Smart Ideas

Received some of these today in an email. Thought they might be worth passing along!

Need a quick ruler? A dollar bill is about 6 1/8" long.

Spritz thread ends with hairspray to stiffen them for easier needle-threading.

A magnet in the sewing basket is handy for picking up dropped needles or pins.

When emailing directions to get to your house, include a photo of the house.

Before taking something apart to fix it, take digital photos along the way so you know how to put it all back together again.

Wash the interior of windows horizontally and the exterior vertically. If they streak, you'll know which side to redo.

Clean narrow, stained bottles and vases by filling them with water and dropping in a tablet of denture cleaner.

If you plant flower beds in a diamond pattern rather than in straight rows, they'll look fuller faster.

Unstick a zipper by rubbing a penceil along it. The graphite lubricates the teehh. A candle or other piece of wax works great, too.

Rub glassware with a cloth dipped in toothpaste to remove small scratches.

Rub bathroom mirrors with shaving cream and wipe off with soft cloth to cut down on post-shower fogging.

Overbaked cookies? Store in an airtight container and they'll soften after a day.

Dripping faucet making you nuts? Tie a string from the end of the faucet to the drain. The water will silently drip down the string and into the drain.

I know puting peanut butter on hair helps get out gum. And that was the suggestion in this list. But I also discovered that vegetable oil works just as well and it's less smelly and expensive than peanut butter.

Use a blow dryer to heat gum-backed labels for easy removal.

Freezing a candlestick will allow the wax to chip off easily.

INCREDIBLE Homeschool Source Sale!!! Check This OUT!!!

Check this out: http://www.funfoodadventures.com/estes.htm

You will never find this many resources for so low a price ever again! This is the deal of the century and you REALLY need to go to this website and check it out!!

For a donation of $39 you receive over $300 in ebook materials!!!

What do you get?
Convention Audio Package from Value’s Driven Family
Three titles from Kap & Pen: Eating Better Than Beans and Cabbage, Father’s Birthday & the Great Chicago Fire, and How to Have a Successful Treasure Hunt
World of Animals Storybuilder by Kim Kautzer
Ballistic Homeschooling by Melanie Young
Mother Encouragement Packet from Teach Magazine
Baby Steps to Better Health and Learning for the Littles by Sheri Graham
Short and Sweet A Collection of Short Stories from Christian Perspective
Lapbook e-book of your choice from A Journey Through Learning
Redeeming the Time Journal & Choose Ye This Day from Me & My House Ministries
Fifty Stories Retold from Yesterday’s Classics
Supermom’s Simple Guide to Healthier Eating for Beginners and Beyong by Erica Johns
We Three Kings of Orient Are Copywork e-book by Jennifer Bogart
$10.00 Gift Card from Hands & Hearts Homeschool, Inc.
The Bread by Hand e-book by Kimberly Eddy
Listening Lunch: The How and Why of Audio for Homeschoolers by Kathy Grubb
E-books: What do I do with them all? By Michelle Geffkin
This Book is Being Read By: Bookmarks by Elisabeth Geffkin
Artful Advent: Celebrate the Season with Art by Michelle Geffkin
How Flat is Your Homeschool World? by Phyllis Wheeler
Fox Kids Recipes, Overcoming Obstacles While Homeschooling, and Seeing God even through the Stitches by Tami Fox
History & Holidays: Tips, Tricks, and Projects e-book by Maggie Hogan

THAT’S $330 worth of ebooks!!!

Then, The Old Schoolhouse is offering a great subscription deal ~ you get ALL the above PLUS the TOS special for a $57 donation.

BUT IT GETS BETTER YET! These are donation suggestions ~ If you donate MORE than the $39 for the first deal, they have an additional thank you gift worth $150!!! AND You get entered into a drawing to win almost $900 worth of goodies that will be mailed to the winners!!!! INCREDIBLE!

Why are they doing all this? Here it is in a nutshell. Jim and Kate Estes and their children are a homeschooling, self-publishing Christian family. One of their children has had extraordinary physical needs, spending weeks at a time in the hospital. He’s only three but has already had over a dozen operations. Their family is a testimony of God’s grace through great trials. Jim believes firmly in living debt-free. His job was downsized many months back and he has been unable to find employment. They had a retirement fund, etc., but now all of that has been used. He has a business opportunity that would meet the needs of his familiy's financial needs and give them the flexibility they require due to Noah’s extended hospital stays. But, he needs start-up money to do it. Kate came to the self-pulishing community to ask how to have an inventory liquidation sale. They were simply going to sell all they had in their self-publishing business to try and raise the finances for this new opportunity. However, MANY of us in the CSP loop offered instead to donate our products to them for use in a huge fire sale. This allows them to stay in the self-publishing business while at the same time earning enough to start the new business, keep up with medical expenses, and be able to stay living in their family home. All those of us who donated are receiving a blessing by helping this family and we are getting our business names out there. It’s great for us and great for them!

I really, really want to encourage all of you to consider going to the web site I posted and check it out. You will never find a package like this offered for this price again. Such tremendous resources for homeschoolers!

Excellent Email About Social Security

Received today:

Your Social Security

Just in case some of you didn't know this. It's easy to check out, if you don't believe it.

Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what's what and it doesn't matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts!!!

Our Social Security

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary,

No longer Voluntary


2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program,

Now 7.65%

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,

No longer tax deductible

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,

Under Johnson the money was moved to The General Fund and Spent

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be taxed

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a social scurity check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of
the money we paid to the Federal government to 'put away' -- you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The
Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!

Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people see this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't so.

AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!


----A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.-----Thomas Jefferson

Thinking I'll keep this blog active...

I'm going to be posting a HUGE blog report regarding my unsuccessful attempts to correct a situation with the Golden Strip Career Center in Greenville County, SC. However, I'm waiting until January 15, when Alyssa will be officially done with the class. That time period also gives two weeks to the school for someone to either tell me who to appeal to or grant Alyssa and the other students the credits they earned.

Keep posted...it will be very illuminating to see what happens.

All I can say is, I am not a quiet, sit by and let things go parent...so if that's what the school is hoping will happen, they are sadly mistaken.

So far, I have contacted the teacher, the guidance counselor, a liason at Greenville Tech, the VP at Greenville Tech, the Hillcrest PTA, and the SBTEC. Next stops include the Board of Education, our state representative, and local radio and newspapers. Someone is going to listen and make sure this situation doesn't happen again. And hopefully I will draw attention for the parents and students who are being affected and apparently have no voice.

And people wonder why we homeschool.....

NEW ADDRESS FOR MY BLOG

Hi - I have a new address for my blog - it's now officially attached to my website. Tim Joiner fixed it all up for me and redesigned my website. We're very excited about it, but we've been so swamped with orders and other activities I haven't had a chance to blog about it!!!

Here's my new blog address:

www.kapandpen.com/blog

See you there!!!!

Ah Parenthood

I was emailing my mother-in-law yesterday, bringing her up to date on the antics of my youngest, and I realized after reviewing what I wrote that others might find it a comfort to know they are not alone in the Terrible Twos.

Gideon, as many of you know, is our precocious caboose. Each of my children has had an area in which they excelled at a very early age. With Ginni, it was learning - she could recite boatloads of information when she was three. With Elly, it was obedience - she has always been the one to obey right away. CJ was the handyman - taking the half door of his room off its hinges when he was barely two feet tall, while Elly looked on in awe. Alyssa grasped reading at a very early age. Isaiah was a comedian from the time he could crawl. Phoebe has proven to have an incredible imagination since she could put two words together. And now we have Gideon.

Ah yes, Gideon. The child that God could have given me when I was 25 and fit and instead I have him when I am 45 and fat. He is the most incredible child! Before he was a year, he figured out how to climb over baby gates and climb out of his crib. Spankings were useless - he was going to do it anyway. At 18 months he was letting himself out of the house and running across the backyard. So we put on a different doorknob. That lasted less than 6 months. We put on a lock after that. He turned two in February. We put doorknob covers on the doorknobs...the kind you have to squeeze together at opposing sides in order to open the door. No problem for Gideon. He can now unsnap the things and simply remove them. He is lightning fast - capable of standing next to me one minute and being halfway to the dog yard the next. Obviously, he requires constant supervision.

Gideon is currently sporting a very contemporary neo-Picasso haircut because he found the clippers just minutes after I finished cutting his hair. I'm washing my hands at the kitchen sink when I hear "WHIRRRRRRRR" in the next room. Yep. Nice "W" carved just above his ear. I remove the clippers from his grasp. Next day, I go to check on him while he is napping. I notice my bed is covered in hair. I think, "Wow...how did that get here? Did I wipe up the stuff on the floor last night with a towel and drop it here by accident?" Hmm...not too far away are Curt's mustache clippers. Odd. Where did those come from? Well...after Gideon wakes up from his nap, I immediately see where the mustache clippers did their work and why there is hair on my bed. Gideon is sporting three new "stripes" of near-baldness...right through my fantastic haircut of the previous evening. Apparently carving the "W" was not sufficient. He had to come back for seconds. I refused to make it all the same length because he would have been almost completely bald.

He has figured out he can stand on his potty chair and turn on the water faucet in the bathroom and that he can turn on the water in the bathtub and have it running at the same time. This was discovered within two minutes of the haircutting discoveries. While I was sweeping up the hair he had just removed from his pate, the water began running in the bathroom.

He knows the toilet bowl brush is for scrubbing the toilet, and once he's done with that, it must be used for brushing his hair while walking through the living room. (I was turning off the water in the bathroom when he came through the living room with the toilet brush.)

I have to buy organic household cleaners because he can climb on anything and grabs whatever he can. Upon more than one occasion we have discovered him "cleaning" the sink, the bathroom, the toilet, his hair, the cat...basically whatever doesn't move away from him quickly enough.

He has figured out screwdrivers and tries to take things apart. After watching Daddy and CJ put his motorized car together for his birthday, instead of taking it for a spin, he immediately sought out the screwdriver and inserted it into the proper holes, trying to take it apart. He now knows how to remove the seat.

He learned about unscrewing the tops on things like the salt and pepper shakers and spices...oh yes I've been sweeping up all sorts of lovely stuff recently!

He discovered permanent markers work great on his skin, the couch cushions, and the front glass window. Lovely designs. Very chic.

He learned that dominoes fit quite snugly into the vent grates in the t.v. room. We've noticed a distinct drop in air circulation in that room since his discoveries.

He has learned that headphones, headbands, and sunglasses are quite easily snapped into two pieces.

Oh yes, this child is quite the entertainer.

Montana Gun Law & State Sovereignty

Well, May is starting off to be a politically interesting month!

Montana passed a new gun law which protects the rights of its citizens to own and operate guns which are purchased in Montana - regardless of Federal law!! Go Montana!! They are prepared to consider secession if necessary.

Utah is seriously considering doing the same, according to an article on ksl.com news. One of Utah's congressmen plans to submit a piece of legislation similar to Montana's early next year.

Tennessee's State Senate voted unanimously supporting a resolution which tells the federal government it has "overstepped its Constitutional bounds" and that the fed is violating the 10th Amendment. (www.tenthamendmentcenter.com)

Oklahoma's House passed HCR-1028 for State Sovereignty 73-22. From www.tenthamendmentcenter.com: "Introduced on April 29, 2009, HCR1028 is “A Concurrent Resolution claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers; serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates; providing that certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed; and directing distribution.” (h/t AxXiom for Liberty)"

Other states in various stages of sovereignty resolutions include Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana, Wyoming, Oregon, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Maine. It is estimated at least 25 states will have similar resolutions up for voting this year. Some states are focusing on specific issues, like abortion or gun rights, in a similar manner that Montana did with gun rights.

Governors Mark Sanford (SC) and Rick Perry (TX) have taken a lot of heat for turning down the stimulus money from the Federal government. I think both of them deserve a large round of applause for taking a stand like that - it obviously is a highly controversial issue. However, I think more governors need to have the courage to see beyond their own political picture and see the national picture. This incredible spending is bound to bankrupt the nation, yet so many leaders don't seem to care. I'm glad to see some leaders stepping out and trying to do something!

Well...I have to sign off - we have severe thunderstorms heading this way, so I'll have to unplug the computer....