And now for something new, and purdy cool. A homeschool parent just started a new organization called Southwest Home Educators' Association, which focuses on connecting us in the western states of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. SHEA describes itself as: "A support group that encourages participation in sports, clubs, workshops, field trips, and co-op classes and love social opportunities! Through trained Area Leaders, SHEA will strive to bring you the warmth of a local support group, combined with the strength of a regional organization."

On the Home Education Leaders' Place of Colorado (HELP_CO) list, Angeline Rock, homeschool mom and SHEA Field Trip Coordinator wrote an introduction:

"Recently, a friend of mine organized a new 6-state home educators association and asked me to be field trip coordinator (probably because I am so passionate about getting homeschooled kids together, lol).

My duties will include traveling around the 6 member-states and visiting with group leaders. We want to promote home education on all levels, and hear about your concerns and share your enthusiasm.

I wanted our first field trip to be a big event – to kick off the "year" (most homeschoolers don't have a start and stop year, but some do). I think Disneyland is pretty big! So, our first Not-Back-To-School-Days has been booked for September 24 and 25, 2007 and we are taking part in Disneyland's new Youth Education Series.

Please feel free to email me with any comments – and I hope to meet some of you real soon at one of your activities, or one of ours!"

Good luck Angeline and SHEA! Hats off! We need more energy like this!

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Tags: homeschooling | unschooling | homeschool conference | parenting

Okay, I know Jeff Boutler is serious (well, half serious anyway) with this post on his blog, but I gotta tell ya - I started giggling so much, I nearly choked on my hot chocolate. He starts out:

I really don’t understand parents.

When I tell other people that have kids that we’re expecting our first kid any day now, the first thing they tell me how “great” it is. The second thing they tell me, with silly grins on their faces, is their horror stories about when their kid was born, getting no sleep and cleaning up all sorts of messes. Huh? Cleaning + stress + sleep deprivation != “great”.

So I have to assume that having a kid is great for other reasons, which people are generally very vague about. Is it that parents are delusional? Do kids activate some kind of mental disorder that makes being a slave to another human pleasurable?

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ROFL. How do you explain kids and the affect they have on you? Please, somebody go help this guy out with an encouraging comment or two.

Hmm. Should we tell him how much fun homeschooling can be, too?

On second thought, Nahhh. Give the guy a year or so.

Tags: parenting | unschooling