It’s been a lovely week spent battling strep throat, but I’m back online for a few hours before I stumble back to my sickbed :0
Right now I’m looking for a few homeschoolers who’d be interested in reviewing my new book, Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings. Please email me at cardamompublishers at sbcglobal dot net by 2/14/12, and I’ll get you a review copy. Thanks!
Hot off the press, it’s Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings, almost 200-pages’ worth of my best homeschooling articles and essays collected especially for new homeschoolers as well as those who are thinking about joining the rapidly growing ranks of homeschooling parents.
This is the first of four eBooks in the Stages of Homeschooling series. The rest are:
Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2)
Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go (Book 3)
Stages of Homeschooling: The Empty Nest (Book 4)
Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings is available only through Amazon as a Kindle book. It’s $4.99, or free if you’re an Amazon Prime member.
Don’t have a Kindle? No worries: just download “Kindle for Your PC” (it’s free; step-by-step instructions are right here.)
Want more info? Here you go:
Are you thinking about homeschooling your child, or have you just recently begun homeschooling?
Are you looking for practical information from someone who’s lived the homeschooling life?
Do you need evidence (for yourself or for relatives and friends) of why you shouldn’t send your child to public school?
Are you looking for homeschool encouragement?
If you answered “yes” to even one of those questions, then Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings is for you. Having spent 25 years homeschooling her four children (including one with special needs), writer Barbara Frank wants to encourage and inform those who are just beginning the homeschool journey.
This book is divided into seven sections:
- “Why Choose Homeschooling?” (Great reasons to homeschool your children)
- “What’s Wrong with Public Schools?” (Why today’s public schools make homeschooling more attractive than ever)
- “Advice for New Homeschoolers” (Homeschool how-to’s and suggestions)
- “Surviving the Early Years” (Teaching your preschoolers)
- “Becoming a Homeschooling Parent” (Taking on your new role)
- “Handling Doubts, Fears and Hurdles” (Because the prospect of homeschooling can be daunting, especially at the beginning)
- “Nobody Told Me” (Barbara shares some unexpected benefits of homeschooling)
This book will show you that homeschooling is a great choice for your family.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but I’ve lost almost 30 pounds since I stopped homeschooling.
At the time (last June 9, to be specific), I was reacting to a book I had just read called Why We Get Fat. It made so much sense that I decided to give the author’s recommendations a try, if only for a few days. It was easy enough to stick to that I just kept at it all summer as we packed and moved, and all fall as we unpacked and then pitched many of our belongings while keeping and placing only our most needed and wanted possessions. (See “The Downsizing Chronicles.”)
I feel great, which is a good incentive to stick to the plan, as was my recent reading of another book, Wheat Belly, which helped me understand why I feel so good now. But I can’t help wondering if my efforts were helped along by the fact that for the first time in many, many years I have the time to concentrate on an eating plan instead of being too busy with homeschooling to think about it beyond a few minutes of good intentions. Again, maybe it’s pure coincidence, but I have to wonder.
The bonus for me is that I was becoming increasingly incapacitated by lower back pain when I stood or walked. It had been a problem for about ten years. And now it’s completely gone! Where before I had to sit down after walking for five minutes, I can now walk as long and as far as I want. I keep expecting the pain to strike but it never shows up, thank God.
If you’ve struggled with your weight, I think you’ll find these books to be very helpful:
And if you feel like you’re too busy homeschooling to try losing weight, now you know that there’s always hope that you’ll lose weight once you have more time to yourself 🙂
Would you like to read my new book for free? You can, and it’s all because of my husband.
You see, “we” bought an Amazon Kindle quite a while back but he became so attached to it that it’s now his Kindle (he denies this, but he’s always using it!) There are many things he loves about the Kindle, but recently he found out that he can check out a book for free on his Kindle and keep it checked out as long as he wants, and he really liked that idea 🙂
So we’ve decided to allow my newest book, Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality, to be checked out for free on Amazon because the economy isn’t getting any better and we want people to learn how they can prepare their kids to thrive in challenging times (hint: homeschooling is definitely a part of the process!)
Of course, you can read free excerpts of the book here, but if you want to read the whole book, learn how you can borrow it for free here.
Now that I’m not homeschooling anymore, I actually had time to make most of my Christmas gifts, which was a lot of fun, and my beloved sewing machine got a workout. Since I always need music to sew by, I bought myself some early Christmas gifts: a few new cd’s.
I learned about the first cd earlier in the fall, when I stumbled onto a wonderful new show in the PBS Great Performances series called “Let Them Talk.” It featured actor Hugh Laurie, who most people know as the main character on the television show “House.”
I’ve only ever seen the pilot of that show and I didn’t care for it. However, my husband and I know Hugh Laurie from the marvelous “Jeeves and Wooster” series, which we discovered at the Door County Public Library when we lived up in Sturgeon Bay. After borrowing and watching every videotape they had, we ended up buying the series on DVD. We still love it.
While today’s Hugh Laurie is a far cry from Bertie Wooster, both shows display Laurie’s considerable musical talent. Bertie sang silly songs while playing the piano. The real Hugh Laurie took his musical talents to New Orleans, where he indulged his longtime love of the blues by singing and playing the piano and guitar with a marvelous set of musicians. I watched “Let Them Talk,” the show that documents his trip (you can watch it in full here) so many times online that I finally decided to buy the cd so I could hear the music even when I’m not near my computer. A wise decision, as I’m now doing a needlework project for someone and can listen to “Let Them Talk” while I work in my comfy chair far from the computer.
My other purchase is actually a set of two cd’s called “The Gospel According to Jazz.” I discovered one of the songs on it (see video above) last year and fell in love with it. After hearing that beautiful song I looked up Lalah Hathaway on YouTube and found her work with Kirk Whalum and his group. You can only play YouTube clips so many times before you break down and buy the music; at least that’s my experience. Hence my purchase of the two-cd set.
If you like jazz, and if you like praise music, this is the perfect combination. I’ve been playing these over and over and I’m not tired of them yet (the rest of the family may be, but too bad!)
Just last week I found out that my sister (a radio personality) interviewed Lalah Hathaway several times some years back. Wish I’d known who she was then as I would have enjoyed the interviews. Now I know that she’s the daughter of Donny Hathaway, whose work I’ve always enjoyed so much. Even if you’ve never heard of him, you’ve probably heard him sing:
Anyways, if you’re looking for some new music or an entertaining dvd set, I highly recommend these artists: