Puppies!

Elizabeth and I are in Ohio right now visiting our dear relations (my mother's sister and her family) and their golden doodle dog recently had eight adorable puppies! Words cannot describe the delight with which I watch them, play with them, and clean up after them (well, maybe not that last one!). They are about seven weeks old and being sold for $600.00 each. Believe me, if they weren't so expensive, I would somehow find a way to get one--that's how cute they are. Well of course you want to see them! I will be posting pictures on our family blog sometime soon, maybe in a couple days to a week, so you can check there www.cochranfamily101.blogspot.com

I hope and pray you are as happy and content as I am in the Lord! Actually, I hope you are even more so than me *wink* God bless and have a great weekend! Oh, and Happy Fourth of July!

He is a Song

The loneliness is bitter
The tell me you have known
No parents and no children
No one to call you home
I pray for you a family
Within the Father's plan
But even more I pray that you will come to understand

That He is a light in the deepest shadow
And the wings of a spirit in flight
He is a spring in the dry burning desert
He is a song in the longest night

There is a holy kinship
You tell me you have known
But in the rush of serving
You wonder where it's gone
I pray you will remember
A younger heart's desire
I pray that He will breathe upon the embers of this fire

He is a light in the deepest shadow
And the wings of a spirit in flight
He is a spring in the dry burning desert
He is a song in the longest night

He is the dearest friend
While others come and go
He is the dearest friend
That you will ever know
May you ever know

That he is a light in the deepest shadow
And the wings of a spirit in flight
He is a spring in the dry burning desert
He is a song in the longest night

-He is a Song by Twila Paris from her album Cry for the Desert

Spin

I got sent this movie about six months ago and just watched it again... It's really good and could have a couple of different significant meanings (which I'll let you figure out on your own). It is about eight minutes long, but worth the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc

U-Turn

How life changes... My dad has been working at Dove Christian Academy. but he's changed his profession to fix and flips! Fix and flips are houses one buys, fixes, up, and resells (hopefully for a profit). It's been an interesting transition, but God is good. So he's been working with Mike (who already does this) and hopefully will buy his own home sometime in the near future...

I'll admit that sometimes I wonder why God moved us out to Colorado. So here is the Cochran family, way out in Denver, CO, missing their old church and friends in Georgia, and beginning to wonder why about a lot of things. Well, I know Mike loves having us living with him, and has even said we're the best thing that happened to him since he's been in Colorado (he's never had a family) so I guess that could be one reason we came out here (ie: to bless him). And I know we've blessed some other homeschoolers in the area. But the best part to me is that God has tons of other reasons--we just don't know them yet. Oh, and another one is that my dad can make more here doing construction than he could ever make in GA. So it goes... My mind begins to question God, and then he shows me all the blessings he's given us.

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. God bless!

Another Year...

Yep, I am now arrived at the ripe old age of 91, oops, I mean, 19 :) On March 27th (my BD) I was actually being an honorary judge for speech and debate competition. It was a lot of fun and I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my birthday *wink* But seriously, this year has been incredible. This time last year I would never have in my wildest dreams predicted a move to Colorado, yet here I am! So much has happened this past year, changes for the better most of the time, praise God. He is so good and it's by his grace alone that I make this confession... Part of a song by Michael Card comes to mind:

"There are times in your life when you're really in between
there's people telling you from every side
And the pain of growing up is almost more than you can bear
and all you want to do is run and hide

Don't you know that He loves you?
Don't you know that He cares?
Don't you know that He died to save your soul?
And don't you doubt for a minute that he will"

That song describes how I've felt (off and on) for the past, well, six years! But this last year God has matured me so much that the "pain of growing up" is beginning to subside and I'm finding that I AM grown up. It's rather scary, and there are definitely new pains waiting to take the place of the growing pain, but it's not really like I have a choice. I reiterate that God is so good and I praise and thank his Holy Name for all he's done for me. May he bless you as abundantly as he has blessed me!

I blogged on our family blog with some pics if you are interested. www.cochranfamily101.blogspot.com

Our Wonderful English Language--who's for re-awakening Latin?

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough-
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give it up!!!

-Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946)

Laugher, Tears, Fights, Elations (and much more = LIFE

I feel very comatose and, well, for lack of a better word, blah lately. Maybe lethargic is a good word... I don't know. Life seems to move so slow, and yet amazingly fast. Some minutes seem like hours and some weeks like days. I'm in a rambling mood so bear with me.

The other day I was reading Proverbs and something really incredible dawned on me: You know how in Proverbs 1 the last part of the chapter is all about Wisdom "calling in the streets" etc? (yes, you should know but if you don't--look it up!). Well, for some reason I had always thought, well, let me pull in my horses here, and let you read the verses for yourself first (yep, you don't have to look it up after all).

20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.

Wisdom is always calling out to me, all day long. I can either choose to ignore her, or gain from her knowledge. The point of this part of Proverbs 1 is this: Wisdom will call, but eventually she'll STOP. If I ignore her long enough, she'll stop attempting to help me and instead ignore me as I have ignored her. But there's more than that. Not only will she ignore me when I WANT her to ignore me, but when I actually want her, she may not be there. This is tough stuff here! And it scared me the other day... To think that Wisdom would "mock" and "laugh" when we needed her most... Haven't you ever seen a family or individual who has made many many bad choices and now has a genuine desire to do better, yet seems to only make worse mistakes (out of ignorance, or what-have-you)? Now I understand why that happens... I'm not saying it's ever too late to change and God can definitely do anything; but this took my attention and I've made a renewed commitment to listen to Wisdom as opposed to ignoring her. I am pleased to find that throughout the day I realize that I'm internally telling myself (within different situations) "Wisdom is crying out--come on, Katie, LISTEN!" I am still a long way from listening even half the time *sigh* But with God's help I will never become insensible to what Wisdom has to say to me... Now read that part about Wisdom again (above) and put it within those little circumstances when you have choices all throughout the day... It's incredible and hard, but so good... God bless and thanks for reading my ramblings :)

PS I put a few pictures on our family blog, if you're interested. www.cochranfamily101.blogspot.com

Year 2007

Hello friends! I just posted a ton of pictures on our family blog www.cochranfamily101.blogspot.com if you'd like to see a storyboard of our lives this past year... I meant to do it in January but you know how life is :)

We're doing great and loving Colorado (or at least, I am). The other day we were driving somewhere and everywhere I looked, mountains towered to the sky; I nearly cried with awe--they're so beautiful. And I can't capture it properly with a camera so you'll have to come visit to see what I mean *laugh* I know I know--that's called bribing. But I miss you Georgians (and relatives) very much... I wish you all could move out here and then we could have everything! I personally have started a part-time job for Mike doing his personal accounting for him. It's kind of a sad story because I was going to start online college this month but I'm still considered a non-resident of Colorado because we haven't been here a year yet so the classes cost nearly triple for me what they would cost a resident and it's too much. So we are waiting on the Lord :) Your prayers would be great because it seems like God has just shut this door...

Anyway, God bless! Have a wonderful weekend.

A New Perspective on The Civil War

My mom is on several homeschool e-loops and this one lady had an interesting opinion on Lincoln's reason for the civil war. She does use some direct quotes so I am finding myself leaning this way... Definitely NOT a popular opinion, but could it be true? Your thoughts are welcome...

"Perhaps, however, the idea that the abolition of slavery was the cause
of this war is historically inaccurate.

Lincoln was not fighting to free slaves but to promote and secure his
idea of a strong, central government that would control the states. By
bringing in the slavery issue, *after* the start of the war, Lincoln
was hoping to encourage the slaves to revolt in the South and to make
the Southerners look like cruel slave-holders. It was nothing more
than a political foil to keep England and France from joining the
Confederate ranks, which they were seriously considering, having even
sent delegates to the South. Lincoln's claim that Southerners hoped to
irreversibly establish slavery was completely false. Both England and
more recently Russia had peacefully freed their slaves through a
gradual process that intrigued the Southerners greatly. They were very
interested in doing likewise, and had begun to implement a similar
program years before the War.

Also, contrary to popular belief (fueled by modern-day history
revisionists) the Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves or
outlaw this abominable institution. It simply "freed" the slaves
living in the Southern States, leaving their Northern brethren in
chains. It is interesting to note as a little aside, that many
Unionists protested this change in the war's "cause." Many were
indignant at the idea of dying for a "negro" and many even deserted at
this point. Even after the war, the 13th amendment that actually
abolished slavery was not ratified until 1901. Why? Because Delaware
- a northern state - absolutely refused to ratify it (December 1865).

Although Lincoln (and the Union position) are considered "The Great
Emancipator(s), their introduction of the slavery issue in promoting
their cause had little to do with good-will or moral principles. It
was instead a desperate - and may I say clever - move calculated to
sully the Confederate cause. As a matter of fact, Lincoln himself said
in 1862 that: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
union ... If I could save the union without freeing any slaves, I would
do it; if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I
would also do that."(1)

In the end, he chose the latter as the more politically expedient way.
Unfortunately, most history textbooks summarily describe the war as one
fought over slavery - with the Union army representing the
abolitionists and the Confederates representing the cruel slave owners.
A study of the original writings, however, will prove that nothing
could be further from the truth."

-Daisy

(1) Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New
York Tribune, dated August 22, 1862.

Knitting in the New Year

Well I guess I ought to say HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you all have a blessed season this 2008...

Mike expressed a desire to learn how to knit, so I gave him knitting needles and yarn for Christmas, plus a "coupon" for a "free knitting lesson from his fellow lefty" (like me, he's a lefty and, trust me, only a lefty can teach a lefty how to knit--I tried for the longest time to learn from a righty and got so messed up...). So on New Years eve day, he tells me had had a bad dream the night before that the knitting coupon had expired and that I wouldn't give him a lesson *laugh* So he wanted to get right on it. We did, and here are some pictures that Ellie took. Let me tell you that there's nothing like teaching a 50-year old GUY how to knit!

I'm holding the scarf I've been working on (and have currently finished) and he's holding up three fingers for the three rows he's accomplished. Not to put a damper on the picture, but he got revenge on me for laughing at his style by messing up shortly after this picture. He goofed so badly that we had to start COMPLETELY OVER. I'm kidding when I say he did it in revenge--he was as frustrated as I was--but still... :)

Let me tell you that it was an experience I will never forget...