Chaos In A Bottle

I’ll try to make the post worth your while though. You might want to pour a drink. I find it helps in dealing with me.

So I’ve been TRYING to get into the whole “homeschooling for a new year” thing since the end of August, and to be honest, I still feel like I’m swimming upstream. Wearing ankle weights. And a sweater.

We’re managing, but I haven’t managed to attain that zen attitude I keep hoping for. Maybe I’m just not a zen sort of person. Maybe it’s because my man is sitting next to me yelling at Texas in the World Series. Maybe I’m the one that needs that drink. Stop judging me.

You’d think, with Halloween so soon upon us (wow, that sounded posh), that I’d be more excited. Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited. I’ve invested so much time making sure that my daughters truly appreciate the macabre and bizarre that I could miss the actual donning of the costumes/sugar coma and still enjoy the moment. Thing is – well, to be honest I dunno what the thing is. I think I’m just in one of those weird places I get when the days get shorter and P. yells at professional athletes. I need to spend more time with Archer the Wonder Dog. That makes me, if not zen, then at least not bitey and snarly. And I cook more.

My pup makes me happy. Handsome boy, isn\’t he?

I HAVE been writing, which is a good thing, and I’ve been doing it the old fashioned way. No, not stylus and wax, I’m not that old. Shut up. Fountain pen and paper. This has been good for my creative process, and for my manicure, because I’m sort of a beast at the keyboard. I type violently. I don’t know what this says about me. However, I am discovering that I can still type with nails! I am discovering this right now. This instant. It pleases me.

Writing this way must be good for my creative process, because I’m having very vivid dreams, that I actually remember, and my characters are starting to stand up for themselves and tell me what they’re really thinking, and I’m pretty sure that means I’m becoming more in touch with my creative side. Or more insane. Either/or, really.

I am glad that cooler weather is here, because sweating when you’re just walking to the car is just not on, and my pups really, really, really don’t like the heat. Of course, Ceili the Elder Dog doesn’t like the cold, either. She does like raw chicken, so there is something left in the world that makes her happy. Cooler weather also means, maybe, Archer will get to play with the sheep some more, and that will make him happy. And tired.

It will also give Bri more of a chance to work on her action photography, and Rori a chance to, well, be a kid on a farm for a few hours. There could be baby ducks. There will at least be eggs, and she’s got a good imagination.

If Texas loses tonight I’m going to have to buy a pound of taffy and force feed it to Patrick. I don’t know how much longer I can take the yelling at the television without doing something suddenly and all over the place.

I have a short fuse. Deal with it. Or don’t, really. It’s all ok.

I’m generally a fairly easy-going person. Shut up, I am. A bit. Anyway, as I was going to pick up my neighbor’s little girl from school yesterday, I got a big ole’ dose of stupid shoved right down my throat, and I’m gonna share.

The bus from the high school had dropped it’s load of delinquents students off at the end of the block. They’re walking down the street, in the middle of the street, and a minivan is behind them. Do they move to the side, like, oh, I don’t know, people with a few brain cells to rub together? Nope; I watch them continue down the street, with the minivan behind them, until the driver realized that yes, they were obviously brain donors, and pulled out around them.

What the…

What a group of no manners, no account, no freakin’ BRAIN mouth-breathers! I mean – come on, dude. Move out of the bleedin’ street, because if you knew how much damage that minvan would suffer if the driver were someone like ME and ran your sorry behind down – i.e. NONE AT ALL – you might think about firing a synapse or two and GETTING OUT OF THE WAY!!

Before you tell me that they’re not stupid, they’re just ill-mannered, let me remind you that by the time you reach high school, if you haven’t figured out that walking down the middle of a busy street is BAD, you’re just plain dumb. The kind of dumb that wears two pairs of boxers and its jeans around its thighs and thinks that standing on a hill during a lightning storm while wearing plate armor would be a good idea.

Is there a reason for this??

Pull up your pants and get out of the street. You’re lowering the IQ of the rest of the neighborhood.

Yet another reason why I homeschool. I don’t want this sort of attitude rubbing off on my kids. The idiot’s attitude, not my attitude, because my attitude rocks.

IT DOES.

Seriously.  I need to be rich.  I’m buying my girls’ books for this school year.  Yes, I’m buying them in September, yes, it’s late, quit yelling at me.  I’ve got one in third grade and one in tenth grade, and it’s like buying college textbooks.  ONE of B’s books costs more than the most expensive college text I ever purchased, and I was a snob and bought a lot of new books, and no, I’m not THAT old.

I already pay taxes for the public school system I don’t use, and before you ask, no, I don’t get any of it back.  There’s no tax credit for having the sense to avoid the local school system here.  You’d think I could get some sort of discount somewhere, you know?  “Hello, I’m homeschooling and poor, can I have a discount?”

Note:  Apple gives homeschoolers their educator’s discount.  That’s why I love them and why I’m writing this on a MacBook.  No, I don’t get paid to say that, but if they wanted to throw a new iPad my way, I’d take it.

Ok, I’m not actually poor, but since I’m homeschooling I don’t work outside of freelancing writing, and that’s not exactly putting me in contention with JK Rowling for earnings.  I should totally write a survival guide for zombies – not for the zombies but for surviving the zombies.  The zombies probably can’t read anymore, because their brains are turning to mush.