I've thought about this as well. I was raised secular and liberal, in an academic family (father is a professor, mother is an artist). My parents were always kind and reasonable, but weren't particularly emotionally available. I don't ever (to this day) recall either one of them telling me or my sister that they loved us, or each other. I have only seen them kiss once in my life, when he had just returned from a month abroad, and it was awkward. I'm secular and liberal, with a graduate degree, so I'm much like them in that way. I didn't rebel too much as a teen, and always had a good relationship with them. But I've realized over the years that the value I place on being a reasonable, rational person covers a discomfort with emotional displays of any kind. I have a hard time having emotional or confrontational conversations. When I get angry with someone I care for, I shut down completely. Thank goodness DH knows me well enough that if I get quiet, that's when I'm having trouble. If I'm yelling, I'm fine. :) [Tangent: When I was in college, I walked into a friend's room and immediate got a cream pie in the face. I stood there, silent, and my friend said, "Oh no. She's not yelling. Run!!!" I guess they knew me well too. :) ] I do make sure that DH and my kids get a lot of overt expressions of love from me -- hugs, kisses, "I love you's." I do tell my mom I love her, even though it makes her twitchy. I still can't bring myself to say it to my dad. The funny thing is, all of my cousins talk about my parents as if they're the Norman Rockwell, warm, loving parents that they wish they had. Yes, I think my parents feel it, but it really used to hurt that they couldn't say it. Because of their own lack of overt affection for each other, I frequently feared that they were just going through the motions of marriage and would soon divorce. Forty-five years later, all is well, and I know that they're both just cut from the same cloth -- it's undignified to express these feelings. It's a perfect storm of New England dignity and scandinavian stoicism.

1. Socialization. :) Our local schools are not where I want DD learning social skills. There's a lot of intolerance and insanely low expectations. 2. Academic reasons. She's a smart cookie and, while the K and 1 teachers were awesome about giving her accelerated work, the 2nd grade teachers weren't willing to be bothered. 3. Religious reasons. We're atheists, and she got so tired of having to defend herself all. day. long.

Plenty of good suggestions, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents: * Pick a subject and study the heck out of it, not for a class or any reason other than really wanting to know. I chose to self-study American history a few years back when I realized how horribly ignorant I was. Lots of reading, field trips, etc. It was great, and really engaged me. * I worked in PR for years, so I can suggest that she spend some time getting immersed in whatever kind of industry she might want to work in. I did primarily business-to-business PR in the technology industry, so I'd have read up on technology news, trends in public relations, trends in news. Research and writing a blog and learning about electronic communications (Web sites, email marketing, etc.) is also a great idea. * It's even more important for her than other teens to have a head start on learning to manage her life. Cooking, personal finance, early childhood development, time management methods, nutrition, careers, etc. I guess the short version is, pick a topic and call it an independent study. :)

I've never watched TV news, but as a journalist, I was quite a news hound. I had a job back in my early 20's though that required me to read every version of every Associated Press news story that came out, and it was during the mad cow scare. I haven't taken a newspaper since.

I fall in the camp of: 1. Wanting the kids to see (non-obsessive) cleaning happen. I don't ever remember seeing my parents clean (with the exception of mom doing dishes every morning), but somehow it got done. I think part of my problem getting into a rhythm with cleaning is that I don't have a memory of how it should be done. 2. Being happy as long as it's fairly tidy. I can go for a while without dusting, vacuuming, mopping, etc., as long as the tables and floors are clear, and the dishes and laundry are washed and put away. 3. Using some parts of the Flylady system. I have morning and evening routines that keep the place just as tidy as I want it to be. If I'm feeling ambitious, I'll also do the daily zone, but that's usually just when overnight company is coming. School ended for us yesterday, so I took advantage of the free time this morning to get the public areas in order. Now I'm doing some planning for next year and then will reorganize the school bookshelves.

I've recently decided to move to Nova Scotia so I'm voting with my feet. ;)

Are you asking about setting off quotes by indenting both left and right? Or by starting a new paragraph for each? I believe Chicago style, which is what I follow, says that you should only indent if your quote is more than a couple of lines long. Quotes that are just a sentence or two should stay within the body of the paragraph. This is how I would suggest: ]]]]C and D Norris are a mature godly couple living in ___, NY. They go to ____ Church and are both very involved. C is a Sunday school teacher and D is an elder. ]]]]They first met at a fraternity house. As far as keeping God first in their life and marriage, Mr. Norris says, “I seek God to lead me almost every day. I put Him first and C second.” His wife C reads the Bible and prays, and she also says passionately, “I try to put D's wishes before my own.” ]]]]Mr. Norris thinks that the best part of being married is having Mrs. Norris as his best friend. Mrs. Norris says affectionately, “We have fun together. And we get to sleep together.” ]]]]When asked what advice they would give a new bride and groom, Mr. Norris said says, “I would tell the husband that when your wife asks for anything, don’t say no. Say, 'Let’s talk and pray about it.' Also never go to bed angry; reconcile first.'" Mrs. Norris says, “[i would tell the bride] Always seek to make sure your husband is first and please him.” {edited this a bit to make it work as a single paragraph, and addressed a few punctuation issues} ]]]]And yes, they did think about whom they would marry when they were young. Mrs. Norris remembers, “Yes, I did all the time, since I was about five years old. My desire was to get married and be a mother.” When Mr. Norris was at the age where he started to look at girls, he though he’d never be able to live with just one all his life. {switched these two sentences to remove a little ambiguity}

I have no words. That centipede... No, no. I would leave immediately and permanently. DH has a saying that I agree with wholeheartedly: "Anything with more than six legs is up to no good." I will not send him a link. He is manly as all get-out (especially in his kilt ;) ) and he would pass out.

Oh no, I'm so sorry. When mine flares up, I just try to keep a pillow around and hug it tight to my stomach before any sudden movements. It helps a little. At the moment, I'm in the relative nirvana of leg and foot numbness, or "flipper foot," as a friend calls it.

My oldest decided that he'd show us how unreasonably numerous our rules are by writing them all down on the big white board in the dining room. 30 rules later, he's insisting we call him The Boardmaster and is adding on ones that he thinks we missed. These ones are his: 32) Don't stick anything up your nose. Including your fingers. 36) Don't ask questions you know the answer to. 37) In the name of all that is good, leave the poor dogs alone!!

DD7: Mathmatics Enhancement Programme (here), All About Spelling, Writing with Ease, Growing With Grammar, Song School Latin, Intelligo history/civics/geography, Mr. Q Science (here) DS5: Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, BOB books, MEP (as above), Zane Bloser handwriting.

You're right, of course. I guess I'm putting my hope in the fact that it's a limited period of time and that people are awake together. Safety in numbers, or something like that. The whole thing makes me nervous, honestly, and it bothers me that I'm bothered. I'd like to be trusting. I miss that.

A former friend was arrested last year for sexual exploitation and statuatory rape of minors, someone whose child would previously have been on the sleepover potentials list. That, combined with my own childhood experience with inappropriate conduct from adults, means that I don't trust non-family members with our kids. Even long-time friends, I'm sorry to say. We won't be sending our kids out to anyone other than parents and a few trusted family members. Then again, I love the half-sleepover idea! PJs, making popcorn, watching movies and playing games, then heading home late at night. Great! Thanks for that idea. :) I guess I'm joining the club. And I'm a liberal too. :)

Hurray! Now I have something to look forward to! :D

Thanks for this. It must be because I have a very simple (simplistic?) schedule then, with few children to manage and not much grading yet. We do every subject on every school day, so nothing to schedule out there. I just pull the next book out of the bag and we do that thing. When the bag is empty, or at 3pm, whichever comes first, we're done. I don't have to report, so I don't write down what we've done. I feel like such a slacker. I'm an organizing fool, so I'm looking forward to needing a more sophisticated system. :)

I don't have enough paper to file. Our daily school work fits in a big tote bag, which sits under the side table in our dining room, and my laptop. I just grab them both and take them whereever we're going. All papers get recycled, except for those I want to keep for their keepsake boxes. It does make me wonder why everyone else has so much, and we have so little. What am I missing? It is that I only have 1.5 young kids (1 HS, 1 afterschooling) to keep track of? Or is it that our approach is relatively minimalist? Or that we have few reporting requirements? Please enlighten me?

Often! Yesterday, we did school in the kids' playroom at the car dealership while my car was getting worked on. It's a nice little set-up with toys (for DS5) and a chalkboard that DD7 could do math on. The car was done before we were finished, so we hung out for another 20 minutes to finish up. Nice! Otherwise, we can often be found at Chik-fil-a, the library, a coffee shop, etc. I like that there's fewer distractions, for them and for me. DS5 will be going to PS next year, so I'm thinking DD and I will spend every morning at the library.

I have nothing to add here except this misconception from my own childhood: I was raised in a New England community where everyone I knew, and I mean EVERYONE, was either Catholic or Jewish. I was incredibly jealous that everyone else got to go someplace after school (i.e. Catechism classes or Hebrew school) and I had to go straight home. I was positive they were doing all kinds of awesome things there without me, and there was probably lots of candy. :)

This sounds like what we're doing. We do the 3Rs daily, and then, as we have time we work through unit study on history, civics, science, geography, etc. There will also be fun units like cooking, gross chemistry, camping, and bird-watching. My kids love science, so we also have a weekly science co-op, but it's mostly for just having fun with science, not learning content. At the moment, we're using Intelligo units with library books on each topic thrown in to stretch it out. I'm allowing the kids to pick the topic until they're a bit older and should start on a more organized path. If the kids want a topic that Intelligo doesn't have, I'll pull something together on my own. We're doing early American history right now, and when we're done with that, they've requested maps/geography and insects. For the summer, I plan to do 3Rs Lite with expanded unit studies. They've quickly sorted their lessons into two categories: "have to's" and "want to's." I'm glad they get excited about the units, but am a little less excited that they're considering reading and math to be less fun. Maybe I should sprinkle in some math and reading units as well that we treat in a creative way. Like, off the top of my head, we could do a fun unit on fractions, in which we cook with recipes, play math games, and find other ways that fractions show up in our lives. I'm thinking pie. :)

We homeschool because of this as well. For DD7, it started in first grade.

I went the the Norwegian and German camps as a kid, from age 11 to 14. Loved it! Got high school credit and had a great time. The counselors we had were all natives and fluent American foreign language teachers.

Hee! I'm totally giggling over this one. It's exactly the kind of thing my DS5 (who just cut his own hair and has a big bald spot) says all the time. :)

That's a weird one. If you reduce those exponents a little, it's easier to see. -6.81 x 10^-2 (< or >) -9.37 x 10^-3 -0.0681 (< or >) -0.00937 On a number line, you can see that -0.00937 is larger.

Floridamom, you reminded me of this app that I like: http://shopsavvy.mobi/ You can use your iPhone to scan barcodes of items and it tells you the prices in your local area. I've found some things are out of date, because it depends on users uploading new data, but it's still pretty cool. I was about to buy fancy coffee at Walmart yesterday, but found out that Target had it for a dollar less, so I asked DH to pick it up on his way home instead.

I picked up a portable filing box a couple of months ago, and use it to file incoming bills and such (household as well as for our business). It has supplies like a stapler, check stamps, deposit slips, etc. When I'm sitting at kids' sports or co-op, I can pop it and my laptop open and get some work done. I can also do it in the living room in the evening if I have work to do but also want to spend some time with DH. I have a lengthy to-do list of routine things on my PDA. It may seem silly to have things like "eat" and "shower" on a list, but it means I don't have to think about what's next. Just check the list. I also have weekly chores like vacuum and take out the recycling on there, so things never get too bad. Also, seconding the suggestions for: daily laundry, evening dishes, 10-15 minutes tidying up, and kids helping.