He is highly capable at his work and very likely to receive a position he applied for, but would have to wait for an appropriate position to come open first, of which there are only a few in that county. So it might be years.

Very short. Not close enough to walk, but probably to bike.

Dh and I are looking to purchase our first home. We currently live in a largish town about 25 minutes from dh's work, but we kind of miss the small town life. What do you think?

Wow, who’s trying to make this about me? Let’s see, I haven’t been documenting my sources over the years for the sake of justifying myself to internet strangers. I read a book about the Inquisition and the Spanish Decree of Expulsion from the college library. I read a section in a textbook on the Revolutionary War period about Jews’ treatment in the different colonies and after the states were united. I read in a book on Bohemian genealogy (where my mom’s family is from) about how Jews were persecuted there—at one period only one child per family was allowed to have a legally recognized marriage. I’ve read and watched many things about the Holocaust, and got to speak with and interview the author of ‘Because of Romek’ when I was still in school. I’ve read online about the German American Bund. I read about supercessionism, particularly as it is exemplified in medieval religious art, from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. I attended lectures on the diaspora at BYU’s Education Week conference. I read about the forgery of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and the Russian pogroms. I read about the life of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. I’ve read about Henry Ford’s newspaper and Father Coughlin’s radio show and the KKK’s antisemitism. I visited the Jewish Ceremonial Hall (which is now a museum on Jewish history) in Prague, and the Old Cemetery, and the most heartbreaking museum exhibit I’ve ever seen in my life, filled with artwork from the children in Terezin. I took four Hebrew classes (3 modern, one biblical), and learned so much about Jewish history and experience, especially from the professor I had for two of those classes. She directed me to articles about the period following WWII and through the establishment of the state of Israel in the US, Europe, and Israel. I got to be friends with the TA of those classes, and had many interesting and fruitful conversations with him. I had lofty goals of reading the Torah in Hebrew, but I failed at that—I only got about ten pages before I gave up. I have attended Chanukah and Purim celebrations and got to participate in a Seder. I taught a lesson to the women’s class at my church about Jewish topics I had learned about from my professor (with her permission). I refuted and corrected the statements of a man in a public setting that were implying that the treatment of Jews in European history had justification, which while small was a tough thing for me because I am really bad at handling irl confrontation. I make an effort to read a wide variety of news sources, and I include Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, and the Jewish Journal. I have written to my representative urging actions on cronfronting anti-Semitism, hate crimes, and gun violence. But none of that matters. My past experience in this area has no bearing on whether offering prayer on behalf of victims is a good or bad response to these tragedies. If an individual believes in a powerful God, then for that individual to ask him to help those who are suffering is a good, moral action, which the person may well believe will have a greater and more immediate positive effect than any other action they can take. Of course people should also take action in their lives to try to affect change, as well as offering prayer, and if that were the point you were making I would be with you 100%. But instead of urging people to temporal action as well (and perhaps offering some suggestions of how, as I think lots of people want to help more but just don’t know what to do)—instead of that, you are vilifying and trying to publicly shame people out of doing a good thing.

Make an effort to understand where the objections to "thoughts and prayers" are coming from. I have made the effort to understand where people who take offense at those who respond with prayer are coming from. I have talked to a number of them, read their work trying to understand their reactions, and haven't yet found one who didn't base their reaction on the assumption that people who pray first will probably not support their desired gun-control measures, so they feel justified in preemptively berating them for their response. And before you turn this into being about you (again), the onus here is you. You are of the majority faith. You belong to the faith tradition of the shooter. They don't need to understand you. You need to understand them. Wow. Not sure where you came up with the assumption that I am from the faith tradition of the shooter, but I'm going to give a greater weight and importance to the opinion of my Jewish friend who is asking for prayer at this time than to that of bystanders who deride people of faith for praying for the victims. Have you done the work to understand the very deep roots of anti-semitism in Christianity or white supremacy in the United States and how they are intermingled? Yes.

An interview Rabbi Goldstein gave to CNN: What a brave man.

Why do you "think it's pretty safe to assume that none of the "thoughts and prayers" folks were doing much of anything to stop the next Neo-Nazi from shooting up another synagogue"? Seriously. How could you possibly think that is a safe assumption? What do you base this idea on? With millions of people of faith in this country, you seriously think this is a safe assumption? Praying for those who are suffering and asking a divine being to aid and comfort them in their suffering absolutely is an exercise of faith. It is not a platitude, it has nothing to do with guilt, and it is not an indicator of what else the person offering the prayer may or may not also do. It is a sincere effort to reach out and seek for what can aid the victims most in their hour of need. You pray for the victims, but it's only okay to do so if it's not one's first reaction? Why?

The objection to "thoughts and prayers" is that, as a very general stereotype, those whose first response to tragedy is an exercise of faith are assumed to be likely to disagree on possible courses of action with those who respond differently, and so the latter use this reasoning you describe to justify deriding the faith of the former. On what facts do you base your statement that : and your implication that people who pray for victims do not honestly attempt to grapple with the causes of these tragedies? Is it honestly based on something other than your assumptions about people with a different perspective from your own?

This is home for me, too. I am sick at heart. The horror and evil in our world seems so much more real when it comes to your home. I have been crying--and yes, praying--for our Jewish brothers and sisters. The rising anti-semitism in our nation is sickening. That cartoon in the NYT is blatant and disgusting. Those who offer prayer for victims of disasters are not doing nothing. It would be "doing nothing" for someone who did not believe in the existence of a divine being with the ability to intercede in the lives of men to offer words to nobody. It is not "doing nothing" for someone who actually believes in such a being to ask for his help for those in need of his aid. Why wouldn't we?

That sounds like a really neat option!

The last time we moved, I put a lot of effort into finding new music teachers for my kids who were really excellent, professional, experienced teachers with high expectations who knew how to handle my particular kids' personalities well, rather than going with who was most convenient/comfortable as I had done in the past. It does mean that I have to drive 40 minutes each way to get them to lessons when we could have had them in our own home, but it has been so worth it. I have been so impressed with their progress this year, which has been far more rapid since the change. Of course, these three really excellent teachers are all moms who teach out of their own homes. In my experience, working from a studio vs. a home does not really seem to correlate with the quality of the instruction.

This isn't an option. The rental contract is technically a rent-to-own, so it has a 30 month term until we own it. Ds just barely fit the 1/4 size when we got it over a year ago and still has plenty of room to grow in it, so we are hoping he will fit this instrument until we own it, and then we can sell it and put the cost towards getting him the next size up.

I’d make lots of interesting little paths and hidey-holes with plants and simple wooden trellises grown over with climbing plants and living willow structures and have little hills and dells. With no climbing trees, I’d look into building something climbable. And I second the suggestions for zip lines, water, digging, fort-building materials, and hobbit holes above. https://www.houzz.com/photos/goodman-landscape-design-asian-landscape-san-francisco-phvw-vp~685834

Ooo, that might be really perfect for my dd10 who is in BA 5D. I wonder how much they will charge for it?

Now that is truly offensive. What gall.

Also not ours. (I'm LDS).

I've asked someone if I could put their name on the temple prayer rolls after hearing about some great challenge in their life in normal conversation, but no, it would never occur to me to approach a random stranger in public and pray out loud for them right then and there. That would make me uncomfortable, and it does feel like doing it to be seen of men rather than doing it to talk to God. I always try to take things in the way they are intended, though, and the one time I have had a stranger ask to pray for me I was sincerely touched by her loving concern. It was a customer at my moving sale when my youngest was a baby and had some major health issues. We got to talking about him, and she asked if she could pray for him. I said yes, assuming she meant in private later. I was so surprised when she took my hands and started praying for my son right then and there. It was strange, but lovely. She had a genuine love for her fellow man that extended to my little boy, and she wanted to ask a loving and powerful Father that she truly believed had the power to heal my son to do so. There is nothing to offend in that. It was beautiful.

Yes, I love our charter! At first the reporting requirements were annoying, until I started thinking of them as my "job" I do to fund our homeschooling. And it is sure an easier job and more compatible with homeschooling than the preschool and violin lessons I did before we got in to the charter. Pays a whole lot better, too. My kids are 10, 8, almost 7, and 5, so pretty young still. Oldest dd does competition team for gymnastics. It just occurred to me that we will be paying the rental fee for ds's cello anyways, so I guess we'd still be paying half the cost without any benefit if he took the summer off lessons.

Going well here. The end of March and beginning of April were extra spendy because my brother got married, so we had travel expenses, wedding clothes expenses, and gift expenses, but all that was planned for in advance. We are working on paying back some money my parents helped us with a couple of years ago, and in three months that will be payed off. We’re also nearly back up to the $5000 in our emergency fund that was depleted last year first by moving, then by car trouble, and then by my emergency gallbladder surgery. After the loan to my parents, I’m hoping we can pay off dh’s car by the end of the year, and then the only thing left is the last of our law school debt. Our state is looking like changing their public employees pension plan to classify public prosecutors as law enforcement personnel, which would mean that dh would be eligible to retire with full benefits five years sooner. This would be great—anything to get him out of his soul-crushing line of work sooner. (He specializes in sex crimes and minor victims). I’m trying to decide how many extracurriculars to allow the kids to continue through the summer. Our charter pays for them all during the school year, but during the summer we pay. It’s tempting to take the summer off and save the money, but for their instruments and dd’s gymnastics, that would mean backsliding and loss of skills they’ve worked hard to acquire. The boys are doing baseball in June, because that’s the only time it’s offered. And if older dd and the boys are doing sports, I don’t think I can have second dd be the only one who has to take a break from her horseback riding. Maybe the three youngers could take off of sports for July and August. Does that seem unfair, to let just the oldest continue for those months?

We call that wall the music wall in our home. We have one large painting centered over the piano and the rest of the wall is given over to instruments. I found that hanging them on the wall serves both as decoration and helps with storage difficulties. (Also, the kids pick up their instruments to practice more when they are always out within arm's reach and ready to go). Unfortunately, we've run out of space as the instruments continue to accumulate. (The kids and I each only have one out, but dh's hobby is acquiring and self-teaching different kinds of flutes, and now dulcimers, too).

This thread reminded me that I had been meaning to open some 529 accounts for our kids, which I just did. I've hesitated in the past over concerns about having saved funds inaccessible for other uses, but I finally set it up so we now have some going to 529s and some going to regular accounts. (Probably some and possibly all of my kids will have large non-qualifying expenses for religious missions either just before or early in their college years, so we need to be working on non-college dedicated savings for them, too).

My boy in level 2 thinks this is unfair and that he should get to skip to where the videos start. Yeah, I think you can handle the injustice for a chapter and a half, buddy. 🙂

My dd10 is in Beast 5D and in Singapore 5. I know we’re going to do AOPS Pre-Algebra, but I’ve been trying to decide if we should do the CWP and possibly IP from Singapore 6, either before or concurrently with AOPS. I’m running out of time to make up my mind. I wonder if it would be annoyingly easy while doing AOPS, or a nice brain-break. Hm. We were pleasantly surprised when the videos showed up in BA Online the other day. I think those might help the transition into Pre-Algebra and Alcumus, though my kids would also prefer to have the little monsters all the way through.

One area in which I changed my mind was gun control. I used to think, why did anyone need a gun other than one that would be used for hunting? I supported the idea of either banning other types of guns for private use or having a driver’s license-like system, where you basically had to earn the privilege and it could be revoked at the government’s discretion. Two things changed my mind on this. Someone pointed out that the constitutional right to bear arms was not about hunting at all, but was to ensure that normal people had the capacity to fight back again if government became tyrannical. This was patently true and provided food for thought, but at this point I wasn’t convinced that this was still necessary in our modern, free society. Then I heard something on a radio show that almost exactly addressed my thoughts on this. One speaker was talking about the purpose of that amendment, and the other said (slightly derisively), “but do you honestly believe that we still need that right in a modern, Western, democratic country?” The first speaker responded, “My grandparents lived in a modern, Western democracy when the government came for them, and they died in Auschwitz.” It radically altered my perspective. I now believe that just because we have freedom now doesn’t mean we don’t need safeguards against tyranny. I think we need to search for possible solutions to gun crime that preserve the right of non-criminals to have guns.

My oldest has already done SOTW 1, and regularly likes to look through her history binder at her old narrations and projects. And ancient history is one of her passions. While I am planning on keeping them all on the same time period in history, she needs more and deeper. I am wishing now that I hadn’t promised my youngest that he could start violin lessons at five—two years ago when I made that promise, I didn’t see any problem with that. But I can’t go back on my word. I hope I am wrong about the time for phonics, but that’s what dd needed. I’ve already been putting off science for my older ds until younger ds can do it with him. Maybe I could alternate doing science with the olders or the youngers each month, so I’m not trying to do two levels at the same time? Maybe I’m just a complainer. I know I need to find a way to lighten things up somehow. But I am loathe to go with “good enough” in anything. I love how their educations have been progressing. I have always said that I homeschool to give them a better education, and if I couldn’t, I would put them in school. But I need to force myself to be practical. I completely burnt myself out a few years ago, and I don’t want to go through that again. I guess my perfectionists come by it honestly.