A Latter-day Bluestocking

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This all begins with my watching Pioneer Woman on the Food Network.  The cowboys were so cute and her recipe for Chicken-Fried Steak and Gravy made me drool.  Okay, I admit so did the cute cowboys!  Today I Googled “Pioneer Woman” and “Chicken-Fried Steak” and found Ree Drummond’s blog.  I found my recipe.  I began to read.  And then I noticed that she has a tab for Homeschooling.  Now I am not an advocate of homeschooling, not because I think it inappropriate or wrong, but because the people who tend to homeschool are about as annoying as vegetarians.  Those I have come across (which I confess are not many (homeschoolers not vegetarians), so I do apologize now for my opinion) are preachy and tend to be holier than thou and exhibit the “I am better than you” or “I love my kids more” vibe.  And truth be told, I am lazy and am a single parent with a 9 to 5 job and you just make me feel guilty.

I clicked on the tab because 1) I was curious and 2) because I want to help my son do better in school.  I figure where better to get home reinforcement information than from a mother who has taken on the task of teaching her children, right?  So I started perusing English/Literature under the heading Homeschooling Materials with this intention and was waylaid by an entry about a grammar book.  A grammar book that I now want…with a vengeance, My Grammar and I…or Should That Be Me?:  How to Speak and Write It Right by Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines.

I am a militant proponent of grammar and writing and nothing peeves me more than bad grammar.  I also know I probably make lots of grammatical mistakes and it irks me to no end.  There is nothing more heart-wrenching than proofreading and editing one’s own words and clicking the Publish tab to only find seconds before it goes live that there is a glaring grammatical or spelling error.  In my most humble opinion, the collapse of good grammar began with the advent of e-mails and text messaging (followed by tweeting and Facebook status updates).  The immediacy of the medium has made us all a bit lazy and, quite frankly, I am sick of it.  I yearn for the days when we took our time to write and actually used a dictionary.  But I digress. 

Bottom line:  I need this book on my shelf (next to dictionaries and style guides), for Me, for my Kid, and most importantly for my Sanity.  Oh, and for my Writing too.

Also, I feel I need to apologize to Homeschoolers, the well-written entries on this blog are witty, funny and informative without a hint of condescension.  As for you vegetarians…well, I better get back to what I initially set out to do and discover how to help my kid love reading books and write well.