Adventurer. Learner. Wife. Mom. Writer. Teacher. Christian. Political observer. Long-form book reviewer. Texan for liberty, free markets, & limited gov't.
Texas, USA
Joined July 2013
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This is such a good thing to know about ourselves (as well as others) --
if you bump a cup, and funky-smelling liquid sloshes out, it's because funky-smelling liquid was inside of it.
What is IN us is what will come out when we are bumped and prodded by the travails of life.
When I was a boy, my mother told me to never forget these words. More than 50 years later, clearly I haven't: "There isn't anything that comes out of the mouth of a drunk that wasn't there in the first place."
We were at a family reunion, and an uncle had consumed too much alcohol and began saying sexually perverse things. Knowing the excuses that would follow, my mom took the opportunity to disciple us with street-level theology by sharing what the Lord said:
"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45, ESV)
This may be difficult to accept, and it will require a humble and honest examination: You and I are more like my uncle than unlike him.
Maybe we have a little more decency and don't get drunk and speak perversion in public, but we do share three things in common:
Our hearts are not completely free from evil
We speak evil more regularly than we think
We blame that evil speech on outside triggers (annoying people, stressful situations, alcoholic beverages, etc)
Have you ever said, "I didn't mean what I said" after realizing you said something ungodly? The more biblical response would be to say, "Please forgive me for saying what I meant!"
You see, if we are going to understand our trouble with words and find a solution, we must begin with the heart. What we say with our loose lips reveals what we desire with our sinful hearts.
James 4:1 summarizes it best: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?"
Friends, it would be much easier to pick up a book entitled "101 Ways To Fix Your Talk," filled with strategies and techniques to help select and implement the right vocabulary. But that wouldn't solve any root issues.
That's why God wrote a better Book. It's the only Book that provides ultimate hope and lasting change. James says in this book, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil ... Purify your hearts." (4:7-8)
The gospel promises nothing less than a new heart, one that is no longer enslaved to the passions and desires of the sinful nature. And with that new heart comes good treasure, from which better words come.
Hard to get updated, accurate election results in Texas.
Any advice on where voters can find reliable info, @brianeharrison?
Jess Connell retweeted
"JDT's Car Movements" by Ray Gallagher. JDT was making a number of odd movements from the time of the assassination to his own death. He wasn't even assigned to the area he would be killed in. What was he doing?JFKassassinationboard #WC #JDT #TippitCorner
jfkconspiracyforum.freeforum…
Jess Connell retweeted
True confession: I was excellent at high school math and yet teaching it is a challenge for me.
Various ways my homeschool kids have learned algebra?
- Took a class
- Teaching Textbooks
- Taught themselves with Saxon math
- Khan Academy
- Dual Enrollment
- A homeschool co-op class taught by a mother with her doctorate
- A tutor
Did my kids learn advanced math directly from me? Nope. Do I still homeschool them? Yep.
People love to use Algebra as an example of something they think an average parent cannot teach.
There are several options here: -excellent online courses exist to teach all math levels
-tutors exist
-adults are fully capable of relearning algebra to help their children if the public school system failed in teaching them properly
-my son is learning algebra without much input from me because he can read a math book and is capable of learning all kinds of hard things
I can’t tell you how many people over the years have confided this same sentiment:
“Good for you! I always wanted more and wished we’d had more, but we never did. It goes so fast.”
There’s a lot of hate going on towards moms online today, but I want to tell you that the elderly nurse at the pregnancy clinic I just went to said this (paraphrasing because I’m not a tape recorder lol): “I envy you. I wish I wouldn’t have listened to the world and stopped at 3 kids. Trusting God with your family size is the smartest thing you can do. Money comes and goes.”
So just know that when it is all said and done, you will never regret your kids. You may regret not having them for financial or social reasons though.
Camping at Sunrise in June sounds like where I'd want to be most every night of my life if I could.
Dreamy.
One night in June, I photographed the Milky Way from the northeast side of Mount Rainier, near Sunrise.
I had my tent set up in the foreground, and I really liked the warm glow from my tent against the stars and snow-covered mountain.
If you look closely, you can see climbers heading toward the summit with their headlamps on. I've climbed Mount Rainier before, but this time I was happy to be behind the camera!
Would you rather be up there climbing Mount Rainier or down here taking the photo? 🌌🏔️📷
#MountRainier #MilkyWay #Astrophotography
ALT The Milky Way stretches across a star-filled night sky beside Mount Rainier, photographed from the northeast side near Sunrise, Washington. A warm yellow-orange glow illuminates a tent in the rocky foreground, with dark evergreen trees silhouetted against the snow-covered mountain. Tiny points of light from climbers' headlamps are visible on the snowy slopes as they make their way toward the summit. The scene feels peaceful and remote, with a sense of adventure.
I love this idea for getting modernly-raised children to understand the flow of, and engage with, classical music.
Jess Connell retweeted
Oh no - Texas is finally turning blue, look at my fake numbers.
We’ve heard this every election for 30 years
Ain’t that right Senator Beto. 😂
Lovely
This is the Oxyrhynchus Hymn, dated to the late 200s AD. It is the earliest known Christian hymn manuscript with both lyrics and musical notation. A plain English rendering of the surviving words:
“Let all creation be silent.
Let the shining stars be still.
Let the rushing winds and rivers cease.
While we sing to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
let every power answer: Amen, amen.
Strength, praise, and glory forever to God,
the only giver of all good things. Amen, amen.”
👀
So many modern medical “miracles” carry unforeseen consequences.
Be careful which ones you accept.
A 20-year study of a million children found that kids conceived by IVF frozen embryo transfer had double the cancer rate.
84% of US IVF transfers now use frozen embryos.
Danish researchers followed every child born in Denmark from 1996 to 2012 for up to 20 years. The study was published in JAMA last week.
Children conceived without assisted reproduction developed cancer at 18.3 per 100,000 per year.
After frozen embryo transfer, the rate was 41.1.
After ICSI, where a single sperm is injected directly into the egg, it was 27.9.
After frozen transfer, leukemia ran more than twice as high.
The only method that showed no increase was a fresh embryo, never frozen, created by placing eggs and sperm together in a dish.
That version is now the exception. In 2021, 84% of US IVF transfers used frozen embryos and 78% used ICSI, according to the CDC.
Compared with children of women with a history of infertility who conceived without treatment, the frozen embryo risk stayed at more than double.
In the authors' words, the results suggest "procedure-related, rather than infertility-related, factors." This is not the first time the pattern has shown up.
A 2019 JAMA study of the same Danish children at 11 years found it too. A 2022 study of 2.3 million children in Taiwan found those conceived through assisted reproduction had 58% higher cancer risk, "mainly owing to leukemia and hepatic tumor."
The absolute risk is small, and most of these children will never get cancer. The Danish children were conceived with older freezing methods, and the authors warn the results "may differ for contemporary protocols."
Nobody yet has long-term data on IVF as it is done today. Children conceived with today's methods won't have 20 years of data until the 2040s, so today's IVF children are, in effect, the trial.
Parents deserve to hear these numbers before they sign the consent form, because their child is the one who will carry the risk.
doi.org/10.1001/jama.2026.18…
😆 funny because it’s true.
Every time you watch him it’s obvious: he is so impressed with how cool he is.
All future men playing Colonel Brandon are at a full disadvantage because there will never be a better one than Alan Rickman’s Brandon.
Jess Connell retweeted
If you are teaching children in your home, or even if you are not, you should know about this. It is a great resource to help grow your understanding in several disciplines. I highly recommend it!
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was at least one actually pure website? One without the usual gotchas.
No asking for your email. No parts paywalled. No ads. No data collection.
I think so, which is why I created teddyrookbook.com
Homeschool families get every K–12 course free (with teaching guides and practice that checks answers), plus a lesson planner that builds a week-by-week plan. Science labs. Languages. Music. Etiquette. Logic. Meal planning. Trades and farming. And much more!
I’m building this for my family to use and sharing with others because I’m open to feedback on how it can be better.
Jess Connell retweeted
"Biblical faith does not rest upon our ability to trace God’s hand. It rests upon what He has already revealed about Himself. His character does not change when our circumstances do."
It is one thing to speak confidently about trusting God when providence is pleasant and the road ahead makes sense. The deeper test comes when the light seems to disappear, prayers remain unanswered, doors close, loss enters the room, and God gives us no explanation for what He is doing. That is where faith is pressed beyond words.
Job knew something of this darkness. He could not see what was happening behind his suffering, yet he still said, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15). That is not denial of pain. It is a man admitting that God remains worthy of trust even when His providence has become impossible to understand.
Furthermore, biblical faith does not rest upon our ability to trace God’s hand. It rests upon what He has already revealed about Himself. His character does not change when our circumstances do. “The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds” (Psalm 145:17). There will be seasons when we cannot explain His ways, but we are never left without His character.
And I must say, this is where many of our easy statements about faith are tested. We say God is sovereign until His sovereignty crosses something we desperately wanted. We say He is good until His goodness leads us through a road we would never have chosen. Yet Habakkuk could look at empty fields, barren stalls, and visible loss and still say, “Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).
Faith does not require darkness in order to be real, but darkness often reveals how much of our confidence was tied to circumstances. When everything around us is stripped down, the question becomes painfully simple: is God Himself enough to hold us?
Sometimes the strongest confession a Christian can make is made with trembling hands: “I do not understand what You are doing, Lord, but I know who You are.” “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You” (Psalm 56:3). That is faith learning to walk when sight has run out.
His first car was a 1931 model A ford. “A piece of junk”
Now he has a self-driving Tesla.
What a life.
98-Year-Old Man Buys His First Self-Driving Tesla Model Y And Is Blown Away
“I've been driving it probably 2-3 months, and it's not made an error in its driving. In fact, the other day it stopped - a chipmunk was crossing the road, and there was no other traffic, and it did not run over the chipmunk … For somebody that's 98-years-old, this is a real treat.”