Many Hands Make Light Work

Many hands make light work. The more people who are helping you, the faster and easier the task is. For many projects, this is true. Not every project is easier with more people; for instance, watchmaking is very delicate work done in a small space. More helpers would make it harder. But for large tasks such as yard work, cleaning up a lot of toys, or cleaning up at a camp, more people means lighter work.

Yard work involves clearing large patches of ground. For one person, it is quite a job to pick up all of the sticks and rake all of the leaves on an acre of land, or even half an acre. With a helper, the work is much easier. With five or six friends, the job won’t seem like much work at all. When I did yard work as part of 4-H community service, our club got together and went to a house that needed help clearing a large yard of branches and leaves or weeding a garden. We would spend several hours and have fun while helping. Having that many people made it a lot easier.


If you have ever been in charge of a group of preschoolers, you know they can make quite a mess with toys strewn everywhere. One preschooler can actually create the same amount of chaos, but that one child will have more difficulty cleaning it up. When you get a group of preschoolers to clean up together, the mess doesn’t seem as overwhelming to them and they will pitch in to help restore order. It will also get done a lot faster. Having more of them changes everything.


My youth group occasionally sends out teams of ten to twelve teenagers to go help do the dishes for a weekend at a local retreat center. When there isn’t a team to go, the councilors for that retreat have to do it themselves. They would agree that more hands makes easier and faster work. For a group of five or six people, the dishes for one to three hundred people are a lot of work. But for twelve or fourteen, it is much easier. We could finish cleaning up all of the dishes, wiping down the tables, and sweeping up within two hours or so. The extra hands made a difference.


This old adage is true for many tasks. Not every job is easier with more hands, but in general this is true. Many hands make light work for yard work, cleaning up toys, and doing a lot of dishes, among other things. The more people you have, the faster and easier it will be to do the work.

Computer Literate

We live in the age of computers. They are everywhere, from workplaces to homes. People use these powerful tools daily. But how many people are actually familiar with them? Computer familiarity means being able to communicate using a computer and being able to store information with a computer. A person who is familiar with a computer should also be able to do these things safely.

Computers allow people to communicate in a variety of ways. Emails are direct, and they work well for talking between two or three people. People use emails to keep friends and family updated or to send information at work. Websites allow people to talk with multiple people more easily. Some websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, offer direct messages. They make group communication simpler, because the whole group can see what each person said. Messages are also faster than emails. Forums are a way of talking with people who share an interest, such as computers or medieval fantasy. They give people a place to discuss hints, the latest model, and ask questions. Computers provide access to all of this.

Computers store information. People store documents, such as essays, stories, and instructions, to name a few. Since people can create as many folders as they need, documents can be filed away into categories for easy reference. People also store pictures. Storing pictures digitally is cheaper and easier than printing them out and putting them in an album. Some people also use a computer to prune through their pictures and decide which ones to print. Another thing people store on computers is music. Computers have a lot of storage space, and they can hold more music than a regular phone or iPod.

Computers need to be used safely, like any other tool. Passwords should be strong, such as a line from a poem or a memorable phrase. They should be written down in a secure place that only the creator knows about. Having a password for the Administrator account that the whole family knows means that children can install whatever they want on the computer. This leads to malware and viruses getting installed. A hacked bank account causes a lot of trouble, and a hacked Facebook account is bad, too. That compromised account can be mined for information about the account owner, their friends, and groups the owner belongs to. A stolen password for Facebook can be used for anything from simple mischief to job loss.

Secure habits, such as logging out of websites and locking the computer, keep information safer. Staying logged into a website lets anyone who gains access to your computer also gain access to all the accounts on those websites. Leaving the computer open compounds the problem. Not only can people access the Web from there, they can cause all sorts of mischief on the computer itself. An unlocked Administrator computer account means that whoever comes over there can install or uninstall anything they want to on that computer. Any account that gets left opened on an unlocked computer can access files and pictures for any other account. They can delete or copy those files easily.

People can copy posts or screenshot them; they can easily spread a post beyond the friends of the poster. What is posted on Facebook may not stay there. Choose wisely what gets posted, so that if it does get copied no one will embarrassed or endangered. Once a post is out there, it never truly goes away. Some people receive all posts from a person or their feed in emails, and those emails don’t get deleted when the post does. Google Hangouts messages can’t be edited or deleted after sending. Anyone who has access to the account can download them.

A computer is a versatile tool that, used safely, can enrich our lives. Communication and data storage are easier than ever before. With computers, the average person has more power than an emperor in the days of Rome—instantly access information or message a friend with the click of a mouse.

Book Review: This Rich and Wondrous Earth

This Rich and Wondrous Earth, by Mrs. Linda Burklin, is an excellent and well-written book telling about her childhood growing up in central Africa at a boarding school for missionary children.  Mrs. Burklin clearly and in a manner easy to read tells about her adventures and education there. She conveys her ideas and experiences clearly. This book is very enthralling! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and especially her account of their half-term amusements. During their time at the river, they would select shady areas to build “half-term houses” in, because at half-term they were allowed to spend the Rest Hour in those “houses” with the others who helped build it. Groups of girls would select a spot and build the half-term house together. Much time was passed by discussing what to furnish the house with!  

I really suggest that you read this book.

Bailie 

Homeschooling

If you are interested in homeschooling, here is a website about what it is like to be a kid homeschooled with the Charlotte Mason curriculum: http://jklivingston.home.mindspring.com/bell/

Bell

News Site

If you are looking for a news website to keep up with what is going on, I recommend Ricochet.com, a site with conservative news commentary.

Bell

Notes on Ivanhoe

• Notes: The Palmer and the Pilgrim are two names for the same person, but he is called both. 

• The Prior is supposed to be a religious person, living simply and devoting his life to helping people, but you see he is very rich. You can't blame Robin Hood for robbing them!

• Jews were despised and hated back then, as they were not too long ago. They were not Muslims, Christians, or heathen. They were unsaved, in between people who had a lot of money and so were misused to get money. People would borrow from them, and then refuse to pay it back. 

That's all!
Bell 

Whaterver Happened to Penny Candy Chapters 5-6

Next election, take a good look at what the politicians are doing. They promise people a lot of new, "better" things, and then when they get elected, they print a lot more money to pay for all that. But here is something important: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. TANSTAAFL.  They can promise all they want, but they give out a big lie. The person who says it most convincingly gets elected. The Big Lie is that they will give you all you want, and you don't have to pay for it. TANSTAAFL. They can't do that. Instead of raising the taxes, because that would get them thrown out of office, they print more money. The wage/price spiral is caused by that. The workers want more money, so the employers give it to them when they go on strike. Then the employers raise their prices, the workers want more money, and it repeats itself. They can't raise prices a ton, like up to 10,000,000 dollars, because there is not that much money in circulation yet.
Hope that explains things a bit.

Bell

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy

Inflation happens when the government prints a lot of money. There is a lot of money, so the value of money is going down, and the prices are rising. This is inflation. It's not happening only to the American dollar, but also to the British pound, the franc, you name it. All over the world, politicians are printing a lot of money so they can buy every thing they want. This means that there is also inflation all over the world. Those pieces of paper called dollars are not dollars. They are just pieces of paper that are not backed up by any precious metal. They are Federal Reserve Notes, not dollars. Back in the colonial days, they were backed by silver. One dollar meant one ounce of silver. The dollar was a kind of IOU. But now, there are too many dollars and not enough silver for this to be true. Bell

A note on Brendan Voyage

For a while, I am going to split the chapters in half, because they are rather lengthy. Bell

A note on Shakespeare

When I read Shakespeare's works, I like to get the Folger Library books. They have notes on the text on the left-hand page, and the text on the right. They are useful for understanding the text, and you don't have to go looking through the whole book for the notes. I really recommend these for studying Shakespeare. Bell

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy

We don't have really bad inflation right now, but in the 1970's and 1980's there was double-digit inflation. This is where inflation is rising at the rate of 10% or more. But history repeats itself. The Romans tried to secretly clip the edges of the coins and make new ones with the clippings. The people caught on, and decreased the value of the clipped coins. So the government tried a new thing. They added more medals of lesser value than silver. So the people hoarded the good coins, and used the bad ones. That is the natural reaction to bad coins. They drive the good coins out of the market. This has happened with American money, too. Now we have clad coins, but not the real silver ones. Those were hoarded by the people who have them. Now coins are really tokens, because real coins are made of precious medals. Bell

Break

 I wanted to let you know that I will be taking a break for a while. I will have the rest of If for you then!
Bell

A study of Titus and Philopoemen

Titus                                                                                
Failings:  Ambition and greed for honor.  
Strengths: Caution, loyal to friends, merciful, generous.
       Philopoemen 
Failings: Obstinacy, greed for honor, and Ambition, lack of caution, often mean and cruel. (See my posts on him.)
Strengths: Valour, did many brave things, had it in him to command, in or out of office.

A bit about them: Titus was not in battle, but he did command his men well. Do you think he should get less credit for having his army ready made? I don't think so. He could have wrecked the whole thing, even though it was already there. Have you ever seen a well-run organization have a change in management, and the whole thing goes downhill? That could have happened. He still had to run it well. Just having it there did not make it easy.
Philopoemen was very brave, but he often put himself first. He was often very mean to conquered people. He did have to build his army up, and keep it going, and he had to have a lot of courage, more so than Titus, to oppose Rome. He was not nice, however, and did not act with discretion in war, but wasted away his life by acting prematurely. He prodigalled away his life, by acting with haste, not like Titus, who acted with caution, as did Fabius, yet Titus moved, and did fight many battles. So I think better of Titus. Titus was kind, and combined the good points of Fabius with the good points of a "fights lots of battles" general. If you want to learn more about Philopoemen, look at my posts about him, under the label "Plutarch." I wrote them a long time ago, so they are not the best. However, Philopoemen was very honest. He changed, however, and was very mean to the Spartans.

The End
Bell  

Even More Good Books

I should put this one first: The Bible.
Galileo and the Magic Numbers
Winston Churchill's History of World War 2
Did you know that Winston Churchill has more words in print than Dickens and Sir Walter Scott combined?!

The End
Bell

More Good Books

Here are some more good books to read:
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Men of Iron
A Little Princess
Swiss Family Robinson
Robinson Crusoe
Swallowdale (Swallows and Amazons forever!)
Swallows and Amazons


More next time!
Bell  

Good Books

Here are some really good books to read:

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Hiding Place
The books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The original Sherlock Holmes
The Little White Horse 

More coming!
Bell

Old T.V. shows

Did you know that those old T.V. shows like Marvin the Martin and Bugs Bunny are on YouTube? If you are looking for fun entertainment, these are great! Roadrunner and Duck Dodgers are out there as well.

Bell

Favorite Books

Here are some of my favorite books:
The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Enright (I think, maybe another Elizabeth somebody. )

Please tell me your favorites!

Bell 

Chess

Do you like to play chess? Have you even heard of it? Would you like to know what it is? Chess.com will tell you! It is a free website that you can play chess on. You can play against the computer, or against other people!

I love to play chess!
Bell

About Plutarch

Plutarch wrote about famous Greeks, many years after they had lived. They are called 'Lives,' i.e. the Life of Nicias, The Life of Brutus, etc.  Well, hope that helps!

Bell