The bad news?  I need them by the end of this week.

The good news? They’re on Amazon Prime so they can be at my house by Friday no problem if you act today.

If you feel led to help out, please contact me, and I will send you my shipping address.  Then you can click on the widget below to buy the watch and have it sent to me via Amazon’s two day shipping (which if free if you have Prime).  The project only uses this particular watch to make it easier to train patients so please do not send anything else.

Thanks in advance for indulging me!

While on the blogkeeping subject, I’ve been wanting to re-tag and categorize my posts.  When I started blogging, I was pretty naive to the difference between categories and tags. I have a better handle on things now and am really annoyed at how everything’s organized.  In order to make it more user-friendly to new visitors, I’m gonna attempt to organize past posts a little better.  I don’t think this will really affect you at all except if you are reading via RSS.

Anyway, thanks a ton for your patience and enjoy the great weather (if you live anywhere near us).

1. Have a group of friends who are mostly unattached.*
   *Without kids
2. Train your kids to go to bed around 7:30 on book club nights so book club can start at 8PM.
3. Become reserved to the fact that it will be a late night.  It’s totally worth it.  Take a nap if necessary to prepare. 
4. Always drink a bottle of wine but hold to a flexible reading schedule.
5. Consider it a success if you get through the “assigned” book within 6 months of the projected end date.
6. Use any excuse to gather at Sabor or any other restaurant that has Smoked Mozerlla Saffron Risotto Balls, BYOB, a truffle oil fries.
7. Pair it with a gourmet club for those who aren’t into your book.

Since the heart of classical education is developing children who love and know how to learn, we love that teachers use lots of ways to reinforce the information being taught.  This week, we had the privilege of seeing PJ’s class perform 2 plays that reflected what they had learned in their ocean life science unit.  The kids memorized lines, painted sets, and created costumes.  We celebrated the performance with an ocean-themed party.

The first play chronicled the journey of a misplaced jellyfish and effectively told about the 5 ocean habitats.

The second play followed a hermit crab through the year and introduced various kinds of ocean life.

Here are some still pictures for you enjoyment

Clearly he’s not biologically related to us. He’s the only one in our family with any upper body strength.

Click to enlarge.

…for my friends (you know who you are).

…for adoption (of me into my family, of Ty into our family, of us into God’s family).

…for online shopping.

I know that last one seems shallow but if you have 3 small children, it’s HUGE.  Besides grocery shopping, I pretty much always shop online.  You might remember my love affair with Amazon.com that I wrote about here.  I’ve even been known spend enough online just to qualify for free shipping, get to try on things in the comfort of my own home (intead of a dressing room), and then return what I don’t want or what doesn’t fit to the store.

I figured the day before the infamous Black Friday would be as good a time as any to let you in on some of my recent online shopping deals and tips. 

Take the phenomenon of group buying power.  Sites like Eversave, Groupon, and Living Social allow groups of people to create a deal by purchasing in large quantities.  Today, Groupon (Baltimore) offered $10 off of $20 at KodakGallery.com.  Combine that with Kodak Gallery’s notable Black Friday sale and you’ve got quite the deal.

BzzAgent allows me to spread bzz about new products or services like CheapToday.com.  I’m excited about CheapToday.com because other power shoppers are doing the work for me

I also love to take advantage of programs like Kidvantage at Sears and Land’s End’s unconditional guarantee to help my money stretch the farthest.  These are great things if you have multiple kids and you hand down clothes.  Don’t forget to check out Land’s End Overstocks for rock bottom prices on high quality clothing.

Where will you find your best deals this holiday season?

*In our house, this means veggies and cooked stuff wrapped in rice and seaweed.

Nana:  Does anyone want sushi?

PJ and Mia: What’s that orange stuff?

Nana: Err…umm…sprinkles.  Orange sprinkles.

Mia: Halloween sushi!  Mom, this sushi is ready for Halloween, too!

BACK UP YOUR DATA!

I know this.  I knew this.  Somehow in the excitement of being finished, or multi-tasking, or feeling invincible, I forgot this.  I wish it was as easy as hitting CTRL+S.

In an instant our virtual server crashed and took no less than 8 websites and hundreds of hours of work with it.

Yup, that was stupid and careless of us.  Yes, we should have known better.

I still love technology. 

I’m super thankful this blog wasn’t on that server. (Although it’s probably the most recoverable of any of them).

Thanks, Murphy.

Off to cry, back up this server, and put away laundry.

By the way,

BACK UP YOUR DATA!