From a Cluttered Desk

I am Tammy Cardwell, she of the cluttered desk. (Hey, you think I'm kidding?!) I'm having a blast here in Blogland and invite to you to peruse my ramblings. Like a buffet, they offer variety - essentially whatever makes it to the top of the piles that sometimes clutter my brain. We'll eventually cover it all - homeschooling, God, our church, the Eclectic Homeschool Online, books I'm writing and publishing, conferences I speak at, the joys of grandmotherhood, and hopefully chocolate. Of course, this is only what's near the top now. Who knows what's in those piles?

I announced a while back that I had begun work on prepping another antique book for online publication and today marks its first day online. Ten American Girls from History begins with Kate Dickinson Sweetser’s biography of Pocahontas: The Indian Girl of the Virginia Forest.

More chapters coming your way!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

I mentioned last week that I would be doing an online FrontPorch History workshop. This was a new venue for me, an entirely new format. While I first began ’speaking’ online back in the early 90s, teaching online workshops in AOL’s Academic Assistance Center and Homeschool forums, that was entirely text-base chat. I also do face-to-face workshops at conventions, of course, and have done radio interviews as well. This workshop felt like a combination of all of the above.

If you’re a homeschooler and you’ve never been to one of Cindy Rushton’s chats (There’s a link to her site under "Friends" on this page) you should. The speaker has a mic and you get to listen to what he or she has to say. At the same time, you can be chatting in text (which the speaker can also see). This makes for an entirely new experience for both speaker and attendee.

I did face some challenges. Being as visual as I am, I tended to be distracted by the text chat, so in the end I closed my eyes to the screen. LOL! When I’d finished my presentation, though, any questions that had been asked in the text chat were brought up for me to answer. Too, anyone else who had a mic could have asked without resorting to text chat, or so I assume (No one did). This new-to-me format took some getting used to, but I ended up enjoying it immensely and very much look forward to the workshop (A Homeschool that Handles the Hard Times) I’ll be doing during the Ultimate Homeschool Expo on Saturday, May 5th.

If you’re a homeschooler, I hope to see you there!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

I will be doing an online preview chat for the Ultimate Homeschool Expo this evening, at 8:00 central. I’ll be speaking on FrontPorch History, which is all about your family as history - how to bring your family’s unique heritage into your homeschool.

The chat is free and there will be plenty of time for questions and answers afterwards. If you’re interested…

http://www.ultimatehomeschoolexpo.com/?cat=7

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

This coming Thursday evening I will be giving a FrontPorch History workshop for the Ultimate Homeschool Expo’s Preview Chat series. This is the series of chats that lead up to the Ultimate Homeschool Expo, an online homeschool conference like none you’ve ever seen.

If you’re interested in family, come be at this chat. You can listen live for free.

I hope to see you there!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

I will be offering my workshop A Homeschool that Handles the Hard Times at the Ultimate Homeschool Expo in May, and offering a preview chat, FrontPorch History, for the same organization in April. And guess what? You can attend both without ever leaving your home!

Check it out!
Ultimate Homeschool Expo

This is a virtual homeschool conference hosted by Cindy Rushton. But hey, I’ll let her tell about it. This is just a small info snippet from the site.

My name is Cindy Rushton, I will be your hostess for this event. I have traveled to hundreds of conventions through the years. Of course, that has meant that I had to travel many, many MILES…stay in many, many hotels…leave my home many, many times…and inevitably choose between which conventions, speakers and events I would attend. There was NEVER an event that had everything in one place. Well, until now!

The Ultimate Homeschool Expo changes all of that!

Right there in the comfort of your home you can join us!

No gas bills!
No expensive hotels!
No frustrating traffic!
No parking!
No walking for blocks and blocks!
No crowds!
No makeup!
No babysitters!
AND…no bad seats in the room!

Plus! We have an amazing speaker line-up! You could NEVER get all of these awesome speakers in ONE PLACE! As matter of fact, many of them will be joining us while traveling to many different conventions that very same week! You can access them ALL from your very own home (OR your iPod!)! Yep! If you have to miss any sessions, we are recording it for you to download by Mp3 and listen to at your convenience! Can you beat that?

I am truly excited about this conference. I’ve been a big believer in the power of the Internet for years, but I also love the wealth of information you can get at homeschool conferences. Now Cindy has found a way to make both available together. Perfect!

See you there!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

What do we miss as we rush through our daily lives?

Most of us will never know, but I’ll bet a few people who dashed through the L’Enfent Plaza Station on the morning of January 12 are kicking themselves now that they do.

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

This one paragraph doesn’t even begin to tell the story. Read the whole article, Pearls Before Breakfast, and prepare to be enlightened about us and the world we live in. There were points in my reading where I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry…and I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have been part of the majority if I had been there.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C