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Hello, Friend.

A couple of weeks ago, our family attended a free symphony in the park put on by the East Texas Symphony Orchestra. It was wonderful! We enjoyed lively music, friendly conversation with other concert-goers, beautiful weather, and a magnificent sunset.

The timing for this event couldn't be better, as September is Classical Music Appreciation Month. It is also National Piano Month. And that was all the motivation I needed to make music the topic of this week's link list. Enjoy!

Free resources for you this week:

• ​Musical Instrument Word Find - race to see how fast you can find the hidden words
• ​Conversation Starters - discussion prompts for the music lovers around your dinner table
• ​Encouraging Mozart - these music note flashcards help beginners learn how to read music
• ​Piano Practice Sheets - this is the printable we use for tracking music assignments
• ​50 Hymns to Gladden Your Heart - these are the classics I grew up singing in church
• ​Harmonica Music - instructions for playing several hymns on the mouth organ

What we're watching this week:

We got out our projector, moved some furniture out of the way, and screened Uncharted on the wall of our family room this week... to mixed reviews.

On the one hand, it was fun to watch actor Tom Holland using his spidey-senses in a non-Marvel movie (he was definitely type cast for this role).

On the other hand, the action scenes were wildly unrealistic. (We later learned the most far-fetched sequences were duplicating scenes from a video game. Who knew?)

But my main problem with the film was that the lines between good and evil were blurry, at best. The bad-bad guys were ruthless killers, but the good-bad guys were untrustworthy thieves.

So maybe don't watch it without first reading Plugged-In Online's review, so you'll know what you're getting yourself into. Alternatively, you could watch the Uncharted Pitch Meeting and have a pretty good idea of what to expect, too, although both those options contain some spoilers.

What I'm reading this week:

I finally got around to re-reading Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. I read it back in 2004 when it was first released and really enjoyed it at the time. But a couple of years ago, the book came under fire from a popular blogger who has decided its message is so dangerous and so problematic that she has been leading a charge ever since to get it pulled off the market.

Her extreme fixation on this classic marriage book made me curious to read it again. And do you know what? I liked it even better the second time. The author's observations are Biblically sound and incredibly helpful. I'd go so far as to say that some, like his "crazy cycle" diagram, border on brilliant.

The crusading blogger claims the book's teachings have been twisted to justify bad behavior. She may be right. (The same can be said of the Bible itself.) Yet that was clearly not the author's intent.

Instead, Eggerichs calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church (a goal of which, by his own admission, he has repeatedly fallen short) . He also urges wives to show respect for their husbands. Eggerichs pulls both these injunctions straight out of Ephesians 5 and offers thoughtful suggestions for putting them into daily practice.

Bottom line? Love and Respect is definitely worth the read -- the sooner, the better.

Progress on last week's goals:

By God's grace, I finished all my listed goals last week, including: ✅ a trip to Dallas, ✅ good progress on homeschool lessons, ✅ two children's birthday celebrations, and ✅ 26 welcome gifts for new co-op families.

My goals for this week:

• attend all three of my daughter Abby's volleyball games
• volunteer at the CCC Sale (in exchange for early shopping privileges)
• teach a lesson in calligraphy to a group of Abby's friends

Another poll for you:

I enjoyed walking down memory lane with all those who shared favorite memories of their grandparents -- and plans for making great memories with grandchildren, too!

This week's question: Do you play an instrument? And if so, which one? Also, weigh in on this: Should parents insist that kids take music lessons even when they want to quit?

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