10 Favorite Quotes...on trust

If we are bound to forgive an enemy, we are not bound to trust him.
...............Thomas Fuller


Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
...............Solon


Never trust the teller. Trust the tale.
...............D. H. Lawrence


You don't repair that relationship by sitting down and talking about trust or making promises. Actually, what rebuilds it is living it and doing things differently.
...............Patricia Hewitt


For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe.
...............H. L. Mencken


It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
...............Anonymous


Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
...............Johann Kaspar Lavater


I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
...............Charles Dickens


Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.
...............Maggie Gyllenhaal


Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
...............Eric Hoffer

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #113, the Political Parties of Our Government Edition has been published.






What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. Check it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Rating blogs and movies

I saw a rating posted on a blog I read pretty regularly, and clicked on it to rate my own. This blog was given a rating of PG. Want to know why? Because the word "gun" appears in it, once. You can go back and read that post here.

I found this really curious since my other blog got a rating of G despite my using the word "gun" there too. Here's the link to that post.

So obviously the rating is not accurate, even just for so-called "bad" words. The site where you can find out your rating says nothing about how it is formulated. It also doesn't say how many posts back they go in their search for bad words. The utility checked my site way too fast to have gone back through all my old posts, so I'm guessing they only check the "home page" of a given blog. The word is in the title of one of my posts, and therefore in my archives; so the word "gun" appears in the code of my home page.

I like the idea of using a rating system for blogs, despite the fact that my children do not yet read any. But I think if this rating system does get used, it will have to be more of a self-rating which we impose on ourselves. If this were the case, I would rate this blog PG, but not because of the words, but rather the subject matter. I talk about what I think about things, and even though my language might be rated G, the subject matter may very well be rated higher.

On the other hand, I have read blogs where the subject matter is rated G and the language is R. This is unfortunate because my children will never be allowed to read the blogs of some of their friends' families. Some people just have potty mouths.

With ratings, we also come up against the problem of what some people think deserves a G rating compared to what others think.

My husband and I recently watched a movie called This Film is Not Yet Rated. We checked it out because I was interested in learning how movies earn their ratings, or more specifically, who is deciding that stupid, dummy, idiot, and other such words deserve a G rating. (Although I am very liberal, I am super conservative when it comes to exposing my children to things before they are ready.)

Well the movie never specifically addressed that. Unfortunately, the movie came from the viewpoint that some movies are getting unfair ratings of NC-17 when the film makers feel they should be getting R ratings. There was also the ridiculous statement that a war movie should be rated PG instead of PG-13 because "kids shouldn't be protected against the realities of war". So this documentary wasn't getting to the facts I wanted to hear in the way I had hoped it would get there.

Nevertheless, it did show how utterly ridiculous the whole rating system is. I really can't write a better review than this portion of one I read on Netflix:

"The very nature of the uber-secretive MPAA makes any documentary on the rating system difficult and one-sided. This is because MPAA refuses to stick up for itself, as to explain itself would only make them vulnerable. And as they are already unquestionably accepted by the industry as THE standard and have the decision to enormously and financially affect 90% of movies released today, lacking any opposition, what would they have to gain? The average person believes the ratings system is mandated by some level of government anyway, why let them know who controls what millions and millions of people learn by means of movies every year?

This movie reveals the kinds of numerous fabrications, doublespeak and antidemocratic processes that can only happen when the 6 largest conglomerates of U.S. media come together and decide who gets rich and what ideas are "safe". Watch this if you are not afraid of naked people [there are many] and feel responsible enough to choose what your own children watch, and not what a bunch of white Californians with no children (ages 5-17) think they should see."

The bottom line is that it's important to watch where your children wander; you can't trust others to keep them safe, because we all have different versions of what safe means. In the movies or on a blog.

Is your blog easy to read?

For me, life before kids was spent in the graphic design field. Even as a kid myself, I had a good eye for what "worked" and what didn't. These days I have a friend who tells me that I'm good at knowing where things should go on the page when I scrapbook.

Several years ago I created a website for a business for myself. Later, I took the knowledge I had gathered creating my own website, and created one for CT Homeschool Network.

Now, as the list of homeschooling blogs I read increases, I'm finding that several of the lessons I learned in web design are also important in the blogosphere. Although there are lots of blogs that will tell you how to increase visits to your blog, and how important it is to have great content to bring people back, I have yet to find one which discusses how important the look of your blog is to bringing people back. Or more specifically, how the readability of your blog determines whether people come back. So I thought I'd discuss it a bit and point some things out that most people wouldn't think of if they weren't specifically in the design field. Because regardless of content, if people can't read your blog, they won't come back.

Type should ALWAYS be on a white or VERY light background. This is because it is very important to have enough contrast between your copy and your background so people can read the copy comfortably.

Here's a sample of poor contrast. I'm not providing any links here because some of these are from blogs of people I know, and I don't want to cause any hard feelings. If you click on the sample it will enlarge and you will see how difficult it is to read. Especially because the type is not black, but gray.

There is actually a cool website out there where you can type in your blog url and it will tell you whether your copy has good contrast or not. It's here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and type your blog's address in to see whether your blog is easy on the eyes.

The body copy of your blog should NEVER be reversed. That is, white type on a black background. Or any light colored type on a dark background. Yeah, it might look cool, but only at first glance; it's really challenging to read. In the design industry it is rarely used for copy heavy work. Reversed type is strictly for headlines. It really bums me out to be only 1/2 way through a blog and have to give up because the type starts swimming before my eyes. So while black or other dark colors might be a great way to show off your photos, if you plan on writing much about them, and hope that visitors will actually read all of what you write, make your background white and your words black.

Use a sans serif font for your body copy. San serif fonts do not have the little lines on them, as in the type I have used on this blog, while serif fonts have the little lines on them, like this. (Here's a good photograph clearly showing the difference.) Newspapers and magazines use serif fonts because they are easier to read at smaller sizes in print. And although there has been some debate about it, the consensus seems to be that sans serif fonts are easier to read on monitors, with Verdana and Helvetica (Arial) being the easiest. Here's a sample of serif being used in a blog so you can decide for yourself. Keep in mind that if you are insisting on using a serif font, you should make sure it is pretty large. Smaller fonts start breaking up on screen.

Be careful of photos in the background. This one is self explanatory once you see it. And since I don't know this person, I'm posting the link. There is no denying this blog is difficult to read.

So now that I've covered the basics of readability, I thought I'd include a couple of other things, which are simply annoying and often cause me to leave.

Do not put music on your blog. First, it's really annoying. These things startle the heck out of me and if I can't find the off switch PDQ, I am so out of there. Second, and more importantly, you cannot put music on your website unless you are paying royalties to whomever owns it: "...people just don't understand the copyright laws. Period. At best, people think it's OK to play a MIDI version of "Stairway to Heaven" but wrong to play the original Led Zeppelin recording." Find this quote amidst an excellent, short, and very understandable article about music copyright laws here.

Easy on the cookies. I use Firefox to browse, and it's set up to ask me to accept cookies every time, and I'm always appalled when I find a blog out there which wants to place six, seven cookies on my computer. Excuse me, but why the heck does a BLOG want to follow me around? Okay, I'll accept a cookie from your visitor counter, but that's pretty much it.

And finally...Keep it brief. There are some blogs which ramble and ramble. Look at your stats and see how long people are staying on your blog. If it's only one minute then you have confirmed that no one read anything past the first line of each of your 30 paragraphs. Or maybe just the first eight in their entirety. If you want people to invite you back, don't overstay your welcome.

So there you have it. Ways to keep people reading your content. Do you think this will help you with your blog?

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #112, the One Room Schoolhouse edition, has been published at Homeschool Blog Awards.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. Check it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

10 Things I Love

1. The sight of my husband coming into the house each evening when he gets home from work.
2. The sound of my children giggling.
3. Watching my children with their grandparents.
4. Homeschooling.
5. Traveling.
6. Spring.
7. Christmas morning.
8. Trick-or-treating.
9. Dancing to really loud music.
10. Going to rock concerts.

Wasting food

While we were on vacation in Florida, we went to a restaurant called CiCi's, which is an all-you-can-eat buffet of pizza, salad, and a few desserts. It was very enjoyable, the food was pretty good, and the price was extremely reasonable.

I have to admit that although I usually finish the crust, or bone, (as my sister calls it) of pizza when I eat it at home, there were so many pizzas to choose from that I left my crusts so I'd have room for other things.

I couldn't believe though, the incredible waste that was left at a table nearby us. Two women ate with three preschool-aged children, and left this. I was so appalled that I actually took a photograph of it. (Click on it to see it larger.) This is enough food to easily feed three adults!

I remember the last time the United States hosted the Olympics, I saw a story on TV about how the world's athletes were appalled to see the way the Americans wasted food; they took way more than they could eat and threw tons of it out. The image I posted here makes me appreciate that in a whole new way.

This wasn't the only table left with an unacceptable amount of leftovers, but it was by far the worst. Our society really is so very wasteful.

When I was growing up, I was encourage to eat past the point of wanting to. I was told that there were starving people in Biafra and I should eat all my food. I believe this contributed to my now inability to stop eating when I am full, and of course, my being overweight. So I encourage my children to stop eating when they've had enough. When we go to a buffet, we always take less, knowing that if we want more we can get up and get some. I get frustrated with my kids on those very rare occasions when they take more than they can eat.

This really made me so sad. And I'm guessing the laws are like those here in CT; the restaurant is not allowed to put all that perfectly good food aside and give it to the homeless, they have to throw it out.

If I knew the names of the women who left this mess, or thought to get their car's license plate number, I'd post it here. This was disgraceful.