CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

21.5.08

random history lesson

a friend of mine posted this online and i thought it was pretty neat. i don't know how true all of it is, but its still fun to read. oh and obviously i didn't type it out, there are capitals in it. :) or is it capitols? i don't know. honestly don't care....read on:

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the
water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things
used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

These are interesting...

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath
in May and still smelled pretty good by June.
However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.
The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.
Last of all were the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, don't throw the baby out with the Bath water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood
underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the
cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.
When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall
off the roof. Hence the saying; It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.
This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could
mess up your nice clean bed.
Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.
That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt.
Only the wealthy had something other than
dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor".

The wealthy had slate floors that
would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw)
on floor to help keep their footing.
As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way.
Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that
always hung over the fire.

Every day they lit the fire and added things
to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat.
They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day.
Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.

Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite
special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show
off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could bring home the bacon.

They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit
around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter.

Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death.
This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next
400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status.

Workers got the burnt
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top,
or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.
The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.

They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the
family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they
would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out
of places to bury people.

So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.
When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.

So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to
listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was
considered a dead ringer.

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring!

14.5.08

this is calista's fault.....

please address all complaints to her blog.



Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

Let them know they are tagged by leaving comments on their blogs.

1. i cannot sleep in pants. the legs wrap around and around and around and drive me insane. feel sorry for anyone i ever spent the night with while growing up.



2. i am horrified of crickets. they jump AT you, not away from you. they can fly.


3. i love to eat animal crackers with mustard.



4. when i was little my family went camping somewhere in utah. the campground had toilets with blue water and i had to stand on the lever to flush them. i loved both facts. i said many times that i needed to go to the bathroom when i didn't actually need to go. i just wanted to flush the cool toilets. my dad caught on and called me "beth blue water" for the rest of the trip. and then randomly after that for years.


5. when i shift into neutral, i have to toggle the gear shifter past reverse several times before i'm satisfied that i'm actually out of any gear.


6. i love cartoons above all other shows. spongebob is my favorite, but i love a good animae such as inuyasha or full metal alchemist. the japanese have a very specific formula to their story lines and the predictability is actually pretty funny.


7. i'm not very girlie, but if you came to my house and saw the decor, you'd think i was. this is mildly disappointing, but, i like what i like, i have to deal with it. so does my husband.


so there you have it, seven weird, random facts about moi. it took me two days to come up with these. its not that i have a lack of weird fact, oh no, its just that most would either offend someone or scare them. these were pretty friendly, i feel.

i'm going to tag some that calista tagged, but eh, they haven't done it yet!

1. april
2. michelle
3. rachel
4. ruth
5. amy
6. christina
7. brooke

7.5.08

sad sack update...

not feeling quite so down today. a welcome break in my melancholy streak.
seems as if the situation just couldn't get worse... (although i know it always could)

as soon as the end up april came around, we were on the phone with the dr's office in hopes of scheduling the long awaited mri. all of our insurance info was given. then i got a call from the dr's office saying that we've got a preexisting condition on our plan. being new to this whole grown up insurance world, i was not sure what to do. i called the insurance company and was told exactly what i was afraid of. they would not pay for the mri if justin had been seen in the last six months for something related. this made...makes me angry.

i called the dr's office and found out that there is a place called Servant Imaging in Norman. they do imaging services for poor people like us with stupid insurance companies. we set up the appointment for monday. it costs $600. the worst thing about paying the $600 is that it doesn't even get applied to our deductible...AND had we known this was going to be the case, we wouldn't have waited this long to do it!

so he went in for the mri. the dr called justin on her way home from work that same day to let us know the results. a slight bulging disc and some arthritic changes at the base of the spine. according to her, nothing to explain the amount of pain he's describing. she wants to send him to a neurologist. i don't know what for, but i guess it doesn't matter, because unless the government decides to send out another stimulus check, he won't be going for a long while. the preexisting on his ins is until 2009!

so he got another rx for some pain meds, but who really wants that. again. not i said the wolf.


so on a better note, i have to thank you all soooooo much for your encouragement and prayers. you have no idea how much it has helped. i don't feel so incredibly alone, its nice to know that people care so much. i've learned two verses thanks to you guys. II cor 3:5 and 4:17. they're posted on my mirror in the bathroom so that i look over them every morning and evening as i'm getting ready for whatever is before me.

its incredible to think that even though we're deserving of death and hell, we're actually rewarded for suffering "light affliction." He is so good to us.

i'm sorry for the alarming amount of sad sack that has come out of me recently. or not come out...i know i should be answering phone calls, but i haven't been able to bring myself to bum anyone out on the phone yet. sorry christina...i'll make it up to you in a couple of days...promise. and calista, i've got an email headed your way soon.