An '08... Wow. That IS new! :D

Actually, it probably depends on what the repairs ARE if it's worth socking away the money for repairs vs. just saving up for another good, used car! I mean, are we talking something like major transmission work, or just replacing a clutch? Is it something that you/DH can do, or do you have to pay someone?

Focus 1 is a standard, too, which makes me wonder if that has anything to do with longevity. The driver has so very little control over an automatic... Focus 2, which we just got a few weeks ago, is an automatic. (I haven't driven an automatic in over 10 years! Do you have any idea how many times I'd hit the brake, trying to downshift? lol) But we've put almost no work into Focus 1 and we've been driving it for 125,000 miles. Tires, oil changes and a new fan, and that's about it! 175,000 and it still runs like new (well, except that exhaust leak off the manifold. It sounds bad, but doesn't run bad) It still gets 34 mpg, too. I have high hopes for Focus 2. :D (though I can't get it above 31 mpg. Must be the automatic)

That's all we have! :) --1998 Chevy Metro, 170,000 miles (ready to die. Just runs around our place) --1997 Ford F250 diesel pickup 280,000 miles (It's a Powerstroke. It'll never die! lol) --2003 Ford Focus 175,000 miles (DH has it with him in ND in the oil patch) --2003 Ford Focus 108,000 miles (the "new" car, purchased recently so I don't have to keep using the pickup as my daily driver) We always call the Foci the "good cars" because they're so new. ;) But of course, they're both 10 years old, and the "older" one is starting to get some actual miles on it...

There were 68 of us in my graduating class, most of whom had been together since preschool. And, being rural Nebraska, most of us moved at least several hours away from home. Rural out-migration at work... So yes, I do go back for my reunions--10th and 20th, so far. We're not close friends or anything, and I certainly didn't love HS, but it's kind of like seeing my 3rd cousins at a family reunion. It's nice to just catch up and chat.

I thought it was just me! lol I HATE the word panties. We use undies, underwear or drawers at my house.

In this vein, AIMS is very similar to TOPS. Maybe a little more organized so far as handouts, lab sheets, etc. No "kit" though, just unit studies. I've used them for nearly 20 years.

And the above three are precisely why I give him the list of answers. That way it's ALL on him. Immediate feedback, he can hunt through his own work for errors in his steps, and when he tracks down his answer, he's fairly sure he's right.

This just screams "midline issues" to me. That is, when he's writing (drawing, etc.), he has a hard time going from one side of his brain over to the other. Physically. He starts on the left side of his paper, and once he gets to midline, it's hard to move past it. Or, vice versa. Kids who have midline challenges often will do well with typing because your hands stay on the side of your head that they belong on! The left hand stays on the left side of the keyboard, the right stays on the right. I would quit fighting handwriting, personally. There are valid reasons to fight a kid across midline, but handwriting isn't worth it IMO. We use audios a lot, too. (I just found LearningAlly.org which has a BUCKET LOAD of books and texts as audio for a yearly subscription price.) For a kid with LD, reading aloud can be a lot of work. Not only do they have to decode these words and get them into their brain via the reading, they also have to then turn them around and get them out of their mouth. But, DS and I will read his literature assignments aloud together for the reading practice. He's 13, but we still do every other chapter and probably will for a while to come. I like being able to hear his decoding and I've noticed his reading improves as we go when he has to read aloud. In DS's case, he tends to miss letters or say the wrong word because he's guessing. (Reading is hard work for a kid with language delays) But this is another reason I like to read aloud with him. I can hear the mistake and say, "What word is that??" And then he has to go back and correct. It's a pain in the behind, so he tends to just read more carefully in the first place... Then when I'm reading it gives him the chance to relax and catch his mental breath.

Yet another echo that your eye doc is a nitwit... My homeschooler is indeed myopic and my PS has perfect vision. My PSer is the bookworm. Their father (schooled) has perfect vision and I (schooled) am something like 20/800.

As mentioned, I rarely cuss, and when the kids were really little, I was always after Trap to watch his language in front of them (not realizing that kids easily figure out what is and isn't appropriate for children vs. adults). But one day he happened to walk in the door after work, just as I was pulling a pan of cookies out of the over for tomorrow's potluck, burned to a crisp. "$h!), $h!), $h!)!!" And the kids, 18months and 3, watching this process carefully were like two little magpies, "$h!), $h!), $h!)!!" Trap absolutely rolled. They'd never copied him, even after countless times watching Daddy cussing a blue streak at rank, old, range cows, but they copied me over cookies. :001_rolleyes: He has gotten untold mileage out of that story.

I have to say, in my corner of the world, children would have to be specifically excluded, because otherwise it's just assumed that weddings are celebrations for the entire family. But then, you don't usually see a big, sit-down, per-plate type of reception, either. It's more likely to be a buffet-type of supper. And the dance is usually open to the entire community. Come one, come all. And neighbor kids, and Sunday School students... ;) The only reason I've even heard of child-free weddings is because of boards like this with a widely mixed group, and bridal magazines. This is a cultural thing, ladies...

For me, it's because of the assumptions made about a person who cusses. This thread is a perfect example. "Crude." "Vulgar." "Uneducated." (Maybe there is a bit of classism attached to the word "vulgar" still) As an adult, my husband gets a kick out of it. He can speak excellent English when he chooses (and has a bachelor's degree, so has a little education, too), but he gets a charge out of people making assumptions. ;) I want my children to be able to choose, though, also, rather than just cussing because that's what they know. Which means, as children, they need to learn proper usage and once they're adults they can make their own choices. Buck frequently uses "Fridge!" as his favorite epithet. lol

Yes. But just watch her pretty close for a while, after you do. Horses are herd animals and she can make herself frantic trying to figure out where everyone is. Weight loss, fence pacing, cribbing, the options are limitless... We've got one like this too. When he's here at home with the girls, he's a buddy-sour, rotten old horse. When DH had him up at the feedlot, riding pens, he was fine.

So far as I can tell, I don't teach anything and I really never have. Even in a classroom full of students, I've always taken more of a Socratic approach and "teach" by asking leading questions, so kids take themselves to their own answers. I've found kids tend to hang onto things better when they've "taught" themselves. :) With a single JrHi student, each lesson is on his own in his text or next chapter or whatever. I'm more like a tutor, or facilitator, I've decided. When he gets stuck or find something of interest, he calls me in. Some days we'll read his lessons together and discuss as we go. Some days he tells me what happened. Some days we discuss as we're time-lining, or mapping or making supper... Some things are a mutual exploration, like a science experiment. I might know what's supposed to happen, but that doesn't mean it always does. And sometimes I haven't a clue...

This is what I do. I give him a cheat-sheet with all of the answers on it, plus a few extra, just to be a pest. ;) If he can't find his answer on the list, it must be wrong. Do it again.

Excellent point.

OT, but I completely agree!! We had a report filed against us by some spiteful inlaws when DS was a baby. Once the dust had settled and the report was destroyed, the social worker said, "Sometimes it's just best to stay away from toxic people like that." Meaning, she knows she has to investigate any allegation brought forth, but that we could make it easier on ourselves by just avoiding them. So we did. But I will never forget the absolute terror I felt when the deputy sheriff was pacing around my living room while the SW did the initial interview. No, I genuinely was thinking aloud. However, I wonder if the answer is not actually a combination of the two...

Something I find interesting: "Vulgar language" actually just means "common language." That is, that of the common man, rather than the high born and educated. Think Vulgate Latin... But somewhere along the lines, "vulgar" shifted to mean "cussing." I wonder why that is...

I married a working cowboy. Many of our friends and neighbors (as well as DH's family) are cowboys. I think the only reason the old saw is "cusses like a sailor" is simply because the originator didn't know any cowboys. ;) Generally speaking, I don't cuss. I don't judge those who do as I have better things to worry about, I just don't engage in it myself. But I certainly don't worry about foul language around me, or my kids for that matter, as I really don't even notice. Now and again, we'll be talking to someone with salty language and they'll catch themselves doing so in front of a young girl (DD) and feel ashamed. "I'm sorry! Pardon my language!" DD has gotten old enough she is now the one to say, "That's fine. I've been out working cattle with Daddy since I could walk." Which of course translates to mean that she's heard it all. ;) I'd much rather people feel comfortable in my presence than worry overly-much about my sensibilities and apparently I'm teaching that to my kids. :) Interestingly, DD doesn't cuss, but neither does her brother, who is well into that age where boys experiment with these things.

I would avoid it like the plague!! Homeschooled kids transitioning into something like this would go crazy! Open concept schools were kind of an unschooling movement in public schools back in the 60s(?) I think. Kids basically wandered wherever they wanted, in order to choose the educational opportunities that interested them that day, and the teacher in that area would teach them. Which is why I'm thinking 60s. Very much a 60s-type of philosophy. But as you can guess, unschooling really doesn't work on that kind of a scale, so they were a miserable flop. Consequently, you have all these buildings with no interior walls that are still in use, because they're too expensive to replace until they actually get old enough to need it. I did some of my practice teaching in an open plan building. It was awful. They had installed cubicle-type walls (because lighting/heating/air/etc. would all have to be redone in order to put in REAL walls) which means there was a never-ending drone of noise from throughout the building. The teachers hated it. It was extremely difficult to keep younger (and distractible) children on task. Not only did they have the typical distraction of their classmates, but also the distraction of students in other rooms all over the building doing different, and probably far more interesting, projects. Student teachers and observation students were always sent to this school with the caution that, "HC is going to be a very challenging school..." It's basically loosely-controlled chaos.

You know, in thinking about it, it really is pretty awesome, though it does go back to population. In Nebraska, for example (because that's the state I grew up in), the districts were opened in '91 maybe? I think it was my Junior year of high school, anyway. The prime reason was not so much to make schools competitive as it was to make things more convenient for rural students. My husband grew up in a VERY large school district. Area-wise, that is, not population. Two thousand square miles and 1300 people. Not students mind you-- people. He had gone to a 1 room country school for his elementary years (K-8) and then would have to go to the district high school, 50 miles away. Most people either boarded their kids in town with friends or family, or bought/rented a house for the school year and Mom and the kids would live in town during the week and go home to the ranch on the weekends. Or, people would attend a closer school, in a different district. In their case, it was only 20 miles to the closer one. However, because the districts weren't open, they would have to pay a fairly substantial tuition. DH's family opted to send their kids to boarding school instead, as the tuition was actually a little cheaper! But, once the districts opened, kids could attend a school that was closer, or a school in the town Mom or Dad worked in, or what have you. Competition that improved schools was just a really nice bonus.

My homeschool room looks suspiciously like my kitchen... :huh:

That's where DS13 will be going next year, also. He likes to write, fortunately, and I think this looks like a good program to keep that positive. He has ADD with language LDs. He understands English rules quite well, uses good grammar in speech, but his writing mechanics are awful, so we're also going to incorporate an editing text into his writing. He also is still writing at very much an elementary level, so I liked the way IEW allows differing levels in many of the lessons. I hope it pans out the way I envision! lol

That's an extremely rural area where warm bodies are a valuable commodity. ;)