Day 1: Developing the Habit of Thanksgiving

This morning in church our pastor shared a message entitled 'Five Ways to Give Thanks' in which he explained that it takes 21 days of repetition to develop a habit. He challenged us to express 3 things each day for which we are thankful and continue the practice for 21 days.

So, here I am, I thought I would post my items here just to give me a consistent place to document my daily thanksgiving.

In the past I posted a series called Thirty Days of Thanksgiving, this will be a bit different because these will be more personal things for which I am thankful. So join me if you like and feel free to share things you are thankful for too.

Today I am thankful for:

1. Today's message in church through which God challenged me to be more thankful.

2. For safety on the icy roads today as my family and I travelled to and from church several times.

3. For a warm fireplace to sit near on this cold day, and a yummy cup of hot chocolate!

See you tomorrow!

Linda

Yummy Quinoa Recipes

Quinoa is definitely a popular ingredient nowadays, and rightly so with the nutritional punch it packs! I have been searching Pinterest lately for new-to-me recipes that are healthful and delicious. A couple that I tried this week turned out so well I decided I'd share the links here also.

The first one is California Quinoa Salad, I didn't include the edamame in the recipe as my hubby didn't want the soy, and I only used the juice of 2 limes because mine were a good size and it tasted good with that quantity. Otherwise I prepared the recipe as described. It was super easy and super good!

Yesterday I made the Quinoa Chili which was also delicious.  I only made a few changes because I was short a couple of ingredients: I only had one can of tomatoes, and a 4oz can of chilies, and one can of kidney beans instead of two. I tasted it before adding the cayenne and decided it didn't need the extra spice (my daughter doesn't like very spicy food). It was really flavorful, definitely will make this recipe again.

I intended to take photos of each recipe but forgot, however mine looked just like the photos on the original blogs so I was happy with the results. You can check those out and I hope you are inspired to try them too!

You are welcome to follow me on Pinterest!

Linda

Homeschool Buyers Co-op Summer Fun Reading Program

The Homeschool Buyer Co-op is a free homeschooling organization for both new and veteran homeschoolers. Co-op membership is free and confidential, and entitles homeschooling families to GroupBuy discounts on high-quality curriculum. On the site you'll find lots of free information, such as databases of free curriculum, field trips, and educational contests and scholarships. Highly recommended. Click here for more information.


I have been a member of Homeschool Buyers Co-op for several years; they have some great deals. Last year I purchased Rosetta Stone- Italian for my son at a great discount and earned Smartpoints which can be redeemed for other curriculum.


Right now they are running their Summer Fun Reading Program which gives your kids the opportunity to log their daily reading and be eligible for the prize drawings; go check it out and sign up - it's free! There's nothing to lose!
Oh, did I mention that the grand prize is an Apple iPad??

Getting Ready for School

Summer is almost over for us, we didn't do much on our break so we are looking forward to getting back to school next week. Most of my lesson planning has been done for a while, and it feels good to be organized. Today I'm cleaning up our 'school room' in preparation for Monday -if I could just get my filing done!!
This year will be different for us, I am using a mix of homeschool materials for the kids whereas in the past we have always used curriculum packages. It was a lot of work -but fun- to research and find the best choices for our family this year; I am happy with the materials we will use and am excited about teaching with them. I will share some details and opinions as I begin using each, for now I'd like to tell you about a helpful planning and record-keeping tool I'm using this year.

My planning began in June (I think!), I started by setting our school calendar dates, then designating subjects and lessons for each day to fit in all that we need to cover for the year. My daughter likes to be able to look at the day's assignments and see what she has to accomplish, so I used a desktop planner  which I had on hand and started filling in her daily work. I decided to just use a separate planner for my son to avoid confusion.
Since my son is in high school, record-keeping and transcripts are important to me now, so I set off on my web mission to find a good resource for those purposes. I came across Homeschool Tracker which I had used briefly several years ago, they still offer a free 'Basic' version so I downloaded it and began to play around with it. I liked it but the Plus version and Online version offer much more, including the ability to make transcripts. I downloaded the 'trial' of Homeschool Tracker Plus and started inputting information for our past school year. Very nice!  I now have our upcoming school year planned with my kids daily schedules laid out. Since I have already done most of our lesson planning in my books I am not doing very detailed plans in the program as I don't need to create more work for myself. It is very easy to make a series of lesson plans however, based upon lesson/chapter number etc., I appreciate this feature. Each day I will input any grading and the program will keep track of it; it is easy to create a variety of reports at any time. I chose the Homeschool Tracker Plus over the Homeschool Tracker Online because it fits my budget better and I prefer not to have to rely on internet to access my program.


I would highly recommend the program if you are looking for something similar; the company offers a referral program so if you purchase through my links I receive a small referral fee!

Linda

Merging my blogs...

Thanks for visiting In All Your Ways!

I have another blog which I began back in 2009 also, sadly both blogs have been somewhat neglected, however I would like to remedy that and get back to writing a bit more frequently.
Focusing on one blog rather than two seems to be more practical and manageable for me at this time, therefore I am merging! I have exported the posts from Smart Mom Savings into "In All Your Ways", and so you will find a mix of devotional thoughts, recipes, household ideas, homeschooling, money-saving tips and more here in the future.
So, if you are visiting "In All Your Ways" for the first time, I welcome you and hope you'll stop by again and leave a comment.

Linda