The Fabulous Mrs. Fussypants is having her 5th baby boy next week and this week it’s all about celebrating over at Blissfully Domestic!
All week long, the theme will be pregnancy and babies. And then there are the giveaways! Fantastic giveaways, that you won’t want to miss, even if you aren’t expecting a baby. Click on over and join us in the celebration.
This snowflake theme has really got to go. I’m working on it. Trying very hard to scale down some things in my life to focus on what’s important: spending time with family, developing my career, and being healthier.
Maybe you want to read my latest post over at New Jersey Moms Blog? Or see a couple photos from our trip to the Bronx Zoo:
She loved the peacocks (just like “Azul” from Barbie Island Princess) and kept asking me, “Can I pet their peacocks?” Um, she meant feathers.
I just loved this guy. Look at that position! Those padded paws! So cute.
That’s all for now. Major blog renovation coming soon!
A lot of people, myself included, use Google Reader’s “share” option to show the posts they are reading and enjoying. But when I come across a post I want to share that is not in my Google Reader, I don’t necessarily want to subscribe to the feed just to be able to share that post in GReader. So I use social bookmarking service Del.icio.us. But then my “Shared Items” page in GReader is not an accurate representation of everything online that I want to share.
In his article, “Seven Tips for Making the Most of Your RSS Reader,” Marshall Kirkpatrick talks about his method of tagging items “toshare” in Del.icio.us and then publishing the RSS feed for that specific tag through Feedburner. This allows him to see how many people are following his shared items and even motivates him to read and share posts.
I loved Marshall’s idea, yet wondered how I could effectively display everything I wanted to share online. I do a good amount of feed-reading through my mobile phone and if I shared something in GReader, I didn’t want to have to click out of Reader to the blog page and tag it with Del.icio.us in order to get it into my shared items feed. Enter Yahoo! Pipes.
At first glance, it seemed Pipes was a bit like Photoshop: I could use the basic functions, but I was only scratching the surface of its awesome power. So I read and Googled and tonight I would like to introduce my first Yahoo! Pipe, published through FeedBurner: Shannon’s Shared Items. This feed merges the items I share on Del.icio.us AND Google Reader, removes dupes and sorts by date.
Here’s how you can do it:
Yahoo! Pipes has been around for quite awhile, but it’s new and exciting to me and I’m loving how I created this Shared Items feed. If you have other exciting and useful ways to use Pipes, let me know!
Some photos from a spring day…
My daughter loves to get messy. This drives me nuts, but I’m trying to get over it and go with the flow.
My son is playing Little League again, mostly 2nd base. Here he’s having a catch with Dad.
Many people espouse the benefits of a routine, especially for children. But for me - a homeschooling mom with a husband who owns his own business and works from home - my “routine” amounts to getting my family fed and making sure the kids arrive at their activities on time. Meal time, bed time, work time, school time, play time, exercise time - it all varies from day to day. There is no “get up, eat breakfast, go to school/work, have dinner, go to bed” schedule in my home.
Some days the kids have early activities and my daughter will fall asleep on the ride home, then nap for two hours and therefore go to bed late (she’s at that “almost ready to give up the nap” stage). Some days my son has activities in the early evening and my dinner and exercise schedule is thwarted. And every few months the kids’ activities change, necessitating a rewrite of any semblance of a routine I might have had.
This lack of a predictable schedule is difficult for me given my OCD tendencies. I am forever creating a “new schedule” in an Excel spreadsheet, attempting to create routine time frames for my work, exercise, and family. But something inevitably goes wrong and I toss the whole thing out the window. Cuz I’m crazy like that. If it’s not working perfectly, it’s not working at all.
My husband tells me, “Just do it once.” But my brain is not wired that way. If I can’t be sure I’m going to the gym on Mon-Wed-Fri, then screw it, I just don’t go at all until I can come up with a solid plan. You can see how this is not working out so well for me.
I think I’m getting ready to be done with that mentality though. I’m ready to start taking one day at a time. To move forward toward my goals instead of staying stuck.
What are your experiences with routines? Do you keep a strict routine in your home? How do you cope with your children’s changing schedules?
(This post is a ramble. It doesn’t flow and it’s full of sentence fragments. But it’s my blog and I needed to get my feelings out, so deal with it.)
I’m an idea person. A risk-taker. An entrepreneur. And for me, these qualities are in direct competition with being a homeschooling parent.
For 8 years I’ve been struggling with this conflict between wanting a career and wanting to raise my kids. I can’t find a balance.
I don’t want to get a job. I want to create a project. Like I’ve done in the past. Something that’s mine, something I’m passionate about. And I am so very fortunate that I have the luxury of doing that. I don’t need to work.
I have ideas. I have passion. I have money. I have skills. What do I lack? Time.
I have lots of ideas and one by one I see them being implemented by other people. My husband always tells me, “It doesn’t matter if someone else is already doing it. You just need to do it better.” Problem is, I don’t have the time to do it better.
Some days I just feel like throwing my hands in the air and resigning myself to motherhood. Forget about writing, blogging, designing, creating. Just play. Spend more time exploring the world and learning with the kids. Getting home improvement projects done. Being more disciplined about shopping and food. Giving more to my husband. It sounds like a nice, relaxing life.
But it’s not enough for me. In fact, it’s boring me to tears and completely stressing me out. And I feel bad saying that. I feel guilty that I’ve been given this wonderful life and I simply complain about it constantly. But the truth is it’s just. not. enough.
I don’t know where to go from here. Giving more attention to one thing necessarily means sacrificing something else because there are only 24 hours in a day. How do I decide what to sacrifice? Will I be sorry in the future if I sacrifice the “wrong” thing?
Welcome to the 117th Carnival of Homeschooling - the “S” word edition. As a homeschooler, you know the S word… Socialization. You’re also probably either sick of hearing that word, or it is laughable to you.
In the minds of non-homeschoolers, the question of “socialization” is a big one. Where else but in school can children learn to play nice with others? To follow rules? To earn their “hard knocks?” To deal with bullies? To handle peer pressure? But homeschoolers know that these issues are not unique to the school environment. They happen everywhere, all the time. Unless of course you keep your children locked in a closet.
So let’s talk about some other S words while we wander the web of this week’s spectacular homeschooling posts.
Sunday. Easter Sunday, that is.
In his post, …And the Agony of Defeat…, Tim of Sometimes I’m Actually Coherent tells us how he came across yet another lesson in Economics for Children, this time in (of all places) an Easter Egg Hunt. Hayes Happenings posts their Resurrection Cookie Recipe, a tweaked recipe that creates yummy, fluffy, large and hollow cookies. And Chrysalis offers the Ultimate Easter Quiz: “100 Easy Questions” relating to Jesus, the disciples and the story of Easter.
Sovereignty
Suzanne of Adventures in Daily Living shares her thoughts on an article published in Homeschooling Today titled Sowing Liberty by Dr. Ron Paul, while Ranae of Life Nurturing Education wonders What if… Homeschooling was Illegal?
Dana of Principled Discovery shares a wonderfully thorough post in which she disputes a researcher’s five main objections to homeschooling in Note to homeschoolers: Don’t be psychotic!.
Barbara Frank discusses why the recent California appellate court ruling doesn’t just affect homeschooling parents; it affects ALL parents. In Who Is a Teacher?, Freehold2 looks at the definition of the word ‘teacher,’ and why homeschooling parents most certainly ought to be considered educators.
It’s no secret how I feel about makeup. I like it, and I think women look better with tasteful makeup than with none at all. I rarely leave the house without at least some foundation, blush and mascara. I even used to be the Mary Kay Lady.
So when I read Sweetney’s Truthiness challenge - post a photo of yourself first thing in the morning - I considered whether or not I wanted to participate. I mean, why? We all know that we look a little different when we roll out of bed than when we’re taking a photo to post on our blogs. We’re pale-faced, messy-haired and sometimes puffy-eyed. Do we really need photos to prove this?
I clicked around and viewed the beautiful, bare-naked-faced photos of many of my favorite bloggers. Truth be told, it’s fun. It’s just fun to see the many different faces of these women who invite me into their lives every day.
I considered how I felt about my own 7 am face.
I’m not all that confident in my appearance these days. Maybe the reason I like makeup so much is that it feels like the last reign of control I have over my appearance. I can’t wear the kind of clothes I’d like to because I’m a bit overweight. My body is aging and things are drooping. My skin is wrinkling and cellulite-ing. I know I DO have control over those things to some extent, but putting on a pretty face and styling my hair is the easiest and most enjoyable way to make myself feel more polished.
I’d like to look better and younger, but ultimately I am comfortable with who I am. So I give you PHAT Mommy @ 7 am.
PHAT = Parenting, Homeschooling And Thriving. I'm a homeschooling mom, web designer, and lover of all things internet. More...
I've discovered many excellent blogs by following what my favorite bloggers read. If you like this blog, check out what I'm doing online by clicking a link below, or use the Lijit search to find results from my blog, bookmarks, social networks, and bloggers I enjoy.
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