Denise Fawcett Facey

Hello Readers,
As short as February is, it’s an action-packed month. Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Black History Month, Chinese New Year—how could so many celebrations fill one small month? Well, whatever you celebrate, have fun doing it. And in between your celebrations, take a little time to check out the new features at my website.

Table of Contents:
Home and Garden
Book News
Christian Living
Education
Your Comments

Home and Garden
Those who know me also know that home decorating and gardening are a couple of my favorite pastimes. A long-time fan of HGTV and a variety of home décor magazines, I’ve filled my head with countless details on these topics. Now I have an outlet for all that information.

As the Atlanta Home and Garden Ideas writer for Examiner.com, I dispense tips and techniques for beautifying your home, with a few on gardening thrown in occasionally. And I’m having lots of fun doing it!

My articles appear three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and now I’m including the latest article on my website as well. Just look under “Selected Works” and click on “Home and Garden Ideas”. There you’ll find the beginning of the latest article and, under the photo, a link to the rest of that article as well as all the others.

Once you do that, you can click “subscribe” at the top of my column to receive an e-mail each time I have a new home and garden article.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Book News
My book, The Social Studies Helper: Creative Assignments for Exam Success, will be published this summer. Designed to make teaching easier, the assignments in the book also help high school students prepare for standardized exams.

So, whether you’re a teacher or just know one, I hope you’ll check out my book when it reaches store shelves this summer.

Christian Living
Do you ever get tired of the cold, wet weather and gloomy skies of winter? Sometimes I do. And after a while, I can begin to feel just like the weather. This month’s Christian Living article talks about that and the reasons we might want to consider looking at winter (and our lives) from a very different perspective.

After you read it, I’d like to know about the “winters” in your life. Write your comments below the article.

Education
What do you think of students taking college courses while they’re still in high school—is that a good idea? Or should capable students take Advanced Placement courses instead? And what about students who, for whatever reasons, aren’t going to college—what should high schools do to prepare them for the world?

How about the idea of eliminating salutatorians and valedictorians from graduations in favor of giving all deserving students honors—where do you stand on that issue? And one more thing: how do you feel about the fact that Chinese is becoming so popular in U.S. schools that it’s surpassing German, Russian and Japanese? Is this a sign of progress toward facing an increasingly international business market or a threat of world dominance by China?

These are the very varied topics we discussed in January’s blogs. Of course, we’ll have new issues to talk about in February, that I hope you’ll find worthy of discussing. Stop by each week and join the discussion.

Your Comments
Have you noticed how many times I’ve asked for your opinion? Clearly, I want to know how you respond to the topics, issues and features on my website. Leave a comment or send an e-mail. Just let your voice be heard.

As you share love on Valentine’s Day, enjoy the parade for Chinese New Year, celebrate African American heritage and contributions, and honor the presidents, have a great month!

Denise
www.denisefawcettfacey.com