It’s the first big snow of the season! I love living somewhere where we have seasons again! But it is true that removing snow from the sidewalk and driveway can be hard, especially with a bad back and hip. We only have a few major snowfalls every year, but now, when we do, we break out our awesome new electric snowblower!

The really cool thing about an electric snowblower - like an electric lawnmower - is that they are really lightweight, and easy to maneuver. It’s like vacuuming the snow!

All you need is the snowblower, and a loooong extension cord. We like to do our neighbour’s walk too, so we string together a few 50-foot outdoor extension cords, but most people could get away with just one.

The electric snowblower that we got is the Toro 1800 18-Inch 12 Amp Electric Curve Snow Thrower (Model #38025).

We chose this snowblower because of both the wonderful reviews that it gets, and how easy it is to use. In fact, with our first big snow today, using it for the first time, not only was I zipping up and down the sidewalk in moments, throwing snow with wild abandon, but our 11-year-old son was as well. It’s that easy. Just plug it in, squeeze the handle on, and instantly become your neighbour’s favourite neighbor (just be sure to aim the snow flume away from their front door!)

And it is totally fun to use! To aim the snow in any direction you just turn the crank handle to rotate the periscope-like snow chute to an infinite number of positions from extreme left to forward to extreme right, and all positions in between.

Fun, and effective! What more could you ask, right?

Here’s what Toro says about it:

“Toro’s patented Power Curve System employs a unique, curved rotor and a funnel-shaped housing, in addition to wide rubber paddles that propel the machine forward and clean all the way down to the pavement. This technology lets you move more snow in less time, and it virtually eliminates clogging, so you can be confident that your snow thrower will be ready the next time a winter storm comes your way.

With a snow removal capacity of 700 pounds per minute, the Power Curve lets you clear four inches of snow off a 50-by-20-foot driveway in just 10 minutes. The machine’s clearing width of 18 inches means that you can clear most walkways with just one or two quick passes. And with a snow cut depth of 10 inches per pass, you won’t need to repeat work you’ve already done, unless you’re in the middle of a serious blizzard.”

We ordered ours from Amazon (see link below) and it qualifies for Prime shipping, so no tax and no shipping - yippee!

Here’s the link - you can read all the reviews there too:

If you’ve seen the ads - “Your bra fitting destination” - you may be wondering just what exactly a bra fitting destination is. I certainly was. It turns out that the ads are for Sol Lingerie. Sol Lingerie specializes in bra fitting. Now, you guys can stop reading right here (save for your prurient interest), but us gals can attest that one of the most vexing parts of life as someone with two X chromosomes is finding a bra that fits well.

SOL is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, so, apparently, Denver, Colorado is your bra fitting destination. If you’re in the Denver area, you can head over to SOL to get a bra fitting with a trained bra fitting professional (according to SOL, their bra fitting professionals go through a six-week training before they are allowed to fit customers).

However, even if you’re not in the Denver area, you’re still not S.O.L. as far as SOL goes. SOL offers some of their bras for sale online, and they have an “Ask the Expert” area on their website. You can also call them.

Says SOL, “At SOL we believe receiving a professional bra fitting is the best way to ensure finding a perfect fitting bra. As a result we recommend coming into SOL to find out which size and styles fit you best. But we also know how busy life can be so as a result we’ve made a few of our most popular bras available for purchase online. If you have any questions about a bra you see here or would like us to look up your size, please don’t hesitate to call us.”

SOL is located at:

248 Detroit St. (in cherry creek north)
Denver, CO 80206

And you can look up your bra fitting destination online here.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when mainstream media gets something so spectactularly wrong, but I expect better from the brainiacs at Slashdot.

So imagine my surprise to read the headline “Schooling, Homeschooling, and Now, “Unschooling” ” on Slashdot today, and to learn that unschooling, a method of homeschooling that I and many of my homeschooling friends have personally known about for at least a decade - and which has been around since at least the 70s when John Holt wrote about it - is something new and now.

At least Slashdot only acted as if it were something new - the Baltimore Sun was much more insulting, calling unschooling, and I quote, “a byproduct of home schooling.”

Hrmph.

You can read the Slashdot piece here, and read the Baltimore Sun article here.