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    theresa


    Theresa Lode or, simply “T”, had her world turned upside down and inside out when her son was diagnosed with ADHD and a few other goodies. Her choice- follow the doctor's orders....or trust her heart and delve into the world of Free Range Education. She chose the latter...

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What ever happened to self reliance?

Posted on February 9, 2010 by therealmotherlode

I rarely watch the morning blither blather reports but I did this morning. I was taken aback by the amount of victim talk on each of the stories.  Either it was Obama promising how he was going to take care of us or the young lady, standing in the middle of the snow packed street wailing, “They ain’t doing nothing yet.” (Snow removal wasn’t taking place quickly enough evidently.)

What ever happened to self reliance? Had it not occurred to this healthy and vibrant looking gal to find a shovel or perhaps check to see if her elderly neighbors needed help?  Wait—don’t answer that.  We know already.

I think our need for self reliance  gets eroded slowly and insidiously beginning in childhood with, “Don’t!” and “Let me do that for you!” (Spoken by well meaning moms such as myself.)   The pace is then picked up exponentially in the schooling process where following instructions and waiting for your turn are the modus operandi.  (I can still remember the ominous warning on tests: “Don’t pick up your pencils until your instructed to do so!”)

Why on earth would one want to stand out when independent thought and initiative is frowned upon, nay, penalized?  We have been well trained.

I think the greatest tragedy of the day isn’t the economy or the unemployment statistics.  Rather it’s the helplessness of so many because they’re waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Or to come shovel their street.

Filed under: Goal Setting, Individuality, parenting, Personal development, Public schooling | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

I hope you make lots of mistakes in 2009

Posted on January 1, 2009 by therealmotherlode

Last night the intrepid Mountain Men, Daniel and his friend, Elijah packed up their ditty bags and camping supplies to usher in the New Year under the stars.

“It’s going to be cold tonight!” I admonished.

Daniel was undaunted as packed the vital supplies a Mountain Man needs: instant coffee (No, Sheryl, I never drink the stuff, it’s for my cappuccino muffin recipe), cereal, brown sugar for the coffee.  Brown sugar?

“I couldn’t find the white sugar,” Daniel said with a crooked grin.  Ah.  He had looked, as we say in our house, like a man looks, for the prominently placed sugar which is in a canister the size of an iceberg.

“It’s going to be cold,” I said.  Weather lady said high in the 20′s.

Daniel and Elijah pulled their light jackets on over their tee-shirts.  “Oh, we’ll be fine,” their heads bobbling up and down in the affirmative.  They were going to have a nice warm fire, they said.

“It’s going to be…” I stopped myself.  I was doing the one of the worst things a mom can do.  I was blocking the path to an important education. I was trying to prevent, from my perspective anyway….their making a mistake.

It’s a mother’s instinct to protect her babies but the truth is, if hung on to for too long….it is detrimental to the kid.

I shut my mouth and watched the Mountain Men disappear into the wilds of the backyard.  Since there were no Sherpas available to help them with their supplies, they rode  Daniel’s riding lawn mower off into the horizon.  I felt a lump in my throat and my heart swelled with pride as I heard the decrescendo of the four stroke engine fade away.  Maybe they’ll prove me wrong.  It’s bittersweet watching your boy become a man.

Within an hour, the rumble of the lawn mower filled the air.

“It was cold,” they chattered.  Daniel tossed the Ziplocked provisions onto the counter.  Elijah fished a a bushel of “Jolly Ranchers” and empty wrappers from his pocket and tossed them onto the table.  “Do you have any Pepto?” he asked in a green-ish sort of voice.

Conditions at the bivouac were a bit tougher than they had imagined.  They had no choice than to return to base camp.  The world’s record for expeditions were safe for another year.

I hope this year I do a better job of allowing my kids to make mistakes.  To be like Edison, who once told a worker who was frazzled down by a difficult experiment, “Shucks, we haven’t failed.  We now know a thousand things that won’t work.”

Or to be like Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and multimillionaire who said, if given the opportunity to overhaul our education system would, “…build it around making mistakes.”

Experiences….making mistakes…taking misteps….getting messy…learning and growing.

It’s a sign of life!

If you aren’t making mistakes, you quit trying.  And life’s too short for that.

And that is why I hope our new year….and yours…is full of mistakes.

But while you’re making those mistakes it might be a good idea to hold off on those Jolly Ranchers.

Filed under: humor, parenting, Personal development, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Mother Lode’s Guide to Survival

Posted on December 17, 2008 by therealmotherlode

What with all the economic suffering in the world—women unable to impulse buy $400 boots and Asian nail techs everywhere attending their empty nail booths with nothing but their surgical masks to keep them company—I thought it was probably time to tighten the ole belt in the Lode home and prepare for the worse.

Which is why Jay was puzzled when I told him we needed an extra $1,000 for the shopping budget this month.  The Mother Lode’s Guide to Survival, if you will. He perused my shopping list.

“What’s this?” he asked.  “Right between the mac and cheese and the top ramen noodles?”

“Oh, I see you’re on the “Staples” portion of the list,” I take pride in my organized shopping list.

“100 pounds of dried beans?” he asked.  Finding those hermetically sealed might take a little work.

I shrugged.  I was bracing myself for when he hit the “beverages” section.

“THREE HUNDRED pounds of coffee beans?” he roared.

“Hello? Warships steaming to Cuba?  Hellllooooooo???? Have you thought of the ramifications of what could happen if the coffee growing countries…”

Jay interrupted me.

“Slingshots… ammo… A HOWITZER?!”

I could feel my cheeks redden a bit. I may have gotten just a wee bit carried away there.

“Everyone else is loading up on handguns, I thought we’d better be able to outgun them in case they come after our coffee…”

“A HOWITZER?!”

“Would a Bazooka be better?” I admit, I am a novice when it comes to guns and such.

Jay kept reading, paused and regarded me from over the top of the sheet.  He looked rather stern with his glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“One pallet of ibuprofen?”

“You have to ask about that?” I retorted.  My hand reflexively rubbed my neck.  I could feel a muscle spasm coming on.

“Five football helmets?” he asked, laughing.

“Well, we’ll see who’s laughing if you get a shoe lobbed at you.”  The Secret Service may have been caught off guard but not this savvy mama.  His look made me cross that off the list.

“Broccoli….Tomatoes…Onions…..a MATTRESS?” What’s this doing under “Produce”?” he asked.

“I ran out of space.  That’s for money storage…you know….with all the banks going under and what not.”

At least he didn’t bawk at my chocolate supplies.  I personally can’t think of anything more terrorizing than a bunch of PMS’y women finding there’s chocolate at the Lode’s if a chocolate shortage hits.

“Hey—there’s this prophet dude over in Utah who’s saying something BAD is going to happen sometime in the months ahead,” I could scarcely contain a shudder as I said it.

“I think you need to quit reading The Drudge Report” Jay replied.

True.  The today’s report on “Survival Panic” was especially unsettling.  I ran my home-manicured nail through my Natural Instincts hair.  Maybe Jay had a point.  And that reminds me—maybe I should lay in a good hair dye supply.

I’d hate to go through these tough times gray.

Filed under: Current events, humor, Politics | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

YOU are the answer to your prayers

Posted on November 4, 2008 by therealmotherlode

So today’s the big day and all of America is waiting with bated breath to see who will win the election.  I thought this morning, our issue isn’t who’s going to win the election rather it’s the mentality that has fallen over the minds and hearts of many Americans.  It is the illusion that some politician is going to solve our woes.

And yes there are many woes.  But few things come to mind when I thing about how much government has solved. There’s the Social (In)security.  The Medicare mess.  Corruption all over the place.  Financial turmoil.  Reminds me of a poster.  There’s a beautiful picture of the White House and beneath it it says: GOVERNMENT- If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait till you see our solutions.

We are screaming for government health care but I think we’ll scream louder when our choices are removed.  We scream for government subsidies and then we’ll scream louder because our hands have been tied up by regulations.

Welfare is called “entitlements” and of course, I would be remiss to say “sex” no longer means “sex.”  And since when did home ownership become a RIGHT? I can’t get my mind to even begin to comprehend that last one.

The choices we are voting in today aren’t the source of my angst…it’s the condition of our country’s collection conscience.

It is my hope that regardless of who is elected today, the American people realize that the answer to our prayers lies within ourselves.  Hard work, self reliance and honesty- these are the things that made our country great.  And it’s absence is more sobering than election results today.

This is the message I’ll be telling my kids today as they try to grapple with the enormity of some of the issues at stake today.  And then we’ll go outside and rake some leaves.

Filed under: Current events, Politics | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Big heart….little brain

Posted on September 4, 2008 by therealmotherlode

Politically Incorrect Alert: The following opinion sounds mean and nasty.

I read with interest a front page story the other day from my home town paper, The Helena Independent Record. The story was about an elderly man living in squalor in his home. It was literally falling down around him; mice infested his furniture. The house sounded beyond wretched and truly unfit for human habitation. The neighbors were unhappy with his unusual fence….a string of dead refrigerators that circle the periphery of his property. BTW- He lives on Social Security.

Here’s the short version. A helpful bank person helped him get a loan for $20,000 for the renovations. Say what? I thought to myself.

The paragraph went on to extol the virtues of this loan designed for the impoverished. This is just getting better, I thought to myself. A loan for the impoverished?! Can someone say “The emperor has no clothes”?

The short answer to the story—a contractor came forward and undertook what he realized was a massive project beyond his original estimates (aren’t they all?) and footed the cost beyond what that loan would cover.

The neighbors are happy—the tacky “fence” is gone. (Except for the SIX fridges he keeps running in the house, the article said.) And of course this fellow is happy.

I am happy that this man has a safe habitation.

So now everyone is happy. But I couldn’t help but wonder that what this man really needs is some help accessing mental health care. And he needs to get into a rental situation—someone in such poverty can hardly be expected to maintain property upkeep (not to mention servicing a loan). Why the power costs alone to run those fridges is enough to make my checkbook whimper.

But of course no one mentioned that. Or how this fellow is going to repay the loan. (Hello? Failed mortgages?) True compassion has got to look past a quick fix. And the outcome has got to last longer than the day’s warm fuzzy headline. I’d bet my lunch money that if the paper follows up on this guy just six months from now his plight will be the same, if not worse.

I was thinking about this when we watched Extreme Makeover- Home Edition on Sunday night. It’s the one program we watch every Sunday night. But this one left me puzzled.

It took place in Louisiana and dealt with folks still suffering from Katrina aftermath. What made me scratch my head was the church they were rebuilding.

The building was clearly devastated from the hurricane. And the small congregation has been meeting at another location for the past three years.

When I looked at the building and then at the healthy, able-bodied pastor I wondered why they didn’t bother tearing the structure down themselves? Even if they had no insurance money to rebuild, certainly he could have rounded up a crew of worker bees to demolish the decaying structure. (Some of my fondest memories of fellowship revolved around building or renovation projects.)

Whatever happened to self reliance? And when did loans become a helpful tool for the poor?

It’s probably just a matter of time before Ty and the gang will show up on the property of that elderly fellow when his house is dilapidated again and the ersatz fence is back up. Only then they’ll be shouting, “Bus Driver! MOVE THAT FRIDGE!”

These are crazy days we live in.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

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