ATL to New York Commuter flight and my teeny tiny luggage

I found an airline that flies to and from NY from Atlanta every morning.  Just one flight a day. The price is astronomically low. I took it and survived!  I'm going to do it again.

To backtrack a little, I tried taking the bus to NYC to save money, and I was traumatized a little. Over the summer, I paid about $70 round trip to take the China Bus as it is usually called, and it was crowded, smelly, and people were really disgusting and threw food on the floor.  And there were roaches!  Next, my husband and I took the Megabus for about $100 round trip and while it was cleaner, and better, the lack of leg space was physically painful and I had to wear compression socks to stop leg swelling.

The next time I traveled to NY it was me and my adult kids and for $600 we flew round trip.  That's $200 each.  After that trip I prepared myself to only fly and be prepared to pay $200 per trip to NY.  Imagine my surprise when I came across a discount advertisement for $100 round trip in my email.  I jumped on it and have flown back to NY and it wasn't terrible.  But, of course there were some issues.  First, the cost is for flight only.  If you are carrying a bag, you have to pay $25-$75.  AND you have to pay to choose your seat... any seat at all. You have to pay for beverages and snacks. And leg room is non existent.

As I arrived at the airline, and looked at the same clientele I had left on the China Town bus (and for that price, what could I expect). I decided to pay $35 for first class.  (previously, I declined to choose a seat and let them choose it for me for no fee.) Uh.  no, it wasn't first class.  It was the first few rows that had some extra leg space.  There was also the emergency exit row which also had the extra leg room... and you also had to pay $35 for that.  Imagine my disappointment.  There were still middle seats in first class.  Fortunately, no one wanted to pay for first class, and so the middle seats were not taken.  Then there's the fact that it is costly to get to and from the airport, so I still need to build in $100 per trip for ground transportation.  Going back, I may very well be checking a bag, so I will forgo the first class and just try to go to sleep so I don't have to be feel the pain in my legs until I stand up.


But it's OK.  It is still better than either bus company or both combined.  And since I actually have an apartment and clothing in NYC, I don't regularly need luggage.  I will probably get a backpack though because a purse or computer bag is allowed, and a backpack fits both categories, but for this trip, this was my carryon luggage, which qualified for free! Oh, and the image of the little item above... that is the cellphone and ID holder I use to avoid digging into my purse and dumping everything out. So essentially, a wallet on a strap became my purse, and my purse became my luggage.

Now this is not a guaranteed all the time price for Frontier Airlines between my two favorite destinations. This is a discounted fare and if you sign up on the website or other discounting sites you will find it.  Plus, for the most part, you need to fly Tuesday and Wednesday for the best price.  For that reason, I already booked my October and November flights. And these two round trip flights costs only $88.00 each.  If this keeps up, I will never take a bus again.

I will however, bring some candy and a little snack. and I will get a backpack so I can carry a few things back and forth.

Oh, by the way, A lot of frontier routes are cheaper than my ATL to NY route (when on sale).

Re: Home-schooled and illiterate

I read an article yesterday called Home-schooled and illiterate at Salon.com. The writer begins by describing a family she knew when she was younger that homeschooled poorly. They were conservative Christian and it seemed, from her looking in that the family did not value education for the girls most especially. The article goes on to state that other homeschooling moms usually from the quiverfull movement, bless their hearts, try, but get overwhelmed by  just having and caring for the kids they have, never mind actually educating them, and so they get lost in the fray.  It infers that even the most the most well meaning homeschool moms, fool themselves that they can handle homeschooling but they can't.

Of course the article throws in that there are some very diligent homeschooling parents who can and will  do a stellar job. But they add that in order to make sure that kids get the best education while homeschooling, there should be severe oversight.

 That's how I read it anyway. Let me know if you glean something different from it.

If I didn't find the article frustrating enough, the comments section sent me into a seizure. I'm twitching as I write this.  The comments ran the full gamut from "homeschoolers abuse their kids", to "if we are going to have oversight, we might as well embrace communism".  Yes, we like to overreact, don't we?

My problem is who are these people the article talks about, and why don't people ever look at the average homeschoolers? The ones who are kicking butt and taking names?!

I have about 10 years of blogging here. Look back. You will see that I am for the most part normal and very diligent about the education of my kids. Over the years, my personality and strong held convictions have softened, and happens with age, but you will see that we homeschooled because the schools left us no other option, and yes, I feel like my kids are better off for it.

And... there are millions of families like mine who started off in public or another form of school and then ran away screaming and waving their hands because their kids were being mistreated and/or swept under the rug. We homeschool diligently, with the goal being college, or post homeschool training of some sort. Our first goal is to make sure our children are educated well, and they are happy, and they are well adjusted.

And if you were to ask my kids, their list of things they would change is short... and that list is written in retrospect, a couple years after homeschooling. They have also given me a list of things they would do again if they had that choice... actually, see my last post.  I don't just pull these blog posts out of my butt.

I guess my final response to the article, is back off.  Don't look at the most fringe groups (I'm sure they will hate being called that) and make blanket decisions about all homeschoolers.  Don't look at the abusers and blame it on homeschoolers, blame it on abusers.  Finally, I really don't know about oversight.  The oversight we used to have here in GA was annoying and basic. Take an attendance sheet and send it in. Take a standardized test every few years and hold on to it just in case.  It was silly.  But more strict oversight will surely be enforced unevenly and haphazardly, so how would that work.  My biggest worry about oversight is that who is to say what is best for the child. The person who knows the kid or the person who drops in twice a year?  And what would that do to the uneven education that often happens in homeschooling that is actually brilliantly successful.  (What I mean by uneven education is that even if a kid is struggling in math and is a year behind, that should not stop them from being 4 grades ahead in language)... Traditional schools don't lend to well to this,  but it works well.  The kid will eventually catch up in math, but be literal geniuses in other areas.  I'd hate to see that controlled.

That's all I have for now, I would love to open this up to comments.  Please read the article and let me know what you think.

8 things I would do differently if I was to homeschool all over again

Well.. It's been 2 years and 3 months since I last had a child I could call a homeschooler. My youngest is now a college Jr.  I think a thoughtful retrospective is in order.  So, here are 8 things I would do differently if I were to homeschool all over again, and a couple things I would do the same.

1. Consistency is visiting museums, parks, playgrounds, and shows weekly.  I think I did this well when they were both in middle school, but the wigglyness of them when they were little and the busyness of them as high school students got in the way. But, It was a great bonding time and I wish I had been more consistent.

2. Food control. Kids do what you do, and I did not mind what I was eating very well, nor what they were eating. The kids and I had too much access to the fridge. I should have planned ahead better and kept fruit on the table instead of a free-for-all.

3. I should have been more strict about deadlines for assignments.  There were plenty of times when I let them pat me on the head and promise to do better next time.  Once they hit high school, I should have been more strict about deadlines.  That would have helped with the transition to college.

4.  I shouldn't have discussed homeschooling with relatives and non homeschooling friends.  Too many times it just ended up with upset feelings... mine.

5.  I should not have discussed homeschooling at parties.  I found myself being the entertainment far too often.  I should have just answered that question about where they go to school as matter-of-factly as the kids did and then changed the subject.

6.  I should have pushed harder when they wanted to quit something.  Fencing for instance, they gave up too soon.  Not because they weren't good, but because they weren't making friends.  That's not a good reason to walk away.

7.  We should have taken advantage of duel enrollment programs.  My son, now a college Sr. thinks he would have transitioned better into college had he taken some courses at the local college first, or even taken some academic classes at the local high school.  Neither of these were easily available to us the year he was a Sr. in High school, but If I was willing to drive a little ways, we could have found a school that would take him.  (our county began welcoming students the very next year).  I agree with him that his first two years in college would have been less of a struggle with home real life experiences and easing into the college environment.  The good news  is that he eventually got the hang of things and has been doing great.

8. We should have put more variety in our outside activities.  The kids did attend a great program that taught history through the arts, and optional academics (we opted to do academics independently).  The only problem is that looking back, there were times when we should have stepped outside of the program for some variety, to try a different theatre program for one show, or do experience a different choir or something because what is best for the group isn't always best for the individual child, and too much loyalty can bite you in the butt. But, in all honesty, I was being lazy and trying to keep all activities localized to avoid too much driving.

Things I would not change.  

1.  We would have still joined the homeschool arts and history program because it was awesome and my kids did make life-long friends. It is important to have a tribe.  To me this was akin to a homeschool co-op. I am even glad that I spent a lot of money for this program.

2. I am so glad that we used free online programs and resources instead of buying boxed curriculum.  My kids had access to the world on knowledge on the internet and I was able to use those extra hundreds of dollars a year for experiences and specialty classes.

GETTing shafted in NYC

update: GETT gave me a partial refund, but would not communicate with me. 

It's been some kind of week.  I wrote about the problem with Time Warner and Acceller in my last post.  I am waiting for my reimbursement that was promised AFTER I wrote a blog about it, tweeted it, and forwarded it to Acceller.

So everyone knows not to trust Time Warner, that is not a big surprise. But what about your friendly hot dog vendor.  A couple of days into my first trip to NY to apartment hunt back in April, or was it May, I heard about the following new story where a hot dog vendor was caught charging $30.00 for a hot dog.  This was the day after I paid $6.00 for a hot dog and a Snaffle.  I found out later that should have cost me $3 to $4 and prices should have been posted.  I walked by that same vendor yesterday, and I really wanted to punch him.  I'm just tired of people being dishonest like that.

Update of GETT situation, (below) no one would speak to me about it, but I did get a $9.00 refund in my account.  The chances of me using this service again is low... I do have a coupon for a $10.00 ride, which I may use to give them a second chance... maybe. 

Speaking of dishonesty and over charging, GETT, a car service/App similar to Uber and LYFT