SmallWorld is kind of like Risk.

con - social stuff. Harder to meet people in our community. pro - don't have to deal with social stuff! con - lack of access to some really super facilities (top notch labs and metal working and robotic etc at one school almost pulled us in) [We have no DE options here] pro- tailored, individual, private education; ability to schedule how we like, what we like & to set our own curriculum. The hoop jumping in our system is insanely stupid & we all appreciate being able to just avoid that. PRO - you really get to know these young adults. This is the real magic imo. The hours on discussion or just hanging out or just talking pay off. You get to build a relationship that simply would not have been possible with 8-12h out of the house day in/day out.

I don't think so. I think groups won't show, only public 'pages' do....

We have weekly curbside composting pick up and all our food scraps go into a little bucket under the sink, separate from the garbage. The bucket gets emptied daily into the 'green' bin outside. While we do have a garburator, we are discouraged from using it as it puts an extra strain on the wastewater treatment plant, whereas putting the scraps into the curbside green bin helps to fertilize all the municipal gardens.

In the good old days, we had yahoogroups. (& before that egroups) Yahoogroups is still around but it's dying. Our homeschool groups still have yahoogroups running but that community is essentially dead. All the outings, organized events, curriculum sales, questions about various legal issues etc all get hashed out on the fb groups (which are AWFUL imo, in that you can't organize the topics, you can't search very well (not at all on mobile for ex) and it technically forces people to use their real name. There's a strongish WTM group on fb btw.....

If you're getting too many notifications, you can turn them off https://www.facebook.com/help/112320895539157

just sharing this new online course for 8-11 yo from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada " three, one-hour sessions, delivered once per week. Presented live by a Science Educator for up to three homeschool sites, participants will learn about palaeontology, museum careers, and Canada’s rich fossil heritage. Aligning with Homeschooling Learning Outcomes, our included workbook and post-session activities will allow students to keep learning even after the course ends." http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/programs/distance/Experience_Palaeontology.htm

Great! Will you be able to right after the first shots? you may be interested in Susan Garrett's blog posts about raising Swagger who was an unexpected singleton. She arranged to take him to meet a litter of puppies. http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2011/02/socializing-the-singleton-puppy-a-swaggers-big-adventures/ Swagger still had some issues later which she had to work through. He was very mouthy and had some bits of resource guarding. I was in part of her Puppy Peaks online program so saw her work through some of it http://www.puppypeaks.com/fe/58819-puppy-peaks-info If you read through her archives in 2011 you'll see a number of posts on several issues which give insight into how to approach some stuff. Oh & some vets still don't really understand the risk/reward ratios on socialization pre full vax so if you need ammo, this is a great resource: http://4pawsu.com/vaccinations.htm

I'd get tested to find out what it is exactly. Maybe it's the dairy or cocoa or one of the oils or something else.

Yes, MS Office is now a yearly subscription product. Some colleges have free access for their students as part of the fees so if you have college kids, check that out. Otherwise, if you don't want to pay, use Open Office or Libre Office. They both will open microsoft documents & have pretty much the same features.

oh it's a common scam! Do not worry. http://scam-detector.com/telephone-scams/civil-complaint-against-you

Adblock & the FB Purity extension (it is an extension to your browser) and you can stop all that nonsense Unfortunately this all only works on a laptop or desktop. Every once in a while I login on my iPad and scare myself. It's a completely different fb feed without all that stuff...

She talks about MMO and her own guild addiction , plus her show The Guild... I think it was more WoW but it could be that I missed the Everquest references. I think if you grew up online just a few years before her, you'll find she reminds you of many things.

It's not magic because it depends on what kind of stones your cats is forming: struvite, oxalate or urate. The rx diets tend to be for prevention of struvite. A side effect of those diets has been an increase in oxalate stones. There are genetic components too & in some cats, no diet is sufficient to prevent the stone formation. http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2142&aid=2729 fwiw, I think some of the rx diets are very much lifesaving but I would never put a cat that forms stones on any dry rx food; canned rx food only...

Just to reiterate, deactivating facebook is not permanent & has no real consequences so it's not a 'rash decision'. Deleting your fb profile is permanent. Deactivating isn't.

hmm, weird. It's working for me. Try this? https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Never-Weird-Internet-Almost/dp/147678566X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

The only good thing about the crappy hair appointment I had a couple weeks ago is that while my boring beige highlights were dully processing, I made it a long way through Felicia Day's book You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost). I follow Felicia on twitter & have seen her on Supernatural and Dr Horrible etc but I didn't know she had been homeschooled. It's an interesting part of her book. She is 37 so it was a while ago but dd loved her descriptions of it & it gave me an interesting perspective on how being homeschooled looks from the eyes of a millenial'ish kid... It's also a good peek into gaming, women, feminism & pop culture. A fun quick and quirky read.

But the Kia is way more reliable than the Caravans. In a couple years you'll be in the same spot with an unreliable car. I would buy a used Kia or Toyota van, even a well used one, over a new or newish Caravan. My 99 Sienna is still going strong.

My ds is a very struggling writer and IEW helped him. He likes the mechanical way of writing, the chart, list, checklists etc. It's the first thing that got him writing more than few sentences in a row. I think at that age the recommendations are Student Writing Intensive C , then the Elegant Essay... http://iew.com/sites/default/files/images/IEW_2016_Pathway.jpg

It will be way less than that if you go with Zenni. I know some people think you can't do progressives well online but honestly, there are only so many ways to divide the lens and I don't think an optician with a sharpie marking on a lens in a store (which is how I had a pair marked a few years ago) is any more precise than just evenly distributing the rx across the progressive.

I left for a couple months. You can deactivate (as opposed to delete) and see how it feels. You can reactivate any time (though if you do it too many times sometimes fb will lock you out for 24h before you can go back in) and all your things will be there. (Deleting otoh will get rid of everything & if you come back, you'd need to start from scratch.) Try it & see if you really miss it :)

I do Zumba 5 / week (4 regular & 1 Zumba toning). All my instructors are certified fitness instructors first, Zumba instructors second, and it shows. We sweat hard :) Lots of squats and core work and optional high impact moves. Zumba classes really vary so you have to try various instructors. I've been some Zumba classes which are just so low impact and slow that we didn't break a sweat ever. Hint, if your instructor is wearing giant hoop earrings, it's not going to be a high impact class....Great for beginners wanting to learn the steps but not so good for a workout... I used to do yoga in a class but now do it at home. Faster & cheaper. I keep thinking I'd like to try a spin class but they all look so serious in that room as I walk by. A couple weeks ago at a Zumba class a lady came up to me to say "I love dancing with you because you're always smiling" <--- & that's why I Zumba. I don't need another hour of being miserable or serious in my life.

If you decide to keep him, socialization will your biggest challenge. Any hand raised pups can be troublesome. for that matter, so can singletons raised by a mom. If they don't learn vital social cues from litter mates, it can lead to behavior problems down the line. And given you may have some pit there, it will be super super super important to work hard on dog-dog socialization. I'd be finding someone with a litter of puppies on the ground so that he can play with them & then immediately finding a puppy playgroup run by a certified positive reinforcement trainer. Also check out Puppy Culture. https://www.puppyculture.com/, buy the resources & do all those exercises.

awwww, the feeets!!!!! SO CUTE!

fwiw, even in college biology you can get exempted from dissection labs. There's really no reason to dissect animals if that's something that grosses you out or that you object to ethically.