A Meme or a Stream of Consciousness

1. I love being productive more than anything else
2. And I struggle with perfectionism
3. I've learned to see progress as accomplishment (this is a BIG deal for a to-do list freak)
4. I work very hard to hide my perfectionism from my kids, for their sakes
5. I desperately don't want my kids to think I want them to be perfect
6. I need to be social every week in order to avoid melting down
7. I get mean when I'm tired or hungry
8. My kids offer me food and drink when I start getting grumpy
9. I love them for that
10. I absolutely love being able to encourage people
11. I think I have far more friends than I deserve
12. I tend to space out at least once when playing games
13. My friends get a big kick out of telling me it's my turn again
14. I have ADD
15. Not ADHD; I only get hyper when given too much caffeine or when a thrift store is within sight ;)
16. I am not subtle
17. Nobody ever thought I was
18. I love nursing my babies
19. I regret not nursing or at least bottle-feeding Daniel w/ breastmilk. He was only 2! :(
20. I have a lot of mother-guilt
21. I never feel I've done enough to show my children how much I love them
22. I agree with almost everything Charlotte Mason said
23. Homeschooling is my #1 hobby
24. I enjoy it that much
25. I love books
26. I love lists
27. I really love booklists
28. I loved and miss college. My college years show up in my dreams more than anything else.
29. I wish I could be around my friends 24/7 like I was in college
30. I love Jane Austen books and movies, except Northanger Abbey. That one was just silly.
31. I would love to visit England one day
32. Watching a Jane Austen or Austen-ish movie is like a vacation to me
33. Eating a bowl of cereal (or two :blush:) and reading a magazine is also like a mini-vacation for me
34. I am entertained easily
35. Kyle secretly loves that about me
36. I love to giggle
37. My kids really enjoy it when I giggle
38. Because I'm too serious most of the time
39. Generally speaking, I don't trust salespeople or doctors
40. I'm a fan of conspiracy theories
41. I tend to think if everyone believes it, it must be wrong
42. I have a bad habit of picking at my lips.
43. I also have a bad habit of spending too much time online
44. I don't think jokes about it are funny. I'm honestly ashamed of that habit.
45. I love to sew
46. Mainly because I feel domestic and feminine when I do
47. I growl at my sewing machine at least once during every sewing project
48. I don't shy away from debates or disagreements
49. I see them as a sure way to get to know someone better or to get wiser
50. My closest and best friends are the same way. We know we're not just arguing. lol

Our New Old Favorite Game

Upon a friend's recommendation, I ordered No Stress Chess with my Swagbucks. (If you haven't checked out Swagbucks yet, may I just say that I get $25 in Amazon gift cards every couple months just by using the search engine on this toolbar. Simple.) As the box suggests, we really were playing Chess instantly. I learned Chess as a kid, but had forgotten all the rules as it had been so long. Very quickly relearned it all using this genius board game.

It works like this: you have a deck of cards that each have a Chess piece on them, with instructions and a picture explaining how that piece moves. Flip over a card, move a piece. You quickly learn how all the pieces move and how to strategize. Then you put the cards away and play for real once you're confident. I love it! And my kids are learning logic and strategy, but don't tell them.

So after falling in love with this medieval game of logic, I found "The Kids Book of Chess" on Paperback Swap. It explains why the pieces move the way they do. It tells the story of Chess. For instance, did you know that pawns capture diagonally because the real pawns (foot soldiers) carried shields as big as they were, so they couldn't see in front of them. They had to strike from the side. Very cool! The kids all really enjoyed the battle tale.

Lydia actually beat Elena this time. Embarrassed Elena quite a bit to be beaten by a preschooler!

Book Review: Mind Your Mortgage

I was really excited to get this book as I love all things related to saving money, living frugally, and debt-free living. Mind Your Mortgage did not disappoint. If you ever plan to buy a house or refinance, you need this book. It's like a cheat sheet for getting the best loan and being confident that you aren't taken advantage of in the process. Ignorance is so dangerous when it comes to a mortgage. It's a terrible thing to not know what you're doing when it comes to the single biggest financial commitment in your life!

Through this book, I learned the difference between a mortgage lender and a mortgage broker (a difference that can save you thousands!), how to shop for the best loan (it's very simple to compare prices if you just know what to ask and are willing to take the time), and when it's a good deal to refinance (tip: you should never refinance just for a better payment). Reading about the very common mistakes borrowers make will both embarrass and educate you. With Mind Your Mortgage in hand, you can confidently buy a home, refinance your home, or pay off your home. I love this book!

I received this book to review from Thomas Nelson Publishers.

I Don't Not Hate Double Negatives

As part of Liberian-speak, Maya occasionally uses double negatives. When she said: "I don't have no white shoes", I logically replied: "So, you do have white shoes then."
Confused her something serious. I kept trying to explain double negatives and her expression got more and more confused.
I said: Isaac, come stand next to Maya.
"Isaac has no shoes," I explained, "But you don't have no shoes. You have shoes."

Maya: Huh???

Isaac: Ohhhhhhhh, I get it.

One less Clark using double negatives makes this Grammar Nut happy.

Why I Quit Facebook

These pictures have nothing at all to do with the topic fyi

Facebook's Gone Rogue

Facebook has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams of world domination. It’s time the rest of the web ecosystem recognizes this and works to replace it with something open and distributed.

Read More

This is actually only one reason (the other being that it sucked too much of my time), but it's a good reason.

Satirical Video that's Entirely True

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

We visited a church like this once. . .and only once.

Book Review: An Army of Ordinary People

I received a complimentary copy of An Army of Ordinary People to review from Tyndale House Publishers. This book has two parts: stories of real-life men and women being the church (as the subtitle suggests), and attempts to explain biblically that small house gatherings are what Jesus was referring to when the word “church” is used in the Bible. I really enjoyed the stories and just as the author hopes in her introduction, they did make me think “I can do that!” The theology, however, is really weak. She repeatedly uses the words probably, obviously, and clearly to explain scripture using her own common sense. For instance, she says that when Jesus says to take the sin of your brother before the church (Matt 18:17), it simply has to be referring to a small group because as she reasons, it would be inappropriate in a large church because the person would leave the church. We’re talking about a unrepentant sinner, right? I found her feeble attempts at biblical interpretation pretty off-putting. 2000 years later, in a very different culture, we can’t just rely on what makes sense to us to understand scripture. While this book does a great job of encouraging evangelism by making it unintimidating, it does a poor job of trying to explain “church” biblically.