Hat tip to Momma Blogs a Lot.
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Twenty-four straight hours of blogging for a cause.
Month: July 2012
Keepin’ it Real
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Twenty-four straight hours of blogging for a cause.
America, You’re Beautiful!
Remember these guys?
They’re the ones who FIGHT FOR OUR FREEDOMS. You know, the freedoms WE’RE THROWING AWAY SO WE CAN BE MORE DEPENDENT ON THE GOVERNMENT?
Yeah. Those guys.
Suddenly – it all seems real when you put a face on freedom, doesn’t it.
Happy Birthday, America. Please remember there is a silent majority of us that STILL believe in your fundamental freedoms. Please don’t give up on us.
As we celebrate our nation’s birthday this week, it is important to remember and teach our children the Founding Fathers were declaring our independence, not creating a culture of dependence.
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Twenty-four straight hours of blogging for a cause.
Someone Else Picked Out Our Fireworks, We Just Paid for Them
That’s assuming we can shoot off fireworks. It’s been so hot and dry here that Nixa has a burn ban. Which means, they are not allowing people to shoot off fireworks for fear a spark will start a city-wide fire.
We usually go to my in-laws’ house for 4th of July. They live on the outskirts of Nixa, so I’m hoping the burn ban does not apply to them. My MIL said she would water down her grass, but you know how fireworks are – you can’t exactly control where they’re going to go and HELLO NEIGHBORS! Meet our sparks.
We bought our fireworks this way, this year, because last year, when we were over at my in-laws, we noticed that we had a lot of the same fireworks and believe it or not, watching two boxes full of the same fireworks over and over again, gets boring. So. My MIL suggested we collaborate this year and we all met at a firework’s tent in Ozark and instead of debating over which ones we thought would be the best for our money, Kevin simply asked the heavily tattooed woman behind the boxes, “Which ones do you recommend?” Which sort of morphed into, “here’s how much we want to pay, just fill a box with your recommendations and we’ll be good to go.”
Excuse me??
Normally, the thought of someone else spending our money annoys me, but honestly? They’re fireworks. They all explode and go BOOM. I didn’t care. PLUS? If you haven’t heard, we are having one hell of a hot/dry summer and it was a “cool” (seriously, it FELT cool because we’ve been so used to temps over 100 this past week) 92 degrees and I was having a hot flash that only compounded my misery so I was ready to get the hell out of dodge.
(I’ve been saying hell a lot – my apologizes. I go through spurts).
So, the heavily tattooed (and sort of scary-looking woman) filled our box up with all sorts of large-ish containers and the boys filled an arm basket full of smaller stuff and we split the cost with my in-laws and I’m quite convinced this will likely be the best 4th of July fireworks display we’ve ever had.
Because who knows fireworks better than a heavily-tattooed woman who works/owns a fireworks tent?
Exactly.
I was going to take a picture of the fireworks box that was put together for us, but it was quickly loaded into the back of my in-laws’ car and I won’t see it again until the fourth.
If I remember, I’ll try and take pictures of whatever the scary heavily-tattooed woman chose for us and give you a brief critique … don’t even deny you’re not excited about this.
One thing I’M excited about? We bought some of those funky Sky Lantern things that float FOREVER and look like UFO’s in the sky.
Sweet. Nothing like freaking people out now and again.
What’s the Big Deal with Fast and Furious? Watch.
Will the Higher Education Bubble Burst?
This is a subject near and dear to my heart considering my husband graduated from college (and actually got a job using his degree) and I graduated from college (and didn’t get a job in my degree, but probably could if I tried harder. I would also like to go back to get my Masters’s degree at some point, which is sort of stupid considering I’ve never really used my Bachelor’s degree). We have one son attending a community college and one son on the verge of attending college.
I have mixed feelings about college – on the one hand, you can never have TOO much knowledge and a degree can give you an edge over your competition, BUT, does college really prepare you for the real world? You CAN NOT discount real-world experience and too many times, college graduates may have the education but no experience. Ideally, the perfect candidate for a job would have the education AND the experience.
Going to college doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a high-paying job. Many college graduates think that way. If you go to college, then you have to go with the attitude that you’ll not only have to work hard while IN college, but also finding a job AFTER college. (Can you actually find a job using the degree you’re working towards??) Companies aren’t lined up, breathlessly waiting for you to graduate so they can offer you a six-figure salary. It just doesn’t work that way.
Kevin has spent A LOT of time talking to Dude about the direction of his life. Dude loves computers. He wants to be a gamer. Which, cool. BUT, it’s competitive and there aren’t that many openings for the number of people who want to go that direction. BUT, there are more IT jobs than there are IT people. SO. It might be smarter to concentrate on the IT route, gain some experience that way, and then look for that gamer route using the education AND the experience to get his foot in the door.
So I guess my question is, is college really necessary? What if you just worked really hard at the company of your choice and got promoted to the position you wanted? It’s sort of a gamble, an EXPENSIVE gamble.
Anyway. Our local talk show host highlights local authors every Thursday and he talked with Glenn Harlan Reynolds this past Thursday about his book, “The Higher Education Bubble.” It’s pretty interesting and definitely something to consider before agreeing to pay back thousands and thousands of dollars for something that may, or may not, help you in the future.
Have a listen. [Skip to 5:45 to begin discussion]
(Click the blue arrow to play)
And the Youngest Son is an Official Driver
Jazz passed his test this past Friday!! Kevin took him to Republic and said they were the only ones out there – well, one gal was actually out taking her test when they arrived.
Jazz did a few things wrong and when they got back, the guy listed them. Jazz said he was pretty sure he had failed, given the list of things, but he passed!!
Honestly? I’m more relived than anything else. Sure. I’m nervous, but I think I’ve gotten over the initial terror of having one of my children driving since Dude has been driving for two years now. I’m relived because now Jazz can drive himself to school his senior year, freeing up Dude to hopefully get a part-time job while he also attends classes this Fall.
Jazz has four night band practices coming up this month, which he’ll drive himself to, and I think that will be a perfect opportunity to practice driving himself to school. Not that we haven’t practiced driving to school hundreds of times, but now, he’ll be on his own. And I’m sure it will be a pretty awesome feeling to be able to drive himself home afterward without having to wait on us to get him.
My relationship with my children has evolved – they are more like roommates now instead of my children. Dude comes and goes as he pleases and Jazz will soon be doing the same thing. They don’t have to rely on me anymore. In fact, I rarely even see much of them anymore now that I’m working full time. And when they get jobs, I really won’t see much of them.
Though on some level, I’m sad about this evolution, I know this is how it must be if I hope for them to grow up into independent men. Honestly? I think I have finally resigned myself to this moment in their lives and now, I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with their lives more than anything else.
We’ve really done all we can do at this point – now it’s up to them to practice what we preached.
Write From Karen 