Saturday, June 28, 2008

A couple signs of the times




This first one is all too familiar to everyone...crazy rising gas prices. This one was $3.29 in April....

then one short month later, $4.09



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Next, you just won't believe:


cause I know I didn't believe it, its a foreclosure tour bus! Sorry, but this just made me sick to my stomach. Yea, I know, desparate times call for desparate measures, but isn't this ever so slightly on the unethical side??

Men and shopping

Yo, what the heck??? Why is it you can give them not only a list, not just the exact name, not only the aisle number, but even an exact photographic image of the store with the exact location of the product you want, and STILL he'll get it wrong? How does "if you can, before you leave work (which is the mall), will you go to BATH AND BODY WORKS and get me "warm vanilla sugar bubble bath, and we need milk", turn into "go to Target"in his wee wittle mind. Hmmmmmm??? Anyone? Buehler.....Buehler.....Buehler? Anyone? C'mon, someone solve this mystery for me, cause I'm stumped. Twenty years (well, almost), and still I don't get it. I'm trying too hard to solve it, right? If I wait, the answer will come. Oh boloney. And yes, I know I spelled it wrong, I did it on purpose for effect. Aaaahhh, I feel better. I'll feel even better after my bath tonight in my warm vanilla sug---oh wait, right, I ain't gettin no stinkin' bubble bath. Yes, life is good. ;)

as a post script: he went to the grocery store, I gave an exact description of this other bath stuff. (and specifically said NOT the oils) He called me from there, asking me about 27 others. I told him the name. He said "okay, I see the oils". I said, "are you looking at the oils right now?" He said "yea, but I don't see the bath salts". I said "if you're looking at the oils, then look down and you'll see it". Rodney:"you mean way down on the bottom bottom shelves?" (yes, exact quote) Linda:"yes, on the very very bottom". R "I don't see it" L"its a short, fat jar" R"I don't see it" L"okay, then look waaaay up and do you see the envelopes?" R"yes" L"just get me the foaming bath in the little envelope, thats fine" R"are you sure you don't want mineral salts, or lavendar fields, or dreams, or this or that or that or this or the other one?" (okay, some exaggerating there....). L"JUST GET ME THE FOAMING BATH" R"but there's this other stuff L"JUST GET ME THE FOAMING BATH, IT SAYS FOAMING BATH ON IT, DON'T GET ANYTHING ELSE, DON'T READ ANYTHING ELSE". He came home with the mineral bath. I said "oh, you found it." Rodney "yea, it was on the bottom, on the very bottom shelf, not above the oils". So, can someone help me please----------I mean, just hit me over the head, take me out of the oven, I am done with this one.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Horse Lapbook!!

Mallory finished her lapbook, she is very very proud. There is so much we both learned that isn't in the lapbook, mommy could have gone on for a while but since it isn't my lapbook (yes, I'm accepting that fact), I let go of control. I'm all "oh honey, don't you want to put that sticker here to balance the page?" "maybe that mini book should go at the bottom ever so slightly, like 1/16 of an inch off to the right of the center" "want to draw 2 pictures in those spaces?" Finally, I was told, "Mom, its MY lapbook!!" yea yea yea, whatever.

So, here it is, or you can go to: http://s295.photobucket.com/albums/mm148/momluvs4kidz/?action=view&current=22fc33a0.pbw (also, at the bottom of the page, there is the photo slide show of this one, still figuring this stuff out, shoot, posting this took almost as long as the lapbook!!!)


Front cover, without flash, and with flash, it was hard to catch but it was her favorite picture (got it from a clearance horse calendar)
Body Language flap book, and open with one flap lifted
Under top right flap, we added an extender; there's the picture of the white horse with printouts of horse body parts and skeleton, then it flips out completely:
Under the extender, and the vocabulary horseshoe shape book opened:
Horse Gaits book opened
Back cover

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Funny Homeschool video--I love this one!

Great Homeschooling Article

Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort
Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:50 pm (PDT)
*SONNY SCOTT*6/8/2008 9:39:01 AMDaily Journal
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.It's a big family by today's standards - "just like stair steps," as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair if you've met us, you know our version of neatly trimmed hair is of a different perception and girls with braids that means I'd have to be able to get near Mall with a brush, in clean (ummm, what's that?) but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.There's no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully about her task. okay so maaaaybe not so peacefully, unless you call "No you can't have that No we can't get that Stop hitting your brother Do NOT leave this cart again Please look in front of you as you're walking" peaceful...You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public. I really hadn't thought about this, wow, how interesting! Most homeschoolers do pay local taxes into their schools, yet don't use the ps at all, and don't want to, really, why have a problem with people willing to literally GIVE money to the school system? Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm, and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism, coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their children's safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a theistic world view largely permeates the movement.Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California.
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much? A question I've asked out loud, in emails, and on here already. I mean, really truly, I have personally experienced having people stop speaking to me over this choice. Why?...Sonny answers it pretty well here, I think.....Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around the teetotaler.Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar's be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state's bureaucrats on these "trouble makers." Their implicit rejection of America's most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. "Individualism") spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The rationalizations begin. "A family just can't make it on one income." (Our parents did.) "It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays." (Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the daughter's wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers. We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college education. And most significantly, we claim "our right" to pursue a career for our own"self-fulfillment."Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens our 401k's. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to fuel the Suburban. Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work ... and there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress that would mean I'd have to actually find the foot pedal for my sewing machine with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn't you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?I have to agree with this though, for the most part, I do feel a serene kind of joy. Yea its internal, sometimes really really really deeeeeeeep down buried under that "OW MOMMY HE DID IT AGAIN's", but its there and I love every minute of this Is it any wonder we hate her so? AMEN AND FINIS!

Sonny Scott a community columnist, lives on Sparta Road in Chickasaw County and his e-mail address is sonnyscott@yahoo.com.