Serious, Schmerious!

Sheesh! I've been about as much fun as a ton of rocks on your head this month of October!  That's what comes from taking stress management and meditation classes in the same semester (or maybe taking them at all).  But tomorrow promises better things!  Both of my Monday teachers cancelled classes, and my Entheos kids don't have school on this Halloween day.  Normally Halloween is no big thrill to me, but I've got fun stuff with my kids planned for the whole day! 

I'll tell you all about it in a couple days ... pictures, too! ;-)

Right and Responsibility

The world makes me tired.  Last night Bruce was reading his facebook (and I was reading over his shoulder), and a friend of his posted an opinion that was so totally opposite of what we think, that he just had to respond (and I sat there and "helped"—mostly by watching, and catching his typos).  So we were both up too late, composing this response, and I am literally tired by it.  But my mind is also very tired of the world's way of thinking.

So here's the deal:  This friend, Steph,  saw a post by another of her friends.  Steph's friend posted a story about a woman who was talked out of getting an abortion, and Steph was highly offended by it.  She talked about how the story said nothing about the woman's situation or feelings, and she talked about how a woman who could raise one child in a loving home might be thrown off the deep end by having a second child and so would give both children a terrible home.  And she talked about a woman's right to have sex.

Here is Bruce's response: 

"I am Pro-Life. If a person is a person after birth, then a person is a person at conception. We play legal definition games to justify fornication and adultery. (What percent of all women seeking an abortion are in a stable, long-term relationship—aka 'marriage?') Society claims that a woman’s right to have sex trumps the right of a human being to live another day.

And if a woman has the right to have sex, what about a man? Does he have the right to have sex, too? How about his right to procreate? Oh. He has no right to have children. He has to hope he can find a woman who will carry his heir to term. Does a man have a right to end the pregnancy he caused, but didn’t intend, as a woman does, because he is 'desperate?' Or, because he would be an 'abysmal, broken [father]' to an additional child? Nope: at her whim, he has no choice but to have one fourth of his paycheck garnished, less than half the right to even see his child, and no say at all in requesting to 'abort' the pregnancy he caused to avoid this travesty.

Maybe we could try an old idea, well known to bring happiness to the man and the woman: no sex before marriage, fidelity after, and all the sex they both want for as long as they want. Children are optional. Or possibly, essential. Because even out of wedlock, a baby is a beautiful, powerful addition to the human race. Every single baby is one of us."

Hear, hear!

And then I woke up this morning with this thought:  All rights come with responsibility, and all choices come with consequences. 

For example, this morning you could say I had the right to eat breakfast, and I had the choice to eat whatever I wanted.  I chose to have a maple-buttercream donut for breakfast.  And it was delicious!   A more responsible choice might have been a cup of raspberries and some yogurt (which was my intention when I went to the store).  The consequence of my choice is that in probably an hour I will be hungry again, but feeling like I shouldn't have another meal yet because I just had big hunk of fat and sugar for breakfast, and lunch isn't too far off.  Well, I can probably live with that; it is all my problem.

But some other rights and choices affect other people, not just me, and so those rights have to be earned.  For example, I have the right to drive my car to the store so I can buy a maple-buttercream donut.  But I had to earn that right by taking Driver's Ed, passing a written test and a driving test, getting my car registered every year, and paying to renew my driver's license every five years.  By doing those things I have proved that I have the right to drive a car, but I still have the responsibility to follow the laws that earned me that right.  If I don't follow those laws the consequence could be a broken vehicle, possibly losing my license, injuries, or even death.

Let me get to the point:  You can say that a woman (or a man) has the right to have sex.  OK.  But there are consequences that come with making the choice to have sex and responsibilities that come with that right.  One consequence is that you might get pregnant.  So if you don't want that to happen you have the responsibility to take precautions against it.  If the consequence of your choice to have sex is that you do get pregnant, then you also have a responsibility to the child; it's not just about you. (Face it: it stopped being just about you when you went ahead and had sex with another person!)

Sex is a BIG thing that affects more than one person:  it affects the woman, the man, and, if she gets pregnant, the child.  If there is a pregnancy involved it will most likely have an effect on the couple's closest friends and family, too.  So I say the "right" to have sex must be earned.  And here's how you earn it: 
Prove that you can be loyal to ONE person by not having sex with anyone until you meet that One person. 
Prove that you are committed to that One person by marrying him/her—before you have sex together. 
Prove daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute that you will remain committed to that One person, in your thoughts, your words, and your actions.  Then in that marriage, if there is a pregnancy—planned, or not—the baby can come into the home of a committed, responsible, caring family.  If the mother is distressed, or feels like she will be "an abysmal, broken" parent, she has a committed, loving husband to help her through this, and vice-versa. (If they are both abysmal and broken there's always therapy. Or, keeping the child in mind, adoption.)

You do have the right to make any choices that you want.  But realize that most of your choices really will affect more people than yourself.  Put some thought—past the thought of instant, personal gratification—behind your actions.  And then accept the consequences and the responsibility for your choices!

Fall Break 2011

This week I get two whole days—Thursday and Friday—with no school.  They call it Fall Break, even though all the big universities around here get an entire week for fall break.

I am going to re-do my countertops.  It's been a year since I painted them with "liquid granite," and, for the most part, they have looked very nice.  Definitely better than mauve.  But over the year little pieces have chipped out, and bits have peeled off.  When I bought the stuff I did wonder if, despite all the claims of the company, this might happen.  But I figured that I'd be paying $60 for a great-looking counter when it would have cost me $600 to get it replaced with a new laminate countertop. 

Over the year, as things were wearing out, I decided that I could achieve the same look with craft paints and polyurethane finish—which would cost me about $20.  Even if I redid the counters every year, at $20 a year it would take 30 years to get to the $600 countertop.  (Although, really, I would hope to replace them with something more durable some time in the next 30 years!)

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I saw a slightly larger hole in the paint—about an inch in diameter—with an edge peeled up.  That was irresisitable; I had to peel it.  And then...uh-oh!  I had a mauve hole that was about a foot in diameter in the middle of my "granite" countertop.  Very bad.  And there were still these irresistable edges peeling up that the kids and I kept on grabbing.  So now most of the counter is mauve, with raggedy, fake-looking-granite edges.  Veeerrry ugly.

You are seeing the original countertop underneath
what's left of the liquid granite.
The big curls are peeled-up sheets of paint.

I still had every intention of just repainting it with craft paints, but I decided to email the company (Giani) and let them know that their product didn't exactly live up to what they said, and ask them the best way to remove the stuff (some of it is actually still sticking remarkably well).  And guess what?  They sent me a whole new kit to redo the counters, with a new, epoxy top-coat which is supposed to be stronger and more durable than the original stuff.  So, although the product is still up for further evaluation by me, I think their company has the best customer service I have ever dealt with.  Giani is awesome!

What does this have to do with fall break?  Well, today I'm sanding the counters and rolling on the primer.  By Saturday the counters should be done (although not entirely usable for 14 days—UGH!). 
And if I'm really ambitious I might get back to painting walls and doors, too.  We'll see. :-)

TV or not TV? That is the question.

Just say "No" to Elmo

Today on facebook I saw a post by a friend of mine who said she allows her son to watch a little bit of Sesame Street some days.  She was complaining that she hates Elmo—and I can hardly blame her!  But, to my memory, her son is only about fifteen months old—at any rate, I know he is less than two years old—and I couldn't help wondering why she turned on the TV for him at all. 

I can understand the lure of the "electronic babysitter;" I admit I've succumbed to it myself.  And I can understand using the TV as a means of shutting down a tired but overactive brain—a good movie can put me out in twenty minutes.  But why broadcast TV?

When we lived in Tennessee we gave up regular broadcast television.  Not because we were so high-minded, or considered ourselves above it.  I watched television and liked it well enough. No, it was because we were poor and cheap.  We got no television signal out in Murfreesboro, TN , and we didn't want to pay to watch TV (on our 15-inch black and white set) so we didn't get cable either. At first I was able to see a fuzzy version of Friends occasionally.  It was a clever, well-written show, and I liked it pretty well until I was watching one episode where ALL they talked about was sex (the "humorous" schtick was Jennifer Aniston and the dark-haired girl fighting over the last condom in the apartment while a couple of "really hot" guys—apparently one-night stands—waited in the two women's bedrooms).  I turned it off in disgust, and after that we just watched our meager supply of—mostly children's—video tapes. (And let me tell you, Homeward Bound loses whatever charm it may have had pretty quickly when watched several times a week on a small, black and white screen!)

I do love Arthur

Well we lived that way  for about three and a half years (although eventually we did upgrade for a bigger, color TV and we got a few more movies), and then we moved back to Utah and lived with our regular TV-watching family for a while.  And you know what?  Suddenly everything on television—even shows we had previously liked—just seemed stupid.  (Except for Arthur—the kid's show. I love Arthur.) 

So when we got our own house we just didn't bother to start watching TV again.  DVD's?  Yes, a few times a week—sometimes several a week.  We are pretty much in the dark about what new movies are coming out, since they are advertised on TV, and when people tell us about that hilarious television commercial for such-and-such we have no idea what they're talking about.  My loyal readers (all five of you) may disagree, but from what I hear there's not really anything on the tube worth giving our time and attention to. We really don't miss it.  Not only that, but I find that our tolerance level for mindless sex, violence, and vulgar humor has dropped incredibly low—which, I think, cannot be a bad thing.

For example, Bruce, while working a sales job last summer, was in a client's house waiting for the other half of the couple to get home.  While he was there they were watching what Bruce described to me as the most vile show he's seen:  Two and a Half Men.  By his description, the entire episode was about sex and the conclusion reached by the main characters was that life would be better if they all just went into their own rooms and masturbated.  This is humor?  Lovely.  But just a few weeks after Bruce told me about this I saw another facebook friend—a nice, decent, moral young woman—talk about how happy she was that she got to watch that same show (probably not the same episode), and how cute and funny it was. 
???
A while ago I went to my mom's house while she and my dad happened to be watching one of those crime shows (CSI?).  I was exposed to a completely naked woman who'd been beaten and stabbed multiple times lying on the table of the morgue while the main characters talked about how terrible it was.  This is entertainment?    Why don't we all just go down to the arena and watch some gladiators kill each other? 
It was terrible, but my parents—who are really great people whom I love and respect—didn't seem too bothered by what they were seeing. 
I can only guess that everyone has become very immune to the things that my family now finds offensive.

Would I try to push our non-TV lifestyle onto everyone around me?  No.  Do I think that time spent in front of the TV could be better spent?  Well... yeah.  (Of course my kids would like to trade the same childhood hours I spent watching The Brady Bunch for playing computer video games instead.  *sigh*, but we are slowly changing things in that arena.)

No.  I don't insist on telling the world, "Get away from the boob-tube!"  But I will issue a challenge for anyone who is interested:  Can you go TV-free for two weeks?  You can still watch your movie collection, but no broadcast TV.  If you decide to take me up on it, let me know how it goes. :-)