My kids want to write their own Newsletter.
They kept on encountering stories of kids who have written and published their own works. Thomas Edison published his own newspaper at a very young age. Benjamin Franklin did the same. They would frequently hear stories of homeschooling kids who get to write and publish their stories and articles in different venues, and the idea has inspired them.
My kids love history. And their favorite books about it are those in the "History News" style. This only encouraged them to try their hand at "reporting".
I am very excited about this possibility, because it could be such a great learning experience for me and my kids on so many different levels.
So my goal is that in January, we will have a name for our newsletter, and give it a try to see if there is a receptive audience. I am going to try and learn how to use some software to figure out how to format a newsletter.
The newsletter will be very versatile. The kids want to publish stories, poems, essays, book reviews, current events, homeschooling events, and local news.
The kids have big dreams of "going big" and "getting rich" and "getting great advertisements". I, however, would be pleased just to give it out to family, friends, and neighbors for fun. I would be delighted if in some way, it could build a better bridge of communication between the homeschooling and public schooling realms. I would love to see other kids from both sides contribute to some kind of local publication.
Ideas, anyone, for getting started?
As I have no experience in publishing, (at least I have some experience in editing) I am sure I will quickly be in over my head.
But I am thrilled to give it a try, and just see where it goes!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A real bad SCARE
We had a really scary experience at my house tonight.
Saturday is bath night at my house. We like squeaky clean kids for Sunday morning!
Julie and Angel had both had their baths, been dried and dressed. Courtney and Dorathy were in a really deep bath. I told them the water was too deep, and asked them to lessen it. Later on, they were wrapped in towels, in the bathroom getting dressed.
Then I realized we were almost out of firewood. It was getting late. It was the kids bedtime, and I needed Christopher's help to get more wood in the house before he was in pajamas too. So Christopher and I went out to grab 25 logs of wood.
As soon as I walked back in the house from getting wood, I felt a bad feeling. Dark, heavy and oppressive. Urgent. Like someone was in danger. I saw the older girls out in the living room playing, all dressed in their Jammies. But I saw no Julianna. Then I knew why I was afraid. I was sure the big girls had not drained the bathwater.
"Did you girls leave the bathroom door open?" I shouted. (There is a HUGE rule in my house that bathroom doors must be shut at all times for Julie's safety...also because she loves to play in the toilet and drink the water....eeeewwww)
I ran into the kids' bathroom in a panic. I heard splashing as I went around the corner. In the bathroom I saw Julianna in the deep bathwater, totally immersed on her belly, flailing around uncontrolably. If she had stood up, she'd be okay. But there was too much water, and she was floating, head underwater. I swept up my soaked, choking baby, dripping water all over the floor, blindly grabbed a towel to wrap her in and began shouting and crying, "My baby was drowning! My baby was drowning!"
I was shaking in fear and relief for a long time. I covered Julianna in kisses while she screamed. I don't think she got water into her lungs. Her fearsome howls were proof of that. She seemed allright once I got her warm, dry and dressed again.
Thankyou, God, for saving my baby tonight!
I am so grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, that let me know immediately that something was wrong. When it comes to drowning, a few seconds can make all the difference.
I am so unspeakably grateful that I get to spend tonight cleaning house and making plans for our family gathering tomorrow instead of dealing with heartbreaking sorrow and funeral plans.
I think that I won't be letting Julianna out of my sight in any future bath nights.
Saturday is bath night at my house. We like squeaky clean kids for Sunday morning!
Julie and Angel had both had their baths, been dried and dressed. Courtney and Dorathy were in a really deep bath. I told them the water was too deep, and asked them to lessen it. Later on, they were wrapped in towels, in the bathroom getting dressed.
Then I realized we were almost out of firewood. It was getting late. It was the kids bedtime, and I needed Christopher's help to get more wood in the house before he was in pajamas too. So Christopher and I went out to grab 25 logs of wood.
As soon as I walked back in the house from getting wood, I felt a bad feeling. Dark, heavy and oppressive. Urgent. Like someone was in danger. I saw the older girls out in the living room playing, all dressed in their Jammies. But I saw no Julianna. Then I knew why I was afraid. I was sure the big girls had not drained the bathwater.
"Did you girls leave the bathroom door open?" I shouted. (There is a HUGE rule in my house that bathroom doors must be shut at all times for Julie's safety...also because she loves to play in the toilet and drink the water....eeeewwww)
I ran into the kids' bathroom in a panic. I heard splashing as I went around the corner. In the bathroom I saw Julianna in the deep bathwater, totally immersed on her belly, flailing around uncontrolably. If she had stood up, she'd be okay. But there was too much water, and she was floating, head underwater. I swept up my soaked, choking baby, dripping water all over the floor, blindly grabbed a towel to wrap her in and began shouting and crying, "My baby was drowning! My baby was drowning!"
I was shaking in fear and relief for a long time. I covered Julianna in kisses while she screamed. I don't think she got water into her lungs. Her fearsome howls were proof of that. She seemed allright once I got her warm, dry and dressed again.
Thankyou, God, for saving my baby tonight!
I am so grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, that let me know immediately that something was wrong. When it comes to drowning, a few seconds can make all the difference.
I am so unspeakably grateful that I get to spend tonight cleaning house and making plans for our family gathering tomorrow instead of dealing with heartbreaking sorrow and funeral plans.
I think that I won't be letting Julianna out of my sight in any future bath nights.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Living at the Farm
At the beginning of November, we got the chance to play at being "Farmers" when we babysat my sister's farm. We moved there for the whole week, and enjoying being in the country. For me it was a vacation from my house. Without all my normal projects beckoning to me, I found lots of extra time to read, play with my kids, and do lots more homeschoooling with them.
We all loved the country life. Besides the beautiful scenery & the peace and quiet (except for farm noises) we adored being in Mary's cute spacious country-style house. My kids especially enjoyed the downstairs playroom (we don't have one) The children loved running around outside. If you asked them what they liked best about the week, they would probably say that it was Sunshine, Mary's sweet Pomeranian dog.
We were happy to get a chance to preview the life that Scott has always dreamed about. He's hoping to get a Farm between now and his 40th birthday, and I thought to myself...."I need to see if I can handle farm chores!" So Scott and I learned how to feed and take care of a whole menagerie of farm animals.
I got to feed goats, turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, peacocks, guinea pigs, and guinea fowl. And dogs and cats, of course. You know, I never realized just how FREAKY a cats eyes look in the dark. Whenever I would go out at nighttime to do the chores, I wore a little flashlight on my head. It would illuminate all of the animals eyes. Sometimes I felt like I was living in a horror film, or running around in an Animal Planet documentary, or existing in Stephenie Meyer's world in the book THE HOST. (The only way you can identify the alien entities who live in host human bodies is by shining a light into their eyes and seeing a reflecting glow, like an animal's). I never quite got used to walking around in the dark, surrounding by green glowing eyes. It was unsettling. The cats eyes were the worst, however, because they were always popping up out of nowhere. A couple of times, I "lost it" and came close to hysteria when a cat would drop on top of me out of nowhere. It was like the pooh bear movie where Pooh bear whispers menacingly to Piglet, "It's a JAGULAR....When you look up....they drop on you!" There was one cat, a black one called Spook, who kept on trying to climb up my body with his claws. I think he became overly amorous after I fed him some goat milk strippings.
The scariest glowing eyes incident of all was with their enormous guard dog, Daisy. Daisy had taken to jumping the fences to chase cars, and so they tied a VERY heavy log to her to prevent her from getting hit by a car, or from bothering the neighbors. This caused her to move very sl0wly and awkwardly. Well, one night when I went into the pens to feed the dog, I saw/sensed this ENORMOUS animal RUSHING toward me very fast with huge glowing green eyes. I knew it wasn't a cat, it was too big for a coyote...could it be a wolf...a mountain lion? Just when I was trying to decide whether to scream, run, or fight, the animal got close enough and I discovered to my chagrin it was just Daisy herself. She had somehow freed herself from the cumbersome log and chain, and she was gleeful, bouncy and playful with her happiness at being free. Well, I felt pretty silly at my alarm, and very relieved that it was just the dog. I'm sure if I were outside doing farm chores everyday in the dark, glowing eyes wouldn't freak me out so much.
It wasn't as difficult as I'd feared. But it was time consuming. Mary's an expert by now, and each time she does the chores she says it only takes her 1 hour. Well, it would take Scott and I 2 hours, and sometimes much longer to do the same work. We slowly got a little faster as the week wore on. The longest time was taken up by milking 4 goats. At first, my hands were so weak that by the 3rd or 4th goat, my hands were trembling, and I just couldn't command them to work anymore. My back and neck were KILLING me! The pain and discomfort didn't begin to go away for several days. My hands were finally strong enough to finish the milking without difficulty by the time my sister returned home. But my fingers were sore for days and I had a hard time playing the piano on Sunday. The tendons just felt all jiggly.
I have SO MUCH respect for my sister and the continual hard labor she puts into caring for a farm that produces wonderful, healthy, life-giving products! Great raw milk, omega 3 free-range chicken eggs, and of course grass fed meats of all kinds. She does a great job, and we've all been blessed by the fruit of her labors!
While we lived at "River Ridge Farm" we had a couple of engaging experiences. The most memorable is when we kept on trying to chase and capture Mary's peahen which escaped the week before when she was transferring the peacocks to a new cage. Despite baiting the area with bread crumbs, using all the kids to corner it, and being as sneaky and fast as possible, we never did catch the bird. She kept on flying right out our grasp. She was too clever for us!
Life is never boring on a farm, there is always something to see and to do! The environment is SO good for kids.
I think whenever we get our own acreage, that the agricultural life will suit us very well.
The experience overall was a very good one, and I look forward to having fun babysitting the farm sometime again in the future. Maybe it will be in the summer when it's light till 10 o'clock outside, and I won't have to look at glowing green eyes in the dark!
We all loved the country life. Besides the beautiful scenery & the peace and quiet (except for farm noises) we adored being in Mary's cute spacious country-style house. My kids especially enjoyed the downstairs playroom (we don't have one) The children loved running around outside. If you asked them what they liked best about the week, they would probably say that it was Sunshine, Mary's sweet Pomeranian dog.
We were happy to get a chance to preview the life that Scott has always dreamed about. He's hoping to get a Farm between now and his 40th birthday, and I thought to myself...."I need to see if I can handle farm chores!" So Scott and I learned how to feed and take care of a whole menagerie of farm animals.
I got to feed goats, turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, peacocks, guinea pigs, and guinea fowl. And dogs and cats, of course. You know, I never realized just how FREAKY a cats eyes look in the dark. Whenever I would go out at nighttime to do the chores, I wore a little flashlight on my head. It would illuminate all of the animals eyes. Sometimes I felt like I was living in a horror film, or running around in an Animal Planet documentary, or existing in Stephenie Meyer's world in the book THE HOST. (The only way you can identify the alien entities who live in host human bodies is by shining a light into their eyes and seeing a reflecting glow, like an animal's). I never quite got used to walking around in the dark, surrounding by green glowing eyes. It was unsettling. The cats eyes were the worst, however, because they were always popping up out of nowhere. A couple of times, I "lost it" and came close to hysteria when a cat would drop on top of me out of nowhere. It was like the pooh bear movie where Pooh bear whispers menacingly to Piglet, "It's a JAGULAR....When you look up....they drop on you!" There was one cat, a black one called Spook, who kept on trying to climb up my body with his claws. I think he became overly amorous after I fed him some goat milk strippings.
The scariest glowing eyes incident of all was with their enormous guard dog, Daisy. Daisy had taken to jumping the fences to chase cars, and so they tied a VERY heavy log to her to prevent her from getting hit by a car, or from bothering the neighbors. This caused her to move very sl0wly and awkwardly. Well, one night when I went into the pens to feed the dog, I saw/sensed this ENORMOUS animal RUSHING toward me very fast with huge glowing green eyes. I knew it wasn't a cat, it was too big for a coyote...could it be a wolf...a mountain lion? Just when I was trying to decide whether to scream, run, or fight, the animal got close enough and I discovered to my chagrin it was just Daisy herself. She had somehow freed herself from the cumbersome log and chain, and she was gleeful, bouncy and playful with her happiness at being free. Well, I felt pretty silly at my alarm, and very relieved that it was just the dog. I'm sure if I were outside doing farm chores everyday in the dark, glowing eyes wouldn't freak me out so much.
It wasn't as difficult as I'd feared. But it was time consuming. Mary's an expert by now, and each time she does the chores she says it only takes her 1 hour. Well, it would take Scott and I 2 hours, and sometimes much longer to do the same work. We slowly got a little faster as the week wore on. The longest time was taken up by milking 4 goats. At first, my hands were so weak that by the 3rd or 4th goat, my hands were trembling, and I just couldn't command them to work anymore. My back and neck were KILLING me! The pain and discomfort didn't begin to go away for several days. My hands were finally strong enough to finish the milking without difficulty by the time my sister returned home. But my fingers were sore for days and I had a hard time playing the piano on Sunday. The tendons just felt all jiggly.
I have SO MUCH respect for my sister and the continual hard labor she puts into caring for a farm that produces wonderful, healthy, life-giving products! Great raw milk, omega 3 free-range chicken eggs, and of course grass fed meats of all kinds. She does a great job, and we've all been blessed by the fruit of her labors!
While we lived at "River Ridge Farm" we had a couple of engaging experiences. The most memorable is when we kept on trying to chase and capture Mary's peahen which escaped the week before when she was transferring the peacocks to a new cage. Despite baiting the area with bread crumbs, using all the kids to corner it, and being as sneaky and fast as possible, we never did catch the bird. She kept on flying right out our grasp. She was too clever for us!
Life is never boring on a farm, there is always something to see and to do! The environment is SO good for kids.
I think whenever we get our own acreage, that the agricultural life will suit us very well.
The experience overall was a very good one, and I look forward to having fun babysitting the farm sometime again in the future. Maybe it will be in the summer when it's light till 10 o'clock outside, and I won't have to look at glowing green eyes in the dark!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Kid Funnies!
My daughter is a genius! My 17 month old, Julianna, came up to me saying "poo-poo! poo-poo!" And I'm thinking...there is NO WAY she is saying that and knows what she is saying! But sure enough, she was stinky, and as soon as I got out a diaper, she grinned at me and laid down to be changed! Now only if that meant she will be an early potty trainer! But I know from past experience, that just because they know they are going potty in their diaper, doesn't mean they are even close to being ready to use a toilet! Oh well, I'll just be happy that she is one of those kids who ENJOYS being changed, instead of the kind that hides and runs away!
Julianna's newest word is "THANK-YOU!" Only she doesn't say it when you give her something, she only says it when she gives YOU something! That's because I always say "Thank-you" when I'm taking away something from her that she is not suppose to have. ;)
Today Dorathy told me that when she grows up she is going to open a Japanese restaurant called "POKEMON BUFFET" Gotta eat them all? hee hee!
Courtney found an old BOOBAH movie that was lost in the Garage. I had wanted to get rid of it or throw it away, but it got lost. Now Courtney is obsessed with Boobahs again! Aaargh...they are so much more scary than Teletubbies. I need to make this movie disapear one night. When Courtney was 3 she used to tell everyone that when she grew up she was going to be a BOOBAH. It was soooo embarrassing! Serves me right for having something like that in the house!
Courtney has this thing she does, whenever she gets caught doing wrong, she makes her eyes all big and round and she bats her eyelashes....no joke. She really puts on the innocent act. And even though I KNOW what she's doing...it sure makes it hard to meet out the deserved punishment.
Whenever you tuck Angel in to bed, she always has to tell you "ONE MORE THING!" And then if you say okay, she casts her eyes about desperate to say something. She'll take the first thing she sees (say a blues clues dog) and then just start making stuff up "Blues Clues was climbing up my roof one day, when she nearly fell off, and she needed help! So Clifford came by and helped her go over the roof, and together they saved the baby...." She'll go on and on and on and on forever making up some nonesensical story. I feel bad cutting her off, because it's so darn cute.
Yesterday she helped teach her very first Family Home Evening Lesson! She was strutting around the house, proclaiming "Hey kids! I'm teaching the Lesson tonight! All by myself!!! Just me and my Mom!" When I started teaching the lesson, I thought I could have Angel hold up a picture and say some words. BUT NO...she really really wanted to teach. She asked me, "Mommy, can I PLEASE have a turn to talk?" She lectured for several minutes, I have no idea what she said, it made no sense whatsoever, but she was sure proud of herself when she was done! Today she told me "Mommy, I am growing up big and strong! Like Christopher and Daddy! I will soon be big like them, because I eat all my food, My tummy is full!" And this came right after she ate a big Halloween licorice treat. Hmmmm...I don't think Halloween treats are going to make her grow big and strong.
FUNNY story about why you should never overestimate the capabilities of your 11 year old son and 10 year old nephew:
Last week, I had to make a quick trip to Costco. Right before I took all 6 kids in with me (my 5 and a nephew, Sanford) Sanford proclaimed that he had a splinter in his foot, and that he didn't want to come into the store; he much preferred to stay in the car. Well, wherever Sanford goes, Christopher follows, so I said okay, the 2 boys could stay in the van listening to some music. They're old enough to handle being alone for a few minutes unsupervised, right? How could anything go wrong, I thought? I was only going in to buy 1 item! Christopher likes to stay in the car sometimes, and he is always very responsible about leaving the doors locked.
You can't go into Costco for just 1 item. Especially when you have 4 young hungry girls who want you to stick around and wait for all the samples to be ready! So by the time we got out, nearly and hour had passed! Lunch hour and crowded lines didn't help any. I was really worried about those boys!
As we drew close, the two boys popped out from behind the van, exclaiming, "WHERE WERE YOU?!? WE WERE SOOOO BORED!"
"Yeah," Sanford added, "We had no clue where you were, we were climbing on top of the van and looking around for you and shouting to see if we could find you."
"Yeah," Christopher joins in, "We were bored, until we discovered this delightful umbrella, and how it POPS out! It's great for sword fights...."
OH NO! Visions of a youtube movie showing up with 2 young boys fencing on the top of my van with umbrellas bloomed in my head. I'm sure that's not exactly what they were doing, but it might not be too far from the truth either.
So the lesson is: Just because 2 boys are old enough to stay in the car by themselves, doesn' t mean that they should!
And do not trust your eldest children more than they are able to handle! They were fine, but it obviously wasn't the wisest decision on my part!!! I'm always pushing my eldest before he is ready, I can't seem to help myself. Poor oldest kid! It also brings to mind something a friend of mine once confided: the more boys you get together, the lower their IQ's drop. What that means is that the more boys get together, the more they have to be active, loud, rambunctious, and competitive....and that usually leads to trouble!
I'm lucky I learned the lesson this time with so little to pay for it! I hope I remember it!
My favorite kid quote of the week is when Christopher and Sanford were having a discussion on probability:
Christopher would say, "Sanford, What is the probability of "so-and so"?" and Sanford would just rattle off some random percentage, and Christopher would totally believe that whatever Sanford said is right.
The funny part came when they were discussing the probability of different scenarios if our van ran out of gas. Christopher asked, "What is the probability of us running out of gas if we drove way way way way far out into the country?"
Sanford anwered, "99.999999999% chance!"
Christopher proposed that is was possible that we'd pass a gas truck on his way to refill a gas station, and if we were in need, we could get gas from that passing truck.
Sanford declared "No, that's not very probable. BUT....WHAT IF an ELECTRON appeared in our gas tank as fuel?!?"
At this point I began laughing so loud I almost ran off the road. It's so fun to hear these boys discuss scientific and theoretical principles because they've read a lot and heard a lot about higher ideas, but they don't have enough experience/mental maturity to apply it appropriately. They come up with some amazingly crazy ideas; and I just love it. It's fun to see how they think out of the box, too. I can't wait to see what kind of young men they turn out to be.
Having kids is SO much fun. I'd rather be entertained hearing my kids talk than watch any TV show you could name! Kids are great....most of the time.
Julianna's newest word is "THANK-YOU!" Only she doesn't say it when you give her something, she only says it when she gives YOU something! That's because I always say "Thank-you" when I'm taking away something from her that she is not suppose to have. ;)
Today Dorathy told me that when she grows up she is going to open a Japanese restaurant called "POKEMON BUFFET" Gotta eat them all? hee hee!
Courtney found an old BOOBAH movie that was lost in the Garage. I had wanted to get rid of it or throw it away, but it got lost. Now Courtney is obsessed with Boobahs again! Aaargh...they are so much more scary than Teletubbies. I need to make this movie disapear one night. When Courtney was 3 she used to tell everyone that when she grew up she was going to be a BOOBAH. It was soooo embarrassing! Serves me right for having something like that in the house!
Courtney has this thing she does, whenever she gets caught doing wrong, she makes her eyes all big and round and she bats her eyelashes....no joke. She really puts on the innocent act. And even though I KNOW what she's doing...it sure makes it hard to meet out the deserved punishment.
Whenever you tuck Angel in to bed, she always has to tell you "ONE MORE THING!" And then if you say okay, she casts her eyes about desperate to say something. She'll take the first thing she sees (say a blues clues dog) and then just start making stuff up "Blues Clues was climbing up my roof one day, when she nearly fell off, and she needed help! So Clifford came by and helped her go over the roof, and together they saved the baby...." She'll go on and on and on and on forever making up some nonesensical story. I feel bad cutting her off, because it's so darn cute.
Yesterday she helped teach her very first Family Home Evening Lesson! She was strutting around the house, proclaiming "Hey kids! I'm teaching the Lesson tonight! All by myself!!! Just me and my Mom!" When I started teaching the lesson, I thought I could have Angel hold up a picture and say some words. BUT NO...she really really wanted to teach. She asked me, "Mommy, can I PLEASE have a turn to talk?" She lectured for several minutes, I have no idea what she said, it made no sense whatsoever, but she was sure proud of herself when she was done! Today she told me "Mommy, I am growing up big and strong! Like Christopher and Daddy! I will soon be big like them, because I eat all my food, My tummy is full!" And this came right after she ate a big Halloween licorice treat. Hmmmm...I don't think Halloween treats are going to make her grow big and strong.
FUNNY story about why you should never overestimate the capabilities of your 11 year old son and 10 year old nephew:
Last week, I had to make a quick trip to Costco. Right before I took all 6 kids in with me (my 5 and a nephew, Sanford) Sanford proclaimed that he had a splinter in his foot, and that he didn't want to come into the store; he much preferred to stay in the car. Well, wherever Sanford goes, Christopher follows, so I said okay, the 2 boys could stay in the van listening to some music. They're old enough to handle being alone for a few minutes unsupervised, right? How could anything go wrong, I thought? I was only going in to buy 1 item! Christopher likes to stay in the car sometimes, and he is always very responsible about leaving the doors locked.
You can't go into Costco for just 1 item. Especially when you have 4 young hungry girls who want you to stick around and wait for all the samples to be ready! So by the time we got out, nearly and hour had passed! Lunch hour and crowded lines didn't help any. I was really worried about those boys!
As we drew close, the two boys popped out from behind the van, exclaiming, "WHERE WERE YOU?!? WE WERE SOOOO BORED!"
"Yeah," Sanford added, "We had no clue where you were, we were climbing on top of the van and looking around for you and shouting to see if we could find you."
"Yeah," Christopher joins in, "We were bored, until we discovered this delightful umbrella, and how it POPS out! It's great for sword fights...."
OH NO! Visions of a youtube movie showing up with 2 young boys fencing on the top of my van with umbrellas bloomed in my head. I'm sure that's not exactly what they were doing, but it might not be too far from the truth either.
So the lesson is: Just because 2 boys are old enough to stay in the car by themselves, doesn' t mean that they should!
And do not trust your eldest children more than they are able to handle! They were fine, but it obviously wasn't the wisest decision on my part!!! I'm always pushing my eldest before he is ready, I can't seem to help myself. Poor oldest kid! It also brings to mind something a friend of mine once confided: the more boys you get together, the lower their IQ's drop. What that means is that the more boys get together, the more they have to be active, loud, rambunctious, and competitive....and that usually leads to trouble!
I'm lucky I learned the lesson this time with so little to pay for it! I hope I remember it!
My favorite kid quote of the week is when Christopher and Sanford were having a discussion on probability:
Christopher would say, "Sanford, What is the probability of "so-and so"?" and Sanford would just rattle off some random percentage, and Christopher would totally believe that whatever Sanford said is right.
The funny part came when they were discussing the probability of different scenarios if our van ran out of gas. Christopher asked, "What is the probability of us running out of gas if we drove way way way way far out into the country?"
Sanford anwered, "99.999999999% chance!"
Christopher proposed that is was possible that we'd pass a gas truck on his way to refill a gas station, and if we were in need, we could get gas from that passing truck.
Sanford declared "No, that's not very probable. BUT....WHAT IF an ELECTRON appeared in our gas tank as fuel?!?"
At this point I began laughing so loud I almost ran off the road. It's so fun to hear these boys discuss scientific and theoretical principles because they've read a lot and heard a lot about higher ideas, but they don't have enough experience/mental maturity to apply it appropriately. They come up with some amazingly crazy ideas; and I just love it. It's fun to see how they think out of the box, too. I can't wait to see what kind of young men they turn out to be.
Having kids is SO much fun. I'd rather be entertained hearing my kids talk than watch any TV show you could name! Kids are great....most of the time.
Stupid Tax
Years ago, I heard a new term which struck me as rather clever....and true!
I first heard it from my brother-in-law. I remember that he said he allotted himself a certain amount of money a month that would end up being used as stupid tax. And that way, he'd never go into debt for stupidity.
It's called STUPID TAX for a reason. Stupid Tax is when you end up paying money for something that is entirely your own fault, usually as a result of bad judgement or some other kind of stupid mistake.
For example, People who choose to gamble consistently pay stupid tax. I have a friend who claims that people who choose to gamble just aren't very good at math. If they truly understood the laws of probablility, they'd never do it in the first place.
Well, Over the years I've paid my share of stupid tax.
**Signing up for those clever marketing schemes..."Try me for 30 days risk free! But then if you don't return/cancel it, you've bought it for the low monthly fee of....!" In my young naive newly married status, I fell prey to this once or twice, and ended up with a few unwanted and unused cook books this way. Then I swore to never do it again...too bad I didn't remember!
**You've won the sweepstakes! Just send $10.00 here for us to release your 10 thousand dollars to you! (I'm SO embarrassed for admitting this one!)
**Parking tickets for parking in the wrong parking lot on purpose at college, in the hopes of not being caught during the 10 minutes it takes to run in and hand in an over-due paper.
**Speeding tickets from not paying attention to those little towns that pop up out of nowhere when the speed limit drops from 55 to 25. Ouch...that ticket was expensive! One time I was being extra stupid and was clocked going 80 in a 25 zone. You can believe that I never let that one happen again!
**Waiting too long to return some item to the store, and losing money on it.
**Not fixing something when it was still under warranty, when you KNEW it had to be fixed and you SUSPECTED that the warranty would end soon.
**Paying bills late.
**Registering for something late and having to pay more $$.
ANWAY...you get the picture! The reason for this post is that I THOUGHT I had graduated to a new level of living...one without stupid tax. I thought I had learned my lesson.
I am extremely chagrined to admit, however, that I recently fell prey to more stupid tax. Thankfully, I'm hoping that I've learned my lesson for good this time.
I've learned that you should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER click on the web advertisements on any major web page. You never know what scheme you may fall prey too. Here's the short version of my story:
It's late at night, I'm feeling bad about my weight and appearance. I've recently read a few blogs from friends who highly recommend detoxing as well as the acai berry supplement for losing lots of weight. Lo and behold, that same night I see an advertisement for a free trial (plus Sh&H, of course), I Click on the picture (fatal mistake), read the testimonials, and am swayed that I should give it a try (what's the harm?) I ask myself. I tell myself I'll just write the cancellation deadline into my schedule so there will be NO POSSIBLE way that I end up paying a ton of money.
If you are reading this and you are groaning with the stupidity of it all, you might want to stop now. Because it gets worse.
Between two family vacations, I miss the deadline to cancel. Not only that, but I start to receive telemarketing calls trying to sell me colon detoxes and acai berry supplements. I tell them to cancel my accounts...I don't want it! And for some reason I think I've canceled the items I bought from those companies. Who else but them has my information to be selling me theses specific products? In the next few days, I see two different HIGH charges to my banking accounts.
Because it's all too stupidly painful, and the details are too exhausting, I'll just say that hours of phone calls, letters, shipping and returning products later, over a course of 6 weeks, I finally managed to cancel all accounts, and get all my money refunded except for the shipping of course.
I thought it was all over. I thought I was done.
Then I discovered new unexplained charges to my bank accounts. I'm thinking, who in the world have these companies sold me out to? It turns out, that when you click on some of these companies and sign up for free trials, that they automatically sign you up for other deals and "email" you the cancellation details (which go to your junk folder and get lost). The credit/debit cards they use to charge your shipping and handling, get charged for all other kinds of "great deals" that they claim they told you about. I had been caught: hook, line and sinker!
I had to spend many more hours on the phone with more companies fighting them and telling them I never authorized their clubs, and that I wanted nothing to do with them, and would you PLEASE refund my money? (during this time, I wandered around my house muttering like a madwoman: "stupid stupid stupid!")
This is where I learned to be more assertive; I had to talk to the manager of the various companies and threaten to report them to the Better Business Bureau. And that is when you find out to your relief, that the charges which all the telemarketers claim are "unrefundable" really can be refunded. Nothing is impossible if you talk to the right person.
Here is a format of the typical conversation I had with several different toads at several different companies. To be kind, I'm sure they are taught to aggressively fight for their company's interests. But isn't it interesting, that if you ever want a good deal from just about any company where you regularly order stuff, all you have to do is threaten to cancel your membership? It's disheartening to realize many misc. products we buy could be reduced by over 50%, and the producers would still be cutting a profit.
ME: "I would like to cancel my account, return the product unopened, and I demand a refund."
Them: "We can't do that. But I'll give you a 20% discount."
ME: "I'm serious. I don't want the product. Return my money."
Them: "We can give you an even better deal....60% off the retail price! Who could say no to such savings?"
Me: "I want to speak to a manager. What is your name and information?"
Them: "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have $100.00 in gas vouchers as a perk for keeping a membership with us?"
Me: "I'll be reporting you. Please understand that this means NO. I'm returning everything. There is no reason you can't refund my money."
Them in a very grumpy voice "Fine, here's your cancellation number and instructions. Your money will reposted to your account in a couple of weeks."
This kind of experience makes we wonder, GEE WHIZ, what kind of American Idiot falls prey to these vampires?!?
Oops...I guess that would be weak minded people like ME!
I'm so disgusted with myself, it took my several weeks to be emotionally distanced from the awful ordeal enough to put it to paper. But I wanted to record it as a severe humiliating lesson to me and as a friendly warning to others....
BEWARE OF STUPID TAX!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Holidays are officially here!
This morning, my husband with cheerful expression began taking down all the Halloween decorations and turning on the Christmas music.
This is his official declaration: THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!
He put on Christmas music, too. But he's always trying to do that all year long!
I thought I'd have plenty of time to brush up on my Christmas Primary piano songs, but I was surprised! Today in Primary, I had to play 3 or 4 Christmas songs. Time to practice!
Scott LOVES Christmas. Especially the music that goes with it. It is his favorite time of year, and he'd celebrate it all year long if he could. He has his birthday, our anniversary, and Christmas all in the same month, and he LOVES it that way. It's just hard on him that he has to miss out on a lot of the family Holiday gatherings because he works in the evenings. Last year we got to have him home in the evenings and that was SO great. We won't have any of that this year, though *sigh*.
At least he gets Sundays off, still! And I think we'll actually have our 13th anniversary off this year, too! Yeah!
Scott loves Christmas so much, that he never forgets to declare "Christmas in July" (half way point) and plays a ton of Christmas music. He'd put up a tree and give out presents, too if I'd let him! "No way, Jose'!" I told him, "Doing it once a year is enough work"
It's kind of sad, but the more excited my kids get, the more depressed I get. It's not that I don't love Christmas, I just don't enjoy all the work! I preferred the child-like carefree days of ignorant bliss. I don't get so excited to stay up till 3 a.m. wrapping and setting up. AND the cooking, AND the cleaning, AND the planning, AND the spending....need I go on? Dorathy was disturbed to see my reaction to all her excited querries "I just can't wait till Christmas, can you mama?!? It will be Christmas soon!!!" I would just tell her, "Believe me Dorathy, I can wait! I don't want it to be Christmas yet!!" In response to this, she's now telling me frequently, "Don't worry Mommy! I will do all the work! I will be Santa's little helper! I will wrap all the presents except my own and do all the cooking! I'll do the desserts, at least!" Cute girl. It's the thought that counts, right?
One of these years, I'm going to declare a no present year, or a 1 present only year, or a handmade gifts only year...and then concentrate on all the spiritual aspects of Christmas, and try to do lots more service for others. I think I would enjoy that kind of Christmas a LOT more!!! I don't know how the rest of my family feels about that, though.
SOMEDAY! I'm trying to convince them!
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