Category Archives: news

You May Have Wondered Why Aunt Mae’s Blog Silence…?

Honey From Flinty Rocks

has officially moved!

My new blog URL is:

http://auntmaes.com/HoneyFromFlintyRocks/

I still have lots of work to do at the new site, but I am up and running!

My first post at my new site is a Gluten Free Angle Food Cake recipe!

If you have subscribed, you will need to resubscribe.  I have not found any way to transfer you all over to my new site.

I’m sorry.  Truly.

I have big plans that I will be unveiling in the next weeks and months.

I have a number of posts I have been working on.  There are some terrific guest posts I have waiting to publish.  A giveaway is in the works… and much, much more!

So please Stay Tuned… but Change That Dial!!  🙂

Blessings,  ~Aunt Mae (aka ~Mrs. R)

Homeschool Resource Sale from Vision Forum

We have really appreciated Vision Forum products.  This is one of my main go-to places for NON-politically correct, historically accurate history materials and some GREAT stuff for “real” boys!

They have great sales too!

Save Up to 80% on More than 250 Products

In the past few months, Vision Forum has exhibited at more than 15 state homeschool conferences around the country, from Florida to Massachusetts to Colorado. We’ve enjoyed wonderful conversations with homeschool fathers and mothers passionate about their children’s education, and we’ve placed important learning tools in the hands of many discipleship-minded Christian families.

Now they’re bringing some of their best conference pricing and products to your home!

Through June 29, save up to 80% on more than three hundred products at Vision Forum, including homeschool resources, supplemental materials, and “last chance” closeouts.

This offer is valid only while supplies last, does not apply to mail orders, may not be applied to past purchases, and expires at midnight on June 29, 2012 (CDT).

Blessings, ~Aunt Mae (~aka ~Mrs. R)

Links in this post are affiliate links.  I do receive compensation for any purchases you make through my affiliate links.  I only recommend materials and companies I use and believe in myself.  All opinions expressed are my own.  Affiliate links are one way I supplement our income… especially now with The Patriarch unemployed.

Thank you!!

The Fireworks Have Arrived

Dazzling Sparkling Fireworks will dazzle and delight any hair style with the sparkling accents of red, white (clear), and blue. Here’s your chance to show your patriotic colors!

A second July FOTM will be released sometime in July to bring the warm weather beachy style right to our homes.

Radiation Found In Tuna

Giant Bluefin Tuna

Here is an article about the radiation found in tuna caught off the California coast.

Another reason I am glad I have been preparedness minded.  I bought lots of canned tuna right after the Fukishima disaster in March 2011.  Must be time to ration our usage…

974 lbs World Record tuna

I wonder if tuna will start dying of radiation poisoning…

Blessings, ~Aunt Mae (aka ~Mrs. R)

Honorless

Honorless

Posted By Guy Smith On May 28, 2012 @ 9:30 am

“Honour was honour, it clothed a man better than a fine jacket before the eyes of his neighbors.”

This passage from John Prebble’s Culloden explains why Barack Obama has lost the south and may from that lose reelection.

Prebble was writing about Scottish Highlanders in the age of Jacobite revolution. Among the tribes of Scotland, and in their modern mindset, honor is elemental. In societies that rely on mutual trust to survive, honor is essential to commerce, neighborly relations and commitments. To live in a land where one protects his honor and demands honorable actions from all others, to forsake that substance means to lose human standing.

After The 45,(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_risings#The_Rebellion.2FRising_of_1745_.28.27The_Forty-Five.27.29) once the English had raped and hung Scots, burned their homes and salted their fields, many Highlanders fled for the New World, settling largely in the south. The Smokey Mountains and Appalachian terrain suited them. Highlanders brought their families who were in tatters and their honor which was still intact. This contributed to the widespread sense of honor that seeps into most southern men’s blood to this day (and with Dixiecrats occupying more and more terra firma, honor is rapidly solidifying). The Southern code of honor requires treating everyone with respect until they prove unworthy, and nothing makes a man more unworthy than to be dishonorable.

This explains why Obama has no traction below Washington D.C.

Honor requires many things, and in no small part is facilitated by leaving your neighbors alone while demanding the same.

It is expected to insist others behave properly in public, but it is utterly inappropriate to tell them what to do in their homes or with their money. It is honorable to give generously to charity and loathsome to demand tribute to government run charities. It is honorable to stand for office on the promise to tame government and make it your servant, and vile to use government to enslave.

As is obvious, every Obama policy is repugnant to Southern honor, which explains that large swath of red in the latest Election Projection presidential polling map.

Southerners recognize government as necessary yet prone to abuse. Obama, in his election year vow to “make government cool again” did the opposite by force feeding it to an unwilling American public. Enacting Obamacare when as much as 69% of the public opposed it, reneging on his vow to use only public financing for his election, to spend nearly a trillion dollars promising economic revival but actually buying government union votes with the lucre, to squander taxes on energy policy “investments” with unworthy and dishonorable campaign donors … well, the pattern emerges.

No action, regardless of how noble it was spun, masked Obama’s deeply dishonorable deeds.

In the age of the citizen media, such disreputable doings were instantly revealed, and people with honor abandoned Obama.

It is agonizing to write this on Memorial Day, when tribute is paid to those who proved they possessed the ultimate in honor. The contrast is too sharp, the divide too clear. Fallen warriors gave their very being to preserve a land dedicated to the most honorable notion, that people must be free. That their country is now oppressed by a man unfamiliar with honor, unacquainted with universal freedom, devoid of the character content that another Southerner (M.L. King) deemed sacred – this situation is our collective moment of dishonor.

Article printed from Cowboy Confessional: http://www.guysmith.org/blog

URL to article: http://www.guysmith.org/blog/2012/05/28/honorless/

Copyright © 2011 Guy Smith. All rights reserved.

Grammar & spelling corrected and piece posted by The Patriarch

Other posts that may be of interest to you:

Most Biblically Hostile U.S. President

Despotism: Encyclopaedia 1946 Film

Deformed Heart of Obamacare

Basic Economics Facts & Fallacies

Memorial Day Observance

I wish to extend my sincerest thanks to those who have served in our military and to the families who have lost a loved one who served our country.

Thank You

Thank you.

Blessings, ~Aunt Mae (aka ~Mrs. R)

My Titanic Era Outfit

Woman selling Irish lace on the Titanic

April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  We purchased the only accurate Titanic DVD, recommended by Vision Forum, which we watched last week.  The DVD, A Night to Remember, is was based on the novel by the same name and is put out by the Criterion Collection.

The other night the Patriarch & I watched the extras on disk two.  Very, very good!  I highly recommend this.  There were two different interviews of Titanic survivors, a behind the scenes of how it was made along with some background information and much more!  The only caution from disk two… the global warming junk-science & the 15,000 years ago mantra in the feature on icebergs.

Here is a link to some never before seen photos.

The Titanic’s musicians

In some of the early articles it said “Lead, Kindly Light” was one of the hymns played by the musicians while the ship sank.  This is not a hymn I was familiar with.  I love the words!  The tune can be found at the link through the hymn title.  I had heard that they played Nearer My God to Thee, and David Craig sang that hymn at the Titanic 100 event.

Lead, Kindly Light

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.

steward & stewardess, surviving crew of the Titanic

As I have looked at various Titanic pictures it struck me that I made a Titanic era outfit!  It is my “Aunt Mae” persona clothing and I thought you might enjoy seeing what I made.  I used mostly what was already in my closet, making a few changes by adding  period-looking embellishments.

Here is my jacket with photos of the decorative details.  The jacket was purchased about 7 years ago and only worn a few times.  The decorative trim was originally along only one edge of the lapel and center front, has three-quarter sleeves and four buttons and button holes.  The original design was to wear this jacket buttoned up.  If you look at the surviving stewardess in the photo above, you will see her jacket collar is very similar to my jacket’s stand-up collar!

I searched for matching trim to add to the other lapel and bottom edges and attached it with my sewing machine.  The frog closure was sewn on by hand,  buttons removed and the button holes hand-sewn closed.  Black velvet ribbon was attached on top of the existing belt and a decorative button added.  The only thing left to do is to add black velvet cuffs for a bit more authentic look.

My shirt is one I have had in my closet for many years.  It is a light cream with a covered-button placket, embroidered with tiny purple violets and green leaves.

shirt front and lace cuff

Lace was attached to the cuffs so that is hangs below the jacket sleeves.  This is actually lace with a second decorative trim sewn on top of where the lace attached.  All sewn on by hand.

cuff lace detail

IN “those” days, a woman past childbearing age would wear black as a symbol of her infertility or when she was in mourning.  I used what was already in my closet, and didn’t intend to make a mourning outfit and my whole outfit cannot be considered mourning as my hat is NOT black!  This was a hat I also had in my closet for a several years.   A few alterations later and an embellishment or two added… well maybe more than two things!  😀

partial top view

The brim trim is a lace scarf out of my closet.  I cannot even remember when I acquired it and I never wore it.  I love scarves, but hadn’t worn this one.  All the flowers and feathers I purchased from the fabric store and were wired on and some are hot glued in place.

rear view

I could not find a hat pin that was A) long enough or B) in my price range.  Mostly the former.  My favorite hardware store, McLendon’s, to the rescue!  I bought a small package of piano wire and Arrow filed one end to a point… of sorts anyway!  I then bent one end of the wire to hold a decorative button to match the jacket-belt button.  It was too thin and not secure enough but worked until I could find the “hat pin of my dreams”!  🙂  The “hat pin of my dreams” I purchased through Ebay.  These things could also be used as a weapon in an extreme emergency… it is 14 inches long, has a thick, sturdy shaft and is VERY pointy.

Caledonian Railway Button Hatpin

Aunt Mae & her soaps!

The Titanic’s soap label

Over at Jennie Chancey’s blog (http://sensibility.com/blog/reproducing-1912-fashions-remember-titanic/) and at the end of the article you will find a link to download a free eBook containing all the images in this special feature, plus an array of extra goodies that will help you gain an excellent picture of the time period. You can print these for your own personal use, and feel free to pass the link around to others. The eBook is free until the end of April!

If you look at page 22 of the free e-book, you will see pictures of blouses.  My collar isn’t too far off!!  I didn’t have time for complete authenticity in my wardrobe, just a ‘sense of the times’.  In my portrait I wore a lace collar that I pinned the jabot to.  But the jabot wouldn’t be worn at home… so I am working on an apron.

Oh my skirt?  Um, … well… it isn’t even close to being right.  It only goes down to the mid calf.  I guess after the apron, a Beatrix Potter skirt is on my to-do list!

To tie the Titanic disaster to today…

Blessings, ~Aunt Mae (aka ~Mrs. R)

Other posts you that may interest you:

Mother’s Day 2012  Soap Special!

Something I Made

A Farewell Phone Call

Disclaimer: Some links in this post are affiliate links.  I do receive compensation if you buy through them.  This is one way I am able to contribute a bit to our family resources.  All comments and opinions are my own.


This post also linked here:

If I Were the Devil

This was recorded in 1965!  All of these things have come true, so sadly true.

This was Paul Harvey.   Good day.

Blessings, ~Mrs. R (aka Aunt Mae)

Children Read to Dogs at Virigina Library

A public library in Virginia is sponsoring a program for children to read books . . .  to dogs.  The Alexandria, Virginia, library “Paws to Read” program has children in grades 1-6 reading books to dogs. The flier promoting the program, paid for through Alexandria City tax dollars, is here:

In the program, parents are not allowed in the room when the children are reading to the dogs.  The dogs, advocates boast, won’t judge or correct the children.  The judgment-free and correction-free dog reading zone, naturally, has roots in academia.  The University of California at Davis produced a study called “Reading to Rover” that catalogs the benefits of children reading to dogs, instead of with parents.

One child in the UCAL Davis study described why she prefers reading to dogs… read the rest here.

In the photo above… this is a 13 -14 year old male and he is reading a Golden Book.  He is reading a little kiddie book!!  Yikes.

Chalk this up as another albeit strange reason why we homeschool.

So not only do you have to pay your hard earned money (via your property taxes) to pay for schools to not teach your child to read.  You also get to pay with your hard earned money to have your child read to the dog in another attempt to ‘teach’ the child to read when the school couldn’t do their job.

Remember this the next time your school system wants you to vote for another tax increase — it’s for the children.

Blessings, ~Mrs. R (aka Aunt Mae)


Other posts you may be interested in:

Why We Homeschool

IndoctriNation the Movie

Daily Renewal: When Mothering Feels Too Hard

Broken Arm Blessings – Arrow Learns Kitchen Knife Skills & Cooking

Homeschooling A Sick Child

2012 WA GOP Caucus – Pierce County

UPDATED BELOW!!

Lest anyone in the “mainstream” media tries to tell you that there was a small turnout for the Washington state precinct caucuses this morning…

I personally took the above photo while standing in line with The Patriarch and Arrow.  My photo was taken about 10 – 15 minutes BEFORE 10 AM when it was all supposed to start.  At that moment in time there was a LONGER line behind us than in front of us!!  No, I did not photograph that.  Should have though!

There was so much going on inside, and so little time to get it all done in that I took no photos of the caucus proceedings.  Well that was really only part of the reason… there was standing room only and VERY LITTLE room to have taken any photos!

What a great problem to have today!!

The precinct caucus ‘planners/workers’ thought 500 would show up… and I believe there were OVER 1000 here at this one caucus this morning.

At my particular district’s table we had 22 registered voters show up!

I will say it here for the first time…

we supported Ron Paul.

May the Good Lord go before us!  God save our country.

Blessings, ~Mrs. R (aka Aunt Mae)

UPDATE: My area’s caucus in Pierce county was a ‘pooled’ caucus.  There were AT LEAST twice as many show up as expected.  EVERYONE got in to vote.  NO ONE was turned away.  We had to keep on track but we did get through ALL the voting for delegates AND the platform questions.  Our table was one of the largest and we finished up right at noon.  Clean up commenced right after wards with chairs stacked, tables folded, all put back into storage room and I even had Arrow go around and pick up any papers on the floor.  🙂  Clean up was completed and we were out the door in half an hour.  There were still a few stragglers, but they were mostly standing around and talking at that point.

One thing I noticed was at my table there were few Ron Paul supporters.  Many at other tables, but not mine.  One family did come from my district and all 4 of them volunteered as delegates… they were for Romney.  Ron Paul supporters did have a great table set up with literature.  Many at our table were wearing support buttons or stickers.

There were few, very few supporters for Newt Gringrich.  Kind of equally split between Mitt, Ron & Rick.  Just my general impression of my caucus today!