I'm curious about that one. How does it work? Do I need all of the components (book, videos, online)?

I need to simplify too. Sigh...

I don't mind if it's a little above the 4th grader's head. I can make it work. We liked Ellen McHenry's The Elements for chemistry. Thoughts?

That's what I was thinking.... He loves astronomy and they have some interesting courses listed.

DD finished FLL4 last year. I don't want to do Rod and Staff again. I tried that with DS and it was torture. Suggestions?

Has anyone used these for Middle School? I was thinking specifically about the Visual Guide to the Universe, The Nature of Earth (geology), Experiencing America (Am. History), and Understanding the Universe. I know some of it may be over his head, but I think he would really enjoy them. Thoughts?

Thank you! Maybe Kilgallon Sentence Composing. Any thoughts on that one? Any ideas for moving from FLL3 into something else? Is Kilgallon Grammar good too?

DD9 has worked through FLL1-4 and WWE1-3. I need some suggestions for next year. Thanks

-Neil Diamond Christmas CD for my MIL @ HalfPrice Books Outlet for $1. -ChicoBags for 2 of my friends through a friend's STEM school fundraiser. Not necessarily a deal but the are useful and I was able to support my friend's kids. -Simply Fun games for 3 of the families on my list through a fundraiser for a local children's hospital. Not a deal but I feel like it was money doubly gifted. -Finally, I had an Usborne Books party and was able to get $125 in free books and another $100 worth at 1/2 price. $50 covered a lot of Christmas presents and I was able to support my friend's business.

I haven't worked in a hospital since 1998 but I can tell you that people were complacent back then, even in the face of TB, HIV/AIDS, MRSA, VRSA, and several other infectious diseases that we dealt with on a daily basis. Personally, I made sure I followed the precautions for each patient to the letter but I can also tell you that many others did not. Some of the doctors were, IMO, the worst offenders and would move from patient room to patient room without even so much as washing their hands. We had times where you could follow an infection from one patient to another by looking at which doctors had treated them. It was awful.

It's about the same whether you do surgery or the serial casting. Two weeks in a hard cast, 6 wk in a boot with a 2 inch lift at the heel, 10 wks in a boot with a 1 inch lift.... All either non or partial weight bearing. With the surgery, you have a 1-2 wk wait prior to the surgery as well, and the weightbearing status is even more important because if you tear the tendon again at that point they don't have much tissue with which to work. The risk of re-injury is only 2% higher with non-surgical intervention, but that's a trade off for not opening yourself up to surgical complications.

No. He takes omeprazole for reflux and allopurinol for chronic kidney stones.

How did he do this? Well, he's a big guy (5'10", 250 lbs) and he's 45 (yesterday was his birthday) so he's in the right demographic. Our Suburban died and he and his buddy were pushing it up onto those ramp/block things so that the friend could look at it. They had it rocking back and forth, he gave one more all out push, and tore it. He called me at work to tell me that he hurt himself and I knew just from the mechanism of injury and his symptoms what he had done. Of course he drove himself to my office so that I check it (he wanted to believe it was something else) but after I and my boss checked it and came to the same conclusion, he was willing to let me take him to the doctor.

He has about 20% of the tendon still connected so the calf didn't retract/ball up by his knee. When they flexed his foot during the diagnostic ultrasound, they could see that the tendon and muscle had good approximation which made the non-surgical route a possibility. The orthopedic surgeon went through the pros and cons given DH's activity level, recovery time, prognosis, possibility of reinjury, etc., and their recommendation was serial casting vs. surgery. Surgery is still an option if it isn't progressing as expected with the casting.

He opted for the non-surgical route so.... For the next 2 weeks he is in a cast and can't put any weight on it at all. Then he will be partial weight bearing in a boot with crutches for about 4 months. It's his right foot so he can't drive which means I will have to chauffeur him around and the kids will be doing a lot of car schooling. It also means we can't divide and conquer for activities. Sigh. It's going to be a long 4-5 months.

Our Boy Scout troop has tried to mitigate this issues by setting a schedule... Troop meetings every Monday. Day hikes every 1st weekend of the month. Camping trips every 3rd weekend of the month. It helps our families plan, and it helps those with shared custody arrange their weekends with the other parent. Of course, sometimes things that are scheduled by the Council or District do not fall in line with the schedule, but that only happens 1-2 times/yr. Even with such a set schedule, only about 1/2 of the boys attend things regularly. We have a core group of boys that go to almost everything, and the rest are very hit and miss. It's harder for those who don't attend to advance within the program because they miss out on nights camping, miles hiked, skills learned, etc., but that's the way it goes. As for overlapping events, I think you have to decide which overlapping activity gets precedence. For us, Boy Scouts generally trumps most other things. However, we as parents do not have to attend everything DS does so we will make arrangements for DS to attend those things without us if we have another obligation for the rest of the family.

I love the idea of freezer meals. I have a friend who organizes a freezer meal "party" monthly. She posts the list of recipes based on sales in the area and then we RSVP so she knows how much to buy. She buys all of the items including the bags and prints labels. Often she preps the items as well (chops the veggies, portions out the meat, etc.) because she enjoys the tedium of that work. We show up, finish the prep work, divide the items equally into the freezer bags, etc. It takes 1-2 hrs when there are about 6 of us there. We each walk away with 6 or more entrees (and sometimes sides and desserts), for $25-30. My husband is picky so I use the things he doesn't like for lunches, but I feel like it is a great deal and we have a good time hanging out while we do it.

I had a bee keeper tell me that a slice of white onion on a sting does wonders. I did it with DS on a fresh bee sting this summer and it took the swelling, itching, and pain away within 30 minutes. Not sure how it would work after a few days though.

Most people are just curious. I get questions like: -Why did you start? -Do you buy a curriculum? -Do you have someone else teach them certain subjects? -Do you test? -What are the laws? -You aren't planning to HS high school, are you???? My inlaws, who were initially against HS'ing, are my biggest supporters now. They cringe at the thought of the kids being in PS. And I've always been the black sheep of my family so it's just one more of my many idiosyncrasies.

Books for her to read independently.

So far I have: The Minstrel in the Tower The Boxcar Children The Sword in the Tree Encyclopedia Brown mysteries What other books do you suggest?

Things that my 3rd grader does independently or with only a little help from me: -Complete Book of Maps and Geography -Spelling Workout -Logic Safari -Pentime (penmanship practice) -BBC Dance Mat typing (free, online)

I'm climbing aboard the school year train.... We start our school year today. 9-1 We start regular BSA meetings too. 6:30-8 In between: - Lunch: left over pork chops and caesar salad - Walking group - Observe salmon as they transition from salt to fresh water in our bay - Dinner: grilled chicken thighs, rice, and veggies

I don't enjoy cooking, but I am good at it. That said, I rarely spend more than 30 minutes preparing a healthy, weekday meal. I solved the whining issue a few years ago. My husband and SS (who was a teenager at the time) had been watching a lot of Food Network shows and couldn't sit down to a meal without telling me what was wrong, what could be better, etc. When my younger two started turning into amateur food critics as well, I drew the line. I told DH and SS that the next time they complained or made suggestions to add some random spice that I had never heard of, they wouldn't be eating the food I cooked. Well, inevitably it happened and I went for a month without cooking a thing for DH and SS. I cooked for the younger two because they were too young to cook for themselves, but the older food critics were on their own. After about a month of watching us enjoy grilled chicken, pan-fried pork chops, baked cod, and steamed shrimp while they ate cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and deep-fried whatever, both older males asked to be allowed to eat what the family at again. I told them they could return but only with the understanding that any further complaints would result in them being on their own for dinners again. It's been years since I've been told that my chicken was good but it would be better if I added X.

I agree that it is just another phase/stage of life. When my kids were younger, I belonged to a MOMS Club. We got together several times/wk and the young ones played while the moms had coffee and talked. School would roll around and some would become "Empty Nesters" and meet up for shopping, coffee, or the art museum while the kids were at work. As the years went by, my core group went from having kids at home during the to being Empty Nesters, and I was left out because my kids were home. But do you know what the next stage of life was for those moms? They all ended up getting jobs, part-time or full-time, and they weren't able to catch a Matthew McConaughey movie at 11 a.m. on a weekday either. So eventually we ended up leaving MOMS Club and planning evening and weekend get-togethers that fit our evolving schedules. We don't get together as frequently as we did when we were all simply SAHM, but we do make a point of seeing each other when we can.