Please don't bump old threads unless there's a really good reason for it.

Oh, I just checked. My mistake.

This morning's news said he'd gone off his meds.

Did it taste good? Did you feel like you were drinking an administrative nightmare? I want to know!

It changed as she grew up. When she was small, twice a week was enough. Mid primary school, three times a week. Now she's 17 and attends public school, she wants to be out at extracurriculars five days a week to compensate for the boredom of school being intellectually understimulating and socially overstimulating. You and your kids are plenty busy enough. Cooking, cleaning and educating don't do themselves, after all.

Do you need someone else's opinion of what books to read when there are so many reasons to read or not read any book at all? Is 'King Solomon's Mines' a dreadful piece of sexist, racist, colonial rubbish? Well, yeah. Is 'King Solomon's Mines' of historical value as the beginning of the 'Lost World' genre? Well, yeah. Did reading it to my daughter turn her into a racist, misogynist with a colonial mindset? Of course not. Did reading it to my teenaged daughter expose her to a mindset she doesn't normally dwell in and a genre she's never read? Yup. Did it teach her something about how to apply cultural relativity? A bit, yeah. Would I give it to a 9yo boy with no commentary and expect him to intuit all of what I hadn't bothered to explain? Nooo. Would I try to sell it as a worthy novel to anyone of African descent? Also no. A friend of mine was reading 'Pride and Prejudice' to her dd in K because she was verbally precocious. I also read it to my daughter in K, even though she was barely verbal, because she was already familiar with the characters from watching the mini-series and that made it more accessible to her than 'Winnie the Pooh.' People publishing lists can only go by general principles, and they don't know what you are going to tell your kids about it. They don't know whether sad books are permitted in your household. Some people steer right away from that sort of thing, others use them to help their kids process the inevitables of life. Some kids are frightened of sad books, others find them validating. Etc. Anyway, if you want to know about a particular book, people around here aren't shy about stating their pros and cons. 🙂 And yay for libraries. If a book sucks, you can send it right back with a clear conscience!

My curry leaf tree is actually growing new leaves, here at the end of the growing season! Turns out it just needed two hours more sun each day for six weeks to get it in the mood.

Eating asparagus right out of the garden is a very happy thing to do. I think Mark should bribe you to grow some.

This^ Stopping distance is much further away than one would think and a course like this will demonstrate.

Is Sally the type to tell Sam he's being excluded so he can come and cause a ruckus?

I learned they were edible from a Pasta Grannies episode on Youtube. I haven't stirred myself to make ravioli out of them, but the Sudanese cook them with peanut butter so sometimes I do that too.

I roll my eyes at all pumpkin vines. Like this 🙄 but with more scowling. The older leaves on my vine are submitting to mildew, but I'll probably eat the younger ones. That is my yearly threat. Grow fruits or I will eat your leaves. Also, aren't plants supposed to grow away from shade? This vine sent an arm off right into the shade, and that is where the only pumpkin grew. That is weird, isn't it?

Your sister can publish a piece that suits her sentiments if she wants to.

I've cleaned out most of my garden beds and have almost finished chopping down a glossy leafed shrub that seems not to contribute anything at all to the world. That's letting more light through to my lime tree, so hopefully it will like life much better next Spring. Providing the snails don't beat me to it, I should have parsnips, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale (which I don't even like, but it was called 'Bear Necessities' like the song from the Jungle Book movie) and murnong eventually. My Jerusalem artichokes are nearly done, but not quite and I've begun weeding space to dig a new bed. I still have broad beans, snow peas and rat tail radishes to plant. My pumpkin vine produced one single pumpkin. That's better than none, but I really do not have praiseworthy things to say to that pumpkin vine.

This morning I splurged on quinces.

That sounds bloody awesome!

It seems to vary. The Woolies in one of the southern suburbs of Ballarat has been noticeably cheaper than the Woolies in the east of Shepparton for at least a year now.

Napa cabbage and radish is another really easy ferment.

Expensive cheese Meat if I don't actually have iron deficiency symptoms

Which was only the new "Hunter-gatherers binge on honey when they have access to some."

My ears are fine with the cheapest sleepers, so that's what I wear habitually. Otherwise I paint the stems with clear nail polish.

I don't see a lot of use in spending much time on grammar if you don't diagram sentences, but my kiddo has learning disabilities with syntax, so it was necessary for us to spend quite a lot of time. Studying grammar didn't improve her writing directly, but it gave her vocabulary and reasoning. It's far easier to discuss errors when they have a name and far easier to apply that rule in other assignments when you can find out *why* it is wrong. If I had a kid studying another spoken/written language, I'd have gone right into grammar for similar reasons. I'm quite sure dd has forgotten half of it by now, since she completed the diagramming books I had over a year ago, but I know she has referred to the reference books I bought a few times, so she can apply to them again in the future if she needs to.

If that is the problem, a chiropractic adjustment will fix it almost immediately. If it doesn't, that wasn't the problem.

That can happen when one's neck is out of alignment.

I had to explain to a person of similar age that there are problems to take to your SO or friends and problems that should be taken to one's adults. This person had a panic attack and called a friend, who happened to be in the middle of an exam, and that was the end of that friendship. I assume my person was unaware of the exam, but still, in one's early 20's, one's mates are not old enough or experienced enough to be mum replacements.