On the eighth day of giveaway...

...which is only going to take a year and a half to finish at this rate...

Okay, not really. I have now written all the giveaway postings out ahead of time (other than the who won part, of course), and will really, truly be able to post them in something like a timely fashion so we can all get on with our lives.

So, first off: the winner of I Am Learning All The Time is...

Wendy!

Congratulations! Send me your mailing addy!

And now, the next book for giveaway:

This is an anthology of unschooling essays, originally published in Life Learning magazine -- Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier, edited by Wendy Priesnitz.

I especially enjoyed Renata Rooney's essay "Letting Go." In fact, I have to say that part of the reason I can part with this book is that I'm carrying this piece around in my heart; and although I found many of the other essays interesting, intriguing, and educational, this is the one that had a permanent impact on me. I don't know how often it happens that a piece of writing can manage to grab and shake one's sensibilities while also offering warmth and reassurance, but that's what happened to me.

If you are interested in exploring unschooling, already unschool and would like some reassurance about your choice, or just need some good reading, this is the book for you. It might also be a good book for unschoolers to lend to skeptical relatives. I did dog-ear (and then guiltily unfolded) two corners, but other than that, this trade paperback is in good shape.

Post for a chance to win! And since the results have been so wonderful already (thankyouthankyouthankyou), I'm going to go ahead and give extra bonus numbers in the hat to anyone who gives a new shout-out to SHM's need for written material. I'm quite accustomed to being broke, but in terms of time spent, I need to be able to do more editing and less writing. My son is my first priority, and he just turned 12 and needs me a lot lately.

So spread the word, and post here for a chance to win!

A brief interruption: Here we go again...

Just went to find some information on the recent case in which a German homeschooling family was granted political asylum in America. Found several articles, including this one on ABC:
 
http://abcnews.go.com/US/german-couple-persecuted-home-schooling-political-asylum/story?id=9679054
 
Next to the article is a video clip about homeschooling in California. And about how it's illegal here.

AGAIN?????

We DID this already!

This is outdated footage from a year and a half ago. Homeschooling is alive and well and very happy (when it gets enough chocolate) in California.

Here's actual legal info about homeschooling in California:
 
http://www.madeditor.com/2008/09/yes-virginia-homeschooling-is-legal-in.html
 
If you have a second, please drop ABC a line letting them know that they're posting inaccurate information. We California homeschoolers get enough panicked calls and emails from our friends and families without ABC's help.

On the seventh day of giveaway...

...she attempts to pick up the pace a bit by swearing that there are no more talks coming up any time soon, so no excuses not to get this ball rolling. Especially since I can't start mailing until this whole thing is done, since I'm a softy who allows multiple winners (always provided, of course, that one person does not sweep the whole darned giveaway, since that would hurt my softy heart).

First: many thanks to the lovely comments on my last couple of postings. You're keeping me going. Thank you.

Second: the winner of 365 Ways To Live Cheap! (actual exclamation point included in title) is:

Prlegl, she (or he) of the unpronounceable name! Is she a paralegal? A pearl eagle? We don't know! We just know she owns a new book!

Congratulations! Send me your mailing address!

Okay, this next giveaway is a wee little one. It's a great book, but it's water-damaged. None of the words or pictures are smeared or affected in any way other than the fact that the pages have an odd little bulge to them. It's not moldy or mildewy or ANYTHING like that; but unlike the other books I've given away so far, this one is not in new condition.

But it's a terrific picture book, aimed at young readers, so it'd be thrashed after a week in your house anyway.

It came to me in this condition because I requested a review copy and it's put out by a tiny publisher. They could not afford to send a free copy in perfect condition. I have so been there, and that's not my sarcasm voice. That's the voice of the person who was so broke she couldn't afford to send out review copies of her mag for the first few months of its life, and whose head would explode when civilians would ask for a "sample" copy of a 60+ page journal that came out every three months, so they could read it and decide if they liked it enough to remember to pay for a copy a few months later.

Whoops. Sorry. The Bitter Homeschooler just butted in there, as if she doesn't have her own place to kvetch.

Anyway. The book is: I Am Learning All The Time, by Rain Perry Fordyce, illustrated by Audrey Anne Miles Cherney.

This is a great story. There are two things I especially appreciate about it: it says "hooray for homeschooling" without trashing public school, and it brings up legitimate issues that young homeschoolers are sometimes puzzled and/or unhappy about. No, you don't get to ride on a school bus. And you don't have a lunch box. And yes, people will continue to ask you why you're not in school today until you're old enough to vote. Now, here's the cool stuff you get to do.

The book has a great site, Homeschool Adventure Books:

http://www.homeschooladventurebooks.com/

Who wants a free copy?

The offer of doubling your chances of winning still stands for mentioning SHM on your blog, loop, tweet, or whatever it is you kids do these days — please send me a link. And, again, you can triple your chance of winning for mentioning that we are looking for articles big and small, and can pay a little cash money or a nice free subscription for materials.

Don't forget to post!

I'll be doing the drawing for the winner of 365 Ways to Live Cheap! in a little while. That is, after I decide whether I'll use it as one more way to put off cleaning the front room (the floor is positively gritty, hairballs keep drifting by, and the sad part about that last one is we don't have pets), or if --

GRRRRR.

Sorry. My son just came in and without saying "Excuse me," asked, "Mom, is your cell phone charged?"

WOW, do I hate that kind of question. It really punts me into Instant Sarcasm Mode. "WHY? Are you taking some kind of survey? Is this one of those weird homeschooling projects I'm always hearing about? For the love of Pete, TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!"

Apparently we just had a brown out and he wanted to make sure that we had charged cell phones. Fine. Good. He's an excellent citizen. But next time, please put the statement and the question in reverse order, okay? I REALLY don't want to have to wonder just exactly what kind of question I'm answering here.

Sheesh. What next? "Hey, mom -- do we have canned food and bottled water?"

Anyway. I'll be doing the next drawing at some point today, assuming I haven't completely lost my mind (or had it stolen).

But don't forget to post a comment at the appropriate blog posting if you want in on the action. I was over at Facebook yesterday, updating the magazine's page, and I made a rare stopover at my own personal page. And I saw some absolutely lovely and wonderful comments about the magazine about the giveaways, and the fact that SHM needs articles. And since I'm an idiot (look, you've seen for yourself that what's left of my mind keeps getting chipped away), I can't remember who it was. But I don't think I saw her post here.

I'm a dork. A low-tech dork, I might add. When it's time to do the drawings, I go to my email and write down all the people who posted comments, in chronological order. If someone got bonus points, I write them down twice (or three times, in this case). And I make this list a nice numbered list, because I want to give all my stuff to all the people who want it and this is the only to keep me honest when I go over to random.org.

Between the hairball floor and Random Question Lad and desperately trying to pull yet another issue of the magazine together, there is no way I'll remember to write someone down for a drawing if I don't see them right in front of me. So please post! And maybe win! And thank you so much for playing!

Giving a public talk (an actual serious announcement!)

I'll be picking a winner for the last giveaway, as well as announcing the new one, in a little while; but first I wanted to mention that

I'm giving a talk about the basics of homeschooling. It'll be this Wednesday, January 20, at 7:00 pm at the main branch of the Santa Monica library. If you're in town, I'd love to see you!

Here's a link to the library's site, which has more information:

http://www.smpl.org/

On the sixth day of giveaway...

Before I announce the next giveaway, it is of course time to visit RANDOM.ORG, the fun site that feels the need to shout its name.

And the winner is...

Kriston! (Yes, I'm a softie who lets people enter for more than one prize; and Kriston has been such a stalwart supporter, how could I say no?)

Congratulations!

With this next book, as always you'll get an extra shot at the drawing if you post about SHM somewhere. But you'll get two extra shots if you post about the fact that we are looking for articles about any aspect of homeschooling that you care to write about. We can't pay much, but we can give a little cash or a free six-month subscription for each piece.

More about this after the giveaway's all done (this is only the halfway mark!); but I will say now that the single biggest difficulty I'm having in keeping SHM going now is no longer money. I'm making enough to pay the printers and the post office and buy my son a book for his upcoming birthday in the bargain. My biggest worry is that I'm getting more and more crunched for time to work on SHM because I have to do so much writing, rather than editing.

Also, I get requests for all kinds of articles that I simply can't write myself. Homeschooling gifted children! Homeschooling a several-child family! Being a homeschool dad! I would love love love to run those articles; but I'm just not qualified to write them.
So: spread the word, and get an extra-extra chance to win a brand-new copy of:

365 Ways to Live Cheap! by Trent Hamm, founder of The Simple Dollar: http://www.thesimpledollar.com

This little paperback is a great book, in excellent condition. I reviewed it some time ago. I read it through, deeply enjoyed it, and employed some of the tips.

The reason that I can part with it is that enough of the tips are things I can't apply to my own life -- many if not most of them assume that you live in a house, or at least a bigger apartment than I have. This is not a criticism. Fact is, living in a tiny place like this (and being the on-site manager to boot), I'm already saving a lot of money. But most people don't live in my situation, and this book has a lot of terrific ideas for them.

Hamm's ideas run the gamut from simple stuff like eating before you go grocery shopping to tips on how to choose investment options, save for retirement, and build up an emergency fund. And yes, I love that the man makes his own laundry detergent.

So: who wants this book? Just post here to enter the drawing!

On the fifth day of giveaway (or, Bet you thought I'd forgotten!)

I'm still here. And I'm still giving stuff away. My family just had a second round of plague, but we're back on our feet, more or less.

Okay, Kriston is the winner by default of A World Away. Email me your mailing address, my dear!

And the next book is:

Wonder-Workers!: How They Perform The Impossible, by the terrific Joe Nickell, published by Prometheus Books.

I reviewed this book for our "Critical Thinking" issue. It's a collection of thumbnail biographies of various "wonder-workers" throughout the ages. Some, like Harry Houdini and Edgar Cayce, are familiar names; others, like Lulu Hurst and Evangeline Adams, are more obscure. All are fascinating.

This trade paperback children's book was sent to me gratis by the good people at Prometheus Books. I already had a copy (my husband is a big Prometheus fan, and also has a huge crush on Joe Nickell), so this nice fresh new copy needs a good home!

Who wants it?

Remember, post about any aspect of SHM on your blog, loop, listserv, Facebook page, etc., and you'll get an extra chance to win!