Yeah, and I definitely get that. I was like that, too :). I just wonder if there's much point in teaching upper level math to kids who aren't interested in math in that case, you know? I mean, I'm just thinking aloud--I don't know the answer. I know kids have to do it, if they're going to graduate and go on to college, I just wonder if the system makes sense.

I checked last night...in my zip code, very nice 5 bedroom house on 5 wooded acres. You could also get a brand new, super fancy enormous house on a quarter or half acre lot with no trees, but I'd take the 5 acres myself. Or I'd move to the closer in town 25 minutes from here and have a good bit to choose from (probably a very nice, somewhat older 3 or 4 bedroom house on wooded half or 3/4 acre in a somewhat walkable neighborhood).

If you plan ahead enough to know where you'll be at dinner time on some nights, you could buy restaurant.com certificates for some of the towns you'll be in. Although I have to confess that when I tried this this summer, I screwed it up miserably. My printer ran out of ink the night before we left, too late to go buy a new one, so I couldn't print out the certificate. We tried to get the restaurant to call in the certificate number when I pulled it up on my iphone, but they wouldn't go for it, and we wound up paying full price. But it WOULD have been a good idea ;)

DH teaches high school math and always says that the kids are not at all interested in the whys and get very frustrated when he tries to teach them. They want to know the formula so they can plug the numbers in. He doesn't teach any of the advanced track math kids, though; I imagine it would be different there. This will be an interesting year because it's his first year teaching the new math curriculum in our state, which is very much focused on the whys. I guess what I would wonder, if you're just learning the hows, is...what's the point? It may be much easier for a lot of non-mathy kids to punch the numbers in and get good grades in math, but it seems like it would mean ensuring it had all been wasted time as soon as they graduate and forget everything.

This is a timely link...just yesterday DH, feeling very proud of the chicken hutch he just built, told me, "I like building stuff!" Well, good then! I've got my eye on the spa bench, too. We're lucky in that my mom and aunts own a second hand furniture store; we have much nicer stuff than we could afford without the family connection.

Taste of the Wild has a grain-free dry food. We've only used their dog food, but we've been really impressed with it, and my vet says their cat food is good, too.

Ours started this past Monday (August 2). Our county has a shortened summer but more breaks spread throughout the year. DH is a HS teacher, so he had his planning week last week, and we started then.

Phantom Tollbooth bores me to tears, but my kids and DH all love it.

Ha! yes. My mom fosters cocker spaniels, and I've read her write-ups. Watch out for phrases like, "housebreaking is coming along great!" ;)

Yes, I know. I understand the concept of analogies. The point is, there's a difference between rejecting something you know is real and simply not believing that something exists. I'm not sure of any other way to say it. ETA: Although I did briefly consider an analogy about unicorns. But that seems overdone.

I think you misunderstood. She wasn't saying you can't see, taste, touch, and smell escargot. She was saying you can't see, touch, et. al, God and that, therefore, God and escargot are not analogous. Although it's fun to think about them being analogous.

Winterpromise?

Whenever universalism comes up, I spend too much time pouring over links and reading up on it again. Learning about universalism and that it has a long history in the church and a small but devoted (not to mention intellectually and spiritually serious and sincere) following today went a long way toward getting me back to church awhile back. Anyway....I was just reading about how widely accepted the idea of universal salvation was in the early church, which reminded me of this thread and your asking specifically about the Orthodox Church. My favorite, very long winded, link is http://what-the-hell-is-hell.com/. But this wikipedia entry has the shorter version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_reconciliation

yay! Can't wait to meet him/her! We had a beagle mix when I was a kid. His name was Bandit. He was nice. That's all I know about beagles. Except that they're cute. And that Snoopy is one.

Mine's up! Maybe the earliest that's ever happened!

I think there are a number of Christian traditions that hold that people can "know Christ" in some way without having heard the gospel. There's also Christian universalism, which would say that not everyone will accept Christianity in this life, but everyone will eventually.

DS is excited about the free audio books bookmarking it--thanks!

I keep coming back to this thread, because it resonates with me so much. After growing up Catholic and then Baptist and gradually become profoundly disenchanted with both, I tried to forget about the whole thing when I went to college. And I couldn't. I became a sort of perpetual seeker--reading books about Zen Buddhism and going to the Unitarian church and occasionally thinking maybe I'd make a really good Jew. But I always wound up back at Christian churches, because what it came down to was that the part of Christianity that really worked for me was Jesus. It was a long, hard road to find a way to keep the Jesus and get rid of all the stuff I'd grown up with, but eventually I did it. Anne Lamott helped a lot. Hearing about the UCC helped. I don't think ANY of the things you've laid out would make you out of place at the UCC churches I've attended. My current theology is complicated and shifting but can really be boiled down to a few simple truisms of the most saccharine, Tao of Pooh, embarrassing to even say aloud sort. God is love and all that. Beyond that, I know what works for ME. I know what makes sense for ME. I can't answer for other people. As I mentioned, I won't give up the word Christian because it would feel like a surrender to me. Like an acknowledgment that they are right and that they get to define the terms of debate. But I understand and respect those who do choose to reject the term.

yes. The United Church of Christ. The ELCA (it's a little less clear, but they recently voted to allow openly gay pastors; as far as I can tell whether to perform gay marriage/commitment ceremonies is left up to the congregation). Metropolitan Community Church. Check out gayfriendlychurch.com I certainly hear you, Joanne. For me, I refuse to cede the term Christianity to anyone. I guess that's kind of why my bleeding heart liberal self won't leave the South, either ;)

We don't buy factory farmed meat, either, so meat is one of our biggest expenses, but I have found ways to get the price down. We've bought a side of beef at a time for less than $3/lb in the past and a side of pork for $3.50/lb. Of course, you need a freezer for that, but it's a one time investment that can pay for itself pretty quickly. Right now we're trying something different, and I found a farm an hour from me that sells beef and pork by the cut--more than getting a side, but less than Whole Foods, et. al. Ground beef is $4/lb, cube steak and london broil are $5, etc. Bacon is $4/lb, which I think is the same or even a little less than I was paying for the Niman Ranch stuff at Trader Joe's. For chicken, we buy Springer Mountain Farm chicken, which is in GA, but I know they sell in AL, too. It's about $6/lb at our grocery store for boneless breasts, but just $1.79 lb for a whole bird...so we roast a lot more whole chickens than we used to. They also go on sale sometimes, and I stock up when they do. And then I just came across a coupon for $1.50/off a package that doesn't expire until the end of sept., so I immediately went on ebay and ordered 20 more of them for a total of $2. That will get it down to $4.50/lb for boneless breasts (the smaller packages are usually right around a pound)...even cheaper if I can find them on sale and then use the coupons.

Yeah, if we had to do gluten free it would certainly drive our grocery bill way up. Cereal, though, is not a cost cutter no matter how cheap I get it (well, unless it's almost free, which happens occasionally). I'm pretty sure it would always be cheaper to make homemade muffins or oatmeal or even (homemade) toast and eggs (from our chickens). The cereal's because I'm lazy, not because I'm cheap ;)

Well...I spend a lot of time figuring out where to put my grocery money and how to save money some places so I can spend more where it's important to me. I spend up to $6/lb on chicken because we don't buy factory farmed meat (beef and pork is generally cheaper, but only because we get cheaper cuts and go to the farm to pick it up). I try to do all my own baking, and I buy grain in bulk, so it's cheaper than getting whole wheat flour at the store and much, much cheaper than buying pre-made whole wheat bread without HFCS, et. al. On the other hand, I read couponing/sale sites compulsively, and never spend more than $1/box or so on cereal (and I'm fairly picky about what cereal I buy, but not as picky as some. We eat a lot of Cheerios, but we don't eat Cap'n Crunch). Next week I can get whole wheat pasta for 40 cents a box at Publix; I'll buy 20 boxes, and that will last us until the next time I can get it for at least that cheap. I try to buy organic produce when I can, but I don't always.

In theory, my budget is $400/mo for 5 people . In reality, I'm not great at keeping track of it. But I think it comes out fairly close to that anyway. It's hard to keep track of because so much of what we buy isn't from a regular grocery store. Historically we buy a side of beef, but I found a farm nearby with reasonable prices by the cut for beef and pork (and raw milk), so I think we might start making a monthly trip there instead. We buy apples in bulk at a local orchard when they're in season. I buy grains, et. al. from Breadbeckers a few times a year. I have a guy I get honey from. Eggs come from my backyard :). My newest plan (I have a new plan every couple of months, it seems ;)) is to keep my grocery store budget to $50/week, leaving $200 month for all the other stuff. At the grocery store, I use lots of coupons, and buy stuff like breakfast cereal, pasta and sauce, whatever produce we don't get elsewhere, butter and cheese, and snacks for the kids (as much as I tell myself I'm going to start planning ahead so that I always have wholesome muffins and homemade graham crackers around to bring to the park, it's not really going to happen ;)).

I've had two early (3-4, largely self taught) and one pretty much "average" and with lots of direct instruction. For mine, I think the difference has been in learning style. My oldest and youngest are very visual, see a word once and remember it forever types. My middle DS had to sound out every word he came to for a long time. It's just a lot easier to read when you see the word and know it immediately, so I think my kids with great visual memories had a much easier time of it. Middle DS is 7 now and has really taken off over the last few months. He reads easily and fluently now, LOVES to read (much more than his older brother. He's been known to murmur, out of nowhere, "reading is awesome") and has, I think, a stronger foundation in phonics than his brother (who never finished a formal phonics program). So....(longwinded, as I've been fascinated/thinking a lot about this lately), at least for my kids, I don't think when they learned to read has anything do with intelligence certainly but also not even with main areas of strength (language vs. mathy, for example). It was all about ability to process visual information (also, probably, concentration....middle DS is also my spacy one).

sometimes. I really don't think much about whether food is hot or cold, I guess.... Today we did nachos with cheese plus blueberries and apple slices. Our usual stuff is: grilled cheese or cheese toast mac and cheese pb&j omelets and toast or egg sandwiches quesadillas turkey sandwiches leftovers ...more often than not, it's one of those things with some fruit or veggies or yogurt on the side. I guess most of them are hot, but they're not at all elaborate.