Surrounded by Imbeciles

Okay, so I never use that phrase out loud. My kids have never heard me say the "I"word. But I have thought it. Like the other day when I called to find out how one qualifies to buy the discounted Teacher/Student edition of Adobe's Lightroom Photo editing program.

The website says that some homeschoolers qualify. Reviews on Amazon said that some people have had to return their Teacher/Student edition because they could not prove sufficiently that they were a Teacher or a Student. So I wanted to find out how I qualified before I spent a lot of time trying to qualify and then end up taking it back.

The regular program is$249. The Teacher/Student edition is $79. 

It was worth the call to find out.

So I talked to 4 different people who had to refer me to other people who they thought would know more about how a homeschooler would qualify. I really just wanted to talk to the person who made the decision when I sent my stuff in as to whether I qualified or not.

I ended up with lots of people speculating on whether I would or would not.

Which wasn't helpful.

Finally I talked to someone who told me that all I had to do was to send them a copy of my paystub.

Paystub?

Yes, the paystub you get from whomever pays you to homeschool your children.

So I very carefully explained.... I homeschool my children which means that they are not enrolled in a program but that I teach them at home.

He then carefully explained to me that I just needed to send them the paystub from the government or whoever else it was that paid for the books and paid me so that I could homeschool my children.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (that was me laughing hysterically) No one pays me. I buy my own books. I buy my own supplies.

He then explained that if I didn't have a paystub, he had no idea how I would qualify.

But it says on your website that some homeschoolers qualify? WHO? HOW?

He couldn't tell me. The conversation went in circles at that point. No one could tell me how to qualify. Then he told me maybe I had a teacher friend with a paystub who could buy it for me.

Niiiiiice.

But the winner of my award goes to the cable guy who came out to re-run a cable line from our attic to the office. He spent about 30 minutes going around the whole house and looking inside the attic.

He then took me out to the garage and explained to me how he was going to drill a hole through the roof of the garage, run the cable up to the top of the roof and then drape the cable on top of the roof (of my 2 story house) all the way over to the other side of the house, run it all the way down the 2 story brick wall and then he was going to drill into the brick right outside the office.

I politely told him NO and then proceeded to help him figure out how he could run the cable through the house.

And at that point, I almost said my little phrase out loud. Ya know, he probably needed to hear it. Him and the government who doesn't pay me to homeschool my kids.

Thankful Thursday

Ever had one of those days where you feel like the world is against you and you really just want to go back to bed with some brownies and a bowl of ice cream and watch re-runs of Alias?

Yep, I'm having one of those kinda days.

But since the aforementioned is actually not an option for me, I figured I needed to get back into writing my Thankful Thursday lists.

My kids are journaling this year and every Thursday in their journals I have them write out a list of things they are thankful for. It really kind of puts things back into perspective.

So here is my list.

1. Thankful for friends who love and accept me for who I am. The good, the bad and the ugly.

2. Thankful for the rain (because we are in water restrictions and our day to water is another 7 days away).

3. Thankful a hardworking husband.

4. Thankful for kids who have a love of learning and get along well (most of the time).

5. Thankful that the 2 year old has been sleeping all the night through.

6. Thankful that we seem to finally have everyone well from strep.

7. Thankful for family, wish we could see them more.

8. Thankful for my flowers. My daffodils are blooming right now and they always put a smile on my face and a song in my heart. God didn't have to make beautiful flower and yet He did and he made them in an abundace of varieties and I love it that He cared enough to do that.

9. Thankful for the new trick I learned to get more volume out of your ipod or iphone when you are playing music on it. Put it in a bowl. I'm serious. Go try it now. Sometimes it's just the little things. :)

10. Thankful for the Pandora app. Love it. Listening to 'Chris Tomlin' radio really brightens the day with praise music to Him.

We read something thought provoking the other day that said, "What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you thanked God for today". We are blessed with so much and in so many ways that we really should spend more time than we do just thanking Him for all His provisions.

Happy Thursday!

Tale of a Tail or maybe TMI

So last year for her birthday, our 7 year old dearly wanted a pet.

Dearly.

So we all discussed it and decided we would get our feet wet with some guppies. We set up the 10 gallon aquarium that my parents gave us and we were on our way to pet ownership.

I will be completely honest here and say that we set up the tank, just like all the instructions say and we even let it run a week before we bought fish. We went to Pets Mart, bought 6 guppies, and Birthday girl named them all. And they died two days later.

And it was just a wee bit traumatic.

The second batch of guppies did much better for some reason and within a month or two we had a pregnant guppy.

Birthday girl was over the moon in excitement because she was going to be a guppy mommy.

We did everything to the letter to ensure the smoothest delivery possible. We bought a breeder basket that has a mesh net in it and put it in the tank and put the mama in it. Birthday girl kept a 24 hour watch to make sure we knew the minute the babies were being born.

So the babies were born but we only ended up with 3 baby guppies from the first batch. We think she probably ate the others before we could net them out.

The real trouble came when the next guppy was pregnant. We could tell (because we had done this once so we were now experts) that her abdomen was squared off and that she should have the babies at any minute. But we had to go pick up older brother from b-ball practice and were gone a total of 45 minutes.

When we got back, the pregnant mama was dead. That's right, she was floating with her tail up and Birthday girl was crushed. The thing about guppies is that they are live bearers. Which means they don't lay eggs. They babies come out swimming. And Birthday girl just knew all those little baby guppies were inside their dead mama and that we needed to rescue them.

So I did what any compassionate mother who had taken every type of animal dissection college class available would have done. I decided we needed to try to save the babies.

Can I just say, that trying to save baby guppies is on a completely different scale than dissecting sharks, pigs, frogs, etc? We decided to get a sharp knife and try to cut her open from the abdomen. It was very difficult but we finally did it.

And we were so disappointed because we fully expected all these little babies to come out and that they would be saved and they would go on to live a full and happy guppy life in her little tank.

But alas, they were all dead.

I did some reading later and actually found a forum of people discussing the ethics of trying to save the baby guppies once the mother died.

Yes, there are some fanatic people out there who believe that if you try to save the babies, you are desecrating the mom.

And then there was one lady who said, 'who cares about the mom, she's dead, save those babies!' and she went on to explain that all you need to do is cut the tail off, make a small slit from the abdomen to the tail and then gently squeeze the babies out. But she says you need to do this the second the mom dies or the babies will die too.

Fortunately for me, since this time, all the mommy guppies we have had have either had their babies or have died while we were out. So I have not been called to attempt this feat again.

But I'm sure you are asking yourself, would she really do it again?

You bet'cha.