I'm curious though..these families I've talked with and know live what I would consider(especially one of them)live upper middle class lives. The one family has an extremely nice home and *seem* well off. Both are Christian families and I wonder if that somehow plays into not having insurance and relying on faith to keep you healthy? I don't know I just was intriqued...

I've met several families lately that don't have health insurance at all. These are families I would consider responsible, working members of society. They are all large families and two of the mama's are pregnant right now. I know for us, health insurance is a HUGE expense. We pay over $700 for our family and only have a health savings plan which means we have to pay all of our doctors visits, etc up to $5000. We are planning to have more children but basically have to figure with that(unless we homebirth) we are looking at a minimum of $5k just to meet the deductible. So, I'm curious how many of you don't have health insurance and/or if you think it's crazy and irresponsible to not have it.

Good advice coffeegal (-:

Thanks so much for starting this thread. I have 8 year old twins and we have contemplated starting again. I have soooo much fear inside me about starting over but I also fear not doing it, ywim? I feel like I'm not ready to end this stage in my life but so many people look at me like I'm crazy it makes me second guess what I'm feeling. Any advice?

I've seen so much hype about this curriculum on these boards, I hopped on over to the website to check it out. It says it's for gifted students. Are all of you that are using this curriculum using it with *gifted* students?

I was raised in Florida(I no longer live there). We lived on the West Coast for a long time(St. Petersburg Beach, Redington Beach) and then moved to Orlando. I absolutely hate Orlando. It really is awful. It's extremely hot most of the year. At least at the beaches you get a breeze but in Orlando it's really bad. Kissimmee has alot of crime. I'd pick Miami over Kissimmee (and I don't want to live in Miami but if I had to choose I def choose it over Kissimmee) Kissimmee has a bad reputation from mostly everyone that lives in Orlando. You'll see when you visit just get off of the main drags where the tourists are and explore the other areas. Honestly, I'm glad I moved from Fl for various reasons but if I had to move back I would be very happy in St. Petersburg(the west side near the beaches) or even up in Pasco County(we owned a home there) and farther north to Crystal River. It's beautiful up there and is more reasonably priced than Pinellas Co. In fact, I think Crystal River is one of the best places I've ever been. You can have fresh water and snorkeling with the manatees but also the beach and the salt water. It really is beautiful and you can still get land out there...a job..well that may be a different story. Good Luck! (-:

We live in Cabarrus County as well and my boys took the CAT with the local homeschool group this year. We have been homeschooling for 2 years and I have never followed the NC standard course of study and my boys have always scored very well. I wouldn't sweat it. Just do what interests you for history and it will all work out. Most of my friends are homeschoolers and don't worry about it either. In fact, I've never even looked up the standard course of study, nor has it been recommended to me(I have twins that are entering the 3rd grade as well) Welcome to homeschooling!

I homeschool mine together. One is on a much higher reading level as far as ability to read words than the other but they both are pretty similar in comprehension. We do alot of read alouds and such so they could be done with twins or even if you had several children.

Do you do this with your kids? I don't mean narrating back something you've read to them but a program where they read something and answer questions. Do you have any recommendations for such a program? My son can read words at a 7/8th grade level but I'm assuming would comprehend what he's reading at a 3/4th grade level...can you help me to choose a program?

We've used R&S for 2nd grade this year and while it did the job, it bored my boys to tears. Also, it seemed to require a lot for me to teach. Is CLE a bit more independant?

We've used R&S for 2nd grade this year and while it did the job, it bored my boys to tears. Also, it seemed to require a lot for me to teach. Is CLE a bit more independant?

I know this may sound ignorant but I see alot about this curriculum but don't know what it is.

My boys are 8.

Does anyone have a compiled list for SOTW2 and Netflix movies? I would love to have if if you do. Thanks so much!

My boys have been taking piano for about a year. While they somewhat enjoy it, it's really a pain to get them to practice. (Especially one of my boys-it's really hard to get him to practice, the other boy will practice as quickly as he can so he can get it done) I do notice that occasionally they will go over to play a song just because they feel like it. However, our piano teacher is driving me nuts! She is constantly changing lesson days/times and just called me today to change this weeks lesson to another day and inform me she couldn't have the lesson next week because her husband has decided she should go out of town with him. Now, I understand things come up but this seems like all the time! Last week she tried to change days because of another issue and she told me on the phone today that she wants me to come another day because she wants to combine the lesson with someone else:glare:... The method they play is Simply Music and I know that some do do group lessons, but we have had private lessons from the start. What should I do? If the boys don't love it and could drop it and not mind, should we just quit? I'm really not a proponent of quitting normally and don't want to teach them that we quit things, but I'm really frustrated with the teacher and second I just don't think they are really into it so why pay for it, ywim? What would you do?

Thank you all so much for your help tonight (-:

O.k. I won't delete my pics anymore-you have my word:001_smile:! It seems like such a pain to have to save my pics from my blog separately...ugh..can't someone make a program to save all of it together? So, now that I have the pics on my blog, do I just right click on the pic and save it to a file? Is there an easy way to do this?

Smrtmama- I upload them to my computer, then I transfer them to shutterfly, then erase them from my computer. Another stupid question-can you burn your blog onto a dvd or cd?(Meaning like a cd you buy from Walmart?) and will that save your blog? To me that sounds the easiest for a computer idiot like myself. Would i just buy a computer dvd and download it to that? Would it save my pictures and text?

So, for blogging purposes would you just save your blog photos to a different file or site? That way if something happened you would have those specific pictures you posted? Thank you all for your help by the way..I love the step by steps smrtmama..aka dunce cap mama:001_smile:

I have an SLR camera with a disk I erase after I upload my pics. I don't even know how to use 80% of the functions on it. I just bought it because other bloggers had it but I've been to lazy to read the instructions:lol:

What's an SD disc? Oh gosh!! I really don't know what I'm doing..why did I even start this?

I'm on blogger is it much different than wordpress? Also, how do I save the pictures? Do I buy a special type of disc to save these on? Like a dvd disc? I must sound so stupid but I really don't know... I need the dunce cap...

No I'm on blogger (-:

Help smrtmama!!

Someone on these boards was kind to give me advice a couple of months ago about protecting my blog(I think it was the poster with the dunce cap:001_smile:)...I can't find the previous thread and I need help again. How to I protect my blog? How to I back it up and what do I back it up too? A disk? When I backed it up to my computer it didn't show the pictures..would it show them if something happened to my computer and I imported it back to it? I want the pictures saved as well as the text. Please can you give me really, really dumbed down instructions?