If your policy is through an employer, you can call the benefits rep at work and let them get involved

Thank you!

I grew up in a home where we never hosted anything and you better call a week in advance before you show up. My parents both come from very urban environments and introverted or shame-based (alcoholic) homes. I married into a huge extended extovert family from farming and small town backgrounds. It is like night and day. Good thing I'm an extrovert. We host big family events and so does my mother in law who thrives on the chaos of these big gatherings. They have hosted a neighborhood 4th of July breakfast for 45 years where 200 or more folks show up and she might not even know all of them. We have get togethers for our neighbors but I have discovered a drawback. While I love getting to know them on a more personal level and have a real sense of community, now we know more than we want about their problems. Our neighbors directly across the street have some dire problems that are of their own making and dh and I said to each other this morning how now when we look across the street we wish we didn't know the details. I felt fine getting to know them enough to be able to pray for some obvious problems but it's now disappointing to know the whole picture. We included other neighbors in our open invitations and it eventually got really good sad because it was two older women and the one who owned the house died this summer from cancer and after the funeral the kids told her partner of 30 years that she needed to move out essentially making her homeless. We worked on options for a 67 year old woman with no assets and until she works her way through the waiting list for our senior apartments, she is staying with another friend. So the hospitality we have extended has turned a little deeper and messier than we expected but we figure the good Lord put us on the earth to extend ourselves and show His love to the broken-hearted around us. I try to keep that in mind when we open our doors.

I just got off the phone with my friend who said she has talked to the attorney she used to work for and was told he isn't incompetent enough to be admitted for mental health issues. She is going to call his pain doctor who he is scheduled to see tomorrow. He is on all kinds of pain/anxiety/antidepressants which she knows are messing him up. He husband talked her into applying for a loan last week so that he could pay back the credit card cash advance and loan from get this - his brother's friend - but she is going to call them to stop the process. She revoked his access to her credit union account today. He has gone to other neighbors for money. They are in a worse position than I realized. She understands they will never see the $3,000 he has already wired overseas. Her goal now is to stop the bleeding. This is one of those situations where I am grateful for the decisions made in our family, but I yearn to solve all of her problems too. I told her I am here for her if she needs to talk. I understand the dynamics of how she will want to defend his intellect and reasoning because this is her husband and she recognizes too that this is the same as alcohol/drug/gambling addiction. I am worried that she will crumble under the pressure of he will flip out if he's cut off from money. She did say it might have reached the point where she needs him to move out. Your thoughts and prayers are so much appreciated!!!

My friend and her husband are barely staying afloat financially. His took early retirement for fibromyalgia and sits at home all day in pain. They have a very disabled 23 year old dd who needs diabetic monitoring about 6 times a day. My friend lost her job as a clerk in a law firm because they closed in December so she is now trying to make enough at Target to live on. She keeps her chin up and doesn't complain. Her husband came to us and asked for a couple thousand dollars to borrow for 6 weeks. We just don't have it right now. I asked if it was life and death for one of them and we would look into a loan but he said no, just life and death for someone else but it's okay, he thought he would check with us. He did mention someone has cancer, though. Curious. Today my friend asked if he mentioned what the money was for and I said not clearly. She said he is convinced he owns gold in Africa and if he wires $6,000.00 he will get the gold. He has already wired up to $3,000 of his credit card cash advance money and some from a bank account, but they need another $3,000 by tomorrow or he loses his claim on the gold. Eeeeeeeeee. She said she left a message at their marriage counselor's office with some of the details and HIS counselor called her husband to say she had called and told him why. What a mess. They won't get this money back and seem like they are close to bankruptcy now. What can she do?

What did you use after Lost Tools of Writing 2 or what should we consider?

It's funny you ask because ds 15 and I were just talking about this last night as we went through his Saxon books to sell. We tried Saxon 1 and 3 a couple times when he was little and it was so boring for both of us. Ds and I both agree starting at 5/4 book is good.

Many, many prayers and hugs.

I think I said something back to her like "You mean in two weeks you don't get to throw up your hands and say this curriculum isn't working and toss it into the pile?" She didn't get that homeschool humor.

I asked her this week which textbooks her son has this year for 9th grade at the local Christian school. I remind her that I'm always curious (being a homeschool mom, right?) She said she hadn't seen any yet. Unsatisfied with that, I said "Really? Not even one?" to which she replied, "I pay $7,000 a year not to know what books he uses." I love my friend because she is so honest. And he gets straight A's anyway, apparently with no help at home lol.

Ages for the game probably 12+ There are up to three users allowed on the app.

Ds 15 downloaded an app on his iPad called Human Resource Machine and I am fascinated. It is a great logic game and takes some real analysis as you progress through the levels. https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine If you are familiar with this app, are there similar games that you could recommend? (Can someone tell me how to properly link the web address above?)

Wes Callahan's name pops up on these boards with good reviews and you can test out Old Western Culture for a month of streaming for $1 through Compass Classroom. The offer includes access to Dwayne Thomas' Visual Latin classes, Dave Raymond's History and an economics class, etc. This offer is good through this Weds., the 27th. I have purchased DVD's through Compass and this is a good deal to see if you like the programs.

I see some titles I had never considered using in the second half of N&N and am curious if anyone has actually worked through his outline of what he thinks would be a solid program.

That was very helpful, regentrude.

When I think of my just-turned 15 year old ds in a CC class with 19 year olds, I know he would shut down socially. He is very reserved in the tiny co-op classes he takes. How do your kids do socially at CC? I looked at our CC's policy online regarding high school kids taking classes, and they limit them to 11th graders. Is this really not the case in most places?

I cried when I stopped b*****feeding but it all got better after that. Those of us with boys get the extra shock of their changing voices.

I cried when I stopped b*****feeding but it all got better after that. Those of us with boys get the extra shock of their changing voices.

For future use you could check into Novare science which works from a Christian worldview. Some online educators are using their texts. Also, our science-loving son is enthralled with the classes he streams from the Great Courses Plus.

Ds15 and I need to choose from these options for this fall: 1) Jacobs Geometry taught at co-op. Students are expected to use the enhanced teacher's guide to grade their homework before class. I've seen posts praising classes where the teacher grades proofs. Is that critical with this text? along with General Chemistry also taught at co-op using a traditional text like Glencoe. Lab included. 2) Novare Chemistry for Accelerated Students at home with labs. Wilson Hill and The Potter's School use that text in their online pre-AP classes. It requires concurrent Algebra II which ds could take at co-op using Prentice-Hall text. He would take Geometry in 11th grade. Background: Ds took Biology in co-op this year for 9th grade using a Glencoe text, and looking back, an honors/AP Bio would have been better for him. This summer he has been reading through Campbell Biology and Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry for fun and wants to finish them before Sept. He is half way through a Great Courses Organic Chemistry series. He did well in Algebra I.

I understand the sense of loss. Ds is going into 10th grade and I am preparing myself by reminding myself this is a season in my life. Not my whole life, just a beautiful part that I am honored to share with ds. I absolutely love homeschooling and have a developed a big sense of identity around it. I will have to re-define myself when ds moves on.

An elevated homocysteine blood result was what prompted my doc to order an MTHFR test. I have two copies of 677. I lowered my homocysteine significantly by taking Thorne MethylGuard Plus. Then my levels started creeping back up and my Lyme doc suggested I switch to Pure Encapsulations Folate 1,000 and MethyAssist. Both companies are well regarded but he uses the blood results to determine if the brand is actually working for me. I get blood work done every three months. I haven't gotten my recent results yet to see if PE brand is working better.

Our ds14 regularly plays an RPG (role playing game) called Pathfinder with a group including his best friend and his dad along with a couple of their adult friends. These games go on for hours and they are really into it. In our local homeschool community, I don't hear of other kids playing RPG's. Is this something you or your kids are into?

We signed up for GCPlus after reading about their reduced subscription fee on these boards. Thank you fellow boardies!! Ds 14 immediately started the Foundations of Organic Chemistry course just for fun and is about halfway through the 36 lectures. He teaches many of the concepts back to us just because he is excited to share it so I know he is retaining the info. I don't remember any of this stuff from my high school Biochemistry class. I feel ancient sometimes. :mellow: I'm thrilled that he is into knowledge for the sake of knowing....but I have this pesky curiosity about how to turn this into something on a transcript, or not. I think he plans on watching the Chemistry, 2nd Edition class this summer to prepare for next year's Chemistry class at co-op. Based on our co-op Biology experience this year, I'm thinking he will be over-prepared for their Chem. One of you smart moms suggested I give him a Campbell Bio text to go deeper than the Glencoe book they used in co-op this year, and ds immediately marked each section that was new or deeper and is now reading through those just because he wants to know it. He might want to supplement Chemistry next year so we'll see. Should I just think of the GC Organic Chem as a fun supplement, or beef it up with related text, tie it in with the extra Campbell reading he's doing and add measurements like quizzes, etc to be more official? What would I call it? Biochemistry? Am I getting way ahead of myself? He is already really stoked to see the connections this week in bio and chem with oxidation and wants to see more inter-connections. High school planning is fun, but also mysterious to me. With ds an only child, he's my guinea pig and I don't have the benefit of a learning curve. KWIM?

Maybe I'm tired tonight....but this seems to evolve into a discussion about the right to privacy in our homes, the rights of the kids and the rights of the parents. Does one family have the right to call the government to intervene in the private decisions of another family? I have a lot of thoughts spinning around in my head over this. If I make a decision not to vaccinate my kids, does a pro-vac friend have a right to call the authorities if she thinks I'm jeopardizing the health of my dc?