Dana, You'll probably get more responses if you start a separate thread. This is quite the hijack!! :D

Ds would like an iPod this year. Well, he's saying iPod because I have that brand. The nano seems like the most fun, but honestly I can't see spending $150 on one item. And to tell you the truth, that would blow his whole Christmas budget. So it doesn't make sense to buy that. The iPod Shuffle is only about $50, but doesn't hold as much music, doesn't have a screen, etc. It just doesn't seem like it would be as fun to use. So now I'm wondering about the other brands of mp3 players on the market. Is there something else that gives you the memory and some of the "fun" of the nano without the price tag? Thanks!

Nope, that's more than one woman's opinion, Jill. Thanks for saying this. I haven't read this whole thread. I just can't. But I wanted to make one point. When you grow up you find out that nothing...absobloominlutely nothing is just what you expected it to be like. And I'm quite sure that Heather's brother has been somewhat of a disappointment in his own right. And Heather, I'm not saying that to pick on him, I just mean that we all disappoint one another. That's what we do. It's the human condition. On the contrary, we often surprise one another with our ability to be great. Jill, this is one of those times that I really miss rep. Your post is definitely deserving of a big old :thumbup:.

Cin, You win. Hands down!!!! :ack2:

I just couldn't resist sharing this. Click here and scroll down for the explanation.

Abbey, Thanks so much for digging this up. It's a Thanksgiving tradition!! :001_smile:

Exactly. We use(d) DR's method to pay off our debt and control our finances. We haven't paid him a dime except the cost of the book, which we wanted to own and not just borrow. Larry Burkett sold plenty of things too. The worker is worthy of his wage. Thanks for saying this, Kris!

Touché!!! (But I didn't really have alllllllllll of it. Mindy and Jenny had a lot more! ;))

I it!!!!

Hey there, Jenny!! I miss you too. Oh, and I totally love your new sig line! ;)

As long as you didn't have a reputation you're okay! ;)

:lol::lol::lol:Same here, Mindy! We'd better get to work, eh? :D

When the skies are brighter canary yellow I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen, So they called me a cockeyed optimist Immature and incurably green. I have heard people rant and rave and bellow That we're done and we might as well be dead, But I'm only a cockeyed optimist And I can't get it into my head. I hear the human race Is fallin' on its face And hasn't very far to go, But ev'ry whippoorwill Is sellin' me a bill, And tellin' me it just ain't so. I could say life is just a bowl of Jello And appear more intelligent and smart, But I'm stuck like a dope With a thing called hope, And I can't get it out of my heart! Not this heart...

You're on Facebook, and you're my on my friends list. Get all silly with me there! I check that a few times a day. As a matter of fact, I sent something silly like that to a couple of people the other day. I'll send it to you right now! :auto:

Hey, I'm here! I haven't been here much lately, that's true, but I do pop my head in from time to time. I think you're right, Colleen, that we're probably just not here at the same time. I've really been trying to control my screen time, and to actually do more homeschooling, fancy that. ;) If I let myself hang out here for more than a few minutes I end up reading threads...long threads...sometimes very long threads...and I get sucked in, and that's not good for me. To be totally honest, it was easy to sort of drift off a month or so ago because I wasn't getting involved in the political conversations and there seemed to be so many, and I just really, really dislike unpleasantness. But that's all done now, and hopefully things will return to normal soon, and I will continue to practice self control with the computer monitor! Thanks so much for mentioning me, Colleen. I miss your wit and perspective too. It really means a lot that you would ask about me (and everyone else, of course. I feel like the Narrator in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and I don't want to come off that way! :tongue_smilie:)

While I understand the desire to resell, I have to say that if I can use one curriculum to teach my four children several subjects, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good deal. If I can use that same curriculum four years later for the same children, I feel like I've gotten a great deal. If you break down the entire amount (and I think I paid $295 for my complete bonus package last year), it really isn't as expensive as it seems. I know that we get sticker shock when we see the big number, but I encourage you to break it down. In my case, if I use it to teach 5 subjects, now I've paid $60/subject. And then when I teach each child a subject, I've paid $15/child/subject. And if I use it twice during their education I've paid $7.50/child/subject/cycle. Okay, fine. If you resell it then it'll be like teaching your kids all those subjects for even less, but how much less will it really cost you? And is that really your bottom line? I don't mean to sound harsh, but I just want to encourage people to think outside the box on this, and maybe think of the DE as a sort of consumable. I understand that this reasoning doesn't apply across the board: some people only have one or two children, some people truly cannot afford to invest this amount of money, etc. But then I guess it's not for you. Truly, and without guile, I am glad that there are so many choices available. Some people vacation in Europe, others go camping. Some people go out for pizza, others to 4-star restaurants. Some buy their clothing at Target, others at Nordstrom's. This is just the way things are. And you just do the best you can with the money that you have, and trust the Lord to make up the difference.

You made several excellent points. I'd like to add that the upgraded pages are actually available free of charge. They can be printed from the website. The formatting may be slightly different, and they won't match your preprinted pages perfectly, but the information is available. If a customer wants the pre-printed pages, there is a cost. And I agree with you that that's to be expected.

Yes, this is what I'm hoping too. It sounds like the major problem is insufficient funding to have things printed during the slow season. I think it would be great if they had enough money to do a printing sometime in mid-summer each year and then people would just understand that if you miss that window, the only thing available is the DE. I'm personally still trying to decide whether I want to pre-order Years 2 and 3 in printed form and then just wait for the Year 4 DE. I'd really love it if I could get the printed copies, but have digital access to the Reading Assignment pages so that I could print out copies directly from the computer. Oh, and Karen--I just saw your location: and you're right. You are too far away from me! :(

Well yes, I guess that's true. I think that maybe people felt justified because of Joy Behar's remarks, but it's true that bashing is bashing. Also true. But sometimes I remind myself that they're still human and they have human feelings. And I wonder how I would feel if I were just reading a message board and suddenly my famous sister's name came up. And people were saying things about her that were unfair or just mean. There's a fine line between criticizing a person's work and tearing them to shreds on a personal level. Oh well.

Maybe. I guess I'm just really, really tired of people insulting other people. And I'm not saying that the people who posted the comments are always going around doing that. I've been talking to my kids about kindness a lot lately and I've become more sensitive to things like that. So it bothers me.

:cheers2: Totally. I don't watch the show. I've never even seen more than maybe five minutes of it, but I don't understand why one of the hosts needs to be characterized as a "bimbo." What does that have to do with Joy Behar's ignorant comment?

I use my Silpats when I make granola because I can sort of pick up the corners and dump it all into the canister. I get impatient with all that scooping otherwise.

I totally agree. I too had hoped to find the DE price to be lower, but I can't say I'm terribly surprised. We're talking about a company that is fighting for its life. I don't imagine that they can afford to make drastic price cuts right now. And when you look at TOG you really understand how much time and work went into it. The people whose blood, sweat, and tears went into that curriculum deserve to be paid for their work. Just as an aside... I agree that you can't exactly compare TOG to something like SL or MFW. I think that it would be better to go through a Veritas catalog and find all of the TMs and comprehension guides, etc. and figure out how much that Classical curriculum costs as compared to TOG. And while I've never used SL, I have a friend who just this year switched from SL to TOG. She has two UG children, one R, and one D. Until now she has always used SL. She says that while it was easier for her to use SL because it was all laid out for you, there is no comparison content-wise. In her opinion, her children are learning significantly more through TOG than they learned with SL, and she doesn't think that SL would've been adequate for high school. Just one person's opinion, and anecdotal, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Lisa, I'm so glad that you said this. Absolutely true. Unless you were teaching a 9th grader who was your only child, there would be no reason to sell TOG after using it one year. I know that it's not for everyone, and people can use whatever curriculum they like, but I wonder if some people actually even understand how it works.