The Atheist Mama

Well, now I just feel plain bad. I knew that I was slacking on this blog, but I didn’t realize how long it had been since my last post until tonight. So I apologize for disappearing. :(

But, I do have good news. I mentioned a “big project” that I was working on several times in the past. Well, I’m proud to announce that The Atheist Mama is now officially self-employed and this is one thing that has been keeping me so busy. And now that that one is done, I’m working on a few more (but I can’t link you to those just yet…). Perpetual Progress is in the process of becoming an LLC, and getting trademarks. I’ve even put my youngest into part time daycare so that I can actually work without him in my lap. It has been an adjustment, but he’s loving it now, and I have to admit that I am too.

Anyway, I’ve been putting A LOT of effort into this, and haven’t even had time to look at this blog. Seriously, I haven’t even visited this blog more than about 3 times, because I knew I would just feel bad about not posting. Not to mention the fact that since the last time I blogged, I’ve taken two trips to VA, and am going on another trip out there for New Years Eve.

Thank you to the “guest bloggers” (who are no guests at all, but roommates) for keeping some life here. You guys rock.

I’m not leaving forever… I’m just lucky that I have time to sleep lately.
Hope you are all well! :-)

Well, sorry the site has been down for the last few days. Somehow the database became corrupt, and we had to restore from backup. Apparently it hasen’t been backed up for a little while. So we lost a whole bunch of posts and comments. :-(

There was also another issue that may suggest sabotage. No, this isn’t paranoia, a certain bit of information was missing that caused the site to disappear. That’s all I’m going to say about it at this point. We are in the process of digging for more info.

There is a possibility that it we may be able to back up the site with a more recent backup, but we’re not sure. So stay tuned…

About 2 weeks ago, I went to Vermont to see an old friend from high school get married. They live about an hour away from Stowe, and even closer to Canada. It’s such a beautiful part of the country, and it was the first time that I’ve been that far north in the United States.

The wedding was held at the groom’s folk’s house. They have a good
amount of land there. I don’t remember exactly… I heard 60 acres and 120 acres being discussed. They had a hog roast, and all of the food and the flowers were locally grown. It was a great experience, and a whole
different life than the one that I lead here in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio.

Oh, and “god” wasn’t mentioned once. Not that I would have minded… I was just there to be with my friends on this special day in their lives. But it was nice that there was no mention god. I know that the bride isn’t religious (despite the fact that her family is). She’s not an atheist. I’m not sure exactly what her beliefs are. But I was glad that they chose to leave god out of their ceremony.

You can pictures of the whole event here!

Hey all! I want to thank all of you for your comments and emails showing your concern for me. I truely appreciate it.

Where have I been? Well, I’ve been traveling a lot lately. I actually just got back from Northern Virginia a few days ago, and I’ll be going back in a week. I’ll also be taking a trip up to Vermont while I’m out in Virginia. All of this with my 2 little boys. My husband has to stay here and work, so it’s been interesting. But I’m getting to see a lot of my family, and I’m doing a lot of re-connecting with some really old, really great friends. We’re having a blast!! But when September comes, life will settle back down.

I have a little to blog about in the next week or so, but then I’ll be slowing back down… But don’t stop coming by and keep my on your blogroll!! :-) Also, you can look for some of my posts on God is for Suckers too. I’ve been lucky enough to join forces with the brilliant minds of GifS.

Stay tuned…

Today is the offical first day of summer.  Here in Columbus, we’re ringing in summer with a thunder storm.  I love ‘em.  I’m not so fond of the heat we’ve been experiencing lately.

Usually, I make sun cookies or a sun cake, or something else sunny, but it’s too warm to bake (I rarely use my oven in the summer), so I’ll have to come up with something else.  Any clever ideas out there?  Maybe pineapple rings (grilled if I can get out there between storms)?

My local humanist group had planned on getting together for trash collection (adopt a highway) and then planned on meeting in a local park later in the evening.  It’s not  something that I can attend with the kids, but I think that it is an excellent way to celebrate the solstice (it was cancelled due to the weather anyway).

Anyone have any interesting plans for today?  Or is the solstice just like any other day in your world?

Oh, and I have some good news (for me anyway) coming up in my next post.  Stay tuned…

A few new things actually. First, this site is in desperate need of a new look. I’m done with this “theme,” and I’m done with Movable Type. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been great, but about a month ago I had the opportunity to set a blog up for a local business and I set him up with a WordPress blog. Wow. I was sold.
So today, I stopped by the Meme Machine Escappe’s blog, and learned that Lya had a new look too (looks great by the way). She used WP, and it got me all geared up for a change. Hopefully it’ll be ready soon.

I think that Lya and I have a bit in common lately. As you’ve read here in the recent past, I’m quite sick of the politics, and of religion. I’ve needed a break, and I’m enjoying it. :-) So following Lya’s lead, here are a few of my guilty pleasures.

1. General Hospital. I’ve been watching this show for as long as I can remember. Now, I don’t watch it every day, but I do have it recorded every day. Since having kids, it’s really taken a back burner, but I still sit down and watch a few episodes a couple days a week.

2. Chick magazines. Like Cosmo, or Red Book, or even Good Housekeeping. I only get to read them in the doctors office, but I love flipping through them.

3. Diet Coke. Ok, this may be more of an addiction than a guilty pleasure, but I love it. Good stuff right there.

Well, that’s about all I can come up with, other than the typical ones like cheesecake and ice cream. :-)
Your turn!

I’m still around… Just busy with the kids. My oldest’s last day at school is on Thursday, and his class will be going to the Zoo. My husband and I both are going to go along for the event. It’ll kind of be like bringing a zoo to the Zoo. Should be fun though.
Then he’ll be out of class for a few weeks, but will be starting the summer program at the end of June. I’m thinking of taking a trip to NJ while he’s off. We’ll see…

My youngest has become a brand new challenge for me. The constant screaming and tantrum throwing is enough to drive me out of my mind. It’s been tough, but we know (we HOPE) that he’ll pass through this phase quickly.

We’ve been busy trying to make our house more efficient for the summer. It’s costing a whole lot of money, but hopefully it will save us money, and make us more comfortable in the end.

Ahhhh… What has been going on in the world. Ugh, most of it’s enough to make me vomit. Sometimes I wonder why the hell I should care anymore. I have been avoiding the news at night deliberately. But, that’s not a very productive attitude, I suppose…

I can’t even believe that time is being wasted debating gay marriage. Again. Someone this morning on the radio said that “studies show that more than 50% of gay marriages end in divorce.” LMAO! What studies? What marriage? What divorce? Gimme a break… Besides, if that were the case, they’d be right up there with the straight folk, huh? Someone else on the radio then suggested that “maybe they should ban divorce instead.” It was said sarcastically, but what a great point? Why aren’t the Religious Right pushing for something like that? Isn’t that against Christain beliefs? Not that I would agree with this, of course, but it’s an interesting point.

Anyway, stay tuned! This Sunday, The Atheist Mama will be holding the Carnival of the Godless! We’ve gotten some great entries already! Keep ‘em comin’!!

I’ve been really busy here in real life land. My boys… They have the ability to suck the life out of me. :-)
We’ve been outside A LOT, playing and working in the yard. My house hasn’t really been cleaned in forever, it seems.
I haven’t been returning emails or comments, so I apologize for that. Thank you to everyone who has checked in on me. :-)

So yesterday, I went to the National Day of Prayer Rally. There were about 12-15 of us, I believe, and we stood right behind the stage with our signs during the whole ceremony. Quite a few people showed us their support and appreciated what we were doing. Of course, there were a lot of people who told us they would pray for us, and that “we would see the truth, come judgement day.”

The rally wasn’t about telling people that they should not pray. It was about the fact that it is a clear violation of the whole church and state separation thing. You know, that whole first amendment thing?

Here’s a picture. I’m in the green shirt (ack! a full body shot!). You can see more at the Secular Student Alliance website.

Mr. Blackwell (the Republican candidate for Governor in Ohio) was there, and he even led a prayer. There was a reporter from the New York Times who was there covering Mr. Blackwell, and a few of the people in our group got interviewed. Very cool.

This past Wednesday, I met up with Kerry, Nancy and their kids! You know, the Christians from that church that I “attacked?” We met at a local restaurant for lunch. It was great fun. They are very nice people, and their kids are adorable. I only got to meet the 2 youngest. I got to hear a lot about their church. It was pretty crazy… They sat us right next to the ice cream table, and my oldest had his eye on it from the second we walked in. Their little boy asked me a few questions about God, and about what my boys would believe in. They came to the conclusion that my kids probably wouldn’t believe in God because I didn’t, but that we would see when we die. They also suggested that my kids would like their “God songs.” Their family prayed before lunch, and I was polite enough to join hands with them. I appreciated their kids being open and honest about what was on their mind. It was cute. I wonder how a similar conversation would go if my boys were old enough to take part. That would have been interesting.

Another thing that has been keeping me pretty busy is preparing for our trip to Hawaii. We are leaving for my mom’s house in about a week to drop off the kids, and then off to Oahu a few days later. We’re trying to figure out what we want to do while we’re there. We’ll be there for 7 days. I’m pretty set on meeting Hurley (from Lost) but I’m betting that won’t happen. If anyone has any suggestions for activities, let me know!! I think that snorkeling and parasailing are on the list, and possibly some horseback riding. I think that we’ll also be going camping on the North Shore. I’m very excited about that. We are considering flying to Maui or the Big Island while we’re there. We’ll have to see…

So I’ll probably post a few more times before I leave for my trip, but then I’ll be taking another break. When I come back, I’ll post all about my experienced in Hawaii. I’m really interested in religion on the islands of Hawaii.

Have a great Cinco de Mayo!! :-)

Now we can all try to get back to reality. Just a few thoughts this morning from all over the place.

This weekend we got some serious work done here at home. Did some major reconstruction of a flower bed, pressure washed the side of the house, pressure washed the deck, accomplished the first cut of the year (grass), did some major weeding, did some transplanting and some plant trading with the neighbors, grilled all weekend, and even got some shopping in. It was an excellent weekend, but the inside of my house was very neglected so now I have carpets and floors to clean, laundry to do, dishes to wash, fish tanks to tend to, plants to work with and kids to keep happy.

Wow. I LOVE Spring. Such hard work, but so very fulfilling. Even without the belief of a god. It is possible…

So yesterday was Easter and our neighborhood was just “hopping” with activity. I was wished a “Happy Easter” more times than I could count yesterday. I answered each one with “I don’t celebrate Easter, but thanks. I’m having a happy weekend.” It was interesting that not one person asked me why I didn’t celebrate Easter.

My neighbors don’t really know that we’re atheists. Not that we’re in the closet, but it just hasn’t come up. We prefer to stay away from religion and politics when it comes to the neighbors. I mean, we see these people everyday, and they are all actually the first neighbors I’ve ever had that I really like. So why bring such controversial subjects up? I’m much happier just talking about the kids, and yards, and what we’re doing for dinner.

But yesterday, the subject of Easter came up while I was working in the yard and my two neighbors (Christians, but not church goers) started talking about church and what myth they believe in. I piped up with “Well, we’re atheists.” and there was complete silence. Then one of them said, “Yeah, right. So are we.” I don’t know. Maybe he thought I was joking. LOL!! That was the end of it.

It was really great seeing familys spending time together yesterday. Everyone having a good time, kids playing, kites flying… We live right across the street from the neighborhood park, so we get to see it all. It’s just so sad that all of this togetherness is all about celebrating a myth of magic. It would be much nicer if all of this activity was just because.

I wanted to point out a great post over at Pharyngula, if you haven’t seen it all ready - Easter mourning. Read it.

Another interesting thing to mention: A Christian from the church that I visited with that DVD has agreed to a challenge. So we will do this here. I’ll get the details together and post them at some point today. Please come back and take part in this. I’m trusting that Kerry is sincere… I would like this to be civil. So that means there will be no name calling or putting anyone down (that goes for theists and atheists). Also, please note that this is a challenge to a Christian to examine their beliefs, not the other way around. Anyway, I’ll reiterate this and other points when we begin.

Also, make sure you check out The Carnival of The Godless this morning over at A Rational Being. Some great entries to read.

Have a wonderful day!

So, with the last post on the subject of morality, we’ve reached over 20 comments (which is a lot for this little blog). Thanks to all of you who are participating.

In the comments, The Atheist Jew posted:

>”Murder” is fine with many people wrt the death penalty.
If a child rapist murderer admits to doing horrific crimes to children, there will be a lineup of people giving their blessings to murder the person. Of course, there will be many who think that it is immoral no matter what to kill this guy.
>That is relative. The fact that you state abortion is immoral and I don’t in most cases means exactly what I’m talking about. It is relative.

I’m starting a new post on this because 1) I tend to get lost with all of the comments, and 2) I have to point this out.
What TAJ said above is along the same lines of what I was thinking this afternoon.

Here is a very, very basic example of morality being relative: In the United States, the majority of Christians (I have no evidence to support this so if anyone can prove that wrong, please do) are pro-life and see abortion as immoral. There are also millions of Americans who would disagree and say that abortion is NOT immoral (I would be one of those Americans).

In the same previous post, I asked about a few situations in our world that the majority think are immoral, but obviously not all do. I asked Noell what she thought should be done about these situations and she suggested that one option would be for countries to band together and “put social pressure on the governments who are causing these atrocities” (not advocating military force).

Keeping the above in mind, should the Christians in our own country put social pressure on our government to put a stop to abortion? Well, that’s exactly what is going on right now. South Dakota is the perfect example. So what I see happening is one group of people imposing their morals on another, and they are winning at this point.

Then you have the whole death penalty controversy that TAJ mentioned above. A whole new can of worms.

To me, this is a perfect example of morality being relative, and why one set of morals for the entire world just isn’t possible, and even dangerous.

I knew it was coming one of these days. Yesterday, I sneezed and my oldest son said “G’ bless you!” My first thought was, “Wow!! Very impressive!” My second thought? “Who the hell taught him that?”

My husband and I don’t have a sneezing etiquette. We don’t say anything. We sneeze and get on with our lives. When it comes to the kids, we make a “WoooooOoOOOoO” sound and it makes them laugh. In our opinion, there is not reason for blessings from God. Now, I do say “Salut” or “gesundheit” when I’m in public or around family. I just do it to be polite. But we never really did that with the kids. I guess we’ll start now. I know that this came from school. I don’t want teachers to mistake the fact that he’s not saying “God bless you” for being rude.

So I explained to him that he didn’t have to say “God bless you” when I sneeze, but I thanked him. Then I introduced “salut” to him. It’s amazing. This would be the first time that he’s been exposed to the word “God,” and it was by his teachers.

I’ve been thinking of this a lot in the last few days, because of the past few posts and comments. So, what is tolerance?? I mean, I know what it is, but I decided to look it up and see what the dictionary had to say.

>tol·er·ance
n.

> 1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

The above is just one of the definitions, and the one that is relevant to this post.

Tolerance is what is expected from people in today’s world. Once upon a time, that was certainly not the case.
Today, to be intolerant is to be bigoted, narrow-minded and hateful.

So where does one draw the line? Who decides what is to be tolerated? Isn’t the intolerance of one groups views, no matter what those beliefs are, being intolerant?

Right now in Ohio, DeWine is backing a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Isn’t that intolerant? Of course it is. DeWine is a Roman Catholic, by the way. Being from a Catholic family myself, I know that the general beliefs of Catholics are anti-gay. They do no tolerate homosexuality. They also do not tolerate abortion, divorce, masterbation, pre-marital sex, etc. So why should I, as an atheist, tolerate their beliefs?

Evangelicals are intolerant of science, in my opinion. It is the tolerance of this that will damage our schools and ultimately the education of our children.

Does it all come down to morality? But then what is moral? What isn’t moral? In my opinion, morality is relative. What is considered moral to someone in, well, lets just say Iraq, isn’t at all moral here in the United States. But do we tolerate them? Do we tolerate acts that we consider crimes? Wouldn’t that be the PC thing to do?

Obviously, I don’t know the answers to a lot of these quesitons. This post is basically me, brainstorming. I’m very open to input and thoughts.

Actually, 2 of the more recent posts. The ones that I am talking about are here and here.

Let me share my thoughts and beliefs with you in regards to religion.

It is my belief that religion is nothing but a means for one group of human beings to control another group of human beings. I believe that this world would be much better off with out religion and the belief in a god, by anyone. Religion is no longer necessary in our world, and I think that it should be phased out. I don’t think that human beings need religion in their lives. Period.

Now, I get that now all atheists agree with me. You don’t have to! There are plenty of pro-life atheists out there. There are strong atheists, weak atheists, apathetic atheists, positive atheists, humanists, brights, agnostic - the list of names for people who don’t believe in god goes on and on.

In a comment in one of the previous posts was this:

>We will never improve our image as atheists and agnostics as long as some of us make such illogical and intolerant statements.

I understand what you are saying, but I can’t be someone I’m not… I do believe that religion is the “root of all evil” (or at least one of them).

If this makes me illogical and intolerant, well then so be it I guess. Not all atheists are as accepting of religion being forced down our throats as others are.

:-) That is all.

So this year, I’ll be celebrating the vernal equinox by cleaning up puke. My youngest isn’t even keeping down water this morning. When I went into their bedroom this morning, I was greeted with that horrible stench and I knew instantly how my day was going to go. At some point last night, one of them (we think it was the oldest one because he’s been puking randomly for about a week) had thrown up. But there was no crying last night, no asking for help, nothing. So they were both sleeping in it (just happened to be a night that they slept in the same bed) and it was dry by the time I walked in.

At least I got to get outside and work in the yard some yesterday. Here’s the list of plants that I see popping up - tulips, hyacinths and crocuses (of course), lemon balm, salvia, rudbeckia, hollyhocks, and some of the chives that I had planted last year are coming back. I think I even saw some chamomile. I cleaned all of the dead stuff up yesterday. When it’s warmer out I’ll get out there and turn the soil. I have some great compost from last year ready to add. I can’t wait. If you didn’t know, I’m a plant lover and a gardener (when I can take the heat). My blog will probably really slow down once spring fever really sets in.

I came pretty close to driving on out to DC yesterday to visit my mother and check out the “Die-In” that’s going on today at the Pentagon. I thought that it would be a pretty interesting experience. My mother had plans to go into DC today anyway and may be stopping by, so hopefully she’ll come home with pictures. I’m glad I didn’t decide to go though, with the kids sick like they are.

So, that’s all I have for today. Have a great day. Consider yourself lucky if it’s warm where you are today.

It was in May in 1997 that I found out that I was pregnant.

I was 18 years old. I had graduated highschool the summer before. Instead of going to college (I did have the opportunity but turned it down), I chose to move from Northern Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina with my boyfriend.

I was living every young hippie’s dream. The mountains, a dog, a few cats, and 60 acres of land. I spent my days hiking and studying the medicinal plants that grew all over western NC. My dream was to become a midwife or an herbalist, or Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman.

When I wasn’t pretending to live in Little House on the Prarie, I was working as a hostess at a fancy Italian restaurant near the Biltmore Estate. I probably made no more than $6.00 an hour. My boyfriend was working for our landlord building houses. He made $7.00/hr. We had a 6 month lease on this house, and it was in the month of May that our lease was up. See, our landlord rented this house out for the winter and in the summer months, his parents would come back to NC from FL and live there. So, instead of searching out another place to rent for the summer months, the landlord offered to put us up in one of his campers rent free so that my boyfriend could continue to work and live close by.

Since it was to be rent free, I decided to stop working for a while so that I could “study” (this was all independent study) full time. So we were bringing in a little over $13,000 a year. We were staying in a 20′ camper. It was actually pretty cool. We looked at it as camping for the summer. We stored most of our stuff and filled the camper with books and food and music and flowers. It was parked on the land and we were plugged in to electric. We were young, we were poor, we were childless, and we were camping for the entire summer in what we considered paradise.

Things slowly started to go sour though. Living in this small trailer was not easy. Yeah, it would have been fun for a week or two, but we were crazy to think that it would work for as long as we were planning for. It was hot. The water situation was just horrible, and we ended up with no running water. The landlord was being stingy with the pay and hours, and we were making next to nothing. We turned into slaves of this man. He was taking advantage of 18 year old kids, and we were having a hard time finding a way out. We didn’t have enough money to make a deposit, pay a month of rent, get utilities turned on, get gas in the car, and eat, so we felt very stuck. Both of our parents lived 8 hours away. It was then that I found out that I was pregnant.

After taking the 3rd pregnancy test, we accepted it. We spent a day straight crying. But we made the decision. We had to have an abortion. Bringing a child into the horrible situation that we had gotten ourselves into would not have been good for anyone. We didn’t have health insurance. We didn’t want to end up on welfare, and WIC, and food stamps. While we were in a tight spot, we KNEW that we would have pulled out of it eventually. But there would have been no chance of that if a baby had come into the picture.

I called the clinic (this clinic was later bombed and shot at) the next day from a payphone, and tried to make an appointment. It turned out that I was way to early in the pregnancy to actually have an abortion, and that I would have to wait 2 weeks before having the procedure. We’ll just say that it was the longest 2 weeks of my life.

When I finally was able to make the appointment, I put the $450 on a credit card. My appointment was on a Saturday morning. We drove up to the clinic and had to drive through the mass of protesters standing outside of the parking lot. Luckily the clinic had a large chain link fence around it, so we were able to park and go into the clinic without having to walk through them. But you could still hear their screaming and yelling. I remember the word “whore” clearly.

I won’t go into much more detail about the procedure. It was painful, it was scary, but it was done, and I was thrilled to be able to go on with my life. I was able to make a choice about my own future. It was a choice that I will never regret. I am where I am today because I was able to have that abortion.

We pulled ourselves out of the misery that we were in. We moved on with our lives. Later, we split up. There were some big differences between us. One of the biggest being the fact that he didn’t want to ever have children.

I’m writing this in response to South Dakota’s Governor, Mike Rounds and his decision to strip the women of his state their Constitutional rights. Fuck you Governor Rounds.

I am a woman. IT’S MY BODY. Let ME choose.

Please see Miz BoheMia’s post and Pia’s post.

Need an abortion but your state won’t let you have one? Here’s another interesting link that Jim posted about.

Sorry, this post isn’t very organized. I have a lot to say, and it’s not easy organizing my thoughts right now. I’m having a very hard time wrapping my head around the fact that the government is taking my rights away. I knew it was coming in SD, but it’s really hitting home now. Please, if you haven’t done so already, sign Planned Parenthood’s Save Roe Campaign. Write letters, make phone calls, SAVE WOMEN and their futures!!!

My mother came to visit for a few days, so I was away from the computer for a bit. Nice break from the internet, the television, cooking (we eat out a lot when family are in town) some help with the kids…
But we’re back to reality today.
I finally managed to get a copy of The End of Faith by Sam Harris. I hear nothing but great things about this book. Just a few dozen pages in, and I can tell that it’s great. My mother started to read it while she was here (when I wasn’t reading it) and wanted to take it with her. So I had to go and pick up another copy today.

We’re planning a trip to Hawaii. My husband has family living there so we’ll be crashing at their place and we’ll be without children. Can not wait. So if you know of anything that is must see/do, let me know. :-)

Blah. That’s all I got, folks. It’ll probably be slow around here for a few days.
Stay happy!

Last night I stumbled upon Blog Mad.

I’ve never seen anything like this before, but apparently there are lots of different types of “programs” out there to increase traffic to your blog.

It was an invite only type of thing last night. So I got my invite and joined. It’s pretty interesting. I don’t really know exactly how to describe it, because it’s so new to me, but I guess the bottom line is to increase your traffic.
That wasn’t the reason that I joined, but lemme tell you: at this point, I’ve had 76 visitors today. That’s about double the norm. Crazy!

Anyway, check it out if your interested. Yes, I do get some kind of credit for referrals. There is some kind of point system that I have yet to really figure out. But I just thought I’d share it. I’m not sure if it’s invite only now or not. If it is, and you want an invite, let me know.

Ok, I was in desperate need of another column so that I could add another blogroll. Sooooo… Hope you like it and I hope it looks ok on your computer!!

This morning when I dropped my son off at school, his teacher pulled me aside to talk to me (he’s in pre-school, by the way). She said, “I know that you guys don’t do holidays but we’ll be giving out valentines, or ‘friendship’ cards tomorrow. Is that ok with you? We can provide the cards for Jesse so that you don’t have to purchase them.”

Of couse it’s ok with me, and I’ll purchase the 16 valentines myself!! I told her that we aren’t bothered by holidays like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. She then informed me that they were days based on Catholic saints. I told her that I was very aware of the history of the days but that they are really just hallmark holidays in my opinion.

Is this hypocritical of me? Contrary to popular belief, I’m not intolerant. I mean, no - we don’t celebrate Christmas. But I don’t plan on shielding my children from any of these holidays. That’s not living in reality. While we may not celebrate them all in our home, I certainly won’t keep him from giving and receiving little cards from his friends or stop him from wearing green so he won’t be pinched. I think that’s a bit extreme. I do plan on telling my children what the day is all about and why it is celebrated at all (something that I didn’t learn until I was an adult, despite attending Catholic school).

Anyway, anyone have thoughts on the subject?
After I pick my son up today, we’ll be going to the store to buy little cards to tell his friends and teachers how much they are appreciated.

>Hell, there are no rules here - we’re trying to accomplish something.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11th, 1847. In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093 inventions, and earned the nickname “The Wizard of Menlo Park.” The most famous of his inventions was an incandescent light bulb.

Here’s a list of a couple of links about Edison.

As was done on October 21, 1931 as a tribute to this great man dim or turn off your lights for a minute in his memory.

Happy Edison Day as well, Columbus!!