George Washington's Rules - #25

This week's rule, Rule #25, says:

25th	Superfluous Complements and all Affectation of Ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be Neglected.

Which to me means:  While it is important not to neglect complements and ceremonious acts, it is important that these not be proffered to excess.

January 2014 Folk Song

The January 2014 Folk Song selection, by Ambleside Online, is Battle of Otterburn. The first video below shows, in print, the history of the Battle of Otterburn, while simultaneously having the song play in the background. I can't process both simultaneously, so I recommend playing the video once with sound off, reading the words to your students, and then play with the sound on, or play the second video selection below the second time. I realy like the accent of the singer on the first video though, although I'm not clear on the meaning of all the words yet. I'll work on that...

It fell about the Lammas time,
When muir-men win their hay,
The doughty Douglas bound him ride,
Tae England tae catch a prey,
He’s ta’en the Gordons and the Graemes,
And the Lindsays light and gai,
But the Jardines wad not wi’ him ride,
And they rue it tae this day.

And he has burnt the dales of Tyne,
And part o’ Banbrough shire,
The Otter dale he’s burnt it hale,
And set it a’ on fire,
And he raed up tae Newcastle,
And rode it roond aboot,
Saying, “whar’s the laird o’ this castle,
And whar’s the lady o’t?”
 

 

And up spake braw Lord Percy then,
And O but he spak hie,
“I am the lord o’ this castle,
My wife’s the lady gaye.
If thou’rt the lord o’ this castle,
Sae weel it pleases me,
For ere I cross the Border fells,
The tane o’ us shall die.”

 

They lichted high on Otterburn,
Upon the bank sae bruin,
They lichted high on Otterburn,
And threw their broadswords doon,
But up there spoke a bonnie boy,
Before the break o’ dawn,
Saying, “Wake ye now my good lord sir,
Lord Percy’s near at hand”.
 

When Percy wi’ the Douglas met,
I wat he was fu’ fain,
They swak’d swords and sair they swat,
And blood ran doon between,
But Percy wi’ his guid braid sword,
That could sae sharply wound,
Has wounded Douglas on the brow,
Till he fell tae the ground.
 

 Then he call'd on his little foot-page,
And said, "Run speedilie,
And fetch my ain dear sister's son,
Sir Hugh Montgomery."

"My nephew good," the Douglas said,
"What recks the death of ane!
Last night I dreamed a dreary dream,
And I ken the day's thy ain."

"My wound is deep; I fain would sleep;
Take thou the vanguard of the three,
And hide me by the braken-bush,
That grows on yonder lilye lee."

"O bury me by the braken-bush,
Beneath the blooming brier;
Let never a living mortal ken
That ere a kindly Scot lies here."

 

He lifted up that noble lord,
Wi the saut tear in his ee;
He hid him in the braken-bush,
That his merrie men might not see.

The moon was clear, the day drew near,
The spears in flinders flew,
But mony a gallant Englishman
Ere day the Scotsmen slew.

The Gordons good, in English blood
They steepd their hose and shoon;
The Lindsays flew like fire about,
Till all the fray was done.

The Percy and Montgomery met,
That either of other were fain ;
They swapped* swords, and they twa swat,
And aye the blood ran down between.

"Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy," he said,
"Or else I vow I'll lay thee low!"
"To whom must I yield," quoth Earl Percy,
"Now that I see it must be so?"

"Thou shalt not yield to lord nor loun,"
Nor shalt thou yield to me;
But yield to the braken-bush,
That grows upon yon lilye lee. "

 

"I will not yield to a braken-bush,
Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
But I would yield to Earl Douglas,
Or Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."

As soon as he knew it was Montgomery,
He struck his sword's point in the gronde;
The Montgomery was a courteous knight,
And quickly took him by the honde.

This deed was done at the Otterbourne,
About the breaking of the day;
Earl Douglas was buried at the braken-bush,
And the Percy led captive away.
 

 

 

Friday Wrap-Up

 

We've come to Friday. It's been a long time since I did a weekly wrap-up, so I thought I'd start the new year with a wrap-up.

We've just come to the end of our winter break. We've taken off since before Thanksgiving, except for Algebra. Continuing in Algebra has been good. J-boy is really starting to understand isolating the variable and various other functions. Hopefully our break since before Christmas won't have been too detrimental. As it is, we're way behind the "normal" schedule. I haven't figured out yet when we're likely to finish for the year; that is yet to be calculated.

So, I'm refreshed for the new year, but not very prepared to restart. I have some papers that still need to be corrected, and some items I need to look at in advance of doing the material, but we'll get there. I'll try to give a report at the end of Week 1 next Friday.

Efraimson-Holien family

 

Before I begin, I need to update the Efraimson 1-2-3-4 post. I will just do the update on the original post, but I am telling you here so you can go check out the updates.

Where I left off my last post, John (1858-1938) and Liisa Kaisa Efraimson (1857 - 1935)  had 13 children, one of whom died in infancy.
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John and Liisa Efraimson's 2nd born, Alfred Efraimson (1880 - 1971) (my maternal/maternal great grandfather) was born in Lake Norden, South Dakota. He married Emma S. Savilahti (1881 - 1945), and together they had 12 children. 

Alfred Efraimson (1880 - 1971) and Emma Savilahti (1881 - 1945) met at a mining camp at the Iron Range Mountains in Minnesota. Alfred was staying at a boarding house where Emma worked. They married in 1903 or 1904, and their first child, my grandmother, was born 10/13/1905. Their 2nd child, Jennie, was also born at the mining town, but then the miners went on strike and Alfred couldn't work. He stuck it out in Minnesota for awhile, but then decided to head west to see if he could find work on a farm. They settled in Perth, North Dakota, where he worked on a farm that eventually became his own. Here were their children:

• Eina Esther Efraimson (my grandmother) (10/16/1905 to 4/6/2004, born in Minnesota, died in Florida) 
  

George Washington's Rules - #24

I've been forgetting to do Washington's Rules, so I'm going to get back to doing it weekly. This week we are doing Rule #24 which says:

24th	Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Public Spectacle.

And to me this means if you see something or someone making a public spectacle of themselves, don't laugh too loud or too long over it.

January 2014 Hymn Study

The Ambleside Online Hymn rotation for January 2014 is a song called "Trust and Obey".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, in addition to hymns singing ABOUT Jesus, I like to each month cover one song singing TO the Lord, not just about Him. So, for my second hymn this month I plan, with my son, to worship also with "Take My Life and Let it Be", first a traditional arrangement and then a modernized version:

A Word to Apply to 2014

If I had to sum up my goals, hopes and plans for the new year in one word, it would have to be...

Intentional!

In other words, I have things I'd like to accomplish this year, and the only way to accomplish what I hope to accomplish is to be intentional to get these things done. Here are some of the things I plan to be intentional about this year:

Health and Weight Goals:
This year I would like to get my weight, my blood pressure, and my cholesterol into the range (for each) that my doctor says they should be.

I have 20 pounds to go, but 30 would be nicer. By the way, my jeans are not dirty, the mirror is! So achieving my goal will be accomplished through intentional care in what I am eating, and intentional increasing of my physical activity. I am currently still recovering from shoulder surgery mid-November, but I can start doing some walking in addition to the physical therapy activities I am working on each week.

Decluttering:
An adult child married and moved out, and I thought that would relieve some of the house's clutter. But it didn't. They moved into a very small apartment, and I was hit with, "I don't have room for it right now, but I want it. Please can we still keep it in your house for awhile until we can get a bigger place?"  We're still working our way through the issue, but not quickly enough to make me happy. So, in the meantime I am trying to focus on my own clutter and declutter for 15 minutes a day most days. Intentionally.

Home School:

This year I need to finish homeschooling 8th grade, and start homeschooling... HIGH SCHOOL! Since I changed the basic History/Literature core I am using this year, a group of other regulars dropped out of our regular practices that I want to get back to.

Bible (Reading, Hymn Study, etc.):

For awhile my son was reading on his own fairly well, and I stopped doing reading and hymns together. I think we would both benefit from getting this back into our "together" time.

Nature Study:

Nature Study has slid off my radar these past five months. Even when I try, and take photographs, I haven't blogged about it. So this year I hope to come up with some achievable goals in Nature Study and follow through with them. Below, rabbit tracks in our first snow.

Composer Study:

Same as the others. Dropped out of our practices. I'd like to get back to it, even if only once a week.

Artist Study:

Same. Plan it, do it. Intentional.

Outdoor time/walks: 

This is really lacking, and my son and I both need it, so I'm going to try to integrate it into our plans.

High School:

I need to get my ducks in a row and implement high school well, keep good records, and prepare my son for what he wants to do as an adult. Right now his aspirations lean towards computers and engineering. We'll see. But I need to plot out his courses, settle on direction in certain areas, and keep good records. I've done this twice before. At least I have an idea of what I need to do. I don't want my record-keeping to be a game of "catch up" this time.

Geneology:

I plan to continue my geneology studies and posts of family history and stories, to benefit my own kids, my nieces and nephews, and other distant relatives who are interested.

Product Reviews:

I am, once again, on The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew. Our review year runs January to November, and I intend to be intentional and careful about what products I ask for, what I volunteer to review. I still owe some other vendors reviews, and I need to be intentional about getting them done and out of the way.

Relationships:

I am working this year to be intentional in my close relationships. Sometimes, when we get busy, we meet all our outside commitments but let down those closest to us. I want to be intentional to make sure this doesn't happen. 

Maintaining:

I am already intentional in certain areas, and in these areas I intend to maintain -- menu planning, shopping, meal preparation, blogging, etc. My housekeeping has slipped, but I plan to bring it back in line. 

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So, how about you? Do you have a word that would sum up your plans for 2013? Let me know.

Menu Monday for 12/30/13

Well, I didn't post menu plans for the past two Mondays. I promise you, we really did eat dinner every night. But at this point I'm not going to post what we had. I'll just move on. So here are my plans for the coming week. The meals will be decidedly omnivorous, with the vegetarian taking meals out of the freezer stash as needed.

Sunday:
chicken pot pie, salad

Monday: steak, potatoes, fried onions, salad, cake (a birthday!)

Tuesday: pan-fried chicken breasts, rice, broccoli

Wednesday: lasagne, salad, garlic bread

Thursday: Chinese food (out in)

Friday: corned beef and cabbage, potatoes

Saturday:  leftovers

Sorry for posting this one late.

"Poor" in the 1960s vs. "Poor" in the 2010s

I'm not sure why I started thinking about this, but since I did I thought I'd write a post about it. It contains enough of my childhood that it counts as a "family story" that I think my kids and niece and nephew will like.

In the 1960s, my family was poor. I didn't know we were at the time, but I know it now. What was my life like?

• Child care: if my mom needed to go some where and needed child care we went to Gram's, Aunt Carole's or the neighbor's. There was no "Day Care" in my world. It may have existed somewhere, but I was not aware of it. It may not have even existed yet.
• To save money, Dad kept the hot water heater turned off except when we needed baths or showers.
• There was no such thing as a disposable diaper. Mom bought cloth, and one size fits all -- you just pin differently for boys vs. girls and the pins also adjust the size.
• There were no plastic pants. In the summer kids in diapers were just kids in diapers. When the diaper was wet (or other), Mom knew it quickly and it got changed. If something else got wet... Oh well. She cleaned it up.
• Laundry was washed, and then hung out to dry. We owned a dryer part of the time, but we didn't use it if we could use the "great outdoors".
• One car. Mom didn't drive anyway. She didn't have a license. If she wanted to go somewhere, she rode her bike. If one of us was going with her, we rode behind her on the rack.
• Restaurants ...I didn't know about them. We ate at home.
• Dinners - Mom's budget for groceries was $15, and she had to find a way to feed us on that. Chuck was sometimes $0.15/pound, so that's when she would buy it. A cheap night was sausage and eggs on toast. It might be a British dish. One slice toast, one patty, canned tomato, juice.. We would also eat fish n' chips n' vinegar, and fried beef liver. Lunch, I remember canned soup. I remember water cress sandwiches at Grama's.
• Clothes. We were thankful when we had them. Gram sewed. I had no coat until she made one for me. She sewed a furry hat and a matching muff for me as well. Our dresses looked like upholstery fabric because they were made from leftover upholstery fabric. Hand-me-downs were a way of life -- I had an older sister.
• School milk and lunches - Milk was two cents a carton back then, so it was pretty inexpensive, but we still took our own. I had a nice little lunch box with a Thermos bottle, and we took our lunch to school every day. Once, though, I bought my milk and didn't drink it, so I saved it. That was when I learned that milk went sour if you didn't refrigerate it. Yuck!
• Working moms -- moms that got jobs drove school buses, worked in the school cafeteria, or worked during the day in a local sandwich shop. These jobs did not require that they arrange child care.
• Heating and air conditioning - Dad turned the heat wayyy down at night. We heated with oil, and the truck came once a winter. We supplemented with our fireplace, burning wood that came from our property. Air conditioning? Never heard of it. We had a fan. Even the grocery store didn't have it. Sometimes we'd stand by the store's freezer section a short while to cool off. Mostly we went to swim in Aunt Carole's pond.
• Telephone - there was one telephone in the house, and it was a party line. If you picked it up to make a telephone call, someone else might already be using the line and you would have to wait.
• Television - there was one set, it was black and white, and using it did not cost any more than the cost of electricity. There were from four to seven channels, and the channels signed off at a decent hour with the Star Spangled Banner playing while the screen showed an American Flag blowing in the background.
• Christmas - in 1965, my Christmas gifts were: a Raggedy Ann doll and a Bazooka gun.                         (I was a tomboy.) My dad wanted Mom to just give me one gift, but she put her foot down.
• Toys: My brother had a set of wooden building blocks and a set of Lincoln logs. If I asked permission, I could sometimes play with them with him. Most of the time we played in the dirt under the back overhang, or swung on the swing set. We also rode our bikes, which I had one because my grandmother (the "rich" one - the one that worked outside the home) bought for me for my 5th birthday. Lois and I also had Barbi      and Skipper  dolls. Mom made clothes for them. I still have them, and my Skipper, but I cut her hair. And I remember we had Colorforms.  I don't remember what they were of, but I still have a set of Colorform letters.
  
•  One of my favorite toys was a conveyer belt                                                                          I'd been given for playing in the dirt. We'd send dirt up to the top to dump into my brother's dump truck.
• We spent hours making dirt roads to go over with our toy cars.
• We didn't have the money, so we didn't go to the doctor until we were sick. Then he gave us medicine (or stitched us up), and we went home. We only went back if we didn't get better. We paid the bill over time.
• Life in my childhood was, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Lois's clothes were made to fit me. I wore what I had for my feet. I had no hat, nor coat, nor gloves til Gram made one. I wore what I had, cause it was what I had. I never went to a clothing store til I was 12 years old, and then my year's clothing budget was $20 for everything.
• As soon as we could earn money, we did. It meant we could occasionally buy lunch at school, or a new dress, a Charms pop from the school store, or an other piece of candy. Before that, we didn't have the money so we went without.

Life of the "poor" as I see it today:

• Everyone seems to have a cell phone. Why is this something the "poor" have?
• Everyone seems to pay for cable or satellite, and most have TEVO, as well as a DVD players, and probably a subscription to Netflix. I don't even have Netflix.
• Everyone seems to pay for trash pick-up. My hubby drives to the dump each week.
• People on public assistance have Coach bags and iPhones. We never went on public assistance. We went without.
• The "poor" seem to eat out constantly. What's up with that? I can't afford to eat out, and I'm NOT poor now!
• When I was in school I was mocked for having holes in my tennis shoes and in the knees of my slacks (high school). Other poor people lived in (literally) clapboard shacks, but they drove Cadilacs and wore stylish clothes. It was all about how you were seen by others. What things were like at home didn't matter.
• "Poor" kids buy their lunches, snacks, junk food and such at school. How can they afford that? I was borrowing money to buy a 20 cent bowl of chicken soup when I forgot to bring my lunch, and I was hard pressed to pay my friend back, ever.
• Now, thanks to the "unaffordable" health care act, poor people have to pay money and still not go to the doctor. Some of the money I used to pay to go to the doctor now goes to our increased cost for our plan, and my deductible is now so high that I will be paying 100% for everything unless something catastrophic happens, because I pay 100% until I reach my deductible, and I'm not likely to ever reach it.
• The typical "poor" family seems to have at least two cars. Why? We lived in the middle of no where when I was a kid. If we needed/wanted to get somewhere and the car wasn't available, we didn't go.
• If someone else has something that the poor person doesn't have, I hear, "That's not fair!" and someone in government is trying to make sure the poor person gets it. For free. Without working for it. If the poor person has something that the working person doesn't have because they can't afford it, I hear, "Oh well. Life's not fair." Someone in government is trying to make us all financially equal so that the hard-working person does not ever have more than the person who will not work. The "unemployed" can't afford to get a job, because unemployment pays so much that to take a full-time job would be a cut in pay. It's just wrong.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. Let me know if you have any thoughts or anything to add. 

A Non-Seasonal Video, just for fun

For a change of pace, I thought I'd post this non-holiday music video I found that is really amazing! I hope you enjoy.