This entry will be a "sticky post" at the top until the contest ends on July 27. Scroll down for more recent posts.

Each Spring my local homeschool group has a meeting where everyone shares their "3 Favorite Things" from the previous year - three things that have made their homeschooling easier or more productive. Some of these have been curriculum or manipulatives or games or forms of discipline, and we always gain great ideas from one another.

To celebrate my 300th blog entry, I wanted to ask my blogging (and non-blogging) friends to share their 3 Favorite Things. And to make it more interesting, I'll choose one of you to receive a $10 Starbucks gift card. I'll randomly choose a winner after 8:00 pm MDT on Sunday, July 27. (For those of you who aren't sure, that's 10:00 pm EDT and 7:00 pm PDT.)

Here's how it all works:

If you have a blog, then write a blog entry linking back to this post and sharing your 3 Favorite Things, then leave a comment with a link to your blog post.

If you don't have a blog, then simply leave a comment here sharing your 3 Favorite Things. Please be sure to leave me your email address or some way I can get in contact if you win.

Share the word with others!

And here are my 3 Favorite Things:

• "School Dollars": This is more of my children's favorite than mine, but it works well as a motivator for good bahavior. Each day that I get full cooperation from a child, that child earns one "school dollar" that can be used for various rewards. Last year I let them choose things at the store that I would buy for the value of their school dollars if they chose - or they could save up for various priviledges like having dessert without finishing dinner ($3), going out for a movie ($6), or lunch out ($15). But when it got to the point that I was spending $1 or $2 for silly little toys every time we went to Wal-Mart, I knew something had to change. This year they're earning school dollars towards larger incentives that Dad & I set - for example, after our 1st 4 weeks of school, we'll take them to an amusement park if they've both earned 20 school dollars. And if their behavior is not fully cooperative on a given day, then they have to do extra chores to earn the school dollar.
• Beethoven's Wig CDs: My daughter discovered these at the library, and I love them! I had a whole "curriculum" where we were listening to music from classical composers and learning a little bit about their lives, but the Beethoven's Wig CDs accomplished more of what I had in mind. Each CD has several well-known pieces recorded twice - the second time is the music by itself, but the first recording has silly words sung to it - and the songs help kids (moms, too) learn something about the composer and the music. For example, Mendelssohn's Wedding March becomes a song about a great big wedding cake, and I'm sure it has the composer's name in there somewhere. We really enjoyed listening to these CDs, and I highly recommend them!
• My local support group: I couldn't keep homeschooling without these wonderful ladies. They help me keep my focus in the right place, help me to know I'm not the only mom who feels that my kids would listen more to another teacher than to me, and help me keep my sanity with an occasional evening out. We have shared successes and hard times with each other, and God has brought me a community of friends like I never had before. To any of you ladies reading this blog entry, I love you all!

Thanks in advance to all who will participate. I'm looking forward to reading about what you do and getting ideas from you.

I got back yesterday evening from a really nice visit with my sister and her family. While there, none of us got nearly enough sleep, but we really enjoyed the time together. My kids got to come too, but dad had to stay home alone.

I began to notice the acidophilus I've been giving my kids for the last month appears to be helping my son with his emotional self-control. It was especially obvious with our travel yesterday. Because of storms near DC, we had to sit on the tarmac for 30-40 minutes before takeoff, and later because of storms near Denver, we were almost diverted to Colorado Springs. The hardest part of that whole delay was that we were planning to spend about an hour in the airport with my husband before he had to leave for a business trip. Fortunately, we were able to get in to Denver after all (and then my hubby's plane was delayed too) so we had some nice time with him. Through all this, my daughter had a really hard time accepting the things she couldn't change, but my son was really good about it all. He is the child who is not generally flexible and does not deal well with changes in the plans!

Yes, we had about a pint of milk spilled on the kitchen floor (the child whose clumsiness was responsible has asked not to be identified publicly, and I'll respect that). And we had a great deal of anger and frustration that resulted. And we had the other child feeling upset because their attempts at comfort were not accepted. But it also led to conversations with both children about their true enemy.

They are not each other's enemies. Yet they do have an enemy of their souls who would love nothing more than to destroy their relationship with each other. An enemy who would love them to learn to treat each other and their parents with utter disrespect. An enemy who is working to undermine everything their father and I are building into their lives. And he is my enemy as well - and I am determined to fight against everything he is trying to do in my family.

I don't often look for the spiritual battle that I know is raging in the world around me because I don't want to get distracted from following what God wants to accomplish in and through me. But maybe sometimes I'm a little late in recognizing spiritual sources for disruptions in my family, attributing them to sleep deprivation or the wrong food consumption. But with all that I've seen going on lately in our church, and my husband having sudden weird breathing problems last night., it seems there's more going on right now.

So I'm praying desperately for God to give me wisdom to help my children battle their true enemy, for me to keep walking in faith and the truth, and for Jesus to soften their hearts.

Please join me in praying for my husband's lungs and for our friend who broke his back on Monday. I learned yesterday that he has 4 broken vertebrae in addition to the one that is crushed. He has surgery this afternoon - pray that it goes well!

Yesterday was a perfect example of my son's interaction with carbyhydrates. He had a large bowl of cereal for breakfast, and then at lunch pretty much ignored his chicken nuggets in favor of a large plate of nachos he had made (with a lot more tortilla chips than cheese). Even before he finished eating, he was acting really crazy. He was so nutty that his buddy who was with us even wanted him to settle down. There was no calming him down.

Fortunately, some boys from the neighborhood came over and invited him and his buddy to join them in a water fight. A couple of hours outside running around at least kept me from losing patience with him, but even later in the day he was having a hard time controlling his emotions.

It seems that we have a love/hate relationship with carbs - he loves them, but I hate what they do to him!

So I fell off the NaBloPoMo wagon, missing my blog entry yesterday. But some things are more important, and what I was going to write yesterday seems utterly trivial in light of what came up last night.

One of our friends fell off a roof he was working on yesterday and ended up with a broken back. Fortunately, he is not paralyzed, but he will have surgery today on the broken vertebra so that it does not cause damage to the spinal column and more serious complications. As you join me in praying for his healing, pray also for his heart. He is a new believer in Jesus, and I'm praying that he experiences the Lord in a powerful new way through this difficult time.

The whole family is very dear to our family. His wife is my good friend, and his son is one of my kids' best friends. Please pray for their peace and growing trust in God as they wait to see what happens. I'll keep you all posted.

Update: He didn't actually have surgery today. When I saw the family at the hospital today, they were waiting for the doctor to arrive. Surgery is still in the plan for the next few days but we don't know when. His legs are very weak because the broken bone is putting pressure on the spinal cord, but he's doing much better today than last night.

This is one of my son's favorite breakfasts - it's probably really an omelette, but we like calling it a "burrito." I find they roll up better using only one egg, but he usually has a larger appetite than that!

Start with 1-2 eggs and 1/2 - 1 Tbsp milk. Beat together, adding salt & pepper to taste. Heat a non-stick skillet and coat with butter-flavor cooking spray. Pour eggs into the skillet and let cook, not stirring but using a spatula to lift the edges and let the uncooked eggs flow under the sides.

When eggs are mostly set, add shredded cheese (and other filings - ham, mushrooms, whatever - just not too much). Notice that I put the cheese a little off-center.

Use the spatula to carefully roll up the eggs around the cheese, and allow to set in the pan for a few seconds longer so eggs in the middle can finish cooking.

Serve with a little more cheese sprinkled on top.

Figuring out meals is one of those things I do all the time, but I don't like it so much. One of my friends has decided that since we as Americans have way more food choices than the rest of the world, she would simplify things by limiting her food options. Not a bad idea, actually. Unfortunately, I'm too much of a variety-seeker, so I end up doing this meal planning thing every week.

From time to time I'll ask the rest of my family for ideas, but they nearly always suggest the same thing. My son always asks for "green noodles" (pasta with pesto), my hubby suggests tacos, and my daughter might request steaks or macaroni & cheese. Maybe I'm the only one who craves variety - I ought to take a hint from them and simplify.

The funny thing is that I have a binder with "meal cycles" - lists of dishes I can make with the same meat base. But do I look at it when it's time to plan meals? No. Instead I end up trying to figure out something original to do with that half a pork loin in the freezer or going to allrecipes.com for some new idea. I really should start using that binder again.

In the meantime, I've just finished figuring out the next month's meals, so off to the grocery store for now!

Our Safeway stores are running a really useful promotion these days. You used to be able to earn 10-cent discounts on gas for buying groceries, which were helpful, but not really enough motivation to go out of my way to a Safeway gas station. But this month they changed the program to where your discounts accumulate and can all be used at once. So technically, I could save up enough 10-cent discounts to get free gas. Now, that's worth driving a few extra miles out of my way for!

This month I had earned 30 cents in discounts, and since I was going to be near a Safeway gas station today, I decided it was OK to let the gas level in my car get close to Empty and  then fill up the tank. I dropped my kids off at track, planning to go fill the tank and then come back to watch them. Imagine my shock when I pulled up to the gas pump and found my wallet was not in my purse! I had taken it out when we went to the pool yesterday, and it was back home in my pool bag. So I said a big prayer for the gas to last until I got home, and by the grace of God I actually made it (this was close to 10 miles, and I doubt that I even had the 1/2 gallon of gas that I needed). At home, I used up the gas we keep for the lawn mower, drove to a closer gas station where I got a couple of gallons for the car and refilled the gas can, took the gas can back home (didn't want to keep it in my car in the heat while running errands all day), and went back to the Safeway gas station where I filled my tank for $3.69 per gallon. It was a lot of silly driving around to save money on gas, but I convinced myself it was worth it.

Next time I'll have to remember my wallet.

Our family is adjusting to not having Spooner around, but I seem to notice her absence most at odd times. We used to always have to kick her out of the room when we were eating meals so she wouldn't annoy us trying to get every crumb out from under the table (and getting under our feet in the proces). I got to the point where I was actually saying (yes, I know the dog didn't understand me, but I said it anyway), "We promise not to lick up the floor before you can get over here!" But it's not then that I notice her absence most. It's actually when I'm preparing meals. Spooner used to decide she needed to go out as soon as I arrived in the kitchen to start making dinner. So I'd let her out and start cooking. The other day I actually looked up at the back door about 2 or 3 minutes into making dinner, expecting to see her at the back door ready to come in. And now if I drop something on the floor, I have to pick/wipe it up myself because there's no one racing me to snarf it up.

This morning my kitchen floor is covered with bread & cracker crumbs (and yesterday I had to sweep up a half box of cereal that got spilled). I told my husband I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up without a dog. It seems like a silly reason to get a new puppy, but it has to be better than mice and ants in the house!

Actual conversation at my house yesterday:

Daughter: Mom, Mom! Will you get us some ice cream? [Meaning from the ice cream truck coming through our neighborhood]

Mom: Ummm, no.

Daughter: Why?!

Mom: Well, you all just had a snack. Remember those crackers you took upstairs?

Daughter: But we can put it in a bowl and save it for later. Like after dinner.

Son: I don't really want ice cream anyway.

Daughter: (noticing the ice cream truck coming closer) Please, Mom. Please hurry and make your decision!

Mom: I already told you my decision, sweetheart.

Daughter dissolves into tears.

Now, last time I checked, I thought the word "why" in this context meant something like "I'd like to know your reason" or "I'm curious about what's behind that answer." It appears that in my daughter's world, the word "why" means "I didn't like that answer, so let's see if I can get a different one." This is far from the first time we have had a conversation like this, and I can think of only once in 7+ years when I actually gave in to her - and she knew that it was an anomaly.

My mom has said to me, "The qualities that drive you crazy when they are children will make them excellent adults." I have no doubt that my daughter will be a fantastic mother - her children will not be able to get a thing past her! And her verbal and debate skills could make her a great missionary and evangelist. But right now they really are driving me crazy.

This morning my daughter and I made the muffins I mentioned yesterday. They were quite yummy, but would you believe my son (the one I'm especially trying to steer away from carbs) decided he didn't like them. Probably too much peanut butter flavor for his tastes. I know, what kid doesn't like peanut butter? Well, one who never tasted it before 3 years old because we had no information on family history of allergies and didn't want to take any chances. Now he doesn't exactly hate it, but he's not a big PB&J fan either.

We also finished off the loaf of bread I bought at the grocery store last weekend. I have a bread machine and actually love making fresh bread, but the bread machine has a problem where the loaf pan pops out while mixing and kneading the dough. So I have to babysit the machine for the first 20 minutes or so - meaning I can't dump the ingredients in the pan before bed and have a nice fresh loaf of bread ready in the morning. Perhaps tomorrow morning I'll be able to get a loaf started and have bread for sandwiches at lunch. And I'm sure to save some money over store-bought bread, too.

I know it's early, but we started back to school today. This schedule helps us to finish in very early May when all of us are really ready to be done. (I recently heard from another mom that she tries to finish by Easter because she has found that little to no learning gets done after Easter anyway.) But we just finished a 9-week break, and my children were excited to get back to school - although, to be honest, I think they're more excited about earning rewards for doing their school work than actually doing the work.

We always have attitude issues to deal with when we start back after a break of any length, so I tried hard to incorporate foods in the day that would help with energy levels. I especially wanted to get a lot of protein and minimal carbs into my son. So I took the time to make him eggs for breakfast (an "egg burrito" as we call it - I'll have to share that recipe/technique later). They both got ham sandwiches and yogurt smoothies with extra acidophilus stirred in for lunch, and I managed to keep my son away from all crackers at snack time. Now, that's an accomplishment! I wouldn't say we had a perfect day - they both had their moments (well, my daughter's "moment" lasted close to an hour) - but much of that was probably attributable to the fact that they didn't get quite enough sleep last night and then ran track this morning.

I hope I can keep up this kind of diet regularly. I have a recipe from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook for Peanut Butter-Banana muffins that sound like a good high fiber, protein-packed breakfast or snack option (especially if I substitute a little soy flour for some of the flour in the recipe). So if I get the time to make them this week, we'll give them a try.

I don't know if this will become a real meme for the month of July, but I thought since I'm usually tired by the end of the day on Sundays, I'd share one of my favorite easy recipes with you.

Karen's Cole slaw

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp vinegar (I prefer rice vinegar, but others are fine)

1/2 tsp or so celery seed (optional)

1 bag broccoli slaw (cole slaw veggies made from broccoli stems instead of cabbage)

Mix together mayo, sugar, vinegar & celery seed (if desired). Toss with the cole slaw veggies. Refrigerate for as much time as you have before serving dinner - 30 minutes or more is best to blend flavors, but this recipe even works last-minute.

It makes a sweeter cole slaw than you may be used to, but that makes it very popular. And it has been a great way to get my kids to eat broccoli - they actually don't like cabbage slaw as much. You could easily double the dressing and add to a half-head of shredded cabbage if you prefer.

We decided to take Spooner to the vet and let her go today. It wasn't an easy decision, but I know I would have lost sleep over scheduling it a few days off. She was a great dog, and we all miss her a lot. I'm finding that grieving is difficult enough - it's even harder to walk through with my children. But I am glad that my husband and I can help them through their first real experience of grief.

Spooner came into our lives at a particularly difficult time. My husband was losing his position as pastor of a small church, and she was a great comfort to us during that time. My mom often said that we should have named her "Aloe" because she was so soothing for us. She helped my husband and I welcome two children into our family and loved them just as she loved us.She even welcomed a cat into our family for a short time. (It was always fun to watch the two of them play and wrestle.)

It's oddly appropriate that I'm writing this tribute in a month when I'm blogging around the theme of "food." I often told people, "I know that animal looks like a dog, but she's really a pig." Spooner never saw a crumb of food that she wouldn't snarf up! I often had to make sure someone stayed at the table if we had food on it so that she wouldn't jump up and finish someone's meal for them. She did a great job of keeping my kitchen floor clean - now who's going to clean up all the food that gets dropped on the floor?

My children went to bed hungry tonight. They simply didn't get enough to eat at dinner. My husband decided that mealtime when we were all together would be the best time to break some bad news to them. Our dog has been suffering from Cushing's Disease caused by a tumor on her pituitary gland for about 2 years. We have managed to keep the disease under control, but she has been not well for the last couple of months. One recent test showed that the Cushing's was still in check, but she has been drinking too much water, urinating in the house, and trembling quite a bit. A urinalysis yesterday showed that she now has kidney damage, and it's also likely that the tumor has grown to the point where it is impacting her brain.

We believe that it would be better to let our dog die peacefully than to wait until she is suffering terribly, so we made the difficult decision to let her go this week instead of waiting any longer. Our children didn't take this news well. In my husband's defense, I don't think he could have found any better time to tell them. If you think of it, pray for our family this week for peace and acceptance.

At my state Homeschool conference last month, I attended a few seminars with Dianne Craft (also check here on the HSLDA site for more). She addressed 2 specific problems that I see in my kids, so I'm hopeful that over the course of the next few months I'll see results using her recommendations.

My daughter is a very strong left-brain thinker/learner. (Funny thing, the "handedness" part doesn't work like it's supposed to for my kids - the left-handed child is left-brain, and the right-handed child is right-brain!) Anyway, the left side of the brain is the short-term memory side, and she has a REALLY hard time getting anything into long-term memory. Dianne mentioned that pre-term babies and babies who are not breast fed (couldn't do that with 48 hours notice for an adopted child!) often don't get the essential fatty acids needed to properly develop the corpus callosum - the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. AHA! Fortunately, fish oil supplements can make up for what has been missed.

My son is a carbohydrate nut, and we've called him "Captain Blood Sugar" because of the way the carbs affect him - when his blood sugar is up, he can be hyper, and when it's down, he goes way down. As Dianne talked about problems related to yeast overgrowth in the digestive system, I had another Aha!moment. Yeast overgrowth is also easily combatted with supplements.

Now both of my kids are taking acidophilous and Essential Fatty Acid supplements with breakfast and dinner. My son also takes grapefruit seed extract tablets, and I'm trying hard to get him away from the high-carb breakfasts he loves way too much. Fortunately, he loves eggs as much as Honey Nut Cheerios - it's just more work for me.

We'll see if these things help over the next couple of months. I think I'm starting to see some improvements in my daughter's attention and memory, and my son has had moments of cooperation lately when I expected arguments. If the supplements don't help as expected, then we may have to take other steps. But to begin with, making changes to their diet and nutrition is easier (and less expensive) than professional help.

My kids have been very "into" the Spiderwick Chronicles lately. We read the books months ago before seeing the movie, and it was a good exercise in comparing the stories, evaluating how the movie changed things to simplify the story. The end of the movie was also quite a bit less scary for them than for friends who weren't familiar with the story in advance!

Last weekend we rented the movie for them, and today they were out in the back yard acting out the story. My son had built a small "fort" of rocks yesterday and was playing with plastic baggies filled with water. Before long, they were adding ketchup to the baggies to make tomato juice bombs to fend off goblin attacks.

No, I didn't let them have oatmeal, vinegar and salt, though!

I'm watching my friend's son this afternoon, and the kids just decided they'd make lunch for themselves. My daughter thinks she's able to do things she really can't do - she has always been like this, though, so what happened next was really no surprise.

She decided to make juice. I had no idea what she was doing, or I would have gone to help! I realized something was not right when I heard her ask they boys to give her a napkin, and they were just laughing at her. When I realized that they weren't helping, I went in to help ...

... And found my daughter in a dress covered with grape juice concentrate, with more grape juice concentrate all over the cooktop, cabinets, and floors. She was trying to clean her dress with one paper towel.

Now, I tend to lose it over unnecessary messes because I have a hard enough time keeping on top of my regular cleaning. But this time I was able to keep my reaction under control. (Although I nearly lost it again over my son traipsing through the juice on the floor and tracking it all around the kitchen!) So I finished making the juice, told the kids they were not allowed to have any because they hadn't asked permission (and no one needed more sugar at that moment), sent my daughter to change with instructions to put the dress in a sink full of cold water and kicked the boys out of the kitchen so I could clean up. And all of this without getting angry!

But my daughter must be having a clumsy day because she dumped over a cup of water in the middle of lunch, too.

I think I need chocolate....

If you haven't heard, NaBloPoMo is short for "National Blog Posting Month." Participating bloggers commit to posting every day for a month. The "official" month is November, but the organizer decided this year to do every month, one month at a time, and each month has a theme. July's theme is Food. I'll try hard to be creative with it - and I expect I'll have some things to say that don't have to do with food, too - so help me keep up starting tomorrow!

Earlier today I got to thinking how blessed I am to have parents and in-laws who are supportive of our decision to homeschool. Maybe the fear of "ruining the grandchildren" isn't as rampant as it was 10 or 20 years ago, but I'm still thankful that I haven't had to defend our family to grandparents.

Which got me to thinking of a few of the many other things I have to be thankful for:

My children's helpful attitudes: they traded jobs with me for a short time today, emptying and reloading the dishwasher and then starting on folding laundry while I gathered up their toys from downstairs.

My wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally.

Ladies from church, dear friends, who have joined me in a Bible study this summer - and for their willingness to be honest and vulnerable and open to the Lord changing their hearts.

I am healthy and strong enough to embark on a good exercise program (and thankful for aspirin that takes away that muscle pain like nothing else does).

And many, many other blessings we have been given - material and intangible. If I were to literally count my blessings, I might never stop!