This was the first time I've met the local eBay group. I really hate that whole thing of going into a group of people where everyone knows everyone else. I really feel like the new kid on the block. But it wasn't bad. They seem like a great group of people.

The meeting was very informative. Ken is the leader of the group. He knows his stuff.

Things I learned tonight:

• Where the local auction houses are located
• Good tips on shopping yard sales - garage sales - rummage sales
• Where to find new product at super-great prices! Direct from a manufacturer. The place is just minutes from my house! OH YAY!
• How to spot what's hot or what is going to be hot.

I'm glad I went. Now I just need to put what all I learned to good use.

~me

Yeah, I'm up early. I know. I've always been a morning person. My kids are morning people too.

Anyway... I was browsing this morning and I came across a new blog The Exponential Curve "The purpose of this blog is to help generate and share ideas for teaching high school math concepts to students whose skills are below grade level."

I found a post I think is extremely useful so I thought I'd pass it along to my blog readers. The June 25th blog post is: How do you have students take and use notes? It's a great post along with the follow-up comments. *taking notes*

We are having a great summer! It's unbelievably warm outside... okay we are in the greater Seattle area... anything above 70s is unbelievably warm! LOL I can't believe it's this near to the fourth of July! Where did the time go so fast. See... we are having a great summer! Time flies when we are having a good one.

We enjoyed a picnic by the river last night... and we'll be heading back to picnic by the river later today. I just love summer! One picnic after another... lazy summer days spent by the river. It just doesn't get any better than this.

I have changed to a different host for one of my websites. It's always exciting trying to get things organized the way I want it when I switch hosts. I think it's almost easier to simply start from scratch with a whole new website than it is to switch.

cktsw.com is a new domain for me. Well, I had it a few years ago but I let it go. I decided to register it again. So this one is a new one starting from scratch.

I've always taken pride in the fact I create my webpages from scratch without any help from an editor. What I mean is I use notepad to create my websites. Well, not so with this one. I'm having fun playing with all the cool tools provided by my new host.

It's a new project. Not really ready for the world to see...

Did you know it is against ebay policy to list teacher edition textbooks?

I didn't know that.

I have many teacher's edition textbooks on my homeschool bookshelves in a variety of subjects. Not only do I have my own homeschool books I have several others. Recently I acquired several Saxon math teacher's edition math books. Some are new and a few are used. UGH. What to do with them.

I've been thinking about opening an online store associated with my website. I think the time has come.

It's just one more thing to think about...

Okay so apparently I can't sell saxon math 87 with the teacher's edition text book on ebay.

I listed it last night. This morning ebay user hartmanconst sent me this message:

Just thought you might like to know the books you are selling (at least pictured) are NOT the second edition as your ad indicates. Have a wonderful day~

I posted this response to her and added it to my ebay auction as well:

***Revised***

The ISBN for this student text is: 0939798549
Published 1997 this book is the tenth printing 1998


The ISBN for the teacher's edition is: 0939798557
Printed in 1992 - it has the same text as the student's book. It is used as a set.

The photos are of the actual books I have up for auction. They are just like the books I used in my homeschool... I sold my books a few weeks ago. All this time I thought I was using the 2nd edition.

Thanks for the info!

A couple hours later.... POOF! My auction is no longer listed.

I'm going to sell these books. Anyone interested can contact me!
Saxon Math 87

Here's a great program we used in our homeschool on a regular basis. It's fantastic for creative writing projects. The kids thought they were simply having fun playing on the computer. In fact they were creating illustrated stories.

Saved to the computer the story can be read back to the child with the text-to-speech feature. Or print out the story and have it bound at Kinkos for a real book they can keep on their library shelf or give to Grandma as a gift she will treasure forever.

Kids make a storyboard by chosing a theme or background image and placing graphics onto the storyboard. They can move the graphics around to where they want them to be.

Then add sounds... music or noises. You can have a dog barks when you click on the dog. Or you can hear snoring when you turn the page and the whole house is dark. They can chose from a huge list of theme songs to start when their storybook opens.

The story text is at the bottom of the page. It's amazing how the story comes to life for them when they create the pictures and add sound. It really opens up their creative thinking skills.

I highly recommend this program! Storybook Weaver in my ebay store.