but I guess I saw some comments about the fact that . . . the federal land management agency, maybe, took over management of that land but Bundy insists he should be able to do what he's always done, which is graze his animals there without any fees or regulations.

CSM is a pretty reliable source (i trust it even tho i'm not christian, so) and their article says that Bundy refusing to pay the grazing fee seems to be the main issue. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0413/Nevada-range-fight-revives-Sagebrush-Rebellion

What I saw was that the gov't has been trying to get him to stop letting his cattle graze on gov't land for a long time and he wont stop. they went to court and said he had to pay per head, he refused to pay. then then went to round up the cattle but he and a bunch of supporters were there with guns, so they decided to call it off in the name of public safety. But that was something copies and pasted in to fb . .. i'm not entirely sure the source.

Its probably my last year /cry for my currently-ten-yo: Story of Science - probably with the student quest book (i just read the books w my older son) LOF pre-algebra writing, writing and more writing - he needs to get up to speed to go to school in 7th grade (probably)

My daughter had braces and she was pretty good, except she never did use the pressure cleaner appliance hubby bought her. But she has always been very self-diciplined and independent, and she still complained a LOT, and when, surprise, after it was done they said you have to wear this removable bit every night for the rest of your life and come back every . . year or two? forever, she was DONE. She never wore that thing, and I was OK with that - i felt like they should have told us up front that that was part of the treatment. after going through all that w my daughter, and in the end, neither of us were quite sure it was worth it, i decided I would NOT do braces with my teen son. he is very forgetful and non-compliant. He just turned 18 and still wont brush his teeth unless I tell him to. there was just no way . . . his teeth are not noticeably crooked either.

Oh, my 10 yo and I are reading Artemis Fowl together - book 3 was not my fave but I'm LOVING book 4 . . .my older kids read it on their own, so we already owned them (dh used to like buying books, now i've convinced him to use the library . . . )

i dont like the taste of softened water, though. Have you tried using limeaway products?

I have sensory issues and went braless for a LONG time, and then I discovered the unbra. They come in every size and can be customized, come in cotton, cotton lycra, cotton velour, and i think some non-cotton fabrics as well. There are no seams across your sensitive bits (i cant stand that), the elastic is fully covered, and I think they can also use a custom thread of the thread is bothering you. They have a ton of colors. not particularly cheap or quick. But probably worth looking at http://decentexposures.com/ eta actually the girl sizes, which dont have cups, are much cheaper

Hubby has 2 degrees in math and 2 in actuarial science and he says there are tons of opportunities - but you should think about what you want to specialize in. theoretical math, more statistics oriented, etc? He definitely thinks smaller class size is better. He went to 4 different colleges (in Canada) and found class size to be the most important - and verify that classes are taught by professors, not grad students. He says that a lot of companies dont care about your specialization, but understand that math majors are highly capable in a lot of things other people really cant do. Wave . . . from Richmond's far-west-end

You can also post questions to the yahoo group or the forum and Michael himself sometimes answers.

I have been to a few therapists (marital and individual) over the past decade-and-a-half. The last one, who was my favorite, told me that if I was satisfied with my level of functioning, there was no reason to go for an evaluation. But when things get bad, I always consider it - because i'd love a pill to help!! At times therapy has been helpful as a pressure-outlet, but not much more for me. It is really hard moving to a new city. I've never really had a support system, but i can imagine how hard that would be to lose. Hopefully you'll meet some new people soon. I've also recently been wondering if my general mistrust of doctors is doing more harm than good - but doctors tend to respond badly when you come in having done all your research and having a pretty good idea of what is going on. I keep having doctors telling me that I cant be experiencing what i'm experiencing, or offering anti-depressants for fatigue. I also need a schedule - its not a precise one, but the day has a definite flow, and there are no electronic entertainments (except reading facebook / fan fics) during 'school' hours.

I sleep on the left, but with my ex, I slept on the right. I'm not sure how it happens . . .

My 10 yo started in mid-january, and we just took 2 weeks off for spring break. He's not done - last I hear he had a lesson or 2 left, but then there is the advanced material? He is not so obsessive about it, but usually does about 20 - 40 minutes per school day. He's also managed to write the teachers when he's stuck and get help, which is awesome. You have the material for a full year, so there's no rush. He really loves it - he'd done some Scratch before. Oh, a friend of mine said her 9 yo son finished it in a month. I asked if he'd done all the lessons and all the building and she said "I dont know, he just said he wants me to buy another one" . . . she is an unschooler, so I'm not sure if he really finished it, or just finished what he enjoyed and then stopped?

My son has been diagnosed with various combinations of aspergers, adhd, bipolar, tourettes, and a processing disorder . . . idk, i might be missing something. I eventually realized I also show some signs of bipolar and adhd and aspergers. Then my life . . yeah . . . first husband (father of my first 2 kids) i had to kick out of the house with a protective order because he'd become violent (turns out he had a seizure disorder). during that I got laid off from a job, and then a year later, from another job. I got a job in a different town, wrecked my car on the commute, moved, met another guy, got pregnant and remarried, quit my job and had a new baby, had to go back to work when canadian hubby's green card was delayed, then my middle child started getting dx's and dh decided being married to me was too hard because i didnt have normal kids . . . after 6 mo of fighting and therapy, he moved out .. . and moved back in about 9 mo later. Meanwhile, the middle child finally catches up to the bipolar dx - he's been violent, suicidal, and having panic attacks - he's 9 - and finally gets medicated, eventually on anti-psychotics, and gets moved from the gifted program to a stand-alone special ed room for emotionally disturbed kids, and then to a middle school program for autism. So, my daughter hates me at this point and is getting meaner and meaner. I have to put the little one in daycare during the whole separation and it killed me, and I hate my job, so after a bit, hubby says I can stay home - but only because I stopped talking about homeschool my middle child. Then my daughter is totally losing it - runs away from school and walks 10 miles before she'll pick up the phone, and the cop who responded says "she says theres nothing wrong at home, at school, or with her boyfriend. You might want to get her checked for bipolar". I take her to a therapist who believes my daughters lies and blames me for all her problems so the relationship between my daughter and i gets worse - but I work with her school to get her to finish up mostly in community college, and i spend a year driving her between three schools. Meanwhile both boys are crying about school amost daily and hubby finally says I can try homeschooling, but Id' better keep along the same lines the school is doing because he thinks i'm going to lose my mind and have to put them back in school. Sometime during this general timeframe, my daughter comes swinging at me, she tries to move in with my mom, who then changes her mind and says no at the last minute, and then my daughter is hospitalized for being suicidal. I do start homeschooling, but she get very angry any time she wanders downstairs (she almost never comes out of her room) and I'm busy . . . she's jealous that I'm paying attention to them? If I can, i sit with her during lunch, but its never enough and she's mroe and more angry all the time, and moves accross the country the day she turns 18 to stay with friends. She's back 7 mo later, nicer for a while, but then gets sicker - she's tried a few meds that dont help, but the last one she ends up in a fibromyalgia flare, so she's now in constant pain and exhuastion and somehow thats all my fault too. She gets a job, but has to quit because the hours are too much when she returns to school, goes on a road trip with some friends that goes badly, and then takes a half a bottle of pills and i have to call an ambulance . . . once she's sober she wont talk to me at all, and she's let out with nothing but a promise to go to therapy, which she wont do . .. oh, and some time that year, I hurt my knee and can barely walk . . . finally (jan 2013) she DOES move in with my mom, and the next month I have knee surgery which takes MONTHS to recover from ... I've been totally overwhelmed. The house is a mess. I do cook, i love cooking, and we have a ton of allergies too. Oh, and my youngest is the super-stubborn one with probably some dyslexia? I think I wrote more than you did. but . . . i work hard on forgiving myself for my faults, accepting that there's only so much I can do before I get overwhelmed, accpeting that maybe I only feel like cleaning anything once a month, oh well. I do try to make the kids help, and dh pitches in a lot, but he's super-grumpy, hates his job, and never bonded emotionally with my kids. Its a hard life. Having my daughter gone made it a lot easier and i feel like I'm finally coming out of the worst of it. I also take a lot of supplements? But you have to focus on taking care of yourself without being judgemental about yourself, and doing what really HAS to be done. Be glad of what you HAVE accomplished when there si so much on your plate and you are handicapped by your issues. I think i'm ok at being sympathetic sometimes? Idk, my daughter thought i was a terrible mom but my boys think I'm fine. I dont stress about academics, but try to cover math/science/english/social studies in some way each day. My 10 yo thats playing dragonbox 12+ / reading some horrible science and telling what he read / working on a story or doing some workbook with me / stack the states app. he's also doing a programming class and reading harry potter. Thats it at the moment - not rigorous, but making a little progress and its very easy to implement. I eat a lot of jelly beans.

I've never heard of a state requiring an 'affidavit'. I'm not sure exactly what that means? Unless you mean proof that you live in the state? But in my state, Virginia, homeschooling is explicitly an alternative way to comply with the state's compulsory education law. You are filing paperwork to declare that you will educate your child instead of sending them to school and stating what you will teach, and every year you send in proof that you have done so. If you falsify documents, thats clearly your fault, not the state's fault. The state is enforcing mandatory education, and you are reporting to them that you have met that requirement.

We usually did a lesson a week - so it took us about a year (skipping the last 4 lessons because he was burnt out). But my son is very short-attention-span and often, on the sentence dictation, he would roll on the floor crying for 10 minute before starting . . . but he MUCH preferred this to spelling power lol! We went through it as written, with no independent studying except occasionally with words he wasnt learning - so maybe 4 or 5 lists of 8-20 words. We didnt do the advanced because I promised him we would take at least a full year off from any forma spelling after completing LOE. I still love the program - i just have really difficult kids.

I took a Coursera course on morality - the discussion boards were a landmine!

I know plenty of ppl who barely do any academics, but they arent the ones that worry me. The ones that really worry me are the ones who let their kids stay up all night playing video games, assume the kids will learn to cook since they arent awake at meal times, and the parents do the CAT tests themselves for the year end Proof of Progress. And truthfully, my favorite thing about the people who barely do any academics - it makes me feel better about our relaxed approach! (I cover math/science/english/social studies with each kid every day . . . but not what i'd call rigorous)

Right, it is written in chronological order, but also the target age increases between books. The third book is really high school level. At least.

what age? i think 'the way things work' book covers a lot of physics.

Well, I just came from seeing 3 bravewriter sessions at a conference . . . so lol! You can actually glean a lot from her blogs. But for 'what to write' - doesnt he have a favorite topic? Write about sports, or video games, or his favorite movie. Write about his friends, his pets, whatever. Julie gave a 9 week assignment like this - every week for (5 minutes? 10? 15? depends on the ability) you set a timer and BOTH of you sit down and write constantly. Dont stop moving the pencil. If you have to write 'i dont know what to write and this feels stupid" thats fine. Dont worry about punctuation or grammar. Stop when the time goes off - unless he really wants to keep going because he's on a roll. He can read it to you if he wants, but you dont look. Each of you put your writing away in a folder, and do it again next week. After 8 weeks, take them out and look at them and see if one of them looks like something interesting that you might want to work more on. Then let HIM rework it. Let HIm decide what to change and what to fix. Maybe come back to it again the next week and see if there is more he wants to do. Also, let him dictate stories to you. The dyslexia might be getting in the way more than you realize. Putting a story together is a different skill than writing - let him work on the one without the other. She also recommends dictation - you dictate and he writes it. Its easier to correct his grammar and spelling when you arent correcting his creative work. He wont take it so personally that way. You can also just hand him the original and let him correct his own. The idea isnt to get perfection, the idea is to encourage all forms of expression and gently give him encouragement so he becomes confident. He might not ever make his living as a writer, and thats fine. Just work with where he is and gently expand it.

I'm graduating one this year. He . . .doesnt really have any friends. I promised a trip to Kings Dominion (amusement park), and he seemed pleased - he's never been there. He bio-dad and family took him to a different park once - i'm a serious homebody who hates pomp and ceremony, too. He'll have a bridging ceremony at (UU) church, tho

When I started homeschooling my middle schooler, I thought maybe 1 subject a day would make it easy to focus, but instead, he wore out. I tried 2 subjects a day, still no good. turned out he only had about 20 minutes of focus, and then he needed something totally different. I saw SWB speak this weekend, and she mentioned block scheduling. But IIR, she did it with one kid who had 'senioritis' - basically he picked one subject and did nothing but that until he finished the whole book, then moved on to another subject. She said for him, the sense of completion gave him the satisfaction he needed to keep going.

I started with Dr Art's Guide to Science. I think Nebells also has a middle school manual.

Is there another post somewhere for followup? Sorry I didnt see Whitehawk's post - its not public-transport friendly. You could maybe take a cab from the train station, its not outlandishly far from there, I dont think. But its in a very suburban, spread-out area and Richmond's public transportation is almost non-existent. It used to be held in the science museum, which is inside city limits and on the bus line, but not any more. I went to 2 SWB sessions and 3 BW sessions and I LOVED THEM! Ok, back later to chat more if other ppl are posting