We're using Harmony Arts. It has a Classical Music component.

Great day! Just really looooong. We finished everything though and rewarded ourselves with a slice of our newest cake experiment: a heart shaped vanilla cake filled with rum & chocolate ganache and fresh strawberries covered with pink marshmallow fondant. It was a perfect end our day! Yum!

If they are the computers that are personal home computers I would consider it an invasion of privacy. If this is the lengths they would go to then I would have to wonder why this degree of distrust? I wouldn't let anyone monitor my home computer like this since there is financial info etc that I wouldn't want others having access to.

We're using CW and use Pentime cursive and for grammar we use HAKE.

I try not to judge other hs'ers by my standards. What others do is their business but lucky for me, I tend to have friends that are as committed to their school and standards as I am. :)

:thumbup: Harmony Fine Arts

:iagree: Couldn't agree more! Once we hit Middle School the school days got a lot longer and weekends are spent preparing lessons for the next week. I fondly remember the days when we used to get done by noon and had time for lots of time for non-academic pursuits. But college looms in a few short years for our girls and we find we spend longer at home in study. Hard work and planning do pay off when it comes time to apply for scholarships and college entrance. You only get the chance to prepare them for a short time.

Every morning we start the day with our read-aloud. Right now we're finishing Little Women and before that we read Sophie's World. After Little Women, we're starting in on the works of Poe, Bradbury and Wells for some Halloween fun. I have a cup of coffee and the girls get hot chocolate. It has become a relaxing way to start our school day. We cover a certain amount every morning and discuss it. Additionally, the girls are each also doing Lightning Lit and they have their own assigned reading and work for those books that they do later in the school day.

What we would do is double up for a week or two or work some on the weekends.

I agree! I find that having a goal in mind and having it in writing with a plan of execution is, for us, the best way of making sure we don't let things slide. We also have a firm rule that unless there are major problems, ALL the scheduled work must be done the day assigned and it will be graded too. Anything left undone will be done on the weekend. I think that having said this, it isn't something that would work for everyone. I'm just wired toward micromanagement and I love my schedules. Lucky for me, the children and my college student are all jr. micromanagers too and relate to the schedule. :) However, I've seen hs'ers make very elaborate schedules and simply ignore them or let things slide for various reasons and I think it just comes down to them needing other forms of motivation. Curriculum and the classical method is something I've always been serious about. We adhere to a fairly close interpretation of it but I leave enough leeway for adjusting as I see fit. As for staying the course, for example, I don't really relish Classical Writing Homer these days but since it is on the schedule and I use a good portion of my weekend preparing for it, I know it MUST be done. I might sound like a slave to my schedule and that is probably a pretty accurate assessment, but like some folks use motivational books or sites to keep they on the classical path I have successfully brainwashed myself into thinking the sky will fall if we don't keep to the schedule. :) Hey, whatever works right?! :D

Those are fantastic!!! I'm starting to work with fondant this week so I loved seeing your success!

That is fantastic! It was so hard to find when I was looking a few years back. It is being discovered again and a really fun movie. :)

If you can get it, we love "Mad Monster Party". It is a Halloween tradition at our house! Everyone loves this movie. The claymation and storyline is great! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Monster_Party Here is a You Tube trailer: You can get it on Amazon but if you look around you can find it cheaper or rent it. Blockbuster and Netflx have it.

I think diagramming helps the children see the relationship of the word to the sentence. It helps bring it all together. It is actually fun too! We do HAKE grammar and CW and the girls enjoy the 'puzzle' of the diagramming. That the public school doesn't do it is, for me, probably more reason that we'll continue doing it. ;)

'Rugrats' is a term I am not fond of. Never have liked that one. :(

Doesn't bother me a bit, but then I've been known to use the term once in awhile. It is like a term of endearment and as such it is fine with me. ;)

Check out the Carole Marsh mysteries. My daughter loved them! http://www.gallopade.com/client/client_pages/CarolemarshMysteries.cfm

Right now my passion is Cake Decorating. I'm taking the Wilton classes with my daughters and we are all making really fun creations. This last summer, my passion was amigurumi. I like to try new things! :)

Yuck! That email just shouts "I'm an insecure bully". I commend you and your son for not overreacting. I don't think I would have been as nice. I suspect the sponsor is very intimidated by your son's ability and maturity. You'll have to keep close tabs on her and don't be afraid to let her know you have your radar up.

DH and both daughters had cat allergies. We have 4 cats and all have since outgrown or developed tolerance. We started out with one kitty and the allergies began to disappear. Over the years we gained 3 more (one a failed foster attempt). We're very careful about keeping them as indoor only kitties so they don't pick up outside allergens or hang out with neighbor cats. We keep them well combed and they all get full baths once a month. Fortunately for us, they all do well in the bathtub and one even likes to join us in a shower. One kitty is long haired and every 4-6 mos I give him a 'lion cut' shave. He likes it since it is hot where we live and it keeps him neater. I think the regular bathing has a lot to do with the disappearance of allergy symptoms. Not all cats will tolerate a bath though so there are special cat bath wipes that are good for cleaning and ridding the fur of the protein that tends to be the allergy culprit. Cat allergies are tricky things. We may have just been very lucky that things worked out for us like this.

When we put up our fence we were told that to use the big posts that our neighbor had we would have to get their permission. That is what they mean by 'tie-in'. We didn't want to deal with the neighbors fence and also upon the recommendation of the fencing company, we had our company put in our own posts. The fences are perpendicular and at the point they meet there are two posts. If we had wanted to we could have 'tied-into' the existing post but it was the neighbors. Our fencing contractor told us that he sees this issue a lot and has put many fences back to back because of it. If you want to put in your own fence all you need to do is have your fence company use your own posts. Make it clear to your contractor that you do NOT want to tie-in to any existing fence. It sounds like your neighbor would be very icky on this matter and you certainly don't want to pay them that much to share a post. I would tell the neighbors that they need not concern themselves with your fencing decisions since they won't be affected. It would annoy me to have a neighbor do that. :glare:

I used to make websites a few years ago using HTML (before I discovered the joys of Frontpage). Knowing html is very useful. What you are describing sounds like a graphic design that will be inserted into html code. You might see if you can download PaintShopPro or a graphic design program to create the banner graphic and then inserting as html code is easy...just use the code. You'll want to add code for the alignment (center, rt justified etc) and size an color. The html codes for this are easy to find on the net. You might be able to manipulate and add code to your page by viewing the code and inserting and saving but you would have to play with that because I'm not familiar with smugmug. To learn html, I used the Dummies book and it was easy but the net has a lot of good resources just a google away.

I agree with the others; get a legal separation if he moves out for your financial protection and planning purposes. It is easy for him to promise to be financially responsible when he hasn't left yet but when it comes to supporting two households those promises may lack execution. A separation agreement will outline specific things like medical coverage, custody and support issues. It sounds like you will be the primary custodial parent so you are the one who will most benefit from a formal court approved agreement. Don't let him be the one that makes the decisions. Make sure you assert yourself in this situation. :grouphug:

Little Women is full of great moral lessons. :)

I'm sorry. :( I hope that things turn around soon.