Melissa's Idea Garden

Momanna98 at Homeschooling in Illinois sent me an email with this song in it today. I love it! And think you will get a kick out of it two...whether you homeschool or not.

Sing to the tune of “I Will Survive-Made famous by Gloria Gaynor

First I was afraid
I was petrified.
Kept thinking I could never teach
´Cause I´m not certified.
But we spent so many nights
Reteaching homework that was wrong.
I grew strong,
so now I teach my kids at home!
We study math
and outer space.
I just kept on despite the fear
with a big smile across my face.
I bought a set of Base Ten blocks.
I bought books with answer keys.
My parents think we´re nuts,
but they don´t even bother me

Come on, let´s go walk out the door.
We´re on the road now,
'cause we´re not home much anymore
My friends would laugh and say we´d be unsocialized.
I heard one mumble
that I´d give up by July.
Oh no, not I!
I will survive!
As long as I know how to read
I know we´ll be alright.
I've got all my life to learn.
I've got energy to burn.
and I'll survive.
I will survive.

It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart.
Decided to attend
a play date at the local park,
and I met oh so many moms
who offered eagerly to help.
They used to cry.
Now they hold their heads up high,
and so do we!
My kids are cool!
They´re not those chained up little people
stuck inside at school.
So if you feel like dropping by
and just expect us to be free
you´d better call ahead first
´cause we´re probably busy!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was visiting my buddy, Nikowa, at Knowledge House Academy and saw an amazing post she had titled God's Pharmacy. If you needed another reason to add more fruits and veggies to your diet, go check it out. It's a great post!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yep, folks, you heard it here first! NASA has announced the next astronauts that will be heading to the moon. You can see their picture here. NASA has decided that a family would be a great choice for the next mission and I am sure you will agree. Of course, the fact that the family had all recently gone on a shopping spree at the House of Blues was what clinched NASA's decision.

"This family is on a mission from God," one NASA spokesman reported.

Posted by Melissa Markham at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I received this photo in an email. It was so good, I had to pass it on:)

Posted by Melissa Markham at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I love Star Trek. So I enjoyed taking this quiz. Thought you might like to as well. I got a a 39 out of 50. Some of those questions are tough. Daniel got a 41.

Let me know how you do! I took the HP test too, but be warned, it doesn't keep your score, so you need to do it for yourself. The Star Trek test keeps the score.

Posted by Melissa Markham at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Have you ever heard someone say Guiness tastes like a chocolate shake? Or how about tabasco that tastes like donut glaze? Vinegar that resembles apple juice?

What, have I gone mad? Nope, but I have been reading about something called a Miracle Fruit that was discovered almost 300 years ago in Africa, but isn't very well known. This fruit has the ability to make sour things sweet (and to make sweet things almost unbearable to eat).

I am thinking this could be the diet secret of the century! I mean...eat lemons and have them taste sweet...don't you see? We could eat the berry, then eat a low calorie meal (like a salad) which would suddenly take on a new taste sensation. The berries tricks last for about up to an hour and each berry sells for about $2.00. I think it would be fun just to try out! Perhaps I will get to experience a Flavor tripping party, or maybe I will just order a couple of berries to see!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of nights ago, I had an insight. I was lying awake, listening to the new sounds of apartment living and thinking about the things Daniel bought for his apartment here that we don't have at home. For instance, he purchased an electric toothbrush and Act and mouthwash. He purchased these Wick air fresheners that periodically spray out fresh scent.

We have air freshners in our bathrooms at home, you know the kind that you spray when you are trying to cover up what you have been doing... We actually have a funny story about air freshners. Several years ago, we had our pastor and his wife over for dinner. My oldest, Bruce, had gone to the restroom and liberally sprayed the citrus scented spray (after all the Pastor was there).

As the smell circulated through the house, Pastor Randy sniffed appreciatively and said...hmmm, are those cookies I smell? We laughed until we cried...fortunately Pastor Randy and Chrissy did too!

So back to my original thought. I was pondering how we feel the need to 'cover up our scent' with everything from air fresheners to frequent bathing and shampooing and lotions. And how that it is much like our kitty cats...after all, when they go to the bathroom, they sniff and if they smell it, they cover it up.

Okay....I didn't say it was profound or anything...it just struck me as funny!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

My friend over at My Little Drummer Boys just made me aware of a cool Wikipedia experiment. They report that there are some 70,000,000 million blogs in the world and they want to see how long it will take 1,000,000 blogs to sign up on Wikipedia. They started this experiment on April 10th, and apparently word of mouth is a tad slow. They are only up to number 1448! So go take advantage of this cool experiment. Get another link, perhaps more traffic and help Wikipedia answer the question they are dying to know....just how long will it take for a million blogs to sign up!???

Posted by Melissa Markham at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I had some fun money to spend. You know...the bills are paid and you have some money available to buy something fun. Well I spread my fun money around. I purchased Harry Potter 6 on Audio Book for the kids and I to listen to on our way to Illinois in a couple of weeks. Jack and I have read it, but I didn't read that one to Katrina, and with the movie coming out in November, I thought this would be a great way to catch her up and to fill our 12 hour drive. I bought some clothes (our local DAV was having a 1.00 sale on all clothing) Now I have a whole new wardrobe for this spring and summer and I packed up a bunch of clothes for a friend that I no longer wish to have around. And I bought myself two games for the Nintendo DS.

I got Snood, which I played once the night I got it, but once I put Word Jong into my DS, I haven't removed it since...that poor little Brain Age chap is sure to feel deserted by me!

Anyway...I love Mahjong and I love Scrabble and Word Jong puts the two of these great games into one! I have played and played and played! I already have a ranking of Silver Ox (having passed through all the bronze levels and half of the silver ones). I have beat all of the Word Jong masters except for Qu Xan...I have come sooooo close to beating him. And I have done all the daily puzzles for this month so far. I have earned around 6 awards. I tried connecting to another player using WiFi...but there probably aren't a lot of people out there playing this game and finding them when I am looking for them hasn't worked out yet.

Sooooo....if you have this game or it sounds like something you would like to have, check it out. And if you can play via WiFi with me, drop me a comment and we'll plan a battle time!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever had one of those days? You know the kind...things just keep going wrong and it gets to the point where all you can do is laugh...

Well, let me fill you in on my last 24 hours...

It all started Thursday evening. My free anti-virus subscription on my new laptop had expired. So Thursday, I purchased a copy of Norton 360 which would cover my computer and Jack's and one other if we needed it. I came home, and went to install it. Well, first it said I needed to do a live update for the latest info. We have Satellite at our house and satellite across the street at our business. The business satellite is designed for business use, we can do things faster there and we can have more data flowing through. I was here at home and on a whim I clicked on the update, a window popped up that basically informed me that it would be something like 49,000,000,000 minutes before the update was complete! We tried calculating how many hours, days and years that would be...let's just say WAY TOO MANY! So I cancelled the update for the moment. Then I went on with the install.

Well, silly me, you have to delete McAfee (the free trial I had) before you install Norton...you could practically see the smoke steaming because I had another antivirus protection program on my computer! I did that, then returned to the install.

Continue reading "All You Can Do is Laugh..." »

Posted by Melissa Markham at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Katrina is starting to have some interest in the cmputer. We have set her up with an email account and today she was typing an email. She knew that if there was a red line under a word then that word was mispelled, but she had forgotten how to fix it. So I told her to right click and a list would pop up so she could choose the right spelling.

She typed for a moment, then said 'Nothing's happening!' I turned the computer toward me and noticed she had typed 'click'. I went to the word, showing her what to do and correcting her word (wondering why she had typed the word 'click.') which I told her to erase.

A few moments later, she had another misspelling. I reminded her that all she had to do was right click and the list would pop up. She said 'Mommy, I wrote click the last time and it didn't work!' I about died laughing!!!!

I was chuckling and she was looking at me wondering why I was laughing at her. I reached toward the mouse pad and I said 'left click, right click'. Then we both had a good belly laugh!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My daughter has been asking a lot the last couple of days what the date is. Now this could be related to her birthday coming up on the 8th....or it could be related to her love of April 1st and the opportunity to play pranks on people...and get away with them!

I was curious as to how April Fool's Day started so I went out looking around.

National Geographic has the following article: April Fools' Day Facts: Behind the Laughs

Like National Geographic, Wikipedia says that the origin of the day is shrouded in mystery and time, but there are some great past pranks that have been pulled and some of them are listed at Wikipedia.

No matter how the day started, it is fun to 'get' friends and family and fun to 'be gotten' as well. If you want to do something different that your children will love, check out the Family Fun website for ideas of pranks you can pull (especially the meals you can make)!

Have fun!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, here we are...back to WFMW hosted by Melanie at Don't Try This At Home! You can always find great tips at WFMW, so be sure to click the link and check out what other pearls of wisdom people are offering today!

Parenting is not an easy job. I have often remarked that I wished children came with instruction manuals. Well, lo and behold, it appears that progress is being made in this area. Below you will find helpful parenting tips that will help teach you the best way to interact with your young baby!

Continue reading "WFMW: Good Parenting Tips" »

Posted by Melissa Markham at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Jen at My Three Boys and I is playing a fun Pay It Forward Game. Since I joined in the fun at her blog, I am spreading the joy here on mine.

Here's how it works:

• Anyone with a blog can join
• The first three people to leave a comment on this post will receive a gift from me. I haven't decided yet what the gift will be. I will be looking for neat items though.
• I will send the gift in the next 365 days
• In return you have to pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog
• See how easy that is?

In honor of the Pay It Forward ideal, I’m quite happy to send overseas, so don’t let that stop you!

That’s it!! Let the comments roll!!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

May I have a drum roll please.....

So now that we know how much my blog is worth, who wants to loan me some money? I'll put my blog up as collateral!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been tying my shoes backwards for my whole life. Why? Because my father taught me. I think he taught me while he was facing me, but I am not positive. At any rate, I can tie my shoes quickly and move on about my business. When I taught my children, I made the effort to learn how to tie like most people do, so I could teach them to tie 'right'. Why I am not sure, after all, it is fun to be different.

Anyway, today my hubby sent me a link to Ian's knot. This is a super quick way to tie your shoe! Once you get the hang of it, you will be tying your shoes faster than ever before! Have fun!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I received this in my email box today and it was so funny, I just had to share! Enjoy!

Ponderisms

Continue reading "Saturday Chuckles - Ponderisms" »

Posted by Melissa Markham at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend of mine sent this to me in my email today and it gave me a chuckle. Hopefully it will give you a chuckle too!

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

And God agreed.

Continue reading "The Explanation of Life" »

Posted by Melissa Markham at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a dear friend that has taught me a great deal. We share some common interests: Ebaying, yard saling, auctions, homeschooling, animals, good books. But on political issues we are about as far apart as we can get. We rarely talk politics but lately with all of the excitement of having so many viable candidates, we have talked some. Today she sent me a fun link that enabled me to answer about 20 questions and then I was matched with the proper candidate. And sure enough, we are both at least interested in people from our respective parties, even though we lined up with different people than she and I both are pulling for.

Interestingly, the guy that I matched up with is not the guy I am pulling for for President. But if the test is accurate and my beliefs link me up with him, I should look again. After all, there are so many positions out there, if a test can help me narrow down my options to the one who thinks the most like me, isn't that who I should choose? The sad thing is it is only a 73% match. Why don't you go see who you line up with out of the many that are running. It is fun:) And the bobbleheads you get are cute for placing on your blog!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I enjoy playing around with online games and with photos, so I thought I would have fun when I found out about the website that offers The Bubblenator. With The Bubblenator, you choose one of your photos, then The Bubblenator will allow you to insert 'bubbles' with text. You can place up to three bubbles on your image, you can choose your text and you can change sizes. You can pick from spoken or thought bubbles.

When you have finished, the Bubblenator will provide you with HTML code that you can use to put your captioned image on your web site, blog, Myspace page or just about anywhere else you would normally add an image. Just copy and paste a few lines and you're done!

I often think in bubbles or speak in bubbles for my kids and my animals. This would be fun to use to create images for our Christmas newsletter. I think this is a fun widget builder. But, I was unable to make it work. The only urls I know for my photos are those that are on Flickr and it couldn't read those for some reason. If you get one to work, let me know and I'll come take a peek!

Have fun!

Posted by Melissa Markham at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)