About 2 years ago, I started a Freecycle Group here in my hometown area of Lynchburg, Virginia. Freecycle is a great concept where people offer up items that they no longer have need for but still have value and other people get them for free. Thus helping to keep items out of landfills and helping people to stretch their pennies further.  If you would like to know if there is a Freecycle Group in your area or if you might want to start one, here is the website.

While I was owner of the local Freecycle list (I gave it up because I had too much to do and not enough time), one of the members emailed me and told me that he had put a link to it on his blog Lynchburg, Virginia. Bob and I emailed back and forth a couple of times about ways to promote Lynchburg Freecycle and then Bob wrote and asked me if I would become a contributor to his blog. I agreed and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Bob's blog (we always thought of it as his, even though eventually we ended up with several writers) ended up ranking in the top 50,000 of all blogs. Considering that there were a few million, that was an amazing achievement to reach that status in about 6 months time. But then the extra writers started drifting away. Too many other commitments mostly and even Bob grew tired of the amount of effort the blog required and a new hobby really took his interest. That hobby was photography.

Bob has taken some amazing photographs and you can see them here at his flickr account. Recently he has culled flicker.com for some of the most amazing photos out there and turned them into a slide show. Go by and check them out when you have 5 or 10 minutes to be amazed at the beauty of the world around and at the talented people who capture it for us to enjoy.

Four amateur explorers, members of the Kentucky-based nonprofit Cave Research Foundation, discovered a giant, crystal-filled cave in California's Sequoia National Park. This cavern is being hailed as a major find that will help expand knowledge of geologic hisotry and the formation of caves throughout the West.  For more information on this discovery, read here.

Personally, I have always found caverns to be amazing places to visit and I even took a 'Walk on the Wild Side' tour of Cave of the Winds in Colorado about 12 years ago when my husband and I were on our honeymoon. It was a tour off the beaten path. We were advised to wear old clothes (which we actually threw away when we were done). It was really neat, though a bit tight in places and a couple of places I didn't venture into. At any rate, if you have never gone on a tour of an underground cavern, I highly recommend it! There are so many amazing things to see in these underground worlds! Go here for the USGS site on caves and loads of information! Go here to locate caverns near you.

Well...that's what I am predicting!!!!  Here's the deal...I read an article this event that weather forecasters are once again reducing the number of hurricanes we should expect for this year...the reason? It is because they believe that the weather phenomenon called El Nino will be disrupting the ocean and atmospheric system...and this is goooood news for us east coast snow lovers!

According to this article, the last El Nino was in 1997-1998. And before that the last big El Nino was in 1982-1983 (during that time I missed three weeks of school one winter because it snowed and snowed and the temperatures stayed down and the snow didn't melt) We had a two feet of snow in January 1996! Now I realize this was the year before El Nino, and in spite of my research, I am finding that El Nino definitely started the year after our record breaking snow fall of the winter of 1996, but I am thinking positive here! And we did have some decent snow in Virginia in 1997-1998 too! In fact, one of my stepsons broke his leg sled riding that year....something about a tree not getting out of his way!

And if we want to go back even further, there was a stronger El Nino system in 1965-1966. In the winter of 1966 there was a ton of snow in Strasburg, VA and my grandfather walked to the store through a couple of feet of snow in February to buy my pregnant mother watermelon she was craving. And if you want to complete the wives tale, I have a watermelon birthmark on my right leg.  It is a small dark red spot in winter resembling a seed), but as summer comes and deepens, the birthmark is actually a light red that covers most of my right calf...the growing watermelon...okay, so maybe that was more than you wanted to  know! But I am thinking positively...snow is coming!

Yahoo! I'm getting my sled runners waxed and stocking up on hot cocoa!!!!

And it is no wonder! In Japan, small farms lovingly produce vegetables just about year around in a climate much like that of coastal Virginia. Square watermelons, 50.00 cantalopes and other produce fresher and tastier than what we get here in the U.S. If you live in the suburbs, it is very likely that the produce you are eating in the evening was picked that morning on a small local farm. If you live in they city, your produce was probably picked the day before.

When was the last time you had such delectable produce? (Unless you have your own garden or have easy access to a farmer's market.)  How many tomatoes have you purchased in your life time that look beautiful and red and delicious only to be tasteless and mealy?  Or oranges...how about those bright colored oranges that are tasteless and juiceless on the insides.  And apples...well don't even get me started on apples...

Okay, well, I might as well say something abou apples...Were red and golden delicious apples delicious at one time? Maybe when we were children? They aren't now...or at least none of the ones I have had in the last dozen years. A couple of years ago, I went to a friend's house for a few days. She brought red delicious apples, I brought galas. She offered me one of her shiny read beauties and I not so politely declined. I offered her a slice of one of my gala apples and let's just say the rest of her red delicious apples ended up being fed to the birds.

So back to our children...we have tasteless veggies unless we smother them in cheese or deep fat fry them and then we wonder why they prefer twinkies to vegetables? I sure hope someone in the U.S. Agriculture Department is paying attention. Of course, as consumers, we have to stop buying the tasteless produce and demand yummy produce. Speaking of yummy, if you haven't tried pluots, you really should. They are a cross between plums and apricots and they are awesome!!!!

Diet?  NO! Absolutely not!

Fall?  Well, maybe, but I prefer to call it Autumn...sounds more classy.

Now what was that word...oh yeah SALE!!!!! That is my favorite four letter word!!!!

And since I know it is the favorite four letter word of many people around the world, I thought I would have a sale and make people everywhere smile

I like having sales...it brings more traffic to my store and helps more of my books find new homes. I see myself kind of like a Humane Society for books. I find books that some people no longer want and help link them up with people who do want them. In order to entice you to come look, here is my September sales offer:

For every 25.00 you spend, you will get 5.00 off. So if you buy 25.00 or more worth of books, then you will get 5.00 off. If you buy 50.00 or more worth of books, you will get 10.00 off. If you buy 75.00 worth of books, you will get 15.00 off and so on and so on and so on! So come on over to my store! Shop early, shop late! Shop during nap time...Whatever suits you suits me because my store is open 24 hours a day. I ship all over the world. And you don't have to leave the convenience of home! Shopping in your pajamas and a SALE...it doesn't get any better than that! So come visit me at Yesterdays Hopes...where you will find great books to read at great prices!    

I received an email from Shawn Bright yesterday telling me about an online co-op that is being set up. I checked out the site and wanted to share the information here in case anyone else is interested in helping out.

This is a fledgling idea just getting off the ground, but Shawn is looking for people to participate and help make it work. The name of the site is The Open School Project. Take a few minutes and check it out. See if it is something you would be interested in participating in.

Have a great day!

Khagendra Thapa Magar is 14 years old, 20 inches tall, and weighs about 10 pounds. He can speak like adults! I cannot find out any mention of why he might be so short of stature, but I cannot help but be amazed. This child is ½ inch taller and a couple of pounds heavier than my children were when they were one month old. 

Here is some interesting information for you to consider regarding sunscreen and how it can damage your skin if applied inappropriately.  Read the article for more information.

My husband is a private pilot and flying is something he loves to do (and hasn't been able to for awhile because it is an expensive hobby). I miss that for him.  I was never crazy about flying. I like getting from point A to point B faster, but I am a bit afraid of the whole being up in the air off the ground thing!  At any rate, I think it is fascinating how planes work and that modern avionics still is based on the same prinicples of areodynamics that the Wright Brothers used 103 years ago. For a very interesting article on how plane fly, go here.

This study shows that girls do better in classes taught by women and boys do better in classes taught by men. It would be interesting to see a similar study done by homeschoolers. Is it that men are more tolerant of the natural behavior of boys and boys react to men better (and the same with girls) or is it that teachers are better able to reach out to children and understand children of the same gender?

It would be interesting to see if the same pattern holds for homeschooled children or if it is really more of the fact that the teacher understands the child better. Let me see if I can make myself clearer. When we homeschool, we are teaching children we have raised. We know how they learn, we can respond to their interests and behaviors based on our knowledge. This would be similar to a male understanding better how a male learns. So in my hypothesis, since in most homeschool families, children are taught by their mothers, is that you would not see this same gap. 

What are your thoughts?

As prices of energy go up, up, up! more and more people are looking for alternative ways to keep bills down, down down. We are keeping our homes warmer during the warm months, cooler during the cool months. We are keeping shades down so that the house doesn't heat up as much. We keep the lights turned off on the hottest days and turn the ceiling fans on early.  These are some of the things we do, but now, if we can find a way to come up with $10,000 to $12,000, maybe we can make use of the wind that always seems to be blowing aournd here and generate some of our own electricity. Check it out!

Urban legends can be annoying and they can be fun, but they definitely point to things that concern us.  I get annoyed when I get emails from well-meaning friends telling me that people are slipping into people's cars at gas stations and then attacking them later. Or when they tell me that if I send on my email, Microsoft will give me money. I wish people would take a few minutes and put on their thinking caps...if you are getting a message about free money, criminal activity, or a sick child, please take a few moments and check out www.snopes.com and see if it is an urban legend before you pass it on and scare someone else or raise their hopes for an instant fortune or pull on their heartstrings and fill up their email box. 

Having said that, there are deeper things that we can learn from urban legends. Just like horror movies, urban legends point to what is worrying us as a society. If you look back over the decades of horror movies you will see clusters. Look at all the Godzilla/Mothra/other radioactive deformed monster movies that came out after WWII when everyone was absolutely terrified by the atomic bomb.  Look at the spate of serial killer type movies (Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc) that have come on screen as media brings us information of these real life horrors....urban legends are the same way. We get emails about Bill Gates sending us money because we all wish he would share a bit with us or that free money would appear in the mail. There are urban legends about rat pee on coke cans because we worry about the FDA and if inspections are getting done. The list goes on, 

So take a few minutes before you send a bizarre email (Paul Harvey really didn't do some of the 'rest of the story' stories that he gets credit for). Check it out on www.snopes.com. If you find the urban legend interesting, feel free to send it on, just add the disclaimer that it is a legend, but isn't it fascinating what it shows about our human psyche!? Your friends will appreciate the fact that they don't have to take the time to verify that it is an urban legend and instead, they can use their brain cells contemplating why this urban legend is popular. (The same ones they can use during commercials...just who do advertisers think watch this television show anyway!)

A friend of mine emailed me this information and I thought I would share it with the other Trekkie fans I know are out there!

SAN FRANCISCO — The Starship Enterprise is in trouble and, as usual, Capt. James T. Kirk has a plan to save it.

William Shatner, who played the swashbuckling spacefarer in the "Star Trek" television series and movies, is voicing Kirk in a new computer video game in the face of ebbing interest in the "Star Trek" franchise.

The game, "Star Trek: Legacy," due out in October, will let players steer more than 60 starships — spanning all five of the franchise's live-action TV series — into combat against foes such as the militant Klingons and the all-assimilating Borg.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Video Gaming Center.

[Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula will also voice their characters from the other four series — Captains Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Kathryn Janeway and Jonathan Archer respectively — according to Bethesda Softworks' Web site.]

With the exit from TV last year of "Star Trek: Enterprise," and the next feature film not expected until 2008, some fans fret that Starfleet is showing vulnerability — not to photon torpedoes and cloaking devices but to audience apathy.

Shatner, who said he doesn't play video games but has a grandson who is keen to teach him, hopes the medium can keep the "Star Trek" flame burning.

"The interest in 'Star Trek' has waned in the last couple years," Shatner told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's been around a long time, it's a staple of American life and I think we need something new and different in 'Star Trek.'"

The first "Star Trek" television series, created by Gene Roddenberry and starring Shatner, aired from 1966 to 1969.

In recent years Shatner's TV acting career has heated up as he won Emmys for playing eccentric lawyer Denny Crane in two shows, "Boston Legal" and "The Practice."

He last lent his voice to a video game in 1997's "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy," according to the Internet Movie Database.

"I couldn't imagine someone else playing Captain Kirk, even in a video game, so I kind of got a little territorial," he said.

Apart from "Legacy," other upcoming "Trek" titles include a space combat game for handheld devices, as well as an online computer game that will let huge numbers of players seek out new life and new civilizations simultaneously.

"If it's a good game, keeping true to the characters the best they can and having an interesting story that branches, I think a game can bring a freshness to a franchise like 'Star Trek,"' Shatner said.

"Star Trek: Legacy" is being published by Bethesda Softworks, which also was behind the hit fantasy role-playing game "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" for PCs and Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Xbox 360 game console.

WOW! This is an amazing story and it has the experts baffled! Looks like God at work. I wonder how this situation will glorify him! Read the story for all the details!

has been undergoing a massive restoration project! You won't believe how complicated it has been.

I am going to keep a running post of patriotic posts that I run across in the next couple of days for your reading pleasure. During this long weekend where we celebrate our country's birth, liberty, independence and democracy, remember what a unique country we live in.  Also, please note, several of the photos are links and will take you to the sites where I found the images.

First there is Dana's Post at Principled Discovery:  Something to be Proud Of

Cindy at Creative Mom has a couple of posts. She is the wife of a marine and a homeschooling mom. She shares with us the agony of deployment and the pride of being part of the Marines. Also, in her post Patriotic Friday, she provides us with the words of our precious Declaration of Independence.

Here is a really cool blog. I am linking to just the first post which will get you started. Here you will find a bunch of information about our great 50 states.  Enjoy!

Genesis Family has a list of 10 Things You Can Do To Support Our Troops. And she has a post that pays tribute to her husband. One hero among many! God bless!

LadyPoet33 shares that she loves going to church on the Fourth of July weekend in her post 4th of July and a Picture

My husband has a simple solution to the issue of Flag Burning.

What better way to understand patriotism than to read the blogs of soldiers. Here is a list of several.  American Soldier is another interesting soldier's blog. 

Check out some fireworks facts and cautions.

Maureen has links to a citizenship test and to some "Bang up" carnivals. Be sure to check them out!

HSB has patriotic recipes in their Tip of the Day column! And there are some great ways to make safe noise makers on the Fourth of July at Tip of the Day!

Karen has some great links to information about the Stars and Stripes at her blog. Plus links to other patriotic posts.

If you are interested in who is related to who or you want to get more information easily on your own families genealogy, Ancestry.com can help.

According to an article on the Discover Channel website:

"It took 1,500 paleographers six years to read the census manually and to decipher the often unclear 18th and 19th century handwriting," said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com. "The process was not all that sophisticated, but the database search engine that is now in place is."

They have linked such notables as President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Hillary Clinton and George Washington. Tom Hanks and Abraham Lincoln. And while it is interesting to read about the famous that we know, for those of us who want to examine our own family history and see what lies in back in history, that is even more fascinating stuff! And now it has become a whole lot easier to do it!

Is there anyone who doesn't enjoy a good fireworks show? We are thinking about driving to the Peaks of Otter tomorrow and joining a hike to the top. They start hiking around 7 and get to the top in time to see the sunset and see the fireworks shows all around for 100 miles. Then of course there is the hike back down.  The only drawback for us is we have to be up early Wednesday and if we do this we are looking at getting home around 12:30 a.m. So we may not go.

Regardless, fireworks are fascinating and sure to bring ooohss and ahhhhhsss from the watchers. So here is some information of what it is that we are oohhing and aahhing about!  First here is an article about how fireworks are put together! You will be amazed at what you find inside. 

Free Fireworks Wallpaper for your computer!

Wikipedia has plenty to say about fireworks!

I would like to encourage you to use great caution. It is preferrable to go see a fireworks show than to play with fireworks in your yard. Let the professionals handle the explosives and then you can sit back and enjoy the sites without a care in the world. Over 6,000 children are injured by fireworks each year. Be careful out there!

Yesterday, my eye was caught by an article about  teachers selling their original course material online. As a homeschooler, I know coming up with lessons can be a lot of work and I think it is great that teachers are doing this.

So go check out the website and see if there is a lesson plan there that would help you.

Here is a great idea for recyling! Take old ships and clean out the chemicals (oil and such), then sink them to form barriers around New Orleans to help with flooding. They are contemplating doing this as hurricane season is already upon us and it will take years to build new levis and even longer to get new marshlands to help protect the sinking city.

LiveScience has an interesting article on how people are reporting fewer close friends now than they reported 20 years ago.  It has dropped from 2.94 to 2.08 on average. I must confess, I don't know how they are counting those partial people, but that is a topic for another day.

I found it interesting that while people are reporting fewer close friends, the article also says that people are confiding more in parents and spouses. This seems like a good trend. I understand that we need to not be isolated because if we don't have friends outside of our family we may tend to lose our desire to be concerned about our civic duties.

However, I think that people turning to family members and spouses is great. So many marriages run into problems because the spouses go to others and complain about their spouse. This can lead to other intimate relationships where the confidant reaches out to the complainer and says all the right things. If spouses depend on one another and talk with one another, it seems that would make marriages stronger. Also, relying on family more seems like it would also strengthen the family unit.

It will be interesting to see if this downward trend in close friends that are not family correlates with fewer divorces and stronger family units.  

I read two interesting stories today that I thought I would share here.

First I read about the fact that Native American enrollment in college has doubled in the last 25 years! That is awesome! And it turns out that the tribes are running their own colleges to teach Native American things like Native American Languages,  Tribal land management and teaching.  This is an awesome step forward in the right direction. Native Americans have long been known for their economic difficulties, their tendency towards alcoholism and suicide. Knowledge gives us hope and it sounds like they are working hard at increasing their hope for their future.

Then I read about a problem in Hawaii. Apparently the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is trying to determine whether the admission policy of a private school is to be allowed.  A Hawaiian princess left money in her will  to set up a school for Hawaiian children. This school is self-sustaining and has over 6 billion dollars in the bank. No federal money is received. Yet a student who applied and was denied entrance due to the fact that he wasn't Hawaiian, is suing.

Kamehameha School serves 5,400 students, most who pay 40 % of the tuition while the rest is supplemented by the trust.  Part of the school's mission is to counteract historical disadvantages Native Hawaiians face in employment, education and society. Only 1 in 8 applicants are accepted.

In February, a 3 judge panel, voted 2-1 against their acceptance policy, but yesterday, the case was being heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  Personally, I see no problem with a school paid for by private funds cannot be set up this way. What is the difference between this and a Religious School only accepting people of their religion (i.e. Baptist Seminary wanting Baptist preachers) or an all girls college or an all boys college. If the school is not receiving public money, then I don't believe the government has a say in their admissions policies.

When I went to William and Mary, there was an Ebony club just for black people.  White people were not allowed. I don't know if that is still the case, but at the time, we were okay with that (20 years ago).  It was a place people could go to hang out with other like minded individuals who shared a common experience.  We did joke about what would happen if anyone tried to start an Ivory club but that is another discussion. 

I know that America is supposed to be a great melting pot and I do believe that people who come to America should learn to speak the English language. However, I also think it is important for other peoples to keep their traditions and cultures alive, be it by being in a club, a private school, whatever. Our history and culture is important to us and should not be swept under the rug of 'sameness.' To me, this youngster applied to the school knowing he would be turned down so that then he could get his name in the paper.

And ultimately how does this sort of thing affect us as homeschoolers? I know in some states homeschoolers are set up as private schools. Does the above sort of situation mean we could have to let other children come to our school if they wanted to? You may think this is extreme, but mark my words, someone will try it!  So be sure to write down your 'admissions' policies now so you will be prepared for when one of the 'blood-sucking' lawyers comes knocking on your door.

My apologies to lawyers out there. You perform a necessary function in our society, but I wish more lawyers would just say 'no' to law suits over civil matters. I still am irked about the coffee lady's suit against McDonald's. Some suits are valid, some are just silly! Seems like a little common sense (and less greed) are definitely in order!

All of us are familiar with the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. How that young girl who had absolutely no manners waltzed into the home of strangers, ate their breakfast (and spread her germs), broke their furniture and messed up their house!

Well, a woman in Vancouver was on the opposite end of the story when she walked home and found a bear eating her oatmeal! And he broke the jar that it was in.  Turnabout is fairplay and when he was finished eating, he meandered back out of the open sliding glass door and headed into the woods.

Wow! We have traveled out west a few times over the years. We have visited California and Oregon and Nevada. On a couple other trips we spent two weeks traveling Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. But we didn't traipse far into Utah. After seeing this video, I am ready to head that way again! Be sure to get the kids to come watch it. There is some terrific footage and it isn't very long!