My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

This past Friday, I went in to have my nails taken care of. I have acrylics because my nails never came back properly after a number of surgeries (beginning with Thyroid), and if I go without them, my nails literally split from bottom to top, causing an enormous amount of pain. This is what I chose:

Aren’t they cool?

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

My best friend, knowing that we BOTH needed to get away, and really needed to see each other, invited me as her guest to meet in the middle between our homes for an overnight at the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ. This motel is the inspiration for the Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs, of the Cars movie which was released June 9, 2006.

Here we are, in front of our Wigwam!

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Our room:

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All of the Wigwams had old vehicles in front of them, so we went around and got pictures of some of them:

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Here’s Doc Hudson from the movie:

And Tow Mater’s Grandpappy!

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We had such a great time, jus hanging out, talking, and eating good food, like dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

(Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.)

If you are looking for a writing reference tool for your high school student, check out Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers from Everyday Education. The Homeschool Review Crew has been using the PDF version of the book for about six weeks, in order to give you a fair and honest review.

While this is a go at your own pace kind of book, as opposed to a book with lesson plans and a schedule, you will find that questions and assignments are given to help the student work through what they are reading about.

The 420 page Excellence in Literature Handbook For Writers, designed to be used from middle and high school into college and beyond is effectively two books in one, with the first half giving detailed instructions and models (samples) for constructing arguments and writing essays. Learning to write pursuasively, whether for writing an essay or for debate is an important skill, And I think every writer would benefit from using it.

The first half of this book covers such things as:

Part 1: Introduction to Essays and Arguments

Initial Comments
Trivial Arguments over Matters of Established Fact
More Complex and Interesting Arguments
The Importance of Reason
An Overview of The Major Tools
Exercise 1: Recognizing the Form of Simple Arguments
Some Brain Teasers

Setting Up The Argument: Definition (1)

Defining the Argument: Some General Points
Two Simple Examples
ome Sample Openings
he Importance of Defining a Focus
he Importance of Defining a Thesis
xercises in Recognizing Potentially Useful Thesis Statements
Some Hints on Forming Good Thesis Statements
The Start of an Outline for the Argument
Some Problems with Introductory Paragraphs
Exercise With Sample Opening Paragraphs

And there are many, many other things to learn from in section 1!

My son “The Artist” loves to write Fan Fiction as well as just stories straight from his imagination, so this section was a very good reference book for him to learn about how to properly use things such as transition words within a paragraph, for example. He can identify areas where he struggles, and go straight to the section which covers the issue by himself, thus taking ownership of his education in writing.

Section two is all about usage and style, with sections covering things such as:

The Clause
Sentence Fragments
Dependent Clauses
Which, Who, Whose
Present Participles
Citing Examples
Use of Bulleted Lists
In Regard /In Response
Quotations
Sentences are either Statements, Questions, Commands, or Exclamations
Direct Questions

Question Marks in a Quotation
Exclamation Points
Subject/Verb Agreement
Compound Subject
Compound Subject as a Single Unit
Plural Forms that take Singular Subjects
Group Nouns
Consistency
There Is / There Was
Indefinite Prononouns
Number
Compound Subjects
Alternate Subjects
Passive Verbs
Verb Consistency
Use of Passive Expression

The above is just a brief sampling of things covered in section 2!

This section was, and will continue to be a very good reference book for him to double check and see if his writing used accurate grammer, punctuation, and style.

The Excellence in Literature Handbook For Writers from Everyday Education Is a worthwhile purchase for every writer from middle school up through adult. In fact, I was a Journalism major when I went to college and personally, I find this to be a bit more useful than the style book we were assigned back then. I like the exercises given in the book to help one learn to improve his/her writing. and to check him/herself on gramjmer and punctuation.

Please don’t just take my word for it though. To check out what all 28 review families think of this book, please go here!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

This is what we made for March . . .

Because we had Apple Butter Glazed Chicken on the list, we began with making our own Apple Butter in the Instant Pot.

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This is the meal that called for Apple Butter , , ,

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Here is the end result of our hard work, 5 hours later . . .

We ended up with the meals on the list, plus an extra Apricot Meatball meal, 2 extra Teryaki Salmon, 2 packs of pork chops with Vidalia Onion marinade, 2 with French dressing marinade, 1 pack of chicken with Vidalia onion marinade, and one with French dressing, for a total of 29 meals all together in the freezer. I’d say that’s a good day’s work, wouldn’t you?

I created my menu using My Free Easy. Go here using my affiliate link, and you can actually try a menu for free! if you like it, then please go back to the same link to join.

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

And, five minute timer start:

Enable can be good, or it can be bad. I can do my best to enable my kids to learn, to live a life within God’s will, or I can enable them by bailing them out everytime they break God’s (and man’s) law. I’ve thus far managed to help 2 of them stay on the straight and narrow, but sadly. two others have chosen to live outside of both God’s and man’s law no matter how hard we tried, and we can no longer do anything but pray, which we do every single day. It’s hard, to feel that you’ve lost two children and are having to grieve them while they are still alive. It puts a hole in my heart for each of them. I long for them to turn to God, to repent, to totally give themselves to Him.

And, stop timer.

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

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Begin five minute timer.

I’ve been trying very hard to be more observant of God’s blessings during this time of testing our world is going through, because I’m trying to lower my worry/anxiety level. As I think about it, I observe that my family has food, clothing and shelter. If all The Lord had ever done was to extend salvation for me to accept, that should be enough, but he also promised the things I mentioned above. He has made so many promises, and as far as I know, has never broken even one. I worry a lot about what will happen to us, will we have a less expensive house to rent when our lease comes up for renewal, will my husband’s health improve? Or get worse? Will my country fracture even more than it already has? We’ll see. What I am trying to be observant of is that it’s all in His hands.

End timer.

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

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Starting timer now . . .

Once I lived in a country where I was free to worship according to my beliefs, in person with my church family. Now, the government tells me that if our church family is above a certain number, we can’t gather together. Once, I lived in a country where we could gather together to mourn our loved ones who have passed on, but now the government can restrict us from going over a certain number ( 10) of mourners. Once I lived in a country where we could celebrate a wedding with loved ones, but now we are not allowed “large” gatherings (over 10 people). Once, I lived in a country where we could make our own choices of what risk level we felt comfortable with, but now we are denigrated if we don’t wear a mask even when we are alone, taking a walk outside. Once, we had freedom of speech, but now freedom of speech is restricted only to those whose speech is politically correct. My country used to be the last stand for freedom, but no more. God bless America.

Timer ends now.

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

The last book we studied in our Ladies Bible Study group was God’s Portrait of a Beautiful Woman (pre-Covid). We really enjoyed it, and decided to have a painting class afterwards. The owner/instructor (Terry DeWitt) came to our church to do the class for us!

This is the painting we did.

And here we all are with our finished pieces!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

Cold hands . . .

Warm hands!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)