I too do not eat white flour/sugar. In my baking, I use White Whole Wheat Flour (I grind my own or use some available from King Arthur's Mill). This is not white in the sense that it is processed, it's just a white wheat to begin with instead of red wheat. It is still whole wheat. It's lighter than flour from red wheat and it works very well in baking, I haven't had any problems with heaviness. I typically use Honey or Sucanat. Experiment with different sweeteners, they'll each make things turn out a little differently. Good luck! I hope this helps!

I agree that the Bella/Edward relationship is rather immature. However, I didn't have a problem with it in the first books because Bella was just an immature teenage girl. In the 4th one though, I was disappointed that Bella's character never seems to really grow up. Even though she was married, it disturbed me that she was literally begging for sex. I also agree that the books are not the best for young/immature teenage girls. I'm an older teenage girl myself, and I don't think the books are totally horrible, I just found them a little shallow. Setting that aside, if you're looking for a good Fantasy book appropriate for younger ages as well as older, try Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. It has a responsible, mature, teenage girl as a protagonist and the ideas are so fresh (I've been getting sick and tired of Fantasy books that are rip-offs of Harry Potter, LOTR or Star Wars). The Fablehaven series is good, clean fun. I just finished the third one and it is amazing!

Hello, I'm a home educated student in my last year before college. I've recently started using TWTM for my education. My mom home educated me all my life, but since I've started "high school" I've been making a lot of my curriculum decisions by myself. This year I decided to read as many of the great books in chronological order as I can. I'd already read a lot of the ones I was interested in previously (Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, etc.), but I wanted to read a wider span of great literature. So I started with the Odyssey. Now I'm almost done with The Republic. I'm wondering though, which of Aristotle's books should I read? Politics? Poetics? Rhetoric? What is his most well known book? Or one you think would be particularly good for a high school student? Thanks!

A good book on this subject is: "The Plug-In Drug, Television, Computers, and Family Life" by Marie Winn. I grew up without TV, with only parent approved movies, and with educational computer games (and when I was a young teen, some clean gamecube games which we got bored of after a year) limited to half an hour a day. I am so grateful for that now when I see other teenagers blowing all their time on stupid tv shows and all their money on the latest x-box, etc. I know teens who don't read ("Reading takes longer, what's the point when I can just see the movie?") and it's really sad. I never felt "deprived" from lack of TV because I loved books! My parents read to me every night and I read a ton on my own as soon as I learned. Books were (and still are) magical to me. Don't even get me started on Dora the Explorer and Hannah Montana. I hate them with a passion. I babysit children who are Dora zombies. Seriously, they would do anything Dora told them to. And Hannah Montana is a boy crazy pop star teenager who shouldn't be the role model for tons of four-year-old girls! Grr! Anyway, I hope all goes well with you and your son! ~Christy

I just took the ACT in April and here's my opinion: The ACT tests in the Real ACT practice guide were real past ACT tests and on about the same difficulty level as the test I took. Other practice books' ACT tests (McGraw Hill, For Dummies, etc.) that were made up by the authors were a lot easier than the real deal. My advice for the Math section, which I did well on, is go through and work out the problems that come easiest to you, and then when you have a couple minutes to go, fill in the rest (no penalty for wrong answers!). Also, one thing that really helped me was having my own stopwatch to keep up with the time. I hope your daughter does well! ~Christy

I did enjoy Jane Eyre, although Janice, I can totally see your point of view, there were a lot of things I thought were a little cheesy. A book I would recommend as a replacement is "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Charlotte and Emily's little known middle sister, Anne Bronte. Her books were shunned at the time because they implemented such scandalous themes as, leaving a husband because he's a total creepy weirdo, etc. I really loved this book and I liked the fact that it stressed marrying not just for love, but also compatibility. In Jane Eyre I kind of disliked the whole, "of course she and Rochester were made for each other because that's how all happy fairy tales work". On the other side though I could not stand the horrid circumstances and unlovable characters of "Wuthering Heights". Also, most of "The Tenant" is from the perspective of a guy, so boys might appreciate that. My other favorite British Novel is David Copperfield, although that one is kind of slow starting.

My two siblings and I have all finished TT Algebra 1 and 2 and Geometry. My brother has since gone on to college and got the highest grade in his College Algebra Class. He says he thinks that the explanations and real life examples in TT really helped him in College Algebra. I recently took the ACT and scored a 30 in the math section. I really liked the program, my only misgiving being the fact that the Algebra 2 course pretty much repeats everything from Algebra 1 and adds a few more topics. Apparently, the Pre-Calculus program includes some of the things that are not taught in their Algebra 2 course. None of my siblings or I took Pre-Calculus, and we are all still living, but I think it would definitely be a good idea to take it. I almost think a student could skip Algebra 1 and go right into Algebra 2 since all the same topics are covered (just in a shorter number of lessons). Another point, I personally only used the textbook in TT without the CDs and liked it a lot. That would bring the price down.