To clarify, I am not suggesting that anyone needed to be reported and certainly not that you should have reported someone. Rather that there is already a board-wide system in place that seems to work. Everyone here has access to the report button as well as the reply button and the PM option. With a functioning system already in place that is equally available to everyone, I guess I just don't see why any additional monitoring/restricting of the BaW thread is necessary. edited a few times for an attempt at clarity

Why not let the moderators decide if something goes too far? Honestly, it would be less work for you and probably less stress. It is a sincere question but I'm not expecting an answer - the question is basically a food for thought question. ETA: I have no doubt that you try to abide by SWB's rules! I genuinely think all of us try to do exactly that.

I find it sad that ANYONE here is feeling hurt or excluded. I might be newish to the BaW threads and unaware of all of its history, but I am not new to these boards. I get that what-is-too-political? is a grey area, but that grey area comes into play all the time on these boards. There are established WTM parameters for dealing with threads that might cross the line. There is a report button (*) that seems to get used with regularity, and there are moderators that take action when they think that action is necessary. I am admittedly surprised at the very notion that these BaW threads would operate with tighter or looser boundaries than the rest of the Chat Board. * FWIW, I have never reported anything but obvious spam.

Maybe I should not get involved, but from my perspective this is a thread on the Chat Board just like all the other threads on the Chat Board and thus subject to the exact same SWB-created rules about politics etc. as the other Chat Board threads. No more and no less. To my knowledge, only private social groups operate under different guidelines. Or am I missing something? Robin, I do not ask this to devalue the effort you have put into creating this weekly thread and keeping its momentum intact. I am genuinely confused.

I have only skimmed the replies, but I am going to go back and read all of them. My son will probably major in either history or political science. Recently, I met a man who works (yes, paid full-time work) as a local historian. One of the things he does is a lot of documentary work. If my son goes the history route, I am going to remind him of this guy and suggest that my son take some media studies.

Topical steroids or oral steroids? Please advise your daughter to research using topical steroids on her face, particularly around her eyes. The skin around the eyes is particularly thin. I suffered from Topical Steroid Withdrawal, and it is horrible. Not everyone believes in TSW (I do, because I lived it!), but the vast majority of medical advice suggests exercising great caution with the use of topical steroids on the face. I only use water on my face. If I get a flare around my eyes, I dip a makeup pad in an epsom salt solution. Yes, that makes my eyes feel dryer but it also tames the eczema. I have also had success with light therapy on the non-eye parts of my face. Good luck and :grouphug: :grouphug: . Eczema is nasty.

This is the first I heard about teal pumpkins, Sometimes, I think that these boards are the only thing standing between me and living-under-a-rock-syndrome. In my defense, my youngest is in 11th grade and I have not lived in a trick-or-treatable dwelling for years. But if I ever live in a trick-or-treatable dwelling again, I’m gonna have a teal pumpkin! Thanks for clueing me in, Mercy.

Glad you are keeping at it. I only became a “yarn person†recently, but I am finding that “yarn people†are generous with helping us newbies.

As one of the newer posters on this thread, I hesitate to even comment about Eliana’s departure. I would like to echo aggieamy’s appreciation of both Eliana’s and Robin’s contributions to its vibrancy.

I plan to bring some type of vegan salad, exact components TBD.

Belated birthday wishes to Lady Florida and John :)

I am 2/3 finished with The One and Only Ivan, and it is just as wonderful as my elementary-school-reading-specialist-friend said it was. I picked it as a pre-read for an ESL student. Not that I NEED an excuse to read children’s books, mind you... And guess what?! My patience for a vintage copy of The Witch Family has (hopefully) paid off. After randomly checking around for many months, I finally found a good used copy for under $10 including shipping. It hasn’t arrived yet, so I hope the condition isn’t disappointing.

I finished The Snow Child over the weekend. Like Negin's The Nightingale, Eowyn Ivey wrote a book that was about as perfect as a contemporary novel gets for me. I could have lopped off the epilogue, and one of the foil characters was a bit caricatured but those are minor complaints. I loved the main characters, and the plot had just the right amount of ambiguity. And I loved the way she wrote about the Alaskan forest. It would be a very good choice for a 50-states novel. This week: I am back to my reread of Angela's Ashes. I had to wait for DS to be finished with it. Sharing it did not go so well - I kept losing his place :tongue_smilie:. This morning, I started reading a children's book, The One and Only Ivan, and I am liking it so far.

I am so sorry Linda. What a heartbreak :(

I learned how to crochet this summer. I picked crochet because I wanted to make amigurumi and because my mom could help me with crochet. A few weeks ago, I started going to a weekly meet-up at a local yarn shop. Everyone else there is knitting, but that is ok :) I hope you enjoy the meet-up. I am still trying to meet people in this town and figured it was a good thing to try. It is a very easy-going group, and I have enjoyed it thus far.

Well, we went on a night-time lantern tour of an old cemetery. This cemetery was chartered in 1852 and has 40,000 graves. They do it only in October and November, but it is a history tour not a ghost tour. Not your typical Saturday night out, but I loved it :)

I abandoned a high-paying career after earning multiple degrees. DH’s career was on the rise, but it was still a big risk. Rather than one last straw, there were a series of breaking points. There was the day our daycare arrangement imploded unexpectedly and we scrambled for an alternative. There was the day when, after commuting for an hour to work, I had to turn around to take an injured child to the doctor. Once the injury was resolved and determined to be insignificant, I dropped the DS off at my MIL’s and went back to work. Spent four hours in the car that day. There was the time that both DH and I were both supposed to go out of town for work, and none of our parents could watch the kids. I forget how we resolved that one. I guess one of us decided that this-time-your-business-trip-matters-more-than-mine and took the career ding. I do not recall that lifestyle with fond nostalgia. Nope nope nope.

No. My mom was a working mom, and that was what I was raised to be. When we had our first child, I was making more than my husband. I didn't become a SAHM until my oldest boys were 5 and 2. I had a very demanding job that included overseas travel. I was very burned out, and when we made our first big move I was able to try out being a SAHM I never expected to stay a SAHM for 20 years, though! But here we are. No regrets. I might go back to work after the youngest finishes high school in 2019. We'll see.

Hugs and condolences, mama25angels.

Angel, :grouphug: :grouphug: I hope that Aly being pain-free is about to become the norm.

Thanks, all. I am leaning toward some sector(s) of Earth Science unless he really wants to go deeper with Marine Science. He actually did a ton of solid marine science already at the camps.

Any ideas for doing earth science topics (geology/weather/oceanography) without looking like/being science slackers? I hate that Earth Science appears to be a light science for high school because it certainly can be quite challenging. After all, people go on to get PhDs in the topics...

DS is currently in 11th grade, and I am pondering what to choose for 12th grade science. AP science is not a good choice. If we can find just the right DE class, then we will go with that. But I need to come up with a non-AP, non-DE option. Either outsourced or homegrown is fine. 9th grade: Biology with lab using Miller Levine 10th grade: Chemistry with lab using Novare Chemistry for Accelerated Students 11th grade: Physics with lab through Clover Creek He spent three summers attending a Marine Science summer camp. He is not planning a STEM major, but he does have an enjoyment of marine science. I guess we could do Marine Biology. Edit of an ETA (sorry for any confusion!): I moved my Earth Science comment to post #3, hopefully it flows better in the thread there.

Congratulations, Stacia, on 52 books! I absolutely positively plan to read Head in Flames in 2018.

On Goodreads ratings: I think three star books are good books! I often have a hard time deciding between four and five. That’s why I wiped out almost all the ratings for my read-years-ago books. All I can really remember is loved, liked, or hated. My one star books are mostly something I suffered through for either a book club book or a book that I did as a read-along of one of my boy’s assignments. When I redid the shelves, I added a classics shelf. And then deleted it. Then added it back. And deleted it again! In the end, I decided that I didn’t want to fret over defining classic.