2.22.2011

Wordless Wednesday - Oregano

oregano

For more wordlessness, check out the Wordless Wednesday hub and Live From Waterloo.

2.17.2011

Full Moon

This marks the second time I've been able to get a decent capture of the moon. The other time was during the lunar eclipse in December.

full moon

600mm effective focal length (300mm w/2x teleconverter)
f/5.6
400 ISO
1/80 sec

Many thanks to my sister who texted me to let me know how awesome the moon looked, otherwise, I'd have entirely missed this opportunity.

2.16.2011

Wordless Wednesday - Not Coffee

breakfast beverage

For more wordlessness, check out Live From Waterloo and the Wordless Wednesday hub.

2.14.2011

My Valentines

When our boys were little, I used to make a fun Valentine's dinner for everyone with heart-shaped pizza, red cream soda, and conversation hearts for dessert. We'd eat by candlelight and have red plates and napkins. One year, I actually cut the pepperonis into heart shapes. Tee hee.

A number of years ago, I worked part-time for a friend who owned a floral shop so Valentine's Day and Mother's Day became very, very busy for me. I both coordinated and made deliveries. In fact, we had dinner for one of those occasions around 9:00 p.m. at Taco Bell. I was so tired, it didn't really matter. I just wanted some food. Obviously, I no longer made a fun, red dinner.

While I haven't worked for my friend in a number of years, I kind of stopped doing anything special for Valentine's dinner. The Comedian has a serious dislike for the holiday, so he certainly didn't mind. But ClayGuy really likes traditions, so I suspect he may have missed this.

So this year, I decided it was time to do something special again.

Slightly wobbly heart-shaped pizza (one of them):

v - pizza

Baking shortbread:

v - cookie cutters

v - cutout cookies

v-cookies

The loves of my life by candlelight:

Hubby
v - john candlelight

ClayGuy
v - c candlelight

The Comedian
v - z candlelight

The highlight of the evening was when it was time to blow out the candles. Of course, all three guys had to play with the flames for awhile first. They had so much fun coming up with ways to put out the flames and then relight them...over and over again.

2.10.2011

Curly Hair - Day 8

So far, so good. I feel like I'm getting better curls and they're lasting longer. Here's a picture on Day 8.

day 8 pic

To compare, here's the other shot from the day before I started this experiment.

before hair

It's not terrible, but the curls are much less defined and a little frizzier than I like. Near my neck, the hair underneath has some amazing curls. I'm hoping that by not messing with the outer layers they'll follow suit. That is the ultimate goal.

2.09.2011

Wordless Wednesday - Sweet

37 - sweet by bunnytrails, on Pix-O-Sphere

Check out the Wordless Wednesday hub for more pictures.

I know I usually send you over to my friend Gabriel's blog, Live From Waterloo, however he was hacked last week and his blog all but disappeared. He's in the process of putting it back together, so he should be back on board soon. In the meantime, head over and say "hi" and offer some encouragement. It's been a rough road for him on this. Thanks!

2.07.2011

VocabAhead SAT Vocabulary - a Review

VocabAhead SAT Vocabulary: Cartoons, Videos & MP3s covers the bases with various teaching methods. There are cartoons in the book for each of the 300 vocabulary words, as well as online video* and audio files you'll be able to access with a code from the book. Being able to teach to both auditory and visual learners is very helpful and so much more interesting for your student(s) than a dry workbook or flash cards.

Having MP3 audio files is a wonderful feature because you can listen in the car, upload to your iPod or other music player, providing another opportunity for review. It's also nice to have someone pronounce the words for those that you may not be familiar with.

From the website:

"VocabAhead, with the help of talented artists, high school teachers and professional narrators created this product so students involved in building strong vocabulary have best possible material. VocabAhead is dedicated to coming up with methods and techniques which would simplify the process of building a strong vocabulary. Strong vocabulary is not only essential in doing excellent in standardized Tests like SAT but also key to professional development and getting ahead in your career."

After every ten words, there's a review page. The first part of the review is a matching exercise and the second portion is fill-in-the-blank.

The products are available at Amazon. The book can be purchased by itself for $12.95 or you can buy the book with the DVD that contains the video* and audio files for $16.99.

There is also a book/DVD combo available that contains 1,000 SAT vocabulary words for $24.99.




* Personally, I wouldn't call them videos - they're the cartoons from the book with audio narration.

As always, go check out what other reviewers had to say about VocabAhead SAT Vocabulary at the TOS Crew Blog.

Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of VocabAhead SAT Vocabulary for my use and review. The opinions stated here are my own.

2.01.2011

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