Yup. :) It's an awesome workout system! -Jenamarie (who's on day 40-something and Level 3 still totally kicks my butt, but I'm getting better!)

It could be the more expensive one is a newer edition. They may show the same picture for both, but the cover will look different when you get it. Check the copywrite dates on the listings.

There are bushes in Africa that need trimming. :D

What in the world?!?! What made them think they had any right to do that?? And especially *that much*!!! I'd be checking to see if they're on any registries or something, if they maybe just wanted a clearer view of your kids!

I heard anywhere between ages 5 and 13 it can start being retractable. Unless it's causing problems for your son, I honestly wouldn't worry about it.

Yup! Infact just tonight DH had to stay late at work unexpectedly, so I threw out the idea of spiced black beans with cornbread and served up Life cereal instead (we'll have the cornbread tomorrow night) When DH goes out on business trips I find that, if I want to do any meaningful cooking, that it's best to do it before the time DH would typically come home when I'm not totally fried from dealing with the kids and dreading the prospect of dealing with bed time solo. So when he's away we have really fancy lunches, then have either leftovers or typical lunch fare (like PBJ's or toasted cheese sandwhiches) for dinner.

Anne McCaffery, mainly to force her to take back over writting the Pern books, instead of leaving it to her son. (I don't like his imagining of Pern at. all.)

Most chick flicks. One in particular though: Serendipity! Guy meets girl in the city and they have an awesome, spur of the moment date. At the end of the date she gives him her phone #, which a passing gust of wind causes to be blown from his hand. Instead of kindly giving him her number again, she says "Nothing is an accident" (or some other type of tripe) and writes her # on the inside cover of a book that she says she'll donate to a book store, and if he finds it then they're "Meant to be!" :rolleyes: Of course 10 years pass and they're both happily engaged to other people, when suddenly the poor guy finds the book, finds the girl, and they both ditch their fiancees whom they've supposedly been with for a few YEARS to be with someone they spent a few HOURS with 10 years ago! Dumb dumb dumb dumb!

Shorter elections is one of the reasons moving to Canada (of which my DH is a citizen) looks so attractive. :lol: It's also another reason why I'm so glad we don't watch TV any more. It seems like there's *always* a campaign commercial for *something* coming on.

I ordered some curriculum from MathUSee.com on Tuesday afternoon, and it just arrived an hour ago! Wow!

What kind of internet connection do you have for doing this? (Broadband? WiFi? what???)

Will you have a car? Go into Downtown and visit Temple Square first off (They do tours of the Tabernacle and Visitors' Center), then cross the street and go up the road a little ways to the Gateway, which is an awesome mall that has a Children's Museum attached to it. Towards the Eastern edge of the city is This Is The Place National Monument which has replicas of homes of some of the original settlers to the Salt Lake Valley, and across the street from that is the Hogel Zoo. About 30 minutes south down the I-15 is Thanksgiving Point which is a *huge* botanical garden (even a children's garden), as well as a dinosaur museum (which my 3 year old loooooooved last time we were there) and a little store that sells country crafts and kitchen gadgets and goodies and such. You shouldn't have any trouble filling up your time. :D

Wow! :001_huh: What good did they believe that would do??

Oh I haaaaaaaaated group projects in school! Mainly because I was either the one saddled with the majority of the work, or the one "left out" because the other members of my group were a "clique" and only worked with eachother and not with me, so I had to scrape up whatever "leftover" work I could find so that I could get my part of the grade. Also, the "everyone's a winner!" mantra. I remember in grade school we used to have "Field Day" which was the *best* day of the year! There was high jump (complete with a huge inflatable mat to land on!), sprinting, relay races, etc. and you actually got first, second, and third place ribbons! But my last year at that school they phased out the ribbons, and now you just got "participation" ribbons that had your stats for that event written on the back (how high you jumped, how fast you ran, etc.). Sucked the fun right out of it.

Okay, what is "open classrooms"??

As a member of the LDS (Mormon) faith, I deffinatley hear you on this. We've had our own bit of scandal in the news (but deserved and undeserved) and what seems so strange and "brainwashed" and "not-thinking-for-themselves-ish" to outsiders, is just a part of our walk of faith. We DO think for ourselves, and our thinking has lead us to following this path, and this is what following the path entails. The same could be said for Catholics and their devotion to their faith and to the Pope in the midst of such disgusting accusations (both true and false). My heart really goes out to all the innocent Catholics in the world who are having to bare the stigma of these sick Priests and the individual leaders in the church who failed at dealing with it. And of course my heart also goes out to the victims of these sick Priests. Abuse is a horrible thing, no matter who is doing the abuse.

Our "proposal" was more of a mutual agreement. :lol: We met online and chatted for a few weeks before meeting up in person (we attended the same college) after I'd asked him to ask ME to an upcoming school dance. (I was desperate for a date! :lol: ) So our first date was two days after we met, and DH thought it went great, but he gave me a single red rose when he came to my door, which kind of creeped me out for some reason, and it "tainted" the rest of the date for me (I didn't have much dating experience at the time, and a red rose seemed a little too romantic for a first date). It really wasn't a bad date though! We had a nice dinner, went to a really fun dance, and then back to my place to watch a copy of The Princess Bride that he'd checked out from the library because he knew it was my favorite movie. The next day he asked me out again, but I said I "wasn't ready" to start dating seriously, and was more just dating for fun. He was super bummed, but asked me again to at least go to a church fireside the next night (Sunday). I agreed. And then I stood him up. :tongue_smilie:But he ended up missing the fireside as well for other reasons, and we both believe it was the Hand of God in our relationship, because if either of us had shown up to that fireside when the other one didn't that probably would have been the end of the road! Out of guilt I IM'd him as soon as the fireside was over and asked if we could meet up on campus again that Monday. He agreed, we met up, and a good chat, and that's when we started dating. The next day we said "I love you" for the first time. The day after that (a week from our first date) we're sitting out on the lawn at school and I ask him what he's thinking about. I suddenly find myself thinking "I hope he's thinking about marrying me" and that's exactly what he says! We're both very religious, so we Fasted and prayed the next day, got confirmation that it was the right thing, then for our second date, just one week from our first date, we went and bought engagement rings. :D We were engaged for 6 months and will be celebrating our 8th anniversary this May. :)

I think just general ignorance of what it all entails. I know *I* used to say I could "never" homeschool, until I actually started looking into it. And let me tell you it was a real paradigm shift for me! When the only form of "education" you've ever known is the kind that takes place in a classroom, it's hard to imagine what any other form of education could possibly look like! You know exactly how public school goes about getting a student from point A to point B on their educational journey and what the end product (ideally) is. Homeschooling is still so "new" to our society, that knowing how it works and what it intails isn't something that most people have ever thought of or considered. They just have "talking points" (like socialization) that everybody says and nobody understands.

:lol:

"No success in the world can compensate for failure in the home" "Time is going to pass whether I do anything or not" (I use this to motivate myself when facing big choices that aren't likely to bring about immediate results - results will come with time, and I have to keep moving) " 'Shoulda, woulda, coulda' doesn't get you very far." (i.e. don't rehash the past or bemoan past mistakes, move forward!)

THIS is why I exercise every morning. It helps me get into "healthy mode" for the rest of my day. Also, I personally think I can tell the difference between someone who lost weight through diet alone, and someone who lost weight using exercise (either combined with diet or not). The diet-alone people tend to look a little "softer" than the ones who exercise, IMO. Also, there are a lot more benefits to exercise than just weightloss. Heart health, bone health, etc. are all improved through regular exercise. :)

Not a movie, but if you kids enjoy physical humor they might like watching the old Mr. Bean episodes. Not sure if your library carries them, but Netflix does. Both Tinkerbell movies are really cute too.

My DH was a missionary in the Philipines several years ago, and you ALWAYS wash rice there. It's left in the road to dry, so all sorts of stuff gets "mixed in" with it. Blech.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

A friend of mine puts it this way: "We've gotten too far from the farm." Not meeting responsibilities doesn't have immediate or dire consequences much of the time any more. You don't have to take extra good care of your clothing because you only have 2-3 pairs and if it rips or gets ruined you have to repair it by hand or make a replacement by hand. You don't have to pull weeds every day and feed animals every day at 4 in the morning because otherwise you won't eat. Too many things come easy. My oldest is only 5, but finding ways to teach her responsibility is deffinately something that I worry about. So far it's just simple chores (putting her dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes in the hamper, and toys in the toy box) but I'm hoping to someday put in a garden (probably not until after we move in the next year or two) to also teach my kids responsibility and the joy of a job well done.