I just remembered that you said in another thread that you might get a pool and that he's working from home full-time from now on, meaning he'll be working even after the end of their school days and on school breaks. So forgetting about the kids being busy with school, yeah, the downstairs might be too noisy for him to work, even with french doors at the front of the house. I hear you on xBox noise. Gosh my kids could scream playing Wii and xBox at those ages! (Not gonna discuss now... LOL) So I still vote a door from the Master to bedroom 3, school room in flex area, xBox in living room for now.

The front of my downstairs is similar to yours, with the garage/foyer/powder/den instead of flex room. That den is mine and has french doors which have privacy glass, and I absolutely love it. It's the quietest place in the house for me to work, but I have teens who mostly stay upstairs, which is just their rooms/baths, a loft, and a game room. If they were younger, louder, in and out of the front door all day, etc., my office would not be so quiet. If you guys are not in and out of that front door all day, I actually think that front room could be ideal for him. It's actually the most tucked out of the way of the choices, so the front door issue becomes the primary question, I think. If you don't want to put him in there, I would put his office in bedroom 3. But, I would block access from the loft by moving the access door to the master bedroom. Removing that door from the loft would give the loft a bit more usable wall space. Even if the builder won't do it, it would be easy/cheap to do it after, and it's an easy thing to change again for resale. Like Clemsondana, my kids have moved away from a single schoolroom to work more in their own rooms or the dining room table or the couch while they have a snack or the outdoor table... I do still very much like having a central homeschool space, though, for storing everything.

I'm glad to hear you're flexible in model selection. I would expect so, as a math instructor! It would have been play for me, something I do not have the time or itch for today.

Well, sure, fancy PhDs still have individual preferences, just like common folk. A model is a means of explaining. And if one model doesn't work for a particular student, then moving on to another seems like a nice, flexible way of educating. LOL, no. I am not playing.

I'm having trouble following, because it seems like you're talking in circles here regarding explanations and intuitive understanding. When a student truly has intuitive understanding of a concept, it should be easy enough to extrapolate to other valid explanations/models. In fact, I would say solid understanding of any concept is demonstrated by the ability to quickly pick up on or explain other valid examples of that concept. It's when students (of any age!) have a shakier, beginner's verge-of-understanding that they have trouble doing so. My best teachers have been those who can change gears quickly when explaining something I am not getting. They can do that because they get it, while I am just grasping at it. LOL Negative numbers should be understood as a mathematical concept, obviously, but also as myriad real-life examples, not just debt or just dirt piles or.... This thread started as someone asking for an example to help seed understanding, and it's ok if one example is not perfect for everyone at the seed level. But if they are valid, they should all be easily understood by those at the intuitive level.

https://www.newhomesource.com Look for your local area at this site. You can view results on a map instead of the list. For every listing, you can click to visit the builder’s web site for more detailed info.

Aw, I feel for you with that light situation! I hope that second book will be helpful for your lower light areas. The first book will still be a good read, since it has great information. It was a real education for me, but you definitely need advice specific to your low light situation. I wouldn't bother putting any plants in the areas with good light until you do repurpose the space, because "out of sight, out of mind" is a huge issue with black thumb. Been there! When my kids leave, their plants (still just pothos for them) are going with them, or they are moving to my areas. I am not a huge fan of the color of plant lights, but I wonder if they could be turned on at night so that the bluish cast won't affect me but would benefit the plants. Might need to look into that for my one lower light space. (And lest you start to feel envious of my light situation, just think of my 110+ degree temps for months and months in the summer! 🥵 🤣)

I bought the monstera and other plants at a local plant store. He recommends a light meter (even if just on a phone app) so you can see how much light plants are actually getting. One of the things I took home was to look at light from a plant's perspective. How is their view of the sky? That changed my placement a lot. He said a lot of plants labeled low light don't actually thrive in low light. They just tolerate it. "If plants had eyes, they would roll them every time someone said the phrase, 'thrives in low light.' This is simply a justification for using plants purely for decor. I prefer to say of the plant that it 'starves gracefully at 50 foot-candles.' Specifically, this means the plant will remain relatively good-looking even though it is hanging on for dear life. When horticulturalists use the expression 'low light,' they are referring to the area under a forest canopy, which is not completely opaque to the sky." I will say I live in the desert, with lots of windows and an overabundance of sunlight. So I'm lucky that way.

I have a kiddo who never fit the diagnostic criteria for ASD, but when I read about PDA, I realized that it fit him perfectly. If only we lived in the UK. LOL My personal experience rings true with what Susan posted. PDA here is anxiety driven and any perceived defiance is actually just shutting down. On the other hand, in my previous work with kids diagnosed with ODD, the behavior related to that diagnosis is more like ramping up. In my experience, PDA looks more like a kid with a self-protective posture who feels literally unable to act vs ODD looking like a kid with an "in your face" posture unable to back down.

KNOCK ON WOOD 🤞🏼 I am a reformed houseplant killer, and my collection is growing. The other day, I bought 6 small exotics and a huge Monstera. (She is beautiful.) I did start with pothos and succulents, because they both do ok with neglect. I highly recommend New Plant Parent. It was slightly repetitive in places, but was super useful in moving me on to a bigger variety of more interesting plants. One super useful tip was to use something to poke holes in the soil before watering. Plants in their natural environments have insects reworking and aerating the soil under them, so it helps to replicate that with houseplants. He also talked about people being afraid of overwatering but not understanding that the real problem is watering too frequently, not too deeply. Anyway, good stuff on the very basic way plants function and how your care meets their needs.

I saw this discussed on Rachel Maddow during a conversation she had with Nicole Perlroth, the author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. Scary stuff. Apparently we've automated so many things in the name of ease and efficiency and we've arrogantly believed we're cyber-superior that we are now extremely at risk of cyber-terrorism.

LOL I finished our taxes a week ago. Frustrated I have to wait so long for it to be accepted. I like my money back ASAP.

I finished The House in the Cerulean Sea and loved it. It was a nice escape for me, and I think the relationships in the story were so well developed. The characters were so charming. I will say that I was prepared to hate the book and toss it if Linus had made a different choice about Calliope early on in the book. I'm a cat person, and DH being a cat person is one of the first things I loved about him. All that to say, how a man treats his cat is very important to me. LOL I read The Graveyard Book after that, which is the first book I've read from Neil Gaiman. I don't know if it's typical of him? I liked it, but it's not a typical read for me. I am glad I read it though. I'd like to expand my horizons to new genres. I do want to pick up his mythology book for school. I'm still plugging away at Caste. It's a thoughtful read for me, and I find myself expounding on her analysis with thoughts and connections of my own. I'm taking notes so I can get my thoughts to come together. I am going to do the Count of Monte Cristo read along. I have never read Dumas, and I have that exact Penguin Classics version of the book on my shelf, which I think I purchased to go with a literature curriculum. We haven't gotten to that one yet though. This weekend I started reading The New Plant Parent by Darryl Cheng and How to Make a Plant Love You by Summer Rayne Oakes. I notoriously had a black thumb, but I started keeping succulents about five years ago and have been successful, which improved my confidence. After we moved into our forever home almost two years ago, I started buying a plant for each room and now I want to branch out into more exotic types of houseplants, which will require more knowledge and lighting/placement strategy. I just read somewhere that some plants produce their oxygen at night (?) and so they are best to keep in the bedroom. If true, so cool, so I'm going to explore that more.

Yes to both of these! I loved the Spanish! I love love love to hear other languages spoken wherever I am in America. The more diversity of people and languages the better as far as I'm concerned. Multiculturalism is one of the things that makes America special to me. I also liked the "let's get loud," appropriate or not. I did find it somewhat jarring, and for a split second I was taken out of the moment, but then I felt joy wash over me because it was like a venting of some of the feeling of beaten down voices finally being heard and celebrated after all the indecency perpetrated against immigrants, refugees, and minorities for the last five years. Yes, the sentiment makes me bristle. I grew up with parents who despise hearing other languages in America. And they're decidedly in the "learn English" crowd. It makes me so sad and angry. And it makes me FURIOUS that they retired in El Paso, Texas and have the nerve to complain about Spanish being spoken everywhere. I mean...

In my experience, all meaningful, memorable poems are "something other than a poem." The poem had passion. Not to you in particular... If the imagery evoked by the poem bothered some people, I have to wonder if the same was felt about American carnage.

I started watching Looney Toons sometime around the election and still find them quite therapeutic. Today I will add chocolate chip cookies.

This is amazing! Thank you! White Tiger is coming to Netflix January 22, so I guess I need to finally read the copy I bought years ago. I'll have to look over the list later for more items of interest. This is a great idea, and thank you so much. So far, so good.

I made a post in the very first Book a Week 2020 thread saying I was finally going to do this...and then all hell broke loose in the second week of January. 🙃 2020 was rotten here before it was the in thing for 2020 to be rotten. 🤣😒🎻 So here I am again. I've got to go back and read all the posts from this week, but I wanted to get this post in before week 2 started. I am currently reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and just today I received The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune, hich I hope is going to provide some nice escapism this weekend. My favorite reads last year were The Goldfinch and News of the World. I had just finished the second chapter of the latter when the movie ads with Tom Hanks started playing, and I was happy to read the rest of it in his voice. I think that is probably some great casting, but I need to see the movie, which will probably disappoint me despite Tom Hanks being good in the role. LOL

We had our current house built for us. We closed in May 2019. DH and I found the process fun and not stressful at all, but our builder was great about keeping us updated on progress, and we made frequent trips to the construction site to watch the build as it progressed. We had looked for ages and knew exactly what we wanted but could never find it. It is amazing to have the perfect layout for us, a perfect "forever home" layout that will allow us to have kids comfortably return for holidays or just if they need to stay with us for a time at any point. But their rooms are in their own area, upstairs and out of the way so that when we are empty nesters, we have our own space without feeling like we are walking by/through unused space every day. Two things that were musts for middle-aged me were a downstairs master (in case of mobility issues later) and a downstairs guest room/bath for older guests with mobility issues now). Honestly, the only compromise I made was getting a two story (which DH was completely neutral on anyway), but that worked out beautifully as well, because when all the kids are in their rooms and DH is in his game room, I feel like I have a very nice large, cozy apartment downstairs with no noisy people around me. LOL Picking the finishes was absolutely the most fun. DH and I are very decisive about what we want and, as we tend to do, stuck to our lanes. I love living in a house where I picked everything, down to every tree and plant in the landscape.

And I didn't know that ham flavored BTB was a thing! Turns out they have lobster! And mushroom! And fish! And others... You rocked my world today. ☺️Thanks so much for posting!

I'm thinking Chinese for NYE this year, which I'm only bothering to post because I also wanted to share... We have bratwurst with sauerkraut and black-eyed peas every New Year's Day. Growing up, we had pork roast and cabbage and black-eyed peas.

Yes, and I would have bought one for my burrito-loving kid except he already has favorite blankie and a weighted blanket. This burrito is right up his alley. Happy to have discovered a bowl of cereal for him as well. February birthday...

And an avocado toast and a burrito! People, this is information I needed a week ago! 😂

OMG! This brand had a ramen! And a dumpling! ❤️

Ditto Terabith, except I’m the proud new owner of a Cati-corn!