I like lavender. It's not really perfumy, but it doesn't announce "I'm a hippie covering up the smell of my body odor" like patchouli.

Our homeschool group does an annual trip to a local cider mill that makes these. They are wonderful.

Around here at least, a particularly frumpy middle-aged mom cut seems to be a hairstyle popular with a certain segment of teen boys. I don't understand it, but there it is.

I like the Pioneer Woman. She gave me an iPad. No, really. I entered one of her homeschool contests and won an iPad. I've never watched her show, though--we don't have cable.

Maybe the student wanted to avoid an "It's Pat!" situation, so put all of the gender info out there at the beginning?

I'll wear white pants after menopause.

Okay, I can see this. This makes sense. Huh, I had read this several weeks ago to try to determine P's profile. I read it again and see that I have a profile there too. :o They are not the same. lol.

My ds 10 recently received an ASD diagnosis so I've been reading about ASD-specific interventions such as the products from Social Thinking. We have You Are a Social Detective and have been reading through the book and doing the thought exercises. DS is on a waiting list for a social skills group at the local Autism clinic, which uses the same materials. Here's what is giving me pause. The ideas in Social Thinking seem to go against everything I've learned in therapy and in depression self-help materials. I have had the idea drilled into me that other people's words/actions have nothing to do with my own emotions, and that if I feel uncomfortable with another person's words/actions, it's not actually the words/actions but my thoughts about the words/actions that are causing the uncomfortable feelings. But the gist of social thinking seems to be that our words/actions have a huge impact on others' thoughts/feelings. Isn't that a lot of responsibility to put on a kid? Another problem is the idea that I'm teaching DS to worry about what every person he interacts with is thinking of him. How can you think that way without feeling horribly self-conscious about every word you say, every action you take, the direction your eyes are looking, how your body is turned in relation to others, etc. How can I reconcile these two paradigms so that we can make the most of the materials and hopefully help DS with day to day functioning? Thank you.

Are you in the PNW? Everyone here has funky-feeling throats because of all the smoke/ash in the air.

I agree with the pp suggesting a folding tree. Shoving each branch into a slot is tedious. We will probably be replacing our tree this year for that reason. We bought our mini tree at Michaels, and have been happy with it. They usually have a big Christmas tree sale Thanksgiving evening, if you're into that kind of thing. :)

This article made me see red. I'm glad they found the kids who started it. Nobody can be that stupid--this fire was intentionally set. SaveSave SaveSave

The linked shoes are hideous, but I quite like this pair suggested on the same page, only in the navy color. Still old lady shoes, but I would wear them. :) SaveSave

My neighbor's white house looks orange through the haze. Everything looks weird, and the poor chickens acted really weird while they free ranged today.

One of my childfree fb friends posted a pic of her front door for "post a photo of your front door day." She apologized that she didn't have any kids to pose in front of it for scale, but she wanted to participate. It took me much longer than it should have to get the joke. :D

Ridiculous. It could have waited until daylight.

Is this new, or has she always had trouble with handwriting and attention to detail? She sounds a lot like my son, who is around the same age and dealing with multiple learning disabilities.

I used to run cold but now I run hot. My kids run hot so we match now. Dh runs cold so we have a furnace battle every evening in the winter. :)

I'm A+. I must be old because we did blood typing in high school biology. I remember wondering if my mom had a secret because both she and my dad claimed to be O. Being a discreet teenager, I brought it up at the dinner table. :lol: After dinner my dad dug out some paperwork and saw that he is in fact A. Family crisis averted!

A combination of words I never expected to see. But so fitting. I have to say, I love the fountain that's either singing dolphins or happy badgers emerging from their burrows. It's hard to tell.

Oh, it can't be that bad, let's see...*clicks link*........MY EYES! MY EYES!

We refinished our floors years ago. Our biggest problem was keeping the dog off the floor as the finish dried. We removed everything, including pictures on the walls, because it got really dusty. The sander has a vacuum that sucks up sawdust, but it's not leakproof, and it was really a dusty job.

Fortunately, the Guardian has an article about detecting subtle retinal damage caused by the eclipse. It really eased my mind. :) SaveSave

Congrats! :party: :party: :party:

That's the plan. We've finished the lessons from Dots, and are playing the games and the ones from the dominoes and dice book to make sure that the skills are SOLID. This school year we'll do the C-Rods book and the multiplication book, along with some other materials. I figure the more directions from which we approach these things, the better. :)