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!

Here was the scene this morning:

No, I didn't go outside to take it - I took the pic through the back sliding door. We ended up with about an inch of snow out there before it stopped! And it snowed a little more again this afternoon. It was pretty to see snow falling against the backdrop of purple flowering plum trees everywhere when we were out. But is this really the first day of May?!

First, I forgot to add into my last entry where I got the idea for the vinyl lettering that I did on my wall: Tori's blog. I kind of cheated, though, by using stencils instead of the way she recommends. After I remembered to trace the stencils backwards on the backing of the vinyl sheets, it worked out quite nicely!

For the last 3 days, our weather was sunny and warm (in the mid-70's to about 80 degrees). We've been outside, at the park, enjoying it so much! And right now - on May 1st, mind you - it's snowing. Huge snowflakes just swirling around and blowing in the wind out there. It's quite lovely, but seriously, it's May! Springtime in Colorado is always unpredictable!

Speaking of weird Colorado weather, several years ago, we had something that my husband & I called "snail." It was like little snowballs falling from the sky - snow hail. One of the strangest things I've ever seen!

Next week, Mama is going on a field trip! We have been studying US History and each state in order that it joined the Union. Today we wrap up with the last state, Hawaii, and next week my hubby & I will take a trip to Maui! The kids get to enjoy some time with grandma & grandpa (which they're really looking forward to). I'll try to post pics here, but I bet you all will understand if they don't get up until after I'm home.

OK, my son just put on Toby Mac's "Portable Sounds." Gotta get up and dance now!

If you like using online resources to supplement your homeschooling, you need to check out this website. SoCalVal has spent a lot of time collecting these resources and compiling them in one place:

http://weblinkeducation.com

No more guessing if a site is for teachers only,
No more wondering what a particular website offers,
No more guessing if the material you're viewing is free or not,
And no more jumping around from site to site to find something you need...

It's all done for YOU - by Homeschool Moms, like YOU. 
All Weblinks are Mom tested and Mom approved!

I just spent a few minutes browsing this website, and it has a ton of great resources. Check it out!

I picked this up from Tirzah's blog. It looked like fun!

You Can Only Type One Word.

This is not as easy as you might think. Change the answers to suit you.  It's hard to use only one word answers. When you're done, post a comment so I can check out your answers.  Enjoy!

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Who is your significant other? Michael

3. Your hair? funky

4. Your mother? self-sacrificing

5. Your father? servant

6. Your favorite thing? family

7. Your dream last night? forgotten

8. Your favorite drink? latte

9. Your dream/goal? published

10. The room you're in? family

11. Your fear? nothing

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

13. Where were you last night? bed

14. What you're not? perfect

15. Muffins? husband-made

16. One of your wish list items? refrigerator

17. Where you grew up? Maryland

18. The last thing you did? ate

19. What are you wearing? jeans

20. Your TV? nearby

21. Your Pets? beagle

22. Your computer? laptop

23. Your life? full

24. Your mood? content

25. Missing someone? yes

26. Your car? storage

27. Something you're not wearing? shoes

28. Favorite Store? Target

29. Your summer? relaxing

30. Your favorite color? indescribable

31. When is the last time you laughed? hours

32. When is the last time you cried? unremembered

33. Who will/would repost this? You!

I just received my Pay it Forward gift from momofmhasr. Isn't this lovely?

There was also a package of Hershey's Kisses, but I decided not to leave them on the coffee table while I was searching for my camera. I wanted to be the one to enjoy them, and not let my dog have them!

The verse on the cross stitch is perfect! It's one that I started using with my children over a year ago when they were not treating one another with kindness and tender-heartedness. Instead of speaking the "word of Mom," I realized that the Word of God would do much more to change their hearts.

Thank you again, Michelle. The ornament will go on our tree next year, the soap will go in my guest bathroom, the cross stitch will go in a frame on a fairly prominent wall, and the chocolates will go in my mouth.

One of our local TV News websites ran a poll today asking the question, "Do you think parents or guardians who home school their children should be required to have teaching credentials to do so?" (Interestingly, as far as I can tell, this news station has not carried a single story about California's current homeschooling quandary; I haven't seen anything about it in our newspapers here either.)

Of course, the word got out at some point to homeschoolers that we need to make our voice heard on this subject. The results around 8:00 this evening were:

Yes: 2,078

No: 4,991

No Opinion: 122

When I went to cast my vote in the poll about 6 hours earlier, the results were much closer - about 1800 yesses and 2200 nos. Apparently many people still believe it takes a trained "professional" to properly educate a child. I wonder how I would have felt back in the days when I had no clue about homeschooling. I'd like to think that I would have agreed that parents are just as qualified to teach their children as anyone in the schools. Now, of course, I feel adamantly that a parent is better qualified than any institution to properly educate their child.

However, I have to wonder - if homeschoolers in Colorado were facing the same problems that Californians are now, would we have the support of the general public? For that matter, I realize that Gov. Schwarzenegger has made a public statement in support of parental choice in education, but does the general public in California support homeschooling as a viable option?

Many homeschoolers talk about the battles that were fought in the last 20 or so years to secure legal rights to teach children at home. But I think there's another battleground, perhaps the place where our generation of home educators will be fighting: the arena of public opinion. If we don't maintain connections with our neighbors and communities in a way that demonstrates that our children are being adequately prepared for life (and higher education), then how will the general public understand that it doesn't take an institution and trained professionals to accomplish that goal? I'm not advocating that we reduce our protection of our children just so that we can show off their brilliant social skills to the world. But I think there are ways to incorporate others who are not homeschoolers into our relationships. If we don't isolate ourselves within the homeschooling community, then we have a better opportunity to influence opinions in the general public. And perhaps if debate arises on whether someone must be a "certified teacher" in order to teach their children at home, we can garner support from outside the homeschooling community to keep the rights others fought so hard for.

I just signed the HSLDA petition in support of their efforts to have the recent judge's decision outlawing homeschooling unless a parent is a certified teacher "depublished." In other words, the judge decided that his decision regarding one family should apply to the whole state by publishing it. HSLDA is petitioning the state to have the decision not apply to the whole state.

Please join me in signing this petition at www.hslda.org.

More information on this case is at http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ca/200803060.asp.

 Visit SoCalVal for more Weblink Wednesday links!

This is a blog I ran across recently simply to encourage us to pray for our children. Each week she posts a new prayer, many based on Stormie Omartian's book The Power of a Praying Parent. I'm putting a link on my sidebar to this site, primarily so I remember to visit and pray frequently:

http://liftinghands.blogspot.com/

First, I have to say, I love shoes. I'm not much of a clothes-horse, but it's all I can do not to buy cute shoes when I see them on sale! Oof! And Target usually has a great selection of stylish shoes for great prices. So apparently, if I were shoes, I'd be ...

You Are Flip Flops

You are laid back and very friendly. Cheery and sunny in disposition, you usually have something to smile about. Style is important to you, as long as you can stay casual. It takes a lot to get you to dress up! You are a loyal and true person, though you can be a bit of a flake. You tend to "play hooky" and blow off responsibilities a lot more than most people. You should live: By the beach You should work: At a casual up and coming company

If March 1 is sunny and warm with highs in the mid-70's, and everyone is out riding bikes and taking walks and playing at the park ...

And you wake up on March 2 to violent winds and a couple of inches of snow on the ground ...

Then did March come in like a lion or a lamb?

Does anyone else live someplace where Spring weather is typically this bizarrely varied from one day to the next?

Apparently I left a few of you out there scratching your head over some of my answers in the "If I Were A ..." post the other day. So I'll take a moment to explain some of those things that had no explanations. Maybe it will help you all understand me better ... and maybe not!

If I were a vegetable, I'd be a soybean because ... well, a soybean is not alone in its pod, a soybean is good for you, and while it's not sugary-sweet, it is appealing. Soybeans are also very versatile, and I'm a pretty versatile, flexible person. By the way, my daughter and I love edamame lightly steamed and seasoned with Kosher salt. Better than french fries!

If I were an article of clothing, I'd be socks because ... socks are simple, useful servants. They don't usually stand out (OK, I'll admit I do have a few pairs of crazy socks, though). Socks just do their job without getting much notice most of the time.

If I were a color, I'd be purple because ... purple is not an entirely stable color. It can be both cool and warm. It's a little funky and fun and flexible.

If I were a dessert, I'd be creme brulee because ... it's just a litte different, and it's yummy without being heavy and rich.

If I were a plant, I'd be a young oak tree because ... I think I have the potential to be a comforting, shady place for others, but I'm not fully there yet.

Any other questions?

I picked up this cute meme at School in 'R Home. If anyone else does it, leave me a comment so I can check out yours!

If I were a shoe, I'd be ... a high-heeled loafer - something fashionable and easy to wear (and also helps the "vertically challenged" like me).

If I were a city, I'd be ... a mid-sized city with lots of really active sub-communities.

If I were a season, I'd be ... something predictable and reliable, like a cold northern winter or a hot southern summer.

If I were a car, I'd be ... a Toyota Highlander Hybrid ('cuz it's "green" and can still fit a lot of people).

If I were a vegetable, I'd be ... a soybean.

If I were a fruit, I'd be ... an orange.

If I were a color, I'd be ... purple.

If I were furniture, I'd be ... a stool parked at the kitchen island.

If I were a country, I'd be ... Mexico or something South American with a rich and varied culture. (Not that I don't appreciate the USA!)

If I were a beverage, I'd be ... water (with a little squirt of lemon in it).

If I were clothing, I'd be ... socks.

If I were weather, I'd be ... a light rain shower on a hot day.

If I were a dessert, I'd be ... creme brulee.

If I were a plant, I'd be ... a young oak tree.

If I were a word, I'd be ... faith.

The HSB Company Blog is running the Extreme Blog Makeover Contest to win a lovely new blog template from Art Designs by Christi.

I wrote several weeks ago that I felt my blog needed a facelift, but I haven't had the time to rework it. I know HSB has a lot of templates available, but I kind of want something unique. Sure, I can customize an HSB standard template, but I'm too busy to keep up with blogging & my friends - let alone play with template pictures or learn HTML! (Actually, I have tried to find books at the library to help me learn HTML to make simple template modifications, but with no success.)

So since I don't have the time to work on the template myself and don't want to spend the money for a custom template design, I'd love to win the new blog design from Christi!

This is a fun one. I've seen it on several blogs and just got "officially" tagged by Kysha.

• Take the nearest book and turn to page 123

• Find the 5th sentence and post the next 3

The book nearest to me was one we've been reading from (off and on) for history: Exploring American History

The next month there was a battle on Long Island, just across from New York City; the British gained the victory. Washington had to leave New York, and Lord Cornwallis, one of the British generals, chased him and his little army clear across the state of New Jersey. It looked at one time as though our men would all be taken prisoners; but Washington managed to seize a number of small boats on the Delaware River and get across into Pennsylvania.

We know the end of the story - that in the end the brave, persistent Americans defeated the British and won independence. But at this point the story wasn't finished - and it looked kind of desperate. So if you're in the midst of a desperate situation, remember, the end isn't written yet!

I know I'm supposed to tag 5 others, but instead I'm going to say that anyone who wants to do this tag, just do it. Hopefully at least 5 of you will pick this up. It's interesting to read these snippets from the books that we happen to have closest to our computers!

Yesterday our state held caucuses to select delegates for presidential nominees. My husband attended on behalf of us both since someone had to pick my daughter up from her dance class (not to mention watch the children). He called me about a half-hour after the voting was scheduled to begin to let me know that things were going slowly because they had way more turnout than expected. Apparently in past caucuses, they've had one to two people show up per precinct for a total of about 30 or so people. Last night they had 30 or so people show up per precinct! When he told me about the unexpected turnout, I said, "What did they expect? This year our delegates actually matter!" Apparently they had expected a larger than usual turnout - maybe about 200 - but not 500 people!

I like the community aspect of caucuses. I read in our newspaper that in one of the democratic caucuses last night they polled people by having Hillary Clinton's supporters stand on one side of the room and Barack Obama's supporters on the other side. There were a handful of "undecideds" in the middle of the room, and one side was offering brownies to get them to come over. In response, someone from the other side offered to make dinner. Now that's just old-fashioned community politicking! On the other hand, the structure of showing up at 7:00 pm for a vote instead of coming when you're available during the day leaves out some voters (like those with young children). However, in 4 years my children will be old enough to attend and get a good feel for the political process.

I have been rather surprised in the last couple of days to see the ultra-conservatives throwing their support behind a candidate they were somewhat uncomfortable with a few months ago - primarily because they don't like John McCain's more moderate positions. I don't listen to all the talk radio (or watch TV news either), but it seems to me they'd be more comfortable supporting Mike Huckabee than Mitt Romney. Maybe they don't believe Huckabee really has a chance. All I can say is that I'm tired of being told that because I'm an evangelical Christian, I should think a certain way. Thank you very much, Rush Limbaugh and your buddies, but I prefer to think for myself!

Which brings me to my biggest political disappointment. I loved George Bush's emphasis on "compassionate conservativism" in the beginning of his first term. In my opinion, Compassionate Conservativism was the saddest casualty of the war on terror. After 9/11 this country's focus turned toward "Homeland Security" and later toward arguing over whether we should be at war in Iraq to the extent that compassionate measures (such as the government partnering with faith-based organizations) have been largely ignored. Now we're starting to see the effects of the demise of compassionate conservativism in things like harsh immigtation policies and even government trying to regulate faith-based organizations that receive government money so that they can't consider a person's faith in hiring! (Yes, that's on the table here in Colorado.) We're letting Liberals take over the issues that concern the needy in our country, and we look like we have no hearts. We have no answer to the plight of the millions of uninsured people in our country, so the only choices seem to be between universal health care or overwhelming emergent care with people who have no option but to walk into an ER or call 911 just to see a doctor. There's no compromise on immigration between the "build a fence and deport all the aliens" and "give everyone amnesty" perspectives.

But I believe there is hope. The Church seems to be growing in awareness of the needy and suffering in the world. A few days ago I ran across this NY Times column about Evangelical Christians' increasing ministry to needy people throughout the world. The author says that Liberals should stop "evangelical bashing" because "conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur." If the church and conservative community can keep their hearts in the right place, then maybe we'll start seeing Republican candidates with heart in future elections.

And if not, at least I know Jesus will return one day to rule the world with perfect justice and compassion.

We watched the Superbowl last night. So my favorite commericals were the one with the lizards line dancing to "Thriller" and the one for the beer that makes you fly ... oops, flying no longer included. The flying one appealed to my weird sense of humor. Anyone else want to share their favorites?

I can't figure out why the NY Giants had no blue (not even a stripe) on their uniform shirts. It really didn't go with their helmets. But they played a great game and deserved to win.

We did school at our new library today. The library has this great "Living Room" area in the middle. We camped out near the fireplace in cozy chairs (with little trays for the kids' books, even) and went through all of our lessons in about 2 hours. The kids want to go back tomorrow ... maybe not tomorrow, but I could see us doing this once a week. Today was a great change of pace since we were pretty much quarantined all last week!

I need to find a good Language Arts curriculum for next year. Has anyone used Character Quality Language Arts? Does it take a lot of time each day? TOS Magazine gave it a good review, but I really like to see things before buying them, and I can't get the sample lessons from their web page. (They're apparently making changes or something, so some of the links aren't working now.)

It seems this is the time of year when many homeschoolers are looking ahead to planning for next year. I already know what we're going to do - with the exception of Language Arts - but I think I'll hold off until our state conference this summer to buy curriculum since I won't have to pay for shipping!

I think this blog needs a template face lift. Gonna have to work on that some time....

Hope everyone is having a good start to the week!

Various people have asked me questions in my comments recently, so I thought I'd address them (and post a few other updates) here.

First, about using baby food instead of cooking & pureeing your own veggies to "hide" in food. I'm sure it would work, although it would probably be a bit more expensive! You could also buy canned veggies and puree them to save some time.

Next, I was asked a couple of weeks ago about the product I use in my laundry instead of bleach. I use Melaleuca products for all my cleaning and most of my personal care. The one I was referring to is called Sol-U-Mel. It's billed as a solvent, deodorizer and cleaning booster. (I've used it to get silly putty out of carpets & bedspreads.) However, the tea tree oil (AKA Melaleuca oil - the scientific name) is great for killing germs, too. It doesn't whiten like bleach products, but a capful gives me just the "disinfecting" that I want in a load of laundry. (After all, it's not like the laundry soap isn't killing germs while cleaning, too!)

Here's a picture of my daughter with her quilt she made yesterday. Didn't she do a great job? She has been taking a sewing class, and I think we're on to something she can enjoy for years to come. (We actually finished it this morning as a quilt, not just blocks sewn together!)

My son is a little better today, although he still had a mild fever when he woke up this morning (around 8:30). After some toast a dose of Tylenol, he seems to be his regular energetic self - we'll see if he stays on the upswing! His knee is also healing much better than I thought it would after he banged it the day after getting stitches out and reopened the wound. I was so happy to see the other day that it doesn't look like he's going to have a deep scar there after all.

So have I missed anything?

I was tagged by both Dot and Kelly this week, and I think I can finally focus enough to come up with some unimportant things about myself! Here are the tag rules:

(1) Link to the person that tagged you. (2) Post the rules on your blog. (3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. (4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I had my ears pierced for my 7th birthday.

2. I rarely wear sneakers - I love to wear boots & high-heeled loafers in this season; in the summer it's flip-flops or cute slip-ons. (Yes, I am a shoe-wearer!)

3. I read the comics with my hubby every night before going to sleep. OK, to be honest, about 1 in 4 nights, I fall asleep while reading the comics!

4. I have never lived alone.

5. I can't drink coffee in the morning because I get grumpy with the kids, but I can have some to wake me up mid-afternoon. (No, it doesn't keep me awake at night -- see #4).

6. If you ask my favorite color, I'll say yellow - but my real favorite color is the rich red that sugar maples and burning bushes turn in the fall.

And now to tag 6 random people (Really, I picked them randomly from my friends list!):

Christine - Just a thought

CheleLew - The Boys at Heart of Grace Academy

Heather - Dovecote Academy

Shirley - From Cabin to Camelot

Julie - Home in the Mitten

Tirzah - Yearnin for some Learnin