Finished "the Life of Greece" by Will Durant

It's Volume II of "The Story of Civilization". Yes. I read history books for fun. It's not an assignment, unless you consider by goal of understanding history better before I die an assignment by myself!

I love these books! I was only a few more pages to the end, so I've delayed dinner to finish it and then write this. I sighed, nearly in tears, at the end. It's lines like this that make me love these books.

"Civilization does not die, it migrates; it changes its habitat and its dress, but it lives on. The decay of one civilization, as of one individual, makes room for the growth of another; life shed the old skin, and surprises death with fresh youth."

Ancient Greece! Who knew we have so much in common with a civilization so far away in time? It's amazing. History brings me closer to the world and makes me feel more connected to everyone in it.

I'm not going to recap all of Ancient Greece. I'd be hear for days! But here are few bits that made me smile.

Speaking of Homeric Greeks. "Wealth is computed realistically in goods, especially cattle, rather than in piece of metal or paper that may lose or alter their value at any moment through a change in the economic theology of men." Economic Theology. How do you like that? That's exactly what it is. I really think economics relies way too much on theory, trust, and whims, to be called a science. It IS a theology.

And another from that time, "The individual members of the family change with time, but the family is the lasting unit, surviving perhaps for centuries, and forging in the turbulent crucible of the home the order and character without which all government is in vain." Is this something we will find to be true again?

Here's a good one. "To him, (Socrates) as well as to Protagoras and Euripides, praisers of the past like Aristophanes attributed the irreligion of the age, the disrespect of the young for the old, the loosened morals of the educated classes, and the disorderly individualism that was consuming Athenian life." So it's not a new thing?

And, "He (Aristophanes) agreed with Socrates that the sovereignty of the people had become the sovereignty of politicians; but he was convinced that the skepticism of Socrates, Anaxagoras, and the Sophists had helped to loosen those moral bonds which had once made for social order and personal integrity."

I can't really sit here and write out all the parts that I highlighted, noted, or giggled at. There is something on almost every page! But this is my take away. So many times I've heard people (mostly intellectual authority) say that ancient history is irrelevant in these modern times, but the more I read, the more I completely disagree. Humanity will always be the same. The technology may change, but the underlying thing through all of time is our humanity. It is what binds us all and is something we can always use.

Finished "The 8th Habit" by Stephen Covey

I read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" a couple years ago and really loved it. I recommend it to everyone no matter where you are in your life, especially young people. I've been meaning to read this since then and bought it about a year ago...finally got to it! I'm glad I did.

You'd think these books are for business people and they are written with that audience mainly in mind, but it is so much more than that. As a housewife, mother, homeschooler, and volunteer, I have really been able to put the principles related here into practice.

The idea is that our culture is changing, as all do over time, and we can change our way of thinking and reacting to our environment to get the most out of the time we have. It's positive, not your typical "if we just went back to older ways of thinking we'd be better off" idea. It's focused on self change instead of control. It is about our power to choose, extending that small space between stimulus and response. It's about cultivating natural authority and trust by modeling character, empowering others, and vision.

"I call this directed autonomy. The manager's role then shifts from controller to enabler - co-missioning with people, removing barriers, and becoming a source of help and support." Page 257

Exchange "manager" for "parent" and you have the perfect sentence that reflects how we choose to raise our kids, our principles summed up. We model excellence as best we can, empower them to follow their dreams, help them discover the vision of their future, and support them while they find their path. We listen, we encourage, we help. We don't control or demand. It's a relationship that I want to be mutual even after they are old enough to leave legally.

Loved this book! Go get it, but read 7 Habits first. It's the foundation of the 8th.

San Diego Automotive Museum

The weather has already started to heat up out here in the desert, so I've begun my "What can I do to break up the monotony of 100+ days?" search. Our original plan for today was to got watch a motocross race in Riverside but the forecast says a high of 105...no...just. no.

San Diego and its surrounding area is a good place for us to run to for the day. It's two hours away but worth the drive. It was 90 degrees when we left the house at 9AM. I'm fairly certain it hit 105 while we were gone, but in San Diego it was 75! I'll admit the humidity was higher, but it was nice.

We got to Balboa Park at 11:30 and there was plenty of open parking and just a few people wandering around. At first I was worried that it was closed! We figured we'd see the Automotive Museum, then get a snack and see the Air & Space Museum before we got dinner and headed home. That plan was adjusted again!

Tom got hit by a Mack truck! HA!

Jake pretending on a "vrum-cycle". This is really where he wants to be.

Cool. The current exhibit is about "orphan" cars, so of course they have a Delorean! We were a little disappointed that they didn't have most of the hoods open. I mean, the best part of the car is the engine, right?!

Took a little coaxing, but I got them to do it! :)

And then on to the motorcycles.

Lots of close examination here along with lectures from both the boys.

Jake being a smarty!

Funny!

So we were done. The museum is small and we spent about an hour and half looking around. As usual, Jake and I were done first but we had no trouble waiting for Dad and Tom to finish up. There are loads of great displays to look at and lots of information about where they found some of the cars and the restoration. We're more interested in the engines though, so would have liked to see more of how the cars worked. What makes the difference between a luxury expensive car and a cheap one? What kind of shocks did they use then and now? There were no Porsches or Volkswagons. There was talk about opening our own museum. 

We left to find lunch. I figured they'd have a snack bar at least at the big Air & Space museum next door. They didn't. And then we saw the price to get in...$18 a person 12 and up. That's not going to happen. We decided to go get lunch farther into the park and maybe see the Museum of Man but when we tried move the truck we found all the parking lots full and people everywhere! What happened?!

After taking about thirty minutes to get out of the parking lot...we ran for our lives! We're just not huge fans of crowds. We decided to find some restaurant and have a big lunch and then make the drive home the back way over the mountains. We stopped in San Marcos for Chili's and had loads of fun playing their trivia game at the table.

The drive up through Julian and then Anza to Palm Desert was beautiful. Who knew there was so much space out there? Lots of Reservations and small towns of cute houses and cattle ranches. We stopped in Santa Ysabel and got a couple pies from Julian Pie Shop. Yum! Drove up and over the mountain and stopped to take a picture of the desert below.

Pretty impressive.

 It was a nice family day. Loads of driving, but then we like that! :)

Hiking!

The plan was to drive up to Big Bear by 10am, hike to Castle Rock and back, have lunch at the nearest picnic area, and then drive home to finish the dishes and make dinner. THAT plan did not happen, but what did happen was good too!

This was the day before.

Jake practicing the song that his brother taught him earlier in the week. That's my notebook in the foreground (just so no one accuses him of a flowery notebook, not that it would be wrong to have one, just wrong that it is his). And the vacuum...because I'm on an endless (and futile) quest to eradicate animal hair and desert sand from my house!

Tom playing Forza 4. More time is spent researching which car and upgrades would be best on what track conditions than actually racing. And Lord forbid that they race each other. There is a disturbance in the force when I hear, "Hey Tom! Let's race!"

On to the day of the hike! I like hiking. We do a lot of it when we are traveling and some when we're home. I usually wait until the weather starts to warm up, then I cram as much hiking in before it gets too hot. Then I anxiously wait until summer is over, forget to start hiking again until after Christmas, remember but think it's too cold, wait a bit, then start all over again! :))

So I asked the boys if they'd like to get up early (like before 9am) and head up the mountain where it is twenty degrees cooler and go for a hike. They jumped at the idea when I read the description of where I wanted to go. #4 here!

Morning came, I tried to wake them up, the grumbled a bit and got moving. Then had to eat breakfast and watch a TV show. Then I had to water the plants, finish my bible study, make a picnic lunch, etc. It wasn't until 9:40 that we left! That's ok, only supposed to be a high of 80 degrees there today. No big deal!

We drove around the lake to where I thought the trail head was but couldn't find it. There isn't a place to turn around and try again, and Jake was feeling a bit queasy. We stopped at the Visitor Center in the Village and got a map. Then we went to the picnic area and had some lunch. It was already hot in the sun. 75 is still hot up there without shade. So we relaxed and ate, looked at the map, talked about what we could do. We decided to walk a bit up the trail that was at the picnic area and save the Castle Rock for another time.

It looks pleasant, doesn't it? It's six miles round trip to the view point and very uphill. We did not plan on doing the whole thing, just taking a look around.

You see how happy they are? They are being awesome because it's really me that likes to hike and they just weren't into it today.

Pretty!

Yes, I take pictures of plants. There were several different kinds of pine tree. I think this one is a white fir.

And an oak with lots of woodpeckers around!

Those are my sons waiting for their slow poke Mom. Guess what they are discussing as we walk? That's right! Motorcycles!

Lodgepole? Did you know one of the biggest Lodgepole pine trees in the world is at the end of this trail?

Pretty white flowers. This is where Tom asked me if I was stopping to take pictures of plants. Why would I not?

Awesome papery bark of a pine tree. So cool.

And the view up said pine tree. My favorite.

We walked about a half mile out and decided it was too hot and late in the afternoon to keep up the climb, so we came back and decided to try it again another time. We drove back to the area where I believed the trail head to Castle Rock was and found it, made a note for next time. It's only 2.5 miles round trip, so we can totally do that one. Maybe in a couple weeks.

It wasn't the day I had planned, but it was good. I didn't come home and do the dishes up. I left them to sit and plan on doing them tomorrow. So, of course, I couldn't make dinner with all those dishes left over from yesterday sitting there. Jake said to order pizza and I did! Then we got Dad's birthday present in the mail. I had ordered him a poker table top! So Dad got off work. We ate pizza. We watched Pawn Stars. We played poker on the back porch until it was too dark to see. And then watched some Twilight Zone. It was a perfect day after all!

Finished "Captain from Castile?" by Samuel Shellabarger

Somewhere, someone recommended this book to me. I'm a huge fan of historical fiction and this one looked awesome. It started off with some detailed scenes of torture and the Spanish Inquisition. Yikes! It made me nervous to read and I hoped it didn't continue like this for the whole book, but it didn't. I quickly got sucked in to the story and couldn't put it down. By three quarters of the way through, I was praying for a good ending!

The book was written in 1944, so I did have some concerns about whether or not the attitudes presented by the characters would reflect the time period they were in, or the time period of the author. After a while, I didn't care because the story was so good.

Here are some of my favorite quotes.

"Of course I regret that the Holy Office must at times use severity," de Silva went on. "But what would you have? If blood-letting and dosing are often necessary to save the body, one cannot object to medicine to that saves the soul."

He's speaking of torture to confess sins and renounce evil. Ick. Yep. That's what Jesus said to do. Torture people until they confess anything you want, and then kill them so they can't sin again before they die. It's just disgusting. I really cannot wrap my mind around how anyone would think that the Spanish Inquisition was in any way good.

"Because the zest of life is effort, my son, not attainment."

That's the priest asking our guy to really think about what he wants in this world, and what he thinks he will achieve. How many of us think there is an end to achievement? You think, "Well when I finish school, I'll do this and then that.", and then you get there and think, "Now what?" Our lives are fulfilled in the "pursuit" of happiness, not the attainment!

"I shall us love, mercy, and meekness, not the rack and the scourge. Judge my beliefs by my deeds. It is how we live, not how we talk, that counts."

Now THAT's a priest following the example of Christ!

There is a LOT in this book and it's wonderful. The slow maturing through experience and choices of our main character is what really reeled me in. The colonization of Mexico was fascinating, as well as the contradiction and irony with the religions of the natives. And the romance! Wow! Great book. Highly recommend it!

Milestone MX

Another awesome day at the track! Last night, the boys loaded the bikes so that we could get an earlier start. Next time, we'll do more and leave even earlier. Beat the heat and the traffic!

Jake warming up!

Tom getting his gear on.

And they hit the track! It's really hard to get good pictures of them riding. I have to zoom in a lot and they are moving fast. I got lots of pictures of empty track!

Jake racing his heart out!

And Tom doing the same!

Loading up the bikes.

And tying them down.

I'm liking this! They do almost all the work, although I'm in charge of food and helping them get their boots off and such, kinda like a production assistant! I talked with a Mom with a little guy that really could tear up the track. They've been racing for about year now. He's six! She gave me a website to a series that she started with. They had no background in MX either.

On the way home, we stopped for sandwiches and made plans for next week. More water, chairs, food, and maybe the shade.

There is a race in Adelanto next weekend that we are going to check out. At first, I thought they'd race it, but I think it would be better if we attended as if we were going to and take notes about what we need to do. It should be fun...if I don't melt. Eek! Summer!

Birds!

While we were at my Mom's house in April, a pair of Say's Phoebe's made a nest near our front door! They were a little irritated that we kept walking under them and flew off a lot. I thought they wouldn't lay any eggs there since we had intruded, but they did. Look what greeted us when we got back from our vacation!

The parents have been very busy flying back and forth with fresh bugs for their brood. There are three of them!

The Mom and Dad look the same, so I can't tell which is which.

They make the saddest noise when they can't get to the nest. Our cat likes to lay on the chair nearby and act like he's not doing anything. It's very entertaining to watch one of them land on the ground nearby, just out of his reach until he decides to stalk it. Then the other one flies in with a beak full of bugs. The feed rackets ensues and the other bird flies off, much to the dismay of our cat.

Then there was this intruder!

He will eat their babies! I watched the parents lure this guy way into the top of a Joshua Tree and then fly away. He was irritated. He probably thought he was following them to their nest!

Then one morning I found this out the front door!

And then this!

Two fledglings and one still in the nest. They were fed here for a few hours, but by the end of the day  all three were in a creosote bush nearby. That made me happy because this spot was just too easy a target for the cat. It was just a matter of time!

We've been watching them closely and having so much fun for the whole month. Jake would spy on them from the window. And every time Tom walked by the nest, he would reach up and pet them. Once, one of them fell out of the nest. His eyes weren't even open yet! We put him back up there and he stayed in after that.

When Tom opened the door, the two fledglings were startled and flew. One landed on Tom's head!

We are just part of the landscape to them! They were gone this morning and I don't hear their sweet calls anymore. Kinda sad. I hope they come back next year!