I like the idea of a snack, Arcadia. I am also wondering if more exercise would help, maybe running?

What a sweetie! Thanks for sharing your precious little one. :)

Way to go! Thanks for the reminder...I've been wanting to delete mine. How did you do it?

We might be able to come in October or November, but not on Wednesdays. I will need to see how my job goes. Thanks for the poll!

Do you mind stating your zone? We are in zone 6b/7a, and we planted a hardy fig this spring in a somewhat protected area. We are hoping to get a crop next year if we wrap our plant this winter. I'd love to hear any tips you have for successfully growing figs. Thanks!

I chose Vivienne. Lola is both the name of my brother's dog and our GPS (after watching RV), so I couldn't go with that.

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but Shenandoah University in Virginia might be a fit for someone. They have a great business school, a well-respected nursing program, and they are excellent for drama and music. They also have many health profession graduate degrees, such as CNM and PA.

Wonderful news! Will continue praying.

Thanks for digging up this thread, school17777! I am up for it if anyone else is. It would be great if we could figure out a day when Garga and Creekland could come. I am working at my part-time job pretty much full-time from mid-August through mid-September, though, so I am in the same boat as them. It's last minute, but would next week work? By the way, I got an InstantPot! School17777's demo really had an effect on Reg and me. I have a confession, though, I can't really remember anyone's real name. When I see your screen name I can put your face with it, and I can even remember roughly how many children each of you has, but not the names!

Ds 15 wanted to ace the vocab part of the preliminaries test at the National Spelling Bee when he was in 8th grade. He ended up getting all but two questions correct, so he did really well. Besides reading quality literature, he used several resources: Vocabulary lists from the National Spelling Bee - these change yearly and are only for participants; the content is covered by other resources. Webster's Vocabulary Builder - this book costs about $7 and is very well done. My children have enjoyed reading about 2 pp./day of this inexpensive book, then going back and doing the quizzes. It is organized by Latin and Greek roots. Vocabulary for the College Bound - I took the words from this and created my own vocab questions that dh programmed into computer quizzes. FreeRice - a free online, multiple-choice quizzing program. It has an excellent collection of words and is leveled. Ds worked up until he was quizzing consistently at level 50 (out of 60), which has some pretty obscure words. The more advanced "College Bound" vocabulary is at about levels 35-45. Your dd probably doesn't have the same goal as our ds, but I just wanted to list our favorite resources. Ds has an excellent vocabulary now. :) HTH, GardenMom PS I agree mostly about the new SAT vocabulary, but they usually choose a less common definition of the word being tested, so these questions are not always trivial. I have coached SAT prep and have seen some very well-read students miss some of those new vocab questions on the PSAT and SAT. You don't know what you don't know...

My nephew will be a sophomore at CNU and really loves it. He is studying CS - something IT related. Last year he played violin in the orchestra and liked it, but he said he thought that music was just ok at CNU. He won't be doing orchestra again this year because of a scheduling conflict, and he doesn't act like he will miss it. His favorite prof is his Chinese instructor; he traveled to China this month with her and some of his class. I don't know how music is at Liberty, but they just got a beautiful new music building, and they give a lot of merit aid. It may be worth checking out. I hope you find a good, affordable fit for your daughter.

Thank you! Our youngest four will be studying for the Western Civ I CLEP this year, so this may be a help. :)

You look terrific!

We've done debate in Stoa, a national forensics league for Christian homeschooled students. You can look at stoausa.org for more information. Stoa has 3 kinds of debate. NCFCA is another league similar to it, with 2 kinds. Both leagues have local clubs across the US and regional and national tournaments.

Thanks for this info, Stephanie! We have been through this process twice, but we never knew how the minimum qualifying SAT scores were calculated. Very, very helpful!

Sorry you are having such a bad JB year! Last year they were bad, but this is an average JB year here in VA. We pick them off our blackberries, rhubarb, elderberries, hollyhocks, butterfly bush, echinacea, and four o'clocks about once a day, twice if it's peak time. Wild grapevines also attract them, and they really love cherry leaves. You do not need soap; they cannot fly out of a plastic cup filled halfway with water, and chickens eat them with some coaxing. Because of the life cycle of the JB I do not believe ladybugs affect their population. Milky spore works, but it takes time, and I am considering spreading it next month. An acquaintance of ours rigs a 50 gallon trashcan as a trap which takes a while to fill.

That's awesome! Congratulations!

Anyone find good deals on filler paper?

Good for you! We love our homemade kombucha as long as we are able to keep the fruit flies out of it. Our favorites are strawberry, lemon ginger, and peach. Ds also likes mint, but that's a little strong for me.

I would love it, too, please.

Thanks! Notice I said that I try. Things don't always work out perfectly, that's for sure! Gardening is a very humbling activity. :)

I am able to keep my picked garden-grown lettuce fresh for up to two weeks. I pick gently to not bruise the leaves or cut the whole head with a knife. Then I take it to the kitchen immediately. I use two plastic dishpans for washing, putting them in both sides of my divided kitchen sink. I fill one about halfway with cool water and dunk the leaves in it, gently shaking the dirt from them as I do that. Then I carefully swish the leaves in the water and transfer them to the other dishpan. I repeat the washing once or twice more. Then I spin the leaves. I have found the sweet spot in our two refrigerators to be the top shelf of our garage fridge, except in winter, when it sometimes freezes. Greens keep well for me in ziploc type gallon or two gallon bags with just a bit of air in them (not smushed). We usually eat our lettuce before two weeks have passed, but sometimes I pick a lot because of the weather or special party, and it lasts a long time when handled this way. Our greens seem to last a lot longer than the those we get from the store - but I hardly ever buy lettuce because one of my first garden priorities is to try to have salad greens from the garden all year long. Today for lunch I harvested some of the last heat-tolerant lettuce (Magenta, my favorite) I planted on the north side of our house. That will be used up in a couple of weeks. After I finish this post I am heading out to the east side of our house to tuck in about 70 lettuce plants (Park Seed's Summer Glory Blend) into the flower beds. Kept watered and weeded (and hopefully without the groundhog or deer eating it), today's transplanting will feed us for the next couple of months. Later today I'll start a couple of trays of more Magenta lettuce and keep them on the north side of the house. In August I'll start regular season lettuce again (the spring stuff, most varieties fall in this category). I'll continue to start lettuces through September, ending with the cold-tolerant ones like Bronze Beauty and Winter Density (and anything with Winter or Arctic in its name). The September lettuces will go into a coldframe, low tunnel, or hoop house. In short, plant the right varieties for the season, handle carefully, wash immediately in cool water, and store in the best spot.

We ended up camping for graduation. It worked really well - not only did we have fun places to stay, but we also didn't have to deal with restaurants because they are crowded, too. We stayed in our travel trailer at a state park for DS1 and a at family-owned campground for DD1. My mom stayed in a cute little cabin at the family campground. We made both reservations only a few months in advance, so that may be a good option for some families. Congratulations to those with soon-to-be graduates!

So glad he's home and feeling better. Prayers that he continues to improve.

I thnk you're on to something about the fat and carbs. Food gurus are in the process of selling their ideas in the form of recipes, and they have to be mindful of what's appealing to the most people. Plus, how can you write a recipe for raw pepper strips? Probably the fact that most people rarely eat well-grown, really fresh vegetables harvested at their prime contributes to the lackluster interest as well. That said, there are some authors who make simple vegetable dishes appealing, like Barbara Damrosch. Damrosch is married to the famed Maine vegetable grower Eliot Coleman, and is an excellent gardener herself. She uses butter and cream, but she knows really good vegetables because she eats them every day in season. In your climate it would be very doable to have a couple of cold frames or a hoop house in which you could grow cold-tolerant veggies. That might make them more appealing in the winter. It is really fun to harvest turnips, kale, and spinach in a hoop house on a cold January day. BTW, how are your tomatoes doing? Ours are coming along, but all we've eaten so far are a handful of cherry tomatoes.