btw, my church just agreed to hire a minister whose husband is retiring from the DC area, and they thought Glen Allen (just north of Richmond) would be a great place to retire . . .

Well, we dont really expect to be able to afford to retire . . . or, we'll retire to DH's home country in canada. But the article mad the assumption that moving to a healthy part of the country makes you healthy - i suspect they are misusing that statistic - the people already living in the midwest tend to be farmers, working outside their whole lives, instead of sedentary city-dwellers breathing in pollution. But still, VA was on the list, esp Norfolk, for some reason.

I did TKD with my kids for a year and a half. It was very hard for me, exhausting, but i stuck with it and it did get a bit easier. Until I fell and couldnt really walk right for 18 mo, including a surgery. I wonder in retrospect if I should have known better? I was never very athletic. I think I was about 45 when I started. but lack of sleep definitely makes everything hurt more

Haha my atheist gay single parent friend just decided to homeschool! I've also met Muslim homeschoolers. And an online homeschooler using Keystone, but in VA the free online school seems not be being used much, and it only goes through elementary or maybe middle, definitely not high school. One of the unschoolers I met started out with her kids in Waldorf school, and when she started homeschoolng, she set up a play store and they spent a lot of time buying, pricing, giving change, doing discounts. Her middle child (the only one who was easy going and interested in academics) was doing the books with her for the family business. So, thats one way to unschool math. Her other two kids, tho, were kinda mean night-owls who wouldnt do anything she suggested, ever, it seemed. One of my closest homeschool friends atm (mother of one of my son's closest friends) is unschooling. Her son reads voraciously, esp history and political stuff, but they werent doing ANYTHING for math. I gave her the first 4 Murderous Maths books, and she said he is reading them some, and coming to her saying "did you know this?" about some math tidbit. So thats a non-coercive, non-curriculum approach to at least have some basic math literacy. (I use Murderous Maths books usually as a preview to a new thing we'll be doing in math, so the concepts are already familiar when we get to it in the textbook)

If you come down to Richmond, esp the east or south areas around richmond, or more rural counties in central VA, the COL is a LOT lower. But the lower (more rural) parts of DE are probably pretty cheap too.

I've met all sorts. Well, I'm not sure I've spoken in person to highly academic, tiger-mom, headed-for-ivies types, but this is the south. I've met radical unschoolers, more moderate unschoolers, there's a denim-jumper homeschooler down the street from me, I've met some that are doing academics but not at an advanced rate, I've had someone scoff at me because she would NEVER let her children read Harry Potter - but it took me years to meet her. I think the more religious homeschoolers stick to the coops in their churches, because they are told at church that homeschooling is an important part of their religion. I even met one person who said half of her church homeschools, but she hadnt been called to it yet.

You certainly can buy gluten free waffles! Good luck - I hope this helps your kids!

I made gluten free crepes yesterday - with fresh strawberries! I use 1 cup of corn starch and 1/4 cup of coconut flour The only savory crepe I ever made was a chicken crepe, which was a huge hit - back in college. Hmm, its not in the book I thought it was in? I thought it had diced water chestnuts in it

Michael Clay Thompson's language arts are aimed at gifted kids, starting around grade 2 or 3

I used to have terrible giggle fits - in high school mostly. they lasted for several minutes and left my stomach in pain. But if he has a history of grimace/tics you might want to get him evaluated for tourettes.

You could do Bravewriter's Help for High School - its got 2 separate units in it, each one fairly short, depending on how you use them. The first section has some really fun exercises for finding your voice, and the second is more a short researched essay

Why cant you control what he does at school? I packed yummy gluten-free/dairy-free meals for my kids, including treats, and always brought in alternative treats for when there were parties. I loved this website's 'how to start' section, tho I didnt end up liking her recipes This was the first book I got, and it helped me a lot. She also has a bread-machine version, but I was able to convert her sandwich bread for my bread machine pretty easily. I spent a fair amount of time on the celiac.com message boards - they are open to anyone trying to eat gluten free. And honestly, you can google to find gluten free recipes for anything you could want. Its become very common. Our favorite store-bought bread is Udis.

If you have to eat gluten for at least 2 weeks (maybe a month?) before getting the panel, is it worth it to you? I blood-tested negative for celiac, but tested all kinds of positive for allergies. Sure, it might not be life-threatening, but why would I voluntarily spend days feeling like crap? I take it seriously for my quality of life. You need to make the choice if you can just choose to put your health above your convenience, or if you would rather feel horrid for several weeks in hopes that a doctor will TELL you to put your health above your convenience. IMO.

I cant really answer your question - i came because hubby is canadian and promises we'll retire there! But . . I go to a UU church, and most of the members support universal healthcare. I've often seen a comic on facebook with Jesus saying "I cant heal you, you have pre-existing conditions" or similarly refusing to feed the poor because they arent working hard enough or havent had a drug test. I really cannot understand how people can call themselves good people and get SO angry about people they dont like being given basics for survival.

When I started looking for schools for my kids, I was very disappointed that there were so few Friends schools here in Central VA, and most of them were very exclusive. I grew up in SE PA - there were so many Friends schools we had our own sports league, I think? Idk, we may have occasionally played against other private schools, but there were Quaker schools all over the place.