Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

I’m so happy!
Frankie over at Kitchen-Table Learners tagged me with the Thinking Blogger Award. Me! *doing happy dance* I really am honored, especially coming from Frankie. If you haven’t been inspired to go visit her blog just from the great comments she’s left here (now those will get ya thinking), then I’m telling you now - go! She’s got a great homeschooling blog that I love to read daily.

As the proud recipient of this award, I need to tag 5 other bloggers who make me think.
Now this one’s hard. Just 5 people? Ack.

Let’s see. In no particular order -and I tried to pick people who hadn’t received the award yet (or at least didn’t have it displayed)- here’s my five:

1. Jessica Duquette of It’s Not About Your Stuff. She doesn’t post often, but when she does, it’s always something to make you think.

2. Alexandra of Happy Hearts At Home. Check out all of her “frugal” articles and you’ll see why!

3. Shannon of Rocks In My Dryer. She’s got great posts, she’s always got great LOST reviews, and her Works For Me Wednesday blog carnival just rocks. No pun intended!

4. Mother Crone of Mother Crone’s Homeschool. On crazy days, she reminds me why I love homeschooling and gets me all inspired again.

5. Lady Lydia and Mrs Alexandra of Homeliving Helper. Reading this blog is like falling back into a time when women were honored for staying at home and being good wives and mothers. Imagine if they had blogging back then! Not for the hardcore feminist. (On the other hand, maybe more hardcore feminists should read it, lol.)

This award originated at Thinking Blogger Awards, visit for rules and other recipients.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!

Earlier this year, when I found out how much vacation time hubby had accrued, I wistfully sighed about how nice it would be to take that time and go camping out west, visiting all of the neat sites and learning so much.

Hubby said we wouldn’t have the money to do it. Gas prices and campground fees would just be too much.

Later that week, I mentioned the idea to my Dad; just a “wouldn’t that be cool?” kind of thing. When he left about 20 minutes later, he said “You know, if we go camping, I’ll have to trade in the Avalanche on a Suburban or a Tahoe.” He was hooked.

We’ve traded a few emails back and forth about how we’d go about it. Take our van, rent a van, trade in his Avalanche on something bigger, full-tent camping, tow his 30-foot camper camping, full winnebago-style driving and camping. (Hey, two birds -and 10 oil fields- with one stone!)

I had been talking a bit to the kids about it here and there. Kelsey, being the budding paleontologist, immediately seized upon the idea as a great opportunity for visiting dig sites and looking for fossils all across the western states. He especially wants to go to the spot in South Dakota where they found Sue the T-Rex. He’d also like to see some real mesas and view the caves (I think that’s in New Mexico? Can’t remember).

Talking to Dad tonight, I found out he’s been doing more than just mulling this around in his head… he’s been actively planning the trip. He’s already got steady emails coming to him from the South Dakota tourist bureau, has plans for us to see Mt. Rushmore and Sue the T-Rex, and he wants to go to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon and walk out on their new all-glass skywalk.

The floor is made of glass, the sides are made of glass, and this thing is suspended 4,000 feet in the air. Yeesh. And get this - my father is afraid of heights! Talk about facing your fears head-on!

He even said in an email to me that going during the summer would be way too hot, but since the boys are homeschooled we could just go in the early fall when all the kids are back at school and have the spots more to ourselves. Yay Dad! (Maybe the gas prices will drop a bit after Labor Day, too. Man I hope so.)

Over the next few months we’ll be plotting out our route, finding things along the way we’d like to stop and see, and trying to decide if we’re going to go for two weeks, three weeks, or a full month. I’ll be scarfing up all kinds of car activities, audiobooks, and the like. A fellow Works-For-Me-Wednesday blogger had a great idea of getting a postcard from every stop and putting it in a brag book, rather than buying an expensive, useless, and clutterful souvenir. I’m all for that. Being homeschoolers, we’ll also of course have all kinds of learning things with us about the places we’ll be going. I’ll have to gather that together and print it up, too. I’ve already got a book requested through the library that’s a “dinosaur atlas”; a map book with all the spots of dinosaur finds marked on it. I’ll need to get one on just good general fossil digging spots, too.

So keep your fingers crossed for us. We’d really love to do this. Dad has had all the back surgeries he can have and his crushed discs aren’t getting any better - they’re quickly getting worse. His legs are in two states nowadays - numb or agony. Mom told me he wants to do it this year because he doesn’t think he’ll still be walking next year. He’s only 59. My Dad has always been the gentle giant - he’s six feet, four and a half inches tall, and usually about 240 pounds. Big man. To think that he’s sitting over there making plans with the thought that next year he’ll be in a wheelchair just kills me. Thinking of the weight that must be on his heart and mind kills me. I don’t care what we have to do - if he wants to do this, I’m doing it.

And of course I’ll be taking my camera and moblogging all the way.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!

With the gruesome happenings of last week, I completely missed this. You probably did, too.

4/19/2007 - Infanticide Is No Longer Legal - Opinion - Chattanoogan.com

Finally. FINALLY. The U.S. has made it illegal to perform an abortion on a baby that’s ready to be born. Why did it take so damn long?

The Congress finds and declares the following…

…”A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion–an abortion in which a physician deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living, unborn child’s body until either the entire baby’s head is outside the body of the mother, or any part of the baby’s trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother and only the head remains inside the womb, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the back of the child’s skull and removing the baby’s brains) that the person knows will kill the partially delivered infant, performs this act, and then completes delivery of the dead infant–is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.”

…”In light of this overwhelming evidence, Congress and the States have a compelling interest in prohibiting partial-birth abortions. In addition to promoting maternal health, such a prohibition will draw a bright line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide, that preserves the integrity of the medical profession, and promotes respect for human life.”

…”The vast majority of babies killed during partial-birth abortions are alive until the end of the procedure. It is a medical fact, however, that unborn infants at this stage can feel pain when subjected to painful stimuli and that their perception of this pain is even more intense than that of newborn infants and older children when subjected to the same stimuli. Thus, during a partial-birth abortion procedure, the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain.

You can find the full text of the decision at the link above.
These babies are heartbeats away from life outside the womb, and could be given to parents who would love and care for the child. No more last-minute cold-feet decisions.

All in one week… so many children senselessly killed, so many senseless killings stopped.
Wherever you are today, raise a glass to the Supreme Court and to the babies who will get to live full, happy lives.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!