My DD also loves digital illustration and her Wacom. She has the Adobe Creative Cloud student subscription and knows a lot of Adobe programs like the back of her hand just from playing around with them. What programs does your DD use now? Through my library, we have free access to the courses on Lynda, which is now affiliated with Linked In, marketed as Linked In Learning. You could see if your library has it too. The classes are generally good, and some of them are actually pretty expensive without the free access. Some are short, one-time classes and others are longer, multi-part courses. They also have pathways for certain learning goals, with each pathway made up of different courses.

The three I landed on to incorporate Native American history into our American history study are: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present I personally found the first a little drier than the others, but it is a good overview. Nothing beats Bury My Heart for heartbreaking but necessary detail to balance rah-rah Manifest Destiny stuff. The last book is awesome because it quickly goes through 1890 (one chapter!), then moves forward to what is almost never taught. I mean, it didn't get much nicer as time went on, and this teaches how what was done from the "end of the Indian wars" to now has had a profound effect on the current state of native people and land.

Very helpful, Arcadia! Thanks so much!

Thank you! That is actually helpful to know. Maybe I should reconsider basing things credits on time. Her tutor does say she is making great progress, so it's not like it would be padding. Congratulations to your DD and you! You must be so proud!

My DD16 is taking Mandarin with a private tutor. She has her own levels (and a chart which correlates those levels to HSK, ACTFL, and CEFR). I want to base credits on level mastery, not time spent, so I'm wondering if anyone knows how to correlate levels to credits on a transcript.

Cooper is a ginger tabby who has DH wrapped around his little finger. This is the sweetest, cuddliest kitty on the face of the earth. We call him DH's blood pressure medicine. Such a sweetie! And he loves dogs. He had a very special relationship with our chocolate lab who passed last year, and the same is now true of our black lab, Felix. He is currently training our shepherd mix, Luna, in the gentle art of Big Dog Playing with Small Cat. Two pics of him sleeping, looking innocent... Followed by the ridiculous, trying out my new over-sink colander 30 seconds after I unpacked it. And an oldie but a goodie, "helping" me with LEGO Winter Village assembly.

I am a total cat person, so this thread is for me! I love my pups, but kitties are my spirit animal. First we have DD16's kitty, 7 year old Moggie. First on the couch, then in the window. He is King of the house. Then we have DS18's tuxedo cat, Tux. Such an original name! His whole name is Theodore Tuxedo Roosevelt. He is like velcro to DS18 and sweet and sour to the rest of us. LOL First looking sweet and handsome in a bow tie picked out by my DD, then looking super sour for LEGO play. Someone was clearly not meeting his need sufficiently at the time this pic was taken. He is the Prime Minister. He has a pretty level head. Next we have the girls, sisters we adopted as a bonded pair. The short-haired tabby is Gemma, DS15's velcro kitty. The long-haired beauty is Gracie, my girl. She is like xanax to me. Not kidding. I have anxiety, and she is just...my soul cat. Cooper must have his own post...

I love this thread so much! Super love the idea of that framed print on the wall. ❤️

Oh my gosh! I thought I would never have a dog who wasn't a lab, and this was a huge part of it. They are such pleasers! It took 2 weeks to fully potty train my last puppy, a chocolate lab we adopted at 7 weeks. He was fully potty trained by 9 weeks old. Imagine my shock to get Luna at 10 weeks and two weeks later realize I was not some kind of dog potty-trainer extraordinaire. 🤣 We are making progress. She is smart as a whip. But a pleaser? Not lab-level, that's for sure. Will please for treats is more her way. Labs look like they have broken hearts if they disappoint you. Luna's like pups gonna pup, Mom. 🤪

Well these are huge! First is Felix, our 18 month old black lab rescue. The other dog is his new little sister, Luna, a 14 week old shepherd mix rescue (need to run a DNA test on her!). We got her about four weeks ago. This is the first time we have had two dogs, but Felix needs someone to play with without having to go to the dog park on 115+ degree days here in AZ! They are getting along beautifully, and she has an amazing temperament, so we are so happy. This is, however, the last puppy I will ever raise. It's like having a newborn, and I am exhausted. I jokingly refer to getting her as a single step plan to ruin my summer. 🤪 (Fittingly, I will say here to please disregard the filthy floor. She likes to walk in the water bowl, then walk in the food bowl, then patter around the kitchen. 🤨 We have learned to take them up.)

Oh, wow! Thanks for the term jaw jousting! My lab and his boxer friend are full-on body slamming and jaw jousting (and the teeth knocks you can hear!). Play style makes perfect sense to try to match. We got very lucky then, that this pup is a full-body player too. She plays hard and can take "discipline" from her big brother. LOL OP, definitely ask the fosters for info like that. We have never fostered, but we have volunteered at cat rescues and people who get to know the animals, even for a short period, really can convey such helpful information.

We had this issue when my daughter got a kitten when we had a single old kitty. The new kitten needed play. We ended up getting another kitten for the kitten. Then no one messed with the old kitty lady, which is exactly what she wanted.

Has your current dog had any experience around other dogs? Seeing who he does or doesn't get along with might help. For the first time ever, we have two dogs. We just got a 10 week old shepherd mix (almost a month ago). We have always had a single labrador (plus cats). This last one, a labrador we rescued at 11 months, came into a much different family situation than our previous labs. He is the first we've had as a youngster who doesn't have young kids in the house to "pack" with. We have a dog park in our community, and he's had some not nice run-ins with some breeds/sizes/varieties-of-neuteredness, lol, but it was always male dogs if he wasn't getting along. That helped us decide. His very best friend is a female boxer, and he gets along with every female at the dog park. So picking a female was important. I like big dogs with short hair, and I wanted a puppy because it's easier for the cats to train a pup that they are the bosses. They are getting along beautifully, and really all we've done is make sure the big boy is getting lots of attention and time away from her when he needs it. He goes out and joins us when we're potty-training her and gets praised even if he does nothing because he's being a good big brother for supporting her. LOL She needs things to chew, so he gets new things to chew as well, even though he doesn't so much need them anymore, and they end up going to her anyway. Good luck for a successful friend match!

I almost feel like it was two different movies. It was billed as BW's origin story, but I don't feel like we got enough of that. I absolutely loved the intro. I thought that was some of the best movie-making ever out of all of the movies, and it gave me high hopes for the origin story. And then the montage of experiences in the Red Room came, which weren't even specific to Natasha, and then we're plunged right into the practically present-day (plopped into the overall Marvel movie timeline). So that small amount of excellent movie-making in the intro is supposed to give us the feels to make them coming together to take down Dreykov and the Red Room possible? I mean, Melina was doing horrific research on pigs when they joined her at her house. Evil stuff! She was a bad guy that whole time, working with Dreykov. She designed the protocol that Yelena was subjected to, but she didn't know? I mean, really, she didn't know? So she's just a loving mom who spends a few minutes and shares a bit of vodka with the reunited fam and, snap, she repents and is willing to go all in on the mission? I'm having a hard time with the lack of character development there. It happened too fast. I feel like the action-adventure aspect of the movie (rescuing Alexei, coming together, and then destroying the Red Room) edged out the character development scenes. They could have made the movie 15 minutes longer and done so much more with it. When it looked like Melina had turned on the other three, I was actually surprised to see that it was Natasha with Dreykov simply because it felt too soon for that kind of turn-around. I do have to say, though, that the inability to hurt him and having to break the nerve connection thing was kind of cool. I wanted more origin story. A lot more. Might go turn it on again now to see what I missed. I am sure it's a lot.

I feel like I’m being punk’d. I’ve had cats my whole life (have five now!) and have never trimmed a claw. There are scratching posts in almost every room, and I see little lost nails around them pretty frequently, but that’s the only attention I pay. They climb all over us, and only use their claws if they feel like they are falling, which isn’t often, and we certainly don’t fault them for it. Their claws are fully retracted when not in use, never growing too long like our dogs’ claws. Seriously wondering, what is the purpose of trimming them?