Calvert has online classes for 6th and up, I think.

I use this one. It's just like making biscuit dough. I usually triple or quadruple the recipe and stash some in the fridge and some in the freezer. I order the majority of our groceries through a UNFI buying club, so we essentially "shop" once a month, too.

No advice, but I would not rule out the possibility that he is just male. I'm not slamming men/boys - when it was suggested that our group institute a "Dad's night out" for the men to get together and form bonds, most of the husbands (including my own) were uninterested. Mine claims that guys don't DO that - they have friends in the context of various activities because, as he said, it would be rude to not speak to the others in your foursome through 18 holes. In essence, they get on just fine in the context of a shared activity, but don't feel the need to get together for the purpose of chatting. :001_huh:

Um, all of them? "Home cooked" is pretty much all they get and, as I point out frequently, I don't make disgusting things. :D Everyone is quite fond of black bean burritos, though. I make a huge crock pot of black beans (2 dry lbs at a time) about once a week (sometimes pintos, just to change things up) with a little garlic, cumin, chili powder and salt. Then I make a pile of flour tortillas (because it offends me that they put HFCS in tortillas when there's no sugar to replace in the first place, and organic are ridiculously expensive) and they have burritos. Sometimes, taco salad, etc. They also love cheese tortellini with pesto (and sometimes tomatoes and fresh mozzarella). I make a signature "Oh Carp! It's 6:00 and I Have No Plans for Dinner" pasta that takes about as long as it takes to boil the noodles: While you're boiling the water for the pasta, melt some butter/olive oil in a skillet, sautee garlic and onions, add herbs as you like. Boil your favorite shape of pasta for 2 minutes less than the minimum time on the package, drain and throw into the skillet. Then add a couple of handfuls of something green (usually spinach, pea shoots, frozen peas, fresh sugar snaps, etc. around here) and pour some milk over it (probably about a cup or so for a pound of pasta) and let it bubble until the whole shebang is thick and the pasta is done, stirring occasionally. It comes out like a creamy, cheesy scampi, but with no cheese. (Of course, you could also sautee some chicken or shrimp in there with the alliums... we're not vegetarian, but we usually eat vegetarian... hmmm. I wonder what that's about? ) Almost everything is or comes with salad here.

Mine could live on the banana/white bread/cheese diet and still go multiple times a day. I used to laugh when our old pediatrician would ask if we had a dirty diaper at least every three days... we have always wondered where you get that kind of kid. :D But, yes, the apples might be contributing to the, uh, explosive nature of the change.

WOW! I would have been happy with $18/qt last year. It was $32 when we were in Maine last September. In Maine. Less than an hour from Canada. :glare: Meanwhile, I've gotten it for the same price, per gallon, from the farm where we get our milk, and $40/gal for organic from a friend whose brother is a producer in PA. I have since discovered that Canada was having an issue with production... tree blight? I can't remember now, but the US producers were sending theirs up to fill the gap. Organic means there have been no (non-approved for organic) fungicides applied to the tap. Otherwise, they don't do much to maple syrup.

We have "quiet time" after lunch every day, unless we're out. As Katiebug mentioned, the kids are required to be in their beds, reading, napping, pondering the meaning of life, whatever... it has to be quiet. They need that down time. I need that down time. At that point, I've been up and working for 8 hours, with another 8 ahead of me. :001_huh: ETA: And then, I have tea time. No, actual tea; pour a cup, have a small nosh, get on with the day recharged.

I'm not in Missouri (this seems to be a theme, doesn't it? ;)) and don't have to count hours, but I would look at your examples and say you should absolutely count those things as both. In a classroom setting, they would be called cross-curricular or multidisciplinary activities. I just went on a supply finding expedition and ended up at an education supply store; most of the resources in there mentioned multiple national standards covered by each unit. For instance, a science unit that had a writing response would be counted as standards for both science and language arts. If there is measurement, they would add math. Not that we need to be concerned with national standards, but the public education (the stick we're measured against) standard is to count activities by their components. Welcome!

Yes. I give them school work. :D

I used to have a comb binder. My husband took it to work to bind some stuff and lost it. :crying: (I may have to send him to Kinkos to have some binding done for our new school year.)

I've made steel cuts oats in the crock pot with raw milk and water. No issue. Well, ok, I didn't care for the texture, but I had left the dried fruit called for in the recipe out because I thought it would get all plump and yucky, and I didn't adjust the liquid to account for that. No issue with the milk, though. If it makes you feel better, our old raw milk supplier would sometimes send our sour cream in still-liquid form, with a note saying to leave it on the counter. And you'll be heating it, albeit gently, all night, not just forgetting to put the milk away. :001_smile:

I don't see why not. You wouldn't face the same problems as with using fresh pineapple in Jello - it would be baked before any of the enzymes would have a chance to significantly denature the proteins, I would think. I assume you would have to modify the pineapple (i.e. crush it) but I would stick to the original recipe. And might I just add: Yum!

The only "special" thing I did this spring, and will continue, is carrying some cloth wipes with a solution that has tea tree and oregano essential oils in it for wiping hands, surfaces, etc. Generally, I don't bring my children to play in petri dishes (we don't McDonalds for other reasons) where parents are bringing their kids to blow off steam when they're home from school due to some communicable disease. :ack2: What is wrong with people? During cold & flu season, I give them a spoonful of elderberry syrup before bed, and we have a healthy, well-rounded diet. They rarely get whatever is going around and, if they do, it doesn't linger.

Dogs poop in the yard. People poop in the house. Ladies do not like to be told their b00ks are on their belly. Put your p@nis away. Do not put your tongue on anything or anyone. Do NOT make me peel my human face off in this store.

I use mine on a ceramic top stove. It's important not to slam them on the stove top or drag them around, but other than that they're really just like any other cooking vessel. Seasoned pans do not retain food bits. The oil baked into the pan keeps food from settling into the nooks and crannies. That is how people have 'lived to tell about' (and pass down) their cookware for generations, I would imagine. (And, let's face it, centuries ago they were cooking some pretty iffy stuff, what with the lack of refrigeration. :ack2: ) I keep mine far away from the dishwasher - dishwasher detergent is very alkaline as well as abrasive. It will not only scratch the seasoned surface off, but will cause rusting. Not tasty and what a pain to have to re-season from scratch if that happens!

Sounds like Boston. ;) (Not that there aren't horrible, aggressive drivers around here, but Boston takes it to the next, scary level - the only city I flatly refuse to drive in.)

Another vote for Le Creuset! When my last kettle burned up, I was looking everywhere for one that fit my criteria: durable, doesn't dribble, holds enough, whistles (because if I don't hear it, I will forget I put the water on)... I was eying traditional English kettles, but most didn't whistle. My MIL got me the Le Creuset for Christmas. It's awesome. (Mine's a chili pepper red)

Oh, my! Yes, I would say that any allergic reaction that involves swelling of the face and progressing despite antihistamines on board needs immediate attention, and if that means a trip to the ER, then do it. I'm not much on seeing the doctor or interventions for things we can deal with naturally. That said, one of our boys has a peanut allergy that manifests itself as OAS (oral allergy syndrome - I have the same, related to raw carrots, stone fruits, almonds, etc) with itching lips and contact dermatitis. OAS is not necessarily a harbinger of more serious reactions at all, and our pediatrician is aware of the situation and is not terribly concerned... We have an epi pen. Because, you know what? We'd rather keep one and replace it when it expires and never, ever use it than have one of the kids have a life-threatening reaction and watch that ticking clock while the ambulance is en route (in this case a whopping block from our house, but they could be out and the next one? not so close). Also, I don't know anyone in an ER (and I've spent some time in them, when I was a paramedic, way back in the olden days) that would assume you know his lungs are clear. You can hear subtle wheezes with a stethoscope long before you can hear them sitting next to a person. It would be entirely reasonable that somebody with a family history of food related anaphylaxis and a child exhibiting a violent reaction to food show up at the ER.

No, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is the head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Former Maryland Lt. Governor, Michael Steele, is the RNC chair. I think presidential policy is both personal and party-driven. There could be some disconnect there, but I think they generally align just as a matter of the President being a member of one party or the other - his ideology would fall in line, largely, with the party of which he is a member, otherwise he would be a member of another party. The RNC/DNC work both to promote the party policies (through lobbying, elections, etc) to the President and Congress, and to promote the agenda of the President/Congress to the "lower" party members and the public. I cannot even begin to guess what particular nuances were in the minds of the original drafters of the Constitution. Nor, I believe, would you get consensus on this or any other point from constitutional scholars.

It works the same way as in a parliamentary system, except the President is both head of government and head of state. He (only because we have never had a "she") sets the agenda for legislative discussion and approves/vetoes legislation, appoints federal officers and judges, and runs the executive branch of the government which includes all of our federal bureaus (CIA, Departments of Justice, Defense, Agriculture, education, public health, etc.). Our "checks and balances" system is slightly different. Taking the mention of line-item veto as an example: (Line item veto was on the table long before President Clinton took office, but for the sake of streamlining illustration, I will give him the credit for the idea below.) President Clinton proposes shaping legislation allowing Presidents to veto individual line items in legislation, rather than the whole package, to Congress. The House and Senate (because we have a bicameral Congress) both address the idea, bang around verbiage, vote on their own versions, then get together and pass a single version of the bill. Clinton then approves/signs the bill and it becomes law. Under our system, laws are also up for challenge and this one was, in federal court. Lower courts and, ultimately, the Supreme Court, ruled that the law was unconstitutional as passed. So, no, we do not have line-item veto. And, yes, because our legislators are individually elected, rather than as a party, it can lead to an amazing amount of dithering, particularly when the Congressional majority is of a different political party than the President. That doesn't make it clearer, does it?

We have the (now discontinued) pink and white kitchen from Pottery Barn Kids and that gets nearly daily use by all three kids (and has for more than 5 years). There are some marks of the marker/crayon/nail polish variety (and also a psychedelic painted couch in the same room) from clandestine art projects. (note that none of these are recent so my head has stopped spinning around) There are no paint chips or other wear-related damage, though. Honestly, though, I have no idea where they're made.

I had the same realization about sex determination when I was pregnant with the twins... had girl names but I don't think it would help in the socialization department to have the boys answering to Genevieve and Ainsley. We also wanted non-"weird", but not top-10 names. (The boys are Holden and Quinn)

Generally speaking, I'm a paper and pen girl, too. I've migrated to Google calendar over the past year, though, mostly because I could convince my husband to also use it and we can then each see the other's calendar and avoid conflicts resulting in one of us forgetting to mark the other's thing in our own book. I sync mine with my Blackberry (he does, too), so it's always up to date. Otherwise, I really loved my Day-Timer. When I worked professionally, I used the 2 page per day version. When I stopped working outside the home, I went to the 2 page per week. My kids have less affection for planning meetings and conference calls than my clients did. ;)

Yup. There are way too many conglomerates out there. I don't like Miracle Whip either and have tossed more weird-tasting mayo than I care to recall (think every "healthy" brand at Whole Foods). Heck, I didn't care too much for the last batch I MADE because I used extra-virgin olive oil and it was a bit tangy for my taste. (I think light olive oil would have been fine). Also, my food buying club has been in a tizz for the past several months, trying to return rancid mayo (I think Hain). Yuck. I advise the following: 1) shove the nasty mayo to the back and call it science. 2) make your own and call it home-ec. (That way, it's healthy, tasty and not rancid when you open it - just don't use evoo)

You leave the door open. By design, the door has to seal water-tight, otherwise it would dribble on the floor (which mine has done with a single hair hanging out through the seal). I get "gunk" (dog hair, lint, etc) in the seal, but not mold. I just wipe it out periodically and always leave the door open between loads. For the OP, I am sorry to say I have no solution for you. But I can say that I have extremely hot tap water (about 180F) and that doesn't seem to have any impact on whether we get those annoying spots (which seem completely random and happened with the top loader, too) so I wouldn't recommend jacking up your electric bill.