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Do you clean out your Instagram followers? If you have a public account, you really should! I try to do this about once per month. This month I deleted a number of questionable-looking men. I also tend to delete accounts with no profile photo, unless I know who they are. Even though my policy is to never post photos of my children online (their faces, anyhow), I still try to provide this extra layer of protection for our family. You might want to, too.
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We start school on Monday!!!!!!!!!! Am I ready? Um, I hope so. I’ve cut it close this time — way closer than usual. Last year, I finished a whole week ahead and had a nice break for a week before we started. This year, I’m rolling right into the school year. Not ideal, but not avoidable.
When do you start?
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Scholé Sisters debuted our second (and final) episode of our special summer season. This one comes in two parts, and OUR part is the SECOND half. It won’t make much sense unless you listen to the first part, which you can find on The Mason Jar Podcast here (or in your favorite podcast player, of course). Once you’ve listened to the first part, THEN jump over to Scholé Sisters and listen to the second!
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Don’t start thinking you’re podcasted out, because AfterCast has an episode for your earbuds as well! This one is a crossover, which means you can find the whole thing on AfterCast OR on the Charlotte Mason Poetry Podcast.
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This month in 2015:
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This week’s links collection:
- Look up from your screen from Aeon
- This article wonderfully balances the prevalent Gnosticism I’ve noticed lately! Example: “It is common sense that the head is the ‘seat of thought’, but ‘the principal regions of my body are consecrated to actions’, and the ‘parts of my body participate in their value’. People learn, think and value with every part of their bodies, and our bodies know things that we can never fully articulate in words.”
- Not just brain (or MIND) — BODY matters, too. And thinking of those two things as separate is sometimes useful, but also sometimes detrimental.
- “For many young people, digital media, even when used appropriately, can make education and community life worse.”
- Reports: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Personal Driver For 20 Years Was A Chinese Spy from The Federalist
- Interesting, though. A later report said he was NOT just her driver, but an office staffer as well!
- As this woman was MY senator, I find this hugely upsetting. And then to add insult to injury, she was sitting on the Judiciary Committee and the Intel Committee! Head slapper, that.
- So corrupt. What else is there to say?
- Probiotic Use Is Link Between Brain Fogginess, Severe Bloating from Laboratory Equipment
- How many probiotics do I give my children? ZERO. This is basically why.
- Egypt’s second sphinx FOUND: Ancient statue discovered during ROAD WORKS from Express
- This sort of reads like a conspiracy theory about Egyptology … which means I loved it. At the very least, great fun.
15 Comments
Thanks for the IG reminder. 🙂 I’ve been needing to clear mine out.
Also, I wonder if that note on probiotics would go for drinking kombucha, too? I drink a tiny bit each morning to wash down my vitamins, and I know something isn’t right lately…
Thanks for the instagram tip, i have removed and blocked a couple of men with no followers, no pics and who follow lots of people. Worrying that they are there.
What about plain yogurt that has probiotics in it? Do you know if that as problematic?
I saw a doctor who commented on this and said that naturally fermented foods were not of the magnitude that this study was looking at — his conclusion was that they were fine and that mankind has always eaten a certain amount of those kinds of foods without negative impact. He believed the negative impact comes from the billions of organisms and so many different kinds — that it is overloading the body somehow. I don’t know if he is right, but it made sense to me!
Oh I’m glad to hear that since we’re making our own yoghurt at home now, i was worried it was doing us no good!
We took 9 weeks off in the spring, when its nice to be outside. We got started in June, a week before I’d planned b/c we realized that the extended time off wasn’t good for Little Man. Hubby and I agreed that shorter, more often breaks, might be better and worth trying.
I am always thinking about the screens issue. They are apart of life and we must learn to use them wisely. This was a challenging article, and its got me thinking how to make learning more physical. I think he poo-poos the intellectual side a bit too much, but I can be happy just thinking and talking about stuff all day, so I know I’ve got a strong bias also.
I always enjoy your links! Thanks, Brandy!
I know what you mean about being happy thinking and talking all day — I have to work really hard to bring any physical aspects to our learning because they just do NOT come naturally to me! I love the theoretical, so articles like this are always a needed rebuke for me! ♥
The article on probiotics is interesting to me. I’ve only given my children probiotics when they’ve had to take antibiotics for ear infections, strep, etc. My middle child had the weakest immune system his first three years of life, so taking them was a must (based on the color of his stool).
I’ve been struggling with depression and trying to figure out what herbs and supplements I can take until I’m able to visit my doctor again in September to renew my medicine. I’d been taking probiotics along with certain meals to help my system process things better. Now I wonder if it was contributing to my issues…
Oh, that’s hard! You know, there is a lot of research on depression being associated with high levels of inflammation in the body — including in the brain. We have been keeping an eye on The Nemechek Protocol to see if it is effective with this. It was invented to treat ADHD and Autism, but many are seeing results beyond that because of its seeming ability to lower inflammation. It might be worth looking at — it’s simple to implement, and if you don’t want to buy the book, you can go to the FB groups for help.
We start on Monday too! I’m mostly ready, although there’s a few small loose ends to tie up (hymn/folk song books need updating, need to print copywork, those kind of things) and one bigger chunk (Spanish!! Argh!) that is still not as well planned as it should be.
And with Instagram… I do delete people, but I also wonder how many icky people just grab a nice picture off the internet and use that for their profile pic. But there’s nothing that can be done about that, other than crawling into a hole and not engaging with social media at all. Which at times is an appealing idea!
I SO know what you mean! At least with public profiles, we can see what they are posting. One red flag I look at is if private profiles haven’t posted anything at all. I know sometimes that just means it’s a new account, but I figure they can follow again in the future and in the meantime I’ve done what I thought was best…
Brandy,
Several years ago, I had someone suggest that regular use of probiotics was not a good thing. I kind of looked at him like he was crazy! I mean everybody was giving themselves and their children probiotics and thinking this was good. As I continued pondering what he shared though, I realized this was not natural and an overload of any kind of bacteria, “good” or not, could not be a good thing. I discontinued my use of them several years ago, but seeing this article, helped me connect all the dots!! Thank you for posting~
You’re welcome! We used to take a lot of them years ago when our children were young, and I realize now that we were compounding issues that we were trying to solve. My husband prefers prebiotics to probiotics. These are fibers that feed your natural bacteria.
I’m starting Labor Day. For a long time it was a hang up of mine–“Back in MY day, kids didn’t start school until September!” (insert old man voice). I thought I needed to get over it, especially as we were going further into June each year. So I started third week of August last year. Big. Mistake. Everything went insane from day 1 and didn’t stop until we ended our school year, and we didn’t end up finishing any sooner anyway. So, Labor Day it is! LOL So we go into June–it still gives us two whole months off to enjoy a break. 😀 I know some people have to start when charters do or co-ops or to line up vacations. But we don’t have those issues. Sort of like that great probiotic article you shared–if you don’t have the issues you don’t need the fix. 😀
Yes! It’s been hard for me to learn to start earlier, but last year my kids (well one of them) NEEDED me to start earlier because life without structure wasn’t working for him. So it’s become a habit and then we take weeks off in the middle. That is one thing I love about homeschooling — each school schedule can be tailored to the family’s needs! ♥