Houseparty.com's *After Party's*

So in case you don't know what it is, Houseparty.com is a website that get's people to sign up to have party's for their sponsors... like Green Mountain Coffee (yumm), Keurig single brew coffee machine (love mine), and many, many more company's pay House Party to facilitate the signing of willing participants to push their products. You know the concept of tell 10 people and those people tell two people and those 2 people tell two people each and before you know it yo have a lot of personal advertising for minimal dollars.

Okay so cool concept, and for the *hosts* time and effort they get a little something free. I did the Green Mountain and Keurig party. I LOVE the coffee, love the coffee machine! Then I did a Splenda party, it was ok and I got to share a lot of Splenda with a lot of folks. They sent 10 boxes of Splenda, some long kool-aid spoons and paperback recipe books. Then for being the host I got a hardback drink recipe book, measuring spoons and cups. Cool right? Sure. Then I distributed their product to my friends and family...

The first virtual party that I that I had qualified for was South Beach Diet products. That was a virtual party where the guests go online and get good tips for eating better, getting more excersize and other helpful things like coupons for South Beach products.

I love Houseparty. I am waiting to be confirmed for a a couple of more parties now. You have to sign up for all the parties you would be interested in and then they pick from the pool and if you are the lucky one, you get to be the host of a fabulous party... I'll let you know how my next party goes...

Dylan in his new room...

little birdies leaving the nest...

I never knew it would be so hard when our children grow up and move out. My son is heading to college this Saturday. He actually moves in! He will really be on his own... kind of. Enough so that it is freaking me out! I just can't believe that he will be making all of his decisions on his own. What and when to eat, when to get up. Well with exception as to getting up and being to class on time... he only has class 3 days a week, that's a lot of time to fill in a different town. OMG! I can't handle this pressure. Will he have enough to eat? I know he will, but how do I stop worrying about it. (pause to shed a few tears) I'm so proud, but so sad. My baby is going off to become a man. I know all kids have to do it in some way or another. I even though he will be back on weekends, but his time will be spent with his girlfriend and church and... I have a feeling that "Mom can I have some money?" will be about the extent of time that we see him. *hmmm* Come to think about it, that's about when we see him now. *lol*

I didn't ask my Grandma the question but she answered it anyway... When my oldest daughter, now 25 was a teenager probably from 13 to 17, we would argue and fuss over the smallest or largest of things. My Nana said one time. "It is Nature's way of breaking the apron strings between Moms and their babies." Well then it made since but right when that baby is moving out it hurts! Just to know that I won't be able to protect him anymore. Mostly from peer pressure to do things that I don't want him to ever start doing in the first place. Just to know that it's everywhere and so dramatized... I guess the partying is what scares me the most! If he was going to a school that wasn't known for their partying ways I wouldn' t be so scared. He was going to be going to a very religious college where the tuition is more and the students are there for an exact purpose. However finanace usually win when it comes to big money vs affordability.

Even though it's not what we want for our kids, I can understand why so many parents are ok with their college children moving back home after college. They say because of the economy these days it's a new trend. I would be ok with it... For awhile that is.

But for now I still have the weekends that he will be home. How do I know, you ask? Because he still needs car insurance and a phone LOL

How do you know you are teaching them like the public schools?

I've been homeschooling my 2 youngest daughters since pre-k. K is 10 starting 5th grade and S is 7 (all most 8) starting 2nd grade. Through out the last 6 years (I can't believe we've been home schooling that long, still feels like we are beginners) I have been asked so many times, in so many different ways "How do you know you are teaching them what they need to know?" "How do you make sure that you are teaching them to what public schools are teaching?" "How do you know you are...?" I've all ways tried to explain in a way that people that aren't into homeschooling will understand and at the least accept. Sometimes it's not that easy though. My reasoning is that easy, but making my explanation come out of my mouth the way I want it to isn't all ways that easy. One time a few years back a pretty intimidating man asked me "What kind of curriculum and testing do you preform in order to adhere to state levels of education." First thing out of my mouth was "Uh Uh well we do educational things with curri curriculum. and stuff".... WHAT? What was I thinking? Uh we do educational things and stuff?!? I sounded like the biggest dork! I just walked off, I remember thinking to myself... self: that can't happen again. I have to figure out why I home school AND be able to put it into words. That was when I started not caring what strangers thought about us homeschooling, about us being out at the park in the middle of a school day or anything else that goes along with a day as a homeschooling family. That was when my answers got a lot more understandable. I quit trying to answer the dreaded questions about how I am making sure that I am *keeping up* with public schools and started answering with, I'm not worried about *keeping up* with the public school system. I'm more worried about the public schools not being able to keep up with families that home school. I've finally realized that I am not teaching at home to teach like a public school, I'm teaching to NOT be like a public school. I now answer with confidence that public schools only teach to test, whether it's the up coming standardized tests or the nine weeks tests or semester tests. That's what they learn, what will be on the tests. We learn about life, we learn about math percentages in cooking and shopping, to use proper grammar and manners in real life introductions when they meet someone for the first time, to holding the door for someone and if someone drops something picking it up for them is common sense and common courtesy. We read the plaques when we are at a park or the zoo. Reminds me of year before last, we were at the zoo. It happened to be the same day that a local public school had a field trip. The kids were so loud and so obnoxious that my two daughters asked if we could leave. Instead we just took off in a different direction. After we had got far enough away that the roudy kids couldn't be heard anymore, my (then 8 year old) said "Wow Mom those kids aren't here to learn anything, they are just here to get out of school and tear up the zoo." :-) Now the school kids weren't tearing up the zoo, but they were tossing trash down in the Rainforrest, knocking on the glass to the exhibits that clearly said "Do Not Tap on Glass", and yelling so loud that not only could they not hear their own teachers telling them to be quiet but we also couldn't hear each other reading the plaques. So I don't know. Some may say it was a fun field trip, that they work all day in school so they deserve to play, that if they want to learn at the zoo their parents can take them on their own. My kids and me did all of the above, we played on the playground before we went into the zoo, we had a nice picnic that we prepared at home (that started the conversasion and research session on the diffence beteen ice and dry ice) and we went to the zoo to learn something new.

All of the home-school children that I've met over the years have been more well spoken than their public schooled peers. Just as much if not more mature and well rounded individuals.