I tried to give away a box spring on freecycle recently, and I couldn't get any takers. I finally decided people are now afraid of bed bugs, so I ended up taking it to the dump.

Old Navy will be even cheaper this weekend. Everything will be 30% off from the 17th-20th. I get most of my dd11's clothes there.

I think an SAT prep course can definitely be worth it. (I teach them, though, so I'd better think they're worth it!) Before I paid for one for my dc, I would want to make sure that my *dc* really wanted to take the course and was willing to put the work into the class to raise his score. If your dc was not very interested in the course, I don't think he'd get very much out of it.

My daughters are both GS and I'm a leader. What each troop does will definitely vary from troop to troop. We have homeschool troops, so most of the parents stay at our meetings. We have gone to council events (overnight at a GS lodge, etc.) where only a certain number of parents are allowed. Also, at GS events siblings are generally not allowed (at least in our area). Of course, we have certain parents who don't want their dds to go overnight without them, so they just choose not to participate in those events if they can't be one of the parents on the trip. I'd suggest talking to the leader of the troop you're thinking of joining first!

I love BFSU. I mean I *really* love it! I like the whole philososphy of the book, and I was really excited to start using it when I got it. http://www.amazon.com/Building-Foundations-Scientific-Understanding-Curriculum/dp/1432706101/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300064803&sr=1-1

I love Amazon Prime. It killed me to pay the $79 the first year I bought it, but now I renew it without even blinking an eye. I don't live close to shopping, and I use it *a lot*! With gas getting more and more expensive, it's even more worth it to me!

The only way I could eat fruit when I had GD was if I ate it with plain yogurt (protein), about an hour after I ate some plain oatmeal. Oatmeal seemed to work wonders at keeping my levels down. And I tried to walk after all meals. It was amazing what a difference that made in my levels. I'm glad you only have to worry about this for 2 weeks!

When I try to cluck on the Japan project on your page, it says "invalid link".

Do you need AWD or 4WD? Subarus are very popular where I live, because of the snow. I would not buy a 4WD car if I didn't need 4WD, though. They just don't get good gas mileage. (Everyone I know who has a Subaru loves it, though!)

This works wonders for me! I can be so much more patient this way.

I've never used the half books (yet), but I started all of mine in kindergarten with the A, B, and C books. They all worked through them pretty quickly and went on to book 1 (and probably 2, also) in kindergarten. I thought my ds knew all of his letters and sounds, but he didn't have them down well enough to start sounding out words. We worked through ETC A, B, and C and he was ready to go!

Thank you for the advice! In the car last night, I started giving her very simple sentences and asking for the adjective or adverb. I'll keep working on that. The books sound fun, too! My dd11 can still recite the list of prepositions that she learned in FLL, and I know it is helpful to her now (or will be soon). I know FLL works, but yesterday was a frustrating afternoon! Thanks for the help and perspective.

I have the wooden one and the beads have never moved easily on the wires. After 4 years of use, it's getting better, but I wish I'd bought the standard abacus!

I am using FLL 2 with my dd7. Today we completed Lesson 179 (this is the older edition with FLL 1 and 2 combined in one volume). We were trying to identify the adjectives and adverbs in a sentence. She seemed to have no idea! She would say random words from the sentence. For example, she says, "Through!" when I ask for the adjective. I remind her that "through" is in the list of words we just recited (prepositions). "What type of words are those?" I ask her. She says, "The aboard, about, above, across list." I remember feeling this same way with my older dd, who completed FLL 1 through 3. (FLL 4 was not ready yet when she needed it, so we moved to Growing with Grammar.) It seemed like she could memorize the definitions, but had no idea how to apply them. Does anyone else have this problem? Or is it even a problem? Is this normal for this age? I just begin to wonder if it's a waste of time to keep drilling this stuff.

No, you can print the SAT essay.

I also use ETC with OPGTR. It works well for us. I think the combination is plenty! And I would not say you are behind at all. I've never done more than one lesson a day in OPGTR with any of my kids. My youngest is 5, and we spend a few days on each lesson right now. (We'll speed up as his reading skills become stronger.)

RS B reviews everything covered in A, just at a faster pace. Many people skip A and start with B.

Thanks! I didn't see it before, but I just bought it!

I tried to contact them once, and I finally gave up. I couldn't get them to respond to me no matter what I tried. I hope you have better luck!

I have definitely been in the same position, obsessing over a math curriculum. I try to remember what they say in TWTM: pick one and if it's working stick with it. I switched around a lot with my oldest dd, and although she is a fine math student now, I wish I'd stayed with one program. That being said, with my youngest two kids, I use Right Start and we love it. You may be able to find it used to save on the cost.

Mu dd7 really did not like them. I kept going through them, but finally I think I ended up skipping the last 3 or 4 geometry lessons. She was just *done* with them by then! (We have *never* skipped any other lessons in RS. We love it!)

I cook almost exclusively with cast iron. I also wash my pans with hot water (no soap), and then I dry them out with a dish towel and set them on the stove on low heat for a minute or two to be sure they're completely dry. The plastic scrapers work great on them! I have some that I've bought from Pampered Chef parties and they're my favorite tools for cleaning the cast iron skillets.

I love it, too! I feel like my dd really understands math and can do a lot of it in her head. I'm in RS C with dd7 and I've thought about switching (since lots of people say RS isn't as good in level C and later). I've looked at Singapore, but I just love the way RS explains things. I'm sticking with RS and just adding in the Challenging Word Problems from Singapore. It's working great!

Someone loaned them to me, and while they look good, I haven't done anything with them yet. (And I've had them for years.)

If you already have B, it shouldn't cost $150 to get what you need for C. I've been surprised by the subtraction method in C. It seems a bit harder to me, but my dd seems to understand it just fine. I've been impressed!