How to say Marshmallow in Russian

 AS IN CAR TRIPS

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

I mentioned yesterday in my Boring post that I would be seeing my dear Russian friend Vladimir today.  He would probably be somewhat hurt if I left it at friend, which he is.  He is my Brother, not only in Christ but I was practically adopted by his family when I lived in Russia and Vladimir and I even lived together in my last months in Khabarovsk, or the Big K, as I grew fond of calling it. 

As you read this, I am probably driving from Illinois to Michigan to pick up Vladimir and Tanya or I am driving them to Illinois where Vladimir has a conference to attend tomorrow.  Do you have a friend that you would drop everything for?  Vladimir is such a friend.  Home schooling the kids makes travelling to Michigan on a moment's notice much easier.

All 3 kids are travelling with me and we will all meet up with Amy once we get back into Illinois. 

Since I am spending the majority of today in a car, I thought I would blog about car trips and some of the things I have done on them.

Marshmallow - 3 years ago a cousin of Amy's graduated from high school in Kentucky.  A large contingent of family members from Illinois travelled to Kentucky for the ceremony. Another of Amy's cousins who is just a few years older than our kids decided it would be fun to shout marshmallow each time we crossed from state to state.  It is now a staple of all interstate travel.

Alphabet Game - Amy and I play this more frequently w/o the kids than with, so it will probably not come up today.  We are getting the kids more interested in playing and sometimes they will "throw a letter" out the window if we get stuck. 

Play-A-Ways - A play a-way is an audio book in it's own mp3 type player.  They are available at our public library.  When we go on a long trip (like this one to Michigan) The kids and sometimes the adults get some Play-a-ways from the library.  Our kids love books and listening to books in the car is one of their favorite ways to pass the time,

Madlibs, Random and other word games.

Random is a game I was taught in 1986.  I have been a devotee for more than a quarter century now.  Here is a previous post about it.  Mad Libs and Random are great games because they are both fun and educational.  I guess mostly fun.

Kid Directed Play.

The kids create games that they play on car rides.  The ones they play most often are the frowning game, which is very similar to Make me Laugh and the Dolphin Game, where they pretend they are workers or animals in a zoo.  Amy and I can entertain ourselves just listening to them.


We do lots of other things on car trips, but that's a pretty good list for now.  I'll be back tomorrow with some Donuts. 

Boring, a nice place to visit.

 AS IN BORING

Monday April 2, 2012

I was a Southern Baptist Missionary in Khabarovsk Russia from late 1992 to late 1994.  I have been thinking about that chapter in my life more frequently recently, as a dear Russian friend of mine is in the states with his wife and I will see him for the first time in nearly 2 decades tomorrow.

Being a missionary, I spent time with other American missionaries when I was in a Russia.  Some of them were from an organization that was headquartered near Portland, Oregon.  The actual name of the town was boring.  No, not as I wasn't interested in the name.  The town's name was Boring. 

I had a lot of fun with that nugget.  I would talk about going into the Boring office.  Maybe settling down there some day and  meeting a Boring girl and making her my Boring wife  having some Boring kids and sending them to the boring schools.  Interestingly enough, I never got bored with the joke.

A few weeks ago I was watching the T.V. show, Homicide: Life on the Street.  In the show Alec Baldwin's brother Daniel plays a Detective who is partnered with a female detective played by Academy Award Winning (The Fighter) actress, Melissa Leo. 

In one episode Baldwin's character is telling Leo's that his wife is from Boring, Maryland.  He then goes into the same kind of Boring jokes that I used to engage in.

Check these out . . .

•   Website with some interesting facts about Boring, MD.
• Website describing Boring, OR as an exciting place to live.

Well I am done with this Boring Post.  Check out some other B posts in the A to Z Challenge by clicking here.

A non-sexy start to blogging A to Z

 as in Abstinence

Sunday April 1, 2012

Hi.  My name is Dave aka Home School Dad or HSD.  You can just call me HS or D.  Whatever floats your boat.

This is my first installment of Blogging A to Z.  For 26 of the next 31 days I will be blogging in alphabetical order.  This is a pretty big to do at the blogosphere;click here to go to the main blogging A to Z page.  Some participating blogs are having a theme intertwined to their A to Z posts.  Not this cat. I am going to stick to what this blog does best, randomness.Some posts may be meaty, even controversial, while others will be whimsical and still others will  be boring.  (Don't believe me?  Stop by tomorrow.) 

Today's word is abstinence.  Abstinence as defined by the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition) means voluntary forbearance  especially from  indulgence of an appetite or craving  or from eating some foods.  This is a fine definition but not the one most people think of when they hear the word.  Most people think of abstaining from sex, specifically from abstaining from sex prior to marriage.  This is the meaning I am referring to.

Abstinence has become a bit of a dirty word in our modern age. In our society, sex is regarded as a rite of passage into adulthood.  Those who want to promote abstinence are often ridiculed, belittled or at least labeled impractical.

But when you think about it, abstinence is immensely practical.  Let's think about abstinence in how it pertains to one of the most divisive topics, I can think of, Following the Cubs or White Sox  Abortion.

Abortion is so divisive, that  the language describing it varies depending on which side of the issue you are on. Those who favor abortion,  speak of a woman's right to choose  and are labeled pro-choice.  Those against abortion use terms like sanctity of life and are labeled pro-life.  These are misnomers if ever there were misnomers.  Most so called "pro choicers" that I know hold life to be very dear.  Many are passionate against war or the death penalty because they hold life so dear.  Nor are prolifers really anti choice.  They want to see women with unwanted pregnancies "choose" to come to term and make "choices" that will benefit themselves, their child, and in many cases married couples unable to have their own children.

So what do you need to have an abortion?  You need to be pregnant.  And what do you need to be pregnant?  You need to have sex. So abstinence is a very practical way to limit the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country and thus the amount of abortions.

Abstinence is practical  in terms of birth control,  preventing disease, even in promoting self esteem.  If you only have sexual relations with one person in your lifetime, there is little chance of suffering by comparison.  It is practical in addressing sexual education for the next generation.This, we did it, they're going to do it, let's have them be safe about it approach is about as effective as the let them figure it own on their own, we did approach.  My kids have been told early on that sex is for marriage only.  Amy and I also have the testimony of our own abstinence during our friendship and courtship to back up our words.

So some of you are probably saying practical schmactical promoting abstinence in this day and age won't work when premarital sex is rampant.   I'd say part of the reason why it's rampant is because of this false idea that abstinence is impractical.  I mean that argument is certainly on the menu at Bob's House of Self Fulfilling Prophecies.

Resistance to abstinence and acceptance of abortion are both built on the faulty assumption that our bodies are ours alone and we can do with them what we want as long as no one (except a fetus) gets hurt.

The truth is that our bodies are a gift from God who created us. God fashioned Adam out of the dust of the world he had made days earlier.  He didn't stop with Adam.   He made Eve from Adam as Adam slept.  After that He instituted marriage and procreation. After that he called it a week.  I think one of the reasons why Biblical creation is regarded as faith or fantasy rather than science or history is to ignore this idea that our bodies our not are own. 

Abstinence prior to marriage is key to building a healthy, happy marriage.  Self-control is possible with the help of God,who according to 2 Peter 1:3  has given us everything we need for life and godliness. I'm not saying abstinence is easy, many good things aren't.  I'm saying that abstinence is worth while.  I'll share more of mine and Amy's experiences with abstinence in later posts.

So that's A.  Come back tomorrow for a boring post. 

Home School Fragments (and a Puppyism)

Half Past Kissing Time presents Friday Fragments.  Today I will share some Home School info that might not otherwise make it into it's own post.

SB 136 footnote.

Last year a state senator from Illinois made a name for himself in the homeschooling community by proposing that all home schools and private schools would need to be registered on the state level.  The proposed bill showed no understanding of Illinois  state law.  One reason for this is that Home schools in Illinois are considered private schools.  That means that the wording of the bill was redundant because  merely requesting that all private schools register would require home educators to do the same.  Alas private schools were never really the target of the bill and the wording was quickly changed to refer only to home schools.

The senator Ed Maloney introduced the bill and there was an instant reaction of the negative kind.  Home Educators after flooding their representatives with phone calls,  stopped what they were doing and headed to Springfield in the thousands to discuss the bill.  Ed Maloney was never able to give sufficient proof that homeschoolers were "falling under the cracks" and the bill was tabled without ever being voted on.

I wrote several pieces on the matter here and have become very interested in the career of senator Maloney.  He has decided not to seek reelection.  I did some research and found that one of the candidates running to replace him states that she is a  strong supporter of homeschooling at her campaign website.  Thanks again Mr. Maloney for bringing the people of your district a potential advocate to the institution you sought to alter.

Speaking of Frivolous Laws

One of the main reasons I opposed SB 136 besides the total lack of need to "fix" something not broken was the additional cost to taxpayers in doing so.  This is one of the reasons why I am opposed to SB 3259 which is a bill being considered to raise the compulsory school age in Illinois from 17 to 18.  The law is sponsored by Kimberly Lightford and co-sponsored by 6 other senators from her party.  Lightford like Maloney and 4 of the 6 co-sponsors received significant campaign funding from teachers unions.  I mention this because teachers and their unions are the direct beneficiaries of this law as more teachers will need to be hired if the age is increased. 

I am opposed to the bill for 5 reasons.

1. The proposed law will not be able to do what it says it will as there is no proven correlation between dropout rates and compulsory age.

2. It should be the job of parents and not the government to decide when their children should end their schooling.

3. By my reading it seemss the law would require home educators of 18 year olds to register with the state; and I think we all know how I feel about that.

4.  While the law would benefit teacher and unions and not neccesarily the students it purport to help (see objection 1) it would increase the tax burden of parent affected by the law.


5. It is a law that was conceived by lawmakers who didn't even consult with school superintendents to see if a law was needed.  There was also similar lack of reasoning for Sb136.  It has been told that Senator Maloney conceived SB136 after learning of a homeschooling relative while at a Holiday party.  Our tax dollars are certainly at work.

Mount Rushmore

I am teaching 2 classes about the Mount Rushmore Presidents at our home school co-op.  If you wanted to teach about one object in American History that encompasses more time than Mount Rushmore you might be hard pressed to do so.

The history of Mount Rushmore and the presidents thereof, goes back to the colonial period prior to the French American war and goes though to Depression Era works projects.  This has been a very enjoyable process for me and hopefully my students as well.

Non Home School Related Puppyism

Puppy sometimes pretends she's a wolf named Wolfina.  Just like when she used to play with pretend puppies on the bed she now brings pretend wolves everywhere she goes. 

On Wednesday we were visiting my Dad who is recovering nicely from a very successful prostate cancer surgery.  On the way home Puppy was sitting in the back seat and we had this conversation:

Puppy/Wolfina: Dad I left one of my wolves at Grandpa's house. 
Me: One of your Pretend wolves.
P/W: That's okay we don't have to get it.  He likes it there.

The funniest thing about the exchange was the was that Puppy said her last line as if I had fully intended to turn around and get the missing wolf.  When actually at about the same time she asked we had just passed a gas station selling it's wares at $4.52.9 a gallon.  (I had only paid $4.39.9, so that's a relief.

Well that's that for Fragments for this week and probably for a while.  I am participating in Blogging A to Z starting Sunday and if I think of a fragment idea, I will probably figure out what letter it starts with and share it on it's given day.

For more fragments click here.

Spring Break So Far

Not all homeschoolers take a Spring Break.  But since Amy is employed by a local  school district and gets the week off, we take the week off. 

We are not going away anywhere this week.  Here is what we have been doing. 

Our co-op met on Monday, so Amy went in to work. Only a handful of people were there, but it is one less day that she has to work once school is out of session.  We had a major tire blowout as we were travelling from co-op to dental appointments.  Not 5 minutes after we pulled over on the side of the road, a man who works at the same tire company we bought our last tires pulled up behind us and assisted me in putting on the spare.  A family from our co-op noticed us on the side of the road, dropped most of their kids at home came back and drove Amy and the kids to their dental appointments while I got the tire changed.

We have been watching movies this week as part of our break.  We watched Hugo and it is certainly worth all the hype.  I found it very enjoyable.  (Not everyone in the family enjoyed it.)

My father had a surgery to remove his prostate last Tuesday, as it was cancerous.  He is now cancer free and after being releases from the hospital last Friday on his birthday he is getting back to normal life.  Today we visited him and my Mom and he had fixed an old computer and gave it to Spider Droid.

Tomorrow my brother is coming over and he, SD and myself are going to do a little work in the bathroom.  We have been without a bathroom sink for almost a week now.  I bought one at Menard's yesterday and we are going to put new floor tiles in while we were at it.  The girls will have an action packed day at Lincoln Park Zoo and Navy Pier while us men beat the bathroom into submission.

We have other day trips planned on Thursday and Friday.  I am also trying to write a few blog posts for next month's blogging A to Z which starts this Sunday.  We are relaxing and enjoying.  This accounts for no posts since Saturday. 

Hope you all are having a great week.