Life Online

The Beauty of Grey

I’ve always changed my blog design. That’s not new. But I’ve never been one for grey. I’ve previously thought it to be mediocre, dull and lifeless with zero personality. Oh! What a turn around! I’ve come to love and appreciate all things grey. From light grey to darker shades of grey, the complements and contrasts speak of my life. Grey is not just grey!

I used to be fairly black and white. Not that I thought so at the time. But I was. And that is probably not a bad thing when you’re trying to teach and guide your children. But every day, every week I realise how broken, how messy, how imperfectly grey our lives are. No one has it all together – they just might look like it. Or maybe they really do feel like they’ve got their ducks in a row… but life has a way of teaching us painful lessons. Lessons such as the world simply isn’t only various shades of black or white but many shades of grey. And whilst they may seem painful things to learn at the time, they are indeed profitable and I’m thankful for them.

Not Allowing Social Media to Change my Agenda

When I wake up in the morning I start to plan the day. I say good morning to God, cuddle hubby and organise my thoughts. I plan my agenda for the day, considering what is flexible and what is set in concrete. Sounds ideal, right?

And. Then. I. Log. On…: Facebook, forums, blogs, etc. And it isn’t so much the amount of time that I spend online. It used to be, too much time online has often been a struggle of mine but not in recent years. The problem with it is that…

Click to enlarge

My Agenda Changes

I am quick to put off the laundry for another day because I am chasing bunny trails that I’ve stumbled across online. I’ll research and ponder a THM or homeschooling question to help someone and this pondering can take a few hours or all day. In the meanwhile, my heart is everywhere else but directed toward my home, my family or what was my agenda.

I’ve always believed that we do best when we bloom where we are planted. That we have been put on earth in this time, in this place to glorify God… that whatever we do we should work at it wholeheartedly as if directly working for the Lord. And God put me here in 2014, with this man and this mish-mash of children. This is where I’ve been planted and should be blooming. That’s not to say I should never venture outside my door, or never develop interests, serve others, work, play or anything else. Rather that this ground is my first priority. For me, homemaking is the God-given domain of womanly authourity. It is not only my responsibility, but it has been and still is my place of influence and authourity. Visiting (online or IRL), studying, researching, supporting, helping and socialising are all necessary and valuable aspects of daily life but they shouldn’t be my first priority nor happen at the expense of my family or home.

And yet so often I have allowed the Internet to dictate my thoughts, my actions, my prayer life, my study, my time… I have allowed my daily rhythm to be changed, I have shifted my focus.

Moreover, as they go about from house to house, they learn to be idlers, and not only idlers, but gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say and talking of things they should not mention.
1 Timothy 5:13

I’ve written before about daily quiet times. And no, before you click out of this page I’m not going to suggest that everyone should be up at 5am having a daily quiet time with God. I have been there and done that. I think that lifestyle suits a certain personality (maybe type A?) but it certainly isn’t easy to maintain with a large family who has a lot of emotional happenings, illness, depression or when one simply isn’t a morning person! Of course I dedicate my day to God upon waking – just like I cuddle my husband and think about the day, God is always present and acknowledged. How can He not be? But if I’m to give him the best of me, of my time and head space then it isn’t going to be the mornings. I used to be a morning person but that changed. Age, depression, adrenal fatigue, busyness, weariness may account for it but I am definitely not a morning person anymore. And I think He is okay with that.

Different Seasons

I’m also in a different season of life now. I’m not actively homeschooling as Falcon is 17yo and doing the bulk of his work independently. I am working part time, raising a toddler and well, life is completely different to what it was 5 years ago! I’m out and about more but consequently I am not online much at all. And I like it! I’ve noticed this particularly in this new season of life because I can see how much it affected me and my homeschooling life many years ago. There are so many things that I wouldn’t do differently if I had opportunity for a re-do… but this is an aspect I would love to do over again – no Internet until after the ‘must-do’s’ of my daily agenda have been tended to. Rather than decry the evils of the Internet and social media and how we should avoid it, I now schedule it. This also helps me to live more fully present in the moment as I’m not checking FB on the phone all the time.

Of course life looks different depending upon the season we are in. I loved being a homeschooling mum. Our choice allowed me to learn, grow and develop in so many areas, even being based at home and with children all day. I’m not suggesting that I should have never been online or had personal interests or friends. Hehee, that would be quite silly. It has been beneficial for me that I continued to learn new skills and gain knowledge whilst homeschooling. Now that my children are older I have many (far too many) interests and passions to pursue. Thankfully, my husband and I both agreed that continuing to develop spiritually, intellectually and socially was of great importance. However, these areas of growth shouldn’t come at the expense of a clean, tidy (level of tidiness varies for everyone) home where children are trained in character, nourished emotionally and physically and the hubby is loved and respected beyond a shadow of doubt. Simply doing my main priorities FIRST before I check online keeps my eyes on my agenda. Once I check social media, my agenda changes and becomes something else. All good, noble things but it still takes me away from my domain.

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.
~ 1 Timothy 5:14

How about you?

Have you found scheduling Internet time to be beneficial? Have you found that being online early changes your daily agenda? Or maybe you have a tip to share?

Why Am I Online Today?

So many times I tell myself that I am working online. Or researching. Or writing. Or doing Bible study. Rarely do I say that I am socialising, chilling out, debating or pushing my own agenda. But if I am truly honest with myself, I do a lot of the latter.

Earlier on this week I thought about deactivating my Facebook account and disconnecting my email and social media accounts from my iPhone and iPad. I need to hear the voice of God. I can’t hear His voice clearly because there is so much mental noise screaming for my attention. That funny meme on Facebook, the latest discussion on AussieHomeschool… it all adds up to mental clutter. And I am feeling the beginnings of overwhelmedness. (I think I just invented a new word. Noun: the state of being overwhelmed = overwhelmedness). Whether or not I disconnect for awhile, I still need to re-examine why I am online in the first place.

What is my plan, my purpose for being online today?

What am I talking about with others? What is the point I am trying to make in my discussions? Am I pointing to Christ and trusting that God will draw others and then nurture them along into their own relationship or am I simply telling them what they should believe? Am I majoring on minors or am I pointing to Christ? Am I pointing another way to yet another religion or am I pointing to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

Susan, stop. Breathe, Susan. Hold back from typing, Susan.

Susan. Pray.

Father, I do thank you for placing me in this era, this time of 2013. God, you have put me here for a purpose and that is not simply to eat, drink and be merry but that I might point the way to you. Father, I want to use my time online wisely, to tell others of your great love and grand grace but I so often get caught up majoring on the minors. Help me to just shush, to be still, yet to be ready with words of grace. Help me and fill me with Your Spirit so that I might be ready at all times to tell of your goodness and your redemption. Father, help me to guard my online time and use it wisely – for your glory.

A Needed Pintervention

Cast your mind back to the year 1988. There I am, a newly married 18year old girl, with an instant family (son). We honeymooned in Tasmania, during the cold month of July. And it was the best! Nothing gets a couple closer than sharing a Kombi van for a month. It was during this time, that my husband introduced me to the world of cooking! Yes, he cooked me my first ever packet of 2 minute noodles. It was a had-to-be-there moment.

Anyway… we returned to South Australia and moved into my son’s mother’s house. Yes… even as an 18yo life wasn’t to be easy. We moved into her house. At least we would have our own furniture, right? Bom bom. Not so. They, being my son’s mum and her husband, gave us our bedroom furniture and dining room suite. It’s just furniture you say? Try telling that to a newly married 18yod girl. Anyway, I digress. They were to be some of our dearest friends, as life would have it, glory to God.

I was newly married and, naturally I wanted to create a beautiful home for my new husband. Not so easy to achieve when one is on a ridiculous (read that as ‘unemployed, out-of-work youth pastor) budget. I bought many Country Homes magazines from the op shop (Opportunity shop) but after awhile I had collected so many magazines that I couldn’t keep track of my favourite pictures. So, I bought a paper scrapbook (and I mean old time scrapbook – nothing like the scrapbooks of today!) and cut out my favourite picutres and posted them into my scrapbook. That was my version of today’s concept of the Inspiration Board or… Pinterest. I would collect the magazine pictures in my scrabook to show John, and we would dream together. I scoured the op shops, looking for quirky, vintage, unique items to make my house a home. Those were the days when I knew the best Vinnies in town, the Goodwill that had the better vintage items… the Salvo’s that just had everything cheap! Those were the days. And then vintage became popular. That kinda killed it for us.

Fast forward a couple of years to where we lived in a shed and a bus. (Hands up if you knew we lived in a shed for 18months) After having one child born in the shed, I was working part time managing the service station where we both worked. Plus ministry. Plus a 10 acre block of land.Plus 2 dogs, 2 horses, goats, sheep, a cocky and a ram! I found myself pregnant again! Yay!!! But, knowing that the shed was not a desirable nor practical environment for raising two babies we abandoned the dream of our mud brick home (sob sob) and instead went with a transportable house and a [low] mortgage. Even though I had to let go of one dream I still kept many others. I still kept my scrapbook, filled with beautiful, dreamy pictures of ideas that I one day hoped to own or recreate in my own house.

Reality Hits

Whilst designing and building our transportable home, I realised, albeit slowly, that we couldn’t afford all the grandiose ideas that I had pasted away and drooled over. Reality check! Over the months, God spoke to me… reminding me of what was near and dear to my heart. But that’s okay, I thought. One day they will happen. Right?

Fast Forward

Twenty four years later and we are a little better off (financially) than when we first started. Praise God! But you know what? Reality bites. Hard. With sharp teeth! Especially when one chooses to be a one income family that focusses on relationship more so than possessions. I stopped my ‘home scrapbook’. I stopped collecting Country Home magazines. I stopped drooling. I had to.

All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
1 Corinthians 10:23-24 ESV

My Weakness Is Not Your Weakness

My weakness is consumerism, coveting pretty things and hoarding, along with envy. Aside from being sin, this leads to discontent. And it’s horrible to live with. But I found that it is quite easy to replace my real life with a virtual one, and that includes collecting and drooling over things online – a virtual hoarding of sorts. Sites like Clipix and Pinterest still foster materialism, desire and discontent in my heart. Seeing these sites filled with the most gorgeous pictures is almost like home porn. It doesn’t encourage my heart toward godly things. I am not compelled to be satisfied with less. See my weakness? I know many friends who use these sites as inspiration to be creative in their own lives, kitchens and homeschools without struggling with the temptations that I do. I am truly happy for them but their strength is my weakness.

Why I Do What I Do On The Internet

Playing with various social media has allowed me to examine why I don’t like some sites and why I prefer others. I’ve learned that I prefer forums and Facebook. For me, forums and facebook are my virtual community and these tools foster relationships. My friends live at AussieHomeschool and Facebook. Relationships are cultivated there. Words are obviously how I connect relationally with others.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

The Pintervention

I read books by the Puritans. I listen to guys like John Piper, John MacArthur and Paul Washer. I can’t then head over to Pinterest and drool. I just can’t. I know I sound like one of those missionaries that puts everyone on a guilt trip (~smile~) but really I’m not. I’m not telling you what to think or what to pin, I’m telling you of my weakness. I needed to go cold turkey. No trifling around with sin. I deleted my Pinterest account.

Calling

I desire to focus on others. My heart is sinful and it is very easy for me to focus on myself and my needs or my wants. This isn’t in line with Christ’s calling. It’s not part of dying to self. There are people all over the world who are suffering and dying. Now may not be my time to proactively be out there and serving them but I do hope that one day it will be the right time. Pinterest does not encourage me to follow Christ, deny myself, take up my cross and follow Him. (Matthew 16:24)

As a woman who has limited energy and yo-yo health, I find it exhausting. Planning, dreaming, shopping, lists and purchasing is fun, exciting and sometimes even an adrenaline rush (when you get a bargain). But then I bring it home and then devote even more energy as I store it, use it, wash it, insure it, rearrange it, etc. Maybe the 9 house moves in 10 years really knocked me around but I am tired of being controlled by my stuff!

I want to be content, happy, satisfied right here, right now!

And so, I took out a Pintervention upon myself. Aside from the whole violation of copyright issues which are for another time, these are the reasons that I had a check in my spirit… a prompting, no a directive from the Holy Spirit to stay away from Pinterest. And that’s all I would encourage others to do… to seek the Lord and follow His direction. That will look different to the path that I and others are on because we all have different strengths and weaknesses. But Our Father knows us best. He knows what we need, what is best for us and what we should avoid. Which is why we should follow Him.

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:11-13 ESV

Breaking Out Of The Bubble

Bubbles, Censorship, Filtering, Personalisation, Relevancy… I’m tired of it all. Tired yet mad.

Personalisation is the process of tailoring pages to individual users’ characteristics or preferences.
Censorship is the control of the information and ideas circulated within a society.
Filtering search results is a fancy way of saying censorship.

When I search the Internet I do NOT want results tailored to me. I want real information presented to me without bias. If and when I want biased information I can and will search for it. I’m quite capable of doing that. I am a free thinking person who is capable of searching and discerning what to read or not read. I don’t want a 3rd party (google/facebook/BB) censoring, er filtering information for me.

I used to like Google, I really did. It wasn’t all that long ago when they respected users privacy and the search results were unbiased (not tailored) and impartial but now they seem to care more about competing with facebook and other social media than being the best search engine. The new Google motto of Search Plus Your World has changed everything.

John and I noticed a trend with our searches so we deliberately and intentionally tested it. Obviously we both have different tastes and this was being reflected in our searches. Our search results were filtered/tailored based upon our gender, our search history, our click history. The problem with this is that as I click on things that I want to see and I agree with, I just keep getting more search results geared toward that. All the other results gets demoted (filtered). I wanted to know what I was missing out on!

I don’t want to live in a bubble that only shows me things IT thinks I will like or want to view. When I search for information I don’t want the results to be filtered UNLESS I intentionally filter them with various options. I want to do my own processing and filtering, thank you.

TedTalk – What FACEBOOK and GOOGLE are hiding from the world

Breaking Out Of The Bubble

Breaking out of the bubble and away from the grasping claws of Google isn’t easy. It is something that I’m looking into. So feel free to share any ideas with me.

Want Out But Still Want A Good Search?

StartPage: startpage.com/
When you search with Startpage the Web results are generated by Google but Startpage does NOT record your IP address! Nor do they share your personal information with any third party.

DuckDuckGo: duckduckgo.com/
Provides a clean interface together with a no-tracking privacy policy. Offers keyboard shortcuts to navigate and zero-click information sources. See their privacy page for more info.

Bing might be a good option for now… but I can’t help but wonder if they will end up going down Google Street too?

And Just for The Conspiracy Theorists…

Did you know that both the big G and FB (along with those in Amazon and LinkedIn) attended the Bildeberg Conference 2011? If you don’t know what I’m referring to… then StartPage is your friend. 😉

I know I might sound like a crackpot to some… and if you think I am that’s okay. Simply disregard this post as the raving of a mad woman. But don’t say you weren’t warned. 😉

My Love Hate Affair

With Facebook…Why I Left It

I didn’t like the timeline.

I joined Facebook many years ago, when it was first opened to the general public. It was a lot different then. Actually I joined it, couldn’t figure it out so didn’t go back there for another six months. When I went back the second time, my account was still active and this time, I *got it*. I wa active on FB for years, posting this, that and the other. As you do. As much as I like social media I would always keep my eyes open for security and privacy issues.

Why Did They Have To Change?

Being a website developer means I completely understand why websites need to change regularly. I’ve posted on it before. It is usually for the benefit of the end user. But back in late September 2011, when FB announced their new changes I didn’t like what I was hearing. I believe they have an agenda. An agenda that I don’t like the sound of.

I understand the need for change. Yet, the changes that Facebook and Google (Yes, let’s not leave them out of it) make seem to push the settings toward disclosure, not privacy. No wonder we feel like we’re the frog in the pot.

Watching parts of the F8 conference (Yes, I must have too much time on my hands) shocked me. FB are targeting the younger generation, from 13yo upwards. Apparently, my age group is one of the largest demographics already on fb… they want to reach the younger crowd. Enter, the timeline. FB encourages us to build our personal profile, giving us the tools to do so. From birth to the present. That’s a lot of personal data on every user.

Previously when a parent wanted to stalk er, look up their child’s friends or boyfriend we had to scroll down the page, clicking ‘older posts’ to find possible incriminating info. Now, the new Timeline makes user data ridiculously easy to uncover. As a parent, I don’t mind this. But think of the possibilities for hackers, scammers or identity thieves!

They Gave Me Seven Days

I opted to test the timeline feature early so that I could learn about it. The more I played er, tested it, the more I didn’t like it. Oh it’s groovy and cool and neat but it’s a stalker’s playground. When trialling the timeline, FB gave me 7 days before my new timeline would go live. 7 Days to make sure all my previous status updates were set to who I wanted them to be with the new settings. Much easier said than done when one has been active for a few years.

I downloaded all my fb info (profile, status updates, etc) into a zip folder. I unzipped it and had a look. Wow, I didn’t realise exactly how much information I had shared, and I’m usually on top of things like that. There was no way I could go over several years of updates and hide things from the public view in 7 days. It would have taken a month of Sundays and occasionally I like to sleep and shower and eat.

So, I deleted my whole account. No, it was not a hasty decision but one I thought very carefully about. Of course, fb account deletion is not easy (why would it be?) and it takes 2 weeks before it is truly deleted, (if one believes that it is ever truly deleted).

Why I Went Back

I took a few weeks totally away from Facebook and survived (Gasp!). Then I went back to it and rejoined with a different email address and account. I have the timeline again, but with a fresh start. Now I know and expect that Facebook will indeed change their privacy settings. Previously I was ignorant. Now I know that they will… and I’m prepared for it.

Aside from having my website accounts there (AussieHomeschool, Kerugma and The DIY Bible Study) all of my children are on there. Now whilst I don’t need FB in order to keep in touch, (that’s what real life is for) I do like to keep abreast of security and privacy issues and scams so that I can inform them and guide them in using social media responsibly.

Where’s the Loyalty?

Hehee, as an aside, how safe can it be? Even Mark Zuckerberg’s private photo album was hacked and shared. If his private information isn’t safe on his own network, what makes me think that my information is? Facebook has been involved with some dubious practices before. Don’t take my word for it, do your own research.

What You Can Take From It

The Privacy/Tools page is where you can see how your profile looks to the public and see an example of what people see when they look for you using public search engines. Download a copy of everything you’ve put into Facebook, all in one, easy-to-browse file. Go here: facebook.com/about/privacy/tools and download your whole profile. Save it to your desktop. Unzip it. Open the files and browse them. Give it a go. What have you got to lose?

Five Tips For Your Privacy with the Facebook Ticker

Are you confused or wary of the Facebook ticker? If you answered yes then you are not alone! Below I will give you five tips to ensure your privacy on Facebook, ticker included. I had the ticker on my previous facebook account. (The account that I deleted several months ago) I didn’t like it. I felt that it gave me insights into people’s lives that I didn’t want nor need to know. It’s gossipy. I felt like I was eavesdropping on all my friends. This isn’t part of my online code of ethics. Quite simply, the ticker did not help me in my quest to guard my heart.

The ticker shows you the things you can already see on Facebook, but in ‘real time’. If you don’t know what the ticker is, it means you don’t have it yet. Facebook releases all their changes via staggered roll-outs, which explains why everyone doesn’t always get the new features at the same time.

Many people are shocked when they are able to see all these conversations and wonder about the privacy of Facebook. When the ticker was first rolled out, there was an issue and it was quickly pulled. Before you could blink it was reinstated so I assume the errors were fixed.

The ticker does repect the user privacy settings. It’s the user privacy settings which need to be amended. Let me describe a hypothetical situation.

I post a status update with ‘public’ as the privacy setting.
Mrs. Latte is one of my FB friends and she comments on my post.
Everyone who comments on the thread can see what is being written. This is normal and has not changed.
Facebook also tells my friends and Mrs. Latte’s friends what was said by inserting it into the ticker.

Why can all our friends see it?

Because I, as the original poster, set the privacy options for that post to ‘public’. The same feature is/was on the old profile BUT you had to visit their profile and scroll down to view it. You could follow a person’s activity from their profile page. Now instead of stalking someone on their own page, their activity comes to you via the ticker, in real time.

You can control the privacy of everything you post to Facebook through the privacy settings next to your post. Remember that when you comment or like something, the comment or like will have the same privacy settings as the original post. You can set your default setting so that it is ‘Friends’ only and not ‘public’.

What Does Public Mean on Facebook?

Public means really public. Really public means that anyone can see it. People on facebook who are not your friends or in your networks. It means public.

Tips n Tricks

Set your privacy to ‘friends’. Double check that your status updates are set with the privacy controls to ‘friends’.
If and when you use the “Public” setting, explain that you are doing so. Then friends can make their own informed decision to comment- knowing that all their friends will learn of their comments.
Change all previous posts you have made via the privacy settings. Go to your profile –> Privacy Settings.
Create lists to post to certain people or certain groups of people. When composing an update use the privacy controls in the top right of the post to manage the individual setting.
Tell your friends why you have restricted your settings to ‘friends’ or lists. Ask them to do the same.

For More Info

Visit the Facebook Ticker Help Topics

“Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented… [snip] Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence.”
Julian Assange

Top Ten Stats in 2011

An interesting and unusual look at some of my stats for 2011.

Ten Top Searches on My Site

(no surprises here)

bible translations
kerugma
homeschooling
garden of eden
cross
bread
coffee tree
old books
printable bible reading plans
the animal school parable

Ten Unusual Searches To Find My Site

(I did get a giggle from a few of these)

do not be idle bible
winter dresses
pohon kopi
kışlık elbiseler (which is ‘dresses for winter’ thanks to google translate)
jesus twitter follow me
“major on the major” poem
don’t idolize the family
king’s cup coffee
unregistered homeschooler
i’ll smile when you speak

Top Nine Commenters

Amanda – 145 comments
Ruby – 93 comments
Joi – 75 comments
Leonie – 69 comments
joi – 62 comments
kidspatch – 62 comments
Rosemary – 61 comments
Cathy – 60 comments
Jeanne – 51 comments

The DIY Bible Study

I’ve built a new website and I want you to zip over and visit it.

It’s called The DIY Bible Study.

I started this site (kerugma) as a repository for articles and forum responses that I was writing repeatedly. Over time the site has grown and morphed into my online home. However, this site is really large and has many topics from my personal and family journal, recipes, my exercise and nutrition journal, homeschooling information, blogging info, social media tips and my Bible study posts.

For many years now, I have wanted to share Bible study tips for those who want to dig into God’s word for themselves, instead of using pre-packaged workbook type Bible studies. There’s nothing wrong them- they have their place, but I’ve only used them occasionally throughout my walk as a believer and have never retained much from them. I get much more benefit when I dig into the word by itself – just me, the Bible, pen and paper.

Having said that I never found it easy. I started off with no clue as to how to study the Bible. It was a huge book, bits of it seemed boring and I was, quite simply, overwhelmed with it. Over the years, I’ve learned a few techniques that I now incorporate into my Bible study time. (As a side note, many of these techniques are not ONLY for Bible study but are valid and valuable study tips for any subject – fabulous for homeschoolers and parents wanting to supplement or help their child’s learning). I am certainly no expert. But I believe that’s why many people will benefit from what I have to share. I’m a layman – no fancy words or fancy books. I don’t know Greek or Hebrew or any other language for that matter. I simply want to share some useful tips. So this new site is for parents who wish to teach their children straight from the Word or for new believers or for busy mums who don’t have hours each day to pursue Bible study or attend classes. I did not invent or create these techniques, I am simply collating them in a user-friendly way.

I moved many of the Bible study posts from here to the new site. And I’ll be writing a weekly (God willing) post that will contain one Bible study technique each time, with examples.

I really want to focus on both this personal site and the DIY Bible Study site and separating the two will enable me to do just that. The DIY Bible Study is for all things to do with Bible Study whereas this site will contain the mundane, soapbox-style rants that cross my mind.

So pop over for a visit and sign up to receive the updates.

Don’t forget to ‘like’ the DIY Bible Study facebook page as well.

Training Children to Use Facebook for God's Glory

Facebook Training for Kids from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.

Many homeschool families do not have an issue with facebook. Their teens don’t care much for it so there’s no problem. But not all homeschoolers are like this. Some homeschool families are very much into technology and social media.

However if, like me, you are going to allow your teens to be involved on facebook, this video gives some very helpful and practical tips for parents.

We have applied the advice he gives in the video. And no, my teens are not perfect and they probably have made a few mistakes. But I am there to see it and guide them through it. For us, this is a much better approach than total avoidance. But that’s us. You might be different.

How about you? Are you ‘friends’ with your teens on Facebook? Do you interact with them on their wall?

Oh! While we’re talking about Facebook, have you ‘liked’ my susanpriolo.com facebook page yet? I post lots of Scripture and interesting links and tid bits to it a few times per week.

Help Me Choose An E-Reader

Kindle, Kindle Fire, iPad, Nook or Sony Reader or even another type of ebook reader? There are so many to choose from! And even though I am doing my research, I’d like to hear from my friends and blog readers. I want your opinion! Tell me what you have or what you want and why.

Why do I want it?

With only two children left at home (and they are currently 14.5 and 16.5yrs) we are looking ahead to our future. We want to downsize. We have a rather large home library that served us well over the years but it has become tiresome to lug it all around from state to state. (Remember we’re a Defence Family).

Wants:

To read any books from any source, pdf ebooks included.
To be able to take notes, keep bookmarks, etc
Wi-Fi
Easy to read

So, don’t be shy. Tell me your thoughts. Sell me an e-reader,friends.

Gorgeous Free WordPress Themes

Beauty & Clean is a beautiful, clean theme which has a premium and a free version. The free version would be more than enough for most bloggers. A huge plus with this theme is the shortcodes that it comes bundled with. Amazing! Download it here and you can see an online demo here.

A gorgeous new, free theme which is minimal in design but rich in features is Typominima. The purpose of the theme is to enable bloggers to express themselves with a clutter free theme. You can check out the theme features and also a series of posts containing sample styling for the most common elements you’ll need on your blog before you download Typominima.

And for those who just can’t get enough of Facebook, you can use the FB Timeline theme for your blog. Check it out here.

Free themes are often great but care needs to be taken. Not all free WP themes are clean and free of nasties. If you see a theme you like but aren’t sure, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to assist.

Go get a gravatar!

Have you ever wondered how some people have a cute little picture or a photo of themselves or their business logo next to their name when they leave a comment? It’s called an avatar. Other social networking sites call them by different names but the general name is an avatar.

You can have an avatar through google, which will show up on all blogger blogs. You can also have a wordpress.com account with an avatar but still, this is limited. I’m aware of OpenID but when one wants to keep some things separate I believe that gravatars, linked to your email accounts are the way to go.

What you really want is a gravatar!

Your Gravatar (a globally recognized avatar) is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. So, when you use your email address on a gravatar-enabled site, your chosen avatar is automatically used. How cool is that?

Many people will tell you that it’s important to use the same logo or photo all the time. I agree that this important if it is a business but I don’t think applies to personal bloggers as much.

I do try to use the same avatar across the Internet but I also like to change it up occasionally. This means that I change it at Gravatar.com, facebook, Google and AussieHomeschool.

Go grab one now at Gravatar.com. Sure but how?

Go to Gravatar.com.
Click “Get your Gravatar today”.
Enter your email address.
Activate your account by clicking on the link in the email you receive.
Choose a username and password.
Add your image/photo.
Crop it and finish.
You can use multiple email addresses and images.

How to enable your (self hosted wordpress site) to use gravatars?

Simply login to your admin dashboard.
Go to Settings –> Discussion –> Avatars and select the desired fields.
Done!

If you have problems, which is unlikely, check out the FAQ.

** Alternatively, if you have a self hosted wordpress site and like the Hover Gravatars that wordpress.com use, you can download the Jetpack plugin, activate it, enable hovercards and away you go!

Hope this helps,

Main Course Smorgasboard

‘Where Children Sleep’

This photography project is quite startling. It speaks loudly yet the commentator and/or photographer doesn’t write a word other than the facts. There may be some bias in the subjects chosen but either way, there is something we can all take from this presentation.

I Spy Animals

http://www.ispyanimals.com/
Oh, you absolutely must bookmark the website, I Spy Animals. It is an average website as far as design but the content is amazing. Written by by Jan Perley she writes and includes plenty of images on species identification.

To Heaven and Back? by Defending. Contending.

http://defendingcontending.com/2011/09/01/to-heaven-and-back/
A somewhat sensitive issue in today’s society, even amongst Christians… but how much of it lines up with the Bible? To Heaven and Back ponders these issues by studying the Scriptures.

How many times have you heard someone claim they died and got a glimpse of heaven? Recently a co-worker told me the Pastor of her sister’s church preached a sermon on heaven. In his sermon, he mentioned a little boy who’d died and entered heaven {the child was revived by doctors}. While in heaven, he saw his grandpa who he’d never met. The mother of the child showed the little boy a picture of his grandpa, and he said that wasn’t him. So she proceeded to show him another picture, one of his grandpa when he was younger, and he said that was him. I didn’t say much as I listened, but all the while I knew what she thought was true was anything but. Stories like this are told everywhere, those who do not understand what the Bible actually teaches about death and heaven swallow this as truth.

Heads or Tails?

http://theupsidedownworld.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/heads-or-tails/
Rebecca Trotter ponders what it means that Christ is the head of the church? We assume that this verse means that the husband should lead his wife, but does Christ really lead the church?

A husband’s job is not to direct his wife in the way that she should go. A husband’s job is to give his wife hope and comfort and the freedom to become who she was created to be (a secret only her heart knows, btw), just as Jesus offers hope and comfort and freedom to become who we were created to be in the Kingdom of God. This has nothing to do with power and authority and everything to do with love. Paul was telling men that they should be empowering their wives to be who God designed them to be and presenting their wives to Christ as an example of how well they loved.

Where’s The Octopus?

When marine biologist Roger Hanlon captured the first scene in this video he started screaming. Hanlon studies camouflage in cephalopods–squid, cuttlefish and octopus. They are masters of optical illusion. These are some of Hanlon’s top video picks of sea creatures going in and out of hiding.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10397

The Word did not become a philosophy, a theory, or a concept to be discussed, debated, or pondered. But the Word became a Person to be followed, enjoyed, and loved.
~Roy Lessin

Free facebook security guide

Facebook. Love it or not it’s here to stay. Facebook has devised a new security guide for parents, teens and educators, or everyone. It’s good to read this guide for yourself but also read it with your children. It has a lot of common sense in it, useful for facebook, twitter, email and more. The free downloadable guide includes tips on how to protect your fb account, how to avoid scammers, how to use secure security settings and a whole lot more.

Some of the tips include:

Create a solid password and change it regularly. Tips for creating a solid password are: Passwords should be longer than six characters and include a mix of uppercase, lowercase, and special characters. If you need help with checking to see if a password is considered strong, you can use this site – Microsoft password checker.
Change your password regularly.
Share your personal information only with people and companies that need it.
Log into Facebook once each session. If in doubt or if you feel something is ‘off’ then skip the bookmark and type www.facebook.com directly into your browser address bar.
Always log out of Facebook (and any other site that needs logging into) after using someone else’s computer.
Use secure browsing when and where possible.
Keep your anti-virus software updated.
Keep your browser and other applications up to date.
Never paste script (code) in your browser address bar.
Beware of scandalous posts from anyone—even fb friends. If it looks like something a friend wouldn’t post, then don’t click on it. Many of the scammers devise their nasty apps based around current events. e.g: ‘Watch this video to see Michael Jackson’s last minute alive‘ and other such garbage gossip.

Head over and download the free pdf: Guide to Facebook Security

Site news: new design, looking forward

It’s nowhere near finished. It currently looks like something that the cat dragged in. But it is up and running. My website, that is. If you’re reading this in a feed reader you won’t notice but I took the site down, deleted 50% of the posts and started again with a whole new design. No, it isn’t just that I’m bored. Ah, far from it. But it does fit in with my streamlining plans for the future.

You may notice that there are now 3 navigation bars: one at the very top linking to pages and the secondary menu linking to categories. The 3rd menu is at the very bottom of the page and contains all the boring but necessary stuff, like my new Disclaimer/Disclosure policy. The other page you may notice is the “Things I Like” page where I link to some products and services that I like.
I know that the rotating image viewer on the front page is all skewiff but with the wedding in 17 days I can’t afford to devote any more time to it just yet. I’m also aware that there are broken links but again, that will have to wait until after the wedding.

For now, it is quite pedestrian and wrinkly but over time I’ll get it straightened out. If you notice a particular design problem, and want to shoot me a quick email I’d be most appreciative.

Almost 800 pages

This site contains (at the time of writing) 732 published posts and 62 published pages? That’s 794 in total. That’s over 6 years worth of writing, quoting and linking. So it stands to reason that there are many links which are broken, outdated or no longer existing. I am s-l-o-w-l-y going through the whole site and trying to correct or delete them. It’s a painful process which necessitates the consumption of ample amounts of coffee and chocolate.

In the meantime you may come across a broken link to my site and for that I apologise. However, you could use the advanced search, the site map, the articles page, the archives or subscribe to the rss feeds. Or maybe you were looking for the free downloads? You can also contact me via email, facebook or twitter – just click on the pretty little pictures at the top of the right hand sidebar.

Please be patient. I hope to have most of the links fixed soon.

What! No clicking?

Introducing the… iBible

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8wRIcv6esY&feature=player_embedded

Baby Photo Used in Scam

Just in case you needed a reason to NOT post photos of your children online, take a look at this news article from August 2009! A Massachusetts mum finds out someone is using her baby in an adoption scam.

I recommend using a free or premium service like photobucket or flickr to host your photo’s as you can control the privacy settings. However, as much as many people don’t like or trust facebook, they can be used to securely (as secure as anything ever is on the Internet) host your flicks. Just remember that there are 22 privacy settings to date so be mindful to go through all your privacy settings.

If using wordpress or blogger you can also upload your photo’s but post them in a password protected post.

It may not be of great concern if your photo’s aren’t direct head shots of your children… it’s up for you to decide. But please, just be careful and deliberate about all that you do on the Internet.

Rubbish!

This week I purchased a new tool for the home. No unfortunately it wasn’t a new printer, computer or anything cool like that. Instead it is a tool that has been on my want-to-buy-essential list for awhile now. What is it? A paper shredder! Not all that exciting, is it?

Last week we received a letter from our bank. It was fully addressed to my husband so naturally I tore it open. (I open all the mail as I am the one that pays the bills) The contents revealed a keycard… one of those debit cards that can be used online. However, it was not our card, nor was the letter attached to the card addressed to us! In effect, I had in my possession a debit/credit card that could be used online as well as the full name, address, DOB and bank details of another person!!! Oi Voi! How scary is that? I have since returned it to the bank, informing them of their mistake and expressing my displeasure with the whole things – especially seeing that we bank with them too? Which bank? 😉

This started me thinking about online fraud and identity theft.

A day or two later a facebook friend mentioned that their wheelie bin was stolen and some random fellow knew a lot of their details as he had found their rubbish, including papers. Then, the council issued them with an ultimatum – go pick up all the rubbish or pay a hefty fine!

This got me to thinking about the details that could be learned from a rubbish bin – where we shop and what we purchase, where we purchase our fuel, friends, banks, and many more details.

Suffice to say, this is the reason that we purchased a shredder. Apparently the best ones to buy are cross cutters. These cut the paper into teensy weensy squares so that they can’t be put back together whereas many paper shredder simply cut the paper into long strips. This isn’t as effective. The one we have is an ugly pink colour but it also shreds credit/key cards and has a letter opener. Best of all, it wasn’t expensive- not for the peace of mind of protecting our details.

I know I’m probably behind the eight ball on this… but just in case there is someone else out there who doesn’t use a paper shredder I thought I’d post and encourage you to consider it.

Costello buys a computer

My sister-in-law sent this to me via email…I immediately thought of my husband and my dad- two wonderful guys who, in their own unique ways, are very funny. Dad, I know you may not completely understand it but you’ll appreciate it anyway. 😉

You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on…

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, ‘Who’s on First?’ might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.

COSTELLO: I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That’s right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What’s bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on ‘START’…. 😀

A new year…a new look!

I’ve been at it again…playing around with my site. I just can’t help it. I love web design and seeing what I can do next. I was really happy with the look of my previous theme but I wasn’t overly impressed with its performance so I went for a new theme. However you may be forgiven for thinking that the site doesn’t look all that different, because the basic structure and navigation has stayed the same- because I like it and it works!

The home page tells a little about the site but if you want to go to the blog page, simply click on ‘blog‘ which is the third link along in the navigational menu at the top. don’t forget to hover over the menu to view the drop down items.

As is typical with me the site is not finished…it’s a work in progress. I will continue to tweak it here and there as I have time. I could have waited until I had it ‘just right’ but I really wanted to get it done so I can start on a new look for AussieHomeschool. So it’s not perfect but it’s done. Let me know what you think of it, particularly with regard to page load speed, performance and navigation.

Don’t forget to check out my web development hobby, Kerugma Designs. You can ask for a free quote on any website project, no matter how big or small.

Reviewing My Online Productivity

I’m reviewing…everything I do online.

It’s something I do regularly, more than once a year but I do seem to take it more seriously at the end of the year.

Why do I blog? Why do I tweet and have a Facebook? Why do I have AussieHomeschool? Why do I have AH Twitter, FB and the blog? What fruit do they bear?

What is the aim of these things? Is this the best use of my time?

Truthfully, I don’t know the answers to the question- what fruit do they bear? I know why I do what I do but is it worth it? I know what my aim is…but am I too busy with fingers in too many pies?

It’s right and good that I reassess these things. I have 2 daughters. One is 18, a homeschool graduate and pursuing her interests to the glory of God. My 16yodd has finished school and is a first year apprentice chef. The girls alone keep me fairly busy but add two boys to the mix and I really need to use my time wisely. My 14yods is homeschooling high school (Yr 9/10) in 2010 and is an Air Force Cadet who spends most of his free time training. My 12yods will be homeschooling Yr 7/8 and we’ll be looking to expose him to a few different experiences next year…to ascertain his interests, delights and God given strengths.

I spent nearly 9 months of this year trying to get Fit n 40. It was truly a journey of spurts and spills…and I just started to get somewhere along the road of progress when…I resumed softball. Coaching is great – I love it! I also love playing again, albeit that my mind is more willing than my flesh. However, I either went back to playing too early or I shouldn’t have attempted it at all as I have re-injured my knee. Now, even pottering around the house is incredibly painful and draining. Yes, I do plan to have it looked at…as soon as I get a spare day to go to the doctor.

Next year I want to do more, to give more of myself to the boys and their lessons and to my husband and our marriage. Naturally I still want to be involved in the Australian homeschooling community but how? In what way will be the most productive…will bear fruit? What are my ‘big rocks’? What is the ‘sand‘? Of course I talk to my husband about it…although he trusts me…trusts that I will do what is right. He doesn’t dictate my activities to me, although sometimes I wonder if that would be nice? (Nah, I actually love that about him- he trusts me, he respects me, he thinks I am capable!)

This is where my heart and my head have been over the last few weeks. I’ve been praying about it all, and asking God to reveal to me the things I do in ‘the flesh’ along with the superfluous activities and the things that bear fruit and are productive.

What process do you use to discern which activities are fruitful and which need pruning?

Don't Make These Mistakes

As many of my regular readers will know I develop websites– big ones, small ones, ecommerce sites and blogs. Website development is a hobby that keeps me on my toes. The industry is always changing…there is something new to learn every day! Sometimes it is mind blogging, other times it’s just what I need. Mind you, there is a down side to studying web development. One of those downsides is that I have trouble just visiting websites and enjoying them nowadays. I want to look inside…I want to see its engine, know what is running the site, who designed it and what components the site is using. I just can’t look at a custom site and simply enjoy it anymore. Oh well, that’s not really a grumble or a downside, just a curiosity that springs from my delight. 🙂

Anyway I love blogging and studying pro bloggers is also an interest of mine. I have absolutely no aspiration to ever be a pro blogger. Goodness, I don’t even keep a stat counter! I simply do not obsess over comments, visitors or anything like pro bloggers do. Then again my motivation for blogging is quite different to theirs so obviously our sites will be quite different. (I actually started a blog as a place to collect my thoughts that I had been referring to frequently. Threads and posts on forums and email groups had me re-typing my thoughts so I started a blog to keep them all in one place). Despite my lack of blogging aspirations I still like to learn about effective blogging as a mode of communication. Blogging has been a great tool for my continuing learning about communication.

In my travels I’ve come across some beautiful blogs, some blogs with great content and some blogs that I can only read via my RSS feed reader due to the website/blog design. I have a few pet peeves when it comes to site design…and before I ask you to tell me your website pet peeves I thought I’d tell you mine.

Pet Peeves

Music players that are set to autoplay. Usually they are stuffed in a sidebar which makes it near impossible for me to find so I can turn it off. Sometimes I’m reading blogs very early in the morning or occasionally at night when the children are asleep. I may even like your choice in music…but I like to listen to music at a time when it is convenient for me. Bloggers could consider not having the player set to autoplay. As far as web development goes, this option is more courteous.

Spam is yucky. We all hate it but it is a fact of the blogosphere. There are a few plugins and features designed to combat spam but I really have to say that if you want me to leave a comment then please don’t make me jump through firing hoops to do so! make it easy for me to leave a comment. I just don’t like the captcha images where one is supposed to enter a string of numbers/letters. Sometimes I can’t even read the silly image…making commenting quite difficult. (However, this is largely my own personal preference. others may strongly disagree)

Cluttered sidebars…yes I know this is personal preference but for an adult who is highly distractable I find that the very popular trend of cluttering every little available space with images is just mental clutter. Too much for my lil brain. Images, widgets, buttons and ads- oh my! What is most important on your blog? Images, widgets or the content? (Darren is an Aussie ProBlogger who made a video blog on this topic. Take the 2 min to view his thoughts.)

Multiple blogs: let me explain this one. I used to have several blogs. A food/nutrition/fitness blog, a homeschool blog and my family journal blog. Aside from being difficult to keep track of it also made it it hard for my friends who wanted to keep up with my daily activities and thoughts. The beauty of blogging is categories! One blog- many categories. I’d much rather keep up with your one blog and its many categories than try to keep up with 3 or 4 different blogs by you. If I (cyber) know you and have a relationship with you then I want to hear all you have to say! make it easy for me, the reader! (exception to this can be business blogs- but even this should be assessed on an individual basis)

No contact functions. It’s important for readers to know how to contact you privately.

Things that make me subscribe or return to your site:

I love it when I can easily discern who you are, what you like to write about and, where you live. An ‘about me’ page or widget, with a photo. It adds the personal touch and immediately lets me know a little about you and the purpose of your blog.

I also love it when I can easily find content on your site. Give me multiple ways to find information! Search bars, archives, popular posts, recent posts, categories, tags and tag searches, etc are great ways for readers to find relevant content on your site.

When referencing a Scripture I love it when the author actually links to an online Bible! This allows me to dig deeper and run off on bunny trails.

Publishing your RSS feed. This was I can keep up to date with all your posts. (Publishing the feed for your comments is even better!)

Having a ‘contact page‘ or widget. Maybe I’d like to send you an email rather than leave a public comment…sometimes this is more appropriate. Let users know how to contact you.

I love it when bloggers write with paragraphs. Writing for web content is actually a little different to typical or proper writing. Web authors need to use more paragraphs, bullet points and typography than when writing for books or magazines. Breaking your content into more paragraphs makes it easier on the eye for people to read.

When a blogger is relating a story, thought or incident and they link to their previous posts in order to give the readers some background. If we are to develop an online relationship then it’s really helpful to not assume that I know your history or previous thoughts. Link them so I can find out. I love it when bloggers do this!

Okay, I’ve really put myself out there and possibly risked offending some of my readers…but please understand where I’m coming from – a perspective of website development. Of course, you may very well disagree with me and that’s fine too- tell me about it! I love to help homeschool mums with their blog design…I love to encourage the Aussie homeschool community, so let’s brainstorm and tell me what you do and don’t like about website/blog design.

What To Blog?

A few years ago, I was told that my online persona did not seem to match my real life persona. Apparently, I seemed to give a different impression, a more ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’ one through my online persona. I was shocked and disappointed but I now believe that it is part and parcel of online communication and I also believe that I have become a better writer because of that comment. However, it has stayed with me many years later and still affects what I write. For some reason many people are aghast to learn that we have many TV’s, watch Science Fiction and enjoy many movies! (I’ve often thought about writing a post outlining the ‘possible’ shocking things about me…who knows, maybe I will one day.) Would you believe that some fellow Christians have doubted the sincerity of my faith once they find out that I watch Sci-Fi. Others seem to take pity on me. Still others, see it as their duty to enlighten me to the truth of the narrow way, as though I have been a believer for over 20 years and never heard or considered ‘their’ ideas before.

Anyway, enough of the ramble and back to the point, which was…er I don’t really think there is a point to this post. Do I ask myself, “Why don’t those people do what I do?” Why don’t they choose XYZ [insert any choice here] instead of what they are doing? Why do they homeschool like that? Why do they dress in THAT? Why do they eat that? Why don’t they eat this? Why don’t they worship in XYZ manner? and the list goes on… (C’mon, surely you have thought these things too eh? Surely I’m not the only one?)

When I hear myself mutter these things I know that I am imposing my values, restrictions, choices or boundaries on someone else. Oh Lord, forgive my self righteousness and my legalism.

There was a time when I felt alone in this Christian walk. Not totally alone but I did feel like there weren’t many other believers like us. Maybe I even felt that there are too few who choose to follow the narrow way…that there aren’t enough other believers who are living in obedience and sacrifice. Well, didn’t I have to really seek the heart of God and ask Him to create in me a clean heart.

Legalism is not obedience. It is adding to obedience. It is not living in freedom and liberty. It is not grace. It is living in boundaries but not by the Holy Spirit. Often when we are writing on our blogs we can speak words of legalism to others. Most often it is under the guise of following the One True Way and all those other martyrdom sounding cliques but the boundaries, rules, ties and bondage it can put upon a fellow believer is almost, but sadly not, unbelievable.

So God has called me to homeschool? Great. But has He called everyone to homeschool? So God has called me to wear plain, brown, ankle length dresses only with no makeup or jewelery. Great. But has He called everyone to do so? Is it my duty to proclaim that this is what walking the narrow way (Christian life) looks like and if they are saved then they would do this too? Maybe to some, adherence to the strict lifestyle or ‘code‘ is the gospel…but not to me. What is the gospel that you proclaim?

(a) Jesus is the Messiah predicted by the OT prophecies. His ministry of teaching, his actions, his death, resurrection and ascension all comport with the prophecies, and affirm him to be Messiah.
(b) His death was God’s act to deal with sin. His resurrection attested to the effective power of the Cross, and affirmed Jesus as Lord over life, death, creation.
(c) Men and women must, therefore, believe his Lordship, believe on him, repent of their sins, and receive forgiveness from their Saviour, Jesus.

Oh how much better to trust in the Holy Spirit…to trust in the grace of our Father that He will produce the good work in us.

Whenever I’m in confusion over an issue or believe that I need to change an area of my life I pray. Pray and ask God to show me my heart motivation, to lead me and to show my husband if this is right. After a little time I will always go and seek my John’s counsel. He’s my husband, my man. He loves me and has my best interest at heart. And I trust that God speaks to him as well…speaks through Him. It isn’t that I can’t receive from God without him, it’s part of marriage.

I am thankful for all the bloggers and writers who share their life in a way that doesn’t smack of self righteousness. I want to be a blogger like that. I’m thankful for God’s word…and that He still speaks to us today.

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Hebrews 4:12

Do you tweet?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to other users – known as followers – who have subscribed to them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

Click here to tweet with me

So, you want to get started with twittering but don’t know how? Easy! Visit the Twitter website and click “Join for free” to create your account. Consider using your real name as your user name to help your friends find you more easily.

Once your account is created, login and click “Settings.” From here, you can setup your account details, manage your password, register your mobile phone and IM account, configure how you receive Notices, upload your photo and customize your account’s design. Your Twitter page is located at twitter.com/your-username

Some people tweet everything from what they are thinking at any given second to sharing links and deeper thoughts, quotes, Bible verses and more! I used to think it was stupid and a waste of time but once I was set up it’s actually a pretty quick way to gather a whole lot of information. Having said that, I do get annoyed at people who tweet what they had for breakfast or when they shaved their legs! I also get a bit cross when individual people (as opposed to businesses) post the same links over and over again. It’s a bit like spam to me. However, these messages can simply be blocked of hidden so that I don’t see them.

Widgets can be enabled that feed directly from your twitter feeds to your blog or Facebook or anywhere else! That can be a good way to keep friends and family up to date. You can see my latest tweets by either visiting my twitter profile or by simply viewing the front page of my blog.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Do you Tweet? Why don’t you leave me your Twitter name in the comments so I can pop over to your profile?

Meet… Pearls of Truth

pearlsoftruth

Priceless Pearls has been blogging since November, 2008 but she has a chuckling literary style, great love for the Lord and well, she posts regularly! That is always a positive in the blog world. I also know this blogger in real life. We’re quite good friends. Our children know each other and they were quiet good friends too…until they moved to another town. Hmphhh! Usually it is us that does the moving, so the experience was fairly new to us.

I had been trying to gently encourage Amanda to start a blog for many months…to no avail. Then one day she just decided to up and start one! I’m so glad she did. Priceless Pearls is where Amanda shares her life, thoughts, happenings and her opinions. She doesn’t claim to be 100% right or to know it all but she does like to share! she is a lovely lady, with an extraordinarily big heart who loves to give- of her time, of herself, in any way she can. She’s married to a lovely guy and she has two delightful children. She loves the Lord and this is extremely visible once visiting her blog and reading her posts.

Books, celebrations, Christianity and faith, her beloved Darcy, family, friends, motherhood, movies, nature, social issues, riotous randoms and anything else that takes her fancy for the day are just some of the topics she writes about in her deliciously funny way. At times you’ll be in fits of laughter and other times you’ll be left pondering the state of your own heart, after she shares her own journey. Not that PP writes to convict or to tell others how they should feel or how they should live. Rather she shares from her own life. Seeing real faith worked out in the real lives of others is often convicting though, isn’t it?

A few favourite posts:

She had her fellow blog friends in a tizz for days as she eluded to the fact that she was going overseas…wouldn’t tell us where, when or why but had a guessing for days. I think she secretly enjoyed the thrill of seeing us all in a frenzy.
I love that she also enjoyed the same series as me – Gods and Kings series by Lynn Austin. Amanda shared her own learnings in this post
I can’t choose a favourite post in the category of Christian/Faith so I’ll link to the whole category. Go read all her posts in this section.
Mum’s the word
Pearls from Job & Matthew

Amanda and me...non-stop talk and coffee

So if you’ve never visited Pearls of Truth before, why don’t you pop over there right now and say hello! I’m sure you’ll find something of interest.

Let me help you clean

Monday is my housework day so I’ve been in a mad clean all day. Will you let me do some spot cleaning for you? I think your computer screen needs cleaning. Here, let me help!

Click THIS link.

Growing Your Blog

Regular readers of my blog will know that I don’t do stats– don’t care about them, don’t record them in any way. It’s just not important to me. While visiting The Mother Lode today (who incidentally has a great post on “What curriculum should I use for my Kindegardener? ) she talked about AlphaInventions. Having absolutely no idea what it was I thought I’d pop over there and see. I’m still not sure what it is but it is designed to get page hits for your site. In the interest of seeing how this works and with the aim of letting others know about it in case it interests them, I thought I’d give it a whirl. Alphainventions.com is useful for wordpress.com, typepad.com, spaces.live.com, and blogger.com.

How To Attract More Traffic To Your Site

I’m going to cheat a little and post something that I originally wrote as a response to a question on a favourite message board. The discussion was about how to build a reader base for one’s website or blog. Now I’m not into this kind of things for myself – goodness, I don’t even have a (and have a reason for doing so) but as part of my website development business I have learned these things. So here we go!

“Dear ____

Now on to building your blog/site. Bear in mind that as part of my work I know these things but I do NOT do them. I build websites but I don’t do any of this stuff because I don’t need/want to. But, it works!

Sadly, the important thing is content distribution- not even quality of writing. Sad but true. You need to build a commenting base and a readership.How to do this?

Comments! It’s the best way. You have to visit other blogs and leave comments. This lets other readers see you and follow back to your blog but so will the blog owner. I notice you don’t allow comments- matey, this is blog suicide! You need to build readership- you need to build relationships.

Link to other sites. Yep, I know it sounds contrary to send people away from your site but it works. Also link back to your own writings. refer to your previous posts but don’t expect everyone to know the history so fill in the blanks when doing this. Also link to your previous posts- keeps people on your site plus builds a relationship with them. Blogging is all about developing relationships!Subscribe to this blog and read the good articles

I notice you don’t have a blogroll. Don’t underestimate the performance of a blogroll. It helps build readership and get you around the ‘net.

Submit your site to all the social networking sites. Build your reader base through RSS. This is SO important. People read blogs via RSS more so than visiting the site these days so, get your feedburner account up and running and get it looking swish. Make it VERY easy for people to subscribe to your blog.

Get your name out there more…actually I just searched for your name/sitename and your ‘previous’ blog came up first so you need to do some more work on your blog to push it up in the ranks. Get your keywords. Tag all posts. Get your mission statement or aim and put it in your blog. Work that blog girl! Hey, I know you’ve done that but it needs more!

You need a few pages – A visitor will only be on your blog for about 6 seconds if you’re lucky. You need to GRAB them. They need to see everything in one hit. Where is your About Me page? How do I contact you? Remember, make it easy for me, the reader. Why would I want to contact you? Are you available as a guest writer? A guest speaker? Sell yourself to me T__ ! Tell me why I need you! Tell me why I want to visit your site.

Freebies! Everyone loves something to download so get some freebies to give away. You’re a gifted writer and speaker. Make a few podcasts and offer them for free!

Learn to use typography to your advantage. It helps break up a post into bite sized pieces and makes skimming easier. And, like it or not, most people skim.

Get some useful plugins. Do others readers really care about the live feed? I know YOU do but do others need to see it? Nah, not really. But how about a Related Postsplugin? That kinda thing. Oh, related posts to your OWN posts, not others. See this post of mine I have two plugins (they both give good related posts). One is at the bottom of each post and the other is in the sidebar.

Personalise your site even more! Yes, it is possible without giving away all your personal details. eg: design your own logo or avatar so that it can follow you around the Internet. Sign up with Gravatar or OpenID so that everytime you comment on another blog it links back to your site and it includes YOUR avatar! It is important- builds familiarity-relationship. You can include your avatar or logo on your site in the sidebar or in the top of every post! Design a banner that you can give to other sites to display, that links back to your site.

Study how to build your site. Subscribe to blogs that primarily exist for this reason.I’ll list a few with good info, but bear in mind that they are not Christian.

http://www.adsensetipssite.com/adsenseblogging/tentipsblogging.html
http://www.problogger.net/
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/
http://www.successful-blog.com/
http://www.blogbloke.com/
to name a few…but this would get your started.

Another way is to follow the example of others- look at Cindy Rushton and Robin Sampson! Now, there’s two Christian homeschool mums (moms) who are using the Internet to their full advantage to build a business. Study the things they do and see how you can incorporate some of those ideas into your writing site.

T____, pop over to my site. Now I know the colours aren’t everyone’s ideas of nice but they’re *mine*. I would tone it down a lot if it were a business site, but not everyone does, aka. Cindy Rushton. From the outset you can see my RSS feeds (posts AND comments) in the top right hand corner PLUS on every single blog post I remind the reader that they can subscribe.

I have an easy to use , and page and the navigation is fairly easy, I think. Also, you can see that I’ve put my footer to good use. It has the necessary stuff but also a link to another page in my site!

Does all this take time?

Yup! It’s a part time business but if you want to succeed to any degree you need a strong online presence. You have a presence- you need to build it and that takes work.

Of course if you’re really serious, you could also go with your own domain name and hosting which allows for heaps more individual customisation. Let me know if you need some help with that.

That’s it for starters…gee I should start a web development business eh? LOL

Rss feeds are up and running!

New RSS Feed address

For those of you who catch up with my blog via RSS feeds, you can see the new details here: http://susanpriolo.com/subscribe

There are a few options for receiving notification of new posts/comments to this blog. You can receive posts and/or comments via email or by RSS feeds.

Subscribe to posts
http://susanpriolo.com/feed
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Kerugma

Subscribe to Comments
http://susanpriolo.com/wp-commentsrss2.php
http://feeds.feedburner.com/kerugma/fjzm

Need to know what the deal is with all this RSS and feed talk? Read these posts.
What is RSS or feeds?
Another help for RSS and feeds

Another year: another design!

Welcome! You’ve made it to my new site/blog. I’m glad you’re here.

I’d been planning an upgrade of my blog and website. It was rather redundant to have both so I’ve now melded them together to make just the one site, blog included. For now, the old blog is still there but as soon as everything is done and dusted I’ll take it down.

The blog posts are the same, complete with comments. The theme and structure is a little different here but it loads quicker and is easier to manage. As usual, it is not finished but a gal’s gotta do housework and meal preparation some time eh? :victory:

Over the next few days, I will get around to changing the rss feed update and hope to make the transition as smooth as possible for readers. The very top navigational menu ( Kerugma, Home Based Learning, Home n Hearth, Reviews, Quotes & Inspiration, Freebies, Soapbox, Potpourri, Web stuff, Your Turn! ) is the category structure of blog posts. The next menu down from that are the website pages. The sidebar will change depending upon which pages you are viewing. I can easily be contacted through the ‘contact’ page or by emailing the link on my signature.

The recent comments and recent posts may all be a little out of whack for a time…databases aren’t really keen on being moved and melded and they tend to do some weird things. Eventually it will right itself. I’m in no hurry. Blogging is my hobby and something I enjoy playing with.

Come again soon!

What should I blog?

I know I blog primarily for me…but I also like to have a focus, a purpose. This blog started primarily as a way for me to keep all the emails and forums responses that I had written. I still receive questions via email and often my response will be edited and end up here on my blog. But I’d like to hear from you, the reader.

You can check out some posts in each category, to get a feel for what I’m talking about. Using the little tab on the right hand side, click on ‘categories’ and a few posts will come up.

What posts have you particularly enjoyed reading on my blog? What topics do you like to read on my blog? What sort of things do you think you’d like to see me write about?

Here’s a few things I tend to write about but feel free to add a suggestion either as a comment to this post or using the widget in the sidebar.

Aussie Homeschooling
Book Talk
Educational Philosophy
Homeschool Subjects
High School
Teens/Youth
Homeschool Efficiency
Lifestyle of Learning
Reviews

Home & Family
Health & Fitness
Journal of my days and general thoughts
Recipes

Bible study
My Spiritual Journey
Web stuff and Internet goodies (web design, web helps, etc)

Satan's Meeting

In similar vein to the Screwtape Letters, watch this and see if anything applies.

httpv://au.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJ-w5GSaYo

Blogging Addictions? Blogging Balance? (by Robin Sampson)

Today’s post is not my own writing. It is from a dear lady, Robin Sampson. This article was a blog post and you can see it in real time over on her blog. While you’re there, you might like to subscribe to her blog and receive updates of all her new blog posts- it’s worth it!

This morning I read two blogs Susan recommended warning Christian ladies about blogging addictions. Those Sneaky Idols and Blogging: What’s Your Motivation? Both posts made several excellent points.

We can turn anything into sin if it’s out of balance or if we have the wrong motivation. Shoes, make-up, food, TV, sports, pets, etc. can become addictions or idols. Volunteer work at church can become sin when it’s out of balance (before family) or done with the motivation to win approval. Balance and motivation are the keys.

God Created us with a Desire for Relationships

Christianity is about relationships – relationships with God, and relationships with other people. Blogging or reading and commenting on a blog are ways to interact and develop relationships.

In Bible times women interacted daily at the well or gathering animals, etc. They also lived with extended families (grandma, aunts, cousins, etc.). Today’s American women are isolated and crave the company of other women. We don’t go to the community well each morning but we can go on the Internet.

Blogging and leaving comments are great ways we can encourage one another or bear one another’s burdens. There are going to be times when we just don’t have much strength and we need encouragement from others. God tells us,

Think of ways to encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:24)
…build each other up… (1 Thess 5:11)
Bear one another’s burdens. (Gal 6:2)

Encouragement is a special expression of love helping us to focus on God and resist sin! “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Hebrews 3:13.

I don’t feel guilty about blogging or commenting when it is in balance. My reasons for blogging are listed at Five Reasons I Blog. I need relationships. God made me that way. However, the first relationship I need is God. If my time is spent anywhere else before I spend time with the Lord, it is out of balance.

What About Blogging Awards?

Blogging awards are a way to tell others about a blog you recommend. No different than telling a friend you know someone she should meet–someone that is like-minded. I found so many special blogs, I created Spiritual Sunday Meme as a place to list encouraging links weekly. (HOW depends on word-of-mouth because we don’t have the funds to advertise.) Blogging awards shouldn’t be motivation but certainly can be an encouragement, just like comments. Again–balance and motivation are keys.

Our Most Important Relationship

We can only encourage others and bear one another’s burdens when our relationship with God is in order. When I fail to take in spiritual nutrition, daily Bread, I walk in my flesh; I am too weak to battle the fiery darts; I am too weak to take every thought captive.

But when I take the time to read God’s powerful Word I get strength and wisdom. It is only through this essential two-way communication—prayer and Bible study—that we build our relationship with God. And only then do we get the strength to walk in His ways, resist temptations, and gain the wisdom to make the right choices that will affect our entire lives (and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives).

Max Anders said,

“It matters to God how we use our time. It is something which He has given us. We don’t own it. We are responsible to manage it for Him. It doesn’t mean we must always work. Part of our time should be used in recreation and rest, the development and enjoyment of relationships. But we must be aware of how we use our time, and use it wisely” (30 Days to Understanding the Bible).

If you are on the Internet to the point that you put aside Bible study, recognize this as a signal, like recognizing hunger pain as a signal to eat, that it is TIME for Bible study and prayer. Time is limited. It is like a handbreadth. Use it well.

“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

What do you think? Are you a good steward of your time? Is Bible study a priority in your day? Pray about evaluating your schedule and ask God to lead!

Blogging Addiction? Ironic Post

After my last post, I thought I’d do a quick quiz. Guess what? It’s official! I am not as addicted to blogging as I once was. There, I read it on a website so it’s gotta be true eh?

Actually, the only reason I scored 68% is because I know what I’m doing with blogs, not because I blog regularly or frequently. So I use RSS instead of manually checking individual blogs? Doesn’t mean I’m addicted…but it does mean I’m trying to be efficient with my time. So, I represent, resemble, er resent that score of 68%. 😉

68%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

How about you? Are you a blog addict? Here are ten signs that may indicate that you have an addiction.

Bloglines, Google Reader or some other RSS reader is constantly open on your computer’s desktop.
You tell customers/friends that you missed a project deadline because “some things” came up but in reality, you were blogging.
You periodically dream that you are blogging.
You get inspiration for new blog posts at the strangest times – in the spa, on the softball diamond, while reading a book aloud to your children, while showering… you get the picture.
Before blogs, you used to tuck the kids into bed at night. Now you check for unapproved blog comments before heading to bed yourself.
In order for your family to keep up with what’s going on in your life, they have to read your blog. Furthermore, if they want to communicate with you, they have to comment on your blog.
You have actually considered setting up a blog for your pet of which you would post the entries pretending you are your pet (weirdo).
You can’t remember dates for your wedding anniversary, kids birthdays, etc., but you know what your Technorati rank is.
You blog about anything and everything including bad meals, your pets, getting your car stuck in snow, conversations you have in the bathroom, etc.
Keeping a blog is no longer enough but you now have to record your every move on Twitter.

Nah, I’m sure I’m the only one who has experienced those things…none of you gals (generally my reader base are women) would know what I’m talking about eh? 😉

Downfall of Homeschool Blogging

I love blogs! I like blogging! I also love online forums and communities. I believe they have different purposes. I’ve often said that some people need to stop ranting on forums and get themselves a blog! Forums are for sharing ideas, resources, etc whereas I see blogs (within the home-school community) for personal sharing, ranting and raving and expressing one’s own thoughts, being as biased or straight forward as one likes. Your blog is your personal soap-box. Forums are a bit different and much more netiquette is needed.

B U T …

I believe that the blogging explosion has stolen something from community forums.

Think about your early days of homeschooling. Did you belong to an online forum, email group or online community? Did you receive help and support? After having received help and support are you now one who gives support? Have you noticed that as the blogosphere has grown the online community forums have diminished? How do you feel about this? How do you think newbies feel about this? ( I don’t have the answers – feel free to comment)

I love having my online home, where I can decorate as I like, rant and rave…write or not write! But, I will never give up forums…I love the combined effort that online communities offer. I started blogging as I found I was writing the same answers over and over again – it seemed more time efficient to simply put it in one place, but I know that many people prefer a more personal response – they prefer forums. So, I will continue to be a part of online communities – it’s my way of trying to serve others.

Blogging can be addictive.(It has it’s own dangers= the lure of popularity, to come up with ‘new’ information or thoughts, etc) To be a self publisher and see one’s own words in print – wow! Once one starts to post regularly the comments start rolling in…one can gain in popularity, get ranked in the blogging social bookmarking sites. It all looks rather professional really. However, there are dangers that every Christian needs to be aware of. Guard your heart.

Online communities offer something that the blogosphere doesn’t or can’t by its very nature. An online community can offer support, encouragement, information, resources, laughter, fellowship in the one place – from more than one member! Which means one can go on holiday and feel at peace- instead of worrying about the readers wondering when the next blog post will be written.

We’re created to be part of a community…and the blogosphere provides an online community – to an extent. But community forums are where newbies go for help first…

So I ask, why do you blog? Are you blogging for you or with the heart motive of serving other’s. Should the answer to this question change your actions at all?

Spring is here – time for a change

Oh can’t you feel it? The colder months are behind us and the sun is starting to peek out from behind the clouds. Ah, this is more like it.

I loved the Queensland weather. I was never cold. Then we came back down to South Australia and I can’t remember the last time I was warm. let alone hot. Now in all honesty, it isn’t that bad. Especially compared to Canberra or Victoria but I didn’t like the weather there either. But it’s spring and I can just feel the change! I’m so excited.

To herald in the warmer months, I thought it was time to redecorate. If I lived in my own home I would probably have planted spring bulbs or have stencilled some floral art work on the walls but this is our 7th home in 7 years so redecorating is not on my agenda. But I can redecorate my online home. So here’s my new theme. Yes, back to the lavender, muted purple colours. I can’t help but go back to florals. It was either that or coffee colours but I don’t need any encouragement in that area- I already drink too much coffee! I hope this theme works for you. I’ve tested it on a few different browsers and it works for me.

So is anyone spring cleaning? Planting seedlings? Re-modelling? What personal or family projects do you have to work on over the spring months?

Fragrant atmosphere of our home

My new baby… project

I have been wanting to post for ages but I haven’t been able to grab the spare 1/2hr to do so. Hmm, there used to be a time when it wouldn’t take me 30 min to post but my mind has been elsewhere. Where? I hear you ask! Oooh, I’m so glad you asked! Now I get the chance to show of my new baby – oops, my new project, er obsession.

Yes, it is finally ready for use! It is a dream I have had for many years and the former site was a mere shadow of what I have always dreamt of and planned for, but now it is finally here! Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without the tireless efforts of my dear husband, for without his many, long hours it would not be possible. Thank you John!

Aussie Homeschool is a free online community for all Australian homeschool (current, past, enquiring or potential) parents. The purpose and vision of Aussie Homeschool is to connect Australian homeschoolers from every town and state! There is opportunity to buy and sell resources, to give and receive encouragement, to share, to laugh, and to learn with other like-minded people. We’re sure you’ll love our online community. Try it…this online community is what you make it. Our purpose is to provide you with an informative, insightful, stimulating and encouraging platform for all your interests and needs.Together, we can make this community an enriching and helpful Australian network.

So this is an official welcome to any/all Australian home educators to pop over, register and join in. There are discussion forums, classifieds (to buy, sell, rent or give away), file sharing, networking, articles, news and more to be involved with. See ya there!

I've had a facelift!

Tehee, I thought that might get some attention. Okay, so I haven’t had a facelift but my blog has! I love mucking around with graphics, colours and themes and often practice new themes from the back end of my blog, but where’s the fun in that? I was also very annoyed to see that my blog rendered fine in Firefox and Opera it looked all skewif in IE. The right column wasn’t where it should be and things like that. It bugged me. So I played around with it. I had been toying with the idea of going with a completely different style- still sticking with 3 columns but both on the same side- it’s very Web 2.0 of me eh? Usually I spend some time tweaking the template to suit me and reflect my taste in colours but this new template is straight out of the box! Do you like it? ‘They’ say that a change is as good as a holiday (ever wondered who ‘they’ are?) so this is my new look for 2008.

So, I went away from my usual purples and went with a beautiful design from InfoCreek. For some reason, this theme reminds me of the series of books I’ve recently enjoyed: Chronicles of the Kings by Lynn Austin but I don’t know why.

I have tested this template (Aspire) in 4 different browsers and it looks fine for me. I hope it does for you too. If however, you do not like the new look, you can choose to view my blog using a different theme.

Maybe you like the old one (Dark Ritual) or maybe a deep pink patchwork is more your style (Bonita).

Downtown Java is a pretty theme inspired my love of coffee and blue florals.

Techicon is a simple, purple design, because I still love purple.

Vertigo Electrified is also a 3 column, maroon, black and white theme which is quite quick to load.

And just because I still love purple, there is the WP_Premium. It also loads quite fast.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, on the right hand side you should find a section that says “Theme Switcher“. Just click on the template that loads best for you and you’ll zoom around this site as quick as a flash.

If you have any problems with the site or any feedback, don’t hesitate to drop me an email or leave a comment.

Overview of December's Posts

Each month I’m going to write an overview of all my posts for each month. I’ll post them in the category “Overview of Monthly Posts” I won’t go back and do this for posts in the past, but it’s something I will in the future.I’ll start by listing the posts at the beginning of each month.

HOW Weekly Book Giveaway is where Robin from Heart of Wisdom details how to be in the running for a free book!
Activity Sheets is a post I wrote where you can download a free printable chart based on the anagram “IDEA” which will give you tools fo ryou to use in your homeschool.
What’s a blog and why are they popular? is a post where I lined to a video visual that informs about the nature of blogging.
First Job, Resumes and all that is where I wrote about the process of my teen daughters getting their part time jobs, tax file numbers, bank accounts, etc.
Teaching Character was written partly as a response to a comment that I received from another post. The reader had asked me to clarify soemthing I had written about not using the Bible to teach character to my children.
Run, don’t walk…HOW is having a 50% off ebook sale.
The last 10 years of Home Education in Australia as seen through my eyes. Be sure to read the comments.
Dreamworld Narration from my 10yods
Dreamworld Narration from my 12yods
Whew, I think it worked was written after we successfully changed Internet hosts…after many headaches for my dh.
Spontaneous Lessons and Matters of the Heart was penned as I was reminded to put aside the hustle and bustle of daily ‘urgencies’ to truly minister to the needs of my children.
Bit’s in Pieces was just a bit of catching up.
More on Prodigal Children was written as I ruminated on some of the Kings of Israel, their children and being raised in a non- Christian home. It makes reference to this previous post, which is worth reading for the comments.
A Busy Homeschool Mum was my remembering that I need to focus on the Lord God and His glory, His majesty, His grace and let the rest fall into place.
Music and Art in our Home was originally written in 2003. It was previously written on my website (not blopg) but I”m slowly trying to clean the place up so thought I’d move it here.
Our scope and sequence for studying World History.
Geography in our home was also written previously and so I thought I’d move it here to the blog.
Curriculum Planning was a post that I wrote about planning homeschool schedules using my 4R’s: pray, to ponder, peruse and plan.

Feel free to leave a comment. You can also subscribe to receive email notification of any comments made. Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts!

If you are looking for a previous, you can use the drop down box, located at the top of each post or use the search engine located in the right had side bar. You can also peruse the Article page where many of the posts that I enjoyed writing or have received most comments will be filed. You can find this at the top left hand sidebar, along with the page of Archives that are grouped by months.

What's a blog and why are they popular?

Ever wondered what the big craze with blogging is? Or how a blog works? What system lies behind the success of the blogosphere? well, if you’re interested in starting a blog or curious as to the what,when, where, how and why of blogging you might like to watch this short, 3 minute video put out by the folk at Common Craft.

Short, easy to understand and to the point. You can watch the video or download the script to read. If you’re interested in blogs, it’s worth a look.

Emotionally Absent

Light’s are on but nobody’s home.

As a homeschool mum I had given up any notion of a career outside the home. I did this joyously and because I wanted to. I didn’t want to miss the everyday happenings of my children…I didn’t want to be absent…but would you believe that a Christian homeschooling mum who dearly loves her children struggled with this very issue?

It all started about five years after we started homeschooling. I had tried a school-at-home approach, tried unit studies and was burning myself out by trying to rigidly conform our home and family to fall in line with Charlotte Mason’s methods. Previous to this my dear mother had *graduated* to be with the Lord and we started homeschooling within a few weeks. I also had a 6 month old baby at the time. My husband was away frequently and I found it hard. Then we completely uprooted from everything and everyone familiar to go to a new job in a new town, in a new state! My health was slowly going downhill. I think I’ve mentioned before that it can be draining and tiring to go our and make new friends and start all over again, so I didn’t. I was at a place where I was content…or so I thought.

The Internet is such an easy place to get lost in eh? One can roam around and meet new people, learn new things and justify sitting on one’s backside for large periods of time. (Oh, but maybe I’m the only one who struggles with that) I soon found that if I wasn’t actually physically sitting at my chair on the Internet, my head was on the Internet. Instead of my heart being turned toward the home, it was turned toward the Internet! You know, while in the shower pondering various situations and posts…thinking of email responses and hurrying the dishes just to write a quick reply…(or am I alone here too? I don’t think I am. )

It got to the point where I was hurrying through lessons…or when I was reading aloud my mind wasn’t really on the book. I was simply going through the motions of homeschooling and parenting. The lights were on but no one was home. I was physically present but emotionally absent from my home and the lives of those most precious to me.

But you know what? Simply recognising the problem wasn’t enough to fix it. 🙁 I asked some good (internet) friends to pray for me. They knew of my struggles and pray they did! I believe it was largely due to them, and due to the desire of my heart, that God released me from the bondage of Internet Addiction. Yep, I kid you not! Sad, isn’t it?

Part of the solution was for me to realise what attraction the Internet held for me. A large part of it was fellowship with like-minded believers. That was a huge part. There was another part of me that desired adult interaction. I also like to escape from the mundane. And I love to talk…I love to listen. I also love to learn. Aha, see all the causes that band together to fuel the fires of my addiction? Once I recognised these things, I was able to devise a plan of action. I didn’t want to get rid of the computer all together. It is simply a machine. Surely I should be able to control it, rather than have it control me? I didn’t see that getting rid of it would help deal with the root of the problem.

I need fellowship. I need to receive and I need to give to other adults. I love to talk and write. And I was like sponge, I was so hungry for knowledge. But in all this, I was suffering from Information Overload. Too much information floating around in my head. I found it hard to make decisions because there were always so many differing opinions on things. (Oh boy, what a mess eh?) I ended up emotionally paralysed because of Information Overload – my mind never stopped, never rested. It was always on the go, the hunt for new or more information. All this busyness and effort and stress on such low priority activities.

Needing to know

I had an urge to ‘keep up with what’s happening‘…(this is just a form of gossip, which the Bible speaks a lot about) to know what was going on within the homeschool circles. (See, I told you I was in a mess). The thing is, there is just way too much information, too many blogs, too many forums, too much info to try and keep up with! I was able to give it up…by giving it all over to God.

I have had to learn, and am still on a major learning curve, how to focus and to think more clearly. I have had to learn to be selective about the things I read, the places I visit and emails I respond to. I’m not on as many email groups or forums anymore. I’ve had to learn how to guard my heart and mind…but that’s for another post. 😉

Breaking Free

Taking a break or sabbatical from the computer is good…I found it especially easy on holidays or moving house. Actually, after not being online for a few days I really start to rest. Then, even when we return I’m not in a hurry to get back online because I know the pull it has toward me.

Firstly, I had to repent. I repented in front of my children. I told them the problems I was having but that it was not the true desire of my heart. I apologised to them and asked their forgiveness. I also gave my children permission to let me know (in a correct and respectful manner) when I was being ‘absent’ from them. If I was on the computer instead of with them, I taught them that they could gently come to me, touch my hand and ask me to do something with them. I taught them that they weren’t to nag me. Strangely, I don’t respond well to nagging or sarcasm or whining. 😉 You know, my girls did have reason to come to me. But you know what? They did not abuse that privilege. They came to me in love, touched my hand gently and looked into my eyes. Oh, what mother could resist? This was a big key toward helping me. It provided me with some accountability. My husband had offered to turn off the connection between certain hours but I new that the motivation had to come from within me, not an external source. I don’t suggest that all families try something so forward but I share this because it helped me greatly. It also taught my children a few things: we all need accountability…their Christian homeschooling mother isn’t perfect…how to correct someone in love…how easily one can use something good to ‘escape’…to know what it means to be emotionally absent and more.

Dear wife, dear mother, be there for your husband. Be there for your children. They want you. And they need you. No one else can do the job you are doing right now. God wants you, dear Christian wife and/or mother, to serve your family wholeheartedly, as unto Him. Play a game of cards or Uno with them. Do a jigsaw puzzle with them. If you want to have a great relationship with them when they are 15, then you need to have a great relationship with them when they are five! God is a God of miracles so I’m not saying it’s too late for any relationship that isn’t solid…rather that it’s so much easier to maintain a solid relationship than to repair a broken or hurting one, and then build on it from there. I’m not saying you have to be talking to your children every waking minute of every day. I’m talking about priorities and quality and quantity time.

Start now, today. Nothing is more important. Writing a book? Book orders to send off? Curriculum choices to make? Writing an email response…these are all things that need to be prioritised because they can take you away from your children. So, turn of the browser…go call your children and talk to them as you teach them or have them help you prepare tonight’s meal. Go on, you’ll be so glad you did.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Proverbs 4:23

Reflection Award

The reason for The Blogger Reflection Award is to reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy… of knowing them and being blessed by them.

I was chuffed to receive this award, although awards aren’t a reason I blog. Some people do…but I”m just not consistent enough with regular writing…I write for me, from me, to you and me.

I would like to award the following bloggers the Blogger Reflection Award. I’m not following the rules rigidly. I have had this post saved in my draft folder for a few months now so it’s time to just get on with it.

Margaret

Sally Clarkson

Robin Sampson

Nancy Wilson

Barbara Frank

The rules of participating are:

1. Copy these rules.
2. Reflect on five bloggers and write a least a paragraph about each one.
3. Make sure you link to this post so others can read it and the rules.
4. Leave your chosen bloggers a comment to let them know they?ve been given the award.
5. Put the award icon on your site

Cleaning Up My Internet Habits

Moreover, as they go about from house to house, they learn to be idlers, and not only idlers, but gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say and talking of things they should not mention.
1 Timothy 5:13

Many years ago, I read an article that convicted me of the sin of ‘needing to know‘. But you know what? Just because God taught me some things about that then, does not mean that I now have all my ducks in a row and that I don’t struggle in this area anymore. I do.

And something happened this week to show me how things get mucked up when I try to operate in my own strength and do things on my own.

I have a confession to make. I have been lurking around places, (read: forums, blogs, etc) simply to know what is going on. I have not been contributing to them, I just want to know. I have again been convicted that this isn’t any better than the woman that Paul describes as wandering about the neighbourhood, dropping in to say hello and finding out the latest goss. [ouch]

Its time for a cleanup- of my heart, mind and websites I am on. If I am not involved in some way with a person or site or blog (by praying for them or commenting them) or if I’m not serving them by responding to queries then maybe I ought not be there. I need to ask myself: Why am I here visiting this site? Is it to serve, to be edified, informed, to pray? If not, then I need not be there.

Lord, I am sorry. Teach me to keep myself busy with my tasks here at home instead of wandering ‘around’ getting into everyone else’s business. Forgive me for straying from your ways and set my feet upon the right path again Lord. Help me to guard my heart and mind, that in all things I give glory to You.

Cyber flowers for commenters and fellow bloggers!

Cyber flowers for commenters and fellow bloggers! Hmmm while looking over my blog for the last month I saw that there are a few people who read it. And there are a few comments. Wow, firstly I am delighted that you do. 🙂 I also realised that I like to receive comments. Ah! is this because I need the affirmation or is it because I love interaction with people? (Inquiring minds need to know!) I believe it is the latter. 😉

Amanda, you are like a breathe of fresh air. I can’t wait until you have your own blog so I can leave you comments. 😉

Leonie, I am constantly amazed, informed and encouraged by your posts on your blog. You seem to have such an amount of energy that I dream about. Thanks for being such an inspiration to me, and to many others.

Margaret, mum of the 2kidschoolhouse: Thanks for stopping by and commenting! I think you already know how much I enjoy your insight and humour.

Jacqui, thanks for your comments, your openness and your honesty. You must be a blessing to those you know in real life because you are a blessing over the Internet. Your humour also cracks me up. I wish I had a sense of humour like some of you ladies…while I don’t, I love being around you, if only in cyber-land. 🙂

Jocelyn, your blog and knowing you both in real life and over the Internet has enriched my life in more ways than one. You are such a calming influence, often seeming to sit back, take your time and then come out with profound wisdom.

Chrissy, lovely to meet another Heart of Wisdom user. I check your blog regularly now. I also love your theme and colours. 🙂

Lisa, you crack me up! But I also appreciate your insight as a fellow homeschooler with teens.
Shelso, your determination and perseverance are inspirational!

Well, that’s my roundup for this month! I am inspired by you ladies and while I don’t blog for you, (I blog because I like to) commenting on each other’s blogs is fun, enjoyable and enriching.

Bless you!

General Audience: All Ages Admitted

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

death (3x)
pain (1x)

Go here to rate your blog.

Not sure that this is something I should be shouting from my blog but I am partial to a good cappacino or even a milk coffee at home.

I am 81% Addicted to Coffee

Eek! Not sure I should be proud of this either!

1,887,480

Enough already! Time to get on with the day. 🙂

Homeschool Copyright/Plagiarism issues

Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.
Proverbs 19:1

After being quite sick for the last week, I awoke this morning to a horrible, disappointing shock that has left me reeling and very hurt. I feel like I have been robbed. But let me go back a little in time.

Years ago, like most homeschoolers I looked for ways to be frugal in our homeschooling. I learned to use the library a lot. They have some great selections of video’s, DVD’s, and CD’s. Sometimes we wouldn’t get around to watching or listening to them so I came upon the idea of making a copy before returning it to the library. I even felt quite frugal while doing so. After all, if I had to buy that CD I would need to have spent about $40. But now I had saved that. Before long, I ended up with a stack of things that I don’t think I would have needed or used, but as they were free I might as well have them on the shelf, just in case. I had even lent out my resources, feeling fairly sure that the person was going to make their own copy!

Oi voi!

Praise God! He taught me the error of my ways. He did not allow me to stay at that place. He showed me my sin. I was convicted of my wrongdoing. I set apart searching for every little bit of illegal stuff in my house and then we burnt it all. It was a whole family affair. Something started fairly innocently. I did not set out to steal or deceive. I just wanted to save a few pennies…but the fallen nature of man, and the enemy that seeks to devour worked and saw me down a path that I hardly recognised…a path I didn’t set out to take, but ended up there anyway. Thank God that He rescued me from that path and put me on the straight and narrow.

As is often the case with reformed drinkers or smokers, I developed a hot spot (a bug-bear, a passion) for copyright protection and violations. I now stringently try to protect the lawful copyright owner and go to great lengths to ensure that everything I do is above board. I encourage others to always check out the law and consider the use of a Fair Use Policy. Copyright is far more than a list of black and white words- it is legal, ethical, moral and Biblical values.

I administrate a second hand curriculum and resources website. I plaster this site with the homeschool copyright notices and information from homeschoolcopyright.com I want everyone to be informed as to their buying and selling (and borrowing/copying) practices.

Imagine my surprise when I logged on to the Internet this morning to discover a new website has been set up, on the same free board host that Aussie Homeschool Ads is on. That’s okay, I though. Anyone is free to set up their own board. I did not expect this person to set their new board up with the same URL plus one digit. I did not expect them to copy and paste my board structure (ideas which took months to create) on to their own board.

Yes! The board names, the descriptions, the categories (my intellectual property) were all EXACTLY the same as mine! It took hours and lots of effort to come up with those forums and title them and someone has just stolen them!

I ventured into he forum and discovered that some posts that I had written on Aussie Homeschool Ads had in fact been copied and pasted to the new forum…as though this other person had written it. I was livid. I was sad. That was directly stealing my post, my words. Maybe I should have been flattered, but at the time I wasn’t.
Well as with everything in life, I will deal with this…but the reason I blog about it is to increase awareness of homeschool copyright issues (while my issue here is more about fair use, and intellectual property and Christian ethics it still bears a mention).

Join the Campaign Do you know what is fair and right use of the materials that you use, buy, sell and lend?

Aussie Homeschool Ads and Community Forum

He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.
Psalm 101:7

Another help for RSS and feeds

I have previously posted about using RSS for feeds where I tried to explain that instead of visiting sites daily to see if they’ve been updated (which is time consuming), you can subscribe to many sites via a feed reader (RSS) where the information you choose to be notified of, comes directly to you (a time saver).

Here is a short, 3.5min video which explains it very well. If you are confused about using RSS feeds but want to know more, this video is for you. The short video will teach you why feeds are good and how to set one up. This video will teach you, the homeschool mum, how to make the most of your time.

Let me know if you find this sort of information helpful. 🙂

Click To Play

Alternatively, you can visit the website and view it there.

Feed on RSS

“What Is RSS?

What do those orange RSS or XML buttons that abound on sites mean?
They are the latest rage…but more than that they are incredibly handy and a great time saver- perfect for the busy homeschool mum! You can receive newsfeeds or feeds from many sites including news, movies, blogs and ecommerce stores and more! It’s also a great feature for those on dial-up connection as you don’t have to surf the Internet for updates…the information that you want, comes to you!

RSS” means “Really Simple Syndication.” What it means to you is that when you subscribe to a site that has an RSS feed, you can keep up-to-date without having to check the site every day or week.

Most people are interested in many web sites whose content changes on an unpredictable basis, like this site. Repeatedly checking each site to see if there’s any new content can be time consuming. RSS is a great way to be notified of new and changed information. Notifications of changes to multiple web sites are handled easily, and the results are presented to you in a well organised format. You may have seen the RSS icon on various web sites or blogs (this one included). This icon lets you know that there’s content to which you can subscribe and view using an RSS reader.

You might have seen some of the little icons on various sites…if so, you might also have been confused by them! I hope to simplify the mystery a little for you and enable you to get started with RSS feeds.

How do you get started? It’s fairly easy!

With an RSS reader you can subscribe to many feeds and read the new entries all in one place, without having to visit individual Web sites to find out what’s new.

There are several different kinds of RSS readers. Some are dedicated programs for viewing RSS feeds, but they cost money and most homeschool mums would rather spend their money on books, especially when there are some great free feed readers available.

You can also view RSS feeds through web sites such as My Yahoo!, or my personal favourite, Bloglines.

Many web browsers also have built-in RSS support – Firefox, by “Live Bookmarks”, Safari has a built in RSS reader and even IE 7 will (although beta) support RSS.Windows — RssReader and Google Reader are popular online feed readers available for download. Need more information? Here is a short video that explains the concept…

Below is a short, 3.5min video which explains it very well. If you are confused about using RSS feeds but want to know more, this video is for you. The short video will teach you why feeds are good and how to set one up. This video will teach you, the homeschool mum, how to make the most of your time. Let me know if you find this sort of information helpful.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

There! You should be set to receive the information that you want, while saving time to get on with the things that you want to do.

Why don’t you subscribe to my blog and receive post and comments via RSS?

Thinking Blogger Award

Thank you Belinda, for nominating me for a Thinking Blogger Award. I haven’t been blogging as much as I previously have so I wasn’t completely aware of the Thinkng Blogger Award. So of course, I had to have a quick look into what this was. You can learn more about it at this link:

If you get tagged with a Thinking Blogger Award, you are then supposed to do the following:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

So here we are. Five blogs that I’d like to tag with the Thinking Blogger Award:

Leonie makes me think! I may not always agree with everything she says, but my mind always ticks over and ponders things she writes:
http://livingwithoutschool.blogspot.com/

Two Kid Schoolhouse writes some great posts, although she may not think she does. I like checking her blog to read her thoughtful and insightful musings.
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/hsmomof2/

Eight children and eight years of homeschooling means that Kidspatch always has something interesting to write about. She shares from her heart, which causes me to reflect and think.
http://kidspatch.blogspot.com/

Gifts from Adonai is a Messianic homeschooling mum and I enjoy reading her blog. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/giftsfromAdonai/

Not because she tagged me but because I genuinely want to – Belinda always has something interesting to share, whether it be from her own lie happenings or her ideas and tips.
http://www.lifestyle-homeschool.com/Homeschool-blog.html

When Internet goes wrong

I spent most of yesterday afternoon working on a forum that I run. It was time-consuming, frustrating, hard, long and tiring…did I mention frustrating? Worst thing is…some people will not be happy. They won’t like it. The Admin staff and I decided that some changes needed to be made for the sake of the homeschooling community that frequents the forum. We didn’t do it to annoy people or make their time on the forum harder, even though it may seem that way to people at times.

Tehee, I remember nearly 10 years ago when my husband first wanted to connect our dinky computer to the Internet. I did not want it at all…I thought it would one day be used as an instrument of the enemy and I didn’t want any part of it. Well, sure enough here we are- blog, website, forums, email and just about anything else one can think of. But, I’ve had my fair share of computer crashes, dumps and horrid things go wrong. Nothing is more frustrating that losing everything on the computer- or not being able to access one’s information at call. I recall saying many a time, “I hate having my life on the computer!” as I could not access my homeschool records or planning after a PC crash. I did however, learn to back up my work well. Change is a necessary evil with all things Internet…not always desired but necessary.

My, the homeschooling movement has changed a lot over the years. Let me tell you a little story. A few years ago, I had a home-based business supplying books to fellow home-schoolers. At first, people (I hope you know I speak very generally here) were patient and quite content to wait 3 months for an order to come in from the States- it was just the way it was. Slowly, over the years though, as online ordering became easier, a few people found it easier and quicker to order their supplies straight from them States themselves. I didn’t have a problem with that as they could get it quicker- sometimes even cheaper than what I could supply them with! (Sad, isn’t it?) Well, business grows and time goes on…

So, I started ordering more stock to have on hand here, which is risky for a small business but on the occasion where I would run out of a book or resource, people simply could not wait for their curriculum to arrive by air mail…they needed it now. They could get it quicker themselves via the ‘net. I started to go crazy by trying to meet the continually changing needs of the homeschool community that I served and meet the needs of my family. I couldn’t do it- something had to go. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be homeschooling so HomeGrownKids closed down. But I have noticed how much the emergence of the Internet has totally changed our society…and our homeschool society.

I think it’s wonderful that so many Christians and homeschoolers have embraced technology and use it as their tool. I think that the Internet, in general, has allowed for the generosity of some people to shine. I mean honestly, how much legally free stuff can one get on the ‘net? It’s incredible…this truly is the Super Information Highway-the Information Age. People share their time, the gifts, their knowledge, their energy, their whole being…for the good of others. Sure some people are making money on the Internet- good on ’em. Other’s are not…they just enjoy serving others.

It’s good to remember where we were 10 years ago and to think ahead as to where we’ll be in another 10 years. Time has a way of changing things, doesn’t it? Our perspective changes when we start to see things in the light of eternity…when we try to look at the Big Picture (God’s Kingdom).

I know blogs are important and it is incredibly frustrating when something goes wrong. However, there are many biblical principles that one can try to live by. We can show our character through these time: are we thankful for the many free opportunities we are given or do we grumble? Are we quick to judge, quick to form opinions and hasty with our words and actions? Or are we allowing the Lord to develop patience in our lives?

PRO 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.

ECC 7:8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Eph 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Patience is very easy to display when things are going well eh? But the true mark of patience is when things don’t go our way. Patience is a Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5;22) and as believers, we should all be growing in this area. ?I am extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end.? is something that Margaret Thatcher has said. Does this sound like you?

But how do we display patience when we want our blog up and running? Well, patience is persevering toward a goal, enduring trials and expectantly waiting for a promise to be fulfilled. We can do that with HSB. They have our best interest at heart, I’m sure. They have a goal – to get us all up and running as soon as possible. We can try to be patient during this trial while we wait expectantly for the goal/promise to be fulfilled. (Hope I’m not sounding heretical here)

During this wait, we can do something proactive!

1) Be thankful. Take this time to enjoy your family and other things around you…giving thanks to God for ALL things.
2) Seek another purpose for a time…ask God to show you something else to do in the blogging time.
3) Encourage each other to be patient, to give thanks and to persevere.

Giving thanks for the Internet

This will not come as much of a surprise to some who know me but…I LOVE the Internet!!! Oh sure, at times it has been a hindrance in my life but for the most part I love the technology.

Let me explain a little…

I used to like putting on my Cindy Rushton or sermon audio download to listen to while I did dishes or other housework. I was constantly refreshed and encouraged. The downfall was that to listen to it on my computer meant that the whole family had to listen to it. Now, don’t get me wrong- they didn’t complain (well, not too much anyway ;)) but it was very distracting for them.

My dear husband bought me an MP3 player, at the girls insistence (so maybe they DID complain ;)) Well, I have been blessed, refreshed and renewed as I potter round the house, listening to audio encouragement, sermons and good books. The children have been able to go on with their productive activity (and sometimes their non productive activity) without hearing my audio’s at full blast.

I started to read The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence last year but found that I lacked time (or energy) to get through it. But, I’ve listened to it once now and am going through a second time ; thanks to modern technology and my MP3 player.

Another side benefit: 15yodd is going to play softball at the National Tournament in a few weeks and they aren’t allowed to have their mobile phones, which is usually how we keep in touch and where her father and I offer her encouragement and support. Well we’ve decided that I shall record some daily encouragement that she can load in her MP3 player so she can listen to Dad and I each day- sure it’s not *live* but it’s the next best thing. She has also asked that I record myself reading some of her favourite Scriptures so she can listen to them during her tournament. She is also going to listen to some books as part of her Year 11 studies next year! This is why I love technology!

Well, typical to my form I can’t finish a post without sharing some links:

LibriVox? volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. Great Site!

SermonAudio is the BEST site for sermons, both recent and older sermons.

MomtoMomRadioShow with Cindy Rushton is The Best!

Project Gutenberg (Human Read)

BooksonMP3

Health program by Sue Becker

All for now…

Susan <><
So many audio’s…so little time.

Life Online

My Agenda Changes

Different Seasons

How about you?

So many times I tell myself that I am working online. Or researching. Or writing. Or doing Bible study. Rarely do I say that I am socialising, chilling out, debating or pushing my own agenda. But if I am truly honest with myself, I do a lot of the latter.

What is my plan, my purpose for being online today?

Susan. Pray.

Reality Hits

Fast Forward

My Weakness Is Not Your Weakness

Why I Do What I Do On The Internet

The Pintervention

Calling

TedTalk – What FACEBOOK and GOOGLE are hiding from the world

Breaking Out Of The Bubble

Want Out But Still Want A Good Search?

And Just for The Conspiracy Theorists…

With Facebook…Why I Left It

I didn’t like the timeline.

Why Did They Have To Change?

They Gave Me Seven Days

Why I Went Back

Where’s the Loyalty?

What You Can Take From It

Why can all our friends see it?

What Does Public Mean on Facebook?

Tips n Tricks

For More Info

Ten Top Searches on My Site

Top 15 Posts for 2011

Ten Unusual Searches To Find My Site

Top Nine Commenters

It’s called The DIY Bible Study.

How about you? Are you ‘friends’ with your teens on Facebook? Do you interact with them on their wall?

Why do I want it?

Wants:

What you really want is a gravatar!

How to enable your (self hosted wordpress site) to use gravatars?

‘Where Children Sleep’

I Spy Animals

To Heaven and Back? by Defending. Contending.

Heads or Tails?

Where’s The Octopus?

Head over and download the free pdf: Guide to Facebook Security

Best of 2009

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

October

November

December

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

Light’s are on but nobody’s home.

Needing to know

Breaking Free

“What Is RSS?