How to Cope with Hot Texas Summers

There is a film at Lowe’s that you can use to cover the high windows. It helps with the sun and so your 2-story next door neighbor doesn’t look down into your window.

MANY people install Sun Screens (DIY at Lowe’s or Home Depot or have it installed by a contractor) on the south and west (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

 

On AC, my BIL is an AC contractor/owner and he recommends cooling the house a little colder than desired in the early AM. Like at 4AM have the thermostat programmed for 73 degrees. Then at 9AM have it programmed for 75 to 78 (however hot you can stand it). DO NOT change it up and down through the day and do not raise it to “save money” when you leave the house. He says, “BTUs are BTUs and it costs MORE to MOVE the BTUs when it’s hot outside. If you just leave the thermostat where you want it, you will be cool and the BTUs will be moved out of the house.”  The furniture stores a lot of heat so do not let the open blinds shine on your furniture or you’ll have a hard time cooling it back down in the afternoon hours.

 

Do your outdoor activities in the early morning between 6 and 11AM. The hottest part of the day is from 5 to 8pm. You do need DAILY sunscreen, even inside. Don’t forget your son’s ears! My dad has had parts of his nose and ears removed for skin cancer. Wear a white or straw hat if you (or children) have thin hair. Put sunscreen on your arms and face faithfully everyday and TRY to train the children to do the same. I am amazed at the sun damage on my fore-arms from incidental exposure with only 14 years in TX.

 

Plan to watch movies, visit AC places like the mall, or drop everything and read through the preschool naptime hours (noon to 3pm).
Do everything you want to do that is an outside activity in May and June, by August it is even too hot to SWIM!

It is still hot in September but the 100 degree heat breaks and you can go outside again.

Many homeschoolers do school all year, or take their summer break in May and June and start back after July 4.

We do lots of VBS and Choir Camps at several churches to avoid the summer sun and summer boredom.

Increase your Bookings using the Dice Game!

YOU NEED—

• 1 pair of dice
• 11 cards (be sure they cannot read the card through the envelope)
• 11 envelopes (Number them “2” to “12”)
• Goodie bag(s) with inexpensive items in them
• 1 Grand Prize

 

Goodie bag prizes should be under a dollar. You can use candy bars, inexpensive samples from the company or little gifts you pick up at the dollar store. Have one “Grand Prize.” This could be a discounted product or something you can get at a bargain. It should have a $20 to $30 perceived value.

 

SET UP—

·        “Grand prize” card is in the envelope marked #2 (The odds of rolling a 2 is the lowest of all the numbers we’re going to use.)

·        “Win a Prize” cards are in envelopes #3, 4, 5, & 12

·        “Book A Show” cards are in envelopes #6, 7, 8, 9, 10, & 11

 

EXPLAIN the “Dice Game” at your shows:
(Dice Game should follow the pretend hostess game or showing the hostess benefits)

“Ok, everyone, it’s time for us to have some fun! My customers always love this game! Denise, will you hold these dice for me?” We’re going to play a really fun game! It’s a game of chance!   (This is important! Putting the dice in their hand makes them more likely to play, and once someone starts, almost everybody plays! Choose someone who is enthusiastic so far in the show.)

 

“This is how it works:

I have 11 envelopes in my hand. Inside each envelope is a card. Some of the cards say, “win a prize,” some say, “book a show,” and one says, “Grand prize!” Tonight the grand prize is … (describe whatever you’ve chosen as a GRAND prize then repeat the sentence above.)

 

If you choose to play, you’ll roll the dice and whatever number you roll, I’ll give you the corresponding envelope!

 

Don’t open it until the end! At the end you’ll open your envelopes together and see what you’ve won, and you’ll all be winners. You’ll either win a prize, or an opportunity to book a show and get everything Kathy, our pretend hostess, had in her arms, or the “grand prize.” Now here’s the rules! If you “win a prize”… you have take the prize. If you win the “grand prize”…you have to take the grand prize.” If you win “book a show”…you have to book a show! So Denise will you start us off?”

 

(You don’t want to say “who wants to play?” You need to say, “So, Denise, will you start us off?” Then after Denise plays, you go to the next person and say, “Stacy, do you want to play,” then after she plays or doesn’t, you ask the next person. Ask every person in the room!

Then after everyone has played, (this is optional), you say, “Don’t open your envelopes yet. I have another chance for you! If you choose to book a show before you open your envelope, you win the grand prize for sure. I’ll bring it to your show. Plus you take home tonight whatever is in your envelope!” Then you go around the room and ask each individual again, “Would you like to pick a date and get the grand prize?”

 

Please POST COMMENTS below with questions or comments of how works with your gatherings!

 

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10 Famous Homeschoolers

1. Agatha Christie. Agatha was a painfully shy girl, so her mom homeschooled her even though her two older siblings attended private school.

2. Pearl S. Buck was born in West Virginia, but her family moved to China when she was just three months old. She was homeschooled by a Confucian scholar and learned English as a second language from her mom.

3. Alexander Graham Bell was homeschooled by his mother until he was about 10. It was at this point that she started to go deaf and didn’t feel she could properly educate him any more. Her deafness inspired Bell to study acoustics and sound later in life.

4. If Thomas Edison was around today, he would probably be diagnosed with ADD – he left public school after only three months because his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. His mom homeschooled him after that, and he credited her with the success of his education: “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”

5. Ansel Adams was homeschooled at the age of 12 after his “wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers” disrupted the classroom. His father took on his education from that point forward.

6. Robert Frost hated school so much he would get physically ill at the thought of going. He was homeschooled until his high school years.

7. Woodrow Wilson studied under his dad, one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). He didn’t learn to read until he was about 12. He took a few classes at a school in Augusta, Georgia, to supplement his father’s teachings, and ended up spending a year at Davidson College before transferring to Princeton.

8. Mozart was educated by his dad as the Mozart family toured Europe from 1763-1766.

9. Laura Ingalls Wilder was homeschooled until her parents finally settled in De Smet in what was then Dakota Territory. She started teaching school herself when she was only 15 years old.

10. Louisa May Alcott studied mostly with her dad, but had a few lessons from family friends Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Can you imagine?

 

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Meal Choices

This is also how I do meal planning. I shop for specials in bulk and I put meals in the freezer as “Meal Choices.” So one week I may put 12 chicken meals in the freezer. Another week I may put 3 roast meals and 4 pork loin meals in the freezer.

I use sales to buy the meat on sale and I buy as much as I can afford. I usually put more meat into the freezer than I use. But I stock up for when my husband, who is hourly, gets a small paycheck. Then we just eat out of the freezer for a month or several weeks.

What’s in your freezer?

See what’s in The Happy Housewife’s Freezer!

Find more Freezer ideas at Freezer Food Friday.

You Can Ask the Resource Queen

A few years after I started homeschooling, I had several friends start calling me the Resource Queen. After several months and many conversations, I came to discover that meant that “When they needed to know where to find the info or the real scoop, they would ask me a question.” If I didn’t know the answer I would tell them where they could find the answer. I’d often tell them where not to go also.

The bottom line is *I like to teach and share*!

Do you have a question on these topics? If so write me a comment to ask and I’ll give you all the info I have.

• meal planning
• freezer cooking
• homeschooling
• family life
• internet and blogging
• children’s books and reading
• favorite websites
• facebook
• Christian parenting
• submissive wife
• Christian wife of a non-christian husband
• coping as wife to a work-aholic
• recipes
• anything you want to see if I know
• and of course, Homemade Gourmet products

 

 

 

 

For more from Talk about Tuesday visit The Lazy Organizer.

FACEBOOK is fun!

We are having A LOT of fun on FACEBOOK!!
If you are computer literate, I can’t recommend facebook enough.

Here are a few reasons I love it and you will too. And NO I’m not getting paid for this endorsement. )

1. I set facebook as my homepage so that every time I open internet explorer it opens facebook.
2. In a few moments, I can get an update and see what my friends are doing. Though I have over 100 friends, all the friends don’t post updates every day. So it’s usually only 2-4 one sentence updates to read.
3. I feel so much more connected on facebook to people that I would NEVER normally have time to connect with via email or phone.
4. It helps me to not feel so isolated as a stay at home (homeschooling) mom.
5. I can write short updates to express my feelings or to celebrate what’s new in life.
6. I can write longer notes expressing an opinion or just sharing a cute video someone shared with me.
7. I can QUICKLY upload photos to share with friends and family nationwide.
8. And I can view photos of other people’s kids that I normally wouldn’t get a chance to see. Like Shelly Pope’s FANTASTIC Halloween Costumes of her family!!
9. You can also send private messages or public communication, to congratulate or commiserate or just share some kindness to a friend.
10. You can keep it as private or as public as you want .

 Log on to FACEBOOK.com to find out more and search for my name and your other friends. It is so fun!

At Your Service,

Jean Butts
The Resource Queen
Let me answer your questions on Freezer Meals, Meal Planning, Home Schooling, Educational Philosophy, Homemaking, or Christian Parenting

Growing your Homemade Gourmet Business

In many ways your business is like a GARDEN. You need to be doing something to grow your business! Just like a flower needs sunshine and water or it will die -  so also, your business won’t grow on its own. Your business needs sunshine and water from you!

 

If you don’t tend to your business every week, weeds of neglect will start to grow. On the contrary, if you tend to your business every day you will see your business grow to new heights! Give it plenty of sunshine – by staying connected and motivated - and start watering it - by talking to people. You can WATER your garden by making phone calls, booking gatherings, scheduling sponsoring appointments, and following up on old and new leads. You can give your garden SUNSHINE by listenting to training calls, attending team meetings, calling your sponsor or team leader, and nurturing your own positive attitude by reading books and listening to CDs to train yourself.

   

 

 

 

 

  Please let your upline leaders know when we can be of any service to you. You are in business for yourself but not by yourself!  I wish you all the best of sucess in 2009.

Need a “Fresh Start” with Homemade Gourmet?

Sometimes in your Homemade Gourmet business you need to create a “fresh start”! Maybe you were too busy when you first started buy now have more time and want to get your business going with a “fresh start”. Maybe you were ill or someone in your family needed extra care for a time period. For whatever reason you find yourself with NO BOOKINGS wondering how you will get going again.

To create a “fresh start” simply host a party yourself and follow the new consultant training on the HO website. Or, get a “fresh start” by calling leads and past hostesses to let them know about the new products and new incentives this month. KEEP CALLING UNTIL you get 6 gatherings booked!

Do you have your list of 100 people from when you started? Can you make any new additions including people you met in church, neighborhood, at school, at work, etc. Parent’s of your kid’s new activities, new school class, etc are a great source of new contacts. I’ve even been known to join a new group just to make some new contacts. I make new friends and make money at the same time. Isn’t that what this business is about, Making Friends, Making Memories, Making Money!

The key is you need to be doing something to grow your business!  If you don’t have bookings on your calendar you are essentially out of business. Remember 8 will make you great? We can ALL work to get 8 more, or 8 in a new category. For instance, I already have 8 preferred customers, and 8 consultants, so now I need to be sure I have 8 bookings on the calendar and 8 active consultants on my team. What do you need to find 8 of?

Healthy Meal Choices Preview

I want to start a series here to talk about and offer Healthy Meal Choices. I want to offer you a chance to come to my home to assemble healthy meals for your family or to use me as a resource to make healthy meals in your home. Here’s how it works…

I will use the Key to the Kitchen to make meal plans and post them here.  There are THREE WAYS you can use these or make your own choices.

1. If you live near me, you can come to my house and assemble your meals to take home ready to just add the meat.
2. You could choose to make the meals at home by purchasing the Homemade Gourmet ingredients from my home or from my website. (Remember you get a 20% discount on all orders as a Homemade Gourmet Preferred Customer!) 
3. Or you can use the Key to the Kitchen to make your own Healthy Meal Choices.

But before I start, I want to hear from you! Leave a comment and let me know, for your family…

What makes a meal a healthy meal choice?