Ack!!! I can't get control of it!!

I have to find a way to tame the beast of my starred items list in my google reader. It continues to grow longer faster than it grows shorter. Did that make any sense? Let me explain. I'm trying to shorten my list of starred items by dealing with them and getting them off the list, but while I'm doing that I'm also keeping up with reading the blogs in my google reader and I keep adding more items to my starred items list, and I seem to be adding more than I am taking away!

A major factor in this problem is that my computer time has greatly reduced recently. I've taken the additional responsibility of babysitting 2 little ones so computer time in the day time is all but gone, then my little one is so happy to have me to herself once the two little ones go home that I can't bear to push her aside for the computer, and at night I'm so bushed from my busy days that I often end up just going to bed with her, leaving me with little to no computer time in the day.

Of course, it also doesn't help that I keep finding and adding new blogs to my google reader. I'm going to have to get a handle on that soon or I'm not going to have time to read everything, let alone respond to anything.

Okay, here goes another attempt to shorten my starred items list. Rather than just unstar the items I like to comment on them here on my blog so that I can always find them again without too much trouble.

I love this poem that Cindy posted in her post "Little Grains of Sand":
"Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the beauteous land."
The last paragraph of her post sums up the whole thing quite nicely and I plan on taking her advice.
"If you have something that you want your children to assimilate like poetry or scripture or music or Shakespeare, forget the grand schemes, forget what the Konos mom is doing down the street, start giving that thing one or two minutes of your time daily and watch the years roll by."
It reminds me of a little saying that we learned in our early days of homeschooling and is often repeated to this day:
"Work by the yard is hard,
But work by the inch is a cinch."

JacciM's post "Injured Eyeballs and Cheering for our Children" is another post I want to be able to come back to. There's so much in this post that challenges me and makes me say ouch. Here are some quotes:
"Miss Mason is saying that we harm the child's sense of right and wrong when we let him get by with sloppy and half-hearted work. I would say that, at best, we lose an opportunity to train the child to value hard work carefully done."
"The line is drawn with these words: "No work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly".... You need to know your children and their abilities as individuals. Regardless of whether a child tends to be a slow learner or is leaps and bounds beyond her peers, the standard is in relation to that particular child's own abilities. This does not mean that we keep things easy for our children so that they are guaranteed success. No, we are to challenge our child with the highest level of work that he can still do perfectly."
"We are on their team, on the same side. We ought to be cheering for them!...She says if the day's work is less than perfect have him do it again. Matter-of-factly, not with a sigh and a reproving look of disappointment, just matter-of-factly."
I'm afraid I am much too good at sighing and giving reproving looks. Be sure to go read her whole post - it's very challenging.