To jump start my hopefully regular habit of blogging about life, homeschooling, and other such things, I begin with a list. Four months ago we began homeschooling our two children, daughter age 10 and son age 7. So here’s my list of:  Top Ten Really Cool Things So Far.

I have spent hours in the library with my children and with no rush or clocks to watch. I just let them wander and pick up books, and they let me wander too. It’s Heaven.

[I wrote this to a web group for parents of gifted kids. I was responding to a woman who’d had a very very bad day dealing with the public school officials regarding her gifted daughter. The longer I wrote the email the more it sounded like a blog entry. So I present it here now, only slightly edited.]

I so sympathize with you. I've left meetings shaking, crying, etc. After one early on, I told my husband I would never attend another meeting without him -as he keeps me balanced and logical that YES dear you did hear what I heard!!

Anyway, it was the emotional stress and toll of dealing with the "system" for me; the emotional stress of learning NOTHING new for months on end if not an entire year for my son; the emotional frustration of TAKs obsession and no social peers for my daughter that final led us to become: "Accidental Homeschoolers."

We have so many kind and caring friends and family. But my kids haven't been the only ones a little tongue tied recently at the frequently asked question, "So how's IT going?"

IT is the codeword for home schooling. This strikes me as funny now, but flash back a year and I probably would have asked the question with the same hesitancy.

The question also comes to my children in the form of "do

 Since beginning home school nearly a month ago, the kids have chosen the Otter as our mascot. Our colors are, as reflected in the 'M' logo - blue and tan - because, they said, otters live in both the water, the blue, and on the land or beach, the tan. We even found $2 Beanie Baby Otters (two of them) at the local resale shop, which now each reside on the children's desks.

A motto is still in the works, but my son has created a sort of symbol-stamp with the date to act as a 'copywrite' or seal (pun, ha ha) and my daughter altered a saying of mine: "Leave Mommy Alone" time to work with the new theme: CLAM Time.

Ok, well, only in the sense that I'm starting to want to tell the government (especially the state government) to get the heck out of my life - my children's lives.

Recently found in the Student Handbook of the Junior High and High School in my area the following statement in a BIG BLACK BOX.

"Refusal to Obey

If your daughter went to see Kit Kittredge: An American Girl this past Summer 2008 or is one of the millions who has read the six or more books that detail Kit’s life from 1929 to 1934, you might be fielding a few unusual questions from your daughter these days.

Every channel that reports news and nearly every sound byte has compared the recent 2008 economic “crisis” to The Great Depression. Some say it’s not even close, some say it’s “in the same family”, and some even say it’s got the potential to be worse. To your daughter (and many of adults) the details matter very little. What matters is that your daughter overheard that we’re facing another Great Depression.

When was the last time you, yours kids, you family really participated, just participated... in something?

I'm talking perhaps of nostalgia participate; the kind that rarely exists spontaneously anymore but a lot of the artificially created 'events' still do the trick. I'll be more specific. We all live in a town or city or some zip code, which typically has a department of recreation or even just a library. They host Clean-Ups, National Night Out, Plant a Tree, Free Storytellers, Christmas Parades, or weird festivals (Mosquito Festival, Collard Green Festival) etc.

But when was the last time "we" actually participated?

I'm not exactly what one would call knowledgeable about the military. If I was John McCain, I might say, "matters of the military aren't my strong suite." But that has never meant that I don't revere, respect, and appreciate the work of 99.9% of the members of the US All-Volunteer Forces.

Today on CNN, I was pleased to see a positive report regarding Iraq, the War on Terror, and especially our fine Military. After Abu Grabe and Guantanamo, the majority of our sacrafising troops took the blow of shame and humiliation that they did not deserve.

The report today was regarding Camp Buca a retention facility/jail/compound for suspected Al-Queda members. In the past, CNN itself had done stories on how this facility was almost like a training ground and any releases were simply flooding the area with newly indoctrinated, re-inspired, and Al-Queda trained individuals - even when some were not before.

Leave it to my son to bring me to my knees in laughter with the best thing I've heard all campaign season.

Son: Who is this Obama guy anyway?
Me: He is a man running for President.
Son: What happens if someone get there before he does?


Let it sink in....now L...A...U....G...H!

 It all started with a nice little note sent home from all the 3rd grade teachers to all the 3rd grade parents. They requested that we send in a little note of encouragement for our child to open right before they take the TAKS (Texas State required benchmark test) test. “Many of the children are very nervous” it says. And our note to encourage them to “just do their best” would be greatly appreciated.