Not Another Homeschool Blog

sketch a day #18   (scribbling on the road trip) I visited with the kids this weekend.  Sort of. Our son wanted to come home for the weekend, and so went down and picked him up. (These kids will have car(s) by summer.) Since we were there (they both go to college in the same city two hours from home) we stopped to see our daughter. In case you missed this, she goes to a women's college. I don't know if this is unique to Women's colleges or not, but there is clearly a hand-off vibe where parents are concerned. They love for parents to come out for parent designated events which are few and far apart... and they live it when we come to performances.... some performances, but just because it is weekend, does not mean it is mom and dad's time.  You are a college woman, and it is all college all the time. We arrived Thursday evening and stopped at the girl's college to bring her some things she asked for. She was busy with Theatre rehearsals, as she is stage mana...

So there's this art exercise where you scribble on the paper, and then try to turn that scribble into a work of art.  I am not good at it, but I spend a good deal of time on that exercise today.  Here are my attempts.  I'm only counting one of them today... the one that I liked. This is one type of an exercise in frustration.  Most often, an exercise in frustration is when you are doing something over and over again, and expecting a different result.  Wait.  Isn't that also a definition for insanity?   You know, you deal with the same person, day in and day out and pray for a different result when the conversation and motivations don't change.  It's kind of a why bother type of thing.   sketch a day #17  45 min In this case, I hope that by doing this exercise over and over, I can develop the more creative part of my brain and embrace some kind of uniqueness in my art that is unique to me, but developed.  I hat...

sketch a day #16 -30 min I read a couple of stories today that I found terribly disappointing.    First, a young man of 16 years was accused by someone he had never met of stealing the person's backpack.  He was arrested and placed in Rikers Island because his family could not come up with $10,000 bail. He stayed there for 3 years without a trial.  He attempted suicide several times but was unsuccessful, and received beatings from the guards for his attempts.  Soon before being released he was brought before a judge who told him if he pled guilty, he could go home with time served.  He refused. He was not going to take the rap for something he had not done.  Soon after all charges were mysteriously dropped.  He is suing.  I hope he wins.  I don't know what the young man's personality was.  I don't know what his track record was. I don't know anything about him except what I have seen on TV.  He is 21, meek, mild, an...

sketch a day #14 - 15 minutes I was done with elections before it even started.  Obvious lies on tv directed toward idiots who don't know any better (both sides).  Constant calls to my house, from both political parties (because I am not beholden to any group).   And then there's the fact that I am an area manager for my county's elections.  They started us working on hiring and managing staff 3 months before the election, a month earlier than usual, and still we were short-staffed.  But the biggest problem is that the general public does not know if they are even registered to vote (if you think you are not, you probably aren't and should go ahead and do that) and those who are don't know where to vote.  The rest of the people have no idea WHERE they are supposed to vote, so we, the workers get yelled at because YOU showed up at the wrong location.   I blame this on the county. We used to get post cards before every election.  I haven'...