This article very eloquently says what I have been thinking, and why I haven't changed my FB profile picture: what happened in Paris was a terrible tragedy, but those lives lost were no more tragic than so many others that are in my news feed every single day.

In our state, when a young man applies for a driver's permit, driver's license or state-issued ID card, he agrees that his name will be submitted to the Selective Service when he turns 18yo. If he doesn't want to be registered with them, he must forfeit his license or ID card before his 18th birthday. It is part of what you agree to when you sign the application. I pointed this out to all three of my sons before they signed their applications, and yet all three were surprised when they received their registration card in the mail shortly after their 18th birthdays.

How about a book detailing rules of Solitaire card games? Or a subscription to one of the Dell puzzle magazines? I personally love the Math and Logic Puzzles book. Check out the puzzles sections of Barnes and Noble -- both the puzzle books section and the section where they have board games and such.

One time, my dh was driving to a friend's house on a back road, and started to drive past the driveway. He stopped quickly, threw it into reverse, and backed into a gal who was behind him. There was minimal damage to both vehicles, so they exchanged information and went on their ways. Within an hour, we got a call from a police officer, telling dh to return to the scene. The young driver had gone home and told her folks what happened. They insisted on calling the police to deal with it. The officer was not too happy about having to go out to the boonies to deal with it. He gave dh a ticket for improper backing, but gave the gal an even more severe ticket (cost and points) for something like unsafe driving / following too closely.

I wasn't actually ticketed, but twice I received warnings for what I thought were silly reasons: Once, I was driving on a kind-of-country road, and there was a long line of cars backed up in the opposite lane. As I came around a curve in the road, I flashed my brights to warn an approaching driver that he should slow down, because I knew he couldn't see what was just around that curve. He turned out to be a police officer, and he pulled a u-turn to flag me down. He tried to tell me it is illegal to flash your brights, but he couldn't come up with a vehicle code to site, so he just warned me and let me go on. Another time, an officer pulled me over because he said that my van was improperly registered. He claimed I hadn't used my turn signal, which got his attention, so he ran my plate. (I maintain that he couldn't have seen my turn signal from where he was at the time I made the turn.) My plate came back as being registered to an SUV, when it was really a 12-passenger van. He told me I had to go to the DMV to straighten it out. The gal at the DMV looked at me like I was crazy, and said there was nothing she could do to change that, as it had been entered in the system that way when the van was first purchased (by someone else).

It was lots of fun, and we got a lot done with two or three ladies working on each recipe. Each group made several batches of their recipe. But there wasn't anything that was new to me: we did a Chicken Taco Soup, Chicken Chili, and Spaghetti Sauce with ground beef.

I use a wide variety of materials. Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs has some good ideas. I have also used some of the "math tricks" from Jacobs' Elementary Algebra textbook. I collect inexpensive puzzle and brainteaser books from bookstores. I love many of the puzzles from this site: http://dkmgames.com; they have given me permission to print from their site and copy for use in my classroom as long as I give them credit. I also like this site: http://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/ I subscribe to the weekly KenKen puzzle collection for teachers through this site: kenkenpuzzle.com The Geometry textbook I use at our other Co-op has challenge problems at the end of most lessons, which I sometimes use. Martin Gardner has written several books full of interesting puzzlers. Our library has several that I borrow from. I picked up a little Brain Games puzzle booklet at Ollie's Bargain Outlet store. The usually sell for a few dollars each, but I got them for something like 79 cents each. I bought one for each of my students, and I keep them with my supplies. I can just choose a puzzle, and everyone works on the same one. It has a variety of puzzles: word, logic, math, spatial, etc.

My favorite-to-teach Co-op class is one I call Thinking Out of the Box. I use a variety of brainteasers, math puzzles, word puzzles, spatial visualization puzzles, logic puzzles, etc. to get the kids to develop critical thinking skills.

There are some good resources linked at the bottom of this blog to help with understanding more about Bible translation issues. http://andynaselli.com/announcing-the-niv-zondervan-study-bible

I have tried a few times to engage my dh's family on this issue, but it's like beating my head against a wall. One of dh's cousins just unfriended me on FB because I disagreed with a comment he made, which I felt was based on a poor interpretation of Scripture due to KJV language issues. I tried to explain my position based on the ESV version. I find the KJV to be incredibly comforting at times. Psalm 23 jumps to mind -- it's just not the same in any other translation. But there are so many other verses that I never really understood because of the KJV language.

I really like my ESV Study Bible, and I am looking forward to getting a copy of the just-released NIV Study Bible. I also have a KJV Study Bible that I cross reference.

At church this morning, they announced that the ladies are getting together on Saturday to put together a bunch of meals like this that will be kept in the church freezer for families who have a need. I hope to go and help out and come up with some new ideas for meals.

None, again. This is our 18th Halloween since we moved here. We have been home on all but maybe 2 of those. We have had a grand total of one (yes, 1) trick or treater in all that time. We aren't in a neighborhood, per se, and our house is at the end of a fairly long driveway. We don't decorate for Halloween.

So, in about twenty years, some people there will have aunts, uncles and cousins.

When my youngest son was being evaluated for speech therapy, the therapist was holding up a series of pictorial flashcards and he was telling her what was on each card. She got to one card, and he announced he didn't know what that was. She prompted him that surely he had seen one of these in his house. Nope. No. He had no clue what it was. She looked at me, shook her head, and they eventually went on to the next card. I was on the other side of the room, and not in a position to see the cards. Afterwards, I finally found out that it was a picture of a bathtub. :huh:

There is a Burger King very near us that I used to pop into quite often when I had my sons with me. It is on the way out of the neighborhood, and we would grab something there on our way. Since two sons have moved away and the third would rather do someplace other than BK, I am very rarely in there anymore. A while back, I was there and the owner's son saw me and greeted me warmly, saying he hadn't seen me in a while. A little later, his wife and kids came into the restaurant, and he very proudly brought over his newborn baby to show me, and introduced to me his other children and wife. It was sweet.

Oh, and for Christmas, we sometimes had a rolled pork roast for dinner. My Mom seasoned it just right -- it was amazing. For Thanksgiving, we pretty much always did the traditional stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. with extended family. It was often both my Mom's and my Dad's families that came over, and my Mom did pretty much all of the cooking. Her Mom's one contribution was making the gravy. She would brown flour in a cast iron skillet, add drippings from the turkey pan, stir and stir forever. It was amazing. Every year, my grandpa would say at the end of the meal, "That was good, but I'd just as soon have ham." And the next year, my Mom would ask him if he'd rather have ham, and he'd say that Thanksgiving was supposed to be turkey, so we'd better have turkey.

Not for Thanksgiving, but my family's non-traditional Christmas Eve dinner was fondue. My Mom had collected three fondue pots, so we had one with oil for meats, one with cheese for bread and veggies, and one with chocolate for dessert-dipping. It was fun and a big treat.

Recently, I have been getting errors when I go to "content I follow" to get to a thread. If I just go the Chat Board and click on the thread, it works fine.

I usually make it a point to have a friendly conversation with cashiers, whether it is at the grocery store, gas station/convenience store, fast food place, whatever. And they are universally friendly in return. I live in the southeastern U.S. We typically have brief discussions about the weather, how busy their day has been, how much longer they have to work, or some sports or other news event. At the grocery store, we may discuss a particular food item I am purchasing -- artichokes always provoke questions from the cashier.

I love this idea! But then again, I am not a Black Friday shopper at all. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/10/26/rei-closing-on-black-friday-for-first-time-in-its-history/74627872/

My standard dish is Chicken Tetrazzini. It is always a hit, and easy to make.

The whole 13.5 miles was covered on Tuesday. They did not have full backpacks. Yesterday, ds told me their "lunch" was an apple and trail mix.

No, I wasn't the one who led the hike. My son was one of the students who went on it. I have received a few more details since I posted the original question. This was for a gap-year program that my son is doing. Going in, we knew that the program includes challenging the students academically, spiritually, and physically. Ds had more of a handle on the physical aspects than I did. Part of the challenges is being flexible and not always having things your way. The supplies list did include hiking boots for the Spring semester wrap-up backpacking trip, but we hadn't gotten those yet, as we didn't think he needed them in the Fall. The application for the program included a standard physician's report with immunization records and noting any chronic conditions, limitations or restrictions on the student. It did not include anything like "student must be cleared to do XXX" or "student should be able to run a mile in 10 minutes or lift YY pounds" or anything like that. (I think they're rethinking this aspect for next year. It's a relatively new program, so they're still learning.) The information we were given at parent orientation included details about a 3-credit class they will be doing over the course of the year, which sounds fantastic: all about developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, with components that cover exercise, nutrition, weight management, stress management, etc. It sounds like something I really need to do, and I was excited that ds would have this training. Five days after I dropped him off, they took the kids on an overnight camping trip. I don't believe they had more than a day's notice that they would be going on it, since ds didn't mention it on Sunday, and they hiked on Tuesday after camping out Monday night. They did pack clothes, shoes, sleeping bags for the overnight. I have no idea how the food was handled on the hike, but ds says they have always been fed well. Knowing this group, I'd imagine they were well prepared with first aid supplies and such. Ds says he wouldn't use the word "strenuous", but there were inclines and descents. I'm still not sure of how mountainous it really was. And I don't know whether they were told it would be 13.5 miles before they embarked on it. One girl lagged behind, and there was at least one leader and another student who stayed with her. Ds was hurting, but completed the hike. He was sore the next several days. It sounds like most of the kids (40 of them) did quite well, which surprised me. And I was surprised that the leaders were surprised that some of the kids struggled. I was just wanting to know if you all would have been surprised.

We did, except ours were navy blue. And I was too long-waisted for it to fit -- it strangled me. My Mom had to take it apart and sew in a band a few inches wide to lengthen it.