First Blogoversary

Oh. My. Goodness. This shows how bad I'm getting at keeping up with my blog...

I missed my blogoversary!!!

This is a sad, sad day in Serenityopia... Thank you to Teena for reminding me about it!

What a horrible blogger I am... I totally missed planning the greatest online party in all of Blogger history!

Help For Removing Blogger's Title Off Your Blog

**Thank you to everyone who replied so quickly! As you can see, I've fixed my title problem, thanks to some help from Johanna and a little actual "looking" from me. The answer was right under my nose! For future help for you other lovely bloggers, to remove Blogger's title off your blog, so you can replace it with a picture, follow these steps:

1.) Go to your Layout page.
2. Click to edit the box with your blog's name in it.
3. Upload the picture you want to use as your banner.
4. Underneath the photo it will say "placement." Mark the "instead of title and description."
5. Press Save, and you're done!***

As everyone can see, I've done a little changing around on my background here. Also, today I played around with my first banner! That's been fun, although I need a little advice. How do I get Blogger's title for my blog off, so that it's just the banner? Hopefully someone has an answer!

Sisters In Christ - Lovely "Things!"

I've been awarded! Thanks so much, Hannah. I'm enjoying our growing friendship.

I'd like to pass this on to Akeret HaBayit. We've recently started emailing, and through the few emails and chats, I've really liked getting to know her! We've got a lot in common, I think. :)

A Chance To Meet *You*?

Guess what? In exactly twelve days I am going on a trip.

"Where to?" you ask?

Washington D.C., my friend!

My grandparents, Mom, Active Boy, Baby MIT and I are going on a week-long trip to Washington, Philadelphia, PA; Cape May, NJ; Williamsburg, VA; Charles Town, WV; and Baltimore, MD. I can't wait!

The main reason we're going is to go to our family reunion in Baltimore. Apparently we (from my grandpa on Mom's side) have a lot of family over there, so my grandparents were interested in meeting them; and in turn invited Mom to go, who decided to take my brother and I for the sake of a good homeschool field trip. :)

Now my question is this: do any of you blogger friends live close enough to those cities that we might be able to meet? I would love to get a chance to see you in person!! Please, please comment and tell me you do! I could give you my email address and we could set something up.

With love,

Homeschooling - It's All About Learning Anyway, Isn't It?

I just came from M is for Mommy (And Missi) and read the cutest post on an "untraditional homeschool day". I enjoyed it! Lately I've been counting my blessings for being homeschooled, and the flexibility is one thing I love.



Since I'm working on a quilt, for the past week I've been trying to start on my school work as early as possible (for instance, if we've got to wait for the muffins to come out of the oven for breakfast, I'll try to get my English done) so that I can get a little done every day right before lunch time.



Also, another very flexible thing about homeschooling that I love is the place you actually do it at! While I'm mostly at my desk during school time, I also like the couch, dining room table, my bed...and yes, I admit it: the bathroom. Hey, when you've got a lot of things going on around you, sometimes it's the only good place you can really concentrate without interruptions! I have found that when someone calls "Seren!" they're pretty willing to let me off the hook if I call back, "I'm in the bathroom!" :)



So, anyway, I liked that post. :) Missi writes a lot of good ones on parenting and family, spiced up with her great sense of humor, that I love to read. A blog definitely worth checking out!

I'm a Super Secret Angel...Are You?

I have just recently joined a group called Super Secret Angels created by Miss Amanda Dixon. Apparently, I am just in time because she is ready to assign new SSAs to everyone. I can't wait to start!

Super Secret Angels is similar to "Secret Sisters", if you've ever done that before. Pretty much, you get information about a girl you've been matched with and send her little gifts, emails and cards just to encourage and make her happy. Meanwhile, someone else has you as their Super Secret Angel and is sending you things, but you don't know who they are! After a little bit, everyone is revealed and a new SSA session starts up.

You should sign up before the next one begins! Who knows? Maybe I'll just be the one to get you!

Thanks, Miss Hannah!

Thanks to Miss Hannah, I've been awarded a bloggy award! I have just recently "met" Hannah in cyberspace sometime this month, and have greatly enjoyed her blog. She is such a loving, caring, godly and not to mention sweet girl who enjoys many of the same things I do.

I'll only be awarding one person today, and that will be another Hannah who blogs at Striving to Glorify the Lord. I have just recently "met" her too, and enjoy reading her blog. Lately she has been writing some very good thought-provoking posts - the kind that is one of my favorites to read!

Thanks again, Hannah, for awarding me! I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Fresh Thoughts Challenge

My mom, over at Fresh Thoughts From the Laundry Room, is hosting a 30 day challenge. Basically, she challenges everyone to take 30 days to do a little cleaning up of their lives. Like she mentions in her post, these 30 days will pass whether we are doing something to improve our lives or not. So I thought, "Hey, why not give it a try? It certainly wouldn't hurt!"

After much pondering, I've decided that for the next 30 days I would like to be in bed, with the lights off, by 10 PM. For the past few weeks I've been going to bed at very irregular times, resulting in crankiness in more evenings than I'd like, and tiredness from just not going to bed at a steady time, and getting up at 7 AM regardless. Not to mention, I've noticed I don't look too good with dark bags under my eyes.

There will be one exception, however. Since Saturday morning is my sleep in morning (Shabbat Shalom!), I would like to have Friday night as a time to stay up without a set bedtime. However, I will try to use that unset bedtime in moderation!

What about you? Do you have any New Year's resolutions that haven't been put into gear, or something you know that you really should be doing...but just haven't gotten around to consistently doing it yet? If so (and I know everyone has something), I'd like to encourage you to commit to doing it for at least 30 days. Join me in the Fresh Thoughts Challenge 2009!

*Update: Mom is now having a giveaway for all who sign up for her challenge. On January 18th she will randomly choose a name to win a large stack of magazines focused on dieting, exercising and meeting dietary goals. I have personally poured over these magazines for hours and have enjoyed the tips, all though I am not dieting. Here's another reason to do a little life pickup!*

Awards

I have been awarded by Miss Rebekah for both the "Kreativ Blogger Award" and an award in Portuguese. :) Thank you very much! I greatly appreciate it, and am proud to be able to award other bloggy "friends".

Before I pass on the "Kreativ Blogger Award", I've got to follow the rules, which state, "The recipient is to list six things that make him/her happy before subsequently passing forward the glee to others." So, here are six things that make me happy:

- Surprises
- Thoughtfulness
- Giving to others
- Getting mail
- Receiving hugs and kisses from my siblings - something they don't douse out frequently!
(Although Baby MIT has been showering me with kisses lately... :)
- Finding and reading new, good books


First off, I would like to award Mother Dearest at Fresh Thoughts From the Laundry Room the Kreativ Bloggy Award. Mom is very creative, always having such good ideas of what to blog about, how to write things and ways to make your blog more fun. Also, she is creative in other ways too. I can always turn to her for a thought on how to make dinner out of practically nothing (funny, isn't it, when your cupboards are full, and it seems there's nothing to make?), a way I could organize something or how to decorate a card so that a certain type of personality might like it. The list is endless! So, I hereby award you, Mom, the Kreativ Blogger Award.

I have one more person to give this award to: Miss Jocelyn, of A Pondering Heart. Now, I know Miss Jocelyn has probably gotten a hundred awards, but I really believe this one could be added to her list, if it hasn't been already. My reason for awarding Miss Jocelyn is because she is continually writing about something new. I love that! I always enjoy reading what she's wrote about, as usually it's something I haven't seen on anyone else's blog. I also like how she presents things in such a fresh way. It's never hard to keep reading one of her posts, since they are always creative and interesting. I hereby award you, Miss Jocelyn, the Kreativ Blogger Award.

The second award Miss Rebekah gave me was, like I said, in Portuguese.

Here is the wording for this special award: To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means:


"This blog invests and believes, the proximity" (meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' -being close through proxy)

"They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let's try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text."

I would like to award the ladies at Princesses in Disguise this Proximity award. For the past year or so, I have enjoyed being continuously kept up to date by Kayla, Stephanie and Allison on the events and happenings of their family. I have been pen-pals with Stephanie for a couple of years now, and even though I love writing through "snail-mail", I think reading her and her sisters' blog has helped me get to know her better. Also, it's fun! So, Princesses, I hereby award you the Proximity Award.

Congratulations, everyone! And thanks again, Miss Rebekah, for awarding me. :)

Ten Things I Do on a Daily Basis

I've been tagged by Miss Sydney, over at her blog While I Wait, for this little bloggy game! I've been seeing this tag around on different blogs, and I thought it looked like fun, so of course I was exited to see I've been tagged for it. Thanks, Sydney!

The Rules:

~Post the six to ten things you do on a daily basis (they don't have to be lengthy like mine are :)
~Link to the person who tagged you.
~Tag five other people
~Leave a comment on the blog of the person that tagged you letting them know that have posted this to your blog.
~ Tag at least one person who's blog you have either just found within the last week or some one who's blog that you don't know very well.

Some things I do...

1. Cook dinner. I am currently on "dinner duty" and cook dinner almost every day, although a one or two times a week Mother Dear will cook it for me. :)

2. Spend a half an hour with Creative Genius. Every week day after the littles have gone down for naps, he and I spend some time doing something he enjoys. Right now he's into being read chapter books, and we're about to finish "Changes For Kirsten" by Janet Shaw, which he picked himself out of our box of library books. :)

3. Exercise. Mother Dear and I have been doing different aerobic videos together just about every afternoon, taking a break on Friday and Saturday (Dad's days off). Personally, I love them! It's nice to feel the results. For example, when we first started exercising, crunches just about killed me! Now, depending on the video, I can almost all the repetitions. Also, I feel so energized for the rest of the afternoon, a time when I normally start to drag.

4. Knit. Right now I'm trying to finish a cable knit scarf I've been working on-and-off on for ages!

5. Lead "Serenity's Way Fun Preschool". Each week day morning at around nine o'clock I have a half-hour of preschool time with MIT #2, Mini Active Boy and Creative Genius. Every week we have a new unit, such as Farm Animals or Construction Workers, that we read books about, sing songs about and do craft/art projects about. It's fun! This week we're doing a Winter theme, with some Hanukkah things thrown in.

6. Dance...sort of. I love ballet, and since I haven't had lessons since I was eleven, I'm not very good at it, resulting in me making up a lot of my own twists and turns. Not too long ago, I sashayed through our living room to get something in our kitchen, and my Uncle Rusty asked, "What's she doing?" My dad answered, "Oh, just being Seren." It's true! I don't walk to get somewhere - I twirl, whirl or sashay. :)

7. An afternoon chore. On Mondays I sweep and mop our front or back porch, depending on which one needs it the most. :) On Tuesdays I sweep the upstairs hallway, the stairs and the downstairs hallway. On Wednesday I vacuum the beds and put new sheets on them. On Thursday, I sweep and mop our living and dining room (the floors are wood). On Friday I clean the upstairs bathroom. And on weekends I'm free. :)

8. Every night when I cozy MIT #2 in bed in our room, I turn on our baseboard heater. Even though we have Natural Gas, for some reason our bedroom doesn't have a register to vent heat. Our house was built in 1914, and I've often wondered what it was used for when it was built. No one could sleep in it, that's for sure! I actually like having a baseboard heater though. In our old house, which was practically new, there was a vent in my room, but sometimes the temperature would get a little chilly, since my room was under ground (we had a split-level house), and we'd have to bring in a second heater. I enjoy being able to heat my room with just one now, and always being able to control it! :)

9. Listen to music. Every day, right before Dad comes home for dinner on his lunch break, we have "bike time". The two older boys get out their scooters, and the the two younger kids get out their bikes and ride around and around through our main floor, which is built so you can go from the living room to the entry way, through the hall, through the kitchen, to the dining room, then back to the living room, all in one circle. Usually in that time, we have some upbeat worship music playing, which I enjoy working to as I finish dinner. Lately, we've been listening to World's Best Praise & Worship. Sometimes I even give it a couple rounds on the scooter!

10. Talk to my grandparents on the phone. My grandpa ("Grampy," we call him) likes to call and chat about different things he's seen on the news, or talk with my mom or I about something we've blogged about, give us the update on a family member or just see how we're doing. My grandma (we like to call her "Gram") enjoys calling to hear how we're doing, likes to talk with Mother Dear about things (like, "Hey, I'm at Goodwill, and there's this really good pair of jeans here that look like they might fit Active Boy. I know he goes through jeans in a snap, so I thought these might be good for him. What size does he wear again?") and sometimes she calls with a favor for me to do, like look up the address for such-and-such place on the internet, then look up on Map-Quest how long it would take for her to get from where she's at to such-and-such place. I'm her little secretary! :)

Well, there's my ten things. :) I would like to tag:

-My Uncle Tim, over at Emergent Observer
-Miss Stephanie, at In His Time
-Miss Rebekah on Bopey's Blog
-All the Princesses at Princesses in Disguise
-And lastly, for my blog that I don't know very well, I'm tagging Miss Kaitlyn at her blog, Purple Princess

Thanks again, Sydney, for tagging me!

ABC's All About Me!

I'm taking a part in this fun blog activity, hosted by Miss Jocelyn. You're supposed to put a word down that describes you for every letter of the alphabet. I found it pretty tricky!

Aerobiciser

Big Sissy

Corner stone

Dimpled

Elissa, my middle name

Fashionista

Gymnast (somewhat!)

Homemaker

Imaginative

Just plain girly!

Knitter

Language lover

MIT (Mother In Training)

Naive

Optimistic

Pen-pal

Question asker

Readaholic

Skirt wearing

Trusted

Useful

Virtuous girl - in training!

Washintonian

Xenodocy (hospitable - I love having people over!)

Young

Zippy

My New Decor

How do you like my new template? I got it off of The Cutest Blog on the Block. They have so many fun templates - and it's extremely easy and quick to get one on your blog. My last template I had (which I didn't really like too much) was a bit frusterating as I lost all my side bar links and lists, and it took a while to put them all back on. With this one, I didn't lose a thing! Mother Dear also grabbed a cute template. Go on over and check it out!

My John Hancock

I've been wanting a signature for my blog ever since I started it, and look look! I finally have one!

Dear Readers, I am exited.

I made my signature at mylivesignature.com. It was very easy, and took only a few minutes. All I had to do was type in my name and then choose a font, size and color. I also saw on their site that you could "write" your own signature using your computer mouse. I'm not very skilled at writing with the mouse, so I stuck to using what they already had. I think the end result turned out beautifully!

Sincerely,