thanks for all of the kind words and thoughts- I am still thinking and processing. I think that, ultimately, they are going in a different direction than us. About the job...we are considering it with fear and trepidation! I so appreciate the line, "some of us old crusties," - lol! I am feeling it! He also has a proposal in to a foundation working on a community project teaching/ reasearching and writing. It's what he longs to do but we are not sure how long getting funding will take (they are pretty sure about getting the funding just not sure if p.t., f.t. and when) The Reservation job wont allow any outside work and he's signed a contract with a U to teach on-line so he couldn't officially start at the Res until Jan. They have 3 other interviewees so we'll see if he gets even gets an offer!

I write the weekly memory work on the large one hanging in our dining room for the various areas we'll cover. The lap size ones I've had made (from shower tile) we use to play memory games on, do math, spelling, grammar, drawing. My boys created a game where they draw a picture together and will link up several of the smaller boards, creating entire scenes. We love white boards :)

Last week I posted about how bummed I was cause the class day that I started (and stepped down from directing this spring due to a non-compete with a nat'l co) formed a new board. Watching it go in a screwy direction my dh asked to be put back on the board. They voted "no." We were advocating for a consensual decision making body. The current Chair wants a top-down hierarchical structure, giving him the ability to create policy and procedure, with no accountability. Plus, this is supposed to be following a classical model, but most parents think classical means memorizing. Not to mention the rather funny fact that most of the parents are looking at structure from a grammar point of view, rather than a dialectic or rhetorical. The structure they've created isn't even in keeping with the classical mindset -kwim?? 2 of the other board members quit over the above decision. One of them wants to get together weekly and start another group. I'm sick of starting groups. I just don't "feel" right about this-kiwm? -it just "feels" reactionary to me. I can still Mentor with the group I started- the politics of it- hmm. my ds was being bullied last year and 2 of the moms who voted us "off the island" were very defensive of their littel bullies- this year I'm sure that it will be worse and now I'm not in a postiion to do anything about it. On the other hand, we are in the boonies and the weekly class day is THE interaction for my littles. There is a small group of highschoolers for my 13 yo - and, these people are supposedly our friends- they are so conflict avoidant is almost nauseating. But, on Saturday a group of them brought over a (new to us) used frig (our old one was dying), etc. Should we stay home this year? Is it even worth trying to be part of the old group? Should I just join together with this other gal so my littles aren't lonely?

1.) How many kids do you have and what are their ages? sig block 2.) What is your favorite food? fruit and gourmet salad. Fresh parsely. Seafood. butter. chocolate. nuts. chocolate with caramel and nuts. chips. but I digress... 3.) What is your favorite movie? The Scarlett Pimpernel (with Jane Seymour) 4.) Coke, Pepsi or neither? Neither. Good coffee or rooibos tea 5.) What is your favorite book? Too many to list. 6.) What is your least favorite household job? I don't mind any particular job. It's the endlessness of them... 7.) What is your favorite season? It used to be Fall until we moved to SD. Now I LOVE summer. Winters here are long. and. cold. and. endless. (though fun and beautiful in thier own frozen kinda way). Yep, definitely summer. 8.) What is your favorite sport? squash, tennis, ping-pong - anything with a racket :) 9.) What is your favorite holiday? Christmas - my dh is a Christmas NUT and it's rubbed off on all of us. We have zillions of twinkle lights and decos and HAVE to go pick out a tree at a tree farm every year. Good, good memories :) 10.) What is your least favorite store you have to shop in? Wal-mart. I loathe Wal-mart.

How do you plan to do this? We are doing Middle Ages this year also w/ dd 11 & ds 13. What have you done for self-ed to get you ready to impart the medieval "mind" to your son? Do you have a reading list you could share? I'm assuming since you are tutoring Omni 2 that you have pre-read the primary and secondary (possibly multiple times?)..... I hope you tell me I should purchase Omni (I havent' been able to figure out the cool blue box thing yet). Well, maybe my hopes are too high -lol! But my plan is to focus on those readings from the Omni lists that pertain to that. (I can't find the VP catalog right now- I'll try to find and post that later). As someone else said, they'll run into a lot of this material later on, so my focus from the primary and secondary readings are those that focus on church hx and the "midieval mind." We've homeschooled for many years now, and done several studies on the renaissance and reformation through different venues. My son and I have read dozens of books on that time period. I highly recommend Bethleham Books for awesome reading lists by time period as well as Beautiful Feet and Sonlight. My oldest dd has a passion for the royals (my dh is a psychologist) and the psychology of the times that created such a system so we've been reading, listening, viewing and talking about that time period for years based on her reading, travel, etc. I'm excited about Omni because it looks to me that it takes the "fun" factor of some of the other curriculum and ramps it up so that the academic portion is in line with high school work. It will provide the intellectual challenge that my ds is capable of and the beauty of it is that we can tweak it to meet our kids needs - I loved how someone else said that they are getting so much from reading all of the readings, so I'm re-thinking (again) just how much to require. I haven't read all of the books -but plan to! I am really excited about the readings and work involved - it looks amazing. I did briefly entertain TOG, and got awesome feedback about it, but I think Omni is less expensive and less complicated (or maybe there is just a greater learning curve?) Omni appealed to me, anyway:)

Just lovely! Thanks for posting pics- I am inspired:)

I second the globe and white board. We have a white board hanging in the dining room (our main school room - 6 sided room- it has an "eyebrow" and 4 windows in it along with a bult in buffet- did I mention that I LOVE this room :001_smile:) and I also have "lap" white boards that I had made from shower tile at Home Depot. They will actually cut it for you. (about $14 for a 5' x 8' piece). We also use the atlas a LOT and our laminated VP cards. This year I am having the IEW posters laminated and put on rings so that I can "flip" them. Great post!

Veritas Press has sample schedules on their site: go to resources, then downloads, then free helps. We don't follow it but looking at what they are doing as I was scheduling a K, 3rd, 9th and 12th grader helped me focus.

Karen, Congratulations on your pregnancy! I was, as Tammy pointed out, referring to the craze amongst under 20 year old girls to get pregnant. The ones that we know have no job skills, the bf is a user or in the pen, etc. Just a totally different situation than you. Many blessings to you and your new baby!

Do you feel that you have to do all of the books on the primary list? I was going to Tutor Omnibus II at a class day this year and given the kids (pretty "normal") I had chosen 1/2 of the primary books and about 1/2 of the secondary. My reasoning is that they'll get more when they hit Omni V :) I would rather that they really "got" the books that we read than get so overwhelmed by just churning through the reading that they didn't really take it in. Also, a friend and her dd is finishing Omni I. The dd is a reader and pretty intellectual-kwim. She will just be fininshing Omni I this month- in time to start Omni II- she read ALL of the primary and ALL of the secondary. I just know my 13 yo ds- very intellectual but in a major growth spurt. He still has to figure out how to manage logic, latin, math and writing in addition to the Omni. And he really needs his "green therapy" every day (time outside) or he just doesn't do as well overall - sleeping, handling sibs, etc. My goal this year is to give him a real solid understanding of the midieval "mind" as well as some of the foundations of church history.

Remudamom-thanks = ) We were voted "off the island." Please tell me that homeschoolers in other parts of the world are not as bottom dwelling as here.

I've lived at our present location for 4 1/2 years. In that time I've started 2 successful class days, hosted a yearly women's retreat for homeschoolers, brought TeenPact to the state, led yearly drama camps and led a group in a yearly drama festival for 3 years, brought speakers and vendors to the annual conference, etc. All of that to say, we have served our fellow homeschoolers. The last class day we stepped down from running due to signing a non-compete clasue with a national company. Well, it's basically been "taken over" and turned into a "program" (rather than the classical community that we were) by a football dad who talks over everyone. My dh said last week he wanted back on the board so they met this week twice to "vote us on or off the island." I'm grieved. I feel sad and lonely and taken advantadge of once again. The football dad doesn't want my dh on the board becasue we had created a consensul council and he wants a top down heirarchical structure, giving the Chair (him) basically all of the power to define and create policy and procedure and making the actual director a stooge. sniffle. I feel lonely and freindless, knowing they talked about us all week at these meetings, knowing they've all benefitted from the time I've poured into the lives of their families. I don't know what the decision is yet but the fact that it came to a popularity vote just saddens me. On top of it, my dh had a job interview at a Reservation today (we desperatly need a stable income) and it was horrible. 3 years ago they "cut down" 25 jr. and sr. high school kids from a group hanging - just to give you an idea of the place. The pay is phenomenol but we'd have to live there and we still have kids at home, not to mention what an awful place it would be for dh to work. sniff. i feel sad.

oops

We watched it this spring and I remember watching it as a freshman in high school after reading the book. Still as impactful as ever; it led to some great discussions. We did censure it a bit because of the semi-nudity (for our 13 yo) and some of the more graphic scenes.

Thanks for posting this. We have listened to Greg Laurie for years. What a loss to his friends and family!

I've run 2 different types of co-ops. The first was enrichment and we capped the classes at 16. We had a "sheperdess" that stayed with the class and went with them to gym, etc. We had over 90 kids in that co-op. The second co-op had an academic focus and we capped the class at 8.

My older two girls are on facebook and blog; they use blogger. We have asked them to be careful about putting identifiers on their blogs- which they are. You can set the search engines so that not everyone can find them. Facebook seems safer to us than other forums. They see the purpose of Facebook as shallow and self serving- no-one really chats through that forum. It's all about posting your pictures and talking about yourself. They have also enjoyed Good Reads. My 17 yo really ramped up her spelling and descriptive writing when she began blogging and posting on Good Reads. She also began reading more widely as she wanted to dialog with others about books and show that she was well read:). Blogging gives her a forum to post pictures and be very creative. She is a very private person and it gives us a "window" into what she is thinking without her feeling exposed -kwim? Our older kids have also enjoyed having cyber friends thorugh email and IM. Some of my kids "pen-pals" they have met through TWTM boards or Veg-source, TeenPact and homeschool camps. They send gift packages, photos, etc as well as emailing and IMing. The cyber world has afforded my "weird" homeschooled kids like-minded friends when they haven't always been available IRl-kwim? My dd's blog "theme" is God's beauty.

No T.V. We do watch Dvd's and videos. We haven't seriously watched T.V. for over a decade. The only downfall is that our kids show a deplorable lack of knowledge regarding whose who in the media world.On the other hand they have read tens, maybe hundreds of biographies of people who have actually made a difference in the world; I consider it reasonable trade-off.:) Have you read "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. I highly recommend it.

Didn't Irma Bombeck write this? Comic genius!

:grouphug:Tammy:grouphug: I am praying for you, your dh, your dd and other children. A friend of ours is going through this same thing- it does seem to be "the thing" to do in some circles to be proudly pregnant out of wedlock. Take care of yourself, the children that you have at home and your dh as best you can. Eat well, sleep well (or get a script if you need one- lack of sleep makes it all worse), exercise ! Find a wise counselor/priest/pastor etc. who will come alongside of you and your dh. Make the call to the boyfriends boss- your dd might "hate" you, your dd "might" thank-you for helping her get out of a destructive situation. Hate is committment to a way of thinking, attitude and behavior. Will she truly "hate" you, or have an emotional reaction to what you have done? Keeping your dd alive is excellent advice. Keeping everyone alive, including dh, is a great idea, too. Al Anon is another excellent idea- it will be a safe place where you can learn to breathe regardless of the storm raging. Sympathize with the heart of your dd. May the peace of God that surpasses all understanding envelope you today and as you walk through this trial. :grouphug: My mommas heart is hurting for you!

We lived 2 hours east of Lubbock in NM and went to Lubbock or Amarillo frequently. It's a nice place. Good old fashioned Texas hospitality (Southern on steroids). It's still a bit dry (not as bad as NM) but I grew up in the Midwest :).

A couple of thoughts: Sometimes having someone ackowledge the effect of a trauma, event or relationship can set us free (the truth does that ;)). I was electrocuted at 13 through a freak accident. For years I had terrifying nightmares. One night after I had waken in a cold sweat, in total fear, my dh woke up and said, "you know, you could have died. It's o.k. to be afraid" (i'm getting all choked up thinking about it). I bawled like a baby for about an hour- no nightmares since. there is a therapy called EMDR: EMDR Institute, Inc.EMDR, a complex psychological methodology, accelerates the treatment of a wide range of pathologies and self-esteem issues related to upsetting past events ... www.emdr.com My dh (a Christian psychologist) and I have seen amazing results from this therapy. I. mean. amazing. There is also a therapy called "Theophostic." It deals with the lies we believe and deliberatly allows God to speak truth to us about the situation and ourselves. We have some concerns about how this therapy is implemented but the theory is excellent and when facilitated by a healthy person is phenomenol. There are a few therapists that are combining the EMDR with the Theophostic. As a believer sometimes we know the "right thing to do," such as forgive our enemies, or at least those that have hurt us. Sometimes we need some help in doing that - there is no shame in that. "Two are better than one for they have a good return for their labor." Ecc. 4:9 All the best :)

I sprinkle them over salads along with seasame seeds, sunflower seeds, nuts, etc.

I'll second "Marva Collin's Way." I have also appreciated Doug Wilson's books.

Great thoughts, everyone. Thanks for the links and your input!!