Here are two home design software we found that would work. Thankfully, they are free too.

Sweet Home 3D – this is a downloadable software that is open source and it runs on Windows, Mac, Solaris and Linux. Pretty interesting. Take a look at their video demo it looks quite easy to use.

Autodesk Homestyle – this is a web based home design software so it works on many operating systems that run flash. It is free at time of writing.

I can see where this can turn out to be disastrous. But really, you don’t need Facebook to give your location away. I am not talking about disclosing your location voluntarily via Twitter or Foursquare either. I’m talking about information you may not be aware you are sharing in your photos.

Yes, photos.

• Did you know that many smart phones save the exact location (down to the longitude and latitude) where your pictures are taken?
• And did you know that you could be openly broadcasting this information on photo sharing websites?

With each photo snapped on your smart phone, you could be saving, storing and sharing all this data all over the Internet. This makes it quite easy for anyone to well… stalk us. Here are full details and how to fix this issue on your phone.

You can start with a verse and it will pull up the words in that verse and display related words. As you click on each word, you will find other related words and a list of verses that also contain the word. Pretty interesting. I can probably get lost in a tool like that.

I imagine it would be particularly helpful when you’re trying to think of a verse, for educators, and church leaders.

The tool is not free though. It costs $37 a year which is not too bad. If you want to check it out they also have a trial. You’ll want to go to their home page.

Let me know what you think.

I brought it home, loaded it with a 10 to 1 solution and was immediately delighted! It was awesome.

Sadly for me, it didn’t last but one month. I do not know if I got a dud, or whether someone in the family didn’t realize it and filled it with all soap solution or if it’s just a poor quality product. I would certainly get another one if I can get it for a song. In the mean time, back to my dinky plastic dispenser.

The good thing is, my kids are so talkative and tend to stretch out their explanation. Yet there are still times of awkward silence at the dinner table I absolutely hate that. Ugh. I can’t stand to eat in silence. Might as well eat alone.

Today this TableTopics thing caught my eye. What a great idea! It’s a box of cards with some conversation starters like:

• Is it more fun to be a parent or a child
• Would you rather live for a week in the past or the future
• What family or school rule would you most like to change

These are awesome! And it can help us really understand our kids at a deeper level too. The cube costs $25. Great for the uninspired (like me).

On the other hand, I suspect this is something that you could also create on your own with a card box and a bunch of index cards. Maybe let the children add their own topics to discuss too.

Links:

TableTopics

There’s a bunch more games that related to choices of food, exercise and testing their knowledge on staying healthy. You can also purchase the games on CD. I also spotted some recipes the kids can make.

I’m going to put this in our approved games bookmark list for my children. Something good to occupy them during rainy summer days.

Links:

Playnourmous

Ideally, we’d like to stick it to the power company and say good riddance and live off the grid. But can we? I don’t know, we are so conditioned to buying our power that this idea itself is quite scary. That’s why we hope to be able to start small and see how the land lays from there.

All is not lovely in the land of renewable home energy either. Have you seen the prices of some of these things? Sheesh… I know, I know. You pay a high price but you save in the long run, many times more. I get that. Still… I’m a cheapskate and we’re geeky. We like to make things especially on the cheap.

I found this Home Made Energy guide that shows you how to make your own solar power system and/or wind power system for as low as $100. Going to send it off to hubby to see if I can convince him to give the guide a go.

Have you built your own energy system? How did it go? Any words of advise?

One of the best ways to get mobile Internet access is through the phone. In our case, our plan allows us to hook up (or tether) the laptop to the phone and get online. I don’t carry a laptop anymore but my husband does. Because of this, we hardly have trouble getting Internet access on the go anymore. It was also a huge life saver when we had to suddenly admit our daughter in the hospital for 14 days.

The down side is, you have to maintain what cell phone carriers usually call a data plan and that is not cheap. At the time of writing for a single line plan, Sprint is charging about $65 a month. I am with Verizon – who bought Alltell so I am grandfathered in at a $90 a month everything included plan.

Technology wise, another alternative is to get one of those modems like MiFi or the Overdrive from Sprint. But those too run at least $60 a month.

Unfortunately there aren’t that many alternatives that don’t require you to sign on to a 2 year plan. The good news is, you could

• Plan to stay at hotels with Wireless access.
• Scope out wifi access points in the city you are traveling to. Many cafes even the small Main Street ones offer free wifi these days.

My only concern with connecting at these places is security. So you will always want to be careful. Someone told me once, they only check emails on these networks, they don’t do banking and anything like that so they aren’t worried. Well, that may be true but if you have ever lost your email account you will suddenly realize how much personal stuff is sent to you via email. And email accounts can be hijacked – a huge upset. I’ll write about this at a later date.

So yeah, even my email account I guard closely.

You know what the funny thing is? Why these companies don’t offer a pay-as-you-go data only plan. They may think that keeping you hooked monthly is earning them more but I think, I’d pay a little more for the convenience to get non-public Internet access whenever I need it.

If you have an errand you need run but can’t do it, you can go to Task Rabbit,  post your task with the amount you are willing to pay and runners will contact you to offer their help or counter offer. Once you all decide on the rate, you hire them to get the task done. You can also be a runner and earn some extra pocket money.

Too bad there are so limited markets at the moment, only San Francisco and Boston. But from what I understand this is a start-up so it might likely expand given time.

I’d order a few if I were you. The product has pretty good reviews. Here’s what one mom had to say.

For a working mom who has kids in multiple sports I am always forgetting to charge the video and or the digital camera or even my cell phone. Often going straight from work to games during the week after spending all weekend at sports tournaments. Needless to say I bought two of these 3 months ago and they are life savers! They charge ANYTHING that has USB charging capability quickly and completely and multiple times! I LOVE THIS ITEM and came back to buy several more for family and friends, because originally I thought I could share mine with my kids, but I use them too much, dont want to part with them! – source: TigerDirect.com reviews

In this video the guy also says it would charge his iPhone fully twice.