Good morning to everyone. Jean got my curiosity up so this is what I found about "bees." Amish and farming communities used the bee in many ways, quilting bee, barn raising bee, husking bee, etc. It is now used for spelling and the Amish communities still participate in them. I grew up around Amish and Mennonites as there is a fairly large community of them only about 30 miles from South Bend.
Bees got their name by quite a roundabout route. The Middle English word for a prayer was a 'bene', from which we derive words like 'benefit'. This migrated to 'boon', with the meaning of 'a favour granted'. The English Dialect Dictionary, 1905, records the country term 'boon' as meaning "voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbours, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc".
Migrants from England to the USA would have taken the term 'boon', which was also spelled 'been' or 'bean', with them. Communal activities were an essential ingredient of survival in frontier America and the word would certainly have been called on there. The imagery of the social and industrious nature of bees was sufficient to change 'beens' into 'bees'.
Amazing the things you can find out on the internet!
Jean: Boy, she sure had guts to just wander up there. If Bob had the key, how did she get in? Did some of her family say they left it unlocked for her I wonder? Takes all kinds. I think renting it out to family for a nominal fee isn't such a bad idea. After all, who pays the water, electricity bill and such? It should be the responsibility of all involved not just one person. If I had the privilege of using some other familiy member's vacation property, I would want to at least chip in for utilities and such. Maybe Bob's pants went the way of the dinosaur, they have now become extinct and no longer can be seen!
Susan: Sorry yesterday was a grump day. I actually hate the days when I feel like a b****. It isn't fair to others and you personally feel awful when it happens. Glad you had fun at the bee last night. I was an idiot and not only cleaned the house, but rearranged everything and cleaned out stuff and threw it away. I want to get the upstairs mostly done today, but my muscles are telling me what an idiot I am. My Floormate works great though. I really like the fact I can "vacuum up the water" and the floor becomes dry almost right away. It also makes your floors smell nice.
Gail: Sounds like you had fun with the grandkids and all on your trip. I sure miss mine. It was so much fun having them together if only for just a couple days. I love both kids and their families being able to be together and we had such a ball with Thomas's Wii video game. It was mostly the men playing sports games like golf, bowling and such but Thomas had his Wii rock band stuff and he, his uncle, his mom and his dad all did a karaoke type stint with the guitar and drums. His uncle sings fairly well and is actually in a rock band, but mom is a bit tone deaf and sings flat. She had fun though and that was all that matters. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving because they are coming down and we are going to combine it and have Christmas so I can get the house decorated early and have it all ready when they get here to celebrate Christmas too.
Hope everyone has a great end of week and weekend. Tomorrow is dreaded commissary day, but thank goodness not SS payday or military so maybe it won't be too bad.
Faye
