The Great Courses Plus (now known as Wondrium) has a new (2021!) class about Jane Austen that gets great reviews. I've got it bookmarked for my own DD's senior year.

Is there any talking to your mom at all about the hobbies being educational inasmuch as they might lead to a future career? If she's well off, does she enjoy nice things herself? Like meals out and...furniture. LOL Does she think about the skill level top chefs need? And how excellent equipment makes for better cooking? Does she appreciate a well-made piece of furniture? Crafted, not mass-produced. People can make good livings as chefs and woodworkers. Maybe she thinks of hobbies as for fun and educational as income-producing? Maybe suggest that your DS wants to be a chef and open his own restaurant? Or wants to be a master craftsman and open his own shop? Use the "bespoke" buzzword. Bespoke furniture. Rich people pay $$$$$$ for bespoke stuff. 🤣 Maybe emphasize cookbooks and tools for professional chefs? The CIA books The Professional Chef, Garde Manger, and Baking and Pastry are for pros. Molecular Gastronomy or this Modernist Cuisine set (or the single volume for home) are super educational. Not for pros, but my copies of Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique and Sauces are a step above the typical cookbook. With these, he could get a sous vide, saucier and All-Clad sauce whisk, pizza oven/peel, etc. There is all kinds of money to spend. LOL Or, similarly, woodworking books and tools for professional craftsman? Again, serious money, even more than cooking. Maybe if you can get her to reframe your son's hobbies as potential professions, that might help. I would ask some conversational leading questions about who she expects to earn three Michelin stars and produce heirloom quality furniture. I'm sad if this idea won't work. I can hear your sadness for your son, and I get it. My mom has had an issue of "there's nothing good on kid's wish list." Insert massive eye roll. Because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't good. On the bright side, she is always fair and does end up buying things with a sigh even if she doesn't get it. Hugs to you.

Same, kiddo is obviously not under 12, at the very least!

The irony of this kid... He has severe anxiety, but luckily he's more anxious about getting COVID (and maybe long COVID) or spreading COVID to someone else than he is about the vaccine. All he needs to know is that I'm OK with the vaccine and that the rest of us have gotten it and been ok. DH took DS's birth certificate and military ID too, since that's all he has, but apparently they didn't really care that much. LOL

DH took DS15 to get his shot at the drive-thru pod this morning. It was not busy at all, and they were in and out in half an hour, including the 15 minute wait. Hopefully it will be more busy after school today! They take walk-ins (well, drive-ins I guess, LOL), so I imagine some people will be heading over there right after school. The ones who want it are eager to get it. DS is so relieved, as the youngest in our family and the only one not yet vaccinated.

WTMA has year-long "reading" classes that meet for an hour a week. There are also summer reading clubs. https://www.wtmacademy.com/course-catalog/?pa_subject=literature

Which teacher did he have for this class?

Thank You for Arguing is meaty yet accessible for that age. It’s frequently used in AP English Language classes, but is written conversationally.

So glad to see this. I think my DS14 would love the US History through Movies. Looking through her blog posts makes me think her classes will be very high quality. Her post on teaching the Harlem Renaissance through Music is the kind of different and engaging thing I'm after, especially for this kid. I would love a class of history through pop culture as well. She has a PhD is US History, and I am totally willing to pay extra for that level of knowledge and insight! I don't usually outsource social sciences (now that I think of it, I never have before, LOL), but I would consider it here for sure.

In my experience, the newer courses have better guides that round out courses more fully. This course is from 2005, so the guide itself is just a restatement of the lecture, as regentrude said. At the end of every lesson in the guide, however, are some useful things that could be fleshed out. For starters, every work discussed in the lecture is listed, so they would be easy to look up online for further/closer viewing. Then there is suggested reading, but it's generally for whole books, sometimes enormous volumes, so he's not really narrowing things down for explicit study. There are useful questions for discussion or to make a weekly assignment/essay from. I would make good use of these for sure. For Lesson 1: 1. Differentiate between the terms interpretation and style as used in the lecture. 2. Think of a work of art that has spoken to you in some way and try to explain its attraction. For Lesson 2: 1. What function did narrative art serve, whether religious or secular, in the early Middle Ages? 2. What similarities and differences can you identify in the architecture and decoration of the Byzantine Church of S. Vitale and Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel? For Lesson 3: 1. What were the primary cultural, political, and historical influences on Romanesque art forms? 2. Identify the various parts of Romanesque churches and describe their primary functions. We use a lot of GC and find that it's well worth it to subscribe to The Great Courses Plus. I don't think they have every GC, but they have tons, and if you do a free trial, you can preview every guidebook to see what might be worth it for you in terms of buying them or just subscribing to the GC+ site. My DS14 practically lives on them for school these days. He knows the craziest details of obscure history stuff. This week for history we are listening to the audio of Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II, and he's constantly stopping it and telling me more about whatever was brought up. The Pacific Theater of WWII is his current fascination, and the things he knows... 😄

A couple of obligatory pictures of his highness, enjoying the dog's bed and helping me with LEGO. 🥰

This is interesting to me, as we have a beloved orange tabby with IBS and asthma. He was a rescue from a hoarding home, which probably explains his poor health when we got him (including a terrible case of ear mites). He is absolutely, positively the most cuddly, loving cat we have ever had, and we basically need him to live forever because he is DH's therapy cat. ☺️ In the beginning, oh my word, the gas and the poop. 🤯 He would actually use the litter box and then run away from it at full speed, we assumed to get away from the stench. And when he would cuddle...let's just say the love (and not wanting to hurt his feelings) helped us power through the gas. We were never told that steroids were needed, maybe the difference between IBS and IBD? As others have said, his IBS has been fully managed with a change in food. He eats Royal Canin Digestive. What is interesting to me is that in his first few years with us, he had several courses of steroids and quite a few steroid shots to manage his asthma. They never seemed to affect his IBS in any way. Maybe it is the change in food that is helping your DS's cat, more than or instead of the steroids? (Now our kitty is on a daily antihistamine for asthma instead, which is managing it way better long-term than the steroids did, and healthier for him to be off the steroids, as our vet was always worried about him developing diabetes from them.)

...tube of superglue... ...which is weird, because every time I need one, I buy one, but then poof. No tubes of superglue. ETA: For worriers, I'm positive no one is a huffer. LOL

Thanks so much! I can’t believe I didn’t think of these. My DS14 is practically living on The Great Courses Plus these days. The woman in the Russian Culture one is really good!

DH got his first Pfizer at the VA last week. DS18 and I just got our first Moderna (still on allergy watch, actually, 😂) and are already scheduled for our second shots. I am taking DD16 to get her first Pfizer later this afternoon. I am walking on air! Soooo happy and relieved. Now for shots to be approved for the under 16 crowd, for DS14.

I'm looking at all these, thanks! Love the look of Embracing Defeat!

Thanks! I have a thing for "further reading" sections. LOL I'll have to see how much focus DD wants on China vs Japan and Russia. I've wanted to read the Genghis Khan book every time I've seen it mentioned. I think I've had it out from the library before too and ran out of time. I'll definitely give it a thorough look at this point. I think The Star Raft looks amazing, and I'd love to bring some Africa into the study because of current events involving the geopolitics of China making serious inroads in business there. I had actually just been looking at more recent books to include about this. It's cool to think of contemplating the history of that as well. I own Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order. I should probably get around to reading it soon... I love the graphic style history books for China. Those should be a hit, thanks! I put those, Genghis Khan, Monkey, and Kitchen in my cart. DD loves to cook, and Kitchen seems like it would interest her in every way. I almost bought The Three-Body Problem for my DS15 this year, so I think that would be a great buy for two reasons! Still looking at others. Thanks so much for the detailed response. I've actually been working on my response since yesterday, but life got in the way.

I would love history and some literature. Folklore in particular would be well received. Modern books that could be pleasure reading to tie in would be good too. For example, she loved The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden for its references to Russian folklore. In that vein, I've already ordered The Red Winter Trilogy, which incorporated Japanese folklore. But those are just for fun, and I need some school-worthy choices for lit and history. This is for my DD16 who is a strong reader and dreams of living in Japan. She wants to study Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. What are your favorites?

Oh my! Forgot about the upgrade cost. We paid earnest money, at which point we secured the lot and had to commit to the structural upgrades we wanted. The big cash out-of-pocket was a month or so later, when we visited the design center to make the design choices and had to write a check for 50% of the cost of all upgrades over (I think but can't precisely remember) 20% of the base price of the house.

Something like 90% of houses and house plans DH and I have looked at in Arizona don't have bathroom doors. The house we rented while he was still active duty and then again when we were building did not have a bathroom door. Pity me, ladies. LOL And, I kid you not, if you were to step out of the master bath into the master bedroom, just outside what should be the door, you would have a view straight through the hall to the FRONT DOOR if the master bedroom door was open. Bad design that was NUTS. I do not understand this manner of craziness. When we built, we put in the "optional" door. No way in Hades did I consider it optional. I love it and lock it several times a day. These people are nuts. 🤣

I can't remember the exact name of what was installed, but samples were brought and I researched it at the time. One that is supposed to be good if Phifer. You should be able to get all different sizes. When I searched, hits came up even at Home Depot, not necessarily the Phifer, but something you could look at maybe. My kitties have climbed, and hung off it even, including our biggest guy, and you can't see any signs of damage whatsoever.

YAY! When we had our house built two years ago, DH and I had corner sliding glass doors put in at our patio, which opens on one side to the living room and the other side to the dining room making one open-air room. When we moved in, we had cat-proof screens installed at the patio openings. This was all for the cats. We have five too. This catio was the priciest upgrade we made to the house by far. 🤣 Fur baby happiness is paramount here! We have five kitties too. 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱 My small thing is it's spring break for two weeks starting today. It's planning time for the rest of the year and for next year. And my not so small thing is that after trying public high school for two years, my DD16 has decided for good that it's not a good fit for her and is coming home for the rest of high school. I got to pull her out last week. So now I have even more planning—fun, personalized-for-her stuff that I never thought I'd get the opportunity to do when she went off to school.

Where she put the treadmill. It's not labeled.

Just wanted to say, when we were looking at floor plans and then during the building process, I had soooooo much fun with this!

And add extra insulation wherever you can, for noise control between rooms. Generally they will put it in anywhere you pay for it. We paid for extra around bathrooms, the master bedroom, and the garage in particular.