movies

Enjoying a BBC Classic

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In my search for some new videos to watch, I came across the BBC classic mini-series, To Serve them All My Days. Based on a novel by by R. F. Delderfield, the film deals with the journey of a young WWI veteran from the time he leaves the service through his career as a schoolmaster at an elite British public boarding school. Even though the young man, David Powlett-Jones, does not have a degree when he applies for the position, the likable headmaster, Algy Herries is impressed by him and gives him a chance to prove himself. David goes on to finish his degree and teaches at the school for many years. He weathers many personal trials and enchants the audience with his passion for teaching and for guiding his students through life.

The film itself is simply made. There are no frills here. But the script and the acting give what might sound like dry material for a film come to life with a lot of dramatic flair. I especially liked the actor Alan MacNaughtan who plays an older colleague to Powlett-Jones. MacNaughtan is a dry-witted curmudgeonly bachelor who befriends PJ, and endears himself to the audience with each episode of the series.

We still have one more disc left of the 4-disc set, and I am waiting anxiously for it to be delivered to our local branch of the St Louis County Library so I can see how David’s career ends. I can already tell I’ll be sorry when it is over, and I’ll have to check out the book to read it, too.

around the house, christian growth, weather

The Earth Shifting Under our Feet

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It’s all over the news now, so most of you have heard about our little earthquake in the mid-west. The epicenter was about 130 miles east of St Louis, but I woke up to the earth rumbling under our house. I even felt a little post-earthquake seismic activity. I had trouble getting back to sleep, so I looked up earthquake stuff on line and reported my experience of the tremor to the government’s official earthquake tracking office. I decided to report it because, at the time, there was nothing showing up on the Internet about it when I searched. Right after I submitted my report, I found the page at the USGS website that showed all the other people who had reported the quake and their zip codes. I found it all very interesting, even though it wasn’t yet 5:00 am.

When we lived near Seattle nearly 9 years ago, we had 2 earthquakes within a day or two . (BTW, I remember the date because I had just delivered my 3rd child, and my MIL was still with us helping out with the kids.) So with that experience under our belts, Mark and I felt sure today’s rumbling was an earthquake. This morning, I am feeling a little crummy after getting to bed too late and then having my sleep interrupted. Hopefully, my coffee will kick in soon, and I’ll be up to the tasks ahead.

We are also feeling a little shaky about life lately. We know God is in control, but our faith is being tested–at least mine, I don’t want to speak for Mark. A series of client losses and having hours cut at his part-time job have made us very vulnerable economically. We are considering a move for another bi-vocational call to a church plant, and Mark is very diligently seeking full-time work as well as projects to keep us afloat until we have something more stable. Please keep us in your prayers.

around the house

The Upstairs Neighbors are Fighting

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I’ve been desperately working on bookkeeping stuff for our church (my part-time job) today. Admittedly, I am easily distracted by any number of things. But today, it’s our upstairs neighbors that are driving me, well, batty. Our upstairs neighbors are a family of birds who have set up housekeeping in our eaves. I first noticed a few scratching noises a few days back, and I thought it might be mice. But that must have been moving day for the bird family. Now, they are tweeting away, and every 5 or 10 minutes I hear what must be a bird squabble, or shall I say, squawk. It sounds like someone is very upset with someone else. Maybe Mr. Bird didn’t pick up the right worms for the kids.

So how do we get rid of the birds? To get the answer to this question, I did what any industrious American does, I went to the web and googled “birds nesting in roof.” I found quite a few suggestions, but the site that caught my eye was this one. It says it is illegal to send birds packing. If you want to get rid of them, you have to wait until the next winter when they have vacated to seal up any holes where they might want to nest to keep them from coming back. Thankfully, this is a British law, not an American one.

Seriously, though, if you have any good ideas of how to evict the noisy neighbors, please share. Oh, and if you see our church treasurer, tell him I blogged that I worked on the stuff he asked me to do.

Only in St Louis

The Indoctrination Starts Early!

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Today is opening day for Cardinals baseball. In St Louis, Cardinals baseball is practically a religion. It doesn’t seem to matter where you go to school, “Cardinal Days” are very common. On Cardinal Days, the students are encouraged to dress in their Cardinal gear–or to at least wear red. With it being opening day, my older kids all participated in Cardinal Day at their school. Evangeline is the only one with a Cardinal shirt that still fits her, so the boys had to settle with red. Staying in the spirit of the day, I got out Charis’s Cardinal t-shirt for her to wear to pre-school today. (Said t-shirt was purchased for less than $1 at a thrift store last year, BTW.) When I arrived there to pick her up this afternoon, she was also donning the lovely “red bird” hat that they made in craft time today. Not only was she wearing the proper attire, she was chanting, “Cardinals, Cardinals, Cardinals” all the way home.

I grew up watching baseball with my brothers, so I was something of a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. But we never were taught to love the Pirates at school. When in St Louis, there is love for God, love for your family, and love for the Cardinals. During baseball season, the order of these loves sometimes gets a bit skewed.

Mark and I are still not big fans, but it is sort of hard not to get caught up in the frenzy of it all. So, in honor of the Cardinals, please enjoy the photo of the team’s newest fans. She is quite jealous that her siblings are getting to go to a game on Thursday with their school. She wants to know when she will get to go.

family, This 'n That

Happy Easter, Snow, and Floods

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Here are a couple pictures from the Horne family for Easter. The photo of the girls is cute, but you do see what happens when young girls demand curlers the night before Easter. I much prefer their regular hair styles. The dresses they are wearing are really remarkable. Aunt Tricia sent them for birthdays when Evangeline was 6 and Charis was 2. They wore them then, and because they have really big hems they can still wear them now. I am not thrilled with the photo of the whole family, but let’s face it, getting a good picture of 6 people, 4 of whom are under 12, between the worship service and Sunday school is not an easy task. So we take what we can get.

Snow

We sat in worship today while a quiet snow fall of giant soft flakes fell throughout the service. Then as we enjoyed Easter dinner and fellowship with friends, we saw more of the same. It was so odd to have snow and to run the heat on Easter Sunday.

Floods

As most everyone knows by now, some of the rivers around St Louis flooded this week. We went to the home of some church friends who live west of where the flood waters were high enough to close down I44. While the waters have receded since the rivers crested, we passed several places along the road to our friends’ home where the water came up to the roofs of buildings, covered soccer fields, and only allowed the tops of the trees to show.

life

You Can Always Blog About It

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This is the scene in our back yard. The ground is completely saturated. And, today, while I was sitting at my desk in the unfinished basement (lovingly referred to as “the dungeon”), I felt some dampness on my feet. I looked around, and I saw something shiny in the seams of our basement’s concrete floor. I got some towels, and started “plugging the dam.” Then I saw little puddles beginning to form around the vein-like cracks in our concrete basement floor. At this point, I decided to move as much stuff to higher ground as I could and pray that the rain would stop soon and that nothing important will be damaged. Oh, and I decided to blog about it. After all, when things get tough, the tough start blogging!

books

Tidying Up

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Take a peek at my sidebar. I’ve tidied things up a bit. I’ve updated the books I am reading, and I’ve added a very short list of what I have read this year. Hopefully, that list will grow as the year marches on.

Anybody reading something great that you want to tell me about? I always enjoy trying something new.

family, fun outings

We Won!

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A couple weeks ago, I got a call from a rep at a marketing company in New York who said, “Is this Jennifer Horne?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “You may be the potential winner of a Disney Cruise from the ABC show America’s Funniest Videos.  Did you enter the on-line contest?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking that I had just entered over the weekend and finding this call a bit surreal.

The marketing rep went on to explain that I was the potential winner until I could complete some paperwork to prove that I am who I say I am, and when that was complete, he could call me and tell me officially that I was the winner.

I was excited about winning a Disney Cruise, but, of course, the prize is a trip for 4.  We have 6.  Later the marketing rep called and said Disney would do their best to give me the best deal to add two more to the trip.  Yesterday, I got a call from the cruise line that sealed the deal for us that only 4 of us would be able to go on the trip.  I should be happy, but I am a bit sad.  I guess I have learned I shouldn’t enter contests for trips for 4.

We didn’t tell the kids about the prize until it was announced on tv tonight.  They were excited, but as we have decided that I will take the 3 older kids on the trip and Mark and Charis will “do something else fun,” there were some tears amidst the excitement.

What’s strange about this prize is the timing.  We would never consider making a trip like this ourselves.  We really never go on real vacations of any sort because of income limitations.  But if we were in a more stable position financially, we might have seriously considered paying for the two other passengers.  As it is, we aren’t really sure it will work for any of us to go.  But it was sort of fun to see my name on national TV along with a photo of the family.  We also received some well wishes from people we hadn’t told about winning.

I’ll keep you posted about our plans as summer approaches and we see how life unfolds for us.

cooking, family

A Day at Home

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The kids have been home from school a lot lately with MLK Jr Day, Presidents’ Day, snow days, etc. Today, the three older ones were home for a teacher in-service. On so many of their other days off, I have just kept on with work projects I had to finish. Today, I acted like it was Saturday. Evangeline had a friend over to play, I cleaned a little, did a little laundry, did a little web surfing, fed kids, and forgot about most of the work things I had to do.

We ended the afternoon with the three older ones playing Candy Land with Charis, and with three of the four helping with making homemade pizza and Evangeline helping me to make homemade bread to take to shepherding group on Sunday. Here are a couple photos to help us remember the day:

The pizzamakers

The pizza mmmmmmmmm . . . . . .

Musings and contemplations about trying to live a full and meaningful life