Goals for Homeschooling

I think that it is very important to sit down with your DH and figure out your goals for homeschooling. I believe this is one of the most important things you can do in your homeschooling journey. And you should always feel free to change or adjust your goals during your journey.

I was inspired to write down my homeschooling goals when I was reading two books: Educating the Whole-Hearted Child by Sally Clarkson and Heart of Wisdom by Robin Sampson. These are both excellent books that I highly recommend! I wrote down what I felt our goals should be, then DH and I sat down while out to eat one night and went over them. He agreed with all of the goals I had written down.

Here are the goals we came up with:

I want my children to:

1) ....Love God with all of their hearts and to live for Him.
2) ....See God in all that we study.
3) ....To have a happy childhood.
4) ....To have a loving family.
5) ....Be self-learners.

Okay, here are the explanations for each goal:

1) I want my children to love God with all of their hearts and to live for Him.
To study and know God's Word to gain wisdom.
To shape our children's hearts to love God.
Monitor what goes into our children's hearts, not just punish/reward what comes out.

2) I want my children to see God in all that we study.
Make sure any History, Science, Fine Arts, etc has God intertwined.

3) I want my children to have a happy childhood.
Create happy memories for our children.

4) I want my children to have a loving family.
Main focus is on child's bond with us (parents) and sibling.

5) I want my children to be self-learners.
To posess a heartfelt desire and passion to always want to learn and read.

Garage Sale Finds

I've been meaning to do this all week....I thought I'd share what I found while going to yard sales last weekend. It was a very fruitful couple of hours!

New Photo Coasters - $2
2 Pairs of white window sheers - $2
11 mini-clipboards - .25 cents each (to alter and stamp)
Caddie Woodlawn book - .50 Cents
Betsy-Tacy Book - .25 cents
If You Lived 100 Years Ago book - .50 cents
New 2-pack White ledges - $2
New 2 hanging vases - $2
Beautiful flower arrangement in heavy vasy - $3

For My Son:
Class Club Polo - $1
Polo long-sleeve polo - $2
Polo long-sleeve button-up shirt - $2
Kitestrings long-sleeve polo - $2
Slingshot - .50 cents

For My Daughter:
Book with piano keys on bottom - FREE
Horse Wallies (the BIG ones!) - FREE!

VHS Videos -
A Christmas Carol - .25 cents
Tarzan and Jane - .50 cents
Honey I Shrunk the Kids - $1
Honey We Shrunk Ourselves - $1
Jingle All the Way - $1
Dumbo - $1
Fly Away Home - $1

Whew! How did I do?

Ground Turkey - Friend or Foe?

Have you ever tried ground turkey? I decided to take the plunge, when I saw how much cheaper it was than ground beef. I've always heard that you can't tell the difference. So I decided to find out.

I bought some ground turkey at Aldi's. I *think* it was one pound for $2.49. This was the regular ground turkey (not turkey breast) with a 93/7 percentage of fat ratio. If you bought the 93/7 ground beef, it was cost close to $4/lb.

I made spaghetti last night with the ground turkey in the sauce. It cooked up quickly, with no "disappearing meat", as when you cook with ground beef. LOL! And surprisingly, there was not an overwhelming aroma while cooking, only a pleasant subtle cooked chicken smell. When cooked, the color was just a bit paler than ground beef. The consistency was the same. I tentatively took a bite of the sauce. The taste was the same!! Woo hoo! It even fooled my persnickety kids! They loved it, and had no idea that it wasn't hamburger! :)

I went to Sam's last night for some apples, and decided to look at the ground turkey there. They had the ground turkey for $1.94 a pound and was the Jenni-O brand. They also had ground turkey breast for $3.15 a pound.

So far, ground turkey is my friend. I am going to experiment using it in different ways, to make sure I still like it. I will update when I do. So be brave - go buy some ground turkey!!

Stockpiling Revelation

I decided to clean out my pantry closet today. I have no idea why. I think it was because I had no idea what to cook for supper tonight, and I was secretly hoping there was something lurking in the back of the shelves that I could cook.

Now, keep in mind that my pantry is just a tiny closet with wire shelves in it. Not a walk-in closet. Just an open-the-door-and-the-shelves-are-in-your-face closet.

So I start cleaning out each shelf, throwing away things that had expired. I threw away bottle after bottle of BBQ sauce, salad dressing, marinades, Miracle Whip, microwave popcorn, etc. At the end of my back-breaking work, I had THREE full garbage bags full of expired products!!!!!!

As I later did the dishes, I kept glancing at the 3 full garbage bags sitting in my kitchen. (They were so heavy I couldn't move them anywhere else.) I thought of all of the hours I spent cutting out coupons for those products, time I spent driving to the grocery store to buy the papers for the coupons, time I spent in the grocery store buying the items, and the money I spent on the items. Even if I did get them cheap, it was still a waste to buy all of that just to throw it away.

So I came to the revelation that stockpiling might not be very thrifty for me. I obviously did not think to check expiration dates when I bought this stuff. I mean, if I had checked, I might have had the thought that "Wow, I know we won't eat barbequed chicken 15 times in the next couple of months." Or "You know, maybe 10 bottles of salad dressing is a little overkill since it all expires in two months." But, to be honest, if I had checked the expiration dates, would I have been able to overcome the thrill of getting a good deal and been sensible about how much I was buying?? When you are in the heat of a good deal, your rational sensibility goes out the window.

I wish I had taken before and after pics of my pantry. It looks so nice and clean....and NORMAL right now!

Tips for Bloggers

Here is a blog I found that is great for bloggers like me who don't have a clue about HTML. It gives clear, concise directions on how to change things on your blog. Like, how to make your blog have 3 columns, how to add graphics to your sidebar, how to center your title in the header. Very cool! Here is the link: Tips for New Bloggers

Garage Sale Finds

Last Saturday, I went to a few yard sales and found some great deals! I thought I would share.

At one yard sale, I got all of this for $10:
* 2 pairs of dress shoes for my son. One pair was Bass. Both looked brand new.
* 1 pair of rain boots worn once
* 7 books (2 Max Lucado hardcovers, one oversized hardback Winnie the Pooh, and other paperback readers)
* 5 shirts for my son
* 1 pair of pants for my son
* 2 swimming trunks for my son

At another yard sale I got:
* 2 crystal lamps for $10 (I know crystal lamps aren't in style, but I don't care! LOL!!)
* 1 brand new Discovery Toys Money game for $1
* Life board game for $1
* A huge bag of 27 girls hair bows for $3
* A smaller bag of 8 scrunchies, 2 play bracelets, and some barretts for .75 cents
* 3 computer games (Monopoly, NickToons Racing, and an educational game) for $1 each
* "A Christmas Story" VHS movie for $1

At another sale I got:
* A pair of Laredo boots for $1 (I can't tell if they are boys or girls - gotta find out)
* A Kelly's Kids white cardigan sweater for $1
* A pair of Class Club khaki dress pants for $1
* A brand new bulletin board, still in shrink wrap, for $3 (instead of regular corkboard, it has black, kind of like Nerf, board to pin into)

I think that's all. I felt like I did pretty good! I was really excited about the hair bows! These weren't just little bows - they were they fancy ones! Now if I can only get my DD to wear them, I will be happy!!!

Frugal Finds at the Thrift Store

After locking myself out of my house yesterday, I ended up going with my sister to a thrift store. I got a couple of great finds!

* A pair of Hanna Andersson clogs that look like new, in my DD's size, for $1.69! These retail for $48. Wow!
* A pair of Teva sandals for me for $1.99. They feel pretty comfy!

We went to Big Lots,too. I got (3) 3-pack digital pregnancy tests by Clearblue (??) for $2.00 each! And they don't expire until June 2009. They normally retail for $20 each. They also had a bunch of cool scrappin' stuff. I got some Basic Grey "Mellow" chipboard packs for $2, Basic Grey Wholly Cow rub-ons for $1, and they had but I didn't get some Basic Grey "Oh Baby" ribbon packs for $3. If you have a Big Lots, it's worth going to check it out!

The only other good deal I've gotten lately was a one-day only sale at Kroger for Tyson whole chickens (the ones labeled all natural) for .49 cents a pound. They were originally almost $9.00 each, and I got them for $2.xx each. I got 4! I later heard that Tyson is being sued for the chickens labeled "all natural" were not really all natural, or something like that. But oh, well! It's still a good deal for NOT all natural chickens!! LOL!

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately....We have been super busy with weddings, funerals, and the like. And I haven't felt great. My thyroid is still out of whack! Enough excuses... :)