Continuing Education for Marriage

If you want to excel in any area of your life, especially your career, you are often required to take Continuing Education classes.  For those of us who homeschool, we attend workshops and conferences to get our continuing education.  When I was in sales, I took many workshops and training classes to continually increase my abilities and make me more valuable to my employer.  

Why should our personal lives be any different?  If we want to excel at our marriages, we should take the time and make the effort to continue to educate ourselves about how to be the best wife we can be to our husbands.  However, there are very few "Continuing Education" opportunities for marriage.  There are a few weekend retreats for marriages around the country and individual churches sometimes have classes for married couples.  For those of us whose husbands work odd hours and can't even attend church regularly, these opportunities just don't work.

So I was very interested when I received "To Have and To Hold" Marriage Bundle from Eternal Encouragement.  This "bundle" includes 2 mp3 audio sessions, 5 ebooks, 7 ebooklets, and 2 full back issues of TEACH Magazine.  If you bought these items separately, it would cost  $100, but you can get this entire bundle for $39.97 for the instant downloads or $49.97 if you prefer to receive the hard copies of the materials.

There are so many wonderful articles, tips, ideas, encouragements, and lessons in this bundle that I have never seen such a collection put together in one place before.  Here is a list of what is included:

• 5R's Session 2 - Rekindle 
• One Life to Live, One Man to Love 
• Loving Your Knight in Shining Armor Even When He Doesn't Shine 
• Roadmap to a Marvelous Marriage 
• Marriage Tidbits to Treasure 
• Quotes Not Quibbles 
• Marriage Report 
• 31 Daily Biblical Prayers for Wives to Pray for Their Husbands 
• Encouragement Report 
• Don't Settle 
• SHIMLY 
• What God Says about Marriage 
• 75 Inexpensive Romantic Rut Cures
• It Happened One Afternoon 
• 2001 Summer Issue TEACH Magazine "Loving Your Husband"
• 2009 Spring Issue TEACH Magazine "Marriages Made Marvelous"  

Once I began reading through the "bundle", it was very hard to stop!  There are longer, more in-depth articles as well as short articles with tips and other tidbits of information.  I really enjoyed browsing through "75 Inexpensive Romantic Rut Cures".  After almost 29 years of marriage and with 2 teenagers in the house, I needed some fresh ideas to spark romance again in our marriage. 

I also LOVED "SHIMLY"!!  It is such an endearing story of love through the years - made me want to begin leaving little notes around the house (I guess I would have to explain it to my husband, though:-)

The two issues of TEACH Magazine are packed full of great articles about marriage.  And the article "Loving Your Knight in Shining Armor Even When He Doesn't Shine" was challenging and a great reminder about what is really important.  And the "31 Daily Biblical Prayers for Wives to Pray for Their Husbands" is a great one-page sheet that you can print out and keep handy to help you every day in praying for your husband.

"To Have and To Hold" Marriage Bundle is definitely great Continuing Education for marriages.  You can get yours by visiting The Shop at  www.eternalencouragement.com.

You can check out what other Gabby Moms had to say about
"To Have and To Hold" Marriage Bundle over at The Gabby Moms Blog.  One of my fellow Gabby Moms also suggested this would make a great wedding present and I agree!

 I received this product for honest review from Eternal Encouragement Magazine as a part of The Gabby Moms blogging program. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

TOS Review: WonderMaps from Bright Ideas Press

No matter what you are studying, whether history, literature, science or Bible, maps can be an incredible asset to your homeschool studies.  Maps can make the material more comprehensive and put things in perspective.  But, too often, the exact map that you need is hard to find.  You either have to scour the internet or pour over books to find just what you are looking for.  Well, WonderMaps is going to change that for you!

WonderMaps is a new product from Bright Ideas Press that is a customizable collection of over 350 different maps.  WonderMaps includes:

• 60+ maps of the world
• 60+ maps of the USA
• 125 historical maps, including 25 biblical maps
• The complete map sets from The Mystery of History vols. I–III and All American History vols. I & II

WonderMaps is designed with easy-to-use layers that allow you to enjoy great customizable features with just a click. Select:

• historical or modern-day maps
• outline, reference, political, or topographical maps
• black-and-white or color maps
• features including:  names, borders, rivers, cities, physical features

WonderMaps software requires Adobe Reader v. 9.1 or higher, which can be downloaded for free from Adobe.com.

All of this is available as a download for the price of $49.95. You can also get the download plus a CD.  That includes just about every map and type of map you could possibly need to aid in your homeschooling.  You can choose simple outline maps or add layers with cities, topography, physical features and more.  It is a lot of fun to create maps and print them out in just minutes that exactly meet your needs.

There is a video tutorial available on the WonderMaps website so you can get an idea of exactly what you can get from this incredible product.

If you would like to read more review of this product, just click here to read other reviews by the TOS Review Crew.

I received this product for free in return for an honest review. I have not received financial reimbursement for my review of WonderMaps by Bright Ideas Press.

TOS Review: Yesterday's Classics

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be—
I had a mother who read to me.                             —Strickland Gillilan

I believe that homeschoolers can never have too many books and there will always be a list of books you wish you had had the time to read with your children.  Just looking through the list of the 225 ebooks from Yesterday's Classics has given me a long list of books that I wish I had known about when my children were young.  And it has also provided some wonderful books for us to still read in the coming years.  

The books that were written during the golden age of children's literature 1880-1920 are some of the best classic literature ever available for children.  And until now, many of these were out of print and very hard to find.  Thanks to Yesterday's Classics, you can now own all 225 of these wonderful books for one reasonable price of $99.95!  This is a special discount off of their regular price of $149.95 and is only available until May 31, 2011 by clicking here.

Of the 225 books available, you will find history books from several civilizations, including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and Great Britain. Works of classic literature include poetry and hero tales. A number of nature books round out the offerings. 

I was very excited to see some books that are familiar, such as The Burgess Bird Book for Children which we read when my children were young. I looked at this one in particular to see if they included the beautiful drawings that were in the original and was very pleased to find them in color!!  And they also have The Burgess Animal Book for Children which I didn't even know about until now.   They also have The Iliad for Boys and Girls and The Odyssey for Boys and Girls which bring these wonderful classics down to a level that is more understandable for children. 

You can purchase these books either individually or in a package that includes all 225 titles.  You have the option of choosing paperback books or ebooks, in either Kindle or EPUB format.  If there were illustrations in the original texts, then there will be illustrations in the ebook versions.  And if the illustrations were in color, they will also be in color in the ebook versions.  In the paperback versions, they are in black and white.

Another great advantage of Yesterdays Classics, is that once you purchase the ebooks, you may download them onto as many different devices as you like (there are no restrictions).  So you can download a book to your child's iPod so they can read the book on their own without needing to be on the computer.  You can also print out any books that you would like to have on paper.

Each ebook has a Table of Contents to help make searching for a specific chapter much easier.  And ebooks are available in 22 different genres, as follows:

World History (9) 

Children of the World (6)

Nature (27)

Early Civilization (5)

Ancient Greece (29)

Fables (5)

Ancient Rome (18)

Kindergarten (14)

Fairy Tales (12)

Britain (9)

Shakespeare (2)

Poetry (5)

Middle Ages (17)

Legends (14)

Renaissance and Exploration  (9)

Science (7)

Readers (4)

American History (18)

Faith (10)

Christmas Stories (6)

Literature (5)

Biography (10)

At www.yesterdaysclassics.com, you can search through the books by author, title or subject.

Yesterday's Classics is truly a treasure trove of incredible literature for kids and you will be so blessed to have these books for your children to read.  They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, as well as a sample book that you can download to see what the books are like.  And you don't have to have a Kindle, you can get Kindle for Mac or PC for free and then download the books to that.

Also, if you use Ambleside Online, Heart of Dakota, Living Books Curriculum or Tapestry of Grace, they have dozens of books used in these curricula.  They provide all the information you will need to decide which format is best for you and how to go about downloading the files here.

I encourage you to go and read what other TOS Crew Members have to say about Yesterday's Classics here.

I received this product for free in return for an honest review. I have not received financial reimbursement for my review of Yesterday's Classics.

The Gabby Moms Review: Eternal Encouragement Magazine

I love to read!  I read books all the time - mostly Christian fiction.  However, there are times when I don't want to get in the middle of a long book and am just looking for something short, uplifting and encouraging.  But I have found very few magazines that fill that need for me.    So I was very pleasantly surprised to receive the Spring 2011 Eternal Encouragment Magazine to read and review as part of The Gabby Moms review program.  Formally TEACH Magazine, Eternal Encouragement just changed the name this year in order to more acurately portray their mission and vision for the magazine - "Inspiring Women to Become More Like Jesus Every Day."


Eternal Encouragement is a lovely magazine written to be an encouragement to women in their roles as wives, mothers, homemakers, friends and daughters of God.  Although it is a smaller magazine - a convenient take-along 6"x9" size - it is chock full of wonderful articles by some amazing ladies!  This Spring 2011 magazine has a theme of "Time Flies" and contains many articles that discuss this topic from Time:  Use It Or Lose It to a poem called "A Mother Who Takes Time".

One article that particularly caught my attention was In Be 'teen Times:  Be A Grace Dispenser.  This article really touched an area that I have recently been dealing with in how to strengthen love and respect between me and my teens.  This article encouraged me to surprise my teens by dispensing grace, even when they have disobeyed or disappointed me.  I was challenged to be more like my heavenly Father and show grace to others as He has shown so much grace to me.

There is such a gentle and loving feel to this magazine.  All of the articles, while some are challenging, are presented in such a gentle way that makes you feel loved and cared for - just like siting and discussing something with a dear friend.

To me, one of the biggest assets to this magazine is that its size is so convenient to carry it with you, either in your purse or at least your car and then you can just grab it when you have a few minutes to kill (like waiting for an appointment or when you are on hold) and read a short article that will lift you up and encourage you.  It might even make your day, change your outlook on the day, and help you keep your eyes on Jesus.

Now you are probably wondering how you, too, can receive this magazine full of encouragement and insight.  All you need to do to subscribe is go to www.eternalencouragement.com and for $25.97 per year you will receive this gem of a magazine delivered right to your mailbox.

You can read more reviews of Eternal Encouragement Magazine from other Gabby Moms here.

I received this product for honest review from Eternal Encouragement Magazine as a part of The Gabby Moms blogging program. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

TOS Review: Nutrition 101

If you know me or have read my blog for very long, you know that I am very into healthy eating and living.  Over the past 10 years, I have tried to move my family towards eating whole foods, eliminating refined sugar and cooking from scratch.   I also make all of my own cleaning products and many of my health and beauty products, including soap and shampoo bars.

Along the way, I have tried to teach my children about nutrition and healthy eating/living as things came up.  Sometimes they say I have brainwashed them because there are some things they just can't eat anymore:-)  However, I have never actually taught them a "Health" course on nutrition and this is a good thing to do in a more organized manner once they reach high school.  And then along came Nutrition 101:  Choose Life! by Growing Healthy Homes!

Nutrition 101:  Choose Life! is a 448 page book or CD ROM that is designed to be used as a unit study on nutrition.  It is "a discovery of how the body systems are affected by the foods - good or bad - we eat.  Research, recipes and projects will make Nutrition 101:  Choose Life! fun for the whole family and establish lifelong habits and desires to eat wholesome foods that support great health."

I received the ebook version of Nutrition 101: Choose Life! and once I began looking at it and reading it, I just couldn't stop!  First of all, it is very beautifully laid out and presented.  Secondly, the material included is very interesting, informative and educational.  The book is broken into 6 Units:

1. The Brain and Nervous System
2. Digestion and Elimination
3. Respiration and Olfactory
4. Muscular and Skeletal Systems
5. Cardiovascular and Immune Systems
6. Endocrine System and Emotions

There are four chapters in each unit and they even include a recipe for each chapter that is a power recipe for the body system that you are studying.  There are also Discussion Questions and Activities for each unit, as well as additional resources to help you in your study. 

Nutrition 101:  Choose Life! can be used with all different ages and grade levels, as well as in many different settings such as homeschool, co-op, private school, church group or extracurricular clubs.  Since both my kids are teens and taking high school level courses, I am tailoring this course as a Health credit for them and we will be using it in its entirety next year.  It covers many different subjects, including science, anatomy, biology, nutrition and health.  There are lots of pictures, diagrams and photos to draw your attention and make the pages so interesting and beautiful!  The Appendix has SO many resources - 120 pages - the book would be worth the purchase just for those resources!!  


Now here are the purchasing details.  You can buy Nutrition 101: Choose Life! CD ROM for $79.95 or the book for $99.95 at www.growinghealthyhomes.com .  You can also buy a combination of both the CD ROM and the book for $129.95.  And you know how I LOVE discounts and coupons, so you can get 15% discount by using the code TOSCrew11 at checkout!!!

Also, The Homeschool Blogger is hosting a free webinar featuring the author's of Nutrition 101: Choose Life! Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM EDT Click below to register:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/287516654%3E

If you would like to read more reviews of Nutrition 101:  Choose Life!, click here.

I received this product for free in return for an honest review. I have not received financial reimbursement for my review of Nutrition 101:  Choose Life! from Growing Healthy Homes.

TOS Review: Zeezok ZGuide to the Movies

This year for 20th Century U.S. History, we are using movies to give us a glimpse into the life and times of people who lived during the 20th Century here in the United States.  I did not have any curriculum to guide us through this study, but had made a list of acceptable movies that would take us through the 20th Century.  However, when I received the request to review the ZGuide to the movies by Zeezok Publishing, I was very excited to see what they had to offer that might help us with this endeavor since they have ZGuides for MANY different movies.

I requested and received the ebook version of To Kill a Mockingbird ZGuide.  And when it came time to watch the movie To Kill a Mockingbird,  I was very eager to see exactly how the ZGuide would help us to view, comprehend and learn more from the movie. 

Each ZGuide contains a topic overview, movie synopsis, and ten learning activities for an in-depth study of the film.  For example, the ZGuide for To Kill A Mockingbird covers the topics of U.S. History Great Depression, Race Relations, Courtroom Procedures and Consequences of Lying.  There is a page that explains how to use the ZGuide and a Table of Contents.  Then you will find a brief Topic Overview, as well as a Movie Synopsis which gives you an overview of what you will be watching (my kids did NOT want to hear the Movie Synopsis prior to watching - they like the element of surprise:-).  Activity 1 is Movie Review Questions that you will answer directly after watching the movie and will help the student to be a more active viewer.  Then, for this ZGuide, Activity 2 is about Alabama in the 1930s.  Some of this we had to look up on the internet to find the answers, but it was really good to get a general feel for what was happening in the the South during the Great Depression.

Activity 3 for this ZGuide was about Race Relations in To Kill A Mockingbird and helped the students to more clearly understand the prejudices that existed at that time.   Secondary Story Line in To Kill a Mockingbird was the 4th Activity and brought out some of the more subtle events in the story.  For the 5th Activity, there was an Art Project which asked the students to create Courtroom Sketches of several characters in the scene.  Activity 6 was a News Media Interview where the student pretends that they are a news reporter interviewing Atticus Finch after the trial and Activity 7 was to create an Alternative Ending for To Kill A Mockingbird.  There was a Crossword Puzzle for Activity 8 and some Worldview questions for Activity 9.  The final Activity is "The Filmmaker's Art" which focuses on movie-making techniques and their affect on the viewer.  At the end, there are questions For Family Discussion which relate to moral or philosophical dilemmas present in the movie, as well as Additional Resources for Further Study.

I found the ZGuide to be very thorough and a great way to let movies provide a grand basis for learning.  The questions were well thought out and deep.  They required the student to delve into not only the movie plot and story, but also to discovering more information about the time period and cultural climate that was the South in the 1930s.

There are many different ZGuides currently available, some for classic movies like Red Badge of Courage and Ben Hur, as well as others for more current movies like One Night With The King and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  And I would imagine that the number of ZGuides available will continue to grow as more are written.  Each ZGuide sells for $12.99 and you can get it in CD format or, for some, the ebook is available.  I imagine they will make the ebook available for all of them eventually.


Zeezok Publishing also sells the movies that they have ZGuides for at a very reasonable price.  I also noticed that Zeezok Publishing has some other very interesting resources and curriculum available on their website including the Great Musicians Series that has lapbooks for each of the great composers.  I am writing a one-year unit study on Music and thought these might be great additions to that study!

If you would like to read more reviews of this product from other members of the TOS Review Crew, go here to check it out.

I received this product for free in return for an honest review. I have not received financial reimbursement for my review of To Kill A Mockingbird ZGuide from Zeezok Publishing.

Encouraging Moments Newsletter - A Gabby Moms Review

Our life as homemakers and moms can get a little hectic sometimes!  For relaxation and refreshing, I go sit in my jacuzzi/hot tub.  That is where I go to escape and to recharge, whether it be physically or mentally.  And if I go in during the day, I like to take a book or something to read while I soak and relax.  That, for me, is my bliss!

While you may not have the luxury of soaking in a jacuzzi, you might like to take a long, hot bath.  Or, you may have some other means of escaping and recharging.  I would like to suggest an idea to you - Encouraging Moments Newsletter.  This is a weekly newsletter sent out on Thursdays via email that will, in just a few paragraphs, lift you up and encourage you as a wife and mother.  That is their whole agenda, by the way!

Just to give you a little peek into what you have been missing, I want to share a few things that have been touched upon in the last few weeks.  Lorrie Flem shared the difference between a successful marriage and an unhappy one, while Kimberly Lacey shared on praying for your husband.  And there is a really cool feature called Chick Flicks for Mom where Lorrie sits down and shares her heart via video clip.  It really is like sitting face to face with a friend and having them share something on their heart!

Another week, Lorrie shared about taking a "Bible bath" and Annie Herrick shared some tips about Staying Within a Budget and how that honors her husband.

Encouraging Moments Newsletter is like little gold nuggets that you can tuck away in your heart and remember as you go through your day.  Each newsletter is brief, includes links to a lot of different things at Eternal Encouragement Magazine, as well as information on special offers on books and products.

So what are you waiting for?  Don't you, too, need a little escape to relax and recharge?  Go sign up for Encouraging Moments and you will be encouraged and refreshed!  When you go to www.eternalencouragement.com, there will be a pop-up window where you can sign up for Encouraging Moments Newsletter.

I am reviewing Encouraging Moments as an official member of The Gabby Moms blogging program for Eternal Encouragement magazine.  I did not receive compensation for this post and all opinions are solely my own.