Brilliant Quote

"You would think that Christian writer GK Chesterton was describing today’s
public educational system when he said, “Education is the period during which
you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not
want to know.” Christians need to realize that much of our public education
system is training our children to be cogs in the economic machine, and not
enabling them to pursue what is truly beautiful. "

From a new blog I discovered: Scriptorium Daily

The quote is from Cursed Cursive. I don't entirely agree with not teaching cursive, just because I happen to think that writing in cursive is faster and easier on the hand (although at least a couple of my kids would disagree) but I loved the quote.

Good Thing!

You paid attention during 91% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

A Town Comes Alive

Over the past few days, it seems like our town has come alive. Driving around, one sees many people out walking, running, biking or skateboarding.

The reason?

It's finally approaching spring here! Yes, it's getting warmer (5C right now) and the snow is melting. The sidewalks are drying up, although parts are still covered in snow and/or muddy water. Grass is starting to show around the edges of the lawns, at least the south-facing ones. And the roads are mostly clear, although the alleys are still filled with deep ruts of snow and water. So I am thankful!

And in the very warmest garden bed, crocuses are starting to show their little tips. Now that means spring is really on its way.

A Break

I've observed that when Kim and others take a break, they only blog once a day.

I, on the other hand, have not blogged for at least 2 weeks. Maybe more - how long ago was March 4? :-)

What can I say? Life has taken over. Schooling the kids, cooking, cleaning, scrapbooking (probably more scrapbooking than cleaning but who's counting?), reading - blogging has taken a back seat to them all. But I have some great scrapbook pages - 2006 is about 1 page in total away from being complete.

I haven't decided yet if that's OK or if I'll continue on with this. But I do have one book review I'm hoping to get to soon and I also wanted to introduce

Oldest Son's Newest Project - The Quizzing Nerd.

I hope he keeps it up - it's been great so far! Oldest daughter's blog is linked in the sidebar and she's started posting some more too.

The hubby has not. Maybe we should combine forces - we seem to be about equal in our output!

Sunday Hymn - Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven

Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven;
To His feet thy tribute bring.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Evermore His praises sing:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise the everlasting King.

Praise Him for His grace and favor
To our fathers in distress.
Praise Him still the same as ever,
Slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Glorious in His faithfulness.

Fatherlike He tends and spares us;
Well our feeble frame He knows.
In His hands He gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Widely yet His mercy flows.

Frail as summer’s flower we flourish,
Blows the wind and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish
Our God lives unchanging on,
Praise Him, Praise Him, Hallelujah
Praise the High Eternal One!

Angels, help us to adore Him;
Ye behold Him face to face;
Sun and moon, bow down before Him,
Dwellers all in time and space.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise with us the God of grace.

100 Best Books

A booklist from the Deputy Headmistress. As she did, I've bolded the ones I've read, italicized the ones I want to read, left alone the ones I don't have an opinion on and put a comment after those I really liked or disliked.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - I can't remember if I've actually read this one all of the way through
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - not planning to read it either
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens I've read it once and I'm reading it to my older children right now
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - I much prefer Far From the Madding Crowd
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I've read and/or seen an assortment but not all of them.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - I might have read this but can't remember so it doesn't count.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - heard enough about the steamy bits to decide I wasn't going to read it.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I may have tried this once but obviously didn't get far
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - see Crime & Punishment
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden This was for the library book club last year. I found it to be so sad and tragic, especially since the main character didn't seem to realize how sad and tragic it really was
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - not planning to either
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I think I read the first 5 pages and off it went to the library. I thought it was boring.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving Why is this one considered to be such a classic? I found it tawdry and sad.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - fun read!
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - and, of course, all the books in the series. Anne of Ingleside is my favourite.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - no thank you
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding Junior High - I'm not asking my kids to read it!
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - again for the library book club. Ick.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - another one that seems to be recommended as a classic that I didn't get
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - very interesting and different but at least not as icky as some.
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - no, thank you
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - highschool. I think I liked his writing or at least the word pictures.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov :P
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold :p
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo I struggled through this in highschool and eventually finished it. I started it again about 3 or 4 years ago and couldn't get through all the political meanderings. One of these days, I'll read it again and skip those parts!

I think this is a funny list because it's got such a variety of books on it. I guess everyone has a chance at it, anyway.

What about you?