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Showing posts from July, 2015

What is Fiction Friday?

So, you may have noticed that Fiction Friday posts are initial chapters or prologue chapters for various stories. None of these are completed manuscripts (although some do have more chapters or writing available). Over the next two weeks, I will be taking votes, and the manuscript with the most votes will be the one I focus on over the next few months. I will try to post a new chapter or part of a chapter every week until it is finished! When I actually finish, I will then go back and clean up any major editing errors and I may even decide to self-publish the completed manuscript. Wouldn't that be exciting? So, if you want to participate in this "fan fiction" adventure, vote now! Take the Poll! View the Results! If you need to go back to see what you've missed on previous Fiction Fridays, you can either click the "writing" link at the top of the page and scroll down, or click the links below to go directly to the chapters. Contemporaries Breaking

Fiction Friday - A Midnight Engagement - Chapter One

April 7 th , 1878 Bedfordshire , England             Angie rested in the drawing room, her lessons over for the day, bored beyond imagination. At nearly 14 years old, she was too old for the playroom, and her over-protective father thought to protect her from the brisk wind and light rain outside. Her half-brothers were grown and long gone. She had already read all of the books in her father’s extensive library. She was too young to be part of “society” and too rambunctious to sit quietly and sew like most girls.             Her foot tapped anxiously as she waited for something exciting to happen. She heard a quick rap on their front door. A caller had arrived! Her personal maid, Lottie, ran in to the room, her hair escaping wildly from under her small white cap.             “He’s a fine one miss; I declare this is your lucky day.” Lottie was only a year and a half older than Angie, and the two had been close friends for years. Lottie was the cook’s daughter and they had gro

First Week of Homeschool - Schedule

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Next week, I'm looking at "officially" starting our first week of homeschool (although my oldest is telling me that I have to wait until after his birthday, because he can't go to school when he's still only 4). I thought I would post our "light" schedule for August and then what our estimated schedule will be for September. I plan on keeping August as a gentle introduction to "school". The first week, I will only do the 2-year old Hubbard's Cupboard curriculum with James (two days a week) and continue with storytime, gardening, and reading lots of great books. I'm sure Daniel will want to join in this as well. Then, I will add in some fun "school" activities that I know they both like (playing with Cuisenaire rods and Clifford Science Kits). The second week, we will start adding in a few things at a time. I will try to do 2 days of our Kindergarten curriculum as shown in the schedule. I'm planning on waiting until Sep

Investing Personalities

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Because I have some financial background in investments and financial planning, people will occasionally come up to me with investment or budgeting related questions. The biggest problem is getting people to follow through on my advice. Every individual person has their own investing or budgeting personality. Finding out your own personality and investing to supplement it, will help your retirement accounts in the long run. Here, I will list a few of the "investing personalities" (without the ubiquitous questionnaire) and how to supplement rather than support them. Next week, I will post a few "budgeting personalities". Day trader. You may not call yourself a day trader, but you at least check your stocks everyday. You want to know whether your balance is going up or down and what the stock market in Japan is doing on a particular day. The problem is, if you are checking all of your retirement accounts and all of your stock portfolio (which if you want it to be

Healthcare Reform or Tax Reform

One of the greatest examples of political failing is, I believe, the Healthcare Reform Act. First, it's hard to imagine that a document so incredibly large actually did so very little. Second, it's hard to believe that no one has tackled the issue of tax reform yet. Third, everyone is now frustrated that their insurance premiums and out-of-pocket cost are going up so quickly. Rather than beat a dead horse, however. I have a solution to both. Reform the outdated and over-complicated income tax system. Reduce the loopholes and smooth the graduated tax system. If we got rid of the Earned Income Tax Credit, then the "Penalty to work" would be greatly reduced. Here's my quick solution (obviously some actuaries somewhere would need to do some calculations to see how much money would be "saved", but I think it's a pretty good solution without going to a flat tax system). First, get rid of all the "married" "head of household" and &qu

Facebook

I've been thinking about it, and I've made the decision that when "school" starts, I'm probably going to try to take a break from Facebook. I don't think it's really good for me personally, and it's definitely not good for our society. Just as a couple of recent examples from both sides of the political spectrum. First, I saw a picture that has been shared around on Facebook since January 2014. It stated that the county with the highest percentage use of a food stamps was a rural area in Kentucky that was approximately 98% white and 94% republican. They seemed to think it was ironic. Here's the thing, that's not irony. That simply goes to show that even the people that are receiving food stamps don't think it's a long-term solution. If you visited their houses, I'm sure they would tell you that what they really need are jobs, and that's what the republicans have been promising them (plus in that region of Kentucky most jobs

Fiction Friday - Contemporaries - Chapter One

            On a rainy Tuesday morning, Karen’s attitude took a turn for the worse. Normally an easy-going and relaxed person, she felt irritated at the unexpectedly heavy rainstorm and her lack of any rain gear. I should have gone back inside for my umbrella, but I could have sworn I had one in the car. Maybe I should have stopped at a drug store. She sat, listening to the rain beat steadily and heavily against her car’s windshield as she waited in the parking lot.             Any of her friends would call her “thrifty” in a heartbeat. They loved her, but she hated to spend money on herself. Of course, her choice of parking lots matched this particular personality trait. Working as an administrative assistant, she didn’t feel like she could splurge on a closer parking spot or even a high-quality umbrella. Living with a roommate helped defray some of her normal living expenses, but she still scrimped and saved, with a vague hope of finding something better to do and spend her money

Billionaires, Trump, Marriage, and Politics

First, I feel the need to address America's obsession with billionaires. I browse the free e-book lists at Amazon fairly recently, because I love reading my Kindle. I do have to laugh at the number of books with Billionaire in the title recently. Billionaire's weddings, billionaire's kids, billionaire's divorces. Here's the sad truth, there are only about 2,325 billionaires in the world (as of 2014). Their average age is 63. Of the male billionaires, 89% are married, 6% are divorced, 3% are single, and 2% are widowed. So if you want to marry an already married old man, then you might have a very slim chance of getting a billionaire. A better strategy would be marrying a millionaire and helping them reach billionaire status at the average age of their late forties. Not quite as romantic though. All the dozens or hundreds of romances you can read with the just turned 30 year old self-made billionaire who has been single his whole life are probably not very realistic

Tiny House

The tiny house craze sweeping the nation is interesting for many reasons. For one, you would think that it would be a money saver. For another, most Americans cannot imagine living in 64 square feet of heaven. I had the opportunity to shop at Ikea the other day, and they had a ton of "small living" options. You could purchase furniture for a whole apartment that would fit in 256 square feet (etcetera). Not exactly the smallest "tiny apartment" or "tiny house" but still interesting to walk through. I read a post on another financial website about saving money by living in the smallest location possible. They were basically talking about a downtown apartment in a big city. Well, here's the only problem with that. It may be cheaper to sleep (unless you're comparing a closet-size Manhattan apartment to a 4-bedroom house in the South) but it won't necessarily be cheaper to live. His suggestions included the fact that all you would be doing was s

Fiction Friday - Breaking Dawn

Chapter One             Dawn sat at her computer, staring blankly at her e-mail program. She scrolled down to the bottom one more time, thinking that maybe she had missed something in the last sentence. Maybe this was supposed to be a joke. Her fiancé, Patrick, was on vacation for a few days. He said that he needed some time to think. This e-mail meant a lot more than a vacation, and he obviously was not thinking at all.              Hey Dawn!             Just wanted to let you know I got a great job in Indianapolis . I found a cool roommate, and he has an awesome house really close to downtown. I already passed the credit check, so I won’t be paying my half of the mortgage anymore, and I really don’t care what happens to my credit. You can keep paying it or refinance in just your name. I know my name is on the deed, but I don’t mind changing it if you can refinance. I don’t think you’ll really be able to live out there in the country anyway, but good luck! ~Patrick

Socialization

I'm sure many of you wondered where I disappeared to when I missed my regular post yesterday. Well, my kids social calendar was just too busy to spend time online. I apologize for the lack of time to write the post, but my normal "blog writing time" which is usually when I'm working scheduled hours at Tutor.com (summer is usually a slow time so there is a lot of waiting) ended up being actual tutoring time, so I have neglected my blog the last few days. For the first three days of the week, we have had a playdate every morning or afternoon for at least 2 hours (and up to 4 hours). Many people are concerned about "socialization" when it comes to homeschooled children. I think what they are really worried about is their children ending up like they've ended up as adults. As adults, we become isolated if we don't actively seek out deep and meaningful friendships. As children, my son "misses" his neighborhood friends when they go on vacation

Roofing Woes

Here's a hot tip for anyone considering home improvement projects, get quotes before you have a problem. We fortunately got a couple quotes for a new roof when we bought our house, although we hoped to be able to wait 2 years, since we had some other home improvement projects that were pretty expensive as well. However, when our roof started leaking (3 months after we purchased the house), we had to get serious about a new roof. My husband answered honestly when calling to get price quotes that our roof was currently leaking. Shockingly, all the "new" quotes we got were 30% or more higher than our original quote for a non-leaking roof. Fortunately for us, one of the companies was willing to honor their original quote and can come out quickly. The highest quote we had couldn't even come out until the middle of September! On another note, if you are buying a house, please keep in mind the cost of potential repairs. We don't have the money saved up yet in a home

Concert Goings

I've realized a few things since attending a Dave Matthews Band concert on Friday night. For one, I am extremely out of date with regards to fashion. Frankly, I'm okay with that, because I've never been fashionable, but I usually at least have some idea what the fashions are. Not anymore! It was fascinating to watch what people wore because it was fashionable regardless of their body type and whether or not it actually looked good on them. I am always amazed at what clothing makers can get away with convincing people they need to buy. Most of the fashions right now look terrible on everyone regardless of their body type or shape. I have also never been fashionable when it comes to alcohol consumption. I saw quite a few people doing things they probably would be embarrassed about in the morning if they remembered it. The unfortunate thing about smart phones and Facebook is that most of their pictures were probably all over the Internet the next morning. There were also q

Fiction Friday - Flashes - Chapter One

** Poetry Friday has been renamed Fiction Friday, as my fiction post has become much more popular than my poetry. Enjoy! **             My name is Meagan Wright. I am named after my grandmother on my mother’s side. I am an American mixture of Irish, German, English, and Scottish heritage. Several of my mother’s Irish ancestor’s were reported to have certain psychic powers. I suppose, if I believe in that sort of thing, that’s probably where my problems originated.             I’ve heard of photographic memories and telepathic people. I consider myself to have more of a videographic memory. The images that flow through my head seem like a historical-fiction action movie. I receive glimpses into the life of some other character from the distant reaches of the past like a movie clip.             Typically, my visions occur after some traumatic or emotional experience. The flashes are probably related in some way to what they call “feminine intuition”, only much more vivid.     

Reflections

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As I was walking down the aisles in Target the other day, my 2-year old was very concerned with the "lights" he saw in the floor. I tried to explain that they were reflections and told him to look up, but he was so focused on looking down at what he could see easily. He was trying to step on them and was very worried when they kept "moving" as he walked along. I started thinking about all the reflections we focus on in life. We focus on the reflections of Facebook, TV, Pinterest or the media. We think that what we see there is the real thing, but it's just a distorted image that people want us to look at. We also might not focus on the little reflections of our own behavior. When I'm paying attention, I can recognize my own phrases and attitude reflected in my children (for better or worse). So, if I look closely at their behavior, I can tell that their patient and kind attitude towards someone younger than them is a reflection, as well as their anger an

Preschool Curriculum Decisions

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I was recently asked to help design the preschool curriculum for the homeschool co-op at church. I really enjoy the preschool age group, as long as it's not my own kids (or at least not just my own kids). They are at a very unique age, where they are learning so much, just through being in different environments. However, they are also at a difficult age, because they are learning how to purposefully misbehave and they have a LOT of energy. My basic plan for the co-op is to have 15 minute "learning sessions" with free play in between. So, 15 minutes of talking about the weather or singing songs or playing games, and then 15 minutes of free play. The times can be flexible, but 10-15 minutes is usually sufficient for an attention span for a 2-4 year old. I have also been looking through an amazing book I found at the Homeschool Gathering Place called Science Play. Science Play (Williamson Little Hands Series) (Williamson Little Hands Book)  It has a lot of really great

$1.25 a Day

The "extreme poverty" rate (based on global purchasing power) is currently set at $1.25 (U.S.) per day. When I see people who complain about how much they "have" to spend on groceries per month, I want to shout at them that they have so much already just to live in this country! In one of the popular financial blogs I read, there was a very challenging post by someone wondering what he could buy for $50 a month as a grocery budget. It was a challenging thought, but I was more challenged when I realized that people living in extreme poverty live on only $37.50 per month (for everything, not just food). That means that well over 1 billion people currently live on less than this one person's "extreme" grocery budget. ( Poverty Benchmark ) So, I have a challenge for you. It doesn't have to be a week's challenge, or a month's challenge, but try to live on $1.25 per day for food. Again, this is not meant to be long-term as it will probably be

All-America City

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Before we moved to Garner, I knew that there were signs all over town saying "All-America City (2013)". However, I didn't really know why they were plastered all over town. I couldn't fathom what made Garner an All-America City, and I didn't have any type of hometown pride in any of the other cities I've lived in. Since moving here, though, I see why they promote this award so much and how fitting it truly is for our town. First, I don't know all of the criteria for the "All-America City" award, but I do know from Wikipedia, that it is given by the National Civic League to 10 communities each year whose "citizens work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results". I'm not sure what challenge was tackled the year that Garner won, but I have definitely seen evidence of community here that I haven't seen in any of the other towns or cities I've lived in. As one example, we have