My Blog - Homeschool Blogger

Wonders...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:48:00 -0500

Is it polite to randomly break into loud strains of Waltzing Matilda complete with tear-wiping at the end...

at a birthday party?

What do you think?

I'm Feeling More Kindly Now

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:50:00 -0500

This amusing excerpt is from the afterword of the same book.

"Wow! You made it through. That was a seriously long book. Not like War and Peace, but given the subject matter, it did seem longer than a Russian Winter. But wait. You aren't done yet. You still have to read the afterword, and I guarantee it will be worth your time. Most "afterwords" are just an author's way of saying good-bye. Many of us don't want to stop writing, so we just keep rambling on. We don't want the book to end. We think that as long as we don't put the pen down, insightful revelations will continue to flow onto the page. We might as well make it a whole ending chapter instead of tricking people into thinking the book in done. Oops, sorry. Where was I? Oh, yeah. This afterword is nothing of the sort. I promise I'll stop writing when I run out of useful things to say."

That's pretty funny!

Though, he gives himself too much credit. This book is only 278 pages long and simply written. Not in the least bit challenging. Just irritating.

ahem

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:41:00 -0500

I've been reading books and websites on vaccines and trying to make a decision for myself. Everything is so biased on both sides, this project has been quite irritating.

I found this paragraph from The Vaccine Book by Robert Sears particularly upsetting.

"The only foolproof way to study the long-term side effects of vaccines would be to take 50,000 infants, set aside 10,000 as an unvaccinated control group, and give the remaining four groups of 10,000 babies each a series of only one vaccine. Then testers would follow these kids for twenty years and compare the types of problems they have. Of, course, we can never follow this plan, as it would leave many children unvaccinated and susceptible. We could look for 10,000 volunteer families and compare the health of their unvaccinated kids to a group of 10,000 fully vaccinated over a twenty-year period. That would be a bit easier. Any volunteers?'

A-HEMM! If we really haven't proven anything yet, how do we know that the UNvaccinated children would be the ones at risk in the study??????

Just needed to get that off my chest.

Bleh!

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:09:00 -0500

Who would have EVER thought that pregnancy testing in the 1920s involved KILLING FROGS and other small creatures??????? Who needed to know that badly?

Fortunately-or not-for the frog, Lancelot Hogben improved the test in the 1950s so the frog could survive the procedure and be used multiple times.

Trust me, you don't want to know more than that. Seriously. Don't even Google it. You'll be off your dinner for weeks and probably starve to death as a direct result of my blog posting. I couldn't live with myself if that happened, and since I can't live without myself either it would be a double funeral.

I shouldn't post this, but I'm feeling mischievous. Here goes.

P.S. They use animal products in pregnancy tests to this very day.

Random Stuff

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:56:00 -0500

Check out these videos,

A Man Fell in a Hole I've been very impressed with BluefishTV's videos so far. I have not seen all of them.

God's Chisel, Jesus He Came to Get Messy, and The Prodigal Son are really good from The Skit Guys. You may not believe it after seeing those three but some of the SGs videos really aren't any good at all. Be very careful.

No, I didn't spend the whole week watching videos, thank you anyways.

What DID I do this week? Not much actually, cooking and cleaning and driving and a wee bit of painting.

Found a few good things at the booksale Monday, the sales are nothing like they were a year-and-a-half ago. Libraries are getting tired of ~~nasty~~ very, very aggresive booksellers.

Mom bought me a new comforter Tuesday and made my bed for me! Wasn't that swEEEEEEt? I felt pampered. :) It has a pink floral pattern.

I did get plenty of piano time in, mostly because found out Tues. I was playing on Sunday and made it a really big priority. I like playing, especially with our worship team, but I do worry about letting them down. I'm not good at the fake book type stuff. (improving though) Kelsey and I are on one of several teams that rotate leading musical worship on sunday mornings. Ours is the best, and the most fun, I feel sorry for those poor souls who are on other teams. ;P

I didn't do any studying this week. :( I'm so close, why so far?

The missionary family came over on Wednesday, so everything worked out there. We had a great time visiting and even learned a new phrase, "goats and monkeys!" from Othello.

I got an etsy account this week. Ever heard of etsy? Check it out, www.stylishmodesty.etsy.com. I'll be putting my hats up there. I'll be trying to fund schooling and gas through the winter this way. Then swimsuits again in the spring. Hopefully it doesn't take up so much time that I can't study, that's the whole point. Does anyone else find life confusing?

I'm trying to find an excuse to go to the library in the next town over. A book was recommended to me without the full title or author, I was simply told this library has it. I do not have a card for this library, but if I go there and find the book on their shelf I will than have a full title and author to give to my librarian who can interlibrary-loan it for me and it will come in six months from now when I will have completely forgotten about it. (That's happened to me with interlibrary loan.) *thinkthinkthink*

I took a long vacation from working at the store when we got the chicken pox and am still getting back into the swing of things. I worked an evening Monday (booksale) a half-day Tuesday, a full day Friday and Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon I saw The Return of the King, extended edition at a friends house with some friends and sisters. The extended edition is so much better! The other one is way to rushed, this was actually an epic story I could get into. (Maybe part of the reason I don't watch many movies is because whenever I see a movie there have constant bathroom breaks and chattering, etc. LOL! That was fun!)

Down with Government-regulated health care! Down with Government-related health anything! Down with the CPSIA! I need to decide what I'm going to do next spring. I can't legally sell any children's suits. :(

I've got some pictures I'd like to post, but maybe next week. My time's up.

Quotes, Visiting, Parade, Picnic

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:13:00 -0500

Did you know you can set up a Google homepage in your browser window and put lots of cool gadgets in it? You can check you e-mail and all your friend's blogs, view a random piece of art, see the weather for your area... etc. I have a gadget (one among many) that displays a random quote each day. Today's was,

"The object of living is work, experience, and happiness. There is joy in work. All that money can do is buy us someone else's work in exchange for our own. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something." --Henry Ford

First off, we can all have a good laugh at the irony of it. I find it amusing that this quote was displayed on a day of rest.

Next we can have fun picking it apart. (Sorry, I do this with everything and it drives my sisters crazy. Bear with me, please.) I'm annoyed with the first sentence. Here is the part of the show where I refer my audience to the first Q/A of the Westminster Catechism. Back? O.K. I think the rest of it is a very nice quote until we get to the last sentence. I heartily agree with the part about buying someone else's work, I would much rather do and create things for myself. It's not practical or possible, but still... way more fun. Now for that last bit, "There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something", there are serious theological problems there. Accomplishing stuff is great, but seriously, dude, NO happiness except? As Christians, we have great joy in knowing we could not accomplish our salvation, but that Jesus has accomplished it for us.

Now those who are sleeping or getting coffee or bearing IMpatiently with me may wake up at this time. Back to Google.

If you have a Google homepage, I would recommend the following gadgets:

CatechizeMe, You can get a question and answer from the Westminster (shorter or longer), Heidelberg, or a children's version. You can have more than one if you like, I have both Westminsters and the Heidelberg. My one complaint is that it changes every day so you don't really have time to memorize it.

Verse-a-Week memorization, this is the best of all the bible verse gadgets (yes, I've tried them all and they are crazy). You get a bible verse (or a few verses) each Monday and progressively throughout the week a few words get covered up at a time until they are all covered on Sunday so you can memorize it. There's a button to click if you want to check yourself and see the covered words. This is definitely my favorite of all gadgets. Most of the bible verse gadgets pick a totally random verse every day or have weird advertisements attached to them. I deleted them all because I got tired of reading "and so-and-so did so-and-so" or "now therefore". Good grief, how is "therefore" going to help you if you don't know what came before it??!!?!?!?! ?! ?! !? ! ! !? ! ?!? ! Oh, well, I don't think it's anybody's fault, just bad programming.

I use the Google RSS reader. I plug all my friend's blog RSSs into it and it shows me links and previews of all your blog posts when you make them. So, you'd better make the beginning of each post a thriller or I might not click through. Horror!

Besides those I have my e-mail, random quotes and my calendar. I can't recommend the quotes yet because I've only added it a few days ago. If I tell you all it's really great today, tomorrow there will be something REALLY shocking. Murphy's Law, you know.

'Nuff said about Google. Random facts time.

I'm hoping my schedule will go smoothly tomorrow. Life is hectic as usual. We may or may not have company coming over tomorrow, we may or may not paint tomorrow (depending on the company showing up or not), we may or may not go to a booksale tomorrow evening (here's hoping the company comes early in the day)--or I might go while family entertains, which would be sad because I missed this family's presentation at church today, the house needs to be cleaned nonregarding above "plans"--especially the living room, I've got lunch cleanup and supper cooking tomorrow, and more will be added to this list in the morning as the day unfolds. Pretty normal. :) I have some work that needs to be done for the business, but that can probably wait until Tuesday.

I would like to somehow fit in a few of my personal "wants" tomorrow too. Practice piano, clean my room, make my bed, and get some studying done--I only have to summarize two more chapters from a textbook and take the test in order to finish this level, but it'll probably be a couple weeks. Anybody have any free time to spare? :P :)

Why am I not in bed? I don't know, I guess I'm too tired. LOL!

More random facts...

I went to a Naturopath this spring. I'm very glad I did, he got me eating more and eating more often and eating more protein and upping the food bill and I feel TONS better for it. Everybody! Get your protein!! It's awesome!!!

Something really cool happened, when we left the Naturopath we stopped and Goodwill and bumped into old friends I hadn't seen in 12 years!! We've gotten together a couple times since then and I hope we keep it up.

Today was kinda fun. We had a parade in town. We have one every year and our town being the town it is, it's pretty much the same every year. Since we see it every year Katelyn and I elected to stay home with Mom and make the deviled eggs for a picnic we were having with friends. We finished 15 mins before the parade ended and spent that time trying to figure out how to drive across town with our main road blocked. It was funny.

At the picnic we had brisket (sp?). I'd never had it before, it was W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L. Yum, yum. Very fatty. I LOOOVE beef! We also had peaches and blueberries and potato salad and... drum roll, please... deviled eggs. After the picnic I had a nice and fairly relaxing afternoon chatting with the moms while all the "teens" went back to our house for a game of volleyball. Me and volleyball do not mix. I guess I need to talk to "Steve" more often. Hey, Kiwi! Does Fred talk? Or is he too dead?

O.K. I am now officially exhausted and have wasted at least an hour on this second-rate post. I'd better get to bed, pronto! See ya!

The Laundromat Song

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:19:00 -0500

I've been listing old sheet music from the 40s and 50s at our website the last two days and I came across this GEM!

The Laundromat Song by Harry Tobias, Pinky Tomlin, and Charley Kisco.

You don't need a beautiful setting,
For love to get a start
Just let me tell you my love story,
Where and how I lost my heart.

I met her at the corner LAUNDROMAT
We had a little chat down at the LAUNDROMAT;
And in between our clothes were gettin' clean,
To the swish, swish, swish, of the LAUNDROMAT machine.

You'd never think, romance could blossom here;
It never would appear romance could blossom here.
But here's the theme, that put us on the beam,
'twas the swish, swish, swish, of the LAUNDROMAT machine

We ironed our all our future plans.
How those wedding bells did ring.
Then the years brought souvenirs
Of love and everything.

Here comes the best part!

That ole man stork keeps knockin' at our door.

He never seems to tire of knockin' at our door.
By ___! Our wash is growin' more and more,
What with Hazel, Jimmy, Mary, Tommy, Susie, Joseph, Joan and Pat!
We had to buy the LAUNDROMAT.

Isn't that just great? Apparently it's quite rare, I can't seem to find it on Google.

Accompanying Young Children

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:31:00 -0500

Intructions on weighing pregnant women, (taken from Nutrition During Pregnancy published by the National Academy Press)

"This requires weighing women without purses, shoes, boots, coats, jackets, or any accompanying young children." (emphasis mine)

I thought that was so funny I had to go read it to Kristen. After all, who would be so dim-witted as to weigh mothers with their children?

Then, when I read it to Kris, she pointed something out I hadn't noticed. Every pregnant women is constantly accompanied by a certain small child who is, in fact, the whole reason behind the weighing!

At that point it became hysterical to me! I hope you get a laugh too. :)

BTW, this book takes the cake as the world's most boring book. I gave it up and started on Brewer's instead, it wasn't required reading.

Bet You Didn't Know...

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:51:00 -0500

That fetal blood flows through the umbilical cord at a rate of about 4 miles per hour.

We Greatly Rejoice

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:29:00 -0500

Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who has caused us to be
Born again to a living hope,
Who has caused us to be
Born again to a living hope,
A hope that won’t fade away,
Reserved in heaven for us.
Protected by the power of God
Through faith we are saved.

We are saved!

We greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible,
Greatly rejoice with glorious praise.
Greatly rejoice in a life incorruptible,
Love beyond measure and infinite grace,
Love beyond measure and infinite grace.

Through the trials of life You’re working
To prove our faith as gold.
In Your love we’re persevering,
For one day soon we know
You’ll explode through the clouds,
As Your shout cracks the sky,
Dead in Christ will arise,
As You call home Your bride
And though we’ve not seen Your face,
This greatest glory awaits.
‘Till then by the power of God
Through faith we are saved.