The Youngest turned 8 yesterday. It doesn't seem like my youngest should be 8 yet. I try hard to remember how I treated The Oldest when he was 8. I think I baby The Youngest some. It is easy to do. He is smaller in size than the The Oldest was. He likes to snuggle me. The Oldest was over that long before then, although he will still let me in private if I ask. The Youngest does not like to talk to other adults. He is getting better, but he doesn't like it.

The Husband's family came to visit yesterday and celebrate the birthday. I just really have a problem with my mother-in-law. I try not to let it effect the kids relationship with her too much. Some of the things are just because I don't like her and I know I need to get past them. Some of the things I think she shows The Husband and I a lack of respect. Some of the things are just plain wrong. I just have to keep smiling when she is here.

I think The Oldest is growing up. We went to the State Fair yesterday and while we were walking out, he said he had a great time. In the past, when we have gone to the fair he has not been very excited about it. We don't do the rides and he always felt let down because he sees the rides and wants to go on them. We go in the "Village of Yesteryear". It is a building with people demonstrating and selling handmade items, mostly crafts that people have been doing for years: spinning yarn, pottery, metal smiths, etc. It has always been my favorite part of the fair. We go in the buildings to look at the craft winners. They had a tent about conservation and going green this year. We go in the business exhibit halls; you can still get Mt. Olive pickles for 50 cents, but milk has gone up to 75 cents. So, The Oldest is starting to enjoy what his parents enjoy and not being so envious of the things he can't do. The Youngest still focuses on the rides, but I think he had fun, too.

On the way home, we always ask "What was you favorite thing?" The Husband: "Muscadine grape cider slushies." The Oldest: "The rabbit skin I got." Me: "The handmade yarn I bought." The Youngest: "I can't remember."

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We're back down to 4 cars. We donated the Contour to the community college. We took it back to the dealership and they fixed the wiring one more time so the check engine light is off. But I still didn't feel comfortable trying to sell it knowing the wiring is so fragile. The man at the community college said we could rest assured ours would not be the last headache the car gave someone. I think it was a good decision.

I wrote this a while back.

I have a friend that I talk with about all sorts of different things. She is a socialist and I am definitely not. We were discussing politics relating to welfare and a universal health care plan. We are completely on opposite sides of the arguments, but we love Jesus and each other enough to discuss these things openly and without hurt feelings. (Everyone should have a friend like that.) During this conversation, she made a statement that has been with me ever since. I’ve been debating it in my own mind back and forth. She said, “Socialism is a Christian form of government.”The part of me that agrees with her goes to the story in Acts, Chapter 2 about how the early followers of Christ came together and “had all things in common”. They didn’t have any personal property. They sold everything they had and divided it among the community. They worked and ate together. To me, this says socialism. Then later, in Chapter 6, we see the need for a welfare system. It seems it was too much work for twelve people to pray and study and spread God’s word plus divide the food and property evenly. So, they hired seven social workers to help. This system worked and their number “increased greatly”. To me, this says socialism was given a stamp of approval from God.But then, like I said, I am definitely not a socialist. I don’t want the government in control of this and telling me what kind of house I can have, how much food I can have, what kind of toys I get to play with and what kind of car I can drive. I like my things. I like the feeling I get when I work hard and earn enough money to buy the things I want, even if I don’t need them. And then I look at how we in the U.S. have the richest poor people in the world. We do not have massive starvation. I heard a statistic a while back that one of the growing health problems among our poor people was obesity. We don’t have cities of people living in cardboard boxes and drinking sewer water. Don’t get me wrong, we do have people who are poor and hungry and homeless, but not like I hear it is in other parts of the world where whole societies are destitute. To me, this says a free market society has been given a stamp of approval from God.So, I’ve come up with the argument against socialism. In the same stories in Acts, the Christians did not give their problems to the government to solve for them. They didn’t demand the government to come up with a system of food stamps to feed their widows. They found a way to continue to do it themselves. They kept the poor people in their community and took care of them. They kept the relationship with the needy and didn’t outcast them. They committed to living sacrificially and in community. I don’t see God commanding them to live this way. No one says “God told me we should do this.” In the Acts, Chapter six story of hiring social workers, God doesn’t give anyone a vision of a way to solve the problem. Instead, they have a town meeting and present their proposed solution. The solution seems acceptable to the community, so they go with it. So maybe, God’s stamp of approval in blessing them with increased numbers is approving of their desire to work together for a common solution and not just approving the particular solution they came up with. Maybe God is approving of their desire to keep the poor with them. Maybe God is approving of their accepting the responsibility themselves and not passing it along to someone else. Maybe God approves of all this, maybe not. The Bible just says their numbers increase. My desire is for God’s Church to increase. Their method of keeping the poor in their community worked to increase God’s Church. So, I want the church communities taking care of each other and not the government taking care of us. I want God’s Church to increase, not the government. So I guess my conclusion to my friends statement "Socialism is a Christian form of government" is that I want to be the socialist, not the government. How about that, I want to be a socialist! My friend won't believe me.

The Oldest and I were struggling yesterday with writing. I still cannot figure out why he has such a problem with writing a paragraph. I have tried to take out all the obstacles I can think of. He can type it on the computer, or yesterday, I offered to type for him. The assignment was to write about his favorite food. After we got past the problem about "favorite", he could not come up with a topic sentence. I think he is going to hate it, but after this grammar book, we are going to spend some time writing paragraphs.

Then, later in the day he needed help with a computer game. I hate trying to figure out problems with loading/installing/running computer games. I got really frustrated and yelled at him. I later had to go around and apologize to the hole family. I have to work on that.

I watched the gubenatorial debate last night. It was so different from the presidential debates. One of the main canidates was not there. The Repbulican canidate and the Libertarian canidate were. They were both well spoken. I don't think either of the presidential canidates speak that well when it's not a prepared speech. The two canidates on several questions completely agreed with each other. Sometimes it think if one of the presidential canidates said the sky was blue, the other would have to disagree. It reminds me of my children sometimes. Then, they two canidates both answered the question that was asked of them instead of talking about whatever they wanted to. It was very interesting to me. I think I will try to watch the next one. The Democrat canidate is supposed to be there.

I have been immersed in politics lately. Sarah Palin was in town speaking last night. The Husband and The Oldest went to see her. Turns out, I could have gone also. They had more tickets available at the door. Instead, The Youngest and I went to a "Political Meet and Greet" sponsored by the 4-H and chaired by a member of our 4-H group. They had a few candidates cancel because Palin was in town, but it was a good evening. Most of the candidates I can't vote for because I am in a different county. But, it was still good. The Youngest didn't like it, go figure. I watched the presidential debate also. I really think deadlock in government is a good thing. The less they do, the better. We have so many laws and programs, we cannot enforce or support what we have. I think if everything could be made simpler, it would be better. I think the economy is in trouble because they don't seem to understand the problem. The problem is that everyone from the government to the businesses to the population spend money they don't have. They borrow money without a plan to pay it back. No one seems to be able to say no to their desires and therefore, their needs eventually cannot be supported. I heard in the debate that the credit has to be able to flow or business will not be able to make payroll. I just don't understand how a business can survive if they cannot earn enough money from selling their goods and services to pay their employees. You should not have to take a loan to pay your workers. Loans should be for expansion with a clear plan of the new income that will be generated to pay the loan back. People never seem to look for the least expensive house or car they can find. They look for the biggest house or car they can get a loan for. Government never seems to understand they cannot spend money they don't have. It really doesn't matter how good the program is or how many people it will help. If the money is not there, you can't do it.

I think I've ranted enough for now. We have to go start school work.