Thanks SO MUCH for the help. Please vote for which font you like best. The first 2 were in the other poll. The rest of the choices are new. Edited to add: If your kids would take a look and you could post their thoughts, that'd be great too!! FONT 1 FONT 2: FONT 3 FONT 4 FONT 5 FONT SIX

Thanks for the replies so far...I'm going to try out some additional fonts and get some feedback on them too. THANK YOU so much for the help!!!

I finished my book on the seasons and now I'm STUCK on the title and the series name. You'd think this would be the easiest part, but nope... Please, please, please help me with suggestions!! All of you have such good ideas for so many things! If I pick a title or series name that you post, I'll give you a free e-book or PDF version of the book after it's published. :-) A bit of info: The book is about seasons and features a homeschool family with 3 siblings (one adopted) and their Fox Terrier Beowulf. The book teaches the science behind the seasons, but also has cultural info like various celebrations including ones that happen in other parts of the world and general info about the seasons. It has an easy recipe for each season and other various interesting info (like word roots, geography type stuff, and even a smidgen of math). Anyone who has looked at my website curriculum knows how I like to mix in lots of things, lol. It's a mix of comics and regular text and every page spread is heavily illustrated. I need a title and I also need a series name as this is the first book in the series. The series will start out with science related topics, but I might also delve into history and other subjects (math, language arts?). I'd like the name "Guest Hollow" in the series name which will be somewhere on the cover of every book in the series (duh, lol). The series is targeted at approx. grades 2-6 but there is some meaty info in there that even big kids & adults may not know. The illustrated portion of the book is 44 pages long. Here's a screenshot of a portion of an illustration (the one in the book doesn't have the watermark): Anyway, hoping to get a bit of inspiration so I can make the cover and move on to the unit study stuff as I'm finished with the book itself. Any ideas on a title and/or series name?? :-)

I redid the poll and put it here with more choices: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/540810-trying-my-poll-again-with-more-choices/ Thanks so much for your help!!!

I have that going on too, lol. My son's internal temp is such that he could walk around in snow in just a swimsuit (a little bit of an exaggeration but not much, lol) so we've hardly turned the heater on around here during the day. I do like that part a lot. Maybe I'll save enough $$ to buy more chocolate to make up for having a period for nearly half a month! ;-)

Yeah, that's the problem. I have no history for my mom or grandmas as they all got a hysterectomy. I hope this will all end before my mid 50's. I'm only 42!!! Now I want to cry, lol...

Thanks for sharing that. I just had the heaviest period of my life over Christmas - changing even more frequently than hourly. It was awful. I don't know what I would have done if I had to go out of the house and as it was I was having to sit on a towel. I also started spotting/bleeding 9 days early and had a 13 day period if you count that. UGH. I'm glad I make my own cloth pads now or I would have had to run to the store as there is no way a regular stash of store bought pads would have covered things. As it was the pads I have on hand had to go in the wash a bunch of times. I need to sew more so it's not an emergency to have to do a load of laundry. I've also been starting to have what I assume are hot flashes. The other day I was cutting paper and got completely sweaty and threw off my sweater & wool lined boots and still felt like I was just sweltering. Cutting paper! You know what hard physical labor that is! ;-)Then 30 minutes later I was thoroughly chilled and freezing again. It's totally random and sometimes won't happen for days and then other times will happen like 20 times a day. Yippee. Anyway, I appreciate all of the posts on this topic recently. They've helped me realize what's probably going on. I'm hoping this is not going to last for years and years.

I just wanted to share that I've got over half my book about the seasons finished. I hope to finish the illustrations this month or sometime in February and then I will start working on the curriculum to go with it. I hope to have it all finished in March or April at the latest but I might put the book up for sale on Amazon before the curriculum is done. Here's a screenshot of some of the pages/page spreads (not all of my work is shown below): The book explains the science behind the seasons and also goes over different things about each season including holidays and so on. I actually learned a bit while writing it, lol... I made sure to include info about other cultures and locations/geography too (so the book isn't U.S. centric, even though that's where the main characters live). I want kids to understand that the typical four seasons don't happen everywhere and why!! :-) The characters are homeschooled and there is a little adopted (Asian) sister and their Fox Terrier (Beowulf). The book does have a few Christian references, but nothing overwhelming for secular families. The target age is 2nd through 6th grade although my teen (and some adults I've read the text to) learned quite a bit too, lol...soooo even older kids can benefit from a quick read-through ;-). I think it will appeal to a decent age spread. The mix of comics and page text should encourage reluctant readers to keep reading. I took care to illustrate the harder science concepts so that they are easier to understand and retain. Of course I had to put some other interesting tidbits into the text too...like Latin roots, a mention of ancient Greek history, some math, seasonal recipe ideas and more! The curriculum will take those little threads and expand on them with plenty of printables, hands-on stuff and more. Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement! It will be published as a paperback and also in ebook format (specifically for the Kindle Fire or the Kindle app). I hope to wrap the illustrations for the pages up soon (in a couple of months at most) so I can send out a PDF copy to my beta-testers. I can't wait to finish everything up! I'm hoping to expand this into a series. I'd be happy to take some votes on what the next book topic should be!

I just wanted to share that I've got over half my book about the seasons finished. I hope to finish the illustrations this month or sometime in February and then I will start working on the curriculum to go with it. I hope to have it all finished in March or April at the latest but I might put the book up for sale on Amazon before the curriculum is done. Here's a screenshot of some of the pages/page spreads (not all of my work is shown below): **screenshot removed** ;-) The book explains the science behind the seasons and also goes over different things about each season including holidays and so on. I actually learned a bit while writing it, lol... I made sure to include info about other cultures and locations/geography too (so the book isn't U.S. centric, even though that's where the main characters live). I want kids to understand that the typical four seasons don't happen everywhere and why!! :-) The characters are homeschooled and there is a little adopted (Asian) sister and their Fox Terrier (Beowulf). The book does have a few Christian references, but nothing overwhelming for secular families. The target age is 2nd through 6th grade although my teen (and some adults I've read the text to) learned quite a bit too, lol...soooo even older kids can benefit from a quick read-through ;-). I think it will appeal to a decent age spread. The mix of comics and page text should encourage reluctant readers to keep reading. I took care to illustrate the harder science concepts so that they are easier to understand and retain. Of course I had to put some other interesting tidbits into the text too...like Latin roots, a mention of ancient Greek history, some math, seasonal recipe ideas and more! The curriculum will take those little threads and expand on them with plenty of printables, hands-on stuff and more. Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement! It will be published as a paperback and also in ebook format (specifically for the Kindle Fire or the Kindle app). I hope to wrap the illustrations for the pages up soon (in a couple of months at most) so I can send out a PDF copy to my beta-testers. I can't wait to finish everything up! I'm hoping to expand this into a series. I'd be happy to take some votes on what the next book topic should be!

My 3rd had the hardest time of all my children. My 1st and 2nd kids had different strengths and weaknesses. They were both miles ahead in their strong areas and just average in their weak areas. I'm actually glad in some ways that my 3rd had the hardest time out of the 3 because I had lots of experience to help him succeed anyway. If I couldn't find a curriculum that worked, I just made my own. ;-)

7 to 9 hours for my 10th grader, but that counts piano and his extra classes like Police Explorers.

Mine is pretty obvious...it's my name and my husband's name. Very creative, I know. ;-) My website is named after our last name with Hollow attached because I wish we could live in a beautiful hollow (valley) surrounded by woods with tangles of blackberry vines and berry bushes (hence the design of my website header). My avatar is my website's linking button. I designed it with the thought of taking time to "smell the roses" (and I also like how the little girl has an apron on which makes me think of taking care of one's home doing old-fashioned chores, etc.). My husband bought me over 80 rose bushes when we first moved to our house and planted them around the perimeter of our backyard, in the front yard and in a raised flower bed in the back. The roses remind me of his love for me and the happiness I get when I see them blooming outside as well as their sweet smell when we cut some and bring them inside. I love my yard, garden & home and my avatar represents a little bit of that love.

My kids played well into their teens and I did too, when I was that age. My 23 year old daughter was laughing and telling me the other day that she and her college girlfriends were all playing dress-up the other day, LOL....so I guess she still likes to do something that would qualify as play and she is an adult! ;-) I think my kids played into their teens because there was no pressure to not do otherwise. My 16 year old still enjoys collecting toy cars (although he doesn't drive them around the carpet anymore) and my daughter played with her dolls (dressing them up, etc.) as a 14 year old. I caught my son playing with Duplos the other day (we had a tub of them out for a 4 year old who was visiting) and having a grand time with them, lol. One time we went to park day (where a bunch of homeschooled kids got together to hang out for several hours each week) and my daughter brought her American Girl doll with her. I think she was about 13 years old at the time. The other girls acted like she was stupid and babyish for doing so. She told them she didn't care what they thought. She liked her dolls and wasn't embarrassed in the least about playing with them still. Next week all of the other girls ended up bringing their dolls too, LOL. I guess they just needed someone to tell them it was OK to still play with them (and perhaps they were secretly doing so anyway). Anyway, I think it's good for older kids to play and you'll be surprised at how many of them will do so if you bring out the right toys (building toys or whatever). There is no reason to rush kids into dropping play until it naturally doesn't appeal to them as much any more. :-) I think that it's good for anyone to play something...even adults. It's what keeps life from being a drudge. Maybe that's why some adults call some of their new things "toys" (as I did with my drawing tablet even though it's for serious work - I play on it too, lol). We all probably retain that spirit to some degree but some feel more comfortable than others in expressing it.

I read out loud to my kids until they graduated and will continue to do so with Otter until he graduates. It's something we all have enjoyed and continue to enjoy. Even my husband likes to listen in sometimes. Edited to add: Concerning your son picking up where you left off in a book...I would pick a book to read to him and then put it up and away where he can't read ahead. I'd do that with just ONE read-aloud that is just for "family time". That way he learns to delay gratification and you get to tease the story out some and enjoy it together. The reason why I would continue with the read-alouds, even if he is enjoying finishing things up on his own is that read-alouds will expose him to discussion (and probably pronunciation of harder vocabulary words), etc. that he wouldn't get just reading something himself. I always paused our read-alouds to make comments and things like that which enriched the story. Sometimes we'd even stop reading something long enough to look up online what a specific plant looked like, etc.

Yes, I saved a ton of Playmobil, Duplos, Legos, a wooden track train set, wooden blocks, a bead maze, a bouncy horse and some toddler books....oh and my son's tricycle (which my husband fixed before storing it). I just couldn't part with those things. I LOVE the Playmobil. Heck, if I had an excuse, I'd set it up myself, just for fun, lol. Some of the Duplos, Legos and blocks were mine when I was a kid and my kids played with them and someday my grandkids will too. We have the bead maze and Duplos down out of the attic for a couple of little visitors that come over from time to time. :-) I'm a very sentimental person. I cried when we threw out my kid's toy kitchen. I wanted to save it for the grandkids, but because we allowed the kids to take it outside, it was ruined and not worth saving anymore.

Lapbooks helped my son retain information better. Something about the act of cutting/pasting/organizing just cemented everything in his mind. It also broke writing down for him into bite-sized pieces. He still likes to look at the lapbooks he made years ago and fondly remember the material he studied. If we didn't made a lapbook (or notebooking pages) about it, the info just tended to float away into "I don't remember that" territory. Now that he's older, he'd still benefit from that type of activity (only at a more "grow-up" level), but he can't be bothered to take the time. ;-) It feels babyish to him, even though it matches his learning style. I always looked at it like scrapbooking memories. Lapbooking for us was scrapbooking our studies.

:grouphug: I'd give it a little more time...Just take it easy and continue to settle into your home. Maybe you can find an activity nearby that can help you develop new friendships. Sorry things are not going good with your eldest. I know it's easier said than done, but try to focus on the kids you have at home. Your daughter will make her own choices and you can't worry yourself to death over them. Just let her know you love her and allow her to fail. Sometimes kids come around later, after they've grown up a lot more.

It is an age thing for me. Like you, I can look back and see what should have or could have been done. I'm also at a point where I realize that kids aren't around forever, but your spouse is.

I'm the kind of person who would not have gone (wouldn't have wanted to leave the 2 year old), but in hind-sight NOW I would tell the person who I was to GO AND DO IT. As long as you trust the in-laws, go and have a wonderful time that you will be able to remember forever. The kids will be fine and will likely have a wonderful time too. It won't hurt anyone. Go and have a great time.

I'm using it this year with my 10th grader. We just started it though (yesterday!). I think it's going to be challenging (but in a way that's just right) for my son, but he's had a difficult time with some school work and we've spent years of hard work to get him to where he is. I'm not sure how it would rank for a hard-core wtm kid. ;-) As for the writing component, the assignments are OK, but I've hired a writing tutor to come up with additional assignments because Otter needs more work with writing and SL assumes you just know what you are doing more or less. Anyway, I think it has a good mix of books and I think it's going to be a really good year for us.

We read this one: http://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Michael-Morpurgo/dp/0763632066/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407867964&sr=1-3&keywords=beowulf My son loved it.

I wanted to do everything organic, but it's heartbreaking to lose all of your fruit on an entire tree (like our apple tree) when spraying it in the fall & spring could have saved the crop. Our peaches looked horrible before and just ONE application of copper spray (before there was even any fruit) made such a huge difference in the yield and the quality. Same thing goes for my garden - I got so fed up with bugs totally destroying things that I ended up spraying some stuff (that is safe for garden produce) and just washed it off before eating. It still tastes better than the store and it kept my crop(s) from being completely destroyed, especially the seedlings. I'm going to get some books from the library though to learn more about plant diseases and pests and see how I can better combat them all through natural (and inexpensive) means. I WANT to do it all organically, but I've decided I don't want to throw our money away on plants that get eaten up or fruit trees that won't produce anything because they have a disease or pest that can easily be prevented. I think it's going to end up being a balance and we just never will be 100% organic because it just doesn't work as well.

Just letting you know we didn't watch ALL of them though, so be careful. They are great videos and my kids loved them, but there are a few that feature nudity (like one on France - I think ...and possibly some others). They also sometimes feature things I don't necessarily want to promote (like drinking alcohol or whatever) but we watched the shows together so I could comment on things as they came up. I found it helpful to look at the comments on Amazon. Usually people will remark if a particular episode features something outrageous that is better skipped...I don't think there are a lot of them like that though. Another good option are the Rick Steve videos (if you can stand his dorkiness). He visits a lot of places and often gets to go inside people's houses, etc. so you really get a feel for a place and the people that live there through some of his shows.

Thanks! Just send it to me whenever it works for you. I'll have to go check out your blog. :-)