My longtime readers will remember the birth of our only son (after four girls), back in 2004, right before things started to get a little hectic and lead us down a rather new and different path. Well, hard as it is to believe, two and a half years have passed since his birth, and I'm finding myself with a daughter a scant year and a half from being officially a teenager, and a son quickly transitioning from toddler to preschooler. Quinn is, as have been most of our children, quite a precociou...
As the discussion on JU revolves increasingly around food, I thought it interesting to add my little piece. We have a couple vegetarians around here who have discussed their food choices. While I respect everyone's different preferences, I've come to realize a fair amount about diets over the years. I am a "semi-vegetarian"; which pretty much makes me the Rodney Dangerfield of eating habits. Traditional meat and potatoes folks can't comprehend why I eschew all but the occasional offering of r...
OK, since a few of you have chosen to put recipes on your blogs, I'm going to toss out a contribution of mine (since I'm making it tonight). This is a very easy recipe that can be made without a lot of trouble, but it's a little costly to many of us due to the ingredients (although I personally always have curry powder and extra virgin olive oil on hand so it's made by ingredients we usually have readily available): Ingredients I don't use precise measures; I cook to taste): Extra Virgin O...
Well, the "official" ruling is in from CPS, and our case has been closed. The investigator found no evidence of neglect on our behalf regarding the children. While I took what many perceived to be a "hardline stance" with CPS, they made it clear that they felt we were very cooperative with the investigation. I returned all phone calls within 24 hours, and followed up with written communication. At no time, however, did I allow them to enter our home (although I did allow them to intervie...
Since this will likely be my last time online before Thanksgiving, I'm posting early. A little over a year ago, after personal circumstances had pushed us to the brink of homelessness, we arrived via Greyhound in the Texas Panhandle. With about $1200 to our name and my weekly unemployment check to tide us over, we purchased a car, paid our deposits and set up house in the first home we could truly call our own. Our first Thanksgiving here really wasn't OURS. We spent it with new friends, a...
Well, yesterday we finally set about the task that falls next on our self reliance checklist. We woke up and organized the materials we had compiled to install the woodstove that has set in our living room as a cat perch for about three months (we bought early in the season, figuring there would be a demand this fall). The initial plan was to go up and out at a 45 degree angle, so we bought elbows that could be adjusted for that purpose. Our local handyman was initially unavailable, so it loo...
One of the most inevitable things I have to deal with as a homeschool activist is parents who consider homeschooling as a reaction to events that are going on around them. In the wake of Columbine, every board member of our homeschool group in Wisconsin received at least 20 calls from parents who wanted to know how to homeschool their children because they feared raising their children in a world where incidents such as Columbine were a reality. While it seemed to be a wonderful PR boon, ther...
Another blogger's article on not celebrating Halloween got me to thinking about a subject that has been enar and dear to us for years. We're holiday cheapskates. Sure, we celebrate, but in a very simple way. Our presents are not lavish tributes to our indebtedness, and we focus far more on togetherness than anything material. BUT...the fun begins in the days AFTER the "big holidays". See, as I have detailed regularly, I have a VERY staunch rule of never paying retail. The idea of paying fu...
I am an aspiring back-to earther. Later today, I will pick up my newly acquired woodstove (I bought it early in case there's a run on them this year). Next month, I will have it installed. Our hope is to be completely independent of natural gas within the next two years, but we may be able to reach the goal in one. We hope to eventually grow most of our own produce, raise a few chickens, and, within 15 years, be "off the grid" as far as electricity is concerned. Our purchasing and lifestyle d...
There's an old parable from the east. It's daoist, or buddhist, or something, and I'm sure i'll butcher it, but it serves to illustrate my point: A mouse is running from a lion. As he runs, he fails to see the cliff up ahead. He tumbles over the cliff, only to grasp a strawberry vine hanging from the side of the cliff. As he hangs on, he sees tigers below, waiting for a tasty morsel to drop. He looks at the vine, which is slowly being pulled from the cliff by his added weight, and at the end ...
I arrived home the other day, to find that, as my wife had her back turned, our ten month old son had quietly slipped the confines of his diaper, and was hanging in the breeze. It should have been a moment of laughter, perhaps even a Kodak moment to embarass him with on the first date. But I definitely know better than to snap a picture (I know families who have had their children removed forever and had the brand of "sex offender" permanently stamped upon them for just such innocent snapshot...
For those who haven't gathered, I am a conservative Christian. And I am unapologetically so. As conservative Christians, who homeschool our children, we are careful about the curriculum we choose. When the kids were younger, that extended to the books we had in our library. And so it was a surprise to us when we saw that a popular children's book series contained some material that we considered VERY offensive. We began to pick through the books to decide if we needed to get rid of the en...
OK, here's the scoop: Having been underemployed for almost 9 months, I have decided that my "traditional" job choices are going to be largely beyond my reach. So, I've been putting my old noggin to work on how to "reinvent" myself so that I don't have to deliver papers until I die. Next month, there will be a business expo here in town. Along with the expo will be a job fair where you can turn in your resume. So, here's where I'm going with this. Over 13 years' involvement in politics,...
OK, here's the backstory. In our quest towards eventually living off our 1/4 acre lot, I have been experimenting with various agricultural methods I have learned about through the years. One of those methods is a favorite among survivalists; the idea is, you plant potatoes inside a tire, then add dirt and tires to the potato plant as it grows upward. When the plant has fully grown, according to what I have heard, you will be able to pull off each tire, knock the dirt out, and have potatoes al...
When I went to the post office yesterday, I pulled out a letter that was hand printed and had no return address. Because many of my customers commonly send tips this way, I thought nothing of it. I opened it and out slid a pink piece of stationary with a butterfly on it. My appreciation for it ended with the reading of the first sentence. It was hate mail. I will decline to share the text with you, as it bears no relevance to the topic of this discussion and, frankly, it still stings. But...