Life on the Road

Visit Miss Jocelyn’s blog, A Pondering Heart, and you’ll be treated to the thoughts of a mature young Christian woman.

Click the graphic above to go directly to the post with a drawing for a $25 Gift Certificate to Christa Taylor’s modest clothing website.

Please mention that tiffanyblitz referred you when you leave your comment/entry! 

All you have to do is go vote at Squidoo, and the charity you select (from their list) will receive $2 - they’re giving away up to $80,000 between now and October 15th.

Why NOT give $2 to a worthy cause?

I’m supporting La Leche League, but feel free to make your own choice… 

It’s “Real Diaper Week” at Etsy - very nice to recognize cloth diapers as such.

One fun thing going on is the free Green Giveaway drawing at Soapaholics anonymous - a bamboo fitted diaper (in your choice of size), pins, and wipes! 

I’d use it myself, gladly, but it would make a nice gift, too. 

It all started out as a simple transaction at PaperBackSwap. 

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy that site?  We send off the books we’ve read, and get a constant fresh supply coming in - and you even get free credits just for signing up!  (If you check it out, tell ‘em tiffanyblitz sent you)

But anyway, along with the last book I received was an intriguing thing.  Titled “Informal Book Club,” it’s what we used to call a Chain Letter - in a good way.

You remember the deal, right:

• I send a book to the person whose name is first on the list.
• I remove their name, and add my name to the bottom of the list.
• I send the letter and the revised list to six people.
• Before long I have a mailbox full of books!

This is a pretty mild version: You only have to send it to six people (not ten or something), and there are only two names on the “list” (meaning you don’t get the promise of “856 books!” but that you’re more likely to get some before it dies out).

I haven’t committed to it yet…

I think it’s a great idea, and works out to be a good deal no matter how you look at it.

Shipping one book that I no longer want, using Media Mail rates, is cheap and easy.  I’ll get at least some new books from it, and possibly up to 36!  I can read the ones that interst me, and all of them can be swapped for PaperBackSwap credits to get the books I really want.

The letter could just as easily be sent out as an email, saving even the printing and mailing cost and hassle of that part.

But I’m not sure I know six people that would want to participate - at least not well enough to feel right about asking.

Would you like to join the Book-O-Rama?  Just comment or email me (tiffany (at) tiffanyblitz (dot) com) with your email addy, and you’re in! 

Well, it’s official:  band costs a fortune.  On top of the new clarinet we bought and the ongoing private lessons, there’s the marching season gear, the concert season apparel, AND Nick has to pay hundreds of dollars towards his “fair share” of the band’s expenses - competition fees, transportation, dry cleaning the parade uniforms, guest teachers, etc.  Yikes!

The school year hasn’t even started yet, and we’re already behind the curve on fundraising - so I’m posting this appeal for help.

We have two main avenues open right now:

1.  “Sponsor” Nick by making a direct donation.

Email me for addresses and more information - tiffany (at) tiffanyblitz (dot) com.

• Your check is made payable to the band program
• Your contribution is tax-deductible
• Nick receives credit for 100% of the amount of your dontation

This program is set to end on Friday, August 8th.

2.  Tupperware Fundraising!

View the available products via the Tupperware Fundraiser Catalog online - some are unique items not available through the regular catalog! 

Then just email me [tiffany (at) tiffanyblitz (dot) com] with the item numbers, quantities, shipping address, and payment information.  Or you can send a written order (there’s an order form in the catalog that you can print out) and a check or other payment info.

If you’d really like to see the catalog in person, just email me your address and we’ll send one out.  Of course we’d also be deeply grateful if you’d ask around your office, church, or friends and family, too… 

• Your payment is to Tupperware, so it is not tax deductible
• You receive the terrific Tupperware products, complete with Lifetime Warranty, shipped right to your door
• Nick receives credit for approximately 50% of your purchase
• I will send a small “Thank You” gift for each Tuppeware order of $20 or more
• All Tupperware orders will be entered in a drawing for a special Gift Pack of Tupperware from me!

This program is set to end on Friday, August 15th.

Anything you can do to help is appreciated… 

Check these out:

Win a Bum Genius 3.0 Starter Kit from Nature’s Child - Wholesome Goods for Mothers and Babies

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

With a new baby in the house, and having been quite ill lately, I haven’t been able to do anything with my home businesses.  I’ll go inactive with Tupperware at the end of this week if I don’t get $250 worth of orders in.

Would you consider helping?  There are lots of great sales and promotions going on…  Check it out at:  Tupperware Blitz (a company site - orders are shipped direct to your door!).

As a thank you for helping me out, anyone who orders before 12 noon on Friday, May 30th will be entered in a drawing for a terrific F.R.E.E. Tupperware package

And anyone who orders $25 worth or more will receive a F.R.E.E. gift directly from me!

Thank you!!

- Tiffany
——————————
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
                      - I Corinthians 10:31. NKJV

RME (Revolution Money Exchange) is the new kid on the block, trying to compete with PayPal.

People say their fees are less, too.  (Given what’s been going on in our house, I haven’t had time to research that part of it thoroughly).

But until May 15th, you get $25 FREE just for registering.  (I did it, it worked).

And if you click through here, I get a little something for the referral, too, which will help with the medical bills.  <sigh>

Enjoy! 

I was pleasantly surprised when I was emailed by Ms. Fox’s “people” asking if I’d be interested in having her guest post on my blog.  I think they were even more surprised when I told them they’d have to send me a copy to read first.  Who am I to be so demanding, right? 

Well, I’m delighted that I made the request, because the book is wonderful… the whole idea is wonderful…  It addresses many of the issues I have been frustrated with in the school system (some of the reasons we homeschool) - like the fact that “No Child Left Behind” works out to be “No Child Allowed to Excel.”

Since I am still recovering from my illness (more on that later!), I’m going to let Ms. Fox’s prepared Q&A give you the basics.  Be sure to read to the end for the low-down on the Book Give-Away!

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1. What is the premise of YOUR CHILD’S STRENGTHS? The premise of Your Child’s Strengths is that when you focus on developing and utilizing children’s strengths rather than spending all your time trying to fix, or remediate weaknesses, they grow up to be happier, healthier and more productive citizens.  Additionally, the book is a call to action, claiming that the single biggest issue facing America’s future is the education of our young people. The time for change in our educational system is now, and every day more and people see that is the case. I believe the Strengths Movement will play a very important role in the new system that emerges. Your Child’s Strengths provides parents, teachers and schools clear and practical direction to take in building upon children’s strengths.  
2. How did you come about creating this program?   I have spent twenty-five years as an educator and throughout that time, I have always been a champion for the underdog. This means that where others saw weaknesses in people, I sought out the strengths and in was able to find them. When I arrived at Purnell School, the school was failing as a business and I was determined to make it successful, I built a program that turned away from trying to fix what was wrong and sought, instead, to build on the inherent strengths that were in place. This began to work, and because it worked so well, and school began to thrive so successfully, I developed a program that would also work on the students. So, I started to develop it from the outside in. I began by created a strengths program for the school culture and then wrote the actual four-year curriculum for all of the students to take.  
3. What kind of student were you? I was a great student in grammar school when it was all about learning and pleasing the teacher. In high school, I was a terrible student. I was not engaged, played the system as much as I could and received less than mediocre grades. I was bored by school and distracted by other things going on in my life. When I got to college, I realized that I actually liked to learn and I ended up doing well when I was able to direct my attention to things I felt were going to be meaningful later on in life. I ended up getting two graduate degrees, which I am sure would greatly surprise most of my high school teachers.  
4. You run a girls school in which you have implemented this program. What has the response been among the students, teachers, and parents?  The students love the classes! They feel the Affinities Program in general and the whole philosophy of the school has created a safe haven for them, while challenging them to be their best selves.  I know this because they give speeches about it and talk to me often about their strengths. The teachers also enjoy learning about their strengths. They have a whole professional development program built around developing their own strengths. We also have a personal leadership program that Mike Morrison, the Dean of the University of Toyota created for our teachers that works along the same thematic lines as the Affinities Program. He made it after reading the program. Many of our teachers volunteered to be part of the piloting of this year. Finally, I held a workshop with parents about discovering their own strengths a few weeks ago. My living room on campus was full. I’ll tell you what, this is like some secret sauce and everyone seems to want to taste it.   
5. What are some other areas in which this program is beneficial? I have been contacted by everyone from social services to foster care, to the people from the juvenile justice system about how they can use strengths development and the Affinities Program in particular, to help the people they serve. Many churches, camps and youth groups have also contacted me. The ideas that are in the book can be used with all kinds of groups of people. Doctoral and masters candidates in both the field of teacher preparation and positive psychology have contacted me about using the book and its ideas for classes, for teacher training, and for study for their thesis papers and dissertations. UNICEF has contacted me about using the ideas in the book to develop whole programs to be distributed to their human resource department because they believe that when their worker’s families are taken care of and healthy, then the worker will be more productive. So, it seems to me there are endless uses for the idea in this book. 
6. How do you think the larger community can function within the larger auspices of your program?  Is there any outreach that exists between your school and local community groups for instance?  Currently, there are a lot of different groups of people who are reaching out to me, to the school and to the Strengths Movement as unfolds in schools. People from the Positive Change Corps and the Taos Institute, for example, have met with me to begin planning an international conference on Strengths to change the k-12 system. Employees from Best Buy, have visited the school several times to determine how as a corporations they can link in with the school and the strengths agenda to advance their own social responsibility program that focuses on teenagers.  Schools from all over the country and in fact, the world have called us to see if they come and observe what we are doing, and asking if I can and speak to them.  Schools in California, New Zealand and Canada have requested information. I am also working with the Kellogg Foundation on creating a tool that will assess the strengths (among other things) of drop-outs and be used to determine lost or hidden talent that may help them enter the workforce as productive workers without a degree.  
7. How can we utilize your methods as parents when helping our children set limits? This is a great question.  I think that when children push limits it is because they are testing parents. My experience tells me that kids want both limits and boundaries. When these things are not in place is when kids go a little (and sometimes a lot) nuts. When kids push and break the boundary, the best thing a parent can do is get the child to accept responsibility for the action, engage in a constructive consequence and have a conversation about those behaviors are not going to create a positive life for the child. Parents fall short of this approach when they immediately give out a punishment, and don’t have genuine follow through conversations that refocus behaviors on choices and options having to do with strengths. Good discipline takes time.   
8. What is the earliest age at which teachers and parents can start incorporating your methods? How would this differ for elementary age children versus. high school kids for instance? Strengths can be developed in children at all ages. It begins with noticing what children’s natural tendencies are and helping children to understand what differentiates them from other people. Elementary children should be offered choices and have a say in deciding he things they wish to do. This is often very difficult for parents who have a lot of expectations for their kids. When kids re in high school parents can begin to really engage them in conversations about what makes them feel strong and energized. This is very different than what they are good at doing. Some kids are “good” at doing a lot of things, but not all those activities energize them. It helps if people are able to figure out what truly energizes them. I think that can be determined by looking at how much time a person is willing to spend engaged in any one activity.  
9. What are five things parents of any age child can do right now to help their children develop their strengths? 1)       Give children choices for making decisions which effects their lives. 2)       Listen to what they say about what they like rather than offering advice about you, the adult prefers.3)       Establish routines in the home where each child picks a preferred chore or activity. This will build a sort of discipline around a choice about you like to do within a larger context of something you may have not enjoyed. For example, have the kids help clean the kitchen, but let them choose which part of that task they prefer to do.4)       Talk about your child’s strengths and talk about the strengths of other people you know.5)       Find a successful adult who shares your child’s strengths and encourage that person as a role model.  
10. Do you have numbers for Purnell graduates who have gone to 4 -year colleges? Any case studies?     Over the past 10 years, 99% of Purnell students have been accepted to 4 -year colleges. In the past five years, 100% of the girls have been accepted and 98% have matriculated. Among these schools are Vassar, Smith, Alfred, Drew, Muhlenberg, Linn,  Fashion Institute, Savannah School of Art and Design. There are so many case studies of Purnell Graduates, but one of my favorite is about a girl named Alexandra Spaulding. This is a young woman who came to Purnell from Buffalo New York. When she arrived, she was really unhappy and kind of lost. Her mother says, she was unsure she would ever get through high school, or ever get her life together. She discovered a real strength in art, specifically photography. A lot of times, kids who struggle in a traditional classroom do so because they have a different kind of brain. They are very often quite creative. Well, this girl was one of those. Once she discovered her strength in photography, she followed that passion and worked very hard to develop it into something that would work for her for the rest of her life. She went on after college to attend the Glasgow School of Art and after receiving a master’s degree, she went on to get a PHD and is now a photography professor. This is one of many, many stories about Purnell graduates.   
11. I was intrigued by The Affinities Program as preparation for the workplace and was wondering about the top 10 most sought after jobs today, none of which existed in 2004. What are they? Where did this information come from.  In a widely distributed video called “Shift Happens”, there are dozens of facts cited and among them is a statement made by former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, who was quoted as saying that by 2010, the 10 most sought after jobs will not have existed in 2004.” Today, some of the top majors in college confirm this statistic. Some majors today that didn’t exist in the last decade are: new media, organic agriculture, e-business, nano-technology, and Homeland Security.  The point of this is that we cannot prepare students for jobs that don’t yet exist, but we can make sure they know what their strengths are so that no matter opportunities arise, they can put them to use. The thing about developing strengths, is that we are looking to develop very specific categories of activities and skills that energize a person. Oddly enough, the more specific one is in identifying this, the more places it can be applied.  For example, if I say I have a strength in organizing, I am being very general and I may not have any taste for organizing spaces with things. However, I may narrow that understanding to “I have a strength in organizing events.”  When someone identifies this so specifically, it is what I call a Strengths Epiphany and it can be applied to a variety of jobs and situations.   
12. Is developing strengths only for struggling students? No, It is important for everyone, and most especially or students who very talented at many things. One of the problems we have with high achievers is this drive for what I label “unspecified achievement”.  This is the drive for high achievement in everything in order to be competitive. I find this to be really debilitating to our brightest and most talented kids, as well as everyoneelse.  What it lacks is any kind of focus on helping students discern the kinds of learning experiences that inspire them.  This leads to a generalized sense of anxiety among children when they reach college. You can tell this from the fact that in the nation’s most competitive colleges, the fastest growing department is mental health services.  If children are able to figure out what strengthens them, they will be better able to find a meaningful path and carve out a future from that.    

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Would you like to win a free copy to read for yourself?

For one entry, just leave a comment below with your thoughts about the book or its premise from the tidbits above - what intrigues you? what reings true? what makes you wonder? or ??

For a second entry, post a link to this review/contest on your blog, then come back and leave a comment letting me know (in a separate comment from your first!).

I will “draw” a winner at random on Saturday, April 12th.  If the winner does not leave contact info, or does not get back to me within three days, I will draw someone else…

Good luck!

Are you an artistic type?

The Carnival of homeschooling is a really neat carnival that I frequently participate in … and will, in fact, be hosting here at the end of January!

They are holding a contest for a logo design for the Carnival, and submissions are now open!

Check out all the details over at the hosts’ blog, Why Homeschool.  Then get busy!!