An All Around Blog Post

Have I said lately how much I love PaperBackSwap.com?  I love to read but most books, with the exception of just a few, I don't read more than once.  When other members request and receive a book that I have posted, then I get a credit to pick a book from the thousands that are listed on their site.  I've received several books lately that I have been interested in reading but didn't necessarily want to buy; and let's face it, who wants to pay $15 to $20 for a book and then really hate it?  This book (to your right) came in the mail today.  Jonathan is waiting a half semester before beginning cursive and I have been looking for something for him to do in the meantime.  He doesn't love writing at all but I think this fun little workbook will help.

The Diet Saga - I call it a saga because it just goes on and on.  What should I do?  How much should I do? - You know the drill.  The main thing I do know that whatever program, diet or way of eating that I choose, it has to be one that I can stick with for life.  If I don't, whatever progress I make will not stick with me either.  I have decided to go with a simple calorie-controlled diet.  Whether the food is low fat or low carb I can still eat what I choose as long as I count the calories.  Of course I have a iPhone app to help me count the calories and I love it.  It logs my foods, counts my calories, keeps up with my exercise and graphs all manner of reports relating to it all - geeky heaven!

Today I received a copy of Ted Dekker's latest book, Immanuel's Veins.  I can't wait to get started, it looks so good!  The people at Thomas Nelson (publicity managers for his book) have given me the opportunity to give away a t-shirt that says "Spread The Love" on my book blog.  Be sure to watch that blog for more details.  I will write my review of his book soon and answer the question that Ted will be reflecting on also in an upcoming blog post of his own, "What is Sacrificial Love?"  I'll let you know here when the giveaway will begin.

Learning About September 11, 2001

Click for larger image.

For the first three weeks of our curriculum, the boys are studying about the United States.  Today during our "Book Basket" time (where the boys browse books relating to our current country), William found pictures of the World Trade Center and wanted to know why their was an explosion and what had happened.  We spent the majority of this time talking about the planes that crashed the towers, what a "terrorist" was and what they would've done to them if they had caught them.  It was a very good learning time even though the topic was a sad one.

William was 9 months old on that day in 2001 and learned to crawl that very day.  Jonathan was born two days before the one year anniversary of 911 and I spent a lot of time in my hospital room watching the coverage and the memorials.  Maybe this year the boys and I will watch some news stories together.

More {DigiScrapping}

 

My Sweet Jonathan

Every year at the very end of summer, some yellow flowers grow up beside our shop.  I'm not sure what they are called but we call them sunflowers.  It's a perfect backdrop to take pictures of my little guys.  These pictures of Jonathan were taken last year and for some reason, William wasn't in them.  I'll have my chance for both them in just a few short weeks.

  Click for a larger view

Friday Felicities

Welcome to Friday Felicities, a meme created by Nattie – now a resident of heaven. This meme is all about creating a list of things that make you happy and Nattie knew that when you concentrate on your blessings your sorrows are not as overwhelming.  So, here is my list:

• Finishing our fourth week of school
• Finding my groove
• Less leg pain
• More energy
• Friday's!!

Head over to Heather's blog to hook up with more Friday Felicities participants.

Thumbs Up For Netflix

We've been Netflix members for some time I like the ability to pick and choose what movies we want to see and have them delivered to our front door. If we ever wondered if we were getting our moneys worth, that question was answered with a resounding "yes" shortly after we discovered the ability to stream their instant movies on our TV through the Wii. It has done away with our need to visit Redbox, the Blockbuster kiosk or other DVD rentals.

Today, Netflix made the deal even sweeter by coming releasing an iPhone app for members. Now, I can watch any movie on my instant queue on my phone! I doubt I will do that very often but just having the ability to do so makes me smile!

Giggles

What's For Dinner?

Even though I cook every week, I still sometimes get stumped on what to prepare for the next week. Now I keep a list of the family favorites to aid in planning the weekly menu. A good idea would be to keep it in a page protector and use a dry erase to cross out the meals you've recently made.

Whats for Dinner

Homeschool Organization

Sometime last week I posted this status on my Facebook that I was "so organized that I almost make myself sick".  I think I should clarify that by saying that sometimes I am "so organized in some areas that I almost make myself sick."

I mean really, am I so organized that my spice cabinet is neat, tidy and arranged alphabetically?  Not at all.  How about my sock drawer?  Let's not even go there.

My area of organizational bliss is my homeschool room - at least at the beginning of school anyway.  I spent several days this summer purging the old stuff I used in kindergarten and arranging the shelves for the new curriculum.

My new collapsible baskets from the Dollar Tree are my favorite finds this year.  Usually I have the books I use everyday, for both boys, piled up behind me and I have to dig through the stack every time I switch subjects.

Now I have a basket for both boys and a basket for the books I use with both of them.   It certainly has simplified the daily process! It also make it easier for the boys to find stuff on their own.

The thing I enjoyed organizing the most this year was my Homeschool Binder.  I always like trying to make it more simple, smarter and easier to use.  When I first began homeschooling I used a teacher-style lesson plan book and paper clipped my required attendance sheet to the inside cover.  Now, with both boys in schoool I have more things to keep up with.  After keeping separate lesson plans for each boy, last year I created a lesson plan form that I could use with both of them. They use spiral notebooks for daily lessons in spelling and English but I need an easier way to keep up with the loose papers that they sometimes work on.

My Homeschool Binder now holds all those things.  In the front of the notebook I have attendance sheets for both boys and a grade record sheet for my oldest (who now requires a letter grade.

Next I have a calendar tab where I keep a year at a glance calendar and mark the days that we have our Friday School (3 Friday's a month), keep up with the end of the semesters, holidays and special Friday School functions.  I also have several other tabs such as "notes", "reading log", etc.

I decided to keep up with their various loose papers by creating dividers made from the tabbed portion of file folders.  These dividers are handy because they stick out farther than regular dividers. 

During the course of our school day I just file these pages behind the appropriate divider and carry on.  When we are finished with our work for the day, I 3 hole punch the necessary papers and put them in the binder.  This has been working well for me and all the papers are in chronological order, which will be nice when it it time for me to turn in quarterly work samples to our homeschool administrator.

The last file folder divider is simply labeled "lined paper".  Sometimes I need a sheet or two and I needed it close at hand.

Behind that is a red folder that I grab and go when I have meetings with the other school moms in our group or with our administrator.  It includes the school roster, addresses and phone numbers and lesson ideas for our Friday school.

On the shelves beside the baskets (partially seen in the first picture above) is a desktop hanging folders rack.  I use it to file their quarterly reports until the end of the year when I put them away, various form blanks that I need, some teaching helps and anything that I might need access to during the year.  Above that shelf is a couple more that holds encyclopedias (does anyone use those anymore?), books and more books, and other school materials.

And their you have it, my favorite organization area.  Now if I could just do that with my kitchen cabinets and supplies!  Hit me with your questions and comments.

This post links to Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

HomeRoutines iPhone App

In my last post about household notebooks, I wrote about how I was using Google Tasks to keep up with my daily routines after trying other apps that didn't have the features that I wanted.

How quickly things change  After more searching online, I found the HomeRoutines app and it is only the second app that I have actually paid money for.  HomeRoutines is based around FlyLady's Control Journal system but it can also be adapted to any system that works for you.

APPlesauce has written a great review of HomeRoutines that you should check out.  Also take a look at HomeRoutines website and blog.

Household Notebooks

I love them!  As a matter of fact, I am sure that I have made no less than five of them in my time!  I love paper and I love organizing and I love compartmentalizing!  Today I was reading a guest post at Organizing Junkie's blog titled "Making A Household Notebook Work For You" and found it quite helpful in more ways than one.

First of all, her guest blogger, Jessica from Life As MOM, posted some really great printable forms and we all know how much I love forms.  The forms helped me realize how I wanted to reorganize my daily, weekly, etc. routines.

Secondly, her overall topic on how to make it work for you is what really drew me and got me to thinking.  Like I mentioned, I like paper and organizing and things and everything contained therein but we also know that I love my iPhone, my apps and all things technical.  The binders weren't working for me simply because I couldn't carry it around with me everywhere I go - my iPhone, I can.

Mostly I like having a checklist for my daily and weekly routines and after researching several "to do list" apps, I decided that my tasks in Google would work the best.  With Google Tasks I am able to make several lists and, as I have posted before, I can access my list on my phone, easily found by adding a link to my homescreen.So far I have added daily and weekly chores as well as chore lists for both of my boys.  I can check them off as I do them and start all over the next day.

As far as a calendar for weekly, monthly and yearly reminders, I use the calendar that came with my phone and I love it.  Again it syncs with my online Google calendar and anything I type in either calendar appears in the other (make sense?)!

I love ZipList for grocery shopping (online and on my phone).  I can text or email my list to myself or print it from my computer.  One of my favorite functions is that I can put in my recipes or choose some of theirs and if I can add the ingredients to my grocery list with one click.  My hubby likes to see what we are eating for the week so I still print or write that out and put it on the fridge.

What I need an actual binder for the most is a place to keep those endless pieces of paper that come across your desk, kitchen counter, mailbox, etc.  If I print out a recipe, I put it in the binder.  If I get instructions on how to program the coffee maker, in the binder it goes.  I rarely print out "cute stories" but if I did, it would also go in the binder.

So, like Jessica's article encouraged, make your notebook system work for YOU - whether it be a binder, 3x5 cards or your iPhone.

Sci-Quest Science Museum

We decided on Friday to take our boys on a field trip. We looked at a number of options in Huntsville, a little over an hour from us, and decided on the science museum. All of us really enjoyed the displays and while it was fun, I think the boys learned a lot, too.

I think Jonathan's favorite part was the Burp O Meter where you "pumped gas" into the man's body and out came a burp.  This made him laugh over and over and I just had to laugh at how typical "little boy" this was!

William seemed to really like the robotic arm and finally figured out how to make it move and grasp a plastic ball.  I tried it for awhile but lost patience and moved on.

Because we were feeling so adventurous, we ate lunch at a new (to us) place called Tellinis.  I had a grilled chicken salad and, to be honest, wasn't expecting anything special, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The chicken was some of the best I had ever tasted.  I'd like to go back!  It was a fun day for all of us.

Printables

Field Trip Report



To do Template

Exploring Countries & Cultures

  

Today we started our 2nd week of school and our first week with our new curriculum, Exploring Countries and Cultures by My Father's World.  The boys enjoy studying about other countries and people so they are going to love this.  Every 2 weeks we study a new country.  The first two weeks are spend talking about maps and globes and getting familiar with the atlas.  Today they filled out their passport applications, wrote a "check" for $20 and mailed their application to Dad.  In a couple of weeks two passports will arrive in the mail for them.  I just love all these fun activities.

Catching Up With The Perry's

Hello friends!  Our family just returned home on Sunday from a long weekend in the Great Smokey Mountains.  It was a much anticipated vacation for us and we had a great time with my sister and her family.  I have pictures on Facebook - if for some reason you are not on Facebook you can find the pictures here.

Our first official day of school starts today - right after our first field trip!  Actually there are two more $1 Summer Movies at the theater so we are going to that today.  They boys have enjoyed going to these movies a lot - and most of them they have seen already, but who doesn't like watching movies and eating popcorn in a theater?

I ordered our curriculum yesterday which means it won't be here until sometime next week.  We plan to spend this week reviewing the things we hopefully still know.  We will be studying a different country every two weeks and are looking forward to that.  In Friday School we are also studying countries so this is definitely the Year of Geography!!

I didn't have very much joint pain on our trip which was good but oddly enough, I experienced quite a bit of muscle weakness in my left leg.  I still believe it is side-effects from the medication but will definitely be discussing it with my doctor next Tuesday.  I told my husband maybe the symptoms were working their way down (started in the knees) and will escape out the toes.  We can hope.