LIZ QUOTE!!!!

"I trust you, I just know everything."

Enjoy.

An Indictment on the American Education

First, let me explain this chart. At one of the schools I teach for they started having students take a test to see what grade level they are at in math, so we could better serve each student and help them successfully pass College Algebra. The numbers at the bottom represent the grade level. The numbers at the top represent how many students fall into that category. So, 340 students were tested with 22% testing at a college level while 25% tested at 6th grade or lower. Need I say more?

Yesterday's Journal

Dear Family,
This makes me a bit uncomfortable to place this information in the open but want to share this experience with everyone, especially our grandchildren. Please invite them to read or read to them. It was such an experience. I am still pondering it...

January 18, 2012

I am again sitting in a hotel room in Chicago, on special assignment and again holding bishopric meeting by conference call. There are many things going on that should be captured but not all will be. This evening I left the office at 17:00 and had the hotel shuttle service take me to Sushi Station. I truly enjoy eating there and when I am in this area for an extended period of time I try to eat there at least once each week. I started my evening calls to various individuals after dinner and those continued after returning to the hotel right up to the time for bishopric meeting to start.

I called the bishop’s office to begin meeting and asked who was in attendance and in one voice, all four chimed in they were present and ready. What happened next was truly amazing. I felt the power of the Holy Ghost come over me and witness that a council of the priesthood was convening and the hotel room I was in immediately became sacred ground, an extension of the bishop’s office and that our meeting would be watched over by that power. Our meeting was sacred. I felt we accomplished much and had the feeling of the presence of the Holy Ghost until we closed. What a wonderful blessing.

Joseph "Sharky" Petersen

My first shark!!!!

In light of Jodi's blog on being a homemaker, I found this article today. I thought it was interesting. Especially if you consider you probably do a lot more that what this article says:

How Much Is A Homemaker Worth?

The life of a homemaker is one that includes an endless amount of demands and to-dos. Depending on the size of the home and family, the position of homemaker can go well beyond the usual nine to five. We examined some of the tasks that a homemaker might do to find out how much his or her services would net as individual professional careers. We only take into consideration tasks which have monetary values and use the lowest value for each calculation.

Private Chef
Meal preparation is one of the major tasks of most homemakers. From breakfast to dinner, there is plenty of meal planning and cooking to be done. The American Personal Chef Association reports that its personal chefs make $200 to $500 a day. Grocery shopping is another chore that needs to be factored in. A homemaker must drive to the supermarket, purchase the food and deliver it to the home. Grocery delivery services charge a delivery fee of $5 to $10.

Total cost for services: $1,005 per five day work week x 52 weeks = $52,260 per year.

House Cleaner
A clean and tidy home is the foundation of an efficient household. Typical cleaning duties include vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, scrubbing sinks as well as loading the dishwasher and making beds. Professional maids or house cleaning service providers will charge by the hour, number of rooms or square footage of the home. For example, bi-weekly cleaning of a 900-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment with five rooms, costs $59-$124 . A 1,300 square-foot, single-story home with seven rooms runs $79-$150 . A 2,200 two-story, three-bedroom home with nine rooms averages $104-$180 . Additional tasks such as oven or refrigerator cleaning and dusting mini blinds can run an extra $20-$25.

Total cost for services: $118 per week X 52 Weeks = $6,136 per year.

Child Care
Homemakers provide full-time, live-in child care. This type of service from a professional provider would usually come with a host of perks including health insurance, paid vacation and sick days, federal holidays off, dental and vision coverage, and bonuses. The International Nanny Association's 2011 survey found that nannies make $600 to $950 per week in gross wages, on average.

Total cost for services: $600 a week plus perks/benefits x 52 Weeks = $31,200 per year.

Driver
A private car service might seem like a high-end luxury to most, but the beneficiaries of a homemaker get this service on a daily basis. Companies like Red Cap, which provides personal drivers that use the client's own car as the means of transportation, offer a glimpse into the cost of this homemaker task. An elite membership which includes 365 days of unlimited, round-trip service is $1,000 a year plus 33 cents - $2.03 per minute.

Total cost for services: $1,000 per year + [(estimated miles driven 8000 miles / 50 MPH) x 60 min/hr x $0.33 per minute] = $4,168 total per year.

Laundry Service
Clean clothes come at a cost when you have to pay for the service that most homemakers do for free. Professional laundry services charge by the pound. For instance, Susie's Suds Home Laundry Service, Inc. in Texas charges 90 cents to $1.00 a pound to wash, dry, fold, hang and steam your clothes. Items that take longer to dry such as comforters, blankets, rugs and winter clothes are assessed at a price of $12-$15 each.

Total cost for services: $0.90 per pound x 4 pounds of clothes per day x 5 days per weeks x 52 weeks = $936 total per year.

Lawn Maintenance
Basic maintenance of the exterior property is a less common, but possible duty of a homemaker. This could include things such as mowing, debris removal, edging and trimming the lawn. These services cost about $30 a week on average.

Total cost for services: $30 per week x 52 weeks = $1,560 total per year.

The Bottom Line
Total for a year of all services is: $52,260 + $6,137 + $31,200 + $4,168 + $936 + $1,560 = $96,261 per year.

The daily work of a homemaker can sometimes be taken for granted by his or her family members. However, these services could earn a homemaker a considerable wage if he or she took those skills to the marketplace. Homemakers in general contribute a lot more to the home in addition to these tasks, and no amount of money can fill those needs.

Give yourselves a raise! You deserve it!

Ella's Baptism

So, I know this happened in October, however, I don't remember any posts about it. So, here are some pictures from Ella's Baptism in October. Thought you might enjoy them.

Crushed

Tonight Daniel and I were sitting together as he wrote numbers one to one hundred (I'm not crazy...it's just that his teacher won't teach him anything but 1-10 until I prove to her that he can actually write the numbers 1-100. Being able to count to 100+ is apparently not good enough) Anyway, as he was writing he told me randomly that he had a crush. I asked him "a crush on who?" "Rylin" I asked him what that meant and he said "she's getting funner and funner and we are best friends." So I asked, "So you are friends?" "No" he replied. "We really are crushed." Dad...thanks for the book I can tell it's going to get a lot of use! Chapter 3 here we come.

Holiday Sharing

I just wanted to share a few pictures with you from our long holiday celebrations. Heather and Joe surprised us with an early arrival on Saturday the 17th of December. We had such fun together for two weeks then left before they did to spend a few days with James and Liz and boys in Illinois. I neglected to take any pictures there, but we did have a good time painting the boys bedrooms and making changes that we thought were beautiful. We especially loved the huge pictures of the boys. Our favorite quote shortly after arriving came from Jacob: "I'm going to be a big brother!" Well, no guessing after that!

After a week at home, we left again for a few days in Utah where Dad got some much needed chiropractic care and I had a wonderful time visiting with family! So, here are some photos to show our journeys (the ones I remembered to take).






Thank you all for making the holiday such a wonderful time for us. We loved being with all of you and miss you all so much!

Diss "Like"

An interesting article appeared in a list of recommended reads in my bi-weekly newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education titled Diss "Like". I was not sure what the article was about at first, surmising that it was going to tear apart the ability we have to "like" things online with basic frivolity. As I began a simple read, I became engrossed in the author's description of a word that is destroying minds and language, all in one. As he describes it, "I have come to view 'like' as something more pernicious, a kind of carrier, like the flea that brings with it the plague. It is the byproduct of a culture that is loath to set standards, pathologically averse to confrontation, and prostrate in the face of precipitously declining verbal and writing skills."

Well said, I say. An interesting read if you are in the mood to be reminded of your own verbal inadequacies. I for one remember, very clearly, having to exert real effort to remove "like" from my every sentence. I am a better person for it, and hopefully more interesting to interact with.

Moms

I don't know about all y'all, but this is how our house operates. I'm so glad I have Moms in my life who can deal with days like these.

"If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of cocoa to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the cocoa. She'll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the washer, she'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her...... she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With A Pound Of Hamburger.) The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old. While she is changing the two-year-old the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember that she wants to phone a friend to come for cocoa. Thinking of cocoa will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some. And chances are, if she has a cup of cocoa, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it."

~by Kathy Fictorie