Update on Moonbeam

So I mentioned in a previous post that Moonbeam, the big cat in the foreground, had a tooth problem.  We took him to the vet and the surgeon removed three teeth, one of which had snapped in half and the root had the be extracted.

We put Moonbeam in the barn and for several days, showered him with love and affection and lots of wet cat food. He was very happy to see us, very happy to accept pets, but he wasn't eating much at all, which worried me.

Finally I decided, Ok, he probably was feeling good enough to be out with the other cats at least during the day, though I intended to put him in the barn again at night so I could give him soft, wet food away from the other greedy cats.

We carried him around to the front porch where the dry food was.  Moonbeam leaped out of Miriam's arms and rushed over to the dry cat food and started eating it like he hadn't eaten in days.

Like, really, Cat??

I go to all this trouble to feed you soft wet food and dry is your favorite food in the entire planet?

Needless to say, he did not return to the barn.  He is out and about and very happy now that his teeth aren't hurting.

 

Lurching Toward Spring

 

I know it is not warm today, but we have had a couple of warm days recently. Yesterday it was almost 70. And windy, of course, as a front blew through.  Very windy.

We missed a major winter storm to the north of us so I am happy.

Much of this week has involved the cat on the right.  Moonbeam is our oldest cat.  We were not confident how old but came up with him being at least 13 and maybe even 15!  That is old for an ourdoor cat.

Kevin noticed he was slobbering and I checked him and discovered a tooth was broken.  I took him to the vet and they extracted that tooth and a couple of others that were barely hanging on.

Then they dosed him with pain meds and antibiotics and we put him in the barn for a few days.

Like all but one of our cats, Moonbeam is a stray/rescue. He and his mother and fellow kitten showed up on our porch many years ago. We found homes for Mom and Sib, but Moonbeam stayed. He is a very very nice cat.  I know he is very old too, and don't expect him to live a lot longer.  I am going to keep a close eye on his quality of life. He seems happy now.

Kevin bought our children a new "Active Life" mat. The Wii has games where you jump up and down on the mat and get exercise.  The old mat was not working right.  There is great happiness regarding the new mat.

We got our Universal Yums box from Brazil a few days ago. It is a subscription service where every month, we get food from a different country.  The kids really enjoy testing out different items. 

I finished this fun puzzle.  In addition to being spiritually encouraging (names of Jesus) it was also easy.  All those letters made it easy to put puzzle pieces in the right places.  A few months ago, I started a Monet puzzle and gave up.  I love Monet's work but it was SO hard to find the right spots with most of the puzzle full of tans, greens, purples, and pinks.

I found Wiki Stix living in a random box.  

Much of the family has been sick this week. Kevin has been the worst, poor guy.  Four of us helped at our church's food pantry last Saturday and on Monday, I got a text from one of the leaders that he tested positive for COVID!  We already had some people feeling funny on Saturday (no one who went) and three of us have tested negative for COVID since then. Which is to say, we tested at home. I am nearly certain it is just a cold.

Daniel has been sick all week but today felt well enough to make lemon muffins.

Oh, this is one last "funny".  All last weekend I was thinking I needed to wash the dining room floor but didn't get around to it.

Monday morning, Rose was sick and asked for some 7-Up. I said yes.

She then spilled it all over the dining room floor. I was glad I waited on washing the floor!  

Then a few hours later, we brought home groceries and Daniel dropped a bag with a giant container of yogurt.

Which then smashed and spread yogurt all over.

Sigh.

So now the dining room and kitchen floors are clean. Because I had to deal with them!

 

Science Stuff

 I love science.  I LOVE IT!

Cue evil laugh!

Except, wait, I am not an evil mad scientist.  I am a homeschooling mother of nine children and am thankful that at least a couple of the kids so far are excited about science.

Isaac is toiling away on a materials science degree and every once in awhile, we get to talk about fun things like phase diagrams. I really enjoy phase diagrams.  Which makes me super weird, I know.

Anyway...

So I am a Christian and I love Jesus more than I love science.

Which is a good thing, because Jesus is my Lord and Savior, and science is a way of understanding the world that God created.

I am currently working through a sermon series by a Ph.D. level astrophysicist named Hugh Ross. It is fascinating stuff.  He is a Christian and also an enthusiastic scientist.

He is an "Old Earth Creationist" and so am I.  He contends that the creation days in Genesis 1 refer to not 24 hour days, but epochs.  The Hebrew word dovetails nicely for that contention, and furthermore, even the English "day" does not always mean a 24 hour day. 

In my grandfather's day, for example -- referring to a time in the past.

He does not believe in macroevolution and claims, very convincingly, that the fossil record does not support macroevolution.

I have known that for awhile.  Darwin suggested there would be a tree of life, so to speak, where very simple organisms grew more complex and those would branch and become more complex, and so on and so forth.

Actually the fossil record shows very different results.  There was the Cambrian Explosion some 545 million years ago where in older rock layers, the only fossils are of simple organisms. Then, bang, a whole bunch of animals appeared in the fossil records quite suddenly.

Hugh Ross explains it all much better than I do.  He has written several books that I find fascinating.

I do sometimes struggle with life and how hard it can be. I appreciate that science helps undergird my faith.  The anthropic principle (the physical constants in the universe are perfect for the existence of complex life forms) , the fact that life coming from no life without a Creator seems impossible,  the incredible complexity of life NOW...

I mean wow, humans are amazing and flies are amazing and spiders are amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_bell_spider

Look up the diving bell spider.  Its behavior is ridiculous from a naturalistic perspective, or at least I think so.  How did it figure out how to do what it did? So many things have to be just right to let it do its thing! 

Anyway. I love science, and even more, I love my Creator, my Lord, and my God, who thankfully loves me in return.

Saturday, February 11th

 

 

Kevin purchased copies of the rest of my books so now we have a whole set.  The vast majority of my books are purchased as e books but still, it is nice to have the physical copies.

One of my gifts as a writer is I can easily forget plots from previous books. That IS good since I am using the same characters from Pride and Prejudice over and over again, and it is important that I not get my plots mixed up.

Anyway, the whole thing has been enormous fun and far more successful than we thought it would be.

Kitty city.  All seven cats showed up for breakfast one day this week. Shadow usually hangs next door, as I mentioned in a previous post, but she honored us with her presence.

This. Is. Hilarious.  Miriam and Rose doing sit ups with Rose sitting on Miriam's legs to help her older sister!

It is still winter but spring is lurking in the near future. Our deck tends to be warm unless there is a vicious wind, so our kitties are happily trotting around outside even though it is only in the mid 30's. But it is not windy -- we did have a major windstorm on Thursday.  Highs in the 60's with winds near 30 mph. Weird day!

So Saturdays used to be my most exhausting day of the week. That sounds odd but the way my life worked (when I had littler kids) was that on Saturdays I was trying to get school organized for the following week while also caring for small people.

In general, Saturdays are far easier now because the children are more independent. Having said that, today has been crazy!  Last week we had medical appointments three days, and I was taking Joseph driving regularly, so some stuff backed up at home. Today I am organizing kids' school plans, and writing a blog (ha ha) and I have writing to do on my latest novel, and I am also sorting out College Credit Plus for this coming school year (starting in Summer)

I have mentioned CCP before I think; it is a wonderful program wherein the State of Ohio pays for some college level credits for high school students.  Homeschoolers have to fill out online forms and gather documentation and while I have done it many times before, it is always a little nervewracking because any mistake means no credits.

The free credits are great, but the local community colleges also have a rule wherein if a CCP student uses up all of his or her credits, they will offer further credits at a rate that is about 1/3rd of normal. So that is a huge bonus.  We usually don't have enough credits to cover all classes, but for Sinclair and Clark State University, when we run out we only pay like $55/credit hour which is awesome.

So yeah, I'm jumping through hoops collecting documentation right now.  Joseph, Miriam, and Angela will all be taking college classes next year, so I need to not screw it up :-).

Having said all that, it definitely is nice that right now all the children are playing computer games and I can just focus on my work without squealing babies or toddlers. I truly adore little kids, I do, but there are nice things about older children too!

February 2nd

 And just like that, January is over!

I am so proud of myself!  I bought a little water purifier test kit for an experiment and actually did it!

That seems silly since I am a Ph.D. level engineer but the truth is that for years, I had toddlers running around snatching things off of surfaces, so got out of the habit of actually doing experiments.

It worked. We put nasty, dirty, oily water in the top and cleanish water came out of the bottom. It looked great but of course nasty things can be in water and the water still be clear. We didn't drink the water, but we admired it.

Push ups are a big thing here among certain strong people.  Here, Miriam and Rose are doing push ups.

Sarah made a very unstable, tall tower out of Settlers of Catan houses. Neat! She is so creative!

So I went to the dentist yesterday to get a couple of cavities taken care of. I did not enjoy the experience.  Our dentist is great and I was treated very well but wow, my jaw was mad at me and I do hate that feeling of having a numb cheek, nose, and jaw after the novacaine.

And yet, I still have my teeth and I have the opportunity to have someone competent take care of my teeth, so am very thankful for that!

I came home and rested for a couple of hours and today I have been tired too.  Maybe a minor illness?  Not sure.

Anyway.

We also published an updated edition of The Banished Uncle today.  The original was 57,000 words and the new version is 89,000 words, so I added a lot.