I recently finished Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson and loved it. Also read The Death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy and enjoyed that quite a bit, too! I'm currently on Gilgamesh, which I added to my "Classics" category since I had space for it and I dropped another. So far this year, I haven't read any but the Shakespeare title above from my 888 list that I'd consider a definite keeper...

Great book! I just bought my own copy after deciding it was a "keeper"!

I simply took it to mean, "Good...no, make that *great*, selections!" Does that help? ;)

I think a more accurate description is "increased exercise working the entire body by alternating strength/weight training and med-high intensity aerobic workouts AND eating more wisely." The latter may mean eating less, but that's kind of misleading...I don't count calories, but try to eat balanced meals, wiser foods and portion sizes and I cut out late night snacking. That's the key combination for me! I don't "diet", though, and feel that the increased exercise is the more important factor in my weight loss! :)

we worship and serve our buns off and then take the rest of the day to do pretty much nothing but hang out together. I rarely cook and we only play games if we feel it won't be too much work. :D We watch a movie or some t.v., read, etc. We have always been a no-sports-commitments-on-Sunday family, but we will do parties if we feel we'll be up to it and it's not on a busy week. I think that the one area I need to practice "resting in" on the Sabbath is school planning! I often leave it until Sunday evening for practical reasons but need to really pray and think about whether or not that's an exception I am truly willing to continue making!

(we homeschool year round but mainly do English/Grammar and Math in the summer) So for middle school... Analytical Grammar Lightning Literature WriteSource 2000 and the grade level accompanying student book--between these and LL, I feel we've got writing covered well. Link--> (I like this site with samples of student work! I check there for comparisons now and then: http://www.thewritesource.com/ ) Wordly Wise

and are going through most of the episodes before the movie just for fun. I'm happy that our 2 older kids will be old enough to see the movie with us and have been following along the series and enjoy it as much as we do!!

Dh likes to read in bed, too, so we get ourselves all cozy and like to share tidbits from our books with one another. I will read for 1-2+ hours and he usually zonks after about 30-45 minutes. :D I cannot read while the kids are around. Just too distracting! I wish I was one of those people who could grab snippets of a book here and there throughout the day, but I can't.

I have been slowly collecting classics (adult and children's) so that my children will have our home library at their disposal whenever they need it for college or homeschooling their own kids. :) Maybe this will be an incentive to NOT move so far away when they're on their own? Maybe??? LOL

we got in on the special subscription price from the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op...keep watching their site for another round because they may do a group buy for BrainPop again. In the meantime, try the trial to see if your kids would get enough use out of it. Some like it but just don't end up using it often enough to make it worth the cost. :) It's worth it to me to be able to send ds to the computer when he's run out of things to do and is hanging on me while I'm trying to teach the olders!! LOL I think the regular BrainPop is best for ages 7-11 or so.

this site: http://www.host-party.com/viewmysteries.asp The one we did was about some animals stolen from a zoo...I can't remember the name! You can see that they have a lot to choose from, including some historical type ones, too. There are email invites you can send and all the instructions are there for you to download and print with helpful hints. There IS some prep time, obviously, and that varies from mystery to mystery. They have options for making the mysteries non-murder mysteries, too, if you don't want that but like one of the stories for teens rather than children. You'll need to look and see how involved the children must be--they are all set up a bit differently and some of them require kids to sort of "act the part." (More of the teen mysteries are that way.) Few or no memorized lines are required, though, and for the one we used everyone was given a summary of their character in their invitation and it was casually scripted so that you could wing it if you had to. Dd had a blast! She had 9 friends and it took me a week to pull it all together. We held it at our church so that they'd have plenty of room to run around! LOL

Sorry for asking before I looked...LOL *except that school enrollment has to be at least 25 to use?

Did you give a school name and did you select "private" school? This looks great! How often do they get new titles? :)

Her website was extremely helpful to our homeschool in the first few years and I still check back there for things now and again. I'll be praying for her family. :angelsad2:

I agree and had a similar experience here. I think of how extremely difficult it would be for me as a responsible adult now to have a job and go to school full-time and give my education the best that I could. It was so hard to feel like I had to choose between being exhausted and eking out a way to stay in college or feeling like a total failure for dropping out for a season. My season out included getting married and having 6 kiddos. LOL!! But I have similar intentions of doing as much as I can for our children while they are young adults still learning how to manage life. Will they have to work some of the time and take out loans? Probably. But whenever we can, we'll help them with books or room & board and, most importantly, with advice all along the way about how to manage their money wisely. We're doing that training now, of course, but once you're in the thick of really being ON YOUR OWN, it is scary and huge! I remember feeling like, "I am an honor student...how can I feel so UNprepared for all of this when I was so independent and responsible in high school??" LOL Very different! And many times I was too ashamed to call home and ask for help or advice...I don't want my kids to ever feel like they need to suddenly have it all together once they walk out my door. *sniff sniff* ;)

(and, of course, assuming you have a shredder. ;) )

Papier mache made around half of a balloon or ball? ('Cause I know you've got time for that!! LOL) Flower pots?? Cookie jars?

have one per child? Filled with plastic eggs, their stuff and a nest of some kind of material or Easter grass? Lunchbox or bag? One of their old t-shirts with the bottom and arm holes sewn (or even stapled) shut? And a stuffed animal's head peeking out the top...hehe Big pots or even a colander? If you sew, there are lots of options!

and my ds is not what I'd call moody, but our dd is. Rather, she continues to be a moody child. :) While I think that the teen years can be a tumultuous and emotional time, I think that our society continues to perpetuate a stereotype that younger children are basically good with "phases" of naughtiness as they test their boundaries, but as soon as they hit 12-13 they become basically rebellious or difficult with occasional good moments. LOL I'm reading a book called The Good Teen and I agree with the problem it tries to address: Teens are broken and need to be fixed or we just hold our breath and wait out the issues we "can't" control. There are certainly tough times, but most of us don't have problem teens like the world wants us to think! (not that anyone here has said that their kids are "problem teens.") The teen years are a really exciting time, where the rubber of our parenting meets the road! Sometimes the smell of spinning tires and the sound of screeching rubber can jolt us--maybe into action rather than reaction!?--but we're really getting somewhere!! LOL

His dad was a dope for not including his own children, who have been (I assume) a loving part of his life for longer than a second wife he was committing adultery with before they married. Bad form, poor planning and pooh on him. Sorry if that hurts, but I don't blame your brother for that reaction at all. It will feel like one last snub that dad got in, meant hurtfully or not, before he died, which is painful enough! My dh's father did essentially the same thing, although he was not involved with dh's stepmom until after divorced. Dh's dad had a verbal agreement, supposedly, with stepmom for her to "take care of" dh in the event of his death but did nothing legal about it. So, when he died while dh was 18 and in college, dh got to go home, help bury his father and then got sent back to school with nothing. Stepmom met someone within a year, promptly sold dh's family home to her own parents at a great price and used the rest of dh's dad's money to start a business and launch into a new life. None of this was done intentionally to be devious, btw. She was kind to my dh all his life but simply gave him nothing and did not help him when he was grieving or needed to be able to continue college. Yeah, it hurts and it still angers him (and me, if ya wanna know, because we were friends when it happened). I would NOT try to talk your brother out of his feelings--not saying that was your plan!--but just be as understanding as you can be. It really isn't about the money...it's about a legacy of not taking care of family that dad is leaving behind, in his mind, I think. One last slap and it will sting. :crying:

I don't really love playing board games myself, but if someone decides to be a poor sport about a game, they're out. Plain and simple. If it's just me and Mr. or Ms. Poor Sport, the game immediately gets put away without much ado and I move on to whatever I was doing before. If another player is involved, I'll either do the same if I'm pretty sure they won't be upset or we toss out Mr. Poor Sport's piece, etc. and move on without him. There are consequences for making a hasty emotional response and so our kids learn to think before they decide to quit over something silly because they know it stinks to have to sit out and watch the rest of the game or see it put away when really, they wanted to continue...if only their mouth had waited for their feelings to catch up before opening. LOL In other life situations, quitting and then getting back in the game whenever one feels like it isn't even an option.

We're making our first trip to a Trader Joe's next month and I can't WAIT. It helps to have a list though, so thank you. :)

Here is a link where you can listen! (Scroll to the cardinal section) http://www.naturesongs.com/paruicte.html

Our bank has these rewards points things and along with gift cards and material stuff that you can redeem there are also dollar amounts that can be used to start an IRA and a few other investment options. We have enough points to put almost $1000 into retirement and we'll be using part of the stimulus check for even more savings. (Yes, it's sad that this is just the START of our retirement egg, but it is what it is. lol) We will use a bit of the check, though, for our small summer vacation. :)

Each youth group should be tailored in part to the community of children and families that it serves. Our church is in a very UNchurched, broken-home, urban type of area. The kids DO need a safe place to hang out where they aren't being verbally, physically and even sexually harrassed--like at school and sometimes at home--while being loved and led to a relationship with Christ. (Not that middle-class neighborhoods don't have some of the same issues, of course.) It's the *atmosphere* of come-as-you-are and fun and love that brings the kids and makes them want to bring THEIR friends...it gives us the opportunity to build relationships and get them to even begin to think about faith as a part of their lives. Honestly, if we didn't do anything social, most of these kids would not come--we have several that come to our weeknight youth time (where we always have a Biblical/spiritual discussion or teaching, but also lots of games) and have not yet come to church on Sunday morning. And yet we have a high standard for behavior and don't accept excuses from any kid, regardless of background and family life, for any speech or actions that would make it an unfriendly place for believing families and kids. It can be tough! It's just difficult to find a balance between serving the youth who are already believers and those who have never or rarely ever been to church at all. The needs are obviously different and it can become like that other question that sometimes plagues Christian homeschooling parents: do we keep our children out when it could be an opportunity for them to serve and be a light to the other kids? Every parent must decide. For us, as youth leaders, having our kids there with us in a very mixed crowd of kids is OK because 1) WE are the leaders and so we know what's going on at all times and our standards for behavior are high (just this week we sent a girl home to change after she showed up in 40-degree weather with the shortest shorts I've ever seen LOL), and 2) we trust the general vision and goals for youth ministry at our church. If either of those were different, it's very possible our children would not be attending the youth functions.