Class Cancelled?!

The weekly discussion portion of my economics class was cancelled today! I have to say I was sorely disappointed. How strange is that?! When I was in college, a cancelled class meant I was still closer to the end of the semester, but I didn't have to sit through the lecture. Their loss, not mine! Ha! I remember waiting in a hallway and noticing that the teacher was late. We would all keep an eye on our watches and bolt as soon as it was ten minutes past the hour. That was school policy. If the teacher was ten minutes late, class was cancelled. Yay! But this is different. For once, I'm doing all the reading, writing all my thoughts and revelations, and making plans for what to ask about when we meet next. This morning there was an email, class is cancelled. It was an important excuse, so I don't blame her at all, but it is odd that at 38 years old I've finally got the bug to learn more. It's taken this long to detox from all my forced education, I guess. But next week will be even better because we will have so much more to talk about.

The positive of it is that I had more time today to read about Alexander and Caesar. Talk about opposites! I finished Alexander a couple days ago and was just in awe of his life and accomplishments. Sure he conquered peoples, but he was a gentleman about it and expanded his empire while expanding his people's love for him, even those he had conquered. But Caesar was a the perfect model of a modern politician. You could replace the names of those involved in the Roman Senate with Obama, Pelosi, McCain, etc. and you would think you were reading a news story. It's fascinating. I can't wait to read more.

I need a timeline on my wall though. I'm running into the problem of keeping things straight time-wise. I think I have plan though and I'll keep you updated when I work it out!

Tom & Jake

I'm at my wits end right now and I can't even express it in words. Uhg.

Park Repairs

Ok, I'm a little confused here. A while back, we were climbing around in the national park and came across a place where park rangers were planting some bushes and trees. The sign said that they were slowing erosion in the area by planting local flora. Now, erosion in the area is pretty natural. The rocks here funnel the rains (when they come) down the hills and into the valleys, digging deeper and deeper into the earth and dragging the sand and debris down the river beds. I thought humans were supposed to leave nature alone? Why would we put in all that effort to stop a natural process? I actually giggled thinking about what would happen the next time it rained and flooding waters ran away with all their precious plants. Funny too, to think that they are planting baby creosotes and grasses. I mean, those things are everywhere! I guess you could say at least those people have jobs, no matter how unproductive and useless the job may be.

But seriously, this stuff bothers me. It's just so stinkin' wasteful and totally against all the preaching the national park system does at us. The parks are not museums, sitting there perfect the way they are, unchanging through time. Why can't we just let the parks do what they've been doing for eternity? Things change people! Climates change. Earthquakes happen. Rains will come. Glaciers will melt. You can't stop that from happening any more than you can stop your children from growing up.

Power Baseball

How's this for a handsome crew?!

We went to Palm Springs last night to see a POWER Baseball game with Jake's Little League team. It tells you something about the weather that there are no day games at this stadium. Ha! I love going to these games. They are cheap for one thing. You always have a good seat. The kids run around and get snacks and stuff by themselves without worry. And they give away lots of swag, so you always come home with something. This time we came home with coupons for free Jack in the Box tacos, which we LOVE! A guy broke a bat with one hit, that was pretty cool. And they have a "Beer Batter". If he strikes out, beer is $1 for 10 minutes. For anyone reading this from my Economics class, yes, I did think to myself "The demand for beer is about to go up dramatically!".

Weather Changed!

Wednesday, it finally got over 100 degrees. Wow! It's officially summer and won't get below 90 for the next three months. But, after spending the last two summers in the desert, 90 is not bad at all. It's the up over 100's that are icky, especially when they have a bit of moisture with them.

Yesterday, I was sick. I felt completely exhausted. So I slept all day. I mean, really, all day. Got up for some dinner and watched "Michael Moore Hates America" with the family and then went back to bed and slept in this morning until 6am. By the way, that movie was VERY uplifting and really made us happy to watch. A couple weeks ago we watch "Bowling for Columbine". It was such a depressing movie and really gave nothing to the world but fear and loathing for our fellow Americans. Dan looked into a lot of the numbers that guy gave during the movie and none of them were accurate. And they showed this horrible "history" cartoon that was a blatant lie. Then, watching this movie, we see all the other things that were twisted around and lied about. The worst was watching interviews with people who love the movie and love Michael Moore's point. When asked what they would think if many of the statistics and interviews were false or misleading in the movie, they just said they wouldn't mind if that's what he has to do to get his point across. Seriously?! I about fell over. I don't know how many times we have been reading something, or watching something on TV and thought (out loud) I hope he's not exaggerating or misleading me because I really want to believe him. If he's lying about this, what else isn't true? Apparently there are many people out there that don't care about integrity and it just made me sad. There were so many scenes in Mike Wilson's movie that made you really happy to live in America though, that it made up for the stuff that made you think people were just evil. You left the movie thinking good thoughts, ready to make the world a better place because we all have that opportunity in the USA.

Ok, I'm done.

This morning there was a red headed woodpecker poking around in a yucca in the back yard. I love the way they sound. They make sound much like a prairie dog barking. I'll have to refill my hummingbird feeder. They love that thing!

Attempting a New Habit

The boys came to me a couple days ago and were upset because they were bored. They said they had no purpose and needed something to do, not just more entertainment but work or something. I told them I'd be happy to help them find a project or work on a new class, but they were in charge of finding out what it was they wanted to do. They made lists of some of the things they want to work on during the day. One of Tom's is to learn to write better, so he has a notebook he writes the alphabet in once a day until he gets used to writing and then maybe he'll write more. Jake has some woodworking projects listed, like get Dad to help him make a new sign for a driveway.

This was all well and good, but the next day they got up and went right back to the TV and computer games. They did work on their projects a bit, but most of the day was spent on a chair in front of the computer. So we talked about that for a while and last night the family came up with an idea. There is no TV or computer games except for the time between noon and five. This goes for everyone. You can work on the computer, meaning you can look things up or doing homework (like Nikki and I are doing) and if your job relies on it, that's different. We all agreed. The idea is that sitting in front of the TV all day has become a habit for all of us. It is what we automatically do when we get up and then we get sucked into it all day, especially now that it is hot out.

Today was the first day. It worked well. We played board games, got housework done, and got some exercise. And we even had time to read a story. They are playing now. I'm doing this and then I'm going to finish my classwork for Economics. We all feel better so far. Let's hope this works!

Day Trip to Big Bear

We had a great time today with some friends. Gale followed us up the mountain to the Big Bear Discovery Center. It was a good place to start. They have a room full of exciting things to look at a great gift shop. We got an Adventure Pass for the National Forest so we can come up again all year and hike and picnic all we want. A ranger told the kids to check out the "Echo Spot" out on the patio. It was so cool. If you stand in a certain spot and talk it sounds like your heads in a bucket but no one else can hear it. They all had fun taking turns standing there.

They had a section of a huge tree with the rings marked for the years, but we were confused. Wouldn't a tree from from the inside out and the bark is the oldest part? I don't understand tree rings. Another subject to look into.

After that we had a quick tailgate lunch and then headed to find a Letterbox that I had printed out earlier. It was a bust though. We never did find either box. But we did have a great time walking the trails. There was a huge swarm of lady bugs and they were crawling on everything. We saw a Buddhist Monk walking the trails too. I love those guys. They just radiate peace! The kids found a dead fish and we talked to some fishermen at the lake. Then Gale and her kids had to go home.

We went over to town and stopped for ice cream and candy and then headed home ourselves. On the way down the mountain, we stopped at Barton Flats to check it out. Not much there, but there were cool rocks the kids wanted to climb a bit and some gorgeous yellow flowers. I'm working on finding out what they were.

I can't wait to go up there again.