Did Someone Say There Is A Recession?

November 28th, 2008

In all the news of impending financial doom and gloom with people losing their jobs left and right it’s surprising to hear of people spending money like there is no problem.  Our friend over at AcesBlog.com must be rolling in it because he just bought a Maserati.  I mean what a cool car.  How he does it I don’t know, but I for one would like to find out.  By the way if you want a chance to win an I-Phone and $500 from AcesBlog, please, sign up for his blog feed.  (At first I thought it was too good to be true, but if he can afford a Maserati, he’s probably not joking about this prize.)

Here I am, a lower-middle class mom, fretting over needing to buy a new car seat and stroller (our first travel system was damaged in a car accident and is finally falling apart) for my new baby and there are people out there still able to afford luxury vehicles for themselves.  Must be nice.

I’d be elated if I could buy a complete travel system with everything matchy, matchy and a new fully loaded Volkswagen Routan minivan (in black)  to cart around my two sweeties and friends.  I’d be content if I could get a double stroller that will accommodate my three year old and the baby with a car seat even if I can’t get a new car - that can get very expensive though, too.

Graco Quattro Tour Duo Stroller, Portica pattern

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Enjoy riding out the recession in your Maserati, Ace :). Like my husband and I were discussing last night anyone out there that has any extra money for investment purposes is going to come out of this downturn much better than they did going in. If you want to make some extra pocket money, click here. Unfortunately, the majority of people live from paycheck to paycheck and investing in the stock deals that are presenting themselves is the last thing they can think to spend their money on. I keep thinking about going over to ShareBuilder and funding an account.  I’ve only got a few pennies to rub together right now, but their investment strategies are such that you can get started with very little. Once my bux.to payment clears I think I’ll go to ShareBuilder and see what I can do for $20.  It’s better than nothing - and that’s not enough to buy even a cheap car seat anyway so I might as well try to put it to work.

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Posted in Child Care, Earning a Living | No Comments »

Up and running on new host - Extroverthost.com

November 24th, 2008

After some headaches - mostly due to slow connection and lots of files to transfer - Earthformed.com and friends are up and running on new servers.  Please, comment, joke, add your thoughts here!  We miss you!

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Posted in Blog Trials | No Comments »

Let Us Not Forget What Happened 60+ Years Ago

November 12th, 2008

Please, if you read this post and view the attached presentation I ask that you leave me a comment even just to let me know you were here. I was going to send this out in email only, but there is no way for me to know how many of my friends or family actually read and pass it on. This way you can help reach the goal of 40 million readers worldwide be leaving your mark here or a trackback from your blog (there is also a Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post).

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CAUTION: In the attached Power Point presentation you will find graphic images of the aftermath of the Holocaust. Click here to view the slide show Remember the Holocaust. Click your mouse or spacebar to advance each slide.

Rather than view this event as merely an extermination of European Jews we must view it as a wicked extermination of human beings who were considered distasteful, unhuman and dissidents to Nazi Germany. Holocaust itself is of Greek origin meaning to completely burn. Completely burn is what Hitler’s forces did to more than 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians and 10 million+ Christians during the years of World War II. Granted this horrible event moved the Allied nations to make political moves that were unpopular to the rest of the world, but this does not negate the fact that this murderous rampage actually happened. Truly, who can deny the images, testimonies, recordings and movies made of the survivors and of the dead who were found? To deny and to forget these people who suffered is in a way condoning their abuse by their captors. We as a human race cannot and should not allow this to be erased from our collective memory - regardless of whom it may offend. Fear of offense should not be a reason to hide the truth.

After having viewed this presentation I decided to translate it and pass it on. Originally I received it in Spanish so it took me a bit of time to find the cited quotations to get the wording correct. What I discovered in my search was disturbing - denial, propaganda and downright hatred. Though I do not believe that the Jews are God’s chosen nation any longer I do not harbor hatred towards them. They are human just like me and are entitled to the same rights, comforts and peace as anyone else. To deny that the Holocaust happened to their ancestors would be to deny that it also happened to millions of other non-Jewish victims. What a maginification of that atrocity forgetting would be - we would be giving victory to their abusors, murderers and rapists and most of all to Satan, the Father of all Evil.

I invite you to read a few of the articles and papers I came across in my research yesterday.  They openly discuss the fear and denial of the well documented happenings at the concentration camps in Germany and Russia.

Echoes of history Holocaust voices resurface at IIT - Chicago Tribune

Schools drop Holocaust lessons to avoid offence - Times Online

http–works.bepress.com-cgi-viewcontent.cgiarticle=1000&context=kenneth_lasson

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Posted in Helping Others | No Comments »

Back in Business - For a Few More Days

November 10th, 2008

The two main domains on our original server have been migrated over successfully without harming the structure or account access of all the others. Thank goodness. I’ll be able to accept comments on this and my other blogs for a few more days before I have to switch the DNS.

I’ll inform you of the date before I make any changes. It will probably take up to 72 hours for the changes to flood through, but I’ll make the switch long before I have to cancel the paid hosting account so both are visible online until the WWW makes the new one available worldwide.

Thanks for your patience.

Happy Blogging.

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Getting ready to change servers

November 6th, 2008

Due to unforseen occurences and depressing circumstances I’ve had to search for alternate hosting for my domains.

We Are Earthformed

Dig the Earth

La Comida de Mi Vida

Great Lakes Aquatic Society

Earthformed.com

The Family Fund Project

The Baby Fund

SpykerWare

Since I have no income to speak of the hosting has to be free.  There are a few alternatives available that require little or no advertising and offer MySQL and PHPmyAdmin so that I can load all my WordPress blogs.  Enough space and having SMTP and POP3 access to my email addresses will be an issue I need to address.

For the next few days I ask that you not comment on my blog so that I can back it up in it’s current state.  Sorry for the inconvenience - I really enjoy hearing what you have to say.  I will also not be posting for a few days more either whilst everything is loaded and configured on the new server.  Hopefully, the DNS transfer will go smoothly and not keep you and I from reading and posting here longer than necessary.

Though you won’t be able to comment here you can still react to this post and my blog(s) on the social networks:

Twitter: earthformed
Plurk: earthformed
Facebook: Leslie
MySpace: Leslie

Thanks for your loyal readership and EntreCard dropping.  It is my hope to have Earthformed.com and all related blogs up and running on the new server within a week.

Best Regards and Happy Blogging

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Posted in Blog Trials, Technical Issues | Comments Off

Wordless Wednesday: Smaller Waist Instantly

October 29th, 2008

Last reply:

liza: love the shirt! great shots too. cheers lizas last blog post..Food Friday: Amazing Pizza

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Posted in Weird Stuff, Wordless Wednesday | 3 Comments »

My Little One is Advancing!

October 31st, 2008

What an absolute joy it is to watch your babies grow and learn.  My little girl, Yeyda, has been working on getting her ABCs down for well over a year.  She does pretty good identifying the ASL version of the alphabet and will do the signs herself on occasion.  For the longest time though she did what I came to call the “Yeyda-bet”.  She would sing “W-X-Y-and Z” and complete the song.  She would fight trying to start from A-B-C so I didn’t push too hard or I would get frustrated.

Well, after several weeks of different ones in the family offering to sing the ABCs with her she finally got it.  Spontaneously, without prompting she just started singing.  She went from A to Z without missing a letter and even got the end right!  I was so proud.  That happened this past Wednesday, October 28 - 16 days short of her third birthday.

Yesterday she surprised me again.  I gave her her MagnaDoodle to play with and he immediately took it and wrote and “S” on the screen.  She asked, “Momma, is this an S?”  When I saw it I just had to take a picture.

She is getting better at counting and can make it to 13.  With a bit of encouragement she can make it to 20.  There is a short that they used to show on Disney Channel during the morning cartoons called “Choo-Choo Soul with Genevieve”.  The lady sings a catchy number song that Yeyda loves and she has used that with much success to learn her numbers.  We have been trying some simple math equations, but she loses interest quickly.

The other thing she said the other night to her dad that made me believe that now I can really hit learning to read hard with her is that she wants to read herself.  I have tried teaching her before, but she loses interest or wants to do things her own way and won’t listen.  When she is receptive I’ll sneak in some new words and pronunciation keys for her to practice.  My favorite one is from the book “If You Take a Mouse to School”.  There are 4 words that the mouse writes on the chalkboard that are above and beyond what the students are writing.  It caught my attention so I showed her what they were.  She has been “reading” or recognizing these words for many months.  They are onomatopeia, verisimilitude, precocious, and I can’t remember the last one but it starts with an M.

So reading is my next step.  I picked up a book this past Monday on teaching your children to read in 100 lessons.  I’ll have to let you know how it goes.

Last reply:

shaxx: my son is 1.5 years old and yet to learn his ABC but he has shown some interest though... shaxxs last blog post..What Brought Them Here?

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Posted in Education | 1 Comment »

Meme Monday: Viral Linking

October 28th, 2008

Our friends at Jenny Talks have had a lot of success increasing PR with tags that Jenny has created.  This process has helped not only her blog but also the others that have joined in the fun.  Here is another tag that Jenny is sharing to help us that want to participate out.

{Start Copy Here}

Rules:
1. Copy paste from {Start Copy Here} to {End Copy Here}
2. Please link back to the person who tagged you and PASS this tag to many of your friends
3. If you have more than one blog, please post this to all of your blogs, the more the merrier.
4. The use of NO FOLLOW on links is not allowed, Let’s all be fair!
5. Remember to come back here at JENNY TALKS (pls. don’t change this link)and leave the exact post url so I can add you to the master list to help increase our rankings and improve our Technorati Authority.
6. Spread the virus.. oooopps I mean the VIRAL LINKING and happy blogging!

BLOGGERS:

{END Copy Here}

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Changing My Blog Layout

October 25th, 2008

It seems I’m not the only one lately that had gotten tired of their blog layout. There were 3 of my regular stops that I noticed had changed something drastic recently.   I’m not changing just to follow suit, but I want my readers to be able to see more content and hopefully encourage more commenting.

You’ve all been really good about commenting on pictures that I post.  Not much else is getting commented on though.  Either, I’m more boring than watching a potato sprout or my layout isn’t giving you enough of a teaser of my posts to encourage further reading beyond the front page.  So, I’ve changed to the Big Blue theme and I’m working on tweaking the way it looks.  This theme doesn’t just give you a teaser it gives you the whole post to read.  I’m not sure if I like that completely, but if it gets you guys talking then OK!

Let me know what you think of the new look and your suggestions on tweaking it.  I’d love to hear what you have to say.

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Wordless Wednesday: This could be a problem :O

October 15th, 2008

Last reply:

shaxx: oh boy oh boy! shaxxs last blog post..Smoking is Not Cool but Blogging is

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Posted in Wordless Wednesday | 9 Comments »