That is total craziness, but it sure puts "3" into perspective. :lol:

It sure has taken long enough! :lol: :lol: True!

That means we'll have three full time students this fall, because paying for two just wasn't enough for me :lol: I've decided to pursue a masters in English Lit. Thanks a lot SWB and TWTM for making me fall in love with literature again as a homeschool mom. I'm old. I think I've lost my mind.

I love SL curriculum and used it several years with my kids. I always bought used and with the understanding that they don't support their curriculum when it is purchased used. Back then, you didn't get access to their forums unless you purchased a core or paid for access. Now you can just go online and ask other SL users. The forums are friendly and will help.

Cherry tomatoes are my favorite for snacking. I grow super sweet yellow cherry tomatoes and even my veggie haters will eat them by the handful if I have them washed and ready sitting in a bowl in the fridge. I don't really snack and we aren't big snackers, so I get my veggies in at meal times.

Not traveling, but at >95% totality here, so I can live with that. I doubt I would travel to see it anyway. While I think it is cool, it isn't really that big a deal to me. One of my kids will be in class the other one will get to see it.

Ds had seizures as a child and because of that we delayed and selectively vaxed. We did the meningitis vaccine for both kids though. There was just no way I would let them live in a dorm without it. My kids would both go to bed and try to sleep it off if they felt bad. We aren't the 'rush to the doctor' types. This is a recipe for disaster with meningitis and just wasn't worth the risk. No reactions here, but mine never had any severe reactions so that doesn't mean anything for you Cat.

I don't know about legal, but my vet recommended it. I walk my dogs on leashes in a somewhat rural area. The majority of dog owners let their dogs run loose. We've used to have a lot of trouble with dogs attacking, but one of my current dogs is dominant enough that all the dogs that used to bother us now keep their distance :). When I was trying to teach him to behave on a leash and dogs kept coming up and challenging us, she suggested pepper spray so that I could get rid of them. I didn't do it, but did carry a spray bottle of water for awhile.

I tutor both high school and college writing for tutor.com who has contracts with many high schools, libraries and universities to provide student support. My experience closely follows Harriet's, however I would say focus on MLA and APA styles. Less the 5% of the writing I see follows the CMS. MLA is used by English teachers and many Liberal Arts subjects, while APA is used for both soft sciences and sciences (and probably accounts for at least 75% of the papers I see). Purdue OWL is my favorite resource as well. Make sure your student knows how to: Choose reputable sources - Wikipedia has never been allowed by any college professor I've encountered yet, but recognizing propaganda vs information and what a reputable source is, is a real challenge for many students. If you can have them access academic databases at least once before they get to college, it will help! Write an introduction Write a good thesis statement Use quotes and paraphrased ideas to support their ideas and cite them properly both in-text and on a reference page Write a conclusion I really don't think what citation or formatting style you teach is terribly important. As long as they have learned the concept of citing, they can adapt to the rules f any system.

For my "want to be a writer child" we did OYAN and Other Worlds and he loved both. He took the month of November off from whatever writing he was doing each year and did NaNoWriMo. I let most of his writing come from the lit program we were doing: Excellence in Literature (which we used as our English credit), and then some cross curriculum writing doing research papers. He did do AP English at PA Homeschoolers his senior year, which was good prep for more academic writing. He didn't like it, but it did leave him much more prepared for college writing. He's now a junior in college now and just has 2 classes left to complete his writing major. With my non-writer the best thing I ever did was Write at Home. It was great for teaching writing with a variety of assignments, but not being too much which could be nice for a natural writer getting in the essentials, but leaving them with enough time for writing styles they prefer. I wish I'd tried it sooner instead of thinking it wasn't enough.

I wouldn't let my dad walk me down the isle and give me away. I walked alone - no waving. My eyes were fixed on dh. My dad hadn't ever been involved in my life and I didn't think he had any right to give me away; I wasn't his. That said, I realized later how much it hurt his feelings and I regretted the decision. I think a better solution would have been to let him walk me down, but no indication of "giving away". At the time, having him more involved in my wedding than he was would have been distressing to me and I'm sure I didn't need that.

I'm glad you got your money back. I buy from 3rd party sellers all the time on Amazon, probably an average of once a week. I do pay attention to seller ratings, but I have had very few problems. I got the wrong book once, they refunded and told me to keep it. I have gotten merchandise that was not in the condition described a couple of times. I always contact the seller first, but if they aren't responsive, Amazon has always refunded everything. I've never lost a penny to an Amazon purchase and have no fear at all of 3rd party sellers. Amazon stands behind them and is quick to side with the buyer if there is an issue.

My dogs don't get to go many places with me. One is overly friendly, and the other guards too strongly. We walk a couple of miles every morning and another mile every evening in the summer. In more pleasant weather we walk 3-4 times a day. We occasionally go to parks with walking trails for longer walks and they love going hiking with me. They go to the vet of course and about once a year to the kennel. They've both been to pet supply stores, and overly friendly has been through obedience classes at Pet's Mart. The guard dog is terrified in the pet store and anywhere else strange and really prefers to be home. He was abused, dumped and lived as a stray for awhile before we took him in and is still trying to gain confidence. They both love running errands with me, but don't get to do it often because I, like someone above, usually combine errands and it is rare to have all dog friendly errands or short enough car waits that it works. In cool weather, they get to come more because they can hang out in the car if I have short trips in and out mixed with places they can go or drive-throughs which they think are awesome because so many give out milk bones :lol: .

Dh is almost always home for dinner. He usually worked more after the kids went to bed, but he spent 5:30-9:00 with us every day (unless traveling). It was just our way of prioritizing family time and making sure he spent time with the kids. Even now that the kids are grown and away at college 9 months out of the year, he stops working every evening and has dinner with me and spends some time with me. Dh probably works around 60 hours a week most of the time, but still manages to carve out those evening hours for us. I don't know that dinner is an obsession, but I've read a lot about building community and one of the things most often agreed upon is that the more people eat together, the more they build community. It isn't the only way, but it is a highly effective way and I think that is why it is traditional in so many cultures.

Analytical Grammar might be a good choice. It can be done across multiple years, but for a high school student in can be done in 1 year and gives a reasonably complete overview of grammar. It is enough for most people and relatively painless. I never really used a writing program, so I can't give a recommendation there, but that will be important. The best way to get vocabulary is by reading. Read a lot! You can pick any science and history curriculum you want. As long as you are pretty confident in your reading, go ahead and jump in. As you pick topics, you can use the pinned threads at the top of this page for a list of different science options, and search for suggestions for history, or post specific questions on curriculum for specific topics.

In my mind this is a choice. If you are saying "This is your home too, make yourself at home.", then they can sleep together if they want. If you say, "This is my home, but you are welcome here." then you are maintaining authority to set whatever rules you'd like. It is your choice, but don't say one thing then expect the other. We haven't really had this issue. Dd's boyfriend comes and spends the night every other week (the other weeks she goes there). They sleep in the guest bedroom when they are at each other's parent's houses. However, my guest bedroom and dd's room are both in the basement. I don't patrol :lol: . If having sex outside of marriage is against your morals and you don't want it in your house or as an example to younger children in the family, I would never say you should allow it. I would just say you should be a bit more forthright from the beginning with your expectations.

That is exactly where I would start if I was behind and wanted to catch up fast. It will fill in anything you've missed so far and should have you ready for Algebra when you are finished. For other subjects, how is your reading level? Are you a good reader? If so, I would just start a high school level curriculum. The only subject that is cumulative, that must to go in order, is math. English does to an extent, but many programs reteach a lot anyway. If your reading level is up to high school work, I'd just start there and look specifically at creating a program that will get the credits you need to graduate high school AND to enroll in college. Match them up, take exactly what you need.

Look for DIVE rather than Shormann. HIs products are popular and discussed often, but always under the company name.

I would have asked you the same question I would have given my children when they were younger: Is the rule breaking hurting someone or is it just breaking a rule? If the rule is the only thing being hurt, let it go. I wouldn't have reported the puppies. However, I can see where people with pet allergies would feel differently and I would completely understand if they did. I'm not a rule follower, but if I was going to bring a pet on a trip (which I don't) I would only take them places where they were allowed. That seems pretty basic. That fact doesn't make me feel the need to enforce my behavior code on anyone else though.

What I would not do is enroll in psychology because it would offer an acceptable chance at a job. What I would do is follow Crimson Wife's advice and head toward what I REALLY wanted to do, because anything less will still leave you unsatisfied later.

I said it bothers me a little. The reason for that is, I spend a lot of time editing academic writing for high school and college students and so my eye is trained to pick up anything that a teacher in a US school would consider misspelled (watch me misspell something in this post). That means my eyes catch on non-American spellings and they distract me. That said, if I'm reading a book set in England or Australia, I would prefer the spellings be appropriate. I don't need books written in other countries sanitized for me. As for product names, It would only bother me if it caused me to not understand what something was. I wasn't aware of the iser instead of izer and that one could have thrown me. If I saw something that interested me, the spelling of the product name wouldn't have any bearing on my purchase. A really stupid product name can be off-putting, but a non-American spelling alone wouldn't be.

I don't have anything to add, you've already gotten great advice, but I'll highlight the things that have already been said that are key for me. First, I weigh daily with a bluetooth scale that tracks my weight on my phone. I don't like weighing less frequently because then I hit one of those fluctuations and don't know it is just a weird day. My scale app tracks my weekly progress, and can give me monthly, yearly and "since I've been using it" stats. All of this gives me a much more accurate picture. A high day or weird fluctuations doesn't impact the trend. Nor can I hide from a very small upward trend that I would prefer to pretend isn't there :). Watching the mirror or how my clothing fits does nothing for me. I'm 5'9" tall and I can gain or lose 10 lbs and my clothing won't fit any differently at all. I don't think I see what is really in the mirror. ever. When I am at goal weight, I look fat. When I was 50 lbs overweight, I looked fat. I could only rarely admit there was a difference. When I'm trying to lose, I do it incrementally. My first goal is getting out of the decade I am in, then each goal is 10 pounds from there. Those 10 pound goals come much faster than the big goal and are encouraging! Having goals helps, but being patient is important too. Next, I track activity and exercise. Finding exercise that isn't abhorrent to you is important I like to walk and in the summer I bike. In the winter I do video workouts and circuits, use a treadmill and put my bike on a trainer and I don't like any of it. I walk outside year-round, but I can't get in as many walks or as long of walks when the weather is really bad. Making sure I stay active has been important though. When I started tracking steps I took about 2,000 per day. Now, a low day is 7,000 an average day is 10,000 and a high day is anything over 12,000. I think that has been very important for my health. The key to diet for me has been eliminating sugar and consuming it not more than once every two weeks and only in planned circumstances. This is just me. I'm a sugar addict. Simple carbs aren't much better and I have to be careful with them too. No matter how I try, I can't control my sugar intake any more than an alcoholic can control their drinking, so I mustn't start. If I'm going to have something sweet, I do it surrounded by people, a birthday party for example where I choose to have a piece of cake, or a holiday meal where I choose to eat dessert, but I would feel like an idiot to ask for more lol. That way I can't keep eating and lose control. Everything else I do with diet is secondary. I track foods - sometimes. I count calories - sometimes. I eat very few processed foods - most of the time. Find what works for you and don't feel pressured to do what works for someone else.

I'm sorry about the tension between you and your husband. I don't know of any pro-homeschooling books. Most books are more how-to style. What about a website like https://www.nheri.org/research.html There research is sometimes questionable, but it certainly puts homeschooling in a positive light :).

I think this is a real key - especially if she is interested in elite schools. My ds took 2 English credits every year in high school; he started college as a writing major. My dd took 2 science credits every year and only managed 3 history credits. She is a nursing major. While you want to get all the basic boxes checked, she should also be excelling in something. Just taking the standard sequence of courses in every area won't limit her options on future careers, but it won't get her into tippy top schools either. The kids there have gone above and beyond that in one or more ways both in the classroom and out of it.

This is what I did. There was a box on the transcript with high school level courses taken prior to 9th grade. They were listed there in paragraph form so it was small. It was just in case they were checking boxes. All the work they needed grades for had grades. I can't imagine anyone assigning grades to these. I wouldn't have used P/F or not given grades for classes taken in high school.