I have a travel blog and I only take car trips. People have asked me why I don’t fly when I travel. Truth be told, I don’t fly because my arms would get too tired. YUK YUK YUK YUK!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, ahem.

I don’t fly because it’s too expensive! And because I’d rather not lay down my fourth amendment rights and be subjected to naked viewing x-ray machines, thank you very much! :-p

Here’s a video that makes ya go WOWOW and wonder how these pilots do it. This is a short video– a 24-year old female pilot tries to land this plane in 155 mile winds. It’s crazy!

This is not why I don’t fly, but it’s another good reason not to. lol

LOL, as soon as I blogged about liking Chuck Norris movies, my young boys are back into “tactical gear.” I have one son who won’t go anywhere without his Daniel Boone-style coonskin cap, and another who loves militia-type gear. But then, they both love both styles! My youngest can’t decide if he wants a buckskin suit or a 5.11 tactical outfit for his birthday. All I know is that I cannot afford a buckskin suit for a growing young boy! The tactical pants and shirt are much, much more affordable! Plus, you never see Chuck Norris wearing a buckskin suit and moccasins! The fringes are too girlie, I suppose.

I am by nature an extremely organized person. This can be good and bad. It’s good when I have assignments or goals. It’s bad when I’m working with less organized people, lol. Lots of sparks fly from time to time.

Honestly, I don’t know how “unorganized” people homeschool. I’d go to bed every night in terror, hoping that my work done by the “seat of my pants” worked. I’m too high-strung for such dangerous living! Plus I have this terrible propensity of throwing away papers. I really don’t know how it happens, but for some reason, I’m always throwing away papers we really need to keep, like insurance documents, receipts, etc…. sigh. So I have a few boxes where I toss EVERYTHING in now, according to subject.

OK, so anyway, I have a very, very, VERY organized desk. I actually have two of them (one for school and one for my writing jobs). This is the desk where we establish our homeschooling “base.” To prevent clutter (and me losing paperwork), I keep the desk stripped bare, save for the current lessons and current books on which we are working. Other books and notebooks (like textbooks, score keys, etc) are stored on a bookshelf. When a child finishes a book, I put the expired lessons on the bookshelf and take out the new ones, and put it in its proper shelf on my desk.

This is a wild looking desk, I know. The base is a very old teacher’s desk we acquired from an old school building. It’s HUGE and it weighs a ton. It takes two men or three of us girls to move the thing. The top is a plywood box that my husband made. I drew up the plans of what I thought I needed, and he constructed it. It is the best organizer I’ve ever had.

I’ll be posting more about our curriculum and actual routine, but right now I just wanted to give curious onlookers an idea of how things look. You can see slots in the desk. These things hold the kids’ notebooks (they do not write in workbooks, they write their answers in spiral notebooks– this saves money), their charts (we keep track of exactly when they work and what they work on), journals (we have food/physical activity journals and music journals), and their Bible verses notebooks (more on that in a second). In these slots, I also store printed-out answer keys, extra printer paper, and extra notebooks.

I also have Goofy– my mascot– on the shelf. :) Everything has a particular place so that if it goes missing or undone, I know about it immediately. The kids fill in their own journals– for example, they must practice a musical instrument or work in music theory at least 30 minutes a day, four days a week. So in their music journal, they write down exactly what they have worked on, and for how long. I’ll be blogging about the books we use for such purposes in future posts. I think we’ve now got this thing all down to a science, lol.

About Bible verses. My pastor came up with a brilliant idea: he has the children write ten verses from the New Testament four times a week, in their best handwriting. Then, the children must read these verses aloud to a parent. It is AMAZING at how well-educated my kids have become from this. They have large portions of the Bible memorized and understand the doctrines. This requirement also fulfills: handwriting skills, oral-reading skills, spelling, grammar, and literate sentence structure. And because it is a discipline and because it is the Word of God, it is helping the children with their character and reasoning skills, too. My kids are all excellent spellers, readers, writers, and they all have scholarly skills in the understanding of the scriptures. I highly recommend this for any homeschooling parent.

Now about textbooks. We use the Abeka books, but have supplemented their education with a wide variety of books, DVDs, computer software, and field trips. Homeschooling is, essentially, our life right now. We have a structure upon which we homeschool– a philosophy of education, if you will. It is heavily based on reading and on history. Everything springs out of that, really. We do not read fiction books anymore. I think my youngest, who is now 11, read his last fiction book last summer. Why am I against fiction books? Well, why read fiction when there are so many interesting and edifying non-fiction books to read? The problem is that public schools and libraries are filled to the ceiling with mind-melting drivel that does nothing to educate the young.

Now before you think I am some kind of dictator— I am!!! Muahahahahahah! OK, ahem, well… my kids HAVE read fiction. Actually, for the first five years of schooling, I allowed fiction books. I’ve usually stuck to the classics (Black Beauty, Flat Stanley, Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, which are non-fiction books but read as fiction). And if my kids want to read a fiction book today, they may after it is approved. But they really don’t want to anymore. Why read about weird stuff like sorcery or talking mice, when the adventures of Daniel Boone (written by the man himself) and the exploits of missionaries (like John Wesley and Hudson Taylor and Elisabeth Elliot) are so much more compelling (not to mention character-building)? Garbage in, garbage out, I say. To us, homeschooling isn’t a means to an end, it is the journey of life itself. I am being homeschooled as I homeschool. It’s a way of life.

More later…

The rumors are true. OK, I just wanted to make this clear. It’s coming straight form the horse’s mouth, ya’ll hear?

I love Chuck Norris movies.

It’s true! And I’m crazy! I’m probably the only woman alive who will sit through Chuck Norris movies and start waving my arms when he beats up the bad guys! My husband wonders what has gotten into me. I don’t know, but I just love the action. I saw Delta Force and I am smitten. I love his Walker, Texas Ranger stuff (that Corpus Christi real estate is perfect for gunfights). And as a kid, I saw the old Bruce Lee/Chuck Norris karate duel. Loved them!

But, hey, what’s better than a Chuck Norris movie? A Chuck Norris proverb! I found these on YouTube, and laughed so heartily that the neighbors down the road needed earplugs. Check this one out– it’s great! I LOVE Number 9 best. What do you like best?

Here’s a funny commercial Chuck Norris made with Mike Huckabee. I’m not a Huckabee supporter, but I’d vote for Chuck Norris any day!

[bump] This is a popular post, and I believe an important one. I bumped it to the top for today. You can see more new posts, below. :)

I saw this video and it blew me away. My husband got one of these cards recently– an American Express credit card with an RFID chip. All for your security, of course.

But the sneaky little deception is that it’s not for your security at all! Watch this little video of a “Hacker/Futurist” who swipes the credit card information with an $8 device he bought off eBay.

The thing that REALLY blew me away most was that the Hacker said that credit card companies are not at all interested in security for the consumer. They are interested in the appearance of security for the consumer. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHY THIS IS!

I don’t for one second believe that any bank or company are unable to make electronic transactions secure. The big question is WHY won’t they?

Hey you Entrecards health bloggers! Have you heard of something called sublingual B-12? It’s a souped-up vitamin, loaded with B-12, B-6, and Folic Acid. It’s supposed to be easier to absorb, because you place the pill under your tongue– that’s where the “sublingual” term comes in; sublingual means under the tongue. The pill is kinda cute- it’s pink!

Anyway, it’s a hot seller (over 9 million pills sold so far) and it says it boosts energy, mental acuity, and health. I think the mental acuity aspect appeals to me, lol. I sure could use some acuity! Because the pill bypasses the digestive system, it’s good for people with diabetes, dementia, and others with digestive problems. The stuff is absorbed quickly and just goes zipping into your bloodstream. This is what it says it does:

* Promote energy, stamina, and improved mood
* Keep your memory sharp
* Provide focus to help you concentrate and stay on task
* Reduce the risk of age-related brain and heart diseases, including Alzheimer’s

I figure since it’s all-natural, it’s probably a good supplement, like a super-charged vitamin! I’d read that vitamins when taken orally do very little to add nutrition to the body, because the pills in the stomach are not as readily absorbed. I’ve never been a big vitamin taker for that reason, and also because they do upset my stomach. I don’t eat breakfast, so taking those horse pills in the morning bothered me.

Have you guys heard of it, tried it? The website is here, where you can read more and try sublingual B-12 today. I’d really like your opinions, if you have any.

Maybe you know that I sometimes blog for pay. I am a “disabled” mom with four kids– you better believe I’m going to blog for pay! I try to make the posts I write as interesting as possible, and I also try not to have too many obvious “paid” posts. This week has been a pretty good week (I count my weeks from Friday to Friday). I just wanted to say that I may have a few more paid posts hanging around, but I am trying to sprinkle them with some entertaining writing. And believe me when I say I am not going to turn this blog into a splog or a blog I use only for making money! I love to write, to muse, to share. I also love it that I am making some extra income. I do blog about things that interest me, paid or not paid. Just thought I’d say.

P.S. I haven’t forgotten about blogging more about my homeschooling exploits. I want to get a photo of my desk, and I just haven’t had time enough to tidy it up yet, for the photoshoot. But I haven’t forgotten!

Oooo you know how I have been bemoaning my Bluehost hosting problems? And my Whip An Orbit web hosting problems (although Whip An Orbit is behaving better now). I had another half-hour outage for all three blogs with Bluehost today. Boy, this is getting old. I’ve only been with them about two months now, and I’ve had a lot of problems.

I’m paying a lot of attention these days to websites discussing hosting sites and hosting information. Here’s a great website on linux web hosting and more. DUH! I wish I’d seen this earlier! It’s called Web Hosting Rating.

Cheap web hosting can be tricky and it definitely takes one with the technical knowledge and experience to be able to judge whether the host is good. More often than not, it is the bad experiences from using cheap web hosting that eventually leads people to lose trust in these low cost endevours and move onto more expensive options, which may not necessarily be better.

“Tricky” is the understatement of the month for me. Bluehost has been tricky. Yeah. [insert angry-face icon here]

Anyway, the site lists three things to look for when choosing a web host. There are some good articles there, too. The information may help you if you are looking for tips. Looks like this blog will be brimming with good ideas to come!

Found this at Mrs. W’s Kitchen. Hoh boy, does this speak to me! This is for all you cat owners out there. And this is why all my cats are now outside kitties. :D

All this talk about identity theft and credit card insecurity has me wondering about that service called Lifelock. It’s no secret that credit card companies and banks are NOT securing our data. It is time to take matters into our own hands! I’ve heard plenty about Lifelock on the radio. They have their own website and it has amazing– and infuriating– stories about people who have had their information stolen. They are grateful they had Lifelock. Lifelock guarantees identity theft protection, up to a million dollars! I know that’s more than I’m worth, lol! But they also help out by reducing all those credit card offers and other junk mail that fill up our mailboxes, and they monitor credit scores for fraud, and more. It’s only $10 a month! It sounds like a terrific insurance protection service. Do you or anyone you know have Lifelock?