A lot of people feel that the risks outweigh the benefits for some routine cat vaccines, at least for indoor cats. I've done some reading about the increased risk of cancer at the injection site in vaccinated cats, and that, along with my vet's recommendations, has convinced me to stop vaccinating my indoor cats for most things.

My vet doesn't recommend any shots past the standard kitten shots for indoor only cats. She sort of halfway recommends rabies, but only for legal reasons, not because she thinks they need it. You might well need flea stuff because of the dog, but I wouldn't treat her for them preemptively; you can just get the stuff if you see fleas.

I'll go. DS will be 10 in June, so he'd be a fairly young 4th grader this year. He did WWE up until mid way through level 3; now he does MCT Town level, along with dictation sentences from his reading, and summaries for history. Here's a summary he wrote from the SOTW chapter on the founding of Rome: This is unedited. The assignment was just to re-read the chapter and write a 2 paragraph summary of it.

It sounds like churchspeak for "we're trying to confuse you" to me. "open" and "inclusive" are often words that signal gay-friendliness, but emphasizing "not liberal" wouldn't seem to go along with that. My best guess is that they're trying to appeal to younger people who might be looking for a progressive congregation, but that they're actually conservative. That would be a strange strategy around these parts, but maybe you're somewhere where the term progressive holds wider appeal?

I haven't read all the responses, but I did read the original thread and the essay it linked to...for me, it's not a big concern. We're not close to there yet (DS is doing Town level this year), but when we get there it's something we'll note and move on. I taught freshman comp classes in grad school, and I can say that it's an issue that barely would have registered with me had it come up on a student paper. I might have made a note on the paper, but I wouldn't have counted off on a grade because of it. Honestly, I don't think my own professors would have paid much attention to it on MY papers. Explaining the significance of a quotation is essential, sure, but it looked to me like the example essay did that, just in a new paragraph. The kids I was teaching were, by and large, writing at such a low level (and this was at a very selective college) that I was absolutely thrilled if any of them could use a quotation from the text to effectively support their thesis (and, you know, if they could actually come up with a thesis).

I usually say dinner, but I'm not sure why, as I'm pretty sure I grew up calling it supper. And of course, my southern relatives call lunch "dinner" which was a source of endless confusion to me when I was a kid.

Mine is up, complete with gratuitous cute kitten pictures. Also, our first week with our new Science in a Nutshell kits.

This week I finished Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, which was awesome (review in blog). And I finished listening to Euna Lee's account of her (and Laura Ling's) captivity in North Korea in 2009, The World is Bigger Now. I read Laura Ling's account a few weeks ago, and this one was...very different. Sort of painful to listen to a lot of the time; Laura Ling made being held prisoner in North Korea sound like a fun party in comparison with Lee's take on it. I mean, the substance of their experience was largely the same, but the way they reacted to it (or at least the way they recounted the reactions) was very different. This week I'm reading Frank Schaeffer's Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. I heard an interview with him on Fresh Air awhile back...I'm kind of a religious memoir junkie, and I'm particularly interested in this one as it's by someone who was raised very conservative/evangelical and rejected it without rejecting Christianity entirely (he's Orthodox now). I haven't done a list on these threads yet, so here it is: 14. The World is Bigger Now: Euna Lee 13. Let the Great World Spin: Colum McCann 12. Zeitoun: Dave Eggers 11. Noah's Compass: Anne Tyler 10. The Irresistible Henry House: Lisa Grunwald 9. All I Did Was Ask: Terry Gross 8. Ender's Game: Orson Scott Card 7. Somewhere Inside: Laura and Lisa Ling 6. Gathering Blue: Lois Lowry 5. After This: Alice McDermott 4. The Giver: Lois Lowry 3. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea: Barbara Demick 2. Franklin and Eleanor: Hazel Rowley 1. Sleepwalk With Me: Mike Birbiglia

or maybe it is....this one's marked down on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/CrazyOnDigital-Kindle-Generation-Leather-Protector/dp/B00428C1I0/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1297539766&sr=8-12 ETA: most of them are like that one, I think--you open up the cover like a book; you don't actually take the Kindle in and out.

I'm not sure under $20 is possible; e-reader covers are ridiculously expensive. I bought my Nook cover at Best Buy, and I think the cheapest one they had there was at least $30.

All three of mine are doing Spanish now. They've all done at least a little Spanish since they were toddlers, and now they're all in a weekly class taught by a native speaker (and we do more at home). We're doing Greek Code Cracker right now, and the plan is that they'll all be doing Greek next year, too. I'm hoping to keep those two going, and then let them choose a 3rd language to add in in high school. Spanish because it's what I studied, so I can help them with it easily, and because it's a pretty useful second language to have, and because it's easy to find resources and classes and opportunities to practice. Greek because we (well, my oldest and I, anyway) are more interested in it than in Latin, and there's more I'd like for them to read in Greek than in Latin.

I'm working on my list for next year...right now it's up to $449, but that doesn't include history or science. I'm sure I'll spend more than $1000 (for 3 kids, 5th, 3rd, and 1st grade) when all is said and done. And then we do extracurriculars, but not many--mostly Spanish and soccer. DH is a high school math teacher, so I certainly don't have "money to burn," but buying stuff for school is one of the last places I cut back. I'd prefer to save money in other ways and be able to splurge when it comes to buying curriculum.

I've never been to Japan, sadly, and this might be a bit of a strange suggestion unless you're planning to go to Tokyo Disneyland, but I love this trip report: http://disneytravelbabble.com/trip-reports/tokyo-disney/ A whole lot of it has to do with Tokyo Disneyland, but there's also an introduction with a lot of general travel information about Japan, and they do spend a lot of time seeing other stuff in Tokyo and around it. It's all broken up into different days and topics, so you can easily skip the parts that won't help you.

Just finished Let the Great World Spin. Wow. It was really great, but I feel a bit drained now. There's a passage in Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist where Macon Leary says, "I really don't care for movies. They make everything seem so close up." That's sort of how I feel about great novels. They sort of amplify everything else in my life. I am blaming Colum McCann for the fact that right now I find the act of watching The Office on Netflix emotionally overwhelming. ETA: review up in my blog now

Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but was a practicing Unitarian as an adult (I'm fuzzy on details, but there was some sort of big Congregationalist/Unitarian feud going on at the time...you'll still see a Congregationalist and Unitarian church in many New England towns, both claiming to be the "first church"). As far as I can tell, most direct evidence of his personal religious convictions comes from his correspondence with Jefferson, in which he reveals himself to be a universalist: Unitarianism rejected the divinity of Christ as well. It seems clear that Adams considered himself to be a Christian, but I think it's also clear that many of the people most anxious to count Adams and the other founders among the ranks of Christians would quickly reject the notion that his specific beliefs are compatible with Christianity.

Mine's in my sig. I use blogger, too, and my layout is one of their standard ones, though DH did help me make my own header (I think that's what it's called--umm, the part at the top? with the blog title?)

I finished Zeitoun by Dave Eggers last week (review in blog) and loved it. I did not finish Howard's End and probably won't this week either, owing to too many time sensitive library book reads. Right now I'm reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, which I was initially attracted to because the title is so fabulous, but it also won a National Book Award, so it has other things going for it as well. And I'm reading The S*x Lives of Cannibals; I've just started it, but I suspect it's going to be very...interesting. So it's Judge A Book by its Title Week for me!

I had to look it up to check (apparently I'm not very observant and had never noticed the arts center), but yep--it is! Definitely progressive--particularly the senior pastor--he was the interim minister at the UCC (United Church of Christ) we used to go to in Atlanta, which is how we wound up deciding to give it a try (we're in Cherokee county, so it's a pretty good ways for us still, although a bit closer than our old church).

I'm not on the first page this week, but this week's report is so incredibly ambitious that I actually included some pictures for once!

We did the church hunt thing last year, and I found that visiting a new church was generally not as bad as I expected it to be. Check out the website in advance; many churches have an actual "what to expect" or "for visitors" or whatever section on their website that gives you an idea of what the services will be like, maybe what kind of dress is typical, etc. Most Christian denominations are more liturgical, with more programmed services than typical Baptist churches, but you'll usually be handed a bulletin or program when you walk in that will lead you through everything. A lot of denominations have communion every week, which is probably different from your Baptist experiences. Sometimes it's passed around, sometimes you go forward. Sometimes the bulletin will spell things out; sometimes you just have to follow the crowd. And some denominations have closed communion, so that only members of that particular denomination are invited to take part (this would include Roman Catholics and Orthodox; I'm not sure of any others....most protestant denominations open communion to "all baptized believers" or something along those lines; usually it's made clear in the bulletin, and, of course, you can always abstain at any church if you're more comfortable that way). We never went to Sunday School until we'd been to a few services and were considering actually sticking with the church long term...that's partially because we always had the kids with us, though--they're fairly shy kids, and I didn't want to be constantly sticking them into new Sunday schools for a single week. ETA: you've only met me once, but I can invite you to my church is you want :). It's in Sandy Springs, though, which might be a bit far for you. Anyway, it's Sandy Springs Christian Church, if you want to check out the website (it's Disciples of Christ...and on the socially/theologically progressive end of the spectrum).

Boma is my husband's favorite restaurant in the world (the real world, not just the Disney one) we always do 'Ohana, although we've had somewhat mixed experiences there. It's expensive, but we enjoyed Jiko (also at the Animal Kingdom Lodge), too. The server even cut up my 9 year old's steak for him :)

you can get a rough idea by taking books they're reading fluently and looking up the reading level (I like scholastic's book wizard for this; I find lexile levels maddeningly nonsensical sometimes).

What finally worked best for my slowest-to-learn reader (the other two pretty much taught themselves) was lots of early readers plus Explode the Code. I like ETC to make sure they're covering all the bases with phonics, but I haven't done anything more intensive than that for any of mine once their reading took off.

We use Tax Act. I don't remember why we originally used that instead of Turbo Tax; at this point we keep using it because we always have and they'll import the data from last year's form. We don't even itemize deductions, so ours are very simple; the only slightly weird part is that my husband tutors for extra money, and gets paid in cash; I remember this being a pain to enter in before, but this year it was no problem.

My aunt (the groom's mother) was talking at the shower last weekend about how different wedding plan is now from when she got married (maybe 35 years ago)--how many appointments you have to go to and vendors you have to arrange--I kept thinking that my wedding (11 years ago) sounded an awful lot more like my aunt's wedding than my cousin's. Of course, I am so not a formal wedding kind of person. Looking back on it, I kind of wish we'd done a tiny, immediate family wedding (maybe at Disney World :D) and then an informal party for everyone later on instead of the relatively modest wedding we did have.