I think I know where you are coming from.

The Common Room - Homeschooling mother of 10 who has an usually keen eye for political sheningans and corruption in the government, very good writing skills, and mixes up the politics with personal blog entries.

Would living off the grid in Texas be crazy impossible? What are the problems associated with living off the grid in Texas? Is the problem that A/C uses up too much electricity? Would a swamp cooler work in West Texas? How deep of a well would you need in West Texas for a water supply? What about rain catchment in San Antonio or further west?

Malathion kills bees and bees are safely asleep in their hives at night.

Whether you throw it out or not depends on how "monkish" you are. Monk would suggest that you not only get rid of the mattress but burn down your entire house and start all over ;-) The pet thing sounds like a good idea, but try this.... Get old absorbant towels and put them on the wet areas and apply weight to them drawing out as much liquid as you can. Apply the pet stuff. Put the mattress out in direct sunlight until it is completely dry, this might take a couple of days. Get a very good waterproof mattress protector that is soft on oneside. Even grown ups needs to have a barrier on the mattress in case of the vomiting, bloody noses, periods, profuse sweating, etc.

Malathion is the active ingredient in most mosquito spray trucks. This is a very good FAQ about malathion. Malathion is used on commercial crops for insect control. But, basically, yes, you'll need to wash your veggies first. I think there are other ways of mosquito eradication such as something called "biomist" so malathion is not necessarily the chemical that they are using. You can call up the department that sprays and ask, they probably have a website up that tells you what chemicals they use.

Really?! I mean, they can see the name of the person you are PMing or simply that you are PMing?

I think you can go to your user panel and choose "invisible" and opt out though. I don't remember exactly what screen that showed up on.

If you say it to yourself with an accent, it's funny:

Health is to be practiced not "studied." When I read people defending its inclusion in the curricula the reason given is that there are "some" kids who don't learn this at home. Althooooooooghhh, when I took it in the 9th grade we learned first aid and CPR and had a really good CPR dummy to practice on.

That was a fun song.

I voted for "hamster"...but it's really a gerbil. We have a cat too but I only voted for one.

I used Plaid Phonics "MCP" Phonics, Bob Books, and the stories from 100 Easy Lessons which I typed up by hand because I didn't like the funky symbols they used. I tried to use the readers that goes with ETC, I really did. It didn't work out because the stories were too long and bizarre. I still like them, and think they are neat, but the kids never did. My daughter caught on to reading about the middle of the first grade and I don't do readers with her any more. She chooses her own reading material now, sometimes I have her read to me from science texts for elementary school kids.

LOL Someone should do a "where do you read poll' and include bathroom. Sometimes it's the only place you can get more than five minutes of privacy and then only if you deadbolt the door. I remember a few years ago someone posted about making bookshelves that fit on their toilet tank top.

I'm left out. I bet nobody knows who Mecano, Hombres H, or Claudio Baglioni are. brings back memories :-)

When the cost of electricity goes through the roof like gas (predicted to happen in the near future) you'll be glad you have a small house.

A bidet at Lowe's is like $150. That would give a cost savings of what per year?

Singapore 1-3 has many fun worksheets. Mazes filled with numbers are completed, frogs and rabbits hop on numbered lily pads and stones, the lines that match numbers cage in animals...math problems are solved to decode secret messages... My daughter enjoyed coloring some of her pages. It's not all fun every day and they are pretty much weaned off of fun worksheets by the fourth grade.

I'll be doing interactive Science (grade 7) this year coming up. I've looked through all the experiments and I have in mind to order the Chem C3000 chemistry kit because it has many of the chemicals that the lab requires, bunsen burner, etc and if not the exact chemicals it has a lab on the same topic. The price is shockingly high on that site but I think I can find it for about $150 elsewhere. I already have a good microscope from a previous year that will get use again, I think the only thing I still need are vernier calipers. The new Interactive Science series also has several labs that involve the use of software along with gadgets that hook up to the computer that I don't have access to so I guess we won't be doing those. But the real draw back for me is that the answers to the workbook and lab are no longer in the back of the book! To compensate, I'm going to order direct from Singapore a review book called "Excel in Science for 7th grade" that will hopefully give us more practice opportunities. I don't know how we are going to handle Chemistry or Physics labs later on, that may be something we have to postpone for community college.

Why I like Singapore Science: Stays on one topic for an extended period of time. Each topic builds on the concepts of the one before it. Cycles through all major topics every two years (It's on a two year cycle) Emphasizes biology, chemistry, and physical science which is a back to basics approach. Complete Curriculum in a box, tests included. Test bank includes review sheets, chapter tests, as well as cummulative tests along with scoring guide. Hands on labs with items around the house! (I've only needed to get a microscope) Tests and workbooks ask questions which make you think, they don't ask for regurgitation. For example, they'll show a diagrams of electrical circuits and the kid has to figure out which one will not work, or which one would light up the brightest based on concepts. They give you the answer and it's always "Oh, I should have thought about that!" or Why didn't this experiment work out? Why do you think the worm died? Why can't these plants reproduce? Comes with various kinds of teacher manuals. My favorite is one which teaches the teacher the same concepts as the student is learning, only more in depth. I've emailed folks who are content experts, hold degrees science fields, samples of workbook pages and tests on the topic that they are in and they've told me it's very good. No silly emphasis on either creationism or evolution as if they felt pressured to make some sort of statement about it. The lessons do not fill out a full academic year and this leaves us a LOT of time to explore biographies of scientists, outside reading, and spend more time on labs. I really detests "labs" that are about entertainment and not about demonstrating some topic. Singapore labs are, for the most part, not edutainment.

Hi Jann, These people do appear to be very poor, but I am struck by how clean and kempt everything is. I didn't know if that was indicative of the local area in general or if was just the mission itself. Do you know why the school girls have shaved heads as well as the boys? Is it the general style of all women to have shaved heads?

" If you want to be further along in English (that's our issue) you'll have to study hard on your own time. Maybe you can give up some of that playstation II time and do English instead." That's the problem. Kids complain that they can't beat out the other kid but it doesn't bother them so much that they are willing to put in extra effort on their own time. They want to be better without putting in the extra effort. My oldest son has had some rivalry issues as well. He's settled into a more healthy, "He's better at X because he likes it better than I do and spends more time on it." We've dicussed the role of motivation and interest in both performance and practice and downplay the supposed role of talent and intelligence.

Not so much sayings but adjectives.... Monkishness - a polite euphemisim for someone's reticence about touching things they percieve to be dirty. Based on the tv show "Monk". This morning I was surprised to see on this board monkishness about used books. People wipe them down! Who knew? Maybe I was raised in a sty? "Let's cuddle" - Said when there is no intention of cuddling. This started with someone remarking about the gullibility of girls who believe boys who say, "It's okay, we'll just cuddle" Corporate - Used as an adjective instead of "perfunctory. Corporate accomodations, desks, art, bathrooms, cubicles are very unexciting and standard, emotionaless, and without sincerity. Whatever you get it's not meant to be personal and is just like everyone else's. "Can I have my corporate hug before you go?" Good at turning silk purses into silk purses - phrase I use to describe superficially promising programs whose success is more attributable to the characteristics of the participants than the program itself. We say these with a deep exaggerated Southern accent: Go on git! This started as a command I wanted the dog to be trained to respond to appropriately and now we jokingly use it with each other. Hey y'all watch this! Honkytonkbadonkadonk Because these are the funniest fighting words I've ever heard. I don't know how someone can manage those syllables with a straight face much less get so angry as to start a fight Now Big John McCarthy can use this phrase instead of "Let's git it ooon" when signaling the beginning of a match in ultimate fighting. From Well-Trained Mind we've picked up on the use of the words "box-checking" for subjects that we feel compelled to do but secretly don't want to put a lot of effort into. "Let's just box-check history this year." Somebody else used the word "bubble people" in regards to the cartoon characters in the Singapore math books and I use it all the time with my kids now...it's morphed into "What would a bubble person do?" Also, "I singapored my way through it" to refer to solving any sort of problem using brute intellect and patience in math, or real life, for which there was no standard algorithm/solution known. Someone used that once on this board and it really caught on. Example, "I had to singapore my way through that ipod software."