Eleven years ago we put honeycomb blinds on most of our windows and for all that time the cat has completely left them alone.

Yes -- I need more than the ONE day of spring we had last Saturday. The dc are hoping the snow will continue all night so we can go sledding in the morning. NOOOOOOO!

Thank you!

Um, it's this horizontal surface in the basement where we store notebooks, doll clothes, a thermometer, an ipod carrying case, pencils, carbon paper, and swim goggles! :D

Exercising. Outside. Guess I'd better go get started, or dinner will be really late...

Did you look on your ironing board? That's where my dd's goggles are at the moment. Hopefully she'll get them into the swim bag before her next lesson...

This year my dc (1st & 4th) are doing Prima Latina. My first grader is doing it all orally, no workbook. She has a hard enough time writing for her her math and English lessons so I decided to let her skip the workbook. Thinking ahead to next year and Latina Christiana 1: my then-5th grader will do the workbook, no question. Can my then-2nd grader tag along without a workbook, or is LC1 set up differently than PL? I don't expect her to totally master the material and I assume I'll repeat LC1 with her at some point... just not sure whether I should get 2 workbooks or just one. Thanks for any advice you can give!

You could easily do Prima Latina orally. My younger (1st grader) does it orally -- no workbook at all for her; she just watches the DVD and memorizes the vocab & prayers. My older child does the workbook in addition to the DVD & memorization.

I do strength training at home 3x/week with videos. I rotate among 4-5 different videos, so that I don't do any one of them twice in a row.

I give my dd 2 exercises a week. Monday she copies the exercise; Tuesday she writes it from dictation. Same thing on Thursday and Friday for a new exercise. Early in the book (she is doing book 1) if the exercise was quite easy, I had her write from dictation without seeing it first. This is the only spelling program she uses. She finds the passages interesting and she definitely prefers Spelling Wisdom to copying lists of words.

Funny you should ask, as I just now returned from my dental cleaning/exam where I was informed that I have a cavity in a deep groove in one of my molars -- I've been a patient of this dentist for nearly 20 years and next week he'll be doing his first work on my teeth other than routine exam/cleaning. In my childhood/teens I had a number of fillings, due to very deep grooves in my molars. Nowadays many kids get dental sealants applied to their molars to prevent this type of decay. Some people's teeth are also more prone to decay because of soft enamel or spacing/crowding issues. People who do not floss regularly can get cavities between their teeth. You and your dc are lucky to have avoided cavities!

Probably to the same place all four of mine went... but I don't know where that is! Two of them surface regularly, but the other two (which are both MINE) left the school area with the kids who of course no longer remember what they did with them.

I just started using Calculadder with my dc. One of my dc is working on addition drills, but she also needs to work on multiplication. I thought about having her do an addition drill in the morning and a multiplication drill in the afternoon. Has anyone tried drilling two topics daily? How did this work for you?

I usually pick up about 20-30 books on hold every other week, plus the dc choose books for themselves from whatever happens to be available on the shelves that day. In our library system, we have self-checkout and we pick up our own books from the hold shelves (unless they are ILL or DVDs) so we really don't have much personal interaction with the staff.

Dh just took the test; he got only one question wrong. Maybe Mr. OurLastName should be the one teaching American history, government, and economics classes at OLN Homeschool! :D

Same here.

Wow, I scored better than I thought I would. I know I wasn't paying attention in my senior year hs government class... maybe I was just a good guesser today!

5'5"

Nooooo! Don't tell me that! They are working so well for me right now. Well... my old VHS tapes probably won't last any longer than a couple more years anyways, and most of my favorites aren't on DVD. Thanks for mentioning this. I'm going to check out her site and videos.

I'm not over 45 (I have 4 more years to go till I reach that category) but just this morning I was just thinking about exercise and its effects on my body. Mainly, that when I was in my early 20s I could easily run 30 miles a week, do no strength training, eat whatever and as much as I wanted, and I wore 2-3 clothing sizes smaller than I do now. After struggling with the exercise/eating thing during the past few years, I forced myself into a routine that is working and that I can live with. I found that weight training is crucial for me now; just running doesn't seem to help me lose body fat (I'm trying to lose 6% over the next 2 years) or be toned. And I really have to watch what I eat. I have been making slow steady progress but if I get lax and eat goodies/treats -- like, say, all that Easter candy -- my loss stalls out. My current weekly routine: * run 4-5 miles 3x a week * weight training with FIRM videos 3x a week (I like the old FIRM videos, with the "mansion" set -- I find them more effective for me) * one day off I would like to add one more running day but when I try this on a regular basis some injury magically appears. It never used to be that way, 20 years ago...

JCPenney has denim (& khaki too I think) skorts with pleated skirts for size 7-16. My dd dislikes "too short" shorts/skirts; she thinks these are long enough for her comfort level. I don't see them on their website but we bought them in the store last month.

My dc are enjoying Zoo 1. We've done very few of the experiments, no notebooking or flashcards -- just reading, discussing, and lots of birdwatching.

We have two of these books and their accompanying CDs. The music on the CDs is music only, no lyrics. My dc and I enjoyed the books and I plan to get a couple more in the series next year. This year we have been listening to the first volume of Themes to Remember. My younger child likes the lyrics and finds it easier to remember the music this way, but listening to the lyrics drives my older child nuts! So I go through each theme twice, with my older child leaving the room during the lyrics track. :rolleyes:

This summer my dc will continue working on math, typing, Latin review, and musical instrument practice. So, 1 to 1.5 hours of work each day, tops. They love to read so that's something they'll do on their own with no prompting from me. I'm trying to keep most of the day free for zoo trips, hiking, going to the beach, playing with friends...

Based on what I've read, and on my personal experience of repeatedly falling off the exercise wagon and climbing back on -- you're unlikely to bulk up from exercising. Weight training is important. You want to build muscle and improve/keep bone density. Aerobic exercise is also important, because it helps burn fat and improves your cardiovascular health. You can't spot reduce, but a routine of cardio & weight training will help you slim down in general. For me, I also have to watch what I eat -- an overload of Easter chocolate and goodies did not help me meet my goal last month, even though I was very consistent with my exercise routine. If you're sore, doing gentle exercise (walking, etc.) may help your sore muscles. Allow 48 hours between weight lifting sessions. You might be sore after lifting, but it's okay to do your next session as scheduled unless something truly hurts. Elliptical -- my dh does this for his cardio workout. With the elliptical, lifting weights, and changing his diet slightly, he lost quite a bit of weight during the past year.