Am I Angry Enough to be a Republican?

Yesterday I was driving from a court assignment in Phoenix and was listening to some conservative talk radio.  Now, a little background is necessary here.  I have been listening to talk radio for years.  In the beginning, I listened to the classics- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  I have moved over to Dennis Prager and Michael Medved.

At heart, I am a conservative person.  It matches my faith and my general sense of the world.  I was registered as a Republican until about two or three years ago, when I switched to Independent.

So while listening to a little Sean Hannity (he had a guest on I thought was interesting at first), I realized how loud he was.  I mean, he is such a loud talker.  And then I thought about Rush Limbaugh and even Glen Beck.  These are loud dudes too.  And angry.

I thought about all the angry facebook posts I read from angry Republican  and Tea Party people.  People push aside their Christian tenets and say despicable things about members of the other side. 

I realized that while I may be a conservative, I am not a Republican.  I'm just not angry enough.  I don't have the mindset that somehow my vote will matter more if I shout louder or say nastier things.  I realize that right now, there are more of them than there are of me and that if I want to see things change, I have to work with them and the people I vote for have to work with them.

I hope to see a leader like this come out of the woodwork.  I think Mitt Romney was that type of person.  He wasn't embraced by the Republican party because he wasn't angry enough.  He didn't spit far enough to reach the face of his opponent.  Spitting at his feet wasn't good enough.

Just wanted to let you know that the only thing that I worry about with Homeschooling is the dress code:

All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Hurt

Our homeschooling experiment went pretty well yesterday.  Grant was able to complete his math, reading, and writing assignments before 11:00 a.m.  We also began a unit from Discover the Scriptures series, which uses the scriptures (we're starting with the Book of Mormon) as a literary piece.  He has to answer questions, fill in the blanks, do a word search, draw a picture and so forth for each unit.  There are about 40 lessons that take roughly 8 weeks to finish, if you do it day by day.

Jenn took the kids to the library as well (forgot her card though).  She took them on errands and was able to buy three costumes on discount (cowboy, swamp monster, spiderman).

Unfortunately, Nora busted open right under her eye when she fell and hit the bed frame.  No stitches needed though, and a neighborhood nurse helped us apply a simply skin glue.  It looks great this morning.

Just a normal day.  I like normal days.

Homeschooling is for Weirdos

It's nothing more than a coincidence that the first blog post is about homeschooling.  This is not a homeschooling blog.  It's probably more of a personal and family journal, an attempt to do my part in recording the history of this family.  But it's also a place for me to share my thoughts on various topics that affect me, or affect my family. 

We (re)started homeschooling our children today.  Really, we only have one school aged child (first grade).  We have a preschooler who attends an in home preschool two houses down our street.  He thinks he is being homeschooled too.  And so does the two year old.  Each has a desk set up with appropriate tools to use.  But really, the curriculum is geared toward the first grader.

We actually have homeschooled already.  Grant, our first grader, was homeschooled for kindergarten.  We enrolled him for about a half week and found it to not meet our needs, or his.  We took him out and homeschooled him. 

We enrolled him this year in first grade because we just felt we couldn't "handle it".  We had just had our fourth child (yes, we have four children under 7) and felt that sending Grant to "regular" school was the right thing to do.

Until it wasn't.

We pull him out of school Friday for so many reasons.  The main reason NOT being that he wasn't excelling academically or that he had bad behavior in school.  He was and he didn't.  In fact, he enjoyed school. 

The problem was that he wasn't eating.  Really.  Grant wasn't eating more than a bite or two of his lunch and then might snack on a cheez-it or two.  His behavior after school, during that oh so precious time between coming home and going to bed was awful.  He couldn't function after starving himself and going through a grueling almost eight hour day (including travel). 

We had to ask ourselves, "why are we doing this?" This is not an adult, teenager, or even preteen.  This is a small child.  Our child. 

So, we put aside the quasi-embarrassment of changing our  minds again and pulled him out.  This morning was great.  He had breakfast with his family.  His mom was prepared with his math and writing assignments.  The other two children "worked" at their stations.  Mom took all four to the library and to run errands.  When they return, some reading and religious education will take place.  He'll be done by 2 and have read more than most his peers will in a week.  He'll have eaten a complete meal for breakfast and lunch.  He'll have played sufficiently.  And when his peers get off from school, he'll play and socialize with them.

For now, this is an excellent environment for him to grow and learn.

We're pretty happy and will share our adventures, mostly with ourselves, on this blog.