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I know it's ungrateful to complain about something that's free...
Dec. 19, 2006
But I'm really unhappy about the new, possibly permanent "no javascript" rule here. I suppose I don't need my "Today's Verse", though I really liked having it, but not having "Blogrolling" would be the deal breaker for me. I know enough HTML that I've actually built "mock-blogs" on other websites - pages where I update info in what looks like a blog style but is actually just me editing the raw HTML code - but that's because my "updates" are only made a handful of times each month. Here, on my blog, I'm going for ease of use. That means "push-button" style posting to quickly get my message loaded, AND "push-button" style link adding - so I can quickly, easily link to any other blogs that catch my eye. Yes, of course I could manually enter a new URL into a list by opening my template and making the changes, but that's not what I'm after. Maybe it's lazy of me, but if I have to do that "extra" work, I'd be a lot less inclined to do it all. If I go back to using blogger.com, I won't have that issue and I can host the blog at my own website. I really like this community a lot, and it probably seems like a silly thing to fuss about, but I want to be able to run my blog with as much ease as possible and that would require having the javascript capabilities back.
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Huh.
Dec. 16, 2006
Ever since the change-over here, my "Today's Verse" and "Blogrolling" scripts have ceased to run. I guess later tonight I'll poke around the template and see if I can figure out what the problem is.
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Bible Studies
Dec. 14, 2006
Lately my 9-year-old seems to be having trouble understanding some (admittedly more difficult) Bible passages and I'm thinking we might need to focus more on our Bible studies for the next few months. We've done well with the Christian Studies program from Memoria Press and, of course, the Switched on Schoolhouse curriculum has "Bible" as one of the 5 study subjects, but some of the wording seems to stall her out and I don't want her frustration level to hit the point that she starts not wanting to read her Bible at all! I'm wondering whether or not having a "Child's Bible" would be a good or bad thing at this point.
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What a day!
Dec. 9, 2006
First,
we got to see the Broadway Lion King musical that's currently playing
here in Orlando. Totally amazing! The entire production was
simply awesome. Then we had a nice dinner at Bahama Breeze and
just now? To top it off? We stood in our back yard and
watched the Space Shuttle launch. My husband took pictures.
If they come out, I'll post one here. This is one of those times
I really love living in Central Florida!
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Does this only happen to us???
Dec. 4, 2006
We
once had a very nice, over-the-oven, mounted microwave oven. A
friend of mine, who was babysitting my then 3-year-old daughter, tried
to warm up a towel in it. My daughter had a minor earache and I'd
told my friend that she could warm a towel in the dryer
for my daughter to hold to her ear. My friend decided that
warming it in the microwave would be faster. The towel caught on
fire; the microwave shot out flames and then it shut down completely
and was not repairable.
Two years ago, my husband put a slice of
pizza in our smaller, counter microwave and accidentally put 10 minutes
instead of 1 minute on the time-cook. He didn't realize his
mistake until, yep - it caught on fire and ruined microwave #2.
Just
about half an hour ago, my son decided to cook some macaroni in the
nice 1100 watt counter microwave we currently have, only it appears he
forgot to put the water in the bowl. At about the same time that
my husband and I looked at one another (we're both working in his
office) and said, "What's that smell?", my son started yelling for
help. Because, *sigh* the macaroni was on fire, the microwave was
shooting flames and now, again, we've killed another one. I don't
know what's worse, the fact that we'll have to spend money for yet
another microwave, or the fact that this smoky smell takes days to go
away. The house reeks! It's so bad right now the kids are
gathering some books and we're going to go sit at the library for
awhile.
I know people lived for centuries without microwaves, but I consider
them essential for homeschooling and budgeting peace of mind. I
do a lot of investment-style cooking on the weekends, then use the
microwave to warm things during the week. This keeps me from
after-school burnout a la "Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?" and from
running out for fast-food.
I guess while we're out passing time at the library, we'll also go to Wal-Mart and look at getting a new microwave, too.
Are we the only ones this destructive to innocent kitchen appliances? Heh.
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I admit I'm biased.
Dec. 3, 2006
Weighing in on the Florida - Michigan Debate here.
First, I do think that Florida had a tougher schedule. And
Florida beat more bowl-ranked teams. Second, all those people
howling about how Florida played a "nobody" team so late in the
schedule (Western who again?), how is that worse than playing no team
at all? If we throw out that victory, then the 2 teams in
question have identical win-loss records.
All right, so the argument comes down to Michigan lost to the all
mighty Ohio team while Florida lost to the semi-mighty Auburn team and
that maybe should be enough. Maybe we'll ignore who actually had
the tougher schedule and played more games.
But there's one fact that I think can't be overlooked. Michigan
is NOT the champ of their own conference. How can they then go to
the title game? That makes no sense at all. If you aren't
your own conference champion then I don't think you should be playing
for a national title.
Actually, it looks like Stewart Mandel says it better than I:
"The reality is, the Michigan/Florida debate strikes at the
heart of an issue that's never been formally addressed by the BCS: Is
the title game supposed to match the two best teams in the voters' eyes
or the two most deserving. Because it's hard to argue against the
Gators in terms of the latter.
Florida
beat teams currently ranked fifth (LSU), ninth (Arkansas) and 16th
(Tennessee) in the BCS standings. Michigan beat No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 10
Notre Dame and ... unranked Penn State.
The
Gators beat seven teams that finished the season with winning records
and nine that are bowl-eligible. The Wolverines: Four and six.
But
most of all, Florida won what most consider to be the toughest
conference in the country this season. Michigan finished second in a
conference whose fifth-best team was Purdue."
So what's more important? The loss against Auburn vs. the loss
against Ohio, or the numbers stacked up for the entire season?
Should a conference champ get the shot at the national title, or a
(weaker) conference runner-up?
It will be interesting to see what the final decision is.
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That's it. I believe I am DONE with eBay.
Dec. 2, 2006
I
was already angry with eBay for their ridiculous decision to not allow
the teaching editions of homeschooling curriculum to be sold, and I
should have just stopped the day I found out about that and never gone
to that site again. But I have some non-homeschooling items I
wanted to sell and I started listing them yesterday. Today I
received notice that one of my DVD sets was removed as it was an
"illegal copy." Do WHAT? I know eBay has zero proof of this
because I know my DVDs aren't illegal copies. Yet not only did
they yank my auction, they apparently let the bidders know this.
I see this as nothing short of slander. I've been accused of
trying to sell bootleg material and that's a crime, and because eBay
told my bidders, they've wrongly damaged my reputation. I
contacted Live Help as soon as I got this notice and that proved to be
a joke.
Here's basically how our conversation went: (I actually copied
and pasted the entire conversation, but since I'm not sure of the
legalities about posting the actual chat, I'm summarizing instead.)
EBAY: How can I help you?
ME: I had a listing pulled for supposedly being illegal.
It's not. (I then linked to the "ebay alert" I was sent.)
EBAY: I need the auction number.
ME: *posted number*
EBAY: I can't help you with this. You need to e-mail Trust and Security.
ME: All right. How long does that take to get a response?
EBAY: Usually only 24 - 48 hours. They will get to it as soon as possible. (Whatever that means.)
ME: Can you tell me what exactly I need to put in my e-mail to prove this is a false accusation?
EBAY: (This is a direct quote now.) "I'm sorry but there are
certain procedures that only Trust and Safety know and we are not
allowed to disclose any information about this matter."
How helpful is that? It went on a few more minutes with the same,
"You have to e-mail Trust and Safety." and then ended with, I kid you
not, "Have a good day!!"
Excuse me? Your company has falsely accused me of commiting a
crime, you've been no help whatsoever and you wish me a 'good
day'? Give me a break!
So I am done with this company. As soon as my current auctions
end, I'm going to delete my account. I'll just have to sell my
things elsewhere. But boy, do I now understand why so many people
complain about eBay! I'm not totally stupid. I'm sure I
know what happened here. Someone else selling the same DVDs as I
was "reported" me and got me knocked out of the competition while he
sells his copies. And I'm willing to bet even if eBay were to
admit their mistake here, they'd do nothing more than tell me I'm
welcome to go through all the work of relisting my item. I'm also
willing to bet they won't do a thing about notifying my bidders that
they were the ones to mess up here, not me.
I guess I learned my lesson. The hard way.
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Public schools should have social workers? They don't even have nurses!
Nov. 30, 2006
Following a link from Spunky's Blog, I went to read the article Have schools turned into social workers?.
There are so many quotes in there that I could comment on - like the
one about how little time in school is actually devoted to learning,
but I'll let that go for now and only focus on this: (Posted as a
comment to the article by someone named student07) "After reading this article it made me realize how important
it is for school corporations to have school social workers. If the state
mandated that all schools employ school social workers, teachers could focus
more on educating their students. "
Good
luck with that, dear. Here in Florida our public schools don't
even have to have a nurse on staff. Back when my kids were still
in the system, the following happened in one year, and these are
just the things I know; I wouldn't be surprised to hear other horror
stories from parents in grades I wasn't then involved with.
1) A young boy fell off the jungle gym and complained of shoulder
pain. He was told he was fine. Apparently when he got home
that afternoon the pain was so bad, his mom took him to the emergency
room and it turned out he'd been walking around with a dislocated
shoulder! When I talked with his mom the next day, she was
*understandably* upset that no one had taken her child seriously and no
one had called her.
2) I walked a young girl with a fever and bad cough to the
nurse's station - a room with six beds run by a woman who had no
medical training. (She told me this herself once.) When I
brought this child in and explained her symptoms, the response I got
was, "What do you want me to do about it? I can't give her any
medicine." As patiently as I could, I replied, "You could call
her mom." She reluctantly did so, only to find the mom could not
get to the school immediately. The poor woman was at the hospital
with her toddler, getting stitches from an accident. I told
little Jordan to lie down on one of the beds and rest, but the
non-nurse said, "No way." She instructed me to take this sick
child back to class until her mother could get there! I have NO
clue what those six beds were for, but apparently they weren't for
children who were ill.
3) My own daughter slid under the chain link fence that surrounds
the playground, cutting her leg from knee to ankle. Not only did
I not get a call about this - hello? She was cut by a dirty,
metal fence! - they sent her (she was 5 years old at the time) to the
bathroom to clean out the sand specks herself and was then given a few
band-aids to stick on. This was 4 years ago and she still has a
scar. I realize that there may have been nothing to do about the
scarring, but I certainly would've put antibacterial cream on the wound
and cleaned it up much better than my little kindergartener did, though
she really did her best.
Any time I mentioned any of these incidents to other parents, they
would invariably say, "Oh, no! We have a nurse. I've seen
her in the nurse's station." To which I would have to
explain, "No, you've seen a woman who walks around in scrubs (how
misleading is that?) who is not a nurse nor has she ever received
medical training. Her job is to go through all the files and make
sure shot records are up to date. I know; I asked her."
If we can't even can't a nurse on staff at our public schools, I don't see us hiring social workers any time soon.
Well, I could be wrong there. Since public schools really are
more about socialization than education - maybe they'll decide having
social workers monitoring the kids is a great idea.
One
final thought. Do schools not have counselors any more?
Aren't they basically the equivalent of social workers anyway?
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Cue the fanfare!
Nov. 29, 2006
We did it! We did it! Woo-hoo! We did it!
As of
about twenty minutes ago we became verified NaNoWriMo winners!
Yay, us! Even though we reached our word goals, our book isn't
done yet and the kids don't want to stop writing. I've told them
that of course we'll finish it, but maybe not by devoting several hours
a day to it like we've had to do this last week or so. :)
Still, they're excited about winning and getting their certificates
already, even though we're a day early from the official close of the
contest, and we're all basking in a nice sense of accomplishment right
now.
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A final exam from 1895. But not for 8th graders.
Nov. 28, 2006
I
got an e-mail this morning telling me about an actual 8th grade final
exam from 1895. I'm always suspicious of e-mails like this, so I
went to the source. It does seem partially legit - though there's
nothing on the original exam that mentions "8th grade" - it simply says
"Graduation". A little bit more research led me to this:
1895 Exam Rumor
Sometimes I think the internet is a cross between that old game of "Telephone" and a never-ending Liars' Club contest.
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The Gift of the Magi Study Guide
Nov. 27, 2006
I
loved O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" the first time I read it all
the way back in 7th grade and this December it will be one of the
stories I have my son read. Here's a study guide in .pdf form
that includes a vocabulary list, some short answer questions and a
small quiz. (Oh, and the story itself, obviously! *g*):
The Gift of the Magi & Study Guide.
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Learn some basic HTML.
Nov. 26, 2006
I
first decided I wanted to know at least some basic HTML almost 10 years
ago. There wasn't a lot of good material out there to learn from
then, so I would just open website source pages and stare at the code
until I figured out what was what. (Not the best method to use,
obviously!)
If you're wanting to learn some simple HTML - maybe you'd like to add
links to your side bar or post a photo? - here's a website that can
help: w3school's free HTML tutorial.
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Free Simple Photo Manipulation Software.
Nov. 26, 2006
If
you have digital photos you'd like to upload to your blog, but the pics
are HUGE, this is a simple *free* program you can download to resize
them. (You can do some minor editing, too, such as changing to
greyscale or inserting text.)
To download this program click on this link: Photo Software - and select "save to disk".
You'll be downloading from a site called
"mysideoftheinternet.com". That's just a site I have in order to
store files and programs, so please don't be confused or alarmed if you
receive a security notice warning you that you're being taken "off
site".
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"Only qualified teachers should teach!"
Nov. 26, 2006
Ugh.
I just spent a worthless hour reading posts on a forum board
questioning homeschooling and there were several posts from "educated
teachers" who explained how parents without college degrees in teaching
can't possibly provide an adequate education for their children.
Please.
First of all, I do have a college degree - in juvenile
counseling. To get this degree, I had to take several courses in
elementary education and you know what? These classes were
nothing short of a joke. We spent way too much time doing "group"
projects in which I wound up doing all the work myself - because my
peers' ideas of doing a project involved writing one page of nonsense
backed up by "research" that didn't even apply, and I didn't care to
get a failing grade just because these folks were lazy and
careless. My 12-year-old son writes better papers now than these
college students produced, and yet they graduated and now at least some
of them are presumably tenured teachers. Why am I supposed to be
impressed by this?
To
give you a better idea of what I'm talking about - one of our projects
was to write a paper on the effects of television on learning. We
had an entire semester to write this paper. Yeah. A whole
semester. Any of you parents feeling like maybe you aren't up to
snuff because you don't have that hallowed teaching degree - don't
worry. Six or seven days of researching teaching styles and
you'll be pretty much as "educated" as the ladies I graduated with in
1992. Everything else was silly "filler" stuff, like a class that
involved us sitting around discussing "Ways to Motivate Parents" or
"How to Read Out Loud".
One girl in my television study group produced a poorly written page
that said television promoted violence, not really on-topic per se, and
her one and only source was actually a quote about video game
violence. She sat two rows behind me at graduation. And
now, according to some people, she's better qualified to teach my
children than I am. Another girl in my group managed to write two
pages, but once I edited out the number of times she used "like" (I am
NOT making this up!), it dropped her length to just over a page and a
quarter.
One of the posters on this forum I read today actually said "when us
teachers graduate" in her post claiming teachers have the proper
training parents do not have. I guess that proper training didn't
include any basic grammar!
Actually, thanks to my own college experience, I'm not particularly impressed by anyone
who has a college degree. Not to disparage anyone who went to a
college or university and genuinely worked hard, but I went to college
with a lot of people who seemed to think the only purpose of being
there was to party, party, party. My husband, OTOH, was a
Marine. I always said, if I ever owned my own company, I'd hire
retired/former military people over college graduates any day.
While the college kids I knew took pride in doing the absolute minimum
to get by, the Marines I knew were trained to be polite, respectful,
punctual, well-groomed and to get the job done- well.
Now that I'm involved in the homeschooling universe, I'll add that I'd
take homeschoolers over public schoolers any day, and in many ways, the
reasons are the exact same!
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Our Christmas Baskets are done!
Nov. 22, 2006
Our gift basket theme this year didn't really have a name but the friends who have seen me working on them have loved them. This year's baskets are lined with cloths embroidred with a Christmas image and the recipients' names. Into the baskets went scarves I crocheted, cocoa mix pouches and ornaments the children made, along with a card that encouraged the recipients to take a long walk wrapped in their new scarves, come home and enjoy their cocoa, and then hang their new ornaments on their trees. I finally finished the last embroidered cloth today so I am officially done with assembling the gifts for all the adults in our family. Woo-hoo!
There was an article in the Central Florida Business section of the Sentinel today saying that Orlando area residents plan to spend around $670 on Christmas gifts this year. The final tally for our costs, even with the yarn, baskets, and other supplies needed was under $60. Also, the kids have two parameters to follow every Christmas. They get three gifts, to represent the presents the Magi brought to Jesus, and the total cost of all three things cannot go above $100. Since my husband and I exchange "honey-do" style gifts, this means this year's gifts for our family won't be more than $260. Heh. I imagine local merchants must hate people like us, but you know what? I think having gifts that are simple and homemade goes a long way toward keeping the real reason for the season at the forefront of the celebrations.
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Do you "do" Black Friday?
Nov. 22, 2006
Up
until 2 years ago, we'd never attempted to shop on the Friday after
Thanksgiving. But for 2004 & 2005 we had very specific things
to shop for so out we went. Well, in 2004, it was "out my husband
went." I'd wanted a waffle maker for a long time but never felt
the expense was really justified. In 2004, Wal-Mart had waffle
makers for $5. My husband left the house before dawn and managed
to get the last one at a Wal-Mart about 30 minutes from our
house. Last year it was a much bigger purchase. We lined up
at the same Wal-Mart at about 3:30 in the morning and at 7:00 am,
picked up two desktop computers with flat screen monitors for just over
$600 for both. We then stood in another endless line and finally
had them paid for and out the door at about noon. It was insane,
but ultimately worth it. We are now using the Switched on
Schoolhouse curriculum, which we are quite happy with, and since both
children have their own computers in their own rooms, we never have any
issues with scheduling school-work time.
We won't be going out
this Friday. There's nothing we need or want. Even if we
didn't always give handmade Christmas gifts, I still wouldn't use Black
Friday as my gift shopping day. I've no desire to be trampled by
some crazed consumer!
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It's an Unschooling School.
Nov. 22, 2006
This
is interesting. I guess I'm too young to remember the "free
schools" of the 60s and 70s because this is the first time I've heard
of something like this.
Free Schooling
Hmmm. I guess we know how CNN feels about it - the article is called "anarchy school" in the HTML code.
I wonder how many "free schooling" parents know they're just
unschooling - in a school setting. And I wonder if they've ever
considered homeschooling and why they chose this method instead.
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Cook your turkey upside down! No, seriously!
Nov. 17, 2006
The
year was 1997. My daughter was 5 months old, my son just over 3
years. My father was ill with an inoperable brain tumor and
cancer that had spread throughout his body. We knew this was
going to be his last Thanksgiving and we wanted it to be "extra"
special. Family flew in from all over the country and on
Thanksgiving morning I arose from bed, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep
and stress, stumbled to the kitchen and got the turkey into the roaster
and into the oven. Later, after breakfast, I went to check on our
bird and discovered that I'd put it in the roaster breast-side
down! For several minutes I was unable to do anything because my
sister (who was in the kitchen washing dishes) and I were laughing so
hard we couldn't even speak. I'm not sure why exactly, but we
decided to leave it that way, basting as usual, just - well, upside
down! Because it didn't turn out Martha Stewart, picture-worthy
perfect, for obvious reasons, we carved it in the kitchen and placed
slices on our turkey platter to carry to the table. And then the
remarkable happened. Everyone raved about the turkey! It
was the "best"; it was "fabulous"; it was "delicious & tender &
not at all dry." People came back for seconds and thirds, and we
didn't have our usual left-overs.
A few days later, I mentioned
this to my neighbor, the owner of a local BBQ restaurant. He
laughed and told me I'd discovered the secret restaurants have long
used. They intentionally cook turkeys breast-side down because
then all the juices flow down to the bulk of the meat.
D'oh! It makes perfect sense. I'd just never thought about
it. Before that day, I had always been concerned with a "pretty"
table-ready turkey. Since that time though, I have never cooked a
turkey breast-side up, and I'm sure I never will.
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Back from Houston!
Nov. 15, 2006
Well,
we're finally home and getting back into a normal routine. My
hopes of doing school work in the car while we drove got shot down by
two factors - one, the sun sets so early now and we spent a lot of time
driving after dark and two, Reddy, it turns out, can't really handle
long car trips. Poor puppy! He kept getting sick and we had
to stop every two hours or so to let him walk around. We can
usually get to Houston in about 24 hours, including all meal and
restroom stops, but this time it took us over 27. Boy, are we
glad to be home again!
Now we're going to really have to crunch time to meet our NaNoWriMo goals!
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That was weird.
Nov. 3, 2006
I
just read a great article about a university courting homeschoolers,
but once I tried to link to it, it kicked over to a "must be a
registered user to read." Huh. Well, I guess it's not news
to we homeschoolers anyway, but I love to make note of these news
articles to keep on file for "backup" when confronted by people who
still somehow believe that homeschooling parents can't possibly provide
a good education for their children.
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