Definitely depends on the kid, and definitely fine if you feel like your kids are fine. I have a kid who could have walked/biked half a mile to grandma's house at 5/6 with no trouble and one who just got biking on neighborhood sidewalks freedom at 7/8. DS9 and DD6 often bike down to the neighborhood park - it's 3 blocks away, very little traffic, sidewalks and speed bumps and well-marked crosswalks and etc. They're fine. But when my older two were DD9 and DS6, no way.

Ah, that makes sense! I thought she sounded Australian, but my accent perception isn't great.

I think you're listening to the same one I do on Bosscast; Wintermom (I think) in the other thread says it's Carol Lane, who is English (but now coaches in Canada), and Kurt Browning.

I don't know a ton about the military, but my impression has been that rather than instate a draft while we are at war (and have been for basically 16 straight years), they're using reservists and national guard troops more, and that many of these soldiers were misled at enlistment about the commitment that would be necessary (although if your DH signed up before 2001, I don't know how even his recruiters could have anticipated it). Sucks.

Well, I think we might do CLRC's Hunger Games and Dystopian Fiction (if they offer it again) AND their GB 1 course. Alternatively, maybe the Hunger Games class and the Muse on the Loose/ReLoosed classes at Lukeion (they are also ancient history/myth/lit as far as I understand). Alternatively, DD would love a semi-performance-based Shakespeare class if I can find one that meets her requirements. I know G3 has the comedies in fall but I am just not sure about G3; she took a couple of Athena's classes and they were hit-and-miss. I wish we lived nearer a big city so she could find local classes - the live component to Shakespeare is what she's looking for, I think.

Watching speed skating now. Why do the 1500 meter skaters all start so slowly every time? It is weird to watch.

Reverse the genders in this story and I imagine the general reaction of the board would be quite different.

Scott Hamilton and that routine he did to The Marriage of Figaro; Katerina Witt and the one she dedicated to Sarajevo - Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, I think. I loved those when I was maybe 8-12 or so.

meat pie is the obvious answer, and boy is it tasty

No, I agree that experts appointed by elected officials should set policy, and that it should be good policy - although I suspect you and I disagree about the extent to which a government body should make policies, and how much control it needs to have over people's lives. I'm just saying that the idea that we should let one group (PNW liberals, basically) decide policy for the rest of the country, not because the people vote for people who represent these ideas but just because PNW people are healthier on average and therefore should get to make healthcare and diet decisions for the rest of the country...that's not democracy. Should they band together and make a push to educate the rest of the country as to the right way to live? Sure, go for it.

Ah, I have no idea what the prices are for things other than just striaght marijuana - edibles or oils or whatever. That is something I'd be worried about buying non-regulated anyway, from a guy off the street, just because you can't see what you're getting. With weed, it's pretty obvious whether it is or isn't weed. With a candy or an oil or something, though, it seems like it would be very easy to tamper with it or sell you something not-real.

amazingly, the way democracy works isn't that people who think they have the right answer get to tell all the other people what to do lol

$20 for a t-shirt is not cheap. $5 for a t-shirt is cheap. $20 for a t-shirt is mid-range, and you should be able to order them online and be done with it. It's just a matter of finding the right manufacturer for your preferences and body type.

I would take her out of this stupid school today. I just would.

Yes, I get the difference now. Ellie, I think you see grammar (correct me if I'm wrong) as a prescriptive exercise - the main purpose of it is that it tells you how you must write in order to be correct in a certain register. I see it as a descriptive exercise - it tells you how the things you are writing (or saying) are organized and their function in the sentence, as a means of analysing the language. It can be used prescriptively, of course, both to stay in a formal register and to stay in another register, depending on intent - but the point of learning it for me is not, mainly, to teach my kid to stay in the formal register at all times, but to understand how the different parts of speech and writing work so that she can both consciously direct her writing and so that she can understand when and how another writer has done so.

Well, it's for 12 boxes of them.

I'm not really sure how you'd mistakenly write a sentence improperly that has a transitive verb with no direct object. Like, I can write, "She eats." or "She eats apples." How would I mess that up somehow just because I didn't know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs? Either I want to tell you what she was eating or I don't want to tell you; both forms are correct for what they are. But maybe I am missing something obvious.

I want what you want, OP. I'm not losing weight (in fact, as I am 6 months pregnant, I'm gaining weight, sigh) but what I would like to find in life is a brand of solid colored, 100% cotton, V-neck or scoop-neck t-shirts that are not super boxy but not cut so close that they cling, and are not super thin, either. Here is what has not worked: J Crew's vintage cotton tees Everlane's tees (they were great for a while but recently it seems like they're thinner) Land's End's tees - too boxy and wide-shouldered

It seems like a weird option; I've never heard of a high school that has a separate lab class for their science classes, especially their upper-level ones. IB Bio 2 Higher Level is worth the same 1 credit as Intro Bio for 9th graders in most schools - it's just that if your kid is doing a class with a heavier workload, you might call it honors and weight it. I also would never put 6 science classes on a HS transcript (Physics, Physics Lab, Bio, Bio Lab, Chem, Chem Lab) if the kid hadn't actually done 6 separate science studies. Even for something like this, I'd probably just put (if I were listing it on a transcript), Honors Bio (Lab Included), or something like that.

Your kids are pretty close to my kids' ages. I don't do a lot of housework. DS9 does the dishes - all the dishes, all the time. DD12 does the sweeping and mopping and transferring of laundry from the washer to the dryer and floor to washer. DD6 puts away all laundry. Everyone cleans their own rooms (somewhat infrequently, I admit) and most of the toys are kept in the finished basement, so that all sort of stays a mess until I get frustrated about once a week and tell everyone to go downstairs and Do Not Come Back Up Until It Is Clean Down There. I used to be more freewheeling about it - when the dishes needed doing I'd just grab the first older kid I saw and tell them to do the dishes, for example - but they like having defined roles a lot better. We do simplify things to make less work for the kids. We don't fold clothes. DD6 can put clothes away fine but is not a great folder (and it takes her forever) so we just don't ever fold them. All our stuff is wash and wear cottons, largely knits, so it doesn't really need folding.

I loved Katerina Witt.

Here in Colorado, medical marijuana (and for that matter recreational) is much cheaper than street marijuana used to be. Medical is also siginificantly cheaper than recreational; many people get a medical card so that they can save money on what is essentially (for them) recreational weed. I don't know how much medical costs exactly, but even recreational weed in the most expensive location, sun-grown organic marijuana outside Colorado Springs (where the demand is huge because it's not legal to sell recreational in the Springs, a city of 500k or so, so everyone goes to the small town outside with legalized recreational), it's still not hugely expensive. I don't know how you could spend more than a few hundred a month if you were smoking constantly, top of the line stuff, and it were recreational prices. If you smoked less constantly and medical, it would be a lot less.

Ski jumping has always been one of my favorite sports to watch and think about. It seems like as close as you can get to flying.

I don't have diabetes, but I have gestational diabetes which I think is somewhat similar in effect, and I can tell you that a piece of fruit by itself for any meal (or even really a snack) is useless for energy. I'd be great for half an hour and then crash and have nothing for the rest of the day. Can you convince him to eat an egg or a stick of cheese or even a small hamburger (ideally no bun) instead? Almost anything. An avocado. A swig of olive oil. 5 slices of bacon. I know how it is being slammed with work - we are in the busy season now and it is a bear. I have been eating nuts when I have no time.

Has he tried eating less?