[wuhan - coronavirus]

I’m in a suburban area south of Seattle. Our Winco was fully stocked at 8:30 this morning. The only conspicuously empty shelves had held Zyrtec. 

[wuhan - coronavirus]

4 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

According to BNO 1 more case in Washington state

2 now. One high school student with no travel or contact history, and one middle aged lady who had traveled to South Korea. 

[wuhan - coronavirus]

This morning I read a post on one of the local facebook homeschool pages about how wonderful it was that students in China, Japan, and other quarantined areas were getting to experience homeschooling. The first few responses weren't "what the hell is wrong with you" but comparing the online classes being used in quarantine areas to the parent partnerships in our state, and thus not "real homeschooling." Sometimes you just gotta scroll on by.

[Where are the sheets???]

I've noticed the no bottom sheet phenomenon in certain reality shows--hoarding or clean-up type shows--but not in real life. I have to admit though that my kids don't use a top sheet. They always ended up on the floor/stuffed in a closet/etc. and it wasn't the hill on which I wished to die. I wash the blankets often. I'd have to do that anyway though, because the pets like to sleep on the kids' beds and the blankets start to look like plush if they aren't washed. 

You'd think that I'd notice the weird stuff in houses--I tend to watch HGTV or house-related reality shows while I'm exercising--but maybe my house is weird enough that nothing seems weird to me? I think it's weird to have an immaculate house when you've got a bunch of kids, but some people manage to do it. lol

[Garden people: Help me decide what to plant (spring thread)! / What will you plant this year? 🌻🥬]

11 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Be careful of planting two different squashes--they will cross pollinate if they are in bee cruising range of each other, and you will get a weird combo rather than either one.  That's why I'm just trying one kind of pumpkin this year.

I never save seed for squash for this reason—my yard isn’t big enough to provide enough separation between varieties. 

[Garden people: Help me decide what to plant (spring thread)! / What will you plant this year? 🌻🥬]

I love gardening. It keeps me sane for at least half of the year. 😄 I'm in the PNW, zone 8a, which seems misleading because while we never get really cold, we don't have much hot weather either. Lots of cool drizzle at either end of summer. 

We haven't started much yet, just some winter sown perennials in milk jugs and a few things under lights. I'm making myself wait to plant warm weather veggies because I have a bad habit of starting them early, then watching them get root bound in April when it's still too cold to plant them outside and I don't have room inside to pot them up. 

Every year I plan on doing a three sisters garden, and every year two sisters do great--beans and squash--and the other sister fizzles out. I almost got mature popcorn last year. This year I will be babying the corn like mad, and fertilizing more than I usually do. I'm trying Dakota Black popcorn. It's supposed to do well in our climate. Squash will be Candy Stick Delicata and Long Island Cheese pumpkin. Beans will be a mix of rattlesnake and probably some runners. Whatever I have in my seed box. I have a ridiculous amount of seeds. I've told dh at least three times this winter that I have all the seeds that I need. Then I go to the feed store or the hardware store and a packet or two mysteriously ends up in my cart. Dh just smiles. It's a cheaper addiction than shoes. 

The only strawberries I've ever grown from seed were the little white alpine strawberries. They do well, don't spread by runners, and have delicious tiny soft strawberries. They are definitely an eat as soon as you pick type. They reseed themselves from dropped strawberries, but are easy to pull up if they become a nuisance. I have a pack of mignonette strawberry seeds that I haven't gotten around to planting yet. I'm not sure I want to spend any time on them. I might just sprinkle them around on a patch of bare ground. lol

I want to have a cutting garden of annuals this year. I love to bring a jar of flowers to people randomly during the summer and I need to have a ready supply. I'm planning for Ageratum, Bells of Ireland, Cerinthe, Zinnia, Cosmos, Sweet Peas, Sunflower, Bachelor's Buttons, Nigella, Celosia, Amaranth, and others I can't remember atm. Snapdragons. And then the perennials that are already established. Daisies, Penstemon, Echinacea, Delphinium, Hollyhhock, Gaillardia, Centaurea, Torch Lily. 

 

 

 

[food: this isn't a problem, right? IOW: would you eat this?]

I wouldn't think twice about eating it. And I tend to be a bit paranoid about food safety.

[Sewing Machine Recommendations]

5 hours ago, bluemongoose said:

I think you have two semi conflicting criteria...old machines usually don't have speed control. New machines generally don't have metal parts.

 

I don’t know, my old machines have excellent speed control. Want to go faster? Treadle or crank faster. Want to go slower? Treadle or crank more slowly. 😄

[words you see here but not "in the wild"]

On 12/22/2019 at 8:36 AM, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

CiRCE

 

The first time I saw CiRCE mentioned my mind immediately went to, well, Circe, and I wondered if it were a radical feminist pagan classical curriculum. Nah, it's an acronym and more of the usual classical Christian stuff, but I still think that of all the character names that one could use for a classical Christian curriculum, Circe is an odd choice. 

[Cleaning With Steam]

20 hours ago, Angie in VA said:

 

"Refreshing to the weeds" Let the company know it also acts as a spa treatment for weeds. 

 

Next week on Goop...

 

19 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Wallpaper strippers purposely generate "wet steam" (steam with suspended water droplets) in order to soak the wall paper and help remove it, so it will tend to leave walls, floors, and upholstery very wet. (That has certainly been my experience with stripping wallpaper, anyway.) The advantage of the Neat steamer is that it generates "dry steam," which is much hotter (up to 275* F) and contains very little liquid water.

 

Yeah, I forgot about that. It did a fine job on my tile floor, but I won't be using it for walls or upholstery. Thanks!

["Wilson" vs "Neuhaus" vs Barton]

11 hours ago, popmom said:

 My B.S. is in elementary ed. It's amazing how little I learned about teaching reading while in college.

 

You might enjoy the Educate podcast. The episodes by Emily Hanford about reading address the issues with how teacher training doesn't actually prepare teachers to teach reading. 

[Cleaning With Steam]

Huh...I have a steam wallpaper remover, and I never even thought to use it for general cleaning. It doesn't have scrubber type attachments, but I bet I can rig up something with vacuum cleaner attachments, rubber bands, and rags. It has an element, not a boiler, but I think it's worth a try.

[What elementary science curriculum *haven't* I looked at yet?]

We have enjoyed the books from Nomad press (Explore Your World series, Build it Yourself series) for topical science in the elementary grades. They are self-contained and have many projects and demonstrations, most of them doable with common household objects. 

[What happens if you take Strattera longterm?]

In my limited experience, Strattera doesn't work immediately and wear off like the stimulant medications. It's more like an antidepressant, in that it builds up slowly and starts to work over time. I don't know about long-term usage. 

[book recommendation....mindfulness/meditation..Zen?]

Jon Kabat Zinn has been leading mindfulness classes and writing about mindfulness for years. I found his first book, Full Catastrophe Living, helpful years ago, and he has written many books since then. Many of the popular mindfulness books are written from a non-religious perspective, using mindfulness to deal with stress, anxiety, etc. rather than as a religious practice. 

[S/o straw thread environmental stuff that’s worse for the consumer]

1 hour ago, wilrunner said:

We had an exchange student this past year who brought his own small pillow from home. It didn't have a pillow case on it. He was also a swimmer and played water polo 3-4 times/week. I asked him several times if he wanted to wash his pillow or swimming towels. He always said no and never washed them the 10 months he was here. I think he also washed his clothes maybe 4 or 5 times total. I understood the towels, since they always dried out between uses and he was always clean when he dried off, but the pillow looked dirty both when he arrived and when he left!

 

 

Reminded me of this.

[TGTB free Marine Biology unit]

Thank you! We love science unit studies. 🙂

[Book rec on bipolar disorder?]

Hmm...I wouldn't assume those characteristics were caused by the bipolar disorder. That might just be a "difficult person" thing, or perhaps indicative of a different disorder. 

[I need a REALLY great game for 10-12 year old boys]

We just had a homeschool board game day and King of Tokyo was the biggest hit among the 8-12 boys crowd. Some other favorites of my boys (8 and 11) are Castle Panic (cooperative and lots of available expansions), Flash Point (ditto) , and Memoir '44 (2 players or teams, recreates WW2 battles).

[Does this seem off to you - hs FB group]

19 minutes ago, unsinkable said:

 "Yeah, "oh sh!t." Took a hard, hard, violent fall. Kind of pinballed down. Hit a lot of railings, broke a lot of sh!t. I'm not going to say I survived, I'm going to say I thrived. I met a dolphin down there. And I swear to God, that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul, into my g--d--n soul, Annie. And he said, "I'm saving you Megan." Not with his mouth, but he said it, I'm assuming, telepathically. "

/Bridesmaids

I saw this in the little preview in the thread list and thought "oh my, this thread has certainly taken a turn." I'm both relieved and disappointed that this is a movie quote. 

[Chemistry Suggestions? Real Science Odyssey Chemistry?]

We are using Ellen McHenry's The Elements for chemistry this fall. It has been a hit for all of my kids, 5th, 2nd, and K. We are supplementing with Theodore Gray's The Elements, which is a pretty photo book with an entry for each element. It's not a full-year course, but it could be a fun supplement for a yearlong course. 

[What is it with Skeptics]

2 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

 

OB care in general involves a lot more elements.  Synergies, and practices you don't want to randomly change, psychological elements.  The demand for clear evidence in clinical trials, for everything, just seems out of place.  

I don't know--when I was making decisions about OB care I was grateful to have studies that showed which course was more likely to have the desired outcome. OB has the added difficulty that the "safer" option is sometimes different for mom and baby. And in the US, adding in midwifery care further muddies the waters, since there are different ways of certifying midwives and not all types of midwives are recognized at a national level. 

[How you pronounce "wh"]

26 minutes ago, countrymum said:

I didn't use to. Then i took an Orton Gillingham class. Now I over use it... replace w with wh in other words. All of my in laws use it correctly.

I never used it until I used Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing with my kids. Now I over-enunciate wh words to an annoying extreme. Lol

[Do you answer your door to strangers?]

I usually don’t, but a few weeks ago we had a very confused elderly lady knock on the door asking for help. She had dementia and couldn’t find her way home. I was glad that I broke my don’t answer rule for her—I hate to think what could have happened if she had wandered around in the dark all night. 

[Crossword Puzzle Generator?]

My ds is asking for more crossword puzzles for spelling and Latin practice. Does anyone have a go-to resource for making crosswords? The free crossword makers I've used have been so glitchy that at this point I'm willing to pay a few bucks for a good program for making word puzzles. Of course free is always good too, if you know a good source. Thanks!