August 2009
Monthly Archive
Congratulations to Roxanne Carson…. Roxanne has won her choice of one item from the Dimensions Design Store with a value of up to $20. Roxanne please contact me at cheryl@becausemomsaidso.com with your address again and let me know what prize you would like!
Thanks to all those that entered and took the time to visit Dimensions Design–our wonderful sponsor.
Remember to utilize Dimensions Design for any of your free printables needs and of course stop in and browse her shop again the next time you need to buy a gift!
Well, I am back from my trip to the Catskill Mountains in New York (about 3 hours from my home in the suburbs of New York City). I had a wonderful time and I literally had to drag my two little ones home–they want to move there. It was so quiet and so relaxing–we just loved it. I am back for you now and have a few reviews lined up in the future which means more giveaways… and I will be using random.org to pick my winner for the Dimensions Designs giveaway tomorrow. For now…. you might like this find:
I was sent this in the form of an email and thought that much of it was interesting and worth sharing. I don’t know how true it all is but I found it fascinating—Does that make me a nerd?
In George Washington’s days, there were no cameras. One’s image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are ‘limbs,’ therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, ‘Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.’ (Artists know hands and arms are more difficult to paint)
As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year (May and October) Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved their heads (because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good wigs made from wool. They couldn’t wash t he wigs, so to clean them they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term ‘big wig.’ Today we often use the term ‘here comes the Big Wig’ because someone appears to be or is powerful and wealthy.
In the late 1700’s, many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from the wall, and was used for dining. The ‘head of the household’ always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be invited to sit in this chair during a meal. To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. They called the one sitting in the chair the ‘chair man.’ Today in business, we use the expression or title ‘Chairman’ or ‘Chairman of the Board..’
Personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee’s wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman > > began to stare at another woman’s face she was told, ‘mind your own bee’s wax.’ Should the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term ‘crack a smile’. In addition, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt . . . Therefore, the expression ‘losing face.’
Ladies wore corsets, which would lace up in the front. A proper and dignified woman, as in ’straight laced’. . Wore a tightly tied lace.
Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the ‘Ace of Spades.’ To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren’t ‘playing with a full deck.’
Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what the people considered important. Since there were no telephones, TV’s or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars. They were told to ‘go sip some ale’ and listen to people’s conversations and political concerns.. Many assistants were dispatched at different times. ’You go sip here’ and ‘You go sip there.’ The two words ‘go sip’ were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and, thus we have the term ‘gossip.’
At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart- sized containers. A bar maid’s job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in ‘pints’ and who was drinking in ‘quarts,’ hence the term ‘minding your’P’s and Q’s ‘
Hey ALL, I know many of you have been on vacation and may have missed the post about the Dimensions Design giveaway so I want to re-direct your attention to it now. Dimensions Design is a great free website for teachers and parents –you can download free printables for your class and children. There is also an on-line store where you can purchase items such as t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, aprons and even tote bags too. PLEASE visit the review and giveaway post for your chance to enter to win something great from the artist herself Roslen Mack! Here is the link: http://becausemomsaidso.com/dimensions-design-review-and-giveaway/
Enjoy your week and as always God Bless
Cheryl
Please help me welcome Amy Shields to the Because Mom Said So team of advertisers. I am always happy to have great, quality advertisers on board and Amy fits right in with my other sponsors. Amy has a fantastic tutoring center open in Illinois and is beyond qualified to address your child’s educational needs. I hope that everyone in the Alton Area will keep Amy in mind should you need tutoring services for your children. Please pass this on to friends and family as well who may be in her area.
Welcome to the Because Mom Said So . Com family Amy =) God bless you as you meet the educational needs of the children in your area.
I am posting the home page of her website for more information should anyone need it :
SUMMER SCHOLASTIC TUTORING IN GREATER ALTON, ILLINOIS AREA
SPECIAL, SUMMER RATE K-12 tutoring for any subject including Math (Geometry, Algebra), Reading, English.
E-MAIL US www.AltonAreaTutoring.comSummer Program: The summer program is designed to target keys areas in Math, Reading, and English. The targeted areas will be determined by pre-assessments. I will also do monthly assessments in order to track progress and convey the results to the students and parents on a monthly basis.CALL 618.567.6321
My Philosophy: All children have a thirst for knowledge and can be successful learners given the right tools. When children are successful, they build confidence and learning becomes fun.
Additional Note: I am starting a tutoring business because I have always had the desire to pass on my enthusiasm for education so that I may help each child I work with reach their academic goals.
AMY SHIELDS
Certifications:
Illinois teaching certification:
Special Education K-12
Education:
B.S. in Special Education from SIU – Edwardsville
Experience:
10 ½ years teaching students w/ special needs at the middle school level in all academic areas and levels.
For several years I also assisted as a tutor in the after-school tutoring program at the schools where I taught .
Teaching children in several areas of academics has helped me see each child as an individual and provided me with the ability to identify different learning styles. After identifying their specific learning style, I’m able to better adapt lessons that suit students’ needs so progress is achieved at a faster rate.
References & background check available upon request.
I am so excited! I have just been accepted as an affiliate marketer with 2 amazing companies! For those of you who don’t know what an affiliate marketer is let me explain:
Big companies (and small companies too) that want to add to their sales will offer bloggers the opportunity to sell their items for them on their blogs in exchange for a percentage of each sale. The blogger becomes sort of a freelance advertiser for the company. Its a wonderful opportunity for Bloggers and Work At Home Moms to make extra money doing something that they love: Talking about products that they would want to buy for themselves and earning commissions on each sale that is a result of their marketing efforts of the product. Think about it, most women love talking about clothing and makeup and all things shopping anyway, so why not get paid to do it? Makes sense to me!
So which two FABULOUS companies will I be working with? I am so happy to announce that I will be spotlighting products from Guthy Renker and Beauty.com! How cool is that? Well, let me say this: be prepared to browse with me, and oooh and ahhhh and yell I WANT THAT! Because there are so many cool things for me to spotlight for you!
I want to thank Guthy Renker and Beauty.com for taking me on as an affiliate! CHEERS!
I found the “It Pays to Eat Pasta Giveaway” on someone else’s blog while I was clicking through Adsense Ads. As you know, I ALWAYS click through the Adsense Ads on my fellow blogger’s blogs–not only does it help the blogger make money, but I find lots of great things while doing it. Anyway, this is a nice contest and thought you would like to sign up for a chance to win.
What you can win: 8 Grand Prize winners will win FREE GROCERIES FOR A YEAR Which comes out to be $5,200 worth of groceries (I need this!)
42 people will win “mini shopping sprees” $200 worth of groceries—(yeah this would help too!)
The contest is sponsored by New World Pasta which makes some of our favorite brands of Pasta such as Ronzoni, Prince, and San Giorgio.
To enter: Use the link I have placed below:
http://www.itpaystoeatpasta.com/ip.cfm?u=3E8026B5-4AE5-45B8-9C65-9A5E7EE1B74B
You get extra entries if you get more people to enter—so if you enter, you help me. If someone enters under you….they help you. =) Lets all win some FREE GROCERIES!
God Bless,
Cheryl
If you are a teacher then you have probably already run through your fair share of FREE PRINTABLES WEBSITES. Personally, I use them just about every day when planning my pre-k lessons. I always need coloring pages, I always need letter tracing pages, and of course, I am always on the look out for super cute craft ideas and themed projects. I have a bunch of great free printables sites saved in my favorites on the computer…. now I have another one to add!
Allow me to introduce you to a new one: Dimensions-Designs. Dimensions-Designs is maintained by Roslen Roy Mack, an award winning illustrator of children’s books.
Roslen has illustrated such stories as:
and 
With her website Dimensions Design, you can print free coloring pages, and printables for your classroom, download room decorations, and buy apparel and gifts featuring Roslen’s designs.
Let me start this review with a preview of some of her free printables and coloring pages. All of the free printables can be found here: http://www.dimensions-designs.com
Roslen’s coloring pages feature the seasons, holidays such as Christmas, Valentines Day and Halloween, and animals such as sea life, insects, and farm animals. There is also an adorable ABC coloring book to download and capital letter and number tracing pages too. Roslen is still in the process of adding more activity pages to the site, but there is still quite a bit on the site to keep you busy with your your own children or in your class room. The great part is that most of it is FREE!
Roslen also has an adorable set of letter and number flashers (flash cards) which you can buy for $1.99
The third part of the site is Roslen’s custom apparel and gift shop. Roslen was sweet enough to send me a GREAT hoodie sweatshirt as a sample of her work. I LOVE IT!!! This is what she sent:
The sweatshirt is a nice thick, soft, comfy quality sweatshirt (Hanes Brand) and the design is just precious. SO CUTE! Some little girl will be very happy wearing it– I wish she had adult sizes, but alas at this time, Roslen’s sweatshirts are for children only. Don’ t worry though, there ARE a bunch of items for you too mom—
Take a look at some of the other adorable items Roslen has for sale for MOMS like us:
For Babies and Kids:
And lets not forget the pooch!
Dimensions-Design also has great gift options such as coffee mugs, mouse pads, license plate holders, journals, baseball hats, and much more all featuring the art-work of Roslen.
Like what you see? Want to win one of the items shown above? Thanks to Roslen, you CAN! Roslen has beeen gracious enough to offer a giveaway prize for the Becausemomsaidso.com readers. One lucky reader will win an item of their choice up to a $20 value.
Entering is simple, just head over to Roslen’s Dimensions-Design storefront using this link http://www.cafepress.com/dimensionstore and browse through her collections. Choose an item that you would like to win and then come back here to Because Mom Said So and leave a comment telling me which item you have chosen as your potential prize. Then grab 2 extra entries for any and all of the following that apply to you:
1. became a fan on facebook (leave 2 extra comments)
2. Follow me on Networked Blogs (leave 2 extra comments)
3. Subscribe to becausemomsaidso.com via email (leave 2 extra comments if you are already a subscriber too)
4. Tweet, Twitter Mom, post this link to your facebook or myspace status, or blog about this giveaway (leave 2 extra comments and the permalink where I can find the posting)
5. Make a purchase from Roslen’s store and add 5 extra comments telling me what you purchased.
You can visit once a day every day to leave and extra comment entry. Giveaway ends on August 31, 2009 Good luck and God Bless !!!
So who won the short sleeve t-shirt in their choice of design and personalization from Simply Colors?
Congratulations to Jennifer Gayron comment #3! Jennifer–you have until Wednesday to claim your prize! please go to the Simply Colors site and pick out your favorite short sleeved t-shirt (choose color, size, design, and specify what personalization you would like) and send me the details plus your home address as soon as possible so that I may forward it to Simply Colors.
Thanks to all who entered and visited the Simply Colors website as well as Because Mom Said So for this giveaway. I will be posting the next review and Giveaway either this evening or tomorrow so please stop in again and participate in the next giveaway.
Have a blessed Sunday
Cheryl
I’ve learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things:
a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life..’
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands.You need to be able to throw something back sometimes.
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch — holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
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