Favorite Birds

I took this pic on the inland waterway

at Daytona Beach this past October.

Leslie's daughter is graphing birds over at their family blog Hilaritas. She needs more data for a good graph so go vote for one of her options.

It captured my whim, so while you're at it, tell me your favorite bird(s). At home I love to watch for bluebirds and hummingbirds. But I love water birds, especially egrets. And watching pelicans dive, sandpipers run along the shore, and feading seagulls are some of my favorite beach activities.

Silly informal survey

Can you roll your tongue?

Rosie has joined the ranks of the able. (But she doesn't know what I want her to do, if I ask her to do it on cue. She just sticks her tongue out.) That leaves me to be the odd one out, everyone else in my family can do this.

So do tell.

Homeschooling Meme

Thanks to Leslie for tagging me - whoever knew it was this much fun to be "it"?!

1) One homeschooling book you have enjoyed. The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling by Debra Bell (who just happens to have been my evaluator when I was homeschooled!)
2) One resource you wouldn't be without. The library! Homeschooling could end up being downright expensive! Right now, all I have to pay for are my fines - I call them my membership dues. :^)
3) One resource you wish you had never bought. Bob Jones K5 readers. They're perfectly fine readers, but they were very expensive, and introduced things in a different order than we'd been learning them. As a result they haven't been used much (why didn't I just get A BEKA?!).
4) One resource you enjoyed last year (and this year). Your Big Backyard magazine. My kids love it. And Rosie's favorite books right now are our old copies of its sister boardbook magazine Animal Baby (gotta renew that for her!). Both are published by the National Wildlife Federation, which also publishes Ranger Rick.
5) One resource you will be using next year. Plants Grown Up. We haven't used it as much as I'd planned this year, but next year he'll have reading down and we'll be diving in to this great handbook.
6) One resource you would like to buy. An extra room added on to my house to be the library. Our beloved books are completely taking over our living space!
7) One resource you wish existed. A Dora the Explorer or Go! Diego Go! Spanish course on DVD.
8) One homeschooling catalog you enjoy reading. Sonlight - I love their booklists!
9) One homeschooling website you use regularly. Just one?! Most of my favorites aren't exactly homeschool sites. I think I'll go with crayola.com, especially their coloring pages.
10) Tag other homeschoolers.
I tag Kim and Lindsey.

What's the best mattress?

I need some help here. Brian, with his fibromyalgia, has had lots of back pain the past few years, but I haven't had any since elementary school (except for when I'm pregnant, of course). The past few weeks, though I have had a lower backache that has gotten progressively worse. Long story short, I think we're overdue for a new mattress. I've researched them a little, but I just get more and more confused. It seems that every store has a different name for the same mattress, making it virtually impossible to comparison shop. I'd be willing to spend substantial amount for a good mattress, but don't want to find out later that the $300 one at the liquidation sale was the same thing (or just as good) as the $1000 one I just bought. That would kill me - I'm an extreme tightwad about stuff like this. So help me out. Did you get a great mattress at Sam's or Big Lots? Did you have a lot of back pain that was relieved by a particular mattress? Please tell me!!!

And now, on to a prayer request. I'm coordinating a funeral dinner for 120 people tomorrow. Please pray for the Greene family. The grandfather went to be with the Lord and joined his 5 year old granddaughter who passed away suddenly in November. This family needs lifted up. And I humbly request your prayers for me as well. A nerve is trying to get pinched in my back and when it does, I can't stand up straight or lift things. It's been fleeting in that effect so far, but getting worse overall. So pray that it doesn't do anything weird tomorrow at least. Thanks, friends!