These are all short reads, but I wanted to include them on my blog for future reference. I have them on my facebook page, but after a while it’s time-consuming to slog through pages of links. I hope you will find some of these to be interesting!

Homeschooling is very important. This link shows you what’s happening in some California public schools. Disgraceful! http://www.citizenlink.com/2010/03/citizenlink-poster-child/ It’s incredible to me how many students do not understand the very foundations our country stands upon.

Want to file more paperwork? How about giving your local Staples, OfficeMax, and Home Depot a 1099 every year? Think I’m joking? Read this: Why the Self-employed Might Owe OfficeMax a 1099 by Laura Saunders. (online.wsj.com)

The Government wants our obesity readings by 2014. Read more about that on Patriot Update at http://patriotupdate.com/stories/read/4354/Government-Wants-Your-Individual-Obesity-Rating-By-2014. We will all be required to have our weight electronically tracked so the gov’t can determine “stuff” for our healthcare. Yeah…like how much to tax us for being overweight. Or those that are overweight will have to pay a much higher percentage of their health care.  Or maybe we’ll be assigned “fat parole officers” to whom we must check in with each week and tell them how much we’ve exercised.

There are some very interesting things on youtube these days. Here’s one: Exclusive! Breaking! Oil Spill in Gulf – Hand of God? Connection to Israel? This video explores the coincidence that the day after Obama says the United States will no longer automatically support Israel at the UN that the BP Oil Spill Disaster happened.

Apparently, my love of writing has not spilled over into my blogging! That which we love to do we will make time for. I manage to make time for facebook, and that’s where I usually post articles, political comments, tips, etc. I am rather convicted about my lack of consistency in maintaining my blog, so I am determined to make more blog entries.

I have basically been on an extended vacation from my website as we try to sort through 20 years of accumulated “STUFF” from the house. No, it has not yet been sold, but we are getting lookers, so that’s a positive sign.

In the meantime, we have been cleaning out the “stashaways.” We have two attic storage areas in the house; both are now cleaned out. The house is pretty much devoid of furniture at this point, most rooms containing only one or two items. We cleaned out beside the barn. (We still have to do under the barn, but that shouldn’t be too hard, mostly pipes and long skinny poles.) We have cleaned out under the house. What remains under there? Two sinks which I don’t want to move until absolutely necessary to avoid breakage and a huge above-ground swimming pool which we have no place for at the moment. We will have to replace the plastic moisture barrier under the house at some point before sale, I am sure, as it is about 18 years old.

We had many empty boxes under the house, (keeping for shipping items), and lots of old schoolwork from the children who are already finished with high school. No need to keep samples of their schoolwork any longer! We had a BIG bonfire yesterday to burn off a lot of stuff.

Today is “surprise the daughters day.” Among the treasures rescued from the barn attic are bags and bags of stuffed animals belonging to Elly Jo. So, while she and Lys are at Bible camp this week (Elly is working there all summer as a counselor and Lys went as an assistant this week), I’m having Phoebe decorate their room with all the stuffed animals! Not sure there will be room to sleep, but it will look cute anyway! LOL!

We are about 3/4 done with the barn attic. It will be such a relief to get everything finished! Every week I’m trying to bring down more boxes to sort and decide what to do with them. Much goes to the dump, as I simply don’t want to be bothered with trying to sell it or take it to Good Will. Stuff that is really nice, I do take to Good Will or I give it to someone.

On today’s list of things to do: Make a blog list. I need a suggestion list for things to blog about. I think of things when I’m away from the computer, and then it never crosses my mind when I’m actually sitting here. Odd, huh? Guess I’m getting old!

Once again, we are going to try the route of a real estate agent in regard to selling our home.

I’m a little more motivated this time as we actually have the ability to buy 16 acres. Generally, I view the whole house selling thing as a huge inconvenience. But, with the $8000 rebate promise good until April, maybe we actually have a decent stab at selling the house.

Just when I had gotten comfortable and figured we’d be here forever!

So, we are going to patch some walls and slap on some more paint. How many times have I painted some of the rooms in this house? 10? 12? I’ve forgotten all the various colors we’ve had over the years. I like our current color scheme, so I’m not changing any of the main rooms. The T.V. room is going a sand color, though.

The office has to remain whatever color it is behind the shelves, corkboard, file cabinets, storage cabinets, and papers attached to the wall. Fortunately you can’t see much of the wall in the office.

Sorting…Tossing…Rearranging…Spring Cleaning in February….(sigh)….

Well, once again my kiddos are disappointed by the weather predictions. Sadly, we live just far enough south that we don’t get snow when the northern part of the county does. So, it snows near my niece, in Slater/Marietta, but not so much here in Fork Shoals. We got a smidge of sleet last night, and we actually saw snowflakes for about 20 minutes tonight. That hardly qualifies for getting out the sled. Ah well…there’s always February. Oh wait – we often have daffodils in bloom by the 14th, so that plan may not work out so well either.

If you live in an area that gets lots of snow, we’d love to hear from you! I grew up in Illinois, so I’m familiar with shoveling daily snowfall accumulations and chipping ice off the windshield every time I wanted to drive anywhere, but these are just stories to my children. My husband grew up in Wisconsin, but again, no reality for the younger ones.

So post your stories! Tell us how deep the snow gets and how long the icicles get and how thick the ice gets – we’d love to hear from you!

Check this out: http://www.funfoodadventures.com/estes.htm

For a donation of $39 you receive over $300 in ebook materials!!!

What do you get?
Convention Audio Package from Value’s Diven Family
Three titles from Kap & Pen: Eating Better Than Beans and Cabbage, Father’s Birthday & the Great Chicago Fire, and How to Have a Successful Treasure Hunt
World of Animals Storybuilder by Kim Kautzer
Ballistic Homeschooling by Melanie Young
Mother Encouragement Packet from Teach Magazine
Baby Steps to Better Health and Learning for the Littles by Sheri Graham
Short and Sweet A Collection of Short Stories from Christian Perspective
Lapbook e-book of your choice from A Journey Through Learning
Redeeming the Time Journal & Choose Ye This Day from Me & My House Ministries
Fifty Stories Retold from Yesterday’s Classics
Supermom’s Simple Guide to Healthier Eating for Beginners and Beyong by Erica Johns
We Three Kings of Orient Are Copywork e-book by Jennifer Bogart
$10.00 Gift Card from Hands & Hearts Homeschool, Inc.
The Bread by Hand e-book by Kimberly Eddy
Listening Lunch: The How and Why of Audio for Homeschoolers by Kathy Grubb
E-books: What do I do with them all? By Michelle Geffkin
This Book is Being Read By: Bookmarks by Elisabeth Geffkin
Artful Advent: Celebrate the Season with Art by Michelle Geffkin
How Flat is Your Homeschool World? by Phyllis Wheeler
Fox Kids Recipes, Overcoming Obstacles While Homeschooling, and Seeing God even through the Stitches by Tami Fox
History & Holidays: Tips, Tricks, and Projects e-book by Maggie Hogan

THAT’S $330 worth of ebooks!!!

Then, The Old Schoolhouse is offering a great subscription deal ~ you get ALL the above PLUS the TOS special for a $57 donation.

BUT IT GETS BETTER YET! These are donation suggestions ~ If you donate MORE than the $39 for the first deal, they have an additional thank you gift worth $150!!! AND You get entered into a drawing to win almost $900 worth of goodies that will be mailed to the winners!!!! INCREDIBLE!

Why are they doing all this? Here it is in a nutshell. Jim and Kate Estes and their children are a homeschooling, self-publishing Christian family. One of their children has had extraordinary physical needs, spending weeks at a time in the hospital. He’s only three but has already had over a dozen operations. Their family is a testimony of God’s grace through great trials. Jim believes firmly in living debt-free. His job was downsized many months back and he has been unable to find employment. They had a retirement fund, etc., but now all of that has been used. He has a business opportunity that would meet the needs of his families financial needs and give them the flexibility they require due to Noah’s extended hospital stays. But, he needs start-up money to do it. Kate came to the self-pulishing community to ask how to have an inventory liquidation sale. They were simply going to sell all they had in their self-publishing business to try and raise the finances for this new opportunity. However, MANY of us in the CSP loop offered instead to donate our products to them for use in a huge fire sale. This allows them to stay in the self-publishing business while at the same time earning enough to start the new business, keep up with medical expenses, and be able to stay living in their family home. All those of us who donated are receiving a blessing by helping this family and we are getting our business names out there. It’s great for us and great for them!

I really, really want to encourage all of you to consider going to the web site I posted and check it out. You will never find a package like this offered for this price again. Such tremendous resources for homeschoolers!

TWO QUESTIONS

I would love to write some ebooks and unit studies on topics that homeschoolers are particularly interested in. SO - Do you have any suggestions? Please feel free to post a comment and let me know what topics you would like to see offered.

ALSO – I would greatly appreciate comments on the cost of ebooks. Prices vary wildly from one website to another. I’ve seen 100+ page ebooks for $2 and I’ve seen 14-page ebooks for $11. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason. What price range do YOU consider an amount you would be willing to spend for an e-book or an e-unit study?

Thanks! I look forward to hearing your input!

Anyone know if this is true? We were at an expo show yesterday and a waterless cookware demonstrator said making gravy with cornstarch was healthier than using flour. I never have used flour (unless desperate!) because my mom taught me how to make lump-free gravy using cornstarch. I can’t really make a decent gravy with flour. I use cornstarch for making LOTS of stuff thicker – I just love the consistency it gives. You can thicken puddings, gravies, sauces, and syrups with cornstarch. It’s one of my favorite kitchen pantry items.

But – as much as I love cornstarch, I’ve always assumed starch is starch, so I never thought of it as being healthier than flour. I would love to know if this is true or not!

Also – if any of you have any favorite recipes using cornstarch, I’d be happy to post them on here!

So glad for the great response to our latest freebie. And the sales that have come from it! I’m very anxious to post reviews about it, so if you ordered the entire set, please feel free to email me and let me know what you think of it!

“Be not weary in well doing!” – Keep at it, folks! I’m so thankful we can homeschool in this country, attend the church of our choice, worship freely, and be an encouragement one to another.

We are still learning our way around the website! Yesterday we learned that we cannot do group accept commands because it affects Paypal transactions, so each freebie order must be individually accepted.

Then we learned that we are on some ATT black lists. How that happened, we have no idea. So – perhaps you ordered the freebie and did not receive it? If so, please email me directly and we will send you one via email.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through these ever-changing problems.

We’ve given away almost 1,000 freebies this weekend, so we are very happy about that! Thanks to all who have requested the free spelling test pages. We hope you enjoy them!

I don’t know if you have trouble getting soap scum off your shower or not, but Soft Scrub has a sprayable bottle of miracle cleaner! Now, it might not work as well for some as it did for us, but I have to tell you about this. We have a shower stall in our master bathroom that is 20+ years old. It was getting yellowish and it didn’t matter how much I bleached and scrubbed, it just never really looked clean.

My daughter has a cleaning business and she brought home some spray Soft Scrub, and she sprayed down the shower stall. A little while later, my husband started scrubbing it down with one of those new flexible scrub brushes. I cannot tell you the difference! It looks brand new! It looks better than when we bought the house 20 years ago. I just had to blog about it because it’s an incredible product!