Well, it’s hard to believe, but I just finished up Jeremiah and Lamentations, and there is only around 1.5 months of Old Testament Bible reading left for me this year!  It looks like I might be two weeks behind in all on getting through the Bible in a year, but who knows – maybe I can pick up some time when I hit the New Testament .

What I find so interesting is that I’ve always been a ‘big chunks of time’ person, I always feel like I need an hour or two for ANY task, and have a hard time breaking things up into small segments and consistently working on them.

This entire, reading the Bible in a year experience has taught me to just get started and keep taking steps each day. Homeschooling is teaching me the same thing with my children incidentally.  The big AH-HA! moments are few and far between, so much skill and knowledge building is cumulative.

Likewise, these haven’t been stupendously deep quiet times, they’ve been while nursing my toddler to sleep, before reading the children their bed time story, and snatches here and there, but they’re building a deeper understanding, bit by bit, and step by step.

99 Ways to Increase Your Income is part of a series of short, “99 Ways” titles from Waterbrook Press designed to give succinct, helpful advice on a variety of topics.  Written by an entrepreneur, Frank Martin divides his 99 tips into seven major sections: Foundations of Financial Management, Earn More by Keeping More, Increase Your Income at Work, Simple Ways to Earn Cash, Home-Based Business, Managing Your Expenses, and Saving and Investing Wisely.  Each section concludes with a summary of the main points for each section.

This title is a good choice for readers who just want to “dip a toe” into the world of economizing and increasing potential earnings.  For dedicated frugalistas and economizers, there are likely to be few tips here that they haven’t come across before.  Personally, we already utilize many, many of the suggested economizing methods, and are engaged in developing alternative income sources ourselves.  For readers like us, you’ll need a meatier book than this one, but for young adults with little financial or budgeting experience, who are just setting out on their own, this title could make a good, broad introduction to the subject.

The tips are fairly short, and none go into much detail.  For example, in the sections on blogging for income and freelance writing and editing (both of which I have done myself), there is only a paragraph or so, which is really only enough to plant the germ of an idea, not enough to actually pursue these courses as a viable source of income without further extensive research (entire books can and have been written on the topics!)

Martin does write in a lively, entertaining style, and the book is a brisk, introductory read.  Christian principles shine through in his dedication to generosity, and avoidance of any sort of unethical suggestions.

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT CHRISTIANBOOK.COM OR AMAZON.COM!

Most of us have heard of The Old Schoolhouse’s Download ‘N Go e-book unit studies, created by Amanda Bennett, and I recently had the chance to review one of them.  This was my first experience with the series, and I was pleasantly surprised!  The Download ‘N Go series is designed to work through one unit a week (5 days), and it provides MORE content than you can use during that time with all of the sites provided – really, there is a lot packed into each study.

Our family chose to work through Whale Tales, and at first I wasn’t too sure how these internet integrated unit studies would work for us (because we have bandwidth limitations).  However, I was really pleased!  The video links and other content pages (for research, data gathering, Bible integration) that the unit study linked up to didn’t suck up all of our bandwidth, though not all of the videos loaded for us (this is a common problem that seems to come from using a Mac, still I was able to find many of them on YouTube from the titles given).

There are lapbooking components (my daughter really loves these), fill in the blank elements, lots of room for discussion, and a suggested reading list.  Now, if you want to use the suggested books you’ll either need a very well-stocked library OR a HUGE home library if you really want to “Download ‘N Go” right away, so we just dug through our bookshelves and found some whale-related books to read with the children and look through.

I must admit, that though I was skeptical about the whole ‘internet-linked’ concept, my family was REALLY into this study.  They would all gather around the computer (7, 4, and 2 year old) and ‘ooh and aah’ at the whale footage.  We printed off a copy (I like to have something in my hands), and also had it open on the computer to click on the links as we progressed through the book.

There are new units in development ALL the time, and until TODAY – hurry, hurry – you can enter to win a huge package, including the full Fall line-up of Download ‘N Go unit studies (if you live in the US).  Go do that here before midnight!

ALSO, if you order before midnight, there’s a huge sale going on.  Normally these units cost $7.95, but there are HUGE discounts on bundled packages, AND, you can receive an extra 20% off on any Download ‘N Go package with this special code

DNG20PKS

You can find everything Download ‘N Go here, to see all the bundled and individual options.  This is a GREAT option for eclectic homeschoolers, and those who use delight directed approaches, just grab the titles that interest your children, and away you go!  These are good for children in grades K-4, for your younger children you can do a lot verbally and just write in their answers (that’s what we’re doing).  Definitely a fun supplement to your core, skills-based curriculum, this is a really fun way to dig into some knowledge based topics with your children.

If you think this approach would work for your family, I definitely recommend you pick up at least one title to try out, I know my children thought it was super-neat!

Our oldest child is only seven, but I’m already concerned about capturing her heart and holding it through the tenuous adolescent years.  Oh, this years in which our children need us oh so much, such a treacherous time when life-altering decisions can be made oh, so quickly.  I so long that our girls will listen to us as they enter upon such crucial years, the early years of womanhood.

Today I had Kaelynn out all by herself (a rarity, our family normally travels all together), and after our swimming session I took her to McDonalds for a snack/drink/girl time.  We didn’t talk about anything all that important, and she spent most of her time people watching, but I want her to feel like she’s important to me, that I want to spend time with her, that I want to talk to her and hear her thoughts.

Experienced parents, chime in here.  Have you raised children through adolescence and beyond?  Were they open to your input as the major choices in life arose?

We’re praying – every day – Lord, guide our children and direct their steps along Your way as they grow, for your Name’s sake.

My children love to peruse the Oriental Trading Company catalogues we used to get in the mail. If your family is a fan of these kinds of affordable trinkets, or if you are a teacher, involved in Sunday School, or VBS, there are a lot of neat prizes and gifts to be had for very little online, particularly if you enjoy wholesales, closeouts, liquidations.

Well, Father’s Day is coming up in a couple of days – time to start planning!

(Oh, I’m such a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-skirt kind of gal, I never plan very far in advance!)

In any case – I’m so glad that God has given me a husband who has made such an involved father for our children. Even as I’ve been sitting here with my laptop (barely capable of rational thought, I might add) he’s been preparing supper for the girls and I in the kitchen.

Men who cook, it’s a good thing.

Thanks for making supper again honey – I love you!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Freschetta. All opinions are 100% mine.

Have you tried Freschetta’s FlatBread pizzas yet? Before I married my husband I worked for a small Italian restaurant chain in the city with around 6 locations, and one of their menu specialities was real, Italian style pizza, which is quite unlike our North American version. Some of their locations even had wood fired ovens that they would slip the ovens into on large wooden paddles to bake. Yummy.

One of the hallmarks of an Italian pizza (the restaurants were owned by a first and second generation Italian family) is that it has a thin crust, high-quality ingredients like intensely flavorful sauce, and toppings that go nearly to the edge of the crust.  Freschetta’s Zesty Italian FlatBread pizza looks pretty close to the real thing to me!  With less crust the flavors are more prominent, they aren’t swallowed up in the puffy, yeastiness of all that bread.

These FlatBread style pizzas are available in five different topping combinations, and of them all the Roasted Garlic and Spinach looks the most delicious to me.  Mmm, looking at it online reminds me a bit of alfredo sauce.

If you want to try these tasty combinations at your family’s next pizza night, you can find a $1.00 off coupon for Freschetta FlatBread online. Enjoy!

I missed my nap yesterday, I was non-functional for most of the afternoon and evening. I missed my nap today, and am really starting to bottom out. Where oh where did that early first-trimester energy go? When, oh when, will it come back? I remember the days…I remember walking at the zoo all day long at 9 months pregnant when I was pregnant with Sarah. Oh, month 9 energy levels, how I long for you.

Month 3 = total energy sink.

How can such a tiny little baby take up so, so, very much zippity-doo-dah.

Thank you God for this dear little life inside of me. Please let me nap tomorrow. Please, please, please.

In Yeshua’s name, I pray!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

Alright, so we’re all familiar with basic rewards programs – Airmiles, credit card points per dollar spent, and the ever-popular and growing in out-reach SwagBucks.  Most of us are almost familiar with Izea as well – the folks that brought us PayPerPost and SocialSpark amongst other initiatives.

Now, for those with iPhones, Izea is kicking rewards-based activity concepts up a notch with their mobile app at WeReward.com.  Now you can complete tasks in the real world (like showing up in certain locations and completing activities) that are posted to your social networking sites.  You then get rewarded with ‘points’ that can then be transfered into cash through Paypal.

That might sound a bit more complicated than it actually is, so I’ll let this easy-to-understand video explain the whole concept.

If you have an iPhone, you can Download the App and give it a spin! If you have success with the program – let me know! Looks like it could be fun as long as it doesn’t become…obsessive! That would suck the joy right out of it! “Quick, drive me to the sushi joint so I can take a picture of myself there! I can earn $2!!!” Hmm, I don’t think my DH would like that too much – but if you were already there, hey, why not?

Well today was swimming test day, and so far, so good. Kaelynn went into the chlorine-y pool, and it didn’t bother her ‘bad finger’ that seems to have a perpetual break-out, and so far no instantaneous reaction or bad breakout. However, my mom does say it took my little sister a day to have her bad reaction to chlorine, so we will wait and see.

Here’s praying! She had a great time and would certainly like to take lessons (the sooner the better in her mind, but I think we’re going to hold out for the homeschooling group in the Fall.)