Ugh! I can't even stand the smell of coffee in the pot for more than 30 minutes. Now that we have a Keurig I never have to smell that again!:001_smile: Oh, and dh is a major coffee drinker and he would never ever reheat coffee. He loves his Keurig, but his favorite treat is his coffee press and some Jamaican Blue Mountain.

I was looking at this for my ds. He doesn't like crafts that are too involved, and these didn't look "girly", as he would put it.:) http://www.nature-watch.com/variety-kit-pack-great-for-homeschoolers-p-153.html?cPath=142_143

Honestly, the question doesn't bother me. I think it's important to respect choices on both sides - SAHM or working moms. They are both hard choices. My issue is with people who assume that because dh and I are both home, although we both work (him full time and me part time plus homeschooling) that we have more free time, and can be interrupted constantly during the day.:glare: Our time seems to be less valuable to certain people in our family who work outside of the home.:confused:

Thanks!

FIL just handed me his and mil's ss# and asked me to find out their credit scores. Is there a reputable site I can use for this that is free?

Sounds like a great first week! Thanks for posting. I don't do anything with vocabulary except to print out the list with definitions from the Loom for ds to read over in the beginning of the week. I look to our Latin and Greek studies for vocabulary. We do notebooking pages too, as ds is not much of a hands on kid. We try to pick out one project a month, but I don't worry if we don't get to one. We also use History Pockets, but use a pocket divider instead of making a pocket. The pockets combined with the notebooking pages, maps, and other TOG work, are making a beautiful history notebook.

Thanks for the link - scary! I guess I'll call the police/animal control. I've never seen a fox around here except for the wildlife center.

Dh and I are walking the dogs here in suburban NJ, and there is a fox sitting on the front lawn of the people down the street, just staring at us, not moving at all. It looked just like one of those sly foxes in the illustrated Aesop fables. It was actually kind of creepy...

We use the Golden Children's Bible and DK's Illustrated Family Bible. We like the Golden Children's Bible because it was the Bible both dh and I had as children. We love the illustrations, and it is easily understandable by my ds while not being too lightweight. We all enjoy the DK Bible because of the extra info, maps, pictures, explanations, etc. It also has chapter and verse numbers. We really love having two different types of Bible. Ds is also getting to the stage where he will use our regular Bible on his own, so having the chapter and verse numbers from DK is helpful for him. Looking at the links you provided, if it were me I would choose the first two.:001_smile: If I were only buying one, I would choose the one by Vos.

You brought back memories! My dad used to mix the dried milk with water to make a gallon, and then combine it with a gallon of regular milk. It's not as bad tasting then. He saved money, but that was 35 years ago. Powdered milk seems expensive, but I don't know how much it makes so I can't help there. My mom chases the milk sales every week and buys what is on sale no matter if it is 1%, 2%, FF, or reg. She needs about 3 gallons a week with my brother and his family living there. Where I used to live, Aldi's consistently had the lowest milk prices, followed by Walmart and Target. We always bought ours at one of these places. Now I just buy at our closest store unless I'm going to Target or Walmart. I'm not going to make a special trip since they aren't as close anymore.

Personally, I would try on my own before spending any money on the program through one of the centers. I'm in the middle of reading the book and it does seem rather involved to implement, but I don't have much money to go to a center so I was planning on giving it a try in the fall. I've been slowly going through the assessments while I go through the book. Hopefully someone else will chime in. I would love to hear any positive or negative results.:bigear:

Well, I'm in NJ, where they are banned statewide. I appreciate the ban. It doesn't stop everyone from setting of various fireworks, but it would be a lot worse without the ban. What does go off, including the big shows the towns around here put on, drives my Aspie son nuts, as well as the dogs. Most of the main routes into PA have convenient places to buy fireworks just for us Jersey folks.:001_smile: We were driving home from a trip into PA for dinner last night and the tents were doing a brisk business at 10:30 pm. We did pick up some sparklers on our previous trip. The police in our town generally won't do anything unless someone complains or it gets too late. On a side note, I heard on the news about some guy in LI blowing his arm off and the drs. not being able to reattach it...

It is definitely the new edition they sent me. I compared the two this afternoon, and the one on my Kindle now contains book recs that have been published after the 2nd edition, as well as updated pricing and company websites not in the previous edition. Keep in mind that this is content that they delivered directly to me. I'm assuming the website has the updated content. I made it clear when I emailed them that I believed they were engaging in faulty advertising by giving me the 2nd edition marketed as the 3rd edition. Don't know if that helped or not, but they took care of it. If it's not the correct edition, they will fix it.

HO is easier to implement than TOG, but TOG is more in depth. Ds and I both really liked HO, but we are enjoying TOG much more. I love the teacher notes and most of the book selections. It is easy to substitute, and alternates are listed. I think the mapwork for HO was a little easier to implement, but the maps from TOG are better. Ds was doing well with HO, and we would definitely still be using it if we didn't fall in love with TOG. Looking at the ages of your kids, I think you may need more than one level of HO if I remember correctly. That could get as overwhelming as TOG can be when starting out. I would maybe search some of the TOG threads - there are quite a few people using it with large families so you may find some good tips. I honestly think that TOG is easier to use in the digital format, but I know many prefer the print. I can't imagine going through all those pages and making copies, etc. That would overwhelm me. HO has a decent try-before-you-buy sample, so I would download the levels you would need for that and compare the two, maybe even schedule out a week or two of each on paper.

Just thought I would bump this up. I contacted Amazon about having the 2nd edition with the 3rd edition cover, and they have corrected the problem. It is now the 3rd edition with the 2009 copyright that I have. I'm assuming they fixed the problem on the site, but if not, they will at least send the 3rd if you email them about the problem. It took a few days for them to fix it, but I'm happy they took care of it.

These are a favorite with ds. We found a pack with multiple colors at Staples for a reasonable price and they are holding up very well. I've started using them also and quite like them.

I keep telling dh that there should be a netflix type service for the different booklists needed for TOG, Sonlight, WTM, CM, etc. That would be awesome! I can't imagine how many books one would need to buy to get it started though.

I tried the really detailed schedule and it drove me nuts. (ds too!) I finally ended up with weekly checklists. I use one just for TOG, and one for everything else. I take about an hour to write what I want to accomplish for the week. Whatever we don't get to gets moved to the next week. It's the only thing that works for us, but it took a long time and many methods to come up with this. I also started doing this for work and it's been the only method that actually works for me.

Thanks for the responses - it helps to see how someone else views the situation. I guess the main source of nervousness for me is not being completely in control of our living situation since the house is not ours. When we moved in, it was with the assurance that the amount we were giving them to live here would end any financial difficulties, and that we wouldn't have to worry about them having to suddenly sell the house before we were ready to purchase it ourselves. We spent a lot of time talking before we made this move, and made agreements on amounts, and we have since had to increase the amount, and handle a few emergency situations with shut offs. A few times, my fil has not been able to pick up his heart or diabetes medicine, so we have done that - that's a thing that really frightens me, because how many times have we not found out and he has done without? I think maybe dh and I need to talk to someone to help come up with a plan to buy the house sooner, or perhaps it's time for ALL of us to look for a cheaper area to live in? My mil is very tied to this area, and I really love this town, but it IS very expensive to live here... I do try not to be critical and I would never stick my nose in their affairs unless they ask my opinion, but I think we were misled in regards to the state of their finances. If we moved out now, they couldn't even afford the mortgage payment for the month, but I see the spending that goes on... I'm not just nervous for us, I'm nervous for them, too.(can you tell I'm the worrier of the family?) I think my upbringing is coming into play, too. We were a very frugal family, but we never wanted for much although money was tight. My parents knew how to stretch a dollar, and nobody shops better than my mom!:001_smile: Anyway, thanks for 'listening'. It's not really something I can discuss with my family or friends.

to have steak once a week and eat out once a week (among other things) when you are having financial issues? I'm getting worried with the financial situation of my in laws. Normally it wouldn't worry me beyond offering occasional help when they really need it, but we are living with them now, spending more than if we were renting an apartment, and the financial situation doesn't seem to be improving. My mil just doesn't seem to get it. She will get all worried and moody about money, and decide that she will buy store brand detergent while buying beauty salon hair products that cost at least $15 a bottle! She wants steak every week, a night at a restaurant, new outfits for every occasion... I feel like we are paying for her spending habits. Every day my fil is at his desk for 3 hours doing I don't know what - probably trying to shuffle money around. I'm grateful to be able to live in a house with a yard, and for being able to get ds a dog, etc. which we couldn't have in our apartment, but I'm afraid it's all going to be taken away when they suddenly have to sell the house or something. We can't afford to buy the house yet, but we want to in the future, and we can't give them any more than we do. I know they just went through some kind of program to pay off debt, and fil said the phone calls would be stopping, but we are getting about 8 calls a day. Dh isn't as worried, so why am I freaking out?? It's just that ds is so happy here, but moving from our area was a big deal for him. He has Aspergers, and we just started finding good programs here for him, plus change is traumatic for him. I feel like it's not my place to say anything directly related to their financial problems although I try to impart some Dave Ramsey wisdom to my fil, but in my head I am wondering why he hasn't just put his foot down and lay down the law, kwim? She could use some firm guidance.:confused: OK, end of rant - any suggestions for keeping my sanity?

I have Maxalt, but I never ended up taking it. After a few years on Relpax, I decided to stop taking the meds. It was getting to the point where my migraines were more frequent and more severe. Since I stopped the meds I barely get migraines, but I do have the meds in case I need it. I think a headache diary is very important to pinpoint triggers. Some bad triggers for me are air fresheners, carpet and fabric fresheners (Febreze and Carpet Fresh are permanently banned!!!), and some scented candles. Some cheeses will trigger a mild migraine, but I love cheese!:001_smile: Just keep in mind that it is not always food - many chemicals we use in the house can be triggers, so make note of cleaning products used, etc. Exercise or a blood pressure spike caused by anger or stress can trigger a migraine in some people also. A day in the sun will give me a migraine unless I wear sunglasses. Medicine to treat the actual migraine is great, but some of these meds have some nasty side effects. I remember taking a Relpax with some other med and having such horrible pressure in my chest I thought I was dying! Now I keep my focus on prevention. I haven't had to take a pill in a few years. Sorry your ds is going through this at a young age - I didn't start until my twenties.:grouphug:

That's on my 'to buy' list. It really looks great, so I'm glad to hear a good review! We plan on buying the pet store one and hope to start it in the fall.

I've been loading up on classics mostly free or in the $1 - $4 range. My fave so far has been a complete Sherlock Holmes collection for a few bucks. Be careful with classics and collections to make sure they have linked table of contents, otherwise they are impossible to navigate. I've purchased Geurber, Henty, Chesterton, Herodotus, Aristotle, Thucydides, Tolstoy, etc... all for very reasonable cost. I'm a big sci fi/fantasy reader, so that is where I spend most of my money, along with books about Autism and the occasional best seller. As long as you get a cellular signal you should be ok - I get a better signal on my Kindle than my cell phone. Have fun and happy reading!!

Quick, my rolling pin got lost, and I need a substitute s/o exercise ball? How?

OK, I just looked at mine that I bought a few months ago, and while it says 3rd edition, the copyright is 2004. So this is actually the 2nd edition that I already have??? That is annoying to say the least. I've never compared the two, but I thought I was buying the latest edition.:glare: No matter what edition it is, I love having it on my Kindle, but I don't like being misled.