Lasts

Do you ever realize when you’re leaving a place, “This is the last time I’ll be doing so-and-so here…”?

That’s how I feel sometimes when we’re leaving a place that we’ve stayed at a while. It seems like just yesterday that we drove into the neighborhood and surprised everyone out of their minds. It’s so weird, thinking of all the things we’ve done in the past 3 months, and then just going back to what we consider normal: traveling.

We just left Dallas, and we’re back on the road, kicking the trip off with a 10 hour drive to New Mexico. We’re going to hit a few National Parks, then it’s off to Colorado for boarding!

Goodbye Texas!

Birth of Britain: Chapter VI Part 1

After Imperial Rome fell, all the barbarians who were left over from the previous chapters that I haven’t wrote about, they all turned to the Church and all became Christians.

At this time everyone started attacking each other. The Saxons attacked the Britons, Islam successfully conquered Spain for a few hundred years, and the Arabs attacked France, only to lose to Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne.

The Norwegians and the Danes had an interesting relationship. Sometimes they were with each other, sometimes they murdered each other. They had a weird habit of cooking their feasts in the dead bodies of their enemies (not cannibals though)

They once fought a battle on Irish soil, and the locals asked them why they did so. They said “Why not? They would do it to us!”.

The Norsemen had a new strategy and way of getting around: Horses. They plundered towns and took horses to ride swiftly, instead of on foot.

In England, the King’s officer received word that there were ships in the harbor. Thinking they were merchants, he rode eagerly to the harbor, only to get killed by the not-so-merchanty-Norsemen.

That marked the beginning of the Viking Age.

One day in January 793, the Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, was attacked by Denmark. It was winter, and the Monks there received no help. The Danes took the Monks as slaves. The next year, they tried again, but failed due to weather and their enemies being ready for them. Their King was tortured and put to death. A few of the Danes escaped and told their tale of woe. England was never to be attacked for another 40 years by Denmark.

The Vikings, at this time, attacked and destroyed Iona. The Viking’s constantly attacked places. Needing a settlement, they explored, the world, eventually discovering America.

Rest and Restlessness

I’ve been reading Ourselves, by Charlotte Mason, and it is a story about a person, who, in this story, is represented as a country named Mansoul. The last chapter I read talks about rest and restlessness. Restlessness is usually a good thing. It motivates you to explore, jump and run, and be active. It can also be bad, if there is too much restlessness, you cannot focus on one thing at a time. Your mind always jumps away from something you’re doi- Hey, a new email!

Back on subject…

Rest is like restlessness, it’s usually good, but it can be really bad, when it turns into sloth. Sloth is very bad, because the people who want too much rest always want to take breaks from what they’r- I think that’s enough, I’m going to go eat something.

😛

Stopping being a sloth is easy: If you’re a normal person, Restlessness will take over eventually and you’ll be free of being a sloth! I think this was a very good chapter. It’s good to be restless, it’s good to rest. But it’s not good to be too restless, or to be a Sloth.

 

 

Saints and Heroes: Charlemagne

Charlemagne was a different kind of conquester. With all the Saxons he took prisoner, he didn’t kill or torture them. He baptized them all in a river. Though most of them just turned back to whatever religion they were before, a few were really converted into Christians. One Christmas, he was attending church in Rome when Leo III pronounced him Emperor. Charlemagne was a great emperor, and built many churches and buildings for the people.