Luckymama
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Posts posted by Luckymama
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I sew also, though I don't have an etsy shop. I do mainly window treatments, bedding, and other soft goods, though I will do the occasional reupholstering and alterations. Now it's prom season so I'm altering dresses for my friends' daughters. I've been doing this for 15 years (good gravy!) and get all my work through word-of-mouth. I do hand out business cards to new clients and periodically to friends for them to share with others.
I like that I can take as much work as I want and that I can schedule it around our lives. I do nothing between Halloween and New Year's :D
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I've been doing most of the research for ds, a current junior. He will need to qualify for merit aid in order to attend any school except the University of Delaware. The U of D has very low in-state tuition, which we could swing from savings/earnings.
I use the forums on College Confidential, mainly the parents' and financial aid forums. The posters on the parents' forum are generally helpful and supportive (though some are highly prestige-driven), especially those on the various "Parents of the Class of 201x" threads. I've gotten great ideas for schools by reading their postings through the choice, application, acceptance and (now) financial aid process. The financial aid forum has a stickied thread with links to most schools' Common Data Sets. The CDS is in a specific format, making it very easy to compare diverse schools. You can learn about acceptance rates, retention rates, GPA/SAT ranges of the middle 50% of applicants, the number of kids who receive merit awards with the avg amount given, the number of kids who receive financial aid along with the type(s) of aid and amounts, the avg indebtedness at graduation OF THE STUDENT (not including parental indebtedness), etc.
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Much congratulations! It's so wonderful when a kiddo is able to choose between good college options.
We live in Newark :) and our ds is considering UD, though his proposed major fluctuates between environmental engineering and public policy. I told him that if he attends UD we'll treat it like he is out of state, if that is what he wishes. Though if he lives off campus as an upper classman, I won't be responsible for other family members who might drive past his housing on weekend mornings.... ;)
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You should contact your county extension office for particulars for your area :) Soil type/composition, moisture level, wind, etc can vary widely within a small area. For example, I can grow things that my friends 10 miles away cannot due to my garden's specific "microclimate."
I agree with all the book choices listed above :)
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I live right by the University of Delaware which has a Summer College 5 week residential program. I know that kids take 2 or 3 classes (for 6 or 7 credits, depending on the courses) choosing from both summer-college-only courses and regular U of D summer session classes. We've gotten the mailings for this year :) which you can view at http://summercollege.honors.udel.edu
My 16yo has not participated in this program----he attends a private school and tuition for a summer program is not in our budget. Ds attended a 2 or 3 week math/science/engineering camp for 4 years, volunteered at the camp for 2 summers and will be paid this summer to teach programming to the kids. Our youngest will begin attending the same camp this summer. We have been very pleased with the quality of that program. Having lived here for 15 years, we also know faculty members from almost every college and department at UD. If we had the money, I would not hesitate sending any of my children to Summer College at UD.
Newark is a nice college town with a proper walking-around downtown-----bike lanes, cafes, restaurants, bookstores, funky clothing shops, movie theatre, bowling, churches of every flavor... The campus is gorgeous too, with green space, old trees, flowers, etc. The Ag College horticulture department does a fabulous job :)
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My youngest would clear her throat almost constantly for seemingly no reason, so I suspected a habit left from a cold or some such thing. After a good two months I had her checked for allergies/post-nasal drip. Turns out she has reflux! She was clearing her throat because of the stomach acid, poor baby.
I would gently but persistently suggest to the pediatrician that you want to eliminate any physical cause(s) for your daughter's behaviors before moving on to a specialist.
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Fabulous! Thanks for the link----dd10 will be all over this as she is my assistant gardener :)
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My youngest worked her way through the first book, Math Doesn't Suck (fractions, decimals, percents) last summer. She LOVED it! It was the first time she was ever allowed to go at her own speed in math----------------we'll be homeschooling in the fall ;)
She wants Kiss My Math asap. I just have to get over to Borders with a coupon and giftcard!
I/she like the almost chatty format as a good change from "textbook talk." I especially like the testimonials/diary-like entries from the author and adult women, who discuss their love for math, their math education, how math is used in daily life and how they use math in their varied careers.
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My youngest worked her way through Math Doesn't Suck last summer by herself. She LOVED it and will be starting Kiss My Math as soon as I get it.
I read two random chapters before purchasing the first book and did not see a problem with the examples (she reads AG magazine, btw). I think the "testimonials" and "Danica's Diary" entries are nice additions to the book------it's good for the kids to read how others had a love for math in their school years and how they use that math in real life and in their jobs.
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I'll be homeschooling with my then-5th grader in the fall too :) We've been discussing likes/dislikes for the past two months. She really enjoys reading historical fiction and has focused on the Revolutionary War-Civil War period. In her social studies class this year, they have studied the Old World explorers. She thinks that part was really boring (well, I'd think so too based on that textbook...) but wants to study the history from that point on. So we're going to use the first 3 volumes of Joy Hakim's History of US as a start :)
She would have studied ancient history in 6th grade, early American history in 7th grade, and Civil War-current period in 8th grade had she stayed in the same school. I know that in the high school she most likely will attend (her sister is a current freshman), she will study world history starting with "prehistory."
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Disboards is a discussion board for Disney, like this is for homeschooling. The owners/operators of Disboards also own a separate Disney-specialist travel agency----you can find the links on the site----but I just use Disboards for information.
Mousesavers is a website dedicated to all saving-money-on-all-things-Disney (US parks mainly but she does address other aspects like movies and Broadway shows etc). It is FABULOUS. Seriously. Again, it receives some sponsorship by a Disney-specialist travel agency.
Whatever you do, if you do use a travel agency, make sure you choose one that is a Disney specialist. Some AAA branches are really good, others not so much, while yet others have one or two agents who only book Disney. Disney specialists know how to look for the deals, how to apply the codes, how to compare free dining VS a room-only discount, etc.
We are Disney lovers :) Since 2005 we've been 4 times with the family and dh and I have gone twice by ourselves during the Food & Wine Festival in the fall.
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I'm sure this is true for many (perhaps even most) people, but it's not true for everyone. For some people, once they "get" the concept, they get it and they don't forget it ~ just like learning to ride a bike or learning to read. Some people could go for decades without riding a bike, then hop on and ride with no problem. If most people were left on a desert island for 20 years, they would not forget how to read. For some people, the same is true for math ~ they just don't need all that drill & repetition to retain it. In fact, I'd say that drill & repetition are the reason I ended up hating math, even though it was a subject where I could get straight As with almost no effort.
Jackie
(ducking tomatoes....)
I absolutely agree with this. My 15yo can remember the most obscure grammar rule. It makes her crazy to have to repeat something in her highest-level-possible freshmen English class that she learned in 7th grade. And yet she cannot remember her French vocabulary despite all the drills we do at home...
Two years ago my 10yo mastered all the math that her "advanced" class is learning this year. She hates it, which is one of the reasons why she'll be homeschooled next year.
You just have to know your kid and his/her learning styles, abilities, etc.
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My youngest did Danica McKellar's first book (Math Doesn't Suck) last summer and loved it. Absolutely loved it. The book is deceptively lightweight in its treatment of fractions, etc so probably the second book will appear the same way in a cursory read. I actually sat in Borders and read through two chapters before buying it. The books are fun to read, chatty, full of real-life math examples (including interviews with prominent women), and encouraging to girls. Last year in private school 3rd grade, my daughter was already getting the "girls don't do math" from kids in her class so I HAD to address that right away!
This summer she'll be using Kiss My Math as a way to fill in what she hasn't learned yet (exponents, radicals mainly). Then we'll assess what math she'll use in our first year of homeschooling :)
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I will be homeschooling our youngest for the 5-8th school years, starting in the fall. Our wonderful nurturing K-8 private school hasn't met her needs in two years. The middle school we are zoned for is Not Good.
I've got to read that book! Off to see if it's in our library system...
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Thank you so much for the help/advice!
Next year we will plan ahead to drive to the really big conventions :)
lisafriess, thanks for the date for the TriState used sale. That info can't be found on the website, and the site says that I can't join until I'm actually homeschooling my youngest. I will try to contact someone through the website this week. I hope to meet you someday :)
As for the secular materials, the kids actually use secular materials at the various Catholic schools, with the exception of religion/theology classes of course. From my month of reading and looking at sample pages, I'm just drawn to more of the secular materials. BUT that's why I really want to get my hands on the actual books, in order to make a truly informed decision!
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After reading the forums here, other websites, blogs and curricula websites for a month, I've started to narrow down what should work for dd10 next school year. But I would prefer to look through the books in person first before ordering online.
I plan on using secular materials if at all possible. I haven't been able to locate any homeschool stores in my area. There is a fabulous educational products/teacher supply store in my town but it only carries preschool and lower elementary items like texts and workbooks (yet I can get all kinds of science experiment-y stuff, maps, etc there)
I'd love to experience a vendor hall at a homeschooling conference. Google is failing me here. I found a listing on the Rainbow Resource website and followed links. The somewhat nearby conferences all seem to be very religious in nature, going by speakers/topics. Would the vendors all be religious? Would I find secular materials there? Has anyone attended the CHAP convention in Harrisburg PA? Is it large enough to have varied vendors? I have a date conflict with an April conference in Maryland.
Homeschooling isn't widely done in this area. The local Christian hs group lists a used curriculum sale on the website but doesn't give any dates----I haven't received my "official" membership information yet.
Next year I'll be able to plan better!
And I'm in northern Delaware. Driving into New Jersey, outside Philadelphia, down to Baltimore/DC is not a problem. I'd drive 3-4 hours for a really good store.
Thanks for any help. If there are truly no stores or other conferences around here, then I'll go ahead and place my online orders :)
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I also thought that food allergies=hives. I also thought food allergies=immediate reactions. Dd15 used to get horrific, writhing-on-the-floor stomach pains a few hours after eating. We kept a food journal, eliminated items, etc but couldn't come to any conclusions. I finally made an appointment with an allergist though we had to wait for two months for an opening. The next day, after an especially bad night, she woke up with a rash on her legs. I sent her to school, called the allergist about it, and they told me to bring her in right away. Skin testing was done in the office. Dd and I sat there and cried as the positive bumps appeared. She had SIX positives! I felt like Loser Mom of the Decade. Blood tests later confirmed the positives.
That was 3 years ago. She has successfully passed food challenges for 3 of the positives, but has added several other foods (from breathing/hives reactions) to her positive list. She is now also sensitive to MSG.
I wish I had taken her to an allergist when her stomach pains started instead of having her suffer for almost two years! I thought she wasn't eating properly, or wasn't drinking enough water, or needed more exercise and on and on. It was mainly due to soy products in our foods.
The allergist (a food allergy specialist, btw----we first saw an environmental specialist in the same practice because that's who had the opening) says that you *generally* have at least two body systems to react for it to be considered a true allergy. Gastro and/or skin and/or breathing and/or headache, for example. Dd every once in a while would complain about little red bumps on her skin. Silly me didn't recognize those as hives as I had only ever seen the gigantic puffy hives.
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I bought one of the starter kits from Bare Minerals (at Ulta but they are available at Sephora too) last year and love it! All the women (and my girls too) in my family have dark circles under our eyes----the under-eye veins are really close to the surface. The Bare Minerals foundation covers the circles, covers any pimples and evens out my skin tone. I don't have to use ANY concealer, which I had to do with other brands. I do use the concealer brush to "hit" the problem areas before using the larger face brush.
I especially like that I don't have to use a separate sunscreen when I wear the Bare Minerals products.
The employees at Sephora will be able to help you figure out what brands/products will work best for your situation. They sure helped me at Ulta :) I've taken my dd15 there too. The closer-than-Ulta Sephora just opened so I haven't been there yet.
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I love this site: http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm
You can print out a large map (several size choices) on your own printer at home and piece it together. My kids are coloring and labeling one of the US right now, and we love it.
If you look here, you can scroll down a bit and find a picture of our map--a work in progress.
Thank you so much for the link----my 10yo will love it!
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I've been trying to find a local support group for my youngest and I when we start homeschooling in the fall. So far I've found a large Christian organization with a SOF (for leaders only, as is stated in their information), a teeny Latin-Rite Catholic group with little kids only, and a nebulous-sounding unschooling group.
The Christian group has all the extracurriculars like band and academic teams that my daughter will miss from her Catholic school, plus lots of field trips and other fun events. I think we'll probably try that group. I hope they will be as welcoming as the website implies.
I will not sign any group's SOF, even a group from my own religion.
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I spent a month (seriously) trying to find an active homeschooling board that seemed welcoming to a Catholic mom homeschooling one kid who wanted to use only secular materials (duh except for religion...). I am so thankful I followed a link from a blog to WTM :)
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It's much easier for slim guys to fit in Scout pants since the pants were redesigned-----now they can be found in different waist sizes as well as length sizes. My son (a Life Scout) is 6' and 150lbs so I know about this LOL
Ds's troop is one of the largest in the area. They require full uniform at all troop events and when traveling. In winter that means the Class A shirt with neckerchief and pants/shorts. In the warmer months the boys can wear the troop's Class B shirt (which is just a tshirt) with the scout shorts. The leaders prefer the boys to wear new scout socks because they are wicking.
The troop gives each entering boy (regardless of age) the troop neckerchief and a Class B shirt. There is a large "closet" of used uniforms to fit out guys who can't afford new pieces. We had to purchase the neckerchief slide, the troop numerals and council patch,etc as well as the uniform pieces. We also purchased the merit badge sash once ds had earned more than a few merit badges.
Ds was given a copy of the Scout book by his Cub pack when he crossed over to the troop.
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New here but I've been obsessively reading at College Confidential for over a year (have a jr)---at Harvard families actually pay 10% of their income, up to a certain level ($180K??), so someone earning $70K would pay $7000.
Of course, the trick is getting accepted to Harvard! The admission rate has been something like 7%.
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New here but I just had to reply. My oldest girl, dd15, suffered from headaches in the back of her head from early October until mid-January. Her head hurt the most when doing math and singing, but the headache was almost always present at a low level. It really affected her quality of life! Her eyes were ok, her sinuses were clear, nothing was wrong with her brain (had an MRI), etc. The ped neurologist gave us two choices: medication or a radical diet change to eliminate food triggers. As dd is already on multiple meds each day (reflux and allergies) we went for the diet first. She already didn't eat many of the traditional headache trigger foods due to a soy allergy, plus with her age she wasn't drinking red wine or coffee LOL.
Basically we eliminated all nuts, all chocolate, all cheese but cream cheese, and a bunch of other things. Each week we added one item back into her diet. So far her headache triggers are pepperoni, provolone cheese and MSG. We suspect other cheeses will be a problem too, but thankfully cheddar, parmesan and mozzarella are ok. I also suspect fresh yeast in homemade bread products :( We have to wait until she has a school break (she's in private hs) to test another item.
The headache diet can be found at the National Headache Foundation's website, www.headaches.org It's called the "low tyramine headache diet."
I hope your dd finds comfort soon. It's so frustating when our kids are ill and we can't figure out why!
Testing for food intolerances?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Does she have any other symptoms for either gluten or lactose intolerance?
If not, then I recommend you start with food allergy testing first to eliminate any of those possibilities, before trying to pin down intolerances. My dd15 had awful awful writhing-on-the-floor abdominal pain, crying in our room a few times a week-----it was horrible :( . Three years ago she was tested for food allergies after waking up with hives after a particularly bad night. She is allergic to soy (and a bunch of fruits, too). We had kept a food diary for months but it didn't pinpoint soy because it is in so.many.foods. Sigh.
She also has a MSG intolerance which we didn't discover until this winter. She suffered from chronic headaches starting in early October. After lots of blood work, testing and an MRI which did not find a reason for the headaches, the ped. neurologist put her on a diet free of all possible headache triggers. We added back in one food each week and discovered that MSG was the main culprit (along with provolone cheese and fresh yeast in homebaked breads, sniff sniff). The only sources of MSG in her diet were taco seasoning mix and a wild rice mix.
The intolerance process was so much more difficult, stressful and time-consuming than the allergy process, which is why I recommend you start with easy! Best of luck to you and your daughter :) I know how hard it all is.