waa510
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Posts posted by waa510
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I put in our family's information and it gave me 3k less than the highest amount of $$ we were pre-approved for. So the numbers it gives I would consider to be the absolute maximum amount of money I could afford to spend on a home. Honestly, our mortgage is 297k less than what it said...getting a house at the cost it said is laughable for us as a humongous amount of Dh's income would go to our mortgage and we don't want to be "house-poor". It's not worth it *to us*.
JMO, I'd check another source that might give you a better range with more data input so you get a more accurate picture.
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Nudging the youngest a bit more than I have in the past in writing.
Branching out with some outside classes (online and in-person)
More scheduled field trips around science/history
Not moving even one town over (even if I have to duct tape Dh to a chair)
More interest-led learning
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For my kids, having veggies be the first thing they see when they open the fridge, prepped and ready to go has helped. My kids are too lazy to grab the step-stool to reach into the depths of the cabinet and get some crackers or nuts though ;)
We make salads with dinner and I leave out plates of veggies for them to munch on while we school or while I prep dinner. As vegans a lot of our meals involve a stew, or soup or chili or curry. Those dinners really lend themselves to a ton of veggies in each serving. Plus they keep really well as leftovers/freezer meals. I'll also make veggie sides for dinner or veggie dips. It helps to replace what would be a grain or rice with a veggie instead liked rice cauliflower or riced broccoli in stuffed peppers. I've also been known to add pureed veggies to pasta sauces.
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Your house is gorgeous. The brass doesn't look like an eyesore to me and I've moved a lot and seen a whole lot of homes that made me cringe. I think this is a case of wishy-washy agent.
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Yay! Glad you found a house to rent! They really do go quickly around here!
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Where in NoVA are you looking to rent? There's a townhouse in my neighborhood for rent right now (just went on yesterday). Pm me if interested.
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I used a zippered wetbag that could hang on the closet door with a large metal hook. I'd specifically look for one with the inner liner and cloth liner *not sewn together*. This helps make sure everything is washed well in the washer and prevents leaks. I never had leaks of nasty poo-water with a zippered bag with that design. I have no idea why but it worked.
And, yes, the diapers really need to be stripped if they smell terrible. The more pressing the need to strip, the worse the smell so it sounds like they're holding a whole lot of detergent right now. Does this kid's family maybe have hard water? Cloth diapering with hard water requires more frequent stripping, IME. The kid's mom can use Calgon in the wash with extremely hot water. She'll be able to see an incredible amount of bubbles/soap suds as the cycle goes on. It should be done every maybe 4-5 months.
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We had a girl join our troop last year at age 11. The other girls have been in the troop since kindergarten. It worked out great! She was welcomed right into the troop. We have another girl transferring in this year. She was in a troop, but moved. Our girls are starting their silver awards this year. One thing that might be a logistical issue, but will he easy to work out is if the troop already completed their journey last year. The journey needs to be completed before work on the silver can begin. Your daughter can complete the journey on her own. You might want to find that out so you can begin to work on it if that is the case. Our girl who is transferring in is working on the journey steps we finished this summer so she can jump right in with us in August.
Feel free to PM me with any questions. I am a troop leader of a troop at that age.
Yes, this would be one of the only issues, but it's easy to do the Journey at home. I also believe that you need to complete a Bronze and Silver Award before allowed to work on your Gold award, in certain areas. So I'd check to see if your Council has that rule so she can work on earning the Bronze award during the summer.
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I try to step-by-step all my goals. I'm only very determined in actually doing it...the day-to-day finding time is difficult but I don't easily 'give up' on a goal, if that makes sense. For my goals, I'm a visual person so having a visual representation of my end goal and of my progress is really motivating for me. I also do everything possible to make it as easy as possible for me to progress on my goal. Basically, not putting up roadblocks for myself. Here are some examples:
Exercising every day: How I've tried to reduce roadblocks: live within walking distance of major walking trails (thru the local woods and massive park) so I can easily fit in hiking, walking, running trails. Subscribe to workout-from-home online streaming of workouts. (I now don't need to get the kids dressed and ready to go, pack a change of clothes/towel for myself, drive to and from gym, drop off/pick up kids from childcare at gym). Ask for gift cards to workout subscriptions places, workout clothes/weights stores, REI for hiking gear.
Language learning: The tutoring/teaching I want to do later in life would be easier if I learned some other languages popular in my area. I'm working on Japanese too b/c I'm partly there from having lived in Japan recently. Make it easier by getting apps I can use while out and about in waiting rooms or poolside while my kids do their activities, teach my kids some of the languages so that I can learn them thru teaching and my kids get FL instruction ;) Making friends online who're native speakers so I get social time and language practice in same go.
I think killing two birds with one stone helps me get it done. Involving the family/kids in it helps a ton with getting it done. I have a hard time justifying my own self-care but I can absolutely get on board with helping my kids get exercise thru a family hike or exposing my kids to different languages thru foreign language instruction. So helping myself thru helping those I love at the same time, kwim?
This is just what works for me. YMMV. ;)
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I recently starting using it as I wanted Dd to have more math practice and I like that I can suggest things for her to watch or complete. I just have her do it for review, usually while I'm working with her sister one-on-one. She loves it as a typical Type A who is motivated by the competition, badges, etc. She's also doing the Grammar and Science stuff but I don't assign those, she just does those in her own time for fun.
I think the instruction is very thorough and often the math presents the topic in a different way than was presented in our curriculum. I like exposing her to different ways of approaching the same problem so Khan is serving us really well for that.
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Still hoping for an online conference this summer. Has anyone heard anything? I could so use the encouragement and guidance this year...
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Dh is really pushing to go to this one! I'm still undecided as I'm really more into the vendors. I could really use the encouragement though as I'm feeling some serious burnout lately. We should all go to lunch or dinner together!
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I honestly think it has a lot more to do with personalities of the kids and sometimes gender as well. One reason why my kids are 2 yrs apart is b/c my Dh and SIL are 7 yrs apart and she always felt more like an aunt to him than an older sister. Dh didn't want our kids to have that kind of relationship. I tried to relay that it wasn't so much the age gap, but I'm not sure he was convinced at the time. It didn't matter too much to me so we had them fairly close (he was deployed or they may have been closer in age).
Now what's weird is that we ended up having our kids at around the same time as SIL (they're all within 10 mnths at most of each other), so it's made Dh/SIL's relationship a little easier as adults, b/c they can relate to each other as parents of similar aged kids. They didn't have anything in common as kids to kind of bridge their age gap.
I also think a parent with a big kid-gap has to be careful not to put too much responsibility on the older sibling to be another parent or de facto babysitter. I see this a lot in a large family in our neighborhood and the older sibling is extremely resentful of having to miss out on doing things with kids her age because she has to tag along with her 8 yr old sister's escapades. She also can't do any after-school clubs at school as she needs to watch her younger siblings at home. This is usually the exception instead of the rule (I don't think by any stretch that *all* large families are like this) but it's something to watch out for. I know for *me*, the temptation to lean too much on a responsible older kid would be hard to resist vs. paying for a sitter. But I'm cheap. :lol:
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Prufrock has a series with a title for each decade from 1950s-2000s that covers a lot of the items you mention. We're going to use them next year so I don't have much feedback yet. I've been slowly ordering like-new used copies of them.
:iagree: I've poured thru the couple we have and it looks good for what the OP is going for but we haven't started used them yet.
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Thank you! I recently purchased the book, but need to take a closer look to find the charts that you both mentioned. 😊
The charts I was referring to are in the Appendix in the kids' WWS book. Things like a distance/space words list for use in descriptions of a place...it's all listed within the lesson where to find it. I make copies of them so we can have them in with the reference section (just our preference) and to be able to pull out the sheets when writing instead of flipping back and forth in the book.
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We use a 3" binder but I have the e-book copy of WWS1 in there with the looseleaf paper and all the charts and a divider with a folder for her references. I'm thinking that a 1 and 1/2" would be enough for all the assignments, charts and the reference section for the topos reminders.
The notebook with everything organized and at dd's fingertips has been really helpful and like pp above, she can easily grab it when she wants to check on how to do a topoi when we're working on a history/science paper.
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I have a pressure cooker chili recipe with measurements of 2/3 cup of 3 different types of dry beans. I think you need to have an idea of the amount of dried beans you have to get an accurate measure of liquid. My cookbook recipe says to add 3 1/2 cups water with only 1 can of diced tomatoes...so not a lot of liquid total. If you want the full recipe, you can pm me :)
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Everything that hasn't worked out has been nebulous without much structure or continuity in presentation. I can't handle opening up something and being befuddled as to how to really implement it, long-term, anyway. If I'm 3 months in to using it and still feel like I can't get a grasp on what's going on...we have to ditch it. :(
Things for creative, out-of-the-box people don't tend to work well for us (maybe b/c I can't wrap my head around it ;) )
I hate pointless busywork and have learned to cut that stuff out of an otherwise great curriculum. I didn't like things constantly repeating material for oldest but youngest seems to need that a little more so I'm appreciating that now. I hate things that jump from step A to step D (like a Math book) and expect me to fill in the blanks. I shouldn't have to youtube how to find this or that in Math b/c you didn't explain it to my kid and I don't remember b/c it's been 15 yrs.
Anything that has no spine going on leaves us feeling like we're floundering and we have a hard time staying consistent with those types of curriculum.
So, I feel like I've come a long way in the curriculums that I can work with, but I still need *something* to work with. "Make it up as we go" doesn't work for me!
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Nutritional yeast can be used for lots of recipes! It's great as a sub for parmesan cheese, topping veggie soups or chili, you can use a bunch of it to make a yummy vegan mac and cheese, add it to tofu to make a vegan ricotta-like mixture, make cheesy kale chips..yum. If you google 'vegan nutritional yeast' recipes you will get more recipes than you can make with just one bag of nutritional yeast!
It really is great on popcorn though so I'd try that too!
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Camp for a week for each kid, schoolwork-lite, the pool in our community in the afternoons, Summer Book Club at the library, hopefully lots of GS troop camping/badges, maybe an online class for the older, maybe trying out some summer session at activities they've considered like ballet, fencing, and.... rhythmic gymnastics... :huh:
I'd love to go to the zoo or do any of the outdoor things we've been putting off while the weather's been frigid but our summers are usually extremely hot so we'll see.
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Congratulations! What a beautiful name!
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Creak and I'm originally from CT.
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I wouldn't worry about Japan, whatsoever. As someone who lived there and witnessed this firsthand, when bad stuff has gone down or is about to....you know it!
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I was under the impression that yeast infections don't cause an odor, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd go with bacterial issue. There's a home vaginal health test by Monistat that you can use to see if the acidity level is high enough to point to a bacterial infection or not. I'm not sure of any home remedy for a bacterial issue.
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Finding pen pals
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
My girls have found pen pals via my joining pen pal groups on Facebook. My kids have varied interests and it wasn't too hard to find kids to write to. The one that seemed to have the most activity and response was Pen Pal Match Ups (FOR KIDS).