Sunday

Still hot today, but nice! Katie read 2 Corinthians 8: 7-15 in church and did a really nice job. No Sunday school again this week, so we didn't need to be there until 10:00 and I got to watch my Yale Old Testament course and a Latin for Teachers lecture before church. Both of which were wonderful. Part of the homily today was about the reading from Mark 9:20-22, and my OT lecture was on purity laws, which made it extra interesting.

This afternoon the kids swam for a while and I read The Chosen while "watching" them. What a wonderful book! I'm sure I read it, many years ago, but I don't remember anything about it (so maybe I read Asher Lev and just meant to read The Chosen?). Anyway, it has been the most frequently and enthusiastically recommended book by miles for the literature/writing class I'm working on.  I will have to give the boys some background information on Judaism (and, for Travis, on baseball!), but after that I think they'll be fine with it. I have high hopes for A Separate Peace as well, which is next on my list. And my dad has promised to hunt down the name of a good Asimov "Robot" story which sounds hopeful. So progress is being made!

This wonderful apron arrived from my mom for Katie yesterday! It says "I want Chocolate, and I want it NOW!" So appropriate! And convenient, since chocolatey fingerprints don't show on a chocolate brown apron! Thank you, Mommy!

And Travis is looking like the cat that got the cream because his YouTube channel got its 1,000th subscriber today. His videos are all silly -- I'm always making suggestions for videos he could make that would be interesting (and educational!) and he tells me I don't "get" his type of video -- but evidently some people do. And, given the popularity of my blog*, I guess I should just keep quiet and let him do his stuff, eh? Anyway, it made him pretty happy, which makes me happy too!

*Just to be clear, my target audience -- my parents, relatives, and a few old friends -- occasionally express their satisfaction with my blog. It keeps them current with my kids (and cats). And I have some record of our lives to supplement my failing memory. So I'm quite content with my small audience. But Travis has more ambition!