Our standby freezer meals are: lasagna (spinach-mushroom), tamale pie (vegetarian), chicken pot pie (mine doesn't use a bottom crust and has frozen, shredded potatoes added which thicken it nicely), and a few sips and bread to serve with. Another thing I've been experimenting with is frozen burritos. My dc favor chicken for the filing, I add rice, beans, shredded cheese, and a tomatillo salsa. I wrap them in foil to freeze. To eat, unwrap and microwave a minute or two, flip over and microwave another minute, then let it stands for 2 minutes.

Oh dear, I hope everyone is on the mend and your dad made it through unscathed!

For variety my family likes this pesto salmon recipe.

Last week I was picking up younger DD from class. She is too young for a phone, but she knows the routine. I say outside double-parked forEVER watching her through the big window watching her stand turned away watching another class. Argh! Eventually I drove around, found a parking place, and went in to get her. It was evening, so at least I was dressed.

She auditioned for Nashville and Louisville. She has been accepted to Nashville previously, but this year I think she will actually go somewhere. She is thinking about trying out for either Boston or Cincinnati. She dances 20 hours a week, but doesn't see dance as her career. I'm not sure what her likelihood is of getting accepted to the SIs, but the tryout classes sound intriguing. YAGP is an interesting experience. Dancing solo in a big theater, and seeing so many other dancers and the range of skills is all educational. They picked her variation in August and she has been rehearsing once or twice a week since then. The dedication to a single, specific task over a long time period is a useful experience. BUT, it is expensive, most pieces are between 1 and 2 minutes of performance time (so high cost per hour!), and it means a bit more dancing during the week. I counseled against a second year, but she thought she could do better now that she knows how it works. Eventually I agreed, after explaining that she needed to stay on top of school work so that I wouldn't regret a second year. I should say that the cost of YAGP includes a master class on Saturday after the contest, so there is that.

Oh, hey, you all! Our Nutcracker is late, first weekend of January, so we are just now done. Older dd had two SI tryouts this weekend. I can't guide her since I don't know anything about ballet, but these are both within reasonable driving distance, and being in the Midwest we can afford them. I think she should do one more to round it out. She is also preparing for her second YAGP. The director pulls costumes from her crazy-deep costume collection, most of which she has seen herself over the years. I am intrigued at the construction of a tutu, but I wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of making one for competition. Kudos to you, @Snickerplum!

I don't know anyone IRL as focused on academics as we are, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Conversing about academics and goals in real life is tricky! This electronic space we have is so valuable because I get to talk to, question, and listen to (often asynchronously) people it might not work to spend time with in person - our dc are all different ages and we all have different ECs pulling us this way and that during our "discretionary" time. Most of all, though, we are all different academically, although here more than elsewhere we share similar goals. I can't keep up with a certain poster's writing goals and accomplishments or another's math progression. If I compare myself to that person's literature discussion abilities and that other one's foreign language accomplishments I am a failure. The beauty is that we all keep posting. So I can see what things are possible and what levels I can shoot for, even if I know I can't pull off that level of achievement with my dc. THIS is where I get glimpses of what to strive for.

There is not a lot of love for CC on these boards. You can check out this 2019 thread and the links from the if you want more background. Have you been homeschooling for a while? It sounds like you are interested in outsourcing all of his classes next year? Are you planning to transition him into a brick and mortar school for high school? Perhaps people will have additional suggestions for you to consider.

It is probably because we have nothing invested in the relationship and only this one scenario from the injured party on which to base our response. Presumably everyone who posts a problem will then also decide which responses resonate with them and which do not.

What is your motivation for maintaining this hurtful relationship?

Well, you can tell "your friend" that I say - only when I have to. 😂 I waited until my youngest was 10, so 9 years at this house. Technically I'm not done, but the matter bath has a shower issue I haven't resolved yet...

Health Class - we eat well, we value exercise, I've always pooh-poohed it, but I have come to reluctantly believe that I should at least skim through somebody's syllabus of standard topics. Geography - I can't get excited about any dedicated course. I know a student who excels at geography - but he is none of mine.

Tell your dh, let him get over the emotional response, then either pay it and be done with the thing or ignore it. Then distance yourselves from the craziness.

How about you just pretend that last part never happened? You have to tell your dh so he knows what is going on, but maybe then do nothing and see how it plays out. Treat it like the lame practical joke it should have been.

Could you ask him to list out current assignments so that *you* can understand what he is juggling at the moment? Of course this would also help him see it. Then you both have a list from which you can ask things like when particular items are due it how long he thinks particular things will take, etc. This would not be a long-term fix, but might illustrate the complications of this snapshot in time. Maybe that would help him see that he needs a more explicit plan?

I agree. I made sure to say that explicitly, something like, "if your sport didn't take up so much time that would help, but the exercise is so important for your will-being that we are not going to touch that."

So it sounds like he is still getting everything done to keep his grades high, but you see that if he were more efficient about the prices, life would be less stressful for him? It seems like, at his age and surface level of success, your best shot would be to bring him alongside your thinking. Does he also see the situation in as incredibly stressful? Perhaps the first step is to come to agreement on what the problem is. Some kind of short phrase that you can come back to as you try to encourage changes.

I'm sorry to hear he is struggling. What is his take on the situation? Does he recognize the benefit in your suggestions but can't get it together, or is he telling you they won't fix the problem, but without giving it a try? Or something else? Did his teachers have any thing practical to suggest?

Stay. The whole point of the thing is to give kids a nice, non-threatening taste of performing for a group. Mom and dad have already heard that piece eleventy-billion times. It is also a safe place to practice sitting quietly and attentively for the (no more than 1) hour (if the teacher know what s/he is doing). Not aimed at you Happysmiley, I also appreciate parents who know when it is time to exit.

Once you install the app, you can download decks other people have shared and explore them. For instance, you can rename the deck to something like "delete this deck", haha. If you want more hand holding and description, try the instruction tutorials from Fluent Forever. Once you have seen how it works you won't have any trouble going off-script. Unfortunately the FF instructions may be a little out of date now. I've also had reasonable luck using the Anki help pages. The good news is that once you've made 2 or 3 cards it really becomes fairly easy. Be sure to have separate decks to help with sorting and searching. You can have sub-decks, so under Latin I have Latin 1 and Latin 2. Then you could study Latin 1 or Latin 2 or both together. When my youngest started Latin, I copied the decks from my older dc, reset all the cards to "new" status and then suspended them all. Now, as she progresses through the program, I find the new words in her Anki deck and "unsuspend" them. Originally I used "tags" on all my cards, but I never really used them. Leeches - ewww! Anki isn't intended to teach you new material, but rather to practice things you learn elsewhere. As a result, if you mark a card as "hard" too many times in a row you get a notice that it has been marked as a leech card. This means that you should probably find another way to (re)learn the information. BUT the default action is that when a card is marked as a leech it gets taken out of the deck and moved to a "leech" deck. You can change the default, if you want, so that it still gets tested - but only if you realize what is happening! It took me a while to figure this out. There are a number of older threads on the topic. @Tranquility7 is a super-user with all sorts of add-ons and thousands of cards. Her posts were helpful to see what was possible. That's everything I can think of. Let me know if you run into trouble - I can say least commiserate!

Have you ever looked at the old book Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish? It focuses on parallels between English and Spanish to teach Spanish. Depending on your level and goals you might get benefit from the News on Slow Spanish podcast. If you have time for a project you could create an Anki deck and add to it as you pick up new vocabulary. The Fluent Forever guy's blog had some good step-by-step instructions. Anki's big benefit is that it does spaced repetition to have you review cards before you have completely forgotten them. Duo used to do that, but I feel like they moved away from that approach a couple of years ago. Once you get Anki set up, it is ready to use and add to. I use it be bones, but there are lots of bells and whistles available. Plus, it is open source and free.

Hmmm, That is tempting!

I have been using Downdog app and I really love it. It is verrry flexible. You choose the length of practice, voice, amount of talking, background music, level (beg 1, beg 2, intermediate, etc), you can also choose a "focus" - sometimes I practice for flexibility. I have done yoga in the past and an reasonably fit. They have a try before you buy option. I was still on the fence and they lowered the price.

I use cheap washcloths, cut-up old cotton t-shirts, and cut-up pieces of try cloth from the tenants bin at the fabric store. Most are holdouts from when my dc were little. The t-shirts and Terry cloths are old/cheap enough that it doesn't bother me to pitch them when needed.