Associated Content

A long time ago I've wrote an article, submitted it to Associated Content and they published it. Even got paid for it too. Depending on the article and the amount of hits AC thinks it will receive, will vary the amount of cash you'll get for your writing.

I decided today to write another and see how it will do. Planning on writing a few more just for the fun of it. Even if I don't get paid much, I still am making some money. Every little bit helps, especially with fuel costs as they are now a days. Click on the link and check them out. Never know, you might make a few bucks.

Knitting socks

Decided to take a leap of faith, the plunge as some would say. Making a pair of socks by hand. Knitting with two needs is bad enough....but four! Don't know if I got it in me, yet so far I do. Got just under an inch made in a circular creation going on. Have search the net for how to make socks. Found a couple nice site, but youtube has movies. Yay me! Need all the help this chick can get.

Using Sock Ease from Lion Brand in Taffy color. The yarn also has aloe in it to help soften the hands as you work. Added bonus. When done, I will try to post a picture of the complete pair. Depends on how lame they look though. My lameness is legendary around these parts. Just ask my kids.

Health Curriculum

After many searches and asking several people, I've come to the conclusion that there isn't a health unit study out there like I want. Fun, hands on, and non text bookie is what I'm looking for. Looks I'll have to put one together every year. That's perfectly fine. This way I get what I want and I'll know what the kids are reading/studying.

My plans are to create the unit to last a semester, focus on 1 main item and highlight several others, have fun things to do and at the end have a test to verify what we've learned. Sounds easy. Praying that it is. Looks like it might be easy. AND if the kids start asking questions about something, we will probably veer off the main subject and focus on the new idea. That's fine. That's homeschooling.

Memorial Day and new links

I found a site that had millions of links. Took me a while to whittle them down cause of the dead links. I hope to find more. So if anyone comes across a free or low cost curriculum or homeschool aid, pass it along to me.

In other news, staying home this Memorial Day. FIL usually has a cook out but he and his mom went to see his brother. FIL just retired and is find that his wife of 25 years isn't the person he thought she was. He is expected to pay his own bills even after he retired. News to him. Sadly, his kids and her kids new this already. *shakes head*

So we are going to cookout here at home. Just the five of us. Could start a new tradition. BBQ Chicken, Wild Rice, Best BBQ Beans on the Planet, Cucumber Salad, and Strawberry Tart. By the way, the baked beans are to die for. With the severe thunder storms rolling in this evening, we may be eating in the basement. hehe

Frugal Summer Fun

The kids are eager to start on summer fun things. Me, I'm looking forward to the major cleaning we'll do as well as painting the master bedroom. I don't want to think very far ahead, but if I don't things will get out of hand.

Now my kids will have fun this summer. Don't get me wrong. Yet they will also do their daily and weekly chores. No work, no play. Most of their chores take no more than 5-10 minutes a day, unless its cutting the grass...that takes a little longer. ; )

Ideas we would like to do:
- Library: Ours just reopened from a major remodel. Lots of things to explore there. Plus my kids love to read.
- Camping in the back yard: I've been asked this several times since April. Waiting for night time temps to rise a bit more.
- Camping: Over a weekend in the State parks around here. Only out the fuel, park entrance fees, and the tent camping fee. This will be our vacation fun this year. Lots of fond memories to be made.
- Walks and bike rides
- Picnics in the park
- Swimming at the park (sparingly)
- Have friends overnight
- VBS at our church
- Volunteering to help at the Senior Center and a couple other places
- Finish up the baseball season
- Play games on the computer or Playstation: We have many tournaments around here. The boys love challenges.
- Visit Grandma: She lives near Lake Michigan and has a local zoo. This could be a great getaway for us. Depends on fuel costs as well as other expenses (boarding animals, fees for zoo, etc.)
- Use the binoculars and/or telescope: Watch the moon, stars, birds, etc.
- Visit a nature center
- Water fights: Water balloons and water guns are great fun; even for teens.
- Free field trips: Call around for free field trips. Great way to spend a hot afternoon or rainy day.
- Movie theater: Check out a movie. Our theater only charges $3 a person to get in.

There are probably many other things we will be doing that I haven't even thought about yet. Sky is the limit here. I'll just ask the kids what they'd like to do if I run out of ideas.

Blog changes

I didn't like the layout normal blogger templates has. What I really wanted...you know like that chocolate cake you really really want on your birthday. Well mine is a 3 column layout. Found it doing a search on Google. Yay for Google!!

To much information I like to put out there for ya all. As old and new information comes available, I like to keep our wealth of knowledge continual. And I need all the help to retain all this useless *cough* I meant useful information.

Planning for next year

Yes, I'm officially nuts. Planning for next year's school schedule now instead of procrastinating. Usually I buy a bunch of stuff in Mar at the convention and do the panic run in Aug, "what the heck are we going to do? " Not this year. Saved me $500 at least in books doing things the easy way. Unit studies seem to be working for us. Kid really enjoy them. Got Language Art, History,and Science down. Need a few others to tie this up into a neat little package. Looking now for a Health curriculum or unit study. Friend of mine loaned me her Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy book for science. We really loved it. Hands on, not to much reading. Hoping to find a Health series like that.

In the mean time I'm also learning how to use Homeschool Tracker Plus. Spent the money for it, never used it. Now, I"m using it. Need to use it because the oldest is starting high school next year. Transcriptions are going to drive me looney or loonier...depends on who you talk to. The program is not user friendly; me I can use pretty much or figure out how to use most programs. Sadly I need to watch the tutorial several times to see how to use different aspects of the program. How has time for that? Not me.

Also in my day to day things, I've been throwing out and donating crap we don't need. Streamlining the house. I've applied to several part-time positions. If I start a job, I want my life to be 110% easier to maintain. Yet my pain is my husband is a serious packrat. I mean serious as in hard core. Here's a good example of my pain: He has a box of rocks and twigs that was a Christmas present back in the early 70's (I can mentally picture the 70's clothing in this flashback) when he was a small kid. Under strict orders to not every toss them away. I kid you not. So far I've tossed a few items from the basement that he hasn't missed or when I cleaned out the parking area of the garage. I can now park my van in it without hitting something when the doors open. Still need to get rid of the broken lawn mower he promised to fix 5 yrs ago. Wait a sec....trash day is Tue next week. hmmmmmm.........

He's gone

My uncle is now in heaven with our Heavenly Father. I'm glad this battle is over for him. He was in such pain. In the next few days we will have the funeral. Then help my aunt, as much as we can, to finish up moving. They were in the processes of selling their house when my uncle got so sick.

Reflecting on my uncle today. He loved life, babies, tormenting those he loved, and the great outdoors. He'd get so tickled at little kids that it was contagious. Laughing is the only contagious thing I'd like to catch, kwim? Yet, he was a hard worker. Wore my butt out trying to keep up with him. Most of my memories are of me being little and me always trying to impress him. Don't know if it worked or not, but I sure tired hard. Also remember in my teenage years of him having a chain saw in hand, I'm cleaning up debris or helping split the wood. Uncle Bob was the only male in my life, besides my grandpa, growing up. He loved the outdoors as much as I do, the quiet of the country life. Gonna miss him horribly.

Uncle Bob

Uncle Bob is the only man left in my life that I've known since birth. He is also my buddy. Uncle Bob hasn't been feeling well, went to the doc and found out he had pneumonia. That was last fall. Fast forward to last month. He found out he had a mass on his right lung. The doc's biopsied it, not cancer.

Two weeks ago the doctors removed the lump. Found cancer in his lung and in the lymph glands. Chemo and radiation was talked about in great length. My uncle said "Bring it on!"

He was home last week, but didn't get better. Got weaker. Kept coughing and couldn't catch his breath. As well as not being hungry and felt like he was full of gas. Couldn't burp for nothing. Sunday he had to go into the ER because he couldn't breath from coughing. That's when the news got worse.

He had blood cloths in his lung. More testing found he had cancer in his stomach and liver. He wasn't full of gas, his stomach was full of fluids. A drain tube was put in. Today, he had a heartache and his kidneys failed. I have prayed and prayed. In my prayer, I asked God to see that my uncle was saved so he could be with Him if it was his time to go. Because, quiet frankly, I had no idea if he was or not. Prayed that he was out of pain and to help the doctors do what needed to be done.

Yet a miracle happened. Uncle Bob pulled out of it. Regained his appetite and started acting like his old self. The nurse asked him if he'd like to see the hospital chaplain. He said yes. My uncle and my aunt were baptized tonight. God is wonderful!
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Edited to add, we lost my uncle Saturday May 17th. He will be greatly missed.

Cool site

Found this site http://www.armoredpenguin.com/ today. It has word search puzzles, cross word puzzles, etc. Great for helping with vocabulary words.

Gonna have my boys be in charge of making them each week to help them remember their vocabulary words. I'm finding if they teach, have hands on things to do....they can remember more and for a longer period of time.

Tithe

Now when DH asks a question or mentions something to me, I think on it and ask him more about it the next day to see if he wants to change something. We were talking in Sat night he asks how much do we tithe. I said $20 a week for now and will up it as we get our debt paid off (yes, we have done stupid). He rolled over and fell asleep. I guess the subject was dropped.

Not for me. I thought about it a few times while trying to sleep. Then again the next morning. God was working in me, because I don't know why I asked DH about his tithing comment Sun morning as we were walking out the house to head to church. My mind wasn't on tithing, it was on....are the kids ready? do they have their hair combed good? where is my purse? Etc. Plus my mind can go a million miles a minute on 20 different things...its no wonder I get tongue tied or say something totally stupid.

Here's our conversation (me in light blue): "Do you want to up the tithe?" "Yes I do." "How much? Full 10% or a smaller amount?" "Smaller." "How much smaller? I need a number to work with." "Oh, $30 or so." "How about $40? $40 keeps popping in my head." "Yeah, $40's good." "Do you want to do it this week, I'll have to void a check and rewrite another one." "No, lets start next week."

Gotta love the man. He doesn't say much, but when he talks its important. You want to know the great thing about upping the tithe amount? I'm not afraid to do it. Even though I do the budget, I know our numbers of what we can pay and can't pay...doesn't matter. God will fill the void and make it happen. God is so great.

Last day of co-op

Woo-hoo! We are done with co-op classes today. Funny how we are so excited when they start, but so glad to see them end. Only 9 weeks (1-day a week) of them each semester. Not so bad. The lady that has been in charge stepped down this year. And surprise of all...no one has volunteered to take it up.

Tomorrow night we are having our End of School party. All the kids in the co-op have been practicing on a play. Memorial Day is the theme. All the kids love this idea of being in a play, except for one. Of course it had to be one of my kids. DS2 refused to participate and his is happy as a clam. The kid doesn't like people to look at him and especially hates going up in front of people. Claims he has stage fright. *rolls eyes* Yeah, whatever.

All in all, its been a pretty good school year for everyone. We are all tired and can't wait til summer vacation.

Almost done

Haven't had time to post much on here as I used to do. We get up early, kids do their book work (usually math, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling), and we work together on the two unit studies that we are finishing up on. Science and History.

Cleaned out our book shelves this weekend and have gathered up all the curriculum we had bought in hopes that they'd be the 'one' we'd stick with. Unit studies have been working a lot better for us than anything boring old book did. When my kids read, what they read never sunk in. With the unit studies, we do a lot of hands on and interaction...they remember and can tell me stuff I forgot we read. hehe

Can't wait til June. No more school and the kids are going to help me deep clean the house. It needs it badly. Kids want to camp. Might let them camp in the back yard a few times. Friends of ours at church invited us to camp with them. My back is already yelling at me for even thinking about it. "What?? Are you crazy!?!? Woman, I'll cramp up on you so darn fast...." Yes, my body talks to me. Yesterday my shoulder was tell me to quit laying on my right side so much. *sigh*

Baseball season is upon us too. Get to spend a few nights a week at the ball park.

And we are building our garden this weekend. This is going to be a summer school project for the kids. When we start our botany unit study this fall for science, they should be able to tell me a lot about what they learned with our garden. At least, that is my hope.