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best apple pie recipe, great books, blogging inspiration

It’s been a wild, wonderful month getting back into the swing of all our homeschool activities and being busier than ever as a blogger. If blog talk makes your eyes roll back in your head like my husband, feel free to scroll down to the other hot flashes. I’ll forgive you.

#1 Blog Stuff

September was the second most popular month on this blog after August.

Top Posts for the month were:

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Being Pregnant – Just when I’m convinced that this one is losing steam, I get another bunch of readers.

Where to Find the Easiest Homeschool Record System Ever – Blessed Beyond a Doubt reposted my free download for lesson planning / record keeping and brought a lot of traffic in.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Being a Mom – Still in the top 3.

Staying Sane While Homeschooling Preschool –the top traffic-getting new post of the month. There are some great ideas in this post for you to pin if you can ever find time to get online!

Top Referrers for the month were:

Pinterest – Followers have doubled since this summer with the What’s Hot in Homeschooling and Christian Inspiration boards being the most popular.

Search Engines – It’s interesting to me that “weekly to do list” is the most popular search term that people use to find me, followed by “classical conversations reviews.” The funniest search term of the month was “why am I anxious about using an airplane restroom?” which leads them to this post.

Blessed Beyond a Doubt – an excellent source of free printables in particular.

#2 So You’re Not Wonder Woman

If you don’t like to hear about any kind of writing, or you don’t care about my feelings AT ALL, keep scrolling. Otherwise, I’m excited to report that this Christian book on life change made it to #17 on the free self-help Kindle list. Today I found a list of things from Training Authors I should have done to move it even higher while it was free, but as it is, I’m sure I’ll be talking about this when I’m 80. It doesn’t take much to thrill an author. Speaking of that, if you read a book and love it, review the book. If you have the author’s contact information, drop them a line. They’ll treasure your feedback as I do.

Homeschool Sanity Show Button 1400

#3 The Homeschool Sanity Show

Yes, I know. I’m still on the same subject in a way. Except I’m really excited about the encouragement and ideas homeschoolers can get from my new podcast. I’ve learned so much about podcasting this month and from the guests I’ve interviewed. The Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network has been getting so much fantastic feedback about the kinds of shows they want to hear. The hosts have their work cut out for them! I hope you’ll tune in this October for shows on staying sane while teaching math and creating a parenting plan. Please tell your friends to listen too.

#4 Food

I’m finally going to give you some recipes! But it’s been challenging to find time to make new things this month, so I only have one true new recipe for you.

baked KFC chicken recipe

Baked KFC chicken

I got this recipe from Facebook and I liked it a lot. Two of the kids were especially fond of it and no one disliked it. No frying required.

I used 2.5 pounds of fresh chicken tenderloins and Lowry’s Seasoning Salt instead of Season All.

yummy stir fry

Teriyaki Stir Fry

I bought this at Wal-Mart and made it adding chicken and really, really liked it. My husband raved about it, too. It’s relatively healthy for a store-bought convenience meal. I normally make my own stir fry, but this was excellent for when I want to save a little time.

Apple Crunch Pie

This is my all-time favorite apple pie recipe. I did NOT make it in September, but I did buy everything I need to make it in the next couple of days. I make extra to freeze and eat at Thanksgiving. Here’s the recipe.

#5 Books

I read some superb books for kids and one for adults this month and just had to share.

This book was not at all what I expected. I assumed it was a fictional tale and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a wonderful biography. My almost-eight-year-old was so entranced by it that he wanted me to read the adult material at the back of the book. We then watched a YouTube clip of the subject of the book and enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

I read this children’s book in an afternoon and couldn’t stop telling my husband what I read. This book, that is chock full of pictures, is not only an exciting biography, but is a great reader for American history. It’s an excellent discussion starter on mediums and spiritists (Houdini was committed to debunking them) and the importance of overcoming fear.

This was an uplifting and heart-wrenching modern missionary biography. I came away from the book inspired to help street children and to be more diligent in my service to the Lord. YWAM biographies have been a major source of spiritual growth for me and my children. I can’t recommend them enough.

#6 The Kids

They’re not the least important. It’s just that I knew people who know me best would hang with me to the end to read about them.

Caleb, a senior,  has applied to two colleges and is narrowing his list even further.

Sam, a sophomore, has his driver’s permit but I haven’t taken him driving yet. I’m still recovering from the first kid. He shadowed our dentist last month and says he wouldn’t know if that’s what he wanted to do unless he was actually drilling teeth or something. I get that.

Andy, an 8th grader, is doing well in drum lessons and is planning on joining a table tennis club now that he can sometimes beat his dad.

The younger kids are excited because we are redecorating their rooms this winter. They helped choose the bedding which has already arrived. They’d like dad to start painting now! I’ll share pictures in a future post.

Those are the hot flashes I’ve been having (at least the ones I dare to discuss online).

What are your hot happenings this month? Got a recipe you want me to try? A book to read? I’m all ears!