Parenting, Giftedness, Education, Life…there will be no rhyme or reason to this post. It is what we, around here affectionately call “verbal vomit”. (You know, when you really don’t want to hold it in, and yet you really have no good reason to let it out.) Yeah, it is one of those days, so like I said, “Give me a minute” ’cause I have a laundry list of things that need saying!

• Make a mental map of your past. I couldn’t see the quicksand in time to safe myself the first time around, but I sure remembered where it was and what it looked liked.
• If you think to yourself, “Should I just keep my mouth shut?”, the answer is most likely always going to be “Yes!”
• Adjectives are not bad! They are absolutely necessary.
• Listen, listen, listen! Do not just listen out of politeness; listen as if you were a detective. Listen for what is not being said. Listen for the words that are purposefully not being spoken.
• Reading may be fundamental, but it is useless without understanding.
• For the sake of your reputation, do not argue a point that you do not fully understand. Most importantly, do not argue against a point you do not fully understand.
• You are never too old to be a bully! Age does not make a bully smarter or more credible, it just makes them an older bully.
• If you find yourself having to constantly convince people to do the right thing, you are probably surrounded by the wrong people.
• When did I become a cynic?
• There is always an agenda!
• Why is there a stigma attached to “gifted”?
• Does a number really matter?
• Sometimes split personalities would come in handy.
• Do public school teachers ever get hate mail from their students – the joy of homeschooling. 🙁
• Do I really care enough to change the world?
• I want what is best for all people (whatever that may be to each individual), but refuse to spend all my energy convincing them that it is good for them. What does that make me?
• The closest people come to taking a parenting test is that one week of their senior year in high school when they have to carry around an raw egg dyed pink or blue.  No one ever asks these people the hard questions.
• There ought to be a test! You have to take a test to drive a car, you have to take a test to cut people’s hair, you even have to take a test to be allowed to spend the day teaching young children. But there is absolutely no test to have or raise a child?
• This was not in the game plan, or was it?
• I do not claim to be an expert in any field. In my previous lives I was many things and pretty good at a few of them. When I say previous lives, I am not referring to any prior life that I may have had outside of the current physical body I have now. I am basically trying to state the fact that in my 44 years on this planet (this time, wink-wink) I have outgrown myself several times.