Freaky Frugalite

I made it. All my children are young adults and they survived my mothering skills. Well, just about. When you are a very young parent, (I had my first child when I was 22! TWENTY-TWO! I was a BABY!) a lot of parenting is trial and error. I can’t say I grew up knowing how […]

Anybody remember that old folk song? I grew up with folk songs. While my peers were rocking to Jimi Hendrix or Donny Osmond, I was listening to Elizabeth Cotten, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, and James Taylor. I later found out that Elizabeth Cotten lived in Syracuse in her later years — just a hop, skip, […]

We traveled out to Auburn, NY, recently and had a little extra time before heading home. On a whim, we stopped at the William Seward Home and Historic Site in downtown. I knew very little about the man (something about Alaska and Abraham Lincoln?) but what I learned on the visit knocked my socks off. […]

So there I was: slunk over the couch, limpid from the heat while my little window air conditioner sputters to keep the room cool at 76 degrees. I’m surfing my feed reader for interesting tech news, and then it hits me: Engadget’s story on Google’s Street View of Antarctica! Oh yeeeeeeeaaaah! In a brief burst […]

Every once in a while, we discuss college with the kids. I have never been fond of the whole college thing. For one, only a mere fraction of adults I know ever used their college education for their eventual chosen career. And college is so wickedly expensive! HOW do you parents ever afford such stuff?? […]

Because we homeschool, we don’t technically have “summer vacation.” I like the consistent schedule and I do not like having idle children, so I’ve always assigned work for the kids, in some shape or form, throughout the year. As they have gotten older, however, I allow them to explore their own academic exploits. One son, […]

As a kid, I LOVED paper airplanes. I could never make them correctly. Mine were always haphazardly folded, crumpled, and they always flew wonky. They never seemed to make it past my nose. The guy in the video, John Collins, has perfected paper airplane performance. It’s not for nothing he’s called The Paper Airplane Guy. […]

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of DoughMain.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. Having trouble organizing family activities, chores, money, allowances, and bank accounts? Oh, life is so much more complicated and busier than ever before. I have tried a few “family organizers” and management books and software, but […]

Whether you homeschool or your child is in government school or parochial school, every kid needs one-on-one help. No textbook can provide everything the child needs, and neither can a teacher and blackboard in a room of 20+ kids. I was one of those children who would have benefited greatly from tutoring. I never got […]

I started a new blog. YES, I did! I am not crazy… I don’t think I am. I don’t feel like I am, lol. My new blog is just starting up, and there is very little content right now. I’m taking my time with it. No embellishment, no crazy chattering, no colorful buttons and advertising. […]