Homeschool His Way Book Reviews

Homeschool His Way Book Reviews

Good Morning Girls and Proverbs 31

Last week I started my first online Bible study.  I had found a website called Women Living Well and noticed they were about to begin a study of Proverbs 31 on their sister site Good Morning Girls.  I decided to join the study and am finally figuring out how it works.  You can either do this study on your own, with a physical group of ladies, or with a group of ladies online through e-mail, Facebook, or another social site.   Group Bible study is purposeful because we need fellowship and accountability as well as encouragement from other ladies who are walking this road too.  Because most of my friends, who also happen to be homeschoolers, are a half hour to an hours drive from me I knew that the logistics of doing this study with them would be difficult right now.  So, I am part of a group of other homeschool moms on the internet and our format for communicating is e-mail.   Since I didn’t have a physical group with which to meet I went to the message board on the GMG website and quickly found a group that I could join.   We are currently on week 2 of the study, so if you are interested it isn’t too late to join.  If you are interested you can go to Good Morning Girls to learn more about getting started.  You can also watch this video about the study The Proverbs 31 Woman.

Week one was spent reading through the first nine verses of Proverbs 31.  For some reason when I’ve read this passage before my mind seems to skip over most of the meaning of these verses and it goes straight to all of those traits of a woman that most of us feel we will never measure up to.  This past week though, as I have followed the SOAP method as taught in the Proverbs 31 Study Guide, I have looked a little more closely at this portion of Proverbs 31.  What I believe that God showed me is that King Lemuel’s mother was intentional in teaching her son what his character should be before she focused on the kind of wife he should be looking for.  She taught him to have self control, to not be distracted by the world or its ways, and to have the character and integrity of a just ruler in dealing with the people of his kingdom.  Isn’t it just as important for a man to be a man of character, integrity, and virtue as it is for his wife to be all of those things?  If he is this kind of man he will greatly appreciate a wife of noble character, who works with diligent hands, rewards him with good, works hard to care for home and family, and encourages and builds up her husband.

I am also feeling challenged to be intentional when teaching my own son to have character, integrity and virtue.  He will someday be a man looking for a wife and I want him to be a man who will want to find a Proverbs 31 woman for his help meet.  I haven’t put as much emphasis on teaching my son about the Proverbs 31 woman as I have my daughters.  I don’t know why I didn’t think about the importance of intentionally teaching this to my son.  I am also challenged to set a better example for my children, and to focus a little more on teaching my daughters what each of the qualities of the Proverbs 31 woman look like in real life and encouraging them to walk in them.

I hope that you will consider joining the many women who are taking part in this study over the summer.  I believe you will be challenged, encouraged, and blessed.  Until next time…

Blessings,

The Trouble with Pinterest?

I read this article on Living Locurto and all of the comments with interest (I even pinned the graphic that links directly to the article so others could read it).  I haven’t really heard about this issue before so it was interesting to learn about it from the perspective of someone who blogs for monetary gain.  I have a few blogs that I maintain, mainly just for fun and the learning experience, though I do have some affiliate graphics that earn me a few pennies now and again.  The content that I post on my blogs is not usually something I would be worried about someone else taking.  I do prefer that people don’t take my content without my permission and crediting the source, but I realize that people will do this no matter what precautions I take to try to stop it.  If I wasn’t willing to take that risk I wouldn’t be maintaining blogs on the internet.

I offer things for free to my readers with the hopes of helping them or being an encouragement to them, not for profit.  I don’t post images of myself or my family for the very reason that I don’t want someone taking those images and using them for something that I would deem inappropriate.  Understanding the nature of man, I knew from the beginning that anything I posted to my blog could be used in a way that I would not approve, so I safeguarded my family by not posting images of them on the internet.  I have posted photos that I have taken and placed my web address (copyright 2007 http://www…..) on the images, but if someone is serious about using that image for themselves they can easily remove the copyright information from that photo.  Some things I’ve posted without that information because I either didn’t think to do it or was just in a hurry to get the post published and didn’t take the time to do it.  I don’t know for certain but there may even be ways to remove watermarks from photos; if not someone is probably already working on a way to do that.  I agree that placing photo terms under a picture will educate those readers who are not intent on “stealing” your photo, but that is not going to stop someone who is intent on doing it.

As for my Pinterest boards I try to not pin things that link to Google images only, but since I am a flawed human being I probably have (not knowing I was doing something wrong).  I plan to go through my boards and try to rectify these issues by making sure that anything I’ve pinned or repinned gives credit to the proper source.

I suppose that my point of view on all of this is:  Stealing is wrong, no matter what form it takes – intellectual property rights or stealing someone’s car.  People should be educated about how to use sites like Pinterest properly, giving credit where credit is due; but bloggers also should realize that regardless of all of the safeguards they put in place to try to protect their content people will steal it.  I don’t believe the vast majority of the people who use the internet are thieves, but thieves are out there.  There isn’t much we can do about it, so perhaps we should all rethink the way we use the internet -

1. What are we willing to post to our blogs knowing it will be used without proper permissions by someone at sometime.

2. How much exposure of ourselves and our families are we willing to risk?

3.  Are we willing to risk the censoring of the internet, infringing on our freedom of speech, in order to try to stop the thieves that are using content without permission?

Every blogger has to decide for themselves the level of risk they are willing to take in using the internet. I am not opposed to safeguarding our information, and if I blogged for monetary gain and someone stole my product I would probably want to have some recourse for getting justice. I suppose since my level of blog traffic does not affect my income and ability to provide for my family, as may be the case for some bloggers, the amount of traffic that comes to my blog is not as big an issue as it is for others (though I still don’t want someone to steal from my site). What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know what your view is of this issue.

Blessings,

Trouble with Percents?

Around here we have had a little trouble lately remembering how to calculate percents.  I decided to compile all of the information into one place to make it a little easier to see the different ways that different problems would be worked.  If you find the information helpful feel free to download a copy for yourself.

Blessings,

Missy

Walk how?

Sometimes we need to be reminded how to walk.

Blessings,

Are you ready to vote?

Many states will be voting in the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries on March 6, 2012.  If you haven’t taken the time to look at the qualifications of the candidates now is the time to do so.  Below you will find links to the Republican Presidential contenders (listed alphabetically):

Newt Gingrich

Ron Paul

Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum

When you go to vote please think about a neighbor or elderly person you may know who may need some assistance getting to the polls and give them a hand if you can.  Taking the kids along and letting them see one very important aspect of citizenship in action set a great example for them to follow when they are older.

Blessings,