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Bill and Margie On the Open Road
School started about a month ago, and I can’t believe I haven’t posted since before then. I’ve been doing a lot of writing, but haven’t had a free moment yet to collect my writing and publish it here. I hope that now that the school year is underway, I’ll be able to start posting regularly again. This year I’m doing something new at school. I started a Story Club, inspired by Anne Shirley, which meets Friday afternoons during the school day. Each week I give the students a writing prompt, and then the following week we give each other feedback and talk about a writing-related topic. The students can write…
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A Lullaby & The Introduction to My Book, The Light Gatherers {New Music Monday}
This is a very special New Music Monday, and I appreciate that you’re here, visiting my website. I’ve been working on a book for a little over a year, called The Light Gatherers. (You can read the Prologue to the book here, which I wrote as a writing exercise as part of The Habit.) I don’t feel like any book is complete without a poem or a song; most of my favorite books include at least one or the other. The Hobbit includes the songs in which the dwarves sing about helping Bilbo with the dishes and the Lonely Mountain. The Princess and the Goblin includes Curdie’s rhymes, which scare…
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Husbands & Fathers, Joy-filled Limitations, and Small Beginnings: Quotes from My Current Reading Material {February Edition}
“What you are searching for…is a woman who is submissive to God Himself, to His holy Scriptures, and then to the way that God made the world, and then last, as a consequence of all the preceding, to you.” –Doug Wilson, “The Value of Gender Stereotypes“ (I also sent Doug Wilson a letter in response to a different article in the same series. Here’s his response to my letter.) “I don’t want to rehash years-long arguments, but it’s worth noting that stoicism, competitiveness, and even aggression can be virtues. They are not inherent vices. Each can be toxic in the wrong context. Each can be dispensible in the right time…
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My Complete 2021 Book List
Introduction This blog post contains a complete list of all the books I read in 2021. I finished all the books I began reading this year except for two for various reasons, which I listed next to them on my book list. This brings me to a total of 32 books read this year. As in past years, I read more fiction than non-fiction, but the non-fiction books I read I generally found helpful and encouraging, or informative and interesting, depending on the genre. My book list doesn’t include the children’s books I read out loud to the kids, just the books I read on my own or initiated reading…
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Brewing the Best Mocha, Forming the Perfect Sentence
We just spent a beautiful, relaxing week up at the cabin. We arrived home last night, and this morning, when I went to grind some espresso beans for my mocha, I noticed that I had left some grounds sitting in the bottom of the grinder. The longer espresso grounds sit without being used, especially in the summer humidity of the Midwest, the worse they taste. I had a small debate with myself: do I dump the grounds into the garbage, because they probably won’t taste as delicious as usual, and then grind fresh beans, or do I use them anyways? I decided to dump the grounds. I felt a twinge…