Huh - I would WANT my kids to have strong, non-foggy memories of something like that... and I would make it clear that this was a self-induced drunken sickness. I see it as a great learning opportunity about WHY I might tell them in the future that drinking excessive amounts is dangerous and stupid. Maybe that's just me...

:iagree: Just tell them flat-out that you aren't interested. If they keep asking, either keep answering "no", ignore the questions "I can't HEEEEaaaar you", or tell them something like "I'm sorry, didn't I already say no?". I find it hard to fathom, too, as my kids are MUCH younger and hang out on a regular basis with both sets of grandparents. I actively encourage them to spend one-on-one time now, while they can. Other than the spiritual thing, is there some over-riding reason NOT to allow them to spend time? Obviously you haven't completely parted ways, or they wouldn't be coming to stay so close & calling all the time. At 12 miles away, you can just go drop your kid off - so the car thing is "eh" (just make it clear they can't drive anywhere after!). Definitely at 14yo, and probably at 12yo, the spiritual thing to me is "eh" - unless they plan on doing some weird voodoo on them or inviting them into a cult or something, what can they say that will totally ruin your kids' spiritual lives in a couple of hours a couple times a week for a short time? Personally, I think that your kids are old enough to deal with this. Just give it to them straight up-front & talk/laugh about it after...

Wow - I was totally going to say do MM 2, but now I feel outnumbered!! lol My ds8 did RightStart A for his first year with MM1 as a supplement & then RS B for his second year with MM2 as a supplement & they coordinated well (for the most part). I would definitely have thought that if you had totally completed (with proficiency & ease) RSA that you could easily & fairly seamlessly progress into MM2.

When I was growing up riding (across several different states), I never ran into a barn where there was a flat fee "come out and ride as often as you like" deal. Generally speaking, they are using school horses who are on a strict schedule of when they get ridden, how often & by who. That said, the main ways that I can think of to get more lessons without paying more money are: 1) Have child work at the barn if possible - as they get more proficient in riding & working, they will often be able to find a position where they can ride quite often. I worked at a barn when I was 14-16 & rode basically 5 times a week; I helped teach kiddie lessons (including LOTS of the summer camp stuff- bleah), worked horses on the ground, cleaned tack, etc. In exchange, she let me ride in lessons a couple times a week and on my own the rest of the week, and I got to try out new lesson horses. She even splurged & let me ride one of her super-awesome "in-training" horses in a major show once! :) I didn't stop until I saved up enough money from part-time job to buy my own horse. 2) Find a smaller barn, probably privately owned, where there will almost undoubtedly be opportunities to work in exchange for riding and there could well be a private "gem" of an instructor. This is where I am right now (on the horse owner side); I have lots of horses on a private little farm, but my kids ended up not being interested in riding. So, I periodically find people who are horse-loving and want to help me around the place & work my horses with/for me (they are pretty decent horses - I'm not talking "real" training here, just riding!). I've been riding since I was 8yo (the same age as my oldest now!) and I know a little bit about a LOT of stuff & am more than happy to share my knowledge to any interested parties - lol! Just try to remember, if you do this, that they ARE saving you lots of money and to not abuse that - I can't tell you how many times I've been blown off by people for FREE kid riding lessons because "something came up". Very frustrating & has made me pretty much stop that. 3) Do a partial or full lease on a horse. If you find the right horse, you can often really make out well on these deals! Generally, the owner of the horse will be responsible for board/feed/vet/etc and you pay them a set monthly fee to be able to ride it (either x times a week or whenever, depending on the deal). If you ride well enough to get a lot out of this, and you find a well trained horse for a reasonable price, this could be great! However, I would still highly recommend periodic lessons. 4) Buy a horse. Honestly, this would be VERY VERY far down on my list - in fact, unless you personally (or another adult in your house) have lots of horse experience & know-how, or you are absolutely sure that you can get in with someone who has such knowledge & won't have any problems sharing it, you should really NOT get a horse. I have seen waaaaay too many people buy & horse & then end up with a variety of problems, mainly stemming from not knowing enough about horses, to think it is a good idea for a beginning or novice rider without a strong HORSE support system to do this. ETA - I see a lot that often what happens when you buy a horse is you realize it would be a lot cheaper to keep that horse at XX (maybe your back yard, or a field of grass nearby, or a barn with no trainers) and move it from the great barn you have been gaining knowledge at. Then the horse gets a problem (health or, more often, behavioral) that you don't know how to deal with. When it isn't dealt with correctly, it gets much worse. Then people often end up with a horse they are scared to ride because of XYZ problem (sometimes even scared to get near) and they have to get rid of it - but a horse with behavioral problems is a dime a dozen & could be hard to sell (at least for what you put into it), and might go to slaughter in the end (at least around here).

:grouphug::grouphug: Here is a website that lists "hypoallergenic dog breeds" - maybe consider doing a trial on one like that? Perhaps you can set up a 2 week test or something? http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/allergy.htm

We are just about to start REAL Science Odyssey - I got it in the mail yesterday!! :) I hope that my kids will love it - the 8yo is VERY science-loving & I have struggled long & hard to come up with a program that will fit a lot of different needs (secular, grouping multiple kids across several grade levels, ability to purchase a box of set supplies). I've got my fingers crossed! Recently tried items include: - Exploration Education: he really liked this and we will probably re-visit it in a future year. There is really only 1 program, though, not several grade levels (the Elementary is a joke, the Intermediate is what we used, and the Advanced is just Intermediate plus some) and it only covers Physics. Comes with a kit & a DVD & a lab book, so I was able to just set ds up at a computer & let him go. - Supercharged Science: fantastic but expensive and advanced. I definitely plan to use this again in future years; it covers a TON of information at a very deep level. I think when my ds is older he will get a lot out of it, but only because he WANTS to get a lot. Hard to piece together all the necessary parts for all of the experiments. - Real Science 4 Kids: to be fair, we didn't give this a very good chance. We have the books but somehow couldn't really get into them. I will have to try again in the future. - Elemental Science: Only used Biology 1 & only slogged through a month or so - NOT a good fit for us!!

:o:o Color me embarrassed - of COURSE you might have to mow more in some highly rainy, highly grassy area!! I have no idea why that didn't even occur to me - I'm so used to living in desert-y areas, where you have to struggle to get anything to grow & rapid over-growth is practically non-existent, that I didn't even picture the growth that could happen in other areas!! lol Still, though, I'd only give her $10 each time... especially if you are having her do it twice a week (and you might try once a week and see how it looks!).

Don't buy her chicks!! It is fairly likely that she knows EXACTLY what kinds of chickens she wants & doesn't necessarily just pick up the cheeping cheap chicks at the store (or at least times it just right for what & when). I've spent ages researching what kind of chickens to buy & wouldn't want just any - there are lots of breeds of them, just like dogs, and they each have different things to offer. I think it was SUPER nice of you to apologize & to be genuinely sorry for the dog killing the chickens - already a step ahead of most people in her book, I'm sure!! :) I would take her at face value on the not worrying about it thing - any chicken owner knows that if their chickens are out where dogs can get them the chances are pretty high that... dogs will get them!! lol. She is hopefully trying to figure out how to keep her chickens better protected (if she wants to keep them alive, anyway). I know that on the farm we lived on before stray dogs were a HUGE problem - if you wanted chickens to live you either locked them up with a good, strong fence or you got smart ones who knew how to get up high & did a "survival of the fittest" thing! :D That being said, I think it would be very nice of you to take a plate of cookies over & commiserate over "them darn dogs".

You mow *8* times a month?!?!?! That sounds... insane... lol. Of course, we ought to mow more often than we do - but still, once a week seems like plenty. I think paying your own 12 yo $10 a week to mow 1/4 acre sounds perfectly reasonable.

Well... personally, I think it is a pretty big difference to get an 80% vs an 89%. I mean, getting an 80% is "barely squeezing in a B-" and getting an 89% is "almost got an A-, should have pushed for that last answer". Isn't 80-89% a B rather than an A, btw? :D For IQ scores, I think that once you've made it into the "highly gifted" range the score matters a lot less than the desire to succeed. In the example you gave of the young lady who went from coasting at the top of her class to struggling, she probably could have persevered and succeeded - but it would have required a lot of work, and it sounds like she was content to be floating at the top of a less-gifted crowd. Honestly, that sounds a lot like me growing up... I was always top of my class, but it was a class of the "average population"; if I had been placed in a gifted school, I would definitely have struggled to succeed (since I wasn't pushing at all to ace everything up to that point) and I would have been miserable and wanted out. I wasn't interested in becoming "exceptional" (in an advanced gifted world) - I was happy being "above average" (in a normal, everyday world). As an adult, one of the reasons I homeschool is so that my kids can (hopefully) get a fire lit under them and want to truly EXCEL rather than just "settling" like I did. FWIW, my brother DID get placed into a gifted school (by his own desire) and truly pushed and struggled and succeeded & did AMAZING - I didn't grow up thinking he was all that much smarter than me, but as an adult I consider him to be WAY smarter - mainly because he is so driven that I feel downright lazy! :lol:

Sounds like a dinner I'd dig out of my kitchen when dh was out of town & I wanted to make some stuff I could tolerate (cranberry sauce - LOVE the jellied out of the can, btw!! - and creamed corn) and stuff the kids would really want (pizza, mac & chees) with a few random "here, I had some of this around" items thrown on the table (pickles, jello). This was actually a PLANNED dinner, and you got a lecture on how variety is the *key* to an appropriate meal? Well... it DID have variety... :D Amazing

:iagree::iagree: I have 2 sons and am unlikely to have a daughter. I still have my mom's wedding dress hanging out in my closet (from what, 40 years ago??) and until recently mine was in there as well (from 12 years ago). I finally dug mine out and tried to sell it (CHEAP!!) and couldn't get anyone interested enough to actually buy it, so I gave it away to a charity. I like donating and all, but I felt irritated about the "need" to give it away - it represented something very special to me and I wanted to be able to directly hand it to someone (even for free, or close to it) and see the joy on their faces & know it would mean something to them. I tried (the charity lady thought her daughter might use it) and failed (it was too small for her) and gave up! :( The only reason my mom's is still around is because it folds up super-flat & I don't really know what to do with it! I certainly wasn't interested in using it - not my style AT ALL - but what now?

Aw man!!! That's sad - come up with a great mother's day present & then they drop it... :( I used to have a roomba & really liked it, but when the battery keeled over we never replaced it (the silly thing kept getting trapped under our chairs, so it was a bit of a pain anyhow, and we moved to a new place with WAAAAY too much open room to easily wall off). Hopefully you'll find a good place to get it!! Do they have something like that at Bed Bath & Beyond? If so, you can usually get a 20% off coupon just from signing up online (and then they send one out every couple of months also). Be happy he plans to get you something - my ds (8yo) told me today that he was going to get me a hotdog for mother's day... "mom, you like hotdogs, right?" ummmmm... no... :P

Huh. My ds just finished 2nd grade and we have only just brushed the surface of multiplication (using RS, so I know it comes up next year). Is that supposed to be a big "must know this for 3rd grade" thing? Weird. I would focus on calmly insisting that he do the work that you have assigned and make it clear that YOUR expectations of him are very high. I think eventually he will start to live up to that! :) Make sure he know certain things, and then push him to do those things correctly - repeating as many times as necessary. Aside from basic math facts (multiplication not included, here!), I would expect him to be able to read fluently at or above grade level and write clearly (copywork). Other than that, what sort of things is he "behind" in? Is it those 3 basic "R's" that he is having trouble with? If so, I would work exclusively on that for the upcoming months. Sit & read to & with him LOTS, practice copywork & build up to dictation (ala WTM Writing With Ease style), do some sort of math review program.

It occurred to me as I was re-reading this thread that the above is probably high on the list of reasons why I might put forth all of the great achievements & play down the not-so-great moments... lol. I know when I talk to my big brother who doesn't think HS kids could possibly get a good education without higher state standards (learned after a discussion of how lax my state's standards are - which I think is *GREAT*) I tend to be on the "braggy" side & when I commiserate with my best friend (who homeschools) we gripe about the "this is hard" stuff! :) Maybe she has had past conversations with these people that put her on a constant edge about certain things. It is just so hard to say.

I just ordered SL B to use for the upcoming school year - I had never looked at it in-depth before a conference I went to last month, but I was VERY impressed with the readers there! It fills a definite need for us - I already was immensely happy with several parts of my curricula over the last couple years, but I really wanted to move towards a more literature-based approach & do something more solid for history & geography. However, I REALLY wanted to use the parts of my current curricula that I loved!! I found, upon looking further at SL, that getting the Core & readers (less the LA, which sounds blah) would cover the things that I needed & allow me to continue using AAS & RS. I also think I will be able to "tweak" it some to use the WWE style of writing/narration/dictation. I just received my books in the mail yesterday and haven't had a chance to look through the package & IG, but I think that I will be happy! I am excited about having a reading time incorporated into our daily work schedule - it is something I kept meaning to do & not getting around to, so putting it in an IG that I follow will be perfect! :) So - I think you need to determine exactly what you want to get out of it and then push to get THAT. For me, learning how to get information from books is critical. My kids enjoy reading fantasy, and I want to show them how they can translate a love of reading into a love of reading for learning. THAT is what I want to get out of SL! :) BTW - science sounded a bit lame, so I decided to go with REAL Science Odyssey instead for this year & see how I liked it.

No good answers or help, but I can TOTALLY commiserate with this!!! My oldest just turned 8 a couple months ago, and the last 6-8 weeks or so have been night-and-day from what I was dealing with 6 months ago. He is a ***PILL***!!!! I was just complaining to dh last night on the phone (he is out of town for awhile) about how ds seems to go out of his way these days to irritate me. Snide comments, disregarding when I ask him to do specific things & then getting all sobby & thinking I'm mean when I come down on him for disrespect & disobedience, "accidentally" hurting his brother by playing too rough (even though he has NEVER been one to play rough before). It is getting old FAST!! PS is not an option we are at all interested in doing, and won't be doing, but SOMEthing has to change! lol. We had a deep discussion yesterday, in which I basically told ds to shape up or lose his computer & tv access indefinitely, and that I would start adding on chores & additional punishments as needed. Sigh.

:iagree: I have absolutely done that - not deliberately bragging, just telling it like it is. My 6yo is very advanced - if someone asks me how school is going with him (especially someone who DOESN'T homeschool & is more likely to be asking to see how badly it is going) I tell them pretty much the same things as your "braggart" did... because it is true. Why is that wrong? My 8yo is "on-level". My friends 8yo is "below level". My other friends 6yo is WAY farther "above level" than mine is. So... where is the problem in knowing that? It doesn't sound like she was trying to denigrate their kids, or thought that she was a super-star because hers was advanced - I know I wouldn't have been saying either of those things, anyway! :) I'm not sure I understand the so-called "stereotyping" that you are concerned about here. That all kids who are homeschooled are extra-smart? Obviously not true, any more than all kids who are in PS are extra-socialized, but hers may be advanced - so?? I love that part of homeschooling involves the ability to LET my 6yo do the same work, in some areas, that my 8yo does and LET my 8yo move at his own pace as well & not feel like he has to do xyz because he is 8.

It killed it for my 2nd grader, but my 1st grader likes worksheets & is totally fine with it. I don't know that he LOVES it, exactly, but he is fine with it... That said, I couldn't actually teach from it myself. I do all the teaching from RightStart (which kids & I all enjoy) and then use the MM as worksheets for periodic practice.

We used to have a giant sandbox AND a bunch of outdoor cats - I made a cover out of landscape timbers (heavy enough that big winds & little cats couldn't move it) with landscape fabric (breathable - rain can get through & not just sit on top). It was light enough that the kids could pick up the end of 1 of the timbers and toss it aside to they could play & then cover it up when done. I didn't have a big problem with the cats, and kids got a nice huge sandbox - win! If you aren't willing to cover it up so that they can actually use it, though, I would just get rid of it. In fact, I second someone's idea above about letting it get poo-ridden and then telling FIL it needs to be GONE (since he did, after all, go against your wishes to dump it). Or you could be nice about it and just ask DH to deal with it... :D

For what to wear, it depends on what sort of places you are applying. In general, I think you are supposed to dress 1 level "fancier" than the typical dress of the place you are applying. So, if you apply for a place where most people wear "business casual" you would dress "business nice". If you apply for a place were they wear jeans & Ts, then dress slacks & nice shirt, etc. FWIW, if you aren't sure I would dress in whatever you would expect a professional in your profession to wear when meeting a prospective new client.

When I had a larger farm, lots of people dumped their cats at our place over the years. I would trap them & get them spayed/neutered & then let them back out. So... I agree that letting cats out to propagate is bad (REALLY bad - seriously - they breed like rabbits! lol). However, I think that outdoor cats generally LIKE to be outside. Heck, even indoor cats generally would very much like to be outside. If the options are ignore & let them breed, kill, or trap & release...? We currently have 1 young indoor and 1 sorta-outdoor old (lives in the garage, rarely leaves it) cat. I accept that the outdoor cats lifespan is greatly reduced from a fully indoor cat (generally by about 1/2, although ours should last a lot longer since she always stays on our property). I decided to keep the kitty indoors because 1) my kids & I would be devastated about the death of the cat (and I KNOW that his life would be in jeopardy any time he went out) and 2) we are now on only 3 acres - there is a barn that needs de-mousing & a bunch of gophers to be killed, but this is WAY closer to our neighbors than we used to be & with that comes a higher likelihood of non-cat people & LOTS of dogs).

Get an accountant involved!! It is easy to fall into landmines on your own. Nice, honest, up-front people like to be nice, honest & up-front - but it isn't safe to deal with the IRS from that perspective. Not that you don't want to be nice & honest, of course... but be VERY careful of being too up-front. Let the auditor find the problems (if any) that they choose to check. Many of them aren't particularly good & will miss things that someone else might find looking back at the data, so be careful not to give anything more than they ask for.:)

Wow - time to put your foot down!! :) I LOVE when my son's friends come over to play - it is super-relaxing for me (usually) because the kids get along really well, behave very nicely, and often spend hours playing outside or with legos. The only times I find it stressful is when there are tiffs with the older kids not wanting to play with younger bro, but this doesn't usually happen (since most of 8yo's friends are 6yo's friends also, and all generally get along great). I can't imagine having kids over that disregarded things I asked them to do - that would DEFINITELY be something I took up with their parents right away with a phone call. I have only really had a *BIG* problem 1 time, when some older boys came over to play (12 yo) and ended up drilling a hole in the garage wall. I discussed it with him & his mom (who discussed it with him in detail) and he wasn't allowed back over to my house for a looooong time. When he was allowed back over, he wasn't allowed free-reign of the area (he was required to always stay with another kid, who knew not to let him mess around, or he had to stay inside in close proximity to adults). Eventually, we just "faded away" from having him over at all. I am pretty strict in general, but looser on guests. However, none of those behaviors would be tolerated here (including wrestling - I don't like it and won't have it in my house). eta - except the shoe thing; they have to take them off if they are dirty, and are supposed to put them on when they go outside, but otherwise I am apathetic.

I would do all my organizing on Calibre (free program) on the computer - but I haven't had to organize yet because I don't have that many books! lol On the Kindle itself, I just put on the book that I am reading now, it goes to the top, and I am good.