Just a general comment..... if it's a shared communion cup some congregations have participants carry the service sheet with them as a sign that they simply wished to be blessed. Easily done.

That sentence just made me think of how glad I am that I saved my double stroller. If that happens it will really be needed for visits!!! ;) :lol:

Rebecca remains one of my all time favourites. I loved sharing it with dd when she was around your Dd age. The old movie is really good too. ;) You probably really need to watch it....https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/aug/07/my-favourite-alfred-hitchcock-rebecca I enjoyed Beautiful Ruins when it first came out. Midnight Riot is great! :) I know that was supposed to make me want to listen to the audio book that I was close to next on but I now know it would be a bad choice for me right now. Sending more :grouphug: :grouphug: Lets just say I know how you feel. We are supposed to hit 90 before the thunderstorms roll through tonight! High 60's tomorrow! Last night the house near our house that is under a huge remodelling project decided to burn their construction rubbish in the garden. They keep doing this and we (multiple neighbours) keep complaining to them. Sort of legal as long as it doesn't bother the neighbours, which they are. Filling everyone's house with odd smelling smoke on the hottest day of the year sent us over the edge last night. Formal complaints are going in today. We are done with polite. The Moonstone audio book is actually really good. I spent awhile trying to locate where the shivering sands were/are on the Yorkshire coast. I am relieved to report that they don't exist! Currently reading The Secret Pearl.

Last week I read the latest in two cozy mystery series that I enjoy. GM Malliet latest in the Max Tudor series wasn't bad. Devil's Breath takes place on the coast in a completely different setting from Max Tudor's normal vicarage location. I have read most of this author's books so would have to say this book was entertaining just not a Max Tudor but very much like her other books. Somehow he lost his 007 feel in the move! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939369-devil-s-breath Hannah Dennison's Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall was the best in the series so far. The cast of characters is huge and in this one was finally under control. This series is of the over the top cozy variety but I still put holds on each new release so I must like them! ;) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451176-murderous-mayhem-at-honeychurch-hall. Cursed in the second in Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. It's a paranormal series set in London with a future seeing mage as a main character. Great easy read. I will definitely keep reading this series. It was perfect for our super hot 86 F day here. Life in England really gets odd over 75degrees! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13274082-cursed

Thank you!!!

Bumping

Stacia, I am so very sorry. Sending hugs and prayers your way. Sending them to your ds and dd too..........

It was the first timed exam my kids took (both the maths same day). Someplace, probably a review book, there was some wise advice about exactly how to use the watch that you put on the table in front of you. I honestly think that helped more than anything. My kids don't wear watches so the only time they ever have used them are standardized exams. My memory agrees that 5 wrong still equals an 800. After she gets a bit more practice I really think she will feel much more comfortable. I couldn't believe how much ds improved on his timing which meant he was able to get his score.

While I don't think it's necessary it might get her time down. Who knows. :) Practice in general got ds comfortably within the time. I think he was about 10 minutes over at first. We also worked on the graphing calculator skills but I don't think he actually used them on the day. From other threads the graphing calculator is not used by all. Barron's review books are always harder then the actual exams so I would practice with those first and the actual exams right before the real exam day. Remember she can miss a few and still get a great score. ;) Make sure she looks at the grading scale because that should make her more comfortable about moving through the exam quickly.

Mom guilt and feet..... When my giant ds was having his major growth spurt he mentioned that he needed new trainers. Quick glance at the dirty beaten up shoes confirmed he could certainly use some new ones. I told him no problem it could be the first stop when we arrived in the US the next week since he would get new ones filthy here in the rainy muddy wet. He did not say he needed new ones because they were too small. His old ones were just a couple months old. He agreed to wait with no protest. So first full day I take him to a big name sports store where teens wait on you. Ds and I go off to see to his shoes and dh wanders away with dd. The teen measures ds foot.....3 full sizes bigger than his old shoes and 2 sizes bigger than dh. Me at work finding new shoes. Dh walks up and hears the news. Declares it impossible and says we are leaving that store. We go to the car and drive an hour to a specialized shoe store we used when ds was little for his then super wide feet. The woman who had measured him since birth practically confirmed the scary new size......dh accepted it from her. :lol: Whenever ds gets a blister, cut, anything on his feet he loves to tell me it's because I forced him to wear ill fitting shoes when he was a child!

https://www.coursera.org/learn/principles-of-macroeconomics Both dc's used this one from the University of California Irvine for Macro. Ds used the same school for Micro too. The lecturer is a bit boring but it actually is a perfect class if you want them to practice taking real notes from live lectures. The guy talks in a pretty perfect outline form so awesome for note taking skills. I think these are now on demand. We turned these into Clep not AP but they should work for AP. Pretty sure I compared once upon a time but not available to us. Dd took one from a Uni in Illinois. I don't think it's still available because we couldn't use it for ds. Her lectures were great and a bit more fun. Both were the basic Intro to given at most schools. There are several great economics ones out there if you guys are interested. We used Coursera intently about 4 years ago. There was an Economic of Sports which was fascinating and both dc's did that one. They also did some finance/accounting ones from some big name schools just out of interest. The best thing about them is they could try them and drop them if they were in over their heads and the cost was 0. Another useful course was the Chemistry from Duke. At the time dd took it there was only one which I think was this one https://www.coursera.org/learn/basic-chemistry. She used that plus selected lectures from the University of Kentucky's advanced course to get a great pass in the Chemistry Clep which is considered one of the hardest Clep exams.

Just want to pop in and say Coursera has some wonderful free courses that my kids used as a basis for both the AP and Clep exams. Good Calculus and Economics in particular. For the AP the important thing is to compare the College Board Syllabus to the "free" course being offered. A good review book at the end is handy too but can be purchased cheap used or just checked out of the library.https://www.bestapbooks.com For instance my kids used this Calculus on Coursera https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1 for the AP. I think they did the Calculus 2 one also. Free......there used to be an AP Calculus review but it didn't run the year my son took the exam. Dd loved the AP review. I think ds used the free edx courses as a basis for both his Statistics ans Computer Science AP exams. Both topics he was already familiar with. He combined the courses with review books. For Clep this website http://www.free-clep-prep.com is a really valuable resource. The syllabus for the courses and links are great and accurate. My kids did many Clep exams and never had any complaints about the information on free clep prep.

We used this https://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh from Stanford. Great stuff. I had a couple of books (cheap used uni history textbooks) but used the Stanford and youtube for much of our modern history.

Ethel, I hope you have a great trip to Maine! :) :grouphug: to your ds Heather, Glad you are feeling well again. Stacia, I instantly had to go look for the Russia against Napoleon book. I have a small stack of W&P books sitting on the chair reserved for library returns and my family keeps glancing at them oddly because they aren't disappearing. I don't know what I want to do and am not satisfied with the look of any of the maps. I can get the Russia Against Napoleon but will wait until I give it a try without it.

I've read that one. It's wonderful!!!!

I just finished a really great book that I have been avoiding because of the title reminded me of The Light Between the Oceans which traumatized me years ago! All the Birds in the Sky couldn't have been more different. I think it's sort of a crazy mish mash of lots of interesting things turned into a pretty good story but that makes for a really bad description. It starts with two middle school outcasts (a boy geek and a girl who talked with birds once) who become friends which was quite a bit like HP. The world they live in is an alternative one to ours. This book is dystopian, science fiction, fantasy, with a bit of HP type magic thrown in. They leave middle school behind to face the world separately as a witch and an inventor. I don't want to give spoilers since many here have it on their Goodreads lists. I loved it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25372801-all-the-birds-in-the-sky

We used Shurley and did every other year. Worked fine.

My dc's are in college so my experiences are several years old. We were and still are pretty focused on math. Two math degrees. We did lots of math but things like Beast Academy and Math Mammoth did not exist to my knowledge. We almost missed Life of Fred completely.....algebra is where they came in to our program. With that in mind we loved Abeka math in elementary. It was our spiral core program. It was colourful and Saxon isn't. Neither child liked the look of Saxon. The early grades are write in. It had good story problems which is what I was looking for because that's what math in the real world is imo. I also liked the practically of all the work with things like measurements and roman numerals. These topics need to be somewhere and Abeka did it well. I didn't really see that in the other curriculum we used. We did other things but used Abeka at some level all the way through precalculus. No regrets. What did we supplement with.....all sorts of things. In the lower grades I had many manipulatives and games. We did a lot of jigsaw puzzles from garage sales. Tangrams, pattern blocks, linking cubes, all fun. Dot to dot with high numbers are particularly good for counting fluency. One book will take care of everyone unless one of your kids loves counting to 2000 repetitively! Curriculum wise I probably bought at least one book of everything that was available at the time, we tried them all. The curriculum that stuck was Singapore which had an excellent supplement called challenging word problems. As much as I loved Singapore I think a spiral is needed for all kids including mine. They forget. We also did all of a program called Professor B using the books (now has an online choice). It was great fun. Mostly verbal but will probably be cringe worthy to you because it actually encourages finger counting at one stage. That being said I think my dc's mental math abilities which are huge stem in a large part from that program. They are really fast.http://www.professorbmath.uniquemath.com/profb-mpl1.php#.WUJEiXoXYv4 Because I mentioned LoF earlier.....I have seen the early books and probably would have bought them because I had a generous math budget and would have appreciated one book for storytime supplement. I wouldn't buy them if it hurts the budget. I used every math story book I could find. Usbourne makes some lovely ones. I used my library frequently....

Dd LOVES Night Vale!!!! I am pretty sure Jenn recommended this one for her about a year ago. She has gone on to listen to all the episodes. She is anxiously waiting for the sequel It Devours. http://www.welcometonightvale.com/books/ I keep getting reminded that I need to source it for her. Her best friend has listened to the series too. Eta.....I just discovered my Overdrive has Night Vale as an audiobook and it's available. I had no time to listen to the Moonstone today but am thinking I will give it another hour or so. If it still doesn't click maybe Night Vale is in my future. That would please Dd. Also the downloads of the broadcast are available in book form.

For the most part I have turned to audiobooks while the kids are doing their online school work. So I listen while I work on quilts. Occasionally I will listen without headphones while cooking.

Stacia, I am so sorry. :grouphug:

I finished The Bear and the Dragon audiobook by Tom Clancy!!!!!!! It took forever but my bestseller in child's birth year is done. It wasn't a bad book just very long. I don't plan to continue reading the series. I started The Moonstone as my next audiobook. I totally get what Kathy was saying earlier. As I don't have another audio ready to go I will stick with it in hope of it growing on me.

REA Clep prep books were the best. Paying for instantcert https://www.instantcert.com when needed is great too.

I want to hear about the yarn too! When you mentioned bugs I thought you meant mosquitoes. They are called midges here and spoke of as a season especially North of us. But poisonous crawling things eek! I never associated Japan with poisonous centipedes or other creatures of the poisonous variety.....the island thing.

Stacia, Glad to have you back! Regarding Gold Fame Citrus, I couldn't believe it when I saw it in your post. It's a book that I check out of Overdrive every couple of months and keep having to let go back unread. I keep my covers for my "really want to read so check out again" and was just looking through them for Birthstone letters. Almost checked it out but knew I wouldn't read it with War and Peace on the horizon because the letters aren't right! Looking forward to your review..... Angela, I've came to the conclusion that my understanding of village life is actually rather poor. I have the practical aspects down but the politics are weird. We've had big church blow up last month with the church dividing viciously to the point of name calling after service etc. Shudder, horror. Glad we missed that service! But I have decided that much of what I read in my cozies actually maybe could happen. I promise never to defend a church council again! New eyes. Blinkers off! As some here know it's been building for a year. Our family was at the heart of the situation because it involved the bell tower and our house location. Never have I even imagined such behaviour in a church. The thought of going back is beyond me and my side actually won?????? My dh told them at the start that in the end there would be no winners......all for a tiny amount of money. Many have just sucked it up and are back on Sundays. We are just quietly gone missing along with others because the behaviour was shocking. My dc's have wanted to go back to the church we came from because it's overflowing with young adults from the local Uni so we've done that. They have agreed to keep the bell tower staffed for special events but that's it for the dc's and my family with the village church life for now. I have been close to panic attacks over seeing people from the village church because I knew they would want an explanation of where we are. Impossible to answer without being offensive or being stuck going back somehow. I have been on the high street once this month by myself. Confrontation is not something I do well so I have been in seclusion. ;( A friend who moved away from here that I consulted (updated with the gossip really) gave me the advice of one word answers and a smile. No one would dare ask beyond the initial question apparently. I ran the gauntlet with 20 or so the other night at a social club meeting and it actually worked. Very short conversations with church people but I came home without having to say much totally unscathed.......Other person. " Haven't seen your family for awhile...." Me "Yes" as I got more comfortable it became more "Yes, we haven't been around." Move on to weather....:lol: Now I just need to make new village friends......as dh puts it the church is actually a small percentage of people in this village and I mistakenly made most of my social friends from that small group....he is feeling pretty smug because he diversified early. ;) :lol: