#1 got a part in the community theater play. The play is Anne of Green Gables, and he is playing Jerry, the hired hand. I think he said he has 7 lines, and 2 are said from off stage. Last night was the first read through and parent meeting. I went in knowing very little. They gave a schedule that blew my mind. I think he can continue to do this as long as he doesn't get any bigger parts. The lead, Anne, has to be there every night for the next two months basically. Ugh. He has to be there Friday evening for measurements. I didn't think I could get my mother there without too much trouble, so someone else is picking him up. Mom gets here this afternoon, and I have a lot to do before that. We leave tomorrow after lunch.

Hubby and I went to a movie yesterday. It had been a long time since I had seen a movie. We went to a Christian-based movie called Fireproof. I enjoyed it; Hubby thought it was ok. That means it is a chick-flick. It would be good for men to see it too though. It's a great date movie. The story line is that a couple, who are unbelievers, is having marriage trouble. The husband has a porn problem and the wife feels humiliated. The husband's father sends him a book of things to do for his wife to have her fall in love with him again. Through the whole trial period, she dismisses him, not sure if she can trust him again. It has several laughs, and lots of tears. Great movie. -------- I have two days to prepare to leave for the rest of the week. Hubby and I are going to the Zoe Conference. My mother is coming to care for the boys and get them to their appointments. It is like preparing for a sub when you are a teacher. I never liked that either.

Did you watch the debate last night? We did, the boys and I. My husband can't bring himself to watch such things. However, after I watched some of the remarks after the debate, I wasn't sure if I had seen the same debate as the rest of people. I taught a class yesterday on evaluating viewpoints, and it definitely was something to consider last night. This is all I have to say about the economic issue. (Well, not all I have to say, but all I will say.) If I am overspending, I look at my budget and I stop spending. How in the world do you balance a budget by spending more when you are already spending too much? The government is trying to fix something by using the same faulty strategies that got us here in the first place. ----- The debate ended with a big bang, at least at our house. The kids had gone on to bed about 10:20. The debate ended around 10:40, and I watched a little of the responses. I saw a car drive by from the livingroom window, when I heard a terrible crash. I took off outside, in my pajamas, to see if anyone was hurt. A young guy had taken the curve too fast, his tires were bald, and he went across the road. He tore out FOUR mailboxes and stalled in the middle of the road. My first thought was, "He's drunk. I'm going to lay into him!" Some people nearby stopped to help him get the car off the road. Hubby and I went out to check on him, and he wasn't drunk. He was truly upset and scared. Yes, he had been going too fast, but it seemed to be a case of bad judgment and no one was hurt. So I wasn't as upset then. I was mostly thankful that it didn't happen when the kids were checking the mail. They would have been killed for sure. Then I tried to think what I would do if it were my boys driving. I guess I would react the same as the parents who showed up...give a hug, reassure him, call a tow, apologize to the victims, and let him know he will be paying for it. Now my Saturday includes fixing the mailbox. Yippee.

My in-laws were here a couple of weeks ago. One night they took the kids out, and hubby and I got a date. He walked in with his good shirt on, hair fixed, and smelling good. I turned around from the computer, and looked at him. My stomach did a flip. He still gives me that feeling. We met just about 20 years ago; I think next month is the actual anniversary. I was a nanny and he was a student at WVU. We met when the college group from church went to Wendy's after church for a little dinner. He sat cat-a-corner from me, and I thought he was cute, but too quiet. He thought the same of me. Soon we were dating, the first child was named, and our life was planned. A year later we were married. He was romantic, writing letters to me, calling just to talk. He was respectful, asking my Dad for my hand. He was responsible, working to provide for us. He is still all of those things. At I first called him Great One; I still do. He is so good to me. He encourages me, supports me, loves me. Today is his day. Happy Birthday Hubby!

Tonight at dinner, #1 said, "I can't wait for Saturday. I get a phone call, have a game..." "What are you in jail, or something?" I asked. "What do you mean you get a phone call? Are you only allowed one a week?" "The theater will call back on Saturday. Geesh, you're a good mom," he replied. The boys tried out for a local community theater last night. They are producing Anne of Green Gables. #1 wanted to do it, and then when auditions came Monday, he backed out. Last night was the last chance. After a phone call from friends saying they needed boys for parts, he decided he wanted to do it. #2 also decided to do it; he wants to help with the stage crew. Evidently that won't happen though. I guess they only let 13 year olds do that. #2 was disappointed; he wanted to wear a black jumpsuit and was hoping for a black ski mask. -------- We finished the square dance co-op today. The kids really learned a lot about square dancing these two months. They did a new dance today, and they picked up on it right away. We are having a barn dance and weenie roast in a couple of weeks with all of the families. After co-op we headed to the fairgrounds so the kids could turn in their exhibits. #1 is showing two paintings, a pottery vase, and from scratch brownies. #2 has pears, a papercraft centerpiece, pottery, and a recycled project. He made a denim bag for his cousin, Lulu. It will be her Christmas present, and maybe a blue ribbon one at that. I had thought about putting in a couple of things, but time ran out on me. The same thing happened last year. I guess I need to think farther ahead, and remember what a busy time of year this is for us. Tomorrow is regular co-op; the first one for the fall. I am teaching a class on evaluating viewpoints. We are looking at documents from our country's history, and evaluating them from other perspectives. I'm looking forward to it. #2 asked me last night if I could teach him the class on his own time, (He has other classes to attend.) because he wants to learn to be a good arguer. He thinks he might like to be a lawyer, or an abstract artist. I think he better go for the lawyer, and then buy the art.

I have been robbing Paul to pay Peter lately. However, we do have the money to cover the expenses. I would like to know how we are suppposed to pay 700 billion dollars when we are in debt many trillions. Whoever is paying these bills needs to give me some advice. I can't believe the world is believing that the bills are actually going to be paid. I hope Congress gets this worked out. ------- So Part Two. I continued to think about what I want to do, what I enjoy doing, what do I think I can do for many years to come. Here is what I came up with. I want to help children. Where do children spend most of their childhood? In school. So I want to make school a better place for children. I think I can do that through politics, through writing, through speaking, through being with children; all of those are things I enjoy. When I think about school during my childhood, it was a place you wanted to go. We had fun, we played, and we learned a lot. Even the kids who came from the "holler" below us did fairly well. But when you look at kids in school now, it isn't much fun, they seldom play, and a lot of them come out knowing very little. The government seems to think that going to school earlier and starting skills earlier is the answer. Yet as we have tried that our country has slid down in the global ratings of education. It is the countries who still abide by original child development research who are progressing in the ranks. Children may do different things now, but God is still making the same old model. Changing the expectations has made childhood less childish; I want to help with that. So the answer seems to be to go back to school. I have to have the education behind me to get the respect of people to listen to my ideas. Then maybe I can make life better for children. I told the boys last night that I am thinking of going back to school in the fall. They just wanted to know what that means to them. I told them it means their life will change some, but they will still have a lot of the same, 4-H, school, co-ops, art, etc. I can't sacrifice my children for something that I want for all children. It will be a long road. I told you this story would take a long time to tell.

I think Part Two has to wait for a Preface first. I suppose I should have started the whole story with the Preface, but I'm doing this by the seat of my pants. Anyway, Part One said that I am thinking about my life and what I want to do with the rest of it. Here's the Preface. I absolutely love children. I love teaching, nurturing, talking, playing, guiding, and anything else you do with children. So I know that I want to help children in some way. I have known children from very poor circumstances, from abusive situations, from just neglectful homes. I have known children from well-to-do families, well-loved children, and well-educated children. But all of these children were children I enjoyed knowing. As I started thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life, I of course thought about children. I was trained as a teacher, worked as a teacher before the children were born, and of course am now a homeschool teacher. However, I can't see myself going back into the classroom. There are just too many ways that the classroom has changed. A couple of years ago, I had thought about running for the Board of Education, but a friend told me no one would vote for me since I homeschool. My husband suggested speaking for continuing ed. functions/workshops. I don't think I would be asked with the background I have. Then I started thinking about law school. I thought if I have a law degree, then I might be able to help children as a lawyer, and also be able to get into politics. (This is where Part One should have come.) I also started having conversations with people that turned toward careers. As one friend said, "Life is too short to just work a job. You have to love what you are doing." So the question became, what do I want to do, that will pay me so I can help our family, that I will enjoy doing, and that will help children.

I can remember getting aggravated with my husband when we lived in Philadelphia. He thought I should have an email address. I saw no reason that I should have one, and besides I had no time to check it. Who would I write to anyway? Computers irk me, television is mostly useless, cell phones are for crazy people. But now that I have had to be without the internet for well over a week, I realize how much I have come to depend on this technology. I use it to pay bills, to interact with my friends, to find coupons and other money saving devices, to check the news, to teach school, to know what is going on at church, and much, much more. It is good to be back on-line. I had to call a friend yesterday to pay a bill for me (her internet was working). I had way too many messages on email. And now I have to check wheat prices to see if I need to make an order; prices are down right now! Some of you are wondering how the cell phone business is going. I like it as long as I am not the one having to answer. For instance, I was able to call my husband from Lowe's and ask him to measure a pipe for me. Then on the way home it started to rain, and I was able to ask him to take down the laundry. That works well for me! There are still some things I have to get used to...knowing how to check the messages, how to turn down the volume. There is also the whole vibrating thing to figure out. I had the phone on vibrate while I was at the store. It was in my pocket. I was checking the price on something and thinking that I needed to get off my feet because my leg was going numb. Then I realized the phone was vibrating. What a relief! I know you are waiting for the next part of the story, but I have kept you too long already. Have a nice night and I will talk to you tomorrow.

Where has time gone? We have been having arguments with Embarq and finally just cancelled our service. It was a bit unwanted on my part as it means that I have to join the 21st century. Yes, I now have a cell phone. We will not have a house phone starting tomorrow. The internet issue is still being worked out, so don't expect much from the blogger girl for a while.

We went on a trip with our 4-H club this week. We went to the National Battlefield in Petersburg and took several classes. The kids were able to do a lot of hands on activities and it was really interesting. Dressing up like a soldier and shooting pretend cannons does a lot to bring history to life. Then we went to Williamsburg for the night. Tuesday we got up and went to Hampton to the Air and Space Museum. The kids had several classes there as well. We also went to see an IMAX movie, Fighter Pilot. It was very definitely a "boy field trip." The girls had fun, too, though. 

We got back only to find that Embarq was still making mistakes and spent the next couple of days trying to work it all out. I am looking forward to a weekend at home.

Just so you know, I saw the "mortal enemy girl" yesterday and apologized. I told her I was having a "Mommy Moment" and she can dance with my son any time she chooses. -------- A few days ago #2 was listing the reasons it is good to be a home schooler... You can wrap up in a cozy blanket while you do your lessons. Sometimes you get to wear pajamas to school. You can eat lunch whenever you are hungry. You can kiss your mom halfway through a math lesson. (That was my favorite.) -------- This is the beginning of a story that will take a long time to tell and work out. The following is Part One. I have been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I have tried to think about what are my priorities, my desires, my passions, etc. I know I have time to work it all out, since the boys still have quite a few years of school left and home schooling is our choice of education. However, it is something I need to work out so that I can be ready to jump in when the boys are done with school. So as I considered all of this I came up with law school. I want to help children, in a big way. I thought maybe being a child advocate would be good for me. It would certainly help with retirement, which is also one of the big priorities and desires. But as I continued to think and pray, I realized that it just would be too much of a sacrifice to my children and my marriage. My fabulous husband was very supportive, and encouraged me to think about it. He was willing to let me and the children go to WV and live with the in-laws through the week while I would attend law school in Morgantown. But I just couldn't imagine leaving him here alone to minister, or taking the boys away from their dad just as they are about to enter puberty. So I left it to God to work out, and he seems to be pulling back the curtains and letting the light into my head. I'll tell you the next part later. Busy, busy day.

Yesterday was square dancing. My heart was broken. We didn't have enough girls and so I had to be one of the dancers. #1 was without a partner, so I joined him. I thought he would melt through the floor. He was nice enough not to say anything, but it was VERY obvious that he didn't want to dance with his mother. Then the girl across from us, normally a sweet little thing that I like, turned into my mortal enemy. She offered to dance with him and let me dance with her partner. I told her in no uncertain terms that he will always choose me over her. She looked stunned, but I just couldn't help myself. I am not ready for the girl/boy thing. I am done milking the goats. I measured the amount I was getting, and they had dried up to about 3 cups a day. I just didn't feel like it was worth paying someone to milk them when we go away, so I am done. I enjoyed sleeping a little longer this morning.

My son told me the other day, "You're just an average American trying to save some money, Mom." He cracks me up. As I look at my schedule for the rest of the month I wonder what happened to my goal "to lead a quiet life." The last week of September looks like something from a rollercoaster theme park, and the other days are certainly not on the merry go round. Just for an example, this Saturday the boys have swim club and soccer both at 10:00, we are selling attraction guides for 4-H at 1:00, and we have a HS picnic at 5:30. Whew!

I am sure you all think I fell off the face of the Earth. In reality, I just got really busy, which left me feeling like I fell off of something. My husband got a bee in his bonnet last week and we started ripping out an old shed. It took the entire week. Along with that we were trying to refinance the house, so that we can get some work done on it. That took a long time; trying to get everyone to give me a quote and bid the other people down. We ended up with a fair percentage, I think. Now it just has to pass the appraisal amount that we had guessed, so we can get the money. Then my in-laws came for a visit in the middle of it all. We love to have them visit, and had planned some fun activities to do with them. We went to the museum in Raleigh, and Hubby and I saw the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit while the grandparents took the boys around the rest of the museum. I like history, so the exhibit was interesting to me, but the scrolls themselves were not impressive. There are only fragments on display, and very small ones at that. Then we ate at Red Hot and Blue. Yum! On Saturday, Hubby and F-I-L went to the WVU game. We lost terribly, and they returned with their chins on the ground. M-I-L and I took the boys bowling and out to eat. That was more fun, at least one of us won! Sunday, after church and a potluck, we headed to the shore for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day after the storm of Hannah passing through the day before. Yesterday was spent running errands BY MYSELF! My wonderful mother-in-law watched the kids while I went to the grocery store alone. I needed time to check over my coupons and look closely at deals. That always goes better alone. Then last night I got a date with my husband. We think it was sometime in May or June that we last went on a date. We went to Olive Garden and then ran the rest of the errands that I had missed. That may not sound very exciting, but we had adult conversation without anyone annoying another person. It was great! Today the in-laws went back home. Poor F-I-L pulled something in his neck last week and he has been miserable the whole time he was here. They had planned to stay today and see the kids give their presentations at Geography Co-op, but he really needs to get back to a doctor. Now we are back into the heat of regular life. The refinance stuff should go through this week, so soon we will have lots of people running around here looking at my precious house to find problems with it. I just don't like the thought of that. The plan is to add 2 bedrooms and a sitting room upstairs in the attic. I do like the thought of that.

It is 6:30 in the evening and I am just getting on to the computer today! Actually that isn't quite true. I was on the computer at 6:30 this morning, but that was to finish lesson plans for the month. I didn't get as much done last night as I had hoped, so I had to catch up this morning. Then the boys had to start right away, because we had to be out a lot today. That meant I had to help with Math and give a Bible quiz, and miss breakfast! We headed out to the store to get a few things for co-op and then headed to an early 4-H meeting that included a Little Caesar's lunch. We finished the 4-H meeting just in time to set up for Geography Co-op. Co-op ended with a speaker from the university. We asked a Chinese student to come share about his homeland. It was interesting to listen to him. He has great pride in what his country has accomplished in the last decade, but he is still hurt by how it was before. His remark to me and another mother afterward was, "What you hear about China is not true." Yes, there are people there with a lot of money, but there are still a lot of people who live on less than a dollar a day. That, he said, is not getting out to the rest of the world. Our lesson on Communism and the USSR seemed to go well. I used an illustration of government being an umbrella. Each country had it's own umbrella, but they stood under the larger umbrella of the USSR. How you came to be under the umbrella was the bad part. Twisted arms do not hold umbrellas well. Having the speaker and the lesson only made me happy to be here. The sad part is that I am only here by accident. How many people are hurting this very day because they were born in the wrong place to the wrong people?

Church yesterday was interesting. For some reason the songs were hitting me as if I were not a Christian. I was trying to imagine what the words sound like to someone who doesn't believe in Christianity. A lot of the words were Master/Slave based. If you aren't a Christian, I think it would have sounded like what I think of when cults pledge allegiance to their leader, or when extremists give their lives for a cause. I can see why Christianity scares some people. ----------- Yesterday was also Brothers' Day for our family. I think this was the 7th year we have celebrated it. It actually was supposed to be last Sunday, but Hubby and I forgot. Years ago the boys had had enough of Mother's Day and Father's Day, so they wanted to know when Brothers' Day was going to be. We made it the fourth Sunday in August---this one having five Sundays is what threw us off. Anyway, we went out to eat at the boys' choice, Golden Corral, and I gave each of them a book as a present. I asked them what the three best things about each other's brother is. They came up with answers like, "He's good to wrestle with." Then we turned to Hubby and asked about his brother. The number one thing he likes about his brother? "He's not the good looking one." Gee whiz! ------------ Tomorrow in Geography our family is to cover Communism and the USSR. We are studying countries of Asia that were once under Soviet control. Last evening we had a cookout with friends from church, and one of them used to live in Yugoslavia. He told me about his parents fleeing communism, Mussollini, and Hitler. What scary times!