7 Quick Takes: June 22, 2012 (Vol. 124)

Blue Mosque in Istanbul (photo from www.sxc.hu/)

~ 1 ~

The boys were talking quite a bit this morning about history, particularly given their play of Sid Meier’s Civilization V (and its newest expansion pack Gods and Kings).

Noah began talking about things like Constantinople and said something that made me have to ask him, “Is it still called Constantinople?” 

“Yeah,” he answered.  “I mean, I think.”

I had to tell him that it was not, in fact, still called Constantinople.  He asked what it was called and I told him I needed to do something first.  I told them this was an Audio Daily Double.  (Those are probably the moments when they have no clue what I’m talking about and just humor me.)

So, on the way to the last day of Vacation Bible School, I had to play them the song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants.  It’s not often that all of the kids (mostly because of Noah) all like a song, but they were all pretty enamored by it, so we had to listen to it multiple times on the way there.

History lesson and They Might Be Giants?  Awesome.

~ 2 ~

Less than a week to vote in the 25 Homeschooling Moms on Circle of Moms.  Can I ask you to pop over and vote for Many Little Blessings?

You can vote each day, so you can vote even if you already did.  Plus, there is no registering for the site to vote or anything crazy.  It should take you less than a minute to go over there, click on the like/thumbs up voting button, and then be done.

Thanks a bunch!

~ 3 ~

Not too long ago, I shared that one newer blog tool that I really loved is Buffer.  A lot of my blogging friends are also using it and loving it.

So, today I have to share another blogging tool that I just started using and it is amazing.  Love it!  It’s Ninja Affiliate.

You have to be using WordPress to use Ninja Affiliate, so I apologize to my friends using Blogger.  Anyway, it stores your affiliate information, making it as easy as just using a drop down menu while writing your posts to stick in an affiliate link.  You can also set it up to where certain keywords automatically become a certain affiliate link.

Seriously — this is cool.  I find that especially with being an affiliate of a lot of eBooks and the like, it’s just too hard for me to keep track of the links.  And, with Ninja Affiliate, it changes the links to look pretty, rather than the ejunkie.com links that most ebook affiliates look like.

Plus – I also realized that it didn’t really have to be an affiliate link to use it.  So, for instance, I have put in where the term Disclosure Policy automatically links to my site’s page about the policy.

~ 4 ~

This has been a summer of discovery for Jack, even if that means there has been some sadness with it.  You see, there are two things that he just thought were his thing.  He thought he loved sewing and acting.

This summer, however, he had a chance to try both in a more in depth way than he has before only to learn that not only were both of them not his thing, neither of them were.

I assured him that these weren’t failures.  Instead, they were a way to learn once and for all what he actually thought about them, giving him a chance to pursue other things if they weren’t the right fit.

~ 5 ~

Jack lamented yesterday that he hopes he sometimes finds something that he really likes that he is also good at doing.  But, then added, “I just hope that I don’t find something that I’m really good at that I don’t like to do.”

I assured him that, in life, that happens too.  Abilities are funny like that.

~ 6 ~

Speaking about the general idea of being uncomfortable with things…

I did something recently that I said I would not do.  And, quite frankly, I just still don’t really get it.  (Admitting this makes me feel old.)

I signed up for Google+.

Even typing it makes me shake my head in disgust with myself.  I vowed that I just didn’t need one more online social media to check into.  And, then I caved from the pressure by a certain someone (who probably thinks that we pressured her into Facebook, so I guess it’s all fair).

~ 7 ~

You’ve seen that picture (from #6) around the Internet, haven’t you?  I use it for a lot of my profiles.  Want to know something funny about it?

I got those glasses, along with a second pair of glasses, right before we worked on these pictures.  I hadn’t really taken to either pair, as I had had my previous pair for so long.  So, when we took the pictures, I did some with both of them on.

Except, do you know what?  That was just about the last time I wore those ones.  I have a pair that are of a similar nature, but different.  Those are the ones that I wear every day (for the last two years), not the ones that I wear all around the Internet.  Go figure.

This post is linked to 7 Quick Takes and Weekly Wrap Up.

This post may contain links to an affiliate. See my disclosure policy for more information.

Related posts:

7 Quick Takes: June 15, 2012 (Vol. 123) 7 Quick Takes: June 9, 2012 (Vol. 122) 7 Quick Takes: June 1, 2012 (Vol. 121)