We live in a place with 5(?) military bases. Here's my conversations meeting my neighbors for the first time..."Hi, we don't make close friends because we're military"..."Hi, I'm so and so and we're air force so we'll only be here three years." It's like they're upfront saying, "Don't get to know me or be a close friend because I'm just moving away soon anyway." So, when I meet a family with kids who are my kid's ages, I tend to ask what their job is. I don't want to do it, but I am tending to dismiss the military families because I know their time is short. Very frustrating! We moved 1000 miles away after living in the same house for 11 years with neighbors who mostly stuck around. I miss that. I had my tribe and I really need another one. It is not easy making friends and we are trying very hard!

We will never buy CFL bulbs only based upon how the EPA says you should clean them up if they break. The combination of opening windows to air out your room along with shutting off central air for several hours just doesn't work in the winter. http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl#instructions

I know!!! My 15 year old has injured his foot mildly - just needs some insoles - but it has kept him doing crazy stunts. He keeps getting mild injuries mostly impact related. He gets crabby when he can't be active. I feel like it's just God's way of keeping him alive. I keep telling him - your brain - especially the consequence part -is not developed! Listen to your mother! Yup! That works... :glare:

My 15 year old does this as a sport. If he didn't have access to youtube Parkour video (I know - I could forbid this, but he's 15 and it's an interest), it would be a much safer sport. He likes doing complicated flips. I think it's for the WOW factor for him. He's only broken his hand once on what he called an easy beginner vault. The orthopedist mentioned that he was familiar with Parkour. Yup! I bet he is! But, like anything active boys will do, there's bound to be some risk.

I learned about menstruation through a Judy Blume book and the basic mechanics of sex through a really bad private school teacher in 8th grade. In 7th grade, I honestly thought I was pregnant for a while because I like a boy and thought he liked me also. I had no idea how babies were made. My dad's sex talk went something like this, "Boys are after one thing- sex." I had to learn from my mother-in-law about how to avoid a UTI after the honeymoon when I contracted a UTI. Obviously, at that point, she figured out dh and I were pure as the driven snow until that point. Yes, that was a little traumatic. My mom said nothing about that whole aspect. Now, with my kids, we start sex education when they're 5/6 with the basics and at 12 (at least with the boys so far), we lay everything out. My daughter at 8 already knows all the mechanics only because she was asking detailed questions. If you have the mind to ask the questions, you have the mind to hear the answers.

My ds has only begun reading books in more volume because of his kindle. He doesn't like the weight of books and often the ones from the library are "dirty" (pages a little ripped, worn pages/covers). Now, he's reading because he wants to instead of me requiring it.

I was this kid. I'm still this person. At church, I know a lot of people, but it's hard for me to just go up and talk to someone - especially if they're in a group.. I usually just sit by myself until someone comes up to me. I would usually play with one person at recess and not get involved in the big screaming group. I remember a few times that my "only" friend couldn't go to recess because of a punishment and I stayed in at recess also because I didn't want to be all by myself. I also internalized every hurt feeling. It took until I was in college to be OK with being an introvert. I'm friendly now and enjoy being around people in smaller groups. If it's a large group thing, I will most likely find the person sitting alone and talk to her. I HATE going to big events where I know there's going to be a crowd of people. My dh and I went to the Minnesota State fair one year and there were walls of people. I didn't have a good time. It stressed me out. Now, I have a ds who is very much like the child I was, but the difference is that he is totally fine with it. There is no one telling him that he has to be someone else or go play with the group of screaming kids. He goes to a one day a week charter school. I spied on him one day at recess and he was wandering around by himself. I asked him if he wanted to play with the other kids and didn't know how to. "Nope!" He's totally fine doing his own thing and not feeling like he has to play with the group. He has buddies at this school and is very content with how he is. His latest dream job is to build a factory in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and have a bunch of robots to do the work. His dream does not include any other actual people in his factory. Now, with my introverted ds, I have and will force him into social situations, but what usually happens is that he has his fun, interacts with everyone and then, when the time comes for free time, he just goes and does his own thing by himself. It's like he's almost saying, "I did that, now onto what I really want to do - be by myself". So, I give him opportunities to be social, because he has to learn that skill, but I let him be who he is as long as he's not rude to others in his desire to do his own thing.

My youngest two are fairly cheap since I'm reusing stuff and we now belong to a charter school that buys everything non-religious. My high schooler is more expensive because he has online classes. Even with the online classes, I don't spend more than $2000 on him. I don't even know where I would spend up to $8000. Even with my 3rd son taking guitar lessons, I'm still not even close to that number!

I'm looking for something that does review concepts continually, but has a lot of practice on the concept taught in the lesson. Spiral and mastery. I have a daughter that needs to master something before moving onto something different. 3rd/4th grade.

Yes -this. Think about a dual master - one on the ground floor, one upstairs (if you do have an upstairs). This way, you can grow old with your home if you have an issue where you can't climb stairs as easily. If you make the shower a walk in without a lip (there are a lot of houses that I've seen doing this and it looks very nice) and a wider entrance, if you sell, you can market it at universal design which makes it an easy sell for a family who has someone in a wheelchair or just needs a little help getting around.

This is for Saxon users only - I'm not changing from Saxon due to a variety of reasons that I've thought long and hard about. Now that we cleared that up, my daughter is in Saxon 3. There are just some things she is not getting. We're still working on remembering addition/ subtraction facts and we don't do the number sequencing (ex. 120, 130, 140 or 325, 350, 375, 400) because anything past 200 messes her up. She keeps forgetting how to do things like add 10. Basically, some days she's good where she's remembering everything and knows stuff really well, some not so good. Today, it seemed like she had forgotten everything I taught her the whole year so far. I wanted to cry. I'm wondering if I should just repeat 3rd grade with her and try Intermediate 3 or just do 4/5 at half speed (one day do the odds, next day the evens). I don't believe there are learning disabilities - it's most likely just maturity and some ADHD issues we are addressing. I'm not at all concerned about being "behind". I'm all about learning the level she's at and only progressing when she's ready. So - Intermediate 3 or Saxon 54 half speed?

My 15 year old son has recently started receiving mail that assumes he's a retired man. AARP for one and today an ad for health insurance for the over 45 crowd. Where can I check his credit score online safely?

Yes to Sotw if your kids are younger. Here is my experience. I bought TOG (all 4 years) because I loved that it was multi-level and that I could use it through high school. When my ds hit 6th grade dialectic, he was one of those kids who would not have this in depth discussion with me. He really needed outside discussion with the material. We really needed a co-op with like minded homeschoolers. So, what we did was put him in the online TOG discussion groups. He had one great teacher and one so-so teacher. Now, he is in part time online school and we no longer use TOG. I have found that it really needs more than mom and child for a discussion in those upper levels. Especially if your child is a boy. Maybe if I had a girl at that level right now it would be different, but from my experience and every other homeschooler with teen boys, it can be difficult. I had a die-hard TOG friend who now has boys entering high school and is looking for something different that doesn't require so much of her time (she has boys also). Another aspect that I did like about TOG in theory was that I could study the upper level stuff so that I would have a good handle on it when my kids where that level. That didn't happen either. It's hard to spend time in study when you have a full home of elementary homeschoolers and just life. Life got in the way and while I had good intentions it never worked.

Wow...that's deep and slightly disturbing that someone would think so despairingly of February. Can't say that I'm at that point!

Shiny...shiny....shiny...

I used to take February and plan for the upcoming school year. Shiny! New! Now, my youngest is 8 and I've done her grade twice. I have curriculum that works and I like it enough that I don't want to change. My biggest planning session has been trying to figure out what my upcoming 10th grader will be doing and trying to get him to finish driver's ed so he can get his permit so he can have a picture id so he can take a test for the community college so we can figure out if he's ready for college classes next year. How fun is that?!?! Who can really get excited about an Advanced Composition class? Ooohhh! Look! A giant Calculus textbook! So not fun and new and shiny! I have thought how nice a 4 week on, 1 week off schedule would be, but we have always lived in a more northern climate, so summer is the only time we can spend having extended time outside. Summer becomes a much needed break for all of us. So, I plug away. This is what I've chosen. I have noticed as I am "not planning" how much new fun stuff there is for the younger grades. But again, I like what we have and notice that every time I make a change to the essentials, I never like them as much. Maybe this is my new February rut...No planning for next year because it's mostly done (rinse, repeat) and just get a little snarky and say "shiny" a lot.

I've decided that I "deserve" an additional cup of coffee in the early afternoon. Up from my one large cup in the morning. This may become an issue at some point if I keep upping that total each year. I have 10 years left of homeschooling. By the end of it all, I will be drinking only coffee as my liquid. May as well be intravenous. So, how do you all cope?

Ooohhhh....It is socratic discussion and does the woman who does it know what she is doing?

Yes, but bookstudy.com has a writing component and I want to keep them separated for now.

I'm looking for an online literature discussion group. I really rather not have writing involved - I really want my son to learn to like literature more, but need outside accountability. I've looked into the Center for Literature online courses and they seem really expensive for what you get. If I'm reading it correctly, it's $200 for 6 - 2 hour discussion classes?!?!? That seems really steep. Right now, I am paying less than $500 for Potter's school classes that last 1 1/2 hours per week for the whole YEAR with teacher's actually grading my student's work. I just want him to learn to love literature but know that if I hand him a bunch of books to read, it may not get done. I don't want to constantly keep him accountable to read. An online Driver's Ed with no outside accountability to actually finish has about done me in and made me realize how much I don't want to nag encourage him to finish things he's supposed to do. Beth

I totally understand why homeschoolers jump ship around high school! I have a 15 year old ds and an 11 year ds who is starting to show signs of "volcanic rumbling". When my 15 year old was 12, I started putting him into online classes. It was SOOO MUCH BETTER. He tends to do much better work for someone else. Next year, the plan is to have him almost completely online or doing college classes. He is a self directed learner and prefers it that way. He's learned I'm not much help with answers to his questions and has learned to figure it out on his own. I keep thinking my 11 year old ds will be a better teen learner, but I'm not holding my breath and am looking into an online class for him also. With boys especially, there's this tension of wanting to be "the man" but having to still listen to mom. Getting the learning away from mom really helps with the being "the man" issues.

I see learning how to study as a skill my ds needed to learn and Biology is a means to learn a skill. He is thinking about a possible medical field for a career and will eventually need to learn how to memorize great quantities of material. Even if he isn't going to a medical field, learning how to study and memorize terms is a skill I want him to have.

Let's just say that I'm 45 and needing a little more progesterone for various woman reasons. I've been told that Wild Yam is a good idea. Any brands? Suggestions?

I don't foster disabled adults, but I do have a son who is significantly disabled (he's almost 17, so he's very adult like in size). So, I don't know anything about foster care, but if you want to know about some issues you may face with disabled adults, I could help possibly. Message me if interested.

The 15 year old is taking online classes and is pretty much independent. We're working on getting him into all/ most online classes next year. He's not the one I'm thinking about thankfully. I wish there was a classical Christian school around here we could afford that he could go to, but online classes are the next best thing for him. So, this is for the 11 and 8 year old. I've got subjects that I'm used to teaching and work - I just want to streamline a bit.