Definitely. I love the fact that Richardson has set and maintained high standards for his team. I hope it never changes. He is a class act (even if he hardly ever smiles!). Ron Rivera as well. And yes, the Seahawks certainly put up a fight week before last to come back. I'm not trying to take anything away from them. But my point is, the Panthers didn't play nearly as hard in the second half as they did in the first. By their own admission, they got comfy and almost let the game slip through their fingers. Going for the 2-point conversion against Arizona wasn't running up the score (not that I really think such a thing exists in pro sports -- this isn't Little League where everybody gets a trophy), it was continuing to play hard, knowing that your opponent is elite and has the capacity to sneak up on you if you aren't vigilant.

And remember that this team very nearly blew a 31-point lead against Seattle the week before. No way were they taking their chances! Every point counts!

We've been HUGE Panthers fans here since their first season when we were in high school! This team in particular is just SO MUCH fun to watch. I've never seen a team have such a good time! It's time we had our first ring!!! Go Panthers!!! #keeppounding

For dd's HP party, we made Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck). I adjusted a recipe I found online (but I have no idea where): ¼ oz ( ½ Tbsp.) simple syrup (1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, heat until dissolved, then cool) ¼ oz ( ½ Tbsp.) lemon juice Sparkling grape or apple juice I gave the ingredients HP names. I think I used some of the ones from the felix felicis recipe in the books. We used the bottles from a message-in-a-bottle necklace kit I got at Oriental Trading so they could wear them around and drink them when they needed extra luck. They loved it! We did a couple of other potions, but they were mostly science experiment-type stuff (think baking soda and vinegar) and not intended to keep.

((((HUGS)))) It sounds to me like the teacher is a major part of the problem here. Two families have already pulled their children from her class, and a third is considering it? She has a reputation among third-graders as being "mean"? I take it that since it's a small school, changing teachers is not an option? Have you shared your concerns with the administration?

Amen! But let's just stick with NOT losing! ;) #keeppounding Honestly, though, I've been a longtime Peyton Manning fan, and I would be happy to see him go out with a win with the Broncos. MUCH more so than the Patriots -- who, incidentally, were looking a little "deflated" last night...

I know, right? I wish I was that witty!!

If you are on Facebook and don't follow Peace Hill Press -- do yourself a favor and do it now! They keep me entertained on a near-daily basis with hysterical status updates. Today's status: :lol: Keep up the good work, PHP staff!!

When the stack of ungraded papers is half a mile high because your kid is way more diligent about doing her work than you are about grading it... :leaving:

Planning the big picture before the start of each year helps me the most. I organize the year around our content areas, particularly history and literature. I make a chart to show what we will be covering each week in those areas. Then I make a weekly schedule that breaks down what subjects we cover on each day of the week -- we don't do every subject every day (math, history, science and lit are 5x/week, typing and logic are 2-3x/week, art and music are 1x/week) and we also have some mornings out of the house, etc. so I try to balance things so that we're not doing school late into the afternoon on any given day. Once I have a big picture mapped out, it's easy to go through every 6-8 weeks and make up schedules for the coming weeks -- which particular lessons we will cover in each subject on each day. That gives me room to adjust if we get ahead or fall behind, but we still have a framework for the year overall. But, I am pretty type A and like things organized, so take that with a grain of salt!

That's true. But, given the choice, I would prefer that my children not be in scheduled/structured activities of any kind for that many hours of the day. Maybe it's the introvert in me, but much of the reason we homeschool is because I want them to have some time on their own to play or read or just sit and daydream. To me, that's the best part of childhood.

See you in Charlotte next weekend!!!! #carolinapanthers #keeppounding

Is it bad that I had to stop and calculate your times in my head? :leaving: I think this is part of the concern here. We are a rural county (at least in some parts), so some kids have a long ride, and the thought of kindergarteners being outside waiting on the bus before 6am is a little much. And then not getting home until 4:00? That's a looooong day. I think I said earlier that many of the counties around us have a 7-hour elementary day already, but that was incorrect, at least according to the news article I read today. Apparently this move will give our county one of the longest elementary school days in the area.

I typically use a mix of vinegar and Dawn dish soap for most all of our cleaning. My grandmother always cleaned her bathrooms with Dawn, and the vinegar is antiseptic and kills smells. It will take dried pee off, but if those are stains you're seeing on the tile, you might need something stronger. But my real secret to clean bathrooms was to teach dd10 how to do it. Now it's part of her weekly chore routine. She does a MUCH better job than I ever did!

We use duct tape for preventing blisters when hiking or walking a lot. It works great. Not sure how it would do on an already-formed blister, though, or whether it would stay on in the water.

I would have LOVED something like that as a teen! And my dd10 would love it now. Kudos to your youth leader for seeing that many teens are capable of much more than they're given credit for! And kudos to your dd for taking her faith seriously, too.

How does throwing paint-filled balloons teach one that "every person is important"??? :confused1: I hated this kind of stuff when I was a teen. I hate it even more now that I'm an adult. I'm just not "fun" and "relate-able," I guess. I don't understand why adults who work with teens seem to believe that they have to think and act like teens in order to relate to teens. Don't teenagers appreciate adult role models who are actually adults? I know I did. Hugs, OP. Wish I had a good idea about the coat, but I don't. Maybe the local dry cleaner could help?

Just curious what's common: How long is the elementary school day where you live? The public school district where I live is considering lengthening the school day for elementary students from 6.5 to 7 hours. Some parents are up in arms about this; they think the school day is long enough or too long already. Most of the counties around us already have a 7-hour school day for elementary, but that has increased over time. I think when I was an elementary student in this district, the school day was closer to 6 hours. By sheer coincidence, I read an article today in the Washington Post about a "no-excuses" school in which students as young as kindergarten spend NINE hours each day! :svengo: Can't imagine what would happen if they tried something like THAT here!

Never been there, but I've always thought Mackinac Island in Michigan looked like the COOLEST place to visit! (Totally NOT on topic, but this is my 1000th post!!!)

Yeah, probably shouldn't but I do. Mostly because I love to read while I eat and I don't want to stop. Oh well. There are worse things, right? Also, we are terrible about family meals. Two strikes for us!

We are doing Physics this year using Noeo and have enjoyed the Thames and Kosmos Physics Workshop. For the most part, dd has been able to build the projects herself (dh has had to step in a couple of times), and they give her a good understanding of the concepts.

Time alone with dh and an actual uninterrupted conversation. Actually, my birthday starts in 29 minutes and tomorrow we're going to buy dh some new pants, wander around town without anywhere in particular to go, maybe grab some dinner and see a movie. I can't wait!! :D

Three of my four sets of great-grandparents -- those are the ones who lived around 1900 -- were farmers (not sure about the fourth). I know all of those grandparents survived the Great Depression without too much struggle, because they were pretty self-sufficient on their farms. All of my grandparents left the farms for other jobs, though. My paternal grandfather left his home due to abuse at the age of 13. He started washing dishes in a small-town diner and eventually worked his way up to cook. My paternal grandmother worked as a clerk in a department store nearby. That's how they met. After they married, they opened their own restaurant and were quite successful. They proudly put my dad through college (first in his family -- he later also earned an MBA). My maternal grandmother left the mountains of Virginia for a cotton mill in NC after high school, just before WWII. She met my grandfather there. She moved back home with their two small children while he was in the Navy, and they lived and farmed there for several years after the war as well. Then they moved back to NC, where he was a truck driver. Unfortunately, he died in an accident in his early 30's, when my mother was only 4. So I don't know a lot about him or his family. My grandmother raised five children on her own working as a janitor in an elementary school and a grocery store clerk. A lot of people around here still have farms (mostly tobacco and soybeans) but most of them have day jobs as well.

New Year's Eve is my birthday, so our tradition is to drop the kids with my mom and dad and go out for a nice dinner, where we party hearty until about 9:00, go home and fall asleep in front of the TV before midnight. Yeah, we're animals.

Well, the first thing ds5 said when he got up to see what Santa had left was, "Where's my cat?" Dd got a kitten from Santa last year, and I guess ds thought it was his turn. He had mentioned wanting a cat, but I explained that he needed to be a little older before Santa would give him a pet, and I thought we were all good. Guess not! He moved on quickly, fortunately. He liked his toys, but it was only a few minutes before he was asking for "my stuff from Nana's" -- a huge box of real, child-sized tools and a board my dad made him with all kinds of nuts and screws and locks and switches to take apart. He's been pretty much glued to it since he got it last night. I'm totally thrilled -- my dad has no sons and only the one grandson so he's loving getting to spoil a boy for a change.