Caught-My-Eye Posts

Beautiful writing
Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky with Learning to Live a Good Story. She is an exquisite writer. "Being good at something doesn’t automatically mean you should do it."

Made Me Cry:
40 of the Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken. Just mesmerizing.

Inspiration:
More Emily Freeman on living wildly and freely:"The difference between the reader and the writer? The reader is hidden. The writer is laid bare."

Family:
Parents, why are you pushing your kids? by Jeff Pearlman: "Everyone is in such a rush to guarantee a child's future, yet nobody has been able to rightly (and righteously) explain the ultimate reward. I've heard people say, "I just want to give my child the best opportunity to succeed" at least 100 times, but always without elaboration."

I have to admit that I don't know what Magic Mike is, but I love this post about what makes a man manly.

Eat:
Chipotle Pork Loin with Black Bean Salad: Served with roasted sweet potatoes/red onions and cantaloupe. Amazing.

What's caught your eye lately?

Caught-My-Eye Posts

Church
Fantastic piece on on the Tennessee "Monkey Bill" at Rachel Held Evans.

We introverts are slightly obsessive about reading about ourselves. Interesting thoughts on introverts and how we fit at Introverted Church.

Parenting
You Just Broke Your Child. Congratulations: beautiful, insightful post on what it means to be a dad. I am so incredibly thankful that Randy is such an amazing father to our kids.

50 Things To Do Before You're 12: A bucket list of things every kids should experience. There are no museums and trips to Europe here: just lots of critters and such. This is one of those articles that makes me feel like a good parent. :)

 Homeschooling
10 Grammar Rules and Best Writing Practices That Every Writer Should Know: fantastic post from Melissa at Writing Forward. I'm going to hand this out to my students every year.

5 Things You Should Never Tell a New Homeschooler

This is an older post but I just read it: The Public School Parents' Guide to Homeschool Parents

 

Caught-My-Eye Posts

Homeschooling
* The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Nerd Family Blog. We are in the midst of speech therapy with our youngest, so I was particularly interested in the Homeschool Speech Therapy post. As always on the Carnival, there are loads of valuable posts.

* HotChalks Free Lesson Plans. Looks full of possibilities.

* The Homeschool Classroom is giving away a free e-book during the month of July. As a contributor to The Homeschool Classroom, I have previewed the book and encourage you to become a fan and download it! Tons of good information is included in it. As Angie writes,

"We’re so excited to be able to share a free ebook with our readers here at The Homeschool Classroom. Throughout the month of July, this 64 page ebook, Homeschooling by the Numbers, will be available exclusively to those that are fans of The Homeschool Classroom on Facebook. After July, it will still be available to Facebook fans, but it will also be available to those that are subscribers to The Homeschool Classroom through an RSS or email feed. (So, don’t worry if you’re not on Facebook, you’ll get a chance at the download too!)"

Religion
* Rachel Held Evans is my new favorite blogger. She is brilliant, truly. My favorite recent posts on her blog are 25 Things That Should Scare Christians and Are You in the "Real" Christian Camp?
* A few years ago I wrote a post called The Fourth of July in Church. I am so happy that this picture no longer shows up at our church on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans' Day.

Yes, it even showed up after Barack Obama became president. Tacky. Anyway, I was happy to see two excellent articles in The Christian Standard, the flagstaff magazine of the Independent Christian Churches,this week: "And God Bless America" by Doug Priest and "God Bless America" by editor Mark Taylor.

Eats
* Frozen Lemon Dessert. Seriously yum.
* Pesto and Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches with Fresh Mozzerella. Haven't tried this one yet, but it is absolutely mandatory that I do.
* Red Velvet Trifle. My little girl made up one for the Fourth of July that was so festive: red velvet cake, cool whip, blueberries, and strawberries. Turns out (not surprisingly) that her creation is already on The Food Network. Everyone loved it.

Miscellaneous
* New place to play: Pinterest. Check it out. It seems frivolous at first glance, but I have actually used this quite a bit already to track books to read and recipes to try.
* More organizational attempts: Evernote. I've barely tapped into this resource, but I'm exploring its potential. Anyone have ways they use this I need to know about?
* Looking forward to: Caleb's Crossing, the newest by Geraldine Brooks.

Caught-My-Eye Posts

Grammar and Writing

• 10 Good Grammar Resources
• Hyperbole and a Half: Alot Is Better Than You at Everything. I love this post so much. It makes me laugh in a ridiculous way every time I read it!
• Ideas for Getting Over Writer's Block. Some great stuff here! I edited this down to 19 kid-applicable ideas and forwarded it to my creative writing class.
• Diamante poem on Making Books Blog. We're definitely trying this during the last week of National Poetry Month!
• Poets House: I soooo need to go here.

Issues

• Admittedly I'm moderate about modesty (I have no problem with spaghetti straps and even *gasp* bikinis), but I absolutely love this article: Parents' Don't dress Your girls Like Tramps. Reminded me of snippets in Celia Rivenbark's Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank.
• Sweden Bans Homeschooling: What Would Pippi Longstocking Say? Blogger Pat Farenga writes, "A modern-day Pippi would have to flee to a country with more educational and personal freedom than Sweden in order to have her adventures now."

Good Homeschooling Stuff

• Carnival of Homeschooling at Corn and Oil
• World History Resources at Homeschool Mo: Fantastic list with lots of kid-friendly links.