Ramblings...

A few people have asked me about my shorthand on this blog so I figured I should dedicate a post to the section of our blog entitled roll call. This should help clear up any issues now or in the future. If you look just above the cute little apple with today’s date on it, you will see the word Pages and then *currently* two listings *these will eventually increase*. If you click the Roll Call page it will direct you to a list of all the players on this here blog.

This list will be updated as needed, to either include new friends or family members who are relevant to a post. If you are ever in doubt click there. I try to avoid any and all military lingo so if you see any acronyms or funny names they are aliases for people we know. At which point just click on the Roll Call button and learn a little bit about the person you are reading about, and most importantly what all those initials mean.

Welcome all to our redesigned blog! Since I can’t completely redo my house I might as well redo the blog right? So how do you like it? Fresh, bright, and colorful? I sure think so. I was finding the other template to be rather dull. While I’m not Mrs. Mary Sunshine, I do love that we homeschool and I really wanted the blog to reflect that.

So what changes can you find with this fresh new look? Well most of the sidebar links are the same. I got rid of one that was to a blog-roll that wasn’t showing updates and took up too much space on the side.

At the top of the blog page we have the twitter bird. Clicking on it will take you to our twitter page. Our recent twitter updates are still listed in the sidebar as well.

We now have a search bar to make finding topics easier and our categories are still listed on the side bar as well.

We also finally(!) have a pages section that works. So far we have a Home page and a Roll Call page. The Roll Call page mentions a little bit about each member of our homeschooling family and eventually it will be filled with info on other players in our homeschooling life *grandparents, parents, siblings, other relatives, and friends*. Each member will have a nickname, so Roll Call will help keep everyone aware of who is who.

Speaking of nicknames that is also something that has changed. The boys will no longer be referred to as numbers. I really wasn’t enjoying it, it felt too much like I was playing favorites and honestly lacked creativity. Yes, I know I wasn’t playing favorites, #1 was born years before #2, but still…I didn’t like it.

So now Child #1 will from this moment on be referred to as General Disarray and Child #2 from this moment on will be referred to as Professor Chaos, and when I am referring to them collectively they are The Bringers of Mayhem *or TBM for short*.

Now my fellow South Park fans will know where the names come from, but why those nicknames? Well while The Spouse *whose nickname will remain the same* and I were brainstorming possible choices an insurance commercial came on. You know the one…with the guy from Rescue Me….it was the one with him as the teenage girl *which is really funny!*. I shouted out “Chaos and Mayhem”, and from there the snowball grew into the snowball of insanity. Which happily landed on the names General Disarray and Professor Chaos.

For those wondering why our oldest is named after the sidekick instead of Butters’ character, well…you clearly don’t know our youngest son. If something is happening your money should be on him being the cause of it. Yes, he can even get his older brother to go along with a scheme or plan he has hatched. Their teamwork is astounding and they truly are The Bringers of Mayhem.

Over the course of the year I’m going to add more pages to the top. Some of the pages I’m contemplating are ones for recipes for fun easy things to do with the kids, science experiments, and easy crock-pot dishes we’ve come across just to name a few.

Big things are coming to this blog. Homeschooling is very much a lifestyle and for us it requires flexibility, patience, and creativity. All of which I want to paint this blog with.