Lift Up Your Hearts!

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2004)

I heard so many homeschoolers raving about The Well-Trained Mind that I had to read it for myself. Then the question became not why so many people love it, but why do I? One reviewer called this approach “ultra school-at-home”—which should have been enough to send me fleeing as from a thousand devils. (More)

Because of the vaccine shortage, we abstained from our annual flu shots last year. Perhaps that was a good thing, because it encouraged us to avoid public drinking fountains, to be more careful with handwashing, and to make use of pocket vials of hand sanitizer when out among the hand-shaking public. (This was recommended by a physician friend whose specialty is infectious diseases. The alcohol-based formula is effective on both bacteria and viruses and, because of the way it works, does not promote resistance as anti-bacterial soaps do.)

It was thrilling to have avoided the flu without the vaccine, but we decided not to translate that excitement into presumption, largely because we will be with people this season to whom we particularly do not want to pass the illness. So we paid a visit to the county health department.

We discovered the health department as a source of immunizations one year when we tried to go to our doctor and discovered his office was no longer giving flu shots that year. That turned out to be a blessing! We've gone back to the health department ever since. Which of these two scenarios would you choose? (1) Go to the doctor, hang around for half an hour or so in a waiting room full of sick people, and hand over a $20 copay; or (2) go to the health department, wait five minutes, and pay $18!

A friend alerted me to a Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal column by Peggy Noonan, in which she reveals her impression that our society is fundamentally broken, a trolley off the tracks and hurtling toward an unknown destination, and her concern that few people are willing to think about the problems, much less take action. My friend added this: "No one wants to talk about the cracks in the bridge when you're walking over it." Naturally, I had to comment. (More)

Lift Up Your Hearts!, IrishOboe, Sursum Corda, and SalemsAttic have a new home: Lime Daley! This is no bad reflection on our previous host, TLC Web Enterprises, which always treated us well, but we are excited about the change. How many other people can call up tech support and get excellent service, knowledgeable assistance...and the sound of their grandchild in the background?

In addition to setting us up on the Lime Daley server, Jon upgraded our blog software version, so there are some changes. Probably the first thing you noticed is how much faster the pages load. Note also the nifty search box to the right, and the fact that posts can now be assigned more than one category. One downside of the fact that the new version uses caching: sometimes you will need to reload the page (reload, refresh, depending on what your browser calls it) to be sure you are seeing the most up to date posts.

The transition went amazingly smoothly, thanks to Jon's prompt and diligent efforts, but we're still working out some minor details as I get accustomed to the new system, so please let me know if you notice any problems.

So...Lift Up Your Hearts! is back in business—please feel free to post and comment once again.