The Weaker Vessel

There was just way to much to say about this topic to keep it in the comments section. An annonymous person has asked what this term means and having lived as the weaker vessel all my life and loving it, I felt compelled to answer the question.

A "weaker vessel" is a biblical term given to women, that does not mean what most people think. The term weaker vessel gives vissions of a woman who is supposed to completely do as her husband says, never having a right to an opinion. Also that she is inferior to him in every way, and therefore should subject herself to his dominance and tyranny. It may create visions in your mind of a woman who cowars in her husbands presence.

If the person who made that comment knows me very well they will know that anything but the above mentioned is true about me. With six children to train (yet another biblical word), educate, and bring up in the admonistion of the Lord I have no time to be week and without opinion.

At any given time I like to think of myself able to take Mike in a good wrestling match, at least I used to think I could. Voicing my opinion over issues is common unless the gauntlet has already been dropped. Though I'm more likely to cry over issues than my husband, I'm not easy given to tears.

In the above paragraph I've just explained the three ways that I'm inferior, yet I am not, to my husband. First would be physical. By all means Mike certainly has the stronger body if he choses to use it the way it has been designed. His body was by divine design meant for good hard work, and I'm certainly inferior to him when it comes to lugging shingles up on top of a roof. However my God given duty is by no means for a weakling. Bearing, and raising children is not something easy for a man to do, either physcially (obviously), or emotionaly. God did not design him to be strong in this way, but he did design me to be strong like this.

In our household Mike has the upper hand in the last decision. Sometimes nothing, anything, or everything I say my influence his final decision on a subject. Sometimes the last decision is left to me, but again he is the one who decides that. My opinion is taken into consideration, but I'm not the one who makes the final decisions on the path our family is to take in life.

It is well known that women are much more easily given to tears than men. For some this is more so than others. Some women will cry for reasons unkown, and often those who aren't given to tears easily will sometimes cry without knowing why. Other women are hard as a rock when it comes to crying, though I've met very few of these. While my training of the children leaves little room for off the cuff emotions there are times when I'll cry over circumstances that barely moves my husband emotionaly. Once again we were designed this way by God in order for us to be the affectionate mothers we were designed to be. Knowing our own tendencies to give over to emotions better enables us to understand the emotions of our children, and therefore making it possible for us to better tend to their emotional needs.

So in a sum of the questions posed here's my final unexpounded upon answer. We are weaker physicaly to withstand what may be required of a man, we are weaker in our ability to make good decisions because our emotions have a tendency to affect our decision, we are weaker emotionaly just exaclty as God has designed us, to be better mothers and caretakers of others hearts.

I'm by no means a perfect example of the weaker vessel, but anybody who may know me will know I do not exemplify the typical image that may appear in your head when you think of the term "Weaker Vessel". I consider it a priviledge to be the weaker vessel. I've never done anything more fulfilling in my life than bearing and raising children.

I have a little disclaimer that I would like to insert here. Because of the lack of training boys to be men there are way to many men that are the "weaker vessel". So my little article cannot be applied to all men.

Hope this helps to clear up why I call myself the "weaker vessel" and why the term by no means is putting myself down, rather it is a position of God given glory. If you have any more questions about it please feel free to ask. I love sharing information about what God has done for us, and why we are created as we are.

Denise

A Name Has Been Chosen

Just wanted to drop a quick note and let everyone know that a name has finaly been chosen for the little white kitty. We have chosen Alaska.

Denise

Changes

I'm changing the layout and look of my website. Mostly because I wanted to be able to share with others the great homeschooling tools I've found online. Also, because I wanted to get some permanent pictures of our family on the site. I'm beginning to think that what I need is a website, not a blog, and I haven't even finished adding my links yet. Actually, I have created a webwsite but haven't fine tuned it yet.

I'm working on figuring out computer talk (HTML), and if that can't be accomplished I'll go the easy route with a pre-existing template for the website. On the website there would be several different pages to view including photos, family, adventures, church, and of course a blog.

As I said though I'm in the process of getting that all figured out.

Denise

Yes, We Are Still Alive!!

I've been thinking about writing a blog since my last posting. My time has been entirely consumed with reformatting, binding, and covering books for the kids this school year. I'm nearing the end now. My printing is finished, nearly all of the books are glued. What remains is mostly the covers to be put on. I'll be sure to take a few pictures when my "library" is complete.

We've had many things happen here since my last posting, which has been nearly a month. First of all our kitty Sandy could no longer refrain from taking a shopping trip to what Mike calls our second home, Walmart. We had no idea that she accompanied us on our trip, so as we dissapeared into the store she took a stroll through the parking lot. Since we had not predetermined a rendevous point, not knowing she would be coming along, she missed the bus. At least this is the best we can come up with about her dissapearance.

She has not one but two replacements. Once you get started with these little furrballs it's hard to live without one. Our friends were "cat sitting" a momma and her kittens when we visited and we were originaly going to only get one to keep Sandy company. Since Sandy's dissapearance we decided we'd get the other a wrestling buddy. So here is a picture of our kittens, Shadow and No Name. That's right we have not managed to come up with a name for him. We have however figured out a name of our pet tarantula but that's getting off the topic for the moment. Shadow and No Name are both boys. Some of the friendliest cats we've ever had were males, and since there was only one female in the litter we really didn't have much choice. They are once again holed up in Debbie's room until they are of a suitable age and size as not to be carried away by the numerous large birds that dwell here in the dessert. To name a few would be Mr. Raven, Mr. Hawk, Mr. Turkey Vulture, and Mr. Owl. Not having anything to hinder their site from seeing their prey puts the kittens in more danger than if they lived in wooded areas where these same large birds dwelt.

Oh by the way, the tarantula's name is Fuzzy. She can have quite the appetite at times. One day she consumed a 3" (including tail) lizard, a small toad, and the following day she consumed a cricket. No one, has of yet, been brave enough to hold her on their bare hand.

Mike has taken a trip to the field for the week once this month. This was in the middle of my book binding so this gave me a little extra time to get the books done, I thoroughly exhausted myself by staying up till my eyes couldn't stay open any longer, which usually fell around 2:00AM. Though some may find it strange the fulfillment of doing this that's exactly what it gives me. Putting hard work into my children period, wether education or otherwise is very fulfilling for me.

I can't wait to see them as they devour the reading material that I've created for them to use this school year. As it has one day after returning from the library they have read all of the books I got there. We usually bring home around 15 books at one time, minimum.

Another thing that has occurred during the past few weeks is that Katie has began to crawl. Within a week and a half after crawling she is now pulling herself up. I guess once she figured it out there wasn't much stopping her. I suppose by next blog I'll be writing about her walking, who knows.

I'll have to arrange to write another blog in the near future and try to catch up on the rest of what has happened lately. For not I just wanted to write a fairly short one, post a picture of the kittens, and let you all know that we are still alive here in the desert.

Denise

Mikey

Slowly but surely I'm getting around to writing about all of the children. At this rate I might have a new one to right about (that's only a joke).

Lets talk about Mikey. In the photos you can see Mikey is pulling his share of the work around here. In these pictures he is shoveling rock into the wheelbarrel and unloading it at the end of our drive way, where we have found it to be quite muddy this time of year.

While the girls do their chores of cleaning on the inside, Mikey has a morning chore of sweeping off the porches and picking up any trash in the yard. He does a good job so long as Sandy, our kitty, doesn't distract him, which happens often.

Mikey is every bit of boy, and though at times it is bother some, thankfully God has given me an understanding about it. Having been a tomgirl myself growing up I spent a lot of time with boys. We were always playing football, climbing trees, making home made bows and arrows, etc. I think this has been helpful to me as a mother, having a house full of girls, I still understand my one boy for the most part.

He does his usual pestering of his sisters which is where the majority of his getting into trouble comes from. This is why I decided we best channel some of that steam into being useful around the house, and leaving the girls to get their work done. This is how the chore of sweeping and picking up trash got it's beginnings for him.

Just yesterday Mikey crawled up in my lap and cuddled with me. As I looked at his face I noticed one of those sudden changes that had taken place, it's the kind that is expected but sometimes spring upon you rather suddenly. His face is looking even more handsome and grown up.

He can be sweet as pie at times, rubbing my feet while I read to the family at night, assisting one of the two youngest girl with needful things, and being compassionate toward his other sisters when they are truly hurt.

Faith is, as we call her, his older brother. We thank God that he gave Faith to Michael. While Faith bares her feminine side well, she's her brother's equal when it comes to rough housing. They do the most fighting and bickering with one another, but I just know that when they become adults they are going to be the closest.

I look forward to seeing what God will make of Mikey as Mikey submits his will to Him. I always have fun picturing what the girls will be like as teenagers horsing around in the kitchen while baking up some of Mom and Dad's favorite goodies. With Mikey as I picture him in his teenage years I see protector (after all he does have all of these sisters). Though I don't wish to rush the years, I look forward with joy in seeing what kind of man Mikey will become.

Denise

PS I'm having trouble posting those pictures with this blog. I will attempt to edit it tomorrow and include them in the blog.

PSS After another attempt at downloading the photos with no success I decided to post them in an album in my yahoo photos. Follow this link http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/baabaamilker/my_photos and look at the album titled Mikey

Thundestorms

A couple of days ago we were told that El Paso had made the news two days in a row on the the news in New Hampshire because of the flooding. Though our yard was a complete sheet of rain at one point we have trenches on our property dug to channel the water into ponding areas so it wasn't bad for us. However many areas in El Paso had homes that were flooded out. We saw video of some of the flooding and two of those big heavy business dumpster were picked up and hauled down the streets on the water. Some areas in Las Cruces New Mexico (about 35 minutes from us) and El paso, Texas (20 minutes from us) got their annual rainfal in one day.

It has been great for the kids. We take them to the ponding areas and let them hunt for toads and frogs. Our tarantula enjoys eating the little ones.

Here are some photos of a coming storm

Denise

Just had to share

I took this picture to send to the kids Grandfather but it came out so good just had to share it with you all.


Denise

Raining Toads and Tarantulas

Finally, it's raining like I thought rainy season should be. I guess you really can't expect much rain at one time when the entire season adds up to only 8". It's the funniest thing to actually see toads hopping across the road here in the desert, but just like New Hampshire, when it rains they come out. The tarantulas often get flooded out of their homes this time of year and can often be seen crawling around your yard, like our pet tarantula we have.

Saturday we had a good day. Finally we buthchered little Walnut. He was stealing all of my milk from his mama. Now she gives me a little bit over half a gallon twice a day. We went over to our friends house, the Stephenson's, and our two amatuer husbands did the buthering. They did an excellent job I might add. Butchering the goat was much easier than I expected (especially since I only supervised), and we plan on butchering our kids each year.

Muffy Stephenson found out the day before my birthday that it was coming up soon and determined to do something about it. She's a very giving and loving person and on Saturday she prepared a yummy mexican meal with green chilies. Then she prepared my favorite dessert, pecan pie, YUM!! On top of that she ordered 6 broilers for us as a birthday present. I couldn't ask for more, she's been a real blessing to me.

Mike took me out Yesterday for a birthday dinner, which is our usual present to one another for birthdays and mother/father's day. We dined at a Chinese restaurant and the food was delicious.

I took pictures of the butchering of the goat as a reference for those who are interested. Some of my friends are squeamish, won't mention a name, but it starts with Ellen. Others are curious creatures like myself and enjoy seeing how these things are done. So if you don't mind looking then please click on this link http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/baabaamilker/my_photos and look for the album titled Butchering Walnut.

Denise

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Well today is my birthday, or my double birthday as the children would call it. I'm 28 on the 28th. Today for a present the girls are giving me a tea party, complete with Hello Dolly squares. I also received a gift in the mail from Moyers Chicks. Ok, so I did buy it, and I didn't intend it to be for my birthday. Nonetheless, these cute little fluffy furr balls came on my birthday. We are looking forward to getting fresh brown eggs from them sometime in December.

I've been very busy reformatting ebooks for printing and binding to use with school. It has been lots of fun but my bottom gets sore sitting here in this chair. I've been up til after 1:00AM, or until I can't hold my eyes open anymore working on this project. I know it will be so rewarding when these good wholesome books are sitting on our shelf ready for the kids to read. Besides I'm always looking for a new craft project and book binding had never crossed my mind before. In fact if it weren't for my friend Sue Forcier I don't know if I would have ever even give it a tid bit of a thought.

Sue binds her own books using the Robinson curriculum, which is rather an old fashioned method to homeschooling, and she, through email and digital pictures, has taught me how to do it myself. So far I've only printed a few out so I'm not quite ready for the binding part, but thanks to Sue I certainly feel capable of doing it.

Well hope you are all having a nice day on my birthday.

Denise

Katie

This time I'm going to write about Katie, as if you couldn't guess. Katie is now about 8 1/2 months old. I started Katie later than normal on baby food, as an experiment. She certainly didn't suffer from it, and it was much easier for her to start eating solid foods since she was more coordinated. She's only been eating them for about two weeks now.

Katie is on the brink of crawling. If she could just figure out how to move those chubby knees around once she has them under her she would be on her way.

She's very talkative. She says Dada and Mama. Though I don't believe she knows what she's saying somehow she manages to say Mama when she's crying for me. So only Katie really knows.

I bought this Johny Jump-Up for her to use in the barn while I'm milking. However we found we had less space than anticipated and so there's no room for it. It's worked out better for her to stay inside playing while she is still mostly immobile anyway. So we keep it in the house now and put her in it from time to time. She's the first of our children who has ever had one of these. She really isn't quite sure what to do with it. Rather than jump up and down as it is designed for, she spins herself around in circles winding up the rope, and then picking up her feet and whirling around. I guess there's more than one way to use it.

Katie reminds me in build of Faith. However she still has the darker hair like Becky and Leah. She has a very sweet personality. She responds well when being told no, which is very nice for me. I'm sure she might challege that a little more as she gets older but it's to be expected.

Oh, the last thing that I can think of concerning her babyhood is her teeth. This will be short since she doesn't have any right now.

Sorry I haven't a clue as to her weight. I've missed several appointments and so we need to play catch up with her shots now.

Stay tuned for another blog on another of the Perry children.

Denise

Fun Day

I have been asked if we made it to the horse back riding and swimming this last Friday. We did and I have pictures to prove it. See them here. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/baabaamilker/my_photos Enjoy!

Denise

Challenge

I have a challenge for those of you who like them. See if you can figure out how to balance 14-3" nails all on the head of one nail. I will post the answers in pictures in a week or so.

Denise

Poll Answer

The answer to this weeks poll was 13 seconds.

Denise

Becky

Ok, I finally have a few moments to do this. Today a friend of mine here in Chaparral with 7 kids called and reinvited me to a kids Bible time that another lady who has 9 children was having at her house here in Chaparral. So with our six, Stephenson's seven, another families 9, and yet another families 6, and a few visiting kids, we had quite a crew. I had forgotten that they were having this event this week and didn't feel much inclined to go anyway not really knowing the hosting family very well. We enjoyed going today though, and will be going tomorrow. There will be a hot dog cookout, horse back riding, and swimming tomorrow.
Anyway, onto the subject of this blog, Becky. Becky turned 7 on June 11 of this year. She has been reading very well since she was six. Lately if you are looking for Becky you will find her in one of various positions either on the couch or the chair with a good book. Within an 1/2 hour reading period she will have been in 10 different positions or more. I have to often remind her to keep modest as she gets herself into the positions absent mindedly. Both Debbie and Becky have shown such interest in books, I wish I had the resources to get them some different ones but that will come.
Becky is getting to be such a big help around the house as well. She accomplishes the tasks of washing and drying dishes, sweeping the floors, and some mild cleaning with ease. She's been folding clothes with Debbie since she was five. Her usual job in the laundry department is to fold and put away.
Becky has become very fond of Leah lately, I guess a she's developing her motherly instinct. She will often keep Leah under her wing, making sure she has everything that she needs and is having fun as well. She tries to help with Katie but since carrying Katie is much more of a lump than carrying than Leah it's more of a chore for her. Sometimes I may need her to carry Katie for short distances, but mostly she helps by holding her at times when I may not be available, or providing some interesting toys and fun play.
She and Debbie have on a few occassions made cookies all by themselves. Both of them very much looking forward to Daddy's approval of their taste. Perhaps if possible I will allow one or the other of them to enter some baked good into the local fair.
Becky always has the sweet smile when she is happy, and the saddest face when she gets into trouble, which is few and far in between anymore. She's our blue eyed brown haired beauty. We love our Becka!!!

Mom (Denise)

Denise

Great Idea

I had an idea sometime during the day today about how to post more pictures of the kids. I think I will do a blog about each one each day, until their done, with a picture of them. To start on Thursday.

Denise

New Pictures of Kids

Ok, I've been good at taking pictures of the kids, but still haven't taken them of the house yet. Today we made homemade bread and I finished up Becky's jumper. Debbie and I have also been working on knitting some dishclothes. The ones we have are starting to fall apart.

Too see the new pictures of the kids visit this website http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/baabaamilker/my_photos and view the file Kids 7/19/06.

I will add more as I find them in the right poses from time to time, and I'll let you know when I post them.

Denise

Farm Addition

We've added a new member to our farm, albeit this one will be added to the inside farm. Last night when Mike was preparing the items he needed for work today he noticed that Sandy was playing with something. He found the above pictured animal, which I'm sure everyone is knows what it is, but just in case not it's a trantula. We haven't found out exactly what type of tarantula this is ( hopefully not a Goliath Birdeater) but we'll be checking it out. This tarantula is about the size of a golf ball including it's legs.
Yes, us crazy homeschooling Perry's plan on keeping the critter, yes, inside. My mom never would have allowed this, but my Mom was not a homeschooler, and I find the creatures God created fascinating myself.
So we will get him/her a proper container for all to view, rather than the milk jug we currently have it in. Eventually it will also have a name. We've also found out the proper way of taking care of it after some research on the internet.
We thought we had lost Sandy when we couldn't find her for a day and a half. Last night Mike finally found her in the shed. She snuck in when the door was open and then had the door closed on her. It's gets over a hundred here during the daytime, and it was a metal shed that she was in, so you can only imagine how hot it got in there. We figure she's down to five of her nine lives now, and she's still so young.
My apologies about the pictures of the house. My rechargeable batteries died on me, and until I did some real digging (like in my camera case) to find some throw away batteries I thought I had none. That's why I haven't made an effort. No promises but I'll try to get it done today. Right now I'm working on making a new car seat cover that we've had since Debbie was little. We'll see what's on the agenda after that.
By the way the one of the two hooligans playing with their tongues is not the new critter, just thought I'd clarify that.

Denise

9 Lives

Yesterday when Mike arrived at work, after a 20 minute drive he found Sandy laying on top of his battery. We figure Sandy is testing the truth of the 9 lives for kitties. Once he finished up some morning work there he had to drive her alway the way back home. She can't be making a habit of this or she might just become the motorpool (the place where Mike works) kitty.

Denise

Kittie Story

I forgot to add a cute little story about our kitten, Sandy, whom we believe to be between two and three months old.

Last night while we were getting ready to go to church we checked to see if Sandy was in her usual hiding place under our van. Sure enough she was. Mike started up the van expecting it would spook her out from underneath of it. He checked to see if she was gone and he couldn't see her anywhere underneath there. After we had driven about half an hour and were nearly to church Debbie stated that she thought she heard a cat meowing.

When we finaly arrived after the 40-45 min. drive there while it was raining sure enough if there wasn't meowing coming from underneath the van. I got down and found that Sandy our kitten had hitched a ride through rain and all on our spare tire mount. I wonder if she will ever do that again?

Denise

Rainy Season

Well the rainy season has come. Yes, we do get rain here, but only during a certain time of the year known as monsoon season. This rainy season lasts July and August. During this period of time we get approx. 8in. of rain. This is the sum total rainfal average of the year for this area.

Yesterday, Muffy, a friend of mine who lives here in Chaparral came over for a visit. While they were here we could see looking west a large wall of rain, that appeared to be coming our way, but it never seems to get past the mountains. At 5:00PM Mike came home and that the intersection of two roads he has to come through to get home was totaly flooded over. Around 6:45 we headed out to church and the "flood zone" had moved closer to our house and that intersection he had to swim through was now dry.

So what had actually occured was that it rained sheets of water on the mountains which ran down our direction flooding out the road, and then it just kept coming this way flooding out mail boxes and other side dirt roads. Eventualy it does all sink into the sand but it can take a while to do that.

As long as the clouds have the sun covered the temperatures are nice, about high 60's, the rain is nice and cool, and the humidity is bearable. If the sun does come out though the humidity rises and our swamp cooler doesn't do anything but blow air around. Everything feels so sticky when the sun comes out and the humidity is high. I have to admit that it is nice to see rain though.

Denise