Have any of you had to deal with this? Educating someone in education who should probably know more than they do about home education? For example, the community college my daughter wants to go to says that an admissions requirement for homeschoolers is to submit a transcript and "letter from the school district in which you reside in which the school district acknowledges your home schooling completion." Ummm, the school we reside in is not the one in which dd graduated. Ummm, public schools in Ohio have nothing to do with "acknowledging" that any homeschooler has graduated, they only excuse us from public education each year after we properly notify them. (I have letters of excuse and test scores that we send in for notification, of course.) Is it just common for the wording to be much more expansive than...well, reality? (i.e. incorrect lol) I'm going to call or email to ask about this and want it to go well. Is it usually no big deal to get them to accept what is actually reasonable?

I was just looking at getting some of these for ds: Bamboo Charcoal Odor Absorber bags

I wore the same 2 sweatshirts that I got from a thrift store last winter and I'm pretty sure all of Northeast Ohio thinks I don't wash or change my clothes. So I need some recs for warm sweatshirts/hoodies that are maybe a little cute, too? That may be a stretch; I just need a bigger selection and our house gets COLD! Thank you! :)

:lol: :lol:

I'm gonna say...keep looking.

Do you get clogs often?! I would never have thought of that! Do you use it for maintenance or just when it clogs? I'm totally curious. lol

I make that frosting for a pumpkin spice cake (pumpkin added to a spice cake mix) and it's our favorite fall dessert!!

YES.

I do go out, of course. We have fewer activities in winter, though, and even if I'm out for one thing it doesn't mean I want to go shopping as well if the weather is crummy. LOL It's just a convenience thing more than actual necessity! This year we're predicted to have much more snow than last so I'm trying to make life a little easier. :) You all reminded me about salt! I have to keep an eye out for the pet-friendly snow melt stuff I like and it's only available for a short time, it seems.

I *hate* going out in the winter for pretty much anything except food. lol Starting this month I'll be stocking my pantry and closets with: Toilet paper Puffs (Ultra Soft & Strong only!) Canned goods that I use more in the winter like a few cream soups, canned milks, chicken stock, etc. Extras of the herbs & spices I use most so that I don't have to "run out" to the store for them Vitamins if the expiration date is far enough away and herbal/medicinal teas I'm buying new water jugs this year, ones with handles; we buy our water because our well water sucks More wool socks (I just get more every year since we wear them out every other year or so. Not sure why but we don't tend to wear our slippers.) Plastic for sealing windows I'm sure there are more things we need. What do you like to have a LOT of before the snow starts falling? :) (Sorry if "snow" is an evil word right now!! LOL)

I make all of my quick breads and pound cake in a bundt pan rather than loaf pans. I just like it better, whether it's for a 1 or 2 loaf recipe. :)

Wow, how do you even find out the month a book is set in?! LOL Anyway, here are just 2 that we like and I don't know the month: Liar & Spy or When You Reach Me, both by Rebecca Stead. (The latter has an A Wrinkle in Time tie-in!)

Cold, for sure. But I think due to my age it takes way less movement and activity for me to get warm and even overheated! It's not usually this mild in September (it's 64 in my house right now) and I'm *freezing*!! But I did some housework and going up and down stairs and warmed up more quickly than I used to so at least there's that. lol

We've lived without a disposal for a while, but I still wish I had one. Mainly for fruits and veggies--they tend to attract flies/bugs even when in the trash and taken out fairly often--and also for when we have very wet or liquid stuff to throw away. Not fat or grease, but I don't want to dump someone's unfinished soup or stew into the garbage because of leaks and just ew. And I don't really want to take the time to strain unfinished food so the liquid goes down the drain and then I can throw out solids. I'm just lazy that way.

Raspberry is what I use most often but ONLY seedless. If I can't get seedless raspberry or strawberry, I go for apricot.

I don't have any real reasoning other than preference behind this, but I'd put out everything BUT Christmas holiday items out by the first day of Sept. and then Christmas by the end of the first or second week in October. That seems a bit late for Christmas, honestly, (because I love it so much) but a lot of people LOVE Halloween and fall in general so I'm all for having an entire month of just fall stuff.

I have this one and it helped more than anything else other than traction at the physical therapist for my herniated disc pain. It's not a cure, doesn't take away all the pain, but it feels good and sort of dissipates the severity of the pain or something, IMO. https://www.amazon.com/truMedic-TENS-Electronic-Pulse-Massager/dp/B00DCEBLP4/ (I also got a big pack of replacement electrode things for really cheap, too.)

I don't know...that's kind of like saying that birds with beautiful plumage don't have them to attract a mate. And denying that the opposite sex bird likes them quite a bit. Just because breasts have a purpose in feeding children doesn't mean they don't also have another purpose for many more decades of a woman's life. It can be why women are sad when they lose them to cancer. It isn't the only thing that MAKES her a woman, of course, but it is one. I actually don't know how I feel about the Usborne book, just responding to this comment/idea in general.

Dean Koontz's new book, The Silent Corner, is a thriller with a female Jack Reacher type of character. I really enjoyed it! It's first in a series, too, so I am looking forward to the others.

My relative is only a "victim" of poor planning. His house didn't take on any water and they won't lose a thing but neighbors around them seem totally unsurprised that the roads around them have flooded and trapped them in place for a while. And he didn't think ahead for the foster children he and his wife took in. Today he is saying that they will run out of precious coffee. I just don't get it other than the fact that they have only lived in TX for a few years and have never been through a hurricane. *Edited to add that I know no one could have predicted how bad the situation is. My relative is very lucky that he's not dealing with water in his home and I guess it just as easily could have happened to him and then the bigger issue would have been escaping and not that he didn't go to the store for more than he did! I was only asking why so many seem to be caught off guard about needing basic, bare minimum preparations so that they CAN shelter in place since that seems to be the typical thing one must do. Once the situation changes from that it's a different story, of course.

I live in Ohio so this isn't something I deal with. But when it comes to intelligent people of means--not people in poverty with limited resources, etc.--do they just tend to blow off the most obvious of preparations in your experience? I'd like to hear from people in areas that deal with weather disasters like this. My mind is just blown and I don't want to shame victims of a hurricane, so I'll use some family members in TX as an example of something that just confuses the heck out of me. OK, you know that a hurricane is coming and that the area may flood. Making sure you have food and the formula AND MEDICATION you need for your own children and your FOSTER children to last maybe a week seems smart?? Obvious? And yet, my intelligent relative who is a well-paid pastor, had to rely on a few different people to bring him medication and formula--by wading through flooded waters no less since their vehicles couldn't get within a quarter mile of the house--because they didn't have the foresight (?) to get some extra for the possibility that they wouldn't be able to just go out and buy some a few days after a freaking hurricane? Is this common? If so, WHY?! (Honestly, I'm trying hard not to be super annoyed at how they are praising God for coming through for them--through other people putting themselves at risk--when all they had to do was buy some extra stuff for crying out loud.)

Oh, that's helpful. Thanks!

allowances/exemptions or whatever they are called? Ds would like to owe as close to ZERO as possible and is OK with paying a small amount at tax time if it means he gets more of his own money during the year. He's responsible and can save well so I'm not worried he won't be able to come up with a hundred bucks or so. How do we figure this out?

If he wants D&D type of role-playing, most board games aren't anything as involved as that. There are online options for playing (free)D&D, though, and you could even check local comic/game shops to see if they have regular D&D nights he could join. WAY fun and several of our kids and dh play. There is also a role-playing Star Wars game that my dd likes better. Also, has he played Werewolf in a large group? Sometimes that can have a more role-playing aspect to it if everyone is into that! If he's just into story-telling type games that are shorter, this page has a great list! http://geekandsundry.com/5-fantastic-story-driven-board-games/ There is also a Lord of the Rings card game that is cooperative where you build a party of characters and do some deck-building which he might like! (For deck-building, Magic the Gathering still has a pretty big following--including my oldest. LOL)

Our rental house is on the property of the landlord's business and another business he rents out to someone. Typically a very annoying setup. But today, the guy with the business that sort of butts into our yard came over with welding masks that were safe for solar viewing and let us use them! He tried our glasses and it was nice. :)