Hannah's Award Winning Sonnet

Hannah entered into HSLDA's annual national poetry contest. She won second place. Here's the poem:

God's Wonders

I hate to think of those who've never felt
The dusty earth beneath their unshod feet,
Who've never on the banks of rivers knelt,
To feel its cool and watch its surface pleat.
I hate to think of those who've never known
The sun's warm kiss upon their heads and necks,
Who've never held a summer rose half blown,
Or felt a fuzzy chick's dear gentle pecks.
These people sit inside their gloomy homes,
And stare at gloomy pictures on the wall.
Although they may own palaces and domes,
They speak of naught but waiting for God's call.

God's wonders, placed with halls so dark and grave,
Do seem to me as king beside the knave.

A Quote by David Bently Hart

I ran into this quote this morning as I was reading Doug Phillip's blog. Tell us your thoughts.

Probably the most subversive and effective strategy we might undertake would be one of militant fecundity: abundant, relentless, exuberant, and defiant childbearing. Given the reluctance of modern men and women to be fruitful and multiply, it would not be difficult, surely, for the devout to accomplish—in no more than a generation or two—a demographic revolution. Such a course is quite radical, admittedly, and contrary to the spirit of the age, but that is rather the point, after all. It would mean often forgoing certain material advantages, and forfeiting a great deal of our leisure; it would often prove difficult to sustain a two-career family or to be certain of a lavish retirement. But if it is a war we want, we should not recoil from sacrifice.1

More on Exercise

Our family exercise has morphed again. Here's the new wrinkle: the Tabata protocol. The what? Google the word Tabata and you'll find references to some Japanese guys, and more specifically a Dr. Tabata. He is an exercise researcher who discovered that doing very intense exercise for 20 seconds then a 10 second rest, then another blast of intensity for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. Do it for eight rounds. That's only four minutes of exercise.

Some typical exercises done with the protocol are squats, pushups, and pullups. In the Lieberman family, we haven't tried the pullups yet. But we do the squats on a regular basis. We also do burpees and bear crawls. I'm not the first one to say it, but I'll repeat it. "Twenty seconds never seemed so long, and ten seconds never seemed so short." It is sheer agony by the fifth and sixth rounds. So why do them? The results are spectacular. No equipment required. And the time commitment is short.

For us the squats are the most intense, then burpees and finally bear crawls. By the way bear crawls are when you move around on your hands and feet without touching your knees to the floor.

Try it out and tell us what you think.