If you dont mind really foul language, this was the toddy recipe that got me started. And I trusted her, because she'd already won me over with her recipe for strawberry grapefruit margarita - obviously not appropriate for this month's weather Oh, he - i think the author is actually a guy?

timezattacks has been our most popular. extramath I think is something i've seen recommended.

i'm in love with Logic of English, but its pricey. I used Essentials, to remediate my 9 yo (10 now). She now has early reading materials (foundation) which are supposedly a LOT of fun

I've recently discovered hot toddies . . . does seem to make everything better . . .with a little rum . . .

Dragon, use a different brand. They arent all runny and watery.

i go to bed with pjs and socks on - after dh comes and warms the bed i'll drop at least 1 piece of clothing. middle-of-the-night-wake-cuz-i'm-hot-and-have-to-pee i shed whatever else i'm wearing and throw the bigger comforter off. but i dont put anything ON lol . . .

I own the instant pot. I had never owned one before, but i'm smitten.

ugg, seriously. We did get some house stuff done, which was awesome, but i havent done ANY lesson plans over break (i have enough done for the first week anyways), we didnt even manage to watch all of Dr Who Season 7 (which i got for our family xmas gift), and I JUST DONT WANNA! But the boys have been glued to screens non stop and dh is really sick of it lol - he just went back to work thursday after having over 2 full weeks off, so he was home for our last week of school.

I did it in the PC, which i'm in love with, and i actually found when i was looking to replace my slow cooker (the non-stick surface was peeling off . . . eww). It has a slow cooker setting, but I think EVERYTHING has come out better in the PC than it did in the slow cooker. The meat was very tender - maybe a tad more cooked than I wanted it, but close enough. It'll make an easy meal tomorrow.

a long time ago I saw an article doing a taste test of various spaghetti sauce brands, and they also did a quick home made sauce for comparison. at that point in my life, i was buying generic spaghetti sauce and spicing it up. after that article, I just bought crushed, concentrated tomato puree and spiced that up instead. Not much more work, no more money, better flavor. that being said, dh has been using Prego spicy sausage straight up. I make my own with tons of veggies . . . .

Ok, just came back from whole foods - they were still out of turkey thigh, which is what I use for burgers. but there was a big family pack of chicken legs for $3. So i need a meal for tomorrow - and really, they dont like chicken legs. I'm thinking of pressure cooking them and shredding and doing bbq or salad sandwiches . . . i'd rather make chicken and dumplings, but dh kinda hates that and I think I already did it last month, so i really should wait another month . . .

I find that a good plan (taking in to account what time I have to cook that day) is succesful - cooking is not as hard as planning. Once the plan is in place, I'll get it done, but if there is no plan, I panic. I got off schedule with the holidays - i do my schedules mid-week so I dont have to fight the grocery store on the weekend. Except today I do. I also dont do breakfasts/lunches except special occasions. Sat (Today) french-canadian shepherds pie Sun Turkey burgers, chips mon pork stir fry and rice tues hot dogs and chicken soup and biscuits Wed Home made baked chicken strips and fries then i'll be on a better schedule and MAKE myself do full weeks. We have extensive food allergies, so there is really no possiblility of ordering food or picking it up somewhere. I really refuse to do most activities that are at 6 or 7 pm, because . . .dinner.

But if its too warm at bedtime, the kids wont use any covers and they wake up cold

which Dr Who game? There was one I told my husband to check out, but he said it was made by the same people who made a game I hated . . . 7 Wonders . .. . I was slightly tempted to get a dr who monopoly, but we dont play monopoly often enough. We got saddled with a kids version and a . . idk, build-the-game version? I used to be big on Spades. Dh and I, early in our relationship, had a 'double date' with a friend of his from work. We went to their favorite mexican restaurant (which was crap), and they introduced us to a card game we'd never seen before. We wanted to partner together, and we CREAMED them, twice in a row, in a game they had been playing regularly for years . . . Skip Bo, had to go look. But we havent played cards . . maybe since then lol which was 11 years ago

Castle of Panic is a cooperative game, so its good for kids who struggle with winning/losing.

I'm using the 6th grade one right now with my son, to tie up loose ends from our very eclectic math education. The format, though, sounds different. There is a pre-test, a section which teaches (briefly) how to do the problems, practice problems, and a post-test. If my son gets all (or mostly all) the pre-test right, we're skipping that chapter.

Me too, always. Except I do get chilly before bedtime. I read once that, whenever you are warmer, thats your 'awake' time - so i go to bed freezing and wake up hot, because i'm a morning person, and dh goes to bed hot, and wakes up freezing, because he's a night person. I hate in the summer how, as the temp falls outside, the a/c doesnt run and the house gets stuffier and i wake up in the middle of the night way too hot to sleep. I hated cosleeping with 2 kids because I was always too hot to sleep in the middle of the night. And i hate super cold nights where the heater kicks in to backup and blasts hot air in my face at 4 am. grrrr

You know theres a social group, right? http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/groups/31-gamers-table/ My husband is a serious gamer. He was a rated chess player when in canada, and he has (in the past 2 or 3 years) rekindled his obsession with cardboard war strategy games. He's even started doing some game testing for game makers. He has one guy about 30 minutes from here he plays with, and at least one guy he sometimes skype-plays with in England. But he also loves board games and we have too many for how much we play. We're trying to get back in the habit of playing as a family. Last couple games we played were ticket to ride and small world and Castle of Panic. Raven has been wanting to play Forbidden Island and I was wanting to play . . .uh, the one with the sheep. Carcossone?

you could also look at Logic of English foundations

i have never seen the elementary books. My older son could not use LOF as instruction, but enjoyed it as review. My younger boy, who LIVES for random humor, likes LOF as curriculum. But i've never used anything younger than the pre-algebra books

I was curious, too. Looks like calico beans is supposed to be 3 kinds of canned beans (kidney, butter or lima, and pork and beans or baked beans), ground beef and bacon, and a quick bbq-type sauce (brown sugar, mustard, vinegar, maybe ketchup). Sounds weird but is apparently a southern thing?

I have to admit, as a firm evolution-camp-member, I was unhappy when I saw that quote. Its obviously not the way to reach people. I thought it was a groan-worthy moment and could not figure out why all my fb friends were posting it. But I'm REALLY on team NdGT . . . i cant wait to see Cosmos reboot, but really wonder if it will cover evolution appropriately or not.

I did wash ziplocs for a while (or, really, my ex did), but it just was such a PITA. I never celebrated these holidays as a kid, and we dont really do easter. i did buy a halloween bucket once. it was a dollar and lasted years. My first xmas tree lasted about 15 years and was just horrid, so i bought a new one 2 years ago. But i lived on a commune for a while and just hate wasting anything . . . idk

Ok, I think you seriously need to ignore everything hubby does when planning meals for you and the kids. There are tons of definitions of healthy. If getting veggies in the kids and you is the problem, start there - what can you do for you and the kids to get in more veggies? Dont label any food as 'bad' - just aim for moderation. Carbs are not evil. Eating nothing but carbs is a problem. (and sometimes just avoiding gluten gets a lot of the same benefits, since wheat is a carb a lot of people dont handle well) If you are unhappy with your meals, you are more likely to snack - you need to feel satisfied emotionally with your meals and they need to meet your nutritional needs - and bodies actually need some carbs. Can you make tacos (instead of taco casserole) and use some of dh's plain chicken but mix it with taco seasoning and have various toppings on the table (including cheese!) - so your husband could just have his plain chicken on the plain lettuce, but you and the kids take the seasoned chicken shreds, put it in a shell with some refries, lettuce, salsa and a LITTLE cheese . . . . olives maybe . . . doable? When he has chicken tenders salads - but the tenders on bread for you and the kids. Why not? I think you have to stop letting your husbands issues (he really has serious food issues) ruin mealtime for everyone else. He has a serious problem - and I am fine with supporting him with special foods for him - but i'm not ok with him dictating a miserable existence for the rest of you.

fwiw, my mathy youngest, when asked to explain this last year for a post, just said 'they are opposite' . . so adding them is like subtracting and subtracting them is like adding. and with multiplying, multiplying by a negative 'flips' the sign of the other - after all, -8 is the same as 8 * (-1). so (-8) * (-3) is the same as (-1)*(8)*(-1)*(3) which is (8*3)*(-1*-1) . . . . -1 times anything switches its sign, so -1*-1 is 1. so you just have 8*3.