Next Time

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.


Tonight's Episode: Next Time

On January 6, 2009, I started this here blog. Just a couple of pictures of our 3 children answering the titular question Why do we home school? Not exactly the stuff of legend. I did start a tradition on that post that I have maintained now for 56 subsequent posts. I always end each post telling the reader what is coming next. It is the journalist and talk show host in me. I like you, the bloggee, to know what's coming next.

If you page back to my first post, then page forward looking at all the next time tags, you will see that I am never wrong. If I say Next Time: Swimming Lessons, by golly the next post is about swimming lessons. Incredible.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, I cheat. Often when I say what is coming next, I have not yet written that post. Sometimes all I have is an idea. Sometimes, I decide I'd rather post about something different than what I advertised. Well if this were a magazine, newspaper or weekly television program, I would just have to live with my mistake and make some disclaimer type announcement. Here at blog central, no such problem. I write my new post and then simply edit my old post and put in the new title. When my devoted readership comes back and I am writing about newts, they may be a little bewildered and say, "Hey, I thought he said he was going to write about hippos!" They will go back to my previous post, and there for all to see, it will say: "Next Time: Newts." Amazing!

Well, I don't use it very often. But I am glad it's there, obsessive as I am. I was going to write about this my last time out, but this week my two oldest children rode their bikes without training wheels for the first time. So, I wrote about that instead and just changed the next time information on my prior post. The only place where there are any discrepancies on my future issues, is on my face book page. I feed these posts directly to my face book page. I have the feed set up automatically. What you see there is the original next time message.

Next Time: Announcing the Quarter Winner. (Or will it?)

The Kids Bike

2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate cyclists! Cyclists! Go cyclists! It was Tuesday afternoon and my 7 year old and I decided the training wheels needed to go. So I took them off and I've been riding without them ever since. Kidding! They were his training wheels.

We took them off and went to the church parking lot, down the street. There was quite a bit of falling and after a while my sad, dejected son wanted to give up and go home. I told him 3 more falls and we would go home. The next time up he got it. Here is some footage.

When my 9 year old, also still in training wheels, got wind of Charlie's achievement, she wanted to be part of the act. So here she is earlier today.

They are getting better and better and I am really proud of both of them. We plan to do a lot of biking as a family this year sans training wheels will be best.

Next Time: Next Time

Song Parodies

If you haven't figured it out already I am unusual. A former seminary professor described me recently as marching to a different drummer. That's putting it mildly. That's why I am using this household hints/time saving carnival to tell you why I like song parodies. But bear with me before you move on to the next post, I do have a WFMW method to my madness.

It all started with my upbringing. The music I remember most vividly listening to when I was a child was Allen Sherman, most famous for his song Camp Grenada (Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah) also known as a Letter from Camp. My siblings and I had all of his songs memorized. Sherman would take simple songs like On Top of Old Smokey and put a bizarre twist on:

On Top of Old Smokey
All covered with hair
Of course I'm referring
To Smokey the Bear

Down by the Riverside became Don't Buy the Liverwurst and there were so many like that.

My Mom and Dad celebrate the holidays by writing their Christmas Letter to the tune of popular Christmas Carols. Thus for Christmas 1974, the year when their final child, my sister, was born their friends and family were treated to this reworking of Hark The Herald, Angels Sing

January 27
We were 6 and then were 7
On that day in early morn
Bonnie Eileen, at last was born

She is Kathy's pride and joy
'Specially because she's not a boy.

As I continued to grow I began to shift from Allen Sherman to a weirder Al, that being Mr. Yankovic. Being a big fan of Billy Joel, I liked how Yankovic skewered him in "It's still Billy Joel to me." ...

Bought a couple of his record albums and they're starting to sound the same
It might be Elvis and it might be the blues
It might sound like the B-52's
But it's all Billy Joel to me.

Song Parodies work for me first because I am a man with a passion for song writing who can't carry a tune, with or without a bucket. So my melodies do not sound, when I sing them, like they sound in my head. If I write a straight song, I need to find someone to write music for my lyrics. If I write a parody at least the public knows what it's supposed to sound like.

Parodies, don't have to be funny. I have written touching songs like the time one of the girls the college group moved away. I wrote a farewell to the tune of Hakuna Matata called Hakuna Renatta. Her name is Audrey, so it didn't work that well. Her name was Renatta, I'm just kidding about Audrey.

I got to thinking about song parodies recently when one of the contributors here, dropped out of blogging last week. See my post Danger:Blogging for further details. Instantly the first stanza and chorus of a song to the tune of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" hopped into my mind. Now this person came back to blogging less than a week after she left, ruining my second verse and chorus. Real life gets so much in the way of the creative process. But I went back to the drawing board and I present in homage to the fine upstanding mother of 5 pirates and a princess:

Bye Bye Blogs

She was a blogger

A virtual friend

'Til her days of blogging

came to an end

Her blog was helpful

And filled with mirth

But her 6 children

It was not worth

So she said

Bye bye blog

Hello family

Do you remember me?

I used to blog about you

Bye bye blog

I'm sad we had to part

You're not my children's heart

I'm not called to care for you

Your not the love that's true

'Twas not a fortnight

Less than a week

Her blog came back

With a few tweaks

Blogs can be useful

When in their place

She'll find the balance

with our Lord's  grace

So she said hello blogs

You're not my idol now

Won't make you a golden cow

I know what matters most

Hello blogs

My blog's not what I am

If it was, it would all be spam

I won't forget my post

Or I'd be a bad host

Song parodies work for me, to find out what works for normal people, go to We are that Family and check out Works For Me Wednesday.

Next Time: The Kids Bike

Our Star Wars Names

My son loves Star Wars. He would spend all his time playing Star Wars if I let him. Amy and I usually don't allow guns or shooting in the house. But I have assured Amy that this all took place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

I was in a bargain basement aisle at a local store today, when I saw this clone trooper outfit. He absolutely loves it. Star Wars is not the same passion for the rest of the family as it is for Char Char Binks, but we like it because we love him.

This is why we all adopted Star Wars names recently. Charlie is no longer the aforementioned binks but is now Clone Captain Chuck.

Before I divulge the rest of our monikers here's a joke Charlie made up for any Star Wars junkies out there. Q: What happens when a clone captain gets in an auto accident? A: Clone Captain Rex (wrecks) .

I am Daddy wan Kenobi
Amy is Amy-kins Sky Walker
Emma is Emma the Hut
Lucy is the nefarious Count Lulu

Charlie must have real issues with women. The men are the good guys and the women tend towards the darkside. Hmmmmmm?????

Next Time: Song Parodies.

Danger: Blogging

Recently, in the past week, within 24 hours of each other, two of the blogs that I follow announced their discontinuation.

The first by a friend from college, came as no real surprise. He had trailed off from 40+ posts in January to 28 in February and his first post in March, was on March 9 to announce no more blogging in the immediate future.

His blog is highly personal speaking of the strange twists and turns his life has been taking of late. While, I enjoy reading each post, I am often drained when I finish reading it. Just think how he must feel as the one writing and living it.
His reason for taking a breather was straight forward writing such a personal blog was too emotionally charged for him right now. Especially since many of the issues in his life were showing no signs of changing anytime soon.

Personally, it is not like he is leaving my life or even my cyber life. We are still face book friends, which is how I learned about his blog in the first place.

The second blog discontinuation was a little more surprising. Her goodbye post on March 9th was her 17th post of the month with no mention in the other 16 of blogger burn-out. She hosted her own carnivals and was a regular contributor to other carnivals that I contribute to as well.

I know her only form her posts and we were often commenting on each other's posts. It was from her that I heard about Homeschool kids write which I praised in my last post. Her reason for leaving was that blogging was stealing her away from her true calling in life: growing Godly children.

The termination of these blogs in such proximity to one another did have an impact on myself. Now, as I mentioned previously this month, I am a catharsis smatharsis kind of guy. Writing deeply intimate posts on a daily basis and sharing them in blog land is not what I do. So, I don't run too much jeopardy of suffering emotional burnout here. I do fall prey to making this blog a much higher priority than it should be. In the past weeks my blogging has become a cause of friction between me and my family. I am supposed to be blogging about them, not letting blogging become a hindrance to them.

As a home schooling dad and the main teacher of my children, I need to keep my priorities in order. As the leader of my home, I need to be loving my wife and putting her first ahead of my self. If blogging gets in the way of those things my blogs no matter how fun, thoughtful, or how many quarters I give-a-way are worthless.

Don't worry my friends I have no plans of going away. I had already made several changes at home and on this blog before I read the farewell posts I am telling you about. I love blogging and more ideas and dreams about improving this blog than I have the time to implement them all. So, that means that many of those ideas will never get implemented. As long as I am doing my main jobs expect no goodbyes in the near future.

Next Time: Our Star Wars Names

In Praise of Home School Kids Write

Leftovers let you feel good about yourself twice. First, when you put them in the refrigerator "Hey! I'm saving money!" Then, two months later when you throw them away "Hey! I'm saving my life!" - George Carlin

That has nothing to do with today's post, but I was cleaning out the fridge today. Just keeping it real.



A few weeks ago I read about a website called Homeschool Kids Write. Each Monday they post a writing assignment and the students can either put the assignment on their blogs and post a link to it or they include a place for students to post if they don't have a blog of their own.

The reason why I like it so much is it's simplicity. I let my children know the assignment and then they write it. I post it and link it for them, and then we spend some time reading what the other students write. It has become a cost free planning free component of our school week.

Here are some samples of the assignments and what my children have done with them ...

Assignment 53 was to write about your favorite president. Charlie wrote ...

I like Abraham Lincoln because he freed the slaves.



Nice, concise writing, I give it a 10.


Assignment 56 was to write a dialogue between yourself and a sandwich. Emma has been taking a skits class at our co-op. I think that's why her dialogue reads like a skit...

My Samwitch by Emma
Emma: Balony again! Why doesn't mom choose liver sausage insted?
Samwitch: Hey! Don't insult me!Emma: Sorry! I thought you weren't listening. But why do you just have to be balony?
Samwitch: Hey! Don't blame me for being a different kind! Besides, I thought you liked balony.
Emma: My sister does but I don't.
Samwitch: Oh! I thought she liked liver sausage.
Emma: She doesn't but I do.Samwitch: Oh then I got mixed up! I'm sorry! Will you forgive me?Emma: Yes, I forgive you. But tell Mom I like liver sausage, okay?
Samwitch: Do you mean you're not going to eat me?
Emma: Yep! I have extra money for cafateara food.
Samwitch: Yea!
Emma: Good bye!
Samwitch: Good bye!
THE NEXT DAY ...
Emma: Good, liver sausage! I don't have any more money.
Samwitch: Oh Man!
Emma: Well good bye!
Samwitch: Good Bye!

You notice how it's not called homeschool kids spell. I often will have the kids correct their spelling before we post it, but in this case I decided to post it as is.

SO, if you are looking for some ways for your kids to practice their writing and see samples of others, I recommend Homeschool kids write.

To see what other home school families are talking about go to the carnival of homeschooling hosted at the Home School Cafe.

Next Time: Danger! Blogging