simple works for me wednesday

I am participating in Rocks in My Dryer's Blog Carnival. Every Wednesday she does a Works for Me Wednesday and many, many times I want to participate and don't because, well, I really feel like I have some issues and there isn't much that works for me that I am happy with. I am continually trying to find things that work better. But, eh, I am taking the plunge.

I have found lately that simple is working for me. For example, we have had these great cordless phones and recently the batteries on BOTH of them stopped holding a charge for very long and with me that is a problem because I always forget to put them on the charger. I have driven over five miles with a phone on the hood of my car. It made it to the farm in one piece. No kidding. Unfortunately I got terrible reception out there.

So the phones finally just quit. Both of them. I have to get batteries for them, but since they are over two years old they don't seem to have replacement batteries just anywhere. I mean most people apparently don't care if their phone lasts that long but oddly enough I think my things should last forever. So, in the seach for new batteries for my phone I had to buy something to serve me in the meantime. My husband is in the military and they have to be able to reach him whenever they feel like it. So I bought this puppy. It is simple. It has a cord. It makes me stay in the kitchen when I talk on it. That sounds bad, BUT I have one big benefit from it. My kitchen has been much cleaner! I am trapped into cleaning! I highly recommend it.



I have one more amazing item of simplicity for you today folks! So don't run away yet.

We homeschool and my children are addicted to very sharp point pencils. They will not write with a dull pencil point. I can understand this even though it does get annoying when I am trying to work with them and they HAVE to sharpen their pencil. The problem was exasperated even more when I had an electric pencil sharpener. That thing would just not sharpen correctly. It drove me nuts. They would keep messing up their pencil and it would take forever. FOREVER! I do not have tons of patience for things that should be simple and are not. So, after many versions of very, supposedly, high quality electric sharpeners, I picked up this little baby.

Guess what? It works and it works great!!! You need one of these guys! You can tell people that it is an antique if you need to! It sits right on my kitchen counter cause that is where we do school and it works awesome! Pencil points come out perfect every time and it doesn't look like it will break anytime soon.

So, what works for me is simple! Embrace the simple life!!!

book work nook work it works

My kids are addicted to books and they have been since they were incredibly young. There are lots of things that I need to improve on in my life, but my kids love of books is not one of them. Their skill in reading is another story, and if you want to read a little bit of it you can do so here.

I started reading to my kids when they were beyond little. Just days after we were out of the hospital and I was finally getting over the fog of my C-section meds, I started reading to my son. I started off with books like this and this and this.


We slowly moved on to other books and more books and more books and more books and more books.

My wonderful husband thinks I have too many books. I tell him that we just don't have enough bookcases. I have seven bookcases. Can you ever have enough?

When the kids were little though, I didn't have anywhere near this many and what I did have wasn't of the same quality. I really picked up any book I could afford and most of my books were used and most of my books are still used. I would get them at thrift shops and used book stores and places like Airman's Attic which is a free thrift shop for Junior Enlisted in the Air Force.


As I have slowly been able to afford more books, I have slowly become more and more discriminating. I have slowly passed more of the just OK books on to others at Airman's Attic and I have slowly picked up more books that are more then just OK books.

The one thing that has never changed though in my house is that we read... many, many books a day. I have read to my children for unlimited amounts of time and have yet to find their limit on my reading books to them.


The second thing that has never changed in my house is that books are always available for the kids to get to. I have had book baskets beside comfy kid sized chairs since my kids were just a year old. In the beginning the baskets were stuffed full of fun board books that they could sit and look at when they needed some quiet time. Or when momma was making dinner and couldn't read and cook at the same time, or just whenever. Often times they would be sent to the book nook to settle down. It was not even a time out and it works wonderfully as a quiet area for them.


In our old house, we called the book space with their little chairs and baskets the Library. It was really just a little corner of our living room. Here in our new home, the name has slowly morphed into "The Book Nook." The kids voluntarily head over there MANY times a day. They pull book after book off the shelf and they look at pictures and they study the details and they check it all out.

I have tried to organize it by subject matter somewhat, but that only sorta works. They love just about any kind of book out there and you will find every genre of book on these shelves. I do have the Magic School Bus books pretty much in one spot and the Early Readers pretty much in one place. I have the very early phonics readers in a separate place and the fiction and non-fiction is mixed all over the place. The picture books are down lower and the kids chapter books are up higher. We mainly read the chapter books in the evening, but we have been known to sit down and devour a nine chapter book in an afternoon. None of use wanted to stop reading... we all wanted to find out what was going to happen to Little Bo.


What works for me is having a kid's book area. This is a place that my kids can go that is theirs. When they were young they would mainly just pull books from their baskets and not the shelves as much, so I would rotate different books into their baskets. Now I do not have to use the baskets as much.


What works for me, in this spot, is having small kid size comfy chairs. My kids are about ready to grow out of these guys and I have been considering a couple of high quality comfy bean bag chairs. I do think the chairs and the comfiness is important. They will stay there longer and look through more books if they are comfortable.


I also have this crate. It is full of library books and this is where they all must go back to. Library books are not to go upstairs (this rule was instituted after I found some overdue books under a bed). This entire crate goes to the library with us once a week and then it stays right here in the Book Nook and they pull books out all through out the week.


When I find books that my kids LOVE we actually follow those authors. We check out their websites, we find out when their new books will be released and we show up at the bookstores on those days to have a snack and to read our new book.

I have had friends over and my kids have sat glued to books in the book nook the entire time. People are amazed and I am frankly thrilled! This has slowly evolved for us into such an awesome thing! I am SO grateful that it has become such an important part of our home and of our lives.

What works for me is fostoring a love of all things books!

Check out more things that work for others at Rocks in my Dryer's Works for me Wednesday!

tea, yup, it works for me

Yes, I am participating in my second blog carnival of the week. Don't make fun of me... I am trying this whole process out. :) Instead of the compulsive lying I did earlier this week, today I get to tell you something that works for me. So, this is what works for me!


Part of our rewards/encouragement system in our home involves magnetic plastic letters on our fridge. They can earn these letters and lose these letters for behavior on their part. The dog and cat have letters also and occasionally they lose quite a few! If a child has all of their letters on the fridge at 7pm they are rewarded with a "special treat." They get to chose the special treat, but we as parents do plenty of guiding.

The Girl had all of her letters on the fridge at 7pm and she decided that she and I would have a tea party. We had one with Graham crackers and Lemon Zinger tea. She invited Pooh and Piglet to join us and we had a delightful time. The Boy periodically would slide a card under the door that he had drawn for one of us, delighting us with pictures of flowers and the like.

We do dress up for these and I have been seen in my wedding dress more than once. The Girl puts on one of her princess costumes and tonight she added to that with a purple fleece robe. I have no idea why, but she thought that was just the thing on top of her purple princess dress. She added enough sugar to her tea for oh... 4 tea cups, but she was happy and that is really all that matters. She had a delightful time and she went to bed tired.

Ah, to put on my wedding dress every night and have tea!

This works for us. The incentive program, the incentives at the end of the day, all of it. They do pick all sorts of things, from tea parties, to baking cookies, to a special video, to a 30 time slot of playing lego starwars on the computer.

My favorite? The tea party. We use her good tea set and we act "fancy." Like Fancy Nancy! What a great connection for mother and for daughter, and really, what woman doesn't enjoy dressing up periodically and pretending?! It is a win-win situation!

That is what works for me!