T'was the Monday before Thanksgiving...
Good Monday morning brave readers! We had a fabulous weekend, or one I really enjoyed, we cleaned, cooked and bowled - was fabulous :) So far I've made 3 batches of fudge, 2 of which have come out perfectly, the first turned into a mass of good and while tasty could only be eaten with a spoon.
As some of you know we recently parted ways with our cat. A sad day in our house, but a necessity - she needed more of our attention than we could give and was starting to have some behavioral problems. So during our "the cat is leaving" conversations with the kids we discussed a replacement pet - the goal being a pet that would require less attention than a cat. We started out with a snail, we've had a snail before - I liked it, it required little of my attention and only smelled when it died. From snail we moved to fish, which I immediately said no to... I always end up cleaning the tank and having had my own pet fish through out the years have disliked that task immensely.
On to turtle... not a bad choice, but a little too large for my liking. At this point I might have suggested a snake or spider but you know me... at some point I'd freak out and either squish the spider or try and get Dan to do it for me. I wanted whatever it was to fit in a small box on top of our short bookcase in the living room, so something small that doesn't mind us not being there during the day and doesn't mind getting man-handled by kids after 5pm.
Enter the hamster, a nocturnal creature, our Chinese Dwarf Hamster is the size of my palm. Her name is Rosita Vine McCullough, Rosie for short. So far she loves her wheel and is great at getting around the house in her exercise ball. She escaped once and after we caught her was calm enough to hang out on my arm while we talked to her and gave her a little pet on the head. We bought a Hamster training book and we're going to try some of the Hamster training tricks in it to get her and the kids use to handling each other :)
mmm homemade granola bars are yummy! Come on over and try one!
University Settles With Christian Student Who Objected to Social-Work Assignment
[OK - just a quick preface to this rant.. some of you know me as sweet mild mannered me, not one for confrentation or arguing - mostly because its never worth it - and I realize that lately my blogs have been rants of some sort. Its seems to be my blog trigger for this month - must rant, must blog. So here we go, but rest assured some day I'll blog on something trival and it will leave you feeling empty - because you secretly love my rants. ]
I first read the above headline in an email newsletter I get through work, a paid subscription specifically designed for all of upper education across the country. It caught my eye as I scanned down the email, great another whining Christian making us all look bad. After all "University Settles With Christian Student Who Objected to Social-Work Assignment" sounds like a Christian didn't want to do some kind of community service/work related assignment, something that any reasonable student would do and this stupid sap was hiding behind his/her religious beliefs to get out of the work. Right? That's how I read the headline... seems a reasonable assumption to me.
With some chagrin I clicked the headline to see the story (click
here) and it turns out that the student had problems after declining to sign a letter to the Missouri state legislature "the assistant professor who directed her undergraduate social-work program, had accused her of violating the university’s Standards of Essential Functioning in Social Work Education after she refused to sign her name to a letter her entire class had written to the Missouri Legislature in support of homosexual adoption." Well come on now, that's a totally reasonable thing to decline to participate in - good grief! The girl did the right thing and should have been allowed to do so without penalty, I'm glad she's taken action, hopefully it will help all who participate in the program in the future.
I looked over the rest of the story and noticed the word "attacked" in reference to "several conservative groups". I'm so tired of news not actually being news, but being opinion tucked in and trimmed around details. Any time I read the newspaper, any publication really, I find my self reading defensively, having to pull out the meat of the story from the opinion, purposefully ignoring over half the article so I can actully figure out what happened.
Defensive reading skill courses coming to a school near you!
financial ludicrousness
I know it's not a word, but it fits... wait, it is a word - it's in the blogger dictionary! Anyway, I was listening to the Dave Ramsey show this afternoon and was appalled when a caller described how Capitol One, a major credit card company, deploys portable classrooms and takes them to schools and "teaches" children how to manage money!
The fellow said he spoke with one of the guys doing the set up for the trailer and he said by one of the life phases in Capitol One's "budget" they're showing kids how to use credit cards to purchase things they don't have money to buy. This is not responsible teaching, it's more like indoctrination! Or as the guys in my office like to say - "they're gas lighting you".
Makes me feel like taking out a full page ad in the paper offering classes on living w/o a credit card... *gasp* only spending what you make... Oh dear how will we ever survive!! Don't think I'm being a hypocrite... We don't have a single credit card and haven't for about 5 years now. Sure it's super scary at first, I always thought... What if my car breaks down? What if what if... It's all worry and worry is a fruitless waste of time... Might even be a sin! So we've just been doing the best we can with what we've got.
Ok enough ranting... though one last quick thought... if I talk about buying a new car again just give me a nice little smack to the head. That should remind me. I hate car payments!
