Report on Ash Wendsday

Mission Briefing for 18Th/2/09 A.K.A. Ash Wednesday

Get up, see Kynan and Braedon off to work and make morning tea quickly.
Have breakfast then do school work while Mummy, Autumn,Moran, and Arwen go to Moran's blood test.
Do more school work.
Get ready to go to Ash Wednesday mass at 12:00.
Go to mass.
Come home and do more school work.
Finnish school work and go play for a while.
Help get dinner ready.
Have dinner, do family stuff and go to bed.

MISSION REPORT (and this is true!!)
Got up, saw Kynan and Braedon off, and made morning tea.
Have a late breakfast and found out that due to it being a fasting and abstinence day I could only have a small part of the breakfast I usually have.
Did not get around to the same amount of school work I usually do.
Mummy and the others were nearly late for the blood test.
Mummy and others come home and I only just got ready in time.
Went to mass and had the cross on the forehead and so on, then just as the deacon just after Communion and the Deacon was giving communion to incapacitated people and just as he is about to walk past us (we sit on the front pew) Eden suddenly collapsed to the floor tripping the Deacon (no need to worry about him he was only 90 years old!!)Mummy, me, and Vellvin rush to Eden and start to help her to the side door which was only a few feet away, as we are about to open the door Eden once again collapses luckily a doctor was at mass and he came over and took over checking here and there and so on. Mean while father Felix finished the mass and an Ambulance was called and the doctor talked to the Ambulance people and gave them all the info they needed.Meanwhile the presbytery's secretary offered to take some of us to the presbytery, so all of us went to the presbytery except Mummy, Arwen, Eden and I who was still lying half in, half out the church.FINALLY the ambulance arrived and they did the the usual ambulance stuff, then a 2nd ambulance arrived and they got her in a stretcher after deciding that she needed to go to hospital for some tests. So, Mummy and Arwen go in the car and followed the Ambulance that was taking Eden to the hospital, while I walked to the presbytery. There the others had been having lunch with the secretary, Maren and sister Carmel, after being let in I told them what was going on with Eden ,had a piece of bread and then we all settled down to pure BOREDOM.3 hours later Velvin and Rogan were both throwing up, the little ones were bored stiff and we had to be quite because Maren and sister Carmel were working on some kind of newsletter for the parish or something.finally Mummy came with Eden and Arwen to pick us up.Eden looked much better.We were so happy to go home, the presbytery did not have one board game or PG or G rated DVD.
We finally got home and by then Vellvin, Rogan, and Eden were all sick. so me and Autumn were the only people who could help with the 3 sick people and the 3 rowdy little kids while Mummy tried to settle Arwen.The big boys then come home from work and find a house full of chaos and no dinner whatsoever planed, let alone cooked.
Me and Autumn were stuck with dinner clean-up and were up quite late doing it.
Though not many people know but 3 years ago on Ash Wednesday I fainted in church.Pretty nice coincidence, isn't it?

May your Sword Stay Sharp,

Plans for Lent

I have not been posting much as for the last 5 days most of us have been been sick, and I have spent most of my time doing...................well, not much. But now that we are all mostly better there will be more post's coming.
So, here is some plans for Lent the day before Ash Wednesday we had to think up a whole lot of sacrifices and things to do to make us closer to God to do during this time, some of them are: only having T.V. and movies on the weekends (that's annoying because the Winter Olympics are on.
Saying the Rosary daily.
Saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Angeles daily.
Doing a huge house clean and I mean a HUGE house clean we have to clean all 579 square metres of it.
So that's our family Lent sacrifices and stuff for our family.



May your Sword Stay Sharp,

The Great Escape

A couple of nights ago Kynan,Breadon,Autumn,Eden,Vellvin,Rogan, and me watched the great Escape.Its a true story set in the 2ND world war and the German's have spent lots of time guarding and recapturing escaped POW's, so they set up a special prison camp for the main 250 people who keep trying to escape.When the prisoners get taken their, on their first 20 minutes there is already 3 different escapes being attempted, but because this camp is a lot more thorough and more well organized none succeed.
But the Germans made a mistake: they have all the best planners and tunnelers all together so its no surprise that on day 2 the prisoners are planning another escape.The planner,Roger,also known as Big X decides that they will plan a mass escape, all 250 escape, not only because they just want to get out but because with such a major escape the Germans will have 1000's of men looking for them when they could be on the fronts fighting.So soon they have Danny and Willie, the tunnel kings working on 3 different tunnels at once while Hendley the Scrounger is sneaking metal for tunneling tools and even maneges to get a camera from one of the gullible guards , Colin is forging fake documents, Louis the only Australian in the whole camp the is busy making tools, such as picks for digging and bellows for pumping air into the tunnels,Eric devices a method of hiding bags in the prisoners' trousers and spreading the dirt from the tunnels over the prison camp, literally under the guards' noses,Lieutenant Cavendish is in charge of the prisoners who sing to cover the noise of digging, then there is Hilts " The Cooler King," who irritates the guards with frequent escape attempts and so spend most of his time in the cooler.So with all the experts in escaping in a couple of weeks they are ready to break out, and no I am NOT going to tell what happens past that.

Roger the planner.



Louis the manufacturer.



Hilts the cooler king


Hendley and Colin.


May your Sword Stay Sharp,

Paul Revere's Ride

Mummy told me to lern this poem by the end of this term.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

May your Sword Stay Sharp,

Candlemass

For four years now we have celebrated the candlemass by making enough candles out of beeswax to last the whole year.We do two different technique's for making candles:The firs way is the traditional way of quickly dipping a wick into a pot of melted beeswax and pulling it out, quit a bit of wax will have stayed stuck to the wick and will dry in a few seconds.Even though a wick needs quit a lot of dips to make a whole candle, they produce pretty fast when a ten or eleven people are all working together, some doing two at a time (Kynan did about eight at a time).
The other way (which is faster) is getting soft, flat sheets of beeswax and rolling wicks inside the beeswax.But because we couldn't find any beeswax sheet's anywhere we only did dipped ones this year.


Everyone lining up to have a dip.

Rogan dipping his wick and me waiting behind
with my head cut out of the picture.

Candles finished.

Wicks waiting to be dipped.

Beeswax melting on the stove.

Some of us put half melted wax on our hands for the fun of it.It wasn't that hot, but it still REALLY HURT!!!!!

May your Sword Stay Sharp,

THE 8 Question Meme

Rogan gave me this tag about half a month ago but sadly back then I did not have a blog, so, here it is Rogan. Sorry its late.

Six names you go by:

-Saxon.
-Sakie.
- me.
-myself.
-I.

Three things you're wearing right now:

-T-shirt.
-jeans.
-pocket knife.

Three things you want very badly:

-To get my schoolwork done as soon as possible.
-Sell our house.
-Get enough time to read the rest of my G.A.Henty book that I haven't read for 5 days!!!!

Three things you did last night/yesterday/today:

-school work.
-did music practice.
-said the Rosary.

Two things you ate today
-porridge.
-sultanas

Two people you last talked to on the phone:

-Daddy.
-Mummy.

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:

-More school work.
-Hopfully read.

Your three favorite beverages:

-Fizzy drink A. K. soft drink
-Milo
-tea

Tag 5 people
Gimli
Halt
Koala
Legolas
Princess with Brains

May your Sword Stay Sharp,

Back to school

Apart from doing a small Christmas study through advent, I have had about 2 months of school and know it is time to start again. This year will be a bit different from what we have done before as mummy has found a whole heap of different resources to work from, and it looks like this year will be enjoyable then last year.

I wrote this poem for mummy though she won’t know I even wrote such a thing till she reads this post.

Mummy had set up a schoolroom
on the table the books she had piled.
She was so terribly excited
today she would teach her own child.

At first she taught him easy things
like the ABC's
then moved on to harder things
like 18 x 43.

Everyday they both enjoyed it
the child and herself
and after many years of learning
those books were put on the shelf.

For her boy had learnt all he could
eaten all knowledge in reach
now his is married with kids
and to his children his wife does teach.

And whenever that wonderful mother
doesn’t feel happy or gay
all she needs is to remember
that wonderful happy first day.

An original poem by Saxon

May your Sword Stay Sharp,