I took lots, I took some3 good ones, I would love to share, I even sat down now to put them online for you...and they are gone...I have a card but no pictures...Someone emptied the card and didn't give me the pictures....

And the only other adult in the house would be...my wonderful picture stealing husband....

So maybe another day.

I read Ferns 365 day goal, and I while I have no real ability with a camera to improve, I do love pictures of my kids, and lately I have to been taking anywhere near enough, so I decided to aim for one each kid at least a week.

I am hoping to take some good ones that I can post as well as ones for family.

And being digital the whole project is free, I love that in a hobby

I had no idea it was that hard to find a place the gives clothes to girls!!!

I finally got smart and stopped looking at charities, and started looking for orphanages, and again I had no idea how hard it could be to find an orphanage!!!!

There must be a secret that I just don't know.

I finally found one, and I called and asked if we could donate specifically for clothes, and got the names of two girls and an address to send the money to.

As soon as I got off the phone I told JC and she was very happy (course she doesn't have to hunt up a checkbook address an envelope and all the other paperwork!) Then I mentioned to my son he still had money leftover and he asked if he could find a boy to give it to. So here we are having to call back to get boys names and find out if I needed to send two checks or not.

I tell you it is hard to give stuff away!

I think I want the kids to draw a picture or two to go with it and I hope this adorable desire to share grows with them.

My husband was offered a chance at a free class through work, well through some people who work in the same building anyway.

He at first declined because three very late nights a week is a lot to be away from family, and one of those nights is GMC's Cub scout night.

Then he went to a meeting with his bosses boss, regarding some 'restructuring'. Now in general we worry a little when this happens but mainly rely on the fact that all the nearby managers like him (and often fight over who gets him for work) so even if one account goes away, there will be another.

This time there are no nearby managers of other accounts, he is currently in a separate building for the client, not for his company. Which means nearby managers might like him but it is more than a simple transfer of files for him to switch jobs. So this time, we felt he should
A. get in good with the company offering the class, and
B. get a piece of paper or two saying what he can do.

He has had other offers of free classes, but he never wanted to spend weeks reviewing what he knew, this one is on cisco (sp?) servers stuff, and he knows a lot but not all, he needs enough info to not be bored (we hope).

The catch is he has to drive (back to work, he is normally home for 2.5 hours before the class starts) and he is missing for a lot of time. Plus I am not sure if the test is free or not, if not we can use some money that we would be sending to the car for it.

Google em.....

Specifically if you want worksheets for a kid search for the level and type.

eg. free worksheets kindergarten math

If you are not sure, pick a level and then google it, read the sheets for that level then decide if you need to go up or down.

Many sites have sheets designed for beginning year students so they will be a bit easy if you have been doing level 2 math for months. Bump up to level 3 as needed.

eg. free worksheets grade three science

This actually works for music as well though the levels are most aimed at older students.

eg. free music worksheets

If you want a coloring page, use the image search. then you can preview what you are printing without going to multiple pages.

eg. free printable coloring animals

Change the subject to fit your needs, holiday, letters, shapes, etc.

One of the best things about searching is that in a month the top sites may change and you get a whole new batch of results.

If you don't get new results, try changing the order of words in your search option.

Practice does help, after a short time you will know which sites offer a free worksheet just to get listed but want money for most, or the sites that have lousy printable coloring.

(or you could go to

dimeed.com and find a whole pile of sites that I have used....found by googling)

I am a teacher, so my skills are not getting rusty sitting here at home! In fact my skills are being honed as each child calls for different teaching methods, and my google search skills are getting awesome as I hunt up free rescources!

See one more financial reason to home school . For non teachers I bet you use many skills teaching that you would in the workforce ...heh and if I expand on that, I have a 'how to topic'.....

And the other reason, isn't very financial, sorry. It came to me from my pastor as he was holding a class to help parents decide when communion should begin for their own children and how to teach just what it is (not that he or anyone I know had all the answers about that amazing gift) If you take out the 'faith like' words, and change them to education words you have why we home school, we live a life of learning, not outsourcing solely to professionals, though we do seek them out when needed)

I got permission to quote my Pastor here, though I can't recall his exact wording in class, so he kindly rewrote it:

For the last 50 years or so, we have been outsourcing large portions of our lives to “the professionals.” We have taken responsibility and expectation away parents and grandparents and put it in the hands of someone else. Scholastic tutors, tax preparers, oil change shops, coaches, pre-schools, after-school care programs, etc. Even matters of faith have, over time, become things that are handled by “the professionals” at the local church. Need to hear about Jesus? Go and listen to the pastor or Sunday School teacher (but not mom or dad). Want to know what “we” believe? Ask your Confirmation teacher or, again, the pastor (but not your parents or grandparents) and they’ll fill you in.
Our congregation and many others are working to swing the pendulum back the other direction, where families and congregations share a partnership that brings faith home where it can grow amongst the most important relationships in our life. Grace, love, compassion, faithfulness are all learned about and preached about on Sundays, but if they are not live about throughout the week, we’re all heading down a dead end street. Churches can and should empower parents to be faithful parents, passing along the faith to the next generations in the context of life. You shouldn’t have to step outside of your normal life to have a ‘faith experience.’ We know that when faith is a part of life within the home and family, it becomes a deeper and richer thing.

If you want faithful children, you have to have faithful adults to guide them. Since parents don’t have ‘the skills’ or the confidence to do ‘church stuff’ at home, we need to give them both permission and the education to do so well and faithfully. Faith in God is a matter of relationship – what better place to strengthen that faith than within the relationships of the family, supported and enriched by the relationships we share as the family of God?

I don't want to take away from my Pastors original message, I do believe that a strong faith is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some church experts when needed) but I ALSO believe a strong life of education is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some professional support as needed).

I really don't know how he did it, but I know he spent his ebay sales money on some fancy tools and now I have my date! the drive is shot though so no laptop, but I can suffer on this..so long as my husband and I never want a computer at the same time...which he has been amazingly patient and working on his other hobby (miniatures) while I play at night...I really have the greatest husband on the planet

Now to stop procrastinating and 'merge' the new checkbook and old....

When I get around to buying I usually want it right now, and Ebay, first you have to wait to see if you won (did not win viewmaster reels for GMC .) Then you have to wait for it to ship (still waiting for Veggie tales book .)

I can handle the wait for shipping most times, but the wait and fail to win, I hate!

Now we are scouring the pages, waiting for some non movie reels and it is not going well. I so wanted that set with the carry case for reels!

But on a plus note we are getting a shirt from ebay for GMC dressy and white, I really prefer my boys to own one, for more formal occassions.

Every year we try to look for something little for our nieces, but if we miss no big, they are a bit old for the toys that abound.

This year we needed to look for egg hunt stuffers and we hit the jackpot.

For roughly $15 we got tons of eggs, and cool mini mazes (25cents for 6), some stickers, bendy toys (18cents each), erasers(25cents for 6), stamps (25cents for 6). Gigantically full bag of stuff!

Not quite enough for a whole church hunt, but some of the kids are allowed candy, and will want it, so we only got some. and we are pputting a portion of it to the family egg hunt. (gma's)

We also found some cool things for us, a silver and gold egg . I am a kid when it comes to some things, I think they are way cool eggs.

The only thing I would like to do without is the garbage, there was a gigantic bag of garbage from all the wrapping 6 to a pack and we got 10 packs...

We also found a gift for my BIL and my daughter, and a couple stocking stuffers. Still under budget for Misc. for the month.

I made that old checkbook on excell, adn the calendar and the budget, so why don't I do it again (because I am lazy .)

Ahem, I stopped being lazy!...ok fine, actually I decided to hunt up the checkbook that I emailed to my husband which had at least the basic information, obviously missing some info for the checkbook (like two months worth) but at least the lists of bills, and formulas were there.

So I pulled it up, pulled some bank info for up to date amounts, and checked off my list of bills paid ect.

Turns out all the bills are paid for April, only waiting on two more trips to the grocery store.

And another tidbit of information apparently the no OT checks are lower than we thought, which means some revamping of the budget is in order .

On the plus side I know how much money we can spend when we do finally make it to the store.

Oh and after my work today, I emailed the book back to my husband..just so we have it

So since I don't know how we are financially, I am hunting up worksheets again, I found two useful sites

tlsbooks.com with many pages levels ranging from pre to 5, with most being a bit easy for end year students, but nice for mid or early. (and for late move up a level .)

and tutorial.com with several for each level pre-6 only trouble is th3ey don't fit all on one page without heavy editing.

Now all I have to do is solve my 'low ink' problem (and as you can see I got my printer back .)

I dunno...I need my hardrive...If I had it I would know what bills are still to be paid this month, and which have already been paid (most are automatic, so not like a late fee is emminant) I would know how much is paid off on the car, how much to send extra...and how the EF is doing...

But I don't so I don't....

Nothing, nope I know nothing..

And it bothers me, not just bothers enough to rant yet again about it, bothers me enough to not want to get stuff done...why scrimp and make a totally scratch dinner if I don't even know where the debt stands?

Isn't that pathetic, of course saving loot is important even if you can't quantify it...but....well being the rediculous person I am...I don't wanna!

(course dinner is egg salad so not like there is a way for me to be lazy and spend money on it, good thing too)

Not only do I have no idea what "Sidebar Link Border Bottom Background:" is I have no idea what color "#80002B" is...

And to top it all off I am color challenged, I have to see it to know if it is passable or not. (knowing good from passable is not an option..sorry)

So in short I think I aught to stick with the basic blue here...though I would prefer a deep green tint, cause my favorite color is green, preferably with a hint of red, cause my hair is red...

I tried Ba's links and found a scheme I like dark green with a hint of red, but..I don't know where to put the colors! all well and good that I know what color is what I still don't know where to put it .

Not only do I not have my hardrive, I don't have a way to print today!

Sigh, so not my tech week (err month?)

I will get it back though, it is just attatched to my husbands computer, and I don't know how to use it.

First I have to say I am so proud of myself, I am not by nature a garage sale or ebay looker, but I knew that my son was interested in viewmaster reels so I looked and found a reasonable lot and he agreed, Daddy bid (heh gotta use up daddys money so he stops bringing so much stuff in!)

Then I asked my daughter what she wanted to do with her money figuing I could search ebay for her as well.

"I want to use it to buy that cord GMC wants"..sooo cute! but he already 'bought' the cord and had money leftover to buy the reels.

I told her this and asked again what she wanted to do with her money:

"Buy clothes for girls who don't have any"

SOOOO cute! and we have to oblige! I just don't know how...I need a trustworthy organization that specifically gives clothes to girls..any suggestions?

Way back in January we found that gift normally priced 50, for only 15, yesterday was my sons birthday so we were all set to give it to him and wow him with it.

And his Grandmother from Pa gave him almost the exact same gift. Ours was a 3 in one set of chess, checkers and the dice game from pirates of the carribean. Hers was just chess. We snuck out hte box of chess and snuck in our box, and in essence gave him nothing for his birthday.

But you know with all the stuff he got from relatives for Easter and his birthday, I don't think it is too terrible that he didn't get anything from us.

We were handed cash to replace the chess set and Gma will be taking hers back, and we will let him buy something with it...some of it.

Because insisting on 'some to church and some to the bank' is more about not having too much junk comming in than about anything else.

And over the course of the weekend with gifts comming I discovered my son thinks you can't split bills. He recieved 2 dollars as one gift and said there isn't anything left to spend (one to church one to the bank)! I thought it was cute, and he has a point, we are lazy so we do tend to send a whole bill rather than split it down to change. (always with a result of more to the bank, never rounding down!)

Soap, we went visiting once long ago (only had one kid at the time) and I smelled the soap my Grandma used to use....Niether my husband or I had any particular preference of soap at the time, and I imediatly told him to go buy me that brand when we next ran out.

Unfortunaly the soap was worn down, and the name was no longer on it. And grandma died long ago, so I can't ask her.

I sniffed in the store but couldn't find it. So I shelved the idea for a time.

Then today, I took a shower, and found it. In my shower, I had put a 'new' bar in yesterday. 'new' beacuse it was sitting in my dresser 'drying out' I was testing the theory, and it changes the smell of Ivory soap...Dunno if grandma used Ivory soap or if she dried hers and it smells the same, but I am happy I found it.

I just sat down and paid a bill. No I don't have my hardrive back, so I do not have my checkbook..instead I peeked on Ing to see what I had and well...trusted it.

Now I have been using ING and my checkbook for a bit now, and they nearly always agree, see if I tell ING to pay a bill, on the same page as my account 'statement' is those bills scheduled, and when they are scheduled for, so I know the money it says is in there is there and will be till those other ones come out.

Bad part is the pay is still auto deposited to the 'old' account, which means there isn't plenty of money, so no extra can go to the car yet, but good news is I can instantly transfer from the ING savings to the ING checking if I need to while waiting for it to come over from the other bank.

I love ING's easy access a simple design with all the info right there.

The only thing I would ask for is a way to go straight to the checking oiverview from paying a bill instead of a two step click, but then I am lazy

Oh and never believe that 'spending power' always remove the 1K credit line, it is not good interest, and I wouldn't want to pay a bill on credit!

Well since I brought up Oath of Swords yesterday I had to go look up the thrid in the serise, I had read 'War God's Own' but not the next, on my search I found a website with all kinds of free books!

Baen free library

In the explination for why on earth Baen is offering some books free for online reading Eric Flint offers some very nice reasons including my favorite financial reason:

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market — especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people — is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

I have long thought if more things were easonably priced, less people would be interested in free versions, I will gladdly pay a couple books for a hard copy (well um soft cover) of any book I want to rearead more than once. Especially if I can never find it in a library, and serieses I hardly ever find in the library.

'War God's Own' by David Webber is an exact example oif that, my Sister In Law found it online (back before I had internet) and printed it out for us to read, I loved it, and several months later bought my own copy.......

This is a good time for a computer to be broken, or rather the last 4 days were I borrowed and read Eragon and Eldest for the duration, I am now done, I would like my computer back....

If you are interested in dragons, fantasy, elves and strange creatures, epic struggles, and well failed missions. It is a good read.

If you are looking for a book with nice neat tied up ends..these are not the books. I finished with more irritation than love for the next book. Dude still hasn't avenged his dad from book one, and this book just added more to his tasks!

Though honestly it isn't a half bad book...and while I think it could use some editing help, far to often in Eldest the wonderful descriptions cover 5 minutes of fantasy time in 5 minutes of reading, leaving the rest of a 3 week journy with no page space to describe!

I think the 2 books would have been better served as at least 3, if not 4 to get to this point, or else Paolini should have ditched half his world.

Trying to cram the history of elves, man, ra'zac (insectlike monsters), riders, dvergar (dwarves) dragons, and urgal (large man like horned monsters) into such a short space along with three different romances (the hero, his cousin, and his dragon), plus the epic battles, betrayals, and miscelaneous comments regarding life, faith, and community, is a bit much for two (albeit thick) books.

But, they are good books, and cool battles, thoguh not half as good as David Webber writes, He can make a space battle interesting, and write wonderful sword play (Honor Harrington novels and Oath of Swords)

In short, I am nitpociking, because the author is a homeschooled kid..well 20 something so not quite a kid, but still. He was homeschooled, I should love his work, instead, it is just...good enough.

And that is yet another reason why I should keep my comments to myself, too picky, always wanting more...I don't complain about J R R Tolkien, why would I complain about Paolini?

Same reason I complain about my kids, they I can change. Tolkien is long past changing Middle Earth.....Of course I have a right and obligation to work on my kids,(Speaking of complaining about my kids, my youngest still has an 'accident' (potty training) a day sometimes two, my middle girl can't keep a 6 from a 9, and my oldest, well he is still my behavioral handful...sigh)anyway a 20 something bestselling author..he can do what he wants and I have no right to complain, besides his editor prolly told him no one would stick around to read 6 books of one riders journey (humph, Drizzt won fans over like a dozen? books, I think readers can handle 6)

Now see what happens when I can't balance a checkbook or update payoff charts? I babble on about books! I need my hardrive back!

PS did you know you could read Webbers books online?

Wind Riders..so I guess I am not out of books .)

So apparently I missed April Fools this year, I didn't even notice it was the first till today when I came on line and found yesterdays feed from Jeffrey's blog, I seem to have missed pink and green....I suppose I shall live.

Speaking of my broken computer...I need it, no not the computer, the hard drive..remember I said I put my checkbook on the computer..well...that would be the broken computer..wonder how much money is in the account....

'Holy week' we have company to feed, eggs to die, and apparently church to go to...See somehow I ended up with the task of filling the nursery with staff...a strange job for me as honestly I do not like other peoples 'I want my mommy' kids.

But I do see it as a task that needs done..so off to call around or something...

Of course all that information like who does what when is on my harddrive... Did I mention I need that hard drive?