I am pleased to announce the winners of the blog contest for Tabitha’s Heart.
Lynda is the winner of the prize package including The NKJV Daily Bible and Dinosaurs Unleashed. I have been blessed with additional prizes so I would like to award an addtional copy of Dinosaurs Unleashed to Texasmomkj. Please send my your snail mail addresses within one week to receive you prizes. Congratulations to you both. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my blog and comment. If you like my website, please share it with your friends.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” – Deuteronomy 6:4-7

I take my work as a Bible class teacher very seriously. I spend hours studying so that I can help young minds realize the importance of loving, serving and learning about God. Sometimes the work is very difficult. The kids aren’t interested in learning, they are tired or preoccupied with school stuff or video games, the parents are apathetic, unsupportive or are down-right discouraging. Some days I leave class feeling very alone. I feel that I am at the very bottom of the mountain trying to get to the top with no one there to help me.

But occasionally you have nights like last Wednesday night. Last week, every child in my class had completed their homework, most of the class knew their memory verse and they participated in the class. Even the wannabe “slackers” had done their work and were answering questions. They actually remembered what I taught them. We played a review game and the kids answered every question except one. It is nights like this that give me the strength to continue trying.

The stakes are so high. If you fail as a math teacher the child may not graduate, be able to balance a checkbook, make change or understand the terms of a loan, it may even cost him a job. But if you fail as a Bible teacher, you could cost a child his soul. This is a very sobering thought. There is so little time that you have to teach these children. Often, the teaching you provide is the only Bible teaching the children receive. I am thankful that with all the nights of discouragement there are a few nights like these where the kids “get it”. I am hoping that tonight is another one of those few.

You would think that having sick kids would be a perfect time to catch up on knitting since they won’t want to do anything but sit in front of the TV. But no! It is very difficult practically impossible to knit when you have to wipe a nose every 31 seconds, locate the Kleenex box every 2.3 minutes, get someone a drink every 4 minutes, clean up the spill of the aforementioned drink every 4.2 minutes, locate remote control so TV channel can be changed every 16 minutes, clean up barf every 2 hours, remember to feed every person and critter that requires feeding. and make at least one trip to the store to purchase the only food item on the planet that sick kid is willing to eat. Is it any wonder I only completed one row of Indigo Ripples? At this rate, I won’t finish it by this time next year. And I only have about 15 rows of the lace and the ruffle left. Fortunately, I was able to get a little knitting done yesterday because today has been a knitting washout. To add to my fun weekend. My hubby has been working out of town this weekend. When he came home today he was sick too. I made a different dinner for every member of the family. I sure hope they remember this when it is my turn to be sick.

Adrienne has a contest running on her blog for a skein of STR and a skein of Tofutsies. I am hoping that she will see this post and feel really sorry for me and send the yarn to me. If you go to her website and leave a comment that you saw this post she will give me brownie points. Don’t you think I deserve them after the day I have had. Please go to Adrienne’s website and leave a comment telling her how much you think I, I mean you, deserve her yarn. And please tell her that I sent you.

I have been teaching Bible classes for years. Until the past 3 – 4 years I have been teaching exclusively preschool age kids. But an opportunity arose for me to teach primary age kids and I grabbed it. Don’t get me wrong, 3 year olds are a barrel of laughs but I found that teaching older kids has helped me to learn more about the Bible than I did teaching preschoolers. It has really helped me grow spiritually. I have also found that my personality is actually better suited to elementary age kids. This could be partially due to the fact that this age group is less likely to cry inexplicably.

I am currently teaching 4th – 6th graders. This age is a challenge but also a lot of fun. They really keep you on your toes. And there is always one who wants to be the class clown. My current class clown is a 10 year old boy. He is really a sweet and smart child but he really likes to see if he can aggravate me. His favorite game is to answer every question I ask with the word “Paul”. I should tell you that I teach Old Testament and in all my study I have never found a person in the Old Testament named Paul. If you know of one, please tell me where he is.

It all started when I taught the class about the kings of Israel. Of course, you begin with King Saul. During one of my review games, I asked the class the name of the first king of Israel and got the answer “Paul” from my little buddy. There were a couple of snickers from the class which I silenced. I gently explained that Paul was an apostle of Christ who was sometimes called Saul, but Saul was a king of Israel and he was never called Paul. When I went to the next question, the response was “Paul” – this time the answer should have been David. So I again silenced the snickers and explained that Paul was an apostle of Christ who wasn’t even born at the time of the kings. Every question I asked for the rest of that evening was answered “Paul” even if the answer wasn’t a person’s name. “Who was the wisest king?” “Paul.” “What did gift did God give Solomon?” “Paul.” “What did Solomon build?” “Paul.” “What is the square root of 9,216?” “Paul” (okay, I didn’t really ask that question but you get the point)

Finally, I realized that this kid was just trying to get my goat – succeeding I might add. Fortunately, the bell rang to get me out of my predicament before I was guilty of murder. Since that time, I have taught this same boy four different quarters and he has never failed to answer at least one question per class with “Paul”. Last week, after the first two or three “Pauls,” I drew a circle on the chalk board and told the class that anyone who answered a question with “Paul” would spend time with their nose in that circle. Paul did not find the need to visit us for the rest of class. Last night, when I walked into the class room, my little buddy was writing on the chalk board. Here is what he wrote

I have been a finishing fiend lately. Spurred on my the completion of my daughter’s Hedwig’s Lace socks, I have been clearing needles like crazy.

Wednesday, I finished Summer Shawlette. I got it blocked today. This is my first wet blocking of real lace. I am amazed at what wet blocking does to the looks of lace.

Here is the shawl blocked and drying. The color is a little wonky because the flash insisted in firing.

And here is the stole on my trusty knitwear model Suzy. Suzy is a much better model than my kids because she doesn’t mind standing really still.

I really love this pattern and am very pleased with my results. I am going to wear it tomorrow to worship.

I also finished two Irish Hiking Scarves. These are part of my Christmas gift stash. The blue one is for my nephew. It was originally intended for my brother the football coach since this is his school color but it turned out a bit shorter than I planned because I ran out of yarn -oops. Apparently this wasn’t a whole skein. The other one is for either my SIL or my BIL depending on how the mood strikes me at the moment I start wrapping presents.

This photo is while they are still OTN but they really didn’t change much after they were cast off so I didn’t take another photo.

I was hoping to have MS3 completed by now but it is not cooperating with me. I made a mistake and then dropped a stitch on one of those infernal double decreases and I can’t seem to get it back to normal. I am seriously considering ripping back to the end of the cat’s paw section and knitting the variation that doesn’t have the eyelet row. It is in time out again.

While MS3 is in timeout, I am working fiendishly to finish Indigo Ripples. I ripped back the lace section and reknitted it because I made a mistake somewhere that I couldn’t easily correct. I found out that the mistake was actually in the pattern. That could explain why I couldn’t get the numbers to match. I am much happier with the reknit. Hope to be reporting that it is finished very soon.