Today is my youngest child's 14th birthday. He's been homeschooling since kindergarten.

I'm thinking about what it will be like when I no longer have any homeschooling children. That will be four years from now. What then? Will I suddenly lose interest in the issue?

I think I'll always care about freedom of thought for children. That's the main thing we've gotten from homeschooling. As I see it - public schooling is like... putting a child's mind into a mold and trying to make it fit in with all the others. But my kids are not that way - by design! They are themselves... two beautiful human beings with unique thoughts and thought processes. They are originals... one of a kind.. yes, each of them.

This year Aaron will have to buckle down and study hard - I told him. You see he expects to be able to get a driver's permit at age 15. He knows if he's not reading better by then it will be hard for him to take that test. So we're working on these main studies right now: (1) more fluent reading ability; (2) driver's test preparedness; and (3) filling out a job application. Its slow, but he's always learning.

He just got home from a fishing trip. That was hard on me... because it was the first time we'd been apart 3 days. I was nervous about letting him go but then I prayed about it and put it in God's hand.. and felt more at peace the rest of the weekend.

Except... Sunday morning I woke up to the scanner saying someone possibly drowned. As you can imagine I was upset about that especially not knowing for certain where my son was. It turned out to be a rafter in his forties - someone from the Bay Area - but at first I didn't know who it was. That kind of messed up my whole day. I don't know if they ever found him. If not he's the second person lost in our river this year - the other was a woman in her forties who drove into the river. She was new in town and was driving out of here on a snowy morning and had never driven on the river highway before. They found her car in the river a few weeks later and she wasn't in it. Anyhow, to return to my weekend... on Monday afternoon there was another accident which was announced over the scanner as "possible 1144" so again I was starting to worry. I worry too much. I'm the lucky one - my loved one came home. I think the vehicle accident victim was air-lifted out. We live in a remote river valley.

Other than worrying when I heard those two things, I was at peace all weekend and Aaron came home safely yesterday evening after a wonderful weekend camping and fishing experience. His main tale of terror was of the RACCOON ATTACK: He woke up in the middle of the night (in a tent thankfully) and about twenty raccoons were surrounding them, attacking the food left out on the table. Didn't anyone know better than to leave marshmallows, graham crackers and candy bars out on the picnic table? I told my son he was lucky it wasn't a bear. He told me of another incident where he and a friend were surrounded by a herd of deer. Sounds like an exciting weekend!

[Update June 5: My son set me straight about the raccoon incident. Apparently they had the food in a bag suspended from a tree, not on the picnic table as I'd first surmised. Unfortunately the raccoons at Kelly Lake were able to climb the tree and slide down the rope where they tore open the food bag! Clever raccoons! And for sad news now... the drowning victim was found tangled in ropes under his drift boat. The vehicle accident had one fatality and one survivor. If you're planning to drive in the wilderness, please slow down! There's no hurry. In the last week we had another woman drive off the highway into the river (she survived but was hospitalized) and today there was a motorcycle accident! We usually don't have this many accidents around here.]
  ¶ 11:29 AM