I grew up in the United Methodist Church (my parents weren't Christians and didn't attend) and I don't think I ever heard of Gothard until I was on this board, but I think some of his training leaked into other parenting groups. I did listen to Dr. Dobson some as a young mother, but I took some things and discarded others. I do think I was too hard on my oldest kids. One in particular was very active and strong-willed and I wish I hadn't been so hard on him. I didn't have a lot of support and my mom had been a teen mother with 3 kids by age 21 and also didn't have support, so there wasn't much positive mentoring. I watched the first two episodes of the documentary and I think the Pearls are some of the most evil people I've ever encountered. I think I was too hard on my kids because I did spank the oldest ones, but what the Pearls advocate is, ugh, just awful. Such vile people. Oh, and the man pretending to spank the little boy and then spanking him again because his hug wasn't good enough. I nearly threw up and wondered what kind of parents would volunteer their little boy for that demonstration. The Duggars always creeped me out and I never watched their show, but I'm not at all surprised to hear all the things going on in that family.

HSLDA has a link on their Facebook page asking homeschooled students and homeschooling parents to tell their stories. Homeschooling, especially for my youngest son, has been one of the best parenting decisions I've ever made and I hate that they use child abusers to represent most homeschoolers.

Hmmm, we haven't planned a summer vacation yet...

Me too!

I don't remember all my cravings, but with my last it was Taco Bell chalupas and with another it was mashed potatoes. I also started drinking coffee during one of my pregnancies because I suddenly loved the smell of it.

I wouldn't know because DS20 has been waiting for 8 months now to get his wisdom teeth out and they won't even schedule an appointment. We have Marketplace insurance and pay extra for dental care, but it's impossible to find someone who will take it who has an appointment in this lifetime.

How exciting! My second to join the Army is just starting his military career and will be away at training all summer. I don't know that it makes *me* happy, but he's excited about it. I'm feeling down today, but I'm excited about dd's upcoming dance recital and I'm happy for warmer weather and sunshine.

If you don't have young kids and don't have a job, how do you spend your summer days? I love summer because we have such long gray winters, but I'm looking at a boring summer and I want to find things to do outside. I used to plan fun activities and mini trips for my kids and we would swim at a small lake, hike, go to the zoo, bike around the neighborhood, go to different playgrounds, or do outdoor crafts, but now I only have one minor child at home who's a teen and she has her own activities. DH has always been a workaholic, but we used to do some fun stuff in summer. Now he spends most of his free time bringing home stuff from auctions or things he's found and tearing it apart to scrap. I have no interest in joining in that, especially since I'm at a point where I want to declutter and downsize, not bring home more junk! We don't have a vacation planned and nothing fun happens if I don't plan it. I've never liked to do things by myself, but I need to find some way to enjoy summer days, especially while dh is working. I can invite friends some days, but I don't have a lot of local friends who are available during the day. All I've come up with is going to the library weekly and taking my books to a park to read, hiking at some of the more popular parks, and exploring the downtowns of some small nearby communities. I don't like gardening or yard work, but I might be willing to do a little if it gets me outside. The swim lake and the local pools closed during the pandemic and never reopened, so sadly that's not an option. I guess I could go to the zoo by myself. Maybe learn a new skill like nature drawing or archery or...something? Sit on the deck and do homeschool planning for next year? Of course there's always housework and home projects (DH gets annoyed if I start those by myself and usually takes over), but they're usually not outside projects anyway. Please help me brainstorm!

DS had the same experience last summer. He doesn't have a car and there was a place within walking, biking, drop off distance that was spending a ton of money advertising for workers. They had huge banners, signs across their entire front yard, online ads and DS was qualified and applied online and got no response at all while the company added more banners and signs. About a block away there was another company he'd also applied to online with no response. One day he decided to just walk in and ask them. They said they were desperate for workers, had no real way of seeing all the online applications, and they hired him on the spot. The online application process is a disaster.

I live in a University community and in my experience Rate My Professor is a good resource. If the rating is low and most of the comments are negative, that's a professor you should avoid whenever possible. If the rating is high and most comments are positive, you'll usually have a good experience with that professor. When they're evenly divided, the professor is usually fine but not great and you get the people who complain because they don't want to work and the people who had higher expectations. I agree with the other poster who said red flags are comments about professors who aren't willing to spend time helping students (don't grade work, aren't available for office hours, expectations aren't clear, rude to students). There was a professor I had 30+ years ago in his first year teaching who was so bad that I went to the department dean with a complaint letter signed by the entire class. For some reason he's still there teaching and his Rate My Professor ratings are horrible with the same complaints I had decades ago. There's a professor that DS has who is a very hard grader, but she's gone out of her way to help him and her ratings are high, but say she's a hard grader. My neighbor, a math professor, has ratings that say he's a nice guy who tries to help students, but he's a math genius and doesn't understand why anyone would have trouble. I've known him for years and have a family member who took his class and know the ratings are absolutely correct.

We are so close to being DONE, but I would like to finish the last chapter in chemistry, we have two art lessons left, and there's one short reading for literature. We're going to try to hang on and finish those things by the end of next week. I have a college bound high school student though. We did the chemistry test orally today and, although she seems to understand the concepts, she made so many errors that I was considering whether I need to lower her overall grade. Then I thought about how our local public school never finishes the textbook, gives tons of credit for homework, and curves grades and I don't want to put her at a disadvantage when she's done ALL the labs, will read the entire book, has done ALL the problems, shows a good basic understanding, and then just makes tons of little errors on the tests. The fact that I'm overthinking everything means we definitely need to be done by next Friday!

Yes, this recently happened in our community to a young man who ended up killing himself. The boy's parents made his story public to prevent any other person from committing suicide. The boy *thought* he was talking to an online girlfriend, but it was a scammer who extorted money and then continued to ask for more while threatening to release the video. After the story went public, numerous other teens from the same school came forward saying it was happening to them too. OP, there's likely no actual boyfriend. This needs to be reported to the police immediately!

Many of the German soldiers were drafted and not supporters of the Nazi party. I have a WW2 scholar in my family, spend time with WW2 veterans, and know way too much about the war. Your grandfather may have thought he was being sarcastic, but many German military members did not consider themselves Nazis.

Our local public school has a program called College, Career, or Enlistment. They ask all the seniors to supply their plans for after high school. It's like how some schools take pictures of athletes who are recruited sitting at a table signing with a college and wearing a college sweatshirt. The school decided they wanted to celebrate the plans of all graduating seniors and not just athletes, so they do something similar by showing what colleges students are going to or what job they'll be transitioning into or what branch of the military they are joining. I've even seen some where kids say they're undecided but will be using the time to ______.

I often feel lonely and I'm starting to worry what will happen in a couple of years when my last child leaves home. So much of my life has revolved around kid activities and almost all the social activity I've had has been with people I've met through those activities and at those activities. Sadly, I've found when my child stops doing an activity, even people I thought were actually friends fade away, busy with their own lives and whatever their own kids are doing. Now that my youngest is driving, I don't even get those short conversations with other parents while picking up or sitting in waiting rooms. My dh and I used to have more shared interests, but he started scrapping and recycling and he spends all his free time with his piles of junk while I would rather become more minimalist and go out and do things. We rarely go out and do anything fun anymore. I love homeschooling, but it has further isolated us because there's only one high school in our community and much of the community social life revolves around the school. I did find a nearby co-op this year and have met some nice women, but we haven't done anything outside the co-op so I'm not sure they would be long term friends. I also have trouble, like KungFu said, overcoming the inertia and just getting out and doing things, especially in the winter. I think I'm going to have to make some big life changes if I don't want to spend the next decade sitting alone at home.

Yes, the honeybees are everywhere right now. It's hard to sit on the porch, but we do have two beekeepers nearby. We always have lots of different birds in our yard because we have bird feeders. Our neighbor had 2 barred owls in her tree last week. We're not noticing a decline of wildlife, but an increase. I live in a suburban type neighborhood within the city limits of a small city and we see foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, woodpeckers, ducks, geese, heron, raccoons, oppossums, and skunks on a regular basis. There's a river nearby and, starting a few years ago, river otter have been spotted there for the first time in years.

Wait, your zoning laws don't allow more than 3 bathrooms!? I've never heard of that. What is the purpose of limiting bathrooms?

I started homeschooling using Sonlight for history and literature. I credit Sonlight and all those historical fiction books for making my son fall in love with history. He's an adult now, but he's still passionate about history. As a new homeschooler, I liked the teacher notes and the reading schedule, but you might be OK buying their book package or just doing the condensed version.

I'm glad several people mentioned wearing a life jacket. Please wear it and don't just tie it to the canoe. Last fall I watched a dive team pull a young man out of a lake, but he didn't survive. He wasn't far from land, but the water was cold and he couldn't make it there. A hat and sunscreen are also good advice. I get a sunburn every spring when we take the canoe out! Have fun!

I like to wear water shoes instead of athletic shoes or sandals. Your feet are likely to get wet and water shoes offer protection, but are designed to get wet and they don't fall off or get caught on things if you end up in the water. Since it's going to be cool, leggings that will dry quickly if wet would be OK. I also like to wear swimsuit bottoms under my pants instead of cotton underwear and then a lightweight shirt. Basically, I plan to get wet even if I don't plan to get wet. LOL!

No.

DD would like to try 42 electronics, but I don't know much about it. I know they've been having trouble getting the Raspberry Pi, but that's not a problem because older DS is an engineer and has one that we can use. I like that they provide the componenents and assume you have no background because I won't be much help. I'd just like a review from somewhere other than online before I buy.

This is why we never had end tables like these. My mom is obsessive about order and doesn't tolerate any clutter, so she would never buy these.

I have decided that I will give DD honors credit for some of her classes, including ones done at home, and I explain why on the course descriptions. In some cases she does extra work or she is working ahead of the normal high school sequence or she is following the curriculum writer's requirements to call the class honors. DD gets texts every week from her friends at public school asking for her help to solve a math problem or explain something in chemistry or help with a grammar issue, so I've seen what they're doing in public school in the honors classes and I have no problem designating some of our work as honors. For example, any sophomore who's doing Algebra 2 is considered to be in the honors math track in our public school. DD is a sophomore doing pre-calculus, including the optional work, so it puts her at a disadvantage in our local universities if I don't call them honors.

I'm a Gemini. It definitely fits me.