Can you make microwaveable heating pads? Not sure how cold your nights are where you are, but we love heating up our individual heating pads for 2 minutes in the microwave and then taking them to bed with us. I make mine with millet (aka bird seed) or a lot of people use rice. Basic pattern: start with a 10"x20" piece of sturdy fabric. Fold it in half so it's long and skinny (5"x20"), sew one short side and the long side. Turn right side out, add a couple of cups of millet (not all the way full), and sew the other short end closed. I also make a little flannel pillowcase for it that is washable. They are wonderful!

Wow. I would not have a problem paying a little interest for the privilege of borrowing money so easily. Especially if I might need to do so again in the future. My dad put 4 kids through college. Grad school was up to us. I borrowed I think about $5k from his retirement account. I was PROUD to make my payment with interest every month. I was a grown-up, with a teaching job, and was very thankful that his loan helped me pay for my graduate degree and teaching credential. I believe that I paid a rate that was below what I could borrow elsewhere, but still more than he might get from investing it in a bank or CD, etc. If the interest would really only be $50-$60, it's just not even worth agonizing over. That's the cost of borrowing money. And it helps take care of a family member--better than interest going to a bank. I made payments that covered about half of the loan and my dad then forgave the balance when I got married. Oh, and here's how my kids make money. They have cash reserves in their bedroom. When I am short on cash, I borrow from them. I write an I.O.U. If I borrow $20, I pay them back $21 as soon as possible. They are learning about how interest works. And sometimes it's just more convenient to borrow from them than find an ATM. Works well for all of us.

For a craft idea, I just got my girls this Klutz kit to make fairies. I saw a friend's and thought it looked cool. I think my girls will have fun with it. http://www.amazon.com/Fairies-Petal-People-Yourself-Klutz/dp/159174802X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289708318&sr=8-1 Oh, and for board games Blokus is lots of fun--one of our favorites. My girls are just getting old enough to play Boggle successfully too (we don't cross out any of their words that are on someone else's list--they get credit for all of the words they find).

She sounds like a strong student. I would encourage strong students to complete algebra 1 before 9th grade so that they will have the time in high school to reach the highest levels of math. Even if they say at age 12 that their interests lie elsewhere, keep their options open by giving them a strong math background in high school. Where I taught high school math, top students were all on track to take calculus in high school whether they favored math/science OR humanities. I don't know about current algebra 1 programs (my kids aren't there yet). I would look for a solid program for her 8th grade year and plan to go on to geometry in high school. If AoPS is too much, I'm sure there are several other programs that will still provide a complete algebra 1 experience for her. Haven't seen AoPS--maybe it is something that you can use to supplement a different program?

I'm going to suggest that a lot of this depends on the age when you meet. If we had been in our twenties, we would have got married a lot faster. But we met my first weekend in college when I was 18 and dh was 20. We started dating immediately, but didn't get married until almost 7 years later. We sometimes wish we had married a year earlier, but while we were both focused on education and getting our careers going, we were content to wait.

Praying that all goes well with your treatment so that you will be cancer free when it is done. And praying for peace and strength to deal with each day's challenges.

A can of Pediasure has about 250 calories (8 oz). I think Carnation Instant Breakfast in whole milk is similar, but it tends to give my dd diarrhea. Either is a great easy way to get more calories and lots of nutrients into a body. Pediasure, unfortunately, is expensive at about $10 per 6 pack, but we do use it occasionally. Now that dd is a bit older (13), I should look at Ensure again to see if we could use that. It's several dollars cheaper per six-pack, but dd's ped didn't want her on it as a child--too much of some nutrients. Pediasure or the like is also easy to set aside as one child's food--everyone else has to keep their mitts off of it! When my dd was a toddler the doctor prescribed Haagen dazs milk shakes--guess who had a little trouble keeping her mitts off of it!

We have the Zeman books which we used our first time through (1st grade). We read them for fun this year, but my 5th grader and I also read McCaughrean's book. Zeman is great for 1st-2nd grade. Older kids will get more out of McCaughrean I think.

We started with SWO and switched to R&S when my oldest was just finishing 2nd grade. Much prefer R&S. I'm using it a year ahead with my youngest, so she's doing the 3rd grade book in 2nd grade. My older dd eventually was working a year ahead too. The words may be a little on the easy side, but the activities are not. Anyway, my older dd finished the 5th grade book last year and we have transitioned on to vocabulary (we are using MCT's Caesar's English). That has all gone very smoothly. Dd is a natural speller; I think it is working out fine to have her in vocabulary studies now instead of spelling. HTH.

Is there someone coordinating meals for the family? Are you close enough that you can just call up the mom and ask her if there is anything she is craving? Or that the family can't eat? My sister went through chemo this summer for leukemia. It made her anemic and between rounds she just craved red meat. She loved it when someone brought them fajitas. Her dh does not like beans--that would not have been a great meal. She had no problem just telling people what they would like or couldn't eat. Flowers would have been a big no-no. She could not be around them when her blood counts were down. Chemo is different for different cancers. People react differently too. If you can call either the recipient or someone close to them who has the scoop, you can provide just what they need and your meal will be a huge blessing to them. Thanks for reaching out and caring.

:iagree: We started out with SWO and switched to R&S. I much prefer R&S. The activities teach students about the English language. SWO activities often seemed like busy work and could be frustrating for my child who is not a puzzle person. I remember activities where she was supposed to unscramble letters to form a word on her list. If you don't like puzzles, this is time-consuming, frustrating, and doesn't do much to reinforce the spelling.

Definitely one story here, but we have a dd in a wheelchair. We moved from a 3 level home (garage on bottom, living areas up half a level, all bedrooms and bathrooms up another half level over garage) which would be very difficult for anyone with mobility issues, though we loved the house. Single levels are so much easier for everything. Laundry is on the same level where you are, no matter where you are. Easy to run trash or recycling out to the garage. No carrying vacuum cleaners up stairs. Being on the same level promotes family togetherness. And dh and I know that we'll never have to move due to our own health issues later in life. Single levels do cost more per square foot. Around here they are in short supply probably because of that. A very high percentage of homes built in the last 20 years are two story, I think because builders can make more money off of them. When we needed to move to a single level, we couldn't find an existing one and had this one built for us from the builder's plan in a neighborhood of mostly 2 stories. So single levels hold their value well here and are pretty easy to sell--there are always people out there who want a single level (like older folks who can't do stairs as well as they used to).

Books we've been using: Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Farris. You could probably do a full year with just this book. If you don't have poetry books already and don't want to make a large investment, just get this book. I picked up an old edition at our library's used book sale. Shel Silverstein books. I've had these since my childhood--Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up (actually given to me as an adult). The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. Given to my brothers and sister and I when we were kids--I kept it. My American Heritage collected by Ralph Henry and Lucile Pannell. Just another one hanging around from my childhood. Poetry Speaks to Children. This one is more recent. Has a CD with the authors reading the poems too. And more books I haven't gotten to yet: Caroline Kennedy's A Family of Poems. Christmas gift from a few years ago. The Harp and the Laurel Wreath--Laura Berquist Have a few of my mom's books from her college days and I think I could find some in the Ogden Nash book and the Emily Dickinson book that we would like. We've read some of their poems in the other books--Nash in Favorite Poems and Dickinson in My American Heritage. I also have The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and could do some of his sonnets--will probably wait until next year when we are in that time period. Anyway, we have all of these great books around. I just pick one up on a Sunday evening and start reading through to find some I like. It's really pretty easy. Having a theme like Ogden Nash week helps me out too.

Not really a change, but I am so enjoying MCT Town level with my 5th grader that I may start Island level with my 2nd grader. She'll probably be done with FLL 2 sometime midwinter and will be ready for something new. My 5th grader is doing Paragraph Town for writing which I think is just excellent--it's making me wonder what was in Sentence Island. I may go through that quickly with her after Paragraph Town.

WWE 2 with a 2nd grader here. 4x/week, about 10 minutes per day. Day 4 is a bit longer than the others since there is narration and dictation. When we were finishing WWE 1 last year, we were a bit behind schedule and did several weeks of 2 lessons per day. It worked fine for WWE 1 because we just did a narration and a copywork each day. WWE 2 isn't as symmetrical and I think it would be a little more awkward to group lessons together. Maybe days 2 & 3 would combine okay (copywork, then a dictation of that copywork), so I could see a 3 days/week schedule. But 4 per week is the most natural rhythm for WWE 2 I think. I don't know anything about WWE 3.

Here's how we're doing it: I seem to have collected a lot of poetry books that I haven't really used much up until now. I grab a book each week, usually on Sunday when I'm planning out my week, and find a few poems that I really like. I did 2 weeks on Where the Sidewalk Ends, for instance, which I used when I was in 6th grade. I shared some of my favorites from back then, reading one or two poems a day for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. My girls take turns finding poems they like for Thursday and Friday. They are free to choose any book, not necessarily the one I picked for that week. They can pick a poem we've done before or one they find on their own. They are really enjoying this. I find them reading through our poetry books on their own time. We are very slowly going through Building Poems and I will sometimes point out or have them find some of the things we've read about. We've only finished the chapter on sound, so it's been stuff like alliteration, assonance, and internal rhyme. Whatever jumps out at me in a given poem.

Art and science are always the most popular here. And literature--pick a book each week, do related crafts, etc.

If we're talking one food I could eat every meal for the rest of my life, it would be bread. I do try to watch the quantity I eat for weight control, but I love bread--most any kind.

I hope your daughter stabilizes soon. We live with seizures here and I guess the frequency of them makes them a little less scary. We have several each month. Dd almost always comes out of them on her own, but they can go on for 5 minutes. She does not get blue lips or have other signs of breathing problems. Our protocol is that we don't pull out the diastat until we hit the 5 minute mark (actually more commonly we use the diastat when she has cluster seizures--one after another). I would not hesitate to give diastat to a teenager who is seizing--it's the fastest way to get the potentially life-saving medicine in them. Using it is scary the first time, but when you know how your child reacts to the medicine it isn't bad. We don't always know why dd is having seizures, but two very obvious triggers are coming down with an illness or lack of sleep. If dd is getting sick, a seizure is the first sign we have of it--before fever or coughing or anything else. If we keep dd up too late or if she has trouble sleeping, seizures the next day are likely. Not sure how old your dd is, but seizure patterns can change during puberty. Good luck getting everything back under control.

I've heard you don't want to buy them too big, but can't remember why. Maybe they stretch out? My foot measures 8 but I often wear 8.5 or 9 depending on the style of shoe. I got the Costco version of Uggs last year and am very happy with my size 8.

For us, knowing the facts cold didn't really get finalized until dds were doing harder problems. My 2nd grader is just now really demonstrating that she knows her facts well as she does 3 and 4 digit addition with renaming. She just told me the other day that now it seems easy--I think just through the seemingly endless repetition of having to do it over and over, day after day. So I wouldn't necessarily hold back and stay at the one-digit facts stage until mastery is demonstrated; our experience has shown that mastery will happen over time as the skills are used. Just need a little extra mama patience!

We have used Colonial Life, American Revolution, and I taught Civil War in a co-op. I love them and hope to use them again our next time through (we only did the lap books). My kids were on the young side for these our first time through (K/3rd for the first 2, with my 4th grader for Civil War). I had to do a lot of the assembly of the crafts. After doing the first two, I set the age range for my co-op class for 3rd-6th. They could easily be used in middle school too. I think the older the kids, the better the quality of their work will be and they will get more out of it. What's ideal? Maybe 5th-7th. Younger kids definitely get something out of it--I'm not sorry I used them. But older kids will get more out of them.

Thinking of you today and praying that all goes well for you.

Love my 2000 Honda Odyssey--very reliable. I would go with either Honda or Toyota over any American model.

I'm 5'3 and 3/4 too. I maintain at 1800 calories/day and will lose slowly if I'm down around 1500-1600 calories/day. My exercise is 1/2 hour fast walking on the treadmill, 5 days/week.