't want your perception of the music influenced by the videos, play them and listen with your eyes closed.
The first song is "Humble and Kind" sung by Tim McGraw. I don't normally listen to country music, but I love, love, love this song and it has influenced me greatly this summer. I came to listen to it while driving my son to a doctor's appointment. The song came on the radio and not knowing it but realizing it was country, I switched the station. My son said, "Don't! Go back. I like that song." Naturally I wanted to hear it if he was so insistent, just to see what he liked about it. And then my whole world changed, along with how I look at my son.
These next two songs are by Paul Cardall. Interestingly, they are on a CD I have had for years but not listened to. I got the CD for free during some promotion, listened to it once, and at the time decided there was only one decent song on the album. This summer I was cleaning out some things and was about to toss the disc in a giveaway pile when I decided to listen to it one more time to be sure it was junk. What I've come to believe is that I was meant to have this CD but I needed to really hear it for the first time now. I wouldn't have purchased it, then or now, so it was given to me. I think I had a sort of stupor over it when I received it so that when I needed the message in these songs, they'd be "new" to me and therefore have more of an impact.
Well, summer is over. It would be a sad, sad thing if summer ended and there was no autumn to trail it so gloriously. I hope your summer was blessed. If you think it wasn't, or that it was over too soon, make a highlight reel for yourself to count your summer blessings.
