He was exhausted after a full day in school. It was all I could do to make sure he got his regular homework done.

In our neighborhood, 75% of homes have alarm systems. There are still break-ins, though. The burglars break in through bedroom windows because they know there won't be motion detectors there. Our neighborhood is experiencing a lot of day-time crime. It is scary. The criminals ring the doorbell and if no one answers, they go around to the back of the house and break in through a bedroom window. Our neighborhood watch advises keeping blinds closed so criminals can't see what you've got.

My 15 yo is taking Stanford EPGY English and Geometry. Both are challenging, productive courses. Geometry is intense with many, many formal (as in VERY formal) proofs. It would be helpful to wait until after a logic course to take this! His Geometry tutor is helpful and available 3x a week for real-time conferences in the "classroom." The English courses have been excellent. My son enjoys the classroom interaction once a week. Last term, he had a student from Hong Kong in his class - she woke up at 2 a.m. her time to participate in the class. My son took a PA Homeschool AP class last year and he's taking one this year, too. I highly recommend their AP classes. We've also had positive experience with Write At Home, although it's not as challenging for good writers as EPGY is.

My husband used to work with him at Compute! Magazine in the 80's. Now Card is a very popular sci-fi writer.

Ack! A new one cost $550. It doesn't seem right.

These incidents are anomalies. Think of all the hundreds of thousands of students who live college campuses without incident. I'm not going to worry about it. My 17 yo has lived in a high school dormitory for almost two years at NC School of the Arts. In my opinion, highly creative people are some of the kookiest around. He's had no problems. My husband had a roommate in grad school who was a visual artist and "very strange," but they got along ok. A lot of roommate situations are civil co-existence. Next year, we're planning to reserve a single room on campus for our son-- primarily because he's done the roommate gig for two years and feels like he needs his own space to work. My nieces go to a large university and their dad rents an apartment for them. That's an option, if you fear the dorm situation. They found a place within walking distance of campus.

Thanks for posting this! My son is preparing for the SAT subject test in Chemistry and I think the "games" will be a nice change of pace! Very helpful!

Check out this page for entrance requirements. http://www.ncarts.edu/filmmaking/admissions.htm My son is in the high school program at NC School of the Arts. It's a wonderful school with an excellent reputation in film. (I don't think they have a high school program for film, although they do accept seniors for drama http://www.ncarts.edu/drama/admissions.htm) Many schools require an art portfolio and arts foundations courses for their film students, so you might want to start working on a portfolio! At Virginia Commonwealth Univ., they require arts foundation courses for their film students but not for cinema majors. (VCU has an excellent art program, too.)

I think I read somewhere that Utah is the only state where concealed weapons w/carry permit are allowed on college campuses. I'm thinking Utah might be a good place to look at schools. I feel sorry for our law abiding citizens who end up being defenseless victims. And I'm afraid that these incidents will only fuel the demand for stricter gun laws that will ensure only law-breakers have them.

I think we take a risk whenever we eat out. Any food that's handled by humans (everything) can be contaminated. One summer, when I was in college, I worked at a restaurant that had a salad bar. A fly landed on the blue cheese dressing and got stuck. My thought was: We'll have to throw out the whole thing, wash the container, and refill it with fresh dressing. But an old-timer waitress said no, stirred the fly into the blue cheese dressing and said no one would notice. I don't visit salad bars anymore.

Solid Technologies sounds good to me. Alternatively, something unequivocally descriptive would work: Home Computer Repair Specialists Computer Repair Team The Computer Doctor Technology Repair Services I don't think you need a name that implies Christianity. The way your husband interacts with his customers will be testimony.

It said many women would rather do laundry or some other household chore. Their recommendation was to "schedule" a time once a week and just go with it. The act itself can lead to increased desire and better health for the sexual system. It was probably written by a man :-)

I have an "orphan sock" drawer where I put unmatched socks. Every now and then, I go through it to re-match pairs.

My budget is $700/mo for groceries and household supplies and $130/month for eating out. During the holidays, I spent closer to $1000/month on groceries.

My oldest was a bedwetter. The key, for us, was to find an alarm system that worked. I spent lots of money on alarms that would fail after two weeks or so - or worse yet, be undependable. It was discouraging for my son to wake up wet, with the alarm wired but not sounding. He often wanted to give up saying, "These things don't work." Finally I found a system that was reliable. We used a flat pad alarm under him AND one that attached to his underwear. Because he tossed and turned so much at night, we needed the flat pad to act as a backup in case his other alarm came loose. Having two alarms did the trick (I still had to wake him up though, becasue he slept through them!). And yes, it took about 5 months. We had to "retrain" him a few times. He was dry for two years and I thought we were done. NO. He started wetting again when our family had a stressful situation. I thought it would clear itself up, but after a month, I realized he needed to be retrained again. He was 14. He's 17 now and I still have the alarms just in case. NiteTrain-r is the brand we used for the pad; Malem Ultimate I for the other.

My 15 yo son takes 3 online classes. For those classes, he is accountable to teachers other than me! He has learned how to manage his time and follow a syllabus. I recommend it. It's also been good for us because he's had teachers other than me to write letters of recommendation for summer programs and other programs he's applying to. It also gives me a break. After we do German and Chemistry together in the morning, he's on his own to work on his other classes. I am free to work on my own projects or run errands. At 5 p.m. we work on test prep for about an hour. He's taking an AP test and two SAT subject tests in May. He usually "checks in" several times during the day to let me know what he has accomplished and sometimes he even asks me to "sit with him" while he tries to figure out tough problems. He'll talk through the problems (which I can't help him with--he's beyond my abiltities!) and in doing so, he'll often find the solution.

We had a puppy and kept it until it was 18 months old -- then we found another home for it. Aaack! Dogs are a lot of work and they are expensive. I calculated we spent over $1000 the first year on a vet bills (vaccinations and neutering), pet sitting bills, dog supplies (like a doghouse), etc.. We can leave our cats for a couple days without a pet sitter, but a dog needs to be tended to at least once a day. Our puppy chewed our window sills...chewed through the air conditioner pipe....tore up the yard...and the financial cost was just not worth it. (Not to mention jumping on my Sunday dress with muddy paws, jumping on me and tearing my pantyhose, etc. ) When in the house, the puppy ate my kids' toys, grabbed the napkins off the dining room table and chewed them up, and had to be constantly supervised. We tried obedience training. I read the Monks of New Skete book. We tried, but failed. To me it was a lot of work and definitely not worth it.

I've had my Hoover Windtunnel upright for about 9 years now. I just replaced the belts (for the first time ever!). It runs like new. It picks up pet hair well, which is important in our house because we have a long-haired black cat that sheds a lot.

I love Tamiflu! My boys used it a couple of years ago and it was amazing! They started feeling better within 12 hours. Of course, the flu went its course and lasted 4 days or so, but most of that was fatigue and weakness.....not the misery they saw at the start of the flu. We had to pay $55 per prescription w/insurance. It was expensive but worth it.

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Here's one: http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

We did SAT prep ourselves using the College Board's big blue book called "Official SAT" or something like that. He took a full practice test one morning and I scored it. Based on his scores, we decided that he needed to work only on math, so he did a practice test (not all in one sitting) from the book each week. Often he just did 10 problems a day and he checked them. CollegeConfidential.com has answers explained for almost all the blue book math problems. So, if he got any wrong and didn't understand why, he checked collegeconfindential.com and that explained it clearly. We are prepping for SAT subject tests similarly. 10 problems a day from practice tests....researching the ones he gets wrong to make sure he understands the concepts. I believe the key is spaced repetition. Do a little each day. Our SAT II prep takes about 30 minutes a day. Here are posts by an "expert" on College Confidential that are relevant: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/68210-xiggi-s-sat-prep-advice.html

I've used freewebs.com for years.

When I was growing up, we had a passion fruit vine on our back porch. I love passion fruit! I wish stores would carry passion fruit sorbet here...I got some in France when we visited years ago and my taste buds still remember it!