***

I am currently unemployed, except for a few blogging offers here and there. It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted work and never got it. What a terrible feeling. I now know how debilitating and depressing unemployment can be. I simply can’t imagine how awful it must be over an extended period of time, especially for a man who is the bread winner of a family.

***

My kids, who learn their school lessons at home, are pretty self-sufficient when it comes to the schoolwork. I have to look over their work, I do some administrative duties, and sometimes one of the kids will have a problem where they need assistance, but most of the time they read their own books and do the work without any active teaching from me. (It took a long time to get to this place, believe me!). The two most intensive subjects where they still usually need Mom and Dad’s help is with writing compositions and certain math concepts (such as algebra). I handle the writing and the husband handles the math.

Last night, my husband was working with my youngest son on math– banking, taxes, and investing. I was busy working on the computer while they were wrangling through various word problems and filling out math worksheets upon math worksheets of calculations. I tried to “set the mood” by playing classical guitar– you know, brainy music that would “enhance” the learning experience. At one point in the conversation, I heard my husband say quietly to my son: “Einstein said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.”
That made me literally laugh out loud. Unfortunately, my  BWAHAHA!!! interrupted the brainy reverie for a while. :duncehat:

***

In church on Sunday, part of the following passage was read to us. It’s one of those “precious” parts of the Bible that I love:

For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. When people are saying, “Everything is peaceful and secure,” then disaster will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman’s labor pains begin. And there will be no escape.

But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.

For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-10, New Living Translation

Our culture likes to mock Christians and Christian beliefs, but to me it seems people are cutting off their noses to spite their face. It’s like they don’t WANT to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, and that He is returning. The proof of the holy scriptures and of the resurrection is rock solid. But it’s all mocked, all in ignorance of the facts and the historical precedents before us. You know about those guys who did such silly things like invented the steam engine, drafted our Constitution, developed the heliocentric theory of the solar system, developed electromagnetic induction, developed the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the absolute temperature scale, invented the method for milk pasteurization, and invented peanut butter? Yeah, all those stupid people were Christians who believed in the birth, death, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ. How silly they were, right? I mean, they didn’t even have their own TV shows!

Today, it’s so fashionable to be skeptical, but I think it’s so stupid to be skeptical, especially when the facts are readily available for anyone to look into. Jesus is coming back soon.

I once talked to someone about the book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament. I said that I found it absolutely amazing that in no other moment in history were the events in Revelation able to occur until now. A global currency? Not possible until now. An army of 200 MILLION?! Not possible until now. A “mark” that is forced on everyone or else they can’t buy or sell anything? Not possible until now. As I stated this, I asked the person to whom I was talking, “Isn’t this some proof that the Bible is true and that these things are going to happen soon?” The person just looked at me and said, “Well, they MAKE it happen.”
:duncehat:
How can you MAKE HAPPEN an army of 200 million people PLUS all those other things? At the same time?! It’s not something you just cook up one day.

I spent a lot of years, looking all this stuff up. I have scoured ancient documents, researched archaeological discoveries, read books and books and books. It’s pretty insulting to have someone throw all that research back into your face because they just don’t “feel” that it’s true. If people don’t want to believe it’s true, fine. Don’t. But it’s so insulting and baffling for some folks to mock my years and years of looking into the subject and mocking the people of the past upon whose discoveries and inventions we enjoy today. I don’t know, maybe I am now led by a sense of duty to at least make the effort and cast my opinions aside and see what the truth is. I just figure others would want to know, too.

*steps off soap box*

***

The cares of our life can swallow us up whole, if we let it. We forget that we are emotional beings– spiritual beings. There’s an old Scottish proverb:

Be sure to live your life, for you will be a long time dead.

Indeed. I don’t think that means to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. It means to make peace with God and live in peace in this life, for the next life will be a long time lived in light of our decisions here.

***

I told you I’ve been thoughtful, lately.

Thanks for reading.

But I have just found THE coolest website!!! It’s an online instrument rental site!!! Can you believe it?! They will ship their instruments directly to my door. All instruments are fully inspected before shipping to make sure the instrument is in tip-top shape. My son has been desperate to play the violin, but I have resisted because a new violin is very expensive (and what if he decides he doesn’t like it?). But with an online rental system, we can try anything we want. All instruments come supplied with a carrying/storage case and mouthpiece. Delivery is free via UPS.

The company that runs the rental business is RMI (RentMyInstrument.com) based in Kansas City, Missouri. The monthly rental prices are very, very affordable. I am extremely pleased. A nice violin is $32 a month. That’s low enough to try it out for a month or two before deciding if we should purchase a violin for the budding musician. RMI.com has a guaranteed no obligation return option and pre-paid maintenance and repairs are included in the rental price.

Homeschoolers, if you’ve been looking for an affordable way to help your kids get an instrument, here it is. Check the site for more details.

I saw this at Disgruntled Republican and almost laughed my head off. I showed my kids and we all came up with some hearty additions to the list. Bwahaha! It’s best if you read them aloud. You’ll learn it better that way. ;)

English ———————Chinese

That’s not right!———— —-Sum Ting Wong

Are you harboring a fugitive? —Hu Yu Hai Ding

See me ASAP ——————-Kum Hia Nao

Small Horse ———————Tai Ni Po Ni

Did you go to the beach? ———Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into a coffee table! —–Ai Bang Mai Ni

I think you need a face lift! ——-Chin Tu Fat

It’s very dark in here! ———–Wai So Dim

I thought you were on a diet! —-Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow away zone! ———No Pah King

Our meeting is scheduled for next week!- Wai Yu Kum Nao

Staying out of sight ————–Lei Ying Lo

He’s cleaning his automobile —–Wa Shing Ka

Your body odor is offensive ——Yu Stin Ki Pu

Great —————————-Su Pa

My girls got into the groove and thought up a few more:

Excuse me ————-Yu En Mai Weh

That tastes terrible! ————-Goo Foh Yu

I’m thirsty ———- Me Wan Tee

Hoh boy, I will NEVER finish my chores if I don’t stop laughing. I have to look gather some grub for dinner for Mi Hus Bahn. :-D

And now it’s time for the inevitable Disclaimer: This post is in NO WAY meant to pick on China, the Chinese people, or the Chinese language. I have great respect for the traditional Chinese culture, and I adore the Chinese language– it’s so melodious and I love to hear it spoken. This was all a joke. If you are easily offended, please be aware that the person I pick on the most is myself!

I LOVE the snarky, retro look of the book cover.

I was recently sent a marvelous book to review: Home Ec: 101, Skills for Everyday Living: Cook It, Clean It, Fix It, Wash It by Heather Solos.

Short Version: This is a spectacular book!!! A perfect addition to the household OR as a terrific gift!

Long Version: Home Ec: 101 Skills for Everyday Living is a colorful paperback book (pages are decorated with teal-colored borders) that covers the basics of everyday living in its 240 pages (including index). It is PERFECT for the newly married couple, or the young adult ready to strike off on her own, or as a Home Ec homeschooling tool. The content is simple and very readable. Here’s a little bit from the table of contents:

• Getting Started: Tools, Secrets, and the Chemistry of Cleaning
• Make It Manageable: Flexible Scheduling
• Dining Rooms and Dusty Dens of Doom: Yes, You Do Windows
• Minor Garment Repair: Beyond Dental Floss and Staples
• Laundry: The World’s Most Thankless Chore
• When Good Appliances Go Bad: Avoid Minor Meltdowns (a very good section!)
• Plumbing: Someone Jiggle the Handle Already
• Outfit Your Kitchen: Cookware and Small Appliances
• Recipe Rundown: Deciphering Terms and Basic Techniques
• Meal Planning: Not Just For the Control Freaks
• Substitutions: I’ll Remember to Put It on the List, Promise

There are also several appendixes with formulas and checklists, for you geeky types. ;)

Interspersed throughout the book are anecdotes related to the chapter. I really liked those, especially the hilarious anecdotes in the plumbing section. Barrels of laughter from that one, folks. (Yes, we do our own plumbing here at the Mecomber homestead, hahaha). :whistle:

Heather, maybe sometime you can write a post about how you keep your skin looking so gorgeous!

Be warned, this is no encyclopedic tome with snobby, puzzling professorial formulations spewing from the pages. Home Ec: 101 is snarky, it’s funny, it’s easy reading, it’s concise. Heather Solos did a terrific job organizing all the tips and compiling them into interesting and readable sections, adding twinges of humor at every turn. You know how we have our special “books” for the household, like Webster’s Dictionary and The Joy of Cooking? Home Ec: 101 Skills for Everyday Living is another to get for your collection. It’s kind of like This Old House, Heloise’s Hints, The Joy of Cooking (the interesting parts) and Erma Bombeck all rolled into one paperback package. It’s witty enough so that young people will like it, detailed and informative enough that experienced old coots like me like it. And the book would make a really, really nice gift.

Heather has a Home Ec 101 Blog, too, where she shares additional tips (with videos she’s discovered!), questions from readers (with answers!), and writes about chipping away at her piles of laundry and lawn mowing chores just like the rest of us.

Home Ec: 101, Skills for Everyday Living: Cook It, Clean It, Fix It, Wash It is very affordable. It sells retail for $20, but it’s on sale at Amazon.com for under $15. And if you’re a Kindle user, you can download the Kindle version of Home Ec: 101.

Just so you know, F+W Media provided a review copy of this book in exchange for this post. All opinions are always overflowing and my own.

Is boredom merely a plague of the modern era? Or is boredom more prevalent in wealthier societies? I did a little digging about boredom in history. Of course, this is not a comprehensive study– I’m too busy with work to dwell much on the subject of boredom! But it’s a good start to answering my questions about what boredom is, why it is, and what causes it.

“Boredom” comes from the root word “bore,” which, a few hundred years ago, was a description of a dull, tedious, annoying person in formal society. Think of the era of “Pride and Prejudice.”

Boredom: Sense of “be tiresome or dull” first attested 1768, a vogue word c.1780-81 according to Grose; possibly a figurative extension of “to move forward slowly and persistently,” as a boring tool does. From the Online Etymological Dictionary.

The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of “to be tiresome or dull” since 1768. The French term for boredom, ennui, is sometimes used in English as well.

According to Dictionary.com, ennui is: a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.

I find that when I am very busy, I am more alert and more productive. Have you ever gone out to a store or restaurant during a slow time, and it seems that the service people are more careless, sloppier, or slower with their service than during busy times? My husband, who has worked many years in the service industry, noticed it. He always says when business is slow, so is service. It’s a psychological condition: people just slow down when they are not occupied, and become “bored.” Thus, their work suffers.

I don’t think human nature has changed at all over thousands of years, so I tend to think boredom is universal. The Egyptian Pharoah accused the enslaved Israelites of stirring up trouble because they were bored.

Exodus 5:17
But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.’

The word “idle” here is Hebrew “raw-phaw” which means “slackened,” “weakened,” “lazy,” or “slothful.”

Pharoah didn’t think the Israelites were working hard enough, so he piled on more work.

According to this site,

In 1926, after a study of factory workers, the British Medical Journal published that boredom was a form of mental fatigue caused by repetition and lack of interest in monotonous tasks….The first laboratory testing of boredom occurred in the late 1930’s and was then deduced to be a form of fatigue which was dissipated through the use of stimulants. In 1951 a book was published claiming that boredom was actually due to the repression of an individual’s natural drives and desires. After this date the research into boredom fell from grace and it wasn’t until 1986 that a psychologist developed the first full psychometric scale called the ‘Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS)’ as a method to measure boredom as an individual trait.

Some folks hail boredom as a wonderful way to rest and relax; others view it as a plague that stifles innovation and creativity (I tend to believe the latter). Some people tend to boredom more than others. Children in a passive environment (such as a public school setting where education is doled out in a cookie-cutter regimen) experience boredom; innovative workers stuck in a routine experience boredom. The push toward social engineering (where workers are mere cattle and exist only to keep the machine running) encourages boredom especially among creative people stuck in the “worker” classes.

It makes sense that electronic gadgets and toys do not help solve societal boredom. Think about when you were a kid, if you are older than 45 years old. Think about the toys children had 100 years ago. What kind of toys were children offered? Blocks, Lincoln Logs, a rag doll that didn’t talk or do anything…. what toys do kids have today? Remote control cars, buildable action figures like Bionicles, talking and walking dolls, etc. The main difference between toys of yesteryear and toys for modern kids is that older toys encouraged imagination and innovation. Today, toys simply entertain. They are constructed in a specific way or merely do a specific thing, and then…. that’s it. There’s no real creativity to the things we hand our kids today. No wonder they are bored. Gadgets (and TV and movies and music) should be tools that we use to improve or advance us spiritually, personally, or socially. But the gadgets have become mere entertainment, which leads to boredom, which stifles creativity and innovation. Human nature is always crying out for moremoremore! Objects only entertain for so long before boredom sets in. And are you bored by now, reading all this text? Did you skip sections?

To be honest, I am rarely bored. I was very bored as a young child and teenager. I read a lot of books to stave it off, but even that was boring after a while. I just didn’t have any incentive to DO anything. But then I became a born-again Christian, and my life has really changed. I’m much more motivated, much more curious about how and why things work. I think God cured me of boredom! LOL. And I am so busy. If I am not working, then I am creating more work for me to do. There’s always something to do, something to learn, something to think about. I see boredom as an enemy to my growth as a Christian.

How about you? Did you suffer from boredom as a child? Do you still? What helps? Do you enjoy boredom; do you think it’s a good condition?

BBC News has a very interesting article:

Using computers to teach children with no teachers

A 10-year experiment that started with Indian slum children being given access to computers has produced a new concept for education, a conference has heard.

Professor Sugata Mitra first introduced children in a Delhi slum to computers in 1999.

He has watched the children teach themselves – and others – how to use the machines and gather information.

Follow up experiments suggest children around the world can learn complex tasks quickly with little supervision.

“I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour,” he told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference.

Professor Mitra’s work began when he was working for a software company and decided to embed a computer in the wall of his office in Delhi that was facing a slum.

“The children barely went to school, they didn’t know any English, they had never seen a computer before and they didn’t know what the internet was.”

To his surprise, the children quickly figured out how to use the computers and access the internet.

“I repeated the experiment across India and noticed that children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.”

…”I wanted to test the limits of this system,” he said. “I set myself an impossible target: can Tamil speaking 12-year-olds in south India teach themselves biotechnology in English on their own?”

The researcher gathered 26 children and gave them computers preloaded with information in English.

“I told them: ‘there is some very difficult stuff on this computer, I won’t be surprised if you don’t understand anything’.”

Two months later, he returned.

Initially the children said they had not learnt anything, despite the fact that they used the computers everyday.

“Then a 12-year-old girl raised her hand and said ‘apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA contributes to genetic disease – we’ve understood nothing else’.”

The article is quite long but very readable. I’m interested in things like this, because I like to learn about cultures, and because I home-educate my children. While my children’s reading comprehension skills are very high, I don’t think a computer can ever replace a teacher. I also think it all depends on what the term “getting an education” means. Is “getting an education” just a method of stuffing a kid’s brain with facts (that is, merely exposing a child with knowledgeable facts)? Or is getting an education a method of using facts to process thoughts and skills (showing the child how to take knowledge and apply it in life, aka, wisdom). A computer cannot teach wisdom. It can offer knowledge. I think that’s a notable difference.
What do you think?

Plus, as any parents realizes, there comes a phase in the child’s life when the child determines that he no longer needs to learn anything anymore (usually about age 13 or 14)– he thinks he is smart enough! Haha, now that’s usually when a teacher comes in REAL handy…

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned. Mark Twain

The kids and I have been learning some terrific stuff at the How Wheat Works website. This is a wonderful educational site– you homeschooling parents should check it out with your kids! I learned things about wheat that I never knew before. Er, make that: that I never knew. I did not grow up on a farm and I know nothing about agriculture. I am interested in how things work, especially as it relates to our economy, so this is a very well-rounded education for us.

The How Wheat Works website takes you through the entire production of wheat– from “farm to fork,” as they say. The nice thing is that they get you involved in several ways- one, you can create an account and actually participate in the process. You virtually plant your own wheat (we selected durum and have harvested our crop already!) and the website shows you everything about wheat. I found it fascinating, and so did the kids. This is SO COOL. For example, did you know that:

• The combine machine has radically changed the wheat industry? For thousands of years before that machine was invented, men had to reap the grain fields by hand, and animals had to thresh it (threshing was the process of beating the kernels out of the grain head). But the combine came along and is able to cut and separate the grain. The combine can harvest 32 acres of wheat using the same amount of labor used for one acre in the past!

• It takes a combine only 12 minutes to harvest one acre of wheat field!
• The United States exports HALF of all wheat produced in here, yet we only rank as fourth place for wheat-production! China, European Union, and India rank higher in production, but the US is the largest exporting nation in the world! The major US importers of wheat are Japan, Egypt, Nigeria, Mexico, and Iraq.

Another very cool thing about the website is that the Wheat Foods Council will donate two pounds of flour (up to 90,000 lbs) to Operation Homefront, a non-profit organization that helps needy U.S. troops and their families. That’s a VERY good reason to try out the How Wheat Works website. When I logged in recently, it said there were 606 participants so far. I think we should try to boost that number. You have nothing to lose but ignorance.

How Wheat Works is a great website. Have the kids do it, they will “reap” great rewards!

I’m looking forward to our own next step, which will take us through the milling and baking process. I know that elementary education requires this kind of curriculum–learning about foods and the production of it from farm to fork–How Wheat Works is an exception educating tool, and it helps needy people, too. Please check it out!

FONDA — A Montgomery County couple has been arrested on child endangerment charges for failing to register their children with the school district as they were home-schooled, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.

Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, both of the town of Glen, never registered their four children or their home-schooling curriculum with the local school district, said the Sheriff’s Office.

The Superintendent of the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District, Richard Hoffman, confirmed the four children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, had not been registered with the school district for the last seven years.

“From what I can gather, it sounds like there was education going on, so I don’t know if they really slipped through the cracks,” Hoffman said, “[but] they didn’t fulfill their legal responsibility to file with the school district to be home-schooled.”

Under state law, parents who choose to home school their children must register their curriculum with the local school district superintendent. The Cressys never submitted one in the seven years they lived in the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, which began investigating the parents after receiving an anonymous tip.

There is a LOT to this story, so bear with me here…

Firstly, NYS law does require a homeschooling family to register with the school district. The law stinks, lots of people may not like it… but the law doesn’t really restrict home education in any way other than making sure the kids are registered AND are being taught something. (This DOES NOT mean that the school superintendent has any legal right to impose his values on homeschooling families! This has happened A LOT in New York State! But right now, I’m going strictly by what the law states and the information given me in this news report here). So in other words, a homeschooling family MAY LEGALLY practice their religion and teach their kids the way they want; but they must register the school curriculum that they are using with the superintendent. So all they had to do was register. (There are other stipulations, such as state-mandated tests where required, etc, but that’s beyond the scope of this post right now). The point is is that registering your kids with the state in no way affected the family to teach their kids the way they wanted. Correct?

On the other hand, the state coming down hard on this family may affect ALL of us with kids in the state, by causing a ripple effect of gestapo-like microscopic inspections of all children in the county or in the state.

Was it SO HARD to obey this law?? Was it SUCH a hardship to liberty to obey this law? I don’t think so, it doesn’t seem like it. The news report does not come out and SAY anything about it… but it seems like the superintendent isn’t an ogre, ruling over homeschooled families, does it? Too difficult to tell. If this was so and the school district out there is a ravenous tyrant looking to squelch parental rights, then I could understand why the family wouldn’t register. But judging by the facts I know, this does not seem to be the case. As a matter of fact, the parents’ reasons for WHY thy didn’t register isn’t even addressed in the story. That’s terrible, shame on the media for doing that! But it’s not surprising…

NOW DON’T get upset! I’m not defending the state!! Keep reading! Don’t run off and write your comment yet! Let me finish!

OK back to the point. This family’s actions may cause untold hardship for those who do obey the laws. This may cause a “crackdown” on homeschooled families everywhere, or the state may be motivated to start restricting the relative freedoms homeschooling parents do have.

You may say, “But it’s the principle of the matter! The state has no right to tell us how we can raise our children!” Well said. Just like the state has no right to tax us like they do… but you pay them, right? Just like they have no right to make us register with the state to get a driver’s license, to obey traffic laws, to put our kids in car seats…. I honestly don’t think that this homeschooling registry law was so difficult to swallow, as long as the parents aren’t being bullied or threatened by the district.

When Jesus and the others arrived in Capernaum, the collectors for the temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Does your teacher pay the temple tax?”

“Yes, he does,” Peter answered. After they had returned home, Jesus went up to Peter and asked him, “Simon, what do you think? Do the kings of this earth collect taxes and fees from their own people or from foreigners?”

Peter answered, “From foreigners.”

Jesus replied, “Then their own people don’t have to pay. But we don’t want to cause trouble. So go cast a line into the lake and pull out the first fish you hook. Open its mouth, and you will find a coin. Use it to pay your taxes and mine.” Matthew 17:24-27

We already know we are free. But we don’t want to cause trouble. As long as what they ask does not hinder us from serving God, give them what they ask. THAT’S the main point. What’s our goal, anyway? Don’t we want liberty SO we can serve God? Isn’t that the point of wanting liberty?

For the sake of liberty, we must be careful not to become slaves to liberty for the sake of liberty. We belong to God, and God would have us obey laws set forth for the protection of the community. This does not mean that all laws are good and that we must blindly obey simply because we are the subjects and they are the mighty rulers– there IS indeed a time for civil disobedience, yes. But it is not warranted in this case. It is a terrible thing for the state to ask parents to register their homeschooled children with the local school district? It hinders home education in no way to do so, right? If the state was using bully tactics such as we have seen in other areas (forbidding parents to teach their religion to their children; sending the SWAT Team, etc etc), there would be a good reason for the parents to disobey. But I don’t think that was the case with this family, was it? It’s tough for parents– our children are a BIG hot button with us. We DO NOT want the state to TOUCH them! But sometimes it’s better to obey a law for the sake of honoring God and not cause trouble. I think this individual case is like that.

Now I also see that the school district and the state were very harsh with their penalties; it’s obvious that they wanted to publicly punish the parents. The parents did not do anything that warranted an invasion and arrest. That was a bully tactic and tyranny, and THAT is what outrages me. In such a case, the school district should have sent a warning letter to the parents, and then a visit to the home, and then perhaps some other means of conciliating action. But to storm the home and rip the parents away from the kids… that’s evil. There should be harsh punishment on the officials for that. And Montgomery County does a lot of bullying, it is true.

Homeschooling was not initially legal in the United States, you know, even though billions of families have practiced it since the Pilgrims. There was a battle in the 1980s to make it officially legalized in each state (and thus protected by law). It was accomplished by a grassroots movement, by a lot of people who sacrificed greatly to get it passed. New York State is a restrictive state, yes, but at LEAST homeschooling is LEGAL now. There are a few requirements that must be met. I do not think these requirements are burdensome. If there have been cases of threats and bully tactics by the state, it is because those tactics are illegal and should be dealt with accordingly.

The media and the state find delicious opportunity to restrict us more and more when they find people not abiding by the law. These people are raised up as examples and are excoriated publicly so as to influence public opinion (which in turn changes laws). We as Christians must be very careful to abide by the laws. This DOES NOT mean we are to be jello-headed idiots, though. There IS a time for civil disobedience, and it is LEGAL to do so (Declaration of Independence). I do not think the state owns our children because of the homeschool registration requirement. Even if the state THINKS they own our children, we know they do not– our kids belong to God. We are free. And we don’t want to cause any trouble, for us or for others.

Addendum: I have no idea if this family in the news story is a Christian family. The news story does not say. Also, the “child endangerment” charges are over-bearing. It’s a truancy law that the parents broke. According to the information I have, the parents were schooling their children appropriately. The state or the school district should be sharply penalized for such overbearing brute tactics.

Moreover, the government and non-homeschoolers should have a LOT more respect for homeschoolers. We are dedicated to raising our children with values, to be disciplined and hard-working, and it is a FACT that homeschooled children are better educated than government-schooled children. The law is the law, but this crucifying of homeschoolers is WICKED.

Bookswim also offers a nice BookSwim.com Gift Card if you want to give Bookswim to a book lover. I think it’s very cool!

Please realize that I am a Bookswim affiliate– which means that if you click my link either in this post or the Bookswim button in the sidebar, and place an order– I earn money. But I am fussy about my affiliations, so know that I must really like a company to want to be an affiliate!

At any rate, whether you purchase or not, check out Bookswim. It’s great for readers and homeschoolers alike!

“Bread: the Staff of Life.”

How many times have we heard that?

It’s true! Did you know that mankind has been harvesting some form of wheat ever since the beginning? Wheat is one of the oldest grains planted by man. However, wheat was not planted in the United States until 1777. Today, the Mid-West is known as the “Breadbasket” of the United States. The climate and flat land is conducive to thriving wheat fields. And did you know that there are 6 classes of wheat grown in the U.S.?

Yes, we’ve been studying. There is a SUPERB educational website called How Wheat Works. It’s sponsored by the Wheat Foods Council. It’s a really neat site! It teaches you about the history of wheat, it’s importance in the world, and it versatility. It’s an educational-type site, but there’s a lot more to the site. Homeschoolers– definitely check it out! You will be greatly “enriched”! :shades:

In a nutshell, How Wheat Works is an interactive multimedia website that educates you about wheat. I have been browsing the site for about a half an hour, and I already know more about wheat than I did in my entire lifetime! The How Wheat Works website gets you involved in the process of “growing” wheat. The very cool thing about it is that the Wheat Council will actually donate wheat! It’s through Operation Homefront, a non-profit organization that gives aid to needy U.S. troops and families. For every participant in the How Wheat Works program, the Council will donate up to 2 pounds of flour (up to 90,000 pounds) to Operation Homefront.

I started out by registering with the site (very quick and easy). Then, I signed in and started learning about the wheat-growing process, and I virtually spread some wheat kernels to grow on the farm. In 24 hours, I will receive an email telling me about the next step. All along the way, there are snippets of history and information about wheat, about growing it, and the impact wheat has had on civilizations. It’s a fascinating tour and the website is very well done. The graphics are like a video game, and the information is in small chunks– enough to make it fun and easy. This is a great resource and reference site for kids– very user-friendly– and it has links to other kid-related, recipe-related, and educational-related sites. Be sure to bookmark it. You can also send the kids to the website www.wheatfoods.org for more stuff to discover and do.

The websites are PERFECT for kids learning about the United States, the food cycle, history of the Mid-West, cooking, and other educational topics. The kids and I liked going through some of the stages of our “wheat growing.” And it’s a blessing to be able to help U.S. troops all at the same time.

Please take a look at the site. I’m always asking people to consider giving to the needy, especially over the holidays. Websites like How Wheat Works has made it SO easy to do it, and you will learn so much in the process, too! And this is a marvelous opportunity to get the kids involved in learning about the foods they eat, and in giving to others.

My wheat brand I’m growing is “durum.” What’s yours? :D

If you found the How Wheat Works website helpful, PLEASE stumble my post with StumbleUpon! I’d really like to get the word out about this activity. Let’s get that wheat to the troops and their families!!