I have both NYCB workout DVDs, and I love them! I keep hoping that they'll make another one. ETA: I get exercise DVDs from my library system, which has tons of options. Is that a possibility for you?

St. Crispian's Day speech before the battle of Agincourt from Henry V

Vespers is evening prayer, so you can have it any night of the week. When I was in grad school, I used to sing vespers (Gregorian chant) every Sunday evening. Then we'd all have dinner together and drink a lot of wine (not me, specifically, since I don't have much tolerance--but, goodness, the group went through A LOT of wine). I really miss that now that I've moved. Back to the topic at hand--I made a curried chicken salad with grapes and cashews, since I already had cooked chicken in the freezer. We had it on top of a green salad. Or, separately, as in the case of DH, who can't stand having different foods touch each other. Very nice for days when I don't want to turn on the stove.

Oooh ... I can see myself having fun with the search box to get myself up to speed!

:lol: haha, that is hilarious!

:lol: Poor DH has to listen to my rants about composer studies, so I think my curriculum side project is a good outlet!

Burn Notice is on USA. It's a spy show that's kind of crossed with MacGuyver (a lot of improvising with everyday materials). The main character was a spy until he got burned, and he's trying to get his job back; along with that bigger back story, he usually ends up helping someone get out of a sticky situation each episode. Very clever and witty, I think.

I'm not HSing yet (my DS is almost one), but DH and I have wanted to HS before we were even married. We found out about WTM when I bought The Well-Educated Mind a few years ago. As a child, I was bored through most of elementary and middle school (fortunately, teachers were okay with letting me read whatever I wanted after I finished my work), and I want my children to be challenged. DH and I met in grad school (music--music theory and music history, not performance), so we have shared the same frustrations teaching undergrads, and we want our children to be better prepared. I realized that I didn't want to stay in academia after I finished my PhD, so I'm now a SAHM. I've been reading these boards for a while, and I sometimes take notes for future reference. After realizing that there's no music history curriculum that meets my exacting standards (thanks to the hive), I've been working on one as a side project (yes, I realize that this is a little crazy considering that my DS is so little). Anyway, I just wanted to "officially" introduce myself!

Burn Notice is the only show that I watch regularly. We don't have TV, so I get so impatient waiting an extra week for a new episode to show up online.

I think that you may be able to copy a certain percentage of a book for instructional purposes (under "fair use"). When I taught at a university, additional readings (from books the students did not have to buy) were scanned and put online by the library or photocopied and compiled as a reader by the department (there was a small charge for the photocopying). My university's library was pretty strict about what was or was not allowable; if we wanted students to read a greater percentage of a book, we had to put the book itself on reserve at the library. According to this chart, you can copy up to 10% of a music book: http://home.earthlink.net/~cnew/research.htm

Titian and Boticelli?

I tried a sample at Costco (not organic) and thought it was terrible. Even my DH, who loves almost everything drowned in syrup, didn't like it.

:lol: But, seriously, I think it can make a difference. For students who are very borderline between two grades, one is more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt if the student has not already done a bunch of annoying things. Do you really want to send the message "I have so little respect for you and your class that I won't bother reading the syllabus"?

Here's my perspective from having taught at a university: 1) I agree with getting your dc used to reading a lot. I had no problems assigning 50-75 pp per class (if some of the material was dense, I'd assign less). I expected students to be able to discuss the assigned reading in class, and I took note of who participated and who didn't. 2) Have two longer assignments due the same day once in a while so that your kids learn how to manage their time. My syllabus was as I set it--it wasn't really my problem if a student had a big exam in another class or another paper due on or near the same day as my paper due date. 3) Get used to writing longer papers without resorting to "filler". Seriously, we can all see through that--don't tell me about the author's life or give historical background if it doesn't answer the question. In the humanities, I considered 3-5 pp short. Teaching a freshman seminar, I might do 3-page papers, but then I would assign them almost every week. 4) Have your dc get used to writing drafts. So many students turn in papers finished at 3 am that day. Even if you only write one draft but set it aside for 24 hours, you will catch so many errors when you go back to it. Do you really want whoever is grading your paper to catch these errors instead? 5) This isn't something to teach them, but tell your dc that they should never email asking "Did I miss anything important in class today?" if they were absent. Well, I assume that none of your dc would do this, but it is something that drove me nuts (actually, I could probably write an extremely long post titled "how to avoid irritating your professor or TA" based on my experiences and those of my friends). I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to respond with a simple "YES" and leave it at that.

I'm a little over thirty minutes from the hospital. It's not a big hospital/clinic, but DH and I love it. Seriously, we have loved every doctor we've seen (pediatrics, family med, ob/gyn, ophthalmology, etc.). Before we moved, we were at a very prestigious research hospital (and affiliated clinics), and we hated it. We were a little worried about the quality of the hospital when we moved, but it is a very up-to-date hospital. When I went into labor, it was a bit nerve-wracking for DH to drive in the dark on the wind-y country roads (there are a lot of deer here), especially as my contractions went from five minutes apart down to 2 by the time we got there. Our hospital does have satellite clinics in some surrounding towns, so it's only 15 minutes for us to see DS's pediatrician.

Maybe one of these two? http://www.songsmyth.com/costumerscompanion.html http://sensibility.com/ If neither is what you're looking for, you might try looking through the links on each page?

Good for you!

:iagree: Maybe I was an overly sensitive child, but that film kind of traumatized me when I saw it the first time.

"St. Anthony, please look around; something is lost and must be found."

G&S have their roots in Offenbach's comic operas, which had witty and satirical elements. I usually don't like to cite Wikipedia, but this article might give you a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_influence_of_Gilbert_and_Sullivan

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When DH and I sold our house last year, we got one very low offer, which we thought was bordering on ridiculous. But we countered with a number slightly lower than our listing, just to let the potential buyers know that we weren't interested in going anywhere near as low as they wanted. We figured if they were willing to move up to our price after testing the waters, they would have a chance. But when their counter was only $500 above their initial offer, we decided that it was a waste of time to respond. In the end, we ended up selling only $1K under the listed price, so I don't think that our price was out of line.