I'm back. Or I'm trying again. Or whatever. But...Grammaropolis on the iPad review!

Yeah, so I didn't keep up with my ambitions of posting regularly. But I'm going to try again. Because if I don't try...yadda yadda yadda. You know the rest, right?

TOTAL TOPIC SHIFT...One of the topics I find myself wanting to talk about a lot is the way we use technology in our homeschool. I joke sometimes that 75% of our schoolhouse is on my iPad2. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but not an egregious one. I rely heavily on my iPad for our homeschool, and sometimes I find really awesome apps and I want to tell people about them.

So today, I'm gonna do that. :) Our latest app-love is an awesome little language arts app called Grammaropolis (limited version is free; full version is $12.99).

I am going to let you guys in on a surprising little secret -- teaching grammar is a weakness of mine. I know, I'm a writer and a certified 6-12 English Education teacher! How can that be?

Murray State Racer basketball primer...'cause bball season is ONLY 3 1/2 months away!

This ain't no iPhone-app polaroid:
Me and my sis in our old school
Racer sweatshirts, circa 1983(?)

It's July, and my team is still on the national radar. Whaaaaa?

PEOPLE. This is seriously exciting. I have been a Murray State basketball fan my whole life. Seriously. Whole life. And last year was the BEST SEASON EVER to be a Racer.

I mean, yeah, plenty of haters were all about hating, but whatever. We were where we wanted to be -- THE hot mid-major program in America. (What's a mid-major? A team from a smaller conference, basically, but here's a good explanation from The Mid-Majority.) One of those schools that people look at and say, "THEY really play basketball."

OMG. It's friggin' July and I'm getting all amped up again.

So, I don't know if you watch basketball or even if you care about basketball in any way, shape, or form. Because I'm not making you read this post. :) But I do think it's about time I talked about my Racers somewhere besides Facebook. (Although I have to tell you guys, I did create a couple of Racer converts this year...I'm telling you, my excitement is contagious. Whether it's contagious like laughter or like herpes...well, I don't want to know the answer there!)

So why are we so excited this year?

The single hottest moment on True Blood. Ever.

Seriously. I may have drooled a little. In my opinion, Eric needs to glamour
Alcide on a regular basis.

So, there's this little thing I like to do on Facebook occasionally, and like a lot of my little quirks on FB, part of the reason I decided to blog is to bring this off FB into a more long-winded-friendly environment.

I know, lucky you.

So anyway, here it goes.

Last night's episode was called "Hopeless." Thing is, it was the best episode of the season so far (well, okay, the premiere with Pam and her Wal-Mart sweatsuit were awesome too, but I digress). Like, stuff HAPPENED. Constantly! It was a nice change.

So, my random thoughts on "Hopeless":

My alter-ego: Grammar Bitch. (I wear a cape.)

They're really not interchangeable. (credit: Grammarly.com)

Okay, so here's the deal. We all make typos. I do it. You do it. Editors at The New York Times do it. I don't judge when people make typos. I really don't.

But I'm not gonna lie. I do judge when I see other mistakes that clearly aren't typos.

(Bracing for alienation in 3-2-1...)

Okay, if you're still here, let's do this. Let's get it alllllllll out.

Today I was reading a really, really good craft blog. The writer had a clever little craft. She was an engaging blogger. But then, at the end of the craft, she wrote,

"Wahla! There's you have it!"

No.

Nononononononononono.

I am happy right now...

You and me both, Shirley Manson. You and me both.

So it's been like a trillion degrees here for what seems like forever. And while we are totally lucky to have an awesome friend with a backyard pool (which makes it SO much less like Chinese-lack-of-water-torture), I was still thrilled to hear those first drops of rain that signaled a break in the choking heat and (FINALLY!) some water for our lawn, etc.

I love the rain. Seriously. I mean, I loathe overcast days that are just cloudy and dreary and lacking in vitamin-d, but when it's actually RAINING? That I love. I swear that noise is like the best natural sedative in the world for me.

Not so great when I have deadlines out the watoosie, mind you, like I do today, but I am still happy to hear it.

Frankly, I'm sick of having house-bound kids who are crawling the walls. Edison isn't so bad, really -- he's happy to work on his computer or other indoor projects all day (and night) -- but Violet...man, she is not built to be inside all the time.

Your Thursday morning "awwwwww"

Spooning maltipoos. Seriously, what more could you want?

It is what it is.

Look, it's me, being ever so marvelous!

I keep thinking I need to have a blog. Then I hit the first stumbling block...what KIND of blog? I mean, I could go with parenting, that's always a good time for everyone. But I also like to post about things like home design. And ooh, ooh, I'm totally into tech. But what about education topics, which I'm particularly passionate about? Or even sports?

So I would sit there and contemplate all this, maybe hover over at Blogger for a while, thinking I'm really going to do it this time...and then nothing. Nope, I give out.

And then it hit me: just quit. Let your blog be like your brain, like your life. Let it just BE. Talk about whatever.

So there you go. Not exactly a perfect sales pitch, but that's because right now...eh, even I'm not totally sure what I'm selling.

I guess we'll find out together...hopefully. Fingers crossed, right?

Right.