Noble Peach Averted
Back in January, I told you about our “Noble Peach Prize” fiasco. During our Christmas Eve celebration one year, Bethany and Gregory presented me this Noble Peach Prize in honor of that fiasco.
We almost had another one yesterday, but our razor sharp proofreader Bethany averted the catastrophe. There we were again with a deadline looming. In January we were revising our high school Exploring World History; this time it’s Exploring America.
As usual, all hands have been on deck: John and Mary Evelyn doing graphic design, Bethany revising student activities, Ray and I proofreading side by side both at home and while on the road to conventions (you will be glad to know that Ray just listens when he’s driving), and Nate working on the Student Review when he can squeeze in time between packing for conventions and making sure folks get their curriculum orders. We are all just doing whatever this, that, and the other needs doing to make it all come together.
I’ve been enjoying one of my favorite jobs the last few days, which is staying on the phone for days with John while he makes corrections and I watch his computer screen which he somehow sends to my computer screen to make sure he doesn’t make mistakes while he corrects the text (to quote Ray, “What an age we live in!”).
I love this part of the job, because John and I get to have quick but great discussions about a word or a phrase or a sentence or a picture, as we make sure the meaning is as crystal clear as we know how to make it for our teenage readers. Ray is the author of and mastermind behind EA. John and I just tweak here and there, but, since a Christian worldview is the main theme in the curriculum, we get a chance to talk about the most important things. This gives me a window into my son’s heart and mind more than a decade after he grew up. It’s a priceless gift.
Yesterday during one of our many phone calls with Bethany about one detail or another, she told me about our “Noble Peach” near-miss. Somehow a tired or distracted Notgrass family member made a major boo-boo in a caption under a photo of Independence Hall. I’m very glad that we didn’t let it go to print saying that Independence Hall was in Boston! That’s even worse than when we said that Woodrow Wilson won the Noble Peach Prize. We couldn’t have blamed that mistake on spellcheck, now, could we?
We have been doing English country dancing for sixteen years. One of our original teachers says that making mistakes makes it more fun. You know, I think that’s right, but I’m still glad we didn’t make that one!
Do you ever let perfectionism hold you back? I encourage you to give it up. Just press on!
…I press on so that I may lay hold of that
for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I do not regard myself
as having laid hold of it yet;
but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind
and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize
of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12b-14