:iagree: With both the squeaky thing and the don't spend much. We upgraded quality when my son moved to a 1/2 size and the difference was negligible. You can try better strings and a better bow if it bothers you. Those will sometimes improve a weak sound. I believe Shar uses the Hoffmann brand for their lower models (?), so you may see if they are available where you are to order, if Shar will not ship to you, but I bet they will. sharmusic.com

:iagree: Good description.

:lol: I hear ya. :bigear: Oh, and "Hi!"

This is the area I actually agreed with her, strangely enough, though I agree with much of what you wrote. She seems to be having a knee-jerk reaction, looking at the worst in the movement, and making it seem like the norm. We all need to be cautious that we do not do the same. In this area she's partly referring (I think), to the Botkins sisters book, a big hit in the patriarch movement. I am not a fan of that book, even where I agree with you that there is no conflict with fathers instruction and a mother's mandate. I simply did not like the approach they took. I admit, I didn't finish the book, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. I didn't finish it because it wasn't what I had hoped for, and simply decided not to have my daughters read it. Much of the book seemed to suggest a daughter is to go be a mini-help meet to her father. I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with a daughter honoring and working along side her father in his vision, but they pushed this with never a mention of a mother's role, as though she was nothing more than an after-thought. My husband has a help meet. That's my role. My sons aren't practicing headship over me, any more than the help meet role is one the daughter practices on her father. Even if I agree with some of the principles they were trying to put forward, it gave me a weird feeling. I've seen enough "turn off brain - follow method" nuts in my life to be cautious when an poorly balanced approach can be ran with in an unhealthy manner. So, in that area, I think I see where Pride is coming from. I've tried to bring this up before (not here) and was shot down as though I am in defiance against a husband's leadership role for even suggesting they aren't perfect. Knee-jerks seem to be plentiful. Sigh. Oh, and I shoo my husband out of anything to do with meal plans if he tries. He knows it's my domain because in this case, we'd be eating nuked corn dogs every other evening if he planned it. ;)

I've been tempted to try this but my concern is that he won't like the coffee without sugar or other flavorings in it and that may counter-act the good effects of the caffeine. Did you put milk and sugar in it?

Ah, ok. I remember it now. :001_huh: This is very good to hear. The initial response I had towards "So Much More" was not very comfortable, and I had high hopes of that being a good book for my daughters, sort of a "Do Hard Things" for Christian young ladies. I admit I didn't even finish reading it because I felt it was so far off base on the "mini-help meet" emphasis, so I confess that if they clarified anything later in the book, I would have missed it. My daughters won't be reading that book, though they've read "Do Hard Things". "So Much More" has too much extra-biblical in it to wade through for the good in it to be worth the read.

What was the "Gentle Spirit" debacle? Not a reference I'm familiar with. Maybe it's because I'm sure I'd flunk that one.

I'm relieved she wrote this. I am very concerned about what the Bible says about the role of husband/wives, parent/child, but there are whole books written giving instructions to young ladies and fathers that are pulling from things I just do not see in the Bible, but to disagree, even gently, gets you immediately discredited. :mellow:

Said often to my son, "THIS is why you would not survive 10 minutes on your own." Usually said while getting him unstuck from someplace, or taking electrical cords from him.

When I blogged on my first blog, years ago, it was a new thing not many people were doing, so it was pretty easy to get readers. Once blogging took off, you had to work harder to keep them, visit other blogs and comment, hoping for return visits, be clever (again - bad at that), be controversial (sucked my life away), or something. I couldn't keep up. This blog is an off-shoot blog and nothing more. It goes up on facebook, is in my signature, but not much more. People read it or don't. It's nice to have to chronicle what we're up to and a place to post braggings of my children, which most moms kind of like doing. ;)

Oh yes! I forgot about this. I've found differences, not complete cures, but definite differences when I keep my son on a more natural diet. I have also noticed that laundry/cleaning products change his behavior. He was seven before I figured out how dramatic the difference can be at times. Within 2 weeks of initially pulling him off things with scents and chemicals, I noticed a strong improvement - maybe especially in the area of defiance, which you would assume is a purely behavioral issue. That doesn't mean he doesn't get into mischief a lot, but the defiance and extreme aspects of his behavior do calm down. Something to consider?

:grouphug: God gave my my son to humble me because I had this silly idea that I was a good parents, due to my older two daughters. ;) I'm sorry. It is *hard* to parent some kids. I have only two bits of advice I dare offer. First, when your child least deserves your positive attention and love, that is when you need to actually step it up. If you don't, you will cause a distance that can become a nasty cycle, making this far worse. This does NOT mean there is no discipline. This means when it is over and you're still mad later that day as you look at the marks on your carpet, don't let that sun go down on your anger. Connect with your child anyway in some positive way. Second, you can always gain wisdom from reading different parenting ideas, but don't ever let anyone convince you that there is a "magic bullet" method and you're failing because you don't follow it. I've been through them all. In the end, you just take it one day at a time, pray if you are one of faith, read books that model positive character traits, and endure. Some ages will be better than others, giving you a breather now and then. Maturity does happen, eventually. BTW, I *love* the door thing mentioned above. Dang, why didn't I read that when my son was younger? I'd find my son gathering materials to try making a conductor between to electrical appliances and a glass of water because he heard water conducts electricity, or trying to sneak into the garage with the car keys. I am still proud of myself for surviving the ages of three and six with that boy. :banghead: To this day, when we perform on stage, people probably think I'm a bit high in my expectations to have my son (now 10, but we started this sooner) having to play on nearly every song, instead of like most groups with younger ones, who have them show up only every now and then. Not my son. He's up there because if that boy doesn't have a fiddle in his hands, he is rewiring someone's electrical system. He can't handle the responsibility of breaks to hang out on the side and it's bad for mothers to have to have a hissy fit on stage when he doesn't obey, sneaks off, or climbs into some church's organ. Hey, it's made him good at fiddling. :tongue_smilie: Breathe. Pray. Have a glass of wine. A big one.

I blog rather narrowly anymore - it's only band news. Prior to that I blogged because I just want to socialize too much. :tongue_smilie: I quit the first one because I was worried about keeping an audience, so I had to be either clever or controversial to do that. That's a tough thing for me... at least the "clever" part. Controversial sucked my life away because I'd end up taking forever wording things correctly, arguing a point, etc. :willy_nilly: The second one was just for family. My parents, whom I share a lot in common with, had no interest in reading it much. My mother-in-law, whom I have almost zero common beliefs with, would read it all the time, so to keep things peaceful, I had to be super neutral, a.k.a. "boring". That got boring for me, since an excessive need to socialize was one of the points in doing it. :thumbdown: The current one is an off-shoot of our band, it simply chronicles what we've been up to, where we've played, video clips, etc., because I happen to find it interesting and can finally say, :001_tt2: if no one else does. :thumbup:

Do you have a way to do 2 things at once? I can put a DVD on my computer, which I can see while the TV is on, as well as a portable DVD I can put by a different TV if I'm in another room, so I can follow along without getting bored with the same words/music being fed to me over and over again. I put on something mindless on the TV - like a dumb sitcom, then I work out, glancing at the muted DVD playing on the computer now and then. That's the only thing that works if I'm going to stick with something redundant. Now to go back to practicing what I preach. :blushing:

When we've performed for the elderly, if we play "I'll Fly Away", everyone sings along.

So, basically you are saying, =

Gotcha. I was over reading it.

And I do appreciate it. I look forward to combing through it all. ;)

Hmmm, I think my response was over-read. I wasn't saying you weren't allowed to feel any given way, I was saying why others likely pounced on you for it because it was vague, and yes, I think something making you feel nauseous from reading that is looked at as very negative and that is what I meant by a strong charge, though the wording maybe wasn't the best choice. I wasn't personally trying to pounce, you just left me with far more questions with your response than enlightenment. Why do such things make you nauseous? Was there something you're "in the know" from that we are not and should be before dealing with large Christian CEO types? No, really. I am curious, not accusing. You didn't give any examples, and feelings do not poof out of nowhere. You said you had experience that backed that feeling. Is there something crooked in the response we were missing, or something just too "tidy", etc.? I had a mild criticism of Dr. Wile I mentioned in an earlier post, though I agree and respect his decision. I tried to give some reason why. It wasn't him or his work, I just think he doesn't use caution or grace when dealing with anything that isn't in line with his thinking, from my past experience while speaking to him and hearing lectures when looking for a science program, which could cause him unnecessary trouble or misunderstandings. In truth, he rubs me the wrong way... from this experience to which I mentioned. Others can disagree with this sort of thing being allowed to rub me the wrong way, but at least they know why it does, rather than simply thinking maybe I'm just critical of crooked teeth or something. No I have officially over-explained. :tongue_smilie:

I think the problem is that your response was vague, without any specific examples, while making a strong charge.

Ok, I don't have great meals on the table every night. I shoot for as often as possible, a few times a week, every night, or whatever. My house is often marginally messy. My kids are messy. (I think I know where they get it from.) I have lines I draw on what I will put up with before life gets away from me but THIS one I quoted above is mandatory. I have built-in babysitters now who have been told from day one that they will babysit for us once a week, in house or out. I pay for extra if we have other things, but once a week they give us a freebie and I let them live here. :lol: When they weren't old enough, I'd go get us some fancy pasta makings or steak, toss the kids mac & cheese, rent two movies - one to mindlessly occupy the kids, and one for us. We'd go hide in the bedroom for dinner and a movie, sticking the kids somewhere else with a movie. You can also do something like this once a day. Don't worry about it. As long as the bulk of your week isn't hiding from children and neglecting family life, enjoy!

I was there two (three?) years ago. Public school isn't on the table in my world, so I just sort of found things they could largely do independently, and changed my view of what "school" must look like in the short term. Partial unschooling, hit only the basics, and then use parent friendly curriculum for those few things. I'm not the perfect homeschooler. I burned out from even trying to be. Now I'm a marginally average homeschooling mother at best, and yet, they still soak up information from somewhere. If anything, they get an extra dab of freedom from this to really develop unique talents/skills. If you take any stock in test score even, they are doing quite well in most subjects. It's taken a lot of time, but I'm coming back now. I have taken my son's schooling far more seriously than I ever did before, and I'm helping my daughters come up with what they'll need their final 2 years of high school. Not perfect, but I still think, from a point of view that does not see academics as the cornerstone of living, superior to what they would have had otherwise. :grouphug:

I have windows XP and I need to edit video. The windows movie maker for XP is very inferior to the Vista and above editor and distorts sound too much. It also will not edit mp4 video formats. Recently I downloaded Avidemux, which is free, but it seems too complicated. Can anyone recommend a video editor (preferably freeware), that will edit wav and mp4 formats, similar to windows movie maker? I simply want to cut frames, put in transitions, and text. TIA!

Voice of dissent...I taught Kindermusik for 8 or 9 years and I love the program, but one of the points of the program is supposed to be to extend music making into the family. It's really hard to remember that when you're running a business, however, and even harder when it's in an area of bright, fun objects. Honestly, if you can afford the money and time, go for it! If not, no guilt. I put my oldest two through all levels of Kindermusik (though they didn't have the infant one back then), and my son through until the age of 3 when my Kindermusik business partner and I stopped to work on some homeschool music options, where my son took a homeschool class from her instead. My youngest has never stepped foot in a Kindermusik class but is not missing a thing in content, only in format. Music as natural as breathing around here now. I've been thinking hard about launching a web site soon with ideas to incorporate music into a home setting, in a fun, natural way and has been the main topic of the week as we get geared up. I'll let you know when that occurs. My daughters will be helping out, and my youngest will "demonstrate" as the little kid for activities. My first series (video, maybe some articles), will give specific ideas on activities for moms in the home just with their little one, then we'll branch out further on full family ideas. We'll simply used the most long lasting and readily available (libraries, amazon) books and CD set available - Wee Sing. It has a lot of the same music that Kindermusik pulled from, the key is good for children's voices, and it comes with activity ideas as well. Grab a couple from the library and see what you can come up with!

The fact that she actually does make you feel unaccomplished bothers me more than the fact that she tries to. You need a new attitude! Not a "back at you" kind, since I actually think she sounds like she's already over-justifying her decisions, but instead simply one where you can let things roll off your back because you are *so over that "must be successful by some arbitrary societal standard to be worth something" thing*. This way, when she does things like this, you can approach her with the grace she doesn't return. I like the return joke, but since you know she doesn't take what she gives, I like the idea of taking it even one further on yourself, like "they better be extra strong traps", etc. This would be good for you too. It models confidence to her.