We've done this with lots of classes where buying used would be a significant price break. Some classes really needed the code and some didn't The most helpful professor emailed a couple of weeks before the semester started and told students they didn't need the code and were welcome to buy used as long as it was the current edition or one back. I found that extremely considerate!

Ds always wants BBQ. I have a big green egg and he particularly loves bbq ribs. He really likes the food at his school, but they don't do BBQ. Dd is a vegetarian. She requests homemade mac and cheese, but mostly is just happy to have a well stocked kitchen so she can fix healthy food. She wasn't at all impressed with school food and is very glad to be home with a kitchen. They're both moving into apartments next year and I'm curious how that will change things.

My dh is constantly hiring programmers. He requires applicants to state their salary requirements and bases his offers on what they state. Certainly, plenty of people price themselves out of a job, but he doesn't ever work from a set "this job pays x dollars/year", but rather "a person with these skills and this much experience is worth x dollars to me". He doesn't negotiate much after he makes an offer, but may be willing to up vacation, slightly increase pay, or offer a bonus for a certification, etc. He would never want to hire a person that wasn't completely satisfied with their compensation package. That would make them likely to leave and after going to the trouble of hiring, he wants people to stay!

Okay, apparently I'm a weirdo. I think I'm far more open to change now than I've been in a long time. My youngest went to college last fall and I have the time and mental space to make changes, experiment and try new things. As long as I had kids in the house, I didn't have the physical or mental energy for major changes beyond what was absolutely forced upon me. ETA I'm turning 50 in just a few days.

I've ordered two mattresses on Amazon. I got this one two and a half years ago for dd. She slept on it for a year before she left for college and was very happy with it. She is really small and light though, so I can't say a lot about how it holds up. I got this one for ds four years ago. He slept on it for two years before heading off to college and summers since. I had read a lot about memory foam mattresses not holding up, but this has. Both of these were great deals and we have no regrets at all about our online mattress purchases.

I'll add small, medium and large schools all have their own advantages. Ds attends a small private LA Univ, dd attends a medium (7,000-ish) State Univ. Dh and I also attended a medium size LA State Univ. None of us where big school people, but they have good points too. I think the best way to get a feel for what your kids will prefer is to take a few tours. We toured small, medium and large. Ds hated large! He did DE at a large State U and didn't want any more of that. Dd thought small was too constrictive, but wanted to be in a small enough department to get to know people and not just be a number. Medium provided that for her. Some kids will see all the opportunities large provides and be in love. Let your kids find the answer for themselves.

I started to give some advice, then realized it was you 8. There is nothing I can say that you don't already know. So instead, just :grouphug: :grouphug: for you and your daughter. It is so hard when our bodies betray us, and even harder for someone so young.

I debated between it's more complicated than that and other. My parents were both raised in the same faith. My mom was a believer and my dad wasn't. We went to church when we visited my grandparents (monthly) and sporadically at other times. I can't say I was raised religious no more than we were at church, but it wasn't non-religious either. I remained in that same faith most of my life. During college my faith became more important to me and took a stronger role in my life and it stayed that way. I recently left the denomination I was raised in because I am just not socially conservative enough to be there anymore. However, my faith hasn't changed much. I go to a non-denominational Christian church that is more open and accepting and I am happier there. There was a time when I was able to attend churches of my previous denomination and the pastor stayed on biblical topics and away from political ones and I was quite content, but that seems harder to find now.

I think the short answer to your question is that double-majoring is very possible, but he will have to pick a university that is friendly to the idea and may require extra time to get the degrees. Really, for a 9 yr old, I think that is all you need to know. For now, he can obviously keep working on both and by the time college arrives, it may no longer be an issue.

We gave them each luggage. Ds also got an iPad which he uses for taking notes in classes. Dd got a new iPhone. Her first as she has always had hand-me-downs. They both already had laptops, although they are getting old and slow and will probably barely get them through college.

I just wanted to take a moment and empathize so you know you're not alone. My ASD ds is exactly the same. We arranged for accommodations with disability services before he went, but he refuses to use them or seek any help from disability services although he knows it is available to him. He would never confront either. The one thing that we have found he can do is email. I help him draft emails if he has a problem or a concern and that has worked really well. He still wouldn't bother with what you are talking about. It would bother me more than him too. However, I thought I'd mention email just in case it might help in another circumstance.

Do you have any direction in what type of materials you want to use or what style of homeschool you still desire? There are a lot of boxed curriculums. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Since he is using Apologia science and Cornerstone, I assume Christian is acceptable if not preferred. I'd suggest looking into the following: My Father's World - literature based. They provide history and English and suggest Apologia and TT for science and math. They provide a checkbox schedule for everything. BJU/Abeka - textbook based. Both have video and online options. These are much more traditional school-like but Christian. They offer all the main subjects plus some electives. Online academies can be a good option if your state offers free access. These are going to be geared toward national standards and use the same textbooks that public schools would use. If you find ps objectionable, you may find these objectionable too. Picking by subject is what most of us do here, but I don't know if it is what you want. You can choose an online course or two, maybe in subjects that he is interested or strong in, plus a couple of nice box checking programs for subjects that just need to happen. For more suggestions along this line, begin by reading the pinned subject threads, then start new threads for each subject that you need help choosing. There are many, many homeschool curriculums to choose from these days and many of them (although not all) are completely planned for you. It really depends on what you are looking for. Give us more information if you need more help choosing.

I've had mine on a few times already. We keep it set at 76-77 during the day and it drops to 70 at night. No one in my family can sleep if it is warmer than that. OTOH during the winter we have the heat set on 66-67 during the day and drop it to 60 at night. I'm a firm believer in dressing for the season. If you wear shorts in my house in the winter, you will probably be cold. If you wear sweats in the summer, you will be hot. The temperatures I choose are those where I am comfortable wearing seasonal clothing.

In fact you can even mix and match from different years, although introduction is clearly easier and has shorter writing assignments than any of the others. I agree, it is super flexible!

This. I also purchased padded covers. They were still cheaper than any of the ones I could order and I didn't like anyone else's wording. I looked at everyone else's wording, but I did my own.

Agreed! Dd has straight A's going into finals and is killing herself in fear that she'll mess one up. Ds had only one final, that was today and he is finished! His other classes had final projects or presentations that were turned in last week.

None of the application process relied on paper mail for either of my kids. There were packets sent after acceptance, but I don't think there was any information in them that wasn't available somewhere else. They received their acceptance via email before snail mail. Their scholarship notifications came both ways, but again, email was first. With my first I mailed physical transcripts, but I ended up resending via email for one school that lost the physical transcript, so with dd I just talked to admin reps at each school and got the proper email address to send the transcripts from the start. The school are stored them electronically and preferred getting them that way.

Dd's had mostly professors who post grades. She usually knows exactly what her grades are at any time. She can tell me exactly what her grade is in every class right now and what it will take on each of her finals to keep her straight A's . Ds didn't have a single teacher that posted grades this semester. The only classes where he has had teachers consistently post grades are those taken online. Some of his teachers let student see tests or papers, some email with feedback, some (according to him) he has no idea. He doesn't track what comes back to him, so when grades go up at the end of the semester, it is always a surprise. Ds is laid back, gets good grades (not perfect), and doesn't need specific grades for anything, so this is fine for him. Dd needs nearly perfect grades to get into the nursing program and would probably die from the stress if she couldn't keep track :lol: . I think different schools have different standards for posting grades online, and it may be important for some kids to make sure they get a school where grades are better tracked.

I just wanted to comment about taking the test in June. First, while the rumor exists that if a kid tests, does ok, then applies for accommodations they won't get them, ds did just that and got the accommodations. Second, that the College Board has always taken 8 weeks, not a day less, to approve accommodations. However, someone up-thread mentioned a new streamlined process, so maybe since he isn't a homeschooler, the accommodations will come through that fast. The ACT board only took a couple of weeks for us even as homeschoolers, so you could go ahead and do that application too. For ds (a slow processor), the ACT with accommodations was the perfect fit; you might not want to give up that option.

:hurray: :hurray: :hurray: So relieved for you! I was feeling your pain and ready to cry myself!

Another vote for Algebra 1A and 1B. It is offered that way in every public high school in my area. I don't know why your student wouldn't get the same credit that public school kids would.

Dislike. I hate that this experience existed and still exists.

I mean tour to decide where to go.

I found pizza hopeless GFCF, but Mexican is easy! Just leave off the cheese and use corn tortillas or hard taco shells. Mexican food is one of the most friendly for gluten and dairy free! Ice cream made with Silk very vanilla soy milk is wonderful. SoDelicious brand makes yummy dairy free ice creams too. They're pricey, but you don't have to feel like you're missing out. We were Gluten and dairy free for 9 years, but its been awhile now, so I can't give current information. I can tell you there was nothing that I couldn't make gluten free. Yeast breads aren't as good, but quick breads, cookies, etc are and it isn't too hard to learn to make them. Dairy free is somewhat limiting. Cream based soups, and cheese heavy dishes just aren't as good with substitutes, but sweet thing work well with substitute milks (which tend to be sweet). If there are specific recipes you want, feel free to PM me. I generally used my standard recipes and just substituted. For flour I used a mix of 2 parts sorghum flour/1 part tapioca starch and added 1 tsp of xanthan gum per cup of flour. I've heard Bob's Red Mill sorghum flour is awful. I got my from Twin Valley Mills. There are a lot of gf flour mixes readily available in most grocery stores, and Aldi's is a (relatively) cheap source for GF products that I've heard are good, but I stopped being GF before Aldi's started carrying it :).

No. I've never seen the attraction. I like exploring different places. We almost never stay at the same place twice (with the exception of a few national parks). I've been to almost every state and and rented condos and cabins in many of them. We've also camped and stayed in hotels. While there are places I love, I still wouldn't want to waste the money owning something I would only visit occasionally.