Anyone have experience with this? I was just diagnosed with this last Friday, after a 2 hour fasting test. I have had a whirlwind of a week - starting on a thyroid med (not because of the insulin resistance), glucophage, and going to diabetes ed to learn how to eat. I have also increased my exercise to an hour a day instead of my 30 minutes. Would you share your story with me? Well, if you have one, lol! I just wonder how this will be long term. I am hoping to lose a LOT of weight. The doctor said that the meds, diet and exercise should really help with weight losss.

My boys have had swimming lessons in the past. It wasn't until we were able to go swimming once a week this summer that they became more confident. Even my 6 year old is jumping off the diving board!

I am Mennonite, and while I do dress conservatively, I don't wear a dress or hair covering. :) I was raised Mennonite.

I am needing to lose weight (again). Like 100 lbs. BUT, I'm just concentrating on a pound at a time. I get too overwhelmed if I think about the entire amount. I'm already exercising 5 times a week and I'm going to add weight lifting 3x week. I'm also going to nix all packaged foods and sweets (my weakness) and concentrate on whole foods. AND, I've got a weight loss buddy in my SIL. So, I feel I'm set except for lunch. I don't like lunch type foods and we often don't have leftovers anymore. I'm thinking about some type of meal replacement shake. But, I'd like something a little more natural and healthy than a Slim Fast. Is there anything like that out there?

I second http://www.powells.com. They are a brick and mortar store in Portland, OR (and maybe some other places too). I also use betterworldbooks.

No workboxes or filing here (or at least not yet!). :) I know what subjects the kids need to do each day, how many pages/lessons we need to do and we just do the next thing! I record what we do in a lesson planner each day after it is completed.

Well, you should have stopped by! We live just outside of Shipshewana. My family owns the Blue Gate Restaurant and several stores in town. My dad's side of the family is Old Order Amish - all my aunts, uncles, cousins and my late grandparents. We are members of a Conservative Mennonite church, my folks and brother are Mennonite. Shipshewana is one of the most liberal places for Amish to live. They do not have phones in their homes, but can have cell phones for work. In town, they do not have electricity in their homes, but may use it for businesses. They do have modern bikes, beautiful solid color clothes, wear trendy flip flops/sandals, my cousin uses a computer to run his CAD system for work. They do have mortgages, use credit cards, and hire drivers to go places. In many ways it may seem, to outsiders, that they have sold out. However, they still have a support system like few others. Their neighbors are their friends and church members. When someone is hurting they are there for each other. It is a slower pace of life, even with these "modern" things. In the evenings they visit neighbors, read a book on the porch, play volleyball, and more. They don't run to the next child's soccer game, watch the latest TV show, or surf the internet all evening. Now, the Amish churches just to the east of Shipshewana are some of the most conservative you will find. Very plain, even to point of not painting a peeling home. They use no phones, no computers, no power lawn mowers - just the old fashioned rotary cutters. It all depends where you live and what church district you are in. Most of my relatives are in very liberal churches. The Amish are Bible believing Christians with faults in their churches and homes just like people everywhere, lol.

Yes, how could I forgotten these classic read alouds!!! Keep the ideas coming, please!

It has been so long since I've used audiobooks (OK, only 2 years, lol), that I can't remember any that my oldest ones listened to! Now we have a different library and I have to order them online from the main branch so I can't browse and remind myself. Please give me some great ideas of chapter books for a 1st grade boy. Thank you, thank you!

I would only move if there were no options for local employment. My stomach gets upset just thinking about it! I am extroverted, but live minutes from my folks, my in-laws, my brother, dh's brother and have a wonderful group of friends and church. That is what is really important in life, IMHO!

I'm using it with 3 children. I like it! I don't use it as a planner, just as a way to record what we did each day in each subject. There isn't a lot of space to write, but I've tried to make my own, and this works better than anything else I've ever used!

I'm at the beginning of yet another school year and looking at the length of our days, the outside activities, the cooking, the cleaning, the yard work, and more. Some years I hire a house cleaner. It is very nice, but about half way through the year, I think "I can do this. We don't have enough money to spend on a cleaner." And then I fire the cleaner. I've done this twice. Now I'm back to thinking a clean house would be wonderful. Sooooooo, do you have any hired help of any kind: cook, cleaner, Mom's helper, yard people, pool boy (lol)? If so, what income bracket are you in? This poll is anonymous. ETA: If you do hire someone, leave a comment stating what you hire done. :) If not, tell me how in the world you get it all done, lol!! AND, if you are less than $50K either way, let me know too! I couldn't get everything on the poll I wanted to.

Well, we are only on lesson 9, so take this with a grain of salt. :) We are setting the timer for 20 minutes. I'm doing some of the assignments orally and what I do assign of the written work I assign only odds or evens. I drastically cut back the amount of work. And, it is all done in 20 minutes. I decided I'm not going to spend more time than that on grammar. We have had one writing assignement and we took 2 days to get it completed. We do grammar 4 days a week.

I've made a lot of changes for this year! We are going with a 4 day/week 45 weeks schedule. We are already into our 2nd week and I love it! We are taking Wednesdays off to have a day to do errands, housework and laundry. I dropped Classical Writing and am doing Rod & Staff Grammar and SWB's writing recs for elementary and middle grades. I love it so far! I dropped SWR and am using AAS. I love, love, love AAS!!! It is so much faster and more laid out than SWR. I dropped Right Start math with my 2 oldest and moved them to Math Mammoth. I can actually do math with both of them at the same time in 20-30 minutes!!! It is beautiful! :) And, I'm taking time for the fun stuff. We WILL get to science, history and projects. I've planned them out and we are doing them!

What is WW?

I'm not familiar with the Key To series, so I can't speak to that. We just finished RS E. It does need more practice, IMO. We supplemented with Kumon workbooks. I did not enjoy RS E, but YMMV. I won't do RS E with the rest of my children, it just seemed to fall apart.

Do they do their daily review and memorize new pieces on their own and only recite new items on Friday? Or, what do you recite on Fridays? I like this idea, but I can't quite get a full grasp of it, lol!

I see on your siggy line that you are doing MM 5 and LoF. How are you combining those? My ds really wants to do LoF, but it seems like MM is long enough that we will need all 180 days to get it done....

Is it possible to keep my memory work to 10 minutes a day, with all the kids together? How could I do this? Do I need to have the boys memory taped some how for them to listen on their own and then they just go over it with me? Or, do we all learn the same verses and poem? That option seems harder because I have a 1st, 3rd and 5th grader that all memorize at different rates. Yet, it seems easier to manage. Any advice? What do you do?

My ds cannot handle that. He gets very overwhelmed and then everything take 10 times longer than it should. He is doing well with timed lessons for math, so I'm trying to figure out how long is reasonable for all the subjects we are doing.

How much time should a 5th grader spend on: math Bible grammar Latin logic? I'm needing to scrap my wonderful plans of needing to do x number of pages per subject, b/c my oldest is having major trouble. He has OCD and it just overwhelms him. I'm going to move him into just working x number of minutes per subject, and forget the minimum amount of pages per day for now. If we aren't meeting the minimums in a few weeks, I will have to try something else. What is a reasonable amount of time to spend on the above subjects?

Take a look at the recommendations on http://www.SimplyCharlotteMason.com, under Personal Development. They have recs for each year. They aren't curriculum, just read alouds that pertain to character.

What is writing station? Thanks! I think this idea is the easiest for me. We do only a 4 day week, so I may just have to think of the days as day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4 and not worry about whether it is on Monday, Tuesday, etc. Thanks.

This is helpful, thank you! About how long would this take you each day?

I'm using AAS for my 3rd and 1st grader. We have been moving quickly through the lower levels, but I'm now ready to slow down. What does your daily plans look like with AAS? What do you do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.?