Life

So baby Josh hit a new milestone last night. He sang with Me! He was making noise and when I talked to him he acted happy but not quite satisfied. At Daddy's sugestion, when Josh began "talking" again, I began to sing. He grinned the biggest grin ever and joined me, cooing until the song ended:-)

Another cold going through. This is getting ridiculous. I have one running a fever (and jumping on the couch, but that's another story), one coughing, two with sore throats and one with a headache. I might start making them all take eldrberry, echinecia and c every day for the rest of their lives!


:-(((((

Bill Cosby

Normally, I guess we would expect something “funny” from Bill Cosby…..nevertheless, he has a good point…


Bill Cosby - "I'm 76 and Tired"



"I'm 76 and I'm Tired"

I'm 76. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly
40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as
though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy
to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and
daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning
teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques
and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia, New Zealand, UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance..

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ
rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting
caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination
or big-whatever for their problems.

I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's be-deck them selves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making
themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 76.. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter and her children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in."

All I can add is "Amen."

Medical Insurance

Many insurances won't cover chiropractors. My chiro charges $27 per visit. The better quality one up the hill charges $50. The last time I went to Urgent care (which most insurances WILL pay for, it cost $150 and that was years ago. It's over $200 now. What would medical bills look like without price-inflating insurance and government programs? I bet they would be much more afordable.

What kneeling on a department store floor taught me about gratitude : Conversion Diary

What kneeling on a department store floor taught me about gratitude : Conversion Diary

Cleanliness Next To Sickliness & Strong Immune System -- Natural Health Blog

Cleanliness Next To Sickliness & Strong Immune System -- Natural Health Blog

Yeah, that's it. I'm not a deficient housekeeper. I'm protecting my kids from future illness!

Mama Birth: Real Thoughts On Why Natural Birth Rocks

Mama Birth: Real Thoughts On Why Natural Birth Rocks

This applies to homeschool vs private school also.

Planning for next year

A while back we switched most of our subjects in school to Abeka. (You can read about it Here). I asked my children a couple of days ago what they thought about doing things the new way (mostly Abeka, all but Bible independently.) They unanamously said they preferd our new way. They all like having control of their own scheule (deciding if they do math first or science, deciding to just sit down and read the entire literature text at once and having it over with, etc.) and feel they have learned more to boot. This meshes with what I have observed so we will continue this course.

Now that our first complete year of mostly Abeka is done here is how things stand:

Math= We will continue with Math-U-See and Calculaddars (with Timez Attack computer game:-)

Science, Health, History, Geography, Literature= Abeka all the way. Definitly.

Art= Drawing textbook. I simply have not found any better curriculum for teaching drawing. I am still looking for something for art appriciation, though.

Music= lessons with Grandma plus Piano for quitters, and Music Ace computer program.

Spanish=Rosetta Stone

Phonics= Abeka

Penmanship= Abeka except possibly for my 7yo. She seems to be needing something more basic like handwriting without tears.

Grammar= Abeka, mostly because I can't find anything better. Abeka is a lot of work; somtimes too much work for my children. However, they have all learned more this year than any other so we will stay here.

Spelling= did I ever mention I hate spelling? It was my worst subject in high school (at the end of 8th grade I showed on standardized tests that I could do 8th grade work as well as a 12th grader...except for spelling. I scored at 4th grade for spelling).

Abeka spelling is simply not working. NO ONE finished their book.

Or even got half done. (I was having them learn most of the words in each lesson before going on to the next lesson)

The words are not very well connected and, well, no one is learning how to spell:-(

We will move to AVKOs Sequential Spelling for next year, though I won't use it according to directions.

The way AVKO is designed to be used is much too teacher intensive. We used it for a year that way and it just took too long and was way too slow for anyone to learn.

Now I will assign each child one book. They will study each lesson and then be tested on it each day. What words they don't pass they will study the next day plus enough words from the list to make an age-appropiate-length list. This will work well because of the built in review and phonetic connection of the words.

I like this program becasue of the phonetical order of the words. As they point out in their ads, you may run across "nice" in a typical first grade speller, "rice" in a second, "twice" in a third and "ice" in a fourth becasue those are the grades those words are introduced in the readers and science books.

The lists in the first of these books starts:

Day1
in
sin
pin
spin

Day 2
I
pins
sins
spins
kin
skin
win
twin

Day 3
thin
pinned
sinned
I
shin
skins
wins
twins
be
begin
chin
she

Since the words just build on each other, By the sixth day they can spell "beginnings." Yes, that happened with my kids when we used it before. and notice that they review spelling the word "in" 20 times, "sin" three times, and  "pin" five times in the first three days just through the tests.

I think this will really work for us. I hope it will becasue if it doesn't we are out of other options:-(

Multiplication

And for once I am not talking about childbirth but actual math multiplication, lol.

Years ago I bought Timez Attack computer game for my children. In this game you are a little knome (my children call him Dobbie). You have to fight your way out of danger by throughing the correct answers at multiplication problems. Winning this game takes the same skill as going through a deck of flash cards but is far more entertaining. The children begged to ge to play it because they hadn't yet rescured their Dobbie! Their multiplication speed increased dramaticly. And best of all, it takes no work from me like flash cards do:-)

Unfortunatly our disk got scratched so they haven't been able to play for a while.

They just downloaded a demonstration for the new version. This one includes spaceships, the choice of a girl "Dobbie", and addition, subtraction, and division!

My 4yo is asking to do math:-)

This is definitly on the list for next tax time!

The Deranged Housewife: Michelle Duggar - Pregnant again!

The Deranged Housewife: Michelle Duggar - Pregnant again!

Great post!

"I get so sick of the "Oh, the perfect family and you're done!" ****; the bullying, both overt and subtle, that goes on when someone decides to have more children than what our culture deems "necessary." And that's exactly what it is: bullying. We as a society are so set against [bullying] and want to teach each other how to love, respect, and all that crap - yet the minute we see someone with more than the prerequisite number of kids coming our way, we immediately snap to judgment. There is such negative bias against larger families, even those with far fewer than 20 kids, because we are now living in a "two-kid world." Anything more than that is often considered a burden or an inconvenience"



The point people need to remember about the Duggers and others of us with larger than "normal" families (I have 9:-) is that we don't do anything special or unnatural to have our big families. Those with smaller families are generally (though not always) the ones doing unnatural things like taking drugs and having surgeries, all to keep their bodies from functioning like they are designed to do. I bet sex lives are equal, on average. We just haven't broke the plumbing. There are some very good reasons (including some health) to allow God's design to function naturally.