:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

My Walking Dead comic collection. I may even make that a top prize in my will. ;) Ted Dekker's books. All of them. Robert Liparulo's adult fiction. All of them. The Thorn Birds (I can not bring myself to part with it - trust me, I've tried) The Message Bible. In the words of Tim Hawkins, "don't judge me". The Lord of the Rings trilogy ...and literally hundreds more. I am slowly going to try and transition them to my iPad and give the actual books away, but every time I get a gift card for iTunes, I just end up buying different books. :)

It's really late here, and I am admittedly tired, but when I read this my first thought was, "Wait, what? Some homeschool moms get stoned in the parking lot before these things?" LOL We're going to our first convention in May. FPEA is hosting it. I don't really care about the speakers (most I've never even heard of). I just want to look at some other curricula options for my boys. We've never been able to afford to attend it in the past, so I'm pretty excited about it. :)

Roald Dahl. My boys LOVED Dahl when they were 5-6 years old. There are some great projects you can do with a lot of those stories too. For 'The Twits', we made a cake and decorated it like an eyeball. It was all silly fun. :)

Funny that this topic came up. We recently moved to a new area, and Dh was asking one of our new neighbors about finding a reputable auto mechanic. The neighbor used to work for one of the "big name" oil change businesses. He was telling us that the managers are required by the corporate office to turn a $20 oil change into a $400 bill at all costs. If the managers fail to meet their monthly quota of "$400 oil changes" then they get written up and/or terminated. I would be livid if that were my DD too. I'm glad you all stuck up for her and was able to get the bill adjusted.

Another vote to not send an email. It's nobody's business what you're doing, and it's definitely nobody's business what is going on with your child.

I am so sorry. My heart goes out to you and your family. :grouphug:

I love that you accepted their gift, even though you didn't really need it. That was a blessing for them as much as it was for you. :) I understand that feeling of awkwardness though. It was very gracious of you to accept it (not easy to do!).

:( I'm so sorry. :grouphug:

You have to remember that dogs are den animals. They think of their kennels as a den, and it often times become their 'safe place'.

We always kennel trained our dogs during the housebreaking period. They basically live in their kennels except for: feeding, playing, and going outside to go potty. There is no break from that routine until they are housebroken. They were never allowed free-roam during the housebreaking.

*waves* My 13 year old niece is a 'friend' of mine on Facebook. She has a new "love interest" every. single. week. She has a new "boyfriend" every week...sometimes every other week. I assume it's harmless, but she lives far away, and we don't really talk with BIL/SIL about her. Anyway, today she "broke up" with a boy via Facebook. The boy commented, "ok. whatever". And then three of her friends jumped in and just tore this boy to pieces. They were vile and ugly to him. For 75 comments...trash talking about this boy. All I could think of was, 'If this was my kid, I'd be livid. Who the hell do these girls think they are?' So I broke an internal rule of mine. I became THAT aunt. I commented on the thread. I wrote "Wow. I believe this is cyber-bullying, and *niece's name*, I'm pretty sure you don't find bullying to be cool." Thread was deleted minutes later. And THEN... One of her little friends posted her wall, "Call me you B*" and she responded in kind. I'm assuming they're good friends. But my other SIL saw it and called her out on her foul language. She apologized for the language. Other SIL called her dad last week because she and I are concerned with what we're reading from her. Her reputation is starting to become...unpleasant (she's lashing out about it on Facebook). His response? He thinks it's harmless and isn't concerned. So yeah...I guess I'm the bad guy. The uncool aunt. But you know what? I'm good with that. There was NO WAY I wasn't going to say something to her. It was appalling how she and her friends tore that boy apart.

I can't help you with what will take the wallpaper/paint off. I have put up drywall before (built out a bedroom in our garage, and replaced drywall in our kitchen). It is messy. Be prepared for drywall dust everywhere. Buy extra air filters for your house, as you will need to replace those after the job is done. It's a lot of work, but worth it in the end. Good luck!

www.chadwicks.com I love their dresses.

I love doing projects, and my boys do too. I let them play (or display) their projects for as long as they want. Our amazon river project (made two years ago), has been the home of many Lego-people civilizations. Their "Moses" shirts that they made two years ago are still worn to bed each night, and they still discuss that lesson from SOTW. For us, the project solidifies what we have just learned about. Plus...I just REALLY like going to Michaels! ;)

Mine will be 21 in June. People are always surprised that I even *have* a DD, much less one that is that old. She's been at college since she was 18, and we only see her a couple time during the year, so it's usually just me and the boys.

Ditto. BUT...do NOT allow the pest control company to throw bait without traps in there. Bait will kill them...but good luck finding them once they die. The smell goes away in about 3 days during the summer months, and takes about a week during the winter months.

DD was my first, and she was 'sunny side up'. I was induced, as she was two weeks overdue, so I had the added pleasure of Pitocin-induced labor. It was incredibly painful back labor. I don't know how much of that was because she was posterior or because of the Pit...or a combination of both. She and I were both fine throughout the entire labor process. Hard labor lasted about 5 hours.

To the bolded: Those of us who owned IT support companies lost construction industries, realtors, payroll companies, attorneys, etc. as customers because THEY were going out of business as a result of the housing industry. Which in turn, caused the IT support companies to go out of business. We lost our house. We lost a car. All of our savings was gone. Our credit is gone. All stuff that we could easily afford on our income (for over 10 years), was gone when the housing industry went belly-up. Edited: duh..just read the "tanked the whole country" part. Yeah...It affected a LOT of different industries. We were all tied together. No one bought cars...car lots went out of business. No one went out to eat....restaurants went out of business. And so forth and so on.

Is there a Children's Science Center or zoo near you? That might be an option. I don't know how you feel about pets in general, but when we started hs we decided to have a 'classroom pet'. We started small (goldfish), and when the goldfish died, we got a hamster. She's really sweet, and the boys take really good care of her. DS8's birthday is in April, and we're going to get him his own Bearded Dragon since he does so well with mine. Our classroom pet really enhanced the idea of homeschooling for my boys, and school wouldn't be the same without our little hamster.

I'm not a "horse person", in that, I've only ridden two in my life, but I can totally understand where you are coming from (I'm an 'animal person'...I get attached to our reptiles!)! If you can afford it, why not? I say go for it!! :)

We just finished Where the Red Fern Grows, and my boys really got into it. So we're kind of on a boy-meets-dog-coming-of-age trend right now. We just started Shiloh today, and they're both halfway through it...they only had to read 4 chapters. They can't put it down. Anyway, here is what they say their favorite books are: DS10: Where the Red Fern Grows DS8: The Lightning Thief

What's frustrating, as an avid reader of the comics, is that there is so much more to Woodbury and The Governor than what the show has portrayed. Beautiful evil, or high-moral, zombie-infested, ground? I've read many interviews with Robert Kirkman regarding this very topic, and Elegantlon is absolutely correct in her post. That is exactly what Kirkman is doing by portraying the two camps side by side.

Dh used to be an "IT guy", so they've been around computers their whole lives. DS10 has been taking them apart since he was around 5, and putting them back together started around 8 years old. Dh and I just upgraded our iPads about a month ago, so we passed our old ones down to the boys. They are only allowed to read books, or do video lessons on them. They are (and have always been) severely restricted wrt the internet.

This is what I wrote on my Facebook page last night: 1. Andrea is getting on my nerves. Pick a side already. 2. Rick...why you ackin' so cra-cra? 3. DARYL'S BACK!!!! so is merle. 4. I hate the governor. 5. The show isn't long enough. I have to wait another 7 days for my fix. As a sidenote, we were watching Stephen King's, The Mist, the other day and were surprised to see both Andrea AND Dale acting in that movie. Made me realize how much I miss Dale on TWD.