Only 3 months left to go until baby arrives (or is supposed to arrive!)  My friend in Vancouver (yes, Freya – that is you!) just had her third baby and listening to her sweet newborn baby voice on the phone (she’s very adorable in her facebook picture too!) just made me long for the arrival of our own little one so much more!  It somehow makes it more real to me .  One day I’ll hear the voice of my own little baby too!

In the meantime I am still busy moving/unpacking/cleaning/sorting etc. while we prepare for her arrival .  Stay put baby, lots of work to do out here yet!

Like it or not, credit cards are a large part of life for the modern consumer.  Unfortunately, they are also tricky to use appropriately, and in a cost-effective manner.  Our personal goal is always to pay off anything we put on our card as soon as our statement arrives.  Our policy is never to carry a balance, or to spend what we don’t have, we need to have that money accounted for BEFORE we spend it on a credit card.

There are other ways to be wise about credit cards as well. If you travel extensively, some charge cards have additional fees for out-of-country charges. Card Wisdom has a no foreign fee credit card that saves 3% on transactions when traveling abroad, and every little bit helps when you’re living a frugal life!

I’ve really been led towards using more games in our educational time to help our daughter cement her basic math facts.  I’m not too creative, so if you have any suggestions, please share!  We’re working on addition facts, so we’ve been playing + “War”.

Just like War (the card game), but I alternate out the + numbers.  So she draws a 2, she needs to say, “2 plus 1 equals 3″, then I do the same, the highest sum wins that hand .  Then we’ll do War +2, War +3 and so on.

But…if you have any other suggestions/variations, I’d love to hear them!

I’m not a professional when it comes to search engine optimisation, but having run a few different websites, there are some very simple things that website owners can do to help with website rankings that make a huge difference.  Keyword rich titles, keyword rich descriptions, and adding post tags all help your website to rank…and get traffic.  I actually purchased a course earlier in my website learning curve and it has served me well, even though it was fairly basic.

Algorithms come and go and change depending on the engine, but if you stick to the basics, and code in relevant keywords whenever possible, it sure does make a difference!  Keyword rich linking, even within your own websites really helps too .

Anything in your homeschool this year?  It looks like we’ll be having another relaxed, year-round sort of year because with our move and baby coming we aren’t getting much ‘formal’ done.  However, my 7-year-old wouldn’t read her story Bible yesterday.  She wants the real thing, so she pulled out a KJV with little words and read 12 verses of it to me (only got stuck on a couple of words too!)

My baby is growing up…she said she didn’t want to be a ‘baby’ anymore.  She want’s the whole story, not just pieces.  I’ve been reading her Nehemiah at bedtime and she was so fascinated by his account and that she’d never heard it in a story Bible before.  She wants ALL the details, she is SO frustrated by children’s Bibles that omit what she considers very important events.

I’d like to get her a NiRV with large print .  Next Amazon order!!

Every country certainly has its own financial and tax regulations (though there are many similarities, particularly between western countries).  I’m a Canadian, so even though our friends to the south have many similarities, there are definitely differences in how we file taxes/requirements etc.  Then there are our friends across the sea in England.  A UK Limited Company is certainly similar to an LLC in the US, and we have limited companies here in Canada as well, but still – not exactly the same. Good thing we’re not planning on moving to a new country with new rules any time soon!

Well, we arrived back at our farm with a trailer full of boxes, a truck full of cattle (and one dog), and a van full of children and …more boxes!  So, it’s official, we’re definitely back at our farm, and drowning in boxes that I need to squish into our tiny home .  It’s good to be back, and event hough it’s a bit overwhelming right now, it’s definitely more do-able for us to be moving a few months BEFORE baby moves than it would be a few months AFTER baby arrives (and wants to nurse 8 hours/day!)

Back to school time is a popular time of year to pick up new computers for growing family members and children who are off to college.   Personally, we’re a Mac family (they have some special offers on their website at the moment), but my step-dad is a big fan of Dell’s.  That could be because he worked on answering support calls for them for awhile, but I do know he tends to prefer their brand.

Dell is fairly well-known for offering coupon codes and special sales, so if you are in the market for a brand-name PC-style computer, you can find Dell coupon numbers at this website. There are codes for laptops, desktops, monitors, cameras, and more – most of them are very current and expiring in the next few weeks

They even have deals on those tiny little net books with the batteries that last SO long (7 hours!  My laptop doesn’t last nearly that long…wish it did!)

There are also some Dell reviews for the company in general and for specific models, but they’re all mixed up – you’ll have to read through them if you need something specific.  The coupons also work best if you’ve done some research in advance and have an idea of what you’re looking for, because this page is mainly text (no explanatory photos.)

Have fun with your back to school shopping!

Well, we’ve been packing like crazy people here for the past few days, and we’re almost done! I only have a few things left in the kitchen and the bathroom! It’s amazing really! Hopefully we’ll be able to hit the road with our first load of cows/household belongings tonight. It all depends on if Larry can catch the calf he’s after!