Balloons Ahoy!

As far as fortnights go this one seems shorter than most. But yes it's been 2 weeks since our last Things this Thursday. Let's get right to it shall we.

Thing 1. Talk about your send offs!

The last Monday in April was the last day of our home school cooperatives Spring Semester. The group Christian Workshops of the Fox Valley (CWF) had their 10th anniversary this year. To celebrate we had a balloon launch.

Each family put their names on a pre-addressed stamped post card and attached it to a balloon.

Then we gathered as a group.

and let go!

The release was less than 2 weeks ago and 3 posts cards have already been returned. So far all have come from Illinois. Some from 3 hours away. What I find amazing is that 2 balloons found 3 hours away were returned by the same person and seemed to have been retrieved on different days. Our families balloon is still among the missing. If it shows up I'll let you know.

Thing 2: Trained to do right!

Last year Charlie learned about the underground railroad in one of his CWF classes. In the town next to ours there is a historical marker on a very busy corner of a busy street. My sister is obsessed about historical markers, so I decided to take a picture of it for her. I took Charlie and Emma with me as a field trip is a field trip no matter how small.

We were surprised and delighted to find out that the marker showed that the home next to it was a station for the underground railroad.

It really does something inside of me to realize that in the area I live there were people bold and brave enough to fight against a great injustice. On this the National Day of Prayer it reminds me that God often answers prayers through the actions of others.

3. Is Chuck Lost?

Today I continue my tribute to the top 25 labels I used in the first 300 posts of Home School Dad.

Label # 20 (7-way tie) Chuck.

My blogging about the NBC show Chuck is very tied in with my experience with Three Things Thursday. When Michelle of Psalm 104:24 was at the helm of 3TTT she always had 1 of her things about the ABC series Lost. Having never watched an episode of Lost (a fact that HULU is helping me remedy, see future posts) I could not include a synopsis of said show. What I could do was write little blurbs about the best television show I never watched on television. I have watched every episode of Chuck online either at NBC.Com or Hulu.

Because of low ratings and the t.v. writers strike of 2007 Chuck has spent much of it's life on the NBC chopping block. Even with the large grassroots supports of scifi/ action geeks (like me)i t barely survived last year to make it to season 3.

As I reported here, I wasn't sure if Chuck's renewal was a good thing or not as the 2008-2009 season ended on the highest of high notes. It turns out my fears were totally unfounded as season 3 has made season 2 look like a Partridge Family reunion show in comparison.

But now that Season 3 is drawing to a close, Chuck's fortunes for a 4th season seem as unclear as ever. There is some speculation that Chuck could be renewed and premiere later in the season as it did last year.

I have more things than I have time to share them. If you'd like to share your things link on Mr. Linky below. I'll be back in two weeks with another installment of things fortnightly.

Next Time: Lyrics By Dave

Dear WFMW

I haven't participated in Works for Me Wednesday for quite a while. Today's WFMW is a backwards edition. In essence: you state what doesn't work for you and hope the blogosphere will help you resolve it. It reminds me a little of an advice column. SO I composed an open letter.

Dear WFMW,

My wife and I have been having problems recently with our four year old. Even though she has little to no trouble going to bed in her room. She regularly wakes up in ours. Between 4 am and 6 am she makes the commute and often wakes up my wife with requests for food and or attention. We have tried many things: bribery, a gate and several others. Nothing seems to work when we put up the gate, she either climbs over it or screams until I have to go and deal with her. What we'd like her to do is stay in her bed, or climb up on to her sister's bunk. But most nights she heads on over to our room. We did not have this as a regular occurrence with our first two children.

Is there anything that we can do? Because having our (mostly my wife's sleep disturbed each night) does notwork for us!

Sleep deprived in Suburbia

For more Backwards WFMW head on over to We Are That Family.

Next Time: Things Fortnightly

Men's Monday Meme

I am participating in Families Again's Men's Monday Meme again this week. The questions arise this week to criticism the author received to posting about helping poor people in foreign countries. Here is a link to his comments in full. Here are the questions that I am going to address:

1. Should we only help those here at home and forget those abroad? 2. Have those abroad "gotten themselves into their own mess", and we need to clean up our own "messes"? 3. Is it anyone's business what we do with our time and money?

1. Ethnocentricity, the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture, may not be an American invention, but we certainly have perfected it. I find the notion that we should help only those at home and forget those abroad ironic when most Americans can trace their lineage to lands other than here.

Ethnocentricity may stem from a false sense of value. In a recent post, I talked about the possible false belief that the U.S. is the best nation on the earth. I say the possible false belief, because for all I know, the U.S. might be the best. Even if that is the case, does it make any sense for me to feel better about myself for being an American? I didn't do anything to become an American. I just happened to be born here.

In my opinion, God has chosen the nationality and ethnicity of everyone on earth. Does He really love me more than the child being born this minute in extreme poverty 1/2 way across the globe? I think it is very easy for those who are blessed materially to not realize what they have to be thankful for, until they are given a glimpse of how those not so blessed live.

2. It is important to teach people who we are responsible for how to bail themselves out of their own messes from time to time. So as a parent, teacher, coach, or church worker, I may have the opportunity to teach someone the consequences of their actions. When dealing with strangers in need, I have no such obligations to mold their behavior, I only have the Biblical mandate to treat them as Jesus would.

3. It is not really anyone's business what we do with our time and money. However, if we blog or write on facebook what we do with our time and money, we make it other people's business. This blog automatically updates to my facebook page. That means that everything I write here is available for friends and family who may never take a look at my blog (you know who you are.) So if I blog about how much I love the White Sox, it may open myself up to a few nasty comments from my Cub Loving familial compatriots. Is it any of their business that I love the White Sox? No. But when I tell them I do, I invite their comments. Which is one of the reasons why my sports blog doesn't automatically update to my facebook page, so there!

So, that's my Men's Monday Meme for the week. To participate yourself click here.

Next Time: DC Trip Day 9

DC Journal

Today I begin my tribute to the top 25 labels I used in the first 300 posts of Home School Dad. It is also Saturday, so I'll try to get my six words in edgewise.


Label # 20 (in a seven place tie): Washington D.C. Trip





When the family got together and decided to create a dream come true, (There's a song there somewhere, the dream in this case was our trip to Washington D.C) I decided to keep a journal of the trip and then post those entries here once I returned.

For a writer, I am a horrible journal keeper. I usually miss a day by the third entry or am going back to fill it in on a later date. Besides the night I fell asleep journaling, I was able to complete each entry before the day in question was in the books.

In terms of posting these entries here, I am very faithful to my original work. While I add pictures and sometimes videos from the day in questions and will correct grammar and spelling (not that you'd notice), I fight off the urge to turn a phrase differently than when pen first met paper, and try to stay true to the moment.


Today I am up to Day 8, our last day of sightseeing before we started driving back home.


Before I start, here are my Six Words:



Take a picture, it lasts longer.









Washington Trip: Day 8



Day 8 started like it might eclipse Day 7 as best day of the trip. I woke up at 4:45 A.M. and drove with Claire, the woman our family has been staying with, into D.C. We got to the tidal basin about 40 minutes before sunrise.


I took pictures from a bridge that overlooked both the Jefferson and Washington monuments and the Potomac river. It was an awesome sunrise among the cherry blossoms. I snapped picture after picture and even without a tripod or a really good camera, I took some breathtaking photos.

At about 7:30, i walked to the Washington monument and got in line to get tickets to go up the monument. I waited two hours just to find out that they had run out of tickets. I then met my family and my sister's family at the National Aquarium.

Most of the museum here at D.C. are free and huge. The aquarium went the other way, expensive and small. After that we spent a few hours at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Saw some real cool exhibits for both adults and children.




We went to the Julia Child exhibit and many others.

We then walked in the almost 90 degree heat to the tidal basin. The petals on the cherry trees were gorgeous. We the walked back to my sisters car and headed back to her house. We ate pizza at Kathy's and visited for a few hours before making our leave. We prepared for our return trip home and called it a night.

So that is it for my look at a label, I will finish the trip this coming week. For more Six Word Saturdays head on over to showmyfacedotcom.

Next Time: Men's Monday Meme

Hitting 300

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what-nots of Home School Dad.


Tonight's Episode: I'll Take Labels for 300.


I started this blog back in January of 2009. It took me less than 6 months to hit 100 posts. Click here or on my 100th post page to harken back to that time. 4 and a half months later I came in with post #200. Now, I have hit my 300th post.


I have labeled those posts with 71 distinctive labels. A label is a way of indexing the blog, so that it is easier to look up older posts by topics. A post can have many different labels at the same time. Today's post has 3: Blah Blah Blogging (Which is how I describe when I post incessantly about inane blogging practices), Blog Insider (where I talk about different gadgets, apps and tools I utilize) for this blog, and Posting in the Hundreds (Where I commemorate my posts that have multiples of one hundred). In a sense, all of these labels are very similar and there is a degree of overlapping in my labels.

If I could direct you to the label section of my blog you will see that instead of all 71, I have only 26 listed. This is because in celebrating my blogging longevity I plan to post about my 25 most popular labels in the weeks and months to come. There are 26 because there was a 7-way tie for 20th place. Instead of making a label for these labels, which would seem superfluous, I will be creating a page that will link to these homage posts. Until I have completed all of these I will have the label list show only the top 26.

Not listed in the top 25 are some of my favorite labels like: Hockey Lessons, An Open Letter, A Poem and FAQs of Life. But the 25 labels listed do give a pretty good insight to the kind of blog this has been the past year and a half. I hope you will enjoy the closer look behind the blog in the posts to come.

I plan to finish my D.C. trip remembrances before unpacking these labels, but as usual, prepare yourself for the randomness which is me.

As I bring this post to a close, I just want to give you links to my favorite posts of 4 labels that just missed the top 25:

Amy Roller Guest Blogger with Trudi's Garden.

Awana Scouts featuring Turtle Cake is Best.

The Labels Lincoln and Our Kid's Write are both featured in the post: In praise of Home School Kid's Write.

Next Time: Washington D.C. Day 8