I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. My daughter is now in a classical homeschooling co-op, not public school. When she did go to public high school (for three months) they did no grammar at all. In the co-op, they've had to add it into the CORE class because so many of the kids are lacking grammar skills. My daughter, just FYI, went to a private Lutheran school through 8th grade. It was very demanding and all of the kids ended up with excellent grammar/English skills.

My daughter did the opposite. She went to a B&M private school through the 8th grade, and then she began homeschooling through a co-op. There were a few things she noticed and her teachers mentioned to me that were issues with the kids who had never been in outside classes. Hope this list will help a bit. 1. Many of the kids didn't pay much attention to due dates. In a B&M school, due dates are non-negotiable, except for illness. 2. When dd took the NLE, the teacher had to go around helping the kids bubble in their names on the bubble answer sheet. Make sure your dc know how to use those. 3. I spoke to some of dd's teachers, and they said that many of the kids had poor grammar skills. Grammar is booorrrriiiing to teach, and apparently many parents aren't doing it as intensely as B&Ms do. Of course, many of the homeschoolers are much better at many things than the others, just thought i would point out the things that stood out to us. Good luck!

I have to say, the Ninja was good for a few weeks, but I've had FOUR in the last year because the motors keep burning out. I use it every day, but nothing strenuous for it, nothing a blender shouldn't be able to handle. How hard is water and some fruit? I'm getting a Vitamix for Christmas and not looking back.

Happy Birthday!!

I think the Hunger Games trilogy would be great, as well as maybe the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings - that's 13 books right there. They all capture your imagination and are not difficult to read...I've read them all and I read them in my 40s, so the age issue shouldn't matter. My dd 16 also thinks maybe The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir and the Dragon Heir series. She liked those too. Best wishes for your niece, we will pray for her. =) ETA: Dd just thought of The Last Apprentice series as well. Good luck!

I've got an idea! How about "Roastbeef's Promise" by David Jerome? David is a friend of mine from high school and the book is a crack up! You can get it on Amazon or Amazon Kindle. I highly recommend it!

HAHAHAHA!! This is a crack up - it would be hard for me to keep a straight face if someone said that to me.

Anything that starts with "I seen..." as in "I seen him walking down the road" or "I seen him go in the store"

Prayers flying from another rocket mom for your daughter, your dad and your family. :grouphug:

Are you writing about me? LOL I have had almost this same situation, with the exception of the being on parole part, with my ex-husband. I left him when I was pregnant, dd and I lived with my dad for the first three years of her life and during that time he was rarely if ever around. When my dd was 3.5, I met my dh and suddenly exh started coming around a bit more. One time he had her for a visit and put her on a quad motorcycle with no helmet on (he had one) and then drove it around and crashed off the side of the hill. She could have been killed. Because I had never filed custody papers, we had no set custody agreement and I just stopped letting him see her. He really had never been around more than once every few months, so it wasn't a big deal. Three years later, he decided he wanted to see her and forced it with the courts. He ended up getting visits on Sat afternoons and Tuesday evenings for dinner. No overnights. He made such a mess of things in the time that he did have her that I ended up fighting any custody at all. He was mean to her, he gave her the creeps (remember she barely knew him) and many, many times she would crumple to the floor in tears after he dropped her back off. It was horrible. Just horrible. I did explain to her what was going on and that there was nothing I could do to completely stop the visits until she was 11 and could make up her own mind whether or not she wanted to go. It was very clear to her the entire time that he didn't act right and didn't say good things and I basically just listened and agreed with her. When we went back to court, I got a court-ordered psychologist involved and they cut down his visitation even further, which was good. Some people in the court system know what they're seeing and can smell a rat. When they asked my dd what she wanted the judge to know, she said, "I want to tell the judge to make him go away. I don't ever want to see him again. He's not my dad." Kids are not stupid. He ended up giving her strep throat in the 7th grade, after one of their still rare visits. She developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a side-effect of the strep and ended up being quite ill. He faded away, probably because taking care of an ill child is not very fun, possibly because he knew it was partly his fault. We have not seen him in over 3 years - the last time we saw him was at his mother's funeral. Dd is 15 now, almost 16 and she does not have to see him, nor would she ever on her own. p.s. I do have to disagree with the pp who said payments and visitations are not the same thing. My exh owes us $29,000 and has been deliberately hiding his job (under the table) and avoiding us like the plague so he doesn't have to pay. It is just another outward sign of what a lousy person he is. I would tell the kids the truth, in a very factual way. And I would fight any extended visitation.

I had my own housecleaning business for 10 years and just stopped cleaning 4 months ago. I told my husband that I will never ever ever get stainless appliances. They look so good for the first month or so, and then it all goes downhill. They get fingerprints, but they also never recover from anything being spilled/splattered on them, you can't scratch something off if you didn't notice it and try to get it off later, you have to use the special stainless cleaner, and it ends up streaky no matter what you do or what brand you use. Yuck. I will stick with my goofy white appliances that I can clean.

I was thinking the same thing as EE. Chilly for us probably isn't chilly for you! Most of the days right now I am wearing jeans and tee shirts, with a sweater or sweatshirt for evenings, but the next few days are supposed to be really warm. Just remember that So Cal, especially beach cities, is a really casual place. Jeans or shorts are almost always acceptable attire for non-wedding related events.

Love the one on the left. Dd is wearing one a lot like that in purple to her formal on Saturday. It's beautiful and classy.

I think it is absolutely worth it. I buy 85-90% organic. It kind of makes me sick now to think I am eating something laden with pesticides. The big thing for me (besides three people in my immediate family having rare, weird and different forms of cancer) was the statistic that if you eat only organic, 100% organic, for two weeks, you will reduce the pesticide levels in your blood by 50%. Pesticide levels in your blood. Pesticide in your bloodstream can NOT be doing anything good for your body! And eating clean food for two weeks only reduces it 50%? Yuck.

I have sciatica. When I have a flare, I take two Tylenol AND two Advil every 4-6 hours. They are different meds and do different things, so it's okay to take them together. I also do one type of stretch, to stretch the nerve that's causing the problem. Lay on your back, bring whichever side's leg is bothering you (on me, it's always the right) into your chest and hold it there. You should be able to feel it stretching. Keep doing that whenever you can for a couple of days and the flare will subside. These tips have worked wonders for me, but I always have to do all of it. Never had to resort to going to a chiropractor or acupuncture or anything else. And my sciatica is so bad sometimes it feels like fire down my right thigh, enough that it's hard to walk!

A friend of ours' ds started his own pooper-scooper business when he was 13 or 14. He would go to neighbors' houses two or three times a week for $20 per client. He ended up making a thousand dollars a month! Gross job, and I know I would hire someone for $20 per week!

OMG- funny!!!! :lol:

I will be praying.

I am so sorry for you and your family. I lost my sister suddenly last year, and my parents both died over 10 years ago. I will be praying for you and your family. =(

Thanks for the warning, Cat.

Double post

Yay!! Dd will be so happy! :hurray:

I cleaned houses for 10 years. I would take dd with me in the summers, and since we've been homeschooling, she's had to come with me as well. It was terrific flexibility-wise. I quit about a month ago. Yay!

This is what I thought of right away too. It's kind of weird. Hmmm.

Praying.