I guess we need to revisit Prodigy. I can't remember why it didn't work here but it may have been a bad week. CTC math is very popular here but it isn't games.

Not Mrs. Twain but I will respond in case I might be able to help a tad. Are you thinking you would like to rotate R&S Climbing to Good English with Fix-It Grammar? What would be your goals? Are you looking to sometimes do something less intense, that only covers grammar and a bit of vocabulary periodically instead of a full scale program for English? Or do you feel your students are needing a bit more grammar practice/experience? Or ...? Knowing your overall goals may help people respond more effectively. Fix-It does not cover reading comprehension or phonics or composition. It strictly covers grammar, in a very gentle scaffolded way, plus it includes some dictionary work for increasing vocabulary comprehension. You could easily add in penmanship with the copywork. Fix-It is only :15 minutes a day, 4 days a week. Very short lessons, almost no prep at all needed once the notebooks are set up, and you only need to buy the TM. If you buy the TM you have access to the Student Book in electronic format for free and can print as many pages as needed for your family. 100% money back guarantee if it doesn't work out for you, by the way. I would not completely replace R&S English with Fix-It since R&S covers areas that Fix-It does not, but I guess you could rotate them, or replace the grammar portion of R&S with Fix-It if you were able to do some tweaking/adjusting.

I know a lot of people feel that since they don't have a lot of stuff, or their families get along really well, or they don't really care what happens to their stuff after they die, that a will isn't really necessary. Even if someone chooses to get a will, they may just slap something together on the fly. The thing is, though, there doesn't have to be any contention or a lot of money/property involved, for things to get very complex very quickly. A well written will can help prevent the person trying to settle the estate from spending countless hours over months or even years trying to straighten out issues that could so easily have been dealt with if a few specific words had been included in the will (or actually having a will in the first place, which many people don't). The will has many functions but one is to make things smoother and less troublesome for the person settling the estate, not just to prevent contentious relationships from getting out of hand once someone passes, but to make the process smoother and make certain there are no legal or financial snafus. There doesn't have to be any contention at all for issues to arise. And the will also hopefully keeps the IRS and lawyers from walking away with the bulk of whatever you own. I don't want whoever ends up dealing with my estate to be stuck trying to clean up my mess because I failed to take care of things while I was still alive. That being said, there are many instances where people really don't need a lawyer, the estate settlement goes glass smooth, and there are no issues to deal with. Since I don't have a crystal ball, I would rather air on the side of caution, especially since I have kids involved.

I think this is kind of normal for a lot of teens. I know this is frustrating. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: Honestly, it sounds like he is working very hard in a lot of things. He may NEED, for his own mental well being, to have something that he can just "get done" instead of having to put 110% into all the time. We can't always put our all into every single thing we do or people can eventually burn out. I think balance and prioritizing would be a more important message here. Could you talk to him about balance and priorities? Not tell him but ask him what his real priorities are, both short and long term? And how well balanced he thinks things are right now? And what schools may not be affordable any more without the merit aid? Just get a dialogue going without putting in direct feedback from you right now. Get him thinking without feeling judged or pressured.

I agree. And the last would be a serious concern for me, too. Here, homeschooling is not common, is not seen as a positive choice, and is frequently greeted with at least suspicion, sometimes open hostility. Even family are still not really on board with my choice to homeschool the kids after some real struggles in brick and mortar. Heck, even the choice to put a child in private school can be greeted with hostility here. Local officials would almost certainly not be friendly towards homeschoolers and might very well be looking for any excuse to force children into the public school system, whether it would be a good fit or not.

I agree with the bolded absolutely. However, here parents ARE required to have a physical exam of their children by a physician every year before their child can start public school and AFAIK all local private schools require the same. Frequently it is also required that they have had that yearly wellness exam to start any kind of public sports and many privately supported sports activities, too. Whether that is truly necessary or not, they are required to do so.

Another suggestion: Do all of these jobs yourself first, and TIME yourself. Now plan to probably double or possibly triple that time for the teenager to complete those tasks until they are used to your preferences and where everything is and until they perfect their techniques, especially if some of these tasks they have never done before even in their own home. From that estimate determine how many hours you would need them to be at your home and whether you need to cut some of those tasks from their list if it will not be cost effective.

So the company that wants to interview your husband booked the flight through a travel agency but made an error? And the agency is dealing with your husband directly, not through the company that asked them to make the booking? If the company that is doing the interview booked the flight, and the agency they hired made the mistake, why isn't the company dealing with the agency? ETA: Or am I totally misunderstanding? FWIW, a lot of companies reimburse afterwards instead of paying up front. That isn't necessarily a red flag. The issue with the travel agency is a separate issue from whether this company is worth the effort to interview with. COL is definitely something to consider.

How sure are you that it is impetigo? I agree, if it IS then try to cover the affected area and keep him from physical contact with others where the affected area might touch them. And wash his hands a lot.

I agree.

My parents kept my room for me but only because it was actually an enclosed balcony on the second floor and neither of them used the upstairs much. They also stored my stuff and I really appreciated it. I didn't expect them to, though. They just didn't plan to use that balcony/room for anything so they had no problem with me leaving my stuff there. If they had needed the space I would NOT have expected them to keep my room indefinitely. As for my stuff, I think I would have been hurt if they had tossed it or given me an ultimatum on when to have it removed since my living arrangements after I moved out were not stable for quite a while and I was living light. However, I think it is absolutely reasonable to ask a child to cull down their things to a reasonable amount that you can store, or suggest they rent a storage unit to put their things in. Or if you have the yard space then maybe they could buy a small storage unit and keep it in your backyard. Cheaper than paying for off site storage if she needs to store stuff long term. I think a lot of kids (even adult ones) sometimes do want to feel like they still have a connection to home and that they weren't just tenants, that a part of them still belongs there and that they are still welcome, still a part of things, even if they move out. At least I felt that way. I needed to know that no matter how far away I moved or how long it was until I saw them again, I still belonged, that my childhood mementos were not just a waste of space or that my family was relieved to see me go so they could have their room "back".

We found Costco was the most affordable for frames and the service was excellent but cost for frames varies really widely. At the drs office it has always been higher than at Costco, though.

Gah!!!! I just bought and ate some this weekend and this morning. Mine is definitely on the list of possibly affected products. I am so sad. I haven't had humus in months. It tasted so good. I know they say they haven't found any issues with the finished product but since they are asking that all potentially affected products be thrown away I guess I will. Thanks for posting...

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

Agree with FaithManor see if you can find an expat site. For real estate, maybe this would help. http://www.home.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KEQiA08rBBRDUn4qproqwzYMBEiQAqpzns629PjrCc5KMKu2vZ9KVVCIMox-qE6MaUPXjvtm69Y4aAgqY8P8HAQ FWIW, I would not move to another country until I had visited at least once with the express purpose of getting a feel for how it would be to live there. Vacationing is one thing. Living can be a HUGE adjustment, even when moving to a country where the language is mostly the same and the culture doesn't seem that different compared to other countries. Do you adapt well to other cultures? For Scotland in particular are you o.k. with lots of gray skies? The culture is different, too. If you are super outgoing and expect to make friends right away you may be disappointed.

Love this and OP I would try for something like this very, very soon, before something happens that might cause the mom to change her mind regarding her verbal consent.

Well, the aunt isn't actually an aunt, either. Not a blood relative. Just someone the mom knows. OP, since the mom has now actually given verbal consent, is there any way your DH could get her to put something in writing? Even though you can't hire a lawyer, could your DH at least have some sort of legal document written up you could fax her to some local place where she could go in and sign and have it faxed back? If she wants to continue to receive cs even though she is not actually the one that has been raising the girl in recent times (and still getting cs even if the girl is living with her father is apparently why she agreed to allow the girl to continue to stay with you and your DH) perhaps if you pressed just a tad harder you could get something more solid in place legally without hiring a lawyer. As for the power of attorney for the fake aunt, maybe that could be rescinded. What you need is time. Time for the girl to stay with you and your DH until she is sure that is where she wants to live, time for her to get old enough that none of this matters, time to establish that the mom knows she is living there and has not fought the arrangement, time hopefully to get the mom to sign some sort of legal document saying she is o.k. with this (not just her verbal consent), etc. All of that will look better with a court than the current situation. And do everything on your end to make certain she is getting an education so the courts can't come down on your DH for a lack of education.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: I have to agree with up thread, you really cannot stop this so try to focus on what you can do to help her follow this course of action in the most positive way she can manage. She is an adult dealing with a lot of mental health issues and is not ready right now to receive any helpful suggestions going against her current course of action apparently. You almost certainly cannot rationalize with her. As for the contract, if someone could convince her to do as mentioned up thread and submit her notice on Monday, explaining she is moving out of state, that may mitigate issues later. If she could stay until Christmas holidays that would also help. And not sign a new contract until the old one has been officially terminated. But I would also look on this as maybe helping her. I know that sounds crazy. What she is planning doesn't sound terribly thought out or rational at all. However, she is probably choosing this path because she (as you have said yourself) is very unhappy in her job and missing being in school and is desperate to change the path she is on but may not be able to think through another course of action. Therefore, she is grasping at this straw to save herself. Well, I can understand her perspective regarding teaching. I admire teachers a lot because their job is NOT easy. Teaching in the public school system is a hard job. It is a lot of work, a lot of pressure, and not a lot of down time. Even when you aren't teaching there are lesson plans and papers to grade and parent conferences to schedule and a zillion other things. When you are working you are having to juggle administrative issues, kids having a bad day, bullies, kids falling behind, kids needing more challenge, academic material that needs tweaking, parents upset about something, administrators upset about something, plus of course squeezing in teaching the actual lessons and so on and so forth. It is a LOT of hard, exhausting work, and at the end of the day you have to go home and prep for the next day. When you are a rookie you don't have a lot of systems in place yet for how to streamline things and how to cope with the stress. Quite a few teachers quit the profession within the first few years. A ton of my relatives are teachers, including my mother and grandmother. Also my SIL. Depression, anxiety and even suicide rates have increased locally for teachers. The first years are usually the hardest. With your daughter's current mental health issues teaching may be a lousy choice for career, at least right now. Maybe, just maybe, this will be a way for her to find another, potentially more suitable, career path. Doesn't mean she isn't making a mistake. Since she is an adult, as you said, you cannot stop her. But just possibly in the long run this will work out better for her career wise. Maybe this will help her to find something that she really loves, something to anchor to and keep her going. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: Being a parent is hard. Hang in there.

Yes, it is about validation but the way the video is presented, while funny, is kind of insulting. I agree with Bolt. I do get the point. I really do. And I think the video makes a very good point. But it does also make the woman look stupid for not just dealing with the elephant in the room. I have a very odd feeling when watching this video.

I agree that a lawyer would be the best route but since you feel that is not an option, is the aunt currently demanding she come home? Has the mother demanded that she return to the aunt? Or did the aunt expect her to come home and the daughter is refusing? Is she enrolled in school or are you homeschooling her currently? What are the legal custody arrangements between Mom and your DH? If the aunt is willing to let her stay with you, dad has the legal right to see his daughter and the mom hasn't actually said anything, and the daughter is getting a legal education of some kind while living with you, maybe just doing a bit more investigation and getting more documentation in place proving that Mom is not actually taking care of her daughter before activating any agencies might be more prudent?

The point, it seems to me, is that until someone is ready to deal with the "nail", trying to make them deal with the "nail" is probably counterproductive and even harmful depending on the circumstances. What they may need far more is someone to just listen while they process through and try to come to a point where they can deal with the "nail" themselves. They need to feel that no matter what is happening they are still loved and supported. They don't want it solved for them. They don't need it flung back in their faces. They want the emotional support in general so they can find a way to face it and solve it themselves. And that can take time. For problem solvers that is a very painful thing to try and do. It isn't logical and it drives them nuts. For the person with the nail, it can be even worse. I have been on both ends. Nails on a chalkboard times 400 from either perspective. :lol:

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: No suggestions but hugs.

Actually, yes you can ask a public school to do testing but you need to do it in writing. Be as friendly as possible but be prepared to be firm and follow up.

Mathnerd's Black Friday sale thread linked to some courses at deep discount through udemy. DD is interested in one of those courses but I was wondering if anyone has ever taken a course through them? Sale ends in 5 hours... https://www.udemy.com/courses/

DD would like to take a course through udemy. Offer ends in 5 hours as I read it. I wish someone who had actually taken a course through udemy would give some feedback. Maybe I will start a separate thread...