My 14yo dd wants to buy vanity contact lenses as part of her Halloween costume. She found some online that are "FDA approved." She does not wear contacts and has never had a dedicated eye exam. I think it is a bad idea. At the very least, I think she will struggle to even put them on. I am even more worried about fit. Am I overreacting?

Sure! She followed the syllabus advice about making her own flashcards and studying from them as well as the games online. In addition, I would give her a "spelling test" two days before each quiz so we could identify problem words. She just used a white board. It was important that this not be verbal as I was checking for correct spelling as well. If she missed any, I would retest the problem words the next day. I printed out the vocab lists and made notes of words that got missed at any point and we would keep the problem word flashcards active all semester. Before the final exams, I would also go through the entire list with her again so we could catch any words that slipped out of her brain. As dd moved into AP Latin, I have backed off on helping with the vocabulary. Dd has been able to take that over on her own but it is penciled into her daily schedule. This includes review of vocab from all past years. I have dd print out her homework from Quia right after she submits it. The next day, she goes through the homework and compares her answers to the sample answers. In pencil she makes corrections and notes about things to watch out for in the future. Once it is graded, she goes through it again and marks any correction she may have missed. She keeps all of these in a binder and refers to them again when getting ready for quizzes or the final exams. After every quiz, dd is required to go through and make notes of her mistakes. These are reviewed before final exams. We have found that dd retains much better if she spreads out the homework over several days. This not only makes it less overwhelming but also seems to be better for practice. Dd followed the advice in the syllabus to rewrite her notes immediately after class. That does not apply so much to Latin 3 and 4 but was necessary in 1 and 2.

My 14yo is in AP Latin with Lukeion this year, and yes there have been several times that I had to be talked off of the ledge. Those classes are very difficult and time consuming. I have practically begged dd to consider dropping at least once a year but she has insisted on sticking it out. Dd is bright but not gifted so this is a stretch for her. I don't think it is a good fit for everyone and if it is indeed killing you, there are many other good options. I do think their new model with two years of "Latin 3" would have been great for dd and taken some of the pressure off. She was one year too early. Two things to keep in mind if you do choose to stick it out: 1. This is the only class in which I have to heavily scaffold dd. She needs at least 10 hours a week, sometimes more, to keep up. This was true in all four years. There have been a couple of times where she has slipped behind and it was crucial to methodically catch up. I sit down with her every week right after class and we map out what needs to be done and when it will be done. If the work is not evenly spread across all seven days of the week, dd gets overwhelmed. We talk about what kinds of study methods work and what new methods she might want to try in a given week. We talk about the latest batch of grades and what may have gone right/wrong so study methods can be adjusted and review areas can be identified. One task that makes the list every week is reviewing mistakes on past assignments/exams. I am on top of her every day to make sure she is not slipping. 2. We have had to back off of other subjects to make this happen. Since this is dd's last year, I purposely made her load lighter in other subjects. She only has 6 credits total and one is a non-academic elective. She can catch up or expand next year if she wants. Or maybe we can just BREATHE for a year.

There are probably others like me that are islands who have never really thought about old school versus new. This board is the only place where I discuss homeschooling. We homeschool for two very simple reasons. I felt I could provide a better education for my dd than the local schools and our family very highly values flexibility. My dd has two interests that take up a great deal of time. She would not be able to do either of them, let alone even one, to the level she wants without the flexible schedule that homeschooling allows. I don't have a philosophy. I use what works. Sometimes I have to make my own curriculum, sometimes I use purchased curriculum, and sometimes I outsource online (hello, Latin). We do not do any co-ops and we are not part of a homeschool group of any kind. We have a large somehow publicly-funded homeschool "center" that not only has classes of all kinds but also provides funding to homeschool families for all kinds of things like DE, extracurricular activities, and curriculum. There are park days. I am simply not interested in any of these things. I do what I do with occasional advice and reviews from people on this board. I don't want interference nor do I want to be tied down to a schedule and/or rules. No one asks for my advice either. Dd's (and my) social groups have nothing to do with homeschooling. All of dd's friends go to traditional school. Aside from talking about life in general, homeschooling never comes up. My dd is in high school now and is largely self-learning with a great deal of scaffolding by me. I don't need someone to tell me if that is OK or part of an approved philosophy. I do it because it works for us and is resulting in the outcomes I would like to see. All that to say that I don't see trends in methods or attitudes as I don't have a baseline. I have noticed a huge increase in curriculum choices and online classes since I started which I appreciate. I do think I will be "obsolete" soon after dd graduates simply because things are changing quickly and without skin in the game, I will not be current.

Ugh. Yes! I cross country ski all winter and our trails allow dogs on leash. I have HIT many off leash dogs over the years. People seem to think the rule does not apply to them. I can be going 20 miles per hour on an icy downhill trail. There is no avoiding a collision with a dog that just wants to come up to people. The owners are almost always slower, recreational skiers who just cannot seem to grasp that people who are training are going fast. So far, I have not injured a dog or myself in an unleashed situation and the owners cannot even get mad because they are not following the rules. Dh hit (ran over is probably more accurate) a tiny puppy a few years ago and the puppy was injured. He felt terrible but the puppy was all over the place and dh couldn't find the right path to avoid collision. Dh ripped into the owners. Yes, puppies are cute and "harmless" but still need to be on a leash! But those retractable leashes are terrible. Same situation. I'm going fast and sometimes at night with only my head lamp for light. I got tangled up with an angry and scared dog because I skied right into the nearly-invisible retractable leash. I saw the owner on one side of the trail and the dog on the other, but couldn't see the thin part of the leash. I assumed it was off leash as I was trying my best to slow down before approaching the situation. I skied through the line, fell hard, and was completely tangled up with a terrified dog. The owner really helped the situation by screaming at ME. I think the dog was OK but I was very bruised and sore for weeks. I felt that the dog was ready to bite at any moment. I am still just so mad. The owner never conceded that she was at fault. She insisted that she was "following the rules" with the leash but failed to comprehend that she did not clear the trail for an oncoming skier and had in fact left a nearly invisible obstacle.

Nope. I have 3.5 more years and I will "retire" from homeschooling and work full time. We are not now, nor have ever been, part of a local homeschool community. We didn't fit in. I will need to work full time to make up for the years I was only part time. I teach at a university so I will still be teaching, just not at home. I enjoy working with college students but do not enjoy kids other than my own. I will probably hang out here for as long as I am useful because the advice I have gotten here, especially for the high school years, has kept me sane. I would like to pay that back.

This has not been my experience. I had 125 students between three classes last semester and I always have my students take a survey at the beginning of the semester. The survey covers many subjects but one is computing. I typically have to have every student on a machine during my classes and my classroom only has enough machines for half of the students, so I need to know if I have a shortfall. Only 11 did not have a computer. And of those, 6 had an iPad or tablet of some sort. That said, I do think it is very possible to get by without one as there are almost always open computers in the labs at my school. I think in many cases, using the labs is easier than maintaining a computer when dealing with complicated software.

Someone mentioned it above, but do check with the school and even the department of a student's major if you can. I prefer Macs myself BUT my university engineering students really are better served by Windows machines. One of the classes I teach involve several software packages and some solid modeling programs do not run as well on Macs. Or may not run on Macs at all. About half of my freshman last year had Macs and they were forced to use the computer labs for the solid modeling components of class. Some didn't even know where their labs were! They looked at me like I had two heads when I suggested they use the lab. I know the inverse can be true (where Macs are better) for software used in other majors like music or graphic design.

I finally found contact info for our district and sent emails and left phone messages. I don't have a whole lot of hope. I put out a general FB inquiry and no one seems to have heard of any local groups, but I will await word from one of the people I contacted before giving up. I'm not sure how I had never heard of it before but it is right up dd's alley. Our local GS troops are not into camping or the outdoors in general. Dd has resorted to joining a college mountain climbing club and recruiting any remotely-willing friends to go on other adventures. She has expressed disappointment in not being able to do the things her male friends do in Boy Scouts. She already has a lot of gear. The websites are terrible. Sheesh.

This may just come down to preference. I have to use both as my work computer is a windows machine. I find it very frustrating compared to my Apple products.

We got dd a MacBook when she was in 7th grade because she was on mine constantly for online classes and word processing. She is also on a road a lot and having a laptop means she can do her work and classes anywhere. I cannot imagine going to college without one. I teach at a university and all of my students have some sort of computing device. Macs might be expensive but they are not buggy and they last forever. Mine is 10 years old and going strong.

Can anyone explain Venture Scouting a bit more to me? I went on the website and tried searching for Venture Scouting in my area. None showed up. There are Cub and Boy Scout groups listed. Would Venture always show up independently or are they attached to BS groups? I have a dd who would be interested but there does not seem to be a good way to even find out if such a group exists in my area. The website lists a council 200 miles away in a different state. For those familiar with the program, are there areas with no Ventures at all?

This is great news. It will be too late for my dd, unfortunately. I was in girl scouts all the way through high school. We had a "brother troop" that we did many activities together with....mostly because our troop leader was married to their troop leader. We even had our annual ceremonies together. That as probably against the rules but as far as I know, no one ever got in trouble. Our GS troop often earned the BS badges when we deemed the GS badge of similar goals to be too "dumbed down" for our taste. For instance, at the time the freeze out badge for GS only required that the temperature went below freezing at some point during the campout whereas the BS badge required that it be below freezing the whole time. This was very insulting to my troop, so we earned the BS badge instead. Had this been an option in my day, I am quite sure our troop would have flipped.

We seek out Mexican take-out places. Qdoba is an example but we often find independent places in most places we go that are similar an tastier. Almost all have a "bowl" that I order up with brown rice, beans, and whatever toppings I want that day.

Where did the chili tradition come from? I ask because this was my FOO tradition growing up (Texas roots) and I have kept it going at my own house (WAY northern US). People where I live now seem to think it is strange although they do still keep coming to chili dinner before ToTing. They have adopted it because we have been doing it for two decades but still think it is odd. I grew up with the understanding that Halloween and chili are a "thing." Is it a "thing?"

I didn't have my first taste of avocado until I was an adult. I was very picky as a child. What a crime! I love them in just about any format. The best food EVER. Unfortunately, I live where they are very expensive and often not very good. When I get my hands on good ones, the whole family is in heaven. Dd's first food was avocado and there was no looking back for her. I have to hide them when I get home from the store if I have any plans for them. There is pretty much no wrong way to eat them. I will scoop them right out of the shells with a sprinkle of salt. If I have a bit more patience, they are great on pizza, sandwiches, eggs, stir fry, toast, .....actually....anything. I cannot think of anything I would not at least consider putting some avocado on.

I was very similar when I was growing up. My family culture required that I did eat many of the things I didn't like at meals (no thank you servings) but it did not help me acquire tastes for those things. I now know that the reason I didn't like many things was the way they were prepared and that I did indeed like many things I thought I hated when prepared in different ways. The bottom line is that my parents really didn't care if I liked or didn't like something and made little effort to encourage me to branch out yet I did develop a healthy palate eventually despite that. So, there is hope even if you are not able to make progress in the early teen years. That said, I see the yogurt as an opportunity to try new things. Instead of the sugary yogurt, perhaps smoothies prepared at home would be a good way to introduce new fruits (and maybe even vegetables eventually). You can start with adding enough honey to make it similar in taste to prepared yogurt and back off over time. Put in large quantities of fruits your dd tolerates at first but introduce small quantifies of new fruits over time. This method will work best if your dd is on board with the goal of palette expanding. Potatoes and rice are great carriers for healthy toppings. Rice can even be cooked in vegetable broth to add nutrition. If actual vegetables are going to be an issue as toppings, are sauces an alternative? Nuts or nut butters?

My dh has never been able to wrap his brain around budgeting. Luckily, that was apparent before we even got married and he was willing to relinquish all budgeting to me. That does not mean all was good immediately. Since he was never used to budgeting and our income was very low, there were often conflicts on how to budget. Mostly he wanted to spend on things we simply didn't have money for and I was unwilling to carry debt on CCs to accommodate that spending. Over the years, a combination of increased income and better understanding between us has resolved most of those issues. As we had more income, we were able to change the budget so that dh has discretionary funds to spend as he wishes. Unfortunately, we do not have enough income to extend that type of spending freedom to me. It sometimes causes conflict but in the end, I would rather dh has access to money that does not require discussion (AKA fights) between us and have a healthy financial situation than make everything "even." It is what it is. That said, yes, meal planning is likely the most effective way for me to cut our budget at any given time. Most of our budget consists of fixed costs that cannot be lowered without major effort (mortgage, insurance, health, etc....). Lowering the heat by a few degrees or paying special attention to shutting off lights does not move the budget numbers enough to make a significant difference. I did a year-long personal study several years ago on food budgeting and found that my family can eat with a much lower budget when meal planning is done consistently. We have never been food wasters so everything I buy does get eaten but having an actual menu plan meant that each meal has a lower cost per unit. With forethought, I can use less expensive ingredients. When I am consistently meal planning, we also eat out or get take out less often which is an even bigger savings. The way I meal plan often requires advanced prepping. If I have a vat of beans soaking 24 hours ahead of time, the temptation to grab a pizza the next day is almost zero because I still have to cook the beans to avoid wasting them. No point in picking up pizza AND cooking the beans since my pizza temptation is almost always about my own laziness rather than a hankering for pizza. It works for me. YMMV. All in all, our monthly food budget is half when I meal plan. That can be $300-$400 which is very significant in our budget.

My dd is in 9th grade and she usually has 3-4 hours of schoolwork on weekends. She hates it. I hate it. She has two online classes that just take her more time than she can do during the week....both from time management and focus standpoints. Lukeion AP Latin, especially, is very time-consuming for a younger student. It is these classes that end up with leftover work over the weekend. Dd is a very slow worker. She always has been. She only has 6 credits so it is not as though she is overloaded. I expect the situation to improve next year with no Latin. Ideally, I would like her to have little or no weekend schoolwork.

I don't mind so much because I enjoy the craziness of the crowds but I hear you on this. We live in one of the poorer neighborhoods in my city and there are actually very few children that live here. We are primarily a mix of older people and non-family rentals. The lots were plotted pre-automobile so are very small making the neighborhood dense. So, it kind of cracks me up that all of the people from the McMansion-villes are in a neighborhood they would never consider living in and almost act afraid to let their kids walk in for Halloween night.

I live in a destination neighborhood for ToTing and we get 200+ every year, depending on the weather. All ages are welcome here. We do get a handful of teens not dressed up and there are always a few rude people of all ages, but I give candy to all of them. My 14 will be ToTing this year and I would not be at all surprised if she does so for one or two more years. She will be going with a group of kids of all ages (4-15) and had already started using the "helping" card as an excuse, but I know the truth:) I don't mind that people flock to my neighborhood for the night but it does REALLY bug me that a growing percentage are driving their kids from house to house. Our neighborhood is primarily 50' x 100' old city lots. I think the kids take more steps walking to the cars and back than just walking house to house. I finally got a chance to question a few families last year and learned that at least some are doing this because they think it is unsafe for their kids to walk or there are small children and a parent with mobility issues. I still don't get it and it makes our small city streets congested, which makes it less safe for the walkers, but at least it seems to not be pure laziness in all cases.

I wouldn't say it is unusual. Dd had several donation birthday parties for our local animal shelter. She had outgrown parties but when she still had them, she very much looked forward to bringing the donations in and visiting the animals. She got the idea from attending others. A significant percentage of the parties she has attended have been donation parties for various causes. In all of the parties we had, no one ever brought a gift for dd. Nor have I witnessed it at no-gift or donation parties dd attended. It is possible that a gift was discretely whisked away before I saw it but as far as I could tell, it was not a problem. I realize this can vary greatly by region/culture.

Do not bring a gift. "Polite society" went out the window when kids started getting buried under cheap toys and clutter that all end up in a landfill. Things have changed. Thankfully.

I would have been angry as well. My dd will be getting her permit soon and I would most definitely ask permission before allowing her to drive with another kid in my car. Actually, I will not have her drive while still on permit if I have anyone else's child in my car so it is a moot point. Many of her friends are currently permitted, we carpool a lot, and this has never come up so I suspect the other parents I know feel the same. Dd has to ask before riding with a fully-licensed teen. I have allowed it at every request thus far as the drivers involved are kids I trust and have witnessed driving but she does still have to ask each time.

We never succeeded in this area. I even bordered on rude in an attempt to curb it. Dd is in her teens so this is way less of an issue now. I'd say we cleared the worst of it when she turned 10 or so. When she was little she was the only grandchild on BOTH sides. You can just imagine. We did not buy her birthday or Christmas gifts until she was 6. There were just so many from extended family that she did not even notice that we did not give her anything. Santa only brings one modest gift. She also had no-gift bday parties because the gift pile from family was already far more than her tiny bedroom could accommodate. Since I had tried to reason with everyone, I felt zero guilt about immediately donating gifts that either were duplicates, were too large for our home, not in line with our values, or simply not of interest to dd. This was often more than half of the gifts. I felt terrible the first year but then just started to get MAD. Their need to gift the way they wanted was causing us stress, work, hard feelings, and general irritation. Dd broke out in tears during the Christmas morning she was 5 because she didn't want to open any more presents. It was ridiculous. If your situation is just as bad, I would not worry too much about being "polite." I do believe there is a such a thing as "aggressive gifting." Good luck!