No Surrender

Thoughts for Young Men by J. C. Ryle

Who in his flock are the hardest to manage, who require the most frequent warnings and rebukes, who cause him the greatest uneasiness and sorrow, who keep him most constantly in fear for their souls, and seem the most hopeless? Depend on it, his answer will always be, "The Young Men!"

Let us ask the parents in any county throughout this land, and see what they will generally say. Who in their families give them the most pain and trouble? Who need the most watchfulness, and most often provoke and disappoint them? Who are the first to be led away from what is right, and the last to remember cautions and good advice? Who are the most difficult to keep in order and limits? Who most frequently break out into open sin, disgrace the name they bear, make their friends unhappy, embitter the older relatives, and cause them to die with sorrow in their hearts? Depend on it, the answer will generally be, "The Young Men!"

Let us ask the judges and police officers, and note what they will reply. Who goes to the night clubs and bars the most? Who make up street gangs? Who are most often arrested for drunkenness, disturbing the peace, fighting, stealing, assaults, and the like? Who fill the jails, and penitentiaries, and detention homes? Who are the class which requires the most incessant watching and looking after? Depend on it, they will at once point to the same group, they will say, "The Young Men!"

Abigail the Graduate

AMBLESIDEONLINE GRADUATE

• MuseScore night vigils because when inspiration hits, compositions must be composed. These are some of the easier fragments, because I haven't practiced most of them.

                                                      

Christianity and Apologetics

• Church @ Grace Bible Chapel
• Book of Proverbs with Jon Courson
• Chuck Missler
• David Pawson
• Eric and Leslie Ludy
• Institute for Creation Research
• John Crist
• Josh McDowell
• J. Vernon McGee
• Kent Hovind Creation seminars
• Ray Comfort
• The Berean Call, with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon
• Voddie Baucham
• Wretched with Todd Friel

Culture and Current Affairs

• And Then There Were None, with Abby Johnson
• Bob Enyart
• Dave Ramsey
• Firewall with Bill Whittle
• Live Action, with Lila Rose
• Short Videos with Big Ideas @ PragerU
• The Daily Briefing, with Albert Mohler
• The Imaginative Conservative essays
• The wit and cleverness of Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, JP Sears, and Matt Walsh
• Thomas Sowell
• Walter E. Williams select columns
• Worldview with Kevin Swanson

Piano and Accompaniment and a bit of singing

Some fave books

• The Bible
• A Child's Geography of the World, by V. M. Hillyer
• Aesop's Fables, by Aesop
• A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Animal Farm, by George Orwell
• A Ready Defense, by Josh McDowell
• Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
• Calico Captive, by Elizabeth George Speare
• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
• Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
• Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
• How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig, by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
• Jane Austen's novels
• Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain
• Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes
• Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
• Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
• Little Britches series, by Ralph Moody
• Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Little Women series, by Louisa May Alcott
• Melendy Quartet series, by Elizabeth Enright
• Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
• Mind Invaders, by Dave Hunt
• Parables from Nature, by Margaret Gatty 
• Scholastic Phonics readers
• Shakespeare's plays
• The Adventures of  Tintin, by Herge
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis
• The Fallacy Detective, by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn
• The Gammage Cup, by Carol Kendall
• The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
• The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
• The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss
• The Walls are Talking, by Abby Johnson
• The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
• Trial and Triumph, by Richard Hannula
• Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• Unplanned, by Abby Johnson
• Utopia, by Sir Thomas More

Some Favorite Poets

• POETRY
• Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Christina Rossetti
• Emily Dickinson
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• James Whitcomb Riley
• Robert Frost
• Rudyard Kipling
• Walter de la Mare
• William Shakespeare
• William Wordsworth

Some Favorite Musical Pieces

• COMPOSER STUDY
• Air in D, by J. S. Bach
• Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, by J. S. Bach
• Carmen Overture, by Georges Bizet
• Chariots of Fire theme
• Concerto in A Minor, by A. Vivaldi
• Coronation, by Kimberly Starkey
• Divenire, by Ludovico Einaudi
• Double Violin Concerto, by J. S. Bach
• Gymnopedie no. 1, by Erik Satie
• Hoedown, by Aaron Copland
• Lady Labyrinth, by Ludovico Einaudi
• Life, by Ludovico Einaudi
• Maple Leaf Rag, by Scott Joplin
• March of the Dwarfs, by Edvard Grieg
• Midnight Awakening, by Kimberly Starkey
• Military Polonaise, by Chopin
• Moonlight Sonata, by Ludwig Van Beethoven
• Prelude in G Minor, by Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin
• Six Romanian Folk Dances, by Bela Bartok
• The Entertainer, by Scott Joplin
• Violin Concerto No. 2, by Seitz

Some Favorite Folk Songs

• FOLK SONGS
• If I Were a Rich Man
• In and Out Cat
• O Minnesota
• Swedish Chef Popcorn
• The Fish of the Sea
• The Stars and Stripes Forever
• Thomas the Tank Engine theme song

Some Favorite Artists

• ARTIST STUDY
• Edgar Degas
• James Whistler
• Johannes Vermeer
• Mary Cassatt

Nature Study aka Roaming around God's world.
As long as it's above zero degrees Celsius, one gets outside to walk and observe nature.
Outdoors.
Outside.
Out there.
Not inside.
Therefore snowsuits are a necessity, not a luxury.

Gainfully Employed
@ Martin's Supermarkets

Sewing and Dressmaking
In the baby stages at home and with the ladies @ Sew Loved

Minimalism

Applied to nearly ALL earthly possessions, sometimes over-zeeleeusly, lacking foresight of what might come in handy one day in the distant future, mom says.

Some favorite book phrases

• There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

• A great splash and smear of blacking appeared on the white-and-gold wallpaper. 

• Buy Skunk brand perfume. You will stand out from the crowd.

• "Coming, ma'am." Dove turned over for one more snooze.

• Cousin Ann, with her bright, dark eyes, and her straight back, and her long arms, and her way of speaking as though it never occurred to her that you wouldn't do just as she said--Elizabeth Ann was not sure that she liked Cousin Ann, and she was very sure that she was afraid of her.

• Down went the highest pair of heels, up rose the smokiest gentleman...carefully cherishing his cigar between his fingers...and a countenance expressive of nothing but sleep.

• For a moment Muggles and Mingy looked at each other, and then, in the awful waiting silence, they too rose and walked out.

• "Glorious, stirring sight...the poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel...Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped...
  All those wasted years that lie behind me...what carts I shall fling carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid little carts--common carts--canary colored carts!"

• "Go back to the place from whence you came, and do not show yourself here again in a hurry."

• "He is the son of one Say-well. He dwelt in Prating Row, and is known to all that are acquainted with him by the name of Talkative of Prating Row; and notwithstanding his fine tongue, he is but a sorry fellow."

• He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on the top of the haystack, which was about sixteen feet from the ground, and then he sat down on the roof of the cowshed and told the baker's boy exactly what he thought of him.

• "I would rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in the church."

• Later on, my mother and I started leafing through the magazines. Soon we were nearly steaming with anger and frustration--and feeling anything but relaxed.

• Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood.

• ...they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavored with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas.

• "Thou hast called me into Narnia, Rishda Tarkaan. Here I am. What hast thou to say?"

A few documentaries and other vids

• # 1 Worker, #2 Worker, #3 Worker, #4 Worker
• ADHD doesn't exist
• America's Illiteracy Problem
• America's Student Debt Crisis
• BBC Empire
• BBC nature documentaries
• DNA journey
• Empire with Jeremy Paxton
• Ex Nun testimony
• Globe Trekker
• Is University Degree a Waste of Money
• Jordan Peterson debate
• Man quits 80K job
• Mormonism exposed
• South Korean academic pressure
• Things Americans do that drive the rest of the world nuts
• Uganda's Moonshine Epidemic
• What is School For?
• World's Tallest Children

Culinary
Currently the resident chapati queen, up to eighty at a time. Other than that the experiments rage on and on.

Gardening
Incompetent.

Math with Khan Academy

Some Periodicals of Interest

• Answers in Genesis Magazine
• Old National Geographic magazines
• The Berean Call

Some Things I Memorized

• Psalm 1, 16,103, Isaiah 66, Romans 5, 8, 12
• "coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater"
• Ducks' Ditty from Wind in the Willows
• "Once More to the Breach" from Shakespeare's King Henry V
• supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• When the Frost is on the Punkin' by James Whitcomb Riley

School has been a unique journey, one that I will never forget. Mom has shown us that school is not just about passing tests to nail that six figure career, but for learning about our Lord and Savior, learning how to defend the faith, how to discern between good and evil, exploring our Father's world, reading the classics for discernment and real enjoyment, and learning the practical skills of life that everyone needs.

Mom has always been a firm believer in doing Bible study before anything else, because "even if nothing else gets done, it's been a good day." I plan to continue learning throughout my life, and these first thirteen years have been a great blessing.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
-Proverbs 9:10

Success with Seedlings: Tomatoes, Lavender, Greens and Tire Perennials!

Kenya. Uganda.

How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin

End of an Era with Children's Choir. Last Concert with Joseph

With a Book in the Chaos

They Sold Their Souls for Rock and Roll

First Piano Recital - Joseph

Mind Invaders - Listening Now -

A Soldier's Prayer read by Anna at Milton Home

A Soldier’s Prayer

(found on the body of an American Soldier during World War I)

Lord God I have never spoken to you,
But now I want to say how do you do?
You see God they told me you didn’t exist,
And like a fool I believed all this.

Last night from a shell hole I saw your sky,
I figured right then they had told me a lie.
Had I taken time to see the things you’ve made,
I’d have known they weren’t calling a spade, a spade.

I wonder God if you’ll take my hand?
Somehow I feel that you will understand.
Funny how I had to come to this hellish place,
Before I had time to see your face.

Well I guess there isn’t much more to say,
But I’m sure glad God I met you today.
I guess the zero hour will soon be here,
But I’m not afraid since I know you’re near.

The signal, well God I have to go,
I like you lots, this I want you to know.

Look now this’ll be a horrible fight,
Who knows I may come to your house tonight.
Though I wasn’t friendly to you before,
I wonder God if you’d wait at your door?

Look I’m crying, Me, shedding tears,
I wish I had known you these many years.
Well, I have to go now God, good-bye.
Strange now since I’ve met you,

I’m not afraid to die.

- Author Unknown -