“I’m not saying she was very silly, but one of us was very silly, and it wasn’t me.”

Squire Hamley in the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters.

Breathes There the Man by Sir Walter Scott

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

Daybook - September 26, 2011

Cow kissin'

outside my window . . .  Sunny, hot & humid.  Where is the lovely fall weather?

I am listening to . . . Mozart

I am wearing . . . T-shirt & capris

I am so grateful . . . that I don’t have to leave the house all day!  My favorite kind of day! Yes, I am a major homebody.  J

I'm pondering . . ..how to get my kids motivated while they are still very tired from a busy weekend showing cows.

I am reading . . . “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand”.  I’m almost done and I love it!  It’s well written and fun.

I am thinking . . .  not much thinking going on.  What is it about being away that shuts down my brain.  I think I need some more serious sleep before I can get my brain jump started.

I am creating . . creating?  How about a mess?  Not what you meant?  J

from the kitchen . . not much going on there. 

real education in our home . . I’ve been doing Morning Time with the girls using ideas from Cindy and Ambleside Online.   It seems much more like REAL education compared to some of the regular curriculum that I use during the rest of the school day.

rhythm and beauty in our home . . . some major unpacking and laundry needs to be done before we will find any rhythm or beauty.

the week ahead. . . contains only one doctor appt so there won’t be too much running around.

:-: 

Churchill Quote

"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."   

Winston Churchill

Book Review - "Dancing to the Precipice"

"Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era" by Caroline Moorehead

My education had a big hole in it....well, many holes. One was that I had no idea what the French Revolution was all about and what happened.  I found “Dancing to the Precipice” recommended on a book list and decided to read it. 

From Publishers Weekly:  “Educated to wait on Marie Antoinette, the marquise Lucie de la Tour du Pin (1770-1853) instead precariously survived a devastating revolution, an emperor, two restorations and a republic. Drawing on Lucie's memoirs and those of her contemporaries, Moorehead (Gellhorn) uses Lucie's descriptions of both personal events and the ever-changing French political atmosphere to portray the nobility's awkward shifts with each new event and the impact they have on Lucie and her diplomat husband, Fréédric. A woman with both court-honed aristocratic manners and rough farm skills (earned in the Revolution's wake during her rural New York exile), Lucie benefited from passing platonic relationships with Napoleon and Wellington, Talleyrand, and countless salon personalities. Lucie's terror during the anarchy of the Revolution remains palpable in her memoirs centuries later. Moorehead obviously admires Lucie, but she gives a convincing and entertaining portrait of an intelligent, shrewd, unpretentious woman and the turbulent times she lived through and testified to in her memoirs.”

Having known nothing about the French Revolution, I have to say, I was shocked by the brutality and the senselessness of much of it. The contrast between the American Revolution and French Revolution is quite striking. Reading the book also gave me some insight into the French people themselves.  The fashion...during the French revolution many of their fashions where political statements.  It was also interesting to see how most of them threw off all religion and embraced the new philosophies of the time.

I found the book fascinating overall.  It was often difficult to keep the names straight and remember who was who.  I felt the author painted Lucie as a woman without fault which  I found annoying at times.  But Lucie was an extraordinary woman who lived through some extremely difficult times.

Now I think I should try to tackle "Reflections on the Revolution in France" by Edmund Burke. Hmmm?  We'll see.

A few quotes from the book:
"'Amid all these pleasures,' [Lucie] wrote, 'we were laughing and dancing our way to the precipice.'"


"For the philosophers of the Enlightenment and their friends, the salons were the one place where ideas of this kind could be aired in safety, where no questions were deemed too sensitive to debate, no thoughts too perilous to think.  Many severed their links with their religious upbringings."


"Even now, with the revolution turning upside down all ideas about society, the nuances of 18th-century fidelity hung on.  To show such evident love for one's husband was unusual, even a little absurd; but among her contemporaries Lucie was unusual, sometimes disconcertingly so."


"Over the next two years, the securalisation of the Church would go further than anyone had imagined, with churches demolished or turned into warehouses, church bells and plate melted down, religious orders made destitute, and priests turned into public servants.:


"As [Alexander] Hamilton observed, it was hard to go on supporting a revolution that had plainly substituted 'to the mild and beneficent religion of the Gospel a gloomy, persecuting and desolating atheism'."


"The revolution, argued the emigre journalists, had turned out to be synonymous not with liberty but with destruction."

Five Question Friday

1. If you had to choose, how would you prefer to choose to spend money...on landscaping or a pool?
POOL!  We want a pool so bad we can hardly stand it.  But the economy....well you know.  Maybe next summer.

2. Death penalty, yay or nay?
Well, I'm for it!

3. What's the worst thing your kid has gotten into when you turned your back/blogged/showered/blinked?
Hmmm?  Actually my kids where pretty good about not getting into things.  There was the time my son put silly-puddy in his sister's hair...right before a dentist appointment. Not only did I have to get it out, I had to hurry!  I was not amused.  It was also so unlike my son.  I think it was the worst thing he did as a child.

4. How often do you REALLY go to the dentist?
Twice per year.  I'm pretty religious about keeping up with check up appointments.

5. What is your favorite animal (doesn't have to be a pet-type animal)?
Not a big animal fan.  My mom and sister will cry if they hit a squirrel...and animal movies where the animal always dies, they weep.  But somehow that gene passed me by.  I guess if pressed I'd have to say a dog.  I have one.  I tolerate her.  :)

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week...

I was struck down with the flu last Saturday and I am still not feeling completely well. I'm finding it very frustrating!  But I was not able to rest at home as I would have liked.  I had two doctor appointments that I had to take my kids to this week.  Both of them involved lots of driving and waiting in waiting rooms.  Why is waiting so exhausting?  Oh, and then we baled hay on Wednesday.  That is always a busy, exciting, stressful day...but we got all the hay in just before it rained!  Success!

In our homeschool this week...

Homeschooling?  Do I homeschool?  While school didn't really happen much this week because of sickness, doctors' appointment, hay baling and such...we are not done for the year yet.  All of our online classes have ended  and I find that along with providing my kids with a good education, they also add structure to our days.  With that structure gone, I need to add in my own structure.  


We still have math to finish. (Doesn't every homeschool have math left at the end of the year?)  We also have lots of History to get through.  I think it will be nice to spend some concentrated time on these subjects.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

Doctors and doctors. 

My favorite thing this week was...

Having a little extra time to read some of my favorite Homeschool blogs. Here are some of my favorites:
Afterthoughts by Brandy
The Common Room by Headmistress
Ordo Amoris by Cindy
Fuel the Muse by Debra


Homeschool questions/thoughts I have..

I've been thinking that I need to do more thinking about homeschooling.  I've been running on auto-pilot lately.  And even though it is the end of the school year, I want to finish well instead of fizzle out. (Which sadly happens most years.)  I need some inspiration.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

Well, I shared this in a previous post but I think I'll share it again.  Cathy was a guest poster on the Circe Institute blog.  She wrote a great article on ordering your day and coming up with a flexible schedule.  Here is the link: Starting Places: On the Rightly Ordered Schedule

Miscellaneous Musings

Starting Places: On the Rightly Ordered Schedule
An encouraging article on the Circe Institute blog written by a homeschooling mom on ordering the day.  This is something I always strive to do but somehow always end up falling flat but Cathy has some wonderful suggestions for making it work.

Seven Thoughts on Time Management
Keeping with the theme of schedules and time management, Doug Wilson wrote out seven thoughts on time management:

1. The point is fruitfulness, not efficiency.
2. Build a fence around your life, and keep that fence tended.
3. Perfectionism paralyzes.
4. Fill in the corners.
5. Plod. Keep at it. Slow and steady wins the race.
6. Take in more than you give out.
7. Use and reuse. State and restate. Learn and relearn. Develop what you know. Cultivate what you have.

Finding Free Christian Kindle Books

Words of Grace has a post on finding free Christian book for the Kindle.  I love my Kindle, but as my husband has reminded me, those seemingly small charges for books add up quickly.  So I'm on the lookout for as many free books as I can find.

"The Art of the Commonplace" by Wendell Barry

On a related note, this Kindle book is now being offered free for a limited time.  I highly recommend anything by Wendell Barry.

Prodigal Sons and Daughters

On a completely different note, I thought this blog post by Sherry of Semicolon was very good.  It's an encouraging article for all of us with Prodigals in our lives.  And don't we all have Prodigals in our lives?