Carnival of Family Life: Spring is Just Around the Corner Edition

The wind is howl­ing, rat­tling the win­dows and doors of the house. It has been rain­ing on and off all night … more rain is pre­dicted. It is bit­terly cold out­side, but warm and toasty here inside with the fire crackling.

It’s a per­fect day to sit back, relax under a blan­ket with a tasty hot drink, dream about spring flow­ers and warm sun­shine … and read a delight­ful col­lec­tion of inspir­ing, humor­ous, insight­ful, and edu­ca­tional posts about the var­i­ous aspects of liv­ing within a family.

Wel­come to the “Spring is Just Around the Cor­ner” edi­tion of the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life!

Edu­ca­tion

Mar­jorie presents Nav­i­gat­ing the Labyrinth pub­lished at Life With­out School.

Sum­mer presents Sci­ence is Sweet pub­lished at Mom Is Teach­ing, a dis­cus­sion of fun, food-based sci­ence exper­i­ments chil­dren can per­form at home.

Laura Williams presents Wash­able and Reuse­able Clear Table­cloths pub­lished at Laura Williams’ Mus­ings.

Brent Riggs presents Part 2 — About Sci­ence and Blind Faith pub­lished at Brent Riggs.

Fam­ily Finance

Per­sonal Finance Claims presents How You Might Soon End Up with a Blocked Credit Card pub­lished at Per­sonal Finance Claims.

Wendy McCormick presents Make Your Own Birth­day Cakes pub­lished at Alabama Fru­gal Mom.

Mark But­ler presents A Surgeon’s Pay­check with a Teacher’s Sum­mers Off pub­lished at The But­ler Project.

Stephanie presents Low Cost Vaca­tion Plans pub­lished at Stop the Ride, a col­lec­tion of sug­gested ways to keep fam­ily vaca­tions affordable.

Matthew Paul­son presents Free Col­lege Money Part 4: Search­ing for Schol­ar­ships pub­lished at Amer­i­can Con­sumer News.

Dana presents Impulse Pur­chase pub­lished at Sim­ple Plea­sures.

K presents Being A SAHM In France pub­lished at Small Cents.

Fam­ily Health and Well­ness / Cooking

Mike Remer presents Wish Exer­cise Wasn’t So Hard? pub­lished at My Path to Fit­ness Blog.

David B. Bohl presents 9 Ways To Play pub­lished at Slow Down Fast Today!, say­ing, “Most of us, when asked when we last played, would be likely to snort in deri­sion (I’ve always wanted to snort at some­thing in deri­sion, but never have), and say, “I’m an adult. I have responsibilities.”

James Cham­bers presents Hyper­hidro­sis Causes pub­lished at Hyper­hidro­sis.

Aparna presents Dry eyes trou­bling you? pub­lished at Beauty and Per­son­al­ity Groom­ing, say­ing, “If you are expe­ri­enc­ing unpleas­ant­ness in the eyes, includ­ing a feel­ing akin to sand par­ti­cles being lodged in your eyes, even after brief expo­sure to cold winds, air con­di­tion­ers or read­ing books for only a short period, you might have a con­di­tion called ‘dry eyes’.”

Car­ole Fog­a­rty presents The Authen­tic Choco­late Facial: A Super­food for Your Skin pub­lished at The Healthy Liv­ing Lounge, explain­ing that “raw cacao (cocoa) pow­der is now con­sid­ered one of the world’s most ben­e­fi­cial super­foods emerg­ing in our world today.”

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Max­i­mize the Cog­ni­tive Value of Your Men­tal Work­out pub­lished at Sharp­Brains, an arti­cle explain­ing why learn­ing is so impor­tant at all ages.

James D. Brausch presents Is Your Key­board Mak­ing You Fat? pub­lished at Weight Loss Dude.

Amanda Har­ris presents Food, the Nat­ural Happy Pill pub­lished at eFam­ily­Blog­ger.

Beth Bader presents So, What’s in that Happy Meal Besides the Cheap Toy? pub­lished at Eco Child’s Play, an arti­cle offer­ing impor­tant — and sur­pris­ing — infor­ma­tion about food additives.

Chris­tine presents Green Salad with Moz­zarella and Wal­nuts in Honey Mus­tard Dress­ing pub­lished at Me, My Kid and Life: An Amer­i­can Sin­gle Mom Liv­ing in France.

Woman Tri­bune presents The Holy Grail of Cof­fee Machines pub­lished at Woman Tri­bune.

Amanda Har­ris presents Sally Lunn Bread pub­lished at Best Kept Recipes.

Fam­ily Humor

Dana presents Respect­ing your time: Ten not so respect­ful answers pub­lished at Prin­ci­pled Dis­cov­ery.

Pat Rup­pel presents Jokes, Fam­ily and Fun pub­lished at Plain Talk and Ordi­nary Wis­dom. Pat’s “Dad at the Mall” story will make you laugh out loud!

Jen­nifer in OR presents It’s a John Wayne Cof­fee Mug Morn­ing pub­lished at Diary of 1. Check out what con­sti­tutes a “John Wayne cof­fee mug morn­ing” at Jennifer’s house. Then leave a com­ment let­ting her know that you empathize. Because if you are a par­ent, you will.

Expat Chef presents Ah, Thurs­day pub­lished at The Expatriate’s Kitchen, described as “Lit­er­ary pon­der­ing against the back­drop of the Ter­ri­ble Threes.”

The Don­key presents Les­son 1: Rat­ings Game pub­lished at Wife Advice.com. The Don­key is either a very brave man or one who enjoys tak­ing risks. Go read it and form your own opinion.

Fam­ily Pets

Dog­gieWog­gie presents Learn Your Dog’s Body Lan­guage pub­lished at Dog­giewog­gie — All About Dogs. It’s easy to read our dogs’ body lan­guage in our house because Sophie and Buddy are actu­ally 90% human. But if your dogs are more canine-like, you’ll find this arti­cle helpful.

Fic­tion

Jenn presents Her Debut pub­lished at Mixed Metaphor.net. She describes it as a “fic­tional story about youth­ful dreams and life­long friends. A woman recon­nects with old friends and a long-suppressed part of her life.”

Rela­tion­ships / Lifestyle / Self-Improvement

Henry Cate presents Book Review: The Sur­pris­ing Power of Fam­ily Meals by Miriam Wein­stein pub­lished at Why Home­school in which the author “details many rea­sons to have daily fam­ily meals.”

GP presents Git’r Done by Doing Some-thing pub­lished at Inn­side Montana-Your Home at the Range, offer­ing tips for reassess­ment, regroup­ing and spring­ing into action to do what Larry the Cable Guy advo­cates: “Git’r done!“Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips — Find­ing Lost Items pub­lished at Tip Diva. I think that Tip Dude and Big­Bob might be twin broth­ers, sep­a­rated at birth because Tip Dude appar­ently also spends his time “con­stantly look­ing for stuff.” But unlike Big­Bob, who vir­tu­ally never finds what he was look­ing for, Tip Dude “can tell you how to make most things mag­i­cally reappear.”

Vet­eran Mil­i­tary Wife presents I Have To Write a Sym­pa­thy Card Today pub­lished at Life Lessons of a Mil­i­tary Wife, con­tain­ing use­ful advice on a topic that every­one finds challenging.

Heather Shanks presents Does Multi-Tasking Really Increase Pro­duc­tiv­ity? pub­lished at Pro­fes­sor Mom.

Alex Black­well presents In the Blink of an Eye pub­lished at The Next 45 Years.

Super Saver presents Sim­ple Plea­sures In Retire­ment pub­lished at My Wealth Builder.

Lill Hawkins presents Why Is The Short­est Month So Long? pub­lished at News From Hawkhill Acres.

Spir­i­tu­al­ity / Faith / Life Outlook

Car­ole G. McKay presents Man­ag­ing Chaos pub­lished at Gold Post-It: Noth­ing But Good News, a dis­cus­sion of how to approach and man­age the suf­fer­ing that inevitably accom­pa­nies life changes.

Hope­ful Spirit presents Thy Will Be Done pub­lished at On the Hori­zon, observ­ing that there comes a point in a parent’s life when he/she has only one avenue left by which to pro­tect and nur­ture his/her child: Prayer.

Travel / Playtime

Kara Williams presents Top Attrac­tions for Kids in Durango, Col­orado pub­lished at Trav­el­ing Mamas.

James Brausch presents Costa Rican Food pub­lished at Costa Rica HQ.

Par­ent­ing Tips / Advice / Issues

Terri Mauro presents My Son’s Mini-Mart Goes Out of Busi­ness pub­lished at About Par­ent­ing Spe­cial Needs.

Renae presents Super­mom Exposed pub­lished at Life Nur­tur­ing Edu­ca­tion.Mis­cel­la­neous Mum presents Tak­ing stock pub­lished at Mis­cel­la­neous Adven­tures of an Aussie Mum.

Julie Rains presents My Daugh­ter, the Princess pub­lished at Par­ent­ing Squad.

Melitsa presents Not Quite Crunchy Par­ent Inter­view pub­lished at Play-Activities.com.

K T Cat presents Life Lessons Learned Coach­ing 5th Grade Girls’ Soc­cer pub­lished at The Scratch­ing Post.

Our­Blogs presents Teach­ing Our Boys To Rec­og­nize Their Emo­tions pub­lished at A Guide to Rais­ing Great Kids.

Joanne presents Talk­ing To Your Child About Adop­tion pub­lished at For­ever Par­ents. She advo­cates for ongo­ing, nat­ural con­ver­sa­tions about adop­tion with chil­dren as they grow which afford them time to under­stand the con­cept in their own time and way.

Plan­ningQueen presents Ten Things We Do to Make Meal Time Enjoy­able. pub­lished at Plan­ning with Kids, a list of sug­gested ways to make meal time some­thing “to look for­ward to, not dread.”

Kyle James presents In Order To Receive, You Must Give pub­lished at Kyle.

How­ToMe presents How to Get Good Library Books with Lit­tle Ones in Tow pub­lished at How­ToMe. Do you find a visit to the library with lit­tle ones “a fraz­zling expe­ri­ence because it is dif­fi­cult to con­tain a child’s excite­ment (or vol­ume) when he/she finds a book he/she wants to read?” The author offers a plan to make the expe­ri­ence more enjoy­able and productive.

Tea Party Girl presents Bad Man­ners Are Closer Than You Think pub­lished at Tea Party Girl. Read at your own risk. Like me, you will prob­a­bly find that you vio­late at least some of the six tenets of din­ing eti­quette dis­cussed here on a reg­u­lar basis. (I’m guilty of reg­u­larly putting my Black­berry and elbows on the table.)

Next week, the Car­ni­val will make a stop at Dis­cussing Autism! Sub­mit your family-related posts by 12:01 a.m. (Pacific time), Sun­day, March 2, 2008 using this form:

Tech­no­rati Tags: Blog Car­ni­val, Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life

On the Same Topic:

• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: The Merry Christ­mas 2009 — and Final — Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Thank­ful­ness Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Happy Hal­loween 2009 Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Sep­tem­ber 2009 “Fall Into Fall” Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: August 2009 Edition