Ah. We (dh) do this in Excel with the actual money all lumped in investments or money market accounts. In addition to some of the important ones already mentioned, we have a separate category for landscaping because we often will add trees or shrubs in the growing season. We also have a generic furniture category since those items tend to be expensive and we have trouble finding things we both like, so when it happens I want to be prepared to purchase.

I enjoy coming up with elaborate answers to some of their questions and going on and on with a straight face. Mom, is Dad's bike really that old? Well, back when he bought it they hadn't invented steel yet, so the frame is made out of gingerbread that they ley get really, really stale. For paint, of course they didn't have safe, colorful paints like we do today, do they mixed mud with lead and thats why it is that hideous broen color.... My older two are just getting too old. So sad.

I feel compelled to admit that I have never heard the term "sinking fund" before? As far as what to estimate for appliances, can you price what the cost would be if one died tomorrow and needed to be replaced? The hope being that they never all die at once.

Not in a house, not in car I do not like them Sam-I-Am, I do not like green eggs and ham...

We loved the humour in Ivy & Bean.

Yay! Doesn't that flood of relief feel so relieving?

You are right, although with 3 dc even my pockets are cluttered. :-) Don't worry about me though, I am like a squirrel with half-forgotten stashes all around and in the car.

I'm planning to ignore them until the tsunami of clutter blocks access to my chocolate horde.

There is also a good chance you flooded the engine which won't hurt it, but it won't start until it has a chance to dry out. Does it have a "choke"? If the choke is set to "slow" or the turtle picture, it will sound unhappy when it runs.

What worked for me was getting up each time and putting her back to bed gently but wuth little fanfare. It is painful to get up and do it, but if I consistently did it every time the waking began to taper off. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Can you just cover it all with Cool-Whip and sparkler-type candles? Or combine cake-eating time with blind-man's bluff? Crumble the chocolate cake into a large tinfoil pan, add some unwrapped Tootsie Rolls and a brand new catbox scooper and call it a kitty litter cake...

Dh reminds me that in our case it was the rattlesnake that would go off as soon as you shut off the light and were heading to bed. =-O

He doesn't write original works, he just reads other peoples work (well). He has recorded a ton of stuff. A lot of his work is secular (fables, tall tales, Sherlock Holmes for kids, etc.) but I think he also has some bible story cds. If you are listening along with your dc I think you will.be fine. Whether or not SOTW in particular is secular has been debated often and is going to come down to what is right for your family. From the tone of your post, I imagine it would be fine. The first one is notionally geared toward first graders and the last toward fourth, so I might just plan on the first book if your dc are young.

I tried to do history at the library to kill some time once. When I asked why everyone was having so much trouble concentrating, "You like history!" My son rolled his eyes, gave a huge sweep of his arms and said, "Mom, the books!" I think they were all whispering to him.

I used Saxon K and thought it was a waste. I stuck with Saxon through level 3 (accelerated/skipped as needed) then pitched it for MEP in second. Then had to split my twins, moved dd to MM. With younger dd I am dabbling with CSMP this year when we are in the mood. Next year I'll start her with Miquon. Sounds crazy to write it all down but we seem to be in a good place. For now....

Tomato paste turns a lot of tomatoes into low volume, useful food product. I rarely bother to buy it, but if I have it I use it, kwim?

This is no kind of long term fix, but this weekend we tried the game One Thousand Blank White Cards - using 30 white index cards and instructions from the book Geek Mom. Hilarious for all.

There is not a lot of writing in those programs, but for WWE I don't think I would want to skip it. FLL 1 and 2 have little or no writing. Even 3 is pretty light so far. You might want to check your library for the Well Trained Mind to read about what the goals of thise programs are. What are your goals for afterschooling (and summer)? I ask because perhaps if they do a lot of writing at school and you are OK with the math program, perhaps you all would enjoy doing history or science afterschool. These subjects are often skipped or covered haphazardly in the early grades. You could quietly add in writing or grammar in small pieces uf you felt it was needed. Something like Story of the World for history or BFSU for science would be good programs you could a couple days a week and incorporate whatever other things you wanted to emphasize. Plus, if your dc enjoy it they will be more enthusiastic, right?

I have both books, but after reading the pp and considering how little of the writing I have my dc do I'm going to think about this for the next go-round. There is a lot of writing and diagrmming that we skip if they get the idea...

Anyone have a family closet? Yes, but mine is full of skeletons.

Some other shorter poems they memorized were: Love - Shel Silverstein The Little Man - Hughes Mearns Winter Moon - Langston Hughes Long Gone - Jack Prelutsky Obviously my choices tend toward the humourous. Christina Rosetti has some other nature-inspured poems if that is what your dd prefers. I'm assuming you were referring to FLL1....

Well, we have a few anthologies that have short poems - I'm not home, but I think the Random House one we like was edited by Jack Prelutsky. But here's a vote for one of my favorites- There's an eyeball in the gumball machine Right there between the red and the green Lookin' at me as if to say, "You don't need any more gum today." - Shel Silverstein

I set my kids' chore list by picking things that I wasn't getting to, but that I wouldn't feel compelled to re-do every time. So, they swiffer the dining room and clean the rarely used guest toilet. They also have a few chores that were killing me with frequency, like round up all the library books and sweep the kitchen. Also, the dc have to clean up alltoys every night. Figure out the thing(s) that most bother you and divide out sone individual tasks. What is cluttering the living room each day? Is it something someone else can be tasked with putting away? Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be perfect, it is ok to tweak it later. :-)

I was just outside and I want to vent here about one of our neighbor's sons. At least once a week he goes on this meandering, pointless wander around the neighborhood including in and out of our fenced yard leaving this irksome dotted line everywhere he walks! Grr. Sorry to go o/t. ;-)

Well, you will defininitely have to call someone if you hear any kind of firearms. Low flying aircraft should be reported to the FAA...