Black History Month Easy Family Home Evening

I'm not one of those fancy moms who has Family Home Evening (FHE) with a lesson, a treat, a song, a scripture, and a game that are all thematically linked. Noooo....

We do a Church song (kid's choice), then, Nate or I yell a lesson over the boys' playing or fighting, and we end with a prayer.

And, then, we wonder why on earth we do this to ourselves while saying another prayer that our children will not be completely devoid of some sort of moral compass when they get older.

But, tomorrow, we'll have a super fancy FHE. I found Moses: When Harried Tubman Led Her People to Freedom at Barnes and Noble yesterday. Throughout the book, God guides Harriet to freedom by talking to her as she runs towards freedom.

A perfect story for emphasizing faith, courage, and listening to that still, small, voice while celebrating Black History Month. (Heck, you can get a twofer here--read it next month for Women's History Month!)

Now if I practice reading it outloud a few more times before tomorrow, perhaps I'll get through it without crying.

Being Married to a Fraud Consultant Does Have Its Advantages: Debit Card Scan

Nate got a fraud alert this morning. Wal-mart apparently just busted a huge bunch of its employees who were scamming customers. This could happen at any retail outlet.

1. You checkout
2. You pay with a debit card
3. The cashier manually inputs $20-$60 cash back which only shows up on your receipt and not on the touchpad screen.
4. If the cashier is under constant surveillance (which they are at Wal-mart) the cashier give the next person in line, who is in on the scam, your cash advance.
5. If the cashier is not under surveillance then they simply keep track of the cash back and remove the money when their shift ends and they reconcile their register to the till.

Even if you catch them doing it, they will simply claim the machine has been messing up and automatically doing cash-backs. Just always check your receipt for cash-backs.

Getting Political

We've been trying to have a family night every Monday. Mine are very modest: a verse of scripture, a song, and a story, and I usually don't come up with it until Monday afternoon, which I figure is a good idea because if I spend lots of time doing it, I would feel bad that my mom and I are the only ones participating come Monday night.


So, I was particularly grateful when Asher's teacher sent home a flyer about a little political project we could do. We traced our hands and wrote a note on them for Govenor Brewer about our concerns about cuts to public education.


If you're a fellow Arizonan, here's more info: http://joinhandsforeducation.org/who.html

Thanksgiving Traditions

Living in Boston for the first years of our marriage, we never had the money to fly back home for Thanksgiving and Christmas (um, about half those years, we didn't have the money to fly back for either holiday). So, we developed a few traditions for our little family: Nate's Marshmallow Salad, my friend's sweet potato casserole, and I like to listen to Alice's Resturant. I'll have to get the boys in on this last tradition because Nate doesn't share my love of this song. But, it's not Thanksgiving for me until I've sung along with it.

My dad introduced me to Alice's Resturant one Thanksgiving when I was in high school. It's a great little war protest song. Well, it's not little--the shortest version is 10 minutes, the longest is 27 minutes.

It's a perfect tradition for our crazy liberal family and reminds me how grateful I am to live in this country, where we are allowed to criticize, protest, and write freely.

So, remember, you can get anything you want at Alice's Resturant. (And, Happy Thanksgiving!)

Helping the World by Clicking My Mouse

I always feel guilty that I'm not doing more to make the world better. Really, what have I done about Darfur? What have I done about global warming? Not much, I'm afraid...

So, every day, I go to this site that I've bookmarked:
http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=1

And, click to give 1.1 cup of food to the hungry. Then, I go to the tabs at the top of the screen and click on Child Health, Rainforest, Animal Rescue, Literacy, and Breast Cancer. That gives donations to these causes, too.

Not much, but it's better than nothing.