"They're stupid in Georgia," Beazle is fond of saying. She has had many chances to say it lately when I tell her about Georgia's driving rules for teens. Thou many state are tightening their rules for teens driving, Georgia is the one we have to deal with.
When Merritt and Holiday got their licenses in Arkansas they could take the road test whenever they thought they were ready. If they passed they got their regular, unrestricted license. Not so for Andrea in Georgia. She has to keep her permit for a year and a day no matter how competent she becomes during that time. Because she is under eighteen there is a lot of Joshua's Law rigamarole she has to go through: thirty hours of classroom instruction, six hours of behind the wheel instruction from a driving school, fourth hours of driving with at least six hours being at night. OR the teen can take the class online, print out this umpteen page driving lesson book, go through them and have a parent witness that they were done, plus the forty hours of driving with at least six hours at night. Needless to say we're doing the latter.
We're enjoying a measure of freedom with Andrea driving. We have some neighbors who ride with us while she drives. She still have to work around other people's schedule but it's better than being strictly on MARTA.
When the weed eater broke it was nice to be able to take it into Sears instead of finding someone to come to the house to fix it. Andrea put the address of the service center in her phone's GPS and off she went. Our neighbor thought we were taking it to the Sears in the nearby mall but we went all the way to Chamblee to the service center. She got on the freeway, drove, exited, made a wrong turn, turned around, found Sears service center, parked away from other cars, and was proud of herself.
Going back the way she came wasn't in her wheel house. Our neighbor told her she was heading back toward Chamblee. Andrea pulled off the freeway and parked at a gas station. she put our address into her GPS and off we went. I told her to program HOME in the GPS so she won't have to put it in every time.
I decided to persue Andrea getting her license early because I'm visually impaired. I figured Services for the Blind may be able to point me in the right direction. My counselor and I did a three way call with the DMV. Here is where more of Georgia's stupid rules come in. At fourteen Andrea could have gotten her permit early. Then she could have driven around with just me in the car because I'm visually impaired. I asked the lady from the DMV is Andrea can drive with just me in the car now that she is sixteen and has her permit. The lady said no, because the law is for fourteen-year-olds to get their permits early if a parent is visually impaired. Since Andrea was sixteen when she got her permit she has to have a licensed driver ride in the front seat with her. I couldn't wrap my brain around this at all. I called her back the next day so she could explain it to me again. I just knew she didn't understand the question or I didn't understand the answer. We went over it all over again and the way I explained it here is how she explained it both times I spoke with her. She didn't even sound like this was strange while explaining it. It's obvious nobody proof read this when they wrote or passed it. If you have a visually impaired parent why is there a cut off when you can drive the car without a licensed driver? Either a licensed driver is needed or not; but why not if you start at fourteen put so if you wait until sixteen? Shake my head.
If you're LDS you know exactly what I'm talking about. These have got to be the ugliest thing on Earth. Do I blame the brides who wear them or the wedding dress industry? I'll spread the blame around and call them both to account. When I got married in the mid 1980's dress manufacturers still made bridal gowns with sleeves and even high necklines. A Mormon bride could find a dress she liked without too much trouble. Skip ahead to now; what 99% of wedding dresses are strapless. LDS brides have turned to the dreaded ugly jacket. This looks almost like the long rectangles they sell with prom dresses to keep them modest. Both ruin the look of the dress. In researching this post I found a blog, http://ldsbrideblog.com/adding-sleeves-jackets-vs-build-ups/ that talks about how to make a strapless gown modest. I also got the pictures from there. One suggestion was to make the jacket out of lace. I'm glad that was mentioned because just last week my daughter, Holiday, and I were saying lace would be an improvement. We also came up with the idea of some sort of lace blouse to go under the dress. If the bride can't have a dress made a lace jacket is a much better alternative to the solid fabric jacket. I like the jacket with the cascades, don't get me wrong, but not on top of a wedding dress; come on people. Make it fuzzy and throw it on to keep yourself warm in early fall. 
LDS brides should make a stink about the lack of modest wedding gowns. Maybe more manufacturers will go back to making a selection of dresses with sleeves and modest necklines. I'm tired of seeing these ugly jackets over beautiful wedding gowns. I'm not the only one. I looked through my Facebook friends' photos and I found only one with a jacket over dress number. Surprisingly hers was plain and looked nice. Most of my friends must have made their dresses or had them made. 