July Menu

Summer is in full swing here. Baseball is over and done with, so now I can cook more pleasing meals instead of hot dogs and hamburgers every week before the games.

Dinner (will be served with a veggie we like if not posted):
1 - Chicken Quesadallas, salad
2 - Country Club Sandwich, fruit salad
3 - Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad
4 - BBQ Chicken, baked potatoes, grilled veggies, and 4th of July themed dessert
5 - Dinner at FIL
6 - Hamburgers, fruit salad
7 - Chicken Burgers, potato salad, strawberry spinach salad
8 - Crockpot Beef 'n' noodles
9 - Triple decker club sandwiches, cucumber salad
10 - BBQ chicken pizza
11 - Cowgirl sandwiches
12 - Lasagna, garlic bread, salad
13 - Bruschetta chicken skillet, rice
14 - Meatball subs
15 - Cowboy chicken sandwiches
16 - Roasted porkloin, cheesy taters
17 - Hamburgers, tator tots
18 - Tuna Patties, mac n cheese
19 - Spaghetti chicken
20 - Roasted turkey breast, mashed taters & noodles, green bean casserole
21 - Baked potato bar
22 - Hot dogs, fries, slaw
23 - Copycat Steak 'n' shake Frisco Melts, Fries
24 - Chicken Enchiladas
25 - Meatball subs, slaw
26 - Heavy Breakfast buffet
27 - Easy Manicotti
28 - Sloppy Joes
29 - French bread pizzas
30 - Fried Chicken
31 - Meatloaf

QBQ

QBQ! Question behind the Question by John G. Miller. Received this book today in the mail. Love PaperBackSwap for this kind of great find. I'll not only use this concept in my work life, but in my everyday life too.

From the back of the book:
Have you ever heard questions like these?

"Why do we have to go through all this change?" "Why don't they communicate better?" "When is someone going to train me?" "Who dropped the ball?" "When is that department going to do its job right?" "When will someone share the vision?" "Why is this happening to me?" "When will we get more tools and better systems?"

If so, QBQ! is the book for you and your organization.

In today's business culture, the lack of personal accountability is a problem that has resulted in an epidemic of blame, complaining, and procrastination. No organization - or individual - can achieve its goals, compete in the marketplace, fulfill its vision, or develop people and teams without personal accountability. The solution is an entirely new approach - characterized by new thinking and behaviors - where we no longer give lip service to teamwork, but ask, "What can I do to contribute?" and "How can I make a difference?" John G. Miller helps us make this happen. This new, hard-hitting book from the author of Personal Accountability shows us all how to become more effective and successful. Using succinct, lighthearted stories and easy-to-read chapters, Miller gives us a practical method for putting personal accountability into daily action, which can bring astonishing results: Problems get solved, internal barriers come down, service improves, teamwork grows, and people adapt to change more quickly.

In QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, John G. Miller presents a winning handbook you'll want to keep close by for situations requiring personal accountability. It's a terrific resource for anyone seeking to learn, grow, and change. Using this tool, each of us can add tremendous value to our organizations and our lives by eliminating blame, complaining, and procrastination.

English Curriculum

Talking with a fellow homeschooler today. She mentioned I really need to get a hard core curriculum for my oldest's needs. He'll be starting high school this fall. I don't like the hard core stuff. He will be doing nothing but school work all day instead of the few hours that it normally takes us. That's one of the reasons we love homeschooling so much.

Looks like I need to do some soul searching on this. Is it because I don't want to spend more time teaching, out of my day of things to do? Or is it because I know he'll fight me tooth and nail on it? Or is it because I really don't think he needs this type of curriculum, instead that I can teach him better myself? Lots to think about. Research needed.

Tent is up

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I put up the tent. Forty-five minutes it took up to put it up, huge sucker. Sleeps 10 people. The boys even put the hammock & stand in there so one could sleep in it. LOL! I made sure they had extra blankets, pillow, and were dressed warmly (it got down to 59 last night). For the first time they told me goodnight before it was time for bed.

I have to say, it was fun to watch them with their excitement of this new adventure. Each kid brought most everything they own to have in the tent. At 5:30 this morning, all the boys were all up, hungry, and a little cold. Yet they have already told me that they were sleeping out there again tonight.

Times like these I wish I was a kid again just to experience these adventures.

FireFox Fans - New upgrade 3.0 is now available

I love FireFox, much better than anything else I've used in the past. Got information that today, Mozilla FireFox is wanting to set a Guinness World Record (great marketing ploy isn't it?) for the MOST software downloads in 24 hours.

There website is blogged down and takes forever to get in due to this demand. Instead, I found this download link: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=win&lang=en-US

The new version is nice so far. Need to play with it more. Have fun and lets see if we can break a world record. ; )

Need a great Chore Planner?

If you are looking for something to make your life easier check out what I found. Motivated Moms Chore Planner (see left column for link) is stocked full of everything you need to do in a day, week, month, and year; all wrapped up into a downloadable ebook. The owner has created several different types for you to choose from. Regular full page, 1/2 pages, , Page Per Day, and each one has Daily Bible Reading Schedule option or not. Click on the link for more information and to look at her free samples. I've gotten the 1/2 page ones to put into my planner. This way I don't forget to change the furnace filter or it is time to reorganize under the sink. Its all written down for me to check off. Who doesn't love easy?

Lost most of my canning jars

We got the basement all cleared out and for some reason I forgot to check in the storage room until yesterday. Oh my what a mess that greeted me when I opened the door. I had stored all of my empty jars in cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other until canning time again. When the bottom box got wet, it got soft and caused the whole stack to fall. Out of most everything we lost down there, this one the one thing I really used. Darn it.

So I sent out an email to my homeschool support groups. Those ladies are good at finding bargains and things people are looking for. Some are farm wives or just as frugal as I am. We grow gardens and can our produce. My son told me once I was like the ant in the store of the Ant and Grasshopper. He said, "Mom, you get ready for winter". What a smart kid I have. lol

The other thing we lost was our Christmas tree. That was given to use by my mom, we get hand-me-down items from her a lot. Its not water ruined per say, it is growing mold and you just can't kill mold 100%. We don't need that in the house. We'll just save up for a new tree. No big deal.

Tomorrow, the hubby and I will be going to ACE Hardware to look for a backup battery for the sump pump. They have them, they say. We will see. The one I looked at online has a small sump pump attached to the battery. When the sensors realize the power is off, it starts working for us up to 7 1/2 hrs. When the power returns it recharges the battery. Cost is a bit much, starting at $150 and up. Yet the peace of mind that little suck will give me is priceless.

The spoils

Book sale was today. I did very well, considering all of what I had. At the very end, I gave a bunch of board games and craft junk away. Didn't want to bring that home. A friend of mine (Moody Foodie) told me to go to Vegsource.com to sell my books/curriculum. I'll try that out when I get a chance.

Adding up what I made, minus the 3 books and Geosafari game I bought, the love offering to the church, and lunch I made $141. Then I realized I need fuel for the drive home (gas has been hovering at 3.99 gal for a few weeks). Today it pushed passed the $4 mark, settled on $4.19. $40 later, and the tank still wasn't full, we have a nice little start in the homeschool envelope I have for expenses. $101 of the spoils. Go me!!!

Getting ready for the book sale

As my luck would have it, with all the cleaning out we've been doing in the basement, I get a chance to get rid of somethings we have in the homeschool supply area. Several different types of curriculum we don't want or need, craft supplies (seriously thinking of giving all of that to our church), board games, this and that items, and storage carts. Since I can't store anything downstairs without mold trying to grow on it, they have to go.

While I'm selling or sitting waiting on someone to venture by my table, I'll be making up hair scrunchies, if I remember to bring them. Wish me luck.

Weekend update

We are under a state of emergency. Major flooding due to the rains. Either we had rain everyday or every other day. Friday night until Saturday midmorning we received almost 9 inches. It's a mess to say the least. There are houses under water, our grocery store has flood water starting to enter it, roads closed and/or washed away, and the interstate is closed as well as a US Hwy in our town. I'm glad no one has been hurt from it. Only have to deal with the added traffic being rerouted from the Interstate to the US Hwy by us. I'm hoping and praying that the waters dry up so they can reopen the interstate.

DH got home last night. He should have gotten in at 8 pm. Instead, with the rerouting and traffic, he didn't get in until 12:30 am. Said it took him over 2 hrs what would have normally taken 10 mins from where the traffic had stopped. Poor fella. He woke up several times in the night with leg cramps that made him feel as if he was gonna (and I quote) "Cry, puke, or poop." LOL This morning I gave him a banana and a Tylenol.

Got almost everything out of the basement. Lost several things, mostly things we forgot we had and never missed in the first place or was left here by the previous owner and we didn't want them either. Did find we own enough school supplies that we will never ever need to purchase them again. (I think my future grandchildren will not need school supplies from the looks of what we have. LOL) Major savings there. I'm trying my best to not incur more expenses when it comes to homeschooling.

Friday, three support groups in three different counties are getting together for a Used Homeschool Curriculum Sale. I keep finding more and things to sell. Yay me! The money I make on this sale will go into the Homeschool sinking fund. We will use it for any field trips, membership fees, books we may need, etc., that will come up. All in all, I really like this frugal living and planning we do. My family things I'm weird, so I know I'm doing right. ; )

Phooey

Thanks to a major t-storm last night, we lost power for 2 or so hours. No power means our sump pump doesn't work. This little sump pump works all the time, have a high water table here and we live in and area where there is nothing but clay dirt so little to no drainage. Within 30 minutes the laundry, furnace room, and storage room was flooded to about 2 inches (laundry is where the sump pump is and is the lowest area in the basement). By the time the power came on, we had 8 inches of water in the laundry room. We lost a lot of things. Luckily the washer and dryer work, so far. *knock on wood*

I've spent all day cleaning out the big room. All of our things are now upstairs or in the trash outside or in the garage for a yard sale. Major decluttering going on here. Our big room is like a family room, has a fireplace and a bar built in and the last owners left an antique piano which is probably not worth much since it wasn't taken care of before we bought the house. I was using this room as a school room (lost a lot of my papers). All of the area rugs are gone. Most things that were made of wood is gone because of the mold from just being in the basement at all; add more moisture and the mold took over. Still have the other half of the basement to go through. Called my furnace-a/c company to have them come and do the yearly service on the a/c and check the furnace for water damage.

After we get the basement dried out I have several things we HAVE to do.
- Buy a battery backup for the sump pump.
- Caulk the windows and put in plastic covers over the outside of the windows
- Call the basement people to come back out and reseal the house (thank goodness for lifetime warranty).
- Save up for a perimeter drain to be put in around the house and garage (oh ya, it leaked too).

I'm just thankful that a tree didn't land on the house or garage or we weren't hurt. God is good.

Speaking of good. A couple members of our church was to help us repair our roof. The job was to tricky to do so one of them contacted a roofer. He just left and told me the bill had already been paid in full. My eyes are leaking as I write this. What a timely blessing! God is the GREATEST!!!!!

Freebies

Found some freebies this morning in my readings and searches.

- Quamut.com the go to how to - It shows you how to do just about everything. I found many things to learn to do under these headings they have for us to search through....House & Home, Mind & Body, Hobby & Leisure, Money & Business, Computers & Technology.

- The Homeschool Shop has a free item every month. This month's item is a study for high schoolers with History Scribe - Ancient Egypt.

- Learning Though History has unit study on the Panama Canal. Sign up for their newsletter to receive information on new ones.

I'm published!

Woo Hoo! My first article was published. Check out my recently published content on AC:
School is Out: Home Schooling Parents Need to Plan for Next Year .

Spread the word. The more people that read the article the more exposure I will get. Woot!!

Summer Reading

Received via UPS this morning McCall-Crabbs Standard Testing Lessons in Reading. I have two boys that have problems with reading, third son reads better than I do (he's 10). Mostly its vocabulary issues, yet I believe one of them believes in his heart he can't read so he doesn't even try. Being the loving mom that I am, I decided that all of my boys are going to work on their reading abilities this summer with me 3 days a week. This includes vocabulary work. *evil laughter*

I read a link in one of the yahoo groups I belong to (sorry, don't remember which one). The mom explained that she used these books and they really worked. I did my research and found what I was looking for.

McCall-Crabbs Standard Testing Lessons in Reading was originally published back in 1926 and later reprinted in 1961. This tool will help a student improve their reading comprehension. The student is given 3 minutes to read a short section (usually less than 1/2 a page) and answer multiple choice questions. Each lesson is given by ability level. You, the parent, can see quickly how well your child is comprehending in relation to his grade level. The book(s) can be used again and again if you use a piece of paper to write down the answer for the tests. There are five books you can buy. Book A for 2nd Graders, Book B for 3rd graders and so on. Book E measures all the way up to post-college level. I can't wait until my sons are all in level E.

For Vocabulary I have Rummy Roots (bought last year and never used....why do I do this?) and a book called Vocabulary Cartoons SAT Word Power. Rummy Roots is an unique card game designed for students to master 42 Greek and Latin roots. First you need to learn the words and alphabetize them by playing 'go-fish'. Once that is mastered, you move onto Level 1 until you reach Level 3. In Level 1 players combine roots to form English words and practice dictionary skills. Level 2 players try to stump their opponent so dictionary skills are used even more. Lastly, in Level 3 is played like Rummy using three root words to expand their vocabulary and comprehension. The Vocabulary Cartoons book, gives us words and cartoons. Each word has the main word, the link word, a cartoon, a caption, and two or three examples of how the word is used in a sentence. You are given ten words to study and at the end of the week a brief quiz is given to see what your child has remembered. We have laughed at many of the funny cartoons, captions, and meanings.

Well, they just asked to go to the library. Maybe this summer plan will work after all.