J - O - Y Prayer Journal

Several months back I was thoroughly inspired by a link I discovered that featured a tutorial on how to put together a personal prayer journal. It spoke to my heart as this is something that I had wanted to put together for myself. So I bookmarked it.

But unfortunately there it sat. Enter a book I picked up at the library recently entitled Eat That Frog! which I had originally reserved for some ideas on dealing with procrastination in my children. But at this point the most value came for myself. Did I have any goals set? Were those goals able to direct my day-to-day activities and priorities? Well, no, to be honest. So there I came full circle again to my desire to have a more structured prayer life.

So back I went to my bookmark and some searching through Pinterest. And yes, I came up with something even more inspiring for me. A simple composition notebook, decked out in scrapbooking papers and personalized tabs. So off I went to pick up these simple supplies. I decided that this would also be a great opportunity to introduce this concept to my ten-year-old, so she selected her themed papers as well. The original post does a fantastic job of outlining the steps to put together this personalized journal...hers was a Christmas planner...but here are the basic steps that I followed:

 
basic supplies...composition notebook, scrapbook paper, ribbon to tie journal with, glue, and scissors

 

although hard to see here, ribbon is glued to outside of book so that it will wrap around it and be able to tie. front and backs are covered with a piece of patterned paper cut to fit.


 

more embellishments are added to the front and back covers to conceal the remaining surfaces. 

The journal was finished up by glueing another sheet to the inside and back covers to conceal the printed information. And lastly, I doubled over small scraps of patterned paper and glued them to the outside edge of individual sheets to divide the book into roughly thirds in order to have some tabbed dividers. I know, hard to visualize but the link to the original post is very clear if you check it out.

So the big question...how to use this beautiful little journal? And then it came to me. The Sunday School song "J - O - Y" whose chorus lyrics are:

Jesus first,
Yourself last,
And Others in between.

How perfect.

The tabs would be labeled J - Jesus...a place for praise and thankfulness for what Jesus has done.

The second tab would be O - Others...listing of ongoing prayer requests.

And the last tab would be Y - Yourself...how would you like Jesus to work in your own personal life.

So simple that even a child could understand which is exactly what I wanted for H-Bob. We decided to start a new page for each time the month changed and then review her entries weekly and add happy faces or hearts to those items that were answered prayers. Best idea in a long time.

If you've wanted something structured for yourself that you can use to track answered prayers and to keep others' requests in the forefront of your thoughts, this just might work for you. Plus it's a chance to be just a tiny bit crafty and creative even if you think you aren't. Have you put together anything similar? Has it helped? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Breakfast Menu for Visual Learners or Non-Readers

Technology is only as good as the practical use you can apply it to. Right? Not sure where that leaves Facebook...ha ha...but at any rate there are some great concepts out there just waiting to be utilized in creative ways. I hardly consider myself creative, a mimicker for sure, but original thoughts sometimes are few and far between. I have noticed lately since reading up on my dyslexic learner that combining activities will often stimulate both hemispheres of the brain. My most brilliant thought moments can be found while I'm working next door at the barn. This week's light bulb concerns Pinterest.



Pinterest is new to me, and I've only had a little bit of time to figure it out. It's a site where you can 'pin' photos found on the web on 'boards' that you define. Fun to play around with for sure. But practical? Now it is. Enter the visual menu for young kids or visual learners. The menu I have in mind is there to help me remember as well as show H-Bob what gluten and caesin free, low-sugar items we have on hand to eat on her elimination diet. We're trying to focus on 'what there is' as opposed to 'what you can't have'. I'm starting out with breakfast...although there are a few pins on that board that need to go to their own separate GFCF board...lemonade for breakfast? Probably not. Click here to see what's there so far.

Source: sixinthenorthwest.blogspot.com via Connie on Pinterest

Source: s57373.gridserver.com via Connie on Pinterest

You can see that by pinning photos of the cereal we selected or the fruit and granola recipe, that we have our own 'menu' of sorts to get the day started on a fun, positive note now that choices are a little bit limited. Not only can H-Bob see them at a glance, but as the board continues to fill up with GFCF products and links to similar recipes, I will have a reminder as well since my cluttered mind tends to overload at times. A step in the right direction for us I hope.

What fun use have you discovered for Pinterest?

Keeping up with your blog reading

I love reading in the blog-o-sphere. It keeps me centered...inspired...informed...you name it. But some times it takes effort. Through trial and error, this is the system that works for me.



When I come across a blog that I would like to follow and read on a regular basis, I look for an RSS feed icon. That usually takes me straight to where I can choose a feed reader and get started there. I happen to use Google because it seems to be universally available, but that's only my preference. There are many others to choose from as well. Within my Google feed reader, I can set up folders for different categories...home...gluten-free...gardening...homeschool...and have the new posts automatically routed there. Easy enough then to go to a particular folder if I want to see what's been happening at my favorite photography site. That's a big bonus to me over receiving posts by email. And there's always that "Mark all as read" button for those overwhelming weeks you all know about.

But here's the other fantastic thing I do. I have an Instapaper account. This is a nifty, actually ingenious, way to mark things that you find on the web so that you can read them later. I just happen to use it mainly for my RSS feeds. A click of the button, and it is added to my Instapaper account. But it gets even better. Instapaper is also an app. And that means...my inherited iPod from my kids can be synched with Instapaper and always affords me reading material no matter where I am. No wi-fi needed when I'm out and about. Now if I had me an iPhone, I probably wouldn't be so excited about this, but it sure works for those of us who haven't moved up to that level yet. I'm to be found reading through blog posts in a long grocery line, waiting to pick someone up, car rides, just about anywhere. Do I dare say I've been tempted while driving? Well, no...but you could just the same.

The only downside is that while you are reading blog posts on an iPod, it is a little cumbersome to comment on a great post. Sometimes you just want to throw out a little, "Me too!" or "Have you heard about..." or "We're thinking of you." It would obviously require you to have a wi-fi connection and nimble little fingers.

Overall the system works for me. How do you keep current on your reading? Do you just randomly skip across the internet to get your fill? Do you even have time to read blogs? Just curious.

For more great Works for Me Wednesday ideas, visit WeAreThatFamily.com.

The Single Sock Club

Do lone single socks in your household have a way of mysteriously multiplying? Do you ever wonder how it is possible to have 20 odd socks with no mate? Or make that probably more like 30 plus socks languishing around?



Well, here's my no-sweat way to deal with this infuriating problem. It is a little like out-of-sight, out-of-mind, but that's okay in this instance. I keep a basket...just so happens to be a wooden one...downstairs into which gets tossed all lone socks while I'm folding laundry.

So here' the routine: when I'm done folding a load of laundry and if there are single socks...no, make that WHEN I have single socks, I simply pitch them into the basket. Nothing to trouble myself with. Then about once a month when I find myself noticing that the basket is getting pretty full, I sit down and start matching socks. I'd say fifty percent of the basket gets handled. Now...I haven't figured out a nifty trick for dealing with those leftover socks, but I could throw them away...or save them until we paint our goat pens for county fair...or turn them into sock puppets...or stuff them with rice to heat up for sore necks...or...you get the idea. It blows my mind that we could possibly have that many unmatched socks elsewhere in the house, but I guess it is what it is.

But overall, this little practice immediately deals with lone socks, keeps those said unmatched socks from wandering off to create more lonely socks, and keeps me from tearing my hair out over the apparent inability for both socks to make it in the laundry at the same time.

So, how do you deal with the single sock club in your house?

I'm linking up today with We are That Family and Works for Me Wednesday. Head over that way for more good ideas.

Works for Me Wednesday - Vinyl Tablecloths

I'm linking up today with We are That Family and Works for Me Wednesday.

Can you name the one item in the main living area of your home that takes an incredible amount of abuse? If you immediately thought of your kitchen table, then you’re with me!

We have a nicely finished oak table, but you will never know that until our kids have grown enough to reveal it. It stays cloaked in a vinyl tablecloth. Yes, a $2.99 special…the kind with the flocked backing such as you would use outside on a picnic table. They're great.

It’s guaranteed that the tablecloth will end up with sharpie marks, hot glue gun residue, and perhaps are few tear marks along the edges from the dogs. Better it than the table I say. I used to put on a traditional cloth tablecloth, but they were considerable more work.

Our table gets heavy use...read dumping grounds for most anything...so it’s not long before the current vinyl tablecloth gets tossed with no regrets and the next seasonal beauty will find its way on to it. You'd be surprised at the choices you have too. Not just the typical red-checked picnic variety that usually comes to mind.

Now before you think we fill up the landfill with vinyl tablecloths, many of them do survive and are cleaned up before storing them for another season. We have quite a stash of seasonal tablecloths that we rotate out every week during Christmas. There are more for other holidays that are in great shape after gracing our table for only a week or so.

But in the long run, the vinyl tablecloths are money well spent for the abuse they take and the ease in which they help up sail through life. Give them a try...you just might switch too!

What are your thoughts? Vinyl too casual for the kitchen? Use nothing at all? I'd love to hear how others keep their kitchen table in tip-top-shape.

Reinventing the "What's for Dinner?" Wheel

What can I say? I'm not easily satisfied with preparing and eating the same o', same o' dinner fare every night. I like variety. I like to use what's in season. I like to use what's on sale. However...it is not always an effective use of my time. Definitely time to reinvent the dinner wheel yet another time. Sigh.

But this time around, the effort I put into this little project will be there for me to fall back on anytime I need a break from being overly creative or frugal in the kitchen.



This is what I did:

I went through my recipe collection and pulled out 20 different main dishes that my family will eat without a lot of complaining, that don't require a ton of effort, that contain a variety of proteins, and are fairly inexpensive to prepare. In addition to that I pulled four crockpot recipes to use for Sundays. I spread them out over a four week period of time taking into consideration that we might not want to eat something with burger in it three nights in a row. I also arranged them so that an extra chicken could be baked or grilled providing the leftovers necessary for the next night's meal of say, enchiladas. Saturdays were reserved for trying out something new.

I starting using BigOven.com to type my recipes in several years ago, and I love it. But that would be another whole post. Anyway by having the recipes readily available to me, I used BigOven to put them together into a menu plan by week and created a master grocery list. From there it was simple to print everything out and place it in a binder with four tabs, one for each week. The first sheet is the menu plan by day of the week, the next is the master grocery list, and then come the individual recipes. I am beginning to fill in the side dishes that would be standard to include with each meal as I follow through with this plan.

It's a no-brainer to realize that with a plan in place, I will follow it. I won't stand as perhaps many others do before the refrigerator at 4:30 p.m. and wonder why I forgot to defrost this or that. I won't have to wrack my brain for something different that we haven't tried for awhile. I will have already made those decisions in advance for my tired little brain.



And so far it's working. By making notes on each master weekly plan as I go along, I will be reminded to pull out the steak for the fajitas the night before, to start the pizza dough in the morning, or to soak my beans overnight. A welcome relief for my worn out thinker as of late.

Perhaps after I've spent some time following this plan I will be ready to head back to my old ways, but in the meantime, I will relish the fact that I know what's for dinner today, tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Yeah!

Loose Ends and Unfinished Business

Sometimes there is just no way to get off the roller coaster of life. There are no eject or pause buttons available to us. And when that happens, what happens to the projects that get started or suddenly arise out of necessity? They become loose ends and unfinished business.

So in case you wonder what keeps me up at night worrying, here's my current list...

I need to order fall and winter garden seeds; research food stuffs I can grow through the winter.

Want to incorporate working my way through my 15-minutes-a-day plan to purge and clean every drawer and shelf in the house; so desperately needed but just can't seem to surface to the top of the priority list.

Deep clean the barn and pitch old and broken items; yes, the girls could do this, but it just might not be as thorough as is needed.

Pick date for a garage sale. We're finally getting to the point we can sell off anything that relates anyone younger than eight.

Consolidate and purge my goat resource notebook; the loose and duplicate papers are driving me mad.

Sort through three years of digital photos and create hard copy photo albums with them through Shutterfly; perish the thought, but if they were lost due to an inability to restore them from backups, it would be a true disaster. This should get some priority I guess.

Along the same line, organize the keepsake and memorabilia and unfinished baby books of our four children. This was supposed to be done for my oldest once she turned eighteen. Now she's twenty.

Finish homeschool school planning for our eight-year-old and thirteen-year-old; this really needs to get wrapped up!

Make notes about this summer's garden so that I don't duplicate the same mistakes year after year.

Work outside including substantial weeding and mulching, researching how to prune our fruit trees, how to boost the performance of our blueberry bushes, how to improve our pastures, and in general just time to get things done.

My mother needs new flooring in her house; since my dad passed away several years ago, those type projects have fallen with our family to help orchestrate and supervise. As she would like the job done before fall starts, it is looming overhead as well.

I could list improving or monetizing my blogs...to validate the time I do spend online.

Create an on-the-fly menu plan and grocery list so that on panic weeks, I can just grab the list and send it with DH and or one of the older kids to save my sanity.

Get to some of the kid-friendly projects we collected supplies for in early spring just for the reason of doing them during 'down time' in the summer; the concept of 'down time' just makes me laugh right about now.

Our sixteen-year-old son will be needing college-level recruiting cover letters and resumes along with videos to promote his passion...football...this coming fall. Need to educate myself on how to promote athletic prospects I guess.

Of mounting importance would be helping our eight-year-old figure out what she would like to take to our county fair for 4H Clover Buds so that we can get them tagged and ready to exhibit; fair is only a few weeks away, so this is going to become VERY important REAL soon.

We have two horses; I grew up obsessed with horses; do I ride these said horses? So obviously that is another to-do item that is important to me...to take advantage of what we have now...you never know when life circumstances change and an opportunity of a lifetime might be lost forever.

Now if I sat here much longer while listening to two of my daughters help record a scripture song CD for our church, I'm sure I could add to this list. But by now I've probably lost your interest, and you might be wondering, "Lady, get your act together!" So I will leave this topic...get back to the business of life...and continue to chip away at this list albeit slower than I would prefer.

Household Organization Notebook

To be honest, I really didn't know what to call the notebook I have been keeping household information in until I started looking around to see how others have organized their household information. A Swagbucks search of "household organization notebook" came back with enough information that I decided that that title should work just fine.

A household organization notebook should be just that...a notebook that helps keep your household organized.  And I know we all could use help with that. Ideally it would have all the important information that you might need in an emergency or just refer to make daily life simpler, all located in one place. It makes it easy to pick it up and go if you need to leave the house with it quickly. I usually go through it every summer once I hopefully have a little more time and update the information.

My notebook is pretty simple: three-ring binder with page dividers labeled with a Dymo labeler. A few plastic pocket folder and sheet protectors add a little more functionality to some sections, but it's just pretty basic and gets the job done. Currently I use these sections:

Household Maintenance - My running list of where in the house I have deep cleaned and purged; a back-up copy of my Remember the Milk regular chore lists for household cleaning; information relating to cleaning zones.

Animals - Because we are responsible for so many animals, this section also has my hard-copy of the appropriate Remember the Milk (RTM) tasks for our animals; list of horse vaccines and worming schedule; puppy health information.

Garden - This is a pretty broad category but includes the pool maintenance check sheet; hard-copy RTM for watering schedules and timing for various garden-related tasks.

Books - My list of magazines to reserve the library is stored here; a listing of magazine subscriptions and their actual expirations dates (so I don't renew them as early as the publishers would like).

Health - The children's immunization cards; list per family member of dates of various medical procedures and appointments, as I can never remember how long ago someone went in for a strep throat check, physical, you name it; address list of physician/dentist/orthodontist and insurance policy names and contact information. I had a gift list stuck in here, perhaps to keep wandering eyes from seeing it, but I think it deserves its own section now.

Notes - This would be a better home for that gift list; an excellent article on prayer; verses and quotes I want to remember; and most importantly to me, a single sheet with very large type, "Excellence is achievable; perfection is God's business".

Addresses - Pretty self explanatory but a copy of our emergency contact information that is posted in the kitchen cabinet by the phone; a second copy of my Yahoo contact list (my current location of my address list).

Beaver Lake Stables - I no longer have enough activity over there to maintain its own notebook, but I do keep my receipts and statements for the work I do as well as the boarder and trainer contact information.

School - With one child in public high school, there needs to be a place to keep school progress reports, accounting receipts, and school phone numbers. This is where they go. There is also a list to record outside activities for future reference (volunteer work, awards, athletic camps, etc.); school calendar; class schedule.

Mom - No, not a section for me, but for my mother's affairs that I assist her with. There's always a need to refer back to my notes for some transaction that took place or person she contacted and cannot find the paperwork herself.

Your notebook would most likely have completely different sections although some are pretty basic to most situations. I found some other excellent notebook ideas at Blissfully Domestic, Tipnut (which has some cool printable sheets), and Flylady. Along with your own inspiration and creativity, you can pull together a notebook that meets your household's needs and frees up a little more space in your already crowded cranium. Knowing where to go for specific information is definitely worth an hour or two now to get yourself organized.

Have fun, pull together a notebook, and let me know how it went.

Homeschooling With Work Boxes - Writing/Grammar - 8yo

Part six in my series on homeschooling with workboxes in our family.

I'll have to admit that this work box has been empty quite a lot this year. We just have not done a lot of formal writing. But as an 8yo, this child is not ready for anything too programmed.

What we do find ourselves doing is narrating back what has been read in other subject areas or our nightly read aloud. Impromptu books are put together by the 8yo on her own. We will pull out our Storybook Weaver Deluxe CD for the computer. And I also count the work that we do in history and science putting together notebook pages as composition. Sonlight does have a weekly composition assignment at the first grade level where she is reading, but it hasn't been a great fit with us this year. Thank you notes and a nightly journal in which she dictates a short note to different family members for them to respond back to her rounds out this box.

As far as grammar goes, the alternate day from the copywork assignment in Sonlight is a worksheet page to go along with the copywork pointing out grammar basics...capital letters, punctuation, rhyming words, etc. This is plenty enough for this year. I did break down and print out a scope and sequence for first and second grades just to see how we were doing. Once in awhile I will pick a topic from that list that hasn't been covered such as alphabetizing or pointing out the parts of a children's dictionary and use that as the lesson for the day. We have always overkilled grammar at the older ages, so she has plenty of time down the road.

I want to develop a person who enjoys writing, and so at this age, it needs to come naturally and mainly in the oral form. What philosophy do you follow? Do you adapt for each child as they pass through the same grade level? I admit that I still would love to pick up some new creative ideas.

Also in this series:

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Math - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Phonics - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Reading - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Bible - 8yo
Homeschooling with the Workbox System

Homeschooling With Work Boxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo

Part five in my series on homeschooling with workboxes.

Everyone approaches language arts differently. We tend to follow Charlotte Mason's approach and use copywork and dictation as the basis for early composition which provides for so much flexibility in this area.

With this in mind, as long as my child is working through readers at their level in Sonlight, then I use the corresponding copywork/dictation assignments outlined from them. Makes zero planning on my part. My 8yo is still in the copywork stage though she may be ready for dictation some time soon. So here's how I organize this box:

On Mondays I put in her copybook with the selection for her to copy from her Sonlight reader.

On Tuesdays I have a sheet of lined paper with her Sunday school curriculum memory verse on it to copy as there is only Sonlight copywork two days per week.

On Wednesdays we are back to the copybook and her next Sonlight passage to copy.

On Thursdays and Fridays as there is no Sonlight copywork, I put in a page from her Reason for Handwriting lesson book. By next year sometime, we will need to focus perhaps a little more as we will be approaching learning cursive, but for now this is just enough concentrated practice.

Some families might find this too much work while others not enough. Most passages are only a short sentence or two. If we are focused on a history or science topic, I might forgo our regularly scheduled copywork in favor of something in conjunction with our current project. Another nice change is to use a passage from Draw Write Now which she can add her art work to later. Sometimes I will substitute something from her science reading or most anything that has come up in real life. Lots of possibilities for copywork and handwriting practice.

Do you use a handwriting program? Do you find copywork enough handwriting practice as it is?

Also in this series:

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Writing/Grammar - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Math - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Phonics - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Reading - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Bible - 8yo
Homeschooling with the Workbox System

Homeschooling With Work Boxes - Phonics - 8yo

Part four in my series on homeschooling with workboxes. For our 8yo, phonics instruction goes right along with her basic readers to complete her beginning literature program.

Phonics for us is another not so straight-forward work box. We do our two-page spread daily in Explode the Code but that gets rather monotonous. I have picked up a lot of practical ideas from Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading which can be subbed out in the workbox instead. After some on-line poking around, I also found a lot of printable resources that I plan to stick in now and then. We have some language arts games that were above my 8yo's abilities, but I think I will start trying some out shortly. I usually work through the Explode the Code series with the kids through all six books, and since we are just about through with book four, we have some time before I will think about spelling.

When spelling does roll around, I almost always go with Spelling Power for my children. Another no-frills but short and sweet spelling program.

My guess is that there are some pretty creative ways to make this work box fun. I'd love to hear from you how you tweak your box so that it keeps up interest on a subject such as phonics or spelling that can get tedious at times.

Also in this series:

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Writing/Grammar - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Math - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Reading - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Bible - 8yo
Homeschooling with the Workbox System

Homeschooling with Work Boxes - Reading - 8yo

Part two in my series on homeschooling with workboxes. This time around, reading workbox with our 8yo.

I don't know about you, but this has to be the easiest box of all if you are following a prescribed phonics/reading program. Pop in the current reader, and off you go. Reading has slowly come to my 8yo, so we don't do anything fancy. The Sonlight series of beginning readers had type difficult for her to follow, so I picked up some used Abeka readers for Grade 1 after she had some basic phonics instruction. Even when those seemed difficult, some days I would have her dictate a story to me which I would in turn use as a reader for her. It worked remarkable well and took a lot of frustration out of those early decoding-phonics days.

Currently, we are working through the Abeka level 1.4 reader at one point during the day and then come back to reading later on in the day. We have just again picked up Sonlight at Grade 1 and are reading through the Beginner's Bible according to their schedule. I find that the extra reading time is helping cement her reading which came to her slower than my other children.

I also have a stack of her previous readers plus very easy beginner books including some of the easier Seuss titles which ideally she picks from to read to her dad in the evening. Note the comment...ideally.

How do you spice up your reading work box? Or do you feel the need to? At this early reading stage, we're happy with working through the readers and getting a good foundation for later down the road.

Also in this series:

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Writing/Grammar - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Phonics - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Math - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Bible - 8yo
Homeschooling with the Workbox System

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Bible - 8yo

Last April I posted about using Sue Patrick's Workbox System. We having been following her guidelines since then and have been loving it with our 8yo and 13yo.

As this homeschool year starts to slow down, I thought I would share my thoughts on our past year of using the workboxes with our 8yo, and specifically for this post, the contents of our Bible work box. Each consecutive post will feature another one of our boxes.

We are fortunate to have a wonderful Sunday School curriculum. It happens to be available to download online if anyone is interested in checking it out. The lesson sheet usually shows up in the boxes Monday and Tuesday as it is read and the activities done over those two days. The included memory verse is worked on all week. As my 8yo's writing abilities increase, I plan on using the verse as additional copy work on Tuesday so that the verse can be put in the box Wednesday through Friday for continued memorization.

As I loosely follow Sonlight Curriculum, we always read through their suggested Bible curriculum for the approximate age group. This year we are working through The Awesome Book of Bible Facts, so it is put into the box for Wednesday.

Thursday's box hopefully contains a related storybook to what we read in the Awesome Book of Bible Facts. Most often it is from the Golden Children's Bible. Love their classic illustrations, and of course it is the children's Bible I remember growing up and reading myself.

Friday's box is supposed to contain access to my Betty Luken's felt characters from the Bible which had originally been purchased when I was teaching Sunday school. However...I sometimes don't muster up the courage to get them out as no 8yo ever spends just "a little time" with them or makes just "a little mess". Something we both need to work on. Alternatively I will read a character building story from my Goodwill volume of Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories. Classic goodness.

What I would really like to do would be to find some more hands-on resources to put into her Bible box. KidsTalkAboutGod.org seems to be a great supplemental resource for those kids who like to illustrate Bible stories. I plan on adding that in this summer perhaps.



Even though school may be officially over soon, Bible study is never over so it will be ongoing.

With my 8yo and 13yo being the only ones schooled at home at this time, it is difficult to find topics that are applicable to both girls so we tend to do our Bible studies individually. Another goal would be to incorporate at least one day a week working together on their Bible boxes together.

How do you handle your Bible curriculum? If you school multiple ages together, what works for you? Do you continue Bible study throughout the summer?

Also in this series:

Homeschooling with Workboxes - Writing/Grammar - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Phonics - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Math - 8yo
Homeschooling with Workboxes - Reading - 8yo
Homeschooling with the Workbox System

This post is also linked up with Confessions of a Homeschooler through her What's in the Box Wednesday linkup. Be sure to head over there for some incredible ideas from other homeschoolers using workboxes.

Refrigerator Organization

We now have a new best friend at our house. The seven-year-old got a great playhouse out of the deal. The thirteen-year-old is just impressed. The 16-year-old loves the fact that choices are now easier. And the remaining adults are just as happy as can be. The new friend...a shiny black refrigerator with double French doors on top and a freezer compartment on the bottom. There are many reasons why our old refrigerator needed to go, but let's just focus on how the new guy is going to help organize life in the kitchen. While helping to unload the refrigerator, a friend commented, "Wow. You certainly have a lot in your refrigerator." I stepped back and tried to take an objective look, and yep, it was crammed to the gills. But everyone always said, "What's there to eat?" Since I knew where every last container was, my reply would usually be, "All sorts of stuff. Can't you see the leftovers from two nights ago?" "Nope," they would reply. "Well, they're right here," I would retort angrily while pulling away miscellaneous containers to unearth it. Obviously time for a new routine with this new refrigerator. Especially with a second refrigerator out in the garage. So...here's the plan. Nothing was moved back into the new refrigerator unless we actually needed it. I also set up designated areas. Those for leftovers.  Another for ingredient-type items - lime juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, eggs.  A shelf for condiments - pretty obvious here, ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc.  This refrigerator has a great drawer for deli items so the only thing that will be allowed here will be - deli meats, sliced cheese, flavored cream cheese, etc. Sandwich makings. Of course there are your standard crisper drawers. But they're pretty self- explanatory. As there are three of them, one has been designated for quick snack items - yogurt, baggies of jerky, precut veggies for snacks. The shelf with milk will hold all of the dairy products - sour cream, buttermilk, etc.  And another section is just for stuff that goes on other stuff - salsa, jam, dressings, etc.  There's another section for bread-type products - tortillas, bagels, and the next loaf of unopened bread.  And my brainchild, a shelf just for those foods that were purchased for dinner this coming week. That might seem obvious, but how many times does newly purchased food become forgotten and wasted? Well, at our house it was often enough.  The freezer compartment is only going to house frozen juice cans, frozen snack food items, and anything purchased intentionally for this week's consumption. No mystery freezer bags. Those can go live outside. The other stuff...it's going to stay in the outside refrigerator until I can purge through it. I do a lot of coupon shopping and so end up purchasing block cheese, butter, and other items that keep very well but don't need to end up in the house refrigerator. Those will be stored out there. And all the condiments or obscure ingredients that seem to keep forever, they're not coming in. I can always go out there to fetch them and promptly, hopefully, return them. As we have our own laying hens, our egg supply will be out there as well as jarred goat's milk when we starting milking again. Now when we take a peek in the refrigerator, you can actually see what we have to eat. No excuse for not being able to make a sandwich. Easy to tell when you're on the last jug of milk. Dinner ingredients are staring at you reminding you to use them up if the weekly menu plan gets out of synch. And those lovely leftovers are front and center. The other refrigerator was so packed that I had considered getting rid of any round storage containers as they were space wasters, but so far there's enough room that it doesn't seem necessary. Nice idea though to have square, stackable containers. And clear ones too. It's a little hard to distinguish at a glance what's inside that frosted purple container. So what's your refrigerator like? Is it prettier on the outside than it is inside? Do you have a trick up your sleeve for keeping it organized and purged? Leave me a comment. I'm guessing this is an area that we could all tweak a bit to make more efficient for ourselves and our families.

How I manage to "Remember the Milk"

I honestly am not sure how to even start this post. All I can say is that I have stumbled across something that has revolutionized my to-do list. I'm all for Excel spread sheets, organized lists, probably over-organized systems to keep track of my household duties as well as all the other livestock, extracurricular, and community activities I find myself involved in. However, they all had one thing in common...they worked for awhile and then became a burden in themselves.



That all changed upon discovering RememberTheMilk.com. There's no better way to describe it than straight from the horses mouth, or in this case, their website:

"Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience.

We began work on Remember The Milk in August 2004. What started as a simple idea soon became a huge web application with every feature imaginable (there's a reason why this took more than a year to finish!). We launched in October 2005. Remember The Milk now has more than 1.75 million registered users."

Here's how I have set up Remember the Milk to work for me. You are able to create separate lists by category. I have Animals, Desk Work, Kitchen, Household Chores, Kids, Personal, Outside, Employment, and a few others for organizations I'm involved with. Imagine that under each list are all of the possible tasks for that category. Each one gets to be assigned a priority, a next due date, and a frequency. Beyond that they can be assigned tags, the ever-popular method of marking something so that it can be searched as a group, for the items that I normally tackle during the morning, afternoon, or evening. It's also in the works for me to tag them with the name of a family member who could also handle this task on their own. Can you just see the possibilities here?

So on a typical morning, I log into RememberTheMilk and take a look at the entire list of tasks due that day. I then click on the tag for 'morning' which searches through all the different lists for just those tasks tagged 'morning'. Voila...there's my list to work from. It can be printed to hard copy, or as I've now moved my laptop to a central location, I just work from it online. Come afternoon, I pull up that list and so on. For those items I don't get to, I can choose to postpone them to a later date...a very tempting option quite too often...or they will simply reappear the next day. I tell you, I just can't say enough about how tremendously easy it is to use as a guide throughout the day. My next project to incorporate will be homeschool assignments for each child, but I need to decide how I want to set that up first.

Not only can you log in to view your tasks through your computer, there are many apps that have been developed to work with smart phones as well as even Twitter. I use the Twitter app so that I can text a list item through my cellphone that will show up in my RememberTheMilk inbox where I can import it into my routine later. How cool is that? The site is free but you can upgrade to a Pro version for $25 a year, but I do not see a need for this unless you want one of the newer specialized apps.

Trust me on this, and visit their website. I know I sound like I work for them, but this secret is just too good to not share with those who are obsessively organized but just need a working platform to accomplish that or those who run around looking for lost notes written on who knows what. And come back, and let me know how you can manage to "Remember the Milk".

Daily Journal Entry

There are some days that I just really wonder where the day has gone to. Lunch comes and goes, and then it's dinner, and before you know it, it's dark out. The cycle just keeps cycling. And because I don't feel that anything has gotten accomplished other than just "living", I've decided to keep a bit of a daily journal...just penciling in what I have been doing.

I know in my heart that a lot does get done obviously. Perhaps being able to go back over my notes will help me see that. It also may be an eye opener as to where I can become more efficient or lasso in some extra help from the kiddos. So if you're at all interested, I'll have a link on the left post column. You're welcome to poke around and see what's there.

Pesky Fruit Flies

I'm not sure of how many folks I've met that enjoy insects of one type or another cohabiting in their homes with them. Flying or crawling...we just don't care for them.

The "bother factor" of some insects, such as flies for instance, depends on whether you live in proximity to livestock. Those who live in warmer climates I've heard have other nuisance bugs. But as long as we're bringing commercially grown produce into our homes to start the cycle, I think we've all had to battle with....fruit flies.

They seem to proliferate in the warmer weather. They're too small to swat...although I've been known to swing wildly at them with my battery-powered fly zapper. But that's info for another post entirely. If you keep your fruit covered, then it ripens too quickly. I don't like bananas kept in the refrigerator as it ups the ick factor with dark skins for my kids. I've even gone to keeping fruit in the garage to try to combat them. Never works. And when garden tomato season starts, they seem to have a hay day.

Until now. I opened a side kitchen cupboard door and reached for my white wine vinegar. Pulling out the bottle I realized that the lid was missing. Oh well, I figured. No harm. But what I saw inside was a revelation...floating fruit flies....dead of course...drowned. No, I did not go ahead and use that vinegar, but a light bulb did go on in my head.



As par for the course, I had probably left the bottle on the counter for a day or two waiting for the lid to show up before shelving it. I know fruit flies are attracted by scents such as very ripe fruit. Vinegar gives off a similar attractant as even sourdough starter does. The flies with their expert sense of smell entered the bottle through the pouring lid and never made their way out. The lid I believe will be the secret to my new fruit fly trap. Those perforated holes make it pretty difficult for them to escape.



So to test my new fruit fly trap, I set the same bottle out on the counter where I have the most trouble with fruit flies. By morning there was several trapped inside. A few swirls of the bottle washed them off of the sides and down into the vinegar to never fly again.

I'm going to use this as my plan A for the remainder of the year. Once the liquid in the bottle starts looking too "unattractive" with its drowned flies, I will probably pop off the plastic insert and try a piece of banana or something else tempting to see how that does too. While you are using a trap, you do have to remember to make a conscious effort to remove any other source of fruit that would be more tempting than the trap liquid though. No saving bananas for banana bread sometime later in the week. It won't work that way. But this way sure beats getting out the vacuum hose and trying to suck them up while they're flying through the air, doesn't it?

If you've found a way to combat fruit flies in your house, I'm all ears. Please comment.

Room Makeover Completed

The smile that spread across DS15's face as he walked into his room was worth it. During Big Country's time away from home at football camp, we finally got around to fixing up his bedroom that we had started almost two years ago. All we had accomplished was to put down a coat of light gray paint. As you can tell from my earlier post, his room was nothing special and messy to boot.

Here's what we ultimately did:



Purchased a silver collapsible dirty clothes hamper to keep with chrome/metal theme from Ikea. Cleared off shelf and removed miscellaneous things hanging from it.



The top of his chest was simply cleared off. Amazing what removing a little clutter will do.



He had several wire racks and clothes storage units throughout his room that were not in the closet because....we had our 'junk' in there. After getting our stuff off his shelves and out of the closet, his clothes could actually fit in there. Clearing off the shelf left room for shoes and larger sports equipment items.



A major change happened here. We painted one wall black and used spray paint to coat his cork bulletin board. Also cleared off old school notices and many years worth of team sports photos to clear up the look. We purchased a small desk set and garbage can from Ikea to organize his desk top. Drawers were cleared of ancient garbage so that the stuff piled on top of the desk that wasn't used frequently could be stored inside.



Also from Ikea I purchased a set of black sheets and a red duvet cover for the bed. Plans are to install two chrome knobs above his bed and to hang two jerseys from his collection there. I picked up some nice black wrapped suit hangers for that very purpose.



From KMart I purchased a couple of sports posters and hung them with a couple Big Country already owned to start a mural of sorts on his largest wall. We wanted to find a nice sports car print but still haven't been able to track one down. Black and red are his high school's colors which was why we used that theme. A stadium throw in those colors made by a friend of his worked just perfect for his bed.



His book case was pretty much left the same except for some storage containers from Ikea for the top shelf to corral loose toiletry items. Amazing how much better things look when they are inside of something instead of scattered all over.




His dormer had a major overhaul. More clothes storage boxes for his sisters were dealt with and removed from the room. I purchased three metal bins from The Container Store to keep football, basketball, and workout specific items in. Home Depot had a Rubbermaid ball container that was ideal for his sports balls as well. If the chrome knobs to hang his sport jersey collection turns out well, there is room on the one wall for additional display.

The final touch for the room is to either stencil or purchase a wallpaper border with a chrome diamond plate border. This will be placed at the top of the wall next to the ceiling. The stencil would be done in red while I'm not sure what colors I'll find if we use a border.

Overall, I'm pleased with the way it turned out still using all of his existing furniture but just adding lots of color and plenty of storage containers. We're still working with Big Country on keeping his room looking like it did the day he camp home from camp, but....he is a teen boy. They're a work in progress.

Teenage Son Room Makeover

I'm not going to try to get clever with this post title...the following pictures are pretty clear...my teen son is in desperate need of a room makeover. As I am of the born-organized persuasion, looking in on this scenario every day just grates on my being.

Perhaps it's a little his fault and perhaps it's a little ours, but the fact is this room contains more stuff than necessary, the stuff has no proper home, and it just plain lacks personality. As BigCountry left today for a four day varsity football camp with his high school football team, I am planning on surprising him with a room makeover. Not only have we talked about this and have just never done it, I'd like to give him something other than a monetary appreciation for finishing his first year of public high school with a 4.0 grade point average.



As you can see, his walls are painted gray and the predominant color if you can find it is red and black, his high school colors. I plan on sticking with that color scheme. The majority of his wooden furniture belonged to both sides of his grandparents originally and is not something that my husband wants to part with. It doesn't particularly work with the clean lines I'd like to use, but every room needs a challenge to work around.



Here's the game plan:

*Replace hodge-podge bedding with black and red color scheme.

*Find something in that color scheme to organize his desk top and completely purge his desk drawers (no, I don't feel this is invasive...it'll all go in storage totes for him to sort through later) as it would appear he does not use them to store the stuff that is accumulating on his desk surface. As decorators always say, everything needs a place to call home.

*Use large storage containers of some sort to store his sports equipment in. He plays three sports a year, and the equipment and accompanying minutia that comes along with it seem to multiply every year. I actually would prefer if they were out open in his room because then they will be used...in other words, easy access.

*The closet isn't too bad other than we have stuff stored on his top shelf which needs to be removed so that infrequently used items can be placed up there.

There needs to be some way to entice this child to contain his dirty laundry. That may be my biggest challenge.



Probably his shelf with team memorabilia may be the only item in his room that I will leave alone.



Depending on how the shopping goes for the above items, additional touches would be locating some peel and stick vinyl striping (I'm not sure if it even exists) and the possibility of painting a large chalkboard area on one wall (hoping he wouldn't consider it childish but more of a two-way conversation area for visitors and even our family.

Now that I've officially published my intent, I'm committed to following this through. The current state of affairs will never do, and with a great room to come home to every day, we can only hope he'll take a little more pride in it than he currently expresses. But then again, we are talking a teen boy here. Check back soon. The after-pictures will be coming!

For the rest of the story and photos of the completed room, please jump to the Room Makeover Completed post. You'll be amazed.

Homeschooling with the Workbox System

One of the great things about being online is that you often stumble across something, follow a rabbit trail somewhere else, and never quite know where you will end up. So it was that I discovered Sue Patrick and her workbox homeschool system. There probably was a bit of divine intervention at work as well.

I have found that once you have moved on to your fourth child to homeschool, sometimes the initiative just isn't there. You've been down the road a few times already and it feels as if you've just finished teaching at that level. What I needed was a little inspiration and a new approach, not to mention that my normally born-organized self had become a little sloppy as of late.

My first exposure to the work box system was through a system of blogging homeschool mothers. Here are a few of the sites that I learned so much from:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LeslieNelsen/662628/

http://vegaadoption.blogspot.com/2009/03/this-is-best-system-ever.html

http://ginger-snap-shots.blogspot.com/2009/02/workboxes.html

Their blog comments were so inspiring to me that I just had to find out for myself if this was a system that work with my two children still schooling at home, Goat Princess - 12 and H-Bob - 7. I was especially intrigued in that she recommended this system for children with self-control issues which we often deal with. After delving around Sue's site www.workboxsystem.com for awhile, I ordered her ebook and set about to read it.

What I found was that Sue's words were little gems to be treasured. She reminded me of why I was homeschooling and that not every system or curriculum will meet each child's need. She reminded me of the resources I have tucked away here and there that would be better utilized through this system.



What is the system? Well, I'd love for you to check out the details straight from her site, but in short order, each child's individual curriculum item is stored in a clear plastic shoebox that is stored on a shoe rack holding these twelve boxes. When each school item is completed, it is removed from the rack leaving a very visual reminder of what is left to accomplish. This has done wonders for both of my daughters and volumes for me. As a very visual learner myself, I can now see what we have left to do and am more motivated to fill up those boxes with possibilities for us each day. There is so much more to Sue's philosophy as well that just made perfect sense to me.

If you're feeling a little down about your homeschooling efforts or need a little boost or spark of creativity in your homeschool, check out Sue's sytem and the blogs of other homeschoolers who have found her to be a blessing to us all. I'd love to hear if you've heard of her work, and if so, if it has changed your approach to schooling as well.