My daughter ends up looking jaundiced with most. Are they doing samples of the Fenty in-store? We haven't been able to get over to the closest Sephora to try yet, but it may be worth a drive soon if they are. I've looked at it online and think 100, 110, or maybe even 120 might work for my daughter. At $34, it's in the same range as the MAC or Tarte and better than the Lancome or Chanel. She'd also prefer to find a product that is cruelty-free, which the Lancome and Chanel aren't.

Undertones are critical. My daughter is very pale with pink to neutral undertones and we've found the vast majority of foundations lean to yellow undertones. Her superpower is turning any foundation orange, even those labeled "cool" or "neutral." Definitely go to an Ulta or Sephora if they are nearby in addition to the counters at a higher-end department store, ask for help finding a shade, then ask for samples to take home and try wearing for a day, even if it looks great right then. Sometimes things will oxidize and turn more orange or darker as the day goes on. Ulta doesn't have as many options for samples, but does have a mix of drugstore and high-end, as well as a very liberal return policy if you try it and it doesn't work. Level of coverage will also influence, as not all lines will go as pale in all formulae. In case it helps, my daughter's best matches have been Lancome Teint Idole Ivoire 90N (very expensive), Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua (even more expensive) in 12 beige rose, and Revlon Colorstay in 110. Mac's warm/cool designations seem to run counter to those of other brands, as their Waterweight in NW13 was much less orange than NC 15 and works better for her. She's got a sample of Bare Minerals in Fair 1 but hasn't worn it yet. Suggestions she's had swatched but hasn't had samples of yet are Too Faced in Snow and Tarte hybrid gel in Porcelain. She can use Tarte's tinted primer in the lightest shade. Clinique didn't have anything light enough. NARS Siberia is too dark. We've joked there needs to be a shade called Ghost or Vampire (but not sparkly! :laugh: ) . Can you tell it's been a frustrating journey to try to find something? The Body Shop has a shade lightening product that I am considering ordering. You add a little to the liquid foundation just before applying and it's supposed to lighten and neutralize the yellow to an extent. It's on sale now at 40% off, so only $12. https://www.thebodyshop.com/en-us/makeup/foundation/shade-adjusting-drops-liquid-foundation/p/p000512. I'm also looking at a brand called Bourjois--their Healthy Mix is supposed to be a dupe for the Chanel at a much, much lower price point ($8.50 on sale vs $50!!) and does have a Rose Ivory shade that I think will work. Downside is that I'll have to order it from the UK, but there's a site called FeelUnique that ships to the US for a reasonable cost. Good luck!

Looks like we're definitely going to need to do an update, since the invitation just came this week and she's sent in all her applications already. We can fold the new job into the update. We do still need to send her community college transcript in and the PTK is supposed to be noted on that. I'm not sure how long it takes to show up, however, as she just paid the fee and dropped off the paperwork yesterday.

Whoo-hoo! I didn't totally screw up her life!! :thumbup: A bit tongue-in-cheek, but having homeschooled my daughter from age 4 it is definitely validating. She also received an invitation this week to join Phi Theta Kappa, the honors society for the community college where she's dually enrolled. Now we wait to see if they are going to give her any merit aid, especially since it's a private school. One down, five to go!

Dr. Blake Mysteries, Madam Secretary, Leverage.

We don't do a traditional Sunday dinner, but I do buy three of the largest turkeys I can find (usually 22 lbs or so) when they go on sale in November and cook them during the year to be part of our lunch meat and other meat needs. I roast them and then we package the meat and freeze those so they take up less room in the freezer. I'll also pick up 2-3 largish hams for the same reason.

Usually they are Hebrew National beef hot dogs without a bun, so on a plate with chili, slaw (mayo-based but no sugar!), and what my husband calls "hot-dog dip"--a mix of mayo, spicy mustard, and a touch of ketchup. If in a bun, the same, though the mayo and mustard will be separate and likely no ketchup. I don't like raw onions, though they are traditional here, but grilled onions can be lovely. We have eaten veggie dogs the same way from time to time. Bratwurst is with a bit of mayo and spicy mustard. Occasionally I will try something different if it catches my eye. I read an article about Tokyo Dog food trucks and decided to try some inspired by them (since we are on the opposite coast, couldn't just go try them :) ) www.tokyodog.com I was able to find some of the more specialty ingredients like Japanese Kewpie mayo at the Asian market. IIRC, we did the Kewpie mayo, teriyaki grilled onions, and shreds of nori. Next time we go down, my father-in-law wants us to try some from a new place he's found near them called the Hot Dog King, which seems to have all kinds of odd toppings. https://www.musthavemenus.com/places/the-hot-dog-king-of-lancaster-lancaster-sc-47702/all.

Under the circumstances, I would definitely let her drop AHG.

Unless it would cause massive problems, as a first step I'd suggest she try going to GS maybe every other week until golf ends. My daughter has been in Scouts with a lot of the same girls since 2nd grade and was heavily involved in lots of badgework, etc as a Junior, but stepped back a bit as she hit Cadette and above. As an Ambassador now, she actually can't attend the homeschool troop meetings, which are during the week in the morning, due to DE classes, but the troop is fine with her attending when she can and doing camping and other activities. Ours is a mix of homeschoolers and public schoolers, so they're pretty flexible about meeting attendance. It's always been big social outlet for her but has become more so as she's gotten older and schedules mean that she can't do things like park days or co-op classes. How long will confirmation classes be going on--short-term or long-term?

I wasn't planning on updating "constantly" but providing this single additional piece of information, which we would have included in the application if it had happened a few days earlier, to application files that are still being assembled and well before the deadline for the applications to be reviewed. They are all waiting on at least her DE transcript and, in most cases, recommendation letters. IMO, it is much more like providing the transcript from an additional program than wanting to add a book to a book list every time she reads something. This is a major change in status for one of her primary volunteer/community service activities, in moving from volunteering to being invited to be one of the two paid leads for that situation, something that is not typically offered to a highschooler in that institution. I honestly don't expect this to impact admission decisions, but think it could be a factor in scholarship competitions/decisions. Her GPA and test scores put her very much in the running for top merit aid at all the schools (up to and including a full ride), but that aid is not automatic. I realize that most of these decisions will hinge on scholarship weekends at most of the schools, but some of the schools in question do not have those or a separate scholarship application. So, that brings a question. You mention "multiple things"---what types of things are generally considered worth adding, other than receiving a national award? At what point in the process would you suggest sending in such information? If her application was already complete and being/had been reviewed, I would probably see it as something to include with the end of semester grade updates, but that's not the case.

We had to move our daughter into her own room (next to ours, with a monitor) very quickly as she made so much noise we couldn't sleep.

My daughter suggests https://abcs-lgbt.com/, but I haven't read it personally. This upcoming free online workshop looks promising https://www.genderspectrum.org/blog/free-online-gender-workshop-for-parents-families-friends/ . The page also looks to have other resources. You could also google to see if there's a local support group for LGBT+ youth, as they will likely have resource suggestions.

I would put it under work experience. I think they would care because it's going to be an important aspect of her senior year, taking on increasing responsibility, and gives a fuller picture of her, just as if she was elected to an office in a club. If they choose to ignore it, then so be it.

Over the past couple of weeks my daughter has worked diligently to get all of her admissions applications in (still has to do scholarship ones) and this morning I mailed out my counselor packets to all the schools (no Common App available). Naturally, therefore, this evening she gets a call offering her a part-time job in the church nursery! So, how easy is it to update an application that was just sent in? What's the best way to update?

These boards have been invaluable! I'm going through it with my daughter (first and only time since she's an only child). It's been really helpful that I had to have a transcript when she started dual enrollment last year and that it has to be updated each semester. Unfortunately only one of the six schools she's applying to uses the Common App, so it's been individual applications. At this point all the admissions applications are in, so she's working on honors college and scholarship apps this weekend. Recommenders have been contacted, transcripts from one program we used for a few classes ordered, fees paid, and I mailed off counselor packets today (cover letter, transcript, school profile, counselor letter, and, in the case of two schools, the specific high school form they wanted). I'm not sending course descriptions unless a school specifically asks for them, but I have them available. Now we need to get the dual enrollment transcripts ordered then wait a couple of weeks and fill out the FAFSA. I decided to offer my daughter an incentive to get her motivated to start the process and have ordered a celebratory present she can open once the applications are complete. Of course, just after we mailed off things, she's been offered a part-time job in the church nursery, so I guess she will need to send the admissions counselors that info once details about the job are finalized. I'm expecting that she will be contacted by the schools and find out for sure who her admissions counselors will be.

Try looking at schools on the College Simply website http://www.collegesimply.com/. In the description of the school under "Admission Chances" they list that a school "usually accepts and attracts" students with a certain average (by letter grade). You can also search for schools based on GPA (using a 4.0 scale). There were 315 listings where a student with a 3.0 (to take a random GPA) would have an average to good chance of getting in.

I haven't read the Brainy Bunch book, so can't comment from that perspective. My kid is gifted in verbal/language-related areas, but not profoundly gifted by a long shot. In our case there was a definite need to sort out academic from emotional and social maturity , as well as math-related vs humanities-related, and honor her levels in all of those. Most gifted kids are not on the same level across the board, even academically, which makes homeschooling simultaneously more challenging and easier than having the child in a school setting. I started pulling in high school level and some college-level materials in certain subjects into the classes my daughter was doing by 5th grade (age 10), but it wasn't a college class as I wasn't expecting college or even high school level output. She was ready for the input but not the output yet. We tended to go broader or deeper rather than faster. This continued and increased during middle school and by late middle school we were using primarily college level materials for everything but math and science. Her area of giftedness does *not* include math! :) Because she was doing a couple of classes per semester in 9th and 10th through a free online program from the public school, we did supplement some of that with college level material even though it was honors level. She's done the ACT every year since 7th as our state-required standardized test and done very well. Her first official high school level class (one for which I gave her high school credit) was an online Spanish class in 8th grade, and she did some CLEP tests in 9th and 10th. Her first official college class was 11th, when our state allows dual enrollment with no tuition. Academically she could handle the material earlier, but I don't think she was truly ready emotionally to be put into a full-blown regular college classroom until then (average age in the community college classes here is 25.9). At that point she was eager and loved the experience. Many of her classmates thought she was closer to 20 than 16. She's done all but math there for junior year and is doing all her senior level work there. I believe she really benefited from the amount of scaffolding we did in executive function areas like time management, interacting with teachers, basic organization, etc in her middle and early high school years. She won't graduate high school with a full associate's, but she will have 40+ official college credits. Thanks to the program in our state, they are guaranteed to transfer to the state universities as general ed requirements rather than electives. Another issue to consider is cost. Official college courses are extremely expensive. Even though our community college tuition is free through the state for juniors and seniors, I'm paying at least $500 a semester in fees and books. If you add in tuition that would rise to thousands, especially if you are talking university courses. There are lots of ways to bring in higher level material into your homeschool when the student is ready much less expensively via used college texts, Coursera, edX, etc. I'll second dmmetler that it's not a bed of roses and it would be really challenging to fit the schedule I have in terms of transporting her in with homeschooling other children, since she doesn't yet have her license (because we can't really afford to put her on our insurance). I really enjoyed homeschooling, all the planning, pulling in things from various sources, etc and once she started the college courses I became much more of a taxi driver. Even with her online high school classes, there was a lot of collaboration in the particular program and I was much more involved. She's also an only, so that part of my life is now in the past, and I'm rather wistful. A foretaste of what it will be when she actually goes off to a residential 4 year school next year, I suppose.

My mother always packed a container of Tang to take with us on beach trips to Myrtle Beach to mask the taste of the water there. :) We're in NC and I was very surprised that the two grocery stores I went to today were totally out of water. Honestly, I don't expect that we will lose water (or gas for the water heater), but we're not on a well. I don't really worry about flooding, but when Hugo came through in 1989 we were without power for a week and some outlying areas up to 5 weeks. At this point I'm making sure we have flashlights, batteries, candles, matches, propane (and charcoal and firewood), toilet paper, feminine hygiene supplies, and lots of canned goods, and we'll make sure the grill is in the garage. If we don't need it, great, it will be there for the next ice storm this winter, since we still have a lot of utility lines up on poles. Our neighborhood's lines are buried, but not the big lines bringing the power in.

OK, packets are put together---cover letter, transcript, school profile, counselor letter, and, in the case of the two schools who request specific school report forms, said forms. All three of us are going through to make sure nothing is in the wrong envelope, then off to the post office tomorrow. Would have been much easier if the schools had just used the Common App! Application fees are paid, test scores are ordered, and transcripts from the part-time public school program and dual enrollment programs ordered, so I think my part is now done until time for the FAFSA. My daughter has submitted all of her admissions applications and is now working on the scholarship and honors college applications. My husband (the English major, writer, and Mr. Grammar Person ;) ) is the one proofing her essays, so I don't have to worry about that part.

No canner, and no realistic way to get one (or learn to use it!) before Monday. :) My main method of preservation is freezing, which doesn't work so well if the power goes out for an extended time. We have a gas grill with propane, a charcoal grill and charcoal, and some firewood, along with camping cooking equipment, so we should be able to manage something once it stops actively raining. Ideally, though, what I was hoping to find were some things that could be cooked in advance, then stored without refrigeration for a few days without having to be reheated. Primarily looking for savory and hearty, with a fair bit of protein. I have already stocked up on canned soups, chili without beans, beans, vegetables, fruit, tuna, peanut butter, jerky, peanut butter crackers, protein bars, nuts, raisins, and the like. Breads of various kinds that are currently in the freezer can be pulled out and put in the pantry in case (have to be able to shut it away or the cat will eat it--he is obsessed with bread!). I should pick up some canned chicken. If I make a pepperoni and cheese bread roll, would that be okay sitting out? I have a fair bit of shredded cheese, some pesto, and some turkey pepperoni. If I do a fair proportion of cheese and pepperoni to the bread, it should be good.

With Irma likely headed our way, I'm working on prep. When Hugo came through in 1989, we had no power for a week, some areas up to 5 weeks, so I was wondering if there were some good recipes for hearty foods that don't need to be refrigerated. That might let me use up some of the stuff in my fridge and freezer as well.

We had a pair of black sweatpants and a black cat hooded sweatshirt when my daughter was little. We drew whiskers on her face and put black on her nose. Very cute.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

Check the websites for historic sites like Colonial Williamsburg or Plimoth Plantation. Look under "education" or "educator resources" or "just for kids." Here's a Thanksgiving one for Plimoth Plantation https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/thanksgiving-virtual-field-trip This article has some links http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech071.shtml Also search on "virtual tour" and you'll get a lot of museums and other options. Here's the Smithsonian Natural History Museum http://naturalhistory.si.edu/vt3/ http://www.earlychildhoodeducationzone.com/virtual-field-trips/ Try using Google Earth or Google Street View to visit different places.