Hello to DSL! Good bye to FAP!

The family is just too happy.

After 5 years with satellite internet connections, and their vile Fair Access Policy, we now have DSL.

We always have to be careful not to watch too much video content, since that will end up punishing us with a time out of S...L...O...W internet, and Papa is not happy when that happens.

Now I can sign up for HomeSchoolMentor and watch the videos! I have been wanting to do that, but not with that FAP in place.

The Papa can upload his ebay pictures in seconds instead of minutes. We are rejoicing.

The country home is getting the cool city stuff, but we can see the stars in the nighttime sky. Life is good!

Our Workhorse is Down. :-(

We try to live a frugal life (not entirely by choice) and one of the things where we keep living costs down is by being a one car family.
Our mini van is a total workhorse for us, and considering the number of miles on it, it runs really well.
Until Labor Day weekend.

On a trip to Pennsylvania to go to a wedding, we were just too proud of ourselves for A. being up early and hitting the road on schedule and B. being on track to be early to this wedding, and not late.
Just a few miles after being amazed that we would be nearly an hour early, the van made a high pitched whining sound as we exited a road, and then when it was time to go again, didn't.
It is the transmission. Cha ching$$!

For once in our lives, we have a second car, thanks to our son's recent marriage and relocation to Europe!
Thank the Lord!

It is not quite the vehicle ideally suited to bring our auction goodies home. Norb went to an auction last week and before unloading it, there wasn't really even room in it for a purse! And later this week is a double auction, where he goes to two PA auctions, one day after another. Normally that means a night in a hotel, but this time, he will come back home after the first auction (which normally ends around 9:30 PM), unload the car, grab a few hours of sleep, get up early, and go back for the second auction (which starts at noon.)
Kind of a tough schedule, but he will do it and then crash after he gets home from the second auction.

We think that we can see where the $$$ is coming from to fix the transmission; we just have to bide our time for it to get here. We have been told that if we keep the timing belt changed every 100,000 miles, and we might have to do the same with the transmission, this van will go for many more miles than we have on it now.

That is what we hope to do!

A Nice Find at an Auction

Norb has brought home several classroom maps that are now listed in our ebay auctions but this one pictured was one that I asked to hang on to.

Isn't this a beauty? I couldn't get over how colorful and how well this illustrates different geographical terms for young scholars. You can click on the picture to see a larger version of it. I wish that you could see it in its full sized glory instead of the miniature you see on a computer screen.

I need to find a good sized chunk of wall where I can put this up, but I think I know a spot. After our boys learn these terms then it will have its turn as an ebay item, maybe to go to another homeschooling family.

If you would like to see out auctions, please check out this link:

"QUIRKY - ECLECTIC "99 Cents" ESTATE SALE ON EBAY"

A Day of Remembrance

September 11 is one of those days that people remember what they were doing when they heard of the terrible events of the day. The images on our TVs were more like an action movie than news but the reality seared our sense of complacency. Our day stood still, waiting for it all to end, the lights to turn back on and go back to our lives. Unbelievable as it was, this was actually taking place, not just special effects on a silver screen.

Think about that morning, when we heard about one plane after another hitting first the World Trade Center, then the Pentagon, and finally we heard of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. As the morning went on, we didn't know how many more there would be.


I don't recall how long it was before we began to hear of the passengers on flight 93 and how they fought back to stop their plane from striking the target intended by the hijackers. Their bravery and resolution, knowing that they were in a no win situation for themselves, speaks volumes of the American spirit. I feel a sense of pride whenever I see think about what it must have been like on that plane. They fought back.

One of the things that September 11 did for us was to, for too short of a time, erase political divisions. We were, all of us, under attack. No passes were issued because on party affiliation. They want to kill us because we are Americans.

Over and over again, the talking heads asked why they hated us so much? Was it poverty? Foreign policy? I think that the clearest answer was also the simplest. Our two greatest national sins (in the minds of the Islamic radicals) are our support for Israel and because we are not Islamic.
The powers that be decided that we should no longer view any pictures or videos of the planes hitting the towers. But should we fall back into sleepiness and forget the threat that is still out there?

The unity we felt that day has faded away back into partisanship, especially at this time as a national election rages on.
We cannot afford to forget that the ideology that gave us September 11 has not been subdued. Continued vigilance will be required. The fact that we have not been hit again in such a manner is not by happenstance.

Never Forget.

Please pray for our leaders.

Please Pray for This Little Boy

www.coleruotsala.com

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/coleruotsala

A friend passed on the story of this little boy. At the end of July, his parents brought him to the emergency room because he was in pain and his stomach was hard. They have since discovered (and identified) some sort of agressive cancer that has caused tumors all over his internal organs in his abdomen. His parents have some agonizing choices to make in regards to his treatment, but it would appear that only a touch from the hand of G-d will save him.

Ends and Beginnings

The signs are all there. The scents of harvested fields are in the air. The crowds in the school supply aisle at the local Wally World. If you look closely, you might spot a patch that is no longer green in the backdrop of trees across the fields.

Can you hear it? The rumble of school buses, the grumble of the no longer leisurely students. Yup, it is time to start schooling again.

We don't wave good by to our boys to send them off to school. To listen to them, we torment them with books and videos and studying. For some reason, the vision in my head about homeschooling is not quite what plays itself out at home. We persist nevertheless. They wonder what it would be like to go to school, but there is much that happens in school that has nothing to do with education, such as bullying and peer pressure. The traumatic experiences are more deeply ingrained in the long term memory than this weeks spelling words will be. My boys cannot appreciate the absence of the negative parts of the school experience from their lives, but their dad and I can, and that is why as a parent, I take on the challenging task of homeschooling.

Tomorrow is the start of a new year. Time to fill that blank slate!