Yes, but probably not to the OPs definition. No shoes in the house, I don't wear makeup, I don't have a hairstyle that needs a lot of work or fixing beyond a brush, and I don't wear jewelry. It's also not a moral issue for me. Our productivity levels have nothing to do with how we're dressed and my kids have had PJ days. Shower every moening, bursh my hair, and it' ssome form of jeans and a t-shirt year round.

I live in a low-reg state so the amount of paperwork I have to submit is pretty small, but there's a part of me that feels like I should keep something like a portfolio just in case I have to prove that I met our state statute's requirement to provide a "sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and health." No one has ever questioned us and I imagine the only person who ever looks at this portfolio/list is me. And maybe my kids. I still feel like it's a good idea to have it. I settled on a portfolio of sorts. One of the first things in our portfolios is a list of all the books/movies we used for school for the year minus a few that fell through the cracks. It doesn't include books the kids picked out that I read for them or the books the kids chose for their own free reading, but does include curriculum, picture books, literature selections, read alouds, audio books, etc. It's usually 10 pages or so. I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do things. The way it works now is that I create a word processing document at the beginning of the school year and front load as much of it as I can based upon my lesson plans - usually title, author, publisher if it's curriculum, and ISBN (or website). I try to also keep track of things through out the year in OneNote. I have grand plans to keep up the main word processing document through out the year, but I never do. This means that at the end of the year I have to go back through my records and update what's missing. It can take me a decent day's worth of work to get it ready to print. Is there an app that I could do it in? I use Good Reads to keep track of our audiobooks/read alouds, but that wouldn't create anything easily printable/exportable that I'm aware of. A database? Keep on with my word processing document?

*sticks fingers in her ears* la, la, la, la, can't hear you!! We're just starting logic stage here. It's not possible. It's really not.

I live in the midwest and I've never heard "I'm going to the Target." It's always been "I'm going to Target." Dh is from a different part of the midwest and the same is true for him.

I'll do your cooking if you'll do my cleaning and then we'll be covered when the great gaystopo comes around and forces people to gay marry. ;)

I don't garden much anymore (except for a tiny little garden with peppers and Japanese eggplant), but we never got squash in monumentous quantities. Borers always got to ours before they set much fruit. I was always jealous of the zucchini people because we were lucky to get one or two. On the rare occassion that we got more than two, I used to grate the zucchini and freeze it that way. It took up less room and I could easily make zucchini bread or throw a handful of grated zucchini into something (usually some sort of tomato sauce).

Meh, only three steps necessary if you live in the US, no legal defense organization necessary. 1. Know your state's homeschooling law. 2. Follow the law. 3. Join your statewide organization. The last one may be a bit more challenging depending on your state. My state has two statewide, homeschool parent run support organizations. One is Christian, the other is inclusive. Most issues that pop up are easily addressed by our state level, homeschool parent run organization.

I thought the same thing.

*sigh* Seriously? Again, for the third(?) time - most insurance policies (auto, home, health) have written into them the right to subrogation. Most of those times, unless you are willing to commit fraud, you will have to be honest about where an accident took place and the details so that your insurance can determine if there is additional applicable coverage. You as an individual have no control over how or when your insurance decides to subrogate or who they decide to seek a subrogation claim against. You agreed to their right to subrogation when you purchased the policy. There are two kinds of medical payments coverage. One is no-fault, meaning no liability decision is made, and pays bills as they are incurred according to usual & customary charges for reasonable treatment related to the injury. This coverage is limited and they will only pay up to the policy limits. Typically $1k on a homeowners policy, but this varies depending on how much coverage was purchased. The second coverage is dependent upon a liability decision. The auto insurance equivalent is a bodily injury claim. It's a lump sum payment and no payments are made until a settlement is reached with the injured party. It is also limited by policy limits, but sometimes, if the claim is in excess of policy limits, the insured can be sued by the injured party for the amount in excess of policy limits. That requires a trial and there's no guarantee that the injured party will win the case. Also, just because a claim is filed, does not mean that anything will be paid out under the policy. This is what you pay for insurance for - an experienced advocate who will take care of things for you. Your insurance company is looking out for your best interests - it's within their best interests to avoid paying out or paying out as little as they can. On the other hand, they're regulated by the state and have certain responsibilities they have to follow in order to do business in the state. There's also such a thing as fraud and insurance companies have specific departments to investigate fraud. Some of what you describe could be construed as fraud and handled as such. All of life is about risk and the likelihood that x could happen. In most cases, the chances are really slim. Most homeowners/car owners will pay their policy premiums and never once make a claim or have one made against them. It's not an issue of people not taking responsibility. It's a legal contract, regulated by your state's insurance department, and agreed to by you when you purchased the policy. I fail to see how any of this translates to what you said.

That's not the way insurance works and you're wishing otherwise doesn't change the way policies are written. The insurance follows the car for non-excluded, permissive drivers (although my state does not allow excluded drivers, so this will vary a little based upon the state the accident occurs in). Now, if someone steals your car and gets into an accident with it, you won't be liable for any property damage claims arising from damage to others, but you would have to use your own insurance to fix your car. Your insurance would then likely attempt to recover the amount they paid out for your damages from that thief. Whether or not they would be able to recover something is another matter. MedPay (assuming you live in a MedPay state), on the other hand, follows the driver. So if you borrow your friend's car, get in an accident, and are injured, the MedPay coverage on your auto insurance policy would pay for your injuries (up to the policy limits). Your MedPay coverage on your auto insurance will also pay for any injuries you might sustain if you're out riding your bike or walking down the road and are hit by a car. There are non-fault based medical payments coverage available that do not require an admission of liability or anyone being "at fault." You would have selected the limit when you purchased your insurance. They pay medical bills only. tbh, I think most of the OP's friend's issue and a number of the other posters in this thread arise from a misunderstanding about homeowner's insurance and how it works. If you've found yourself upset or surprised by the situation, then this is a prime time to make an appointment with your insurance agent and find out more. What kind of coverage do you have? Under what circumstances will it pay? What happens if someone's injured on your property? What happens if you put in a trampoline? What happens if you have a pool? Should you be concerned about putting up a swing set? Granted, in some cases, your agent will probably want to sell you an umbrella policy (because they seem to really want to sell those), but you'll leave with a better understanding of what you're paying for and maybe even find that you should consider more coverage. I can wish for single-payer healthcare all I want which would largely simplify the issue, but as the saying goes, if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.

She's not stealing from anyone. Read your policy declaration page. I'm willing to bet you have no-fault medical payments coverage. The OPs situation is precisely what that coverage was designed for. No fault required and no impact on your premium. If you don't believe me, ask your insurance agent. Know your coverage.

Meh. My state is a MedPay state when it comes to auto insurance so while there is such a thing as bodily injury claims that are made depending on fault, there's also coverage available on my own auto insurance policy to pay for injuries regardless of who is at fault. There is both a liability based personal injury coverage and a medical expense coverage that is available regardless of legal liability on your homeowner's insurance. The liability based one is usually a lump sum that is negotiated based upon liability decision while the non-liability based coverage functions much like health insurance. In other words, they pay claims according to U&C charges that relate to the injury received while on the property. No need to determine fault and nothing to do with negligence or blame. it's a good reason to know your policy and your coverage. The OPs friend could have perhaps saved herself a lot of stress and kept a friendship if she better understood her homeowner's insurance coverage.

Even if she had insurance, her health insurance policy would have the right to subrogation and may have sought reimbursement from the homeowner's insurance anyway. My health insurance is incredibly subrogation happy and will deny any and all claims that look like an accident until you return the accident form. Ds stuck a crayon in his ear and got a little bit of it stuck? Accident form. I dropped a cast iron griddle on my toes? Accident form. In both cases I wondered who else they thought might be responsible. The griddle? The crayon? Dd fell at my parents house and split her chin requiring stitches...still waiting on that form to show up. It's annoying and causes all sorts of difficulties because my insurance is slow and then the providers start expecting me to pay for the charges, but this is the way things work in the US. In the instance mentioned in the OP, I might be a little annoyed, but I'd just be glad I had insurance. I imagine now that the lawyer is involved, they'll have other ways of finding out her homeowner's insurance policy information. I'd also be really glad, if I were that person, that I had insurance and that they would take care of it all for me. imo, she would have been better off calling in a claim on her insurance first thing, before the lawyer got involved. It would likely have saved her a lot of stress and could have ended up saving her homeowner's insurance some money in the long run.

For animals, it's more than that. Our pets have emotional lives and bonds with their family so the caring "rituals" can definitely play a role - http://thebark.com/content/dogs-and-placebo-effect

This is the nocebo effect Sadie mentioned.

Lewber - I seem to lose the voice prompts on my C25K app at the very beginning until I futz around with a few settings towards the beginning of my workout and then she miraculously comes back. I kind of wish there was more encouragment along the way, though.

This was a great post, but I wanted to mention that this wasn't necessary. Over the course of the day, you'll eat lots of different things with many bits of the essential amino acids and your body is smart enough to pick those bits and add them up into the complete bits you need. The only slightly problematic one is lysine, but if you eat beans or something like seitan you're covered. No need to overthink it. Variety is key, but if you're eating food, I wouldn't worry about it.

Well, mine's all in OneNote and my kids all know what my abbreviations stand for and where all the books are so my dh could continue on should he choose to do so. Between the four of them, I know they could figure it out. I have a little life insurance, but not nearly as much as dh does because it was just too expensive for me. Still, it's enough to give him a bit of a buffer if something were to happen to me. My kids are young enough at this stage, though, that they'd just go to the public school. Were they high school age, then given that our district is all or nothing, things would be a bit more challenging.

I finished day 2 and it was easier than the day 1 which surprised me given how sore I still was this morning when I woke up. Even with stretching and warm up/cool down, stairs are not my friend. I'm cautiously optimistic as I've tried the C25K thing before. Granted, I was 45 pounds heavier at the time, but I ended up with the worst foot pain. The podiatrist kept telling me it was plantar fasciitis, but none of the things for plantar fasciitis did anything to help. The only thing that did help was stopping C25K and yoga altogether. I'm hoping this time I can skip the foot pain and keep going because I have a 5K picked out (October 24th) and I really want to do it. :0) The kids were better this time. I only had to beg the five year old twice to keep moving. Somehow she ended up behind her siblings today which meant she also lost the will to keep pedaling consistently. I think she just wanted to hang around by me, but it's tough not to end up tripping over her bike when she's in the middle of the sidewalk. Going together is important to me, though, so we keep on.

Potatoes - filling, lots of potassium, plenty of fiber. Anything you serve over pasta or rice does well over potatoes. Dinner tonight is baked potatoes (20min in the Instant Pot, 20 minutes on the grill) topped with green peppers, green onions, sliced olives (for the kids), steamed spinach (or Kale? haven't decided), and then BBQ sauce or salsa depending on your preference. Oh, and beans! Basically whatever bits of leftover beans I have knocking around in the fridge/freezer. I think the kids will probably do some Smart Balance on top too, but dh and I won't. These are pretty big potatoes, and tbh even though I could eat a lot of food before we went vegan, I probably won't be able to finish it. And if I do, I'll probably be over-full. ime, fiber, not fat or dairy, is the name of the game. The more fiber your meal has, the fuller you'll be...for hours. Tomorrow night is Chef AJ's Red Lentil Chili over oil-free baked potato wedges. The night after that is Dragon Noodle Salad and Sesame Tofu from "Isa Does It." The day after that I'm going to make some vegan naan from Richa Hingle (Vegan Richa), top that with roasted red pepper hummus and a bunch of grilled veggies (eggplant, mushroom, red pepper, zucchini, and red onion). I think I'll heat that up on the grill and serve a simple salad on the side. Polenta makes a good base - soft or baked/fried slices. Quinoa, farro, millet, couscous, amaranth, bulgur, etc are also other great intact grains to base a meal on. My kids really like a garlic chickpea farro salad we've had a few times ("Salad Samurai" by Terry Hope Romero). I usually roast the chickpeas and go for either oil-free in the dressing or half what the recipe calls for.

I'm iffy on Fords because our '04 Freestar has brake issue galore. With your kids' ages, I'd lean towards the smaller car, imo. I usually search here (http://www.uaw.org/cars) before we buy a car, and typically include Canadian built ones in my search. We own two minivans right now, but I think dh is looking at the Chevy Cruze when it comes time to replace the Freestar.

No land speed records here either. I was only out just shy of 25 minutes yesterday and I think the app said 1.25mi. My kids on their bikes usually make it to the end of the block in advance of me and hang around for awhile waiting for me to catch up. :0)

Yes. With the exception of when I was nursing babies I always have. It used to be that I went to bed at midnight or later, but now that dh is on first shift for the summer, we're heading to bed around 9:30-10pm and getting up around 5:30-5:45am. It weirds me out a little, tbh, to see that side of the day.

I got a new pair of shoes this weekend (a first for me in a couple of years) and thanks to dh's encouragement and this thread, made it out for the first workout of week 1. I checked the Accuweather app to see what the likelyhood of rain would be and it said no rain for two hours so I went for it. lol, Accuweather wasn't quite as accurate as they seem. I ended up cutting it short because it started to rain. I took the kids with me on their bikes and that was...interesting. It worked better when the kids rode out in front and waited for me to catch up at the intersections. The last few run/walk cycles were tough, but overall I enjoyed it. :0)

I bought an off brand one for my Brother that was supposed to be equivalent to the name brand high yield cartridge, but it lasted nowhere near as long as the name brand one and had serious print quality issues. I've stuck with the name brand ones since then. I always buy them on Amazon and even with all of the printing that I do (duplexed, lots of ebook based curriculum, etc), I only use one cartridge a year.