Remaining upright against better judgment.

It's been a very VERY long year for us here in Casa de Mischievous, and it all stems from one point on the map basically. We've had our ups and downs, ins/outs, cliche etc. cliche and so on and so forth. Long story short, Husband got hurt on the job (the best career on the planet for him, not so much the best company... BUT WHATEVER), Husband got himself all surgery enhanced with screws and stitches, Husband came back to work... Husband lost his job. He tried to get back into Best! Career! Ever! but to no avail, it just wasn't the same with his new bionic shoulder. He tried a new career path. He tried school. Funny thing about school, it costs money. Like, lots of money... As in, "Hey kids! You guys weren't planning on doing anything after High School, right? GOOD." We've managed to make things work, but believe me when I say that we are feeling this economy. Husband's shoulder? Is back at square one. It never completely felt back to normal after he was told to go back to work, and now he's in more pain than he was pre-surgery. How exactly is he supposed to go back into the career world if he can barely use his dominant arm? He's pushed through the pain doing various jobs, just wanting to feel normal... useful even. I can't say I understand how overwhelmed he feels, but I know how overwhelmed I feel and how every second that passes feels worse than the next. I just want stability. I want to NOT feel as if one wrong move will cause the whole house to collapse around me.

Now we're starting to get calls again. Every week it's a new call. Whether it's us asking for help or someone else calling us for funds while we cower under a blanket in the corner of the living room watching our cell phones light up and vibrate across the table. Do you think they can see us from under here? We are amazingly lucky to have our friends and family who have helped with way more than they should have at this point. And I'm not ashamed to say that we've had to sign up for Government assistance recently. We've paid our fair share of taxes and we simply need help. I can't knowingly drain the funds and energy out of family who may or may not be able to help even though they're smiling as they hand it over. But then we hit a snag.

A little over a month ago the Husband began receiving calls about the screws in his shoulder. Apparently, they were never paid for. The manufacturer of these screws has apparently been calling for a few months now in an attempt to receive payment. That's when I started scratching my head and asking questions. If he hurt himself on the job, why aren't they contacting his company? When the Husband contacted his surgeon shortly after one of the more recent calls, he discovered that it was never filed under workman's comp. That in itself raised more than a few red flags. I began researching the Husband's surgery and workman's comp laws. The injury my Husband sustained will never put his shoulder back to the way it was. His physical therapy was supposed to last for 6 months or more. He was not supposed to be using his shoulder at pre-surgery usage levels for at least a YEAR. One whole year. He was back to work around 2 months post surgery. No freaking WONDER his shoulder is shot to shit again.

I just want to go back steady paychecks, health insurance, and seeing pride in my Husband's eyes as he does something he truly enjoys. I don't want to be so overwhelmed anymore. I don't want to feel the sting of shame as I walk by yet another project I've started but can't complete, because, well... what's the point? I don't want to receive another invoice or e-mail for something as trivial as car insurance and be sent into a panic attack.

I'm throwing my hands up, God, take all this weight, all this burden from me. This is me, on my knees, asking for help.

Day 25. Citrus.

This is in fact NOT a citrus fruit. But A.) it's not quite Summer anymore and B.) I don't really have a lot of citrus type products laying about. So, persimmons. Yup. The one tree in our yard has been pretty productive the past few years, this year however, the one you see is the one we'll get. Guess I'll make ONE loaf of persimmon bread and call it a day. Persimmon's tend to be astringent until fully ripened, which we've discovered means practically rotting and before the deer get to them. Once they're ripe, they have a slippery sweet taste to them much like a skinned grape yet more orangey in flavor. Hence the reason I chose them as my "citrus" shot. Wink wink...

I *heart* Instagram...

Maybe a little TOO much! Thanks so much to my loving Husband for putting my needs before his and replacing my "stupid phone" with a shiny new iPhone. I'm seriously still over the moon in love with the new phone my Husband. I've been doing a little trial and error with apps and you'd better believe I added Instagram first. LOVING IT!!!! ((Said in my best Oprah voice.)) So, when I haven't been posting here, this is what I have been up to. *And yes, I am fully aware that my pictures are spaced funny, working on it! Be patient with me por favor!*

 

One day, my head will come down out of the clouds...

Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I can go an entire day without remembering the things I've done or the places I've been. Sometimes all it takes is a scent to carry me back to 10 hour flights and foreign tongues. Sometimes it's even just a silly show.

I've hinted in different places that once upon a time I was a Flight Attendant. It's a hard story for me to tell, because just like most everything else I've done, I simply fell into it. Eight years ago I was living in Naples, Florida with some friends. I'd moved down there under the impression that I was following my heart. My best friend at the time sang his siren song and I was sold. I drove a little over nine hours thinking I would be at the beach every weekend side by side with my partner in crime. Instead I worked 10 hour days for Blockbuster Video arguing with the nearly dead that "No, as a matter of fact your DVD will not work in your VHS player because VHS players are practically extinct MUCH LIKE YOU." My one saving grace was the Frappucino truck in the parking lot, basically advertising the new Starbucks going in next door (and giving my roommate and I free Frappucino's every shift.) I only kind of miss those days. And then one day I took advantage of a Delta buddy pass and flew home for a haircut. Please understand, privileged I was definitely not. Blessed with friends and family who worked for Delta? Yes. I was probably the most broke person on that flight. I was probably also the only person on that flight with 1,000+ beer bottle caps as well. That? Is another story. I will say though, that it took YEARS to get the beer smell out of that bag.

My Hair Dresser is a family friend who while cutting my hair on my short little three day trip back home, told me all about how she'd become a Flight Attendant for a small regional airline out of Wisconsin. They had branched out their service stations and had opened one up in Atlanta. Judging by my intrigue, she asked if I'd be interested. Based on my lack of education, I laughed at her and said sure, WHY NOT at this point. I went back to my Mother's house and called my on again off again boyfriend/fiance/WTFEVERHEWAS at the moment and told jokingly that one day I just might grow up and be a Flight Attendant. He laughed too. And then shortly after flying back to Florida I got the e-mail. I met the qualifications and my first interview was in less than a month. What. The. Fuck. First of all, I never put in an application. Second of all, what would it hurt to go forward with these shenanigans? Surely they wouldn't hire ME, that girl who's worked at Blockbuster her ENTIRE life. And yet... next thing I knew I had an e-mail with flight information sending me to Denver and instructions on how to get my passport expedited. Passport? Nobody warned me about a passport. The day I left, I'd only lived in Naples for 3 exact months. I drove down on the 16th of July and drove home on the 16th of October. I can't really sum up how it felt to leave my Naples family. Specifically my Roommate and her Husband and two beautiful daughters. I just can't. I miss them so much I can barely stand it at times. 

I slept on my Mom's couch for a few weeks when I got home... and then she drove me to the airport 24 hours before my actual flight. This experience was written about on THAT OTHER BLOG THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED. But here's how THAT went down.

I once convinced the entire Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta Airport to let me board a plane to Denver. Later that morning as I walked through the Denver International Airport I passed a gate and saw the date on the departures screen. I was 24 hours early.

I dropped everything I'd brought with me for my 9 weeks of training and whipped my business itinerary out, unfolded it and lo and behold there it was in black and white. For WEEKS I had told everyone, and even managed to convince myself, that my flight left on a Saturday when in fact it was a Sunday flight. Sobbing at the hotel/taxi pick-up, I called the hotel I was supposed to live at for the next 9 weeks and attempted to convince them as well. Go figure that a sobbing 21 year old girl wouldn't convince them... at all. They were kind enough, however, to come pick me up in hopes we could figure something out in the meantime.

I can still smell, of all things, my life at 21. I can remember the brand new luggage I received, the food I survived on (I'm cheap, HELLO bagged oranges and cans of tuna!), and the insane amount of jet fumes I inhaled throughout the duration of my training. I only just recently donated (SHOULD have trashed) the banana yellow snow jacket stained by "plane dust" just from that training alone. No amount of cleaning could get the black out of my sleeves... I just told people years later that I was well ripened when really I looked as if I'd been rolling around on the highway.

I loved that jacket.

I spent nearly a year with that Airline until an unfortunate botched dye-job turned my hair a brilliant shade of purple just a few weeks shy of the end of my probationary period with the company. In my defense, it was only purple in direct sunlight.

Again, sobbing in my defeat, I drove home from Hartsfield to probably the most overpriced loft apartment complex possible in my area of town. Seriously people, ridiculously overpriced lofts so you TOO can have an address in the ghetto! Ghetto aside, I loved my apartment. LOVED. I even loved the fat little laborers (who probably were NOT legal) that lived across the parking lot. Their catcalls are still fresh in my mind. On the day I came home, basically jobless with the exception of a few shifts at a local Starbucks I managed to pick up on off days, I had barely shucked myself of my uniform before my present day Husband knocked on my door. Needing a place to stay. And he had a JOB. Can you say sold? The rest of "Our Story" can be saved for another time, if I haven't already put it out here.

We struggled for months to keep the lights on in what was now OUR place, borrowing money from family and working as many jobs as possible just for freaking lights. We even accepted his Brother into the tiny one bedroom (meaning 1 wall) loft in hopes we'd be able to keep from being evicted before my lease was up. No such luck, amigos. Not even a week after his Brother moved in we woke up to his Brother standing over us saying his cell phone charger beeped... meaning it had lost power... meaning WE had lost power. Even after his Brother left, we managed to live without electricity for nearly a month before we had to throw our hands up in the air and admit defeat. That month, even in the middle of a Georgia summer, we survived on cold showers, cold beer (thanks to bags of ice and a big ass kitchen sink) and $5 pizzas from Little Caesers. And then I started looking back into flying. There were a lot of interviews that didn't pan out. Too fat. Too short. Too soon after the purple incident. And then I got the interview with an International Charter.

The (not yet) Husband and I were living in a glorified trucker hotel right off the interstate, surviving on boiled peanuts and bladder busting sodas every night. The place had a shower that I wouldn't even go into with my flip flops on... and everything we took out of there during our exodus back into normal life reeked of curry for months. MONTHS. When I found out I got the Flight Attendant position and was headed back into the sky, my Mother finally allowed my (not yet) Husband to stay in her home while I did another 9 weeks of training in (Viva) Las Vegas. I vaguely remember my initial flight to Frankfurt (Germany... NOT KENTUCKY). I remember being shuttled from our plane to the airport and being in total disbelief that I was not on our continent anymore. The three years that followed were unfathomable to even me at times. Because we were a Charter, we worked mainly with the DOD doing R&R missions. Sometimes we did Hospitality Charters for Travel Companies and Cruiselines, but mainly it was the men in camouflage that filled our seats. I went places most American carriers don't go. I saw things most people don't see in a lifetime.

I know most of you who DO read my blog are probably thinking to yourselves, WHEN WILL THIS BLOG POST EVER END? Um, soon? After Uncle Bob shows you his vacation slideshow. Don't worry... he shouldn't take too long with descriptions of each shot.

 

Bingen, Germany

Everything about Germany "grabbed" me. I loved the vineyards barely clinging to the sides of mountains. I loved the fact that I walked everywhere and the thought never crossed my mind to hail a cab or borrow a bike. I loved the Donner Kebab stands on every corner. I loved the freaking chocolate like nobody's business. 

 Costa Rica.

I was too insanely drunk to have any idea where in Costa Rica I actually was. All I knew was that we had arrived 26 hours before our next flight and via FAA regulations I had 2 hours to slam down as much alcohol at the pool bar in the ALL INCLUSIVE RESORT the airline paid for. I remembered my Spanish VERY QUICKLY, because HELLO (tapping regulatory watch) not much time left to get my drink on, Jose!!! It was a very VERY long walk back up to my hotel room that night. Specifically when the walk up from the pool bar was about 90 degrees straight up. Where were the little men on golf carts at 2 in the morning? I mean, SERIOUSLY?

 Costa Rica (the hangover edition.)

How is it even humanly possible for me to look THAT put together when I was all but swimming in toilet water trying not to lose my liver barely 12 hours before? It's just not right.

 Larnaca, Cyprus

I wish I'd had the pleasure of staying here longer. I cried when we passed the Starbucks on the way back to the airport. More because I needed to get out of the BUS OF DEATH and off the HIGHWAY DROPPING INTO THE OCEAN than my need for caffeine. See exhibit A above. Shoulder schmoulder. You save money when you don't bother to put up guard rails on the OCEAN SIDE of the road.

 Djibouti, Africa

Don't do Khat, y'all. There's nothing more terrifying than an African Air Traffic Controller stoned out of his ever loving mind with Khat juice dripping down his chin and a KHAT Public Freaking AWARENESS poster directly behind him. Funny, I was looking for a public awareness poster and found this amazing article instead. YOU'RE WELCOME. Be glad me and my unborn baby made it home in one piece. Oh, and by the way, I was totally pregnant at this point.

 Djibouti, Africa... take 2. Via the window seat.

And then there are moments when I am reminded of just how lucky we truly are. I can't fathom the despair of this country, and selfishly I don't want to know. If I don't think of the poverty, does it really exist? I don't bother giving my children the "there are starving children in Africa," bit at dinner because to be honest, if they don't eat it the dog will. I can't ship that shit across the ocean. If I could help and I knew without a doubt my pennies were feeding a child, they could have everything we had left at the end of the day.

Kuwait City, Kuwait

Oddly enough, THIS, was my home away from home. Every room was literally a condominium with one to three bedrooms and some sort of kitchen. I loved this hotel more than I loved my own apartment at home. I didn't have to risk walking in the desert heat for more than a minute to get to Starbucks. I could go next door to the neighboring hotel to brush up on the area's history (it had been bombed during the gulf war.) I could lay poolside and wonder who was visiting the Al Hashemi. We were always told to put our cameras away when caught aiming our lenses towards that enormous dhow.

I was lucky. I'm still lucky. Just a different kind of luck this go round. I quit flying right before I hit my third trimester, more though because I got a ridiculous bout of food poisoning in Kuwait halfway through my pregnancy and FUCK THAT NO NEVER AGAIN.

But sometimes I forget that former life. Sometimes I can go an entire day without remembering the things I've done or the places I've been. Sometimes all it takes is a scent to carry me back to 10 hour flights and foreign tongues. Sometimes it's even just a silly show.

STEAL MY LIPSTICK!!!

Am I the only person that LOVES lush, creamy, flavorful, kissable lipstick? Yes? No? Leary of what I'm "hawking?" I'm owner to many MANY tubes of Pure Romance's lip products, but when I want intense and/or dramatic lip color I'm using their "More Drama" line. I love it so much I'm giving it away for FREE!!! Here's how to enter and each step = 1 entry :

1.) Click through and check out my latest newsletter and then e-mail me via the address at the bottom of the newsletter.
2.) Leave a comment on THIS blog with your choice from the More Drama line (found under the beauty section under the "shop now" option on the newsletter.)
3.) "Like" my fan page and leave a comment wall that you're visiting via Domestic Mischief.

If you don't win, there's still another way to get your FREE "More Drama" lipstick... as mentioned in the newsletter, contact me with an order of $50 or more in Pure Romance product, and I will GIVE YOU a free lipstick just for being a good sport! Can't wait to see who the big winner shall be!!!!

**OH! Contest ends September 30th! So go WIN, ladies!!!**

Thursday's Ear Worm.

I just made that up, y'all... don't go searching for it as you won't find it. Maybe I should make a button? LOL, RIGHT? Me? Make a button? GIRL. Not likely to happen. Anyways, I love Ryan Gosling as much as the next girl (that loves Ryan Gosling)... but I had NO IDEA till I looked up this video that he was the lead singer of Dead Man's Bones. I kind of just let my iTunes account and Starbucks  (which, btw, STARBUCKS... I know your specialty is coffee, but get your website in order, ok?) do all the suggesting for me. I'm pretty sure this song was in some free playlist they offered through Facebook. Click the links at your leisure, not like I'm gettin' paid for this! Anyways, without further ado:

I'm just smitten with the whole sound of the song and constantly find myself singing the chorus during random (read, inappropriate) times. Enjoy, you guys! And if you have any suggestions for moi, feel free to share!

Day 24. Love.

It's been 2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days. I was a month shy of giving birth to Lillie. They had been married for 55 years. He gave her his wedding ring for safekeeping a year before Logan was born and hadn't seen it until tonight. Today was the first day he allowed me to disturb the dust collecting on (preserving) her things in their vanity room off their bedroom. I'm pretty sure I found $100 in change, and feeling her eyes on me, every last penny went into his change jar. I unearthed sections of wall where I had written my numbers 1-20 in an order only a 4 year old would be able to justify. I discovered makeup untouched by time, still heavy with her scent. It's been 2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 days since my Mammaw passed away.

Lois to Ken 6-21-53

**Update**

 When some of my family members saw this post linked up on ye olde Facebook, I got a shocker of seeing my Grandparents in the little photo display on the side of the page. Without further ado, the young lovebirds:

 

Days 22 and 23.

 Landscape (as in this yard needs some SERIOUS landscaping!)

 

(Black and White) Sigh... THIS boy...

He is gritty, dirty, rough, funny, and has the biggest heart of all of us under this roof. He never holds still, can't stop running long enough for me to take his picture. When told to stop what he's doing so I can take his picture, he slips his tongue out enough to make me shake my head in defeat. I'd have him no other way.

Just putting this out there...

So, as I'm wasting time on Facebook NOT doing the dishes, clipping coupons, or cleaning (insert area/item here), I discovered this quote:

Picture Galileo, standing there on top
of the Tower of Pisa, about to drop two
weights off the top. The weights are the
same shape, but one is heavier than
the other. Which will land first?

Obviously the heavier one, because
that’s what people had been taught
for 2000 years. How could it be any
other way?

And so Galileo drops them, and they
land at the same time, because that’s
how the world actually works. This kind
of thinking was, of course, radical and
revolutionary and it got Galileo into
all sorts of trouble.

The mind blowing part? No one before
Galileo had bothered to actually
do the experiment. They just believed
what they’d been taught…

- Rob Bell

I'm having a hard time distinguishing between what is fact, fiction, or a fantastical combination of the two lately. I feel like I'm having a "lightbullllllb" moment, only I have no idea where I've misplaced my lamp.

Day 21. Micro.

If you live in the Southeast, there's no way you haven't noticed that someone's flipped the switch on seasons... like, literally overnight. I know it won't last as everyone knows Summer doesn't truly end in Georgia till sometime in October. Just ask my poor child who wore a padded fleece monkey costume for his first Halloween. Regardless of the date (minor details), it sure FEELS like Fall around these parts. With the drought drying everything out to a crisp, this past week's tropical storm induced thunderstorms has separated the weak branches/leaves from the strong. What's left is pretty pitiful looking... I'm excited to see what colors we get with what's left on the trees in the coming weeks.

Under my skin.

Once upon a time I was a Flight Attendant. Once upon a time I traveled all over the world... sometimes to places I never even knew existed (Djibouti, Biskek, etc.). Once a month we would have Flight Attendants fresh out of training, drying off their newly minted wings and working their first REAL flights as part of their final exams so to speak. One new girl caught always stayed with me. I liked her, we worked well together, but she was fairly exclusive to working with other people. Our schedules hardly ever overlapped. We both got pregnant with our first kids around the same time, and although she stuck with working till the near end, I quit once the stress started complicating things for me physically. Months after our children were born, we finally found each other on ye' olde Facebook and have communicated off and on ever since. That was until a few weeks ago.

I promised myself I wouldn't let words hurt as much as they did that day. I promised myself that I would not let others question my faith or how I raised my children. I promised myself that this blog would represent me and all that I am, and everyone else can suck it. I allowed myself to be bullied into a corner, a corner where I question my beliefs and my parenting skills. A corner where everything I once knew as true, I all of a sudden questioned. They verbally shoved me and I justified verbally shoving them back via their comments box. That, ladies and gentlemen was uncool on my behalf and I instantly regretted the horrible things I said to her in my head, because YES, I had enough sense to keep the majority of how I felt IN my head and not ON the internet. I would not have said those things to her in real life to her face because a.) I'm a chicken shit and b.) they're just not nice things and I would have felt HORRIBLE if someone had said them to me... oh wait... she did.

My entire life I have grown up with at least one VERY religious person in my life, mainly, my Grandmother. I went to church with her every Sunday as a small child. I have various memories of being saved or taken to strange homes in Atlanta to be anointed. She instilled hope and faith in me as well as the amazing power of prayer. She also showed me how blind faith can be just as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Once I got old enough to notice that things were contradicting themselves and that I was NOT to question her religion of choice (think Pentecostal, KJV only or you're not really doing it right) I stopped going with her on Sundays. She, however, did not stop loving me despite the choice I made. I continued to go on Holidays with my parents and sometimes we would get into a pattern of going more than once a month, but I still didn't feel right. I grew up here in the Bible belt. This means that I can have a foul mouth and keep it classy at the same time (but not always). Seriously though, it means that I am surrounded by churches and for the most part, knowing what church someone goes to will give you an immediate idea of what that person is like. And maybe it's just me, but isn't that judging a book by it's cover? Unfortunately, YES. Does this mean I don't believe in Christianity? No. And strike me down or take me off your blog list if you must, but my faith? Is none of your business and the one thing my Grandmother instilled in me was that LOVING one another and TREATING one another in a Christ like way trumps throwing scripture in their faces in an attempt to "win souls." Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'll find out once it all fades to black in (hopefully a long LONG time from now) the end, but if all this time I'm wrong in what I believe and this "faith" of mine isn't the "right faith" to have, wouldn't this mean that my entire life I haven't known wrong from right? Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that just as my Grandmother taught me, loving one another as you love yourself as God made you is His law above all else? Oh wait, THERE IS...

Romans 13:8-10

King James Version (KJV)

 ⁸Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
 ⁹For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
 ¹⁰Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

I owe not one person an explanation as to how I worship or how my family and I serve the Lord. I WILL live my life in an attempt to do right by my family and those around me. Do my children go to church? Yes. Do we teach them about the Bible? Yes. Does it matter to me which version of the Word it comes from? No. Do we practice aspects of both Christianity AND Buddhism in our house? Yes. And before you start scratching your heads, THIS is the one explanation I'm throwing out there and I'm not getting into it again: no matter which translation of the Bible you read, you are STILL reading a translation. It is a good book, a great book even, BASED on facts no less and I will raise my children up with the morals and values instilled in me from that same book. We will pray to Jesus when we pray and/or meditate. We will strive to be as Christlike as we can, but... my children are welcome to question as we have done ourselves. I firmly believe that it is useless at this point to worry over having all our questions answered because we will never TRULY know the answer till we get to have that chat with God himself. Until then, I want my children to have the faith that God is everywhere and in everything. I want them to treat every person they cross in life with the respect they would give to their parents. I do NOT want to be assaulted and made to feel dirty and sinful because I am raising them otherwise, as I have yet to feel at peace when I associate with churches and practitioners firm in the KJV.

So, where is Homeschooling in all of this? It's not. We're taking it one year at a time with our (DUNH DUNH DUUUUUNH) public school system. It is 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. If they weren't in school they would be spending that same average amount of time at a Grandparent's house without me. This gives them time to make friends in their age group, allows them to use resources I can't financially provide them, allows me time to help my Grandfather without my attention being all over the place. And when the old man doesn't need my immediate help, it allows me time to do something for myself without my attention going elsewhere. Do I love the idea of Homeschooling my kids? To be truthful, yes and no. Yes, I love the idea of not forcing my children to spend 8 hours a day with 30 other children fighting for 1 teacher's attention. Yes, I love watching my children grow and change as they learn. Yes, I think our school system is literally going to Hell in a (very small) hand basket... BUT, the school system we have available to US personally has not failed me yet. Selfishly, I will admit, I like my 3 hours a day 3 days a week. I like that they are learning from someone other than myself and that I am constantly hearing praise from their Teachers for their behavior and intelligence. I like that they love school and are surrounded by 20 other kids (and at least double that in student teachers) whom they can't wait to see every day. YES, there are bad days where one child or the other isn't in the mood to go (or come home for that matter.) YES, there are days where I question if Lillie specifically, is ready for a school setting. NO, I do not regret our decisions in the grand scheme of things. Will they still be in public school in 5 years? I don't know. Will we continue learning at home outside of any school setting? Yes. We will continue to take it on a year to year basis and that is what's right for us as of right now.

So, if you're a Homeschooler and you're reading this, high five! I'm excited for you and I do NOT think ill of your choice. If anything else, I am in awe of you and your decisions. While trying to decide what was best for our children this year, I discovered just how hostile people can become over one tiny little educational choice. There were moments when my own family made me shake my head and/or second guess my reasons for even thinking about it. Y'all aren't all crazy psychopaths or agoraphobics. If anything else, I've discovered that the majority of Homeschooling parents AND children come out on the other side of the education process better prepared for "beyond school." Shoot, even my favorite doctor at our pediatrician's office was Homeschooled. I have a favorite little ratio that I learned during Flight Attendant training to describe pretty much any situation. If one person out of ten people are angry about something, you are only going to know about the one angry person. Most people who are even barely satisfied with an experience will not speak up... you better believe though that the one irate person is going to go to the mountains with how dissatisfied they are. The same thing can be applied with nearly any bad review you read online or any negative comment made in your blog feed. The same thing can be applied to Homeschooling. If one parent completely messes their children up by Homeschooling them, chances are there are nine other success stories. Will you hear about them? Maybe... most likely not... And more than likely if you research into that one bad parent, you'll find that it wasn't really the educational choice that messed the child/children up but something else entirely.

I'm pretty sure I'm rambling at this point so I'll take this opportunity to go find some focus elsewhere. I'm glad I wrote today, even if it will end up blowing up my comments box with differing opinions. Bring  your opinions here, I welcome them, so long as you're not just taking advantage of being an anonymous yet opinionated voice fueled by the fact that what you write in the comments box is not what you would say to my face if you ever met me. Love you! 

Day 20. Water.

The "ocean" Lo constantly asks to stop at on his way to and from school. Don't have the heart to tell him it's really a man made lake for people to curse at when their golf balls go astray.

Don't hold your breath for posting to go back as it was. I'm still deep in thought over here. So long as we both agree that "deep in thought" means "sick as a dog." Capiche?