I have been puzzling over this question for days now, and really need some input. My cousin, age 12, and homeschooled, just finished the Anne of Green Gables series. She wants to know why, in the last book, Rilla of Ingleside, Rilla never attends school. The book begins when Rilla is 14. School is never mentioned, though there is mention of Anne (her mother) putting her through "a reading course". I have not nearly enough knowledge of the history of education, public or otherwise, in Canada to confidently draw any conclusions, but the best I have so far is that: -Queens was roughly the equivalent of a private, boarding high school. When you graduated, you were qualified to teach at public district schools, which were grades 1-8. -Having not opted to go to Queens, Rilla graduated 8th grade and was done with her institutional education via her own decision. -Being the doctor's daughter, the household didn't need her income, so it was okay that she didn't work for wages. -I have no earthly clue what, if any, institutional credential would be required for teaching or granted upon completing "a course in reading", which I can only assume is a reading of Classics or Great Books. Am I even close? Any and all thoughts/input are welcome.

"Deep Economy". "What to Eat" is good, too.

Horror story time... One of my very close friends had a brother only 10 months older than she was. We lived on the same street growing up; all three of us were in the same grade in school. Both my friend and her brother had seriously jacked up teeth, and went through 3-5 years of orthodontia. Not just a minor cosmetic kind of jacked up, either- the kind where you can't clean your teeth properly and risk serious decay. The brother had the worst end of it. He missed most of our freshman year because he had to have his jaw broken twice. No, they didn't screw it up the first time- his teeth were that bad. Anyway, the brother gave up wearing his retainer after about five years. Within five years of that, he lost all four of his top front teeth. Wearing dentures before the age of 30. Not good.

Silk wraps have to be maintained... I think it's like acrylics, once every week or two weeks. (I've never gotten them, but my mom likes them.) They offer silk wraps at virtually any hair-nail place.

Alton Brown has a fabulous recipe for overnight, crockpot oatmeal using steel cut oats. It's basically a very rich old-fashioned Irish oatmeal. I make pancake mix using dry buttermilk (Saco brand) and soy flour, so all I have to add is water and fat (oil or melted butter). Fast, cheap, and healthier because I use whole grain flour.

If your nails are really long and they split, you might want to consider getting silk wraps. I have found that manicures vary wildly in nature... once I went, and all she did was file my nails and paint them clear, and I left thinking, "I just paid $25 for that?" On the other hand, I've gotten mani-pedis that cost about $30 that were worth every penny- pumice, lotion, massage, cuticle trim, etc. So try to get a personal referral.

I looked it up, and H.L.'s tox screen showed oxycodone, hydrocodone (painkiller, Vicodin); diazepam (Valium); temazepam (anti-anxiety); alprazolam (Xanax); doxylamine (a sedative anti-histamine- kinda like Benadryl).

From what I've read (and discussed with my Aussie friend- in Oz, H.L. is like Elvis), Ledger suffered from debilitating insomnia that lead to depression. He slept like 45 minutes to 2 hours a day for years. (Personally, I have had comparitively mild insomnia, and for me, it lead to depression, too.) Combine that with being a workaholic, the nature of his work, and some substance abuse issues... bad news. I think he was on anti-depressants and sleep meds at the time of his death.

I have sorted thru and organized all of DD's toys. All of them. Holy Merciful Sweetness, were there a lot. Anyway, I have all of toys on her playstands in our living area. (Two empty baskets even! Whoo hoo!) All that's left in her bedroom are her books- on the shelf- and her plush toys- in a pile on the rug. Please help. How do you organize stuffed animals at your house? I have tried the nets and the chain. Neither worked worth a @#$%. I made a cloth toy bag to hang from her bed, and that works fine for the tiny toys, but what about the larger ones?

I disliked Barbie as kid, dislike her even more now, and I would let DD keep it.

When we lived in SE Michigan, we had an Aldi and a Sav-A-Lot within about two miles of our house, as well as a Meijer, a WalMart, and several smaller chain "regular" groceries. If we were willing to drive, there was a health food store, a co-op, Whole Foods, BJs, Costco, Sam's, Trader Joe's, and Hiller's. There were some nice small ethnic groceries, too- Mexican, Japanese and Lebanese were our favorites. Then we moved to the great frozen north. Oh my. There are IGAs, SuperValu, SuperOne, a nice little co-op and Walmart. That is all. It was a big adjustment. But a funny thing happened once we adjusted. We spend less- much less- on groceries now. Some of it has to do with the fact that we live in America's Dairyland now, so dairy is cheap. I've finally prevailed upon the husband to eat less meat (I'm veggie, so our meat expense is negligable), and we garden, freeze and can fairly intensively. However, I think the big things that we did are: -Making everything from scratch, including yogurt, jam, soy milk, and all baked goods. (Buy a chest freezer. We actually have a big chest freezer and a smaller chest fridge in the basement. Oh, and some gamma seal lids for dry items. So worth doing.) -Having only four stores in our rotation makes it a lot easier to compare prices. I downloaded free price book software, which also helped, but it would still be too time consuming to program it for 15 different stores. -Shopping outside traditional sources for bulk goods. We buy flours, dishsoap, organic beef & eggs, and a few other odds and ends in bulk from a local restaurant (we are friends with the owners). We buy bulk produce that we cannot/do not grow from the farmer's market. We get potatoes thru a CSA. We buy fish from the Indian fish market. We live in Berry Heaven, so we asked around and have found several good berry spots which contribute greatly to jam and muffins. We do canned/frozen swaps- for example, we had more organic hamburger frozen than DH could ever eat, so we traded with a friend for frozen seafood. This year, we canned beets and gave half to MIL, she canned tomatoes and gave half to us. We spend less than $300 a month on "household"- groceries, laundry/cleaning supplies, pet supplies (2 cats, 1 dog), and if we need new sheets or a dish drainer, you get the idea. We are a family of 3, plus part time stepson, and I am pregnant. Oh, and this is important, we get WIC. That makes a HUGE dent in our dairy budget. HTH somebody.

This probably isn't helpful, but for me, it would depend on the child. This movie was violent, yes, but if you compare it to other movies that I think are good movies (Q. Tarantino, for example), it's not terribly violent. If you compare it to other movies that I don't think are good (Saw, Hostel), well, it's like calling nude art "porn". This is not to say that we should be desensitzed to violence, especially children, but there is a lot of torture porn out there now, with no redeeming artistic or cinematic value, and I want my kids to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. They'll be going to the movies without parents in just a few short years, and I very much want to be able to trust their judgement. I guess this is all my rambling way of saying that not all R ratings are created equal. As for the dark themes... yes, this movie was incredibly dark and disturbing. I think, though, it seems even more disturbing because Heath Ledger died just after filming it, the manner in which he died and the interviews he gave during its filming strongly suggest that he was dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, or both. To see how H.L. absolutely inhabited the character of a lunatic... knowing that he died right after is as spooky as... well, you know. With my stepson, my husband used this is as a springboard to discuss mental health and the dangers of prescription drugs. They also talked about the Dark Knight as proof of Ledger's amazing talent, and about how being troubled doesn't make you a bad person- Ledger obviously had redeeming qualities viewable by the world- and that the important thing is to ask for help. Because there isn't any graphic sexual content, because most of the really nasty violence is suggested or shown from several steps away, because it is an example of an R rated movie worth watching, because my stepson is mature, because we viewed it first and cleared it with his mom and stepdad, and because it lead to a quality discussion, we allowed my stepson to view the Dark Knight. No regrets.

Coffee doesn't stunt growth. It's a myth that started during the industrial revolution. Factories that hired children were pumping them up on caffeine (coffee and tea) after about 4 pm so that they could work 12 hour days. The social reformers of the time (before they helped enact child labor laws) tried various things to get factories to stop doing this, and finally the only one that worked was to launch a psuedo public health campaign that claimed coffee stunted the growth of children, who would therefore NOT grow into strong workers. For whatever reason, this worked, and by and large, the over-caffeinating of child workers stopped. Also, it's pretty customary for farm kids to drink caffeine with breakfast. My grandpa, my dad, and my husband (all of whom grew up on working farms) were drinking black coffee by the time they were seven. My husband is under thirty, so it wasn't all that long ago. I'm not sure if mores have changed since then, but I kinda doubt it.

Oh, thank you! The Groovy Girls (and Guys!) dolls are very cute. The website I looked at said that they were 13" tall, so I think that would work, as it isn't much taller than Barbie. They had lots of furniture, too. Cool.

So we just got back from a looong holiday vacation. My MIL is building a very sturdy, well made, enormous dollhouse for my daughter's third birthday, which is in the spring. Because I am an ingrate, I am dreading this. This dollhouse is 33" wide and 55" tall at the peak. (I wanted to make DD a doll treehouse ... with these dolls, some of which I have already made... *sniffs with disappointment*...) On the plus side, it has an open "back", no front (apparently the kit makers realized that such a huge thing had to sit against a wall) and is only about 18" deep. Also a plus is that it has two large drawers built into the base for storing toys and goodies. (If you follow this link -scroll down for the photo- the dollhouse in question looks something like the middle one.) The dollhouse is scaled to Barbies, which is the thing that makes me grimace even more. Now, I don't want to start a debate about Barbies being good or evil, or Barbies vs. Bratz, or anything like that, primarily because my mind has been made up about this for years. I disliked Barbies as a child, as an adult I dislike them even more, and I don't really want them in my house. So I was thinking that I could get my daughter some Only Hearts Club dolls to use with this dollhouse. They are a little smaller than Barbies, but I think that they will work. However, I have been able to find no furniture whatsoever scaled to fit OHC dolls. Will Barbie-scaled furniture work for Only Hearts Club dolls? Also, are there any OHC boys? My daughter wants everything- inanimate objects included- to come in a mommy version, a daddy version, and a baby version. (What can I say, she's way into nuclear families.) If there are no boys, this will bum her out. Anyone know of any decent quality dolls that I could use in this giant dollhouse?