F is for Fire Department

This week for  Blogging Through the Alphabet  is the letter F. Marcy from the blog Ben and Me is hosting this fun challenge to blog through the alphabet one letter per week. Be sure and visit her blog and read what other bloggers have come up with for their letter F.

I have chosen Fire Department as my F offering this week. Alamo West Volunteer Fire Department to be exact. The Fire Department is a huge part of our life. Both my husband, Matt, and son, Matthew, are fire fighters with Alamo West.

Matt has spent many years as a Volunteer Fire Fighter. When he was 18 and first in the Air Force, he was stationed here in Alamogordo and joined the Alamo West VFD. He spent about 5 years in the department until we were stationed overseas. After 3 years we were stationed back here in Alamogordo. Matt immediately joined Alamo West VFD again. He was even the Assistant Fire Chief for a few years until  we were stationed in another state. We spent 8 years away from NM and then Matt retired. We have moved, once again, back to Alamogordo. Matt is in the department again. A little older, a little grayer, but still with the same passion for helping out the community. 

Matt has passed his love of the Fire Department to our son, Matthew. Matthew was so very excited when we moved back here because he was 18. That meant he could be a member of  Alamo West VFD. Matthew is just as dedicated as his dad is to the department. Every Saturday he is not at work, he is at the station doing truck checks. He attends training whenever he can and is working on his Fire Fighter 1 certification.  Matthew has even earned a nickname through the department. It is a little morbid, but his nickname is Grave Digger. He earned it early (3am) one morning when he attended a call for a car accident. The girl driving the car rolled it, but was not seriously injured. Her dog, on the other hand, did not make it. Somehow the girl’s dad had come to the scene and asked that the dog be buried, so they did not have to pass by and see it lying on the side of the road. Matthew, grabbed a shovel, dug a grave and buried the dog. Listening to Mathew tell me about it the next morning, I told him what he did is called compassion. Doing something that maybe does not need to be done, but can make a huge difference to a person in the midst of a tragedy.

If you have not guessed it by now, the Fire Department is a very BIG part of our lives. It overshadows just about everything. I admit, I can get a little annoyed at the time it takes. But then, I realize just what an awesome responsibility my guys have taken on. Their dedication is amazing. They take their role as Fire Fighters very seriously, training to the best of their abilities.  My husband used to have a t-shirt with a picture of a house burning that simply said, “What if Volunteer Firefighters did not Volunteer?” .

Book Review--Money Saving Mom’s Budget

     I just recently found a website that I love. The Money Saving Mom website is full of useful, practical and just plain fun things everyday. You can find coupons to print, what stores or companies that are offering freebies. I have been able to find magazine subscriptions for very low to no cost. There is practical advice on saving money, homemaking and more.

      Behind The Money Saving Mom is the creator Crystal Paine. Crystal recently forayed into the field of writing with the book The Money Saving Mom’s Budget. In the same style as her website this book is full of useful, practical and even fun tips for budgeting. Crystal shows how you can budget even on a small income. In fact, she shows exactly how  important it is to budget, at any income level.

     I have to say the second chapter surprised and delighted me. It was on de-cluttering you house to help save money. It can seem counter intuitive that by getting rid of things you will save money, but Crystal lays out the reasons why it works. Drowning in a sea of papers and always having to search for this or that bill can leave you overwhelmed and budgeting will take all you willpower to accomplish.

Never set up a budget? Have no idea where to begin? Crystal walks you through easy steps to begin budgeting. I really liked her approach. Start with a few categories, and then when things are sailing along smoothly add more to the budget.  Chapters on using coupons, lowering your grocery bill, forgoing credit cards are all written with equal clarity.

I reviewed the audiobook version of The Money Saving Mom’s Budget. I like to listen to audio books when I am doing dishes, hanging clothes or going for a walk. The author, Crystal Paine, is the reader for the audio book version. I like it when an author reads her own books. She did a great job. The speaking was very smooth with great inflection. Reading your own material makes a difference as you would know what to emphasize.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.  I think it is best suited for someone just beginning to get started budgeting. If you are nervous about trying something new, Crystal’s easy, gentle style can give you the confidence to try.

I received the audiobook The Money Saving Mom’s Budget for free through LitFuse Blog Tour  in exchange for my honest review of the book.

Any Given Morning

On any given morning  things are never dull.

Adventures in Odyssey is playing.

Breakfast is being made and eaten.

Ben will have a book in his hand.

Rebekah will be told, once again, the blanket does not belong in the kitchen, put it in your room.

Loki, the dog, is “talking” to us because he is hungry. Then after he eats he runs around the house like crazy till somebody puts him outside.

Rebekah is heard whistling while she is coloring.

Sarah will be feeding the dog.

Dishes are clanking as the dishwasher is being emptied.

Water is running for dishes to be washed.

Ben is still reading a book.

Sarah is playing a piece on the piano.

And then mom comes out, and the scheduled part of the day begins.

E is for Exercise

Blogging through the Alphabet is hosted by Marcy from Ben and Me. She is blogging through a letter of the alphabet each week and invited others to join in with her. Visit her blog and read what other bloggers have chosen for the letter E.

Exercise! I have a love/hate relationship with that word. I love how I feel after I exercise, but I hate to get started exercising.

My favorite exercise is walking. I love to walk, especially if I have a buddy. For some reason it is so much harder for me to get out and get going without having someone who is counting on me. Right now I am able to walk twice a week with a buddy, my mother. We live about a half mile apart. She walks down from her house and I walk up from mine, we meet in the middle and then turn around and walk approximately 3 miles in about 45 minutes.  Boy, can we solve the world’s problems during our early morning walks. I love that I can visit with my mom and exercise all at the same time.

I also try to walk at other times than my scheduled walks. We live a little over a mile from our church. So, there are many times I will walk down to choir practice. We go to piano lessons at church and the kids and I have been known to walk (or ride our bikes, but bike riding is not my favorite activity) to piano lessons. Going to church is fairly easy, it is all downhill. Coming home is a bit tougher, since it is all uphill. For choir practice I will usually walk to the church, then catch a ride home with my dad afterwards so I don’t have to walk home in the dark.

I have also recently started an exercise class. I have found that trying to exercise at home just does not work well for me. I always find an excuse to put it off. I never seem to work as hard as if I am in a class. But the dilemma was: Where was I going to find a class? Since Matt is retired Air Force we have free access to a wonderful, huge gym. The problem is the 20 minute drive to get there. I don’t have that kind of time (or gas money). The gyms in town all cost, so not a great option.

Then in the mail I received the city’s monthly City Profile flyer. It talked about exercise and then said that the Senior Citizen Center sponsors many different exercise classes. The next paragraph talked about how if you were under 60 you could attend any of the classes for a small ($20) monthly fee. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. My mother attends a 3x a week exercise class, focusing on strength and flexibility.

So, yes, I am attending a Senior Citizen exercise class at the age of 38. I love it. It is exactly what I need. This class is as easy or as hard as the individual makes it. We start with warm-ups and gentle stretching through Pilates moves. Then we move into upper body strength training with rubber exercise bands. Then we go to lower body strengthening with squats and lunges. Then comes the floor work. We start with work on our legs and move into some pretty intense stomach exercises. We end with more stretching. I feel great after this hour long class. Nobody seems to mind me being there and the best part is the instructor has not made me pay.

It takes a little bit of planning to be able to do this with kids home all day. For my walks, we walk early enough that the kids are still asleep. But for my exercise class, which starts at 8:30am I have assignments I expect them to complete. Ben and Rebekah have to get their math, spelling and piano practice done while I am gone. Sarah just has to work on any of her assignments. They are all supposed to be responsible for themselves. This semester Matthew does not start class early on Mondays or Wednesdays, so he is home during the time I am gone. Having an adult child  is nice for things like this. I can leave for an hour and he can take care of things while I am gone.

Action Alert

Action Alert is an internet safety solution to help protect kids from online dangers. Action Alert combines 8 internet safety tools in one product.

1. Access Control—shuts down PC access remotely
2. Activity Alert Notifications – receive activity alerts via e-mail or texts.
3. Activity Video Recording – Records 60 hours of all PC activity.
4. Time Allowance – Set daily times when the PC can be used.
5. Site Blocking – Blocks unwanted and inappropriate sites.
6. Content Filtering – Allows only safe searches to be conducted.
7. Keystroke Logging – Logs user names and passwords.
8. Chat and E-mail Logging – Log both sides of conversations.

Two versions of Action Alert are available.

• Free Protection-  Everything you need to setup a kid-safe computer in seconds. All Totally Free!
• Maximum Protection—Offers all above features plus Multiple user protection, is Fully Customizable and provides Full Social Network Monitoring. This may be purchased from Action Alert for $29.99

ClarkClan Thoughts

We installed Action Alert on the computer that is used by the kids. They use this computer for both schoolwork and to play games. Action Alert was simple to install. Once installed Action Alert Safe Search page becomes the internet home page.

As Action Alert says, I was able to remotely access the kids computer using mine. I was able to block sites that I did not want them visiting. I received alerts through my email. I also was able to watch a recording of PC activity. My kids do not online chat or e-mail, so we never tried out the chat and e-mail logging feature.

The most notable thing we encountered using Action Alert was a computer slow down. The computer the kids use is an older model and we noticed a definite slow down after installation.

I also had some trouble setting the program to the parameters I wanted. It seemed it was either too restrictive or too lenient.  The program comes pre-loaded with “hundreds of thousands” of websites known for unwanted content. I can’t speak to that as we did not come across anything that was searched for as inappropriate.  Action Alert will send an alert if certain terms, that you set up, have been searched. What we noticed was that all the sites came up, and they could be visited, but I was e-mailed an alert that an unacceptable term had been searched. Then, if I chose, I could remotely shut down computer access. The idea behind this is accountability. If your child knows that you will find out  they are searching for something inappropriate they will be more responsible.

Many of my Crew Mates also reviewed Action Alert. Visit the Crew Blog to read what they thought about this Internet Safety Tool.

As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of TOS Homeschool Crew I received the Maximum Protection version of Action Alert for free in exchange for my honest review of their product.

D is for Driver’s Ed

The letter D is up for this week on Blogging Through the Alphabet. Marcy from the blog Ben and Me hosts this weekly challenge. Make sure to visit her blog and read what other topics there are for the letter D.

Today, I have chosen Driver’s Ed as my D topic. Sarah is taking Driver’s Ed right now. She is 14, will be 15 next month. In New Mexico she can take Driver’s Ed as long as she is 15 before the class is over. Since she has a very busy summer, we decided to have her take it now, and then she can drive with us for the next year, until she is 16.

We have been through this before with Matthew. One of the differences was that he took Driver’s Ed while we were living in Montana. The class was $100 there, and he went through classroom, driving practice, and took all the tests to get the permit, plus the driver’s test at the end of the class.  Here in New Mexico, the class cost me $100. But, the fee just paid for classroom only. If I want her to drive with an instructor it would be another $100 for 5 hours. I told her she could just drive with us as I am not about to pay $20 an hour to drive with an instructor.

The class Sarah is taking is being held at the local High School. They had two sessions, an early morning session or an afternoon session. I decided the early morning session would work the best as we have no other activities scheduled for that time. So she has to be at the High School at 6:45am. She has two friends taking the class with her, both of whom attend the High School.

I not only drive Sarah, but I pick up her two friends as well. It turns out to be a fun ride each morning. The kids get in the car and then I get to hear about their dreams, what is going on at school that day, how class is going.

Sarah is having no trouble with the class. The first week, they spent studying the driver’s manual and then took a 100 question test. Sarah passed with only missing five. She could miss up to 30 and still have a passing score.

This is one of my few experiences dealing with anything having to do with the public high school. I have not been very impressed so far. The first day, a letter was sent home explaining the rules and giving an address to look up and print our own driver’s manual. I laughed at the couple of misspelled words I found. Then I became frustrated that the link given in the letter was a bad link. I eventually did a search and found what I was looking for. Another thing that annoyed me just a little is when Sarah told me her instructor said to not worry about grammar when writing their answers, as well as not to write long answers.

I was appalled by the ‘don’t’ worry about grammar” tidbit. I think grammar is very important and how you “practice” is what you will do. Having good grammar while writing answers for her Driver’s Ed class is important and I told Sarah she should try her best to use good grammar and write as long as she needs to for the answer.

So after the first two weeks in May, I will have a second child who has completed Driver’s Ed. Then the fun of sitting in the passenger seat for a year as Sarah chauffeurs us around. Good thing Ben is only 10 and I have 5 more years before this happens again!

Progeny Press- Study Guides for Literature

• Progeny Press
• Study Guides for Literature From a Christian Perspective
• Guides available for a variety of books
• Guides are available  for Early Elementary through High School
• As of January 2012, there are approximately 107 guides
• Guides available in three formats: Printed and bound booklet, CD Rom with interactive guide, Email attachment with interactive guide
• PDF versions are interactive, allowing your student to type directly into the computer in an Adobe Acrobat format.

We had the privilege to review two different literature guides offered by Progeny Press.  Progeny Press is a company that has been producing quality literature guides since 1992. Their guides are used by both home school families and Christian schools. The guides are written by the company owners Michael and Rebecca Gilleland as well as a variety of authors who meet strict standards. Each guide adheres to high standards of literary analysis and Biblical application.

The literature guides offered by Progeny Press teach well-written literature and help students develop and refine how they deal with man’s philosophies in relation to God’s Word. They equip students to understand writing and help enhance their reading enjoyment.  

Progeny Press study guides are unique. We often are asked what separates Progeny Press study guides from other study guides.
First and foremost, Progeny Press study guides contain and teach a Christian worldview. We do not put down other worldviews, but
we definitely promote a Christian worldview. Therefore, when we discuss the moral or ethical issues raised in a book, we do so by
taking students to the Bible as the standard by which such issues should be measured. Second, we concentrate on literary techniques and terminology so our students learn what makes a story work. We believe good readers make better writers, and we encourage students to answer questions in persuasive essay answers. Third, in all our questions we emphasize critical thinking, analysis, and comprehension. We want our children to know how to think. (Excerpt taken from Progeny Press catalog)

ClarkClan Thoughts

• Across Five Aprils Study Guide
• Email attachment PDF file $16.99

Ben (10) was who I had use the Across Five Aprils study guide. This study guide was written by Carol Clark, who is a junior high language arts teacher at Toledo Christian School. While the guide is interactive, I printed the entire guide out instead of having him use the computer. This worked well for us so Ben could work on the guide while his sister was using the computer.

Ben has really enjoyed using this study guide. He is about half way through the guide. I have been having him read the appropriate chapters, then taking about a week to complete the study questions and activities. While he does the work on his own, I then will sit down at the end of each week and go over with him all the questions and generally talk about the book and what points the literature guide has brought up.

The guide is designed for grades 5-9. Ben has had no trouble completing the guide. Ben is a child who loves vocabulary and enjoys looking up words in the dictionary, so the vocabulary parts have been fun for him. One chapter had Ben looking up important military leaders of the Civil War. I sat with him while he searched on the computer. He loved this activity. Another part of the guide has Ben mapping and explaining the strategy of the different leaders. We have a map in our hallway, and Ben has spent quite a bit of time marking places and telling me what is going on in the Civil War according to his book.

I am definitely quite impressed with the this literature guide. I like the depth that is involved, yet it is still doable, even for a young, bright, fifth grader. I liked the guide so well, I have picked out which one I would like Ben to do next.

• The Screwtape Letters Study Guide
• Email Attachment PDF file $18.99

Sarah (14) has been working through the Literature Guide for The ScrewTape Letters, by C.S. Lewis.  This guide is a high school level guide designed for grades 9-12. This guide was written by Michael S. Poteet, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church.  While this is a PDF interactive guide, I printed the guide out so Sarah could work on it at any time during the day.

I have been having Sarah, read the chapters of the book that we are focusing on, then answer the literature guide questions. She is taking about a week to complete one section of the guide. I then sit with her and go over her answers and discuss the various questions with her. Not only is Sarah learning through this guide, but I am learning quite a bit about this book, as well.

The Screwtape Letters is a powerful book and having the study guide helps me to internalize the truth found in it. I found myself during my ladies weekly Bible study, pointing out lessons I had learned while helping Sarah through this guide. My older son had read The Screwtape Letters while he was still in high school and when we pulled it out for Sarah, he picked it up and re read the book. I wish I had known about Progeny Press guides and had used one with him before he graduated. 

I would highly recommend this literature guide. I found it to be very thorough. I was also highly impressed with the depth of scripture study involved in unraveling the mysteries of this book. We are over halfway done with this guide and I have found nothing contrary to our Lutheran teachings. This has been a huge plus for me. I am looking forward to using other Progeny Press literature guides for Sarah when we are finished with this one.

There were many TOS Crew Mates who were able to review Progeny Press Literature Guides. Visit the Crew Blog and read what they thought about the guides.

As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of TOS Homeschool Crew I received Across Five Aprils, and The Screwtape Letters Literature guides  from Progeny Press for free in exchange for my honest review of their product.