Search Results for: blog creative messes

Home School Blogger Spotlight: The Amazing Mess

The words “amazing mess” were first coined by this blogger’s daughter. The author of The Amazing Mess, Stacie, decided this would be a fitting name for her blog since children are both amazing and messy. I am sure anyone with small children will agree. The blog itself is anything but a mess. Beautifully designed and organized you will find many wonderful ideas and crafts for you to use with your children. Born from the frustration of not finding crafts on the internet to use which showed pictures or completed crafts, you will find step by step instructions and pictures from … Continue reading →

The Pets Blog Week in Review for December 17-23

Merry Christmas Eve! Maybe you were like me and rushing around last week doing last minute Christmas errands, which left you little time for reading. (Or much else for that matter.) If that’s the case, and you want to catch up on what Aimee and I dished about here in the Pets Blog, look no further. You’ve found the handiest tool around: the Week in Review. Monday, December 17 Diary of a Cat Care B&B: Cleanliness Aimee’s new job made more good fodder for the Pets Blog. She explained what she spends the majority of her time doing at the … Continue reading →

Creative Messes

When it comes to making messes, it seems like pets are the pros! (Toddlers may be in the running for the Most Creative Mess title, too.) Something my dog Lally ate this week didn’t agree with her. (She tends to have a sensitive stomach.) I woke up to find little piles of barf (mostly bile) in the hallway. But they weren’t just any piles of barf — they were arranged in a circle, as if Lally was turning around as she was sick. If you imagine a compass rose, she had barf at all the cardinal points — north, south, … Continue reading →

The Harmful “Him” vs. “Her”

I know that men and women think differently. My first impulse is to examine how much of that is natural and how much is a result of cultural conditioning, but that’s a study for another time, and really another blog. What I want to focus on today is the sort of “us” vs. “them” mentality that arises sometimes, and how that might affect marriages. I had to read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” for a high school health class. I found it abhorrent, and said as much in my paper on the book. I understand as much … Continue reading →

Are You Hiding From Your Finances?

One sure way to get into or stay caught up in a financial mess is called the “ostrich approach”. Ostriches are pretty cool birds, but they are known for sticking their heads in the sand when confronted with danger. In case you are curious, ostriches do not really stick their heads in the sand – that is myth which has been perpetuated through time. They do lie down and play dead when confronted with something that they feel they can not outrun. The “ostrich approach” is still an appropriate analogy for what not to do about messy financial situations. Some … Continue reading →

When do I clean: Practical Changes

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~A. A. Milne I love that quote. It describes my personality entirely. You would be amazed at the items I find and become distracted by while attempting a task or to clean. I once found a Verizon rebate Visa card, sadly, it was expired. Another time I found an old box filled with cards and items I intended to put in a baby book for my third child. I never started it and she is now six years old. While, these finds are good for … Continue reading →

Quick and Easy Cleanup at the End of the Day

Home schooling kids is rewarding, but it can also be messy. Having children around the house all day long rather than away at school for six or more hours means that we need to clean up several times a day rather than just once. Parents are notorious for trying to be superheroes and tend to do everything themselves. Whether it’s vacuuming, doing dishes, laundry, or cleaning the cat box, it’s often easier to just do it ourselves rather than listening to the kids moan and groan. Not to mention, we often have to prod them a thousand times before they’ll … Continue reading →

Author Interview – Ginger Carlson – Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our interview with Ginger Carlson, author of Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative and Naturally Curious Children. LG: Parents are busy today, how can they have time to do something extra? GC: The great thing about creativity, and nurturing it, is that it is something that doesn’t take extra time. It is easily incorporated into what you are already doing. The activities in Child of Wonder are actually wonderful for working parents as well as stay-at-home parents, both of whom might find themselves short of time for different reasons. As Melissa Hart says in the … Continue reading →

Author Interview – Ginger Carlson – Part One

Last week I reviewed Child of Wonder, by Ginger Carlson. Today Ms. Carlson joins us for a few questions on creativity and nurturing wonder in children. LG? Where did your interest in nurturing creativity and curiosity begin? GC: I think I have always had an innate interest in creativity because I was reared in a family where an importance was placed on being creative and my own natural curiosities were always nurtured. Then, it was sort of reborn during the time I spent teaching in an urban school in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s. I was hyper aware of … Continue reading →

Wipey Feet

My dog Lally does a funny little dance after she goes to the bathroom. She scrapes her back feet against the grass: right, right, left, left. I call it “wipey feet” (as opposed to Happy Feet, I guess). The topic came up in one of the dog lover sites I frequent, and nobody had a definitive answer. Why do some dogs wipe their feet after they piddle or poop? No expert in wipe-ology came forward to solve the mystery. All we could do was make some educated guesses. Some folks thought it might be similar to a cat burying messes … Continue reading →