My advice to new homeschoolers.

I really wasn't sure if I was going to do this post, as part of the PASS THE TORCH HOMESCHOOL TIPS AND ADVICE CAMPAIGN because a) I'm not sure I wouldn't just be saying the same things everyone else is saying and b) I haven't a clue what a Mr. Linky is.

But I decided I did want to mention the 3 things I have found the most crucial to homeschooling.

1) Read, read, read, and then read some more. Research homeschooling like you were about to have to give a five hour lecture to a crowd of people who have never heard of homeschooling. Read every single thing you can find and get your hands on. If you don't know where to start - google it. Your reading list will be enormous after just one simple web search.

2) Join a support group or co-op. There is a school of thought with some people to not do this as it sounds too "school like" and so they refuse to get involved. But a support group is invaluable to you as a resource where you can meet other homeschooling families, find a mentor in someone who's been at this for awhile now, and give your kids a chance to make new friends. It can also provide you with a chance for your kids to do some things that may be closed to them otherwise, like perform in a drama or group sports. To find a local group, try googling "homeschool support group" plus the name of your city or town. Or, google "homeschool" plus the name of your state, to find a state-wide association that can then point you in the right direction.

3) DON'T DON'T DON'T rush out and buy a pre-packaged curriculum until you have researched it THOROUGHLY. Try this site: HOMESCHOOL REVIEWS to find out what other parents think about anything you are considering buying. You can spend (and waste) a fortune on curricula that ends up being something you hardly, if ever, use. Even if you've pulled your child from school in the middle of the year and have no idea what to do next - do NOT rush out and buy something. Go to the library and check out some books and spend a little while de-schooling and de-toxing. Let your child read all and as much as he wants while you spend the time to research things and make an informed decision. A few weeks of de-schooling, or even a month or more if you and your child needs it, can easily be made up later.

(And remember, you don't HAVE to buy any curriculum at all! See the rest of my blog for more about that.)

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Necessity is the mother...

What would you say if I told you one year I gave everyone toilet tissue rolls for Christmas? Seriously. I did.

All right, so I didn't just walk up and hand them cardboard tubes, but they were used in the gifts I made. It was the year I learned to prepare for Christmas all year long. I hadn't previously done that. But as I said in my About Me page - I've had to learn all this stuff as I go along, and I'm still learning new things every day.

This particular year, I didn't get started on Christmas gifts until late November, something I'd always thought meant I was "ahead" because I wasn't waiting until December! Eep. Unfortunately, this had been a particularly hard year for us. Our second child was only a few months old, and a new baby obviously adds new expenses, and my husband had been out of work for almost three months. By October, he was working again, but our finances were even tighter than usual.

(More in full post.)

My gift-giving brainstorming started off with twenty dark brown paper gift bags and a bag full of toilet tissue rolls that I had been keeping because I would cover them with paper and let my then preschooler play with them like blocks. The bags were un-used, but they had advertising on one side that I needed to cover up. I decided to make pictures out of construction paper, a supply I always have on hand because I use it with my own kids and with the kids in my Sunday School classes. I did not draw anything at all. I cut everything out, piece by piece, in the color I needed and then glued them to the bags. After a little thought, I decided to use Christmas carols as a theme. So, for instance, one bag was covered with a cut-out Christmas tree and cut-out ornaments (O! Christmas Tree!) and another had Jesus in the manger. I made one bag for each adult I was giving a gift to - at the time 15 people total. As I worked on the bags, real inspiration struck. I'd already decided to invite everyone to a dinner at my house as part of their gifts. Instead of making tags for the gift bags, I wrote down the names of each carol I had used on small strips of paper. I put each strip in a toilet tissue roll and added 3 Hershey kisses from a bag I'd bought to make my husband's favorite chocolate pie on Thanksgiving. I covered the tubes with tissue paper and tied them on the ends so that they looked very much like ENGLISH PARTY CRACKERS - of course mine wouldn't actually "pop" when you opened them. For each tube I made, I took a plain white mailing label, drew little Christmas ivy and berry designs on it, wrote the recipient's name and stuck it to the tube.

For actual gifts, I made all the men spicy hot pecans and the ladies got sugar almonds. Because this was the year my daughter was born, I had lots of recent pictures of my friends and family with my kids. I picked one good picture of each person and framed them with inexpensive frames designed to be used as Christmas tree ornaments. Finally, I made everyone my "famous" Chocolate-Peanut Butter balls, a candy much like Reese's, but with coconut and a few other ingredients. I put all the nuts and the candy in bell jars I'd bought at a garage sale. (I added red gingham fabric tops and tied them with green bows.) Each bag got a jar of nuts, a jar of candy, and a picture ornament. I topped each bag with some colored tissue paper I bought just for this - using one color per bag to match the construction paper design. They actually looked quite pretty and festive, all lined up.

The night of my dinner party, I used the "crackers" as place setters. After we'd eaten, I told everyone to open their crackers. They then all had to go to the Christmas tree in our den and figure out which gift bag was theirs, based on the song titles. Someone - not me! - then suggested that each person, on finding his/her bag - actually had to sing part of their carol. Somehow that turned into a full hour of singing by everyone, followed by cups of coffee or hot cocoa and my husband reading from a Christmas story book. (That was for our kids, but everyone sat around listening.)

Later, several of my guests told me this had been one of the most fun and memorable Christmas dinners they'd ever been to. In fact, every so often, someone STILL mentions it. "You remember that year you made those Christmas song bags...."

Necessity is the mother of invention, but I think it's also the mother of creativity and ingenuity. If I'd had more than about $20 to spend on gifts that year (outside of the dinner food money), I really doubt I would've even considered using toilet tissue rolls in my gift-giving.

I once read a book by a supposedly frugal author who made it a point to distinguish between "frugal" - shop at sales! and "cheap" - recycle envelopes. Her time, she explained, was worth more than that penny she would've saved by reusing an envelope. (And is apparently worth more than the environment, too, since she couldn't be bothered to not send something directly to the landfills.)

Cheap, mind you, is a terrible, terrible, shameful thing to be. I'm sure this woman would be horrified by the idea of using toilet tissue rolls in gifts. And yet, because my definition of "cheap" clearly doesn't mirror hers, I was able to devise something that turned out wonderful just with a bit of inspiration and a lot of determination.

You are NOT being cheap when you are creative with things you have. You are NOT being cheap when you re-use something and save it, at least for now, from the garbage heap. (And not only are you preventing it from going into the trash, you aren't buying something new to become more trash later.) You are NOT being cheap when you count your pennies. You are being responsible with the money you have.

A cheap person is one who hordes his wealth and property to himself, someone who readily takes, but never gives.

If you find yourself in a situation where you want to give someone a gift, but you have no money at all to spend, then give your time. This is not cheap, either. In fact, really, it is the most valuable thing you could ever give. I have cleaned a friend's house after the birth of her third child, mowed and weeded someone's yard, and even organized a family member's garage as gifts before and I promise you they appreciated it way more than they would've some Hallmark store trinket.

Nowadays, I spend all year working on Christmas gifts, as I explained in a previous post, and I've found I'm easily able to keep things in the same price range as I did for that crazy song-bag year. I still have to get creative, but though you may shake your head as you read this: being creative with things is easier than you might think. I am not an artist/imaginative type by nature. I'm a logical/organized type. I'm not the dreamer - I'm the stick-in-the-mud, let's-get-it-done kind of person. I don't look at a beautiful lake setting and think, "I should paint that!" I think, "Wow. Bet there are a lot of mosquitoes there." I get my ideas from everywhere - things I see on TV or the internet, magazines I'll skim through at the library, things I see for sale, and then I figure out how can I recreate something like that with the money and items I have? Or sometimes, as in the case of the toilet tissue rolls, the ideas simply flow out from another idea.

I encourage you to get creative, even if you're the list-writing, schedule-making, no-nonsense type like I am - in fact especially so in that case! - and start looking at things you might have laying around your house to see what they can inspire in you. Not just in gift-giving, but in any and all aspects of your life.

And remember, again, you aren't being cheap! Don't let the everything-must-be-new-and-brand-name, consumer-driven mentality that pervades our culture ever make you think so!

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Friday Five for Free (3)

My five favorite cleaning supplies "recipes" - go green and save money. :)

Disinfectant spray: combine 2 teaspoons borax*, 4 tablespoons vinegar, and 3 to 4 cups hot water in a spray bottle. (If you need "extra" cleaning power, you can add 1/4 teaspoon liquid soap**.)

Air Freshener: combine 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 2 cups hot water in a spray bottle. Spritz in the air whenever needed.

Glass Cleaner: combine 3 tablespoons of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon of liquid soap in a 1 quart spray bottle. Fill the rest of the bottle with warm water. Shake well. Spray on lightly, then wipe with crumbled newspapers. (Yes, the newspaper really works, if you've never tried it. We don't subscribe to the paper, but we get a few free local/neighborhood ones delivered once a week and I'll sometimes pick up free copies at the store.)

All purpose cleaner: Combine 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 teaspoons borax and 1 teaspoon lemon juice in a 1 quart spray bottle. Fill the rest of the bottle with very hot water. Shake well. (You can add more borax for tougher cleaning jobs.)

Toilet Bowl Cleaner: Pour 1 cup of borax into the toilet. Let stand for several hours or overnight. Scrub and flush. (If you need "extra" cleaning power here, you can add 1/4 cup vinegar to the borax.)


Honorable mention - for every day dusting, a lightly dampened cloth does the trick - no spray-on "polish" needed. For extra polishing, combine olive oil and vinegar in equal parts. Pour a small amount on a soft cloth and buff. If you use too much polish, just use a dry cloth to wipe off.


*borax can be found in the laundry detergent aisle.

**liquid soap - I have seen many recipes for liquid soap, but they often call for odd or expensive ingredients. The one I've tried before is this: Save all the little bits and pieces of leftover bar soap until you have 1 cup full. Make sure they are fully dried out and then grind them to a fine powder in your blender. Pour one cup of boiling water over the soap and stir until the powder is dissolved. This can be stored in a pump dispenser or squeeze top bottle. In our house, however, it takes forever to build up to a full cup of soap pieces because we tend to use them until there's barely anything left. Generally, I simply buy the generic liquid soap from Dollar General.

PS - Don't forget to label your bottles! :)

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Geography & Science Week 4.

Week 4 of World Geography and Intergrated Science lesson plans are posted.

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Free penmanship font & printables.

In THIS POST I pointed out a website with a free cursive writing font. THIS SITE has a free downloadable font for manuscript writing. (Including the primary-school dotted lines.) Scroll down the page a bit to find it.

Also - a link from that site takes you HERE where you can create your own flash cards, game boards, study sheets and other printables - including tracing sheets for beginner writers for free. Be sure to check out the "List Wizard" to help you create your word lists. Pretty cool! :)

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Win, Lose, or Draw - Homeschool style.

Anyone remember "Win, Lose, or Draw!"? It was a sorta cheesy game show based primarily on Pictionary. (You can read about it in more detail HERE.)

So what's the homeschool version? Simple: play the game, award points instead of money, and for your cards of items to be drawn, use vocabulary words or terms from subjects you're currently studying. For instance, as we're learning American History right now, some of our terms might be "The Mayflower" or "Pocahontas". I write a bunch of these on plain index cards* and we use a large dry erase board to work with.

To make the game fair, because I already know every potential answer, I work only as an "artist" - not a guesser. And we don't use teams. Everyone not drawing (but me, when I'm not the artist) has a chance to guess the answer. The person who gets the answer right in under 30 seconds gets 15 points; if it takes between 30 and 60 seconds, it's 10 points; between 60 and 90 seconds, it's 5 points; between 90 and 120 seconds is 2 points, and after that the round ends and no points are awarded. The person with the most points at the end of the game gets bragging rights. We actually have a notepad where we've been recording the winners and how may points they earned. And yeah, because I can't guess, I'm nowhere in the winner's circle. *Elaborate sigh*. ;) To determine who's the artist, we simply take turns. Everyone draws an equal number of times.

We've played this game with science terms, history terms, Bible heroes and more. We usually use a mix from several subjects to make things more interesting. This is a fun "rainy day" game or a good game to play if your kids are showing signs of "spring fever" and can't seem to focus on their regular lessons.

*I cut the index cards into five pieces so that we aren't wasting them and after we've played one game, we keep the cards for another one - and write on the backs.

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Wednesday Quick Tip

Save your scraps in the kitchen!

You already know that you can make a great broth from chicken or turkey bones, even if you've never actually done it, but did you realize you don't *have* to use the whole vegetables as so many recipes tell you, too? You can use the scraps and have the same good results.

THIS SITE gives stock making instructions, including explaining how to use your scraps instead of whole veggies.

And save your citrus peels, too - lemons, oranges, limes, grapefruit. First, you can make CANDIED CITRUS PEELS out of them. (Hint: if you cut the peels in very narrow strips, they make an extra fancy touch as homemade cake decorations.)

If candied peels aren't your thing, save them anyway if you have a garbage disposal. At night once your kitchen is closed for the evening and the dishes are done, wipe down your sink and toss some peels in the disposal and give it a whirl. It'll fill your kitchen with a nice citrus-y scent.

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How I shop, Part 4.

It's entirely likely this post should be titled "What I do when I get home from shopping." but as it follows along with the other posts, I figured I should stay in the same title-category. Now that you know where I go and what I buy, I thought I'd explain what I do with it. But first, I want to finally address the shopping only in one store issue. (More in full post.)

We lived for awhile in an area with only one store nearby and it wasn't at all feasible for us to drive the additional 19 miles each way once a week to visit other stores. This meant we had to rely on one grocery store for most of our needs. Once a month we did make the longer drive, and we included trips to a bread thrift store and a Goodwill store with it. For regular weekly shopping, though, we actually went to our local store 2 or 3 times in the same week. (Usually 2 of those trips would be my husband stopping there on his way home from work, to avoid using gas unnecessarily.) We did this because while advertised sale prices typically last for a full week, mark-down prices could happen any time. My husband would run in and check the meat aisle for anything marked down and look for any other items he could find, in the produce section and also in the back of the store where the clearance mark-downs are left. These mark-downs might include anything from bakery goods - like hamburger buns; canned goods - dented is fine! Really. You just need to worry about cans that have puffed out; dried herbs and spices; and sometimes non-food items like cough medicine. Because we were there so often, we actually became well acquainted with several of the employees and they were often kind enough to tell us as soon as they saw us about any unadvertised specials. Other than that, we followed the same patterns we do now. We shopped for loss-leaders and built our menus around any good deals we could find.

When we go shopping on Saturdays, between the garage sale/thrift store stops and multiple grocery store visits, we don't get home until lunch and we are definitely hungry! (I should note - we ALWAYS leave the house with bottles of water - not the one-time use only kind; washable bottles refilled from our refrigerator - and some type of snack, such as cookies or muffins. This is to give us a boost at around 10:30 when we might start feeling some hunger pangs and prevent us from wasting money on packaged snacks or junk food.) When we get home, we put the groceries away quickly and have lunch. Lunch might be something that's been simmering in the Crockpot or something quick and easy to fix, such as a salad and microwave baked potatoes.

After lunch, my work begins. First, I have to decide our menu for the week. Yes, I really do this - after we've been shopping. Hee. Obviously, I already have the meals in mind, but now I have to figure out which meal we'll be eating when. I use a simple chart: FOUND HERE to work out our meals. As I mentioned in my MAKING MIXES post, I do a lot of baking on Sundays to cover breakfasts for the week. So typically, my breakfast boxes on the chart simply say "choice" unless I'm preparing something different, like eggs. In the "Snacks" category, I write down things that I know need to be eaten up that week. For instance, if I've got homemade jam I want to make sure is used up, I write that down so I can remember to tell the kids to have toast and jam at least once that week. Lunches and dinners are determined mostly by order in which perishables should be consumed and anything that will have an impact on eating time - like knowing we'll be getting home just before dinner on a certain day because of a field trip.

The next thing I need to determine is what meats need to be cooked immediately. The best way to explain that is by example. This Saturday I purchased 5 lbs of ground beef. It had a sell-by date of the 17th, and so was marked down from over $9 to just over $6. This means, though, that I didn't want to leave it sitting uncooked in my refrigerator all week. Saturday afternoon I made a ground-beef "starter" mix. I put it in a bowl and added one large chopped onion (or about two cups), 1 chopped bell pepper, 3 grated carrots, 4 pressed gloves of garlic, 2 stalks of finely chopped celery and 1 cup of bread crumbs (made by giving a slice of bread a whirl in the blender.) I browned this entire mix in batches and then divided it among 7 different containers. Three of these containers went into the freezer to be used another week and the other 4 went into the refrigerator. One container was used to make the tacos for my daughter's birthday. I mixed it with a can of petite diced tomatoes and some HOMEMADE TACO SEASONING MIX (This recipe is very similar to mine except I don't use the salt or cayenne pepper.) This afternoon, I used some more of the meat mix, as well as some of my pinto bean mix* - a mix that can be used in several recipes, including refried beans - to make chili for lunch. I will also be using the mix in a vegetable beef soup, and the other container will become shepherd's pie.

I also bought a family pack of chicken thighs that was marked down for quick sale, so while I was working on my beef mix, I cooked them in my Crockpot. (Just threw them in with some chopped onion, some dried herbs and a little bit of water.) The chicken was divided into 4 containers and this week will be: Chicken and rice soup, made with a broth from boiling down the bones I kept after picking off most of the chicken; BBQ chicken on a bun - I heat the chicken with some BBQ sauce and serve it on hamburger buns; creamed chicken and peas on potato pancakes, and chicken stir fry. (Because the chicken is already cooked, I stir fry the veggies and throw the chicken in at the last minute just to heat it.)

Normally, I would've also made my pinto-bean mix on Saturday, but as I was busy with also preparing some things for Father's Day, I put that off until Monday afternoon.

I had to buy onions this week, as we were running low, so I also took the time to chop all of them and put them in a couple of freezer containers. This works great. On busy nights, I just have to scoop out whatever I need and add them to my recipes. I don't even thaw them. They cook just fine as is.

I guess you can see what I mean about using lots of mixes! In addition to the ones I've already mentioned here, I also used a Spanish Rice mix last night to serve with our tacos. Sometimes, I think the mixes are just a psychological advantage. For instance, I could probably assemble the ingredients for the taco seasoning mix right as I'm making tacos without really adding much prep-time, but somehow knowing even that one little step is taken care of makes the cooking just seem easier. On the other hand, they really can be advantageous - having my ground beef already browned and ready to go knocks several minutes off prep time and really speeds things up in the evening when I'm getting dinner together. It also allows me to take advantage of bulk item prices when they're a good deal. I bought a 4 lb. bag of pinto beans this week, because I knew I could use them up in my mix and the per pound price was significantly less than the cost of a single pound bag.


*Pinto Bean Mix

This is very simple. I take 2 lbs of dried beans (washed and picked over) and put them in a pot of water. I bring them to boil for two minutes, remove from heat and cover and let stand for an hour. I drain them and wash them in a colander then put them back in the pot. I add 1 large or 2 medium chopped onions (2 cups from my freezer container), two pressed gloves of garlic, and 3 tablespoons of cajun seasoning. I cover this with water and bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for a few hours. That's it. Once they're cooked and soft, I divide the mix among 5 containers and freeze whatever I won't be using that week.

To make refried beans, I mash 1 container of the beans with a potato masher, adding a little water to get the consistency I like and mix in 1/2 cup salsa. Probably that's some kind of terrible blow to real Mexican cooking, but that's how my family likes them. :)

Next week I'll give you a complete breakdown of every item I purchase this coming Saturday and where it will be used.

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Lesson Plans and Copywork.

The Week 3 Language Arts plans for 5th and 7th grade are uploaded. Also, I've added 5 more OT Bible Copywork pages and another Secret Garden page.

I do not know why the links in the pdfs won't work for some people so if anyone has ever had this issue and solved it, PLEASE let me know how! Thanks! I can't seem to find anything wrong myself, so I clearly don't know what I'm looking for/at!

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Neat Art Ideas.

Just a quick "blogging fly-by". I still have to clean up from my daughter's all-day birthday celebrating. This is definitely one of those times where I need to recite the dirty dishes poem:

"Thank God for dirty dishes;
They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
We're eating very well
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn't want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence,
God's been very good to us."

~author unknown.

Aside from my mountain of dishes - why on earth do homemade refried beans take so many pots? Hee! - I wanted to point out THIS CUTE SITE for some awesome ideas for art projects. And not only are there some cool "art sparkers", but there're also links you can follow for more information. Be sure to explore the whole site!

Then there's THIS SITE of "Incredible Art Education Resources" - with lots of links and lesson plans.

Switching gears - I have not yet posted the week 3 LA plans. It's been pointed out to me that for at least one person, the links in the pdfs aren't working and I'm trying to figure that out. One way or the other, I will post the plans some time tomorrow. Hopefully with that problem solved!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Father's Day! Did you go stargazing? We only did so-so on the constellations, but we were able to find Venus easily enough. Yay, us. ;)

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Fun with Dad.

Looking for something fun (& free) to do with Dad tonight? How about a little star-gazing? It's awfully hot to be outside during the day, but once the sun is down, if you're fortunate enough to have clear skies, you might want to see if you can identify some of the star constellations.

Before you go out, check out THIS VIDEO DESCRIBING WHAT YOU CAN SEE IN TONIGHT'S SKY.

You might want to print THIS SHORT GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY which includes some star charts and basic info to help you know what you're looking at. You can also visit THE BEGINNERS' GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY for more help and information. And then there's this one - ASTRONOMY FOR KIDS!.

The NASA SITE has star charts you can print, along with a game to play to challenge one another on finding specific constellations.

After your outdoor adventures, go on an "Outer Space" visual odyssey online - also courtesy of the HUBBLE SITE to view God's amazing universe.

This is a sneaky little way to work in a bit of homeschooling, but if you don't tell Dad or the kids, they'll never even know it. :) You can extend this into a full summer school unit for younger kids by registering at LEARNING PAGE (it's free) and creating a wall mural and notebook of outer space. (In the themes section. There's a LOT there. Just click on the "Space" tab and then be sure to check each of the links - "Fact Files", "Fun Sheets", "Murals", etc. for lots of free print-outs.) Older kids might enjoy the THINK QUEST ASTRONOMY page. (Be aware, this site and many others on outer space have a definite "Big Bang" bent.) And THIS SITE is meant for high school aged students, brought to you by NASA. Visit the teacher section for lesson plans and printables.

Last, but not least, your kids might enjoy BECOMING VIRTUAL ASTRONAUTS.

Have fun and Happy Father's Day!

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The Frugal Housewife Book online.

How cool is THIS?

The Frugal Housewife, Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy. By Lydia Maria Francis Child, Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.

And be sure to check out the entire Feeding America website while you're there. It's got dozens of really old cookbooks all scanned for you to see. (Or you can read them in an HTML-text version.)

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What's your budget view-point?

THIS ARTICLE is totally worth the read. There's plenty of food for thought there, especially in the possible causes section for why so many kids think they'll have 6-figure incomes when they join the work-world.

A long time ago I read something somewhere (I wish I could remember where, to give proper credit. If you recognize this, please let me know!) in which a woman talked about how perspective is everything. Apparently her husband had made frequent mention of growing up "poor", in a negative way, and so she was shocked when she finally learned that his family had lived on about the same income that hers had. She went on to explain that she'd never once thought that she was poor growing up. Her family had even made regular donations to a food bank and surely, as she'd believed as a child, if they were donating to the poor, they couldn't possibly be poor themselves.

Two families. Two totally different viewpoints. And two totally different outcomes. In the one household, the child grew up feeling deprived, something that can very often lead to huge financial problems in adulthood - debt-creating overspending to compensate for a "miserable" childhood. In the other, clearly, the blessings of what they did have were stressed, as well as the need to help those less fortunate, leading to a woman who grew up believing she'd been lucky as a child.

There are two very distinct ways of going about a frugal lifestyle. You can do it with a "woe-is-me" attitude or a "we are blessed" attitude. (More in full post.)

The biggest problem with the "woe-is-me" perspective is you are much, much more likely to get yourself into financial jams. You'll blow your food budget on a $25 pizza order delivered to your house because you're feeling like you've earned it and you've been deprived of this pleasure, rather than having the fun of making a pizza at home, for a fraction of that cost, and feeling grateful that you're able to do so. Make mistakes like this too often, and you'll find yourself in debt and struggling to climb out of a seemingly ever-deepening hole.

I do understand this can be hard. As that article says, here in America we are constantly being bombarded with images of the so-called "good life" and those images are always filled with fancy homes and expensive cars. Success in our society is not marked by a person who lives quietly and well, who has good friends and a great family, who honors God and is genuinely happy. Success is measured by bank accounts. Is it any wonder why people get so caught up in the race to have more, more, more?

Then there are those who openly criticize anyone who embraces frugalness. These people, frankly, astonish me. Why on earth someone would think you are being cruel to your child by not taking him to McDonald's for a "treat" is beyond me! If it means you are using money that should be used elsewhere, you are only being financially irresponsible. And furthermore, it's not like you're doing your child any favors anyway - feeding him a meal that's genuinely bad for him. What kind of treat is that? Unfortunately, these critics can be quite vocal and rude, and sadly, undermine the efforts of a parent who does want to take control of her/his finances, by making her/him feel somehow inadequate as a mom or dad.

There are way too many people in this world who really are truly poor. People who are homeless and hungry. But are you one of them? Do you spend a little too much time bemoaning what you don't have, rather than being grateful for what you do? Are you, however unwittingly, handing the "woe-is-me" attitude down to your children? You might want to try a little thanksgiving.

No, don't go out and buy a turkey and some cranberry sauce! What I mean is, don't wait for November. Make a list now of all your blessings. I mean this literally. Take out a piece of paper and write down everything you have for which you are thankful, both tangible, like a roof over your head, and intangible, like the love of your friends, family and spouse. Tape this list somewhere that you'll see it every day, like your bathroom mirror. Thank God daily for these things and keep them foremost in your mind. When you start to focus wholly on your blessings, the other things quickly lose their importance. A joyful hug from your son or daughter is worth a thousand diamond necklaces, and if your attitude is one of happiness and thankfulness, your children will pick up on it and mirror it in their own lives.

Random ways to "gift" yourself any time you feel you might be slipping into the "woe-is-me" trap for a moment:

1. Read your Blessings List. Out loud. To the dog if no one else is around to listen.

2. Make some artwork. Collect cards, drawings, and pictures your children have made for you, or if they're young, ask them to make you something new. Select a few and frame them, or make a larger, single collage. You don't need expensive frames. You can find inexpensive ones at garage sales and dollar stores, or make them yourself. Hang your artwork proudly. I promise you, in twenty years when your kids are grown and gone, this art will mean much, much more to you than any "real" paintings or prints you might have in your home.

3. Go to the library. A friend of mine once told me any time she feels the "shopping bug" biting, she makes a trip to the local library. Once she's checked out some books and music CDs and a few movies, she feels just as good as she used to when she'd go on a credit-card rampage at the mall. Sure, she eventually has to give these things back, but she's done with it all by then anyway and she's satisfied the "must have something new" craving that hit her.

4. Go garage sale shopping. Plan to buy something - any one thing you want - as long as it doesn't cost more than $1. Really shop around with that one dollar and by the time you make your choice, you'll feel absurdly pleased with your "splurge" even though you didn't just drop a fortune.

5. Take a day off. There will likely be some things you have to do, regardless, especially if you have very young children, but do as little as possible. After breakfast, put dinner in the Crock-Pot (and if you don't have one of those - get one!) so that you won't be working in the kitchen in the evening. Let the kids off from school work and instead designate the day as "free reading". Or, if you're a homeschooler who takes summer break, tell the kids that they're to amuse themselves for the day, with books or board games or anything else that requires little parental supervision. Relax as much as you can. Read a book. Work on a craft project. Sit outside in the sun. Consider it a vacation, even though you aren't going anywhere and use the day to recharge.

Even if you've made some really bad money decisions before, even if you're already in that debt-hole and now trying to get out, no matter how slow the going, it is not too late! You really can change your outlook and attitude and work to make sure your children don't grow up thinking nothing less than $100,000 a year is acceptable.

This really is all about remembering what the important things in life are, and money? Isn't one of them.

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