Quick question...

Ok, you may have noticed that I added a photo to my blog's header.  Here's my question:  is it displaying properly for you?  My mom said it loaded ok for her, but then it disappeared and there was just a black box.  She was viewing it on a PC using Explorer... I'm using a Mac and have viewed it in both Firefox and Safari and it looks fine.  If it doesn't appear correctly, does anyone have any suggestions for how to fix it?  Thanks for your help!  :)

Dear internet, I love you!

The past week has been really busy and I have lots of things I want to write about.  But first, my favorite thing that happened this week:  I got to meet one of my "friends in the computer" in real life!  Fellow homeschool mom blogger, Laura, from Stag Beetle Power (one of my favs!) lives on the other side of the country from me and contacted me to let me know that she was going to be visiting family about an hour from where I live, and would I like to get together for a play date?  Um, YEAH!  So we did, and it was lovely!  The boys hit it off instantly and had a blast playing together (burning off enough energy in the process that if harnessed, could've powered a moderate-sized city), and we grownups chatted nonstop the whole time.  It was great talking to somebody so like-minded, and I felt like my usual shyness was non-existent because we already knew and liked each other from reading each others' words online.  Every time I think about that day I just have to grin.  Technology is so amazing.  Thank you, mind-blowing human ingenuity - for evolving this brilliant communication tool called the internet, which facilitated the forming of a friendship!

 

Monkeyman & J.

Laura and Me  :)

PS.  If you get a chance, check out Stag Beetle Power - Laura writes about the many cool things they do, and she posts breathtaking pictures of Oregon scenery that make me want to pack up and move there!

Hey! Someone Nominated Me for a Blog Award! Then Someone Else Gave Me An Award Too!

It has just been brought to my attention that I was nominated for a Homeschool Misfit Blog Award. I have no idea who nominated me, but whoever you are - THANK YOU! I've never been nominated for anything before and you totally made my day! If anyone would like to vote for my blog, you can do so here. It's in category #5:

"The Blabber Blog Award- "MOM, you put THAT photo/story on your blog?" This one's for the blogger who isn't afraid to embarrass her family for the sake of blog fodder."

The link will take you to the listing page and you can check out all of the nominees. I'm looking forward to being up waaaay past my bedtime tonight reading all of them! BTW, if you find one you like better, I swear my feelings will not be hurt if you don't vote for me. I'm just psyched that I get to put the snazzy "nominee" button on my sidebar! Oh yeah - voting is open until Nov. 3, 2011. Thanks again, kind person who nominated me!


WHOA! As I was about to post the above, I was informed by the fabulous MamaTea of The Hmm...schooling Mom that she has given me an award also!


The rules for this award are:

• Thank the person(s) who nominated you and link back up with them.
• Tell Readers 7 things about yourself.
• Pass this award onto 15 newly discovered bloggers and let them know.

Thank you MamaTea!

7 things about me:

1. I am the only girl I have met (so far) who loves math.
2. I love taking long aimless drives, getting myself lost, and finding my way back home. It's amazing how many places there are really close to home that you've never seen before.
3. I also love driving through cemeteries. I'm fascinated by the artwork and sculptures on gravestones, and always wonder about the lives of people who lived and died long before me.
4. I love every kind of music except Country. (sorry Country music lovers!)
5. I have never ever smoked pot or done any kind of drug. I find that this puts me in a very small minority.
6. I have a fairly huge telescope that my stepdad & I built from plans we got on the internet. (Hmm, I should do a post about that one of these days!)
7. I've always wanted to travel overseas... to be someplace very far from home and totally foreign to me. I'd especially love to see Italy. My ultimate dream vacation, however, would be a cruise to Alaska, watching the Northern Lights.

And here are 15 delicious blogs (some more newly discovered than others) for you to devour. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be homeschooling blogs; most of these are, but a few are just general parenting blogs and still totally worth the read.

1. Life on the Hill
2. Parenting: Illustrated With Crappy Pictures
3. Backwoods Mom
4. Maybe If You Just Relax
5. Eat. Poop. Sleep.
6. Deciphering Kate
7. A Bona Fide Life
8. Silver Outlined Window
9. Small Things
10. Home For Good
11. End Of Ordinary
12. Stag Beetle Power!
13. For Love Of Education
14. Ramblings of a Dysfunctional Homeschooler
15. Almost Unschoolers

Happy Bloggiversary To Me!

Recently I was trying to remember when I started this blog, so I checked - and as of today, Aug 21st, I have been writing here for exactly one year! A friend of mine recently posted about why she blogs, which prompted me to consider why I do it also. The first four reasons are my original, and continuing, reasons:

1. To document our homeschooling journey, for both me and the kids to look back on.
2. To help me keep myself accountable - it helps motivate me to make sure I'm doing enough interesting/educational stuff to have something to blog about.
3. To give my family members or other critics a place to see what we are doing and to help them understand why we have decided to homeschool. (Although to my knowledge none of them have read it yet. But when the right conversation comes up, I can say: "It's in my blog, go read it, and I'll be happy to discuss it with you afterwards.")
4. To help me organize my thoughts so I can better articulate them in face-to-face conversations. Writing has always helped me clarify things for myself.

The unexpected reason I've added to that list, is the amazing connections I have begun to make in the blogging community. I love reading other blogs - for ideas, inspiration, and commiseration - and I love when people whose blogs I read, read mine. Does that make sense? You can see that my blogroll over there on the left has grown quite long - all of these are wonderful blogs, from people all over the country world with different, interesting perspectives. There are some who have similar perspectives to mine, and it is so nice to escape the physical limitations of the small town we live in, and know that there are other people like me out there somewhere, even if there aren't too many right here. Several of these people have added my blog to their blogrolls, and that is such a great feeling for me. I am blown away that people I've never met have read stuff I wrote, and then essentially told others, "Hey, I read this!" It's a lovely compliment. So to anyone reading this, I just want to say - thank you for visiting!

Blogging is pretty nifty

Okay, so my favorite new pastime is hunting out new and interesting blogs to read. If you look over at my blogroll, you'll see that it has grown quite long. Most are about homeschooling; all are at least about some facet of parenting. I really don't know how I'm going to find time to homeschool my kids with all of this great stuff to read about homeschooling! For anyone else who is also diving into the blogosphere, whether it be to read others' blogs or to put your own blog out there, here are a few directories I have come across:

The Homeschool Post 2010 Best Homeschool Blogs
Another list of Best Homeschool Blogs
Homeschooling_Bloggers_Haven Yahoo Group
Evolved Homeschooler Wiki
Secular Homeschool Blog List

There are some really amazing and fascinating people out there in the world... thank you internet for connecting me to them so that I can receive humor, information, and inspiration from them!

EDIT: Found one more: Hip Homeschool Moms Ultimate Homeschool Blogroll