Wednesday's Words of Advice & Warriors *Odds 'n Ends*

It's here! It's your chance to choose one of these blog topics to write about, include the applicable button below in your post, then come back here to include your link in Mr. Linky so we can all click on over to check it out. Don't forget to take a moment to click on a couple other links to see some posts by other bloggers. Tomorrow night I'll be choosing my favourite post and stopping by your blog so that I can write a post profiling YOU! For a refresher on what to write about, see HERE.




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My Words Of Advice:


1) If you get that nagging voice in your head that tells you to call the shop to have your snow tires put on the car, even though it's early OCTOBER... do it!

This was what we woke up to this morning. And since Calgary doesn't believe in plowing or sanding any streets other than the main ones, I slid through three intersections while driving the twins to school, white-knuckling it the whole way. We made it safe and sound. Until Jonathan was driving the kids to a concert tonight and someone nailed the back side of the car. Day One and already an accident. Not good. Should have got those snow tires put on last week.

2) What's the best way to make your house smell homey, especially during the holidays? Simmer a pot of apple cider all day. Here's our family recipe (roughly, since I rarely measure anything):

jug of fresh-pressed apple cider or concentrated apple juice

3/4 bottle white wine

1 cup fresh cranberries

8-10 cloves

6-8 cinnamon sticks
*if you have any clementine oranges, I like to throw in a couple,
if not, throw in a couple of orange wedges

* bring to a boil and let it go for 5 minutes or so to burn off the alcohol

* bring down to a simmer and add a bottle of ginger ale

* let simmer all day

3) Are you a fan of Billy Bob Thornton? I can't stand him, but there once was a time when I could tolerate seeing him in a film. Until I saw him in Love Actually, when he played a US president. But then I DESPISED him once I saw this interview of him on Canadian CBC Radio's the Q. I had heard clips from this before, but had never seen the video footage. My advice to you: watch the clip. Then tell me what you think.



4) I can't gush about this download-able software program enough. Our family had a little *incident* with one of the kids who was surfing YouTube for kid shows, and instead was witness to some gay porn. I am not making light of it, it was horrific for us as parents, to have to deal with the consequences of this. Our twins had worked for years to learn to use the mouse and keyboard on a computer, then to navigate pages independently. Watching video clips was the one thing that they both loved doing so much, but now we couldn't trust YouTube. We found an amazing alternative.

ZacBrowser was designed for kids with autism, but I would HIGHLY recommend it for any parents with young kids at home, who have an interest in the computer. Go to www.zacbrowser.com and download the program for FREE. It will create its own desktop icon so the kids can learn to click on it and not have to go on to the internet browser at all. The program has more than one link (games, music & video). No outside content can come in and no one can navigate out of the program on to inappropriate sites. The video option is like a mini YouTube, but its only clips are all taken from kid movies and tv shows. It's wonderful!

Have you got any advice to share? Or a Warrior you want to write about? Go blog about it. Then come bac and don't forget to enter your blog's URL in Mr. Linky below to share it with us. Happy Hump-Day!