We thankfully don't have any of those, but we did have 3 VCRs, and 2 DVD players that didn't work, as well as a bunch of Playstation 2 games, and no Playstation anymore. I have gotten them all out, I don't know why we were keeping them :001_huh:

This is wonderful! I bought myself a new scentsy type warmer from walmart, since the cat knocked the other one off my counter and cracked it. It is amazing what a difference having a lovely smell makes in the way I feel about our house. I also have been boxing up knick knacks and other items, that i might have loved at one time, but now are only taking up space, I am doing the same with ones my DH seems to have no emotional feelings towards. These will sit in a box for over a month until my grandmother's garage sale. This way, right before the sale he can double check that he didn't actually miss any of them. I also cleaned out my son's toy box that was full of junky stuff, 95% of it was obvious trash, and the rest I put in a bag with the hope he will go through it and decide to donate some of them to other children, or sell them at the garage sale to make some spending money for his State Fair pass. I then filled the box with the small cooler bag, duffel bags and backpacks we use on a very regular basis, they had been hanging in the hallway and it always drove me nuts, but I didn't know where else to put them. This way they are all contained in a nice wooden box, but still where we can grab them, pack them and go.

We might crawl in a hole and never come out if we had to write a poem about science! Maybe a limerick. Maybe. But not as part of formal assignments, and it would probably end up related to poop, or farts, or his wrinkley twins.....because everything does. We do some notebooking type stuff, because he likes to draw, and can work on that while I read to him, or while listen to audio. It is super super simple though and usually just some sheets I printed out with various sized squares and lines in different configurations. Then we 3 hole punch and put the sheets in his binder. We don't act anything out, but I do read in exaggerated voices to emphasize tone/emphasis/plot point. I see that those projects can have some value in remembering material, or applying it, but I also see that they could potentially become a huge time suck, that would be better spent actually learning science, which is pretty darn interesting in itself. If I want something creative, I am more apt to ask him to create a model using found objects/ clay, or to illustrate a concept.

We have already changed our math, from my plan of finishing Miquon and moving into the Keys to books, to using CLE as a spine and Miquon/keys to as supplemental do together conceptual work. I also dropped Apples spelling, and am still waffling around about a spelling/ phonics/vocabulary review program and if I want to just go with grammar instead. For now we are just reading a lot, I am giving him so vocab words from science and his reading book, and practicing editing together. I am tweaking science to make it easier for me, since I am making it up as we go, and haven't started history yet! I also tried WWS, decided it was too hard, then tried WWE 4 and it wasn't what I wanted. We are back to WWS and I am hand holding as much as he needs at this point, and we are going sloooooowwwwwlllllyyyyyy. :tongue_smilie:

I have made major progress on the shelf and "office" area in our living room. I tossed 3 kitchen size trash bags full of old papers and junk from the room :) I sorted and reshelved our books, putting the seldom used ones on the top two shelves and then sorted by color. I also got all the misc knick knacks and junk out so that there is nothing but books. I also found some dark purpley brown bins at the dollar store that will hold a binder, notebook and small library books or readers, and stuff like rulers or colored pencils and set one up for each main subject. This way we aren't causing the entire shelf of books to fall over every time we need something for class. These 4 bins share a shelf with the kingfisher and Usborne encyclopedias that stand up on their own. I also made a bin for my binder, planner, and lesson plans/reference stuff in progress as well as two magazine racks with DS morning folder and notebook. The whole living room looks 100 times better and the system all has big pretty labels to make it easy to put stuff away or DS to find. Next up is the dining room/art studio!

We discuss things, sometimes tensely, but my exh is a sociopath/malignant narcissist and I can't handle much full on aggressive confrontation like yelling. It is too triggering. I am going to Garden Ridge with 200 dollars to possibly spend on some side table with doors/cabinets, or a cube bookshelf for the school stuff. I am so sick of the entire shelf falling over every time I pull a book out! I would also like to be able to put a row of baskets to hide supplies and stuff but still have them easily accessible

I'm so glad to hear others say this. I would never get rid of something he actually used, held dear, or had memories attached to it. However I do get rid of old clothes, misc. junk, and stuff like the cords. Dh has a couple full blown hoarders in his family, and also grew up very poor on a farm in West Texas. I know this translates to some anxiety about needing things later, as well as more of an attachment to certain things now that he has the ability to buy them. My lack of decluttering has more to do with being unfocused, overwhelmed, and not being able to figure out how to sort stuff or make it attractive. Once I get past the inertia I toss ruthlessly.

Here is my next question :) How do you communicate what needs to be done to others in your family. I am tempted to hang a checklist in each room and set a timer for 15 minutes and then we pick whatever we want off a list. 3 people cleaning hard and fast for 15 minutes can get a LOT done. But the lists might also just end up as part of the scenery, and add to visual clutter.

It is really not nice at all, at the very least I would want nitrous oxide and lots of lidocaine. You don't want to foster future dental anxiety and avoidance.

I need to spend more time in the evenings dusting and cleaning, but I work from 8-12 then homeschool DS from 12 to 4-ish. Then its dinner and the basics, and I am too brain dead to do much else. Dh is being much more helpful lately, he gets up and does some kind of exercise like Tai Chi or swimming out back with DS and a lot of mornings they tackle spelling, reading, or math. We rarely fight, and we never yell, but I had a full blown crying/yelling meltdown a couple of weeks ago about the lack of help with the everyday cleaning and life routines. The lack of help isn't intentional, he just doesn't see it, and doesn't really care. But I can'tdo work, school, and the house without dropping too many balls. I've also made sure to do my planning and research when he is around so he sees how much time goes into it other than just mon-fri afternoon, plus lots of discussing, field trips and documentaries. I'm also considering cutting back one morning a week at work, it would give me one full day at home to tackle bigger projects either with DS school, or the house.

Vyvanse has been a MIRACLE here. D's insurance wouldn't cover it at first, we had to trial two older tier 1 meds first. The trials were short, concerta was about 72 house of aggressive misery, regular instant release adderrall was fine except it was worn off by noon, oh, and adderrall XR kept him up for nearly 24 hours straight on the lowest dose. Vyvanse helps him focus, doesn't change his personality except to take the edge off a bit, and hasn't affected his growth rate despite lessening his appetite.

I use cheapo microfiber cloths from the dollar tree and a bowl of mild soapy water. Dip, wring, wipe! I try to have DS help me with this since he seems to enjoy the novelty and had young knees. :) I have painted all the walls with a neutral semigloss extra durable paint, doors and trim work was done in high gloss. Our walls are made of plaster vs. more modern sheetrock, so there some weird spots, but the paint itself looks good. (When it's clean) One of our dogs spends most of her time outside during the day by choice, the other one would emotionally fall apart if we forced that kind of separation and changed his routine. The 3rd, my old girl is basically a hospice care patient at this point. She smells pretty bad, is loosing her hair and rubs her face on the sofa and walls more than I would like. But she still gets around pretty well, is eating drinking, pooping and peeing. I know that when she is gone it will smell much better, the hair will be less awful, and the random nasty slobber will lessen.

What are these cords....... what machinery did they once belong to? The cords are a big mystery to me, why would we get rid of electronics or appliances but not their cord?

My other favorite was saving clothes that had shrunk or didn't fit properly because DS might wear them....DH is 6 feet tall, DS is 11 and I'm positive he doesn't want your work polos. :lol::lol::lol: I have finally convinced him that since he works at the stores, he is always there for the really good deals, so he can get ones that fit and don't have holes, and DS can be bought for there too.!

ADI'm glad to know I'm not the only one with dirty walls! I know a lot of the fault is mine for the overall state of the house, I get frustrated and overwhelmed and blow it off until I can't stand it, which makes it even more overwhelming. I am also very out of sight, out of mind. So sometimes I need big messy piles to not totally forget something exists, or to finish something. As far as storage buildings, We have a garage......I'm not even going to think about it! Do you have any tips for cutting down on dust, it builds up really really fast here, I've never had a house like it. I assume part of it is the dogs, in particular the very old sickly one who is the reason it smells so "doggy" in here. And, honestly it isn't gross or anything, dishes are washed, floors swept, bathroom cleaned. Its just not anywhere as nice feeling as I'd like it either.

I forgot to ask my questions! My biggest one, since its such a pain.... In a busy house, with pets etc, how often do walls and doors normally need washed? Ours seem to get gross really fast, but I never remember my mom scrubbing walls, and I never look at anyone else's close enough.

We live in a small, 100 year old house, in the middle of the city, with 3 dogs and 2 cats. So even without us leaving our crap laying around all the time, there is dust, and hair, and grit, and it just gets grungy fast. I have never lived somewhere so dusty in my life. The kitchen and bathroom are wiped down and cleaned nearly everyday, and I keep up with the laundry as we wear it....except that our bedroom is busting at the seems with clothes EVERYWHERE. We need new furniture/a bigger house with actual closets, but neither of those is happening any time soon. I paint with acrylics and watercolor in my spare time. Dh is a clotheshorse and packrat and has a MUCH higher tolerance for mess and clutter than I do. I spent tonight deep cleaning our accumulated homeschool clutter, bookshelf and office shelf area, tossing, wiping, sorting, containerizing and labeling. I just get so frustrated, I know it will get messed up in no time flat, and I don't know what to do with all the miscellaneous crap that collects when you live in a house for a long time. Dh is also not helpful, and while he isn't a hoarder, it does run in his family, and he holds on to way more than I do. I have to deep clean when he isn't here, or I just can't chunk certain stuff. I threw away a small crate of random electronic type cords tonight, it looked like power cables, maybe a co-ax, and some with weird ends. NONE of them go to anything we use, and we haven't needed any of them in at least 2 years. Do other people have random cords floating around? I feel like we accumulate them for some reason. I also found like 6 military looking coins, enough number 2 pencils for a small village (but no pencil sharpener) and all sorts of other very small random stuff. :confused: I also came across random footage of a shoplifter on CD that he needed for work in 2011, it had been in the bottom of the drawer all that time, he feels he still needs it, and since it is for work I didn't argue, so I put it in the drawer with the floppy disks :tongue_smilie: Does anyone have any ideas? We don't have an ikea within 6 hours, so as much as I would love to line our walls with Expedit shelves, and use their other awesome options, I can't. I have tried Flylady, and it was way overwhelming for me, and have read other books, I just run into trouble finding a way to implement it and keep up my motivation/convince DH to help.

I am actually finding that Miquon works better for him than traditional drill pages, which is why I am skipping the speed drill and flash card stuff with CLE. We took the placement tests for Beast Academy, and he did great with it, so I am thinking we might do that a couple of times a week to work on problem solving and math reading skills, or maybe LOF now that his reading skills are up to par. Do others find that their sons, particularly those with Ld or 2E hit some sort of breakthrough in early puberty? He is full of eye rolling, huffing and naps, but he finally seems ready for formal academic type work.

Please nobody take offense to this, I fully support everybodies belief system, it just isn't ours ;) When I bought Apples a few weeks ago I fully admit to not looking at every page. I liked that it was focused on usage and "rules" rather than arbitrary lists, and was open and go and very independent without being babyish at all. I knew it wasn't totally secular, but I was fine with the stories I saw in it such as filling in the blanks of the story of the Prodigal Son. We have already skipped some lessons because he just didn't need that many days for that particular rule, but now we have run into a bigger problem of entire pages dealing with witnessing and evangelism. It made him pretty uncomfortable and I wasn't thrilled either. We use STOW, and CLE math, so I really don't need to it to be totally secular, but I'm not comfortable with witnessing and evangelism in his spelling review book. :confused:

Just an update, I really do love Miquon, and I feel like it finally helped him solidify a grasp of multiplication and playing with numbers. But I just felt like I needed something more. I also realize that I probably sounded stressed and pushy in my previous posts! He has perfected the art of meltdowns to get out of things, as well as falling asleep to avoid things he doesn't want to do, so I have a hard time knowing when to let a lesson go. After much sample downloading, and having him look through them and work some of the problems, we settled on CLE as the best choice. It works for him visually since it isn't overwhelming and the instructions are so easy and clear. It is spiral, but not in a frantic way, and the balance between new and review seems good to me. I bought the 300 series to start knowing it can ahead of grade level in some ways, and I wanted him to get a good feel for the way it teaches before moving on to new or more difficult material. We ended up skipping the first 4 Light Units because he was looking at me like I was an idiot for a lot of the problems. So what we have been doing is the CLE independently with me available for assistance, but skipping the speed drill and flash cards. We will move into the 400 series in a couple of months, and will likely move through it quickly as well. This makes me want to do a happy dance!!! :hurray::hurray::hurray: This takes him about 20 minutes of stress free work, then we sit down with our whiteboard, c-rods and Miquon together. I feel like this will strike a balance between the broader, spiral, more school-ish approach of CLE, and the conceptual deeper understanding that Miquon provides. Once we finish the yellow and purple books I plan to use the Keys to series instead as it seems to have the same feel and look to it.

I'm a lefty, with a lefty son! I have tried and tried and tried to get him to slant his paper, at 11 it is just now happening, his writing is still atrocious though! We also hole punch everything possible, I rip open tightly bound notebooks and hole punch them too because the seem makes it hard to write in them. He does okay with regular spiral notebooks as long as they aren't too thick, but prefers steno type notebooks to legal pads and regular notebooks. Left handed scissors are always awful, so we just use regular scissors upside down. I also have been teaching him to color right to left, or turn his paper as needed so he doesn't smear marker and pencil. My own handwriting doesn't slant at all, I don't know if that is normal for a lefty, but his doesn't seem to slant either as it improves, so I really don't worry about it. :001_smile: for me personally fountain, and even slow drying gel pens are a nightmare. I prefer a good quality rollerball with a nice grip. We also use mechanical pencils instead of regular ones 99% of the time, they smear less, and when he breaks the lead every 2.2 seconds we can just click to get more!

Thank you for this, I was really worried about their potential for severe property damage and further trauma. I actually got in touch with them last night, and as they picked a property on high ground, with a sloping backyard down to a large drainage pond that is less than full, the whole family is gathering with them. Turns out the shutters on their house are actually functional, their pantry is stocked with enough food to last the entire family two weeks, and they have two generators in the garage with plenty of gas. I do know they usually leave, even for storms expected to be minor, so they must be feeling pretty okay about this one. Thankfully my uncle was already home on scheduled leave, so I know her feeling of safety is much higher just with him there.

I faced similar issues when pulling my son out last year, and it was an uphill battle explaining that we were decompressing for a couple months, only doing the basics in skill area, and spending time exploring his interests. It was also difficult to explain that we didn't need 8 hours a day 5 days a week to complete school, with only one kid it goes fast! I save DS best work, make copies of it and send them to his dad, I also email him copies of our library book list.

We LOVE our whiteboards!

We share some, and let DS who is 11 see things like utility bills, fees for car ownership, and other hidden costs of living. There have been times when things were really tough here and there and he has seen some things that would have been more worrisome without honest explanation. There are also times when he asks for something and my honest answer is I would like for you to have that, but I need you to wait for "friday" or a couple of weeks, we then revisit the item and see if he still really wants it. He also recently managed to save enough for an xbox 360, the limited edition R2D2 one. It took him a year of birthdays, holidays, and odd jobs. I ended up chipping in about 75 dollars for a game, and a few extras, but he takes much much better care of it than he had any of his other expenses. knowing what it cost, and having earned it himself. I was in a very comfortable family growing up, but my parents refused to discuess any family finances with me at all, they still won't, and it frankly it feels insulting and weird. And also as the only child, god forbid anything happened and I needed to step in and handle financial details, I would have zero idea where to start. :confused: We have also been honest that our priority is not to be wealthy but rather to have our needs met and have plenty of time with each other. I choose to work part time so that we can homeschool and I can be a good wife and mother, my DH also chose a lower paying job locally, because the travel and time away was just too much.