Amy's Wandering

Wandering through life one season at a time

Archives for January 2010

booking it in 2010

By: amyswandering1 Comment

I love to read, but don’t always make time in my schedule for it. My to-be-read pile is getting pretty high! I’m hoping that LifeasMOM’s Booking It Challenge will motivate me to carve out some time to feed my brain.

These are waiting in my book basket:

~ Real Love for Real Life: The Art and Work of Caring

~ Designing a Lifestyle That Pleases God: A Practical Guide

~ Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry

~ Creative Correction

~Organizing from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life

~ Houseworks

~ Sink Reflections

~ The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Grow, or Manage a Business

~ The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl

~ Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats–A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners

~ The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking

~ For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School

~ Laying Down the Rails

~ The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach: Bible Based Homeschooling

~ The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling

LifeasMOM is providing a check-in opportunity at the end of each month to share book reviews and progress reports. Guess I need to get busy reading!

review- Worship Guitar Class

By: amyswanderingcomment

Unlike many of my Crew Mates, no one in my family has any guitar experience. We eagerly awaited the arrival of our Jean Welles Worship Guitar Class. Jean has a Master’s in Guitar Performance from USC and I think she is a wonderful teacher!

The only problem we ran into was in the Tuning the Guitar section. She gave very clear instructions on how to tell if a guitar is in tune, but did not demonstrate how to tune it.

You can watch the first lesson HERE. There is also a Worship Guitar for Kids.

The Nitty Gritty:

  • DVD and Book  $29.95 each volume
  • 4 Pack Offer – $99.80
  • 4 Pack Offer + Books for Volumes 1, 2, 3 & 4 – $119.80

Things I Like:

  • Things are explained from a beginner level, like what all of the parts of the guitar are called.
  • Jean has a pleasant voice, and she speaks clearly and slowly. She is very encouraging.
  • The lesson speed is very easy to follow.
  • The songs are fairly recent.

Value: This is a fantastic value compared to traditional guitar lessons.

See what my TOS Crew Mates have to say about Worship Guitar Class!

I received a free dvd and book for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was given.

help for haiti

By: amyswandering2 Comments

My heart has been heavy the past few days as I’ve watched the images coming out of Haiti. I used to go to church with one of the victims. I ache for her lovely family. I thought about posting something, but the words just wouldn’t come. Thankfully, Money Saving Mom is giving us all a voice with a purpose.

Crystal and her husband are donating $10 to Compassion International’s relief fund for every person who blogs about what they are doing to help those in Haiti. We have supported a little boy through Compassion for over 2 years and they do some amazing things. She also has a long list of bloggers who will also make donations of some kind if you visit their blogs.

My husband is between jobs as he works on opening his own optical lab, so we are going to get creative about finding some extra funds to donate. (I did make a $5 donation to Compassion since every little bit counts!) Here are a few things we are going to do:

~ I am going to visit all those blogs! I don’t have as much money to donate as I would have had a few months ago, but these generous people are willing to donate on my behalf.

~ I have a couple of things in my garage that I am going to sell on craigslist.

~ I am listing some homeschool books for sale on the Homeschool Swap Boards and Homeschool Classifieds.

A little part of me says, “Oh, but I was going to buy some things we need by selling all of that stuff!”. But you know what? God is already providing for our needs, and He will continue to do so. I have a warm house, food in my pantry, and five children and a hubby to hold a little tighter. The people of Haiti have nothing but the hope that someone will care enough to help.

So go read about the Help for Haiti effort and see how you can help!


simple woman’s daybook

By: amyswanderingcomment

Outside my window… it is a dark, chilly night.

From the learning rooms… we are back from our break & starting some independent study time this semester.

I am thankful for… God’s protection.

From the kitchen… I am stretching a chicken – chicken pot pie, chicken spaghetti & chicken noodle soup – yum!

I am creating… a writing station (I got the idea here).

I am going… to attempt to play the drugstore game this week.

I am reading… Lessons from the Life of Joshua ; The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling (for a review).

I am hoping… that Sweetpea will sleep tonight! We’ve had a rough couple of weeks.

I am hearing… the kids playing the Wii.

Around the house… I need to clean out & organize the gameroom

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week… make plans for my in-laws’ 40th anniversary, check in on my friend Jill & her new little princess.

Here is picture thought I am sharing…

I am always amazed at the complex beauty of God’s design. You can see this and other photos of real snowflakes HERE.

Share your own daybook HERE

using online tools for school planning

By: amyswanderingcomment

Most of you know by now that I hoard collect educational links. I even started another blog to house them. (The poor thing has been neglected over the holidays.)

I used to have a fantastic memory, but it went to the bathroom to powder its nose when I had my first child … and never returned! Because of this, there are a few free online tools that I use when planning our school activities.

~Google Reader There are several different feed readers out there but Google Reader is my favorite. I can tell at a glance which of the blogs that I follow have new posts. There are so many great ideas in Bloggyworld, but it would take forever to visit each blog just to see if there are any new posts. Here are a few of the lovely websites in my Google Reader:

~Delicious Once I find an article or idea that I like, I save it as a bookmark through Delicious. I have a little tag button in my toolbar that lets me easily bookmark a link. My links are all sorted by category tags that I assign.

Sometimes I run across an idea that I definitely want to use later in the year. In addition to my regular categories, I will also label it 2010. That way, when Christmas rolls around and I am browsing my Christmas links, I will remember that I want to study Christmas Around the World. Or in late September, when I am browsing my Autumn links, I will remember that I want to make a leaf mural to decorate our home.

Another benefit to Delicious is that I can search other members’ tags by clicking on one of my tags. I love browsing through a category like filefoldergames to see what links other people are saving.

One last great use: create an online cookbook. I have 554 recipes saved and sorted into categories, all with the click of a finger.

~Zoho Notebook I was in need of a way to organize all of this info into lesson plans when I stumbled across this post at PreKinders several months ago. Zoho notebook turned out to be a perfect fit for me!

I set up a new book every month and have several pages in each. September had a page for apple links, a page for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities, and a page for the first week of school. December had a different page for each of the symbols we studied. My newest book is for a Writing Station that I am setting up next week. (I’ll be posting on that when I get it done!)

Zoho has a big list of applications that I’m sure would be useful if I ever find the time to figure them out.

So there you have it, my brain-in-a-post.

What clever methods do you use to help you remember?

[Ok, hands up, how many of you are still singing ‘Pinky & The Brain, Pinky & The Brain …. one is a genius,  the other’s insane.’ ?]

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