Linda's Lunacy

Faith, Home, & Family

WeE-Books Review

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I was able to download 3 WeE-Books from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine in exchange for writing a review of them.

I absolutely loved them!

I downloaded HomeWork – Juggling Home, Work, and School Without Losing Your Balance.

This is such an incredible e-book. From the articles written by homeschool moms about their families businesses, schooling, and schedules to record keeping and organization, I loved it all! In fact, I loved it so much, I’m going to make it required reading for our teenagers! Since they are always looking for ways to make money, I see this book as being an awesome resource for them.

In case you can’t tell, I highly recommend this WeE-Book.

I also downloaded Homeschooling the Rebel parts 1 & 2. As someone who has homeschooled a rebel, I can say that this WeE-Book is jampacked with ideas and helpful hints. To not only make your days easier, but to make life and learning easier for your little rebel.

I found the format of the WeE-Books very user friendly. With other e-books, I have found myself scrolling up and down to read the many columns on each page. But I didn’t have that problem with these. Each WeE-Book has an index and an appendix at the end. I found the appendix in the WeE-books that I read to be full of resources, I have to go back and read them again. There are so many, it is impossible to look them all up in one sitting.

There are over 40 different titles in the WeE-Book series. And get this, they are only $1.95! You can’t beat that! Homework was 92 pages long and Homeschool the Rebel part one was 16 pages long. Well worth the money. Actually, quite the deal! I highly recommend the WeE-Book series, and look forward to buying more!

Flouride & Sugar? Good or Bad?

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I remember when M was a baby, and we lived in Massachusetts, I had stopped breastfeeding. Her pediatrician prescribed flouride drops because they didn’t add flouride to the water. I didn’t give them to her. K & M still ended up with a few white spots on their teeth from using too much toothpaste. I need to check up on the little kids more often, to make sure their not using too much toothpaste.

This is a great video about too much flouride.

This is an interesting article titled Sugar is Back on Food Labels – This Time as a Selling Point

I really prefer my family to eat less processed food. So I have read labels looking for HFCS, and we do try to avoid it. The kids also read labels, and it’s great to be in the store with them and hear them say “We can’t buy this one!” 🙂 If we are going to eat sugar, then I would rather we have sugar, than HFCS.

I do use some Splenda for D’s lemonade and ice tea. Since he’s a diabetic, he can’t have sugar of any kind. I do have some stevia, (and some seeds to grow my own!) that I’m going to try in his ice tea this summer. As long as it doesn’t have a taste, he won’t care.

When D was diagnosed with diabetes, and we went to a nutrition class, the nutritionist did say that if your going to use artifical sweeteners, that Splenda was a better one to use. After doing research, none of them are good for you. I don’t let the kids have anything with artifical sweeteners in it.

While we do lots of things right with our diet, we still have areas of improvement. Less sugar use, being one of them.

The Merry Month of March

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Well, I haven’t updated like I would like to this month. Here’s some of the stuff that went on this month:

4 piano lessons (the kids were sick one week, so we cancelled)
16 (!) Bible Drill practices
2 Bible Drill Church Drills (comptetion amongst those in our church)
1 Bible Drill Association Drill (competion with other churchs in our association)
3 Doctors visits
1 outpatient scan of the arteries in Hannahs leg
4 Days (10-2) at the Outreach Center
2 times we help unload delivery trucks at the Outreach center
2 Birthday parties
1 day of jury duty (ME!)
3 kittens born on Abby’s bed !
1 church womens group meeting
1 church mens group breakfast (okay,I didn’t go to this)
1 spaghettie dinner and auction(which was a blast, and raised money for our counties cancer fund)
1 Extra Bible study (to finish up our Exodus Bible Study)
4 Wednesday night Bible Studies/Prayer meetings/Kids classes
5 Sunday Morning church services, including Sunday School
5 Sunday evening church services, one of which was a singing with 2 great groups

Add in school, taking care of the animals, housework, laundry, LOTS and LOTS of yard work, planting peas in the garden, and starting the seeds, and jsut day to day life….

And it all adds up to ONE BUSY MONTH!

How to Save Kid’s Large School Projects

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We’ve been homeschooling since 1991, when K started kindergarden. (Technically, though, we’ve been homeschooling since he was born.) That’s almost 18 years of homeschooling! Since Z’s 8, we still have 9 more years to homeschool!

One of the frustrating things about homeschooling, is all the “stuff”. Since I still have lots of “things” papers, projects, etc. left from K & M, I have lots of “stuff” in our schoolroom.

I really want to get out from under some of this stuff. So I’m in the process of cleaning it all out. No small feat!

One of the things I’m doing is to photograph the projects to scrapbook, and getting rid of the item. Oh, it’s so hard to let go!

We made the above statues out of clay for the 2002 winter olympics. A & Z were really little, A made a snowboard on a snowpile, and Z made a curling rock. Hey, he was 2! lol One statue already lost its head.

I’m getting rid of my skier also. I never could get his head to stay upright. So I said he was looking up at the flag after he won. roflol

Cutting the clutter by taking pictures of projects Works For Me.

I imagine I will be looking at the scrapbooks a lot, as I will miss having these items around, but it’s for the best. We’ll have room for more projects!

Betty Crocker

Works For Me Wednesday – Store Card Passwords

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I’ll just say it up front….I’m bad about forgetting passwords.

There I said it….I can’t remember stuff….or anything…depending on the day.

I hit upon the idea of writing my password on the back of my store cards, and Walgreens Gift card.

That way, when I’m ready to load coupons on my Kroger card, or filing for Walgreens monthly rebates, I just have to grab the card I’m going to be using, and the password is right there!

It saves me time, since I don’t have to wait for an email from the store website reminding me what my password is.

It’s the simple things that make our lives easier. And that Work’s For Me.

NOTE – Please DO NOT use this tip on your debit cards, credit cards (or store gift cards if you have a high balance on them)

If your cards are lost or stolen, others would have your password. not good.

Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit….

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Don’t worry, I’m not going to say the rest of the rhyme! Even though my kids quote it everytime we have beans. Of any kind. Their Father taught it to them. I didn’t. Just for the record.

Last week, I cooked beans to have in the freezer. I cook a 1 pound bag of red kidney beans, a 1 pound bag of navy beans, and half a bag of great northern beans.


Here they are soaking. I did the overnight soak. In the past, I have used the quick soak. I think I’ll use that all the time now. It’s quicker, easier, less stuff sitting on the counter overnight, and fewer bowls to wash. Sounds like a better way to me!

After using about a cup of each kind for our supper that night, I ended up with 3 bags of both the kidney and navy beans, and 1 bag of great northen beans. I put 2 cups in each bag. If you have a smaller family, you’ll probably only want a cup. Which I believe is about how much is in a can of beans. This is the first time I’ve frozen beans. They are definitely better for us, and cheaper then canned beans. And now they will be just as convienent as canned.

Cuckcoo for Clocks

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Did you know that tonight we change our clocks?

I do….

I was soooooo effiecent, that I changed them after supper, to make sure I didn’t forget. I wouldn’t want to miss church because I forgot to change the clocks.

I felt good to be on top of things.

Then I was reading online. And guess what?

I turned the clocks back! So I had to change them again!

I know the rhyme “Spring Forward, Fall Back” I teach it to my kids. And I still messed up the clocks!

I should know better!

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