This young woman writes one of my favorite blogs.  Although it’s possible to find many many blogs written by parents who are unschooling their kids, I really love the blogs written by people (teens and young adults, mostly) who were unschooled themselves.  Anyway, she posted a video about unschooling and what she says is great.  Unschooling really is simple.  Living and learning… are the same thing.  Unschooling is so opposite from the way we were educated, it’s really hard to wrap your mind around the idea that it really is okay to not have school in your life.

When you subtract the desire, you can subtract possessions, and leave your mind, heart, and life free. Then the possibilities are endless.

via » addition by subtraction :mnmlist.

Lol, did you see this linked on nothmartha?  Ed says, “if you buy the stuff, I’ll make it.”  Heh.

This bothers me to no end: the argument that if not in school, kids will naturally be something schooled folk refer to as “socially awkward”. I believe that every single person I’ve ever talked to who’s against homeschooling has at least one story about a misfit homeschooler they know/have met whom they’re sure would have been quite “normal” had they been in school.

via I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.: The Myth of “Social Awkwardness” Among Homeschoolers & Unschoolers.

This drives me nuts, too. Speaking of what I know best, which is my own kid, and she’s not weird or awkward. She’s a little like I was at her age, a bit shy sometimes in new situations with new people, but she warms up more quickly than I did, and is generally more confident socially than I was. There are a few specific situations I can think of where she is more shy than usual, but she’s a pretty outgoing person. Anything “weird” about her is certainly just her quirky personality, which is a product of her being her rather than her being homeschooled. In our immediate circle of schooled acquaintances (kids who live in our apartment complex), the only trouble Becca has with them is that they tend to be a lot more aggressive and competitive in their play, where her homeschooled friends tend to be more cooperative. It can be an issue sometimes, as she’s put off by the schooled kids’ need to turn everything into a win-lose game. This is a small sampling of kids, though, so I have no idea if it’s a school thing or just how these kids like to play.

As for the mythical “socially awkward” homeschooled kids everyone’s always telling me about, the ones who are so weird and socially inept, I believe, if they exist, they’d probably be that weird if they went to school, too. Except in school, they’d find no acceptance, only ridicule and isolation. Hopefully, as homeschooled kids, they’re allowed to blossom in their own way and grow into confident adults who can handle and embrace the weird.

I love writing letters and I love receiving them. I’ve had a couple of friends I write letters with erratically over the years, and that’s wonderful, but I wanted more (greedy like that, I am). So I joined The Letter Writers Alliance and The Letter Exchange and have now met some new friends to write more letters with. Waiting for the mail has taken on a whole new level of delight! It’s a fun, and interesting, way to get to know someone. At first it’s like a blind date, you know basically nothing about the other person. I hit it off immediately with one of my new penpals (*wave wave*) and we’re already like old friends, but mostly, the friendships develop more slowly. It’s cool.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to find time to sit down and write letters. I like to just write a letter all at once, but a certain someone (who might be named REBECCA) has a certain habit of TALKING TO ME, heh. Usually on Thursdays, Ed’s Saturday, I go out by myself for a few hours, to the library or a coffee shop, and write my letters then.

I’m also still completely addicted to making envelopes from whatever I find, magazine pages, old books, whatever. I have more envelopes than I can possibly use at this point. Annette says I should sell them on etsy.

Anyway. I wish more people would write letters. It’s a lovely thing, receiving a letter from a friend or loved one, and the whole act of choosing paper, and a pen, and writing down your thoughts, is so mindful, especially compared to how we all communicate electronically.

My hair looked great today (Ed calls it my rockstar hair), so I tried to take a picture with my phone, but didn’t realize it was on the stupid hipster setting, and then it was too close, so you can’t see my hair anyway. But hello everyone!

Ha, after I published this I realized there’s something about the stupid glare that makes my nose look enormous. Hahahaha!

Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart will lead fans in a special 7th Inning Stretch celebration. In an attempt to set an official Guinness World Record for the world’s largest kazoo ensemble, Hart will lead more than 7,000 kazoo playing fans in “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

via San Francisco Giants Announce Plans For Jerry Garcia Tribute Night On August 9th | Grateful Dead.

I can’t believe it’s been 15 years.  I’m not a baseball fan, at all, and I’m not going to this, but it still sounds cool.  Mickey leading the crowd in a song on kazoos reminds me of seeing Timothy Leary when I was in college.  My then-boyfriend Bryan took me and it was pretty fun.  The best part, though, was when Wavy Gravy (who was the opening act for Leary) had us all put paper bags over our heads and blow fart noises.  Heh.

What I don’t understand is how corporations were granted their immunity. How it is axiomatically understood that their interests come before those of people or even their governments? Why must they be defended against reform? How do they recruit their friends in politics and reward them? How do politicians win support from voters whose own wages and safety are threatened?

Via Roger Ebert’s Journal.

I say this as I’ve just been gathering some things to send to some friends and I’m picking off cat hairs and then I look away for half a second and there’s more cat hair! Gaaah! I’m always worried I’m going to send something to someone who is deathly allergic to cats and my stuff is gonna send them to the hospital unable to breathe.

My new favorite thing is a stamp I got from Vozamer’s Etsy Shop. I wanted to buy all of the stamps, but this is the one I got (for now):

First thing I stamped it on was my kid’s forehead.

One reason local governments have not been more successful in instituting carryout plastic bag bans is the threat of lawsuits by the plastics industry. In many cases, municipalities have moved forward with trying to pass an ordinance without obtaining an environmental impact report (EIR). Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a public agency undertaking a project that may cause a significant change in the environment must prepare an EIR.

Industry’s general argument is that by banning the distribution of plastic carryout bags from some stores, the locality is undertaking a project that will increase the manufacture and distribution of paper bags. Since this may result in a significant adverse change in the environment, the locality should be required to prepare an EIR before adopting the ordinance or else be in violation of CEQA.

via California plastic carryout bag ban movement gaining ground.

This whole thing pisses me right off.  I mean, I support the ban, but I don’t get why it doesn’t just happen.  Wtf is the hold-up here, people?  Sometimes, I swear, I don’t get …. anything that happens in this country.  At Trader Joe’s the other day I saw a woman loading her reusable bags into the back of a fucking enormous vehicle.  Like the largest Suburban you’ve ever seen or something.  I’m not necessarily interested in criticizing what people drive, there’s always some excuse for driving some huge gas-guzzling monstrosity, so whatever.  But why even bother with your stupid reusable bags, they can’t possibly cancel out your vehicle.  It’s like people don’t even think twice about their waste. I see people doing the most wasteful crap. At our apartment complex, we have three dumpsters, two for trash and one for recycling. But people are too stupid or just don’t care and there’s always trash in the recycling dumpster and OMFG, probably half the stuff in the “trash” dumpsters could be recycled. Seriously, we should have two recycling dumpsters and one trash. People would probably just pile the trash on the ground or something, such is the state of things.  Here’s an inspiration: A Year Without Garbage. A couple from Oregon reused, recycled and reduced until the only actual trash they had, for an entire year, fit in a shoe box. If they can do that, I’m sure everyone else in the damn country could make a few changes, yes? *fuming*