My dishwasher has a name.....DD11 and DS15 lol......we haven't lived in a home with an electric dishwasher in over a decade. There are times I miss it though.

I just wanted to put out a warning for those who want to teach in Korea....my daughter was teaching for a private school in Korea when Covid hits. (this should be said of any school overseas in which you must enter into a contract for teaching and not Korea specifically) Please, please, please investigate the school in which you are considering signing a contract before you do so. Speak with people who no longer work for the school. Do extensive research. A glowing recommendation from a current teacher is not sufficient. My oldest did not do sufficient research but she is an adult and I allowed her to do her own thing and live and learn. Her school was definitely doing some illegal things in regards to business practices with their foreign teachers which made life pretty hard for her. When working overseas as an English teacher it can be very hard to leave that school and move to another one without coming back to the states or moving to another country. My daughter was going to move to Japan to teach in order to remove herself from the situation but Covid struck. At that point she couldn't fly straight from Korea to Japan so she flew home and was going to be here for two weeks. The day after we were allowed out of quarantine after she came home from Korea, Japan closed their borders to travelers from the US so now she is permanently home and has gotten a teaching job at a local PS and is applying for grad school in the states lol.

I guess I am super mean. My kids have been allowed to eat in their bedrooms a total of one time and it was in the past week and it was only two of them because they were on a zoom call with their youth group that was running long. (we have pets and the last thing I need is the animals eating food that is not good for them OR kids being sloppy eaters and inviting pests into my home) The teenager and preteen do all the dishes in the house most days. The 7-year-old will wash his if he has a snack the others aren't having. The 22-year-old cleans dishes as she cooks now that she is home as a result of Covid (she was living and working in South Korea). The 19-year-old acts like I bought her a new car if I wash the grandbaby's bottle when she is over because she is so grateful that I wash a dish for her. Her dishes are always done in her own apartment even if I stop by unannounced. Having the kids always do dishes has been a life skill that has served them well in adulthood. We buy the food, we pay the bills, we cook the meals.....the least they can do is clean up afterwards.

Yea a whole other country whether it is to our detriment or not......I guess we will cross the bridge of needing that transcript when we come to it. At this point I don't know how many if any of those courses we will pull up. It just depends on what we end up covering here at home. Especially as I discover more and more of what he doesn't know that he should have covered in school

I meant he wouldn't take a Dual Enrollment course through a Public School nor would he sign up for the SAT through a public school etc. Sorry I was typing my question while also trying to get children off to do chores and what not and it wasn't worded well.

Most Texas public universities don't use the Common App (at least not as of 2018 when I transferred) I guess that is the difference. They don't ask for all the high schools you went to they only ask what high school you went to. They do ask for all your colleges. (I just went through this as I began college in 2017 and graduated in May) I have no experience with the Common App as I only applied to public colleges in Texas.

Every school he is looking at is just asking for his homeschool transcript. I attended three different high schools and none asked for more than my final high school transcript. Why would they ask for his PS transcript on top of his homeschool transcript? I am just curious especially since he won't test or do DE under a PS header so it won't be like those scores are reporting with a PS tag for anyone to know he went to one in the first place.

So DS15 is coming out of PS. He has completed two years but he will do three more years at home. The grade skip before middle school ended up not being in his best interest and he needs another year to catch up in math and writing and be prepared maturity wise to be on his own. Our goal this year is to really fill in the gaps in his math and writing (using Lial's and IEW for that)and then going to move forward with 11th and 12th grade. How do I create a transcript? Honestly his core grades are decent the past two years (all As and Bs) and his only poor grades from PS are his electives (he failed an art class). I mean do we need to put his PS stuff on the transcript? Pulling his lab sciences in would make my life a bit easier BUT will it look weird that he is doing high school for 5 years? Can someone please talk me through this? If he and I are confident in his math and writing he will take the entrance exam to our local community college and take some DE classes in 18 or so months so I have to figure this out for him.

Saxon itself is secular. The problem comes when you look at Dive into math that uses Saxon (which is often sold alongside the text as if it is by the publisher) which is definitely not secular.

And the reason public school history standards in my state are so bad is that the history textbook standards are not decided by historians, or history educators......and I am actually a historian........it is disheartening. Maybe someday I will have time to write a secular history text for the younger grades that is not whitewashed. I would love something SOTWish that fit the bill but as of now I use SOTW and just bring in tons of outside resources.

We have tons of yard space but my dogs also have tons to bark at with the people walking by........I live in a neighborhood that can be foot traffic heavy because we have a city bus stop one street over both to the south and to the west though

Yep it is a scary situation.

I save my fun colored masks for when I know I will see her instead of the black ones and wear contacts instead of glasses so she sees my eyes. I know it is harder on me than it will ever be on her. I also know as an infant these are things she will never remember but she is my first granddaughter and there are times I want to cry. I remember my mom visiting in the hospital, playing pretend gobble the baby toes, etc., all things that are simply impossible with Jo. Above all else I want to keep her safe and healthy. I am thankful my wife's school is one that is being super cautious in today's climate. They are not scheduled to begin any in person classed until Sept 21.

I have only removed my mask when I have been in my bathroom or bedroom away from Jo. Today I put her in the dining room with my wife so I could use the restroom and wash my face while here momma slept on the couch lol.

To start I live in San Antonio.... Background to my question: I have a month old granddaughter. Her father works in a warehouse job. My wife will be returning to work in a public school. My kids will not be returning to public schools. (they are doing virtual school but I am homeschooling them seeing as everything is asynchronous and I know they will not actually receive an education and we may pull the high schooler and finish his high school through homeschooling....the 6th grader would like to return to her school when it is safe next year the 2nd grader we are not sure where/when/if he will return). I am petitioning my university to take all my grad classes online because I am high risk as it stands 1 of my 3 classes are currently online. My oldest daughter is currently unemployed but is looking for a teaching position. The next oldest daughter is the mom to the granddaughter and is unemployed and is currently feeling the beginnings of PPD. Mom is also immunocompromised due to an autoimmune disorder. I picked her and baby up today. Everyone in the house wore masks including baby's mom. When would you feel safe not wearing a mask when baby and mom came over? I wonder if this baby will ever recognize her Mema without a mask. She is a month old now. Picture of my sweet granddaughter included

It is by district. The state isn't not enforcing it and won't back the districts up if parents sue the district over it.

I am terrified (my wife is a PS teacher) because our state is making 5 day a week in person option mandatory and masking is optional for 10 and under. Our governor has said local health authorities can regulate whether schools can open and then said they can't regulate whether schools can open before school starts. Local control is best but no local control. It is a mess and our positivity rate is sky high. Look for Texas schools to shut down just as soon as they open up.

I have one that plays parkour every time she gets wound up. I have to lock her in my bedroom away from the other cats for 20 minutes to calm her down. I have had to put one of the antique lamps away after she knocked it over a half dozen times in her escapades. I pray she calms down but this is 8 months in and she has only gotten larger and more destructive in her hijinks.

This thread leaves me wondering just how many of you attempted to raise a family on two minimum wage jobs. As someone who did so let me tell you it is downright impossible without government assistance even in low cost of living areas. I couldn't downsize from a 3 bedroom apartment due to housing rules that required opposite sex children have their own bedroom, there was no public transportation so a car was a necessity to get to and from work, and waiting to find a job that paid more than minimum wage was not an option because bills needed paying. Now I have work which means food stamps goes down, assisted housing rent goes up and it gets harder to pay bills. I was not able to consistently get 40 hours a week, schedules were posted less than 48 hours before the new work week started making scheduling interviews almost impossible. We had one vehicle so then we had to worry about if a new job would work with the other's job schedule because child care was well above what we could afford and the wait list for childcare was over a year long. Two minimum wage jobs literally led to our homelessness which in turn led to me losing my job because I couldn't leave the children to head to work while their father headed home within an hour or so. This is reality. My safety net came in the form of my best friend and a 200 sq ft camper that she put at an RV park and didn't make me pay rent on. I had to pay the RV park and electric/water which was under 400 a month. Even though we were no longer without a place to call our own, my children were still considered homeless. Our homelessness meant CPS became involved with our family. This was both a blessing and a curse. The constant threats to take my children because we were poor added such a high level of stress but they did pay for childcare for the younger two for a bit which meant I could work two jobs (one during the day, one overnight). Yes they do take the children of poor people and then pay foster families to raise them for you instead of just supporting the family in the first place in case you were wondering. I lost 75 pounds that summer because all I did was work without time to eat properly and ran myself so ragged I couldn't think straight at any point in my day. The day CPS closed our case was the day I had to leave my daytime job......no more assistance with childcare meant I couldn't afford the care anymore. Thankfully my overnight job continued to pay enough to keep us off anyone's radar and I eventually got a raise. The next spring I went back to college and received the full pell grant and student loans and work study. This along with a minimum wage job allowed me to keep me and my kids safely housed and fed. Just over 3 years later and I have a college degree but also am drawing unemployment because my daughter is high risk and the job I was working during my last semester of college (this past spring) was a front-line essential worker which her doctor specifically said I could not do and protect her health. What happens in two weeks when I am to draw unemployment again? I will get $400 (the minimum amount) for 2 weeks or $800 a month. I have remarried and my wife is a teacher so she does have her full-time income but that does not support a family of 6 alone. My income is necessary and going from around $4000 a month pre-Covid to $800 a month is going to be devastating. We took a pay cut with Covid by me drawing unemployment but only about a $600 a month cut. To have my income cut by $3200 a month is terrifying but at the same time my daughter getting this disease and potentially dying is just not a risk I am willing to take. Even if she didn't die, teachers' health insurance in my state is not great and would completely devastate us financially for a very long time. It is a very hard position to be in and it is constantly exhausting. Those of us pulling UI, those of us who need a living wage are real people with real families. We aren't some unnamed, faceless person.

So there is ONE math teacher at his school. There is also one of every other core class teacher and three electives teachers. There is absolutely no independent study or distance learning provider. Downside of going to a very small charter school that focuses on the arts but for his emotional and social health it was the best option at the time. I will text the guidance counselor and see what he suggests by way of not doing math this year and just getting credit by taking the end of course or something

So we picked up Lial's Basic College Mathematics and ds15 is doing well working through it. Just for my information, when he finishes this where do we go next? He struggles with math and I want to both instill confidence but also help him prepare for college. If he remains in public school using the virtual option he will graduate in '22 but if he comes home for good he can realistically graduate in '23 (ps grade skipped him after 4th grade). He took Algebra twice in PS (by choice he passed both times but we are not sure how exactly) and Geometry last year. Once he came home we discovered that he could not do simple multiplication or division and couldn't pass a placement test for even TT's pre-algebra. He is enrolled in the school's Algebra 2 class for this year's virtual learning. I know this is a bad option BUT he attends a tiny school and there are no other options for him there other than to move forward.

I had an eye appointment a few weeks ago. You HAD to wait outside when you weren't actively being seen, the thing where they flip it and say 1 or 2 had a plexiglass shield around it to provide barriers between me and the doctor and everyone wore masks. We were also required to wash hands when we came in the office, before we went in the room with the doctor, and before signing paperwork. I felt pretty safe with the protocols in place at the office. I did wear a filtered mask and not just a simple cloth mask.

In the eyes of the IRS all US citizens are treated the same. If citizenship has not been revoked (which is expensive itself) then any tax cuts, stimulus, etc applies to them. The marketplace does not discount insurance UNLESS the employee's insurance will cost more than 9% of their income. Since my wife's employer covers a portion of her insurance, and they will allow her to sign us up at full price, the kids and I did not qualify for marketplace insurance that would be cheaper than the 1300 a month we were already paying. Thankfully they switched companies this year and our insurance went down nearly $400. At one point I was homeless with 3 kids and no steady income. I could not get on a waitlist for housing in any community around me. If you can/do work your rear end off and get to were you can afford even the most basic housing you will no longer qualify for any rental help in my area. There is no health insurance for adults if you make over $300 a month for a family of 5 nor will you get TANF. Food stamps are attainable IF you have a refrigerator. You can be denied if you don't have one. Children's health insurance is easier to get though. I have moved on from that position (we qualified for half priced lunch when my ex quit paying child support and our income was literally $3 below the limit) and am better for having lived through it but I wouldn't wish that life of trying to navigate social safety nets on anyone. I especially wouldn't wish it on anyone in this state.

We just found Athena through this website. Doing registration now and hoping to get on some waitlists for dd.

We did the Marie Kondo thing last summer. We keep the old curriculum because believe it or not she pulls from it when tutoring students (which she gets paid to do on the side so I can't argue that) I may be able to condense and open up one or two cubes for storage BUT that doesn't take into account where I will put my own books for grad school lol. It is looking more and more like baskets under their tables will be how we have to go. If our oldest hadn't moved home from Korea because of Covid I would have the perfect space for loads more bookshelves but she has taken over the nook as a sleep space.