Tales From Another Planet

This is mostly a post based on Paul's famous statement of "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15. I've mentioned this verse before, but I do have a slightly different take on it this time. Basically, I want to use this verse and a brief explanation to try to explain why Christians are often perceived as "hypocrites". My premise is this: If there is one thing a Christian should never do, it's hate or dislike or talk baldy another person. Yet, most of us fail every day of our lives. I think the premise is pretty easy to understand, God is love, yet Christians and "the church" fail at showing this. Every day people are turned away from churches or their Christian families, or their Christian acquaintances, friends, or co-workers. Even Christians who are in the same church, life group, or Bible study may dislike or talk badly about each other. In fact, that may be the most prevalen

I hope that no one is offended by the name of the website for my blog. I'm not actually calling anyone a moron, it just rhymed. So what is Zoron or what is a zoranian (my web-moniker of many years). Well, it all started in the 7th grade (or maybe a year or two earlier). I don't remember the exact year, but I can tell you that I was in the foyer at the church I grew up in. It may have been our regular Sunday night meal/fellowship time. Or maybe it was during a youth group event or even our "All Saints Eve" celebration. I do know there were Tootsie Rolls that day for some reason, so maybe it was "All Saints Eve" (or Halloween to any non-liturgical denominations). Either way, I was talking with one of my friends and asked whether or not they could hear the Tootsie Rolls singing. I am not schizophrenic, and was not actually hearing voices or sound, I was just bored and thought it would be a good conversation starter. Well, that discussion somehow led to me say

Let me be clear here. I'm not saying there is no longer racial tension in this country. I'm not saying racial profiling doesn't exist or white privilege doesn't exist. However, there are actually two issues that are getting mixed up together in most people's minds: 1) ongoing police brutality and 2) black communities tend to have higher crime rates and lower income. Let's take the first issue. We need to get a better system of checks and balances in place (which is what our country is built on). For example, in the Eric Garner situation, the internal police department has not fired or suspended this man despite clearly violating protocol. I'm not arguing that police officers shouldn't have the right to use force when arresting someone or that any specific laws were broken. But there is clear, visual evidence that an internal police protocol was broken, which contributed to a man's death. Arguably, the two other officers involved should have also st

I saw an article today that claimed the average cost of childcare for a baby or toddler was over $11,000 per year for one child! I also saw an article talking about how dangerous it is to stay home with your children for your long-term career plans. Then, of course, there is Obama's now infamous comment of "That's not a choice we want Americans to make" regarding at-home parents. I think the most difficult thing to do is make a clearly rational and financial decision on this topic without making it all about dollars or desires. Here are my steps, when we found out we were pregnant with our first child. Crunch the numbers, how much will each parent bring home "net" after taxes, daycare, work-related expenses. Decide whether additional income can be made to bridge that "gap" Decide how much it is worth to you to know that you are the one raising your children. Look at long-term career path goals for both income earners prior to making a final d

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, we are starting to count down the days to the next big holiday: Christmas. Most of us have already experienced some form of holiday anxiety such as what to buy for those people who don't need or want anything or where to go shopping or when or whether or not to involve the children in tradition X, Y or Z. I am not here to tell you what you should or should not do this Christmas to ease your anxiety. I will, however, share my strategy for doing so. My first plan of action is to set a clear focus or a few clear goals for the holiday season. My main goal is to keep Christmas from being just about receiving gifts and make sure my attitude reflects the true "reason for the season". A secondary goal is to keep in mind that I want my kids to end up with an overall picture and goal and not every step (or day, week or year) along the way will work out exactly as I planned. For instance, we want giving to be a primary focus for our children,

Once again Ferguson is blowing up my Facebook news feed, so I feel the need to mention the drama, because I agree that we can’t just sweep aside decades of inequality. However, I’m not sure people are focusing on the actual issues of this case, but instead are focused on what they perceive or “assume” happened. Yes, there are more shootings of black suspects than white, but the reason is not necessarily racism. The reason for these shootings is simply the fact that there are more black suspects. About 40% of the prison population is black, compared to about 14% of the total population. Obama himself notably interchanged two phrases in his speech. In two subsequent sentences he mentioned “some communities of color” and “low-income, high crime neighborhoods”. I’m not sure anyone else has noticed yet, but he used those phrases as synonyms. If even our “black” president believes that some areas of a city, country, or state are dangerous because of the mentality of some of the residen

The following is my basic homeschool plan for Kindergarten. We plan on starting Kindergarten in January, even though my son won't quite be 4.5 because he is already doing most of this. We will start 1st grade whenever I feel he's "ready" (which might be 1-2 years, if necessary). 1st grade will look different because there will be slightly more "required". My basic philosophy is that kids will learn what/when they want to learn, and they do tend to learn somewhat naturally. On the other hand, they also have to be shown/taught certain subjects to enable them to learn more efficiently and reach their full potential. Therefore, I have certain "required" subjects in "Kindergarten" and everything else I am either classifying as "optional" (in other words it does not have to be done on a certain day, but I would like to get to it at least a few times a month) or "fun" (not required at all, but still educational). For Kinder

Confession: I'm a stay at home mom who doesn't stay home. I'm a part-time working mom with 3 jobs (1 at home, 1 outside the home, and 1 a mix of both). I tend to work about 10-20 hours a week at all 3 jobs. I also drive my son to preschool two days a week, and attend a Mom's group or social event at least once a week on average. I'm also a wife. There is no way to "get it all done". However, I feel that staying at home or partly staying at home is the absolute best thing I can do for my kids at this point in their development. I've recently made the decision to homeschool, though, so now I'm even more terrified that I will be "staying home" forever. I work at my jobs because I love them, not because of the money. The majority of my hours, I earn about $8 an hour on average. However, I get the benefits of feeling significant, getting out of the house, and helping people (more than just my kids). At home, I face the isolation, stigma, a

Youngest children may be spoiled, but in some ways they do get the short end of the stick. For example, my youngest child (known as J for this story) will be 2 years old this March, and I'm just now getting around to putting his birth story on "paper". The interesting thing is, it's the most amazing and miraculous birth story so far (of my two children). The first part of the "miracle" is actually difficult to explain. I consider it a part of J's birth story, despite the fact that it was prior to his conception. We actually found out in January 2012 that we were expecting and started seeing a nurse-midwife since I was unhappy with my treatment at the multi-doctor practice I saw for our first child. Our first appointment at this new practice was supposed to be for our 12-week appointment and took place in March of 2012. Unfortunately, there was no heartbeat. An ultrasound eventually showed that a missed miscarriage happened. Sometime around the 5th or 6

I'm torn between two houses. There's the "imaginary" house in my head - move in condition, plenty of room for a possibly growing family, low maintenance, convenient to shopping, work and school, in a good school district. Then there's the house I currently live in. All of the above except the move-in condition and extra room. We used to call our apartment our 800 square feet of heaven. Now we've upgraded to 1100, but added two little boys to the family. We actually moved into this house when I was 8.5 months pregnant. It's 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. It has adequate closet space, a huge backyard, and is in a good school district. The problem is the size, and the clutter. I know I could get rid of the clutter and it would feel so much bigger, but that takes time. I know we could put the two boys in one room if we needed to, but my husband did not enjoy sharing a room with his brother, so he would rather have another bedroom if we add to the family. My proble

I don’t claim to be a parenting expert. My children are still in the middle of their “discipline years” and I think sometimes the wisdom we find while we’re still going through the struggle can be more effective than the “experts” advice 10 years after they’ve moved on to the next stage. I’m not looking to replace expert advice; I just want to record my thoughts for this time period of raising my children. First, what are the Discipline Years? Most experts agree that children ages 18 months-5 years old are in the “discipline years”. I’m not focusing on the “baby years” where you simply need to meet your child’s basic human needs for love, attention, food, warmth, comfort. You can go to all the parenting websites you want to determine whether you should co-sleep or cry-it-out, and I’m not jumping on either bandwagon. Most parents don’t struggle too much mentally with those years – that time period seems to be more of a physical battle. After the night-time feedings, and millions o

So, I have come to realize that I'm doing too much. I'm one of those people that's motivated very easily externally, and not as easily internally. What does that mean? It means that I don't do what I tell myself I will, but I am absolutely responsible if I make a commitment to someone. Hence, why I have not posted since January despite my best intentions. Part of the problem, I have recently realized, is due to my crazy job schedule. I am a "stay at home mom" who works three different part time jobs. I have a part-time job teaching swim lessons at the Y (currently 4 days a week for 1-3 hours at a time). I have a part-time job at my church helping with their childcare ministry for Bible studies and currently a summer "day camp" for preschoolers (this can vary between 3-15 hours a week) and I have a part-time work at home job tutoring online. This doesn't even take into consideration all of my volunteer commitments (once per month in the nursery

So far, I've learned a few things about myself and my writing style. First, it is really hard for me to free-write without editing. I always knew that, but now it's obvious. I'm used to writing a first draft for school projects or college essays and just turning them in without re-writing or editing much at all. Generally, this is because I edit as I go. So, I will say that what I'm including as my examples of writing below are as "free write" as I can make myself be right now. The second thing I've learned is it's really hard to stick with writing in the first person past tense - I tend to want to throw in some present tense, and it gets really awkward. I'm hoping I was able to keep it all in the past tense, but feel free to comment if I'm incorrect! I'm about halfway through my goals for this week. I still need a 30 minute block of free-writing practice for third-person past tense point of view focusing on character development. Here

I think that I've finally decided to pursue writing as more than a "someday" goal and make it a "now" goal. I haven't written in my blog in years, but I do want to start using this blog as a way to track my goal progress and publish short stories on my path to my main goal: self-publishing a novel. So here are my goals for this week: Decide on two main writing points of view that I would like to develop Practice developing a believable character Commit to 30 minutes of a free-write in each point of view developing the same character As I make progress, I plan on publishing more posts which include examples of my work from the week. My overall goal for this year is to finally finish one of the myriad of novel ideas I have floating around in my random brain. The random brain is that portion of the brain that operates mainly while sleep deprived. Because I have a 10 month old baby that still wakes up in the middle of the night, that portion of my brai