We have welcomed inquiries from those who would like to get a “sneak preview” of the subscribers area. When people write and ask, we give about a week’s worth of free access. But starting today, we’re publicizing this policy.

So, for those careful shoppers who like to SEE before they buy (like me!), just write to us and ask for a test drive. I’ll send you a user name and password that will be good for about a week.

Write to us at TestDrive (at) TheMathworksheetSite (dot) com (change the obvious).

–Denise

Sometimes I get a chuckle out of the ironies and realities of a home-based business. Maybe you can get a chuckle out of my stories, too.

We had a problem with one subscription from a teacher, and I needed to talk with him by phone as I didn’t have his e-mail address. I left messages and he called me back several days later. When he called, my teen daughter answered the phone nicely and professionally. She handed the phone to me. At that moment I had a 2 year-old on my lap and a 5 year-old in a time out a few feet away. (Said 5-yo is, *ahem,* still learning to sit quietly during her time outs.)

All of a sudden, THE place to be was next to my desk, and there were three more children talking to each other or me while I was trying to be ‘professional’ and take care of this subscriber.

I don’t trust myself to hit the ‘mute’ button on the phone quickly, as it’s next to the ‘off’ button. So I waved wildly at the children, trying to “shoo” them away while calmly explaining to the teacher the situation with his subscription. The children finally figured out what Mom meant by her strange waving when their dad told them to go upstairs.

I was finally left with just the 2 year-old on my lap and the unpredictable 5 year-old in time out.

With the teacher working at his computer at the same time, we got his subscription input and activated.

I had to chuckle at the difference between the professional appearance I tried to present over the phone vs. the family-centered, noisy reality behind the scenes.

–Denise

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

That’s the first line of a poem, and it’s a good policy, too. The spam protection plug-in we tried didn’t stop the spam comments. The second one didn’t do the job either. Then when I got 61 spam comments posted to this blog in half a day, my calm requests turned into rather urgent pleading that Scott find and install something that would WORK!

We’re now on our third spam-foiling plug-in for this blog and it seems to be doing the job. It doesn’t have the math equations I liked so much, but it lets us customize a list of words. So we picked math-related words and choose to be happy with that.

This is a relatively small thing, but life is better when it’s spam-free!

–Denise