I was getting a lot of headaches and totally cut out caffeine. I drink a LOT Of Diet Coke so this was no small thing. The headaches immediately disappeared. After about a week I added it back in but in lesser quantities and haven't had the headaches return. Also, sometimes you can have "rebound" headaches from taking headache meds. Maybe try not taking them for a few days.

My son is really liking Click (from the Cricket magazine group http://www.cricketmag.com/home.asp.) If he likes science he would probably like it. It has no ads. I'm not sure about reading level...my ds is 4 so I read it to him. The website has more info on reading levels and lots of mags for different ages and interests.

I only have young guys so no advice on the older ones. I think you're in the right place though...just from hanging out here and reading these boards I have gotten so many great ideas and resources. I'm sure others will chime in with advice for you. For the 4 yr old we are using Singapore EB Math. It's really fun. My ds has liked it a lot. He's a workbook kind of kid and likes doing the pages. We also do a lot of counting, sorting ,etc with stuff around the house. He especially likes using M&M's and Jellybeans for counting. Hmmm...wonder why? :)

:iagree:

Books usually...:)

This will probably sound crazy but we got my 4 yr old a digital camera. We found one cheap on craigslist. He loves it.

Cobblers are really easy and I've made them with frozen fruit. They are forgiving and it's ok if they are a little mushy. Especially if you serve over ice cream.

Reading WTM for the first time. Spending half my day nursing. Hadn't even heard of the world of homeschool message boards.

We had some issues with our last tenants. They asked us for a reference for their new place. We didn't lie but we didn't give them a glowing recommendation either. We just stated bare facts...that they had indeed rented from us and lived their for x number of years. You don't have to give specific information if not asked. Our renters did pay the rent on time so that wasn't an issue. I think we stated that in the reference but didn't mention anything about condition of our condo. They didn't do anything truly destructive, but their standards weren't ours. I didn't feel like it was fair to put that in a reference when they hadn't truly broken the lease or done anything wrong...other than not clean as well as we'd like. And there was some damage to the condo that was borderline "normal wear and tear". I felt like it was beyond normal but it wasn't really destructive. It was somewhat subjective and in all honesty we learned from the situation that we needed to state our expectations more clearly.

Aye..I was born in 1972 and must have been one of the very last to get it.

I think you picked the right forum, not sure how many people here are using WEM for themselves. Maybe others will chime in. I tried journaling as suggested in WEM. I did it with Don Quixote and found it helpful. I started journaling with Robinson Crusoe but didn't keep it up. I am reading my way through the fiction section. For me, the journaling became a burden and I felt like I wasn't reading as much because I didn't want to do the journaling. I think it would be helpful with some books...I just haven't felt like I wanted/needed to do it again yet. You could divide a notebook page into multiple sections/topics. Then take notes on the topic within that section of the page. Then if you backtrack in your notes it might be easier to find the loose ends you are looking for. Or you could use different colors of ink (that might get tedious though and hard to read). Or you could divide your notebook into multiple sections (instead of each page just divide the notebook and then move back and forth between sections as you need to. Hope that helps some.

I'm trying to clean out our fridge/pantry and not grocery shop this week before we go on vacation. So for dinner....Asparagus, Mashed Red Potatoes and leftover Grilled Veggies. Fruit smoothies for dessert.

LOVE the books! Couldn't bring myself to see the movie as the trailer I watched was obviously so different. I have re-read these books over and over and over again...like others here I still pull them out as an adult. In fact, maybe this could be my beach reading for next week.... Just to let you know how much I love these books (although it's kind of geeky to admit) we went on our honeymoon to Cornwall because of these books. Enough said.

We don't have TV but I watch Survivor every week online. It's a total guilty pleasure. Recently dh and I watched an episode of The Office online and I could see how I could get hooked on that so I'm not watching anymore.

We go to the beach every year this week with my parents. It works well as we're already set up for a nice family time with no cleaning, cooking or real life stuff ! I'd also like: a bath, some time alone, and to watch the Survivor finale with noone making fun of me. :)

We take off our shoes. Dh is American-born Chinese and grew up doing this. I think we were married before I asked what the reason for the custom was...thinking I was being so culturally sensitive. He looked at me oddly and said "to keep your house clean." :) My FIL is pretty strict about the no-shoe policy. They have a basket of slipper socks (from the hospital where SIL is an ER doctor) at the door for people who don't want to be barefoot or in socks. We have had a couple of big events at his house and usually on the invitation is included something like "We ask guests to remove their shoes. Feel free to bring slippers if you desire." At our house we take our shoes off and all our close friends know this and so just do the same. We have a monthly lunch group after church that often includes visitors or people we don't know very well. Usually they see everyone else removing shoes and do the same. I try not to make a big deal over it since it's more important to me to have guests feel comfortable than anything else. If people are going to go upstairs to where our bedrooms are we generally so ask them to remove their shoes. But we keep it pretty low-key and I hope don't make anyone fell awkward.

We go to a very small church (about 75 members). I was director of women's ministry the past 4 years (just stepped down on May 1st...:D) and I avoided doing Mother-Daughter things for this very reason. Since we're so small it just didn't make sense to exclude women who were single, or had sons, or were married without kids, or widows, etc. I'm not against the concept but it just didn't work for us. Also, I have several close friends who are single women in their 30's and we've talked a lot about how the church can sometimes exclude singles through this kind of event. So, I tried to be sensitive to that when planning our activities. I do like Chris in VA's comment about exposing daughters to women's fellowship. We tried to do this by having events for all women but including girls at some of them. My Mom's church (pretty much all white, Pentecostal) does a tea every year. They do it more as an older women/younger girls thing than mother-daughter. The girls plan the tea and make the food and then invite all the older women. They have had a tradition where they bring fancy over-the-top hats and everyone wears them and gets photos taken. My Mom loves it and says it's a fun, silly, lovely tradition. She always goes and has a blast. I also agree with other posters that three hours on a Sat afternoon is too long. I probably wouldn't have attended for just that reason alone. For the demographic "research"...I'm white and my church is PCA (Presbyterian).

When I read the original post I thought of the term "sequencing". I've heard it described as "having it all, but not all at once". Where women have a career, but maybe delay it or take time out for a period of life. I know you say that it would be hard to go back to your particular line of work. I'm not in IT at all so I have no clue about your field...but it's possible you might find yourself in the SAHM phase for a season and then find a new career as your kids get older. I think both Madeline Albright and Sandra Day O'Connor are the most cited examples of this. Albright was a SAHM until age 39. Sandra Day O'Connor delayed her career until her boys were all in school. (And has been criticized for retiring from the Supreme Court to care for her husband, which could also be seen as "sequencing".) Anyway, it sounds to me like your heart is at home and if you have the ability to do it...I'd say go for it. Just to add, I'm speaking as someone who works part-time. It works for me and dh now (we both work part-time and stay home part-time.) I would imagine that leaving a career isn't just quitting a job but is also about losing part of your identity. I can understand the struggle but it sounds like from your original post that you may be ready to move on to the next thing.

I don't think it can hurt. But having been on committees that were interviewing prospective candidates we only really noticed when someone sent an odd note. For example, one guy sent a large picture of himself in a Speedo windsurfing with his dog. It got him noticed...but not as a good thing. I can't remember ever thinking "oh, no thank you note..this person is toast." :)

I like Atticus but To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all time favorite books. As far as the "meaning" thing and Mom not liking the name...here's my experience. For ds1 we had decided not to tell anyone the names we picked but I made the mistake of hinting to my Mom that we were strongly considering Calvin as the boy's name. She hated it and her main reason was because when she asked me the meaning I had to tell her it means "bald". To me we loved the name just because we thought it was cool, it was slightly unusual/less popular and we liked several references- John Calvin (we are Presbyterian) and Calvin from A Wrinkle in Time. We didn't mind the Calvin and Hobbes reference. (But I never anticipated the number of people who would ask if we named him after Calvin Klein. Seriously. When pregnant with #2 I liked to joke that if it was a boy I was going to name him Levi. Or I would just tell people it was Hobbes regardless of gender.) But anyhoo...my Mom hated the name. She told me several times. I finally just told her that it was very likely that if it was a boy it would be Calvin so she should learn to live with it. He was born...Calvin it was and she's been fine. I think anyone who dislikes the name (and beyond you and dh, and possibly other dc it doesn't matter in my opinoin) will get over it when the baby is here.

We have one pan with holes and one without. I find both work ok. We put cornmeal on the pan. Also, sometimes we've slightly baked the crust first and then added the sauce and toppings. That helps with the crust not getting soggy, if that was the issue.

Do you have the option of going and visiting one before signing up? The ones here had an open house day. That was really helpful to me to see if I wanted to do it. In the end, I decided not to although I liked the people a lot and some aspects of the curriculum/day. Seeing it helped me with visualizing how it actually worked.

Ok, please tell me I'm not the only one that initially thought "jail cell". And I'm even a bio major !

Love the house swap idea. Count us in for that one... For staying in Little Rock...have you tried Craigslist? http://littlerock.craigslist.org/ A lot of times people post apartments for short term rent or other vacation options there. Another idea is to see if any local colleges rent out dorms or apartments when students are away. We are going to St. Paul, Minnesota in June and found an apartment to rent for an amazing price (much cheaper than any hotel). We'll have two bedrooms, our own living room and a kitchen. It's an apartment owned by a college and the students are away for the summer so they rent it out. ETA: Just thought of another option. You could write to churches in your denomination and see if anyone who lives there has ideas. When dh and I were engaged we went on a cross-country trip for a family wedding. We didn't want to stay in hotel rooms because too expensive for two rooms. We were able to plot out a course staying with friends and family and family of friends :) except for two spots. Dh e-mailed to two churches in our denomination (we're PCA, not that it matters) in those areas and there were people who put us up for the night. They ended up being the most memorable stops on our trip. Now, I wouldn't do that again with kids for many reasons (noone would take us being one of them), primarily safety. But we live near Washington DC and it's not unusual for our church to get requests from people looking for a place to stay. Often someone has an idea for them (knows of a cheaper local place, offers their house for house-sitting, etc).

My son's favorite is the "Animal" game. Like 20 questions only the thing you are thinking of has to be an animal and then you ask questions to figure it out. Sometimes we play a numbers game where I'll think of a number and then he'll guess numbers and I'll say bigger or smaller until he gets it. We look for letters on signs in the order of spelling the names of all our family members. Mostly, though he wants stories. Either me telling them or books on CD. If I'm telling them sometimes I'll try and make it a game where I'll tell a little...then he tells a little...etc.