I have a cast iron pan, but always forget about it. I mostly use the all-clad or Tramontina tri-ply pans.

This is very wise! I'm glad things are turning around for you!

These were big for a while, as part of the Pinterest-Perfect Workbox trend. And yes, I fell for it. Nope, it didn't revolutionize my homeschool at all. 😂 https://www.michaels.com/product/10-drawer-rolling-organizer-by-recollections-10197632?cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Storage_N_PMAX_BOPIS_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-18514199906_adg-_ad-__dev-m_ext-_prd-10197632&gclid=CjwKCAjwivemBhBhEiwAJxNWN4YViw9Vtt6qCwQVgkNrVB4QGDdOz9L3PzMdJNjfousldbYZvJdFZhoCvaoQAvD_BwE

Maybe not, because every one of these $10k per student places folds within a year. I'm keeping an eye on the new $11k a year place to see if they make it.

The poetry tea time school was supposedly an Agile learning center. No cool equipment, and the other mentor was the owner's Mom friend. Mom was a local homeschool parent of early elementary students, so not a lot of experience teaching, either. Mom was a little vague about exactly what the kids would be doing all day. Like, poetry tea time and then nature study and a walk and then some lunch. They took a field trip to the library once. Okay...that's a nice day, but...I dunno, I expect more for $10k a year. I don't think she was trying to be dishonest, necessarily. I think she was in over her head, didn't know what to do with kids older than hers, and figured this would be an easy way to generate cash while "staying home". I'm not really sure how funding for these Agile centers works. Maybe they are.self-funded? No clue. Like I said, I want to believe there are great alternative options out there. I haven't seen them yet here.

Full disclosure: I looked into sending DS15 to a microschool prior to the pandemic because my anxiety was through the ceiling. I checked out 2 places, and nothing they offered was better than what I was doing at home. The selling point for school A was poetry tea time. School B boasted about problem solving via D&D and how they often ate pizza while playing Mario Kart. Neither school offered a curriculum or even had books, but the "mentors" were happy to help students with whatever schoolwork they brought with them. They talked a big game about "alternative learning models" and used a lot of education buzzwords. All of the images on their website were free clip art and did not represent actual students. In both cases, the enrolled students were the owner's kids and the kids of her friends. Both places folded because no one wanted to pay $10k a year for school age kids to be babysat while the owner homeschooled her own kids. I want to believe there are great alternative options out there. I just haven't seen any yet.

Meh. These are the same statements I have read about homeschooling for the decade I have been doing this. We have microschools popping up here, but they close quickly due to lake of participants. Most people that can afford 11k a year, (the going rate for the newest microschools), want something with prestige and name recognition. Most of the private schools here are cheaper than $11k/year and offer bus transportation. The microschools do not. I am more concerned with the crop of homeschoolers that use all online providers and put their kid in front of a computer all day. I don't know how we went from "Zoom school is bad for kids and learning" to "But online programs that cost parents money aren't a problem at all".

I vote dim sum.

I rage declutter, which is a sort of cleaning.

I would keep as much kitchen stuff as you can for your son. New flatware is expensive, even the stuff at Walmart, unless you buy the really junky stuff that rusts or breaks in a year.

You know, socialization is really a crapshoot. Some people get lucky and some people don't. I've seen a few posts where the socialization piece has worked out great for some people, and they say "You just have to ABC and XYZ to build those deep relationships. That's what we did and everything turned out fine for us". And that's great. I'm happy for those folks. But sometimes, you can ABC and XYZ the recommended amounts and then: the parents of your kid's bestie get divorced and move away you lose your job and can't afford your kid's activities anymore the people that ran the only decent co-op in the area graduated their last kid and shut the co-op down with no warning your kid hates sports and dance, and those are the only ways kids socialize in your small town a global pandemic turns the world upside down We don't have as much control over this aspect of homeschooling as we like to believe.

First person with cash gets it. Always. The people that dither don't really want the item. They're just bored and wasting time.

Yep. I can think of several people whom I love despite the relationship being lousy. Some people are small-serving friends. Like, I can't have a large serving of them because it's too much at once.

I don't want to stress you, but I think you should see a doctor about this. You were having some other gi issues recently, too yes? Not being able to "go" like you used to. And now this...I am a little concerned there may be something else going on.

You're gossiping. I deleted that a few times because it seemed mean, but since you're calling us "wack", whatever. You're gossiping and I think the only reason you posted this is to talk about this girl in a negative way.

Maybe she didn't leave the stall because she didn't want to see you and was hoping you'd leave first. Maybe she was wasting time because she found the service boring and didn't want to go back right away. Maybe she needed to fart but didn't want to do it near you and was stalling in hopes you'd leave.

You actually don't know that this person vandalized the stall. You saw someone you already don't like and view suspiciously and then later saw something that your DH says isn't obvious vandalism. Someone else could have vandalized the stall before she arrived. If she was gouging the walls, I would think n that would make a noise? Maybe she noticed the vandalism and was looking at it. But you don't know that she did it.

I was thinking, too, that if a mom worked from home, having a place to drop off kiddo once a week might be really appealing. Could be a win for both families.

I would not do this. If the other moms are working, could you offer to have their kids come over to your house for play/hang out time once a week?

This was my experience, as well. I ran some mini classes and the local homeschool group for a couple of years. I got regular attendance from the same couple of families, and that was great and appreciated. But gosh, the whole experience was exhausting. The people that never helped were always the loudest complainers. I never got books back that I loaned out and there are people that still owe me money from classes they promised they'd pay for. I don't want to run anything ever again. Oh, and the funniest part? After all the work I did, planning parties, organizing field trips, teaching classes, my son said "That was you doing that?! I thought it was so-and-so's mom who did it all". 😵‍💫

I can't think of any, to be honest. I'm mostly thinking of an elderly relative of mine that has a history of blurting out ridiculous, thoughtless things and getting defensive when called on it. If approached carefully, they will say "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. What I meant was...", and then something nicer comes out of their mouth.

I would say "What do you mean by that?" I expect they meant something nasty, but I'd go with this on the off chance they meant something non toxic but expressed themselves in a stupid way.

I'm out in the sticks, so the vibe is different. We had a weekly park meetup for years with a core group of families that participated. It still was only about 6 families despite having 200+ members in the FB group. I could not pry these women out of their homes for anything. I had moms posting how desperately lonely they and their kids were, how they needed community, but they would not come out to the park. Or they'd come once and say it was too stressful because they were introverts, had anxiety, they had 12 kids and couldn't keep track of them all in public. Then COVID hit and there was a great reshuffling. Everyone we previously socialized with packed the kids off to school. In hindsight, I think most people really wanted to send their kids to Christian school but could not afford it. Homeschooling was the next best thing and it was abandoned as soon as they could afford private school. Maybe the stimulus money everyone got during the pandemic allowed them to afford private school finally.

The other thing I see a lot of is the expectation that a curriculum should meet every single need perfectly. It must be all things to all people. The Acme Book of History may be fantastic at explaining the role of widgets in history, but it doesn't cover the contributions of sprockets at all, so into the reject bin it goes. No one wants to simply add in an equally great book about sprockets.

I've got all sorts of snarky opinions about this topic. I'll try to tone down the snark. 😄 There are a lot of hybrid options popping up near me, and yes, they read like unregistered, unregulated schools. I posted something about this on fb a few weeks ago after a new, pricy option started advertising in the homeschool groups. $11k in tuition to send your kid full time at the "homeschool partnership program". The kids go 4 days a week for a full day. They have homeroom, scheduled class times, lunch time, gym, core classes. That is not homeschooling. That's school. Frankly, no one here has the kind of money for this sort of thing. These programs pop up and fizzle out quickly. Online, everyone in the secular groups chases after the new, shiny thing. BYL was popular when we started 10 years ago, but now gets side eye. MBTP was popular, but now I hear it's no longer considered secular. Beast Academy and AOPS were mentioned frequently as "The Best", but they're really only good for a certain kind of kid. There is a lot of gatekeeping about whether something is secular enough to be mentioned. I don't know if the high school groups were always this way, but I was taken aback by the intensity. No one teaches their kids themselves; everything is AP level and outsourced. No one is just a high school student learning algebra or chemistry from a book. It's all about bullet points to put on college applications to "set yourself apart from the crowd", but everyone seems to be "setting themselves apart" in the exact same quantity vs quality kind of way. I'm also taken aback by how much money people are freely throwing at online courses. For what people are spending on "honors" level high school classes, I could sign my kid up for community college DE that will result in transfer credit. Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but I'm simply not convinced that the $500 "honors" chemistry online class is always worth the price. It probably is the right option for the right kid, but I'm not convinced that outsourced everything at $250-500 a class should be the default. Like, I see so many posts saying "I need an underwater basketweaving class to fulfil a state regulation. It doesn't have to be rigorous, but it needs to be cheap! Who do you recommend?", and everyone suggests a $150-300 option. I'm the lone nutter saying "Just buy a book, take notes, watch some videos. Box checked for less than $25".