I wouldn't drive 10 hours by myself, but I also wouldn't make 3 trips out there. I'd tell her I'd drive up a few days before the wedding and anything else needs to be done long distance or I'd bow out of the obligation. There's no reason your sister can't pick out the dresses she likes best and send you the online links to get your input. You can get measurements done locally and email them to her if she's buying the dresses, or she can send you the final dress info so you can order it locally and then you just take it with you for the wedding. Your 15yo should be able to stay home alone while waiting for dad to get home from work. Line up some friends to come visit, or find a friend he can hang out with for a few hours if you're concerned he'd be bored or whatever all day by himself. If you want him to see grandma, take him with. He can always hang out at your sister's house or the hotel playing on an ipad or laptop or watch tv while you go do girl stuff with your sister. Yes, the experience would be fun; I get that. I had a blast wedding gown shopping with my DIL last year but I didn't have to drive 600 miles or spend lots of money I couldn't really afford to spend to do so.

My first thought was that your DH sounds controlling, but without all the facts I can't say that. Is he normally this way? Is money tighter than normal? Do you have no access whatsoever to your bank accounts or a credit/debit card at your disposal? My DH keeps the budget because he's better at it than I am, but we both make decisions. Once I know what I'll need for school, I share the general info with him so he can budget for it. He doesn't want specifics though - just the bottom line and how to break it up. We do both have personal spending money each payday, but we don't call it an allowance. I can spend my money and get more if it's available.

Hot coffee when I need to be focused. Unsweet iced tea any other time.

Thanks for the list of resources. I like the look of Math Mammoth, what I could see of it anyway. Easy Peasy looked really good too and would probably be pretty easy for him to follow. Oh I agree, Ellie. I don't recommend TVA to anyone and told him earlier today it's nothing more than public school work done at work. I told him that I don't have any doubt that he could teach his son and I'm more than willing to help him source out materials and get it organized. My nephew is my brother's mini-me, and I well remember what he was like at that age, although he is slightly better behaved than his daddy was. ;) TBH though, my brother is dealing with a lot of cr@p from his XW right now, and while homeschooling might be the best thing for my nephew, I'm not sure it's worth it at this point in time to give the crazy woman extra potential ammo.

:lol: Thank you for catching my mistake Gil! That's what I get for trying to quickly clarify my thoughts and give relevant information when I was in a hurry to clock out for lunch. What's ironic about it is that my DH is a SAHD too. :leaving: I'm not sure what my nephew's reading level is, as I haven't heard him reading. I know he likes books and I can't recall anyone ever saying that he was struggling with anything in school, so his basic skills are probably about average. My brother has a laptop, a large screen tv, DVD player, and cable TV. I have a printer though and would be happy to print out anything my brother needs, or he could use our dad's printer, since they only live a few houses away.

My brother is a single, SAHD and is considering homeschooling his 7yo son, a rising 2nd grade. K-1st was done in public school. K12 isn't available until 3rd grade in Texas, unless he pays for the private enrollment version. If he decides he prefers the K12 route, then my nephew will need to stay in PS for 2nd grade in order to be eligible. My only experience homeschooling is with high school, but I can't imagine it's that hard to school a little one, so please tell me what he'll need to know. My own inclination is to hook him up with some workbooks I found that look fairly decent for the basics, tell him to get a library card for science/history read alouds, and join a local HS group for play time and field trips. I figure everything else can get dropped in as he becomes more comfortable with homeschooling. Money will definitively be a consideration for resources, as he's a full-disability vet. Anything he can free, borrow, or at low cost is preferable. But is it really as simple as it seems? *Edited to clarify that my brother is not a stay at home mom dad, although he does do the job of both parents so he should get credit for that. :)

I was raised RC and don't remember anything specific about tithing, just that we were to give of our ability. The Pentecostal and non-denom churches we've most recently attended both teach tithing as 10% of your income. Our personal research and understanding of the Bible led us to the understanding that people of Biblical times tithed crops and animals. Cash or other valuables were given only as special offerings. As such, we give frequent offerings as we feel spiritually led to do so, tithe on any sales of our meager gardening efforts, and willingly donate our time and material resources to upcoming events.

ITA agree that a passion is not the same as a hobby, and if you can involve your DD in finding ways to incorporate or include her passion with your idea of curriculum, she might become more interested in doing school work. For my DS, his passion is music. He'd be offended if I called it a hobby because it's so much more than that to him. It's part of who he is as a person and his goals for his future. We've been struggling much longer than we should have over a poetry unit b/c he insisted he could do it himself but it just wasn't clicking. When I intervened and equated punctuation/line pauses with whole/half/quarter rests, I could see the instant that connection was made. Plus I got bonus points for my musical references. Now we're working together through the poetry unit and should have it done by the end the weekend.

Gymnastics and/or karate if it's in the budget, frequent trips to a playground with a jungle gym if it's not. Or a large trampoline with a net around it. Or better yet, a large trampoline that's been set into a large hole in the ground so he can jump without falling off. My child like this is now 16 and counting. We do joke that I never had a gray hair until he became mobile; now I have plenty. At 3, we used nylon rope with a slip knot tied from one door catty-corner to another across the hall to contain him to his bedroom at night. DS20 was 8 at the time and could easily open the door if there was a true emergency, but DS16 couldn't. At 4, he would bounce on the couch despite near-constant removal and disciplinary efforts. Once he landed on his head on the tile floor. The pedi said he was fine, just maybe a very minor concussion, but DH and I have never been convinced there wasn't some sort of lasting damage done to his brain. I can't tell you how many trees, shelves, buildings, fences, and other structures he's climbed; nor how many he's taken a tumble from. Yet he still prefers to sleep in a loft bed because he gets to climb up the ladder every night.

I'll be eating kilted cupcakes, and re-watching the first episode of Outlander for the umpteenth time.

I love Costco! I just made my bi-monthly trip last night. We don't eat a lot of packaged convenience food so it's not hard for me to stick to my list. Plus it's the only place I can find decently priced organic roasters and ground buffalo.

We start the 24th. DS *still* hasn't finished his poetry unit, which was *supposed* to be done by today. "I have a schedule to get it done this week," is what he told me when I checked. :cursing: Now he'll get to spend all Sunday afternoon with Mom to finish up b/c I am beyond sick and tired of dragging out this school year. I just bought my new planner last night and the thought of sitting down to write in it makes me shudder.

This sounds like a bad blonde joke. :lol: We drink Mexican Coke all the time. Mexican Sprite, and Mexican Fanta too.

I should get up at 5a, but I normally get up at 6a, and am out of the house by 7a to be at work by 8a. If I was the SAHM and DH worked, then I probably wouldn't get up until 8-9a since that's when I'm normally up on a sleep-in day.

I ordered a LL study guide to cover our medieval British Lit reads and scrapped it last night because it's just not what I'm looking for and I don't think I can make it work without a lot of revising on my part. So now I need to figure out what I'm going to use instead. I can't sign DS up for his consumer math program until August. I have this fear that I'm going to sign him up and start planning his course projects only to find out it won't work for us.

OP, it sounds to me like the you've allowed yourself to be guilted into taking care of these boys so their parents can work. What would the parents do for child care if you were out of town? I would suggest you have a chat with your friend and explain to her that a sleepover is not going to happen and ask her to teach her kids to understand that so they stop asking. Explain to her matter of factly that if they do not stop asking you then you will not allow them to come over. If that means she has to find another source of child care, then that's her responsibility and problem, not yours. Honestly, a child like that wouldn't be repeatedly invited back to my home. And when my friend's son does something annoying or disrepectful, you can bet that she hears about it that same day. She takes care of it on her end and does likewise when it's my DS.

I'm so glad your DD is okay! I had no idea this could happen. Thanks for the PSA. We have 2 water events planned with our youth group next month and I can let the other leaders know what to look for in case something happens!

No. No. No. DH and I decided to get married long before a formal proposal and even considered eloping. It was a few months after that when he formally proposed in my parents house in front of my parents and brothers. Even that was too public for me and I knew to expect it. I think public proposals are okay if everyone knows everyone involved will be 10000000% okay with it. Surprise proposals are not good IMO and I wonder how many women end up saying no once the cameras are off and the people gone.

I self medicate with coffee. I'm scatterbrained enough without my coffee that skipping it isn't really a feasible option. Two cups in the morning, 1 preferably mid afternoon (which usually gets skipped), and at least 1 in the evening is my normal pattern.

The DIVE science series is another option for a lighter course if she's not looking at a STEM path. You can purchase the CD or sign up for the online class. The class includes video lectures and labs, and the instructor provides several syllabi to select from so you can use whichever textbook you prefer. We did Earth in 9th grade (not through DIVE), Integrated Physics & Chem for 10th using the online textbook, and plan on taking Biology online paired with the BJU text this fall.

50 First Dates Always Forever Young Far and Away Clueless Lots of my favorites were already mentioned

We're switching to 5-subject spirals this year for everything. He can write assignments in the first section and then use the rest to do his lessons. I am so over with stacks of loose leaf paper that should have been put in a binder or looking through multiple cheap spirals for a single week of assignments because DS can't remember what he did with the one he used and got a new one instead. I do need new pens though, and I'm still debating on getting myself a planner.

I'm waiting for one more book to come in and still need to sign DS up for 2 online classes. I have everything I need to finish planning our fall semester this weekend. I'm starting to think ahead to the spring semester but I've only got a vague outline of how that's going to go.

Freesia, thank you! He actually does understand that they used the Navajo language as the code because we had some great discussion about it, especially when we watched Windtalker with DH. He just cannot seem to get it out of his brain and into written form. We were actually talking last night about brainstorming, which he said he hates. I told him that I planned to use more graphic organizers this year and he made a face at that. When I pointed out that the bubble map he picked out to use for a Shakespeare comparison project was a graphic organizer, he brightened a bit. Makes me wonder what exactly he thought a graphic organizer was. LOL I have organizers specifically for paragraph and essay writing and I hope that they will help break it up into simple steps so he can better see and understand how the process works. I told him he needs to start thinking of what he'd like to do for English his senior year since I don't have anything lined up yet. He suggested OYAN as an option and I agreed that would be a good goal to work towards. I do like the idea of a list of practice skills and need to work on creating one. I remember reading something similiar recently that said to pick 10 things that the student needs to work on in writing and then focus on 2 or 3 to start with. When those skills have improved, move on to the next ones on the list. Daily grammar review will be added back into our lesson plans since it seems like he's either not grasping it or just isn't paying attention.

I'm laughing at all the names of people I know listed here. Herbert (goes by middle name Andy), Dorcus (called Dorcine), Ida, and Lavanya all work with me. Lavanya is my generation; the rest are of my parents' generation. My grandmothers were Dolores, Lorraine, and Lorraine Judith (called Judy) and I had an uncle Melvin. We went with common names for our boys. Their names were all in the top 25 the year they were born, and are still common today.