Monday, February 24, 2014
Gone for a While
I'm having surgery on Wednesday morning, so I might not be around here for a while. I don't own a laptop, so I'll have to feel up to sitting at my computer to actually do any writing. I'm hoping to recover fairly quickly, but I also could take a while to feel better. I'm not going to rush anything. Stay safe out there.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Getting Around
The Evil Genius family is all snug and cosy at home for what I hope will be the last snow day of this winter. The high temperature is supposed to be 39 degrees this afternoon, but the snow was bad enough this morning that I'm glad school was cancelled. In my opinion, it would have been seriously courting bad accidents to try to get the kids to school this morning. Mr. BTEG is also able to work from home, and does so regularly once a week in any case, so he and his group are all working from home today.
I can't wait for the warmer temps this week! We're running out of room to put all this snow. Our driveway has been getting narrower and narrower. On the other hand, it's also been getting longer. The piles of snow probably extend out past the curb by at least a foot. Which is good, because in related news, we got a second car!
We've been a one-car family for years. It can be one of the hazards of being a family with a stay-at-home-mom. With Mr. BTEG working downtown and able to take a bus, the burden wasn't too great, although I had to drive him to and from the bus stop. What drove me to the breaking point was the Musician's teaching experience requirements. Twice a week, she has to be at the community college for classes for a couple of hours in the morning, then the rest of the day at the high school. Three times a week, she has been assisting a teacher in the classroom, first at an elementary school, then the intermediate school, then the middle school. Again, this is only for about an hour and a half in the morning, then it's off to the high school. For complicated issues, which I'm not going to discuss here for privacy reasons, the Musician hasn't yet gotten her driver's license. So I spent a good bit of morning driving, then picked the girls up later at the high school, then had to pick up Mr. BTEG at the bus stop, then many evenings the Dancer goes to dance classes. So this second car was a true blessing. Mr. BTEG now handles getting himself to and from the bus stop, the Dancer to the high school, and the Musician to the college on those mornings. My sanity has been restored.
I can't wait for the warmer temps this week! We're running out of room to put all this snow. Our driveway has been getting narrower and narrower. On the other hand, it's also been getting longer. The piles of snow probably extend out past the curb by at least a foot. Which is good, because in related news, we got a second car!
We've been a one-car family for years. It can be one of the hazards of being a family with a stay-at-home-mom. With Mr. BTEG working downtown and able to take a bus, the burden wasn't too great, although I had to drive him to and from the bus stop. What drove me to the breaking point was the Musician's teaching experience requirements. Twice a week, she has to be at the community college for classes for a couple of hours in the morning, then the rest of the day at the high school. Three times a week, she has been assisting a teacher in the classroom, first at an elementary school, then the intermediate school, then the middle school. Again, this is only for about an hour and a half in the morning, then it's off to the high school. For complicated issues, which I'm not going to discuss here for privacy reasons, the Musician hasn't yet gotten her driver's license. So I spent a good bit of morning driving, then picked the girls up later at the high school, then had to pick up Mr. BTEG at the bus stop, then many evenings the Dancer goes to dance classes. So this second car was a true blessing. Mr. BTEG now handles getting himself to and from the bus stop, the Dancer to the high school, and the Musician to the college on those mornings. My sanity has been restored.
Monday, February 03, 2014
How to Cope
I wasn't and am still not really moved by the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I've never seen any of his movies; I'm not really a big movie watcher. Without a personal connection, he's just another person whose drug use got the better of him. He's just being talked about because he happened to be famous. What moved me to blog about this was when people started talking about his using drugs to cope with his demons, whatever they were, and discussion has since moved on (in other places on the net) to people using drugs to self-medicate for mental issues like bipolar.
I did a little looking around in the internet, and I really can't find anything to go on that this actor had mental illness, or what his demons were. The only thing I found remotely interesting was that Hoffman's father was apparently not around during Hoffman's childhood. Studies have shown children of single parent families are much more likely to use drugs, so that could very well have been a contributing issue, since Hoffman's first go-round with drugs was when he was in college.
It is always sad when children lose their father, and it is also sad for Hoffman's girlfriend and mother of their children, who now is a single parent herself. What bothers me is the people that I feel are almost making excuses for taking drugs or being an alcoholic by pushing the self-medication angle. While I've never felt the urge to self-medicate, and indeed my violent reaction to some painkillers means I'd probably not find relief in drugs, I have felt the urge to be self-destructive in the worst way possible: suicide.
In my case, I would have left behind my loving husband, who would have been torn apart, and my two daughters, who would have had to immediately struggle through their crucial teen years without a mother. The effect on their lives would have been catastrophic. My death would have also affected other family members, in ways I can't say as clearly how. Yet at some times suicide seemed so tempting as a way out of my mental pain. If you haven't been clinically depressed or otherwise mentally ill, I don't know that it can be described. There were bad things going on in my life; there were great things happening in my life. Suicidal ideation goes beyond that. It's not relevant here to try to go into more detail.
The point I want to make is that when someone overdoses like this, there shouldn't be excuses made, or an attempt to explain the drug use. What really needs to be said is that drug use to escape, especially to escape mental illness, is dangerous, and that kind of drug use should be discouraged. Proper medicines for mental illness help you feel normal, able to function. They don't make you high; they don't take you away. It's also good to have other, non-pharmaceutical ways to help you cope, like exercising or knitting.
Sometimes when my mind hasn't worked right, I've had to cling to what I knew was true, even if my mind didn't believe it *at that moment.* Ace says that even if more recreational drugs to become legal, there should still be a message out there that they are bad for you, and it's best not to use them. If there is general strong societal disapproval of these drugs, could someone tempted to use them to cope, convince himself that shooting up would only make things worse, if he had heard it often enough? I don't know. I do believe that sometimes it can help to hear "Don't" until you can believe it for yourself.
I did a little looking around in the internet, and I really can't find anything to go on that this actor had mental illness, or what his demons were. The only thing I found remotely interesting was that Hoffman's father was apparently not around during Hoffman's childhood. Studies have shown children of single parent families are much more likely to use drugs, so that could very well have been a contributing issue, since Hoffman's first go-round with drugs was when he was in college.
It is always sad when children lose their father, and it is also sad for Hoffman's girlfriend and mother of their children, who now is a single parent herself. What bothers me is the people that I feel are almost making excuses for taking drugs or being an alcoholic by pushing the self-medication angle. While I've never felt the urge to self-medicate, and indeed my violent reaction to some painkillers means I'd probably not find relief in drugs, I have felt the urge to be self-destructive in the worst way possible: suicide.
In my case, I would have left behind my loving husband, who would have been torn apart, and my two daughters, who would have had to immediately struggle through their crucial teen years without a mother. The effect on their lives would have been catastrophic. My death would have also affected other family members, in ways I can't say as clearly how. Yet at some times suicide seemed so tempting as a way out of my mental pain. If you haven't been clinically depressed or otherwise mentally ill, I don't know that it can be described. There were bad things going on in my life; there were great things happening in my life. Suicidal ideation goes beyond that. It's not relevant here to try to go into more detail.
The point I want to make is that when someone overdoses like this, there shouldn't be excuses made, or an attempt to explain the drug use. What really needs to be said is that drug use to escape, especially to escape mental illness, is dangerous, and that kind of drug use should be discouraged. Proper medicines for mental illness help you feel normal, able to function. They don't make you high; they don't take you away. It's also good to have other, non-pharmaceutical ways to help you cope, like exercising or knitting.
Sometimes when my mind hasn't worked right, I've had to cling to what I knew was true, even if my mind didn't believe it *at that moment.* Ace says that even if more recreational drugs to become legal, there should still be a message out there that they are bad for you, and it's best not to use them. If there is general strong societal disapproval of these drugs, could someone tempted to use them to cope, convince himself that shooting up would only make things worse, if he had heard it often enough? I don't know. I do believe that sometimes it can help to hear "Don't" until you can believe it for yourself.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Parenthood as an Option
I've been thinking a lot about something the Dancer said to me the other day. We've been talking about the role of marriage and having children in our current society. So many secular couples decide that they absolutely don't want children, or that they'll have them "when they're ready," whatever that means. Even if "when they're ready" gets pushed into their thirties, or even later. At which point they freak about being infertile, but that could be a whole separate post.
Anyway, I think that the Christian couple should definitely have children, if God blesses them with offspring. There are many couples who deal with the pain of infertility; there is a blog out there run by Lutherans for families who deal with this. But there are Christian couples out there who aren't having children at all, and I'm not certain that is the Christian way to do things. Of course, when I really thought about it, "being Christian equals having children," isn't something specifically mandated in the Bible, is it? God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. Is that just meant for filling the earth? But also, God also talks about how children are a blessing, a heritage, from the Lord. And He talks in the Bible about putting the lonely in families. Despite St. Paul's praise for the single life, it seems like most often the family is God's ideal for how people should live. A man and a woman, joined in holy matrimony, bringing up children in the way they should go.
What the Dancer said, though, was when we were talking about a friend of hers. This friend is one of four kids. Mom has abandoned the family, and Dad is not always a great father. Not bad enough for social services, definitely, but sometimes rather absent with affection and effort. I said perhaps the parents should not have had children at all. The Dancer quickly pointed out that I've previously said people should have children. I did say that. So, what then? I told her, then, that they should have grown up and accepted parental responsibilities. But that doesn't seem like something that is done very often today either. See Wendy Davis as an example. She is running for elected office mainly on her status as a "single mother," when for a lot of time she wasn't even the primary parent because it wasn't "a good time" for to be a mother! Wasn't a good time? The good time to be a mother, is when you have kids.
I keep going back to what the Dancer said to me. All I've ever wanted to do was be a wife and mother, as primary vocation. Should you have a calling to be a parent, or should you do it because it's what God wants? Certainly not everyone is called to marriage.
Being a parent isn't easy, but then neither is being a grown-up. People not only want to put off child-rearing; they want to put off marriage, as I've written about previously. Instead, it's all about you, all the time. Wendy Davis left her kids behind literally for her career and her ambitions. You shouldn't even get married until you have a great career, and you've traveled the world, and done a bunch of other stuff that somehow is necessary to do. And then you shouldn't have kids until you're ready. And then what? Are we going to end up like Japan? A very large percentage of young men and women show no interest in getting married, or even dating. They're too wrapped up in their careers. In other words, themselves.
I'm definitely not perfect at this, but part of being a family is living for something beside the self. Definitely within a marriage, even more so with kids. Spouses, after all, are generally able to care for themselves. Babies need everything done for them, and even as they grow, they still need things like laundry and cooking done for them for many years; money has to be spent for their clothes, toys, school needs. Driving them places seems never-ending. But I'm afraid, as fallen humans, that society won't stop in the pursuit of selfishness until it ends up like the Japanese. A healthy society is one that values marriage and family. Maybe that's because God designed it that way?
Anyway, I think that the Christian couple should definitely have children, if God blesses them with offspring. There are many couples who deal with the pain of infertility; there is a blog out there run by Lutherans for families who deal with this. But there are Christian couples out there who aren't having children at all, and I'm not certain that is the Christian way to do things. Of course, when I really thought about it, "being Christian equals having children," isn't something specifically mandated in the Bible, is it? God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. Is that just meant for filling the earth? But also, God also talks about how children are a blessing, a heritage, from the Lord. And He talks in the Bible about putting the lonely in families. Despite St. Paul's praise for the single life, it seems like most often the family is God's ideal for how people should live. A man and a woman, joined in holy matrimony, bringing up children in the way they should go.
What the Dancer said, though, was when we were talking about a friend of hers. This friend is one of four kids. Mom has abandoned the family, and Dad is not always a great father. Not bad enough for social services, definitely, but sometimes rather absent with affection and effort. I said perhaps the parents should not have had children at all. The Dancer quickly pointed out that I've previously said people should have children. I did say that. So, what then? I told her, then, that they should have grown up and accepted parental responsibilities. But that doesn't seem like something that is done very often today either. See Wendy Davis as an example. She is running for elected office mainly on her status as a "single mother," when for a lot of time she wasn't even the primary parent because it wasn't "a good time" for to be a mother! Wasn't a good time? The good time to be a mother, is when you have kids.
I keep going back to what the Dancer said to me. All I've ever wanted to do was be a wife and mother, as primary vocation. Should you have a calling to be a parent, or should you do it because it's what God wants? Certainly not everyone is called to marriage.
Being a parent isn't easy, but then neither is being a grown-up. People not only want to put off child-rearing; they want to put off marriage, as I've written about previously. Instead, it's all about you, all the time. Wendy Davis left her kids behind literally for her career and her ambitions. You shouldn't even get married until you have a great career, and you've traveled the world, and done a bunch of other stuff that somehow is necessary to do. And then you shouldn't have kids until you're ready. And then what? Are we going to end up like Japan? A very large percentage of young men and women show no interest in getting married, or even dating. They're too wrapped up in their careers. In other words, themselves.
I'm definitely not perfect at this, but part of being a family is living for something beside the self. Definitely within a marriage, even more so with kids. Spouses, after all, are generally able to care for themselves. Babies need everything done for them, and even as they grow, they still need things like laundry and cooking done for them for many years; money has to be spent for their clothes, toys, school needs. Driving them places seems never-ending. But I'm afraid, as fallen humans, that society won't stop in the pursuit of selfishness until it ends up like the Japanese. A healthy society is one that values marriage and family. Maybe that's because God designed it that way?
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Latest Sewing Project
I've temporarily gone from sewing to cleaning up/re-organizing my sewing area. I got to a point where having so much clutter slowed me down too much; it was harder to try to work around the clutter than to just try to neaten things up. But I never put up a picture of a project I worked on back in November, a pair of dance shorts for the Dancer.
I've heard lots of good things about Jalie patterns for making dancewear, so I picked up Jalie 3247, Crop Tops and Shorts in 24 sizes. That link will take you to the pattern, being sold by msbonnieb on eBay. Jalie is a Canadian company, and they don't seem to have a lot of retailers in the U.S. It was easiest for me to go the eBay route.
Here is a picture of the pattern mostly laid out on my sewing table. I wish this would have come in more than one paper piece. As you can see, some of those larger pattern pieces are huge, and having to maneuver that large sheet of paper around got a little difficult.
I've heard lots of good things about Jalie patterns for making dancewear, so I picked up Jalie 3247, Crop Tops and Shorts in 24 sizes. That link will take you to the pattern, being sold by msbonnieb on eBay. Jalie is a Canadian company, and they don't seem to have a lot of retailers in the U.S. It was easiest for me to go the eBay route.
Here is a picture of the pattern mostly laid out on my sewing table. I wish this would have come in more than one paper piece. As you can see, some of those larger pattern pieces are huge, and having to maneuver that large sheet of paper around got a little difficult.
And above you can see how the shorts turned out! She likes them, although they are a little low in the rise for her. But she wears a leotard under them, so it's not too bad, and I think she's gotten used to them. I have enough material left over from making the girls bathing suits, many years ago, that I can make several pairs of shorts for the Dancer, making the pattern a pretty good investment! I have the next pair of shorts, the other pattern view, almost done; I just need some red thread for the hemming and attaching the elastic. I hate going to JoAnn's anymore, and the smaller sewing stores don't always have convenient hours. I may just have to mail order. I'm a little unhappy with having to do that for such a small purchase, but those red shorts have been almost done for quite a while now!
Friday, January 10, 2014
Even More on Marriage
Someone else has taken on the important task of encouraging young women to put off that boring growing up stuff, and spend some more time in the kiddie pool. Her name is Ms. Vanessa Elizabeth, and she writes for the Huffington Post. Rather than give her screed more hits, I point you to a rebuttal of her rather juvenile prattling, this time written by Katrina Fernandez at patheos. I'm not sure how old Fernandez is, but as a matron of forty-five, I find Ms. Vanessa to be rather quaint, like a toddler. Also like a toddler, however, she has apparently never developed the ability to look past her own immediate wants.
Yes, Ms. Thang will get some laughs out of hanging out naked in front of a window and making strangers uncomfortable in a public place, just like a toddler might find it funny to fling poo. And making out with a stranger, or dating two people at once until it blows up in your face, that's all just fun and games. Until coming home from your job and watching a marathon session of Girls while eating an entire jar of Nutella just doesn't cut it anymore. The problem is, a large part of your age group, if they are smart, will have long ago moved on and grown up. They'll have learned important lessons about not only about a maintaining a lifelong marital relationship, but about friendship, and aging, and grief. If they've been blessed with children, they'll have learned even more about unconditional love and sacrifice. They'll all be in the summer of their lives, but some of them will have planted seeds that will provide fruit to last them into the fall and winter seasons of their lives. Vanessa and her ilk will just be struggling to get some plants started in rocky soil. Which path sounds wiser to you?
Yes, Ms. Thang will get some laughs out of hanging out naked in front of a window and making strangers uncomfortable in a public place, just like a toddler might find it funny to fling poo. And making out with a stranger, or dating two people at once until it blows up in your face, that's all just fun and games. Until coming home from your job and watching a marathon session of Girls while eating an entire jar of Nutella just doesn't cut it anymore. The problem is, a large part of your age group, if they are smart, will have long ago moved on and grown up. They'll have learned important lessons about not only about a maintaining a lifelong marital relationship, but about friendship, and aging, and grief. If they've been blessed with children, they'll have learned even more about unconditional love and sacrifice. They'll all be in the summer of their lives, but some of them will have planted seeds that will provide fruit to last them into the fall and winter seasons of their lives. Vanessa and her ilk will just be struggling to get some plants started in rocky soil. Which path sounds wiser to you?
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Pony Powered
So in the world of My Little Pony, the city of Manehatten still has horse-drawn carriages. Well, technically horse-drawn taxicabs. So is it more or less exploitative of ponies to ride in horse-drawn carriages than it is of humans to do so?
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Snowed In
The weather outside is frightful at Casa de Evil Genius. There's a couple feet of snow piled up outside the back door, but it's hard to tell how much of that is snow drift considering the wind is also blowing pretty hard. Fortunately, Mr. BTEG is on vacation from work, and the girls are still on school vacation. Mr. BTEG went out to buy groceries so the fridge is stocked, and we're ready to settle in and wait for the storm to finish. And as Small Dead Animals points out, thank God for fossil fuels as we sit here with warmth, light and computers.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
2014
Happy New Year to all my readers, and I do hope this year is happy. Politically, it's looking like it's going to be a real train wreck, but I hope as many of us as possible can find happiness in our families and friendly communities.
I do have things I'd like to accomplish this year, but I'm balancing that with the fact that life tends to get in the way quite a bit with me at the moment. If the Musician can get her driver's license this month, that will be a big help. I like having plans and goals to strive for; it keeps me motivated. But I'm going to keep them secret for now.
What's going on with you for 2014?
I do have things I'd like to accomplish this year, but I'm balancing that with the fact that life tends to get in the way quite a bit with me at the moment. If the Musician can get her driver's license this month, that will be a big help. I like having plans and goals to strive for; it keeps me motivated. But I'm going to keep them secret for now.
What's going on with you for 2014?
Friday, December 20, 2013
Homeschooling in Ohio
So Ohio SB 248 has come and gone. It was going to be a bill that would have brought in Children's Services to decide whether or not homeschooling would be "in the best interests of the child." Right from the start, Children's Services would have been involved with you, and your children, deciding whether you had the right to homeschool. A complete invasion of privacy, and a strong blow to homeschooling rights.
Unfortunately, the withdrawal of the bill still leaves me dissatisfied. In the statement to withdraw the bill by Ohio Senator Cafaro, she states, "the true intent of the bill to curtail child abuse has been eclipsed by the issue of homeschooling." What did she think was going to happen? Of course homeschooling parents were going to be up in arms by the idea of letting the State decide what was in the best interests of their own children. This bill was all about... regulating homeschooling! I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to be put off by political double-speak. This is simply another case where the laws were not administered, so politicians want to write more laws. In this case, I believe this senator saw a nice opportunity to gain State control over homeschooling families. Too bad for her that many people are aware and appreciative of all of the educational opportunities available, even if they aren't availing themselves of a given choice at a certain time. Too bad also that people are getting fed up with overreach by the State, and are pushing back, at least from the State's point of view. I think that the next bill that Cafaro comes up with, "for the children," also deserves some close scrutiny.
Unfortunately, the withdrawal of the bill still leaves me dissatisfied. In the statement to withdraw the bill by Ohio Senator Cafaro, she states, "the true intent of the bill to curtail child abuse has been eclipsed by the issue of homeschooling." What did she think was going to happen? Of course homeschooling parents were going to be up in arms by the idea of letting the State decide what was in the best interests of their own children. This bill was all about... regulating homeschooling! I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to be put off by political double-speak. This is simply another case where the laws were not administered, so politicians want to write more laws. In this case, I believe this senator saw a nice opportunity to gain State control over homeschooling families. Too bad for her that many people are aware and appreciative of all of the educational opportunities available, even if they aren't availing themselves of a given choice at a certain time. Too bad also that people are getting fed up with overreach by the State, and are pushing back, at least from the State's point of view. I think that the next bill that Cafaro comes up with, "for the children," also deserves some close scrutiny.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Health
I've been suffering from health problems for the last week or so, which have put a real dent in my day-to-day life, and my blogging has not been important at all. I'm glad I have Mr. BTEG, and I'm glad that I am a stay-at-home mom that can take the time to rest up, and not have to struggle to get back to paid employment. I've been going through some depression which was related tangentially to my other issues, so that's why the blogging went down. But I have a good Christmas to look forward to, plus the Musician's 18th birthday! So I guess I'm feeling better. :)
Monday, December 02, 2013
Just Two Things
I was just reading some comments by some lovely people who think the government should be responsible for healthcare and education. Why does my mind go to: the government should provide healthcare, and education. Two things, healthcare, education and housing. The government should provide three things, healthcare, education, housing, and childcare. The government should provide four things....
Friday, November 29, 2013
Self-Expression
I'm going around to my various social media sites updating my headers and profile pictures and so forth, for Christmas! It brought to mind something I just read recently about how wrong it is that women feature their children so often in profile pictures instead of themselves or something related to their own activities. How absurd. I've made the choice to make my children a huge part of my life. And because they still live at home, they are involved in every important time in my life, as well as the everyday ones. I enjoy seeing them happy, just like I enjoy seeing my husband happy. My husband doesn't like having pictures taken of himself, though. And I think my daughters look far more attractive in pictures than I do. :)
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Thanksgiving Break
This Thanksgiving, I will be most thankful for a break from everyday life. I drive my husband to and from the bus stop, I drive the Musician around to her college class and her student teaching and the high school, and I drive the Dancer to and from the high school and all her dance classes. In between, I'm trying to keep up with household chores and all the things involved in having a high school senior, such as getting senior pictures taken that we can afford to buy, and preparing for her graduation party. I also need to make time to do things that interest me, such as sewing and other hobbies. And at the moment, I'm just about at the end of my strength. Mr. BTEG worked from home today, and both the girls have started the holiday break, so they were all home today and I really let things go. I'm hoping that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll be able to accomplish what I want after this rest.
I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday weekend.
I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday weekend.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Sunday, November 03, 2013
Evolve or Devolve?
I've been noticing more and more spelling errors, the kind that spellcheck won't catch, but that still jar me. Popular misspellings generally involve homonyms such as bear/bare or steel/steal. I was unhappy recently to see someone who writes for a living use the word "canon" instead of "cannon." I'm not ready to get out the smelling salts and the fainting couch to bemoan the death of the English language, but I do think spelling, grammar, etc. are important. I wonder if less reading is involved in poor spelling, if people don't see words used correctly and therefore don't know correct spellings. That theory makes sense when I also see idiomatic phrases that people get completely wrong. You know the ones, like "It's a doggie dog world." In this case, people are hearing these phrases pronounced poorly, and never the see the difference elsewhere. Of course, I've heard spelling is being phased out of many curriculum, even in the lower grades. That can't help either.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Well, That's Awkward
From one of my doll blogs, I thought I had made a new friend in the blogging community. Yesterday, she was following my blog, and linked to my blog from hers. This morning, not only is all of that gone, but she deleted a comment she left on my blog. My only guess is that she saw something she didn't like about me. Maybe she wandered over here? I have no idea, since she chose not to tell me. She's from Europe, so I would hope she would not judge me based on my political views of what is happening in my country, but a lot of Europeans do think we should run things how they do.
I was afraid about linking my doll blogs to this blog, but I would hope I can discuss my hobbies with people and keep politics out of the way. Honestly, I don't want to know a lot about people outside the hobbies I read about on their blogs. I might not like their personalities or beliefs, but I do like seeing pictures and reading reviews and news about things that I am interested in. So I would hope that anyone visiting here from a doll blog would still want to engage me in doll talk. I keep my "identities" separate enough.
As far as this country goes, it seems that we are beyond reasoning and compromise and middle ground. No one outside the far right seems to particularly care that Obamacare, for example, was rammed through without a single piece of conservative input. We've been labeled for all time as evil, stupid, greedy, bad, and there's an end to it. If you don't like me, there's not much I can do about it. I'm not going to change who I am. If you want to engage me on a topic, make sure you bring facts and reasoning. I'm going to keep going and looking out for my top priority, my family.
I was afraid about linking my doll blogs to this blog, but I would hope I can discuss my hobbies with people and keep politics out of the way. Honestly, I don't want to know a lot about people outside the hobbies I read about on their blogs. I might not like their personalities or beliefs, but I do like seeing pictures and reading reviews and news about things that I am interested in. So I would hope that anyone visiting here from a doll blog would still want to engage me in doll talk. I keep my "identities" separate enough.
As far as this country goes, it seems that we are beyond reasoning and compromise and middle ground. No one outside the far right seems to particularly care that Obamacare, for example, was rammed through without a single piece of conservative input. We've been labeled for all time as evil, stupid, greedy, bad, and there's an end to it. If you don't like me, there's not much I can do about it. I'm not going to change who I am. If you want to engage me on a topic, make sure you bring facts and reasoning. I'm going to keep going and looking out for my top priority, my family.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Who's Fooling Who?
Anyone else involved in any Yahoo Groups? I'm in several, all doll-related but one. Yahoo is currently getting a lot of criticism (well-deserved, I think) for the NEO roll-out that happened a few weeks ago to Yahoo Groups. However, my point for writing this is that Yahoo has found new places to put ads on the Groups page, and on that same page, Yahoo thanks Group users for being good customers. Um, yeah, we're not the customers. The customers are the companies that place the ads. We the Group users are the product. That doesn't stop me from using Groups, although the stupid changes they've made have made me significantly cut back my page views. I just know where I stand.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
A Short Post on Race
I'm annoyed that I got scolded as a college freshman by a professor because "there's no such thing as different races," yet sending my daughters through Girl Scouts I always had to declare their race (I usually put: human.) Now because of No Child Left Behind and a student teacher cooperative thingy that the Musician is doing with the local community college, I not only have to say whether or not she is Hispanic, but also then go ahead and list her race. The whole mess is estupido.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Compare and Contrast
I'm currently trying to get through a book called Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Life in Victorian England. I'm not sure why I'm not more interested in the book, except maybe because it is certainly very discouraging. Given the way that women were pushed aside, children were viewed as nuisances, and girl children were seen as household servants, in the author's examples, I'm surprised any ideas of anything resembling a modern, intact family survived until today. And this book features middle-class families, not the poor who were busy trying to survive, nor the rich who handed the children to nannies and embarked on affairs. Anyway, the book has made me think about my own role in my family, compared to the role of women then as this book puts forth.
In some ways, you see, my tasks as a stay-at-home mother are not very different from what the book describes as the expected tasks: nurturing the family, running the household, performing any chores one's family couldn't afford to pay another to perform, perhaps even teach the children. Of course, if you look at the stories related by those who grew up inside the Victorian homes described in the book, mothers did not always do the best job, judging by today's standards. Infants were viewed as vampires, feeding off of their mothers. Middle-class mothers preferred to be as ignorant as possible regarding the daily care of their children. Mothers, because of their own poor education, were hopeless at keeping the household books, and made poor teachers for their daughters, and their sons, before the boys left for school. Yikes!
One of the points made in the book, however, was how little time mothers had for themselves, once they finished all the duties they were expected to perform, well done or not. But really, how much free time do mothers have today, whether they stay at home or work outside the home? Precious little, from what most moms say. Even women who don't have children often lament, on places like Ravelry, that they do not have time enough to pursue their outside interests, such as knitting. I often feel like I don't have time myself to do the things that I want, not that I have to do. Of course, Mr. BTEG feels the same way, and I'm sure Victorian husbands often felt they did not enough free time either. I just find that bit interesting. There may be much to pity Victorian women for, but there are things that we hold in common.
In some ways, you see, my tasks as a stay-at-home mother are not very different from what the book describes as the expected tasks: nurturing the family, running the household, performing any chores one's family couldn't afford to pay another to perform, perhaps even teach the children. Of course, if you look at the stories related by those who grew up inside the Victorian homes described in the book, mothers did not always do the best job, judging by today's standards. Infants were viewed as vampires, feeding off of their mothers. Middle-class mothers preferred to be as ignorant as possible regarding the daily care of their children. Mothers, because of their own poor education, were hopeless at keeping the household books, and made poor teachers for their daughters, and their sons, before the boys left for school. Yikes!
One of the points made in the book, however, was how little time mothers had for themselves, once they finished all the duties they were expected to perform, well done or not. But really, how much free time do mothers have today, whether they stay at home or work outside the home? Precious little, from what most moms say. Even women who don't have children often lament, on places like Ravelry, that they do not have time enough to pursue their outside interests, such as knitting. I often feel like I don't have time myself to do the things that I want, not that I have to do. Of course, Mr. BTEG feels the same way, and I'm sure Victorian husbands often felt they did not enough free time either. I just find that bit interesting. There may be much to pity Victorian women for, but there are things that we hold in common.
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