Please, allow me to give you a brief synopsis of my midlife crisis and its eventual resolution.... :rofl: When I was younger I used to see all the benefits of doing so many things. Yoga is so beneficial! Birdwatching is a wonderful hobby! Taking long baths is a great way to relax! Spending time designing electronics projects is so satisfying! Rock climbing is fantastic exercise! And so on and so on. You get the picture. There were so many wonderful things in the world and it would be beneficial/prudent/sensible of me to do them. All of this being true, I could never do most of this stuff. That was the crisis. My word moved from "so much time to do all this cool stuff" to "so much cool stuff I'll never do/so many places I'll never see" and it was saddening. Eventually I realized I don't have to do the most beneficial/sensible thing every.single. time. There are tons of beneficial things I'll never do, so why worry about every little thing when each thing I'm trying to do in an ideal fashion is a plankton in an ocean of non-ideal situations? I know this sounds negative but it was actually freeing. The library is an idealized model. You pay taxes, the books are free for the borrowing, you can get what you want through ILL, it's all so beneficial, etc so you feel you should take advantage of it. But you should just let it go for now. Give yourself permission to do the non-ideal thing. Come back when you want to return because it's fun or exciting. Don't come back because you think you have to do a certain thing and take advantage of an offered benefit, especially if it's triggering PTSD. :svengo: <-- Me being dramatic

:party: DS is sick and this will be perfect. We don't have a TV so he was lamenting that he couldn't watch Cosmos until it shows up on Hulu tomorrow.

Agree with the need to examine perfectionism. And to add to your reading pile, check Mindset by Dweck.

You're on a roll. Just call Exxon HQ.

"panty" I hate this word.

I'm a brown person who loved Great Expectations when we read it in high school. In fact, I was able to use it extensively in my MCAT essay because it dovetailed so nicely with the prompt. :thumbup: Going through high school In the U.S. we rarely read literature by non-white people and if we did, it was related to black people in the U.S. I don't recall reading anything African, Asian, etc. (Once I reached college that changed right in the first week, when we were assigned Maxine Hong Kingston.) My parents immigrated here and I learned a lot of their culture from them and our community. I can't recall anyone of my friends from that community being offended about what we read. It could be true we were done a disservice because we thought of that literature as being representative of this country, when in fact much of the melting pot was not represented. But we understood the context in which these stories were written and that the world was different then. (Our parents had been born in intact British colonies!) All it took was some explanation from the adults; we weren't idiots. Seeing what an author wrote during their time and place offers a lot of insight into that milieu, a deeper level of understanding than the plot or symbolism. If someone can write casually about slavery or "merry slaves" we learn something about the environment in which they lived. Brown people understand that too and it's patronizing to think otherwise. (I'm not saying anyone here is doing that. But really, we understand times and cultural standards change.) Maybe it's harder for white people to read it to their kids because they associate themselves with the offenders? If I try to imagine myself reading to my children something offensive or oppressive generated by my own people, it's feels yucky to me. I'm used to being on the other side, which is rather more comfortable, at least for me. ;) I'm not ranting, just procrastinating. They can look the same for me. Getting back to the original topic, I picked up A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and DS is really excited. He's going to get to it right after Heinlein's juvenile books from Ruth's list. I haven't had time to do the psyops Ruth uses, so it was more like, "Here. Read this. When you're done, read these." "Uh, okay."

Yes, but did they specify which cheek?

Sometimes the hotel web sites drop a cookie so when you return they know you've been there before and show you the same price instead of a lower one if prices have dropped. Try clearing your cookies or try another computer.

Excuse me, but I was led to believe I would also need a coffee pot, a mug, a grinder, and one thousand kilos of coffee beans. :cool: On a more serious note, once in awhile I see a thread and say to myself, "Self, if you click on this link, you're going to have to up your game. You know that, right?" This is one of those threads. So thank you.

I know an unschooling family whose kids are behind in most academic areas but blow most kids out of the water with other skills. Competitive swimming, house building, sewing, cooking, running a business, martial arts, gardening, etc. I don't know how to feel about them at all. I go back and forth between awe and frustration. :laugh: I think the rubber is going to meet the road soon, though, because one of the kids wants to move to a magnet school and I think they're going to find out the hard way how much other families have prepared. I don't think this kid is going to get in. I would love to be wrong. I can't say yet if they're doing more harm then good. It'll depend on the kids' long-term plans. I do strongly feel they have shut many doors for short-term plans though, at least academic plans. I'm less of a "when one door closes, another opens" kind of person and more of a "leave as many doors open as you can, until you almost catch your fingers in them before they slam shut" kinda gal.

I think you should buy a few books and have them rebound at Kinko's with the "3rd grade" covers on the K level books. (Not the books she already has, something different so she doesn't know well. Hey, desperate times and all that... I'm only somewhat joking. This is sad.

"Thank you for your quick response. Unfortunately I'm still not certain who owns the land. Could you please clarify this for me?"

So 2 and 4 are financially equivalent. Comparing those two I would pick the house. But I wouldn't actually choose either because I'd want to keep getting out of debt. I would be willing to forgo my debt payments for a couple of months in order to build a deposit or something, but not month after month for a long time. Meth house is out. My pick would be the place where you have to go to the park. Newborns are not newborns for very long and once you get to the park w/some food you can spend long times there with the upcoming season.

Way easy to make just Google and save yourself some $$$. It tastes like butter if butter were an oil.

It just drives me to shop online more. Maybe that's the plan?! :huh:

While we're waiting, how do you like Gateway to Arabic? :laugh:

For the first 113 posts, I agree with you. After that there was a filament in this thread (but not all subsequent posts) which were less about whether people (dis)agreed wrt their own situations, and more about whether Sheldon was allowed to have that expectation for her own family. If I post something and ask if others feel the same way, I expect them to say yes or no (and possibly why) if it's not a JAWM post. I don't expect them to tell me why I'm not allowed to feel this way, especially if their assertion is based on my own private financial situation, about which they know nothing. Who gets to tell me I can't afford something? We'll have to agree to disagree. I have seen too much IRL drama this weekend and I'm exhausted. :)

I understand and appreciate that. I just wish some other people in this thread focused more on their own reality rather than Sheldon's. :)

Okay, so a person needs more than a few million to be allowed to make a statement, then? Anyone for higher? Do I hear $10 million? Going once, going twice... ;) It may seem I'm making a specious argument, but it's legitimate to ask who is insulated enough to make a definite statement about their convictions without being harangued. If Bill Gates appeared on WTM and said his children would never go to public school, nobody would question him. Who seriously would tell him everyone has changes in life and circumstances and that he can't possibly predict the future of his marriage, the value of MSFT, illness, death, etc. And if they did, at least they would have access to some information about him such as his net worth, value of his house, the schools his kids go to and how much they cost, etc. It can all be found via Google. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has that info about Sheldon. If people agree that a few million is not enough to hold this view, and Bill Gates is rich enough, at least we have boxed in a range. :)

RIP Common Sense We hardly knew ye....

I had it happen with the "no public school" thread. I thought maybe it was just that thread because it's contentious. I did report spam posts last night. Did you?

Ok, you're exempt. :lol: And I actually agree with you more than I agree with the OP's point of view. But I stand by my assertion that most of the reasoning on this thread has to do with life changes that impact financial abilities, and that if someone explains they've sacrificed to insulate themselves financially, that's considered smug. Or worse, that it translates into literally telling other people they don't care about their children enough. That's what's happened in this thread. Sheldon was told she wasn't considering the things that could go wrong and she then explained she could afford private school regardless. Then she was told she was lucky she could afford it. When she explained her family had sacrificed to make it happen, she was accused of literally telling other people that they didn't care enough about their kids. And my question still stands in general to those (not you) who say Sheldon should "never say never" because unexpected problems happen in life. What should someone's net worth be before they are allowed to confidently state they will never use public school? And if someone's up for it, Sheldon's net worth specifically. US dollars or local currency is fine. :toetap05:

Again... Why are people resentful if someone has enough money to say they would never send their kids to public school, regardless of whether they had to save/scrape) or of they came into it some other way? The "never say never" crowd seems to focus on aspects such as death, job loss, divorce, etc. OP is not saying she would always homeschool, just that if she couldn't homeschool she would use private school. If her family is in a position to afford that financially, so what? I mentioned upthread my very wealthy friend who homeschools. Is he allowed to say he would never use public school? If he could not homeschool he would send his kids to private school. He has multiple billion of dollars, and his children's ability to attend a private school would never be affected by divorce, job loss, or death. I ask again, since nobody answered my question the first time, how much money/insurance does someone have to have before they are "allowed" to hold this opinion of never using public school? If you really want to be specific, please use your intimate knowledge of OP's cost of living, savings, retirement plans, college funds, taxes and incomes. Oh and any assets she or other family members may be in line to inherit. But that might be...smug. So, seriously, how much? That's what it really boils down to, isn't it?

Second the idea of putting him in a quiet space away from noise. I can't believe how much better my son was at getting work done. And I only have one other child who is 5. 2 more would make it very difficult for him to work in the same room.

:party: