Guardian Angel Publishing

Ever wonder about the quality of usefulness of e-books? Well, I have. Will I use them, will they be relevant in my child's schoolwork, will I even remember to use them, much less do they contain any educational value?? Well, the books that this publisher sent me answered the questions I had about this particular type of book.

As a confession, they did sit on my desktop for sometime but after a couple of weeks, I asked my kids one by one to look at them and tell me what they thought. The littlest nuts responded, "Good." Well, in their little world that means two thumbs up. I enjoyed the short stories and one book even had a good language lesson at the end, complete with identifying nouns and verbs. It also had some little games to help them with comprehension.

These are a great idea for a family who's bookcase just simply is too small to take on more materials or for a short term need. One of the downloads I checked was only $5.00, of course there are other ways to get including CD, print and even a DVD book video (how cool is that??). Take a look at Guardian Angel Publishing!

Blessings,
DebG, Head Nut

Highly Recommended Resolution

I am so in love with Virginia Soaps & Scents. The more I find out about it, the more I love it. My husband will soon go broke!

Seriously though, I received a package of soaps to try in the mail from the company some time back. It contained some regular body soaps, a shampoo bar (never heard of such a thing) and laundry soap kit. I gave the strawberry scented bar to my daughters and I used the oatmeal and honey bar. I absolutely loved the oatmeal and honey bar, although if I took my shower in the morning, it made me awfully hungry for breakfast. (smile) I told my husband about the other bar, but unfortunately, he wasn't as ready to try something new as I was. Guess I should have hidden the regular soap!

This company started out as a homeschooling family doing a project and from there it just took off. They seem to be doing something they really love as a family. The recipes they use go back to the days when real soap was used for soap and not detergent. It makes you feel so much better getting out of the shower or at least, it did me. I was the only one who tried the shampoo bar. I guess everyone else forgot it was there. Oh well, more for me! I was so sad to see the last bits go. I have such thick coarse hair and after a shampoo, rinse and repeat, it was as clean as any bottle shampoo without the residue I usually feel. Plus, as an added bonus, I normally have an itchy scalp year round due to the detergents in shampoos. I didn't experience that with the shampoo bar. Now, I'm not saying that this will cure skin irritations, but I am saying, for me, it certainly was a relief.

Now, as adventurous as I was with the soaps, I haven't been able to bring myself to put away my laundry detergent long enough to try the laundry soap kit. Although, the more I look into homemade laundry soap, the more convinced I am to try it. So, this is my one resolution I am willing to make - I will try this soap as soon as I return from visiting relatives. I am convinced that I will also love this just as much.

Everything seems to be so reasonably priced with soaps starting at around 3.95-4.50 a bar and there are deals if you buy more than one at a time on everything. With quality ingredients and being made by hand, I believe this is a high quality product within reach of the average consumer.

While researching other products this company had, I came across so many things I'd like to try. The number one product that I came across is Pet Poo. It's a shampoo bar for pets. As I was reading some of the testimonials, one of them really caught my eye. An owner was talking about their itchy beagles. I thought it was just a weird thing with my beagle, but if this helped that owner's beagle, I'm there! I have tried everything else that I've been told about and nothing has helped the poor thing. The vet even gave him a shot for itching. Well, that lasted about a day. I'm looking forward to placing my first order and getting the actual size bars instead of the spa size I got. They should last a good looooonnnnggg time.

Blessings to all and Happy New Year,
DebG, HeadNut

Time for a Resolution?

It's a happy New Year here in very cold Arkansas. Well, actually, I'm visiting family in Mississippi, but I know the temps in Arkansas are cold! I hope we're going to have a successful new year and productive one in homeschooling.

Today, I was inspired to write this particular entry because of the subject matter. Exploramania sent me a DVD to review called Gymathtics. It is definitely a unique program in that it combines exercise and math drills. If you're looking for a way to get your little couch potato up and moving AND trying to make it fun for them, then something like this would be ideal. It's definitely done with kids in mind. No hard to follow exercises, no hard to do exercises, just simple fun with a good rhythm and the bonus of being able to reinforce math concepts at the same time. At $24.95 for this particular video, it's not a bad deal, plus they have other products for hands-on learning reinforcement.

Now, in all honesty, my kids didn't particularly care for this. I was genuinely hoping they would get into it, especially my youngest who is 8. He is my math-challenged child and he never can be still. Even he wouldn't give it a chance and I'm not sure why. It seems to be completely geared toward children about 7-10. I have popped it in a couple of more times just to be sure, but to no avail. I'm positive they are just not interested, but I can't tell if it's because it's an exercise video or what. They don't seem to mind other educational games and activities.

Oh well, not everyone can like everything that comes their way. I'm hoping someone out there would like to try it for themselves and their children. If anyone would be interested, drop me a line and I may have a drawing for it. I just know someone out there would love this!

Blessings,
DebG, HeadNut