:grouphug: Your kids are still little and just doing what you can do is fine! I don't even think you can or should be rigorous at that age.

"Not much, but you should see my chocolate and cupcake budgets!"

I just used this for shredding lamb for tacos a couple of weeks ago. What a time saver, and I learned about it on the boards!

Yesterday we went to the library and I browsed their shelves of books for sale. Usually I find 1-2 books, but yesterday I picked up 8. Later, while I had some time to kill waiting for kids, I popped into the Salvation Army store, which usually has 0-1 books I'm interested in, and I picked up another 10, although some of those were for DH and his upcoming travel. One of the books was Michener's Alaska, which I guess I can use as a follow-up to Hawaii. There I also found a copy of the Louisa May Alcott Cookbook, which has some many great "Americana" recipes in DD8 is excited to dive in. The library's used book sale is next week, so I'm glad I cleared some space last month for the new incoming items. DH will be out of town, so my lack of carrying capacity might be more limited this year. I need to look into one of those wheeled carts....

I'm forgetting people too. Ester Maria really changed a lot of the ways I think about what it means to be educated, and I still miss her.

Another person chiming in for "the best curriculum is the one that gets done" suggestion. This allowed me to ditch things I loved but which were not working as well as I wanted for my kids. (MCT I'm looking at you.) "Homeschooling is a job." This allowed me to really see how much work and responsibility it is and make sure we keep moving forward. And that it's okay to be tired at the end of the day and make an easy dinner. And basically all other Jane in NC, Nan, and Tibbie suggestions.

:grouphug: It seems you should be able to leave the 10 yo and the 8 yo alone while you take the 6 yo to school, unless the school is really far away or has an really long drop-off line.

I'm sorry. I agree it's the right thing to do but it's disappointing. I wouldn't worry too much about how the aunt is as long as everyone knows she's that way. ETA: Ugh about the crown!

I like Adalia best when you explained it, but before I read your explanation, I read it as Ah-day'-lee-ah or maybe Ah-dah-lee'-ah. I think it could cause confusion. I voted for Sophia. One of my children has a hard-to-pronounce name which has meaning for our family, and I somewhat regret not going with something less meaningful but easier for others.

Yes, the mission! I built San Juan Capistrano, and we took a field trip there as well. If you're still in CA, have you seen the kits and materials you can buy now? Back in my day...<insert grumbling old lady>

I'm in complete agreement with you. I loved the characters, loved the setting, and didn't like the ending. I could have read an entire book just about their summer, without the horror. I'm also interested in discussing but am holding off just in case.

I'm still here and thinking of you and your family. :grouphug:

I like a lot of house styles and often see the advantages and beauty of each. If I have to choose one, I'll pick Bag End. :001_wub:

Come on Stacia, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel! :lol:

I like The Stand too. A few years ago I bought the expanded 1991 copy, with an extra 400 pages. (The original I think is 1978.) In the intro King writes about how the accountants decided the length of the initial book, rather than the editors, so he added it all back in. I guess that's the prerogative of a writer who is more successful!

Thanks Robin for the new thread, and good thoughts to those affected by weather. I finished The Elementals this week and am trying to get back into Michener's Hawaii. Most of my reading time has been spent perusing the 224pp CA voter guide. :svengo: I am honestly going to count this as one of my books for the year. Maybe two, since the back is all edited legislation. I don't remember my first Steven King book for certain, but I think it may have been Pet Sematary. That's the first one I remember, anyway. I have distinct memory or sitting on my bed at 4:00am and being glad my back was to the wall. I was quite young, maybe 10 or 11? My parents are immigrants to this country and pay almost no attention to popular reading, so I doubt they even knew who Stephen King was. I would go to the library every day after school until my parents could pick me up, so I had the run of the place and checked out all sorts of books I was probably too young for: Stephen King, Fleming's 007 books, Thorn Birds, Gorky Park, The Silence of the Lambs, etc. My parents didn't really have the cultural context to understand what these books were about, and coming from a very religious country where books like this are essentially banned before the Internet, I'm not sure they had any concern about the content of what I was reading. In the end I think it was good for me, so I didn't stop DS12 when he picked up From Russia With Love last week. A couple of days ago I asked him how it was going, and he said it wasn't what he had expected and wouldn't be finishing it. As someone who read all those books at about that age, I was a tad disappointed. :cool:

I feel so weird "liking" these posts about damage and flooding. I'm just happy to hear people checking in at all, I think. :grouphug:

I saw the film in the theatre when it came out (1993) and it was excellent, especially Lily Tomlin's role, IMHO. The ending was bizarre, and I wonder how it was represented in the short stories. Perhaps I should read the book.

The web site blurb mostly makes sense to me, although I do think it can be less stringent and people can unschool certain subjects. (I know unschoolers generally won't agree with me, and I can live with that.) The sentence in the blurb which rustled my feathers, though, was that an uninterested child is not a learning child. Really? Does anyone really believe that people don't learn things unless they're interested in them? :confused1:

After spending some time doggedly insisting on spelling, I realized I could ditch it for my DS12, who reads and spells naturally. For DD8, it's not clear yet if we'll need it or not. I do think it's not needed for everyone.

It's not that they're being compared to apartment buildings, it's that it reduces the fire danger to a neighborhood when you reduce the distance between housing units. (Also seismic issues, but that's another ball of wax.) There is still a certain clearance around an apartment building to assist firefighters and to protect surrounding buildings. The fire departments staffing, homeowners' insurance, etc takes that into account. I'm not against garage apartments. The reason I know about the situation is I inquired myself because I was interested in doing it. Oakland has eased the rules, I've heard, but I also heard they are requiring certain fireproofing measures. Perhaps that will expand. It can be done, but it's not without public cost or adjustment, which is passed on to the renters. Unfortunately that mitigates some of the affordability increased housing units should create, but at least not all of it.

Some of that has to do with fire safety in high-density areas in which a lot of houses have detached garages. It's difficult to get approval for a garage apartment in my city (SF Bay area) because the garages at the back of the (small) properties are close to the houses behind us. The city counts on having that distance between things like kitchen, heaters, candles, etc.

If this thing doesn't turn sharply enough I think we may have landfall somewhere between Savannah and Charleston.

This takes longer so I'm making a weekend breakfast suggestion, I guess: http://www.ditchthecarbs.com/2015/03/18/lchf-spinach-and-feta-pie/

​ I'm not saying they're all like this, but I really was impressed with the way the kids worked together.