2009 September

The Ministry of Cooking For Others

September 15, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Domestically Challenged?, Following Jesus

Last week, I posted about saving money on groceries. While many of us are having to tighten our grocery budgets as costs rise and incomes drop…that doesn’t mean we can’t still share the blessing of cooking for others.

I love to cook and bake for others! Preparing a meal for someone is such a basic way of sharing love. Whether we’re dropping a dinner off, making someone some cookies, or having people over for dinner, we’re sharing love!

All this food has to come out of our grocery money, though, and sometimes that can be difficult. Here’s some ways I’ve managed to keep blessing others when we can sometimes barely make our budget work as it is.

First: Keep it simple. Sometimes I think we get overwhelmed because when we cook for others, we want it to be perfect, and kind of amazing. By keeping it simple, you can afford to bless more often and special touches like a sweet note or pretty flowers from your backyard can make someone feel special and are free for you.

Tithe your grocery money. Take 10% of your grocery budget and plan a meal for a hurting family, or bless them with some groceries. Ask God to bless you and believe me, He will lead you to some awesome deals and multiply that gift!

Cook Double. Cooking double is an easy way to bless someone. All your ingredients are already out, you’ve only got one mess to clean, and you kill two birds with one stone! As long as you’re doing this…

Look for sales. Keep your eye out for sales on ingredients to make someone a casserole, baked goods, or other recipe. If you find a great deal on something you use often, buy in bulk and keep it on hand so you’re ready for your next blessing!

Have a couple go-to recipes for hurting souls. If you know you make killer chocolate chip cookies or chicken pot pie, use that! You might become known for comforting with a batch of cookies, and that’s okay. When you’ve perfected a recipe, you can cook it with almost no thought and have it on the ready for a friend in need. So stock up on those chocolate chips and start your own ministry!

Share a meal. Often times, a recipe will serve more than just your family. Instead of waiting for a special occasion, invite a lonely friend over to share a casual dinner with your family. Food mixed with friends is a sure-fire way to cheer someone.

Pretty-fy your gift. Even half a dozen brownies can make someone feel special, and you can stack them and tie a pretty ribbon around the packaging. An extra-large single serving of a dish for a single friend or elderly neighbor is more appealing when delivered on a beautiful plate with a cloth napkin. If you find you just don’t have much to share, start small, and over time you will find ways to do more.

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Course of Study With Reviews, 8th Grade

September 14, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Homeschool

Bible Study/Character Training

Daily devotional time (Prayer, reading, journaling)

Scripture Memorization (using Charlotte Mason’s system)

A Young Woman After God’s Own Heart, Elizabeth George

Coco reads this on her own, a little each day. We discuss it each week at our tea time.

Tapestry of Grace, all Bible selections

TOG Year one covers the books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy.

Tapestry of Grace, all worldview, church history selections

We’re doing a couple of very interesting books on Jewish holidays, religions around the world, and Church history.

Holman Bible Atlas

This can be used with all levels of Tapestry for geography and Bible!

Language Arts

Daily Grams, Junior High through High school level.

Daily grammar warm-ups. These take about five minutes and reinforce grammar concepts learned last year.

Basics of Diagramming, Christian Light Education

A handy little guide I picked up at Rainbow Resource for two bucks. It gives step-by-step diagramming in manageable chunks. Though it’s meant to be a reference, I am teaching straight out of the book once a week. We cover about half a page, or two concepts and do a few sentences on the board. As much as we loved Abeka grammar last year, diagramming was something I did not feel we fully grasped. And by we, I mean we. It is impossible to teach something you don’t understand. This book has made it all better.

Vocabulary From Classical Roots, Book B

Coco is a word-freak like me, so we both happen to love this curriculum. Greek and Latin roots are given for memorization, and words that are derived from those words are assigned each week. We include a drill time each day for about five minutes, and Coco’s vocabulary has greatly increased. After the initial lesson is given each week, which I usually do on Mondays, we spend about 15 minutes a day on vocabulary.

Tapestry of Grace Literature selections

Literature selections for TOG are living history books, all based or written in the time period studied.

Spelling Power

Spelling power has been a favorite of ours. We spend 15 minutes a day working on spelling words that Coco has misspelled, instead of memorizing words she may already know. Love the methodology of this program, for ages 8 and up.

Write Shop I (this is an outside class she is taking)

I am not teaching Coco this class, but I’ll talk about it anyway. I just love this book! Last year, I went to a workshop with Kim Kautzer, the creator and knew I would one day use her product. I did not plan on having someone else teach Coco, but this class was a great opportunity for her to be with some homeschool friends and a great opportunity for me to have someone else do that subjective grading. Coco already loves to write, so it was a natural choice to encourage her in this area.

Arithmetic

Your Teacher.com Complete Pre-algebra course

This site is like a math tutor online. It has step-by-step directions for thousands of problems in their database. You can follow a complete course, as we are doing, or you can supplement it as tutoring for math. You can even enter a page number from a Saxon or other math textbook and it will direct you to tutoring for that lesson. Each lesson contains a video, practice problems, self test, notes, and printable worksheet. Coco’s favorite part is the applause she gets when she answers a self test question correctly. At $2oo a year, it’s a little pricey, but cheaper than hiring a tutor. You can try it for one month for $30.

World History and Geography

Tapestry of Grace Year 1, All Primary and In-Depth resources

We’ll be studying from Creation to the fall of Rome, via some very interesting books. Coco said she never liked history until this year, and I am sure it has to do with TOG and the books they suggest. They are so interesting to read, and instead of lightly covering many topics, she is able to dig deep and learn so much about ancient civilizations. The bonus with TOG is it’s all tied into our Bible readings and God’s hand in history is in all lessons.

TOG Geography, Map Aids year one, Dialectic level maps

This is the subject that scared me the most. I had no idea what all those geography terms meant! Five weeks into TOG, it is now one of our favorite times. I usually schedule two sessions a week where both girls work on their maps and we discuss geography. I have taken to using a children’s dictionary because it puts terms in a way I understand.

Science

Apologia, Exploring Creation Through Physical Science, 2^nd edition

I was so excited to try Apologia this year, and i have not been disappointed. Coco is loving the experiments, and reading in her science book daily has been no problem since it is written to her, in a conversational manner. She has become quite independent with this program!

Foreign language

Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version Spanish I

I absolutely love this program! It includes a headset where you can not only hear the words being pronounced, but also speak them and the program judges your accuracy. Amazing! In the homeschool version, there are worksheets, quizzes, and tests included.

Fine Arts

Legacy Series: Learn and Master Piano DVD Course

This DVD course came very highly recommended. I got it on a half off sale from their site, and made three payments. The nine dvd’s and __ CD’s, and instructional book were well worth it. Coco is progressing quickly, and the teaching is great. You take as much time as you need in between each lesson to master the concept.

How Great Thou Art, Feed My Sheep

What a great resource! There are hundreds of lessons here covering drawing, painting, colored pencils, and more. I am doing the lessons side by side with Coco and am finding that it is not just enjoyable for her, but i am learning as well…which seems to be a common theme this year.

Tapestry of Grace Year 1, Arts and History activities

A few things we have done so far, we have made Egyptian clothes, cartouches, and studied Egyptian art. We have a variety of art and project books that will take us through all of our history studies.

Swimming, volleyball, workout videos, bike riding…anything else we feel like doing!

Both girls are on a point system for PE this year, they have to accumulate a certain amount of points each week by being physically active.

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Young Bloggers

September 13, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Homegrown Kids, Homeschool

Last week, my daughter Coco began her own blogging adventure. I came across some information on blogging for kids and I knew Coco would be thrilled to start her own blog. I gave her pretty loose guidelines and before I was finished telling her my rules, her idea was formed.

My only limitation for her blog was that it must inspire, educate, entertain, or in some way help others. I didn’t necessarily want her keeping the kind of online journal people usually associate with blogging, unless it was going to minister to others somehow.

She is bursting with ideas and decided she would study and report on music, foods, and animals from different countries around the world. I was pretty impressed when she spent all her free time last week researching these things. I definitely have some ideas on how to work this in with a curriculum, but I wanted this to be all Coco’s. Go figure, she went and made it educational on her own.

Currently, she is working on Australia, and even has a you-tube video posted on her blog by a famous Aussie band. There’s also a yummy recipe posted that we are trying out this week.

I can’t wait to see what she does with this. I’m putting together some blogging tips for her, but I can see already that in a short time, she will be the one teaching me. Cool!

So, here it is:

Coco Around The World

Interested in blogging for your kiddos? Check out these links:

Adventures in Blogging, As A Homeschool Learning Project

Educational Blogging

Blogging safety

Do your kids blog? Share the link below

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What does respect look like?

September 11, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: A Wife to Rush Home to

Last night, I grabbed an ice cream cone out of the freezer that I planned to eat in bed while watching some Nextflix with my hubby. (I’d earned it, OK?) I walked out of the kitchen just as Eric said, “You should probably get a plate for that.”

“I probably should. But I’m not gonna!” I grinned and walked around the corner, then something in my brain went screeeeech. (Like a record stopping. Did you get that? Anyway). I turned right back around and got my plate. “Of course honey, you’re right.” What sparked this dramatic change in my response?

I have decided to “work on” being more respectful to my husband. You know, I am commanded to do so by the Bible (Eph. 5:33). I felt I had a pretty good handle on this one. I always ask Eric before I make plans, stay within our budget, thank him for working so hard for us. I felt like a pretty respectful wife! That is until I read at list written by Karol Ladd in The Power of a Positive Wife.

What does disrespect look like?

Frowning

Rolling your eyes

Giving verbal put downs or snubs….

The list goes on and I’d highly recommending purchasing the book. I am definitely guilty of the first three. I frown. I am a habitual eye roller. While I don’t exactly put Eric down, I can be pretty sarcastic and kinda sassy when I want to. Oh darn!

I took my smart aleck self to the Lord and asked Him to remind me to show respect to my husband. The thing about asking God something like that is He really does remind you. And remind you. And remind you. Harps on it, even. Not that my head is completely thick. Let’s just say I would not want to be God trying to teach me to knock these things off.

In place of the sarcastic (albeit, funny as heck!) comments, I am trying to show respect. What does that look like? Well the book gives lots of examples. But these things are not new to me. Smiling at him, hugging him, and listening to him, I already do all these things!

On a side note, there is one thing on the list of to-do’s for respect that I had never done. The book instructs me to look at him with a sparkle in your eyes that says, ‘After all these years, I still think you’re the greatest!’ I tried this, I really did. But Eric got the wrong idea and thought my “sparkly” eyes were suggesting something else. I finally told him what I was trying to say and we cracked up. Now I just have to give him my sparkly look and we start laughing.

But, back to the respect thing. What does it look like? I have a pretty good idea. For me, right now, it looks a whole lot like shutting my mouth. All the hugs and smiles and encouraging words in the world won’t take away the sting that comes from my sarcasm.

So instead of trying to increase the good things I’m already doing (though I can always use more!) I am going to keep asking God to remind me to shush! To just stop with the sassiness, sarcasm, and rude comebacks. I might think its funny, but it is actually pretty ugly. Its disrespect at its sneakiest! While it’s great to feel respect for my husband, I truly desire to show Eric that I respect him. In every way.

So yeah, Lord, I mean it! Please keep on reminding me….

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Grocery Budgeting Tips

September 9, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Domestically Challenged?

In the last few months, I have been working on making healthier meals. Switching to eating more organic, less processed foods has been an ongoing learning experience. Much of that is learning how to afford all these changes.

Coupons don’t really work for me. Every once in a while I’ll catch one that is actually something I am going to use that week, but it isn’t often. That is just about the only drawback to planning weeks of menus ahead of time.

Here’s some basic ways we are saving on groceries:

Mac and Cheese once a week. For just $2.50 I can feed all four of us one night a week. That really makes a difference in our weekly food budget. It’s quick, easy, and I’ve found a version at my favorite store that doesn’t have any of the really bad ingredients I try to avoid.

Stretching meat. By only adding half a pound where I would usually add a pound and bulking up with veggies, we save money. Also, we are eating meat less and less as I find recipes for vegetarians that are perfectly filling! We still love our meat, though. No plans to become vegetarians anytime soon, I just like to borrow their ideas to save some cash.

Watching portion sizes of our main dish. If I divide a dish into 8 servings and have seconds on the side dishes only, we can eat that main dish the next night. This doesn’t always work with a hungry hubby and two hungry girls, but I find that if I have fruits and veggies on the side, we have more of our main dish left. Fortunately, my husband loves leftovers.

Menu plans and shopping lists! Any sort of plan will help you to save money. I am partial to my shopping system, but there are so many available. When you shop with a list, you save money. Period.

When your budget is really cut short – some more ideas

Be boring. That’s right. Variety is the spice of life and all that, but when times get tough, it pays to be boring! Buy a favorite cereal in bulk and have it daily for breakfast. Or get some peanut butter and jelly at a warehouse club store and eat it every day for lunch. This is not ideal, but if you’re really strapped for groceries, it helps.

Buy a week’s worth of groceries for $30! Check out Angel Food Ministries. There’s no applications, no income requirements, and no obligations. You just order a box and pick it up at a local site. Check into this ministry that serves over 500,000 families a month! I have not used this service yet, but friends have and they say it is awesome!

Ways to save on produce

I’ve found a few ways to save money on organic produce and now am spending no more than I did before! We are blessed to have many options where we live…maybe you have some of these, too:

An organic booth at our local farmer’s market.
An organic produce buying co-op.
Organic farms that sell direct to the public.
A local store that sells health food items and has a great organic produce section that is reasonable priced.
A CSA farm (Community Supported Agriculture) where you can purchase a share in the farm and get weekly deliveries.

Check out Local Harvest to find some of these opportunities near you!

Don’t think that just because you have to tighten your budget, you can’t bless others with food! Next week, I’ll post about creative ways to share food with others.

What ideas do you have for saving money at the grocery store?

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Workboxes!

September 7, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Homeschool, Workboxes

[Note: I wrote this post in June, and was waiting for the start of school to post it here.]

I stumbled across an organizational system online called the workbox system. A mom invented it for her autistic son, but scores of homeschool moms are now using it for their school days with kids of all ages and abilities. Well anything involving bins and school has my attention right away.

I spent a few days reading about this system and daydreaming about doing it in my home. One Saturday, I went to Target and picked up the supplies and today we put the workbox system to the test.

Wow! It is awesome in so many ways. I do realize that I have chosen to implement this on our last week of school. What a dork. Yet I just couldn’t wait and I knew I would drive my girls crazy all summer if I didn’t just try it out.

Here they are:

[I love how you can see our messy table in the mirror. And yes, that is a whiteboard in our living room. We put it on hooks so it would be easy to remove for company. Then we realized that we don’t have anyone that fancy over and we usually end up playing games, so it hasn’t been down since!]

It is the simplest thing ever. Each child has 12 bins (or less if you choose). Before school starts for the day, you fill each bin with one activity. The child starts on bin#1, completes whatever is in it, and then moves onto the next box. Some bins will have a little note, “Do this with mom,” and some will not. Some bins have plain old school work, and some a fun activity.

This appealed to me right away for my 5 year old who can breeze through school in 30 minutes if I am not careful. Then the rest of the day is spent with me trying to keep her occupied while I help sister. The other thing that jumped out at me is that all these moms who blogged about work boxes said that…

They now find time to do all those “extra” things they always want to do in their homeschool day and never find the time for.

Sign me up!

When I first came across this idea, I tried to use a 5 drawer cart I already had. I did this with Soleil and it worked pretty well, but I was loving the idea of 12 whole bins to fill. Then, Coco said she’d like to try it, too. After one day with them both using the bins, I am hooked. I love it, they love it. Soleil got up after I put her to bed tonight because she needed something and I saw her peeking in tomorrow’s boxes with a big old grin on her face!

My only concern was my husband not liking the idea of more school stuff in our living room. When I set them up and showed him how easily we could move them to another room if we have company over, he was fine with them. (I think once I got the whiteboard up in our living room he figured it was a lost cause.)

There are all sorts of ideas out there for these workboxes. The original site is here: Workbox system. I got my racks at Target for $15 and the clear shoe boxes there as well for $1 each. They had really cute baskets that would have worked, but cost twice as much. I was a good girl and got the cheaper ones.

The bins with the numbers I made for them:

Soleil’s are pink, shown here. Coco’s are the green ones above.

Some moms say they worry about not having enough ideas to fill the boxes. I, of course, have the opposite problem. I do have loads of ideas for filling the boxes, and I will be posting those soon.

[Here it is! Filling your workboxes!]

I even made a wish list at Rainbow Resource Center for more activities, and will use any leftover cash in my curriculum budget to buy those. [Note: as I said, I wrote this in June. My curriculum is all bought now and I had a good laugh at my idea of leftover cash. How cute.]