I have 1 friend that I see every fortnight. she home schools her 8 children. I don't have any other friends really. My husband is on the other side of the world at the moment with the 2 older children. he has been gone for 3 weeks. it is very lonely here, very quite.

not as silly as it sounds, my mum was babysitting some little brats for a few weeks, they through major tantrums all the time, my mum tried everything she could think of to stop them. after a few days of tantrums, she jumped down to the floor and threw one herself, feet kicking and everything. the kids were so shocked, they just stood there . they hadn't realized how silly they looked. she had no further problems with them.

that is how I would sum it up. I might add " To introduce the storyline of the great books, and have an a basic knowledge of history"

don't have any advice on the diaper, but I get my sleeping 4 year old up out of bed every night at about 10pm, and carry him still sleeping to the toilet. he then wees and I carry him back to bed. he doesn't have a diaper on at all. I did this with all my children, and then they get into the habit of waking up during the night and going to the toilet.

mine all did it outside. though once at the park , one of my boys ( age 2 at the time) stood at the top of the slide and started peeing down the slide.:001_huh: that is when I walked away and pretended he wasn't my child.

my sons really enjoyed "childhood of famous Americans" series.

my oldest is like this as well. he always gets overlooked by everyone. his slightly younger brother makes friends so easily. the oldest has only 1 friend who lives 3000 km away. this is what I have done that has helped a lot.I have put them both in Basket ball, they are in the same team. the oldest is 6'3" and towers over all the other kids he now has turned into a basket ball hero in the area, everyone wants to be on his team. he is so shy, he just smiles. it has really built up his self esteem. he has to play with his younger brother in the team which has improved their relationship as well. I was the oldest of 8. I was invisible to people too. I wonder if it is genetic and I have passed it on to my son

thankyou:001_smile:

:lol::lol::lol::lol: I have relitives like this as well

are these prices per liter or gallon? I know the heading said in Us , but I thought people might like to know the prices elsewhere. here in Australia I paid $1.90.9 per liter for diesel

I use a double saucepan, and stir all the time. I only cook the yolk. it is more like a egg custard, then I fold in the egg whites after it cools.

I just follow the plan in WTM

we use spit, I have always told my kids to lick their mosquito bites, or put spit on them. if you eat things high in vitamin B than you don't get so many bites. I eat vegemite for this reason.

Not the worst summer, the pipe bomb didn't go off did it?

I am late posting into this thread, I live on the other side of the world, and am in a completely different time zone. canning jars can often be bought from second hand shops, called Op-Shops here, and I think you guys might call them thrift shops or crippled civilians or something. another way of finding them is to put an add in the local paper/or notice board. heaps of people have them tucked away in some cupboard or basement and haven't used them for years. here are some of the things that We do, we try to live a self sufficient lifestyle. I make my own bread, have all home cooked meals, nothing fancy, just plain ordinary meals. do a huge amount of preserving of home grown food. I buy flour and oats in bulk, and always have 3 months supply handy. have a house cow, grow the cow's offspring for beef, have 2 pigs, do our own butchering, and our own smoking of our bacon. have chooks for their eggs. get the grain for their food from a local corn seed processing company( they have culls that can be bought cheep) have a veggie garden that is about the size of a tennis court. have a fully netted orchard that has about 40 fruit trees. have a greenhouse for winter veggies. we produce our own hot water with solar panels. collect our own water from the rain. have a beautiful combustion stove that cooks, heats and will shortly produce hot water in the winter. chop our own fire wood. make almost all of our own clothes. all this takes quite a lot of time. we have chosen a self sufficient lifestyle because we enjoy it, we like being independent , and enjoy not paying so many bills, we have a fairly low income as my husband is to ill to work and is on a pension, and I am too busy to work. but with all our selfsufficiant lifestyle, we live fairly well.

I think the one of the most important things to do is pay off the mortgage as fast as you can. if you don't have any debts, then it is a lot easier to live on a low income. I live as self sufficient as I can possibly live, we have a veggie garden about the size of a tennis court, have a house cow, grow all of our own meat, have solar hot water, a wood combustion stove for heating , and cooking. have chooks, make nearly all our own clothes( we get a few from the op-shop). we live on a very small income , my husband is to ill to work, and is on a pension. but because we don't have a mortgage, we can live fairly comfortably without me having to give up homeschooling and go to work.

I have only ever line dried everything. On we winter days I hang a rope under the veranda roof and hang the washing there.

I voted wards of the state:lol: just as a joke. I don't call them anything

my sister got car sickness really bad. she got sick while the car was going out of the driveway. eventually my mum gave her junket tablets 1/2 hour before getting into the car. junket is a desert tablet that you add to milk. it makes the milk set, it also sets the contents of your stomach, so you might feel sick, but can't be sick. it worked like a treat.

I just saw in SWB's blog that there will be a new edition of WTM next year. I am so exited about this.

this happened a few years ago, but still gives me goose bumps. I was walking past the chicken pen where the mother gen had week old chicks, when I glanced in and saw a red belly black snake eating one of the chicks, and my 2 year old son sitting in there and playing with the other chicks. Red belly black snaked are very poisonous, I think they are the 15th most poisonous snake in the world. we have snakes all the time in summer , and they are all deadly poisonous! I have lots of snake stories

I wear glasses. I go to the beach wearing a sarong over my bathers, I go right to the water, take off my glasses, wrap them in my sarong, and I can't see anyone's face anymore.:lol:. I can go for a swim hoping that everyone else can't see me just as I can't see them.:lol:

we like the sonlight microscope too

my children are all savers, we taught them all to save when they were little. My husband and I are savers as well. all the money the children earn is theirs to do whatever they like with. they earned it. they keep it. I have found the fastest way for them to learn the true value of money is to work really hard to get the money, and then spend it on something they really wanted, and then they realize that all that time spent on earning the money and now it is gone. this has worked here.. my children mostly hoard their money in their rooms. My 14ds explained to the younger ones how banks work. loaning out their money to other people, and not giving much interest in return. I haven't been able to convince him that it would be a good idea to put it in the bank, and the rest follow his lead. ( they all have bank accounts)

I got mine 3 weeks after having the baby , this was with each baby, and I exclusively breast feed them until they were 7 months old, when I started to introduce solids. no break here!!! not as bad as my mum though, she kept getting her periods for the first 3 months of her pregnancies!!!