It's spring 2015, which marks the 10th anniversary of the new Doctor Who and more importantly for parents, the 10th anniversary of the return of new, good family-friendly programming to our screens after a very long absence.  The fact that I can still count all the currently-running live action shows that fit that description on the fingers of one ( Read more... )

My husband met an old friend from high school last week in the small Mississippi town where they'd grown up 32 years ago . They chatted about their classmates from the white, middle class private school they had attended. Slightly less than half of the men had graduated from college and gone on to get jobs in business, teaching, and civil ( Read more... )

Introduction
Part 1:  Recollection, Remembrance, and Discovery

Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
It's good enough for me. The church that I was brought up in no longer exists.  The buildings still stand, I could lead you inside and give you detailed tours.  They still have the same name, ( Read more... )

People really are good, and our first reactions are selfless:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-probe-human-nature-and-discover-we-are-good-after-all/

Introduction

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow, black and white
They are precious in His sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.In trying to write down my memories, I find that the earliest part of the story has changed the most.  There is what I recalled, what I remembered, and what I ( Read more... )

Give me three steps, give me three steps Mister
Give me three steps to the door
Give me three steps, give me three steps Mister
and you won't see me no more. There are people who will tell you that the Christian Church(es) never change.  If I'm in a good mood I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out if they're naive, moronic, or ( Read more... )

So, six  months later, how's the whole "aftermath" thing coming?  Well there's me, and there's me-and-them.  Let's talk about me first.

I got pretty stressed out around the end of the year.   Come January, I wasn't stressed at all. I felt drained, a little fragile, very mellow, and extremely lethargic. I had started reading Dr. Seligman's book ( Read more... )

Brighteyes finished the diagnostic tests (TABE) for the GED.  At 15, she aced every section except for writing.  She's finally starting to understand that my insistence that she write wasn't just Mommy being mean, but a skill she needs to master as well as she has the other skills.  Yay!

Facebook does a dandy job of highlighting the difference between what is popular and what is real.

At 13 and 15, we decided the girls were old enough to start watching The Big Bang Theory this winter. They love it. (It doesn't hurt that we know/are people like that either.) My husband wants a copy of the Friendship Algorithm for his classroom. He says his students need the advice. I haven't got around to mentioning exactly how often it's re-run ( Read more... )