Sad duty

Image from FreeFoto.com

I helped my husband with the sad duty of clearing out his brother's effects from his apartment today. His brother had leased a small apartment in Colorado to use while he was here working and getting ready to move his family to Colorado from California.

We were both pretty snappy at each other as we worked. Hating what we had to do while at the same time knowing we were the best ones for the job.

Towards the end of clearing out the apartment I just couldn't take it anymore. I was so angry and sad at the same time. I'm not normally a crier. I was pretty stoic for four years at Annapolis. I was stoic (if not slightly cheery) when I dropped off the first four kids at their respective colleges. But this sad duty breaks my heart.

There's so much to say, yet it's so incredibly difficult to say.

I'll be holding down the fort while my husband and his mom fly to California for the funeral. We were considering driving the van the 1250 miles each way so that we could all be there to support his widow and the cousins, but two of my kiddos are quite sick with strep and some sort of croupy-coughy thing that wakes them up at night feeling like they can't breathe. During the day it's just a horrid croaky froggy sounding cough. But we decided putting them in a closed car for 20+ hours to get to California wouldn't be good for them or for the other passengers. So when Mom decided to stay with two of the kids, it made more sense to stay with all of them so Dad could fly and be totally available to help in whatever way he's needed. Flying gets him there in part of a day instead of two days and he's better able to help.

Okay, so I'm trying to look at the bright side of this. But really, there is no bright side. At least not for now.

Experts prove: Government should mandate all Americans have large families in order to fight global warming

This

The front page story (below the fold) of today's Wall Street Journal disturbed me greatly. I suppose I was naive to think that the government was going to do something with those old "clunkers" it proposes to take off the roads. Like recycle them or use them for spare parts.

Not so.

The engines of operable vehicles must be destroyed beyond repair per the government's requirement for car dealers wishing to take part in their "cash for clunkers" reimbursement plan.

Somehow, the government's reasoning goes, trading in an operable vehicle that gets 18 mpg for a new one that gets 26 mpg is better for the environment. It doesn't matter that we fill the landfills with thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of old vehicles that someone could still drive. We are reducing carbon emissions by taking them off the road and replacing them with more fuel efficient models.

Where are all the Green People? Why no outcry of injustice for the environment? Is it because we want our share of the government's benevolent handout?

My 9 year old son tried a similar tactic this morning. When told he couldn't play with his Game Boy anymore today and that his younger brothers would certain rat on him if he tried to hide in the closet to play, he tried offering them a chance to play his Game Boy. Good old fashioned bribery.

The government is bribing us to look the other way at its asinine programs.

And while I'm on the subject, what about those mercury-filled fluorescent light bulbs that are supposed to be so green? We're supposed to call the haz-mat folks if we break one and we're supposed to pay extra to dispose of them via hazardous waste. How many of us just toss them into the garbage with the rest of our trash?

Here's my proposal for reducing our carbon footprint: Everyone have at least a half-dozen kids and drive a big van. Don't buy cars for each kid. Let them ride a bike or walk if they have to go somewhere without you. Otherwise, drive everyone in the big van. One big van that gets 12 mpg (that's city driving) but transports 8 to 15 people is a heck of a lot more fuel efficient than 2 people driving their so-called Smart cars to the mall on Sunday to buy long-life light bulbs and organic dog food for their child-free-condo-with-pool-lifestyle.

Let's do the math, using my family as our sample set: Twelve people ride in a 15 passenger van to church on Sunday, taekwondo several times per week involving 8 of us, various homeschool activities (music, drama, etc.) throughout the week. Let's say we log 300 miles per week (a common occurrence). At 12 mpg, we use about 25 gallons per week. Here's the clincher: divide 25 gallons per week by 12 people and you get barely over 2 gallons PER PERSON per week.

Let's take 12 people driving Smart cars that get 33 mpg (city driving). Assume those 12 people share rides, so they use 6 cars. If they only travel a total of 300 miles, that's 50 miles per car, or 1.5 gallons per car per week. Multiply 1.5 gallons per car times 6 cars, means 9 gallons of gas used to transport those 12 Smart car owners a grand total of 300 miles.

That means 15 passenger vans are four and one-half times as fuel efficient as Smart cars! Just think about how fuel efficient they would be if we actually transported 15 people each week! My mind is reeling with the possibilities.

Perhaps the government should start by mandating each family have at least 8 children. The carbon footprints per person would be vastly decreased. And we could all sleep soundly at night knowing that we're doing our part to save the planet from global warming.

Not this

Caution: Reading this blog may put you at odds with the Feds

Today is Tax Day. A day rued by many hardworking patriotic Americans. Peaceful protests have been planned in major cities throughout the US and those on the left are steamed. Code Pink and others are planning some tea party "crashes," and left-leaners have blamed Fox News for organizing these gatherings of "right-wing radicals."

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has linked the terms "patriotic" with those who feel it is their duty as "patriotic citizens" to pay more taxes. The Obama administration is already using our patriotic tax dollars to fund more abortions overseas, in addition to forcing doctors and nurses in our own country to participate in these procedures against their consciences. As Planned Parenthood says, the United States is going in a "new direction," and Planned Parenthood is poised to play a "unique role" in shaping the administrations "health agenda."

If that wasn't enough to give us indigestion, someone in the Department of Homeland Security (probably one of those "right-wing nut-jobs" leaked an official document earlier this week, which warns police and security personnel to keep a vigilant watch on "...those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, [and]...individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." Michelle Malkin has a great synopsis on her blog.

It's enough to make you want to dress up like an Indian and dump a load of something into Boston Harbor!

I'll be there in spirit (and truth), if not in person, as I have mommy driving duties to fulfill that prevent me from actually driving my 15 passenger van downtown, to pay $10 to park, then herd my darling children to the steps of the capitol for the second time this month. (We already made our appearance with roughly 2,000 other homeschoolers at the capitol on April 3rd, for Homeschool Day at the Capitol...

If you want to find us in the crowd below, I'm in the bright green shirt, with a knapsack, leaning to my left to talk to my daughter in the bright red shirt, right of the statue, near the front of the crowd. Thanks to J. Will for taking this great pic and posting it on the web!)

Okay, so maybe you can't see me, but I really was there!

Spring Blizzard, part 1: the snowluge

We had a whopper of a blizzard last week. It began snowing Thursday morning and ended sometime early Friday morning. As they say in Colorado, "We really needed the moisture," and this was a moisture-packing blizzard.

The local public schools heard a big one was coming down and they cancelled school before the first flake ever fell.

Shortly after the white stuff appeared, we sent the dog outside to investigate and bring back an olive branch. He came back sans olive branch, but looking rather mournful that we'd sent him out on such hazardous duty.

My dear husband decided to forego the long trek across the metro area to work, and we declared a snow day! First order of business was to find the Wall Street Journal hidden somewhere at the end of the driveway.

There was no paper to be found...though we searched diligently for the better part of 5 minutes.

Yes, things were looking pretty bad out there.

I called the piano teacher to say we wouldn't be driving to her house that day.

The view of our street looking one way...

and then the other...

We couldn't even find our street in the white-out. And 15-passenger vans don't handle slippery streets very well!

So we decided to stay inside and wait out the storm.