Category: General

We’re leaving to go camping as soon as the boys get out of school today so I won’t really have a chance to write anything important (as if I do anyway, but whatever).

So, let’s do something fun and trivial. I LIKE trivial!! 😀

Please play! It amuses me to read your questions/answers!

Let’s play an ask and answer game.

Here’s how it works:

The person before you has asked a question, please answer that question and then ask a question for the next person to answer. That’s it!

Please, keep it impersonal and ask fun questions.

Got it? Good. Now let’s play:

Question for the first person:

What’s a typical Friday evening for you?

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Another session of Coffee Chat starts tomorrow!

Oops! I didn’t write an introduction! My bad – blame it on the fact that my kids started back to school today. I feel like a robot today – everything is in automatic mode and I’m trying not to think too much or I’ll break down and cry (like I always do the first day of school).

I volunteered to host the Carnival of Family Life today on purpose – I knew I would need some distractions from releasing my kids out into the wild once again. So, if you find yourself suddenly kid-less, please consider clicking on the links below. Have you clicked outside your blogroll lately? 🙂

Education

Cindy presents To Copy Is To Cheat; Or Is It? posted at Life Without School.

Family Crafts and Activities

Joanne presents Make A Back To School Gift Basket posted at Homemade Gift Baskets. Joanne says, “I did this for my kids, even though they are homeschooled, and they loved it. It’s a cute way of presenting their school supplies.”

Joanne presents Easy Summer Craft For Kids posted at Summer And Kids!, discussing a very simple craft her daughter enjoyed at Girl Scout camp.

Family Fiction

Jenn presents In the Morning Light (Part One), a fictional story about a man diagnosed with terminal cancer who, facing the end of his life, also faces regret. Based on a writing prompt from A Thousand Words.

Patricia Twitchell presents The Adventures of Penny Pincher: Penny Pincher Learns A Secret posted at Just Bears and Stuff, inviting readers to “join Penny Pincher teddy bear as he learns a secret about ants in winter.” Patricia tells us that it’s a great story for children.

Family Finance

Super Saver presents Sorting a Lifetime of Accumulation posted at My Wealth Builder.

Debt Freedom Fighter presents Watch Out For These 5 Retail Rip-offs posted at Discover Debt Freedom!.

Money Answer Guy presents How Do I Keep From Getting Hit With Credit Card Charges? posted at The Money Answer Guy.

GrrlScientist presents High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families posted at Living the Scientific Life, a review of what GrrlScientist calls “a nonfiction masterpiece that will keep you awake at night planning how to safeguard your economic future — all on your own!” She says that the book focuses upon the “most important and long-term relationship in your life: your relationship with your work, and how that has changed substantially since the 1970’s. It also discusses the myth that the average American can become a wise enough financial planner and investor to ‘beat the odds’ and become financially comfortable.”

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Upromise Survey: Saving For College, Getting Tougher? posted at The Digerati Life, a discussion of backo-to-school expenditures, focusing upon saving for college.

Matthew Paulson presents 3 Proven Tips To Start Organizing Your Home Easily posted at American Consumer News.

Debt Freedom Fighter presents 5 Ways A Good Credit Report Can Enhance Your Quality Of Life posted at Discover Debt Freedom!.

Money Answer Guy presents Why Don’t We Save More Than We Do? posted at The Money Answer Guy.

Family Health and Wellness

Matthew Paulson presents Love Your Kids With These Healthy Lunches posted at American Consumer News.

Lovelyn presents Recycle Your Compact Fluorescent Bulbs posted at The Art of Balanced Living.

Kathleen Gage presents Never enough time – or is there? posted at Daily Awareness. Kathleen opines that “There is not enough time to do all we think we must do, want to do or dream of doing. One of the few things we truly possess is time. How we choose to use the ‘here and now’ is a personal and a powerful choice.”

Toni presents When TLC is more healing than medicine posted at Wifely Steps, telling us that “the care of a husband is even more healing than medicine.”

Alvaro Fernandez presents Exercising the body is exercising the mind posted at SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution. Alvaro asks, “Want to generate a few extra neurons?”

Family Humor

Denise Swank presents Goodbye Lazy Summer Days posted at There’s always room for one more. Denise tells us, “I have six kids — three 3 biological and three internationally adopted — aged 21 – 13 months. I try to find the humor in everything.”

Gabriel Almada presents Se habla español posted at Live from Waterloo.

Family Relationships and Self-Improvemen

Ishan presents A letter to Father posted at Life of an Unorthodox Loyalist, a heart-wrenching message from a teen-aged son to a father who is not paying attention.

Kathryn presents How Many Tears Does A Mom Have? posted at knittsings, saying, “Letting go of a loved one is never easy, even when you know she will be home at Christmas.”

Laura Scarborough presents forever ‘fected posted at Adventures in Juggling.

Family Travel

Matthew Paulson presents Travelers Who Wait Might Have a Disappointing Christmas: Nearly 60 Million Airline Seats will not be offered posted at The Travel Advocate.

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Thank you all for participating in the Carnival this week!

Submit a blog article for the September 1, 2008, End of Summer Edition of the Carnival, hosted at Almost Frugal by clicking here!

The Carnival archive can be viewed here.

Interested in hosting a future edition? Review the schedule here and then drop a line indicating the week you would like to have the Carnival visit your site!

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you’re apt to keep very unusual habits. (Actually, no. I’m a creature of habit right now and usually wake up at the crack of dawn) Whether you’re a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence – you like to experiment with your lifestyle. (Um, no again. I like my lifestyle just like it is – fun, secure and safe) Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. (Expressing my individuality is important to me, and I often lie awake at night but I don’t think about where I fit into the world but rather, how I can write about it) You enjoy staying home, but that doesn’t mean you’re a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends. (This one is true. I am a homebody and proud of it)

This quiz was totally off the mark. Though I have been staying up later working on some websites, it’s not the norm – I’m usually in bed and ASLEEP by 10:00.

What about you?
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Another session of Coffee Chat starts soon!

Saturday, I mentioned that I had a few annoucements to make.

Are you ready?

1. I have a berry-red raincoat to giveaway.

I went through the boys’ closets this past week. Though I give most of the boys’ clothes they have outgrown to one of my nephews to wear, I didn’t realize until after I had already dropped the clothes off that I had this raincoat, too. But instead of giving it to my SIL (who I don’t think wants it anyway), I thought I’d offer it to one lucky reader.

The raincoat is from Lands End. If you have any experience with Lands End, then you KNOW they sell quality stuff. Though both of my boys wore this coat, it’s still in great shape. It doesn’t have any rips, snags or tears, though it does seem to have one slight discoloration patch on the front (you can see it in the picture). There is a reflective strip on the back of the coat.

It’s a small, size 7/8. (It’s too small for MK, of course. But he was a good sport to model for me).

If you would like the coat, here’s what you need to do:

Leave a comment. I’ll leave this drawing open all week to give more readers a chance to put their name in the comment pot and I will draw a random name on Friday, August 22nd. If you would to subscribe to my feed, I will put another ticket for you in the comment pot – so you’ll have TWO chances to win the coat. (If you subscribe to my feed, please let me know in the comment section so I can add another ticket for you). You must be willing to give me an address so I can mail it to you and I’m sorry, but I’m only opening this up to U.S. addresses only – I simply don’t have the money to ship it overseas. I’m terribly sorry.

2. Coffee Chat writing project begins August 30th.

The writing prompts for this Coffee Chat are:

A. What do you remember MOST about being a kid?

B. Long before you met your significant other, what did you picture your future mate would be like?

Feel free to go ahead and write a blog entry on one, or both, writing prompts, if you wish, but you must wait until August 30th to begin submitting links. You can find out more info about the program here. Please, only submit links to CURRENT blog entries – nothing older than 30 days, please. This group writing project is a chance for you to write something fresh and fun for your blog.

Also, please feel free to copy and paste the code to the Coffee Chat buttons on your blogs, too.

I will be posting links to all the particpants on September 15th as well as drawing one winner from all the participants – he/she will win a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate!

3. Carnival of Family Life

If you don’t know what the Carnival of Family Life is, you read more about it here.

It will be my turn to host the Carnival next Monday, August 25th. So, if you would like to submit a family-related article to put in the carnival, please do so here.

You can see an example of a current carnival here at Frugal Homesteading Blog.

This is an EXCELLENT opportunity to relax after dropping the kids off at school; just grab a cup ‘o joe, kick your shoes off and read some GREAT articles about all things family related!

4. Results of the next photo contest poll.

It looks like school won the poll. It was a CLOSE race between school and autumn, but school won. So … take some school pictures and pick the very best for the October 4th photo contest.

In addition, I wanted to ask your opinion on something:

I put that poll on a static page of my blog. In essence, the static page is like a sticky post, only it’s not a post, it’s a page. Did you like how I set that up? My husband didn’t care for the set up. What about you? Does that bug you when you visit a blog and they have a static page so you’re forced to click over to current entries? In essence, it’s like a “splash” page on a website – you know, one of those annoying “skip intro” pages you have to click through to get to the meat of the website.

If you didn’t care for that setup, let me know. I don’t want to do anything that irritates readers. 🙂

By the way, if you would like to know how I set that static page up, you can find the instructions here.

Thanks for sticking it out and I hope you’ll consider participating in one, or all, of these fun activities!

I would like to take a moment out of this blogging schedule to thank each and every one of you who (routinely or otherwise) visit my blog. I’ve noticed an increase in readers and that thrills, awes and terrifies me.

Thrills: Because I hope this means you’re interested in what I have to say about my life and various other issues that are important to me.

Awes: Because it still amazes me that anyone would want to read what I write to begin with.

and

Terrifies: Because I sincerely hope I don’t disappoint you.

I post a variety of things not only because I hope it attracts a variety of readers, but because I have a tendency to have a variety of interests. I try to keep my blog clean, positive and uplifting, but I am human and I have bad days. There will be times I let a curse word slip out now and again, or I’m snarky in some way or I’m just feeling depressed, or I’m making sexual innuendos not to shock you, but because that’s how I occasionally roll; I can’t apologize for that because I’m human.

I post links and videos to religious material not to shove my beliefs down your throat or to throw the fact that I’m a Christian in your face, but to show you that I am not ashamed in what I believe or in the ministry we closely follow; feel free to skip those posts, ignore them or devour them – the information is there if you need it. Even though I’m not the best Christian, I’m quite secure in my faith and the teachings from the Truth and Tradition website have blessed me and my family for years – my hope is that by sharing this information with you, you will be blessed, too. I don’t always agree, 100% with what the ministry says, but it’s safe to assume that I agree 98% of the time. They are logical in their approach to God’s word and for once in my life, I feel like I have a “handle” on what God expects from me. It’s a very peaceful realization.

I post bits of my fiction because it keeps me writing. I hope to one day work up the courage to actually submit something and “publishing” on my small blog is my way of building that courage.

I am an avid reader, so you will find lots of references to things I’ve read or books in general.

I love photography, but don’t have the patience required to really get good at it. However, this doesn’t stop me from posting my own amateurish attempts.

I love to laugh and joke around and I’m quite sarcastic and cynical about many issues. I’m also very head-strong, stubborn and opinionated, though I will try my best to remain fair to all views. I love comments, but I do not live for comments. If readers care to share a bit about their thoughts/lives with me and the rest of the Internet, then by all means, you’re VERY welcome to do so. But I will not beg and I do not get depressed if no one comments – I can tell by my stats that SOMEONE is reading and that is good enough for me.

But most of all, I post about my family. I want to document the good times, and the bad times. I want to look back on this journal and remember what it was like to endure live with teenage boys. I want to look back and remember how young and silly we were, once upon a moon. I want to look back and savor every moment of my flawed, but happy life.

Because this is me – in all my imperfect glory.

I realize there are HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of blogs out there, many, many more interesting then mine. So I truly appreciate your time and feedback (if you choose to leave it). I’m quite humbled by your interest and I hope we can be life-long friends. 🙂

Thank you and God bless.