Ever get stuck on a math equation?

This website http://www.wolframalpha.com will help you.

Type the equation into the site's search engine and it will work out the problem for you!

very useful.

They're still homeschoolers at heart

I'm really happy to have my college age kids home!  As much as I want them near me, I was dreading the tornado that was sure to accompany their return.

But believe it or not, I came in this morning from the gym to find a clean kitchen.. and now they are organizing their college bins and belongings in the basement until August when they leave again...  #proud.

I need to get my job done now and get them materials for the CLEP & DSST exams they plan to take this summer, so they can get to studying.   I wish they had taken more of them during their high school years, but they just weren't ready.   Well, they're ready now! After comparing learning from a professor vs learning on their own...  wherever possible, they would much rather learn on their own.

Good for them... they're still homeschoolers at heart.

3 degrees of Separation - Bring Back Our Girls

IMAGE: TWITTER/@FLOTUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

I have been spending the better part of a month trying to digest the gravity of the girls stolen in from a Nigerian High School. It saddens me greatly, and also disturbs me that it took 2 weeks before the news even got onto the world's radar.

Meanwhile, my homeschool daughter, attends an all women's college. In my mind, I have imagined that schools like hers, that educate and empower girls to be leaders would really tick off the "Boko Haram", and that if we were not in a free country girls like my daughter, and a dozen other girls I have grown to love this past year would be in constant danger, or even worse, left unable to get an education.

I spoke to my daughter today, who is finishing her freshman year at college and asked her how many nigerian girls were at her college right now. You see, not only is her school a woman's college, but it is also a college with a student body that is largely international. While 68% of the student body are Southern US girls, 20% represent 25 other countries, and the remaining 12 percent from from other US states. There are girls from China, Japan, UK, Jamaica, India, and several African countries including Nigeria. So when I asked my daughter that question today, she rattled off a few names, and

I'm going gray... and I'm OK with it

What floors me is that two people this weekend have outright told me that it was time to dye my hair. One who is supposed to love me unconditionally, and the other is his mother. My brother also pointed out that I am going gray... he seemed surprised.  I guess it is coming on fast.

I think the reason I am going gray so quickly, is that I recently had quite a bit of hair fall out due to stress, and probably medication, and now it is growing back, but it is no longer dark brown... It is white.  It is around the circumference of my head, and in the center, where I lost the most hair...  and the grays are not confined to my head.

So what's the big deal.  I will be 46 years old in less than 2 months.  With the average onset of graying in black persons being age 44, I'd say I was pretty much on schedule.  ... and I kind of like it. I am appalled that I have been asked to dye my hair... it makes me really really mad.  Am I out of line for thinking that request to be rude, unthinkable, and uncalled for?  Am I out of line for inferring folks can kiss my butt?   Especially when those people are grayer than I?

Besides, I do other things to beat back age a little.  I pluck my chin at least once a week, I exercise 3 or more times a week, I use face cream, and lotion my body dutifully.  Gray hair to me is a symbol of wisdom, that I made it this far... that I am perhaps a little wiser than the average bear.  Is it not?

But the idea of dyeing just might win me over, but not in the way people think.  I will never cover the grays on my head to hide the fact that I'm not a kid anymore, but I may strategically dye my hair to emphasize a nice gray streak coming in on my left temple.  That could be fun.