Amazing Grace

I am currently listening to a version of "Amazing Grace" by Alabama. Hmm. I love this song.
Today I was home alone except for Uncle Dave. Everyone else was up at Pinkham. I woke up and read my history book first. I am reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. The chapter I read today was called "Drawing the Color Line" Zinn discusses how Africans came to be enslaved in the New World. The Americas were in desperate need of manpower to cultivate land and crops for food. Indians were in their own land, and Whites were in their own European culture, making it hard to impossible to make them slaves. Africans however, were made morally and physically helpless in the face of this force, because they were taken away from their land, their culture, their families, and treated as less than human. This is not to say they were completely cooperative. Who could be? They put up their own resistance, in their own way. The chapter focuses on the fact that if racism isn't natural, then it is a consequence of certain conditions. Those were the conditions that made it possible to enslave a certain race for over 200 years.

Then I made myself an incredibly little lunch. I toasted a piece of bread in a pan on the stove with olive oil, salt, garlic, and alpine touch. Then I sliced a not-quite-ripe tomato and fried it in the same pan with some garlic salt and lemon pepper ground on it. Then I put the fried tomatoes on the toast and ate it like a sandwich. Green Fried Tomatoes...who woulda thought?

I spent the afternoon cleaning and re-arranging Elly's room. I made her a little chair/couch in the corner with pillows, Grandma Lempi's couch cushion, and Erika's pillow. It's her little reading corner. Her crates of books are on either side. I strung up some colored Christmas lights and moved around the dressers. I bought her some pretty little purple and white carnations! Then I neatly folded and laid out all of the new clothes Mommy and I bought her on the bed. Seeing her face and hearing her giggle when she saw it all was PRICELESS!

Youth group was great tonight. We had our first Iron Group night of the year. Iron Groups are just the small groups within the large group. When you have 75 kids showing up on any given Tuesday, it's hard to connect with them all. So once a month we have Iron Groups, where we meet and get to know eachother as a little family. This year Chad and Nadine are leading the a group of all Jr. High age kids, and I am helping lead it. At first I didn't really want to do it, but I am very glad I decided too. It'll challenge me to step out, do something different, really get to know people. Lead, and love them! We mostly just got to know eachother and play games. We had a really good time, actually. Chaemous, Ethan, and Shirley are also helping lead.

I need sleep. *twas grace that taught my heart to fear, twas grace my fear relieved*