We had our garage door replaced a couple years ago. One company didn't even send someone out. Just asked about 15 questions & sent us a quote over email. Actually, I'm not sure either company came out in person. (We live in a rural area far from the big cities.) The installers were pretty miffed when they showed up because our setup was kinda weird. We chose not to replace the opener because we didn't want a wireless keypad. The installer tried to tell us that our keypad was already wireless & was flabbergasted when he was proven wrong. All that to say, call the companies & get several quotes.

Their house is set up his/hers so he could pretty much live/shower/eat (but not prepare his own food) in his workshop area that is (small) apartment level size. Food would be the only frequent need. It would depend on how tight the lockdown at work is, IMO. Lots of employees travel personally so it would need to be a 100% quarantine. If mid-level & higher managers are allowed to come & go (home/work), he is better off at home.

I found out last night that some former homeschooling friends who have since moved away are in Spain right now. :( I think most people considered this a "Chinese disease" until the CDC's announcement the other day. I was discussing it last night with someone who deals woth the public every day. Her DH has a health situation that would put him in danger if he caught COVID-19. She might not be able to be around him at all if it gets to our area due to possibly passing it to him. We had a debate on if he'd be safer 'sheltering in place' at his work (which will require key employees to live at work if it does spread widely) or becoming a hermit at home.

Since a lot of the kids are not big writers, UAH Honors College likely feels they have to set a minimum number of words or they would get some extremely short responses to this prompt. The Dean of the Honors College reads every one that is submitted & writes a personal comment on all of the acceptance letters.

I feel the same about both. I would certainly not ever feel like doing my best after either experience.

We've done Art History and Health/Nutrition. My oldest knocked out her senior year English credit with an online college course. My next is going to try to knock out her senior year science credit with an online college course after her junior year. In the early years if high school, my oldest used summer to finish credits she didn't get done over the school year. Except for math & 15 minutes of typing practice/day, my next kid has had summers off up until now. CLEPing Econ (Micro/Macro) over summer would have been a great idea for my oldest but it didn't happen.

A couple of notes from the mom of a current student. First, they said the scholarship matrix probably wouldn't change last year and it did. So take that statement with a dash of salt. Second, housing is tight. They will guarantee on-campus housing for the first year if you live more than 30 minutes/miles (can't remember which), but not after that unless your kid has a housing scholarship. So, unless your student is NMF (and that scholarship doesn't change), you may need to plan for off-campus housing starting sophomore year. There is some upperclassmen housing, just not a lot. The housing market in the Huntsville area is hot. Third, yes to lots of nerds. My DD loves that she has found so many kindred spirits. The Honors College housing has provided lots of opportunities for socialization if you are interested. She's no longer the geekiest person in the room. Fourth, there is a lot of emphasis to parents of kids in the Honors College that the students need to be ready to have to work for their grades. The HC folks say that most of the incoming kids in the HC are used to getting As without studying and the kids freak out when they get a grade that is not an A. It sounded like most parents around me during this talj agreed that their kids had only ever had As & mostly didn't have to work hard for those grades. My kid does not fit this paradigm, but she has seen it since starting there. Some kids have already worked hard & find UAH classes not as hard as others they have taken elsewhere, so although there are smart kids there, the classes aren't universally difficult. Fifth, I love that UAH evaluated all of DD's transfer credits early on and she could see exactly what each credit transferred as. It was helpful in her decision of where to attend. Feel free to PM if you have specific questions for me or my DD.

Yeah, no wonder some people think it was engineered in a lab...

Without planning it ahead of time, my eldest's transcript certainly showed what she loved. She had something like 8 credits of foreign language credits & that didn't count the high school level Spanish & Latin she took in middle school or the extra time she spent (effectively doubling up time wise) on her foreign languages some semesters through personal tutoring. I did allow her to only do 3 yrs of science (2 school years + one semester DE) and to skip History senior year because she had four credits already by the end of junior year. My next kid will have a lot of art/fine arts credits because that's the sort of kid she is. She'll have 4 yrs of science & math, probably, but they won't be 'rigorous' courses. I'm hoping to get her through Algebra 2 & then have her take DE College Algebra or run her through a semester of Stats. But, it might just be Alg 2... Specialization for the right kid doesn't mean putting aside the other subjects, but it might mean some creativity or compromise.

Yeah, yeah. I heard this too. But ya know what? I think that's overrated. As long as your Algebra 1 isn't deficient & your Algebra 2 is robust, I think you are fine. I used Abeka for Algebra 1 with my eldest & Foerster for Algebra 2. Foerster was tough since Abeka wasn't as comprehensive as I would have liked, but the job got done. I used Jacobs for Algebra 1 for my next kid. I'm using Foerster for Alg 2. The next is using Dolciani for Alg 1. ... Do you see that I'm not stuck on this whole "same publisher" stuff? Find something you think he will do well with. It might take some looking around. Maybe a visit to a math textbook hoarding Hive member? Or a curriculum junkie in your span of the woods? Nothing is like CLE. But maybe you can still find something that works. Good luck.

@aggieamy That's what the cover of my copy of The Blue Castle is. :-) I don't really look at covers closely,But sometimes I wonder what the publishing company tells the cover artist before they get started. My dd#2 would love to be a cover artist but she knows she needs to know more about the books than what she's going to be told because she hates inconsistencies between cover art & inside content. If I didn't remember giving birth to her, I'd be tempted to say she wasn't my child. On a completely different note, I'm surprising/spoiling my bibliophile college girl with an Owlcrate this month. It arrives tomorrow & looks very interesting according to the YouTube unboxing I watched last night. I'm not sure this month was the best to give but the contents are always a bit of a mystery...

My eye pigmentation is low according to the eye doc. He said that is a sign that I could be more at risk for macular degeneration & recommended a supplement. And, as you can imageibe, they sell the supplement there. (This place is all about the upsale.) Anyone know anything about supplements to improve eye pigmentation & which ones are good? The one they endorse & sell is called EyePromise Restore. It looks like a multivitamin & I'm not sure about adding all this on top of my multivitamin, flax seed oil, & the D3 I'm already taking.

I'm going in this afternoon for my annual eye apt. I might try a trial of the multifocals, but I think I'll stick with the bifocals long term. I wore my contacts a couple of times this week & it is just super annoying to whip out reading glasses to read anything. Getting older sucks.

I want to reline some kitchen shelves with shelf liner. It makes it easier to clean the area & my current stuff is all beat up (20+ yrs old). I'm used to the adhesive type but found grippy non-adhesive stuff (Duck Easy Liner for example), too. I can see that would easier to install, but does it shift around/move if you slide things in & out often?

Do you know how long the TPS essays are? This would have been too much for my reluctant writer in 9th & 10th grade. In 11th, she took a lackluster one-semester writing class that had her writing one paper every other week (and sometimes revising a 2nd paper at the same time). It was fine because almost all the papers were 3-5 pages. One was a longer research paper & they had three weeks for that one, I think. My upcoming 9th grader would be ok if the English class ramped up & papers are 3-5 pgs. But she's a writer.