This is definitely smaller than you're wanting, but look into a Boston terrier/Pug cross. Mine is a short haired brindle and barely sheds at all nor does she require any grooming. She was very easily trained and is not a high energy dog. She's very calm and can go anywhere. She has a bladder of steel (definitely look into whether the breed you're considering is known to engage in submissive peeing - not fun) and despite her small size, she's a very hardy dog. She doesn't have a yippy bark - it's more serious and she doesn't bark unless someone's at the door. I am not even close to being a dog person. But I really love our dog. She's just easy and nice to have around and I never have to worry about her.

I love snow and winter. We have a blizzard warning for tonight and I'm excited about it. I also love fall. And I love winter clothes - leggings and warm sweaters and lots of layers and thick socks. I don't really like spring. I used to be ambivalent about summer, but we spent 11 years in Kelowna where the summers are gorgeous. With air conditioning in the house and a pool (that took me years to figure out how to enjoy getting into) I was really loving the summer. I wasn't disappointed when it was over, but I did enjoy walking out on the deck in my bare feet in the morning and having a cup of coffee. We now live in Newfoundland. People here are always surprised that we moved here. I tell them I love it and that gray is my favourite colour :) I could live without the wind. And the sideways precipitation.

I just finished reading Pollyanna with my 9 year old ds. I read it with my other two boys about five years ago. It's one I wouldn't have thought boys would like, but all three of my boys really enjoyed it and I think it's a lovely story. Plus, the chapters are short so during times where I was busy I could still fit in a chapter.

I drink two black coffees and then water for the rest of the day. Wine sometimes in the evening. The kids don't drink enough water - I'm constantly trying to get them to drink more. They have 1 - 2 glasses of milk each day. For a long time we didn't buy juice, but now it's in the house all the time. The older boys like to mix orange juice with sparkling water. I buy chocolate milk as a treat about once a month.

I totally agree - I taught writing at co-op for years and we got into some pretty great discussions. However, the way the OP described what happened it was clear that it wasn't the case of a controversial subject as part of a discussion. It sounded a lot more like the teacher was purposefully poking at the student and the teacher comes across as snarky. Regardless of what topic a kid is writing about, I think the way the teacher questioned it was rude and was not done in the context of a lively discussion.

I would be ticked off regardless of what the topic was about if a writing teacher were questioning my child's knowledge of a topic the way the OP described. It wasn't as if there was a piece of literature being discussed and a YE perspective was relevant to the discussion - this was the teacher picking at a student's topic. I mean, seriously, he wrote a comparison paper - the response from the teacher should have been regarding how effective or ineffective he was at writing a good comparison. The teacher comes across as almost snarky.

Good point. We haven't yet experienced the slightly less painful aspect of buying a full size since we've always had younger siblings around to play the smaller violins. We've also had more luck with older, less shiny instruments. When ds was shopping for his 3/4 there were a few brand new violins that he tried, but apparently they didn't have the depth or darkness (or whatever) that the old violins had. Both the 3/4 and the full size we have are over a hundred years old. Our last cello teacher tried to keep beautiful sounding instruments within her student body. Ds (12) played on a cello that had been with various students for more than 20 years. It looked like it came out of a scrap heap, but it had a gorgeous tone. Basically, we were asked to hang on to an instrument until someone else in her studio was ready to go into it and then we sold it for what we paid for it. Which, to be honest, was a crazy deal compared to the cellos I was looking at in the shop.

I think a lot also depends on the child's age when you are starting. I wouldn't worry too much about a four year old who is going to spend most of the first year just figuring out how to hold the bow and the violin and how to stand. However, once they get into more of the music and they're trying to make a beautiful sound a not-so-great violin can be really frustrating. We had a horrible little violin (it was a rent to own) for our first instrument. It was a 1/16. Two of my boys played it for a year each and one boy actually spent two years on it. I invested in a Stentnor student model for the 1/8 and 1/4 sizes. It cost me $250 for the instrument, case, and bow and it was ok sounding. Eldest ds was pretty into the violin so by the time he needed a 1/2 size we went with an Eastman 200 and paid about $900 for the violin, bow, and case. It was so worth it. It was a beautiful sounding violin and he made huge progress that year in musicality. When my littlest ds was on the Stentnor 1/4 I could not wait to get him on the 1/2 size. I couldn't stand the sound of the Stentnor anymore - it was really grating on my nerves - and I knew how much better the 1/2 was so I actually moved him into it early - we tend not to move into the next size until we absolutely have to so that was a big move for us. But again, it was worth it to have him on an instrument that had the potential to sound so beautiful. I do agree that the full size instrument is the most important. The nice thing about the smaller instruments is that you can sell them for close to what you paid and then use that money towards a bigger instrument.

They do need a lot of stimulation, but having two of them really helps with that. They tire each other out.

I don't think it's do-able long term. Dh had almost an hour commute in one city we lived in, but he took the tube to work so he could do his emails on the way or read work-related documents. Cars are hard because you can't use that commute time for work. We spent four years driving one hour each way for music lessons twice a week and it wasn't the end of the world. An hour and forty minutes each way would have seemed a lot longer. I think if I were you I'd start getting my house ready to put on the market and then I'd just keep my eyes open for a viable housing solution closer to dh's work. My dh has about a ten minute commute right now and absolutely loves it.

Not electric kettles. I'm Canadian and lived in the UK. In the UK, coffee usually meant instant coffee, everyone had an electric kettle and most people drank tea. Here I have seen very few electric kettles. I have an old fashioned kettle that I heat up on the stove. I also have a coffee maker.

That's really funny. I was reading through the thread and was going to post that Bengals are a lot better in pairs. We got two for the price of one - the initial kitty I picked out turned out to be breeding material and the breeder offered me two different kittens for the same price (she still would have given me the original cat if I had wanted). So, we have Tony and Cleo. They are brother and sister and are best friends. Plus, they keep each other busy. They have big cat wrestling matches a couple of times a day. They're not really lap cats, although they are mellowing out with age. Tony will come and sit at the top of the couch when I'm on it and Cleo will often sit on my lap. For some reason, she's always loved ds (12) and will sit with him every chance she gets. He can do anything to her and she still sits with him whereas if I make any move whatsoever she'll jump off me. I love my Bengals. They're great company and they are good conversationalists.

My dd is a 2nd degree black belt and competed in worlds in Spain. We do ITF Taekwon-do. I agree with everything above. I really like the ITF organization - we've been to competitions all over the place and know a few of the masters (one was dd's first teacher) and everyone is very committed to seeing everyone improve in skill and enjoy Taekwon-do. I love the focus on development and on leadership and that comes through in the competitions as well where you see teen black belts cheering on the little white and yellow belt kids and really supporting them. All of the schools we've attended have encouraged kids to come to as many classes per week as possible (just one flat fee) because it's about their development, not about squeezing more money out of people. Tournaments have been very reasonable to attend and there were never any major fees associated with testing - I think we paid $40 per test.

How much are you looking to spend? I do think it's important to find the best sounding instrument for what you're able to spend. Having a nice instrument makes a big difference - it's frustrating when it's very difficult to make a beautiful sound. I've heard great things about the Scott Cao's, but I've never tried one. Each instrument will be different so, if possible, it's best if you can get in and try a bunch of them to see what you think. Our teacher was pretty fussy about violins and didn't like people to buy one without her approval. Do you have a luthier in town? Often they don't work out of a retail shop. If there is a symphony in town you could call and ask who the strings players use. They'd likely be able to recommend a luthier. Often luthiers will carry a selection of new and used violins or will be able to hunt good ones down for you. The luthier we bought our 3/4 size from was amazing. They really know the instruments, unlike the bigger music stores. Plus, then you'll have someone familiar for little repairs, bow repairing, etc.

Once we had #3 we figured there wouldn't be much difference between 3 or 5 or 6. I was deep into the enjoyment of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and loved homeschooling. At that point, I couldn't imagine not loving those stages. However, I also ended up with really high blood pressure for pregnancies 2, 3, and 4. Each one was worse and I was on and off bedrest from 29 weeks with the last one. He was induced three weeks early (the other two boys were only induced 2 weeks early). We figured it was too risky to have another, plus the practicalities of trying to parent while on bedrest with no extended family to help was near to impossible. I was really, really sad for about three years. Someone close to me had an abortion during that time and that made me sadder. I really wanted a baby. Then my sister got pregnant and I was so happy for her, but I was also feeling sorry for myself. Then my kids got older and more difficult. I find babies and toddlers and preschoolers easy. I don't mind the lack of sleep. I don't mind having a baby in a sling while I do housework or cook. I love reading to preschoolers and making cookies with them. I find older kids rewarding in other ways but also so, so exhausting. And I feel like I knew way more about parenting ten years ago than I do now. Seriously, I wish I could have written a book back then so that I had it to refer to now. Because I used to know all the answers and now I have lots of questions and no real answers. I am so very relieved that we didn't have any more babies. I'm sure I would have loved them, but I am very close to being done and I don't think I could handle any more years of active parenting. I would like to enjoy my kids as adults and move on to the next chapter in my life soon.

At our co-op, classes were decided based on what the initial group of us wanted covered. It was very clear that we wanted strong academics. Writing was something that consistently came up as something that people struggled with teaching at home. We also wanted social studies and science taught in a group and a lot of us wanted a second language (we had French and German at co-op). We realized that in order to meet those goals we had to focus in on just those things and not get distracted by great ideas for basket-weaving classes or small motor repair. We did the basics and we did them very well. We did find that it was difficult to spread the workload around. Even if you only teach for an hour, the prep time is huge. I taught for 2.5 hours a week (my choice...) and I probably spent about 10 hours per week planning and marking plus I spent countless hours doing long-term planning over the summer. I know our science teacher spent more time than I did planning. We made sure that teachers did not have any additional co-op day duties so at co-op someone might teach for one hour and then sit in the parent lounge for the rest of the day, but the non-teachers would spend most of their co-op day cleaning, supervising, or being assistants.

A lot of the things our co-op did are included here - we had teachers submit a course outline weeks before co-op was to begin. Every teacher and worker (we also had roles for non-teachers - assistants, cleaners, and supervisors) needed to have a back-up partner and we kept a list of everyone's back-ups and contact info in the co-op binder. We strongly encouraged teachers to teach creatively - project based learning, teaching to all the learning styles, guest experts, field trips, hands-on learning, etc. were all encouraged and those kinds of things were expected to show up in the course outline. We also had a parent lounge which was great for support :) Our co-op was academic and served K - 9. We kept it simple - writing, science, history, second language. The younger kids also did music, PE, and literature (their classes were shorter). Our science and history blocks were 1.5 hours long to allow for more hands-on time and project work. We had subject coordinators - I coordinated writing so I met with all the writing teachers, we talked about continuity throughout the grade levels, we had a K - 9 writing plan that was skills based rather than grades based. The writing teachers submitted their course outlines to me and I gave them feedback on them. The same thing happened for science and social studies. This meant that instead of teachers just randomly teaching what they wanted, our students progressed logically from skill to skill and made some serious progress during their years at co-op. I'm particularly proud of how well the writing students did. It was amazing to see their skills develop and improve over the years. We expected all parents to contribute so everyone signed up for a job. Not everyone is comfortable teaching, and some people know they are not great in front of a classroom. We wanted excellence in teaching so those who weren't comfortable teaching could supervise lunch and recess, assist other teachers, or do cleaning duties. We also had a mentorship program for those who weren't totally confident teaching a group but were willing to learn. We'd pair that person with a strong teacher for a couple of terms where they would learn how to plan lessons and carry them out in a classroom. Then we'd provide help when it came time for them to plan their own class. It worked really well. We also kept classes small. 12 was our cap, but we tried to get classes closer to 8 - 10. Having 6 in a class was my favourite size as I taught history and writing and I found it a lot easier to have meaningful class discussions in a smaller group. I miss my co-op :(

In most potlucks that I attended there would be some structure - like people with last names in the first half of the alphabet would bring a salad or dessert and people with last names in the last half of the alphabet would bring a main dish. Or sometimes an email sign-up goes out with a list of generics: main dish - main dish - dessert - buns - drinks - and people are instructed to put their names next to the one they want to bring.

My gowns definitely bring me the most wardrobe joy. Perhaps we should just walk around in ballgowns everyday.

Mini Etch-a-sketch, silly putty, magnets - we had a metal case that came with themed magnets so you could set up a scene and then play with them - I think we had astronauts and horse sets, wooden puzzles, small toys (cars, plastic soldiers). We weren't huge fans of the wiki-sticks, but some people love them. Do they play games together? Go Fish or Memory? It would be easy to take along a deck of cards.

I brought my Keens to London and Paris and basically all we did was walk. I could walk forever in Keens.

I bet the Waltons pay more tax in a year than I'll pay in my entire lifetime.

This is not something I'm dealing with right now, but when my dd was thirteen through seventeen she was very competitive with Taekwon-do and she had to make her weight class or would be disqualified in competition. It meant that she had to stay the same weight from age 15 to almost 17. Worlds are every two years and athletes build up seeding points which place them into different categories of competition at nationals. To move weight classes would have meant forfeiting her seeding points and starting over again at square 1. She would often have to drop ten pounds for a competition and watching her do it was not pretty. She had a system, but it certainly wasn't healthy. However, she did train hard and she made it to worlds, so to her, the whole thing was worth it. My boys haven't been terribly competitive with Taekwon-do, but my 14 year old is getting more interested and will be testing for his black belt soon so we could potentially be dealing with the same thing. And with boys it's even more important that they get into the smallest weight class possible (especially my boys, who are short). I guess my question would be is there any way to drop weight in a healthy way?

That's what I remember about them - the day-glow-ness. I thought they looked rather nuclear. We lived in London for two years and I avoided them.

My dd is in university (she homeschooled all the way through except for 3 semesters in high school). In October we put all three boys in school. We moved across the country and, with the ages of the kids, I thought it would be best to have them in school here. We found an amazing school - which is a relief because I've always said that my kids could never go to school because I'd get kicked out. I don't like busy work, I like creative approaches to topics, I want depth and discussion and thought. The transition was pretty seamless. My 9 year old went into grade 5 (instead of grade 4) as he'd already finished grade 4 at home and he's always had older friends anyway. He's doing great. My middle guy started grade 7 (right on target) and, after some flailing around in math, he's now doing pretty good. He's the one who would disappear at home if I turned my back and always tried to fly under the radar, so his marks aren't like his brothers' marks, but he's figuring it out. We started 5 weeks into the school year (I definitely don't recommend that) so he began on the tail end of a math unit, but his math marks are very good now. My eldest is doing great. He started grade 9 and this school does grade 10 science and social studies in grade 9 which is perfect because we had done that as well. He was constantly working ahead in math and getting fantastic grades so last week the teacher gave him the grade 10 books and said he can work on those on the side. He's planning on finishing grade 10 math by the end of the summer and then he'll start math 11 in September. He's a really smart student - by that I mean that he takes good notes, he works hard in class, and he goes back to the teacher to ask questions or to try and figure out why he lost marks on something. He's slowly participating more in class (he's not the most outgoing kid). If I could have worked on something more it would have been French. All of the kids are struggling, my grade 7 the most. They start French in K here and we didn't really start until grade 5. Plus, my kids dislike French. Math has been totally fine and all of my kids are pretty solid writers. The biggest challenge for me is keeping track of who needs what and when. The kids are ok at this, but not fantastic so we end up with a lot of last minute panic about whether we have gym strip or skates or swim trunks or an actual winter coat for a hike or whatever. I miss homeschooling, but there have always been other things that I was putting off until homeschooling was finished so I am enjoying the time that I have now. Mostly, I miss our old co-op back home and being in a collaborative group of amazing parents and kids. We did some pretty cool things and had a ton of fun together. The kids miss their free time, but they all say they would choose to continue in school rather than homeschool here.