We read about Egyptian farming today, very interesting in light of the recent flooding in NOLA. The ancient Egyptians based their whole agriculture on the yearly innundation of the flooding of the Nile, instead of trying to work against it. Of course, their floods were very well planned, really, so to compare it to Katrina is perhaps inappropriate (which Faith noted.)

There was also an aside about bread and beermaking, to which Faith said “If Daddy were here he’d say ‘Did somebody say ‘beer’?'” Ah, she knows him well.

One of T.J.’s goals is to really fustigate the ACT. To that end, The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Official Prep Guide from the Makers of the ACT will be whizzing our way soon. I tellya, when Amazon is cheap they’re really cheap. Even paying for shipping (I have sworn to never again go with the Free Super Saver Get It In Two Months Or Less Maybe Shipping) it was still a good three dollars less than it would be locally.

In my (most likely idiotic) desire to be part of the SCA again, I’m now trying to figure out exactly how much I’ll have to do to get us all to an event in period style.

Garb needed for…

Me: one light undertunic/chemise (I’d love linen, let’s be realistic, it’s going to be unperiod cotton muslin because it’s cheap)
one overdress/gown/kirtle
An aside: All of mine has to be nursing-friendly too. Good thing I’m not afraid to show a functional breast in action, as the most accurate way to nurse a child in period was to pop the boob over the top. No problem.
Shoes
Cloak
Cap or kerchief

Sean:
One or two tunics
Trews (pants, he refuses to go barelegged like a real Irishman. He’s so civilized.)
Shoes
Cloak

T.J. and Sophia, who want to go too:
T.J. - same as Sean
Sophia- same as me. But not so nursing-friendly

The Girls, in total:
four little chemises with ample hems for ease of growth
two wee overdresses, same hem theory
shoes
cloaks
a few caps or kerchiefs

The Boys, in total:
four tunics big hems
four baggy pairs of pants
shoes
cloaks

The Baby:
Two or three very long tunic/chemises
Something warm to wrap in
Several chin-tie caps

The cloaks are just rectangles of wool tartan and won’t require anything beyond being cut out. And the shoes will mostl ikely be bought. Everything else needs sewing. By who? Why, by me of course. Have I ever mentioned that in my life I’ve sewn one diaper cover, one pair of shorts and one wall-hanging quilt thingy? By machine, I mean. I’ve sewn loads by hand.

I’m crazy. CRAZY! The one nice thing is I can buy the fabric for each person as we go so I won’t have to lump out a huge amount of cash all at once. As we get more some ease in our budget I’ll be able to make a $15 to $20 purchase each month to get this moving along. ANd the total shouldn’t be horribly high either, somethng like $75 to $100 for all of this.

At this rate I’ll have everyone’s clothes made and they’ll have outgrown them. Drat! Note to self: make garb in FIFO order.

Faith is on the cusp of easy, fluent reading (and probably better than grade level, whichis reassuring). She has to pick out longer words and oddball ones like ‘cough’, ‘through’, and ‘thought’ can send her for a loop but by and large she “gets” it.

So I’m thinking about what books I liked at that age and ability. I was a big Arnold Lobel fan, and I recall enjoying the Frances books (especially Bread and Jam for Frances) but I’d love suggestions from anyone else, if you have any. Amazon is being finicky or I’d link to a few books here.

I’m going to get I Can Read (Level 2) books and see how she does. We have a bunch but they’ve been read so often that they all have them about memorized.

Last year, and the three years before that, the Oklahoma County Metropolitan Libray System hosted Food for Fines in late October. Here’s the deal: for one week anyone who brings a nonperishable food item to the library gets their overdue fines erased, as long as the materials have been returned and they weren’t damaged. I hope VERY MUCH that they do it again this year, as I have an embarassingly high fine.

::shuffles feet::

Otherwise I’ll be having to check out books on my kids’ library cards, forever. Oh the humiliation!

My mom found these books at a garage sale

and picked them up because they looked good. Faith and Abby are enjoying them, and they are a nice barometer of their knowledge vs. their institutionally schooled counterparts.

Besides, I would be remiss as a parent if they were not given the opportunity to wonder what exactly the odd clip-art on page 14 (or 42, or whatever) that contained the short /o/ sound (which they were supposed to color) was. A pancreas? A plum pudding? A flattened beach ball? Something more sinister? The world may never know…

T.J. had a cold today so we didn’t meet. But I got our new logic textbook in the post, yay!

I bet it’s nice for him to miss ’school’ because he’s actually sick, and not just sick of school.

If it’s ever nice to be sick, anyway. Get well soon T.J.!

I want a place to keep all my garb links. I’ll update as I find them.

What is a T-Tunic?
Reconstructing History
Tunic Generator
Virtue Ventures
The Renaissance Tailor
Celtic Garb
Living Past

College Algebra tutorial

That looks great!

T.J. read “The Story of an Hour”, by Kate Chopin for lit today. (Here it is, in its entirety, if you’d like to read it. It’s short, about a thousand words, and I think you’ll find it interesting.) It sparked a discussion of historical feminism vs. modern feminism vs. contemporary feminism.

Then, while talking about hybrid seaweed and parrot intelligence, of all things, we had a minor foray into comparing the bureaucracy structure of our government to the bureaucracy structure of various European governments and he’ll be reading the World’s Best Economics Overview, Eat the Rich, by P.J. O’Rourke in response to that.