Geography Book Review: Children just Like Me

Children Just like Me by Anabel Kindersley. In this informational book for kids, readers learn about what life is like for children from all over the world. From Africa to America, to Brazil to Bolivia, to India to Israel and other countries, kids from all different races, cultures, religions and ethnicity share not only their backgrounds, families, traditions and religions, but their favorite

A Bit of History

We are in the last month of winter with yesterday cool and overcast.
When the sun omits to shine not even the birds feel the urge to sing.
Yes, we are spoilt, and the idea of remaining indoors for the day was not encouraging, so we decided on a drive.  
Only a little over an hour away is the sugarcane town of Maryborough.
Every Thursday is market and 'dress-up in the past' day.
So,  on with the warm clothes and off we went.
Through pine forests, past wild brumbies then vast sugar cane plantations, and on to the town.
An enjoyable time was spent looking at all the wares eating popcorn and watching the lunch time re-enactment with cannon blast, in the town square.

Although I doubt that Ned Kelly ever came to Queensland.

Maryborough sports his statue guarding over a Service Station/Motel with pride.

(Petrol priced at $1.23 a litre, now isn't that robbery?)

NED KELLY

(1854 - 1880)

On a cold June morning, more than 100 years ago a bush ranger called Ned Kelly fought his final battle.
He was an outlaw who put on a suit of armour, rode a horse and fought police. Today, he is an Australian legend.
The eldest of eight children, he was born to Irish parents in Victoria in 1854.
When only twelve years of age his ex-convict father died. This forced the family to move closer to relatives at Greta, two hundred and forty kilometres northeast of Melbourne.
The countryside consisted of wild rugged terrain, making life hard.
The best land was held by a handful of wealthy squatters.
Ned's family was poor and the only opportunity they had to own land was as 'selectors'.
Under the selection system families took up areas of land set aside by the government and paid them off bit by bit.
As part of the scheme they were obliged to improve the property by clearing it, building a house, putting up fences and growing crops.
If this wasn't done, the land could be taken away.
For many it was an impossible situation. The plots of land were small, and the soil poor, making it impossible to make a living.
Faced with poverty, selectors often stole horses and cattle.
At sixteen Ned was convicted of receiving a stolen horse and served three years in gaol. His release came in 1874. 
In April 1878, a police officer accused Ned's mother of attacking him,  and Ned of shooting him in the wrist.
Whether this was true or not, Mrs. Kelly was sent to prison for three years and a one hundred pound reward was offered for the capture of Ned.
From that time on Ned, his brother Dan and two others lived and hid in the bush.
A reward of two thousand pounds was offered for Kelly and his gang.
This was later to rise to an amazing eight thousand pounds, the equivalent today of nearly two millions dollars!
But people supported Ned and for almost two years they helped the gang evade police.
During this time the Kelly gang robbed two banks.
The robberies were important in the making of the Kelly legend.
In June 1880 Ned made his final stand.
The gang were at the Glenrowan Hotel when surrounded by police.
Prepared to fight, the four bushrangers wore suits of armour made from steel.  Ned became the sole survivor of the siege.
Then in a Melbourne gaol, on 11 November 1880 Ned Kelly was hanged.
He was twenty-five years old.
Today some see Ned as little more than a criminal.
While others see him as badly done by, brave and  a bit of a larrikin.
No matter what, he will always remain distinctly Australian.

Homeschool Village: First Day of Homeschool Traditions

This week’s question at the Homeschool Village is “How do you celebrate back to homeschooling or what traditions have you started for the new school year?”

My children , husband and I get excited looking forward to a new school year, especially our first day! In the weeks leading up to our first day, we pick and choose school supplies together. The boys loved the flash cards that we purchased

My Wednesday Walk: Rainbows

This week the youngest son and I read one of his favorite books on rainbows called “What makes a Rainbow,” We made rainbows out of construction paper puffy paint (for the clouds). It was a fun activity even though we had no rain.My boys enjoy the rain, even though my husband and I know with rain comes flooding in our area. Sometimes on not so rainy days the boys and I look outside to see if we

Timelines: make your own

This year we plan on using timelines while looking at the history from different countries with our Geography/History studies. So when I looked at timeline packages sold by publishers, many of them were out of our budget. There was no way, we could afford the expense. I was not giving up on the idea of having timelines and thought why not look at free resources online, I was surprised by the

"VICTORY" Mosque Allowed !!!

A wrong-headed New York City panel yesterday cleared the way for the construction near Ground-Zero of a mosque that has caused a politically correct uproar over "religious freedom" about a despicable religion that affords no religious freedom in its teachings and makes no secret of their desire to exterminate the Jews and the state of Israel. "SHAME on YOU!" was shouted at the jewish Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, when he praised the decision. Even the Anti-Defamation League, the nation's most prominent Jewish civil rights group, well known for advocating religious freedom spoke out against this mosque saying, "In the former shadow of the World Trade Center, it will disrespect the memory of those killed at the hands of Islamic terrorists fueled by a hateful book that guides every Muslim." Is America losing its mind!

It says a lot about the people behind this scheme that they had the bad taste even to propose building a mosque in such a place, but to describe it as they have, as "a tribute to the victims", is beyond bad taste and shows a profound contempt for those who died or are they referring to the murders that took over and piloted those planes into the Twin Towers? Yet how typical is Islam with its own hair-trigger sensibility to the slightest imagined insult to do something so arrogant and so insensitive. And yet this obnoxious plan was welcomed by politicians and civic leaders eager to show how tolerant they are at other people's expense. Is it possible to be astonished (as I am) but not surprised?

The organisation behind this scheme is called the Cordoba Initiative and this 13 story edifice to hatred will be called Cordoba House. This name is so obvious to anybody with a knowledge of Muslim history and their modus operandi.....so listen up. Cordoba is the city in Spain where Muslims built their Grand Mosque (on top of a church) as a symbol of their conquest of Spain, just as they did when they conquered Jerusalem and Constantinople. This Ground-Zero mosque is intended to serve the same purpose. Building mosques on "sacred ground" allows Islam to show the world its supremacy over the Infidels. They know how insulting and offensive it is and Americans smile, that misguided Judeo-Christian smile, and turn their cheek one more time in the name of "tolerance" when none is returned in kind.

They also know that once its built it will be there forever, as a permanent affront to all Americans, there gloating in triumph and a major bridgehead in an ongoing stealth jihad. That's how the Muslim world will see it and that's exactly how it will confirm what they always suspected, that America is a soft country, a decadent country, crippled by political correctness, confused and guilt-ridden, with a President that has no backbone or pride. On top of that, they plan to open this "victory" mosque next year on September 11th, the 10th Anniversary of this atrocity. Is that tasteless enough for you?

The Way I See It....the American Center for Law and Justice will challenge the panel's decision by a petition alleging that they "acted arbitrarily and abused its discretion." I trust they can stir up enough public anger to stop this disgraceful plan as well as telling the Muslim ass-kissing politicians that enough is enough.....that this is one insult too many. There is plenty of room in America to build their mosque some where else, somewhere perhaps more appropriate to the spirit of their religion...like DEATH VALLEY!

Beauty Sleep for Heart Health

Most women know that nothing kills a really good complexion like a bad night's slumber; there's a reason, after all, that it's called beauty sleep. If that's not motivation enough to keep up with your nightly shut-eye, here's another: many doctors are learning that poor sleep habits may make women more vulnerable than men to heart disease and even the dreaded diabetes.


Are men and women so different physiologically that they react differently to troubled sleep patterns? Or are men protected somehow from the health effects of poor sleep? To find out, Dr. Edward Suarez, at Duke University, gathered 210 healthy men and women and asked them detailed questions about their sleep habits--including how long it took them to fall asleep, how many hours they had slumbered in the past month, whether they slept through the night and if they felt drowsy during the day.


Then he recorded their levels of cholesterol, insulin, glucose, the clotting agent fibrinogen, inflammatory proteins (that contribute to heart disease) and for insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes). Since emotional factors can effect sleep as well, he also assessed each subject's levels of depression, hostility and anger, using standard psychological questionnaires. What Dr. Suarez uncovered was a consistent association between poor sleep and higher levels of the risk factors for heart disease and diabetes---but only among the women! The men with reported interrupted sleep did not show higher levels of risk factors. The results, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, are among the first to link poor sleep to such a wide array of physiological changes.


While he cannot fully explain why men and women are affected so differently, Dr. Suarez believes that testosterone could play a role. High levels of testosterone are known to reduce levels of heart damaging inflammatory proteins but can also cause some men sleep problems too. So he speculates that while testosterone may trigger sleep disturbances, it also blunts some of the changes that can raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes.


The Way I See It....Dr Suarez's study stops short of saying that women can reduce their risk for these conditions just by changing their sleep pattern, but it should galvanize women to pay more attention to the time they spend in bed. Just as I teach patients to eat well, exercise and maintain a healthy spine and nervous system through Wellness Care, I also advise them on how important it is to sleep well. In other words, for women....a good night's rest is far more than just a beauty sleep.