This one really should be titled

Today's Rant and a Funny to Take the Edge Off

Rant 1:

To the world at large and people who live as I choose not to and who accept what I choose not to:

Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I hate you.

When did it become a crime to hold to my values? As long as I'm not assaulting you or trying to force you in some way to conform to what I believe, I'm not in any way demonstrating any hatred. I don't have to give up what I believe to "love" you.

Rant 1 over. I had to get that out of my system.

But here comes another!

Rant 2:

Here's the headline from MSNBC News: High Schoolers Flunk Personal Finance Survey Finds Seniors Have 'Dismal' Money Skills

This is what my poor family has to listen to me scream about on a regular basis (this and the fact that schools teach kids to hate reading, but that's another story...). There is all this clamor in Oklahoma now about how kids don't take enough higher math. Schools continue to start algebra earlier and earlier, so that by the time kids hit high school there's time to fit in geometry, trigonometry, calculus and whatever other higher math is out there. (Oklahoma is pushing for four years of higher math to graduate from high school.) Well all this higher math--to the exclusion of simple, basic consumer math--is leading to a world of routine bankruptcies because these young adults don't understand how the money game is played. Frankly I think the financial world is getting what's coming to them when they keep pushing credit cards and easy loans without being frank about the difference between paying cash and buying on credit. I think personal finance should be the first mandatory math class that a high school student has to take.

Thanks to homeschooling, it was for my son and it will be for his brother too. I highly recommend The Consumer Math Success Kit by J. Weston Walsh. My son covered detailed lessons about budgeting, figuring interest on loans and installment purchases and how much buying on credit increases the purchase price. He knows how to estimate and plan for living expenses like car insurance, and learned how to figuring income taxes. There are no financial blinders on this kid. He knows and he understand the danger of the overuse of credit. He knows how to be financially responsible.

How do I know? By his actions. He saves for what he wants and then goes and buys it with cash after he has shopped for the best price (usually by telephone so he doesn't waste gasoline running from store to store) and often he'll even wait for what he wants to go on sale. I let him have a credit card when he took his trip to Australia two years ago (he saved for that too) and I have never had to take it from him. He pays his portion monthly so that he doesn't have to carry too much cash. In fact he still asks me if he can use it before he does. He understands that it takes hard work to build a bank account and that if you're wise, you won't just toss cash to the wind.

His father and I have tried to set a good example for him in this regard as well. All of our vehicles are bought with cash. (No they aren't the latest and greatest, nor are they traded every two years, but they do the job we need them to do.) Our house is paid for. We seldom buy retail, and one of my dh's favorite pasttimes is haunting thrift stores for Armani suits and silk ties. We have no credit card debt. We keep our eye simple, weigh our needs against our wants, and we don't suffer the end-of-the-month anxiety about whether or not the money will last. It's there for emergencies and also for times when my dh wants to cut back on his work load a bit to do volunteer work. Time is valued more than money; having the time to spend together and in our spiritual pursuits makes our lives fulfilling and happy. We live a modest but contented life, and if that's one legacy that I can pass on to my children, then I feel like I have given them more wealth than money ever can. Did I mention we're a one-income family? A satisfied, content, well-cared-for, not-in-debt, one-income family. It can be done. You just have to want it and then work to make it happen.

So my rant to the public school system is back off on the higher math! It doesn't automatically create satisfied, happy, productive members of society. Give our kids the basic math skills they'll need in everyday life first. Then if there's time (and desire) for the rest, the important stuff won't have been neglected.

Ready for my schools-teach-kids-to-hate-reading speech? I didn't think so. LOL! So let's move on to this interesting word that AWAD sent me yesterday and that has cursed me all day long today. :)

The Danger of New Words

resistentialism (ri-zis-TEN-shul-iz-um) noun

The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior against us.

[Coined by humorist Paul Jennings as a blend of the Latin res (thing) + French resister (to resist) + existentialism (a kind of philosophy).]

"Oh this word should have been part of my vocabulary a long, long time ago," I said to myself (now should that be in quotes or not? Hmmm.) when I read the definition. I recognize it from all those times I need something to work quickly and well and it simply doesn't. The computer is by far the worst culprit, followed by my stove/oven, the can opener, the stupid, stupid cell phone, the car, the VCR especially when I need to program it quickly, the furniture legs that love to break my little toe, zippers of all sorts, necklace clasps, coffee pots, suitcase locks, door locks, the fob for the car.... I'm running out. Oh, how about bookmarkers. I sooner or later go back to memorizing page numbers--or stopping on page numbers that are easy to remember because bookmarks never stay where they're placed, even if they clip on. Then there's pens and notebooks. I have them everywhere but when they are most sorely in need they hide.

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.

Oh, and beware! This new word has it's own way of imprinting itself on your brain. Forget saying it seven times, writing it repeatedly and using it in a sentence. Tomorrow it will come to you in a variety of forms and you'll shake your head and mutter, "There it goes again!" Mine started out with coffee filters, went on to encompass the washing machine, a ball-point pen that always works except when a tenant in a hurry needs a receipt for rent paid, my toothbrush, my shoes, and the broom. I won't go into all the boring details because then you might just stay in bed tomorrow and miss this exciting edge of life.

FYI: Here's the rest of the AWAD e-mail from yesterday:

"If you ever get a feeling that the photocopy machine can sense when you're tense, short of time, need a document copied before an important meeting, and right then it decides to take a break, you're not alone. Now you know the word for it. Here's a report of scientific experiments confirming the validity of this theory:

http://www.uefap.co.uk/writing/exercise/report/clatri.htm "

Happy reading! If you can get the browser to open the article.