Burger King--WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

What is wrong with advertiser these days? My husband can not even watch sports with our kids without a commercial about pills for many things (enhancement-both male and female, diet, etc.), alcohol, scantily clad men and women, and lets not even talk about the commercials for horror movies.

And now Burger King has a new advertisement. It is not in our country, but, nonetheless, it is beyond tasteless. I can not even put it on the blog, I find it so offensive. To see a Fox News story about it, click here. This is the second offensive ad that they have produced--the other was a Spongebob commerical aimed at children.

I feel that we are living in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. I normally do not boycott places of business, but I just can not, in good conscience, patronize a business that has total disregard for common decency.

To all you organizers out there--

I found a neat site to catalog all your books, movies, cd's, video games and software.

It is so simple. All you have to do is either scan in the bar code of the book with your webcam or, do like I do, type in the ISBN or Bar Code (usually found on the back cover of the book).

It took about thirty minutes to enter 76 books (and one of them I had to manually enter the information--it is a very old Scholastic book). If you would like to visit my library, it is Crazy4Books. Go take a look. As I have time, I will scan the covers of the books that do not have images and add them.

If you are interested in organizing your stuff, GuruLib could be the site for you.

This is a screen shot of the Juvenile Biographies that I have downloaded to My Library.

Spiritual Heritage Resolution

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a Judeo-Christian nation?" and "If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?" on the floor of the US House.

It Is Officially Summer

It is officially summer--THE GIRLS FINISHED THEIR ANNUAL EVALUATIONS TODAY!

To Moms on Father's Day

From The Homeschool Minute (from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine)

The Familyman
Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries

As the token male writer for THM, I'd like to take this pre-Father's Day week to let you non-male readers know what it feels like to be a dad. Actually, I've been thinking about it all week . . . not because it's the week leading up to Father's Day but because I've been talking to a lot of dads lately . . . and I am one.

As I talk to dads about their teenagers who are giving them fits, their wives who don't seem to think like them, and the deceptively deadly pull of success that beckons to them everyday, I see tiredness in their eyes and hear emotion in their voices.

I listen to them talk and nod my head in understanding until they finish. Then in a gentle but firm voice I say, "Man, I know exactly how you feel, but . . . you 'da dad. You may feel like giving up, but your family is counting on you. You can't give up on them. Get back in there, because although they may say harsh things . . . they still need you."

They sigh, stiffen their chin in determination, and nod in agreement. "You're right, Todd," they say. "Thanks for the reminder."

Over and over I watch men walk away, determined to give it another shot.

I can't help but think of that old Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke. It's about a guy who winds up in an old Hogan's Hero-like chain gang and repeatedly tries to escape. It's not one I'd recommend seeing, but one scene has been replaying in my mind this past week.

Cocky Paul Newman arrives at the prison camp and is challenged by the biggest guy (probably named Moose, Big Al, or something like that) in jail to a fist fight. Everyone knows Paul will be knocked out cold in the first round but to the surprise of everyone, he just won't go down.

He smiles, gets pounded to the ground, and then staggers up to get knocked down again. Eventually, even the BIG guy feels sorry for him and begs him to stay down . . . but he won't. You think his dusty and bruised body is incapable of moving at all when he drags himself to a standing position and lifts his hands to defend himself . . . again.

Ladies, that's your man. He gets pummeled, whomped on, yelled at, and spit on but . . . he's just too committed (or too stupid) to give up. He loves you, your family, and his role as dad (even though sometimes he doesn't act like it).

Kind of shines a new light on that non-holiday known as Father's Day.

Be real . . . and love your man,

Todd

This touched my heart and I wanted to share. God bless and remember . . . love your man!

My goals for June . . .

1. I want to finish my lesson plans for next year (at least, for the subjects that I have books for.)
2. Sort clothes and stuff for a yard sale that I am going to have July 17 and 18.
3. I would like to get my garage cleaned out and either throw away or put stuff in the aforesaid yard sale.
4. Prepare crafts for Vacation Bible School.
   

Already Thinking of Next Year . . .

I am wrapping up this year's schooling. It did not go as I had planned, but I do consider it a success. I was planning on doing a little of something this summer, but honestly, I need a break.

I have been working on my girls' curriculum for next year. It is very liberating to have it figured out. I am using a mixture of paid, already have and free resources.

This is what I am going to be doing with Carol and Donna:

• Bible - Homeschool Bible Curriculum Foundation 1 and Picture This!
• World History - History Revealed (a collaboration by Answers in Genesis and Diana Waring)
  
• Geography - The Star Spangled State Book and workbook (1/2 year)
  
• American History - studies of American History using texts and workbooks by Catherine Millard (1/2 year--will continue studying next year until books are completed)
  
• Science - Exploring Creation with Botany (M-Th) and Fun Experiment (Fri)
  
• Foreign Language - La Clase Divertida
  
• Reading Material - I am finding a lot of wonderful old books on Internet Archive -- Old Fashioned Education has some wonderful book lists that I am going to use.
  
• Art - Picturing America (going to use with American History) also found some neat art books at our library sale that I am going to use to teach about certain artists and styles
• Finances - KidsWealth Money Kit
  

Carol's individual lessons:

• Arithmatic - Life of Fred: Fractions (a literature-based self teaching math curriculum)
  
• Language Arts - Total Language Plus (The Courage of Sarah Noble, The Whipping Boy, Charlotte's Web and Caddie Woodlawn), Writing Tales Level One Student Book and Teacher's Guide, and Spelling Power
  
• Handwriting - Copywork (using a lot of History Scribe) Last year, CurrClick had a big sale. We had some extra money so I invested in the Scribe series--I got them all. I will use them whenever they fit into any lesson.
  
• Health - American Girls The Care and Keeping of You and The Body Book by Nancy Rue (I am going to do a lapbook using some of the templates from Homeschool Share and some that I make myself) Nancy Rue also has The Beauty Book. I want to use this book also.
  
• Extracurricular - Creative Writing
  
• Special Mother/Daughter Time - Raising Maidens of Virtue by Stacy McDonald (Thank you Julie for talking about this on your blog)
  

Donna's individual lessons:

• Arithmetic - CIMT-MEP (It is free and if you join 3RHomeschooling Yahoo Group, you can get the password to access all the files)
  
• Language Arts -First Langauge Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Level 1 and 2
  
• Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears
  
• Health - Human Body Lapbook (will be using some of the templates from Homeschool Share and some of my own) I knew I was going to be doing this with Donna so at our library sale I got quite a few books on the body, exercise and eating properly.
  
• Extracurricular - Violin - I tried with Carol last year and it did not really work so I will try with Donna.
  
• Special Mother/Daughter Time - I am not sure what I am going to do with Donna but I am still thinking . . . any suggestions?
  

Having my curriculum figured out allowed me to take advantage of our state home school convention. I bought most of my stuff there. There was not many discounts, but at least I did not have to pay shipping. I also bought items from one store that had a 10% coupon. YEAH! My husband and I are trying not to use credit cards and we don't really like checks floating around (Donald heard on Clark Howard that more damage can be done with stolen checks than credit cards), so we opted for cash. We only carried what we needed and the rest was put in our room safe. There are three items that were not available at the convention and I will have to order online but only one charges shipping. It feels great knowing that I have paid for most of the curriculum and will not see a bill for it later. I will also have time to leisurely look through the books and make lesson plans for next year. Many already have lesson plans and all I will do is copy them. After I bought all of my essentials, I had money left over to buy something I have been wanting for a couple of years--the 1828 Webster's Dictionary. I know that you can get it online, but I think there is something about actually turning the pages of a book.

I am on a message board about Sue Patrick's Workbox System. It is very interesting. I want to implement it next year. VERY basically, you put each lesson in a different box and the child works through them. They stay motivated because they can actually see their work disappearing as they complete it and time is not wasted because everything is put in the boxes the night before. Because of space issues, I might use crates and file folders. We will see. I do not have the book but I have gleaned enough off the message boards to get the idea.

Well, I will say goodbye for now.