We had never had cats before when I went looking for one years ago when dd's were small. First, I got "barn cats" (in NH). They were too wild for us. Next, I went to the pound. There, I found the best cat we've ever had. He was a grown Manx - no tail or stub. He loved all of us and followed us around like a pet dog would. He was also a lap kitty. He would sit in anybody's lap who would let him. He also killed every chipmunk he got his paws on. :glare: I love chipmunks. Along with him I went back and got another ordinary kitten with a tail. She's not nearly as affectionate, but the dc love her just the same. Then, after the Manx died (some weird cancer thing ... he was a stray), I found a woman who breeds Manx cats here in VA and sells them for $50. After having a real Manx, however, we decided these cats are more Japanese Bobtails than Manx. They're lankier, love water, louder, and very clown-like. We have a male and a female. The kids love them. 16yod still carries the female around with her a lot, and this cat sleeps in 21yod's lap while she's doing school. (And all the cats sleep on dc's beds.) I liked the fact that they came from a breeder and that I could see the parents and that they were sure to be free of that dreaded feline leukemia. Another thing I didn't want was a long-haired cat. I don't like having to brush an animal or having animal hair all over the place. Cat hair seems to float through the air and get into everything. Even with these short-haired cats, I still have to dust the cat hair off the table before I sit down - every time. You might want to check the ads in your local newspaper. That's how I found the last kittens. You can see the parents and plan to get exactly what you want when the next litter is due. And know they'll be free of feline leukemia. HTH Kathy

My 16yod says to look for "pointed feathers". The males' feathers are more pointed, esp. "hackles and tails". Otherwise, they wait until the crowing starts. :)

Nope, wasn't ready in any sense of the word. Neither was dh. Although he could cook (FRY, that is. I hate fried food.) just about anything. I remember calling my grandmother in Louisiana to find out how to cook white rice at the age of 23. My mother happened to be visiting her at the time and I could hear Grama freaking out at my mother in the background as I talked to my mother afterwards.:lol: I decided that I would do things differently with my own dc. I posted about that a while back, here: www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85814&page=2 This has worked really well for our family. The learning, however, never seems to end. I just had to relearn to cook - again! - in my 40's when we switched to vegan.

We usually make more of an effort to stay home when the ps's start back up anyway. This year I think we'll be home from here 'til next summer. (Just kidding. Maybe.) We have to come in once a month to fill up the cars and our 10 gas cans (dh ... the penny pincher ;)). And we have a dentist appointment for teeth cleaning. But I know we catch a whole lot less colds and other things when we just stay home. Now if I can just get my dh to wash. his. hands ... we might never get sick. I've actually been sitting next to him at the computers in the library here and watched him biting his nails. :w00t::blink::eek: Yuk.

Here are some of the things we do in our particular family that have worked well. HTH. I question them every so often, to make sure they're reading privately. I also insist they schedule their private Bible reading into their schedules; usually first thing in the morning, as soon as they get up. I can see them doing this every day, 7 days a week. When they make up a new schedule, I ask for a copy and if the Bible reading is not scheduled into it, I tell them to go back and write it in for me, so I can see exactly what they're doing. I also periodically ask them, individually, what book they're in, what they're learning in it, etc. This can happen anywhere - walks, in the car, in the laundry room, in the kitchen, while shopping - wherever there's a free moment. We also listen to MacArthur and McGee every day, Monday through Friday. This is good because you can tune them in no matter where you are - car, outside, etc. And we listen to MacArthur's sermons via CD's. (He's put all his sermons on his GTY.org site. For free.http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons) We launch off into many varied discussions about Biblical things from listening to these teachers. McGee gives the panoramic, big picture. MacArthur does the meticulous exposition. So they complement each other well. (A good place to start with MacArthur is the book of Jude and the books of First, Second, and Third John. Those are some he's done more recently.) To make it all meaningful, we apply it to daily life. For example, I often ask them if something we see going on around us is "Biblical". It could be about something personal, something political, something concerning people we know, anything. The goal it to get them to make a habit of using those Biblical principles they're absorbing from the Bible study and sermons to evaluate the world around them. No matter how tiny and insignificant a thing may seem to be. Or how huge. We've been doing this for years now, and it has worked very, very well. We still meet as a group for 30 min., Monday through Thursday, to work on our Biblical Hermeneutics book (Terry). And they frequently find things to discuss from this book. For example, after reading a chapter where Terry discussed some of the prophecies in Daniel, dc disagreed with some of what he said. So we stopped and read Daniel aloud and discussed what we knew in light of our knowledge of the Bible. Great practice for doing the same in daily life. (We also pray as a group and sing a hymn and discuss any "notes" anyone has at this time. We sometimes get into lengthy discussions here.) To summarize, I suppose the goal is to make the Bible reading a habit by demanding that they do it in the beginning stages. Then, as they learn more and more, keep pulling out those Biblical principles and guiding them into applying the principles to life as it happens around you. Ask tons of questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no. Ask them if they can think of any examples from the Bible which might apply in a particular situation. And on and on. 'Show' them how you, yourself, do it. Then, ask them to do it also. And once they see the benefits of such a process they will be energized to continue independently (with you quietly keeping tabs, of course). Hope this makes sense. Kathy

I kept up fairly well in the early years; but I found I had to pick and choose which subjects to focus on as they got up into the teens. Right now it's math and logic -- our last big push. :party: I also discovered they could actually learn most of the stuff without me. I haven't read all the GB's, haven't done all the logic books, couldn't stand to read those boring Self-teaching science books (dc didn't mind them), didn't do every single ABeka grammar book, etc. But the little darlin's went ahead and learned it anyway. :001_huh:Go figure. I found that if I put a ton of effort into the front end (instilling strong work ethic, insisting on quality work, acquiring excellent materials for them, etc.), that dc would keep going and learning from sheer momentum ... even when I couldn't keep up. Just to let you know that it can be done - even when you can't get to all of it. Kathy

We used to rent a house for the week at Southern Shores, NC. Mainly because they allowed dogs in some of the houses. The beaches, however, are rougher (pebbles and undertow) and colder than somewhere like Myrtle Beach. I really liked the family-oriented atmosphere at Southern Shores though. Very quiet and low-key. I guess it depends on what kind of beach vacation you're looking for. HTH Kathy

As far as the internet stuff, this won't be popular here, but I'll say it anyway. I'd cut off the internet. (No TV here and only cell phones for dh and me.) That's what we did when we discovered one of our ds's had been looking at garbage on the net. No way was I going to become his 'intenet police' and hover over him while he was using the net. So we just unhooked the whole thing and when we have to use the internet we go to the library to use it. We've been doing this for years now and it's worked well for us. It has the side benefit of keeping most of us from wasting gobs of time surfing the net, too. Guess it depends on your family situation - and your library system. We have a pretty good library. The internet is just so very, very tempting to a boy that age. For us, it just wasn't worth it. HTH, Kathy

You might also want to see if the people who will be handling them are allergic to them. I once held a friend's guinea pig for a few minutes, didn't wash my hands, rubbed my eyes (later), and my eyes were almost swollen shut for a few days. :tongue_smilie:

Another option is night school. That's how I got my high school diploma. It's one step above the GED and you actually get an official high school diploma. You have to attend classes, though. The classes are designed so almost anyone can pass them and they were at night (mostly working adults); but you do have to show up. If all she wants is the high school diplome.... The community college option sounds better if she can swing it.

2 chihuahuas - both used to sleep in our bed. 19yo dog now sleeps on a baby blanket on a cushion on the floor (she's blind, deaf, and fragile). Other dog still sleeps in bed with me and dh. 3 cats - sleep wherever they want. Just not in my bed. Also, climb wherever they want. Just not on the kitchen counters when I'm in there. Hate cat hair in my food. :ack2:

:iagree: Electronics have that brain-numbing effect which results in some people really needing to just get up and move to shake it. Also, I run a fan at night to drown out the noises. And keep the bedroom door closed, shades drawn, etc. Maybe you could switch bedrooms with one of the kids?? And I agree that there is definitely a little bit of a lack of respect going on, too. If my dc were doing this, I'd gather them all together, explain the problem - in my most grouchy, lack-of-sleep tone - and tell them to SOLVE IT. IMMEDIATELY! While I sat there and listened in order to approve of said plan ... since I'm the one losing the sleep. But that's me. :) Wishing you peaceful dreams soon. Kathy

You could do R&S along with whatever algebra program you decide on. Use it as a drill program. I've done this with all 3 of our dd's and it's worked very well. This is how we've done it. (to give you some ideas) They did anywhere from 30 min. to an hour of R&S either before their algebra lesson or after it - I let them decide. They did all their work on a small white board - no pencil and paper. I even let them draw their graphs on their white boards. Messy, but I knew I'd be expecting them to use graph paper in the algebra lessons. I sat at the table with them, sometimes doing something else, but always ready to check their answers as they called them out, instantly. If they could do anything just by eyeballing it, then they just called out the answers and I checked them as they called them out. (I had the teacher's book set up on a book stand in front of me.) For the review in the teacher's book, I looked through it and called out things I thought they needed more practice on. For the "Further Study" things, I passed them the teacher's book and let them read it for themselves, asking what it said afterwards. For the tests/quizzes, they did them the same as the text. When we got to problems which I knew they knew pretty well, I would tell them to estimate the answers aloud and I would immediately tell them the correct answer so they could see how close they had gotten to it. Most of them really enjoyed this part. An example of this is the tons of percent (increase/decrease) type problems in book 8. I told them to imagine we were at a store flipping through a rack of clothes which were on sale. You aren't going to stand there with a calculator and punch in numbers. You want to be able to estimate quickly - in your head -the approximate price, to decide instantly whether it's a good buy or not. So pretend we're standing in the store and Daddy's past ready to go and we have to speed through them to rush up to the register before Daddy finishes checking out! Now do these problems that way. :) One of the reasons I think using R&S as a drill program has worked so well is that it's a very down-to-earth type program. Very concrete. It's fairly easy and boosts confidence; and is a huge relief from the much more abstract math of algebra and above, which require much more mental angst for some dc. It provides a kind of security blanket for dc as they make that transition, because when the other math is just plain hard, they know they can always whiz through that R&S book to relieve the frustration. At least, that's what I've seen in our dc. Anyway, a couple more things which might help. I didn't put any restrictions on the R&S part of our math. No ending dates, grades, or anything. And we stopped at book 8. The last of our dc is about to finish book 8, but they've been doing algebra along with it for a year (?) or so now. Which means that they will take that 'extra' math time and extend the algebra now. Kind of a sneaky way to increase the time for the upper level maths. ;) HTH Kathy

Mostly they just read their Bibles - over and over and over. To that we've added things like: -Christian bio's (google them) -a book on hermeneutics -sermon on CD every day (30 min worth) -hymns -a group time where we read and discuss the above. We also discuss anything currently going on in light of Biblical principles. This seems to be where most of the learning about application takes place. -many Bible study helps (concordances, books about the Bible times, timelines, different versions of the Bible, a good comprehensive book on World Religions, commentaries, etc.) This is where we've spent most of the money for Bible. -constant discussion - on walks, when traveling, in the car, whenever the opportunity presents itself. I've found that our dc will even come find me when they want to discuss things relating to Biblical principles. And one ds is constantly working out his theories of every subject he studies - all based on the Bible. (I know this because he's always telling us about his "discoveries" ... I call them connections.:)) Which is all to say that curr's are great, but be careful about limiting Bible study to only a curr. (which is a mistake I made and had to correct early on :tongue_smilie:) HTH Kathy

We've used more than one program for math for quite a while now. I used R&S for oral drill. 16dd is about to finish up with R&S 8 now. Meanwhile, she's also doing 2 different algebra books. One is more theory. Another is more problems. They complement each other well and I can see where it helps develop a certain flexibility in her thinking. She sees that there's more than one way to view a subject, depending on the author's take. But she also is able to see that the math itself is still the same. That never changes. It takes a little longer to do it this way, but the results are worth it to me. I guess you just have to decide if it's that important to you. A few things that speed up the process: white boards - ditched the pencil and paper and she does all her work with me sitting at the table near her (quietly). I check it instantly while she still remembers her thought processes. Make one the basic program and use the others as 'enrichment'. One program is for learning inside and out - she takes notes, makes flash cards, etc. The other is for 'fun'. She can go as fast or as slow as she wants. The fun one we don't worry about too much. The basic one I don't hesitate to repeat sections if I'm not sure she got it all. Work as a group for part of the math time. I've found it really helps for them to discuss their math. I mean, how many people do you know who really talk about the math they're learning? It makes it more fun, they help each other develop their mathematical thinking, etc. You will probably have to make the time for them to do this or they never will. (Didn't see your dc in sig., so just assuming you have others at home?) Finally, the actual program is important, to be sure, but IMO it's just as important for them to see a wide variety of ways in which the same topic is covered. Try not to get stuck on the actual program to the exclusion of the other. I know that's hard to do on a board like this where we're all discussing curr. constantly; but it can be done. :) HTH Kathy PS - You might also want to post this on the High School board, if you didn't already.

We had garter snakes when we lived in NH. They lived in the rock fences, which were everywhere. They never bothered me and the kids liked to catch them and play with them. Not sure how you'd get rid of those, unless you sit and catch them and take them far away. Our dc used to keep them in buckets with a lid of some kind. You could haul them in that. We've also had the occassional corn snake get into the house. Those are easy to catch. The dc take them away from the house and let them go. But the copperheads, however, did bother me. When a crew came through and cleared under the power lines last summer, we killed 4 adult copperheads right outside our house - as in trying to get in via the slider or right beside the house. Must have stirred them up out in the woods and they found their way to the mice and rodents which eat the birdseed around the bottom of our birdfeeders. We even found a baby one early last spring. The chickens had already killed that one. Haven't seen any since. Dh or dc usually chop their heads off with a shovel or something similar, and toss the parts down the hill behind our house. Too easy to step on one of those.

Roasted cherrry tomatoes are good. Spray a pan with Pam, roast in oven at 400 degrees until they're sunken and shriveled looking. (less than 30 min??) Toss in with pasta dishes, eat as is, etc. We make tomato sandwiches with the big ones. (This is vegan, but you can convert for yourself.) Toast bread (we use square sourdough loaves from Walmart or Kroger - no fat in them - they will slice them for you if you ask them) Spread liberally with mayo (we use vegan recipe) and sprinkle with salt and pepper and Creole Seasoning (Tony Cachere brand - Wal Mart). Slice thin and layer with: tomato (Only fresh homegrown will do. I also put salt and plenty of pepper here.) red onion avocado lettuce of any kind mung bean sprouts olives (21yod likes these - I don't) Sometimes, I spread one piece of the toast with a grilled cheese sauce we make (vegan). But, generally, I eat them without it. Pour glass of sweet, ice tea (Luzianne brand made with natural sugar) and grab a kitchen towel (it's messy!) and sit down and eat. This is one of my all time favorite meals.

You might also consider getting it neutered/spayed. Our neighbor's wife is originally from England and hates (terrified of?) mice with a passion. So they get a cat or two for the mice, don't spay/neuter, and next thing you know there are cats all ... over ... the ... place. (We live in the woods.) Their house is a mile down our gravel road (one empty house between) and their millions of cats even wander down to our house at night! We caught one once in a Hav-a-hart trap. One eye gouged out, scrawny, and wild as could be. We had to use leather work gloves to handle the cage, it was so wild. When we drive past their house, we have to creep for fear of squashing one of those cats. And when you stand in their yard, there are cats all over the place ... mating! Yuk. And when you sit on their porch, guess what. It reeks of cat urine. I think they also had a flea problem. Several years ago, about 10 of their cats just dropped dead rather suddenly. I suspect another neighbor poisoned them, somehow. He lives closer to the cat neighbor than we do and he apparently had cats day in and day out and got fed up with it. They would come down to his house and try to fight with his one, neutered, male cat. Cat neighbor finally tried to catch some of them to take them for rabies shots and spaying; but some of them were so wild by then, he never did get them all. And he STILL has a yard full of wildish cats. Anyway, we actually own 3 cats (2 spayed, 1 neutered) and we put in a pet door for them to go and come as they please. I've noticed they tend to stay inside more if it's very cold or raining. They all bring in dead things from time to time - birds, mice, moles, flying squirrels, etc. Our male cat even killed a full size gray squirrel once. With the pet door, they can go out at night when they feel like it and you don't have to worry about getting up to let them out at all hours. Good for the cats and the people. And we've never had a problem with other animals using the pet door - except for a bear. He reached his paw in and left a knick in the side of our piano with one of his claws. (We had the bag of cat food sitting too close to the pet door and he smelled it and was trying to grab it. :blush: He also ripped off the plastic door part. Twice.) Also, if you want them to kill things, don't leave food out. Feed them at set times, every day, and don't overfeed. I'm also allergic to cats, but only if I touch them and then touch my eyes. They swell up for days if I do that. So dc do everything cat related. I never touch them unless I'm planning to run scrub my hands immediately. This way they can stay in the house. Your daughter is probably capable of doing all the cat related stuff. Another interesting thing has been the difference between the males and females. I read somewhere that the males would favor the male people in the house. So when we went to get the third cat, I got a male. It's fascinating to watch. The cat does seem to favor the males (mostly ds's - dh is not much of an animal person). But our ds's really seem to favor HIM. He's much more athletic than our female cats; and they roll him around and play roughly with him and throw him up in the air and catch him and they all love it - even the cat. :) Our dd's seem to prefer the female cats because they will sit in dd's laps or lay on their tables while they do their school. HTH, Kathy

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That 'equal' thing always got me into trouble. My kids could argue all day long (if I had let them) about whether this one was doing more or less than that one. All the while, NOT getting the thing which had to be done ... done! I finally solved it by dividing all the chores up into basic areas - laundry, kitchen, etc. I made it 5 general areas for 5 kids. They helped decide what went where, all very uneven and unequal ... but agreed upon by all 5. Then we put it up on the fridge and they rotate through the areas, changing every week. This solved the problem. Also, I let them know that the lists would be subject to ammendment when needed. They say we're "ammending the chore constitution" when we do this. :) Just in case you run into problems and need ideas. :) HTH Kathy

Wellll ... this would be me when I was little. I think I took beginners swimming lessons about 6 or 8 times. It was a lake where you couldn't see the bottom and I was certain there were huge things down there waiting to bite me and pull me under. I was also terrified going over those huge, narrow bridges down in south Louisiana every year when we spent a month with the relatives. All that water. And I knew there were gators down there because my grandfather had taken us fishing in a spot where the gators were sunning themselves on the riverbank. He said they wouldn't bother me if I didn't bother them. :w00t: Anyway, I never did pass. But I did learn to swim. Mostly by going to the pool every day (my parents had joined for exactly one summer when I was about 12yo). So when I had kids, I knew I didn't want them to be like I was. Thus, we joined a place with a pool and I started taking them all when they were babies/toddlers. I put water wings on them and we would spend an hour or two in the water several times a week. Once they could stay afloat, I would take something to read and sit while they swam as long as they wanted. I tried lessons once, but the instructor told me the best thing to do was what I was already doing. So I kept doing that and they all love the water and swim fine. I guess you could say we 'hs'ed' for swimming, too. :) Have you tried doing some version of that for him? And let him cling to you as long as he needs to - hours, days, months ... he'll get there. HTH Kathy

Had first (of 6) child at 18 (eloped, lasted 6 months) and last at 37. Didn't start college until I was 21 (?) and it took me 5 years to get a BS in Medical Technology (27yo when graduated - lost credits when transferred from cc to large university). (Also a high school dropout - finished in night school.) I stopped college at 23 to marry dh and work for a year when we moved to NC. Got in-state residency and decided that as long as he was in school (grad) I may as well go ahead and finish my undergrad degree. Dh never finished high school. Got a full scholarship to GA Tech at 16yo, skipped his senior year of high school, and went straight into college (big mistake, btw). He didn't finish his undergrad degree until he was a few months shy of his 23rd birthday. Was asked to leave GA Tech (something about trains and railroad tracks and plastic explosive gunk ?? ... ), so lost the scholarship and had to move back home and work for a while. Got into a small private college where he lived with relatives and finally finished, between working as a coop and anything else he could find (garbageman, collecting insurance premiums, paper mill, anything) in the summers. He went on to graduate school and did all his PhD work in chemistry and physics, but never went back to defend his dissertation because he "already had a job". Thus, he can't technically claim to have a PhD when he writes up his resume. (I think he regrets this, but doesn't admit it.) The major factor in our (mostly me, at the time) deciding to hs was watching oldest ds suffer through the ps education system ... and getting a lousy education on top of it all! I just knew there had to be a better way.

We've never had a schoolroom. We've lived in houses where we had the extra rooms, but I always used them as playrooms. Put all the toys in them. Bedrooms were for sleeping and naps, only. In one house, I was even able to give ds's their own playroom and dd's their own playroom. That worked really well. When dc were young, we used the kitchen table for school. That worked well. I could check up on everyone right then. We could do group things. And the rule was that they put away everything they got out before they left the table. As they got older, however, they each acquired their own tables (vs desks) for school. Currently, we have tables all over the house and shelves all over the house for the books. The books are filed by topic - math, history, science, etc. - and each dc has their personal books on shelves near his/her own table. We do have an extra room now. Oldest dd is using it as her own personal schoolroom. We also keep our classical CD's and art supplies in it. Youngest dd uses a room in the camper for her personal study. She also has a table in the house where she works. And she also takes books out into the woods and flops down on the ground to read (and draw bugs. She loves to describe the monstrous spiders she sees out there. How she "heard the leaves rustling" and out came a huge spider. :scared: She knows I hate spiders.:glare:) Anyway, they seemed to want/need more private space for doing schoolwork as they got into their teens. I guess it's kinda hard to sit and think and write with a bunch of other people around you. Especially if any of them are talkers. We still assemble at the table for group things (Bible, certain math things, etc.); but the bulk of their schoolwork is done privately at their own spots throughout the house (and yard? :)). As far as uniforms, it never even crossed my mind. I used to buy a lot of their clothes at yard sales and thrift stores, so uniforms would have been more expensive for us, probably. They just wore whatever I could find for them to wear.

Along with whatever book you decide on, here's another idea that may help him. Have him keep a running list of the words he's misspelling (from the program he's doing and from everywhere else you find them). About once a week or so (don't let them pile up too much and frustrate him), sit down with him and look at these words. First, ask him if HE sees any patterns in the kinds of words he's misspelling. Give him plenty of time to answer. (Maybe even ask him to do this on his own BEFORE he meets with you each week.) If he appears genuinely stuck, you might give him 'clues' by referring back to the phonograms (program?) which you used to teach him how to read. After he's had enough time to sort through them (or he's totally frustrated - whichever comes first :)), YOU start grouping them according to the rule/error ... aloud .... slowly and patiently ... for him. Not in a babyish kind of way, but in a thinking-out-loud kind of way; with him listening. The goal is to teach him the thought process and show him that's it's not all just a jumble of letters - there IS a system somewhere in there. This also may show him that learning one little rule or phonogram would decrease his list by many words. In other words, it's not as bad as it looks. ;) Then, at some point, it might help to give him a spelling quiz on some of the words. The goal here is to show him his progress. That he IS learning them. Encouragement, in other words. Maybe even save the papers and let him sort through them every so often. Or let him write the words on a white board and don't save papers. Whatever works for him. The whole process would be a very short session, once a week or so. Unless he really gets into it and wants to go longer. Boys that age like a challenge, so dream up ways to make it challenging. For example, when you're out of the house, ask him to find (or point out to him) some of these words. Also, point out misspelled words when you see them on signs and the zillion of other places they occur these days. Just anything to keep it in the forefront of his brain and make him more aware. Hope this makes sense. Kathy

Happy Birthday! :party::party::party: 50's aren't much different than 40's ... so far. I'm 53, don't wear glasses, only a stray gray hair or two, feel great. You'll be fine, I imagine. The way I see it we're only at the halfway point when we hit 50 these days. Just think what you can do with 50 more years, knowing what you know now! ;) Enjoy! Kathy