Thanks Be to God

Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to thy never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that thou art doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I didn't know that my daddy was in mortal peril this weekend until I got an e-mail from my mom and (after some anxious hours) finally talked with him this afternoon.  My parents live in Maine, and my daddy was sailing on a lake in his tiny sailboat.  It was very windy and rough -- exciting weather, according to my daddy -- and his boat capsized and filled with water.  Miraculously, he managed to make it to shore, and then, with some difficulties, drive himself home.  My mom persuaded him to allow her to call in the paramedics before hypothermia did him in, but it was a near thing.  After a night in the hospital, he signed himself out and is, we hope, on the road to recovery.  There just aren't words for how grateful I feel that he lived to tell the tale.
There was one bit, though, when my parents were telling the story which made me laugh.  They have just had a very long driveway put in, and the edges are delicate.  My daddy didn't want excited paramedics driving on his driveway and maybe damaging it, so he would have liked to meet them at the road, but with a body temperature of 91 degrees and dropping that just wasn't practical.  And then there is the white carpet in their bedroom.  My mother knew that, in his precarious state of health, paramedics in muddy boots trashing his carpet would kill my daddy.  So she met them at the door and made them all put on shoe covers before they came in to save his life.  I call that wifely devotion!  I'm sure that the rescue squad will be telling the tale of that woman with the shoe covers for months to come, never knowing that her motivation was truly noble.

In other news, my computer has been infected with some sort of something bad, apparently by Travis's camera card.  I can no longer access my pictures, which puts quite a crimp in my photo heavy blogging style!  I used his camera to film Katie doing her "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." speech, which is excellent, and her piano playing, which is less excellent but still adorable.  And now I can not only Not upload the videos, I can't access My Pictures at all.  It is infuriating, and the budget won't stretch to computer repairs right now. 

We did our first week of Heavy Duty, Full Steam Ahead schooling last week, and it went pretty well.  Except for Tuesday (tennis) and Friday (alien brain abduction).  Part of Katie's work is to write short descriptions of some of the famous people she has studied each week, said descriptions to include when the person lived, what they did, and why they are remembered.  This is too hum drum for Katie, so she wrote her biographies in verse (free verse).  Here is Alaric:

"He fought many wars,
Yet he died, Oh he died.
He is the leader of the Goths.
He fought a battle that was winning,
It was death, oh it was death!"

I mentioned that this did not fulfill the assigment, so she grudgingly added this: "P.S. -- (not very funny story here)  He captured Rome in 410."  I guess poor old Alaric didn't realize he was supposed to be funny.

And here is Theodoric:

"Theodoric was a noble man,
He spent his childhood in a pan!
This is not true, but he had a funny story;
He captured lots of fame and glory!"

And without my even commenting, she added, "He was the best emperor the Goths ever had because he recaptured Italy!!!"  I have told her that poetry (however bad) is fine, as long as long as the facts are included as footnotes.  I am accommodating like that.