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"Dad, how come in most stories, it's a boy that does stuff?" said my daughter last year sometime. "Well, uh, because for a long time… Um, well, you see… hmmm…" I'm not sure what I eventually got out, but I vowed to try to find books where it was a girl who went out and did things. I know there are lots of them out there, but they're not easy to find. So I thought I'd list the ones I have personally vetted and read to my daughter. ...

Last night we watched Thor as a family. So today we ended up talking a bit about the Norse myths: about Jotunheim, Asgard, and Earth; Odin, Loki, and Thor, etc. She's six, so we didn't get too deep, mostly just answering questions and looking up pictures online. Later in the day I picked up a library book (D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths), but we've not yet looked at it. ...

Walk through any grocery store and you'll see thousands of products shouting their dubious health benefits at you in bold face type and lots of exclamation points. With the jars of peanuts labeled "gluten free", frozen chicken nuggets labeled "good source of protein", coconut oil with a "trans-fat free" sticker, and everything labeled "all natural", it's easy to become cynical… but, no more! I have a great product that's pretty darn awesome. Have you considered the health benefits of… ...

I've always been a strong supporter of copyrights. I haven't downloaded songs I didn't buy. I haven't torrented movies I didn't purchase. I haven't downloaded books I haven't payed for. I've been pretty hard-line. My view is we should try to reward the creators of the content we enjoy, and hopefully they will make more. ...

I thought I'd never be one of those spreadsheet schedule people, but I didn't want to have our day be completely unstructured either. I just hope this isn't too much structure: ...

We're fast approaching our new "school" "year". Sorry for all the quotes, but what we do isn't exactly school, and we don't go by years. But in any case, we're planning the next year of education. ...

In our neighborhood we don't get too many door-to-door religion salesmen, but they do happen by every once in a while. Recently it was the Mormons. Previously we've had Jehovah's Witnesses and various shades of evangelicals. Most of the time the encounter is very brief: I simply very politely tell them I'm not interested and/or don't have time, and send them on their way. But last year I hit upon a cool and funny idea: send them home with some of my literature. So… ...

There's a bit of misunderstanding or denial about ADD/ADHD. The opinions I see online range from "It doesn't exist: the kids are just daydreaming and need to be spanked more", to "It doesn't exist: the kids are just acting normally and need to be taught differently". Though my sympathies lean toward the second, I propose a third opinion: "It does exist, and the kids need to be taught differently." ...

Because Facebook shows you other people's likes, I came across this video, labeled 'Ukraine is saying "Yes!" to God. Again.' It was posted by a ministry that distributes Bibles throughout Eastern Europe. The video itself is harmless, just a bunch of random Ukrainians saying "Da" (yes), presumably in response to a question about God (the video never says it explicitly, for some reason). Nothing really to object to: I realize believers exist. But the Facebook comments… hoo boy… ...

I had a discussion the other day with another homeschooling parent about how much of the 3 'R's we should be teaching. While the 3 'R's are important, my list is a little longer… ...

I had an interesting encounter the other day. I thought I'd chronicle it here because it perfectly encapsulates my approach to religion… ...