I told dh I wanted to be the hands. And that pretty much ended the spoken part of our conversation that evening, lol.:blush: Having no secrets can be very....pleasant. :D

To give you an example of how open we are with each other, dh knew I was quite impressed with the infamous Adam Levine cancer awareness photo. Dh was not offended. Quite a visual, indeed. :D

He knows when I wax and where I wax. Physical stuff, s*xual stuff, "visual" stuff (see other current thread)...no secrets. Financial stuff, shopping stuff, anything else? It's all the same. No secrets. We've been best friends since we were 18. We talk about everything.

Same here. As he would feel free to say the same to me. We have no secrets from each other. :)

Absolutely! I would allot 45 minutes for math. I would explain the lesson, which would leave the child approx 30-40 minutes to do the work. When the time was up, we moved on to the next subject whether the child was done or not. That way I got MY schoolwork done. When the school day was over - my part of it, lol - kids who had not finished assignments had homework to do before they got snack, free time, or a meal.

Mine are all teens. If their homework is completed and chores are done, their free time theirs to use as they see fit. No limits.

No. Shudder. It's the English major part of me. :lol:

Lawsy. I have a hard enough time figuring out what color eyes my kids have. I have to fill out a form for an Ontario fishing license each year and I always stumble. My oldest two boys have blue eyes. This I know. The other four kids I have to look at. Sad but true, and it has nothing to do with screen time. :)

No advice for you, but a true life funny (well, I can laugh about it now). There is a window place a few hours from here that took out ads on several online sites. The problem was this - they did not check to make sure the phone number they *thought* they'd been assigned for their new business was correct. Instead, they advertised all over the place (including the yellow pages) with - you guessed it - our home phone number. It took months, and lots of emails and calls, but I've finally gotten my number off all the websites. I still get the occasional call from the yellow pages, though. Guess that business didn't last long, since I got all the calls. :lol::lol::lol:

:grouphug:

I had a book-type cover (opens like a book) for my Nook and absolutely hated it. It was so awkward to hold...totally defeated the idea of the lightweight, easy-to-handle Nook. LOL. Recently I got a small zipper case from Amazon. When I'm done with the Nook I put it in the zip case.

Wow!

If your goal is to prepare your child for college or any other type of further education program in the future, you will want them to have test-taking skills, note-taking skills, working-in-groups skills, study skills, deadline skills, etc. Even taking the SATs requires familiarity with test-taking. I can't tell you how many times I witnessed kids ages 10-12 cry and fuss during state-mandated standardized testing her in PA. It was pathetic. These kids had NO CLUE how to follow directions (written or oral) and continually went up to the proctor for help, only to be sent back to their seats. Then the tears would start. Seriously. Kids do need certain classroom skills.

I would. :001_smile: Now I am going upstairs to lift weights for a while, then run 2 miles, all while pondering how to encourage and light a fire under younger homeschooling moms.

Oh, dear God. You are serious, aren't you? I had no idea. That is totally frightening. :(

I am so sorry. I will pray for her, and especially for you. There are just no words. :( :grouphug:

Ah, sweet friend, a question for the ages! :) I'll ponder the fire-lighting. I would think a good read of TWTM would fix things, but so few people seem to take it to heart. You know, when I started homeschooling there was no pre-packaged curricula. No homeschool math programs. The best I could get was BJU or A Beka textbooks (and even that was huge, as they had balked on selling to individuals rather than schools), Miquon math (always a rebel!), and Pathway readers. We put stuff together to come up with curricula ourselves. We used books (can you imagine?) and did our own lesson plans. Homeschooling has never been easier. There is so much to choose from, the planning is done, the scripting is even done in some programs. How on earth can people screw it up? I am baffled. :( :grouphug:

Mid-Atlantic. We had these discussions four years ago when our twins were looking at schools; the twins initially were viewed as homeschoolers although the reality was they got diplomas from a cyber charter school (we homeschooled, then put them in the cyber because the cyber paid for 2 years of cc classes). We had discussions with a variety of schools. All the schools we looked at were private.

Not legal, and you shouldn't have to pay, either.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. The suggestions put forth in this thread - outside classes, online classes, community college, discussions with experts, not sheltering through high school, etc - are very helpful to read, imo. Have you read some of the threads on the general board this past week? 1. Poster has no clue what to do - her 5th grader has sat in her room all week, no school done, no chores done, mom is clueless. 2. Numerous threads about what was spoken to children at co-op. Multiple posters in all threads responding with, "Well, I'd pull my kids out immediately. NO ONE speaks to my kids like that." 3. Poster is 7 weeks into school and says she's basically thrown out all curriculum...seems like this is a trend....gee, what should she do? Are these inspirational threads? Gad.

This is a fairly small private school; approx 4500 students, I believe. We heard this same concern from other colleges as well.

You need to call a pharmacy, ask to speak to the pharmacist, and ask him or her. I don't have the degree so I really can't answer this more than telling you to call. I am a pharm tech. I routinely see patients taking this for longer periods than you, but you should still talk to an RPh to get the info.

I think it's important for you to know that any herbal supplement or natural supplement that has medicinal properties will also have potential side effects. Natural does not mean safe or without risk. That said, tart cherry juice has been shown to reduce inflammation and pain (you can google the studies). You can get juice or capsules. I have not researched the side effects, but your pharmacist could look it up for you.

Stop reading horror stories on the internet. Most people do just fine...so fine that they don't type it up and post it on the web. When I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease I read a lot on the internet and then sat and cried. I was doomed to die of short gut syndrome, have multiple surgeries, pain forever, etc. Wrong. My doc pointed out to me what I just pointed out to you. They vast majority of the people are healthy and happy and don't waste their time posting horror stories. You'll be fine. :grouphug: