Open Live Writer Works Again with Blogger!!!

For all of you bloggers who have been frustrated by the API changes at Google that completely ruined your ability to use Open Live Writer (formerly known as Microsoft Live Writer back in the day) with Blogger, I have great news for you!  A volunteer user has rewritten the program so that it now works to publish your images, just the way it used to!  Hooray!

This saves faithful OLW users so much heartache from trying to work around the issues with images.  None of us wants to deal with the Blogger interface!  That’s definitely a last resort.  So here are the step-by-step instructions to get you up and running again, including the brand new installation file:

1. Delete your old OpenLiveWriter folder (or rename it if you want to hang onto it just in case you still have problems).

2. Install the new, updated installation file: https://ci.appveyor.com/api/buildjobs/48m8ji5a7nv7o20n/artifacts/Releases%2FOpenLiveWriterSetup.exe 

3. Go to your new desktop icon for OLW and right-click on it...then click on "open file location." A window will open showing your installed folders for OLW. Click once on "Update" file and rename it...you can just add a 1 at the end, for instance. Press enter to save your new name. (This will prevent multiple OLW executions in endless windows.)

4. Now double click on your desktop OLW icon to open the program. Once open, go to File and Options. Then click on Accounts. Click "Add" and go through the login prompts to reselect your blog. This will apply a new authentication token so you don't get an error when you publish. Once reauthorized, you should see two listings for your blog (the original one, and the duplicate one you just added). Delete the first listing of your blog and leave the new one. Click OK to save these settings.

5. Create a blog post with images and publish! You should have no errors, and your images should appear correctly. I did a draft post first to make sure it appeared correctly the first time before trying to publish permanently.

Enjoy!  If you are a big fan of OLW, then I know this will simply make your day!  I was about ready to give up blogging altogether if no solution could be found.  The frustrations with the Blogger interface are endless, and I just wasn’t prepared to deal with that long-term.  I’m so thankful to Nick Vella in the GitHub forum for volunteering his time and effort to rewriting this program so we can all continue to enjoy OLW.  We are forever grateful! <3

Our Square Foot Garden Project

On Easter Sunday, my family came home from morning church services ready for the challenge of spending our day constructing two new 4’x4’ square foot garden beds together!  It was a rare opportunity, as all of us were home at the same time that day, and we all know many hands make light work!

I’d already spent Saturday driving all over town gathering the necessary materials.  I’d ordered the vinyl garden beds during the 12 Days of Christmas countdown sale at Costco.com, so they’ve been in the garage waiting for this day since December.  I went to Lowe’s and got all the peat moss and organic compost I needed.  Then I went to Home Depot for the vermiculite.  The first store only had one bag, so I had to drive across town to get enough for this project.

As soon as we got home, we all changed clothes and got to work.  First, hubby had to clear the ground of grass and build the garden frames so we could figure out placement.  Then I got to work putting down a shallow layer of rubber mulch underneath the garden beds for drainage and then rolled out some weed block fabric…enough to cover the surrounding area to create a weed-free perimeter. 

Next, we all set to work mixing up the ingredients on a giant tarp.  We each held a corner of the tarp and took turns tossing the contents to the middle until it was all mixed up.  The kids also enjoyed “walking” through it with bare feet in order to mix it some more. 

Next, we gave it a good watering and mixed it some more before dragging it into the garden box and dumping it out.

After repeating the whole process for the second garden box, my husband laid a brick border around the perimeter of the weed block fabric.  Then I began dumping out bags of red rubber mulch to cover the space.  I didn’t have enough, and we arrived back at Home Depot, only to discover that they were closing earlier than their website said they were…ugh! 

I had to wait until Monday to get the rest of the rubber mulch to fill it all in.  This gave it a nice, professional, finished look.  I was really pleased with it!  Next, I made a few trips around town throughout the week in search of some starter vegetable plants and herbs.  I started out with a few from Lowe’s, but they were nearly $4/plant, but with 32 squares to fill, that was way more than I wanted to spend this year.  So after asking around to my neighbors via the Next Door app for recommendations, I discovered a local garden center I didn’t even know existed called Mike’s Garden Center, and it was just a few miles up the road.  They had a great selection and very low prices, so I was able to really fill up my garden pretty quickly!  I only have about 6 empty squares left.  I’ll come up with something!  I ended up planting various types of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, okra, kale, broccoli, strawberries, red-leaf lettuce, yellow summer squash, zucchini, rosemary, dill, flat-leaf Italian parsley, and stevia.  Then I made a trip to Walmart for some affordable tomato cages and a trellis support for the climbing cucumbers and squash.  I got everything in the ground just in time for a round of daily rainstorms that gave everything a good soaking!  Perfect. 

The last thing I’m waiting for is the irrigation system I ordered.  In square foot gardening, you divide each planting section into 1-foot squares.  My hesitation in starting a garden here is that north TX is known for how hot and dry it is most of the year.  So my solution for both the garden grid and the need for regular watering was to order a pre-made irrigation system that serves both as your divider grid and your watering system!  It’s designed especially for square foot gardens.  Brilliant!  I discovered it on someone’s blog.  It’s from a company called Garden in Minutes.  It’s supposed to ship out this weekend, so hopefully, I’ll be able to get it installed next week and be good to go!  I’ll add another photo once that’s installed.

Next year, I plan to start all of my plants from seeds grown indoors in my Miracle-Gro Aerogarden.  I bought a seed starter tray made especially for my Aerogarden Ultra that will let me start up to 50 seeds at once!  Everything grows so fast in the Aerogarden that it will make transplanting easy, and it should yield me some good, healthy starter plants.  It will be a whole lot less expensive, too!  I can’t wait to try it.

We’re less than 2 weeks into the garden, and we’ve already started harvesting strawberries.  I have lots of small peppers hanging already, and everything has plenty of healthy blooms.  I even have a tiny head of broccoli beginning to form!  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that our garden will be a success!

Teacher Appreciation Day Deals, Tuesday, May 7th!!!

Tuesday, May 7th, is national Teacher Appreciation Day.  If you are a teacher (or home educator, in most cases), check with these local restaurants to verify their participation in these special offers!

CHICK-FIL-A

Receive FREE Chicken Minis before 10 am or a Free Chicken Sandwich after 10:30 am.  The offer is good all day.

SONIC

Starting Tuesday, May 7th, SONIC Drive-In is offering teachers (and everyone who appreciates them) a free Route 44 Drink or Slush when you order ahead in the Sonic App and use promo code TEACHERS, good with any purchase through Friday, May 31st.

CHIPOTLE

From 3 pm till close, you can get B1G1F burritos, bowls, salads, or an order of tacos for teachers, faculty, or staff!  This offer is only good on orders placed in the store and not on their app.

CICI’S

Get a Free Adult Buffet for teachers and administrative staff. PRESENT THIS COUPON to get your buffet and bring proof of employment.

Enjoy your special day of treats, and thanks for educating our children!

Food Deals and Freebies for Cinco de Mayo!

Moe's Southwest Grill
From May 2nd-5th, spend $10 at a participating Moe's through Uber Eats and you get a free Homewrecker burrito with the code "FREEFIESTA."

Wendy's
On Sundays through May 19th, order through DoorDash's mobile app and you can get a free small Frosty with the purchase of any Spicy Chicken Sandwich Combo. Just use the code "HOUSEWENDYS."

Schlotzsky's
On May 5th, you can get a medium drink, bag of chips, and Fiesta Chicken Sandwich for just $5.

El Pollo Loco
From May 3rd-5th, you can get a $5 Street Corn Tostada or a $5 five-piece fire-grilled chicken order.

7-Eleven 
Through May 21st, 7-Eleven is offering small coffees, medium cold brews, and medium Slurpees for just $1.

Enjoy your celebration!

2019-2020 Curriculum Plans for 6th Grade

Holden is down to the final 3 weeks of this school year.  Yay!  We decided to skip our 2-week spring break altogether, and we don’t plan to take our monthly week off in May, either.  That gains us an extra 3 weeks to have off between school years, which will glean us a break of 4 weeks.  That’s amazing!  We never have big breaks like that.  He will also finish math for the year on Monday, so that will free up a big block of time each day, and a week after that, he’ll finish up Wordly Wise 3000 Online.  With math out of the way, we should be able to start doubling up on some of our other assignments, at least on some days, and that would allow us to take an even longer break between school years!  That will be so nice.  I wanted to be sure that we finished school in May like Haylee will in public school so we can all have some time off together.

I waited until the last possible minute to start making my curriculum plans for next school year, and I made no preparation of any materials, either.  I was on the fence about maybe sending him to public school, as he has not been cooperating with homeschooling this year.  But after some investigation into the middle school here, we thought better of it.  He would go to Wedgwood 6, which is only 6th grade, but Wedgwood Middle thereafter, and it has a terrible reputation for violence and drugs.  Ugh.  I’ll keep suffering through is lack of cooperation at home, thank you very much.

So once that decision was made, I had to step up my game to put together a plan and start ordering and prepping materials, but I got it all done!  We’re ready to go, and I’m excited about all the new things we’ll be doing for 6th grade!  I decided to drop traditional language arts and handwriting in favor of doing a grammar-inclusive introductory writing program.  I had saved it from a review I’d done with Haylee many years ago, and I think it will be perfect for him.  He’s on the older end of the recommended age range, but since he hasn’t done any writing before this, it’s actually a good starting point.  So here’s our plan!

2019-2020 CURRICULUM PLAN

6^th GRADE

SUBJECT	CURRICULUM
Math	Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
History/Reading	Bookshark 6
Language Arts	Write Shop Junior D
Science	Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures
Spelling	Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary 7
Vocabulary	Wordly Wise 3000 Online – Level 6
Spanish	La Clase Divertida Level II
Bible	Bible Study Guide for All Ages

I even sat down and got all of our daily lesson plans programmed into Homeschool Planet and have printed out all of his schedules for the whole school year.  They are tabbed by week number in a big binder.  When I said we’re ready, I meant we’re completely ready!

Holden is probably most excited about returning to La Clase Divertida.  He really had a lot of fun with that program, and he retained a lot of the Spanish words that were set to music.  I was thrilled to find Level II for a good price on ebay.  I’m probably most excited to do Apologia science again this year.  We had a great time with all of the experiments in Anatomy & Physiology this year, and I’ve never done anything with the Flying Creatures program before.  I was lucky enough to pick up the textbook and unused notebooking journal at a local used curriculum sale for a grand total of $10 last summer!  We plan to move into Land Animals in 7th grade and Chemistry & Physics in 8th grade.  We ordered the Nature’s Workshop Plus lab kit to go along with Flying Creatures, so we’ll be ready for all those great experiments.

So what’s your plan for the new school year?  Will you be trying anything new?  We plan to do a trial run with the first week of school starting June 17th, and then we’ll take a week off in case I discover anything I’ve forgotten to order, schedule, or prepare.  That’s gives me a chance to fix it and start again the following week.  I’ve always found that to be a good way to start off the year.

National Pretzel Day This Week!

Friday, April 26th, is National Pretzel Day.  In celebration, stop by Auntie Anne’s Pretzels (my fave mall stop) any time between Friday, April 26th and Sunday, April 28th and take advantage of this deal:

Buy any pretzel item and get an original or cinnamon sugar pretzel FREE!  You’ll need to be signed up for the rewards program and have access to either their website or the Pretzel Perks app to access the deal.

Entertainment Books $10.40 on Tax Day!

If you ever wanted to try an Entertainment Book, now’s the time to do it!  They usually run close to $30-$35 each at the beginning of the season.  But for Tax Day, April 15th, you can get them for just $10.40 each PLUS FREE SHIPPING!

That’s an incredible deal.  It makes me wish I’d waited.  I think I paid about $17 on Black Friday, and I don’t typically use it until summer rolls around anyway!  I think for next year's book, I’ll wait!

Happy Tax Day!

All 2019 Entertainment^® Books

^$10.40