Heart to Heart with Diane

 

Wow, am I shocked and surprised!

I just got notification from About.com that my homegrown phonics program has been chosen as a finalist for the “Best Homeschool Phonics Program”.  Huh? Stranger things have happened!

These are just the games I invented to keep my my wiggly, restless little guy happy while learning to read. Ammon wouldn’t sit still to do workbooks, or flashcards.  He learned most of his phonics sounds while hanging upside down off the couch, or swinging on the chin-up bar.  Games were the only method I could find to capture his attention and teach him to read.  I am excited that other moms are having success with it!

So, come smile with me!

And if you feel like voting for Happy Phonics, that’s okay too.

 

Kind people have said:

Games! What a brilliant way to teach a child to read. My kids absolutely love and beg for “phonics time” at our house!
—Regina

“My daughter was a little annoyed when I got out the Muffin Match game since she says she “already knows the letters”, but after a few different activities, any time I tell her it is time to work on phonics, she excitedly yells “Let’s do the Muffin Match game!” Thanks for helping make homeschool so fun!”
—C.D.

“I just wanted to tell you how much we are all enjoying our new Happy Phonics program! My 4-year-old walks around singing “happy phonics, happy phonics,” my 6-year-old is enjoying the little books and my creative 8-year-old is starting to read! Hallelujah! I am just loving to teach them and they are truly loving to learn!”
—Christina

 

Happy Phonics includes:

• Mom-Friendly Guidebook will explain just what to do!
• Loads of fun games:

Muffin Match
Capital Match
Find-My-Letter
Read-Me Cards
Flippin’ Fun
Reading House
Castle Game
Rhyme Time
Build-a-Sentence
Scrambled Sentences
Silent E Game
Climb the E Tree
CH-SH-TH-WH Game
Space Race
Crazy Daisy
Mountain Climber
Memory Game
Three in a Row Game
Match Game
E-A Game
First Nurse Game
Y Not?
Phonics Bingos (3 levels)
Boat Launch
Contraction Concentration

• More tools to help:

Alphabet Desk Strip
Phonics Flashcards
Clue Flashcards
Read and Spell Lists
Vowel Flip Cards
First Books (7 books)
Flip and Read Booklets

• My Big Book (76 pages) gives kids something to read each day as their skills grow!

Here’s an inside look at just a few of the game boards for Happy Phonics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Southwest BBQ Chicken Salad

I like a lot of veggies in my salad, but use whatever you have on hand, and it will still taste great! The magic flavor is the salad dressing and olives, I think!

1 head green or red leaf lettuce, broken into bite-sized pieces

2 cups baby spinach leaves

2 cups spring greens

1 can sweet corn, drained

1 can sliced olives, drained

1 red bell pepper, chopped

4 green onions, sliced thinly

1 carrots, grated

1 cucumber, cubed or 2 baby cucumbers sliced

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 cup black beans, rinsed well and drained

3 hardboiled eggs, diced

1 cup grated cheese

2 chicken breasts, broiled and chopped into bite-sized pieces

 

Salad Dressing:

2 cups ranch salad dressing

1/2 cup spicy BBQ sauce

 

Wash greens and fill salad bowl.  Add rest of ingredients and toss with salad dressing, as much as you desire.  Top with broken tortilla chips. Serves 6.

Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

What holds us back from helping another? I have thought about this and realized that I tend to make grandiose plans, and it is hard for me to settle for “something little”. I don’t want to just send one valentine, I want to send everyone a valentine.  I don’t want to just stop by for a 10 minute visit to my widow neighbor, I want to bake bread and take it over to her when I visit and stay an hour.  In the process of daily life, and being realistic about what I can manage, I end up losing heart and doing . . . nothing! Sad, huh?

Today I thought about the little things.  Don’t they make a huge difference in your life?  As I entered church this morning, a leader up in the front smiled and nodded at me.  That was little. But I felt so much better, as it had been a discouraging morning.  I know that took hardly any effort, and no forethought.  But it made a difference to me! A big difference. I think it changed the outcome of my day.

Just think!  If everyone just did something, no matter how small, what a enormous wave of good works it would create.  If we all followed through on even 1/10th of our good intentions, it would transform our neighborhood, church or community. When I was a young mother, we lived in Holland.  The Dutch housewives would come out in the mornings and wash their porches with a mop and a bucket of suds. They had a saying: “If each wife washes her own porch, the whole world will be clean”. How true! Each of us doing something small would have an tremendous effect! Doing something little reminds me of the children’s picture book—Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed—about how one ordinary little girl’s small act of kindness actually multiplied to touch everyone on the planet!

If you are like me, with idealistic plans that end up sabotaging your good intentions to love and serve others, let’s work on this together.  Can you manage just a very small act every single day this week? Just one valentine to someone who might be lonely.  Just one short visit, minus the homemade bread.  A phone call. Even just a smile and a nod really matters! Something little. Loving kindness administered in small enough doses that you don’t overwhelm yourself and wear yourself out.

Are you up to the challenge?

Just something little.

 

 

 

I’ve been on a steep learning curve with the recent earth-shaking events in my life.  One of the benefits of crisis is that it neatly stacks your priorities for you, with no doubt on what is on top and most important! Another bonus is that the qualities of “being good” are vividly clear.  I spend a lot of effort in my life in trying to “be good” and it is vitally important to know what that means.

How do you tell if someone is a good person?  How can we know? It is not the clothes they wear. It isn’t if one has a tatoo or not.  Nor how many children they have. Nor their last name or family heritage. Nor the church they belong to. Nor the meetings they attend. Nor how much work they do in the church. Or how busy they are. In fact, doing “holy hurdles” doesn’t make up for the lack of this important qualifier and only makes its absence sorer.  It definitely isn’t how much they profess to be good.  It is so simple, really.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

—John 13:35

People will know those who follow Jesus because they are so loving. So kind. So caring and concerned. I saw “the sign” often as we interacted with the hospital staff and other people we encountered in both Chile and in the USA. Such a simple identifier.  Loving kindness is the clear give-away. And I finally understand how “charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).  Loving kindness supersedes every other virtue.

Loving kindness . . . that nourishing, tender, warm and delicious balm that we can choose to administer to each other . . .  this is what matters! This is what decides if you are a “good person”. It sometimes doesn’t take much at all, really.  You don’t have to bring soup, though soup can help. But the soup without the loving kindness is not very nourishing. “For the gift without the giver is bare…” (James Russell Lowell).

To be kind, you only have to pause and notice, be there, be patient, listen, talk, smile, be loving, not judge, be accepting, be tender.  It is amazing what nourishment it gives to the one in need!

There were many people who had “the sign” of loving kindness, by which all men can know who they follow.  I am thinking about a humble cleaning lady in the hospital.  She had immigrated from Bhutan and was working to pay off her immigration debt. She tried to speak English, very apologetically, worried that she wasn’t doing it right. She opened the hospital room door timidly and smiled a very big, genuine smile when she came in the room.  She chatted with us a little, expressing concern for our son.  Next morning, there she was again, with that wide, bright smile.  The love poured out of her.

A doctor comes to mind, who took the time in the evening, at the end of his busy day, to explain things, answer questions and explore options with us in a most friendly, respectful, warm manner for over an hour. He actually sat on a footstool, making himself lower than the rest of us, and acted as if he were our fun-loving brother, instead of the important, amazing heart specialist who worked at the Mayo Clinic for a decade.  He listened to my wonderings, and told me to keep researching on the internet, and let him know what I found (as if I could teach him something!) His friendliness and humility spoke loving kindness so loud and clear that I was willing to follow his suggestions promptly.

And Renee, a new friend I met in Chile, was always thinking of us and always had something to give us when we returned from the hospital each night at 10:30 PM—be it water, something to eat she had made for us, or a sincere, warm hug. I know she got up early to do her work, and I wonder how she could stay up and administer her loving care to us when we dragged in at the end of the day.  Never judging, always supportive, never getting tired of how long we needed help, which turned out to be over a month.  Renee was a most amazing example to me of loving kindness!

And now abideth faith, hope, charity:  these three, but the greatest of these is charity.

–1 Corinthians 13: 13

 

P.S.  Ammon is home, recovering day-by-day, and being nourished with a steady supply of loving kindness from family and friends.  We’re so blessed!

Chalking up the 38th day of hospitalization for my son Ammon today on the homemade calendar page we have stuck on his hospital room wall so he can orient himself.  Did I think I could ever endure this?  No.  Are there days when I am “losing it”?  Yes.  Oh, yes!

Life happens.  That is what my friend says, and I have learned to agree with her wholeheartedly.  In fact, life is what happens while we are making other plans.  And the choice is pretty clean-cut.  There are two paths:  gratitude and despair. Whenever I start wandering off the gratitude path, despair is nipping at my heels relentlessly.

Some days, we feel hard-pressed to be thankful.  Nurses are slow. Insurance isn’t going to pay. Meals are late. Friends forget you. Doctors are too busy to answer questions.  Whatever. The choice is always there. We can seek out and find something to feel grateful for (and sometimes that takes quite a bit of detective work) or we can take the first step on that very slippery downhill slope of despair.  I know from experience that the climb back up is very difficult.

I am not the only one with trials. I know that.  I know you are dealing . . . or have dealt . . . or will be dealing . . . with circumstances and situations and emotions that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.  The journey gets awfully grueling sometimes.   There have been dark days when I had to trudge forward on the rocky path quite weary and all alone.  We have to draw on reserves and strength that we didn’t know we had.  When that is exhausted, God carries us. I know He does. I have been carried in my own extremity during this last month.  I have felt the overwhelming peace that passeth all understanding.  Of this I am sure!

Is your journey feeling very, very long for you?  My friend, may I recommend to myself, and to you, the healing balm of gratitude.  As impossible as it seems to me when the load is particularly heavy, with pondering, I can identify at least one blessing.  Write it on a list and post it where you can remind yourself. Tomorrow do the same.  Brainstorm.  Even small things appear on my list:

• A sunny day
• Being together
• I am gaining experience and wisdom
• A skilled surgeon
• A fresh apple
• A cheery cleaning lady who smiles and tries to speak English
• A good test result
• Being alive
• My daughter reading Ammon a book out loud
• A pretty nature photograph in the hospital hallway
• A nap

Gratitude works its magic and safeguards us against discouragement and despair.

We aren’t thankful because we are happy.

We are happy because we are thankful.

 

 

Ammon is beginning to get restless. Hooray! He has been in the hospital in Chile for three and a half weeks now and the hospital walls are closing in a little bit. He is eager to put his missionary shoes on and go on a little walk with the physical therapist a few times each day.  He looks back and waves his hand and I am overjoyed to see him in the hallway outside of his hospital room!

Last night, before we put him to bed, he said, “Can’t we go on a family outing, like walking in the park?”  He still asks why he is here, in the hospital.  It takes a long time for the brain to heal.  I read Huck Finn to him instead of the walk in the park, and we enjoyed that.

Ammon has made enormous progress!    The more time pases, the bigger this miracle grows.  Every detail happened just right for Ammon’s survival, and we still marvel!  The survival rate for Sudden Death Syndrome is 1 in 100.  Thank you Lord!

My husband and I are getting used to Chileno culture.  We walked to the bakery near the hospital and bought empanadas to pack in our lunch today.  I’ve learned enough Spanish to get by… barely.  We’ve fallen in love with the people, and their kindness and eagerness to help and smile and laugh and talk.  We’ve become accustomed to being kissed by everyone, from the doctor and nurse to the 20 year old physical therapist intern student.  We hung our family picture in the room and every hospital worker that enters stands and looks at it and comments on our precious (and enormous) family.  In Chile, they love their families so very much.  Even the taxi driver has his rear view mirror plastered with little photos of his children.

And the cleanliness of this city is amazing!  They wash out their fountains, they scrub the public garbage cans, they sweep their sidewalks, they wash their porches–and here in the hospital, they mop the hospital room floor 3 x day, they scrub out the soap dispenser and the crevices in a bucket lid and the windows and everything else washable.  They are so cleanly that I am wondering if they are scrubbing the paint off things.  The street curbs are patchy paint and crumbling concrete, but they are clean!

The doctor in the USA and the doctor in Chile are collaborating over the phone. Unfortunately, the phone call dropped after 20 seconds, so hopefully they will connect today.  They are discussing possible transport to the USA soon, so we might be coming home!  Just the thought is enough to live on happily for a few more days.

My son is recovering!

Life is good!

It’s a new year and I’m with my son in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit in Santiago, Chile. Not exactly where I thought I’d start off the New Year! But I am here because of a miracle. No, not a miracle. Many, many miracles orchestrated far beforehand by an all-knowing God.

Go back to when Ammon left the USA to serve as a missionary in the southern tip of Chile, to tell the people about his faith in Jesus Christ and to share a pattern of living that would bring happiness. He received a blessing that his health would be protected.

Fast forward almost a year later to this Christmas, summer time in Chile.  Our family gathered at our home in Utah to talk to Ammon on Skype, reminiscing about family memories and laughing at inside jokes.  It was a thrill to “see” our son for the first time in almost a year, even if it was over the computer. He had a sunburned face, while we shivered in 25 degree freezing cold weather. He seemed to be doing well. I had asked about his health, and he had replied, “Don’t worry, Mom. The Lord will provide!”. He had 40 minutes to talk with us, and when the call ended, Ammon’s expression was frozen on our computer screen…

Three days later, in preparation for his workday ahead, Ammon and another missionary went jogging together in the remote island of Chiloe, where Ammon had been assigned just 8 days earlier.  The village is progressing and a hospital was built there just four years ago.  Ammon loves to run and was usually way out ahead but on this run, he began lagging behind, even slowed to a walk. His companion turned around just at the moment that he dramatically, almost in slow motion, collapsed to the ground. He thought Ammon was teasing him. Then he realized the awful truth. This was for real. Ammon’s companion raced back and held him in his arms as he went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing.  A Chilean woman whose daughter was being taught by the missionaries happened to be walking on the other side of the street and saw my son collapse.  She had a cell phone and called the ambulance which arrived only 3 minutes later, a miracle that they are still discussing in a community of people who know the ambulance takes 20 minutes to arrive!

The ambulance crew resuscitated Ammon and headed for the hospital, when his heart arrested again and his breathing stopped. His companions arrived by taxi and rushed in to hear the doctor repeating, “No responde!  No responde!” Distraught, his companions gave him a healing blessing.  Suddenly,  he began to move!  A breathing tube kept him alive during the next few days and eventually through a life flight via “air ambulance” to the modern hospital in Santiago, the second best in South America. We reunited with him on Christmas morning, after 24 hours of harrowing worry,  travel, praying, and no sleep, changing planes in Houston and Panama City.

There were no glittery packages, no carols and no decorated tree, but it was the very best Christmas gift we could ever ask for!  Our son is alive!  God works miracles!  Hallelujah!

It was touch-and-go for days but finally Ammon is recovering, talking and laughing again!  He is still plugged into monitors and the doctors are still puzzling at what caused a young, strong youth of just 20 years to suffer Sudden Death Syndrome.  My husband and I wake up at dawn every morning and race to the hospital in a Chilean taxi (which is a dangerous journey!) and we spend the day helping Ammon to heal.  We return to our borrowed apartment (via a generous American who has a second home in Chile) to prepare our dinner at 11 PM and drop exhausted into bed.  We are so happy! What more could any parent ask than that their child be restored to life?

I believe in miracles!  I do! We have seen more than I can enumerate.  But just a few:

*we got passports renewed just a few months before, which enabled us to travel to Chile.  Without passports, our son would have been without parents during this crisis.

*I had a book tucked into my bag unknowingly entitled Faith Unpuzzled containing scriptures on having faith.  It gave me enormous comfort during that first long week in the hospital.

*God literally held a plane for us, far past its departure time, on our connecting flight to Panama City late on Christmas Eve.  Had we missed that flight, it would have been a long, long time until we would have arrived in Santiago, due to the Christmas rush.  We did everything in our power, and we ran, and we prayed and we exercised our faith as powerfully as we could . . . and God stopped the plane.  I know He did!  We were the very last passengers before the door was shut on a very delayed take-off.

What a wonderful perspective change a crisis brings! Family unity, love, kindness . . . these matter. There are so many things daily that we worry ourselves over that don’t matter much. I am learning so much, and I am so grateful!  The very best gifts don’t come in pretty packages under the tree. If your child is breathing, and his heart is beating, rejoice!  All is right!

“…whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ, it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The older I get, the less I have to say.  I still talk a lot, trust me, but not half as much as I used to! And the older I get, the less passionate are my opinions. It would seem that the older you get, the more you would know, but it is having quite the opposite effect on me.  I can more often see both sides, and I feel like I know things less surely.

I was pondering this and remembered a poem I had taught my children years ago in homeschool:

 

A wise old owl lived in an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?

 

I’m getting to be an old bird, and trying to learn to be wise, too.  Listening helps a lot!

Wholesome, nourishing and very comforting!  We eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Pop a batch in the oven whenever you have baking to do anyways to make use of all that good oven heat.  This easy recipe uses plain ingredients: dried milk, which I keep on hand, and eggs, which my chickens keep on hand.

Comfort Custard

• 8 eggs
• 6 cups milk (or use dry milk, see info below)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sweetener (honey, coconut palm sugar, maple sugar, or xylitol or a mix of them) or use part stevia.  You can even put an apple in the blender to help sweeten it up!
• Optional:  1/2 tsp. cinnamon, dash of nutmeg, cloves and mace.  Any or all.

Put eggs in the blender with vanilla, salt, sweetener, spices, plus (optional) a small apple or any other sweet fruit.  Add half the milk to the blender and buzz until smooth.  Pour into a 9 x 13″ glass baking dish and whisk in remaining milk.  Set baking dish down into a bigger pan. I use a stainless steel casserole pan.  You can use a broiler pan, turkey roaster, etc.  Pour water in the larger pan so that it comes up halfway on the side of the glass baking dish.  Bake at 350° for about an hour and a half.  You can tell when your custard is set and baked when a knife inserted near the middle comes out clean.  Serve plain or top with fruit or berries for a pretty dessert or breakfast.

That’s all there is to it!

If you want to use dry milk in this recipe, use 1 1/2 cups of instant dry milk powder with 5 cups of water for a firmer “flan” type custard that we love!

Another variation I have done is to put a couple of cups of cooked winter squash or pumpkin into the blender along with the eggs, and increasing the sweetening by a bit.  Great way to sneak in some veggies!

Dry milk from my food storage, eggs from my chickens, and apples from my orchard combine to make a very economical, nourishing and comforting treat!

 

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