I've linked to the picture on the blog. PLEASE look and tell me what this is! http://exploringwiththemeriwethers.blogspot.com/

Sorry, as soon as my husband gets home that thing is getting mown down. I tolerate nature if it is the kind I like. Spider webbing all over the yard - no way.

I was going to but noticed on my way out that the battery needs charging. As soon as it is ready to go, I'll take a picture.

:lol:

I googled pictures of this, and mine looks different. I went out to take a closer look. It definitely looks like a huge web. It is more like 5-15 feet wide and at least 30 feet long. It goes up the bases of some of the trees. The heaviest strings run vertically 2-6 inches apart. ETA: I misspoke when I said veritcal. I was standing on the driveway looking down the length and said verical refering the the lines starting at my feet and going toward the cornfield. The web lies on the ground - except where it attaches to the tree trunks. My husband mowed last weekend.:eek: I would actually love for this to be some kind of lawn blight. What kind of monster spider would do this?

makes a web on the ground that covers 5 by 30 feet? I didn't want to get to close to verify it was a spider web. The kids said Dh called it a web. It is huge and looks like tons of strings laid down. UPDATE: I have the picture on my blog. (If you check on it, just ignore the rest of the blog. I'm still trying to get that figured out.) http://exploringwiththemeriwethers.blogspot.com/ I'll try to post the picture here, but I don't do well with that kind of thing. It took over an hour to get it on the blog.

My sister's boy is Jubal.

The word intact formed no part of my training. As far as sensitivity, if you felt hurt and damaged when I said it, I'll own it was insensitive. However, I was very accepting of my students and their life situations. Non biased/ non prejudicial. Hmmm. I admit to believing that most children thrive better with both parents (unless their is abuse, etc.), so that might make my personal philosophy biased, but I wasn't biased toward my students. Of the 500 students I taught, I can say I disliked 2 of them (they were very aggressive toward me, with threats or physical intimidation). The ten or so students that I had to really work hard to like came from all walks of life. My point was that life situation/parental involvement have some real and visible influences on the kids. Some kids have a longer/harder road to walk than others. Building relationships with the kids early in the school year was important. Discerning my students' life situations allowed me to meet them where they were. A student saying "My mom worked every evening this week" has added significance when it means that kid was home alone or responsible for younger siblings. Some kids needed a lot of hand holding. Some kids needed an extra measure of respect. Some kids needed to have a quiet place to regroup. Well, I've got off on rambling. If I have a point, it is that being able to tell the difference in life situations was value neutral to me.

My parents moved almost 25 years ago. Mom said that if she had packed Dad's things and he had packed hers they could have moved in a pickup truck.

This was my thought!:lol:

As a general rule I loved, loved, loved the military kids. I taught at Leavenworth so I had a handful of them each year. It is hard to explain how I could tell before I was told - it was a bunch of little things that added up to a pretty good bet. This is going to smack of stereotyping and not all of them fit the mold, but as a group they stood out from the general student population as being more respectful and more disciplined (about turning in homework, etc.) And the boys' pants weren't three sizes too big. I also liked parent/teacher conferences. It didn't matter if they were in civilian dress, you could see those military dads coming all the way down the hall. They took their kids educations very seriously. My favorite memory in three years of teaching involved a military kid. It isn't nearly as funny in the retelling, but I'll tell it anyway. One of my students was a perfectionist. Her mom told me at one p/t conference that she wished she would loosen up a bit and not make her bed just one day. She was very intelligent and hardworking - a joy in the classroom. I was fortunate enough to have her for two years. On the last day of school, she was in my last hour Spanish II class. The first hour of the day had about 50% attendance. Each period I had fewer kids in class. By that last period it was C and three other students. I didn't hear the entire conversation, but she had obviously wanted to have her wild and crazy day and skip school, because I heard her say (clearly imitating her dad), "By golly, there is such a thing as Duty and Honor, and you're going to school!" That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the military kids - duty and honor.

:iagree:

I'm glad you didn't point to your mom as the worst.:tongue_smilie: There is plenty of blame to go around in the ps system. I taught high school for just 3 years before my daughter was born. The first principal I served under was amazing. In a school with approx. 60 classrooms, he was in every teacher's class at least one time each day. He knew without a shadow of a doubt what was going on in his school. He knew the teachers, and he knew the kids. The second principal was a good person, but NOT a good administrator. We had 6 fights in one week. In one of the fights, 3 teachers were injured trying to break it up (as well as the students fighting). Not every week was disrupted by fights, but they were relatively common. Different administrator, different atmosphere in the school. There were teachers who did a great job. I did a good job. I worked at teaching the kids, but I got better each year. You just can't make up for experience. Then there were the teachers who showed movies every week because they had tenure and could get away with it. The teacher down the hall from me was horrific. She didn't even have tenure, but her husband was a "Very Important" coach. As a Spanish II teacher, I saw kids from my own Spanish I classes and three other teacher's classes. The dept. head's kids were outstanding. Mine and one other's held their own. The other teacher's kids were all subpar. The teacher does make a noticeable difference. Within my classes, I could tell with about 95% accuracy which students came from intact families within the first two weeks. I could tell which ones came from really rough circumstances. And, I could tell which ones were from military families. Parental support/life situation definately affects student behavior/success. Then there are the decisions made by the school board that impact the quality of education. There are many variables that make up ps education. The thing is - you can't give the average student a different family or life situation. You can't MAKE a parent care about their child's education. So, while that is a factor in the quality of education, you can't change that variable. You can change some of the other variables. Tenure came about because teachers were being treated unfairly. For example, teachers would be let go one year before they would qualify for pensions. But, the teachers unions have taken it ridiculously far. Teachers should be given merit pay. A school district should be able to fire incompetent and lazy teachers. There should be higher standards for educating teachers. I passed my state exam before I took my education classes. And I scored in the upper quadrile when I took it. School adminstrators and school policies can also be changed. It would be worthwhile to challenge school boards who are not doing a good job, because that is something the public can do. You can't fire the parents.

:lol::lol:

:scared::scared:

You've all seen the big 'no parking' signs with a capital P and a circle with a line through it, right? When we moved here last year we're at a stop light and ds says, "You can't pee on the street here Mommy!" I was terribly confused but agreed - "No, you can't pee on the street here." He says, "Look, the sign says so! NO P!" We still laugh about this a year later! Who knew there were so many public signs regulating body functions.:tongue_smilie:

I'm sure he really meant it. He was staring intently and said it in a very serious, "I know what I'm talking about" tone. We were at the library and I was in a hurry to get to the science program, so we didn't talk about it. The next time we're in public, though.... I don't want him thinking he can't pee in there!

I don't think I will either!

Dd7 lied to me more and more often. I won't go into how I figured all that out. She has mostly broken the habit - and it had gotten to be a habit. We had a very serious conversation about trust and truthfulness and how they have to go hand in hand. We talked about it being a sin. And we talked about consequences and punishments. She memorized a verse about lying. We had many moments where I would have to tell her, "I would like to believe you, but I just can't so you won't be able to ______________ -whatever it was. I didn't make up situations to throw in her face, but if I couldn't trust her completely with the situation I did not give her the benefit of the doubt. We have moved past this now. She has regained a lot of my trust. At the time of our discussion, her birthday was a month away. I throw lavish parties and she is my party girl. I told her that if she lied to me even once during that month she would get no party, no cake, no presents. Several times she would be halfway through a sentence, stop, and start over, but she kicked the habit. I was proud of her. This worked for us. ETA: I would make her pay for the MK. If you have it in your house all the time, I wouldn't want her to get in the habit of helping herself. That could get expensive in the teen years. Maybe you could sell it to her at cost.

Okay. So we all know what this sign means: And I'll bet everyone could get this one right, too: But I never knew what this one meant until my 4yob told me today: Don't know? Well, of course, it means - Boys can only poop.

I think there is a world of difference between going about your day and deciding to give someone a call, stopping to chat with a neighbor as you walk past, or striking up a casual conversation at the park while the kids play (choosing those interactions based on whatever criteria you'd like), and the following: being in a small group of people and everyone ignoring one person or family having a birthday party and inviting everyone except one or two kids being rude to someone you come into casual contact with

If someone were clearing off horizontal surfaces quickly at my house, there is a certain drawer that things get put in for future sorting. So I guess that is where I would be.

If this was directed at me, I'm not explaining myself very well. I'm not proud of human failings and I'm not trying to justify unkindness. I'm just saying that a) it is human nature b) Christians are human and have human failings c) the OP's son, unfortunately, seems to be around Christians with that particular failing. If a parent had posted a thread entitled rant/why would a kid with a tongue ring/long hair come to a CHRISTIAN co-op, I would have been all over that. I feel for the OP and her son. I wouldn't have a problem with him. I'm just saying that given the realities of the situation, he might have to be the one to show others his good qualities. That doesn't make the other people right.

With farming, the work is never done. It is like house work it that sense. It is a great lifestyle for kids, though. If you have animals that need to be taken care of each day, you might be very tied down.

:iagree:wholeheartedly with everything in your last paragraph except the bit about human nature. This isssue is about cultural conditioning (and I don't think it is right!), but it is human nature to define yourself in a group context. I couldn't care less about my home town now, but I rooted like crazy for the home team while living there. And I agree that your appearance doesn't say anything about your character; I'm saying you make a statement about yourself that others might read more into than you intend. If I saw a teenage kid carrying around a pacifier when I taught school, I would peg that kid as one to keep my eye on because that was a gang thing. I always gave my students the benefit of a doubt, but I would have been watching.