No -- 11 (will be 12 by that time). But I will. I preread most everything I assign unless I'm 100% sure about it. Thanks for the head's up!

This was my experience too. Unfortunately, I didn't find that either the plot or the characters improved much. But the premise gives you a lot to think about, so it's not a complete loss. It could have been so much better, though. Thanks. I did locate the P/V translation through ILL, so I'm going to give that one a go. (Well, in a few weeks when I've winnowed down the stack I already have!) Appreciate your insights! And thanks, Jane, for your comments on Hemingway. I had The Old Man and the Sea on dd11's reading list for the end of this year. I have read very little Hemingway myself (I think In Our Time is the only one) but I wanted to introduce dd to him and I knew that was the one the ps usually assigns. Thinking we'll go with some of the Nick Adams stories now.

Do you have an opinion on David Magarshack? I have Anna Karenina on my list, and that's the translation available at our library. I wondered if I should go with it or buy the Pevear/Volokhonsky version. I have always shied away from Russian lit because I was intimidated by it, and I'm afraid if I pick a bad translation I won't be able to make myself try again!

I feel like I can't keep up with you all! And I considered myself fairly well-read! I'm just floating along, enjoying the conversation and picking up good ideas for new books to try! (Of course, if this were a live conversation, I'd be likely to sit and soak up the conversation without saying a whole lot, so there's that...) I wrapped up City of Thieves by David Benioff night before last. Really enjoyed it. The author did a good job of capturing the horrors of living through a siege without being gratuitous. And the book had an underlying note of hope, despite the subject matter. And it was snowy here, so I felt very much drawn into the world of Leningrad in winter. :)

You may have answered this and I missed it, but will the HOA potentially affect what/if your ds can have a home-based business? Some are restrictive of business being conducted in the neighborhood, especially if you're thinking his will not be a traditional home office-type enterprise (e.g., dog breeding).

That's how my family is too. My paternal grandfather was killed in a driving accident when my grandmother was only 35. She had five children, ranging in age from 16 to 4. Apparently she had a short-lived second marriage sometime shortly after being widowed. When I found out about it when I was around 12, I was scandalized and accused my mother of keeping secrets. She said, "It's not exactly a secret, just not something we discuss." Obviously all the children knew about it, and probably a lot of the grandchildren too. My mom is the youngest by a wide margin, so most of my cousins are significantly older. But my grandmother took back the name from her first husband. The one time I asked her about her second husband (when I'd come across a photo of her with him), she just said, "Oh, we don't need to talk about him." From a few vague things my mom has said, I think he may have been abuse to her and/or my grandmother. I've never worked up the nerve to ask her point-blank. Fortunately, my grandmother was a strong woman who wouldn't put up with nonsense like that, and she kicked him to the curb.

FB Purity lets you filter out words and phrases from your news feed. I think it only works on desktop version of Facebook though, not on mobile devices.

We are using it this year. I really, really like that it includes folk and traditional music, because I think that's important. Some of my fondest memories are of my mother singing to me. Unfortunately, I have not really carried on that tradition, and my kids don't like to sing. That said, I did have to go through and create lesson plans out of it because the format didn't work for us. But I am certain we'll get 3-4 years' worth of material out of it, so that's something. We have run into some broken links as well. But that always seems to happen with curricula that rely on the web, IME.

Well, graphic novel is a separate category on the list... I guess I could do more than one? I looked at the picture book biographies at the library yesterday but nothing jumped out at me. :(

Calling for snow here this weekend, so I stocked up yesterday! Working through Thirteen Reasons Why now (can't wait to see how it ends!), followed by The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Those fulfill my YA picks. Next on my list is a recommendation from a friend, so I got Homegoing and City of Thieves, both recommended by my sister. Not necessarily planning on reading two for every category, but I just couldn't decide! No. 5 on my list is a picture book. Ack! I read tons and tons of picture books to ds6, so I'm kinda not feeling this one. Any suggestions for something more adult, or at least something with really good writing and illustrations? Thinking possibly a biography or nonfiction, but open to anything. Also on the lookout for a new epic fantasy, if anybody has a fave. I loved A Song of Ice and Fire and The Name of the Wind/Kingkiller Chronicle (and Narnia, natch -- see my siggy). I'm not a Tolkien fan.

The bedrooms are open. We don't have a rule that he's not allowed to sleep with anyone, but he usually doesn't. He seems to prefer changing his sleeping spots every few weeks. I'm not sure why this is, but he does it routinely. For awhile he did sleep with dd (he's technically *her* cat) but then he just stopped. We don't shut him out of rooms because if he wants in or out, he will pick at the carpet until someone opens the door. He more or less has the run of the house, which isn't a problem, other than at night. Putting him in the basement might be an option. We don't have any other rooms that close off, except for ones that are in proximity to the bedrooms. We tried canned food, but he didn't seem to like it much. Maybe we should try a different kind. And I will see if dd can play with him more before bed. Maybe that will help. He is two years old. We have had him since he was 3-4 months old.

Our cat has gotten into an annoying habit of sitting in the hallway in the middle of the night and mewing. We have a ranch-style house, so it's audible in every bedroom and extremely annoying. He's done this since we got him as a kitten, off and on, but usually it was early in the morning (5 a.m. or so). Now it's throughout the night. Everything I've read suggests he's waking us up because he's hungry, but his litter box is cleaned and food and water refilled every night before bed and he always has food and water in his bowls in the morning. It's pretty obvious from the way he does it that he wants attention. Or really that he wants someone to be awake. The only way to hush him is for someone to get up and give him a nudge down the hall. Then he goes on his way, although he might come back later. Getting up just seems to fuel it though. Any ideas or suggestions?

Headed to the library to stock up!!! :party:

Meh, it was fine. I gave it 3 of 5 stars on Goodreads. I felt like it was pretty clumsy, plot-wise, and the characters could have been better developed. But it had some important and intriguing themes. Definitely want to see what they do with the movie. I agree with you -- it will be difficult to express some of the themes via film. Time will tell if they get it right. The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz? Or something by Katie Schuermann?

It's less choosing hell and more a rejection of faith -- as in, "No, I don't believe it to be true that Christ died for my sins and I'm forgiven and made right with God." That can take a lot of different forms -- some people do not believe they have a need to be forgiven, others don't believe in the existence of God at all, etc. And I am saying that humans have no free will in regards to God, at least in the sense that we can't choose to believe. We can choose unbelief. I realize that doesn't make complete sense logically. We're okay with not knowing exactly how it all works. :)

Building my own home. Nine years ago, just after my grandmother passed away, we moved into her house. The idea was to rent there for a couple of years, then build a house on an acre of land my parents owned. Then the land wouldn't perk for septic (we spent years, and not a small amount of money, trying). DH lost his job, twice. DS was born with medical problems and ended up in the NICU. Bills piled up. Finally, in 2015, we were starting to dig our way out. We were able to purchase a plot of land, and we started paying it down and putting away as much money as we could, in the hopes that we'd be able to build in the spring of 2017. Then my cousin got it in his head that he wanted the house we were renting (his grandmother's and mine). His wife was pregnant, and he and his mother threw a giant tantrum. Long story short, we had to get out, and fast. We tried to buy a house of our own, that failed (major problems turned up in the inspection). Ended up moving into the house my dad uses for his business. Now dh has been laid off again, and I'm not sure where we will end up. We sold our land in December, so that dream is gone. We needed the money. I have come to terms with it, and maybe we will build something small once the kids grow up, but we've fought and fought for this and it just finally became clear it wasn't in the cards for us. It's disappointing.

I'm going to take the plunge this year! Starting off with a challenge I saw on Facebook. First up: A book being made into a movie this year. I picked The Circle by Dave Eggers -- just finished this afternoon! Looking forward to the movie (but probably will have to wait for it to come out On Demand...) Next on the list is a young adult novel (thinking The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky) and then a New York Times bestseller (going with Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, who happens to be a friend of my sister). I'm excited to join you all!

Not exactly. And to be fair, I'm just beginning to understand some of these things myself. So forgive me if I don't explain well. To your first point: Yes. We are born dead in our trespasses and sins, without capacity to believe. God creates ex nihilo (out of nothing) by the means of his Word. Even going back to the beginning, he created the heavens and the earth by speaking them into existence. He creates faith in the same way, through his Word, written or preached or even through making his Word flesh, as in Jesus (but don't ask me to explain that one -- it's above my pay grade!!). "Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ" (Rom 10:17). However, to the second point: No. The Word is efficacious -- it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It creates faith. However, that faith can be actively rejected, or it can be allowed to die through lack of attention. This is why it is important to nurture faith through the gifts God has given in his Word and sacraments. I think of it like this: The proclamation of the gospel (the good news that Christ has died for our sins and we are forgiven and reconciled to God) is the proclamation of the truth. It is a matter of fact. Once that truth is proclaimed to me, I have it. I can't unknow it. It's been given to me, put into me through my ears and eyes from an outside source, as a gift. I can, however, reject it. And if I reject it, either passively or actively, then yes, I'll go to hell. Does that make it any more clear?

I'm not sure this will clarify anything for you, but FWIW, not all Christian traditions teach that human consent is even part of the bargain in the first place. Mine teaches that the human will, while free in regards to things on this earth (whom to marry, what job to have, etc.), is bound in regards to God. In other words, humans do not have the capacity either to choose or reject salvation. Rather, faith is a gift of God, created in a person by the preaching of God's Word and sustained by the Word and sacraments. Faith, once given, can be actively rejected, but the person in whom faith does not exist is dead in trespasses and sins and has no capacity to choose God.

Actually, Lands' End has a lifetime guarantee. You can technically return any item at any time, even years later, even if it's used. Not that I would expect a refund for items we'd worn out, but it's a great policy if you get clothes on clearance that the kids end up not being able to wear.

Reminds me of the top I got from my grandma for Christmas when I was a teenager: a purple sweatshirt (think Hanes) but with a lace collar and a squirrel hand-painted on the front. Yeah, that was one of those real "gee-you-shouldn't-have" moments! IDK. My mom and my MIL do pretty well picking out things for my dd, even now that she's a tween and wearing juniors sizes. (Ds6 couldn't care less what he wears, of course.) But she's mostly a jeans and graphic tee kind of girl, so maybe that makes it easier. I do hope that, should it become necessary, my dd and/or future dd-in-law would be comfortable enough with me to say, "Hey, maybe just get a gift card?" -- even if my grandkids didn't want to tell me themselves that they hated what I'd picked. I never would have told my grandmother that top looked like it belonged in a nursing home. Then again, she was my dad's mother and would have been offended. On my mom's side, it's always been stressed that you should definitely return any gift that doesn't work, regardless of the reason. As my mom says, "I'd much rather you have something you like!"

I'm not a fan of Strobel either. I would recommend anything by John Warwick Montgomery -- History and Christianity might be the place to start. I believe there are quite a few videos of his lectures, etc. available online as well. Didn't see your spinoff, but another one by Montgomery -- The Law Above the Law -- might be helpful for you.

I CANNOT meal-plan every week. Just can't do it. I've tried. So here's what I do: I meal-plan on a quarterly basis, which I know sounds like a lot, but it's really not. We use a six-week rotation, which means that over the course of 12 weeks, we eat each meal twice (at most). We are not an adventurous eating family, so that works for us. Working on a quarterly basis also allows me to make use of whatever produce is in season, without reinventing the wheel every week. Our quarters are tied to the seasons rather than the calendar year. But we shop weekly, at least for fresh ingredients, so little waste. Knowing what will be coming up allows me to stock up on items when they go on sale (although we could take better advantage of this, and probably should). For each week, I've planned out five to six dinners. Lunch and breakfast we keep the same set of basic options each week. I try to include at least one "quick-fix" option and one slow-cooker/prep in advance type option for each week. I don't enjoy cooking, though, so none of my meals are terribly complex. I also make use of leftovers as part of the plan (getting more than one meal from a package of chicken, for example). I do not assign a meal to any given day, but at the start of the week, I make a mental plan of which meals work best on which nights, based on our schedule for that week. I also have made grocery lists to go with each plan. This is a HUGE time-saver and money-saver. Each meal has a number, and ingredients on the list are numbered according to which meal(s) they are in. That way, if we decide to substitute in a different meal one week (special occasion, just don't feel like having it, or whatever) it's super easy to cross out those ingredients. I find that it's much faster to eliminate than to create a list each week. The lists also include any staple items we'll need for the week, as well as stuff we buy weekly (milk, bread, breakfast/lunch items) and household items (paper towels, kitty litter, laundry detergent). Again, much easier to cross off than to think of what we need every week. Once a year or so, I go through and change up the plans, taking out anything we're getting tired of and putting in new favorites. There is definitely some work involved up front, but since I made this plan years ago, we have saved tons of time and money, and lost a lot of weight too. Eating out and eating convenience foods was a major problem for us. Once it's set up, this plan is so manageable, we hardly have to think about it. I will be glad to send you my template (just a Word doc) if you'd like. PM me your email.

THROW OUT ALL THE HOLIDAY JUNK FOOD IN THIS HOUSE BEFORE I HAVE ANOTHER BINGE SESSION!!! Laundry Find somewhere for all the new gifts to go Laundry Decide whether to take down the garland on the banister that the kids keep knocking down (in their defense, it's a narrow spiral staircase and there's really no way not to hit it) or try to fix it before BIL brings his new girlfriend over tomorrow Also, did I mention laundry? Try not to think about all the school planning that needs to get done before we start back... :bored: