and where would I find that? In the cereals? In the baking dept? Or in the vitamin supplement aisle?

looked all over the place in walmart and could not find it. Where is that stuff?

This is a fascinating site. I don't think I would want to live exactly like the family here, but it is so interesting to see what you could do on a small plot. I think it helps their family that it appears that the family size is Mom, Dad, and 2 adult or near adult children. Does anyone else struggle with the time issue? DH works a full-time job in a nearby city, so it is so hard to do all we would like to do here. We are hoping that as the children grow we can do some other things.

Call your county extension office. If they can't tell you what you need to do (in addition to ripping apart your ceiling) they can tell you who to call. They will likely direct you to the local bee keepers assn.

:iagree: This cracks me up. The next people who move in are probably not even gardeners. What happens to dirt in a yard anyway? Every place I've lived I have to work at gettting the ground in decent shape. Where does all the good dirt end up anyway? Around here it probably ends up IN my house.

we especially try to keep this in mind at Christmas. My husband and I try to purchase a few meaningful gifts rather than piles of STUFF that they will forget about in a few weeks. This last Christmas dh and I sat up till 4 am building a dollhouse for dd7. I have never seen her so tickled. It was worth the loss of sleep.

nope. I am getting it too.

I wouldn't let her get away with lying, made her clean up her room and practice the piano. Please, no one turn me in for child abuse.

Lots of times people can avoid dealing with bad behavior patterns when their kids are away from them for the majority of the day. I've found that since I am home with them all day, I cannot ignore bad behavior or it escalates. but I have seen poorly behaving hs kids and great ps kids too. So it is probably a combination of both.

Eat your hearts out folks. I win the prize for today. (sigh):confused: Twelve year old girls can be so frustrating! I hope the rest of the day goes better than this morning did.

$15 per half hour in the middle TN area. Books are extra.

We hobby farm, mostly cattle. We have about 10 cows a bull and a variable # of calves at any time on our farm. We keep chickens for eggs, have 20 something fruit trees and a garden. Would love to be able to be more self sufficient, but there just aren't enough hours in a day to do all we would like. The fruit trees are about 5 years old, so we are hoping for some major fruit crops to come in in the next few years.

my family practitioner can do all these things. I like it cause the there's not such a long wait there like at my OB/GYN

you can use OTC remedies and my dr. would call in the pill thing if that didn't work.

If you have a family practitioner, they can do these types of appointments too and many times they will work with you a little more. At least that is the way it is around here.

Did anyone around here start out homeschooling with a reluctant husband? How did that play out? Is he still reluctant? What won him over if he is now glad about it? I started out with one. He was humoring me really at first . Then last year I was considering having this year be my last homeschooling year. I thought I was ready to move on, DD11 was being a real pain,blah blah blah. He really threw me when he told me that he loved our family being homeschooled. IN SEVEN YEARS HE NEVER MENTIONED THAT HE LIKED IT! So I had to rethink it, and I figure we'll do it again next year. I think he likes the flexibility that we have...if he comes in late from work he can see the kids and they don't HAVE to be in bed so they can get up the next morning. He liked the way it played out with our, DD 8 who had major struggles with reading. I think she would've hated school if we had not homeschooled since reading was so difficult. He likes it that our girls, while fairly mature and responsible for their ages are still very "innocent".

I drew, balanced the check book, graded papers, paid bills, ,made grocery lists etc. to keep from going crazy sitting at DD8's elbow :)

Try an ankle brace; they can be found with the ACE bandages in many pharmacies. They really do help.

I don't see why the cross of the two methods would not work. Lasagna gardening is just building up the soil and basically planting on top of the compost pile! That is what I am considering doing myself. I've done a row garden for years and it always is a nightmare of work that ends up getting away from me. Then I have a weed patch. So I'm willing to give this a try. But I am going to go the cheap route and see what happens.

We didn't get a piano, we got a keyboard. It is not quite so large and kind of a "sampler" piano till we were sure she would like the lessons well enough to stick with it. You definitely want to purchase one with a full keyboard and a stand. Eventually I am hoping to get a real piano for her since she's really enjoying the lessons and progressing nicely. Just my 2 cents.

Got a book on this concept today. Anyone tried this? How did it go? I'm considering trying this this summer.

Yep. DD 12 is EXACTLY like this. I refuse to try to help her when she gets this way. I'll say "ok. Right now you are really frustrated and annoyed that this is hard and that's ok. (Generally I get interuppted with "NO I"M NOT MAD!") It will be hard to focus when you are so upset so lets do something else for awhile and then come back to this with fresh eyes in a bit." After awhile she will calm herself, but it hasn't always been this way. When she threw a fit, she had to go to her room for awhile until the storm passed. When I did this consistently, the situation slowly improved. I gave up even trying to talk or teach her when she was so frustrated and angry because it just turned into an argument. Basically I've said "I will not help you right now. Find something else to do for a bit." She could practice handwriting, write spelling words, anything else but I would not help her till she was calm and ready to try. It also helped that I made a list of rules for school work. 1. Behave respectfully. (no disrespectful talk, no throwing things, no slamming books around) 2. Ask for help respectfully (Mom I'm having trouble is acceptable. This is stupid I hate it. Is not acceptable.) 3. I won't help someone with a bad attitude. 4. I won't help someone who doesn't try. (in my daughter this was manifested in a string of sullen "I don't know's when I would try to ask her a ? to explain something) 5. Any work that is sloppily or half-way done due to a bad attitude must be redone. These were written down and posted in the kitchen where we do our work. I showed them to my daughter at a time when we were all totally calm and said something like, "You know I like homeschooling you but some days you make it more difficult than it has to be when you cannot control yourself. Then we both get frustrated and that makes it more hard for you to learn and for me to teach. Here are our guidelines for schooling." My daughter is really bright and self-motivated and she wants to get her work out of the way so she can do some fun things that are not allowed until school is over. Knowing that life will not go on till she calms and can finish up was a real motivator.

You know, if my family had not found the church home we attend now, I could see us doing the exact same thing. I was raised in church so I am quite aware of how "un-Christian" some Christians can be and it makes me want to vomit. We found a great accepting church that I believe anyone could attend and be comfortable in. So they do exist. So if you are wanting the fellowship of others and missing that, invite some like minded friends over on a Saturday and have coffee. See if anyone wants to share something special that God is doing for them. It doesn't have to be church-like to be a place of worship. Sing a song if you feel like it; read a scripture and see what everyone's take is on that verse. Let the kids sing a few songs and play together. Your church doesn't have to look like a church. You don't have to wear denim dresses and tennis shoes! The whole point of church is to worship and learn about God, which can be done in any setting.

I use an old can set near the stove. i toss the whole thing when it is full. Don't put it down the drain. If you have septic it's hard on the tank if it makes it that far. Mostly though it will coat the insides of your drains until you have a tiny opening that you water will not freely flow through. One of my relatives keeps a jar of grease in the fridge. When she's making beans she scoops out a spoonful into the pot. The first time I saw this I wanted to GAG! Wasn't hungry for beans that night for some reason...

Two years ago this answer would have been just a couple times a month. Now that they're older I can get out more by myself. Even just running up to the post office for stamps used to be such a chore since everyone needed to be buckled and strapped. Now it's a little easier since I can leave them at the house for a few minutes alone to dash to the store real quickly.