You could have an unassisted birth, then you wouldn't have to worry about anyone showing up at all -- it'll be just you and your dh there! (wink) I thought of that because I asked myself, as someone who has had six home births, why I'd never struggled with or even thought of this before (having a clean house for company), and then realized it was because we have unassisted births, lol. So, there you go. Just a thought from this corner of the country.

We live in a neighborhood (no HOA) and I called to ask the police about shooting BB guns in the city limits. They said there was no problem with that as long as there was something behind the target to keep the BBs from flying wild and high. So we let ds shoot at a target that's set up out in the shed (he stands outside the shed and the target is inside). Don't know if that would work in your situation?

For me it's Krispy Kreme donuts ... thankfully the closest one is two hours from where we live! We passed through there last night on our way home from our vacation and I had three for dinner!!!

DH put a nail in his hand once -- it wasn't rusty, it bled out well and he cleaned it. We opted not to get the tetanus shot. Our son recently cut his hand pretty deeply on a canned food lid and all the above applied again (not rusty, bled out, cleaned well) so we didn't get him a tetanus shot. It's your call -- but I'm just mentioning that a tetanus shot doesn't HAVE to be a given.

I think the thought -- the one that goes along with homeschooling -- is that SINCE we've discovered that we don't need "professionals" to teach our kids, why do we need "professionals" to birth our kids? (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this, just mentioning it). You can move this into many areas of life ... for example, I wonder how many homeschoolers sell their houses by owner rather than with a realtor? (ie., why do we need a professional to sell our house? Why can't we do it ourselves?). Am I making sense? We happen to home birth and buy/sell by owner ... so that's why I've put a teeny bit of thought into this. Hmmm ... what other areas of life could this apply? :)

City girl, here. Typical driver's ed schedule: Permit and driver's ed at 15-1/2 and license at 16. I failed one of my tests on the very last thing -- I was so excited (knowing I'd done pretty well) that I parked more than the allowed number of inches away from the curb when I parallel parked. Drat.

Angie, check out the link in my sig tag -- see if the uppercase living lettering would work for you. You can custom design arched quotes! :)

I think it subs easily but I've used it for so long that I can't remember, lol.

Congratulations! It looks fabulous. The kind of room most children would love to play in and will have fond memories of.

Julianne? (Isn't there a Julia in the Bible? I could be way off there!)

DON'T DO IT! We bought these and they're fluff and a BIG waste of money. Our oldest was 4 and we knew we 'd homeschool; we thought "oh, cool." I see them at Goodwill all. the. time.

We really like this book and dh/14yos went to conference (the Portland one in May). I don't mind that it's not full of Bible quotes -- the principles are sound and Biblically-based. I think part of where they're coming from is that *society* has developed this low expectation of teens thing but the Bible assumes high expectations of people (there's no populace of teens in the Bible). If that makes sense. I gave this book as a graduation present to my niece.

"It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain." (Thoreau) I have this quote framed in my entryway! I printed it on my computer and put it on a pretty paper (like a matte) and then framed it. Maybe put it where your guest will see it! :)

how, if you had kids of the same gender close together, you'd want to keep stuff. I guess I *will* be going through that for the first time in 10 years very soon: Our youngest is a 3mo boy and next "up" is a 2yo boy. So I could see where I'd keep stuff of the older for the younger. In this case, I will just keep one 66 quart Rubbermaid type container to put the bigger clothes in until the baby needs them. Then I'll sort and purge again.

Very cool!

That one shouldn't name their business name idea on the internet ... someone could see it and go snatch up the domain name (http://www.Business Name.com) and then you'd have to buy it for more money than it would cost you to get it first. It's only $9.99 to get a domain name for a year at Go Daddy.com so if you're serious about your idea -- I'd go register it! (I just checked it and it's available!).

I have a different method altogether: I don't keep anything! I have had it SO much easier since giving clothes away as "we" outgrow them. I figure "you reap what you sow" and have seen this to be the case -- we are given so many clothes that I usually can't keep them all. I also shop at Goodwill and the consignment store when any of the kids need something we haven't been given. I know this won't work for everyone, but I wanted to mention it as an option, too.

http://frugalhomeschoolmom.blogspot.com/ She talks about couponing and links some sites. HTH!

At the grocery game, you buy a Sunday paper and keep all the little coupon inserts. She accesses the past several weeks in seeing what's on sale that week (and trying to combine it with a coupon). I think the Grocery Game focuses more on stocking the pantry more than anything, so might not work for you. If you haven't much storage space, then planning meals based on what's on sale each week would probably work better, as you described. So I can see how you'd want to find some coupon sites where you can print the coupons you need. Make sure you focus on the "loss leaders" (front page items) of the sale flyers when planning your meals.

The Grocery Game website? She matches coupons from the Sunday newspapers to sales in your local stores for a really great deal instead of a just kind of good deal. I just signed up again this week.

I've read very recently (and from reliable sources, although I couldn't tell you where, lol -- probably somewhere like yahoo news) that the idle time is something like 15 *seconds*. Anymore than that and you should turn the car off and start it up again. We went down to one car more than a year ago and are walking tons more than we ever have in our lives. I got my bike up and running a couple of weeks ago and am trying to use that for quick shopping trips instead of firing up the Suburban. My dh walks to work every morning (about a mile), and I've stopped helping the kids on their paper routes by driving them. Our trips "over the mountains" (to where family and some friends are) have dwindled down to a couple of times a year it seems like, and when we do travel at higher speeds, we keep it at about 60-65 mph. I think we're down to spending about $125-$150/month on gas by doing these things.

.84/gallon at one point during my senior year (b/c I was the class of '84 -- that's why I remember it!).

For online shopping, I like to use http://www.currentcodes.com to find any current coupon codes. HTH!

(((((Kari))))) I'm pretty new here so wasn't around for that thread, but I've really enjoyed the friendliness of this board.

As a good friend of Natalieclare, I say obey your board leader! Give Natalieclare some great advice so she can continue to get some looooong nights of uninterrupted sleep!! :)