So, knowing how great the VP program is, did you use anything similar for high school?

Has anyone used the Veritas Press Self Paced Online ancient history for high school? I know it is meant for younger kids but we used it in middle school and my kids learned so much from it. Do you know if it would qualify as a high school history credit?

So awesome!! That is a big jump and takes so much courage! I have several friends who practiced law and got out. Nursing is such a big change from law!! What I love about nursing is the variety. Are you planning to do family nurse practitioner? I'm sure it's hard to say at this point till you do clinicals and decide on what type of population you want to work with. I did neonatal ICU and pediatrics mostly. A little ER and some outpatient clinics. I planned to go back for FNP because of the variety and the hours. I started applying and talking to the schools and bought the textbooks and tried to get a jump start on studying, but my girls were younger and my studying was derailed because they needed me. So awesome that you are almost ready to start your 2nd term! Good luck! Nursing is a fabulous career. Oh, just another idea - my best friend is a CRNA and has worked part time and prn making a killing, so that is even another option!!

I actually just forwarded my resume to my friend who is a physician that works for an insurance company. The nurses that they hire work from home and they are looking for a nurse with my background!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've also considered taking some medical coding classes and certification exams. I am super excited to learn a different side of nursing that I can do till I retire. I'm scared, though, to transition from a season of life that I love so much. I love the idea of working in insurance. Hopefully I have the experience needed!!

After taking YEARS off? Once your kids were older? Did you give up your career and then go back? I'm feeling so antsy. My story - I was a dental hygienist and then went back to school for my BSN. I worked as an RN for 10 years in the hospital and in outpatient clinics. After my 2nd daughter was born when I was 35, I worked very part time for 2 more years and stopped when I was 37. At that time I took over the bookkeeping for my husband's business and still do that till this day (almost 10 years later), as well as homeschool my 11 year old daughter. When my mom died, I found a 1 day a week program for my daughter and signed her up for online classes so I could handle my mom's estate. Now that it is settled and my daughter can do a lot of work independently, I find myself bored or anxiously busy. I'm either casually helping my daughter with her work, driving her (and my other daughter) to lessons, doing the bookkeeping for my husband, cooking, cleaning, running errands, etc. Part of me wants to get a job, although not working nights, weekends, etc - killing myself, and part of me wants to just continue to go along as I am now. There is part of me that feels like I could be using my degrees and earning an income and part of me that worries that if I do that, I will be missing out at home. I'm 47 now, and just don't know if it's worth it to go back at this point. Anyone else in the same boat? What did you do?

There are many procedures that can be done by general dentists, including root canals and implants. Implants are so common now that there are many dentists who do them and do them well, and they have very intensive training to be able to do so. I would not hesitate to allow a general dentist who is well trained to do a specialized procedure. A good dentist would refer a more difficult case to a specialist. As far as having to come back for an exam by a dentist, I think you should mention it to the scheduler that it is inconvenient for you to bring your family back in for an exam. In the correct scenario, the patient would have the exam done by the dentist prior to the cleaning or any other treatments because the dentist is the only one who can diagnose.

The really vivid dreams that feel like they really happened are called "visitation dreams". They seem so vivid and real that you wake up thinking/knowing they really did happen. There are other regular dreams where the deceased is in the dream but it is of a more vague quality. Those are supposedly regular dreams. I personally believe in visitation dreams and have had them about my mother and others who have died.

I make fruit salads all the time. No dressing needed. I count on the strawberry juice to "marinate" the other fruits. I usually just do strawberries, blueberries, and either red or green seedless grapes. I always cut the strawberries (either in half or in quarters depending on how big they are), mix all the fruit together gently to not damage it, and let it sit for a few hours so the juices from the strawberries can mix with the rest of the fruit.

I find myself trying to beat them at their own game most of the time. There are some things I have figured out and some things I'm still trying to figure out. The first couple of times I took in huge plastic bins of clothing and they only took a few pieces. Some stuff they gave back still had the tags on them. Then once I took in a banker's box and they wanted none of it. I waited till the weekend when there was different staff, took the same box back in, and got $47 for it. That's when I figured out I should keep trying to sell the same items instead of donating them. I know they won't take anything with stains or excessive wear so I donate those. Now this is what I do: 1. Take small boxes of items. I only use banker's boxes now instead of large plastic bins. I find that they take a larger portion when they don't have much to choose from. 2. Whatever they don't take, I drive over to the 2nd location in town and see what they will take. 3. I mix up whatever they didn't take with a few new items and then go in a few weeks later and try to sell again. They will usually take items that they didn't take the first go round. 4. I found with the store in the last city I lived in, the staff that worked on the weekend would take more and pay more. This has become quite a game to me. I am always trying to figure out how to hack Once Upon A Child, lol! I'd love to hear some other ideas!!

I am the executor of my mom's estate, and I have been in contact with a company that does estate sales and auctions. I'm going that route. They recommended not throwing anything away. Not even to donate old clothes or electrical components, chargers, etc because they can auction off every bit of it. I would imagine you could get a good bit if you put them up for auction. ETA: They come to the house and pack everything up (for a small fee), so it is a win win as far as this busy mom is concerned.

It’s $289/month and you can go every day if you want. Ours is open 5 days a week during the summer and 6 days a week during the school year.

We just started using Essentials in Writing, and I love how simple it is to use. They just watch a DVD lesson, read the lesson in the book, and complete the exercises. The DVDs are in the back of the book so there is only the student book and (in some levels) the teachers guide. The lessons are presented in short manageable chunks. I think they also offer grading services (but I haven't looked into it). I really can't give a full review on it because we have only completed one week's worth of lessons, but I can compare it to IEW with respect to the materials and the ease of use. IEW is another that we have used. I like it, but to me, there are just too many materials. I have DVDs, a student binder that we had to set up, a TWSS teacher manual, the workbook for the history based writing lessons, a student resource notebook. Ugh! Too many components to juggle around!! I am finding that the longer I homeschool, more gets done with a curriculum that is more streamlined (as in not so many components). I do like the content of IEW though, and if EIW doesn't work out for us, we may go back to it, but I doubt it. Lost Tools of Writing is what my daughter used in Classical Conversations Challenge A and it was just too much of a learning curve for me. I didn't like having to watch the Vimeo videos to learn how to help my daughter with it. While she was in class learning it, I was in another class with my other daughter. From what I did see, it seems like they were taking simple concepts and making them seem really complicated. "ANI Chart", "Exortium", etc. Some people might like this, but I just like straightforwardness. So, for ease of use, I pick Essentials in Writing. It is independent, streamlined, the content looks great, and I can pick it up and know exactly what it is talking about.

For those of you who have used CLE for Language Arts through 7th grade, did you feel like it got to be too much during 7th? I don't know if it is just me or if it is my daughter not being very motivated this year, but it just seems like a LOT. It is so good, don't get me wrong. I've had so many issues going on this year that instead of going over each and every lesson with her, I've allowed her to correct all the lessons herself except for the quizzes and tests, which I think she should be able to do at this point. Maybe I've fallen behind on the learning myself. If you've found it to be almost too much in 7th, did you keep with it or try something else?

My daughter just started Mathnasium this week. We had switched from CLE to Saxon this year and it just didn't work out. She had about 20 lessons left in Saxon 8/7 and it was just going downhill so I took her to Mathnasium where they did an assessment to determine where she needed extra tutoring. She loves it so much that she begged me to go every day this week! They said they could take her all the way through calculus without my having to use any other curriculum. Has anyone had experience with using Mathnasium as their only math curriculum? If so, how did you document the lesson plan? (Also posted in General Education)

My daughter just started Mathnasium this week. We had switched from CLE to Saxon this year and it just didn't work out. She had about 20 lessons left in Saxon 8/7 and it was just going downhill so I took her to Mathnasium where they did an assessment to determine where she needed extra tutoring. She loves it so much that she begged me to go every day this week! They said they could take her all the way through calculus without my having to use any other curriculum. Has anyone had experience with using Mathnasium as their only math curriculum? If so, how did you document the lesson plan?