I've been using the Canon Imageclass laser printer recommended here a couple of years ago, but it has died. My primary concern is toner cost. I was purchasing replacements for that one on Amazon for about $12 and they last. Black and white is all I need, autofeed a must, printing and copying. What do you have and where can I get discounted cartiridges?

Ugh! He knows better! It was on Netflix and I have now set the parental controls.

My son was watching Orange is the New Black without me realizing it. I've never seen it, but when I told him I'd watch a few episodes he dropped the subject real quick. Ugh! Can we get some recommendations for interesting dramas? He isn't into science-fi, crime shows, or super heroes.

Yes, I'm a seasoned home schooler, but this little one doesn't seem to stay occupied and doesn't want chill with the teens while I work with another. She wants to be ON ME all the time. She isn't fussy, just hyper and distracting! All of my old tricks aren't working!

My 11yo is acting out in order to fit in. She's causing a lot of drama at home, church, etc. Talking to her right now doesn't seem to work because I think she's in a stage where she thinks our ways are prudish. She is pushing hard for her way in everything. She wants to go to her own church. Wants to go to public school. Wants to date. Is doing things to get the attention of older boys. Wants to do...basically anything we are against. We are struggling with her. Dh and I are seeing that she is trying to get more attention and making efforts to spend more quality time with her. She claims to be saved, so I'd like a Bible study that just she and I can work on together. Any recommendations? And, yes, other advise is welcome. She is really hard after two fairly easy boys.

Timez Attack...kids love it, are learning, and all operations are available.

My 5th and 6th graders have never mastered their facts. I finally signed up for Timez Attack last week, and this is the best money I've spent in a long time. Even my 9th grader plays for fun and has increased his speed. My 5th grade dd LOVES it and plays for fun. My 6th grade ds thinks it's okay and doesn't complain because it's better than flashcards. He enjoys it, just knows it's "school" so he only does whatever limit requirement I set. My 9th grade dd got on after watching the other two and loves to play for fun. Great product!!!!

Is it true that there has only been one release of Teaching Textbooks level 6?

Title says it all.

Oh, yay! The tracking just updated and says out for delivery! Saves me a trip! I knew it was odd for Priority to take three days.

I had someone ship something Priority mail, which always gets to me in 2 days, because I needed it today. I will not be home to receive it tomorrow. Per the tracking info, it did indeed ship (not just label printed) on Monday. The package is now sitting at my PO, but not due to be delivered until tomorrow. What are the chances they would let me pick it up? Is that possible? I am in a small town and a frequent customer, so I chat with the clerks often.

Thank you. I know we will have it worked out before his 16th, but he was really wanting to test for his learner's permit on his 15. We only have a couple of weeks, so I don't think that is possible. My fault! I should have researched this sooner.

Ds will be turning 15 later this month. I am mailing in our request and money order for the packet of info today. How long does it take to get it if you choose the email option? After receiving the packet, do I have ds do the online course, then go test for his permit, and then do the driving hours? How long is the online course? Please walk me step by step through this process. I know we should have gotten started earlier, but I was under the impression that they had to be 15yo to start driver's ed. Now he is frustrated with me because he was planning to get his permit on his birthday.

I have come to hate this part of my life. I don't mind cooking, though with our schedule it gets dropped quickly and we resort to convenience foods. I hate this because I am at heart a low carb, all natural, Paleo type. Plus, we are spending way too much. I want someone else to at least tell me what's for dinner. I am tired of the same old things. Our requirements: no fish except shrimp and no odd veggies because my family won't eat anything green. I need a planning site that allows me to delete meals that I know won't work for us. Help!

I have four packages of nitrate free bacon in my fridge that say freeze by 5/29. I typically am okay with expired items if they smell normal, but bacon?

We are a family of six. Dc are 15, 12,10, and 4mos. We live in East Texas and I would like to keep the traveling part to a minimum due to expense and the fact that we are traveling with a little one. I would be interested in waiting until September if necessary because I want comfortable mornings and evenings, while maybe warm enough for swimming during the day....a heated pool would work as well. But, if we went to a somewhat cooler area, Colorado perhaps, we might be able to do a trip soon. I do not want to have to cook or worry about food at all. Most vacations are not a rest for me since I still end up preparing food or packing snacks on top of always making sure we have the gear we need and just general keeping up with everything. So, yeah, all inclusive is sounding good. I thought about a Disney cruise (have no idea if we could even afford one), but they don't even have any availabilities out of Galveston until winter 2015. Anyone know of some jewel of a place within a few hours of me? I know we will have to pay more in order to have the type of retreat that I want, but we rarely go anywhere and when we have, we go on a budget...which results in me taking on a lot of the same everyday tasks. I want someone else to plan the activities, gather the supplies/gear, and have food available that I don't have to worry about. I want to simply worry about dressing my family, packing a diaper bag, and picking what we do for the day. However, we are far from rich, so lower end of this type of trip is still preferable.

You ladies crack me up! Dh was SOOO angry when I told him about our day. He was close to going over there himself and that would not have been pretty in the state he was in. He would have probably had the police called on him. I will be talking with her and perhaps even sending her a letter, fully documented of course, explaining that she is no longer to talk with my dc at all. If they are on her property, she may tell them to leave (them don't step foot on her lawn), otherwise, she is not to approach them when they are on our property at all. Dh told ds if she tries to wave him down while mowing, he is to simply point at the house and keep going. If it happens again, dh will not handle it well.

Update...I am now sooooo fuming. I had a man knock on my door from my septic inspection company. He said that our neighbor had complained to the county about the puddle in OUR yard and that it stinks like sewer. He was called since all of the info is on record at the county office. He inspected it and said that NOTHING is wrong with it other than the sprinkler not oscillating, which dh is fixing soon. He said that is not a violation anyway unless it was a LONG standing issue and the puddle expanded to take in her property. He could tell it had only been broken a short time. He also said there is no odor. He said he would be telling the county agency that our system was fine and we just have a nuisance of a neighbor! I think the lady has no idea how aerobic systems work. They are not like old septic systems. The water from the sprinklers has been treated and is considered sanitary. That is her complaint: that we are improperly disposing of sewage. The inspector said that he would inform the county that our system is functioning just fine and no there is no sanitation issue.

He is leaving for a week soon to go on a trip. I just may have him show me how to use the mower and tick off all of the neighbors with my skills while he is gone!!! I am probably going out to discuss this issue soon. I am way too angry right now to confront her...I will add the update in a bit. I have tried talking with her in a friendly manner, dh too. I told ds if she approaches him again to just kindly tell her to talk to me. I don't attend HOA meetings. I have better things to do. But, I have been told by others that these two neighbors constantly complain about us. They are always told that we are not violating any rules or laws, so they can't do anything. Ha Ha! I am tempted to do what my dad always said, "Pour concrete and paint it green." Unfortunately, we don't have money to do anything like this. This is much of the issue. The two complainers are retired widows in a well-to-do neighborhood. They both apparently love to spend time in their yards and have lots of money. I think they forget that when you have a young family, you don't have time to spend half the day working in your yard. I am not exaggerating when I say that one literally mows her yard every other day. My kids call her The Mowing Lady. They both wake up early and stay in their yards until it is too hot, then are back out in the evenings, every evening. That is great that they can enjoy spending their time that way, but with four kids to school, run to events, and enjoy, I do not have that time nor do I have the desire. I think they also forget that money can be tight and husbands are not on call to run home if something is broken. I am sure they both can afford to call someone the minute something breaks. We can't and have to rely on dh to do repairs when he isn't working. I also woke up to a truck with dead batteries and am stuck home today until he can get off work. Get off it lady, there are more important things in need of our time.

With neighbors! We live in a small rural neighborhood with an HOA. A few years ago, one neighbor called CPS on us because two of my kids had an argument in front of her house. All three were riding bikes down the street....they were probably 12, 9, and 7 at the time. They were together with oldest ds in charge. Youngest, which is dd, got mad at her brothers because they were ready to come home and she was not and is/was not allowed to be alone. Their solution was that oldest came home, TWO DOORS DOWN (literally, I can see where they were from my kitchen windows and she could have heard me if I stepped outside and called), to get me. My other ds stayed with her. This neighbor walks outside and starts asking them what is going on. They had never met the woman. Then, she tells my ds to leave his sister alone because he is trying to pull her away from this stranger, which he knows they are not to be talking with. Dh was down there to get dd in a matter of minutes. Yet, she called CPS on us because ds was abusing dd....WHAT? The lady from CPS actually laughed during her interview with us, but the whole business was emotionally scarring to us all, and embarrassing. She also called our pastor to "tell" on us. I later found out that she works for the ps and has a major issue with hsers. She is also an instigator and causes issues wherever she goes. Since then, we have had multiple complaints about our yard. The mowing and weed eating is done weekly, so that isn't an issue. The shrubs are trimmed yearly, but no more. Trees are kept trimmed. We only get around to weeding the flower beds occasionally. No one can say anything about any of that because they still are neat. We do not plant flowers or have potted plants sitting around. Neither dh nor I enjoy lawn work/gardening. As long as the lawn is neat, we are not interested in having it ornate. It isn't important to us. Again, no one can say much about that. But, since we live in a sea of people that either garden as a hobby or pay a fortune for landscaping companies to take care of their yards, we probably look plain. I am sure that is annoying to them. I think this makes us a target when something goes wrong that they can complain about instead of them giving us some grace for a few days. Once many of us were the target of some vandalism. I left my house that morning unaware that my front side walk had been spray painted, just like several other houses in the neighborhood. Mine was just a smiley face or something, while some people had very vulgar pictures. Anyway, a neighbor called me AT CHURCH on a Sunday to insist that I come home right now to take care of it. I got home and was SO MAD. It could have waited a few hours! One neighbor has griped at my ds when he was mowing about the way he did his rows. That ticked me off. It is my yard, as long as he is not throwing the grass on your yard, back off. Two days ago, I noticed that one of the sprinklers from the aerobic system was not oscillating. I told dh, who will work on it this weekend when he has a chance. I am well aware that it is causing a mud puddle, and when dh is home before dark and has time to look at it, it will be taken care of. They should know from the years that we have lived here that he will get it fixed within days. He just isn't home TODAY to make it happen. While ds was mowing this morning, he got the lawn mower stuck in this puddle. The other kids and I helped him get it out. After I came inside, my retirement aged neighbor comes outside and proceeds to tell my 14yo ds that we need to get this taken care of. I was just out there, she could have approached me if she had an issue. She could have come to my door to talk with me. No, she goes to a child to address something that is out of his control. And it irritates me even more because she has lived here just as long as we have. She knows we will take care of it. I am sorry that I am not retired and enjoy working four hours every day in my yard like she does. I have a young family, including a baby that does not nap. I barely keep up with what needs to be done INSIDE my house. I don't care if the yard is not up to your appealing standards. It is clean and neat. Things break, and we fix them as soon as we can. If it was an emergency and flooding everything, I would call someone to fix it. Otherwise, it can wait the few days until dh can handle it. This is my property and what happens on it is none of your business. And, do not approach my child about an issue. Talk to me, like an adult. And, for the record...our HOA has NEVER said anything to us about anything on our property in the decade that we have lived here because we do not break any of the restrictions and any issues with things breaking are taken care of in a timely fashion. People just think they can butt their noses into others business and I am tired of it. I think I am going to start prepping to put our house on the market. I want to live in the country anyway...for more than one reason. Rant over, but I am still TICKED!!!

When my oldest was in disposables, they were always covered. ALWAYS! I thought they looked trashy. Not, as in the people are trashy, just the diaper. I learned about cloth with my second, so the last three have been in just a cute cloth diaper at home most of the time. With my boys, I dressed them in shirts and shorts/pants for going out, but with girls I usually do dress and matching cloth diapers. Diapers are going to stick out of pants, but I can't stand exposed paper diapers. After using real diapers for so many years, my first thought is always, "That baby has trash on its butt."

He has applied Compound W every morning and evening since I started this thread. He lets it dry, then tapes it. We had a very hard time keeping the tape on until he just started wrapping one long piece all the around his foot. One day last week, all of that callused skin around the wort came off, leaving the actual wort. It looked like a donut of skin...ick! He had been careful to apply CW only to the wort, so that was surprising. On Monday, he was swimming in a pond, and the tape came off. When he went to shower, he noticed that most of the wort was gone. The remaining part came off today. The skin around it still looks gross. We plan to continue treating just as he has, applying CW to where the wort was so that we kill off any that might remain. And, he will keep it taped for maybe a week or so. Not sure if it was the CW or the tape or the two together, but it is working.

Awesome. This is what I was really wanting to know. The only reason we stopped using MM in the past was the cluttered pages. My dc could not concentrate. I want to use it in the fall since I own it and wouldn't have to spend money. Better formatting would be the only reason I would want to update. I don't really care about the order of the concepts. I am good at working through things as needed.

I have the old bundle of everything through 6A on CD. I haven't used it in years, but am probably going to this fall. Do I need the updated version, and do those of us that purchased in the past get a discount?

It's definitely the PSAT. It is being given by a school near us in the off season for 8th graders in order to help plan for high school.