Works For Me Wednesday: Free movies and TV shows online

Finding decent shows to watch is a challenge these days, isn't it? And if you want a movie, you've either got to pony up for a service like Netflix or drag yourself out to the movie store, wasting gas and time. But I've finally found a great solution!

Over the last year or so, the number of online show-viewing websites has exploded. Some are easy to use, some are not. I'm going to share my three favorites:

1. SurfTheChannel - Absolute FAVE here at our house. They have movies, TV shows, and best of all - documentaries. Being homeschoolers, the docus will come in handy when we start back with school. And the other shows are a wide range - everything from old black and white shows to up-to-the-minute modern stuff. Finding what you want is really easy, and many shows will have alternate links if one doesn't work for you. One caveat - unless you have ads blocked, you will notice an ad right now for an adult version of the site. It's a very clean, text-only ad, and they say that it will only be up for 4 weeks.

2. Hulu - Used to be the fave til we found SurfTheChannel. Lots and lots and lots of TV shows, and many movies. Movies are only added every couple of weeks, and there are not many family-worthy movies here. But there are lots of show choices, and they are added constantly.

3. Sidereel - Has tons of shows and movies, but the drill-down is sometimes a little tricky, and most of the source-sites are Chinese, which means that they often have either poor video, or they have lots of Chinese subtitles and screen ads in the way. Still, if there's something you can't find at the first two, try here.

I recommend using any of these with the Firefox browser, running a good ad blocker, like AdBlockerPlus. It takes out all the annoying ads, plus makes sure that you don't see any potentially questionable ads.

We love being able to see so many old favorites, things that are clean and fun, without extra expense or trouble. I'm sure you'll find some great things, too! Why not comment and tell me what favorite show you end up finding online?

Be sure to check back at Shannon's for more great WFMW posts!

WFMW: Gmail as a brain dump

I want to be tech-savvy. Oh, I do. But the ever-changing, ever-upgrading world of the internets confuddles me on my best days, sometimes. I know that there are "social bookmark" places like Del.Ici.Ous and other ways of storing your bookmarks online, or saving that special article or recipe you want to keep track of. I'm hopeless with all that.

Instead, I've started taking advantage of Gmails HUGE capacity plus handy dandy search-mail function. If I want to remember something, I just email it to my Gmail address, tagging it appropriately. Then, when I need it again, I just type in a keyword or two in the online search box and what do you know - there it is! No need to make folders, no need to remember another website and it's password combo, no need to remember anything but the email service I already use most of the time.

And that Works For Me!

WFMW: Morning Coffee you read, not drink

My friends and family know that I don't drink coffee. I LOVE the smell of it, but can't stand the taste. (My husband laughs when I say "it tastes like burnt nuts!" because, well, that's kind of what it really is.) So why do have have Morning Coffee every morning? Because it make my morning computer time go more smoothly.

"Morning Coffee" is really a FireFox extension - a little add-on to the browser that keeps little icon in the tray for me. In this case, it's a cup of coffee - clever, no? Just click on the icon, and here's what it does: it brings up a bunch of sites that I have preset, all at one time, all in separate browsing tabs. You can tell it to bring up a particular site every day of the week, or just on certain days.

I have CNN, Woot! and Sellout!Woot!, and a couple sites relating to my work set to come up every day. I have CurrClick set to come up only on Tuesdays, so I can see what their weekly freebie is. Just one click, and all of that opens up for me whenever I want it. It saves me a lot of time - and time savers definitely Work For Me!

Oh, and it turns out that RME is letting their $25/$10 promotion run until MAY 15th, not yesterday, so you still have time to sign up and earn $25 for yourself, as well as a free notebooking set from me if you'd like one. Just click the "free notebooking set" link, or look to the top left and click the big green button.

WFMW: Bathroom Organization

It's Works For Me Wednesday again! (Well, it will be soon.) Shannon has asked us to pull out our best old post and repost it. I don't have many at this site, so I'll pull one off an old blog and share it.

When we moved last fall, we lost having a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, as well as a built-in toothbrush holder. So this is what I came up with to fix the problem:

During one of my trips to CVS where I had a lot of Extra Bucks to burn, I bought a wire utensil/napkin caddy. These are intended to sit on a table to hold utensils and napkins, usually for picnics or potlucks. I had a much different idea in mind:


Since there are 3 utensil compartments, it works perfectly for the three of us who use that bathroom the most. It also features folding handles, which I have folded inward instead of outward, thereby creating 3 sections in the large area. (Although these "sections" don't have walls.) I placed a dark colored washcloth underneath to catch drips from the brushes.

It only cost me a dollar on summer clearance, it organizes perfectly, and it will wash easily when the time comes for that. That certainly Works For Me!

(Oh, and if you manage to squeak in here before midnight, Pacific time, you still have time to sign up for my giveaway here!)

Works For Me Wednesday: The Chore Basket

We've been working on creating new, good habits around here to go with our new home. So far, pretty good. One thing I decided on is an oldie-but-goodie tip that you'll see in a lot of places, but it never hurts to repeat - because someone, somewhere, surely has not heard of the goodness of The Chore Basket (Or jar. Or box. Or, you know - whatever.)

I came up with 6 chores that I want the kids to help with (I only have two children, so 6 chores is plenty for now) and that need done regularly, wrote them on slips of paper and put them in a basket. If you want to know, ours are:

• Clean your room for 15 minutes
• Use the stick vacuum to go over the living room, kitchen and dining areas
• Pick up any stray trash from the living room, straighten any loose videos and remove anything that belongs to you
• Start a load of laundry
• Empty the dishwasher, or start a new load if the washer's empty
• Clean the bathroom counter and sink

The rules are 1) you can't get the same chore that your sibling pulled out 5 minutes ago and 2) you can't get the same chore that you got yesterday. (If the sibling got it yesterday, that's fine.)

Sometimes I have to watch them because they have a tendency to peek to try and get a chore they prefer rather than a random one, but mostly it works out okay.

This way, most of these things get done two or three times per week. I don't have to nag or beg because it's part of our morning routine and they know it needs to be done.

Oh, and if you're wondering, we do it Monday through Saturday, they don't have to do this on Sunday.

Be sure to visit Shannon's blog for more great tips - they're always wonderful!

WFMW: Storing files online

Everybody needs a place to store files from time to time, and I've found a great FREE place to do so. I use MediaFire and so far I'm loving it!

You can upload as many files as you like, up to 100 MB in size, any format - as long as they follow the TOS and the Acceptable Use agreement, of course. (No porn, nothing that you don't actually hold the copyright to, etc.) Then you can share the item, or keep it private. You can also lock up a file with a password so that only people with the password can get the file.

MediaFire is what I'm using for the moment to store all my notebooking pages, and it's working great. It's free (supported by ads on the page), very easy to use, and stores a LOT. That definitely Works For Me!

WFMW: Organizing plastic dishes

We use a ton of different plastic dishes in our house. Storage, eating, mixing, you name it. We use a lot of sizes and shapes. Even though I did a LOT of culling when we moved a few months ago, I've still got a fair amount. The worst part is the storage. Ones that are exactly alike will nest together, but when you've got about 20 different sizes and shapes, the amount of nesting is minimal.

Which makes the overall storage problem a nightmare if you try to just stick them in a cabinet. They fall over, roll around, and the less-used items pile up at the back, never to see the light of day.

I came up with this idea a few years ago in our old house. I use two boxes, glued together, but you could just as easily use one box as long as it's long enough to take up most of the space in the cabinet. The trick is to get boxes that are as big as possible, but that will still slide in and out of the cabinet. Just put a handle of some kind on the end, and you can just pull the whole thing out as needed. You could, of course, make something much prettier than mine - I don't worry about it too much because it's behind the door, so who will ever see it?

Tucked in the boxes, the dishes don't fall all over the place, they don't roll out of the cabinet when you pull out one dish, and nothing gets lost in the back - you can pull the whole thing out and look at every dish so you know you're not missing anything.

If you don't have many plastic dishes, you could store the dishes in one box and the lids in another box. I have my lids in another part of the kitchen because I have so many.

Be sure to check Shannon's blog for more WFMW posts! And also, don't forget to sign up for my Ultimate Blog Party contest - the winner will be drawn this Saturday!

WFMW: Backwards Edition - Thyroid/Tinnitus question

Today is Wednesday, so that means it's Works For Me Wednesday day! It's the first Wednesday of the month, so that means we get to turn things around and ask a question from the audience, rather than giving advice. So here's mine:

I'm having a lot of trouble with tinnitus. In fact, I'm going to the doctor about it today, to check on that plus the minor hearing loss I have in addition. However, I'm beginning to suspect that I also have low thyroid function - and if I'm understanding right, that can also lead to tinnitus. Since I've had the tinnitus for a long time now, I'm wondering if low thyroid has perhaps just exacerbated the existing tinnitus.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem, and if getting the thyroid stuff checked and taken care of was any help for the tinnitus? If so, did just the thyroid meds take care of it, or did you find a natural way of helping with the tinnitus? Any help or advice would be appreciated!

Works For Me Wednesday & Frugal Friday: Prescription Savings

I'm going to let this one stand as my Frugal Friday post as well:

Homeschooling usually means that the family budget is slimmer than the average American, if not downright anorexic. This means we have to save every penny we can. Doctor bills and medicines can really do you in, though!

I've found that when one of my family is prescribed an ongoing medication, if I go to the website of the medicine, you can usually find savings deals. These always require you give up your address, but in return you get coupons or savings cards that can knock a good deal off your prescriptions.

This has become especially important for my family - our new insurance requires that we pay up front, file a claim, and then get reimbursed. So even though we get 80-100% of the money back in a couple of weeks, it's no fun being out that amount in the meantime. So those savings really Work For Me!