|
Closer to Free
Aug. 21, 2009
Ok, it's almost been a year....
Since I have been to this blog to update it. Life happens I guess. We bought a condo, moved for the whole month of January and are still settling in.
I haven't blogged much because I have started a website and it takes most of my attention. I'm here now thanks to a friend from another homeschool site I found... yes there is another site. lol Anyways, they needed some help with adding a new template to their HSB account so I logged in to refresh my memory.
Things are going good in the new place and I at least have the kids homeschool/playroom ready for the school year to come. Now if I could only get ready. I have picked up some workbooks here and there and some math games to play but have been looking into a "new to me" delight directed approach thanks to a member of "the other HS network" that I recently joined. It is conveniently located on the same platform as my website's social network so I am there more than here.
Hopefully once my site gets it's routine down and I make all the tutorials I need to make there (if that is possible) I will have more time to check in here. There is my priority now though since we need another income. Scott lost half his hours at work and I don't want to have to leave the home to help earn money, so home business it is. The Good Lord gave me the talent to design and code layouts and I am hoping to help support the family by using those talents. If you would please, say a little prayer that it is successful!
Till next time! |
• Comments
(0) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Oct. 13, 2008
House Hunting
We have neglected our blog again. Some things are more important and time consuming for me lately. When the markets began to fall and home prices dropped, I decided to begin the search for our next home. We are currently renting a 3 bedroom townhouse for nearly $1000/mo. and struggling to stretch paycheck to paycheck. I realize this is mostly due to our decision to live on one income, but that decision is very important to us.
Recession hurts some more than others, and we may well be one of the families who can benefit from falling home prices. We began looking at single family homes that were in foreclosure because they were at or below our pre-approval amount. We put in a couple of offers and things didn't work out. The first offer we put in was too low and the second I decided to pull when I realized the house didn't even have gutters. Believe me I have learned much about how the hole we are in was dug.
I have been very thorough in researching each home we have considered. Looking through the register of deeds at each home equity loan and refinance of these homes has revealed much about how things came to be. We put in an offer on one home that was in great shape, when these people took out a home equity loan, they put it into the home. They seem to have been the exception. Most of the other homes were in terrible condition.
The worst of them was a home that was bought cheap from the wife's parents. At the time the home was worth about 100 thousand and they paid about 40 thousand. Immediately they took out a $60,000 home equity loan. They refinanced several times and finally they refinanced for $150,000. I have no idea where these folks spent the money, but it was not on the home, possibly it was in energy costs because in winter their bill was about $550/mo. for gas and electric. Obviously this home had no insulation. It also had old drafty windows, and the inside was far from move in condition. Where did all the money go? How many people used their homes as ATMs? It is so very sad.
What we have currently decided on is a condo. The structure is sound, the price is right, and we will not have to put every cent we save into fixing it. The location is convenient to my husband's workplace and shopping, in fact it is within walking distance of both. It is a nice 4bdrm. 1.5 bath multi-level with a little bit of a yard. There is a basement which we do not currently have, but there is no garage which we do currently enjoy. All in all we will be saving about $100/mo. and that is accounting for taxes, PMI, and condo fees! We put our offer in and are praying that things work out. I'll keep you all posted. |
• Comments
(4) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Sep. 4, 2008
New Test Page for Layouts
I have been teaching myself how to design CSS for web pages. Changing my layouts here has been my latest adventure. You can see what is happening on my test page, just remember it is a test page and could at times be very strange looking! I have also found a way to post these template codes if you have any requests, I can do my best!
|
• Comments
(1) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 29, 2008
New Blog Feature
I just wanted to explain my new blog feature Snap Shots. They are pretty simple, just hover the cursor over one of the external links with a little text bubble next to it and it will give you a snapshot of the web page it is linking to! I found this nifty little feature over at my friend's blog Stepping Heavenward.
|
• Comments
(0) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 29, 2008
Reclaiming our Heritage
Reclaiming our Heritage
by Mom
We took a field trip to a charitable festival in May called Reclaiming our Heritage. This is a military reenactment type event where you can see people dressed in the Military uniforms of different time periods as well as conversing with guests as though they were talking about things that went on in their time period. This was the first time our family attended but we do plan to attend annually now. I learned about it from a friend's HSblog Stepping Heavenward. Later I found out my Uncle would be piping there!
It was a beautiful day and although we missed the parade we did make it in time to see my uncle's piping band play. He plays with the Celtic Nations Pipe Band. We always enjoy seeing them play!
After that we went and got a nice corned beef sandwich at McBob's before we explored the grounds. Gabe and Alex were lucky enough to get the last two hot dogs at the hot dog stand! From there we wandered and took in the sites. From Tee Pees to tents. But Alex's favorite part of all was getting to pet the horses!
We didn't take formal notes this year, mainly we were there to observe and to see what the festival was all about. Next year I plan on doing some studies with the uniforms to see if she can guess their era, but this year we just got our feet wet!
|
• Comments
(0) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 29, 2008
Milestone One
Milestone One
By Mom
I mentioned in an earlier post that we had some real milestones this summer. The first was losing our training wheels. I always thought that confidence was the most important ingredient to success. Sometimes our children are quite capable of taking off the proverbial "training wheels" but they hesitate at times because of fear. What the fear is or where it came from widely differs, but once they succeed they often loose that fear.
Alex was not asking for us to take off her training wheels, but they kept coming loose on her. I suggested that instead of trying to tighten them, why don't we take them off and see what happens? She was hesitant at first, but we told her if it was too hard we would put them back on, she just had to try. So try she did!
Needless to say, the training wheels stayed off and the confidence stayed on! She is doing great riding without her training wheels and I think she has only had one small accident. Yay Alex!
|
• Comments
(1) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 28, 2008
Back to Blogging!
The Reader's Digest Version of our Summer
by Mom
We had a couple of weeks off this summer here and there and although we still did schoolwork, I abandoned the blog over the summertime. My plan is to begin posting about some of our summer fun, and learning of course! So much to try and remember, thank goodness for cameras!
It was a big summer, we lost our training wheels and our water wings and finished it off with our two front teeth! (She just lost her second front tooth on Tuesday!) We went down to Missouri so Alex could spend some time with her mother and her Memo and Papa. We had a great time with my husband's family over the fourth of July Weekend. Alex really enjoyed her visit.
When she got home from her vacation there were lots of new kids in the neighborhood for her to play with as well as a homeschooling family! It will be nice to have kids for her to play with for recess. As it turns out we had already met their family at a Ron Paul event through Meetup.com. I'm happy to have neighbors with a similar lifestyle!
Summer was fun while it lasted but after a few weeks without structure our little angel begins to get into trouble! Our reason for getting back to school early, not to mention shorter days. I hope to have more details in the days to come!
|
• Comments
(2) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
May. 12, 2008
So Starts Another Week Down the Unmapped Path
It sure has been a while since I have made any posts. I got real sick for a week and it has taken me some time to return to normal. The house went to the kids for a week, and I thought I was never caught up before. So I am glad to be here to catch up with myself.
I have been reading when I get the chance. My favorite book that I am reading is A RETURN TO MODESTY: Discovering the Lost Virtue by Wendy Shalit. It is one of those perspective changing books if you know what I mean. I will be a better person and mother for what I am reading right now. I pick up The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul now and then , but I am determined to get done with my other books as well. I think I like to tackle too much sometimes.
Alex has returned to soccer and should be posting about that by tomorrow. She has been working on short writing entries, she writes them out by hand guessing at the spelling. Then I go through and edit her work. I pick out the misspelled words and we use them for spelling practice. Her soccer entry is ready to be typed and her photo posted. She is much more confident and willing to steal the ball from the other team. Once you can get it away from Mom and Dad, those other kids aren't so scary anymore.
We are plugging away at math worksheets much of which is review, but we are now mastering it. Taking our time to learn the concept as we go. Review may be a bit boring or redundant, but she gains confidence once she can complete it with ease on her own.
We are doing the human body for science this week. This is in preparation to a museum field trip we have planned for next weekend. The Milwaukee Public Museum has an exhibit right now called Body Worlds 1 from Germany. My husband and I went to see it on our honeymoon in Chicago. It is truly amazing. She has looked through the picture book from that exhibit in Chicago and seemed fascinated. So we will do some studying and she will get to take a good look at what an awesome job God did when he created humans.
Alex is doing wonderful with her reading. She is reading books labeled for third grade without much help. I haven't updated her books in the margin in the past month, but it has been many. Reading is a great time because it can also include learning different subjects. Social Studies and reading fit hand in hand. She learned about Crazy Horse last week, and has been listening to the Little House series on CD. I could only find the audio of some of the stories. We love the library, even Gabe.
So starts another week down the unmapped path. |
• Comments
(0) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Feb. 25, 2008
What's on your desk?
I'm voluntarily being tagged. Thanks Heather, I needed some motivation to straighten out my desk! I've been considering it for a couple days, but playing with my new blog has been more fun. So you caught me with a disaster of a desk, and it is not an unusual occurrence. I'm unorganized. Maybe I will learn to become more organized, but really, the organizational state of my desk is the least of my concerns! =) Without further adieu...
Here's the meme:
You can tell a lot about a person by the state of their desk and what they keep on it. So, share what's on your desk. You can take pictures, take an inventory, or do both. Don't have a desk? That's okay, just give us a glimpse into the space where you pay bills, write letters, grade papers, study, or work on the computer.
When you've finished your photos or inventory, post it on your blog and tag five more people to do the same. Don't forget to share the rules with those you tag and ask them to share their posts with you when they are done.
So here is my desk, obviously I did not stop to clean it up! I am not about to take an inventory! As my friend said, consider yourself tagged if you want to play along!
After sharing that terrible scene of a messy desk I had to redeem myself and actually file things away where they belong. So here is what a little desk cleaning motivation can accomplish... won't last long!
|
• Comments
(2) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
Feb. 24, 2008
Hello! I'm Angela...
I'm a new Homeschooling Mom from Wisconsin. My husband David and I thought about homeschooling his daughter Alex before we placed her into Kindergarten, but we decided to try public school. After all, we both went to public school, right?
Public school didn't work out so well for my husband, but I did well enough. I didn't develop an addiction to learning until after school when I was able to explore on my own and read what I chose to read. I feel it is easier to learn about things we are interested in. Needless to say things were not working out for us in public school and I finally became brave enough to tackle the task myself.
Alex has been home with her younger brother Gabe and me for a couple of weeks and we are very excited to be free to learn whatever she may be interested in learning. At this point I am not sure what method(s) to use if any, but I am paying attention to what she already knows and what she seems to like. I look forward to meeting many of you and learning alongside our children. |
• Comments
(1) • Post A Comment! •
Permanent Link
|
|
