Ashamed

Honestly I am ashamed to be an Oklahoman today.  What is wrong with our state.  We are traveling backward step by step by step.  We are letting our children down by demolishing our education system and now we are letting women down and turning us back to pre-70's.  I am ashamed.

Ettiquette 101

I have a question for you.  Do you write thank you notes?  Do you send out graduation invites, wedding announcements, birth announcements, birthday cards, etc?  Do you expect them?  I've written about writing letters before as I love to write and continue to write to friends and my pen pal for nearly 40 years.  Somewhere in my upbringing I learned from my grandmother the importance and proper way of these things.  Granny taught me how to set a proper table and how to iron your pillow cases and sheets.  I was taught manners; no elbows on the table, napkin in your lap, you know all the right things.  Somehow a close member of my family did not embrace those lessons.  This family member has NEVER sent a thank you note or birthday card out in their life and now I find out that they are not going to send out graduation notices for the graduating senior in their family.  Let me tell you something, I send birthday cards to their children every year, with cash included, and one year when I had not gotten around to it I received a phone call wondering where it was, with the money!  What in the world happened here.  We were raised together.  I don't understand, and you know I am very, very tempted NOT to send a congratulatory card and "money" to the senior but that would not be fair to the child.  I questioned why and the family member just said they didn't want to but and the announcements were too expensive.  I think it is sheer laziness and not showing the proper stuff to the child.  For goodness sake you can make your own and at least send them to immediate family.  Am I missing this or are all of these lessons not important anymore!

Waiting For Superman

This morning the Today Show brought to my attention what has been bubbling in the back of my mind for awhile, our education in the United States and our children in general.  The movie, Waiting For Superman, is being released in select theatres and I want to make sure I see it.  It is about the eduaction lottery, children trying to get into charter schools and whether they are doing what they promised.  Hell, I don't think our regular schools are doing what they promise either.  The Today Show is kicking off the week about education.  Meet the Press is also dedicating their Sunday morning hour to education and the debate.  I don't have children in the "system" anymore but that does not mean I don't care.  My goodness, the children we are educating or not educating are our future too.  They are who will keep the wheels of our country squeaking and we are doing a disservice by not giving them a whopping good education.  We have got to step it up and start paying our teachers more, keeping our schools in better operating conditions, and providing top quality supplies like books to help our children and having the best of the best teachers.  My mother's mantra was that if you can get a child to read you give them the world.  She was a bulldog with my siblings and I about reading and it shows because all of us read avidly and so do my girls.  So very important!