M is for Mommy

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ANNA MAE LOUISE WOLLERMAN 12/13/1910 - 2/18/2008 Anna Mae Louise Wollerman has moved to heaven.

This amazing testimony is from a student who was at Union University the night of the tornado. This was circulated to me by email, but it appears to have been a post to her blog or a mass email. I have removed her name to protect her privacy. Well, most of you have probably heard by now, my school, Union University was hit by an F4 tornado this past Tuesday night (Feb. 5, 2008). Thanks for all the calls and messages. I will try to talk to you all as time and my emotional state allows. I don't know what reports you have read, but I was one of the 15 students who got trapped in the wreckage. I was in my dorm room with one of my roommates (K), the 3 girls from upstairs, and my mentor from church. About 2 minutes before the tornado hit, my other roommate (who is an RA) ran in and told us to get in the bathtub. We barely made it. Our ears popped, my mentor (J) looked at me and said, "We have to get in, NOW!" -- then the lights went off. I was the last one in. My legs didn'...

In my last post, I mentioned the members of FBC Blogtown, or at least those in my Sunday School class. Actually, I resided in this little shack on the backwoods periphery of Blogtown for over a year before I met anyone here who is NOT Baptist. (and Yes, non-Baptists, I AM aware of how creepy that sounds). Anyway, this past November I ventured over into another area of town. I found it really interesting and now head for afternoon walks over there frequently. It all started when I decided to try to participate in NaBloPoMo and ended up joining all these groups of Mommybloggers, SuzukiMombloggers, HomeschoolingBloggers, IOnceLivedInHawaiibloggers, Expatbloggers, and so forth and so on. Most of these bloggers had the sense to blog anonymously, so I don't know their names, but it has amazed my how interested I can be in their adventures. Alison , a very nice soup-loving lady in San Diego, is trying to have a baby. It's amazing how complicated this can be nowadays. I understand almo...

I LOVE my email program! In July, we got the new Outlook version and it has the best feature. It will check for me all the blogs that I like to read and put any new posts right in my inbox (actually, right in my Feed box, which is right near my inbox. . .but I digress). Anyway, I thought I would share those blogs with you. Since I live on the periphery of the backwoods of Blogtown, just across the river on the other side of the tracks, my neighbors are varied. I'll introduce you to them in the order that I found them. The real estate developer who sold me a spot in blogtown is Guy Muse , because of his ingeniously visual use of the blog as a medium to raise awareness/prayer support of his ministry and people group. Linda is Guy's wife. I would consider Dorcas Hawker to be my first "friend" in blogtown, although she couldn't really be called a neighbor because her real estate is in a much more swanky part of town. I met Dorcas because we were interested in some o...

There's 51 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it; So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it! I've mentioned before that I've been homeschooling our oldest son, Blake, in 3rd grade U.S. History this year. Blake attends an international school here in Porto Alegre, but they don't teach US history as a subject this early. Sonlight's two year US history curriculum was recommended to us by our regional educational consultant. We did the history curriculum, the readers and the read-alouds. WE HAVE HAD THE BEST TIME! Blake finished the 3rd grade curriculum yesterday. We had started September 1st on a ten-day training trip we took as a family. Basically, he worked on Saturdays and holidays (we're in summer break now, remember) for 2-3 hours each day and we finished up just in time for the end of summer break! We both learned a LOT of US history and some really good American values (that I never realized were Ame...

"You need to make your own yogurt." I promised you, that's what I found myself telling myself one afternoon last month. Did you know that with about 30 minutes and Senhora Google, you too can become a yogurt-making expert? All you have to do it take some milk (1 liter), warm it (if you're in the states and don't have MilkInABox, then you have to sterilize it first) to 120 degrees, put it in a clean glass jar and add a couple of tablespoons of yogurt. I then set it in a cooler that has some hot tap water in the bottom. I cover it and leave it for 12 hours. Then, I put the jar in the fridge and let it cool. After a couple of hours, I added some vanilla flavoring (about 2 tablespoons), and some sugar (about 1/2 cup). It turned out great! It also supplies us with some lactase, that enzyme that helps us digest milk. Blake and Jeff loved it. Parker still doesn't recognize it as food, but he will soon. I also made butter last night. I was getting ready for our ...