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?
From a Cluttered Desk
June 29, 2007
So long sodas
A couple of weeks back, I mentioned that I’d stopped drinking sodas. Well, it wasn’t an instant thing; I have had a few sips of the ‘forbidden’ drink in the past month or so, but never more than a third of a can, and I think I only had that much twice.
Anyway… I’ve lost eleven pounds!
I’m finding that I honestly don’t want them anymore, praise God. When I go out to eat, the natural thing is to order water. I haven’t even been getting tea because, frankly, I’m enjoying weighing less and pretty much every time I consider getting something sugar laden to drink (Can’t stand the sugar substitutes) I think about how I’d rather invest those calories - like in chocolate! hehe…
I am very happy to be over that addiction.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 27, 2007
CJPress.net is up and running!
I’m excited! As of yesterday evening, CJPress.net is live. Now you can log on and buy all of our products directly from us!
And I’m not just excited about the new website. I’m also thrilled to be able to announce that my newest eBook is now available. Homeschoolers, if you’ve ever wondered what you’ll do if life gets really tough, march on over and get your copy of A Homeschool that Handles the Hard Times: A Guide for Christian Homeschoolers. For only $5.95 you can learn some of the most important things you need to know about building a homeschool that can handle the hard times that come to us all.
Life is exciting. It seems like new things are happening every day, so stay tuned and see what comes around the next corner!
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 26, 2007
Homeschoolers - Come Join Me!
I will be speaking online at the History Super Seminar on Friday, July 13th. This seminar promises to be an awesome experience! There will be eight different workshops (six speakers) covering various aspects of teaching history. My own workshop is "FrontPorch History: Your Family AS History" and I am very much looking forward to not only presenting the topic, but discussing it with everyone who attends.
Believe me, you want to be a part of this seminar. You not only get to attend the online workshops (The chatroom software is a free download), but you will also be able to download (for free) the edited workshop audios after the conference is over AND you will download amazing door prizes during the workshops AND and you will be given access to a lot more, all for only $29.95. That is a serious bargain!
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the History Super Seminar.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 15, 2007
Free Ebooks
I’ve hesitated on blogging about this site, because I do stand to gain from others joining it, but really, how can I not reommend a free resource that I’ve come to appreciate so much?
Anyone who has read my articles for any length of time probably realizes that I am a fan of ebooks. While I do still buy paperback and hardcover books, I do a great deal of my reading in electronic format because these books only take up space on my hard drive and are easily disposed of if I ever decide I don’t need them. (I have the HARDEST time letting go of of print books!)
Enter WOWIO. A friend sent me an invitation and, to be honest, I only joined because if I did she would get a free mp3 player (remember me saying I do stand to gain?). I stuck with it, though, because it’s fabulous! They have an astounding array of ebooks available for FREE and you can download, for FREE, up to five a day. Books that I would never have considered buying I have on my hard drive, waiting for me to find time to read them. Books that I think even might help me in some research I’m doing are sitting on my hard drive, waiting for me to read them. They have books in 37 different categories and it looks to me like they must add books almost daily.
I’ve downloaded biographies, classics, speaches, informational books, business books, history books… I don’t even remember what all. I’ve not even touched the really cool books that would be especially appealing to parents and homeschoolers. You may think they’d only offer the commonly found public domain books like you’d get at Project Gutenberg, but they even offer things like Nomad Press books in ebook format FOR FREE, which completely astounds me. I am a big fan of Nomad Press. (We’re talking books like Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself, Great Ancient Egypt Projects You Can Build Yourself, and Great Civil War Projects You Can Build Yourself.)
You do have to give them some information when you join, but that’s only so they can verify that you’re a real person. I have downloaded over a dozen or more books and have never paid a cent.
You owe it to yourself to check it out (WOWIO) at least. And if you choose to tell them that I sent you (use email address tmcardwell@houston.rr.com) I may end up getting a free mp3 player myself. If you choose not to tell them I sent you, that’s fine too. The point of this blog entry is to share a resource I’ve really come to appreciate.
Be blessed!
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 14, 2007
For the Writers
It just occurred to me that I’ve never mentioned my favorite online writers’ resource. That’s sad.
Writer’s Weekly is Angela Hoy’s gift to writers. She publishes a free newsletter that is always full of helpful information (especially if you want to write articles), hosts boards where you can discuss all sorts of writing-related topics and network with others, has Booklocker, which is a great Print on Demand (POD) option for those who have decided they want to maintain control of their work…
If you are serious about your writing, you should definitely check it out!
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 13, 2007
Thiiiiiiiis close!
We are thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to having the new CJ Press site up and running, and I am totally excited!
I’ll tell you a secret. If you want a sneak peak at the site, just go to the publisher area here on TammyCardwell.net. Select Complete List of CJ Press Books, and then choose one to look at and click on Purchase at CJ Press. Even though the new site isn’t technically live yet, this link will take you to the catalog. Once you’re in, you can check it all out. Remember, it’s a work in progress and we’re only thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close. LOL!
When you go look at the list of CJ Press books, you’ll actually see that we’ve added in two eWorkshops. These are downloadable audio files of two of my homeschool workshops. We are working on even more new products, so keep your eyes open. CJ Press has a lot to offer!
Celebrating Jesus!
TammyC
June 12, 2007
So… Was God being literal?
I’ve been cutting way back on sodas lately because of a conversation I had with God a while back. I told him I didn’t understand smokers, how they could intentionally poison their own bodies like that. His response was, "Well, the cokes are poisoning yours."
So today I came across this article.
Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health
Here are some bits and pieces from it. The concerns are about sodium benzoate, a preservative used in many soft drinks.
Sodium benzoate has already been the subject of concern about cancer because when mixed with the additive vitamin C in soft drinks, it causes benzene, a carcinogenic substance. A Food Standards Agency survey of benzene in drinks last year found high levels in four brands which were removed from sale.
And…
He told The Independent on Sunday: "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether."The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it - as happens in a number if diseased states - then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA - Parkinson’s and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."
If you or your children drink sodas, do yourself a favor and read the whole article.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
June 7, 2007
YouTube Videos Warning
I just received a warning from a friend. He’s been using YouTube videos on his site and today he discovered that they’ve changed the way they’re doing things.
It is NOT good.
If you have embedded YouTube videos on your myspace or anywhere else, take a look at the videos you are hosting on your site RIGHT NOW.
YouTube (as of the evening of 6/6/07) changed the format of their embedded videos so that they now automatically display "related" videos after the selected video is played. From what my friends are telling me, some of these "related" videos are horribly unacceptable. (One friend has had an art video embedded on her site; you can imagine the content of the "related" video she discovered this morning.)
This also means that if you have videos on YouTube, then YOUR videos that are embedded on other people’s sites have these supposedly related videos running with them.
There is a hand-coded work around - a slow hand-coded work around - but my understanding is that YouTube isn’t guaranteeing it. Apparently there’s a heated ongoing discussion in the company area; hopefully they’ll get wise and stop this garbage, but in the meantime you need to protect yourselves.
June 5, 2007
Workin’ Workin’ Workin’…
My webmaster and I (mostly my webmaster) have been hard at work on building an honest-to-goodness C J Press website, so that you can buy all of our offerings from… TA DA… ME. I’ve been looking forward to this for many reasons, not the least of which is that it will help me stay in closer contact with those who are buying our publications.
It will also allow for some growth I’ve been dreaming about, making us able to offer more than just ebooks. For instance, my husband has taken some great photographs over the years. He’s threatened, off and on, to get some of them into the sites that sell graphic files to businesses, web designers, etc., but he never has. I’ve decided that one of the next things we’re going to do (my webmaster is going to love this) is offer for sale not only his photography, but graphic images from many of the vintage and antique books in our collection. Yes, this is a future dream, since I’m sure we’re talking about a LOT of html and legal details having to be worked out. Still, knowing that it can happen one day has me excited.
Don’t you just love watching a flower bloom? I feel like that’s what’s happening with C J Press. It’s a vision God gave me several years ago and I’ve been watching it grow slowly. Now things seem to be picking up speed and it is truly a delight to see it happen.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C