Free Parenting Audio Books

I'm a stay at home mom, and sometimes that's a really hard job. Its not so much the long hours and endless work - that has its own rewards of being with my children and being able to set my own schedule and pace. Its more the lack of recognition and the crappy pay. After all, there is no annual review where someone says "you're doing a great job and we're so glad to have you with us!" and the pay is pretty self explanatory - there is none! Unless you count room and board. Again there are compensations; hugs from the kids, knowing I don't have to call in to anyone when they are sick, etc.

But its also hard because sometimes you just don't know what you are doing! Mine didn't come with instruction manuals. And it's not something I've ever done before. I've never raised a ten year old, but I'm soon going to be!

So what's a mom (or dad) to do? Besides going on blind instinct? Get advice from someone who's done it before and apply it to your situation as best you can. After all, you know your child(ren) better than anyone else. And it doesn't have to be an "expert" it can be your mom, or other friends and family.

Here are a few audio resources:

"Surviving the Teenage Years" by Mickey Michaels. Acoording to the site this won't be free forever, so get it while you can! There are also some parenting articles if you are interested in reading them.

The "Love and Logic" folks have some free audio including "Funny Parenting Stories", "Funny Classroom Stories" and some of their radio shows.

Get some free audio parenting tips from radio interviews with Kelly Nault here. They are located at the bottom of the page.

You can get a free audio chapter of the book Scream Free Parenting here.

And let's not forget some of the resources mentioned in previous posts. LearnOutLoud has 7 free audio titles in their free section under parenting. And Podiobooks has Lessons from the Geek Fu Master listed when searching for "parenting".

There you have it, a few free audio resources for parents who occasionally feel like tearing their hair out :)

Happy Listening!

Audio Books for Independence Day

July 4th is just around the corner. And if you are driving for any length of time I highly recommend heading over to Learn Out Loud and downloading their free Founding Documents of the United States of America. That way on your way to campgrounds, picnics, family reunions, firework shows and all of the other wonderful activites of the 4th, you can listen to some of the history of that independence we are celebrating.


The documents contained in this set include: Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" Speech, The United States Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, The Virginia Plan, The Constitution of the United States, Federalist Paper No. 51, United States Bill of Rights, Subsequent U.S. Constitutional Ammendments, and First Inaugural Address of President George Washington.

This free download is only available through the 4th of July, so don't wait to get your copy!

Happy Listening!

Business Audio Books

Everyone here is once again healthy and up to their usual hijinks. And given the level of noise around here, I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not :)

Starting a business, at home or otherwise, seems a pretty popular subject these days. Here are a few audio resources if that is something of interest to you.

You can get a free audio version of 5 Famous Fibs & Fables: The Worst Marketing Advice Ever Given here.

LearnOutLoud has 108 free business audio books.

I guess we can't forget internet marketing either. You can get 117 hours of free audio interviews about internet marketing here. You won't even need to give out an email address to access them!

Happy Listening!

Entertain Kids With Free Audio Just For Them

I have a sick kid at home today. Which is just wrong. Kids aren't supposed to spend their summer vacation sick!

Regardless, he is pretty miserable. Mostly he wants to just watch TV but I've checked out some audio books for kids in case he begins looking for some other type of entertainment.

Kiddie Records has been collecting children's records from the mid-40's and early 50's and making sure they don't get lost forever. These are children's stories that were recorded, often as major Hollywood productions, and put on the medium of the time - vinyl. They were very popular, but now are almost completely forgotten. You can get them as free downloads now, along with all the original artwork. And if you don't want to download them all you can get CD's mailed to you for a pretty low price. Not a bad deal if you are pressed for time or disc space.

Robert Munsch is a favorite children's author who has generously made audio recordings of his books available for free at his website. If you have his books at home, now you can get audio versions for the kids to listen along with whenever they want. Even if you don't have his books, you can get the audio and listen to his wonderful stories. Thanks Robert.

I need to go check on my son so that is all for now.

Happy Listening!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

It has been one of those days... And I have decided that it is time to unplug from the computer and unwind with a humorous audio book. First I headed over to AudioBooks.net, a new site for free audio books that I recently found. If you sign up for a free account, you can download up to two free audio books per day. Not a bad deal. They have a nice mix of contemporary and classic works, some which you can find at other sites and some you can't, and a wide range of genres to search in. Unfortunately for me I didn't find anything under comedy that interested me today.

So then I headed over to PodioBooks, as I figured this would be my next best bet for something humorous. Sure enough. So now I am going to sit back and give "Fiddle and Burn" by Jason Pomerantz a try at tickling my funny bone, or at least putting me in a better frame of mind.

I sincerely hope your day has been better than mine, although it is starting to look up now.

Happy Listening!

If You Haven't Got Your Health...

You haven't got anything! Now you can get a free audio book geared toward attaining perfect (or at least more perfect) health.

Jon Barron wrote the book "Lessons From the Miracle Doctors" and then provided a free ebook form online. In it he talks about what to do to achieve optimal health, why some of the "miracle" supplements work for some and not others, and what to look for in supplements - all without promoting any specific brand of supplements. You can get the ebook here.

He has also provided a free audio series called "Take Back Your Health" that parallels many of the chapters in his book. You can find them here. You will also find more free audio at the site in the form of Jon's radio show archives.

Happy Listening!

War of the Worlds

Yesterday I showed you were you could find old time radio programs to listen to for free. Most of them were radio serial shows.

So what about the individual programs? You now the ones that were kind of like movies, only without the pictures...

The finest radio drama program of the time (1930's) was Mercury Theatre on the Air. And their most famous production was War of the Worlds. You know, the one that caused mass panic and had people believing that we were being attacked by aliens.

Now you can listen to the original broadcast for free and find out what all the fuss was about. You can find War of the Worlds and many other radio dramas, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, Treasure Island, The Immortal Sherlock Holmes, Around the World in 80 Days and many more at TheMercuryTheatre.

Happy Listening!

Free Old Time Radio Shows

Once upon a time, audio was king. People from all over would listen to radio broadcasts. And they weren't just listening to music. Radio programs would tell stories and there were audio plays, audio soap operas, audio adventures and audio children's stories. Some programs were one time events and the whole story would be told. Others were serialized and a little of the story would be told each time the program aired. These radio programs were very popular and whole families would sit around the radio to listen.

Then along came the TV and it replaced the radio. Stories were still told, only there were video pictures to go along with them. And today you can find the same types of programs to watch on your TV that folks used to listen to on the radio.

Fortunately some of these radio programs have been saved from extinction. And now you can listen to them again. RadioLovers is just one site that has collected many of the radio programs and you can listen to them online or download them for free.

These are great to take along on long car rides to keep the whole family entertained. They are also a way of getting some entertainment while doing something monotonous like housework or exercising. You don't always have to be listening to those self-improvement titles, you know :)

Happy Listening!

More Places to Travel with Free Audio

I must have been bitten by the travel bug. I have been searching for more travel audio guides and have found quite a few. Here are two of them for you today.

Ireland. Oh, one of the many places that I want to go! For now I will settle for listening to a free audio guide of Dublin. There are a full dozen different "walks" that you can listen to and some even have brochures that you can download, print, and take with you. Or just look at if you are traveling virtually like me :)

And how about Boston? It is the home of the Celtics after all! And now you can get the Boston Freedon Trail audio tour. 14 different sites on a 2 1/2 mile tour. Its almost like going. Sort of.

Even if you don't want to travel (real or virtually) these audio tours are a great way to learn the history and culture of a place. Which means you can force them on your children! After all, just because it is summer doesn't mean they shouldn't learn something! :)

Happy Listening!

Traveling with Audio

My family and I just got back from a camping trip, which is how our family takes vacations. Mainly due to cost. Traveling is expensive, especially when you are taking three kids along. And while camping is a great way for our family to spend time together away from home (without spending a fortune) it doesn't stop me from dreaming of going to more exotic places!

Now I can! Sort of. One of the new things in travel is audio guides. They are mp3 files of travel destinations designed to be listened to while you're at typical tourist spot or on a suggested walking tour. Kind of like having tour guide, only you can turn them off whenever you want :)

ItalyGuides has free audio guides of Rome, Venice and Florence. Each city has 3-4 audio guides of different locations, including the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, and St. Mark's Basilica to name a few. In addition to the audio guides, there are numerous pictures, interactive maps and virtual panoramas to make your vacation more real.

So head on over if you are like me and aren't going to Italy but would really like to. And if you are going to Italy, then you should head over too and get the audio guides to take with you. Either way, have a nice trip!

Happy Listening!