Blogging The Days of the Week Part II

Three Things This Thursday (3TTT) was once hands down my favorite meme in blog world. Then, I took it over. Michelle of Psalm 104:24 used to run it. In the summer of 2009 she asked me to take it over which I gladly did. It quickly went from being a labor of love to just labor. I made some changes to it but I never liked it as much as when Michelle was running it. After about a 3 month absence, today will be the final installment of 3TTT. Since it's the final installment I'll make it a very special triple edition.

3 Things I liked about 3TTT

1. It was really easy to participate, as I didn't have to have any special theme.
2. By writing about 3 things I could actually put 3 posts worth in one post.
3. It gave me the ability to blog about things I would not normally.

3 Things I did not like about 3TTT

1. I lost that loving feeling for it. It felt more like work than fun.
2. Very few people participated in it.
3. It cramped my style. Having a meme to write every week or every fortnight got in the way of writing the rest of my blog.

3 Things I learned from 3TTT

1. Passion without purpose can become a drudgery.
2. For now, I am a better meme participant than host.
3. It's okay to stop doing something without considering yourself a failure.

Next Time: Bloggging the days of the week Part III.

Blogging The Days of the Week Part I

As many of you know I counting down the top 25 labels of this blogs first 300 posts for some time now. I was looking over the top 5 labels, I noticed a bit of a trend at the top. Labels 3,4, & 5 are all memes. Not only are they all memes, they all have a day of their week in their title. In quick fire fashion I will tell you what I like and or liked about these meme's in 3 quick posts today.

# 5 WFMW

Before I blogged my wife used to tell me about Works For Me Wednesday(WFMW). At that time it was hosted at Rocks in my Dryer. There were some pretty good ideas there on how to save , time, money, brain cells and other substances we only have a finite amount of. When I started blogging, I fell in love with the format and became a regular even when it switched to it's new home at We Are That Family.

My posts differed from many of the other posts shared at WFMW as the things that worked for me were mostly ideas and experiences rather than household hints. I posted about How Libraries, Song Parodies, and even WFMW itself worked for me. Even though my posts were more unconventional I benefited from the more traditional posts being shared at WFMW and I even wrote a post about them.

At one point I had 4- 5 months of WFMW post ideas stored in my handy dandy notebook. Last fall due to a scheduling conflict, I began to post less and less there. I still have the occasional idea that I think will work for the WFMW crowd. I hop there from time to time just to see if there's a new way to clean a sink using only paper clips or other intriguing ideas. WFMW still works for me, just not as often.

Next Time: Blogging the days of the week Part II

Brewers Should Think About Giving Ryne Sandberg Shot At Manager | Brew Crew Central

This is the very idea I had when the Cubs didn't give HOF Infielder and Cubs AAA Manager Ryne Sandberg the Big Club Skipper nod earlier this week. As muh as I'd like Joey Cora to get the Brewers gig, I think putting Ryno in the managerial mix is a win-win for the Brew Crew and Sandberg.

Brewers Should Think About Giving Ryne Sandberg Shot At Manager | Brew Crew Central

United Breaks Guitars 1, 2 and 3.

One of my most popular tags is videos (# 6 after initial 300 posts). There are 3 types of videos that I post here:

1) videos I have taken of my family

2) Videos friends and family have asked me or allowed me to post

3) Viral videos I have found on the internet or that have been reccomended by other blogs.

One of the videos from the third category that I found most compelling is actually a series of three videos by a group called the Sons of Maxwell fronted by Canadian Dave Carroll.

The incident that inspired the songs took place in my home town of Chicago as United Airlines mishandled the guitar of Mr. Carroll. The real tragedy took place as Carroll could not get United to fix the guitar. After going round and round with United, Carrol told the airline's representative that he was going to write 3 songs about the incident, record them, make music videos and post them on you tube. Carrol was as good as his word and he posted the following 3 songs:

United Breaks Guitars Song I

United Breaks Guitars Song II

United Breaks Guitars Song III

Now I haven't flown United since the incident. This isn't really much of a boycott as I haven't had flown anywhere to since July of 2001. I will continue to post cool videos like these though.

Next Time: WFMW

The Heart is for Loving Mommy.

At Puppy's art station today I had her make a few pieces of art work.
















As I looked over the first one I asked her to describe it for me.

















"This is me." she said as she pointed to the purple person in the middle of a page. She then pointed to the figure inside the heart. "That's a bunny." she said. She told me a little more about other parts of the picture and ended with a flourish by saying "The heart is for loving Mom."

It was such a cute interaction that I snapped some pictures and abandoned my planned post for today just to share this little puppyism with you guys.

Sometimes, (on my "low self-image days") {I'll mail a dollar to the first commenter, besides my wife, who can tell me what movie the quote in parentheses comes from} when my children tell me how much they love their Mom, I wonder why they don't say they love me. On this occasion, however, I felt glad that my children re discovering what I've known for years. My heart is for loving you babe, and you Puppy, and you Spider Droid, and you also Bunny.

Next Time: United + Guitars times three.

In Praise of The Carnival of Homeschooling

If you have been following this blog you know that since I hit post 300 earlier this year I have been writing some tribute posts to my top 25 labels over that time period. Now with 12 posts left until # to 400 I am inching to the # 1 label.

Tonight's Episode: # 7 The Carnival of Homeschooling.

I have been a contributor to the Carnival of Homeschooling since January 2009, my first month in the blogging business. It was a little ditty called No Child left Ahead. I have also hosted the carnival 3 times since then. My last time was with reflections on the panorama of homeschooling. I need to move on because this is teetering towards self promotion, and I am really here to talk about the carnival. Here are a few reasons why I like the Carnival of Homeschooling:

1. It's better than a meme.

I say this because, while I love a good meme they can have 100's of linked articles. Good luck reading 1/2 of them and having any semblance of a life. The carnival has a finite amount of submissions each week and can usually be read cover to cover without abandoning your loved ones for weeks at a time.

2. It covers a lot of bases.

While all the articles are home school related, the carnival is generally an eclectic mix of ideas, opinions and insights. Homeschooling flakes are a lot like the snow variety as no two are exactly the same. It is good to have a 1 stop shop each week that will cover such a vast spectrum of home schooling issues.

3. It is an excellent networking tool for home educators.

Since there is this vast spectrum of home school banter, the reader is exposed to many great ideas to implement in their own classrooms. From field trips, to curriculum, to coping skills the carnival has been an invaluable asset.

4. It helps unlock the Internet.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that each issue has Easter Eggs with cheat codes on how to unlock the Internet. I'm not saying that each issue doesn't either. So knock yourself out if you want to search for them. What I am saying is that in many ways the Carnival of Homeschooling has helped me better navigate the web. If you look at my blog roll you will see many frequent contributors to the carnival who I am only familiar with because of said carnival. I also have picked up followers to my blog because of some of my submissions here.

I became aware of the HSBA that I wrote about in my last post through the carnival.

I have nominated many blogs this year that I learned about from this carnival. You could nominate your favorite home school blogs by clicking here. My great humility and desire to not promote myself prevents me from mentioning that you could also nominate my blog if you wanted to. Good thing for my legendary humility.

5. It's a blast and a half (kaboom, kab.) to host the carnival.

Honestly, hosting the carnival is a lot of labor. But anyone who's ever done it knows it's a labor of love. It gives you the opportunity to get the first look at all the articles before hand. It also gives you a back stage view of the carnival. If you have never hosted, you would be surprised by how many non home school related carnivals come in each week and how about 1/3 of the submissions come in the last day (including this one). Hosting is also good for me because a theme topic is usually one that I would not have written about otherwise.

So there we have it, I like the Carnival of Homeschooling. If you are reading this from the carnival, I imagine it that you like it too. You can also click here to check out the most recent edition.

Next Time: The United Guitar Trilogy