Favorites Friday

Today, I'm sharing with you some sites that I've found recently. Some of them may not be new to you, but all of them are new to me. I am after all, only a hobbyist when it comes to blogging, the Internet, and site searching. Most of the time, I find sites I love, only to forget how I got there. And I happily move on, only after I realize that I didn't bookmark it to navigate my way back. Seriously, for as organized and orderly as I'm supposed to be for an ENFJ, I am absolutely scatter-brained and near dingy (or wifty as an old friend used to say) when it comes to my computer. So here they are, the sites I've found recently and can actually track down the site addresses for, for your surfing pleasure!

My Favorite Sites, recently:

• Menus For Moms - they offer all kinds of household management support, in the form of free menus with corresponding grocery lists, cleaning and organizing tips and recipes to help you out of your cooking rut. It's a lot to take in, so I've been there several times processing information in smaller doses. They even have a home school page or two!
• The Reluctant Gourmet - this is actually the spouse of one of the bosses in The Boss's office. Did ya get that? He's The Boss's VP's hubby and this site is a delight to read! Candid, informative, creative, and so inspiring - I've tried some new tricks from this site and I just heard about it last weekend. Their family has a great story and this site is so well done, I love just paging around, even when I am not looking for anything in particular.
• Puzzle Maker - I forgot about this site for a while, but recently recommended it to my co-homeroom mom. We've used it for baby shower games, spelling list practice, vocabulary lessons, and other special projects for school. I even used it for a Christmas party that The Boss and I hosted when we first moved to SE PA. Makes learning fun, and anything that makes words fun is alright in my geek handbook :)
• Softschools.com - This site is amazing! I can make up math sheets, let Baby Blue Eyes play phonics games and fill my head with all kinds of fun ideas and inspirations in my schooling. I love the coloring pages, too. It's not the easiest site to navigate the first couple times you are on it, but you get the logic of it quickly. I do still struggle with making up the math sheets, but we are still doing simple addition of 0's, 1's and 2's so I don't stress about it too often. And you can pick the objects to be added - there are frogs, dots, lady bugs, penguins, and so on. Very fun for all of us!
• Indian Valley Trading Post - Finally, this is a home-based business of some new friends of The Gang. They are creative, interesting and entrepreneurial spirits who make soy-based candles in their home. I have three (Spiced Cider, Vanilla Shake, and Grandma's Kitchen) and let me tell you: I doubt I'll EVER go back to paraffin based candles again. These things are so pretty, they smell amazingly true to the "real scent" (read here: craving an old-fashioned vanilla milkshake and homemade sugar cookies right now!), and they burn slow and clean. I've always been a candle fanatic, with pillars, jars, tapers, and votives all over the house. But now, I think my fanaticism has risen to a whole new level! And I think I got my MIL hooked this weekend - she couldn't stop raving about the Vanilla Shake. Sure makes my Christmas list easy :)

So, there you have it. My five favorite new (to me) sites. Maybe next week, I'll share the "oldies but goodies" that I check regularly. If you have some new faves, be sure to list them in your comments to me. If you are a lurker, come out of hiding and share your faves. And yes, that was a shameless attempt to lure my lurkers out of hiding :)