photo by JonJon2k8

I have read snippets of several studies that show that people tend to buy more when given fewer choices.  It seems so counter intuitive in our culture.  Aren’t lots of choices better?

Let me tell you, if you had seen me in the Verizon store looking at new cell phones, you would have known that this is the truth.  I kid you not, I showed Eric one of those old cell phones that flips open and does nothing but phone calls and said, “We should just get these.”  (I’m a texter who has grown to love a QWERTY keyboard though, so I couldn’t really do it unless I absolutely had to.)

A guy came over to give us the spiel, although he left after just barely talking to us when he found out we weren’t picking out our phones that night.  (That was before he made a joke when we said we don’t like our current cell phones because they sometimes turn off on their own.  Thanks for standing by your product, Verizon guy.)  When someone else was going to come help us, that same guy quickly told him in a quiet voice, “They’re just looking.  They’re not going to buy tonight.”  As you can imagine, the second guy didn’t come to see if we had any questions.

Instead, Eric and I just bounced around for wall to wall in the Verizon store like pinballs saying things like, “This phone is $200, plus we’d have to pay an extra $30 per month?” and “I don’t want to try to look at the Internet on a two inch screen.”  Oh, and there was a lot of me saying, “I just don’t know.”

Finally, there was me saying, “Really – I don’t know, but let’s leave.”

photo by K!T

I’d like to have some snappy ending to this post, but it’s making me feel a little jittery just thinking about the trip to into the cell phone store.  All I know is that if I don’t come to some kind of decision eventually, you might just have to reach me via tin can attached to a rope, okay?

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photo by Liz (perspicacious.org)

A few years ago, if you looked in my closet, you would think that I had a ton of clothes.  And, really – I did.  You could have seen them.  I was using every spare inch of my long closet rod, plus a short rod as well (for pants, dresses, and skirts).

While this sounds nice, in theory, I found that I was hardly wearing any of those things.  Plus, I would get overwhelmed trying to decide what to wear. There were so many choices, and I would be upset with myself that I thought I had nothing to wear.  “How can there be nothing to wear when there are so many clothes?”

Finally, I knew that I needed to clean through my closet.  I was shocked at what I was left with when it was all done.

Step One: A Visual Culling

The first thing to do is just look through your closet.  Do you have some special items that every time you wear them people make comments about how good you look? Maybe you have things that you know for a fact that you feel great about yourself when you’re wearing (don’t confuse this with “This is super comfortable” — I mean you feel like, “Wow!  I look great!”)?  Take any of those things and put them in a keep pile.

Now, of course, you need to look for just the opposite.  Are there clothes that you wear that people seem to consistently ask you if you feel sick while you’re wearing it? (It just may be a really bad color for you.)  I once had a dress that a couple of people asked me if I was pregnant when I wore it.  (I was not.)  I even had a student that insisted that I must be pregnant.  Unless I wanted to look pregnant when I was not (I didn’t), then that would be a perfect choice for a piece that would get the fast track to the donate pile.

Do you have clothes with big rips or stains?  Things that are just beyond repair?  Put these right into the trash if there is nothing salvageable about them.  (If you enjoy crafting and could use some of the fabric, feel free to set it aside for that.)

Step Two: Try Everything On

Yes, I mean it.  Try on every single thing that’s left in your closet (shirts, sweaters, shoes, dresses, skirts, pants, everything!). From the skirt you wear all the time to the shirt that still has tags on it that you bought three years ago and keep thinking, “Yeah, I could wear that sometime.”  That day has come.  (I will admit that during one of these clean outs, I finally tried on a purple cardigan that I had received for my birthday years before.  I loved it so much that I wore it constantly.  Well, until it developed many holes.  If I hadn’t bothered to really put it in and think about it while I had it on, it might have gone into a donate pile long ago.)

For this to be most effective, model everything in a large mirror for yourself, show a friend or your husband, or do both.  When I do this, I look in our big mirror and I ask Eric’s opinion.

Appropriately put things in either the keep, donate, or trash piles.  Be honest.

If there is a piece that you’ve had for years, never worn, but still want to keep, then mark it somehow. Maybe put a tag on it with the date that you cleaned out the closet.  If, in a year, you still haven’t worn it – ask yourself why you aren’t wearing it and why you want to keep it. Is there a reason it should sit idle in your closet when someone else could be enjoying it?  (And, there certainly might be. I have a black dress that I have never worn.  I just haven’t had the occasion, but it will definitely be perfect when the occasion comes.)

Step Three: Put Things Back in Your Closet

Put only the things that ended up in your keep pile into your closet.  Enjoy that you have more space.  And, at this moment, know that you can and will wear everything that is in your closet. What a great feeling!

Step Four: Repeat

This isn’t a one time project.  At least once a year, repeat all of these steps.  Even if you think, “I just tried this on last year,” do it again.  Your tastes will change, and so might your body.  There were some skirts I used to wear all the time years ago, and during the most recent cleaning, Eric and I laughed and declared that I looked like I was on the show Big Love.  They went into the donate pile.

Okay, so now that you have your closet organized, there is a lot more that you can do with the clothing in your house!  Make sure to go visit some amazing blogging friends of mine who are also giving tips this week on how to clear your clothing clutter:

Tara from Feels Like Home is sharing how to make a keepsake quilt (a quilt from baby clothes)

Amy from Raising Arrows is posting about how to deal with large family hand me downs

Cheryl from Somewhat Crunchy Mama is talking about organizing clothes for storage

Lauren at Mama’s Laundry Talk is posting about storing clothes for possible future babies

Nony from A Slob Comes Clean is helping us deal with clothing as clutter

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

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at OhAmanda.com

Though this doesn’t cover all of the Savvy Blogging Summit classes, I’m going to finish up this nine part series of top ten tips from Savvy Blogging Summit classes with a highlight of ten great tips from the SEO (search engine optimization) class.

1. Search engine robots can’t crawl information in a video.  So, if you’re doing a vlog or posting other video information, consider typing out and publishing a transcript along with the vlog.

2. When writing links, it’s not helpful to say go here for information about homeschooling. It’s more helpful to say “check out The Homeschool Classroom for information about homeschooling” because you have used the site’s name instead of “go here.”  And, it’s even better to say “Check out The Homeschool Classroom to read about homeschooling tips and ideas.”  This is because it used keywords about the site in the link name as well.

3. The more often you blog, the more the Google Spider will come and spider your site. This will keep your content fresher with Google.

4. You really want your specific pages (posts)  to get ranked for keywords, not as worried about your .com in general. For instance, if you have a killer strawberry shortcake recipe on your site, you would hope for that specific link to be ranked highly for strawberry shortcake recipes.  Your whole site wouldn’t necessarily rank high for strawberry shortcake recipes (and that’s okay).

5. Our instructor told us that Google doesn’t care about the “no follow” anymore. He says it is “dead.”

6. It is suggested that you should guest post on other people’s blogs in order to get links back to your own blog. (As far as I’m concerned, the traffic back to your blog doesn’t hurt either!)

7.  Blog posts of 300 – 600 words are best (according to our instructor).  He also said that 2 – 4 links per 500 words of text are fine, but not more.

8. Duplicate content (having the same post on two different sites) can definitely be a negative! Google will usually send the traffic to the larger of the two sites that have the content on them.

9. If you want to post something on another site that you already have somewhere else, it is best to rework the post. Even just changing a word in the title and one word in the post makes it seem like a new post to search engines.  (I would recommend a little more reworking than that though.  That’s just me though.)

10. Use Alt text to provide search engines more useful information. Also, make sure to give files descriptive names.  For instance, indoor_smores.jpg is a much better name than IMG9810.jpg.

(You can read some of the other top ten tips from various Savvy Blogging Summit Classes as well, such as: Media Kits, Effective Monetization, Personal Productivity, Photography, Blog Design, More Blog Design Tips, and Blogging Business Law/Accounting. You can also buy the recordings and handouts from Savvy Blogging Summit.)

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We have recently discovered the insane yumminess of Nutella.  Molly wants to have it on just about everything, with our favorite being whole wheat toast with Nutella and sliced bananas.  A few days ago, we decided to make some modified S’mores, and everyone loved them!

Ingredients:

• Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut spread)
• Marshmallow Cream
• Graham Crackers

And, obviously, just grab a graham cracker and spread your desired amount of marshmallow cream and Nutella that you like.  Enjoy!

This post is linked to: Tasty Tuesday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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After Summer – Narrating Life
I really loved this piece reflecting on the end of summer and beginning of fall.  Miranda really had a clever way of describing these two seasons.  (Seriously – this has to be on of my favorite posts I’ve ever read.)

Finding Stillness to Cure the Illness – Zen Habits
Tips for finding the stillness in life, and what it can do for you.

Turning Your Children’s Artwork into Heirloom Quality Crafts – The Homeschool Classroom (written by Kami from Nurturing the Tender Years)
My kids, especially Molly, make lots of pictures and crafts, so I loved these ideas for ways to preserve them in some uncommon ways.

Help for a Mom-t0-Be – The Finer Things in Life
Amy shares how a reader came to help her near the end of her pregnancy, and then shares some ideas of how to offer help to a pregnant Mom.

10 Lies You Will Hear Before You Pursue Your Dreams – Marc and Angel Hack Life
Have a dream that you have always wanted to pursue but you’re just too concerned/worried/scared to do it?  Read what Marc has to say about it.

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~ 1 ~

With any luck, I think I’m going to try to drink my last soda tomorrow. (You know, barring being somewhere where that is absolutely all that is available to drink.)  Who knows if it will actually work out, as I have been drinking way too much soda for way too many years.  But, on the up side, Eric agreed that he should do it too.  So, at least I’m not going it alone.

Wish me luck!

~ 2 ~

Hey — wanna know something very exciting?

I mean really exciting?

I made scrambled eggs for the first time ever.

Oh yeah, I know you are now crazy impressed, but pull yourself together.  (And, if you haven’t read Will You Still Love Me If I’m Not Mary Poppins? it might just explain why this is an exciting thing for me.)

~ 3 ~

I actually had Eric take a picture of that amazing event, and I was going to share it with you.  I was pretty horrified with the picture though. I had already been set on the fact that I needed to start working more seriously on losing weight (or, you know, working on it at all).  That picture pretty much cinched it for me.

Maybe someday I’ll show you proof that I made scrambled eggs.  This is not that day.

~ 4 ~

I’m going to try to read (or skim through) The Well-Trained Mind.  I got Eric and the kids to pick it up for me from the library the other day.

Apparently since Noah had to check it out on his card, he was quick to make sure the librarian know, “This is for my Mom,” in a way like he was worried she would think it was for him.  You know, because a lot of 11 year old boys want to work their way through 864 pages about classical education.

~ 5 ~

I don’t care what that book may say — we won’t be learning Latin.

After Noah took one year of Latin at co-op, he told his teacher, “I really like you, so don’t feel bad, but I guess Latin just isn’t my thing.”

~ 6 ~

Speaking of co-op, we’re actually starting up our homeschool co-op again soon.  I have yet to prepare (at all).  I’m teaching one semester of photography and one semester of altered art.  It should be fun (I hope), and I have 15 kids in my class.

This year, our co-op actually had to move to a larger church, as there are over 70 children involved in our co-op this year.  It should be pretty exciting.  Well – if I ever manage to sit down and plan my first class, that is.

~ 7 ~

I tried the new Talking Rain Twist water today.  (I got it on sale at Kroger, plus there were coupons on some of the bottles.  That meant that I paid for $2.82 for six of them, instead of their normal price of $1.59 each.)

I liked what it said on the side of the bottle, “As in Life, Chill for Best Results.”
This post is linked to 7 Quick Takes and Weekly Wrap Up.

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Thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit in August!  I just love your visits and comments, and it especially means so much to me to see many of the same people stopping by time after time.

Thank you also to all of those who referred friends and readers to my site in this past month!

A special shout out to the top ten referrers:

1. The Homeschool Classroom

2. Facebook (You can find Many Little Blessings on Facebook too!)

3. Heart of the Matter Online

4. We are THAT Family

5. My 3 Boybarians

6. Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

7. Conversion Diary

8. Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

9 (tie). Catholic Mothers Online and Twitter

10. Oh Amanda

In case you missed any of these posts, here were the top ten most visited posts here on Many Little Blessings during August 2010:

1. Our Homeschool Curriculum 2010 – 2011

2. Our Homeschool Area

3. Our Homeschool Daily Schedule

4. Will You Still Love Me If I’m Not Mary Poppins?

5. How to Use Your iPod Touch as a PDA

6. Organizing Our Homeschool Papers and Plans in Weekly Files

7. Throwing an Inexpensive Birthday Party

8. Chocolate Whoopie Pies

9. Quick and Easy Party Recipe: Cucumber Sandwiches

10. Finding Educational Activities in the Most Unexpected Places

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photo by DeclanTM

As a blogger, I’m obviously a big fan of writing.  It is something that I have enjoyed my whole life.  When I was a kid, I enjoyed writing stories, I always had lots of pen pals, and as I got older, I was always one of those students that had a hard time staying within the page limits of an assignment.  I can’t help it — I just love to write.

Writing is one of those things that I hoped my kids would love too.  Unfortunately, it just isn’t.  As a matter of fact, at least some of them act like I’m torturing them if I try to get them to write up even a paragraph. It’s definitely an area that we need to work on.

However, what does that mean for trying to write a paper in science or social studies, for instance?  Is it more important to work on writing skills or to see what your child actually knows?

In our homeschool co-op a couple of years ago, Noah was taking a state history class.  As a final project, they could either make a poster about any state topic of their choice or they could write a paper.  It seemed like a given that Noah would do a poster, even though his mind is full of so many great ideas.  Things like fine motor delays and Autism often keep those ideas off of paper.

Noah chose to do his project about a particular battle that took place in our state, so I helped him to find some pictures on the Internet of major players in the battle.  Then, I sat down at the computer and told him we need to write up just a bit to put on the poster with it.

I was both shocked and not surprised at all in the same moment when what I intended to be a couple of sentences turned into a full page (with single spaced lines) account of what led up to the battle, information about the people in the battle, an account of the details of the actual battle, and then the aftermath.  I just typed as he told me all about it.  Noah was so proud of his paper, and I was too!

It reminded me that just because he would have written two sentences if he had to write it himself, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t know the material in so much detail that it was surprising.  And, it also reminded me that even though we need to work on writing skills, I also need to give the kids a chance to show off what they know without the pressure of having to be the ones to write it all out.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

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at OhAmanda.com

If your blog is a business and you hope to sell advertiser or work with companies on promotions, it can be very helpful to have a media kit available. You never know when someone might request it for some fabulous opportunity.  How much better it would be to be able to say, “No problem – I’m attaching it right now.”  Instead of having to think to yourself, “Shoot!  I’ve been meaning to put one of those together!”

One of the sessions at the Savvy Blogging Summit was about building a Blogging Media Kit. So, keeping with my series of writing ten tips from Savvy Blogging Summit classes, I thought I would pick ten great tips from the class (though it was bursting full of tips, so it was hard to pick just ten).

1. Question to ask yourself when building your media kit:

• Who is your audience?
• What makes your blog special or unique?
• What blogs are similar or competitive?
• Do you blog to a network or community?
• What is your style, niche, format?
• What other types of media do you include?
• Who are you/your team?
• What are your stats?

2. You should have an about me section which covers some of the following:

• Interests
• History (Who are you? Where are you from?)
• Credentials/Affiliations
• Goals for Your Blog
• Contact Information (even if it’s just a link to a form)

3. If you’re really stuck about what to say about yourself and your blog, ask friends/family and readers to describe you and your blog. They will probably be more generous (and more accurate) than you will be about yourself.

4. When talking about demographics, think beyond just your blog traffic. Mention your stats on social media sties, such as Facebook and Twitter as well.

5. Use an online survey tool to find out demographics about your readers, such as age, gender, income, educational level, employment status, or other information that might be pertinent to your blog (especially that is of interest to companies you might be working with).

6. Be clear about where you will be able to share information. For example, you might say, “I will write one blog post, will tweet about it at least twice during a certain event, and will share it the link with my Facebook fans.”  Help advertisers/sponsors understand that your reach goes beyond your blog’s actual site.

7. What are some of your usual topics and keywords that you are using on your blog?  What are the keywords that are bringing people to your site?

8. Make sure that you are keeping track of (and then sharing information about) site stats. Google Analytics is a great source for this, especially since most companies feel very comfortable with those numbers.

9. Make lots of different advertising options available. Make advertising easy and accessible.

10. Some items you might include in a media kit:

• Awards and accolades
• Industry conferences attended
• Graphics, logo, elevator pitch, bio
• Contact information
• Advertising options, rates, guidelines (what are the sizes available, rates, etc?)
• Fee and payment options (For example – Will you accept Paypal only?)
• Reviews, Contest opportunities
• List of brands that you’ve worked with (you don’t have to say what you’ve done with them, you can even just put logos)
• Brand, reader testimonials

(You can read some of the other top ten tips from various Savvy Blogging Summit Classes as well, such as: Effective Monetization, Personal Productivity,  Photography, Blog Design, More Blog Design Tips, and Blogging Business Law/Accounting. You can also buy the recordings and handouts from Savvy Blogging Summit.)

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I recently realized that I’m not really very good about posting here to send you somewhere else that I have written.  If you’re a homeschooler, you might be interested in some of the reviews that I have written at Curriculum Choice:

Scribblenauts Game for the Nintendo DS (Yes, I did write a homeschool review about this.  Trust me.)

Language of God Grammar Series from Catholic Heritage Curricula

Horizons Math

Wordly Wise 3000

Get Your Hands On Learning!

Draw and Tell Bible and Saints Stories

Map Skills by Continental Press

The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History

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