You have made my day! Try a quick freeze on the better specimens, then sell the frozen product on EBAY with next day FedEx delivery. You may make enough money to hire a caterer for your next party. Consult with a patent attorney, you may have a rock hard winner.

"Send him. He'll be back home in two years, almost guaranteed. okay - others will have different advise, but all my long-time homeschoolers who went to public school for a couple of years are now coming back home. Sometimes kids need to see for themselves what its all about." Are you going to home school him on through college and his first job? That's what bothers me about homeschooling, the student's lack of any ability to cope after living a sheltered low exposure life. Ascertain if your son is really serious about public schooling. He could be trying to get a rise out of you or defending his life style after being ridiculed by non-home schooled children who have more broadening experiences. Some home schoolers spend only a part of a day with lessons. Could it be that those who were expected to attend a real school just could not handle seven or eight hours in a class room setting? Is a private school out of the question? In most areas public education can't hold a candle to a private school education. who would want no part of a homeschooling program.

"Amy Loves Bud" said: ". . . .If your family can really use the more expensive home and can really afford it, then enjoy yourselves! . . . ." You made some good points. The above is one of the best. Frankly, it is my belief, the theory of buying and selling homes in an attempt to up size equity at the expense of other family needs including savings and investments can be a life draining experience for ones self and his/her family as they cope with the constant relocation and recurring real estate expenses. The recent downturn for most homeowners especially those who stretched themselves in dreaming of financial security through home ownership should teach all a lesson. Unless they could afford, need and enjoy that bigger home, all they did was burn many dollars in interest expense, moving expense, insurance expense and real estate commissions while denying themselves of other needs with long hours of workplace toil to meet the costs. These dollar costs plus family frustrations can dwarf the value of future deflated profits from home ownership especially when you consider the carrying costs paid out over over possibly thirty years while coping with a product you did not fully utilize and enjoy. For myself, I am only considering a one time transaction of this sort. I agree with you that it has it's risks, but in this case, I am ready for a move up and I have the finanacial resources on hand to take the time needed in making sure that the old house is under contract before I spend the first dollar on a new place. It just seems that the present time frame puts me at an advantage in moving up, as they say.

I am giving consideration to buying a home at about 150% of the value of my present home to take advantage of the down turn in home values. My present three year old home was purchased new and is located in Missouri. My understanding is that the average value loss nationwide for single family residences over the past eighteen months is approximately 20%. It is my belief that this number is applicable to my home and in other homes in my area. My plan is to sell my present home at an approximate loss of 20% from what I paid. It is my feeling that this loss in value could take five years for correction. Therefore, if I am correct???? in assuming that this 20% correction will come about over five years then I will be ahead where my new home cost basis is 50% higher assuming we are at the bottom of the home residential market [??????]. I would appreciate your comments on how you feel about my plan and would you hazard a guess as to the percent loss in value of your home over the past eighteen months with some indication of the average percent loss in your home area.

"However, I've come to see extreme family centeredness as detrimental to being a whole, vibrant, confident being." Are you suggesting that too much family and extended family can be a detriment to a healthy marriage? If so, I am in total agreement with you. There are in-laws that assume that a son or daughter in law should conform to their practices and take heed to their experiences. There are individuals that hardly give their spouses breathing room as with their ego they become know it alls about raising children, the content of in house menus, religion, choice of friends, and entertainment etc. while spending to much time with molding children at the expense of spousal attention. This also gives the children a break from being smothered especially in a home school environment. This might not apply to this couple but it might be something others should address. In this instance the wife and husband never had the opportunity of spreading their single life wings. Later a little tase of honey made one leave a posssibly suffocating hive. In this situation, the wife should follow her instincts and/or a real professional's advice, not some "do gooder" who may not realize that over zealous religious opinions is not what is needed. If this marriage is over, or hopeless, then maybe this wife needs to spend time with a singles group at her church or country club should either or both be available and have an appeal. It may be time to move on.

My wife and our children regularly attend Sunday services, contribute just short of tithing and encourage our children to take part in religious activities as they see fit. Our children seem to be well rounded, religious, have lots of fun and receive their share of honors. They are allowed to use computers, select their own reading material from the book store and the libraries without our hovering over them as if the devil was going to jump out at them in chapter three or appear on a monitor through inadvertently clicking onto the wrong WWW cite. We, in effect, are raising them so that they can pass judgement in the real world when they exit home schooling and enter middle school. The above having been said, we strive not to wear our religion on our sleeves nor shove our beliefs down the ear canal and into the eye balls of those who cross our paths. We give our children the opportunity of selecting their own reading matter, friends and activities without being critical of them should they choose something that doesn't fit into what we would feel less risky or overly narrow. They have done real well without having to follow the guidelines of religious zealots that float around with their religion on their sleeves. I sometimes wonder if this is a home schooling site, or the site of some evangelical cult that believes thinking and referring to the Lord is a 7/24 proposition which my wife and I believe would be suffocating and a true path of alienation of us from our children when they realize there are activities in this world that they can take part in that are not under the control of religious zealots.

" . . . . . .but we didn't buy more house than we could afford and we didn't have a lot of choices living in this area. . . . . ." You were more than wise in not over spending on a home. Unfortunately, too many of today's home owners have lived under the delusion that overspending for a home is a road to riches. They forgot that the added interest paid over the years, moving expenses, mortgage closing expenses and real estate commission expenses were a hugh and costly burden. In many instances the bread winner has had to forgo opportunities in job selection, handling two jobs, all in the hopes of building an equity that can easily be erased as we are witnessing today. Stress can damage your family life over the thirty year life span of a mortgage. People forget that interest, especially excess interest paid out over thirty years must be considered a true expense against the equity you have earned, if today's real estate downturn has not caused you excessive financial harm. If you own a home today that is worth two times what you paid for it ten to fifteen years ago you have come out ahead if your equity in that home is more than fifty percent percent, but if it isn't you made a poor investment decision because your cost of living is two times as high as ten to fifteen years ago while you were paying through the nose in housing costs especially if those expensese were beyond your means. Just be thankful you didn't rent or buy over your head or faced the misfortune of double mortgage payments and home upkeep as some of you have related. Times have been great for good real estate and mortgage brokers, but they to are suffering today where there was excessive greed. What goes around, comes around.

"We have not had anyone even look at our house. We dropped the price after having it listed for 2 weeks. We are prepared to drop it again in 2 weeks in hope of at least showing it. " You are so wise. Having been in real estate brokerage for twenty years, I have seen couples loose all their home equity through unrealistic pricing. People don't buy homes on impulse. Between their real estate agent and themselves, they learn the market. Price a home to sell if it's sitting their vacant. The lord is not going to let you put the screws to someone. People, the party is over for those who think they can ride home ownership to prosperity. The only ones that prosper where one thinks they can buy and sell their home to riches are the real estate agents and the mortgage brokers. Keep in mind the loss you suffer if you making hugh interest payments, moving costs and family stress over the years as this is more costly than the equity loss and misery some are going through in the housing market in this latter part of the decade. If you paid a realistic 100X for a home, say two or three years ago, as a general statement you can only hope to net out no more than 90X after commissions, etc. in the present market. It's more than likely a loosing deal these days on the house you are getting out of. If you have an extended period of interest payout in an unoccupied dwelling, you will really suffer. I have seen it all,

"so his Dad and I had to have the long talk with him about many facets of our society that he was not aware of" This, unfortunately, is one of the true shortcomings of over sheltered homeschooling in that the real world comes with slaps in the face instead of specks of dust cast aside where one is allowed to move into the adult world in a normal fashion. At thirteen years of age, unaware of the real world experience of growing into an adult can put a young person at a real disadvantage with his/her peers who have lived a normal upbringing. It's a tough road to navigate if one has lived within over filtered surroundings. Experience is a better teacher than a "the long talk".

Your high school daughter has had the advantage of studying, competing and enjoying school mates for years. It would be cruel to home school her at this stage in her life, or to give her a guilt trip by encouraging her to do something where there is no apparent reason for doing so. Let her enjoy her teen years with long time friends, not some group of possibly over sheltered new friends because of your desires.