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Showing posts from June, 2014

I is for Icons or from iconoclast to icon lover

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If you would have said to me 6 years ago, maybe even just 5 years ago that I would some day write a post sharing about my love of Eastern Orthodox Icons, you would have gotten an earful about the “graven image” part of the 2nd commandment and how wrong I thought the whole idea was. I’ve come along way, baby! It wasn’t easy though. I really wasn’t sure I could become an Orthodox Christian because I just didn’t understand icons or iconography or why they were important.  Why would I want to have these hanging in my house?  Do I have to kiss them?  Why? My very first visit to on Orthodox service was overwhelming.  The walls are covered in icons! There are three analogions (podiums).  The one in the center held a wreath with a cross. This wreath holds a teeny tiny fragment of the True Cross and I have since learned is only displayed at certain times.  The other two analogions are the left and right side as you look at the iconostasis.  When facing the iconostasis the one on the left ho

Homeschooling with Three NOOKs and a Kindle

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Yes I own four devices: three of them are NOOKs and one is a Kindle.  All of them were purchased as investments in our homeschool. We didn’t purchase them all at once though.  We added them one at at time over several years starting with a NOOK 1st Edition in spring of 2011.  Most recently I got a Kindle Fire HDX 7”.  It was a Mother’s Day gift but I could only justify it if we would use it for school. We can read e-books on all four devices and we could access the internet through wi-fi connection on all of them, but there is a huge difference between an e-reader and a tablet. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. I have 3 e-ink technology Nook e-reader devices. They really do read like a regular book, just not as lovely to hold and you can't flip through the pages and you miss the new book smell. These do not have the computer like screen with the bright lights or flashing colors. There is no glare. You can read it in bright sunlight. You do need a light to read (wel

Random Five on Friday

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I’m just going to jump in with my Five Random Thoughts for this week. 1.  My husband finished reading Mockingjay this week.  Mockingjay is the third book in the Hunger Games Trilogy Suzanne Collins.  He swore he wouldn’t read the Hunger Games but since we were studying the Hunger Games and the girls and were talking about the book constantly so he read the Hunger Games and then read Catching Fire and immediately followed up with Mockingjay .  Interested in the study we’re doing of Hunger Games? Check out my review of the Progeny Press Study Guide . 2.  Summer hasn’t really hit the Pacific Northwest yet.  A few weeks ago we had some gorgeous weather with lots of sunshine and temps in the mid 70’s. I think those are the perfect days.  This week we’ve had one day of sunshine but it’s the first in about two weeks.  It was so cold last week that I made chili for dinner.  Yesterday was the beautiful sunny day and today is cool and cloudy or at least it feels cold in the house. I know s

Nineteen is Still a Teen!

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Today my “baby” turns 19.  I will be clinging all year long to the fact that technically she is still a teen.  Sure, she graduated from high school a year ago and she’s old enough to vote.  Yes, she’s a legal adult but 19 is still a teen and I intend to hold on to that! Boobear said she can’t believe it’s a been a year since she graduated from high school.  I can’t believe it’s been nineteen years since I first held her in my arms.  I can’t believe I’ve raised a child to adulthood and we both survived! Since this past weekend was FREE DAY at the state parks, we celebrated with a trip to a state park we’ve not been to before and we brought a picnic supper to enjoy.  The weather was cloudy in the morning so we didn’t really start our day until the afternoon and it was nice to see the sunshine for a little bit. BooBear got to choose the park and she chose a park that had access to Puget Sound. Supergirl wanted to know if we were studying sea creatures for school since I insisted on rea

Five Random Letter G Related Thoughts

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This week’s addition of Random 5 on Friday is brought to you by the Letter G.  Last week I combined Random Five on Friday with the Letter F.  I’m combining Random Five and Alphabet Blogging Again this week. 1.  Garden ~  We won’t be having one this year.  Partly because we were busy this spring and didn’t get some of the prep work done that we wanted to do.  Partly because we weren’t sure it was a good idea to have a garden right next to the house when we would have people pressure washing the roof and more people coming to pain the house.  After seeing how much moss and junk came down this week with the roof washing, I’m rather thankful we didn’t have the garden started. 2.  Grumpy Girls ~  I miss my Giggly Girls.  They seem to have been replaced lately with Grumpy Girls. I will be happy if I never ever hear the words, “she started it.” 3.  Gravy~  As in biscuits and gravy. I wasn’t raised in the South.  My daddy was raised in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. He grew up eating a

My Favorite Breakfast Meat ~ Bacon and an Easy Way to Cook it!

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Today is Wednesday. Wednesday is not normally a day of bacon eating here but it happens to be a Fast Free Week (specifically Trinity Week, which follows Pentecost) which means we can eat meat and dairy. So of course we had bacon and eggs for breakfast. (Orthodox Christians traditionally fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.) Bacon may be my favorite breakfast meat but I certainly don’t limit myself to eating it only for breakfast.  I don’t dislike sausage or ham.  I’ve even been known to eat the questionable Spam for breakfast. But bacon? Well, bacon is in a category all its own. I can eat bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  All on the same day, too!  But I usually refrain from eating that much bacon in day.  It’s too expensive and I think spreading it out helps me to savor it more. I want to share how we cook bacon here and then share some ideas for using bacon. Once upon a long time ago I would buy the ready cook bacon in the ginormous package from Costco. It certainly made it conv

Learning is so much fun with Learning Wrap-ups! {Review}

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Many years ago when the girls were young. I had heard of Learning Wrap-ups .  We even had a shapes one and an alphabet one. I was also aware that they had created Learning Palettes but by then the three big girls were beyond them and I put them out of my mind. Thanks to the Schoolhouse Review Crew Supergirl has been using 1st Grade Math Learning Palette 1 Base Center Kit   and 1st Grade Reading 1 Base Center Kit along with LearningPalette.com , an online version which access to all the levels for one price!   Learning Palette Products Let me start with a brief overview of the Learning Palette and then I’ll share about the two kits we received and do a brief comparison with the online version. The heart of the Learning Palette is, of course, the base.  Measuring approximately 12 inches in diameter, this circular base does resemble an artist’s palette.  There are 12 disks in six colors that fit perfectly into the 12 divots. Each of the six colors have one solid disk or chip and one m

F is for Five Random Thoughts on Friday

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Did you see what I did with that title?  I really want to participate in Miranda’s Random Five on Friday and I also really want to participate in Marcy’s Alphabet Blogging! 1.  I missed the Letter E.  Don’t worry I’m working on an E post.  It just won’t post in the right order.  I really was striving to not miss a single letter during this round but life happens. 2.  I was going to blog on June 2nd about it being one year since my husband’s heart attack.  I could still blog about it right?  Just for now it is sufficient to remember how scared I was.  How scared my children were and how God ministered to us through the Body of our church. I filled with gratitude when I remember the phone calls, the visits, the meals, the support, the love and the caring, the prayers. 3.  I just had what feels like a flood of crew reviews!  I’m going to link them here in case you missed them.  (I have one more posting next week. Learning Wrap Ups including Learning Palette.  Supergirl has really love

A Life in Balance ~ A Book Review

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If you’re a regular reader of my blog you may be a bit familiar with Supergirl, my special needs developmentally delayed daughter. Though chronologically 16 years old she is globally delayed in all areas. We are not new to the ideas of neurodevelopmental or the effect of programs designed to improve neurological connections in the brain. Though familiar with different techniques and approaches, I am not familiar with the history of the research, or with the people who played a part in bringing an awareness to the connection to organization of the brain and improvement in cognitive abilities. Recently, I read A Life in Balance which is the biography of Frank Belgau (as told to Eric Belgau).  Frank is the creator of the Learning Breakthrough Program .  This isn’t just his story but the story of how The Learning Breakthrough Program came to be and the story of the struggle of teachers, parents, psychologists, and optometrists in helping “minimally brain-damaged” or “disabled” children

Literature Study Guides from Progeny Press {Crew Review}

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A few years ago the Schoolhouse Review Crew introduced me to a company called Progeny Press .  Progeny Press creates wonderful study guides to accompany a wide range of literature.  There are guides for books from early elementary all the way through high school.  Book titles range from current new fiction to beloved well known classics.  There are even a few titles of gems that I’d never heard of before. Because I was able to review several study guides before, I knew I wanted to review Progeny Press again.  I have not been disappointed with our choice to review The Hunger Games Study Guide and The Courage of Sarah Noble Study Guide .  I received both of these as downloadable PDF files. Common to Both Guides: Although geared for different ages both guides are laid out in a similar fashion.  This is the structure that all of the guides I’ve used have had: Table of Contents Note to the instructor with suggestions on how to use the guide Note:  For the Sarah Noble one, the g