I have Nigerians, too - don't breed to make money though - in addition to the already excellent advice above, have you watched craigslist to see what kids go for in your area? As others have noted, the whole thing is super regional unless you become so well known that people want you to ship kids. Maybe join a couple of yahoo goat lists, too, to get a feel for the breeders in your area. There's a really active Nigerian list, probably same for pygmies.

I have this lady's idea bookmarked - I really really want to do this. Currently I have a tiered plastic thing in a cupboard with spices alphabetical, but wow what a mess. I love that it frees up cupboards, etc. And it looks really nice with the pretty trim piece :001_smile:.

Oooo, I remember that :). We went to my grandparent's for the big event. I found the whole prelude to the actual moment excruciatingly boring, so when the landing actually occurred my parents pretty much had to force me into the room to see the actual men-stepping-on-the-moon. They told me, "You don't care about it now, but this is history and you'll be glad you saw it when you grow up". I can't say my life would be much different had I missed seeing that on TV in real-time ;)

Well yikes, if yours is 13 and hasn't slept through the night, I'm handing the golden statuette over to you! And a giant hug, although knowing the level of exhaustion involved I'm sure you'll have no memory of the hug about 13 seconds later! My older girls who have the same disorder still waken, but they don't wake us, they just deal with their needs themselves. Much respect.

"Longest newborn sleep pattern". You know when people ask, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?". No, he's not. He still wakes up every 2 to 4 hours needing one of us (this is due to an immune disorder that causes him wild itching and/or needing a neb). 6 years old in a couple of weeks and still hasn't slept through the night once.

Turned 50 last year, refreshed the wardrobe and got 4 ducks and 2 dwarf goats for my birthday :D. My version of a midlife crisis. Why yes, I am quite the Wild Thing. If I waited to have my "midlife" crisis until all the children were gone, that would put "midlife" at 63 if youngest leaves at 18. Suppose that's pushing it to plan on living to 126?

Oy. I feel your pain. It's a good hour when I don't hear, "Sooorrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy" come wailing toward me in advance of hearing whatever is broken this time. A nice stack of fresh keyboards in the closet sounds wise ;)

I have one of those sorts of blogs. No deep thoughts, no homeschooling tips, just the same goals that you state. It took a little while at first, but after I got everything sorted out, no not a time suck in the least. And the family and friends that are far away really do feel more in touch. It's been nice that way. One thing that really made it easier on me is that after I got the blog set up, I downloaded Windows Live Writer which is a free product from Microsoft - for me it makes formatting pics and such so much faster and easier. I'll post without using it sometimes, but find posting without Live Writer irritating.

Ooooooo. No bright ideas, but total sympathy as the same thing happened to me when we lived in Kentucky. The repair guy couldn't get to us for 4 days, argh remember it all too vividly. I would use the hug icon but I'm sure a hug is the LAST thing you'd want right now! Icy wind icon to you - hang in there!

Oh no, oh no. I am so sorry :grouphug:.

Way to go - what an achievement! Wonder if it will make the doc think about his own diet.

So sad . . . prayers for comfort and peace :grouphug:

This was our experience. Going to #3 was one of the hardest transitions, going to #4 was one of the easiest. Which is actually a strange thing since child #4 was VERY challenging when a wee one. A delight now, but man was she a difficult baby/toddler.

Wow - errr, Puget Sound area. We have a really lovely house right across the street ON waterfront with a lovely deck overlooking said water, for rent at the same monthly price we used to pay last time we had to rent, 15 years ago, and it's been sitting there empty for gosh - 4 months? 5 months? Ditto for a rental on the other side of town that friends have. But that's a sample size of 2 - I don't know about the general rental situation, since those don't always sport lawn signs like the for sale houses do.

Yup. Yet another dad of a homeschooling family laid off this week in our church :crying:. We know so many now. Thankful that two of my teens have retained some work hours this summer in their respective colleges, because there's just nothing out there. The community center where our son takes Tae Kwon Do has raised the fees over and over (part of our county's park/rec system) and the group able to attend gets smaller and smaller . . . we're debating needing to leave, and sadly it used to serve many youth in the summer. And Zillowing our house . . . home value has been cut exactly in half since the mid/end of 2007, when it hit its high. Houses just sit unsold in our neighborhood. Not feeling a recovery. But hey - at least today I saw 2 gas stations with prices less than $4.00 a gallon!! Woot!

I was 45, dh was 46 when we had our last one.

smooooooooooch THANK YOU!!!!!!!

I have confused myself yet farther :tongue_smilie: Thinking about adjectives modifying nouns, I entered the phrase "the shady acre" into google translate, since "shady" would modify the land. In that case, the word given was ombragée. And did the same again, entered "a fifth of an acre" into Translate to get "fifth" modifying "acre". The word for fifth then was cinquième. I am now utterly lost in a translation. I feel like Thursday Next, if you read Jasper Fforde :D

Thanks for helping! I do specifically want kitchen . . . I see what you mean about Shady Fifth both being adjectives. "Fifth" in this case refers to a fifth of an acre (which is how big our parcel is). Hmmm. "The fifth shadow" isn't really an accurate translation at all then. Still hoping to achieve "Shady Fifth" somehow, though, since that's our house name and we use it always for this house.

I'm painting in the kitchen and want to paint the name of our kitchen in French (going for that country bistro look :D). Our house name is "Shady Fifth" and a direct, literal, put-it-in-google-translate rendition is: la cuisine à l'ombre cinquième My dd points out that at least in Spanish, this would be arranged differently - "the kitchen at Shady Fifth" is only how we'd put it in English. So, if there were a wee bistro in a named house in France, how would they put that? And how would I capitalize it if I really only wanted to capitalize our house name, Shady Fifth? Or are the rules entirely different in French? Thank you Thank you Thank you! I don't want people wincing as they walk into our kitchen (only after they try my food ;))

My paternal grandparents were German, but for some reason we didn't do the traditional "Oma/Opa", but rather we called them "Grossmama" and "Grosspapa". I wouldn't mind that, Grossmama, or Oma. I worry about it sounding strange with dh's eventual title though since he won't be taking on a German grandparent name. "Oma and Grandpa" hopefully won't sound too weird!

Ooooo, a good book haul for cheap is always so thrilling. Don't you wish they had ginormous used bookshelf sales as well?

Innocence? I'm more worried about time . . . what do you suppose the odds are on her family actually getting dinner tonight?

Oldest used Saxon all the way through. Second used TT through Algebra 2 and Geometry. Third ditto second (using TT). All three scored almost identically on COMPASS math portion (placement test for community college), theoretically placed into calculus although all three of them, since they hadn't had pre-calc, took pre-calc as 11th graders and did well in that course and beyond into calculus. With #4, I got freaked out reading here, because she is one year ahead of the others and was ready for pre-calculus this last year as a 10th grader. Since I was needing her to have strong math skills entering community college into calculus, I switched her to Lial for pre-calc, thinking that TT was just not rigorous enough. This was a huge mistake for us. She has such a good math brain, but Lial was agony for her. We ended up switching her to ALEKS just so she could make it through pre-calc before she has to do the COMPASS, but I will never second-guess myself like that again.

I wonder if he could ask at the local high school. My eldest three have tutored through 11th and 12th grade, eldest did it through the local h.s. and next two did it through local community college, but they were taking classes there and that's how they got in. Some community colleges are really desperate for tutors in certain subjects (at least in my locality) and it would be pretty easy to pick up hours. Dd is graduating in a couple of weeks and will stay on as a tutor even though she's not taking any classes there. But I *am* really interested in what others say, since she loves tutoring and we were contemplating the same thing for her, tutoring on "the outside" in addition to her hours at the cc.