COH

Just a quick note...The Carnival of Homrschooling is up at The Common Room.

I think I'll take a break.

I think I'll take a break from consistent blogging until September 4th. I have my brother's wedding coming up next weekend and so have to be ready to fly across the country next Thursday. Also, a neighbour died yesterday and I'm trying to help by looking after a child that came with one of the relatives (who will be here for several weeks) so including my two, my neice and nephew and random neighbourhood kids I'll likely be averaging about 5 or 6 kids in the house.

Not that I absolutely won't post but for the next week but it's most likely that I won't. Between August 30th and September 4th it's a certainty.

And just in case anyone was wondering, Calico didn't make it. The poor guy finally died yesterday morning and is now buried under a bed of Nasturtiums that will bloom in all the beautiful colours of a calico fantail.

Calico Fading

It's been an anxious day today. The kids and I had just got back from a walk when Catherine noticed that Calico, our fantail goldfish, was bent up and resting on the bottom of his tank. He looked horrible.

She began to cry because she knew what the likely outcome was. We had a beta a few years back that got sick and we euthanized him by freezing him in a baggie of water. i think she was expected that to be my suggestion this time around. But this is Calico and Calico has been with us for 3 years now. He has a 10 gallon tank (really the minimum you need for one goldfish. Never put one in a goldfish bowl!) and gets regular treats of cooked peas. He's a special fish.

So we put in some medicine in case it was a fungus or parasite. Then we did a water change, about 50% in case it was water quality. Which it turns out, it likely was. We noticed black marks on his fins and black marks are scabs where a fish has been scratched or burnt and is healing.

What we peiced together is this - Harry dumped a ton of goldfish food in one day a couple of weeks ago. I cleaned it out and did a water change then (suction out a percentage of water and replace with fresh stuff) but hadn't done one since. I was negligent. I'm guessing the decomposed food caused problems with the chemistry which resulted in ammonia that burned Calico and nitrites that caused his current problems.

If he's still alive in the morning I'll run out for a testing kit and some aquarium salt. I'll also change the water again. I'm going to give this little guy every chance I can.

Dawkins is darling but Shermer is sexy.

Awhile back I drooled over Richard Dawkins. He's definately a cutie but he's been eclipsed in my mind by the thoughtful Michael Shermer. Via The Friendly Atheist I learned that Mr. Shermer had posted an open letter to "Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens," in Scientific American.

It's a good one.

Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance. I suggest that we raise our consciousness one tier higher for the following reasons.

Among the reasons are anti-something movements by themselves will fail and promote freedom of belief and disbelief. It's succinct and definately worth the few minutes it will take to read.

Both extremes, whether religious fundamentalist or anti-theist, seem to be getting a lot of press these days. It's nice to have someone like Michael Shermer who's willing to lead the rest of us up the calm and rational middle.

Soccer Season is Over!

My daughter's soccer season ended yesterday with a big and sort of meaningless tournament. I don't really think there were any official rankings or such, just a big mess of kids and parents and an excuse to mingle and have some fun.

The fun was dampened a bit because when I said 'mess', I meant it quite literally. The roads around the soccer fields were pure mud from a mornings worth of downpour. We arrived at noon as other teams were wrapping up and leaving and there were several cars that required strong men to push them out of mudholes. Thankfully Catherine's first game was dry but just as the second one began there was one of those 10 minutes showers that absolutely soaked everyone without an umbrella. Like me. The rest of that game was played in a steady but lighter rainfall.

To leave, everyone had to face the mud. People eventually gave up trying to walk around it and simply trudged through it even though it was up to their ankles. I'm sure I wasn't the only person rinsing out my shoes when I got home.

And how did the kids do? They had a ball of course. Catherine's team finished having left their losing streak unbroken but still got medals to take home and hang up. She's pretty sure she wants to participate next year and Harry, after seeing her medal, thinks he might give it go as well.

Congratulations Scott!

Okay, so Scott Brison probably won't ever see this but I thought I'd offer up my congrats anyway.

Scott Brison in a Canadian politician and openly gay. Today he got married to his partner, Maxime St. Pierre. A picture of the couple (Scott's on the right)...



A link to a news story.


Back when I was active in provincial youth politics I lived in his riding and helped with his first run for federal office. Now I was a 'youth' so that meant lots of envelope stuffing but he and his campaign office were always fun and upbeat. My sister and I eventually got quite involved in the provincial youth executive in the mid-nineties as well as some riding functions so we got to know him a bit. Not enough to get an invite to the wedding though! That's okay, I didn't have anything suitable to wear anyway. :)

Anyhow, if you ever see this Scott, congratulations and best wishes from one of the two sisters from Lantz. I hope married life brings you and your spouse every happiness.

Homeschool Planit

I'm a real sucker for BETA testing and recently I found out about a Homeschoolng planning site that will be open soon for homeschoolers to BETA test. Here's a description;

Features will include:
- Daily Planner/Calendar
- Ability to share Curriculums
- Customer Grading System
- Online Record Tracking
- Online Journal
- Homeschool Community
- Community Calendar
- And More!

Again when launched, this resouce will be FREE of charge to everyone!

I'm not quite sure how useful it will be for me seeing as homeschool planning hasn't been a focus of mine but I'm still going to try it (who knows? It might help make planning a focus) and thought I'd spread the word in case anyone else is interested.

Homeschool Planit

Just a note; It's not up yet. You sign up for BETA testing and when they're ready they'll contact you and let you know.

Oh Yeah...

I ran...RAN up a hill today. I got to the top and wasn't breathless and wasn't hurting. This exercise thing is flippin' fantastic!

Fitness Friday

I now have fitness shoes!

I went into town Wednesday with the goal of picking up some decent sneakers for walking and my workouts. First stop was a sporting goods store where I nabbed the first attentive sales person I could find. What a way to shop! The sales guy was fantastic. He showed me all the shoes, explained what price point guaranteed quality and why I needed both a runner and a cross trainer if I was serious about my exercising.

Apparently cross trainer are built with support on the sides while a runner's support and strength are built into the length of the shoe. Using one for the wrong activity will wear it out prematurely. Who knew?

Unfortunately, they didn't have many pairs in my price range. I found a pair of $80 Reeboks in clearance for $50 but faced with picking a cheaper pair of runners the sales guy advised holding off until I could afford a good pair rather then ruin my enthusiasm with a cheaper product. Next month!

I've been trying out my marvelous new shoes with my favourite fitness tool, Yourself Fitness.



That's Maya. She's the virtual personal trainer of Yourself Fitness. When you first fire up the game she'll get your weight, height, goals and then put you through some jumping jacks, crunches, etc. to create a baseline for your fitness level. You then get personalized daily workouts that, depending on your goal, target different areas. Since mine is weight loss I get the whole spectrum of workouts - cardio, core, upper body, lower body and flexibility. There's even an option for a yoga workout if you choose. I choose it once. I had NO idea how hard yoga was.

I've been having a lot of fun with the program. The workouts have a lot of variety and having Maya there (even if she's just a virtual Maya) to compliment, chide or push me really helps.What was really rewarding this week was taking another one of her fitness tests and actually seeing the progress. I can do a push up now! And the crunches don't hurt...as much.

The game is available for XBox, PC and PS2 and darn it, I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who wants some variety and some (un)real interaction with a trainer.

Our Newest Reading Resource

Yup. It's a Pokemon game and it involves reading. Lots and lots of reading.

Catherine's been wanting to read chapter books for awhile but has been intimidated by them and unwilling to put in the practice needed to make the reading easier. Until last night when, walking through Walmart with a stash of birthday and saved allowance cash she spotted Pokemon Diamond for the Nintendo DS.

The DS, which was being ignored lately, is getting a workout like it hasn't seen since she first got it. Her reading skills are getting a workout too. The game has a constant stream of instructions and dialogues that you must read to make progress. While there's nothing tremendously difficult to read in the game she's getting the practice she hadn't until now. Now granted, this is one day into playing the game but the determination with whiched she's approached the reading part of it is different from other games she's played so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the motivation that carries her over the current hump in her reading.

Colouring Pages to Compliment Story of the World

We've settled into a bit of a routine when it comes to listening the Story of the World. I'll turn it on and then print out some colouring pages for Catherine to colour while we're listening. I've managed to hunt some some related colouring pages of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and thought I'd share them here.

Ancient Egyptians;

Ancient Egyptian Design . This is the best site of them all. The pictures are beautifully done and finely detailed. Here's an example;


Egypt

Ancient Greece;

Activity Village - Greece

Colouring pdf

Another pdf

Ancient Rome;

Ancient Rome colouring

Sacred Spiral Kids, a site for Pagan kids, also has some pdf colouring books on the greeks, Romans and Egyptians.

A Couple of Cool Resources

Higher Up and Further In's entry in this week's COH has a link to a great education resource on opera. You can download a manual and four operas that include narrative tracks. The opera's use a zip program I haven't seen in awhile, PKzip, but Winzip or Winrar open them as well.

Next is my find and I'm tickled pink with it. I was looking for books on Chapters.ca when I found one I thought I'd get, Physics Experiments for Children by Muriel Mandell. There weren't many reviews on the Chapters site so I thought I'd google it and see what I came up with. I came up with a PDF. Hmmm. Could it be? I clicked and yes, it was. The whole book in PDF format! Curious I visited the originating site and found Vidya Online

Vidya Online invites teachers, academics and concerned individuals to join hands and create an online forum which will enable introspection, discussion and examination of issues in primary education.

The discussion part of it doesn't seem very active but if you go to the Bookshelf you'll find a ton of great books to download. Everything from children's literature to science experiments to 'Mathematics of Paper Folding'.

Have fun downloading!

Desktop Calendar

Here's a really useful bit of freeware...It's Desktop Calendar.



I've been using this for a couple of years now. It pretty much does what you see in the picture, provide a very simple and clear view of your commitments for the month. No fancy reminders or forms to fill out. Just right-click a date, add your appointment and that's it.

It's probably not enough for a lot of people but if you do fine with a wall calender and just want something to stick on your desktop, it's perfect.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Last night we watched the documentry I'd expected to see the night before on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It was part of a 5 part series from the BBC called Secrets of the Ancients that explores different artifacts of the ancient world and then builds big models to test how they worked. In this episode they were exploring how water might have gotten up to the top tiers of the Garden.

Two ideas were presented for the transport of water. The first was a shadoof.


The other method proposed was a water or Archimedes screw.

There wasn't much on the Gardens (how could there be?) but quite a bit on the construction of a tiered model, working the shadoofs and building the water screws. One part dealt with casting a bronze water screw. When they got to the point of poring the molten bronze Harry thought it was fantastic and declared that he wanted to 'pour fire'. Catherine seems to think lately that blacksmithing is just about the neatest occupation in the world so maybe the two of them could set up shop.

With the discussion of screws and shadoofs it's no surprise that the video turned out to be a great resource for looking at simple machines. The shadoof is a lever, the screw and inclined plane. Various methods for turning the screw included a pulley and gear.

In short, if you can find a copy at your local library, grab it. The kids and I gathered some ideas for a few things we'd like to build and try and it inspired a lot of discussion. Great stuff.

7 Wonders of the Ancient World

Catherine and I watched a couple of documentries on the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World last night. One was not too bad. It certainly gave a decent overview of the wonders and some insight into how they may have been built (I had no idea you can 'uncurl' ivory). The other one however was confused and boring and had a strange obsession with trying to shoehorn christian and jewish events into the narrative. It also used all the footage and commentary from the other production!

I found the production here. It mentions that Pierce Brosnan narrates and he did narrate the half-decent version we saw. I'm not sure if the same company produced the regrettable christian version or if it was re-narratted and re-edited by some group on the sly.

Regardless, the only reason we watched the christian one is that it came first and I thought the other documentary was on just one of the Wonders (Hanging Garden).

It's not that I don't like christian stuff. I'm a sucker for christian stuff when it's really about christianity. It's when it's these half-assed production that just want to through a christian veil over everything from the Wonders to shoe manufacturing that I get annoyed.

Carnival Time!

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Dewey's Treehouse.

The Carnival of Family Life is up at Colloquium.

The Homeschool Stuff Roundup for the Week.

This week wasn't really heavy on schooly stuff for the kids but we did do a few things that were fun.

We're still listening to Story of the World. We're up to the Greeks now but we've decided to pause as we catch up on related documentaries. The one on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one on the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World and 2 BBC Building an Empire episodes that deal with Carthage and the Greeks. Catherine is enthusiatic about it all. I had to warn my brother-in-law however as my nephew was up thursday listening to some of the stuff on the Greeks. Just in case, you know, he went home and started talking about man-eating minotaurs.

Catherine also started some geometry. I was going through the Math Mammoth folder on the computer and opened up the geometry workbook to see if she thought it looked interesting. She did and decided to bug me for the next fews days until I finally printed of the sheets. We covered lines, line segments, rays and angles and she had a ball. She's even working on a glossary of terms to go along with the workbook.

I sat down with Harry and pulled out a Grade 1-2 Science Readiness workbook and we talked about things that are alive and plants and animals. He really got into it and being the active little guy he is he had to punctuate every second or third question with a demonstration of how things grow. He'd jump onto the floor, curl up into a ball and then burst up shouting, 'They growed THIS big!!!'

Another plan for Harry is preschool. Eep. Now it's not that bad. I need childcare for one day a week when my course starts up again (early christian church to about the 18th century this year!). My sister was looking after the kids but this year she's on full time at the daycare where she works. She'd fulltime because she's doing the preschool! She's a big fan of somewhat controlled chaos for little kids so I think Harry will have fun.

And there's a bit of a summary of what we did this week.

Fitness Friday

Okay. So I finally decided it was time not simply to lose weight, but get in shape. Almost 3 weeks ago I brought this up with my doctor. She weighed me, gave me some great resources and since then I've been worked towards the goal of losing about 80 pounds over the next year. So far I'm down 6 so it's going well.

One resource that the doctor recommended was an online calorie tracker at Eat Tracker. It's not bad but being a geek I wanted a piece of offline software that was faster and had more features. A little searching found me a fantastic program, Diet Power. This program will create a calorie budget for you based on your height, weight, activity level and your goal weight date. It has a library of foods with calorie and nutritional information that's easy to add to. It tracks calories burned, water intake and daily nutrition.

Before keeping track of what I ate I tended to eat out of boredom. Funny thing happens though when I put something in place to make me accountable...I find the boredom eating disappears. I actually noticed the same effect with my spending when I started using a budget program I enjoyed. When I can see what goes in and what comes out in a concrete fashion then I feel I have control and don't have a hard time stopping myself from making a stupid purchase or eating the rest of the trail mix. For my modest goal of losing a pound or two a week, I certainly don't feel deprived or hungry and neither do I feel stuffed and listless anymore.

I've also started working out. Before I tended to think I couldn't and had excuses ready. Then I found some free downloadable workout videos that let me workout in the kitchen while watching the kids and the only equipment needed are some canned goods for weights. Rumi is a woman who's set up a site at Women Workout Routines. She's created some workouts that are simple and very easy to follow. They're shot against what I'd guess is her living room wall and her cat occasionally makes an appearance but I like the casual feel that results. The other great thing about her videos is that you don't need any special equipment. I do them with a blanket on the floor and cans of soup or vegetables for weights (don't laugh. I've graduated from 14 ounce creamed corn to 28 ounces diced tomatoes!). To download her videos simply right-click on the titles and choose 'Save Target as...'.

The funny thing in all this is that I've wanted to get in shape for a long time but something clicked July 26th when I talked to my doctor. Maybe it was the death of Whitecree at such a young age (he was certainly on my mind). Maybe it was making my weight known to my doctor and husband. Maybe it was creating expectations in my doctor that I had to live up to. Maybe it was the tools I found after the doctor visit. But there was a switch on that date when what seemed hard and undoable became to only possible course and not simply easy, but desirable.

It may also have been the kids of course. I owe them an active healthy mommy. I owe them a mommy who models healthy eating and a joy for physical activity. I owe them a homeschool environment where nutrition and activity are key focuses. So wish me luck. If anyone wants to join me in this, please let me know!

I'm searching for a weight loss ticker, trying out a personal trainer program that's availible for XBox and PS2 and hunting down resources to use to get fit so hopefully by next Friday I'll have some more resources and some more lost pounds to report.

Ew! Ew! Ew!

One of my Google ads today was charmingly labeled, 'Free Creation Videos'. You can bet your booty I learned how to block ads from certain urls pretty damn fast this morning.

Free Grammar Workbooks

I have two sites where Grammar workbooks can be downloaded for free!

The first is Scott Foremen Reading which offers pdf workbooks from Grade 1 to 6. These are nice looking workbooks but they're in colour and so expensive to print. When you download and click print, if you want to reduce the cost, you can go into 'preferences' or 'properties' and change to a quick or draft print and choose to print colour pictures as black and white.

The second is English Banana.

The book is divided into four parts and is graded in difficulty, so that it begins with some basic stuff and builds up to more challenging grammar activities. It features a selection of Essential English worksheets which provide practice for crucial basic areas of knowledge for learners at Entry Level, like using numbers, writing the alphabet, spelling days and months correctly, and so on.

It's not organized by grade and seems to be targeted towards ESL teachers but looks like a great resource for teaching grammar as well. All downloads are again in pdf.

COH

The next Carnival of Homeschooling is up at The Nerd Family!

Breastfeeding

Over at The Thinking Mother, Christine addresses the free formula given out by hospitals to new moms in a wonderfully opinionated and comprehensive post, The Thinking Mother: Issues with Free Baby Formula from Hospitals.

I think the crux of the breastfeeding problem is that, with the help of formula companies, it's been made a political and personal choice issue. I find it astonishing that while it's absolutely expected that we all put little plugs in electrical outlets and limit our children's pop intake, one of the biggest factors in determining their health is treated as a simple matter of nutrition and parental choice.

Breastfeeding should be a public health issue. Moreover, breastfed babies should be the standard by which we measure formula fed ones. That shift alone, rather then promoting the benefits of breastfeeding, would produce a frightful list of the risks of formula.

Anyway, check out Christine's post.

Up since 2 AM.

And now it's just about 5 am so there's really no sense in trying to sleep. I have to be up by 7 anyway. I did try to go back to bed a half hour ago but the minute I laid down I felt productive, like I wanted to clean or something. That feeling disappeared the mintue I got up again of course.

I'm up because the fever my son had over the weekend came back. He was having a great day yesterday but after supper he was miserable. I found out why when he got sick all over me, the couch and the carpet. I got him washed up and snuggled him until he fell asleep but at 2 am he stumbled into our bed with a fever.

Queen size beds only really hold one adult and one child comfortably. I tried to sleep. I hung off the side of the bed with a little furnace cuddled up against me but I gave up pretty quickly.

So now I don't get sleep. My neice and nephew arrive for the day at 7:30am so there will be no naps. Jsut lots and lots of coffee.

Thunder and Lightning

There was a whopper of the a thunder storm last night. My husband and I had just finished watching the 300 (very pretty but otherwise a yawn. Made me wish over and over again that Steven Pressfield's 'Gates of Fire' had made it to screen instead)when it began.

And boy, I haven't experienced a storm like that in ages. When the lightning appeared it didn't give a quick flash and disappear. It lit up the entire sky so that for a split second it looked like daylight outside. When the thunder cracked it was nothing like the usual sound, it sounded like the sky had broken open above our house.

And my son slept right through it.

My daughter was at her grandparents for the night so I'm not sure if she saw it or not but I wish she'd been here so we could have seen it together.

For Moms with Sticky Keyboards

Over on Bore Me to Tears, Lynn mentions that her keyboard is getting sticky from the loosening of a 'No food at the computer,' policy. While yes, you probably can pop the keys off and chuck the keyboard in the dishwasher (no soap though!), another solution is this baby...



It's completely sealed so that you can run the thing under a tap and it won't hurt it. It also rolls up so you can stuff it somewhere while you finish off your spagetti and can of beer while reading someone's blog. They're also cheap. A little shop here has them for $15 dollars.

It's what you need Lynn!

Misquoting Jesus

I just finished listening to the audio book version of Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus.' Mr. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and he writes at length about what textual criticism has revealed about the New Testament. What it reveals is often disturbing and just as often, absolutely thrilling.

I was familiar with textual criticism from my Education for Ministry course. It's at the core of how we approach the Hebrew Scriptures in year one and the NT in year two. I was somewhat aware of how scribes may have changed the texts of the epistles, gospels and so on but most of our focus was on Q source and the documentary hypothesis. I've been missing out.

'Miquoting Jesus' makes it plain that the versions of the New Testament most of us have today are likely affected by the mistakes, sometimes honest, sometimes not quite so honest, of scribes who copied the texts over the centuries before the advent of the printing press. Mr. Ehrman points out that these mistakes may have begun with the very first copies being made as those who did the work of scribes in that early christian community were not profesionals but often simply people who came close enough. They may have misread words, left things out or wrote not what was written but what they thought was meant.

Beyond honest mistakes were early christians who added words, stories or changed meanings to combat gnostics or other alternate views of christianity in the early and very diverse life of the religion. Also, to express anti-judaic feelings, lessen the role of women or make it clear that pagan criticisms of christianity were ill founded.

This is sad stuff in some respects. There's a strong case to be made by some that the great story of the adulterous woman from the Gospel of John ( 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her') may have been a later insertion. But there's thrilling stuff as well. There's a possible female apostle who is given a sex change in some texts of an epistle of Paul...And no, I don't mean Mary Magdalene.

One thing that struck me was how much tradition shaped the New Testament. I run into people who adhere to the idea of sola scriptura (atheists even!) and claim that because I give weight to tradition and reason, not simply accepting the divine authority of scripture, I'm somehow not a 'True Christian'. It's wonderful to have a book that shows that from the very beginning scripture was molded by pre-existing traditions and the sometimes reasoned decisions of those who copied the pieces of the New Testament. That Jesus was presented in a certain way in Luke not because it's an accurate account of his works and life but in that form he represented already formed ideas of a Lukan community.

Great book, a really exciting read and tremendously important in these days were those who would tell us what the bible means are attmpting to bully the rest of us.

Homeschooling Harry

This year Harry officially enters Primary (What bluenosers call kindergarten) and I'm a little taken aback by how nervous I am.

When Catherine was Harry's age she was a completely different kind of learner. She was counting to 100, doing basic addition and subtraction, exploring fractions and symmetry. Harry is exploring Thomas the Tank Engine and can count to 10. You would think that with four years of homeschooling and unschooling behind me I wouldn't be worrying about this, right?

Ah well.

I have no formal plans for Harry. Catherine got 3 years of radical unschooling and I see no reason why Harry shouldn't get the same. I'll let him loose on Starfall, read lots of stories and play lots of games. I'll also be on the hunt for any of the above that relate to his interest in Thomas and trains.

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt is ALWAYS a favourite in our house. It's been an interest of Catherine's for about 5 years now. It's been a little dormant lately but Story of the World seems to have sparked it again so we got ahold of a copy of History Channel's Engineering an Empire and watched the episode on ancient Egypt. Fantastic stuff. It covers the first pyramid built by Djoser, Hatshepsut's temple and even fantastic super-fortresses built by the Pharoah Senusret that look almost like fortresses from the middle ages.

I'm not going to be tempted by worksheets on this though. We'll stick to the odd craft and luckily, I found a great one at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Here you can print out what you need to make a paper Pharoah death mask.



I'll have to look for some more but I think I'll sit down and talk with Catherine to find out what most interested her from the Building an Empire episode and taylor it to that.

Home Budgeting Help for the Spreadsheet Impaired.

I have trouble with spreadsheets. This is most apparent when my husband and I sit down to budget and I have little to no idea how the spreadsheet of figures relates to our real-world spending and income. Rows and columns just don't do it for me. This is real trouble when you're trying to figure out what you can afford to put towards paying down debt, homeschool supplies, etc.

I found a solution. After much slogging through Download.com's planning software section I found the neatest little program. It's Mishesll Software Systems' Budget Calendar. It had a 30 trial so I figured I'd give it a try. 5 minutes after installing it I knew I'd be buying it. This is why...



It's in calendar form! I can see the day I spent money! I can see the day I have to pay a bill! (That's not a snapshot of my install BTW. No way my dear husband makes $1,500 every two weeks). But heck, look at it. If you're a visual learner, that's what makes sense. Not debit and credit and line after line. It's real blocks of time with quick-glance graphics and a day-to-day account of what money we have.

I'm several weeks into using this program and I honestly feel like I really get money now. It's such a simple little twist on most of the budgeting software out there but it makes all the difference when you're trying to manage a home. Try it if it looks like it might help and if you like it it's only $15 US.

That wasn't the only piece of software I found that could be useful for home management or homeschooling. I'm testing out some more so next week I'll blog about another program.

Oh, and I should make it clear I'm not getting anything for this. If I were clever I would let the publisher know and bargain for a discount but I'm not. I'm just a geek who gets all excited over neat software applications.