Sad. If I were superintendent, that would kind of make me want to fire that principal. For those who liked the article and want to read more, I highly recommend Who's Teaching Your Children. It is written by teachers. If you ever get down in the dumps, wondering if you are crazy to be homeschooling, it's a real pick-me-up. I keep it on a big shelf of books I'm prepared to hand to naysayers if necessary. :tongue_smilie:

:iagree: When I felt this way a year and a half ago, I found out I have low thyroid and low Vit D. Medicating/supplementing for those two things made an enormous difference. However, what has made an even greater difference for me (after having my levels of those two things in the normal range for quite a long time) was a very healthy diet and regular exercise. For me, this did mean low carb. I know it is a lot of effort but it is worth it. I eat tons of veggies, with a giant salad every day for lunch. If I'm snacky, I grab fruits, veggies, nuts, some feta and Greek olives, etc. My head feels clear in a way it hasn't in quite a long time and I'm not hungry until I'm really, truly, gut-growling hungry--no sugar highs and crashes (and I have always eaten healthy but even healthy carbs were too much for me, as my family is wicked prone to diabetes). I highly recommend reading Spark. Exercise is the cure for everything! Also, yoga. Looooove the yoga. If you have Netflix instant, try the Candlelight Yoga to relax at night. It's transformative!

What is working for me... Accountability - Tell someone all about what you're going to be doing, then tell them you'll let them know how it goes. Curriculum - Ensure that you have engaging materials so you and the kids don't get stuck in the doldrums. There are things I'm positively giddy to pick up every day with the kids. Then there are subjects that might be a chore for me but that the kids are giddy to pick up. Either way, it's a help to me! Rewards - Let there be some pleasures in life that you only allow yourself when your work is done. Schedule - I now set aside an hour every day to do planning. It's enough time to line up what needs to be ready but not so long that it gets overwhelming and put off.

:iagree:He's trying and failing miserably at being funny here. It went waaaaay into creepy-land.

I would feel the same way you feel. I bolded what bothered me especially. I downright rolled my eyes when I saw that she stopped talking to you and spoke only to your husband. I don't do condescension. :glare: I would thank her for her time and interest, then firmly state (ad nauseam, if necessary) that you would prefer to see the new specialist you walked in assuming you would see again. Smile nicely, through gritted teeth, if that is what is required. If you live in the eastern time zone, it is not too early for wine. :D ETA: I am not speaking at all to the issue of chelation or the other treatments for toxicity, as I'm wholly ignorant of these things. I'm just not a fan of this doctor's treatment of you.

If I had a good friend in this situation and she explicitly told me she was reconnecting with an ex she believed she was still in love with, I would tell her without hesitation to walk away. Period. Do not see him. Do not communicate with him. I would tell her to put on her big girl panties and deal with the life she has made for herself and not jump into a pot of trouble. The hurt she will heap on her husband and three kids will not be worth the short term thrill she will get from these feelings. I would risk a friendship over this, absolutely.

Will do! Thanks again!

Yes, all the school teachers I know have expressed approval (and sometimes envy) of homeschooling, save one I met when ds8 was in t-ball. She couldn't believe anyone would give up the ability to send their children to school "to get away from the kids and earn money of their own." She was also one who seemed genuinely stunned that I could want a third "on purpose" when I already had a child of each gender. Needless to say, our values did not line up. :tongue_smilie:

:lol: That is hysterical! My kids have heard a busy signal but just today I said something about a test and DS8 asked, "What's a test?" So, there are definitely experience gaps here. :tongue_smilie:

:party: YOU FOUND MY PICTURES!!!!!!!!!! YOU FOUND MY DOCUMENTS!!!!!!!!! You have totally and completely made my month!!!!!!!!! Thank you!! THANK YOU!!!!! Seriously, thanks! :lol:

:bigear:

:lol: This is hysterical! That was our yellow Lab's one flaw. She got in the garbage and took food off the counter occasionally. Those people who say dogs don't remember what they did wrong after the fact are just nuts. We would come home after being gone a while and she would be sulking, tail between her legs, avoiding eye contact. She knew. :lol: After our wedding, we brought what was left of our cake home, part of the second tier and the topper. We went out to dinner that night and came home to her and immediately knew something was wrong. She ate the cake off the counter, all that was left of the second tier, but she left the topper. It's like she knew what our breaking point for forgiveness would be. Then there was the time she ate two entire loaves of bread, the time she ate the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving... Ah, memories! :lol:

:iagree:The one thing I allow myself is to read some inspirational stuff about homeschooling, not mundane, day-to-day planning/grading. Yes, taking up quilting again has been a breath of fresh air after primarily identifying as a wife, mom and homeschooler for years. Also, I urge you to try yoga. It is incredible what it can do for your sense of calm. If you have Netflix instant, check out the Candlelight Yoga. It is transformative! :iagree:I have actually been more burnt out by non-stop parenting than by homeschooling (deployments and incessant absences due to the Army). The reason is irrelevant though. The above suggestions were basically what I did to help. I would add self-care. I ordered a bunch of bath bombs from Lush when I was at the height of burn-out and, no joke, I alternated days of exercise with days of luxurious 1-2 hour bubble baths. I read novels, watched Jane Austen movies, and didn't do anything when I didn't feel like doing anything after hours. All day long I was still Mom, but after the kids hit the hay, I was lazy with a capital L. :lol: Also, eat fresh and healthy and take your vitamins. When I was at my lowest, I found out my thyroid and Vit D were low. Taking care of those things has made an enormous difference in my energy and attitude. If you find you are burned out on curriculum, add something different and fun--nature study, tea and poetry, fun supplements. Don't forget to read aloud daily if you enjoy it. I find it very calming for all of us. Oh, and quiet time. I have my kids up to 2 hours of quiet time. If they are exceptionally well-behaved for the first hour, they get the second hour together in one of their rooms or the playroom. I'm :bigear: for more ideas. I'm all about prevention now. :D

This book is great! I love the information it gives about the history of each plant. Very informative! I actually pull out correlations to go with history studies. The two books in my signature are what we're primarily using for nature study this year. The first is a guide to creating your own field guide. The second is a month-by-month guide to what to look out for in nature. This book would be even better for someone with four true seasons.

A while back, my computer had a virus but I was able to get rid of it and got the computer running again. It initially appeared that I had lost all files--pictures, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, Adobe, etc. I was very upset but happy the computer worked at all after the virus. The other day, I downloaded a picture from the internet and when I clicked on it to crop, it took me to Windows Live Photo Gallery and there was the downloaded picture, with ALL MY OTHER PICTURES BELOW! Yippee! I thought. I can't access them. :willy_nilly: Photo Gallery says it can't find their file. If I click on properties for a picture, it says it is in that file but I can't copy them because it can't find it. Basically, I can't figure out how to get to them. Oh, and after I noticed this, I saw that when I click on My Computer, there are some ridiculously long file names that are gibberish. They were not there before, so it's obvious the virus messed with my paths. I'm guessing the pictures are in the files with the messed up gibberish names but how to get to them? Also, I am happier (by far!) to find my pictures than my files, most of which were uploaded to my Hotmail SkyDrive anyway, but if it's possible to easily find them, I wouldn't mind instructions for how to do that. Anyone have any ideas? Also, a word to the wise for others: Back up your computers! STAT!! :lol:

Yep, 72 days here as of today. It looks like it might get chilly at the end of this week. It will be a balmy 102. :tongue_smilie: Has anyone else in TX noticed how the forecast always seems to indicate cooler temps (relative, of course, as they're still over 100 :lol:) at the end of the forecast week, but then when you actually get to that day, it's always hotter? I have. :glare:

I truly believe most of the dogs who are at a shelter are there because they had bad owners, not because they are bad dogs. :( (I am aware that there are exceptions, of course.) If you're going to get a puppy, I highly recommend How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With. For potty training, I loved Everything You Need to Know about House Training Puppies and Adult Dogs. I didn't crate but I still found the books useful. The best thing I ever did with potty training was to always tell Milo, "Go potty!! Go potty!!" and then when he did, I would always say, "Good potty!! Goooooood potty!!" They sound so similar and he was always so happy for the praise that he now potties on command. It's a great trick!

:iagree: DD is asking for a kitten for her birthday in about a month, when DH will be home for R&R. He groans when I mention it (we have a Lab and an 11 year old kitty now) but I know him. He is going to cave like a house of cards. :tongue_smilie:

By 25, she will have moved on from the dolls, and will be applying this incredible ability to stay focused and inspired on one thing to....I don't know... curing cancer or housing the homeless or inventing an affordable, 100% environmentally friendly car or (fill in the blank). Here is a stern talking-to: The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. --Albert Einstein :D I promise, you do not have a real problem here.

Sorry, I think you are nuts. :D It is providing benefits you're not seeing, which is interesting since you wrote about many of those benefits in your post. :lol: Let it be her joy and don't try to make anything more of it. The books and add-on activities are educational. They don't need to be made overtly so. Not to mention the social and educational benefits of imaginative play... Plan her curriculum, not her play. Just my .02.. :)

As a child, I grew up with Yorkshire Terriers (always in a herd, too!) and vowed to never have small, yappy dogs. :D As an adult, we have had two Labrador Retrievers. Our first, a yellow lab, we adopted at the age of 2.5 from Animal Control. We always said she seemed to know she was a rescue and was the best dog imaginable. She passed away in 2008 at the age of 14.5 from bone cancer and it wrecked me. There isn't enough bandwidth for me to tell you all the kinds of wonderful she was. Shortly after she died, a friend's chocolate Lab had puppies that were handled from the day they were born by her kids, including a toddler. I knew that I wanted one of those puppies, so we brought home the dog in my avatar, Milo. He has been a great dog. He is just like our yellow lab but, as a male, is protective as well. His bark is scary, which I love because DH is gone a lot. I truly believe he would protect us if it became necessary. Like a pp, I am shocked when I hear people complain about Labs. I think one difference might be that our Labs have always been inside dogs, so the dogs have not had to deal with as much boredom and solitude, which leads to barking and other misbehavior. My dog isn't a barker, a digger, a chewer (past puppyhood), etc., etc. No bad habits in the Labs I've had. They really are family dogs, meant to live with and amongst their people. For both of my Labs, I can say that they are simultaneously the laziest and most ready-to-go dogs there are. Want to veg and lay around reading books? Your lab will be good with that. Want to go to the lake or hiking? Your lab will be great with that. Want to go for a daily run? Yes! Want to skip it and laze on the swing. Okie doke. They are flexible. Once they get past the puppy stage, they are mellow. They are also incredibly trainable, smart as a whip and, most importantly, eager to please their human. DH has trained Milo to do all kinds of cool things, including fetching the newspaper from the front yard in the morning. He zips out there, gets the paper and zips back in. He can also high-5. :D I potty trained him and it was a breeze! Because he was a pleaser, he caught on incredibly quickly, and I didn't/don't crate. We got him at 7 weeks and he has been 100% trustworthy since he was 9 weeks old. (I was still letting him out in the middle of the night up to 12 weeks but he would whine for me to do it.) I'm sorry. When my yellow lab died in 2008, it broke me. The pain is just awful. :grouphug:

That makes perfect sense to me. :)

I think there are going to be 12 total. This statement on the author's site seems to imply that anyway. My take on the price, as someone who buys a great number of supplemental books for our life/school, is that $16 is a fair price for an incredibly engaging living book about math that will be read and enjoyed and passed down.

Reading Reflex is a great resource. I have a friend who taught her kids to read with it alone, with great success.

You are correct! It is definitely true where I am, between Waco and Austin. It is the hottest summer on record, with the most days over 100 and the most consecutive days over 100! And we still have the rest of August. We've still got 104+ forecast for the rest of this week. We're lucky to see 80 degrees before the sun comes up. It will be a hard record to break. It is miserable here and I am so very jealous of the OP and anyone else who has evidence of Fall! I'm so irritated that the city pool closed because school started back up. It should be against the law to close the pool if it's over 100! :D AMEN!