Many Little Blessings

7 Quick Takes: July 30, 2010 (Vol. 47)

Angie — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:29:41 +0000

~ 1 ~

So, apparently I survived the Chuck E. Cheese birthday party last week, huh? In what was apparently a sign that we are apparently pretty social homeschoolers, we ended up with 23 children at

photo by TheTruthAbout...

the party. When I ordered some lunch for myself, our party hostess (who was super helpful, especially as we added many kids to our original reservation) asked what I wanted to drink, I said, “Just water.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. (I think I hesitated when saying it, apparently.)

I told her, “Yeah, I’m paying for 23 kids at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. I’ll just drink water.”

When she brought out my salad plate, she brought me a cup and laughed, “Get any kind of drink you want.”

~ 2 ~

When the huge Chuck E. Cheese balloons weren’t cooperating with us at home (these are some crazy big balloons), we decided to scold them. I shouted at them, “Charles Edward Cheese – you must behave.”

Thus began a week of random stern shoutings from people to “Charles Edward Cheese.”

~ 3 ~

Hello grape tomatoes!

I finally had my first visit of the season to our local Farmers Market this week. I picked up sweet corn, zucchinis (since mine are just about done), yellow squash (didn’t plant them this year – boo!), onions, locally produced raw honey, kettle corn (Jack’s favorite), baked goods (muffins, scones, and a lemon square), and a cantaloupe.

Oh man! Everything was so, so good! I have really missed going to the Farmer’s Market. Of course, I may have liked it better if my clothes weren’t sticking to me by the time I got in the van. (I’m not ready for winter, but I sure wouldn’t mind fall.)

Have you picked up any great things at a Farmers Market near you? What are your favorites?

~ 4 ~

If you’re a blogger and want to help grow your blog, you might want to consider picking up the recordings, handouts, and power points from Savvy Blogging Summit before Friday (the 30th) at noon. The complete set of talks is normally $97, but until noon, they are 50% off! (That’s a savings of $48.50!)

This is an affiliate link, but I thought the talks and handouts were just amazing, and I truly do believe that you will get a wealth of ideas from these materials.

By the way – the reason for the sale is because they announced the dates and location of the 2011 Savvy Blogging Summit conference. It will be July 14 – 16 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

~ 5 ~

I hated getting on a plane to go to Savvy Blogging Summit earlier this month. Really, really hated it. I’m already dreading the thought of getting on a plane again.

Anyone else hate planes?

I realized that I could try to take the Amtrak to Savvy Blogging Summit next year instead of a plane. You know, if I didn’t mind 40 hours of traveling/layovers.

Picky, picky, picky.

~ 6 ~

Did you see that my eBook is on sale for 50% off and that we’re using the money earned from the sale to buy Noah a special bike so that he can ride bikes with the rest of the family? If you haven’t checked it out and you think you might like the eBook, it’s on sale for $3.75.

If you aren’t interested in the eBook, maybe you’d be willing to pass along word to readers or via social media. We’d really appreciate it!

I have been really moved by the number of people that have passed along word about it or had nice things to say. Thanks to those that have purchased through the sale. (And thanks to those that went ahead and paid full price or bought more than one. That was so kind!)

~ 7 ~

I seriously have still not really planned for the upcoming school year. I have been working on making notes about how often we’ll do various subjects, but I haven’t yet mapped out our schedule. I thought I was going to sit down and just do it today, but then I got sidetracked.

I hope that by next week, I can post about our curriculum for this next school year. Please pray that I can actually get things scheduled.

Sadly, don’t even get me started on how prepared I am for our homeschool group’s teaching cooperative to start. It’s not pretty.

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

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I Love Notebooks

Angie — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:38:04 +0000

photo by D Sharon Pruitt

I have noticed that most people fall into one of two camps — they either don’t care about school/office supplies or the love them. I’m in the love them camp, as I’m sure you already figured out.

Ever since I was a little girl, back to school time has left me feeling gleeful, just at the thought of being able to walk up and down the school supply aisles. So many possibilities are just waiting to happen with all of the beautiful supplies. The way the crayons all line up uniformly in a new box, the vast array of colors of folders and binders, index cards neatly packaged together – It’s all so exciting.

My favorite items are notebooks and journals. I just love them. From the plain old wide rule spiral notebooks that go on sale for a dime a notebook to gorgeously decorated handmade journals. There is such promise for what can go inside.

So, which camp are you in – love school supplies or couldn’t care less? If you love them, which are your favorite items?

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We Love You, Little House on the Prairie Books!

Angie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:08:58 +0000

I think that, too often, people think of young girls when they think of who might be reading the Little House series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. That being said, I will admit that I had never read them when I was younger, and rarely watched the show (which I’m glad for now, since I don’t have preconceived notions about the series where the show actually differed from the books).

Now, as a Mom of three children – two of whom are boys – I would say without a doubt that the Little House series of books are a treasure for the whole family, not just little girls. There are nine books in the Little House set, and just tonight, we finished the seventh book Little Town on the Prairie. Not only do my boys beg me for “just one more chapter tonight, Mom,” but even Eric says, “C’mon, Ang — one more.”

It was on a whim that I thought, “Hey – why not try reading Little House in the Big Woods?” I figured we’d read it and be done. I had no idea that we would soon be working our way through Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks for Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, and Little Town on the Prairie.

For the record, I think hands down, everyone in our family loved Farmer Boy best, though it was, ironically, one that I was avoiding, so we read it after we had read the first six. (The pictures in the linked copy are really great and we all enjoyed them, when we ended up getting a copy of it with our Winter Promise materials, even though we also have a non-illustrated version.)

Although we haven’t done extra activities to enhance our Little House books, there are tons of great resources to enhance your reading, such as a Little House Cookbook, Little House Craft Books, or a great post on The Homeschool Classroom about Little House studies (and this post that includes a Little House summer adventure box).

I would never have guessed that we would have loved this series of books so much, especially, because of my preconceived notion of who reads them, I definitely wouldn’t have guessed that my boys would love them so much. The Little House series has been such a blessing to our family time!

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday and Finer Things Friday.

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Ten Tips on Personal Productivity from #SBSummit

Angie — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:58:15 +0000

at OhAmanda.com

Last week, I shared ten tips from the Savvy Blogging Summit talk about Effective Monetization. This week, I’ll share ten tips from the talk called Communication and Personal Productivity that was given by Lisa Hone. (This talk is available for purchase in its entirety, plus worksheets, from the Savvy Blogging team.)

1. Make your goals SMART. This acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.

2. Prioritize your goals. Instead of trying to do a million things at once (and spreading yourself so thin that you can’t properly do any of them), invest your energy on the one most important goal at the present.

3. Set aside one (or a few) times a day to do things like check email, go on Twitter, surf the Internet, and the like. Rather than just popping on and off the computer throughout the day, make your time purposeful. Have specific times of the day (morning, noon, and night, perhaps) when you do your online tasks, and have specific, systematic ways that you do it.

4. Block off a solid block of time for quiet work at your desk (or wherever you work). Even if it isn’t a long block of time, try to find some time that you can block off that is just for you and your blog.

5. When working on tasks, keep in mind the urgent/important matrix. For this, every task will fall into one part of a quadrant and that will help you to know how to deal with it.

Urgent and Important – Perform these tasks now
Urgent, but Not Urgent – Plan to do these tasks next
Urgent, but Not Important – These don’t move you forward toward your goal. Postpone these tasks
Not Urgent and Not Important – Avoid these, if at all possible. Just be careful that the things you label as Not Urgent and Not Important are correct for this category.

6. Know when good is enough!

7. Instead of being overwhelmed by a large project, deconstruct it into smaller, bite-sized projects.

8. If you can do a task in a minute or less, do it immediately! Don’t put it off.

9. Try setting your e-mail program to download e-mail every 30 to 60 minutes, rather than every minute. This will prevent you from being distracted and help you maintain a more continuous workflow.

10. Nine tips for overcoming procrastination on tough or time consuming tasks:

Delete It - What will happen if you just don’t do the task? Is it really something that has to be done?
Delegate – See if this task is something that only you can do. Is there any part of it that someone else can do?
Do It Now – Putting things off can cause stress and anxiety. If you can, just do it now.
Ask for Advice – If you’re stuck, ask a trusted friend or mentor. If you are part of a blogging network, that is also a great place to get advice and help.
Chop It Up – Break down a big, tough task into small, manageable portions.
Obey the 15 Minute Rule – Break down the task into portions that will take 15 minutes or less.
Have Clear Deadlines – Assign yourself actual deadlines for portions of the task.
Give Yourself a Reward – Celebrate your accomplishments when you finish a particularly tough task.
Remove Distractions – If possible, remove any distractions you can while working on your task. (Since one of my distractions is social media, like Twitter and Facebook, I use Leech Block to help me with this part.)

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Buy an eBook at 50% off and Help Noah Get a Bike

Angie — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:55:01 +0000

I have shared before that our oldest son (who just turned 11!) has Asperger’s Sydrome (a high functioning form of Autism). This has meant that a lot of things in our lives haven’t been exactly how we thought they would be. However, it has also meant that we have had a child who is this amazing kid that we couldn’t imagine life without.

Last year, Eric and I got the bikes we got in college back from his parents house and cleaned them up, after having purchased Molly her first bike for her birthday. Then, Jack’s birthday rolled around, and we bought him his first bike too. Yep – that’s right, he’s nine and it is his first bike. (We even had to get training wheels for it, even though it is this super cool lime green BMX bike.)

It may sound funny that we waited until the kids were five and nine to get them their first bikes. Mainly, it has been because of Noah. He just can’t ride a bike (both from fear and ability), and I guess we never wanted to exclude him. Still, now here we are, a family of five with four bikes and one eleven year old who says happily, “Oh – it’s okay. I’ll just try to run with you guys.”

Today, I had an epiphany and found a super cool three wheeled bike (complete with flames on the side!) that actually made him say, “Wow! I would ride that.” The only thing that made me gulp? The $300 price tag. While I know this isn’t a lot for nicer bikes, it is just a little under what all of our bikes cost combined.

Then, I had another brainstorm. Why not put my eBook, Finding Educational Activities in the Most Unexpected Places, on sale for 50% off (that’s only $3.75) through the end of August (or when 100 have been sold, whichever comes first) in an effort to raise the money for Noah to have the kind of bike that has actually made him excited about having a bike of his own. The coupon code for the fundraiser is bike.

Any way around it, I know that we’ll find a way to buy it (or a similar bike) for him. It may not always be through traditional methods, but we always try to find ways to give him as “normal” of a childhood as possible (whatever that might look like for even a neurotypical kid). However, any money we can raise through eBook sales would be a blessing.

So, if you haven’t purchased my eBook yet and would want it for yourself (or for someone else), using the bike coupon code will save you 50% and I’ll know that you want to help us buy that bike for Noah.

Also, if you’re a blogger and want to share about it on your blog (the sale and the reason behind it), please do so! (You can even use my bike button I made.)

Thanks so much!

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The Birthday Present That I Can Never Top

Angie — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:40:52 +0000

photo by 'smil

Have you ever given someone a gift and realized that it was so good, so perfect, so wonderful that you will never be able to give that person a better gift?

Maybe you wandered through a vintage thrift store and found your best friend one of those plastic charm necklaces that you guys used to be crazy about when you were kids.

Or, maybe you sent your parents on the trip they had always dreamed about but just never could bring themselves to spend the money on.

This year, I gave Eric a watch for his birthday. He hasn’t had one in years, and had been missing it badly. He knew he was getting the watch though. He picked it out. Not only does it tell time, but it has a compass and thermometer on it. He has been amusing us by telling us what direction he is standing. He looks pretty cute wearing it too. Funny how a gift that weighs just a few ounces could bring him so much excitement.

But, no, that gift of a few ounces is not the gift that I can’t top. Eleven years ago, I simply didn’t have the time or energy to buy him a gift. Still, he said that the 7 pound 3 ounce gift that I gave him on his 24th birthday was the best — our first child, Noah.

Happy birthday to two of my boys — the one who is taller than me, and the one who (sadly) will probably be taller than me very soon. You have both brought such love and laughter into my life. It’s funny how it’s your birthdays, but I feel like I got the gift.

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Many Little Links: July 24, 2010

Angie — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:43:48 +0000

My kitchen table is buried under school materials for next school year (aka “next month”) and here I am – writing a blog post instead. Hopefully one day soon I’ll get all of that planning done. (Fingers crossed!) Even better would be if I could get caught up on my email too. Dream big, Angie!

For now, I’ll just share some links that I have enjoyed from around the Internet:

Why Your Blog Has No Comments – Money and Risk
A look at how you may be keeping people from commenting on your blog by the road blocks you set up on your commenting.

Best Times to List on Etsy – Everything Etsy
This will come in really handy for me. You know, if I ever put anything in to my new Etsy shop.

Stain Removal: How to Remove Food Grease Stains - Mama’s Laundry Talk
I don’t know about you, but I think the rule at our house is that a minimum of 50% of stains have to be from something with some grease factor.

Make Your Own Chic Embellished Tea Towels - Make and Takes
Holy heck! These are crazy cute! One day, if I stop being scared of my sewing machine, I might even tackle making one.

Mark the End of Your Year with a Book – The Homeschool Classroom (written by Michele from Just in Case)
I’m kind of an emotional sap. That’s just me, and I’ll admit it. So, this idea, which is amazing for any parents (not just those that homeschool), really tugged at my heart.

Make a Giant Rosary with Kids – Catholic Icing
This is truly an outside the box thinking project. I think most kids would think this was an amazing project. As in, one of those when they all sit around when you are long gone and they are in their seventies and say, “Hey – remember that time that we made a Rosary with Mom out of a Pool Noodle? Good times.”

Yaya Meets St. Anthony – Conversion Diary
Oh my goodness! This tickled me so much that I had to read it out loud to Eric.

Pillow Cookies – Bakerella
My stomach growled the first time I saw this, and when I just looked at it to write about it, my stomach growled again. We absolutely must make these amazing looking cookies that have brownies inside.

Homemade Roasted Roma Tomatoes – Make and Takes
I just picked my first Roma tomato this evening. I can’t wait until I have enough to try this recipe. They look delicious!

10 Things to Cook in a Muffin Tin – Feels Like Home
And to think, I only use mine to make cupcakes and muffins. Love these ideas! (Then again, I do hate washing the muffin tins later.)

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7 Quick Takes: July 23, 2010 (Vol. 46)

Angie — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:19:05 +0000

~ 1 ~

Very soon, we will be having a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party (for Jack and Noah) where there will be right around 20 children. Yes, that’s a two and a zero. So much for homeschool kids being unsocialized.

On a funny note, I think it’s a sign that they’re homeschooled as none of the guests are relatives of ours (all friends), yet the ages of the children attending will range from several children who are about to start kindergarten to the oldest two children attending about to start 7th and 8th grade.

~ 2 ~

Molly (age 5) declared that she needed to prepare for the boys’ birthday party. She then dropped to the floor and began doing push ups.

Who knows what she was thinking. Apparently Chuck E. was formerly a drill sergeant, and Molly just wants to be ready. (That girl is just a hoot!)

~ 3 ~

The children have now officially attended their very first county fair!

We rode rides (the Tilt-a-Whirl was everyone’s favorite), ate tasty food (“Hello rib eye sandwiches and elephant ears!”), saw all kinds of animals, and got to look all through the 4-H exhibits. Jack was thrilled to find that he got an extra ribbon on one of his posters that is going to the state fair.

~ 4 ~

I prepared eggplant for the first time ever, making these Eggplant Parm Rolls that I had while I was at Blissdom. It was a little time intensive, but it was very tasty. And, the best part to me was that we grew the eggplant, zucchini, and basil that the recipe called for. Yeah, Garden!

~ 5 ~

Eric just downloaded his grades for this past semester and he got A’s in both of his classes. He was thrilled, and we all gave him hugs and kudos. This semester put him just about half way done with his bachelors degree as well as giving him a total GPA of just over 3.8 (out of 4.0).

None too shabby for the guy whose first college attempt transcripts gave me a cold chill up my spine.

Clearly this college success has made him insane though, as he just couldn’t help himself but to look into a Masters degree program that would work well for him, even though he has several years left (since he just goes part time) on his undergraduate work.

Apparently he doesn’t remember that my Master’s degree is just sitting in a filing cabinet — I would be happy to share with him.

~ 6 ~

Last week, I wrote in my 7 Quick Takes that I was looking forward to a quiet and uneventful weekend, as I hadn’t had that in such a long time. Then, thinking better of actually putting that in writing, I deleted that line.

Apparently I didn’t hit delete quickly enough.

On Friday of last week, my minivan died. It ended up needing to be towed to the repair center. Ironically, we already had an appointment on Monday morning for maintenance service. It ended up that the alternator had died. Over $600 later (includes that maintenance service), I’m back to driving again.

Of course, before the weekend could be done though, I also spent about five hours in the ER with my Mom for a leg infection and bronchitis. Poor Mom!

~ 7 ~

I ordered several books that I needed for the kids for this coming school year. I also added in the book Whoopie Pies. I haven’t had a chance to make any yet, but oh my goodness — these look so tasty! I can’t wait for a reason (or even a non-reason) to try out some of the recipes.

Do you have any favorite single topic cookbooks?

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

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Savvy Blogging Summit Talks and Worksheets Available for Purchase

Angie — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:32:41 +0000

I’m so excited to be able to share with everyone (especially those that were interested in going to Savvy Blogging Summit but couldn’t), all of the talks (along with worksheets) from Savvy Blogging Summit are available for purchase now.

One talk is available for free download, and it is J.D. Roth’s keynote talk “Everyone Has a Story to Tell.”

All of the other talks (many with power points, worksheets, or other notes) are available for $10 per talk, or $97 for the whole set.

Available talks are:

Blogging in the Media
Building Community
Communication and Personal Productivity
Consulting and Proposal Writing
CSS/Code and Design
Effective Monetization
Law/Accounting
Media Kit Workshop
Photography
SEO Tips and Strategies
Strategic Planning/Vision

This was an amazing conference, and if you’re wanting to grow your blog, these talks would be a great investment. (I will admit right here, these are affiliate links, and I really hope that you’ll use it, as it helps keep us in school books and the like. However, even if you didn’t use the link here, I still think it’s worth purchasing.)

So, hop over and check out the various talks and what is included with each download from Savvy Blogging Summit 2010.

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Top Ten Take Aways About Monetization from #SBSummit

Angie — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:28:21 +0000

at OhAmanda.com

I am planning to use my Top Ten Tuesdays for the next many weeks to highlight one talk that I listened to at Savvy Blogging Summit and pick out ten great tips or thoughts from that talk. This week, I’m going to look at the Effective Monetization talk from J.D. Roth of Getting Rich Slowly.

1. Space your ads out. Try not to have too many visible at the same time. He suggested not being able to see more than about two at a time.

2. Test your ads – see if moving them around can help your revenue! Or, something as simple as removing a divider line between an ad and sidebar content might help.

3. Figure out your five biggest pages for traffic. How many have you done anything special for to help with monetization?

4. Become an affiliate of something that you are very passionate about and can talk about often!

5. Go out of your way to try to monetize pages that have great page rank on Google! (Don’t just think of your main page!)

6. Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things. – quote from David Ogilvy (J.D. added to that quote that he had written up that advertising can also be evil when people are trying to be deceptive.)

7. Try to make ads contextual. Give readers what they want.

8. If you have too many ads on your website, it gets too cluttered and looks too commercial.

9. A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. (another quote J.D. wrote up from David Ogilvy)

10. Too many ads can lead to the paradox of choice. Too many choices can make it too difficult to decide.

The talks from Savvy Blogging Summit are now available for purchase! Go check them out — you can even pick up the keynote talk for free.

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