We have been extremely busy lately.  The girls have started computer-based classes at Khan Academy, which eats up my computer access.  More importantly, Brighteyes has taken the ACT.  She got a bit confused on the math section, which lowered her grade.  She only made a 34.  Out of 36.  Nobody's complaining.  She started taking duel-enrollment ( Read more... )

Introduction
Part 1:  Recollection, Remembrance, and Discovery
Part 2:  That Old Time Liberal Religion

And he walks with me and he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

1974 - A few months before we had moved from Vicksburg to Birmingham, from a small ranch house to a split- ( Read more... )

I stared angrily at the scale.  Where had all my hard work gone ( Read more... )

The kids were pestering me for snacks while I was deboning chicken for supper tonight, so I threw the skin in a skillet and made cracklings. First time I've done that, but the kids liked it and it can't be less healthy than the chemicals they put in junk food.

AKA "Shit gets real ( Read more... )

I got word that the DNA sample for my ethnicity test reached the lab today.  Yippee!  I'm so excited!

You can expect to receive your results in the next 6-8 weeks

Oh.

And that's what I'll be doing for Lent sorted out.

We installed the kitchen drawer pulls, drawer facings and the lower cabinet doors.  Yay, I have drawers now!  There's an actual place for cutlery, as opposed to the used plastic tubs it was dumped into.  With more room to spread things out we were able to put the dinnerware and silverware at preschooler height, and turn over the job of setting the ( Read more... )

Women who feel entitled more likely to endorse benevolent sexism, study finds.

Duh, people.  My adoptive mother could have been Exhibit A.

I found a good therapist this time.  (You'd be amazed how often that isn't the case.  Kind, yes.  Well-trained, yes.  Good?  Not so much.)  He's willing to dig down past all the obvious layers to go after the deeply buried stuff.  Right now we're at the level of dealing with being an abandoned child adopted by child abusers.  It's not a comfortable ( Read more... )

It's been a year since I posted a  house update.  We've spent most of that time waiting for the rain to stop.  Global warming has pushed the tropical storms north and the rains that used to blanket the Great Plains south.  Guess where they meet?  In the past year we've had two dry weeks, one at the beginning of summer and one at the end.  It rained ( Read more... )