Freaky Frugalite

What’s So Awful About Good Grammar?

Monday, July 11, 2011

I’ve seen a noticeable increase in articles, posts and Twitters about “grammar police” lately. Most of the stories run this way: a person will write about the importance of proper grammar and spelling, and the commenters usually criticize and whine that English is too difficult and that proper English doesn’t matter, anyway. Au contraire. Proper [...]

Chinese as a Second Language

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Comments Off

My kids, for some reason, are nuts about the Far East: China, Japan, etc. I never had much interest, really, until they got into it. I think they expressed interest after reading some stories about some of the marvelous missionaries who went to these countries, like Gladys Aylward from England and Eric Liddell. Gladys Aylward’s [...]

A College Education in Every Pot!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Comments Off

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Ashworth College for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. I never attended college after high school. Even back then, a college education was SO expensive. My parents couldn’t afford it, and my stepdad refused to use our biggest asset –the house– as collateral. After [...]

The Very Strange Story of the Wesley Ghost

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

6 Comments

I finished my third biographical book about Susanna Wesley, mother of Reverend John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, and Charles Wesley, the brilliant hymn writer. I’m obsessive like that, I guess. When I want to know a topic of history, I cram it all in. I once read four books about Queen Victoria, one [...]

I Never Understood This Fascination with the Mona Lisa

Saturday, April 9, 2011

6 Comments

The painting is FIVE HUNDRED years old. People are *still* wrapped up in the Mona Lisa. I was an art major in school. I took art history, art theory, art art art. Overwhelmingly, there was this strange fascination with Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The adoring attention always baffled me. It’s a very nice painting [...]

Kidzmet: Banishing Cookie Cutter Tutoring

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Comments Off

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Kidzmet for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. This is an extremely interesting organization: Kidzmet. You all know how I rail and rant about “cookie cutter” public schools. I attended several of these kinds of schools, and was never happy in them. Typical schools [...]

Thank you, Josephine Cochrane

Thursday, March 31, 2011

1 Comment

I had to write an article about dishwashers recently, and did a little digging into the invention. A woman named Josephine Cochran invented it, in 1886! Our dishwasher is our favorite kitchen appliance. I have never owned one before I made room for it in our kitchen renovation in 2010. We LOVE our dishwasher! Before [...]

Boredom– Killer of Innovation

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

4 Comments

The Old Geezer had a great blog post about boredom. He noted that in this modern world of electronics and gadgetry, some people still complain of boredom. Boredom was an infrequent condition for folks living in the “olden days,” as their lives were so filled with hard work that leisure time was scarce and precious. [...]

Random Toodles

Saturday, March 26, 2011

3 Comments

I have eccentric kids. For example: I caught my son last night, staying up WAY past his bedtime, secretly reading a book under his covers. Guess what it was? Strong’s Concordance to the Bible. In case you didn’t know, you could kill a dog with that book. It’s about 4 inches thick, weighs, what, 20 [...]