It depends. Some I just remember the big picture and others I'll remember larger portions. The Hobbit, LOTR and Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell are the ones I remember quite a bit, but I loved all those books. With rare exceptions, I don't tend to enjoy re-reading books (too many books, too little time). I'm the same way with movies. There's only a few I enjoy re-watching. I know people who can quote portions of books and remember finer details. I wish I were like that.

Yes, blogger and blogspot are the same.

yes, my husband reads quite a lot. He does a lot of audio books too, but those are mostly fiction. His actual reading is mostly non-fiction.

I 2nd Semicolon's blog. I try to visit it each Saturday when she has a round up of reviews across the net. I've participated myself in the past - but not recently. It's definitely a nice way to find other book blogs. Do you want blog that are only devoted to books and reviews? I have several I like that do an eclectic mix of topics and aren't exclusively about books.

oh yeah...definitely. Right in the midst of dealing with a lot of stuff that has percolated to the top recently. Been hearing that soundtrack a lot lately too.:grouphug: One thing that helped was having a friend to talk with. There's a good book I'm reading called "Ooening UP: the Healing Power of Expressing Emotions". I'm not generally a self-help person and I'm certainly NOT someone comfortable expressing myself. This books talks about how writing can be healing. Anyway, Perhaps I'll pm you.... since it's kind of private. and besides. I'm supposed to be getting dinner on the table :001_huh:

LOL - I was thinking we needed a s/o. You mentioned Skyrim and that made me laugh. My son-in-law is a big Skyrim fan - we bought him the soundtrack for Christmas. I'll have to keep your suggestion in mind when I get a hankering to try out a game. Have you heard of Good Old Games dot com? www.gog.com ? My SIL bought a couple of old goodies from that site for our 10yr old. It has all the oldies,but goodies (so I'm told) available to download.

LOL. Dare I admit it??? I was also a Starcraft addict. Now I'm so not interested in gaming. It's weird. Sometimes when I knew I'd have a big break (like Christmas) I would try to start up some old games, but I'd just get bored. Okay, back to your usually programming....

I see your kids are older. I really like the idea of just giving them a special day on their b-day. Your kids are obviously beyond the "gifts are everything" stage of childhood. I know a mom who does write a letter to each of her kids on their b-day. She talks about how the year was with them and what they mean to her. It's really sweet. My only suggestion for making the holiday (by this I think you mean Christmas??) would be to incorporate something simple to prepare for the holiday - either an Advent wreath, or calendar, or some other way to countdown to the day. Start small and work from there. I find the holiday season gets stressful all by itself and trying to do "everything" is next to impossible. Another idea off the top of my head is that since we began going to church on Christmas about 10yrs ago we wait to open presents until after church (now it's even later since old dd is married and can't get here early). Anyway, making kids wait to open presents really does de-emphasizes their importance. It wasn't something I was expecting, but that is a side benefit.

I used to be so addicted to WOW... but I liked the older version. Haven't played it in years though. to answer the OP. When my 10yr old was little my husband and he used to love play fighting. One day they must have been playing with wooden swords and they were playing and fight a dragon or something. I somehow got placed into play because my dh said something like "We must protect the fair princess from dragon!" and my son started calling me "Princess mommy". I became PrincessMommy for many of those games, apparently (I just had to walk in the room and suddenly I was in the game ;) ). LOL. Anyway, it's a screenname I' use in a couple of places. I'm not very creative, so if I like one I'll stick with it. Being a newbie, I'm enjoying this thread.

I've been doing a little research on this as well. One of the books I read said that some people are wheat sensitive without having celiac. I think it was "Wheat Belly". Good book to start with. I think the guy has a blog too, but the book was helpful. I'

Welcome to the group. I'm new and didn't realize we should post introductions. Oops. Your husband must be so excited about his kids coming.

My wonderful mother-in-law has gone downhill a lot in the last year, but I still love her and think she's awesome! I've been very blessed to have her in my life and I hope I can be as good a MIL to my kid's spouses as she has been to me.

those are simply beautiful! I'm always so impressed with people who can do stuff like that. Your girls are very lucky.

I think it is a very beautiful analogy... and certainly explains why, when talking to non-Orthodox, we get stuck on words and semantics (and run down bunny trails) rather than looking at the big picture. (And - as a weaver I love the weaving illustration :001_smile:)

To me this is very odd. I was told the decision lay with the Bishop... not me. I've known a few people who also wanted to be baptized again and were told by the priest "You're baptism was fine." So it surprises me that you could decide. I guess I'll chalk that up to jurisdictional differences. ;)

For the last several years I've been growing Paperwhites for the Christmas season. This year I started much too late (Dec. 13) so I had no blooms yesterday, but that's not my problem: I buy 9 bulbs and put 3 each in a class container with rocks at the bottom. This year only 2 bulbs have shoots up above the class rim and roots. The others have no roots growing...but there is a little green popping out of the bulb (this is how I bought them)...so I know they didn't die. How do I get the roots to start growing?? I've never had this problem before.

not yet... hope to tonight sometime if we can get all the fam together.

My husband's company shuts down the week between Christmas and New Year's so it's always been relaxing around here. When I homeschooled, I could never get much done with hubby around, so we just waited until our usual schedule resumed on the 2nd. This is an unusual year because we're moving on the 2nd. The house is going to be in a bit of a whirlwind. I've done a bit of packing in the last month, but mostly planned to have the major packing up done this week. We got some margin because we don't put the current house on the market for another month (19yrs + homeschooling 6 kids = a house in need of a lot of pre-market fixup). Most years we visit family, go to the movies, kids play with their new toys/games, and/or we do odd jobs around the house. Nothing too major but usually the week goes by VERY fast.

There was no chance for us to watch it last night either... Hopefully, we'll all watch it tonight.

I don't know your story but that sounds wonderful. Merry Christmas.

Within the Orthodox church baptism and communion are considered Mysteries (which is roughly translated as "sacraments" in the west). I do know Protestants who consider baptism - as we or Catholics/Episcopalians/Lutherans see it - as a works righteousness. We don't see it that way - it is how strict Bible only Protestants interpret it. I was trying to see how you defined works. Thanks for answering... I'm cooking dinner, visiting with family and all the other Christmasy stuff. Gotta run, but hopefully I'll get back to this conversation tomorrow.

I'm happy there, but I've only ever blogged there or at homeschoolblogger (years ago). I cannot speak to which is easier.

There are ways to get the classroom discussion experience without putting them into a school. I do think there is benefit from having group classes for older kids. My kids would complain and whine at the first hint of doing a "paper" for anything. But put them in a group with 6-8 other homeschoolers and suddenly there was this pressure to do well. Find out if there are homeschool classes available in your area. If not, consider starting one yourself. Like the previous poster- start a group or reading class. I did one for the Lord of the Rings curriculum and it went quite well.

I can't wait.

I don't blog on blogger, but I'm bumping this up for you in hopes that someone who does will see it. :grouphug: