Week One

Today we began our new online class, Blogs: New Independent Media. I explored many web sites and blogs that have won Webby Awards. My favorite is http://www.nationalgeographic.com/.

This website has awesome pictures and interesting articles. This class will be fun, and I will learn a lot about blogging. I had no idea how many blogs there are to choose from.

There are blogs for everyone even children at http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/. This website contains activities for young children to keep them busy while you blog. It helps children learn and discover how to do things. I wish I had something like this when I was a kid.

Spring will be here soon, and today we change our clocks forward. I will miss the extra hour of sleep. My body always knows that I have cheated it out of rest, especially since school is getting so busy.

Graduation is a few weeks ahead, similar to a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Before long, the daffodils and tulips will burst out of the ground declaring the spring season.

I enjoy seeing the flowers even though I did not plant any bulbs last fall.

I love this season because of the renewal of plants and budding trees. The warmer weather will be nice after all the snow and inclement weather we have had in Oklahoma.

My driveway is really hard to navigate in the winter because I live in the woods. It is L-shape and hardly no one drives on the road, except the postman and a few neighbors.

We do not have a four wheel drive vehicle, but we really needed it this winter. Christmas Day, we were snowed it and I did not get to celebrate with my family.

Of course, along with the warm weather comes bugs. I am already fighting the little black ants around my kitchen sink, which is near a window. Even though I spray and spray those little creatures, they seem to win most of the time. I wonder why they want to come inside.

Perhaps, it is for food and warmth. The ants are a pain when I am cooking or washing dishes. I guess it is all part of nature and life, a mixture of good and bad. Sometimes, we also have spiders crawl into our house. Living in the country, you never know what insects you will share your home with.

The insects that I really detest are the red wasps. They love to camp out in the eves of our house, which makes them out of reach to spray insect repellant. I am very allergic to wasp bites. I will have to stock up on Raid, Off, and other insect sprays before long.

Spiders remind me of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. This children's book was a favorite of mine as a child. Charlotte was such a hero and inspired me as a young girl.

The movie is also great with a message that reaches many young children. Apparently, White was fascinated with spiders and hatched some inside his bedroom. I cannot imagine waking up to one-hundred spiders all over the place.

I checked out www.termite.com/spider-identification to see what kind of spiders are poisonous. It is a great website that shows many images of spiders, including information about each one. This article makes me itch. Some of the spiders wiggle as you are reading, which is creepy.

I enjoy reading about each spider, where they live, and how to identify them. Venom toxicity is another topic that is very important. The Huntsman Spider gives a painful bite when she is guarding her egg sacs or her young, according to the website.

Spiders also make lots of cool webs. They are not picky about where they spin them either. I find them on my porch, in my flower garden, and even on the mailbox. At www.freewebs.com/okieyard, there are some images of several amazing spider webs.

Flowers are a relaxing pastime of mine. Here are a few of my favorites:

Moonflower and Red Rose


Morning Glory and Delphinium

These flower images are from the same website as the spider webs. It portrays stages of growing gourds on a pergola. It is amazing how it begins with one small seed, and later the plants take over the entire structure.

Birdhouses and art baskets can be made from gourds. At http://www.simplybaskets.com/, I found information on how to carve baskets. I discovered websourcs for gourd art at http://www.creativity-portal.com/. My favorite website for gourds is http://www.gitaland.com/, a free tutorial with step-by-step instructions for making a gourd birdhouse.

This week I have learned a lot in the blogging class. I am navigating better on the web and finding out about many different kinds of blogs.