Ok you are younger and darker than I imagined and although looks don't matter you are also quite gorgeous...

Yes that makes sense. Thanks

Foster care. Keep homeschooling. Buy a lotto ticket.

I don't fully understand this but two things I've heard. Japan's debt level skyrocketed after Fukushima. Is that true? If so it should rectify itself over time. The other is that you have to look at debt compared to GDP in the same way we look at personal debt relative to income. Those with low debt may be there because they aren't earning enough to borrow. Sometimes it feels like we've created a big paper monster that we can't understand or control though.

I think not all creeps go for easy. Many of them seem to like what they can't or shouldn't have is more desirable iykwim?

Thank you! It's always bugged me that I couldn't do this!

😆 And that is why I am not a visual person... As long as you don't squeak on the blackboard I'm cool with you being chalk...

Noooo! I always thought you were a unicorn and you are actually a cat! With hands and feet.

Sure sure ... We all know you are really a pool noodle... (They are pool noodles aren't they?)

I notice names and rarely look at avatars... I didn't even realise Sadie had a round saw. I thought it was just some kind of silver circle thing.

I don't think what girls wear has any bearing on whether they are likely to be assaulted. Worst scenarios I personally know of happened within families with a strong emphasis on modesty. Actually I wish what people wear did have some bearing because then it would be far easier to fix. But... I actually feel that some fashions are inherently exploiting teen girls. Fashions that encourage people to dress impracticality on clothes that aren't protective high heels, ridiculous shoes or clothes that you can't actually move on without flashing underwear. It's ok to say "women make the choice to wear it" but as with all things fashion doesn't happen in a vacuum. Especially as a teen, I felt a lot of pressure to conform. And kids aren't designing fashions there's someone further up the chain that's setting the standards for how to dress and what to wear. I am big on the message "it's not how you look it's who you are". In spite of the modesty message I got in childhood I also received loud and clear that how you think and act were far more important than just looking good. Some clothes are just designed to make girls ornamental and not much else and I'm seriously not a fan of that. Last thing is people often say "why aren't we policing boys clothes". Well I think mostly because boys aren't pushed as much to be always beautiful and ornamental and are far less likely to push the envelope with clothing. Lots of people do get judgy about boy trends like the jocks hanging out look. I'm not personally a fan of boys hanging out with their shirts off etc.

Can you do one of the iew themed units that covers some history? That way you are getting history with your writing even if you aren't getting to the other. I also find when my kids are being dawdly it helps to schedule And what they don't get done in the allotted time doesn't get done. They don't like not finishing so they tend to speed up.

Plus they are mostly in German 😂

I think defining population growth rates and lengthened life span play into how eldercare plays out. Where there were five or six kids to the family or even more there are more to share the workload than in a smaller family. In the past care would often fall on the shoulders of a daughter who hadn't married or didn't have children. That may not necessarily have been fair though.

Stuff like this makes me angry. Not just with the brides behaviour but that some people spend $5k on a single use dress and others can't buy their kids shoes for school. What the heck is wrong with the world.

Yes. I do the constant nagging "you have to show your work" thing as well..

Depends on the situation. Was there any risk of the kid hitting their head or other kids when they were pushed in? Was the tone light and teasing or more like an actual refusal by the kid and an angry response by the parent? Either way there's probably not much you can do.

Singapore math does teach and encourage some great mental math strategies. I think that does encourage my kids to "do it all on their heads". I would never have dreamed of doing some of the stuff in my head that they attempt.

The only parallel situation I've seen, where the parents pushed the relationship so strongly, the man was eventually diagnosed with a mental illness that was getting worse with age. The age gap wasn't so big. I think the parents were controlling because the man needed someone in control and because they come from a religious culture where mental illness is often not acknowledged or treated they probably didn't realise or were in denial about what was going on. I do feel pretty sorry for them because I can see how hard it must have been but I'm very thankful the girl eventually woke up to what was going on and got the heck out of there.

What about if say for theft there was some kind of repayment system? Prisoners get paid a fair wage for work but a percentage goes into repaying the value of what they stole? Overcomes the wage dropping issue, provides a sense of overcoming their past through restitution and maybe developing some kind of work skills. So many employers say the skills they want are things like turning up on time, working a full day, and good interpersonal skills which can be developed on any job really. Far better than sitting around totally bored anyway. Of course this doesn't work for other crimes though. I guess the other thing is are employers going to choose to employ inmates when the wage is the same and there are already more workers than jobs?

That's why I specified only in relation to firefighting not other jobs. There are a lot of reasons people will volunteer to firefight or do flood prevention erc that don't apply to a manufacturing job that's for profit. I'm not sure if you are in Aus which is where I am but to move to an all paid firefighting force would be absolutely huge. There is a mini brigade in almost every rural town with sometimes up to 50 members. They train weekly in summer and fortnightly in winter, do admin, their own fundraising often, sometimes they will be attending multiple call outs a week sometimes a month will go by without one. To move all this to a paid basis would be absolutely massive. I have no idea what the situation is in US of course.

That's a crazy lot going on even with nt kids and no preschoolers. Firstly, this may not work for you but we work better if we do things in blocks. I would try and reduce the out of the house stuff or move more onto one day. I couldn't handle being out of the house three separate days a week. I do spelling or writing/literature not both on a day. We have two days on spelling and three on writing but if they need more spelling switch around. I basically have a language hour each day for each kid and language other than English goes in that hour (for us Latin and Italian). Then we have a math hour where all the maths stuff plus critical thinking goes. We have a "morning basket" hour which is some variation of read alouds, memorisation, bible, art appreciation, music. Stuff that is somewhat fluffy but also is the stuff that makes school rich. Then we have one hour of another subject. They rotate on a loop schedule , grammar, history, geography, science, art. I wouldn't be able to cope with history 3 times a week. This limits school to four hours. What doesn't fit in that time mostly doesn't get done. You might find Mystie Winklers time budget stuff helpful. Basically you can't think of time as an unlimited resource. There's so much you could do but we can't do it all. That's like going shopping and buying whatever you want instead of thinking how much money you have and allocating it. Think about your week as a bank account. Allocate your hours to the must dos first. Leaving some margin for error is also a must do. Then add on the nice to dos from there. Sometimes it helps to have a list of nice to dos that you can slot in when you have a bit of extra unexpected time.

I want to say as far as pay goes my view might be coloured by the fact that the majority of firefighters outside metro here are all volunteers. They don't get paid. They don't even get decent workers comp for illness or injury. And they clean up after accidents, so rescues etc etc. So long as the inmate fireys are truly voluntary not compelled I don't see the need for payment for the work. That's totally separate to any other kind of prison work program of course. I also think safety considerations should be as good as for any other volunteer firefighter. And I have mixed feelings about tying a reduced sentence to participation because there's a very fine line between incentivisation and compulsion.

I watched a documentary about this ages ago. The inmate they interviewed said it was the first time in their life they were thanked, praised and treated like a hero instead of being belittled and looked down on. It did wonders for their self esteem and made them feel for the first time like they could do something good. Could it be subject to abuse? Of course? But honestly I think being involved in work and positive stuff is generally better than just sitting in prison with nothing to do or think about.

Coffee is right next to me where it belongs. I'm loving this concept of coffee and books which I just came across from a homeschool blogger. Just start the day whenever you get going with a stack of books and a coffee. I'm finally getting through the library backlog and I'm always slow first thing anyway. So yay... We are getting books read and I'm getting my morning wake up time...