Lol...Ellie and I agree which I don't think happens very often. As far as the legal term is concerned and as far as the state of Wisconsin is concerned, students enrolled in virtual schools are public school students. They have to take the required standardized tests. They have to do all of the things who attend school at the building a few blocks over. Maintaining that clear distinction is important because it effects the way lawmakers think of homeschoolers and the legal requirements for homeschoolers. I think homeschoolers are better servd of we maintain that distinction which has nothing to do with whether or not they attend the park playdate. For the other squishier stuff, I agree with farrar and again, it has nothing to do with playdates, classes, and coops. We can make legally distinctions without excluding anyone or saying one choice is more valid than another.

IMO, it's not homeschooling if they're doing so through a public school. If they're going the correspondence school route on their own, then I'd be more apt to consider it homeschooling. For me it has less to do with the being at home part and more to do with which laws they're covered under. If they aren't required to follow the state's homeschool laws, then it's not homeschooling. I think it's perfectly ok for them to participate in homeschool groups and socialization stuff, but it is not the same thing.

I was actually thinking something along these lines. On the one hand I am failing my community and school district because I homeschool whereas the accepted wisdom seems to be that my better bet is to enroll my kids in school and the be actively involved in schools and helping to advocate for change on the inside. On the other hand, by doing so I'm spending too much time at school and ensuring that my children have lower reading scores. I think I'll just keep homeschooling instead. :)

Maybe they've changed since 2011? On the Aldi plan one meal was broccoli cheese soup with broccoli, butter, flour, milk, 12 slices of American cheese, salt, pepper, and cheddar cheese. That was served with blueberry muffins made from a box mix. Two meals before that was pepperoni bake with crescent rolls, mozzarella, pepperoni, eggs, and pepper. Another week was "Chipper Chicken" with cream of mushroom soup and crushed potato chips. Like I said, we gave up at the time because I was having to come up with meals to replace the ones on the list and then it seemed a bit silly to buy the meal plan when I had to redo so much of it. As always, YMMV.

We used it for awhile and had the Aldi plan. It wasn't expensive (either the meals or the service), but it wasn't uncommon for me to have to replace at least half the meals with something else. One week I ended up with only one meal on the list that was usable for our family. It also tended towards Pampered Chef style recipes - take all these packaged goods, open them, and mix together. It's not a bad thing, and I think a lot of folks would love it. I the end, it didn't work for us. I did look at their vegetarian plan recently and was unimpressed. Really wish they had an actual veg/vegan to write it because some of the sample meals were really odd.

I don't want the thread shut down, but I do take issue with the value judgements you've made about parents who don't censor their children's reading selections according to "age appropriateness." You've stated in another thread that parents like me are "damaging" our children by not doing so. See, the difference is, while I may not agree with you on this issue, I don't think you are damaging your children in any way. I think there are other, less restrictive ways that you could go about achieving your goals/values in this matter, but I make no value judgements about that. I don't have to slam down hard and fast barriers in order for my children to generally end up around their "age appropriateness" when it comes to what they read. They do that naturally on their own by following their interests. Them ending up outside of that general area is not the end of the world. I think the other part that's missing is that no one is suggesting that any of these hypothetical students read the book in isolation. In both the instance of 11th grade common core and your slippery slope 10yr old example, they are reading it in the context of a discussion/literary analysis and there is much value to be had in that sort of open conversation.

As one who does not keep my children from books or censor their choices, and whose oldest is 8yo, I guess we'll address that if it ever comes to that. Right now he isn't the slightest bit interested in anything but Harry Potter because I require the book before the movie and he wants to watch all of the movies. That requirement is not unique to HP, though, I require that for all books turned movies. I suspect if he did pick it up, we'd talk about what it was about. We do that with all books. Again, though, he's not in 11th grade which is what the whole brouhaha is about and I have zero problems with him reading it then. 11th grade and 3rd grade are quite different, yes? If he picked it up I might suggest he wait until he's older, but that's mostly because I think he'd get more out of it then which is not the same thing as calling it "filth" or saying it's "of Satan." If he was insistent? In reality, I suspect even if he did pick it up at 8 or 10, he'd probably start it and not finish it much like "The Killing Order" earlier this year. And it would be another opportunity for challenging dinnertime conversation where I try my best to answer whatever difficult questions my kids dream up which never happens when dh is home because apparently I am the fount of all knowledge. *shrugs* Yes, I really do turn my kids loose in the library.

I love this idea. I've already done a bit of that with some of the banned picture books, but in part that was unintentional since we already owned some of them. I was looking at the ALA banned book lists last night. They have the lists they published for each year from 2004 on at their website. TBE has been on the list every year. The shocker for me was that someone had a problem with Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire."

My dh had controlling parents who continued to try and parent him until well after we were married and had our first child. After having watched the way that impacted dh's life, limited his opportunities, and then spilled over onto me, it became a bit easier to see the difference between them and my parents who had high standards for us growing up, but were far more capable of letting us go. I'm not perfect, but having lived the other side of the coin, it makes it easier to remember the long game as another poster put it. My primary job is not to shelter and protect my child so that nothing bad ever happens to them or is done by them. My job, as I see it, is to raise independent adults - freethinkers capable of making decisions on their own, whether I agree with it or not. It will be their life to live and I don't want to mess things up so that they have fewer choices available to them when the time comes. Everything I do as a parent then shifts as they get older. When they're babies, we're attached at the hip morning, noon, and night. As they grow older they become more independent and every day they take responsibility for more things. Much like they learn to brush their own teeth, so too do they begin to make their own decisions and establish who they are outside of any ideas I might have had about the "shoulds." Keeping that in mind makes it easier to let go of things I might wish to control. Knowing the difference between the relationship my dh has with his parents and the one I have with mine also helps, because holding on tightly to one's children, especially as they get older, only pushes them away. I want to have a relationship with my children when they're adults. I want us to be friends like I am with my mom. I don't want to only see them once a year for a few short days. My ILs miss out, I don't want that to be me.

I'd use it because I wouldn't want to waste it as I currently am with a bottle of conditioner that behaves similarly. Hmmmm...I guess I really am rather (obsessively) frugal. I guess my dh was right all along. ;)

Oh, I agree, but I homeschool, have three kids, and take care of most everything else around the house because my hsband works 60+ hours a week. We all have our trade-offs. In this case, I choose a little convenience for me, a lot of independence for my kids who just eat one packet, and a handful of meals where I don't have to be involved. If that works for you, fantastic, but I'll gladly spend a few more dollars on groceries for my own mental and emotional health. It's what keeps me able to homeschool which is what's most important for me. Trying to do it all is what led to my massive burnout and putting my kids in ps last year.

I usually buy the family packs so they are a bit more expensive, but still not terribly so. This morning, though, we had apple pie oatmeal which stretches 1/3 of a cup of oats per person into so much more than that. I have leftovers from our 4 servings and could have easily fed the 5 of us. It also stuck around until 1pm when dh got home for lunch. I'm definitely putting that in our breakfast rotation. That plus getting dh to stick to the lunch meal plan means this week so far is a huge success! :0

Where did you read about the bedbugs in Madison? Where were you thinking of staying? I'm semi-local to the area so let's save your visit. Have you considered staying outside of Madison? You could stay in Stoughton - that would still be in the same county, but less expensive and only about 30 minutes away from campus. Where are you coming from? Driving? Flying? Depending on where you're coming from or going to afterward you might want to pick a place North or South of Madison. If you're coming up I90 from the Illinois side, you might consider Janesville. It's only about 45minutes away from campus, less expensive than Madison, but still a few more hotel choices compared to Stoughton.

I have some of my grandmother's old pyrex and have been using it since the beginning of this year (or maybe the end of last year?). I haven't had any problems with it. The only thing that I had break was an old refrigerator dish. I've had some chipping on new pyrex, but no exploding. Dh even put a piece of depression glass in the microwave without any ill effects except for a stern lecture on why exactly he should probably find a different dish to melt margarine for his popcorn. My understanding is that the potential issue is with the newer stuff.

"Crewel" is on my list, but mostly because the author did it during NaNoWriMo. Stay-at-home mom turned published author - in my dreams she's what I want to be when I grow up.

You know, I think there are a number of parents and families where this is true. It's just another form of "outsourcing." I don't think there's anything wrong with the CPS plan nor with covering these things with young children. 3-5 yo is about when we start talking about it. We use "It's So Amazing" and try to talk about gender in non-binary ways. My kids haven't lost their innocence and I didn't drag them away from their toys and coloring books to force feed them the information. It wasn't any different than any other storytime. We pulled out the book, sat on the couch, and read together. *shrugs* My kids have often pulled the book off the shelf to read on their own. My ds has read part of the book to his sisters much like any other book when one's older sibling can read and you can't. It's so mundane it's a non-issue. No shame. No guilt. Just fact based information like why the sky is blue and which planet is fifth from the sun.

This. This idea that we should never "allow" students to read objectionable material is the impetus behind book banning. If you go down the list of banned and challenged books you'll find that we shouldn't read books because they describe racism, use language others are sensitive to, etc. The idea being that there are some things so terrible that no one should ever read those books because of a paragraph or a section, etc. I haven't read the book in question, but I don't have a problem with reading it, nor would I have an issue with my son or daughter being assigned it in 11th or 12th grade. It's Toni Morrison not a promotional piece. It's not porn or trashy. It makes people here uncomfortable, I appreciate that, but that doesn't make it wrong. As for the value? Sometimes we learn the most when we see things from a different perspective. Sometimes the greatest impact is made when we are fa out of our comfort zone. Sometimes discomfort is the way through to truth. Life is not all roses, sunshine, and butterflies. Not every great work of literature is G-rated.

In short - Different values. Different standards. And no, it's not pornography. Not even close. The long version? I agree with farrar and the rest who find this a non-issue.

Our third was a surprise and is at the far limits of what I can handle. We went the v route and dh had a rougher recovery and some lingering negative side effects, but we'd do it all over again, just would have done it sooner. It really has been a huge benefit for our relationship as I would have always worried about the possibility another surprise. I know my limits.

That sounds like a huge success!! I rewrote my meal plan after I started writing my grocery list and realized that there were quite a few items on the list for only a few meals. I also shopped the pantry and took a couple of things off my list as a result. I planned 24 meals for 9 days plus a snack for 8 days in order to get us through to my next grocery shopping day. I also enlisted my dh in planning lunches that he'll actually eat so I can put more money in savings towards replacing our roof/gutters/soffits. Sticking to the meal plan/budget is important. I spent $35 at the farmer's market on veg plus some grade b maple syrup that will last us awhile, $89 at the grocery store, and $45 at Target for a few food items plus some toilet bowl cleaner/dog food/hand soap/laundry detergent. I ended up under budget at $169 which is $20 under what I spent last week and $60-ish under what I had been spending before. I still need to pick up some corn on the cob for Monday's dinner provided that I can find the guy we usually buy from. If not, I'll sub a side dish leftover from last night or frozen peas from the freezer. I think I overbought on bagels and could have probably saved another $1-2 if I had bought the bulgur I needed from the bulk section at the co-op. I had forgotten to count up the oatmeal packets for the kids, though, so I could have saved a bit there by not getting any more. I'm still hemming and hawing a bit about the Oat Revolution instant oatmeal, but my kids get such a kick out of being able to make their own oatmeal, so I'm putting the value on independence.

And there are those that eat low-carb and have metabolic syndrome. Jimmy Moore comes to mind as he tries ever crazier things to try and get his numbers under control. On the flip side there are also those who have gotten their metabolic syndrome/type-2 diabetes under control eating a plant based diet including whole grains and starchy veg. Some have had success specifically with a high starch diet. The reality is that the "cause" of any of our illnesses of civilization is most likely a combination of factors and not necessarily any one thing. After all, an apparent correlation does not equal causation. And again, the point still stands. If you feel that you don't like it or your n=1 experience says that it's not a sustainable diet for you, then don't eat it. That doesn't negate the n=1 experience of those who do. Herbs - Sometimes you'll have better results if you put the plant in an area where there's lots of sunlight to bounce around the room rather than a sunny windowsill. For instance, I have better luck with my plants/herbs in my living room across the room from the window. The walls are a cream so while there isn't a crazy amount of sunlight, there is still quite a bit bouncing around.

*shrugs* Then don't. Historically speaking, this is often how people would have fed their families. Meat was a luxury. it was expensive and certainly not something they would have had everyday let alone two or more times a day. Instead, they would have focused on starches, fiber, and veggies because they kept bellies full and people moving. Are there people who conceivably require less or somehow cannot thrive on this sort of diet? Sure, but it's a far smaller proportion than popular dietary wisdom suggests. My main point still stands. Grocery budgets are an issue of math, not magic. The more fixed aspects to the equation the less there is to change and the fewer savings there are to be had. It also doesn't negate the fact that this is how many families, including my own, keep the grocery budget low while keeping growing kids full.

This...well, except the vegan part. My family does quite well on a vegan diet even though my dh was reluctant at first. My food budget stretches quite a ways including enough to keep my knobby kneed, skinny 8yo ds full which is not an easy thing to accomplish. Fiber is your friend. But really, you have to stop thinking in terms of "protein" foods where the assumption is that it looks like a piece of meat or beans or what have you. There's protein in almost everything you eat including cauliflower. Rather than trying to get all of your protein in with three very specific foods in three very specific meals, tthink instead of the balance of your day. A few grams here and a few more there plus a handful later on and you're already on your way to a healthy amount. There is little benefit to eating more protein than your body needs. Considering that some sources can be quite expensive, I'd suggest focusing on that instead of cutting down on whole wheat pasta (another source of protein). And yes, Pretty in Pink, it does seem like you've discounted most of the suggestions given. I think you might have to accept that you may not be able to shrink your grocery budget below what you already spend. Not a judgement, just a function of the equation. It's an issue of math - there are only so many variables. The more of them that are set in stone (animal protein focused, organic, etc), the fewer there are left for you to change.

706 :0)

It's 554 with 140 conditional orders and they show the discount level at the 65% so my assumption is that they're counting it as 694 which wold mean 7 more orders to 74% discount.