Soaking them in something acidic overnight is supposed to help break down the phytates to make them easier to digest. That takes several hours, which is why I do it before they're cooked. I've done it with both rolled and steel cut oats; those measurements were for rolled, and I think the proportions for steel cut are similar, but it's been a while. I just set them on the counter. Not sure about Greek style yogurt, but I am guessing you could use it. (I'm hardly an expert though, so maybe someone else will chime in!)

I'd talk to the real estate agent first, to see what is most often preferred in your area and price range. But barring that, I'd probably go with the hardwood. It sounds like it could be pretty similar cost-wise, actually, and the matching rooms will look nice. Plus, depending on how long it takes to sell, it's easier to keep hardwood looking nice for a while than to worry about accidentally dirtying the carpet (at least IME). I think, especially for a master bedroom, lovely hardwood plus an area rug is going to have an elegant polished look. I agree with the PP who said if you do carpet in those rooms, do it in your DD's room too, so it all matches. I would totally not worry that only the lower level has carpet -- that seems really reasonable and expected. (Our former house was a split-level -- we had sturdy family-room carpet in the lower level, hardwood on the main level, and a "fluffier" carpet in the upper level, where the bedrooms were. Didn't look strange at all.) I also agree that a buyer who prefers the hardwood may well find it hard to justify ripping out perfectly good new carpet for hardwood that needs work. (Uh, we're there ourselves; our 1830s-ish house has what is probably original hardwood under Pergo flooring. The Pergo is okay, but we'd love to see the HW eventually and restore it and all; however, in four years, we haven't yet convinced ourselves that it's worth ripping out the Pergo that was brand-new when we got it and which still looks fantastic.)

Oh, that's a bummer. I have heard that a lot of library systems have cut down or stopped their inter-library loans, so that may be the case with yours. I'd still ask, though. For soaking oatmeal, I use about 4 cups of water, 2 tablespoons or so of yogurt, and 2 cups of oatmeal. Stir it all together, and let it sit overnight. (I cover with a towel or plate as well.) In the morning, stir, transfer to a cooking pot, cover, bring to a boil, and simmer until cooked. They may cook faster than you're used to.

That's what I have noticed about most TF eaters as well -- they tend to eat lower carb, even soaked/sprouted carbs. They definitely seem to focus their calories on good fats and proteins, and carbs are very low-priority. I think it makes sense too -- if your body needs to burn something for energy, it will burn the easier-to-burn carbs first, leaving the fat to turn to weight gain. But if you eat lower-carb, your body will start burning the fat first, ending with weight loss (or minimal gain). I'm not a scientist, but that makes logical sense to me.

NT has some good points, I think, the most important of which is the emphasis on eating real foods. Eat a lot of grains or don't, eat a lot of meat or don't, eat a lot of added fats or don't -- whatever works for you, your body, and your lifestyle. But eat real food -- get the best quality food you can afford, don't buy artificially low-fat foods, eat foods as close to their natural state as possible, etc. That's the message I took from NT. It can look like an all or nothing sort of thing, and NT can be a bit off-putting. While I think their basic directions are pretty good, some of their recipes are a bit strange, and I have heard that there are better traditional foods cookbooks out there. As a history enthusiast, I did find the information about how traditional societies lived and ate and preserved their foods to be pretty interesting. I would vote for getting NT from your library, but you could also google for traditional foods suggestions. You can start with small steps -- soaking oatmeal is a pretty good one, as it just involves setting up the oats, some water, and something acidic (like yogurt) the night before, which doesn't take long. I have always cooked a lot from scratch, but yes, moving to a more traditional diet did up our grocery bill. We didn't drink much milk before switching to raw (because we didn't like it); now we go through a couple of gallons a week (and it does taste delicious too). Grass-fed meat is more expensive than conventional, though worth it for our health (and we didn't really notice that we ate less once we switched to the better stuff, so ymmv). On the other hand, oatmeal and eggs, which is what we eat for breakfast most days, is cheaper than cold cereal (and more filling).

I've been leery of my crockpot for just that reason, so it's been a while since I've used it. I have been using my cast iron dutch oven in place of it, just putting it in the oven at a low temp all day long. (200-300 degrees.) That seems to work pretty well.

I absolutely love my Sansa Fuze! (Amazon has hard plastic cases for them that are very inexpensive and which will protect them nicely from damage.) I use it with Rhapsody and have also put on CDs and audio books, all with no trouble at all. I would definitely recommend the Fuze.

I'm thinking that maybe teaching spelling and the rules of spelling and all is helpful for one subset of children. For others, I think it's not useful. I spent years acing spelling tests in school without studying for them, won spelling bees, and just generally have a good reliable sense of whether or not a word looks right. Sure, I read a lot, though not always the most challenging stuff, but I think spelling just comes naturally to me. I don't think having spelling lessons really did anything for me at all. My husband, otoh, is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, near perfect scores on the English SAT, an incredibly gifted writer, reads voraciously (and reads challenging stuff too), gets accused of using words too big for other people to understand, etc. And he cannot spell. He went through the same school system I did, so pretty much the same spelling books/tests/etc., and it just never stuck. He just doesn't have that sense of whether or not a word looks right (though he can always phrase a sentence better than I can). I proofread all of his important e-mails, letters, etc. for him. It wasn't until the last year or so, in his mid-thirties, that he decided he really needed to make himself remember how to use "it's" and "its" appropriately (he does do a lot of contract-writing in his career, and I'm not generally able to proofread those for him). I think spelling lessons in school were pretty useless for him too. Now, my mother says that she does think they were helpful for my also brilliant, but very math-oriented, younger brother. For him, learning to apply the rules of spelling was helpful. So I guess my answer is: it depends on the child. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing spelling lessons if they're helpful for your child, and I don't think there is anything wrong with skipping them if they're not needed either.

Oh, you could easily spend weeks visiting historic sites around the mid-Atlantic area! That would, IMO, be an excellent time -- warm, but probably not too hot yet. It can potentially be quite cool at night for camping, so plan on packing warm nighttime clothes, mugs for hot drinks, etc. Here's a recent post I wrote about Revolutionary War/colonial sites in the area: http://welltrainedmind.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2320185&postcount=5 Other fun places -- Gettysburg! Lots of neat historic stuff around there, plus there is a good driving tour (you buy a CD and it tells you where to drive) of the battlefield. It's about 3 hours from Philadelphia, and you can cross through the Lancaster area too if you drive between Gettysburg and Philadelphia. PA's just packed with amazing historic sites; here is a site that lists several of them: http://www.paheritage.org/pa-trail-of-history.html (If you find that you want to see several of them, look into the membership.) Loads to see in Virginia and DC too. The Smithsonian museums are free. We enjoyed touring Mount Vernon, in northern VA. Baltimore is fun too; you could go see Fort McHenry. (I'd probably do the trip in about this order -- whatever in North Carolina, whatever in southern Virginia, Williamsburg area, up to the northern VA area [2 hours from Williamsburg, IIRC], DC, up to Baltimore [40 minutes or so from DC], then up to the Gettysburg area [about 1.5 hours from Baltimore -- or skip Baltimore and go straight up through western MD from DC to Gettysburg -- a couple of hours], across eastern PA to Philadelphia [3 hours plus stopping at various sites along the way], and then continuing on to New Jersey, New York, and Boston if desired.) If you've got a particular focus -- a favorite time period, a particular interest in battlefields or architecture or historic life, or whatever, ask, and I'll see if I can offer more specific ideas. But the huge amount of historic stuff to see is one of my most favorite things about the mid-Atlantic area. :)

Hi all! A friend from my homeschool co-op recommended this board to me, and so far, it's been fun and helpful. I'm down in the south-central part of PA with my growing collection of munchkins. I can't come up with a good description for how we school -- it's a little bit of all sorts of things, mainly trying to fit in everything else around our historic clothing and craft interests. :) (Waves to Emilia -- I didn't know you were here!)

One of the JoAnn's near me (there are three) gave me a fit about applying for a homeschool discount coupon, because I had no official HS ID. Our support group created one though, so that would be a good option. Staple, otoh, just asked me to create a name for our school, no ID needed.

If that's what a specific food bank requested, then yes, I would donate foods that we didn't necessarily eat. We have not purchased single-serve convenience foods, like Spaghettios, but sometimes food pantries are looking to send easy-to-prepare foods home with children whose parent(s) is/are working long hours, or the families receiving food may not have proper storage and cooking facilities. Given the choice between a child on his/her own eating nothing and eating convenience food, even if it's not what I would consider to be nutritious, convenience food would win. Now, I'd far rather donate money so that a food bank could purchase bulk amounts of staple foods, or fresh produce as needed, or whatever, so that people could get the best possible food, but something trumps nothing.

According to their website (historyisfun.org), they are planning to offer the discounts in Feb./March as well. (The original Jamestowne settlement is kinda neat too, though not very big, and they don't offer the homeschool discount that I know of, but it was pretty inexpensive anyway.)

Here in PA, your daughter would be in 4th grade, starting 5th grade as of this coming fall. Actually, here, if you have your paperwork in before July 1, you can start counting your days from July 1. Many people do this, myself included. My DD is almost exactly a year younger than the OP's daughter, and she's finishing 3rd grade this year, will be in 4th as of July 1.

2-3 hours, depending on how cooperative everyone's being. DS1 can be finished in 10 minutes with his seatwork -- a couple of workbook pages for writing practice, a Bible verse, and a reading lesson with me, and he's done. DD has a Bible verse, copywork/handwriting practice, usually some math, some reading on her own, short Bible study, and maybe a couple of workbook pages about grammar, spelling, or something. It's usually about two or three things that require writing a day. She can be done in under 30 minutes if she's working and not fooling around. We also have poetry, history, science, literature, and other rotating things (picture study, music study, etc.) that we do together, plus whatever project or hands-on activity is for that day (usually related to art, history, science, or possibly handwork -- today we worked on assembling a castle). A lot depends on everyone's moods. 3 hours seems excessive to me for this age; under 2 for the almost 9yo would suit me fine, but it's also not 2-3 hours of continuous work -- she gets bored while I'm helping one of the boys, or she starts staring off into space while doing her math, or some such. :)

I plan about a year ahead, but mostly with just the topics I want to cover (and supplemental books/activities). We may or may not get to all of it. This year, I aimed for six-week blocks (with a week off in between), which sounds great in theory, and I think it would actually work very well, but it didn't quite end up working out that way. Next year, we're anticipating starting our year (which starts July 1 in our state) with a newborn, so the first couple of months need to be very flexible. A week by week plan will not work for next year (if it would ever work for me at all). So a general plan for the year that includes specific supplements, chapters, etc. is best for me. Then I like to take some time every weekend and plan out what I want to do for the upcoming week. That way, if I didn't get to a project from the previous week, it's not messing anything up to move it to the following week.

My DD has enjoyed both series. The Dear America/My America ones are not quite as interesting as the COFA, I think, but the COFA is easier reading. I think the series about boys is called My Name is America; we've not read those, as she's not interested, and my DS1 is a bit young.

We've done the HS days twice in September but have visited in Feb. The weather in Feb. is so much more iffy; I'd opt for Sept. You will be outside a lot, and dealing with coats when you're in and out frequently would be kind of a pain (at least for us). We haven't been able to be there during the week (just did long weekends), so we've missed a lot of the special activities, but we've had a wonderful time just talking to everyone and enjoying the buildings and everything on our own. Have a great time, whenever you go!

I use the same amounts as I would with butter or oil.

Yep, btdt with the carseat thing. I've currently got three kids (one who doesn't need anything, one who is forward-facing in a Graco CarGo with the lap-shoulder belt, and one rear-facing in a Graco MyRide) in a Ford Focus. It is tight, but it works, and they are all safe. (DD8 is in the middle, the toddler behind the passenger seat -- this works because I'm the one who rides in that spot, and I'm short.) The Graco CarGo is a fantastic seat; I really love it. It is big, though, but IDK how it compares to other convertibles. It might fit behind your passenger seat. I think it would be great for your younger daughter, though I personally haven't tried it with one that young. We used a Graco SafeSeat I, the "bucket" one that goes up to 35 pounds, for our younger DS, and even though he is on the big side (born at over 9 pounds and at 26 months is 29 pounds), he fit in it until 18 months. It's a bit pricey, but it might buy you a bit extra, though it's longer than a standard bucket seat, I think. You might try, for your older daughter, a Graco CarGo, with the 5-point harness in it for now. It's a good and narrow seat without a big footprint, so it works well behind someone else. I think it also "puzzled" well with our infant seat, meaning the baby could be behind the passenger, and the CarGo could be in the middle of the backseat. I've heard good things about the Radian too. I think you will just have to try out different combos and see which ones work well together.

That situation would make me uncomfortable. Yes, you'd have enough to cover some minor-major stuff but not major-major stuff. The possibility of hundreds of thousands of dollars for one illness/accident would make me uncomfortable. Or what if someone breaks an arm in the same year as someone else needs a tonsillectomy in the same year that someone gets cancer? I'd be looking for other types of insurance, personally, though I know the options vary between states. The other thing you might consider is, if you're Christian, one of the medi-share programs like Samaritan's Ministries. You could still end up owing quite a bit if there were too many needs to meet at the time you needed it, but at least your monthly payment, while not going toward you if you're healthy, would still go toward people who did need it.

We dress. There is the occasional pajama day, but most days, we dress; the children dress before breakfast, and I try to as well, though sometimes I don't dress until after breakfast.

That's pretty much what I was planning to do, lots of fiction and other smaller supplemental books. I was just hoping there would be some good resource out there with a basic framework, but maybe it won't matter so much if there isn't. I'm not opposed to learning about the US's connections with other countries, but I was hoping to avoid overwhelming them with a lot of talk about the rest of the world at this point. Maybe a few selected chapters from SOTW4 will provide enough general context. Thanks, other posters, for the other suggestions too -- will have to check those out. :)

I'd rent from you (your place sounds lovely!), though I'd have to take into consideration the cost of hay. You may need to discount the cost of hay from the rent and make sure it's easy for the renters to get the hay too. (Would frequent trips to get hay be necessary, or a pickup truck? Those might be deal-breakers for some people. Also, what about mowing the lawn -- would that need to be done?) But all of that for a reasonable rental price, just to feed a horse a couple of times a day? Absolutely! (Then again, we have a couple of acres and have an outdoor furnace that needs to be fed twice a day in the winter, so a horse wouldn't be that much of a stretch.)

My children have done well with Marshall's TCOO (we read aloud, so I do edit some), but it ends during WWI. I'm not really liking anything I've found so far that covers US history from WWI through the present. SOTW4 looks okay, but I really want something more US-focused right now. I was unimpressed with Hakim. I think A Child's Story of America might be okay, but it looks like I will need to do some serious editing, and it sounds like it's overly biased toward the conservative side. What I really want is something that will provide the very basic context -- major wars, Presidents, what was affecting the American people (Depression, Cold War, etc.), so that we can then add in supplemental books, look at clothing, listen to music from various decades, etc. It's sounding like I am going to have to create this framework myself. :)