Mega congrats to you and yours, Colleen!

Ethel M, glad to hear the update on your move. Rose, I talked to my friend in Santa Rosa today and she is also reporting improved air quality. Her house should be out of danger now, but her daughter's home is still only a block away from an evacuation zone. Good thoughts are appreciated. -- I started reading Something Wicked This Way Comes this morning because I was scouting around for a new spooky read and I saw it on Matryoshka's Goodreads update :) I love it so far. But I have the library version on my kindle and there are super-annoying typos. Dandelion Wine turned me into a R. Bradbury fan. When I read Fahrenheit 451 in the mid-2000s, I didn't care for it for reasons I can no longer remember. I should probably read it again. Yesterday, I did a quick and delightful read-through of a childhood favorite: The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes. I really really want to own a vintage copy of this book with the original cover illustration, but I haven't found one yet at my price point. Might use this for ESL. Started Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez as an AP Lang read-along with my son.

Yay, I managed to do a Spooky October book: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Reading new-to-me-classics is such a pleasure. Kareni, were you the one recently highlighting The Ghost and Mrs. Muir? We watched it last night and 3/4 family viewers liked it, which is usually about as good as it gets around here :lol: .

Fingers crossed for your son and his classmates, Colleen!

This is fantastic, thank you for posting it. I think about this from time to time - what would it be like for my kids to have to go through my stuff? How can I make it easier on them? Now I have a name for it. Death Cleaning - such a clever name! I am all for an open discussion about death, and I have never understood the reluctance to admit that it will come. My current town hosts Death Cafes occasionally, and I hope I can go to one at some point. Per the Death Cafe website: people gather to eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death. It is a discussion, not a grief support group. http://deathcafe.com/what/

Popping back in. This week was fall break from the toughest classes, and that gave DS the time to catch up on the other classes. Wednesday was the PSAT. And I have finally started organizing his college search project. In the beginning phase, I am the one doing the research. This is my third time through but first time with a homeschooler. As for me, I have been reading a lot and keeping up with math. My foreign language studies need a reboot.

I didn’t know about this option - thanks for posting it! This is probably what I will use once my homeschooling days end. OP, if you want the pdf booklets for the discussion questions, you do gain access to the booklets with both audible and Great Courses Plus.

I overestimated my speed at reading Danish, and got worried that I wouldn't finish Det Forsømte Forår by Hans Scherfig in time for the discussion. So I took the English version (The Stolen Spring) out of the library - which was a quick read :) It was good. It was fiction but heavily based on Sherfig's experiences at a boys' boarding school in Denmark 1920ish. The teachers were abusive and the kids were cruel. I thought the book was at its best when it showed the grind that kids go through trying to pass exams, memorize a plethora of trivia, achieve class rank, and please their parents. I am 60 percent done with the Danish version. Adult fiction is still difficult for me. Sigh.

There are obviously plenty of us willing to talk about reinventing ourselves :) I am 53 and my youngest is in 11th grade. I have an engineering degree and an MBA but have not had a full-time job since 1996. I started volunteering teaching English to adults (ESL) a few tears ago, and I love it. I am building my resume in that direction with both ESL volunteer work and my own foreign language studies. Only if I wanted to work in schools would I seek a masters. I prefer working with adults, and plan to get a certification within the next two years. I may or may not end up with paid work from my plans. Once all the children are launched and DH is retired, I would love for us to consider a move overseas again. Maybe by then I could get us there with an ESL position. This is an unlikely scenario for various reasons but {shrug} stranger scenarios have already actuallly happened to me! If I never do anything with ESL but volunteer, I would be ok with that.

Hugs, Rose. Thanks for the update.

Other Mother from Coraline: I love it! Now I know what I am going to be the next time I need a Halloween costume (whenever that might be...). Youngest retired from trick-or-treating a few years ago, so that part of Halloween is behind me. Not necessarily on the day of, but his is what we are doing for the season: I have been annually making a version of Ghosts in the Graveyard for as long as I can remember. This year, we are going on an evening cemetery tour sometime in October. And lots of movies are lined up for the month. The next one up is The VVitch.

I have to say that our local public school has been gracious and easy to deal with. Hearing so many horror stories, I am grateful! DS (11th) was in a room with 9th graders but the proctor knew he was an 11th grader. Presumsbly he got the right test.

Any updates about the Bennet Valley would be appreciated. I don’t want to pester my friend too much - she has enough on her mind :( I am using the evacuation notices to keep track, but sometimes it is hard since don not know all the street names.

My dear friend is just (barely) outside of Annadel Heights evacuation area. She is packed and ready to go :( It is going to be another long night for so many of you, and I am so sorry. :grouphug:

I appreciate the variety of thought on the world reading challenge! Since everyone gets to select individual rules for this one, it is of course wide open. Setting definitely matters to me for this challenge. Speaking only about this particular challenge, I would count neither an American's book about Mexico nor a Mexican's book about the USA. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want to read those books and it doesn't mean that I don't value them. It just isn't what I am after with this particular list.

I spoke to our coordinator this morning to ask if DS should come in to pre-bubble. She told me that she has the homeschool code already. Not sure what to make of that, or if I should make a fuss of it. ETA no real stress here. We are just using it to decide between the ACT and SAT for full-on prep. If the SAT becomes the chosen one, then the score will target test prep. DS has not had one of these tests since 8th grade.

Musing on Isak Dinensen: Since Babette’s Feast is set in Norway, I’m not even sure she has a book I would count for Denmark. I have not read the short story collections in ages; my recall of them is fuzzy. No matter, there is P-L-E-N-T-Y to choose from for all of Scandinavia.

Well, there are other works by Isak Dinensen you could read for Denmark :) Thanks for collecting your thoughts into a post. Now I have some more ideas for set-up, too! I agree 100% that the book has to have a strong sense of place for me to count it.

Rose, thank you for checking in. My friend's Santa Rosa house was spared and so was her daughter's house but many are not so fortunate :( -- On a bookish note, I don't think I have told you guys that I am an ESL tutor for adults. One of the pleasures of the gig is reading books along with my student. We recently read Pippi Longstocking and Charlotte's Web, and we are now finishing Paddington the Bear. My student loves quality children's lit and so do I. It is lovely to be discussing these books with someone encountering them for the first time.

Thinking of you, Rose. I just texted with my friend in Santa Rosa (the one we had lunch with) and so far her neighborhood is ok. Her daughter’s house is further north in Santa Rosa and she had to leave this afternoon, but it sounds like their place is ok now.— Hugs to everyone impacted.

So sorry, Rose. I am hoping to hear something soon from my dear friend in Santa Rosa.

YES!! We watched the one with the voice overs and the voice overs were awful. Now that I have seen and enjoyed BR2049, I would like to see the version of the original without the voice overs.

Well, my son is our resident sci-fi expert (both movies and books). He also haaaaaaaated the first Blade Runner and LOVED the new one. Make of that what you will...

Three of us saw Blade Runner 2049 yesterday, and all three liked it. The one scifi expert among us loved it :)

It depends. Do you have reliable internet? GCplus relies on streaming capability. Do you want to dowload videos to an ipad for traveling? I don’t think you can do that with GCplus but I am not 100% sure. Are the courses you want on GCplus? We have the GC plus and it is great for our needs right now.