My dh was walking by as I was scanning the boards, and insists I reply--he thinks I should try S. Lem. He's only read The Siberiad but he really enjoyed it. So, what are the books like?

We're moving---but just locally. From Chatsworth to Encino. We've just got a chance to live in a bigger parsonage at the next church up (the new pastor is single and doesn't want to live there). Less commute.

Little Miss Sunshine was wonderful! The end was so great... power of love and family over disfunction and all that. I saw it on an airplane the first time, and even in its butchered state the end made me cry....

Thank you thank you for all the support! I'm going to be checking back in for my cheering section when I become despondent. I forgot to say, the other BIG plus to this move is that my communte will go from 1/2 hour each way to 5 mintues each way! Since some days I go back and forth more than once, my free time should singificantly increase... I can pop home for lunch on work days, hop in for a meeting without missing dinner with the kids. Dh and I are ready to declutter--me more so than him, perhaps, but his therapist is encouraging him and he's ready to try to overcome his pack-rat instincts. He's really working hard to be open to this move, with a really positive attitude though I know he hates change. And the fact that he's named things that we need to get rid of--never thought I'd see that day. He's working hard, what a great guy! So today we're going over to new place and measuring for furniture. My current goal is to have the library (that room in the picture) packed by Wednesday, and be starting on the boy's rooms. Did I mention one of them has a closet filled with boxes unopened since our last move? (cough cough) OK, my ds 4 wants me to put in the "popcorn face". So, for no reason whatsoever: :lurk5:

I think it's funny... for a class? Maybe not. But I'm definately the weird one of my college friends, most of who knew Rocky Horror well and did the parts in high school/college... my dh was Brad, but that was before I knew him. Back when he was really skinny. I've never seen it in a real theatre (which makes me a "virgin", in the parlance, I believe) and never had all the approriate supllies when I watched, but even on the small screen I get the campy silliness. It's SO 70s.

We liked Lady in the Water as well... that dark faerie sort of thing is right up my alley.

I enjoy reading http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/ They collect reviews from other sources, as well as have feature articles--on classic authors as well as new books. Great place to start!

OK, we are moving into a bigger house on September 1st. It's great, after 6 years of living in a townhouse with no yard, my church is doing a swap with the next UMC up the street, and we'll be living in their parsonage. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, plus a huge office, and tons of storage space. And a yard. Immense by So. Cal standards (i.e., tiny anywhere else). But a yard that I can throw my children into to run off steam! The problem... how do we pry ourselves out of this place? All you de-clutterers, my house is where your clutter comes to die. We've been packing all afternoon--we've just finished the games closet. 7 big--like, U-haul extra-large size--boxes of board games later, a huge pile of games to give away later, and we've done one closet. One CLOSET!!! I did mention that our garage is packed to the ceiling, right? And all our bedrooms? And the bookshelves in the hall? Yep... we have over 20 floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full. Double-shelved, two books deep. I've finally got dh to agree that we need to jettison some stuff, but it's taking a long time, and even with a few weeks, I'm terrified!!! Here is my dh sticking his head out of the mostly-empty game closet. This is indicative of the rest of my house: How am I going to do this? We go on vacation on the 23rd of this month (non-refundable tickets), I come back on August 7th by myself, and then my dh and the boys don't return until the 20th of August. We have to be out of here and moved by September 1! No paid movers (unless we can figure out how to afford them). We can do this.. right? RIGHT???

No!!! It may not be your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it a bad movie, IMHO. I would argue that there IS such a thing as an objectively (at least, pretty darn close) bad movie. The cinema version of velvet Elvis art, etc. But besides from being an artistically good movie... I happen to love LOTR!:001_tt2:

You can come to my house and help me pack... come on, you know you want to! :001_rolleyes: Honestly, for 2 days I'd hang out by myself. By day 3 I'd be calling everyone I know to get them to see a movie/have lunch/come help me pack. Whatever. I do like a little alone time, but I can only take so much!

Hmmm... I watched the kids watch TV. We're packing (ugh!) and need them still and sedate. It isn't working.

The worst movie of all time is: Ghost Dad. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ghost_dad/ Bill Cosby. Dead. Family comedy. You haven't heard of it. Be very very glad. This is actually the only movie in my life I've walked out of halfway through-- and I saw Dungeons & Dragons in the theatre. Actually, I like most of the movies you guys mention, and even those I didn't (Pan's Labyrinth--way too violent for me) are, admittedly, good movies. I think there is a difference between a "bad" movie and one that I just personally don't enjoy. Ghost Dad. Bad bad bad.

I do all my planning on the computer, but I checked "other" because I don't use a dedicated school planning program. All of my scheduling is done in Excel or in Word.

Happy 4th to you too! I've come down with a cold and finally crawled out of bed.... hope your days are wonderful!

((Pam)) I so know what you mean... I'm an ordained pastor (yes, that means I'm Christian and very active in my faith), but have generally progressive theology and politics--pretty much the norm in my conference and denomination, not so much on these boards. The toughest thing for me in getting used to the boards over the years is the generalizations of Christians... "I'm Christian, so I believe thus-and-so", "If you were Christian, you would understand XYZ." Ummm... no. Not all Christians believe the same things--otherwise why have theologians been writing for 2000 years? So a lot of times I'm more comfortable hanging around with secular folks because they tend to make fewer of those assumptions, if that makes sense. The worst flaming I ever got (here or anywhere) was from a "Christian" who launched into me when they discovered I was a female pastor--and decided that lambasting me over points of theology during the time when my dh was in critical condition in ICU would be a fun thing to do. I was at a vulnerable time in my life, and ended up sobbing on the floor that my "boardies" had turned ugly. This was back on the old board, so it was anonymous, and in a more rational moment (of which I was having very few) I realized that many more of my dear friends stood to my defense. Honestly, I think through the board I've come to have greater apprectiation for folks of beliefs and theologies with which I totally disagree. I ran into a dear friend of mine recently, also a Clergy sister, and we had a long discussion about sin, hell and the nature of the atonement. We totally disagree. But we both recognize each other as followers of Christ, and that's just fine. It was one of the best theological discussion I've had for years--probably because too much of my professional life is spent with colleagues who would have just said "I so agree with you!" Just like it's fine that most of my best friends outside my church are Jewish, with a few Episcopalians thrown in for good measure, the only other SAHD my dh knows and hangs out with is Pagan, and one of our dearest friends these past 20 years is athiest... and I prefer the board to represent the diversity that I live in the midst of IRL.

Hmmm... I don't know. My son was under 6, so we submitted outside test scores. I would call the office to find out. https://epgy.stanford.edu/contact.html

Well, that is a great description of what we love about EPGY! The financial aid isn't a loan, they just reduce the tuition. Ours comes out to about $70 a month (so... $210 instead of $500 per quarter). I do make less than $55, but you might just try it! It is a stretch for us, but beats anything else we've tried hands down.

Lol! I look like one of those ancient mother-goddess statues when I wear a swimsuit... I'm not overweight, I'm just several thousand years out of fashion.

I know this was an old thread, but I noticed more people had finished their planning for next year, and I'd love to see thier plans. I also realized I've changed a few plans since originally posting: 2nd Grade: SOTW II Literature--Classics 400-1600 (some read-aloud) GWG 4 SWO E/F HWT Printing 2 CW Aesop Trail Guide to World Geography Latin Prep MP Famous Men of Rome study EPGY Math (online) Explorers Beginnings II Bible Science Explorers -- Earth Science Drawing with Children Kindergarten: Explode the Code HWT K book Literature: Classic fairy tales (read aloud) Survey of world cultures (Based on GTG and other resources) Drawing with Children Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten mathematics So.... bump!

After a belated and sullen start :glare:, I've come around to preferring the new format--so I didn't answer the poll. I consider us "classical" homeschoolers, but I can't say we follow WTM exactly or anything. I think that individuation is simply part of homeschooling, and it's a rare family that follows any particular plan exactly. I've got an acclerated son with special needs--so lots of modification going on here! We do Latin, base our structure around a 4-year history schedule... but the grammar/logic stage divide thing is not entirely relevant in our case. I'm curious--what do you mean that there are fewer classical posts? What exactly makes a thread "classical"? I guess dicussions of Latin are classical regardless... but otherwise, what would the criteria be?

We like Avatar too! The final DVD will be out this month, so we're ready to watch the finale with our ds's!

We like Spelling Workout, but ds is a "natural" speller. He misses few words, and we only do a number of exercises equal to the number of words he misses--oftentimes we do the pretest, he gets them all, and we move on to the next chapter. Once he's covered that, he knows them and generally gets 100% on our review tests. I like that it is easy easy easy to implement, and that his spelling in personal writing (emails, etc) has improved overall. BUT I really think this wouldn't be the program for a truly struggling speller.

Well... I work full-time, and frequently from home. I've spent this afternoon making a bunch of church phone calls, and my boys are running somewhat crazy as I've been heavily involved in a two-church parsonage negotiation. Is there an age at which children stop misbehaving the second you are on an important phone call? Or asking if they can play video games (or some other thing they no you will say no to, but be unable to discuss)? Ugh!!!

We rent, and I fix things all the time! If I "let" my landlady pay for things 1. She complains, delays, and we wait indefinately with no plumbing/ac/etc. I can get someone to come TODAY. 2. She puts in the cheapest, shoddiest fixtures she can. Recently our old kitchen faucet broke (largely because it had a cheap plastic housing). I decided that to spend over $100 on her house wans't in my budget right now. So she did have someone replace it--with another cheapo fixture, round handles you can't tell if they are turned, no hose attachment, and it will probably break again in 2-3 years. We pay $2100 a month rent, so yeah, I kind of resent her attitude--we've even had 2 electric fires since we lived here since her dh, now deceased, used to do all the wiring himself! This is why we put in a new thermostat (with a timer! the old one was all manual) and toilet seats (with metal attachements! wow!), etc. etc. And I do upgrades outside all the time--put in a sprinkler system, etc. That isn't "necessary", but it sure saves me a lot of time and effort. If you really want to pay for things, I might talk to your renter. But to "call a lawyer" seems a bit extreme.

:iagree: My younger son calls us "mama" and "daddy", but my older ds generally calls us by our first names. He has occasionally started calling me "mama" (copying his younger brother), but always calls dh by his name. We never taught him to do this, taught him "mama" and "dada" as a baby--but by the time he was 2 he was calling me "Kay" and dh "Doug". I can't tell you the number of times that he has been corrected by church members or total strangers--"Don't call your mother that! You need to be respectful, she's "mommy" to you!" I usually say, "I don't mind him using my name, thank you." Now that he is older (6!), we get this a lot less, but still occasionally. Mostly I think people just assume that dh or I are his step-parent, but when he was little... sheesh, folks like to be busybodies!