So, are you saying that in the core book we receive all the grammar *instruction* needed for the course? So you don't have to purchase the Harvey texts separately? You just need to have something like it or R&S for reference (not for course instruction)? Really dumb question here... is there any isolated grammar instruction in the core books? Specifically, does the student get practice with sentence diagramming? Thanks! Robin P.S. I'm glad to hear your family is doing well... I hope they can get finished and moved very soon so they can slow down and relax!

Oh, man... I'm jealous. *Really* jealous. There is one group in Houston trying to do a true farmer's market, with all organic... which is nice, but the prices are about 2X-3X higher, selection is limited, and it costs way too much for me to drive down there. There is an organic produce coop nearby, but their source is the same company who delivers organic produce to the grocery stores. I can get local eggs, there, though. That's about it. Unfortunately, pick up dates are the same afternoons as dd's violin lesson, so we can't participate anymore.

Thanks, Jackie! We would be using the Aesop/Homer for older beginners level. Do you think that compressed course will spend as much time on the sentence level as the regular Homer A&B? Also, can I use R&S Grammar (level 7) with this... do I *have* to use Harvey? Is it hard to make that modificiation? Thanks for your help! BTW, wasn't it your sister's house that was destroyed by tornado? If so, how is the family doing? Robin

Most everything at our farmer's market is brought in from the valley... pretty far away! It helps cut out one layer of distribution, but we're still not dealing directly with the grower. I guess that's the nature of living in an urban area... the farms are not nearby and it's easier and more profitable for the farmer to sell his crop to a distributor who brings it to town. The other problem is the distance... it costs me about $10 in gas to drive to our farmer's market. The local grocery store, HEB, buys their produce from local growers - they support local growers as much as possible. HEB headquarters is much closer to the valley where so many of the farms are. So, when HEB buys from the valley and distributes it to our local store, I am getting the same produce for about the same price in a more fuel efficient way. Just wanted to point out that depending on where you live and what your local offerings are, if you are trying to be concientous about this sort of thing (supporting local growers, reducing impact on environment re: fuel, etc.) sometimes the local grocer is the better option! There is no real, bonafide farmer's market in the greater Houston area... not one where there are a variety of vendors and each vendor is the producer of his wares. :(.

And possibly for the folding in of some map activities and discussion questions re: the literature. But I wouldn't be interested in any of the language arts or bible. Primarily, though, I'm curious if their notes on the Hakim books are valuable enough to justify the cost of the IG. Thanks!

Thinking about both of these for 13yo dd. Would they compliment each other, or overlap too much? Thanks!

Well, the little bottles of whiskey ought to be in your hotel room's cash bar. The honey ought to be obtainable from room service. If you can get the tea, fine... but it's not worth going out shopping for when you can be resting and drinking whiskey and breathing hot steam. Good luck!

Do not laugh - this is for real. Whiskey and honey. Better yet, warm whiskey and honey. Add humidity - steam bath/shower for as long as you can. Rest more than normal. The whiskey ought to help with that. :) Seriously, all those teas don't work nearly as well as whiskey. Good luck! Hope you're better soon.

Jenn, what's sorta funny (now that I think of it) is that a lot of the people I "trust" on these boards are the people I've argued with the most (I'm not talking about people I've made irl friends with). It's kind of strange that way...

I think it's something about promoting artist themes and igoogle.

Isn't it impossible to get back to sleep after that? I HATE it when that happens!! And yes, it happens once every few years to me, but usually it's in response to a dream, not anything "real". The last time was when I was dreaming that a huge, hairy spider was on my husband. I sat straight up in bed, screaming, hitting him with both hands, trying to get that spider off! LOL Talk about adrenaline rush, the poor guy :). Hope you sleep well tonight! PS. Did you read SWB's note about when she woke her dh up in the middle of the night saying something really scary? I can't remember the details, but it was hilarious!

See, I dont think there's anything wrong with that at all. I think admin appreciates it when we try to understand and abide by their criteria.

Well, I think the purpose of the system there has more to do with business/professional reputation. Kind of like customer satisfaction ratings. I just don't see the big deal with the rep system. It is what it is, kwim? The purpose is not to lob a complaint or accusation at someone who should then have a right to defend themself. And I don't think ANYONE has had their reputation measurably downgraded by neg rep. I mean, look at Gothic Gyrl (or however she spelled it)... she as getting neg rep all the time (according to her) yet she was way up there with two or three green squares!! Didn't seem to damage her reputation any. You know, I just think that if someone's gutsy enough to say something edgy, then they don't have much room to whine about neg rep (which is what she did). And if someone neg reps me for something I said, jthen I should just look at what I said and how I said it and decide one of two things: 1) Yeah, I probably didn't choose the best tone for that comment so I will either temper my comments or quit commenting on that topic, or 2) I stand behind what I said and how I said it and I don't care if someone else doesn't like it. I think that the neg rep thing can be misused in a juvenile way, but that makes the "misuer" juvenile... not the rep system. And sometimes the person who receives the neg rep responds in a way that is just as juvenile, imo. Again, the system isn't what's juvenile... it's the way people use it. And it sounds like admin is trying hard to monitor and delete misuses. I really don't think the whole point of the rep system is to provide yet another avenue (on top of posting and pming) to "work out" or "smooth over" anything or to express disagreement. It's just a way to encourage and discourage certain types of posts. No one complains about receiving anonymous positive rep, but boy howdy they want to KNOW who gave them that bad mark, dad gum it! :) I look at postive rep as a thumbs up and negative rep as a MAJOR eye roll. I used to dislike the rep system but I'm not so sure anymore. It does help me temper my comments sometimes! LOL

Gosh, there's been so many that I couldn't begin to list them... but my latest favorite is from Janice in NJ, when she said (talking about delving deep into history and literature with her kids): "...actually doing this stuff is a lot more fun than talking about doing this stuff." My favorite comments on these boards are usually the ones that challenge me to quit hanging out here and go do something real. O, the irony :).

For Italian, you can always have something like lasagna to pop into the oven. Or some other italian baked entree (chicken parmiagana, etc.). Pasta itself can be precooked, stored in a ziplock, and rinsed with hot water in a colander at serving time. We like pasta served with pesto sauce as a side to roasted italian sausages. Then, of course, just a salad and bread. Really good is foccacia and bowls of spiced olive oil to dip in. While your guests are watching the the dvd, you can set out premade plates of antipasto. Dessert could be tiramisu, italian cream cake... For Mexican, I really like to do "fix your own" taco salad bar with all the fixings (lettuce, tomatoes, green onions, avocados, shredded cheese, olives, jalapenos). Meat can be precooked and warmed at serving time, and can be either seasoned ground beef or chunks of fajita meat (beef and/or chicken). Serve with plenty of chips, queso, salsa, lime wedges, cornbread muffins and/or flour tortillas, and maybe even bowls of bean or some other mexican soup dished out of a crockpot. Dessert could be a tart cheesecake or something chocolate. Personally, I would serve the chocolate cake that's on Ree's website, and I'd serve it ala mode :). I guess it depends on how "fancy" you want it to be. If you want casual, laid back fun style, I'd go with the mexican menu. HTH

YEs... scary, too, though! LOL

How did I miss this post previously? Willow, where have you been? Are you the willow of the old boards? If so, you should know that every once in a while, I find myself reading a post and wondering, "Where's Willow when you need her?" :).

Oh, Kate, you are the one who is sweet to give me the benefit of the doubt! All I can say is you haven't seen me when someone messes with my kid! My dd has a name for that look on my face - the "scary eyebrow" look. LOL!!

I should have just said ditto to this post. There's no way I'd pm someone to let them know I thought poorly of something they said. Plus, I agree that you don't ever neg rep someone just because you don't agree with them or don't like the point they're trying to make. I was under the impression that the neg rep feature was there in order to call down someone who is being rude. I also think that it's inappropriate to use the anonymity of the feature to say something tacky or flame someone... either leave no comment at all, or explain why you're leaving the neg rep without using inflammatory language. I can't say that there will never be a situation where I might want to give neg rep in the future. I would do it without any comment at all, though. And only if I felt it was deserved, but you'd have to push me REAL hard, kwim?

I don't give neg rep, and I don't plan to, but if someone were to post something like, "I met Robin in Tx's dd and she's a disgusting child," well... I can't promise I wouldn't neg rep that one! LOL And I'd probably say something tacky and anon, too, just because I'd feel like being a jerk at the moment :). Seriously, though, I would neg rep someone if they came online and said they'd read TWTM and was very critical of it or of SWB personally in an extremely RUDE way. Or if they were an obvious jgemom troll. My goal would be to lower their rep, not to argue with them. So, under a circumstance like that, I don't think I'd ever attach a comment or my name to a neg rep because if I wanted to argue with them, or "come out" with my dissenting opinion, I'd do it in a post. Neg rep is about lowering rep, not having a personal confrontation.

You're right, I don't - you whipper snapper you! LOL Okay, I have just a couple of more reasons why I thought the setting was more like 50s/60s... - no televsion - no modern radio/boom box - when asked for a book recommendation, the librarian said "Gone with the Wind" (not very 70isth :) - the librarian's great grandfather fought in the civil war. She seems to have known him, not just heard about him, so he must have died in her lifetime. In my mind, she would have been born late 1800s -early 1900s in order to be so fond of him and his candy business. But now that I've said all that (just so y'all can see where I came up with my impressions!), I think the 70s may be it. Just read a bio on the author. Her father left the family when she was five, she was born in 64 and grew up in a small town in Florida. She says that when she moved as an adult to apartment that didn't allow pets, she had dog-withdrawl and it was during that time that she came up with the idea for the book. I learned something new today, and it was very sweet and interesting! Thanks again for the thread!

I'm not sure that kind of bike was described in the book, though. When we saw the movie, I thought it had modernized the feel of the story a bit in a variety of ways, including crude home, even though it used older props as Abbey described. Movie wasn't as good as the book, imo, but isn't that always the case? Maybe the author left that part of the setting unstated for a reason... to offer a nostalgic resonance across two or three generations. BTW, I was riding my bike with banana seat and butterly handlebars in the mid 60s, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff :). Interesting discussion! I don't know I've never thought about this before. Thanks for the thread and all the different viewpoints! Robin

Late 60s or 70s could be reasonable, considering the divorce, the pet store (probably not many exotic pet stores in a deep south small town in the 50s! LOL), the ex-con who comes across as a free spirit (peace, love generation). Hadn't really thought of that before. Of course, I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and the "culture" the book portrays "feels" more like the times my older sisters grew up in, not me. It honestly "feels" pre-turbulent 60s to me. But small towns might have been slower to react to all that culturally than where I grew up. Thanks for the info!

You're welcome! The story can't be set before the existence of Winn Dixie grocery stores, and I don't think they are much older than the 1950s, maybe 1940s.

The setting is never explicity stated in the book, but I would say around the 1950s, give or take a little. Sorta like Mayberry.