Video Stars

So, I'm trying to be consistent about blogging... at least while I'm participating in this Parenting course. We've had a couple of weeks off due to Father's Day and summer vacation schedules. Last night I contributed to a video that RCC is creating to let folks know about an upcoming session of the course. I had the benefit of watching another couple answer questions first, so it was a little less weird when it was my turn. The questions I answered were:

Q. Why did you like this course?
A. I read lots of books. Participating in the course is better for me for several reasons a) it keeps me motivated to read regularly and retain the material for discussion; b)in discussions with other participants you hear the same material through a variety of experiential lenses; c) you learn that their kids are not perfect either - they are normal/average kids just like yours.

Q. Have you applied anything you've learned in the course?
A. I'm really slow sometimes, but I eventually catch on. See my "Yes or No" post for an example.

Q. How has your parenting changed as a result of the course?
A. The course reinforces the concept of the husband being the authority figure in the home. I've consciously tried to step back and let my husband take the lead where I may have micromanaged a situation. It really works better when he is in control.

So, that's it. Coming to a church sanctuary real soon. I'll be a video star. AND I'll sink into the seat in embarrassment to see myself on the screen. So will my kids!

Yes or No?

So I've been reading this parenting book by John Rosemond. One of the ideas that stuck with me is "let your yes be yes and your no be no". This will drastically reduce whining, cajoling, and begging from your kids. Now in my brain this sounds good. In reality, I fail to live up to this advice - daily. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to see the principle at work with one of my kids. It was dinner time and M. didn't think she would like what I made. She asked if she could make a sandwich to go along with it. Unthinking... I responded like this:

• Mom: You know, I bought the sandwich stuff for your lunches this week.
• Kid: Well, there is plenty of bread. Can I just make a sandwich for me?
  
• Mom: I'd rather you not.
• Kid: Would you just tell me yes or no? I don't know what you want me to do.
• Mom: (still reasoning and explaining...) I was hoping you were mature enough to figure it out.
• Mom: (coming to her senses...) Oh, the answer is no. Eat the food I made for dinner!

Hooray, God showed me with a very clear example - directly from my own kid's mouth, that they really want clear, concise answers. Let yes=yes and no=no. Keep feelings and hints out of the situation.

Summer is here

Welcome to Louisiana, summer is here. The kids are out of school and completely bored already. I can hardly blame them. I understand how quickly you can become bored when one day is just like another. I've been looking to shake things up lately. Maybe a few work projects will get me excited again. Until then, I'm so much more interested in my home life than my work life.

Puppies = happiness

Ok, so at some point I'll start working on this blog again. Until then, I'm just head over heels for my new dachshund puppy, Trixie.

Time Flies

Since the Learning 2.0 effort ended, I haven't had a reason to blog. However, I'm thinking I just need to practice. I'd like to learn the various functionality and brag about my blog savvy to my kids. Not that they will be impressed or anything. Here are a few things I want to learn:

1. How to post pictures inside my blog.
2. How to link a YouTube video to my blog post.
3. How to send a post from my phone.
   
4. Oh, I'm sure there's more...

Some of the less technical things I want to figure out include: why bother to blog anyway? can blogging achieve a purpose (that I care about)? and can it be done "for pennies a day" i.e. less than 10 minutes. So I'll be pondering what I want my blog to morph into over the next few days... And maybe, just maybe I'll start posting again.

YouTube and NetLibrary

Honestly, I won't be spending gobs of time on YouTube. You probably won't find any videos of me there either. I know you are really disappointed to hear that, right? I did find a few music videos that were interesting and of course the occasional news spoof is good for a laugh, but I guess I'm too serious minded to spend much time on the site. NetLibrary is another story though. I spent entirely too much time trying to register to use this site. I remember about a two years ago looking through the offerings and not seeing anything I wanted. At that time I didn't have an MP3 player either. Evidently, my account expired and I couldn't get back in. East Baton Rouge Parish Library had just canceled the service, Acsension Parish Library requires account activation at the library onsite. So for now, I haven't been successful in testing downloading an e-book from NetLibrary.

Remember me?

So blogs are supposed to be fresh, nearly daily updates filled with newsy items of things going on around us. If that is true, then I've failed as a blogger. So what?! I'll just reboot and start again. Here are some of the cool things our group checked out since I wrote last:

1. Yes, we discussed Flickr and Picasa. We learned that some of us are gifted with a camera and that I should leave picture taking to my 11 year old aspiring photographer. I also learned that Google has a screen saver that works with your My Photos or with your Flickr or Picasa albums (or the latest coolest RSS on Picasa). Find it at www. pack.google.com and just select the stuff you want.
2. And yes, we discussed RSS feeds. Each of the folks in our group had different experiences locating content and using different readers. One person even set up a ticker to scroll across their desktop. That was cool in theory, but I am too ADD for that to work for me long term! For practice I set up several RSS feeds inside a Yahoo mail account. That does me little good, since that isn't an email account that I view often. My preferred source for the information is my iGoogle portal page. Even though the feed info is limited, it is enough to catch my attention and draw me to click for details. I've set up several news services and blogs inside a specific tab that I check at least daily.
3. LibraryThing - Ok, so maybe this is like Facebook and Myspace for bookjunkies, but do we really need that? Sorry. I just haven't jumped into the social networking pool yet.
4. Rollyo - Interesting, and as a result of using it I found Kayak.com whick in turn led me to xjet.com where I found great prices on non-stop flights to my mom's for the summer, so I guess it's all good. Seriously though, I think I would rather explore the Google Custom Search Engine. http://www.google.com/librariancenter/articles/0705_01.html
5. SurveyMonkey - Since it was play week, we decided to monkey around a bit. Need a quick speaker evalution or customer survey? This is useful even at the "free" level. With an active imagination, some planning and a few bucks a month it becomes a pretty powerful survey and analysis tool.
6. Other technology that is on the verge of creepy:

Microsoft Surface (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html)

Google Streets (http://news.com.com/Google+Maps+takes+it+to+the+streets/2100-1038_3-6187254.html?tag=item)