What is the Common App? I ended up just sending the transcript with all of senior marked “IP”. Oh well, if they want more than that I guess we’ll get another email.

Yes, I have a transcript template that I’m using. It doesn’t feel like it should be this hard. I think I’m just feeling out of my depth. I was a homeschooled kid but my parents didn’t make transcripts for us and I didn’t go to college so everything involved with helping my kids go to college feels very foreign to me. I think I‘ll just submit what I have and mark this year’s classes as in progress. If they have more questions I’m sure they’ll ask.

They want her “current” transcript now, and then they want her final one submitted after graduation. I’m just not sure what they’re used to seeing as “current”. Up through 11th grade? Or the the first semester of 12th? I’ve asked a few people how to do things as a homeschooler but no one seems to know. So we’re just filling everything out the best we can. It’s a community college and I know tons of home schooled kids go there so they must not be too picky about any of it. Could I do a mix of full year grades for 9-11 and then 1st semester for 12th? I’m just not sure what’s “normal”.

My high school senior is making her college plans for the fall and the school wants her current transcript with the final, updated version sent after graduation. What does the “current version” mean and how would I format it? Just grades 9-11? Or should I send something for this year? Oldest DD took a break after high school so I just sent her final transcript. I’m not sure how to do a partial one.

We do something similar. We currently have three cars and four drivers, but one is away at school without a car. We have a 2010, 2002, and 1998. Two are currently over 200k miles and still running strong. Yes, they tend to need repairs more regularly, but we are careful to maintain them and will drive them til they die. We’ve found over the years that even with the repairs we still save money over buying newer cars. We look for good deals, my DH is particular about the number of owners, checking the car thoroughly, and trusting his gut. He always finds us great cars. We also save A LOT on insurance and taxes buying older cars. We live in one of the highest COL states and pay less than $2000 a year in insurance for three cars and four drivers (two of them teenagers), and our vehicle tax bill for this year was $112 total. Another advantage to having three cars is that when one needs work we can make do with two. We live rurally and having transportation is a must, so this meets that need while avoiding debt and keeping our costs low. Our minivan is one of our higher mileage vehicles so we’re looking for a replacement. But it still runs fine, and we have a back up car, so we can take our time.

It says that I have to enter our AGI from last year’s tax return to confirm that it‘s me. Since we file jointly DH and I’s AGI should match. They do. I’ve double and triple checked. And it’s only 5 numbers; it’s not that hard to get wrong. But I keep getting emails saying mine doesn’t match his. I haven’t had time to try to figure it out today.

I filled out FAFSA for my two older girls last week and have now gotten eight emails saying that they have requested my tax information. The emails are identical. I was expecting two emails, but eight is surprising. I’ve been getting two roughly every four hours since sometime yesterday. Is this normal? Or does it mean there’s some kind of problem? I’ve also been unable to file my taxes after trying multiple times on Saturday, and was unable to confirm my identity on ID.me to try to fix the tax filing problem. I’m trying not to read too much into any of this but I’m wondering if these things are all related….and not in a good way. Ugh.

I might do this. I don’t want to put Algebra 1 twice, once in 9th and again in 12th. It’s what she needed and part of the magic of homeschooling is that we can do this. But it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. I wonder if we have done enough to cobble together a consumer math credit. Or even just half a credit. She’s done some stuff in co-op that could fit and she started working this year and has learned some stuff there. We’ll be working on taxes this week. I have a consumer math text. I’ll see how much we’ve covered and maybe switch to that through the end of the year.

DD2 is a high school senior. Math is not her best subject and we’ve been a little all over the place with it. We did MUS Algebra 1 in 9th grade (she did ok with it but not great), MUS Geometry in 10th (she did fine with this), MUS Algebra 2 in 11th (we pushed through but it was a struggle), this year, for 12th, we’ve decided to just review Algebra and solidify as many concepts as possible. We’re using Saxon Algebra 1 right now. I was hoping to get into Algebra 2 by the end of the year but I don’t think it will happen. I’m not really sure how to list this year’s math on her transcript. I’d rather not list the Algebra 2 with the low grade it will have but I think I’m kind of stuck with that one. How would you do this?

I’m giving Bullet Journaling a try this year. I’ll admit that I haven’t gotten far with it. The year started off a little rough and we’re just now settling back into our “normal”. I haven’t completely figured out how I want to do it but I’m attracted to the idea of it being whatever I need or want it to be. I’m doing a very basic version similar to the original, I think. I love the look of all the artistic ones but I don’t have the skill or time for that.

We have a lot of activities as well. I’m homeschooling 3 who are in 12th, 11th, and 8th/9th. This year I made a conscious choice that each of our activities met a very specific need and would be valued pretty much equally to our book work. That means that most weeks are 4 day school weeks. I’m ok with that. The plan is that each of the four core subjects will be done for 150 hours over the course of the school year (one hour per subject, per day, for 150 days) and then we’ll be done with school. We started after Labor Day and will finish before Memorial Day. In reality, my oldest is a week or more “behind” the pace she’d need to be on to finish in May. She will likely get even further behind this spring due to speech tournaments and work. As long as she continues to work diligently in the time she DOES have available, we will still wrap up school about when co-op ends in May, even if we haven’t quite hit 150 hours. Co-op is mostly enrichment, but the music, arts, and other classes that feed their souls are important. My oldest has a part time job that is teaching her valuable skills not easily taught out of a textbook. All three DC will work 20 or more hours a week this spring at a seasonal job that will last a few weeks. They’re involved in a musical. Younger two are working hard towards their black belts and will hopefully achieve that goal in the next few months. There is church and scouting, and running club. But as I thought about how to fit it all in, I realized that I couldn’t fit it all in. I thought about dropping activities but decided that they are all important in different ways. So I scaled back on school work. Other families may have different priorities but this is where we ended up this year and it feels like a balance we needed.

January pretty much disappeared on me. Spent a few days cleaning up and recovering from hosting 40+ for Christmas on New Year’s Eve, a week getting my daughter ready for school, another week driving her out there, came home and got the flu, recovered with a day to spare before taking another daughter out of state for a speech tournament. And now January is pretty much over. My goals for these last few days of the month are simply to catch up from traveling and being sick. There plenty of laundry and house cleaning to do. Also need to check in with my younger kids on where they’re at with schoolwork and probably check a lot of stuff. I need to order groceries and restock. We start back to co-op this week and I have things to do to get ready for that. I had started getting my bullet journal going while we were stuck in our hotel room in a blizzard on the college drop off trip, but need to get the daily pages going. That should be helpful this week as I sort through what needs to be done to get life back on track and get the second half of our school year going.

Week 2: We are taking DD19 to school 1200 miles away this week so that’s where most of my attention will go. We leave on Wednesday so have a some shopping and packing still to do. I also need make sure younger three DC are set with what they need and which grandparent or aunt/uncle will be helping them out each day. So progress on yearly goals will be almost nothing. That’s ok. My goal for January was just to think through and prioritize so that I’d be ready to start really working towards some goals in February. I’ve decided to give bullet journaling a try. Nothing fancy or creative (although some people really do beautiful ones!), just minimalist and basic as a way to keep track of my schedule, to-do list, goals, habit building, and thoughts. I’m going to try to get that set up this week. I can maybe work on it while we’re driving if I don’t get to it before. My goals for this past week were to return all the things I borrowed to host Christmas, and put away the Christmas decorations. Everything has been returned (but we broke a coffee pot and crockpot in the process. Ugh. Need to order replacements), and Christmas decorations are down and the tree is out. I still have a few things to box up though and the boxes need to be put back in the basement. I need to do that before I leave Wednesday.

I have attempted to participate in this goal setting thread for the past two years. The first year I posted fairly regularly but at the end of the year didn’t feel like I had achieved much. Last year I gave up by late spring as I was tired of posting “didn’t really make any progress this week, I’ll try again”. Now we’re at the beginning of another year and I still think goal setting is important and beneficial. I feel like my days need the direction goals could provide. But this year is going to bring a lot of change for our family and I’m not sure what is reasonable for goal setting. Next week I take DD19 halfway across the country for her first semester of college. DD17 graduates high school in the spring and starts college in the fall. DD16 will be a high school senior in the fall. I’m aware that I really have no idea what all of those milestones will mean for my time. Then there’s DS14 who will officially be in high school at some point this year (a timeline we’re still debating), and I need to make sure that he doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of his sisters’ big life changes. What I’ve decided for now is that January will be a month of reflecting on what my priorities should be this year and what sorts of goals and/or changes would be helpful. I’ll probably need to take it month by month. We just “finished” Christmas. I hosted 40+ for Christmas dinner on the 31st and then 30 for a New Year’s Eve party after that. It was a great time, but I am definitely NOT ready to jump into January with any sort of gusto. Things that I would LOVE to work on this year include my personal health in the areas of healthy eating and movement, spending more time outside walking and working in my gardens, getting back to reading regularly, working on a morning routine that sets the tone for my day, decluttering some forgotten areas of my house, and having friends over on a more regular basis. This week’s goals specifically will be to put the Christmas decorations away and return all of the borrowed tables, chairs, and dishes from this past weekend. I would also like to spend some time learning about bullet journaling. I think this is a system that could work for me. I wouldn’t do any of the pretty, creative stuff, but having one place to keep track of things, customized to my needs, is intriguing.

I’ve tried to do this the past couple of years but always gave up by spring. I’d get discouraged by how far “behind” I was (even though I knew my winter and early spring hours would be low), and I would get tired of tracking. I’m tempted to try it again though. I’d really like to develop a habit of living more of my life outside. I have large flower beds that need to be cared for better, I’d love to put in a vegetable garden, and I have a beautiful patio that I don’t spend nearly enough time using. We have chairs on the patio but maybe we’d use it more if we added a table to make outdoor meals easier.

I’d be ok with Moody and DD2 is considering that as an option. DD has made her plans and we’ll be driving her out to school in a little over a week. Having a child choose a MORE conservative route than you would like as a parent isn’t really something any of the parenting books prepare you for. LOL But I think I’ve accepted her choice and am focusing on being supportive and keeping communication open. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m thinking and will be a good experience for her.

I have wondered about this. DD started feeling sick a few hours after grabbing pizza at Costco. She was the only one who ate it. Nausea and vomiting for about four hours, then feeling fine, just tired and a headache for a day (I’m assuming from dehydration). The next morning my stomach was bothering me, and then I had 4-5 hours of being sick. I was fine the next day, just tired. I didn’t eat the pizza, but I had a smoothie which the others also didn’t have. So maybe food poisoning? It seemed really short for a virus. But I was sick 16 hours after DD. No one else is sick though, and it’s been three days. I’m hoping that’s the end of it but we’ll keep being extra careful with cleaning and handwashing for the next week or so.

We’ll be past 72 hours, but just barely, when our event starts tomorrow. So I’ll put going in the “maybe” category and see how everyone is then. Still no new sick ones so while I’m hopeful, I’m not confident yet. I probably won’t be til we hit a week out or more but I’ll probably start letting people out of the house tomorrow if no one has symptoms. This is a good tip, thanks! I wonder if I can get my family to try it? I’d heard the same about 100% grape juice and red wine but wasn’t sure how accurate the info was. ACV sounds promising though.

Yes, everything was scrubbed down well. And I have the Lysol spray (not wipes) that is supposed to kill norovirus and everything is being sprayed down every few hours. Sick people didn’t prepare their own food for a couple days but cleaned their own dishes afterwards, all bed linens, towels, etc have all been washed and dried on high heat, soft surfaces sprayed with disinfectant (although I know there’s no guarantee there). We are REALLY trying to avoid this going through the house. We don’t use hand sanitizer much as I’ve heard it’s not effective against norovirus, but plenty of soap and water.

Two of us in our household have had the stomach bug this week. (A very short one, thankfully.) We are a family of all teens and adults and I am reminding everyone about proper handwashing as well as disinfecting shared, touched surfaces several times a day. It has now been two days since the last person was sick. Are the rest possibly spared? When can we comfortably feel like we‘re past this? I know they say the virus can be shed for “up to” two weeks, but is that actually likely? We have an event to go to tomorrow that we would all hate to miss. Also, we would all hate to give this to others. By then it will have been a full 72 + hours since the last person stopped vomiting (provided no one else gets sick between now and then, of course). So I think we should be safe around others? Especially if we’re all very carefully about handwashing? What says the hive?

I think co-ops being a waste of time depends on the needs of your family at the time. I looked into joining a co-op for years when my kids were younger, but ultimately it DID seem like it would be a waste of time or not worth it in some way. CC seemed very expensive for what it was, some were much too far away to travel with little kids, others didn’t work with our schedule. There was one I considered helping to start but my kids were going to be the oldest and would age out too soon. So I tabled the co-op idea. Then, a couple of years ago, our needs changed. I had an almost 12 year old DS with NO friends. We were involved in several extra curricular activities but there were either no other boys within 10 years of his age, or he wasn’t clicking with them. I stumbled upon a co-op that was attempting to gear towards older kids and moving to a location less than 10 minutes from my house. I jumped at the chance primarily for the social benefits. It has been wonderful. DS has made some wonderful friends. Most of the classes are enrichment but I wouldn’t call it a “waste of time” academically either. We’ve been able to log hours for art, music, writing, home ec, PE, and health credits. My kids have also been able to take classes like soap making and robotics just for fun, and participate in a drama program, which I think also has merit. We pay a very small family fee per semester and occasionally a materials fee and all these elective classes are in one place in one day of the week. Our classes are taught by parent volunteers but many worked professionally in the subject matter they teach before beginning to homeschool their DC. Parents choose the classes they want to teach. We do ask kids to offer suggestions of classes they would like, and the leadership will throw out ideas too, but while all parents are asked to teach, no one is forced to teach specific subjects. This co-op is totally worth it for us and that one day a week is our favorite, but that’s not to say that a co-op can’t be a waste of time. I think they certainly can be depending on what your family needs in the season you’re in. Being a part of our co-op does take up a whole day, so I’ve scaled rest of our school work down to the basics and we make it work. But our co-op offers so much benefit to our family that I’m more than willing to do that.

On Saturday I will have a few teen boys for most of the day. They have a short sporting event mid-morning, then I’ll be taking them to help with an outdoor service project before ending up back at my house for a few hours. I have a somewhat late lunch planned for back at the house (around 1pm) but I’m thinking they’ll need food of some kind between the two physically active morning activities. They are teenage boys after all. But I’m having a hard time coming up with ideas. I’d pack cheese and crackers and an apple for myself and be perfectly happy but I’m not sure that’ll cut it for teenagers. What would you pack?

We have thought of this and plan to be really careful. One of her possible transfer schools has a reputation for being very generous in the credits they’ll accept. They also list on their website the credits they’ll accept from hundreds of other schools. Our local community college is on the list so that will be helpful. But I guess we need to look at her major specifically. That’s good to know.

Thanks! I found it at a local library.

She is working full time right now to earn the money. I don’t know about other options. I asked her if she was interested in looking at other options and she said she wants to see if this works out first. In the meantime, I’m researching other options to see if I can find something more affordable, that would suite who she is better, and that I would be more comfortable with.