About to-do lists

I've been trying, over the past year or two, to go electronic with my daily to-do lists. I've tried a whole bunch of things.

One that I liked, for awhile, was Teux Deux (cute, yes?)

Another that coaxed me to sign up - but that I never used - was Cozi, the family calendar.

Then there's ToodleDo.

TaDa.

Todoist.

Remember the Milk.

I've also tried Google calendar very recently.

And I've decided I don't like any of them.

There's something very satisfying about using yellow legal pads and a nice pencil for all my to-do lists. It's a sensory thing; I love the sound and feel of writing on paper. I like old fashioned wooden pencils, newly sharpened, but also like mechanicals for their ever-sharp points and never-used-up erasers.

My paper of choice is an 8-1/2" by 11" yellow legal pad. I consider it a significant luxury, coming from a home where the only scratch paper we had came junk mailings, blank on one side, torn into thirds.

The most satisfying thing of all, as any list-maker knows, is checking off the tasks as they're done. I'm one of those list-making-types who will actually write down an already-done task -- just for the fun of checking it off.

So I better go find my list and write down, "update post on blog" so I can check it off now.

De Profundis

On this All Saints holy day, I'm thinking there are a few psalms that I'd like have the kids commit to memory. This is one:

Psalm 130:

Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.
Let Your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication.
If You, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand?
But with You is forgiveness, that You may be revered.
I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in His word.
My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn, let Israel wait for the Lord,
For with the Lord is kindness and with Him is plenteous redemption;
And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

And of course another is Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He guideth me in straight paths for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Amen.

Dear Maman

Our youngest is in 7th grade in our homeschool. She wanted to learn a foreign language this year - French - and since we already had "Tell Me More: French" from our oldest's high school days, she began using it.

It's working. The other day she started talking to me in French - and I hadn't a clue as to what she was saying. It's more than a little disconcerting to have your 12 year old speak to you in a language you don't understand.

Lately, she's been leaving me her wake-up request notes in a charming mix of English and French:

Dear Maman,

Si vous plait, wake moi up un heure avant le pumpkin farm.

Merci!

Aime,
R

And yes, we went to the pumpkin farm yesterday. But this year, it was just two parents and our French-speaking youngest. Quite the startling contrast to our trip to the same farm in 2002:

We had a very nice time on the bumpy hay ride out to the pumpkin fields, which were particularly beautiful this year. It was a good year for pumpkins; they were huge, and plentiful, and, from a distance, the big orange squashes dotted the fields like bright polka dots .

So today the kids go trick-0r-treating. As is our tradition, we'll serve up beef stew to the neighbors who pop in for a bite to eat, midway through the candy collecting.

Aime,

Maman

An unforeseen danger

For several years now, my favorite soap-box topics have been the twin evils of overpriced colleges and the associated crushing levels of debt taken on by students.

College administrators were encouraging this irresponsible behavior by calling these loans "an investment", when they had to know that nobody makes money on a $60,000 "investment" in a Women's Studies degree or a $100,000 "investment" for a Masters in Social Work. Too many parents failed to warn their children against taking on too much debt -- perhaps because they, themselves, were already up to their eyeballs in mortgage and credit card debt, or perhaps because they bought the "it's an investment" line.

The federal government bears much of the blame, because ever since they got involved in the student loan business, colleges started jacking up tuition at nearly criminal rates of 5 - 6% a year, when inflation was running at about 1%. It's the third-party payer syndrome, just as in health care: when somebody else is paying (or at least appears to be paying, by dishing out deferred payment loans), nobody feels responsible for caring much about what it all costs.

For several years now, I've realized what a terrible danger this was for the students. They would spend decades -- maybe a lifetime -- paying off these loans. They would have to postpone marriage, buying a house, starting a family.

What I didn't realize - until now - was that this would also be a terrible danger to our republic.

Obama just announced that he will start a structured debt-forgiveness program for student loans. Other than being a naked attempt to buy the votes of young people, it's also a horrible idea.

I got into a bit of a discussion this morning with a young acquaintance of mine -- a good, responsible, bright young woman -- who basically said, hey, I have a lot of student loans and I'd sure like to have them paid off. At one point I said,

If we are to remain a free country, a republic with productive, independent, responsible people, then we have to stop rewarding bad behavior, and stop encouraging people to "vote themselves the Treasury." Life is all about making choices. What about those young people who decided, realistically and responsibly, they couldn't afford college, so they went to community college, lived at home, took online classes, or maybe got a job instead. Why should they now have to pay for OTHER people going to expensive colleges they couldn't afford? Because, in fact, taxpayers WILL pay the bill for this, since Obama nationalized the entire student loan industry a year or so ago.

Here's a good article, "A College Loan Scam", which I found today via Instapundit (still my favorite news aggregator).

A very weird coincidence

So tonight at dinner, my husband said he happened to check out this blog today and was stunned to find that I'd actually posted something here.

What are the odds of me posting out of the blue, and him visiting the blog out of the blue -- on the very same day!!?!?

Freaky, huh?

Blogging is so retro

Yes, blogging just feels so old, so last-decade.

Twitter is the new blogging. And I don't do much with that, either.

Facebook is the new blogging. It's much more interactive than Blogger ever was for me, but that's just because I didn't have much of a readership here. (Although once, I had an Instalanche from Althouse; that was definitely the high point of this blog's traffic stats.)

I certainly don't have the time for it -- which is the main reason I dropped this blog like a hot "potatoe" (hello, Dan Quayle).

My life is different in many ways than it was the last time I was regularly posting here. For one thing, my Dad - who I blogged about a few times in the last years of his life - died on August 4, 2010. It was my Mom and Dad's 54th wedding anniversary. The priest came to Dad's hospital room in the morning, anointed him, blessed their marriage. Mom helped Dad eat lunch. And then Dad told everyone to go home; he was tired and wanted to rest and they should all just leave.

By the time Mom got home, the phone was ringing: come back to the hospital. They did - and he was already gone.

*******

Other things are different, too.

Our two oldest daughters are now in college.

I can't kiss the top of any of my children's heads anymore.

After a seven year absence, I'm teaching at Carroll College University again. I quit because our youngest had started home kindergarten and I need to focus on having all four kids in homeschool; I've started up again because our homeschool enrollment is down to just two.

But for some reason I'm feeling the urge to get back to this old blog again.

We'll see.