Thirsty Thursday---Ebaying

Do you Ebay? This is my favorite way to buy and sell used curriculum.
I know there are many people who don't know how to sell on Ebay. Let me tell you....Super Easy!! And this is a GREAT time of year to try it out.

Let me give you some tips.

1. Take a good picture of the item you are selling. It only takes a few clicks to upload your picture. People like to actually see what they are buying. Ebay does have some pictures of books as stock photos. You can use them, but I know when I am buying I like to see the seller's actual item.

2. Know how much your curriculum sells for new. This doesn't take much work. I check CBD first. If they don't carry the item than I google the curriculum and go on their home page. I put in my description how much it sells for new. It gives people an idea of how much money they could save by buying your item.

3. Be HONEST about the condition of the item. It goes a long way. If there is writing--say so. If there is a torn page--tell them about it. As an example, I just sold a science book I used at co-op 2 years ago. It had underlining in it, highlighting and a few places I had notes in it I wrote in pen. Brand New on CBD the book, solution manual and companion CD retail for $73. I just sold it on Ebay for $51!!! I think that is a good return.

4. Think about the absolute minimum amount of money you are willing to accept for an item. I use this as my starting bid.

5. Check out Ebay, Amazon and HSLDA to see what your item is going for. This is important if you are going to use the "Buy It Now" option.

6. Set up a Paypal account and have it confirmed. Paypal is an account that allows money to be directly deposited into an account. Your email address is your user name. You can link a credit card, debit card and/or bank account to it. To confirm, Paypal deposits $1 into your bank account to "confirm" you. You can have the money deposited from your Paypal account to your bank account for free. It takes about a 3 day turn around for this.

7. Set up how long you will take to mail your items. Some people mail within 2 days of a cleared payment. I mail out on the Friday after I have a cleared payment.

8. It is usual for the seller to pay for shipping. You can also add a handling fee that the seller does NOT see. It is hidden in the shipping fee. I cover my packing cost, which is about $1 for a bubble envelope and $1.50 for a box. Talking about shipping, I put 3 options for shipping: Media mail, Priority Mail and UPS. 90% of the time I have people pick media mail. It takes about a week for delivery.

I hope this helps. If you have any specific questions about selling on Ebay feel free to ask.

Want some more homeschooling blog posts? Head on over to Five J's to quench your thirst.

10 Weeks and Counting!!!!

I got Nicholas' birth date in the mail today-----September 17th we will welcoming him into this world : )

I will be 38 weeks and 5 days......Exactly 10 weeks from today.
I will admit, getting the letter in the mail today made it VERY real and made me freak a little. I feel like there is so much to do and time is just flying by!!!!

Chris is great at bringing me back to reality. I know we will be fine. After all, we got ready for Emily is 5 days. For me the difference is I know I will NOT be up to doing much after he is born.....atleast not for a while.

I went to the doctor's on Monday. 28 weeks. Every is going great.
Wt---up 4 pounds. Total weight gain 16 pounds
BP---120/78
Measured on target.

I met the doctor who will be doing the c-section. Dry sense of humor, but he cracked a smile once in a while. He delivered my friend's son 10 years ago and he was great in a crisis (her son had open heart surgery at 2 days old). I know that is more important then him having a fantastic bedside manner----it just helps : )-

I go back on July 29th.

Works-for-Me-Wednesday

Emily is the 4th child I have potty-trained, first time being a girl. All 3 boys I waited until they were 3 years old. I heard girls are easier (Jessie was my easiest because she came potty trained : )

Way back in January/February I figured I would start the process with Emily (who had turned 2 in December). It was right around the time I found out I was pregnant. This time around, out of pure convenience on my part, I decided to try Pull-ups. You know what happened.....NOTHING! Emily had no desire to potty-train since she was dry feeling all the time.

That was until last week on Tuesday. She is now 2 1/2, baby Nicholas is coming in September and I can't STAND spending that much $$ on Pull-ups anymore. So I switched Emily over to training underwear (you know the kind, they are underwear but they have a thicker middle part). Guess what happened! Emily HATES being wet!!!!! Once she wet her pants once she realized it was a different ballgame. I now only use the Pull-ups for bedtime at night, but even then she has been waking up dry. I do put Emily on the potty every 1 to 1 1/2 hours. If I lose track of time she has had an accident (but that is why I have 8 pairs of underwear for her).

In full discloser, Emily still hasn't gotten the idea that twosies gets done in the potty. I am at a loss with that. All the boys, once they did that a couple of times in their pants hated it and started doing it in the potty.

Real underwear.....Works-for-Me when it comes to potty training!!!

Head on over to We Are THAT Family for more Works for Me Wednesday.

Itch to Pitch---Week 4

Aaahh....another week, another room clean. Boy that feels good : )

I got 2 out of 4 of my goals done. My bedroom is clean!!! Now I don't need to worry about Nicholas getting lost in there : )-

I got rid of one trash bag of papers/magazines and plan-old-junk! A small bag of clothes to goodwill and the kids stuff went to the kids rooms.

2 Hot spots in my room Before:

Night Stand

I had already started cleaning this off when I took the picture. It WAS much worse.

And the After:

WOW!!

The other thing I did accomplish was Ebaying. I listed and sold 5 homeschool curriculums (HUGE smile on my face from this). I still have more to sell and I need to get a move on. The money I make will be going towards new curriculum I need to buy. My original goal was to start the new school year on August 17th. I would like to have everything bought by the end of the month so I can have a full 2 weeks to set up.

As for the 2 goals I did not accomplish this week, I do have an excuse.
1. Bathroom closet. I went to go and do this yesterday but then soon realized that neither Chris nor CJ are home to take everything off the top shelf and return it there. Chris would FLIP if he found out I stood on a chair at 7 months pregnant to do it myself. He starts his day off this afternoon so it is high on my list to accomplish over his "weekend".

2. The hallway closet. My road block with this....no storage containers. I went out on Sunday night and bought 3 large storage bins and 2 smaller ones. I don't think I will need all this for the one closet but I am sure they will get used somewhere in the house. Yesterday was too busy a day to do it. I plan on getting to it today.

Goals for this upcoming week:
1. List 5-8 things on Ebay.
2. Hallway closet-----clean out and put containers that have been waiting for a home in there.
3. Bathroom Closet
4. Go through all the games in the house. Ditch the ones that have missing pieces.
5. Start on my bedroom closet----this will have to be done in stages over atleast 2 weeks. This weeks goal will be to go through the top shelf.

These are goals I am hoping to get done. I do get tired. I find that working for 40 minutes and then taking a 20 minute break works out well. Also....LOTS of water.

What about you? Have you joined in the de-cluttering, reorganizing and pitching what isn't needed?

Head on over to The Happy Housewife for more Itch to Pitch. Come on and join in!!!!

Menu Monday-----July 6th

Last week went pretty good with menu planning. Most days we stuck to atleast 2 out of 3 planned meals each day.

I will have to admit, having no sports last week was GREAT!!!! We are back to baseball this week. CJ is away so we only have games Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He will be back on Saturday and he and Zachary will have practice----which takes up all Saturday afternoon between the 2 of them. Only a few more weeks for Zachary and Alex to play. CJ will be playing ball until the middle of August and will be overlapping with the start of high school football practice.

Today I am heading to the doctor's for a baby check. I will update later on that.

Here's this week's menu. As always, it is subject to change------or cravings ; )

Monday
(B)--Banana Bread
(L)--PB and J
(D)--Tacos, Rice with veggie tray

Tuesday
(B)--Waffles (frozen)
(L)--Grill Cheese (Zachary will be making)
(D)--Homemade Pizza---I still haven't made this. I will admit, I am nervous about it. What happens if it comes out terrible!

Wednesday
(B)--Pancakes with fruit
(L)--BLTs
(D)--Stir-fry with Rice

Thursday
(B)--Eggs with Bacon
(L)--Hamburg or Hot dog on grill with chips
(D)--Chicken with Pasta and veggies

Friday
(B)--oatmeal
(L)--mac and cheese (made by Zachary)
(D)--Sloppy Joes

Saturday
(B)--cereal or whatever they can find in the freezer
(L)--OYO (Own Your Own)
(D)--BBQ chicken on the grill, macaroni salad, watermelon (I have actually been craving watermelon lately---I guess it is better than me wanting chocolate all the time!)

Sunday
Don't know yet. I haven't worked on the next 2 week block yet. I am sure it will be something easy.

What about you? Is this time of year busier or more laid back for you?

Head on over to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more Monday Menu Plans.

Family Day

It has been very rainy around here. We have literally had rain just about every day for the last month. We had planned on going to a beautiful park by the water on Wednesday, but it rained. We didn't want to just sit around on another one of Chris' days off. At the last minute we decided to head over Providence and go to......


By the time we got there everyone was hungry. We picked up sandwiches on the way and I packed drinks and snacks. So we started out with lunch first.


Then off we went.


Emily was not impressed at first and spent the first 10 minutes crying and afraid. I thought for sure I was going to end up sitting in car with her while everyone else enjoyed.

But this......

Soon turned into this.....

There was dress up....




There was role playing.....




And just lots and lots fun being together......






And everyone's favorite.......the water table room.





We finished up the day with a trip to.......


Eveyone LOVES ice cream.....


Okay, maybe not as much as me. Don't blame me! Nicholas made me get it!!!

We all had a blast being together as a family.

A New School Year-----An Old Way

In August we will be beginning our 8th year of homeschooling. WOW!! Time sure does go by fast. It seems not too long ago I was at my first homeschool convention overwhelmed by the choices. That year, I ended up going over to the Abeka table and buying the whole kit and caboodle for CJ who was entering 4th grade.

The second year I tried to mixed a few things up but ended up doing all Abeka again. It worked.

By the 3rd year I had been to enough homeschool meetings, talked to enough moms and been to enough curriculum fairs too know there were TONS of choices out there. So I jumped ship with Abeka (even though it had been working) and decided to go on my own and put together everything I thought would be best for homeschooling. In all honesty....this was the year the confusion started. By this past school year---my 7th, instead of feeling confident in what I was doing I was frustrated, confused, overwhelmed and pretty much dreading homeschooling. A few times this year I even told Chris that I was putting them ALL in school.

In April, I went to the homeschool convention. I mostly walked around thinking about the upcoming school year and wondering how on earth I will be able to juggle homeschooling a high schooler, 3 elementary age (with one of them needing LOTS of help with reading), a toddler and a newborn. When I got home I was happy to see a book I ordered had come in. Managers of Their School Steven and Terri Maxwell's newest book had not only come in but it was an answer to prayer!!!

I had already been re-evaluating my homeschool before the book had come in:

First question: What year was the best?
Oh, that's easy, the first 2. Those two years we got the most work done, it was organized AND we got done with school by May.

Second question: What year did I think was the worst?
I would have to say the years have seem to get progressively worse.....not better. So this last one probably takes the cake.

Third question:
What has been the biggest change to our homeschool?
At first I would say number of children. But after further evaluation I would say curriculum type. First year it was layed all out for me. As the years progressed, I picked curriculum that required more setup on my part. This might work for some, not for me.

Fourth question:
I look to my oldest----Does he have gaps or holes in is education? No, not really. He has always thrived on textbooks and the times I tried to switch it up with him we would struggle and go back.

It all was pointing back to textbooks. But textbooks I asked myself? That is like a bad word in homeschooling circles. I have found that the general train of thought in regards to homeschooling with textbooks is only a cop-out of a mom would use them. Only one that wants to copy "school" at home. It was something to be almost ashamed of. It isn't the "thing" to do!! What would others think?

Can you believe that even at MY age and in homeschooling there can actually be peer pressure? Don't believe me? I will give you an example. Most people heard of Tapestry of Grace. While I think it is a great curriculum I KNOW that it is not something that would work for my family. Atleast not at this stage of our life. I know of 2 families that used it and LOVED it. They both have been using it for years. Neither one of them have ever tried to push it on anyone. Oh sure, they would talk to you about it all day if you wanted to, but both would tell you that you need to look at your own life with your own children and circumstances to see if it is the right fit for you. Well last year at co-op TOG became the hot curriculum and before I knew it, 9 new families were jumping on board. Yes 9!!! I had people all the time ask if I was going to join in. It was hard, but I said no. I just knew it wouldn't work for us.

Long story short, out of the 9 families that started, I know for sure that 7 of the families stopped using it (if they even started at all). The other 2 families, I have no idea how they are doing. That's alot of money to spend on something to be doing the "in" homeschooling thing.

So after a huge amount of prayer, thought and consideration I was almost at my decision. That is where Manager's of Their School comes in. After reading the book, I can say, WITHOUT shame or embarrassment, that I will be going back to our old way of doing homeschool. We will be using textbooks, mostly Abeka. Terri's book put into words what I have been feeling. It gave me solid reasons to feel comfortable with my choice. I just wish the book had come out years ago. It might have opened my eyes then and I could have forgo alot of confusion.

A wise woman has said to me time and time again "Judy, it's not about the curriculum. The curriculum is a tool." I think I finally get it. It's not about searching and always trying to find "the best", the "in" or the the curriculum you think will be accepted by others. It's not about curriculum X, Y or Z being the "right" one that guarantees if you use it you will have children that are ____ (fill in the blank). It IS about listening to God and seeking what choice He has for you and your family. For me, I believe textbooks is the way to go. I know it has worked very well for us in the past.

Want some more homeschooling blog posts? Head on over to Five J's to quench your thirst.