How exactly do you prepare a house for photos, video, and showings while kids are still living in it? Our agent has all of these ideas about clearing away any unnecessary items and furniture, making things very spare and empty, deep cleaning, and decorating with fresh floral arrangements and bowls of lemons to add color. The thought of preparing my house to be this pristine makes me want to hyper-ventilate. We aren't especially cluttery, but we do have five young kids and cleaning is futile. Anything we wipe down (walls, windows, surfaces) immediately gets smudged or spilled on. I don't think I can do this. We have no family nearby who could take the kids. I was thinking maybe I could put all of the toys in the attic so that they cannot make toy messes, and then just send them outside to play with sticks and rocks or something . . . Another option is to buy a new house and move first, and then sell an empty house. This is an option for us as we do not have a mortgage on this house, and have plenty of savings for a downpayment. But does selling an empty (but sparkling clean!) house seem a little bit desperate? I would love to hear from those with experience. This is the first house we have owned, and we moved from a rental so did not have to sell anything.

I don't think your Sears store was correct (unless they have a special exemption?). I just called Land's End this morning about a coat with a broken zipper, and the customer service rep said that I could either send it in or return it to Sears. Our nearest Sears is 45 minutes away, so I usually just end up mailing things rather than dragging five kids 45 minutes away to the mall, but I do like having the Sears return option.

I know this approach is controversial, but if one were to do a "Deconstructing Penguins" sort of analysis of Mr. Popper's Penguins, who would be the best candidate for Antagonist? I'm thinking it is Mrs. Popper. Mr. Popper is clearly the Protagonist -- he is a dreamer, untidy, doesn't care about money. Mrs. Popper is his opposite, as she is pragmatic, exceedingly tidy, and is concerned with money. I don't really see that she holds back the action of the story, though; as she helps him with the penguin act after their initial conflict over money, tidiness, and how he should spend his winter. After that, there isn't really conflict between the two of them. Later in the book, there is conflict with the unnamed theater manager who gets Mr. Popper arrested, but he isn't even named, and is in just a small part of the book. Anyway, this has been bothering me, as I can't get the book to line up nicely with the analysis.

Admittedly, we live in NH and are spoiled by inexpensive state-run liquor stores, but I have found the following labels to be excellent wines in the $10 range: Hahn (especially the Merlot) Line 39 (I think it recently got the Wine Spectator value brand award) 14 Hands

Maybe a beautiful, leather-bound journal. I always love beautiful blank books, and it could be meaningful for a young woman.

So where are all of these make-up tutorials? I'm really curious to find out what you all have found helpful.

I wear some light makeup every day: tinted moisturizer, concealer, lip gloss and mascara on a regular day; and I add foundation, blush, lipstick and eyeliner on a special day. I use subtle colors, so it all looks very natural. It takes less than five minutes to apply (even for a special day) . . . which seems a small time investment for looking a lot younger and well-rested. At 40, I am actually a lot older than most of the mothers of my kids' friends -- but my kids all assume I am younger, and most people are shocked to learn my age.

I just re-read your original post, and think you would adore Massachusetts (or Souther NH). Outside of the metro areas, New England is all about small-town living and beautiful neighborhoods. And even Boston always felt like a small and very town-like city. There are lots of parks, families, and dogs, and not so many high-rises. The political climate is fairly far to the left in Massachusetts, and it does tend to be more secular, with a strong Catholic community. I am from the area, so maybe my cultural background shapes my bias -- but I find people to be friendly (but respectful of boundaries), proper, cerebral, direct, and non-cloying. Freesia, that is so funny that you were told to make skin contact when making change in the south. If a storekeeper did that to me (and it was clearly not accidental), I would be completely creeped out!

Yes -- my husband worked at that Oracle office in Burlington. It is certainly commutable from some lovely and affordable small towns in Southern NH. When I worked in Boston (and my husband in Burlington), we lived in Wellesley, MA. I walked to the commuter rail station in Wellesley, took the train in to South Station, and then walked to my law firm. Door to door, my commute was exactly one hour. Very do-able, and did not require a car . . . although a car was certainly needed for shopping and a social life. It was actually an issue, as I had forgotten how to drive after spending ten years in NYC. We rented half of a duplex in a great neighborhood at a very reasonable price ($2,000/month, I think -- but that was ten years ago), but had trouble finding a house that we felt we could afford on one income, as I was planning to stay home once we had our first child. Median house prices were about $850K at the time, and a decent house in a decent neighborhood was at least $1M. We moved to NH because of the high cost of living in the Boston area, and because my husband was eventually able to work from home, which gave us a lot more flexibility (and the benefit of no state income tax in NH).

My homeschooled DS8 begged and pleaded to go to public school, and is trying out 3rd grade this year at our local school down the road. He absolutely loves it, and has had no trouble with the academics -- although I am confident that the teachers would work with him to help catch up as needed. They were extremely helpful, and understanding that he might be behind in certain areas because we were not following the same scope and sequence; but so far we haven't found any of those areas. In math, they follow the common core standards, are learning multiplication and using something similar to Singapore Math -- although at a much slower pace. He hasn't encountered any new material in math yet, but I think it is valuable training anyway to help him cement his multiplication facts. He is learning some new things in writing (working on paragraph construction and writing opinion pieces), but it has been taught very incrementally and has not been difficult. I can't figure out what they are doing in reading, but the teachers reports that he is in the highest reading group. We found the homeschooling to third grade transition to be completely seamless, and school standards (even common core standards) to be less rigorous than my own. I think that is often the case with homeschoolers, as we have not seen our kids compared with other students and often don't know their strengths. We are after-schooling a foreign language because that is not offered at school, and I am also keeping up with our history cycle with SOTW as I like for that to be linear (it is more topical in school).

Thank you. Yes, my concern is that Wordly Wise is a bit too easy -- at least if used at grade level. It seemed like a lot of busywork for just a few vocabulary words. Maybe I need something more pared down. I can check out Caesar's English and Vocabulary Workshop. I had not heard of them.

I am interested in adding in a vocabulary program for my third and fourth graders -- preferably to do together in not a lot of time, or else entirely as independent work (with books, not online). They do very well in this area, as both read quite a bit and have excellent language abilities. I just want to give them some more challenging words to expand their vocabularies and help them understand the more complex books they are reading. It looks like Wordly Wise is popular, but I was concerned about how many books there are for such a small number of words. Does it take a long time to do? What do I need to buy, and how do I figure out where to place them? Is there anything else that is better.

The Kirkland brand coffee roasted by Starbucks is the best. And it comes in gigantic bags! We also love the roasted seaweed. Much more tasty and generous in portion than the individual packs we can get at the grocery store.

Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I do understand that 50th percentile means average, but I hope to give her much more than an "average" education. I am discouraged as it is significantly lower than her other scores, and (in my opinion) far below her capabilities. She does have some anxiety about math, but I have really tried to be encouraging -- and haven't discussed the test results with her. I just asked her if she worked carefully and did her best, which she said that she had.

And . . . my aversion to salons just paid off! I came home yesterday after buying myself a new violin, and had to admit that I had also picked up a gorgeous (expensive) new bow made of reclaimed pernambuco, which had not been part of the plan. My husband said that was absolutely fine, as overall I was "very low-maintenance" and didn't insist on new cars, new jewelry, and frequent salon visits.

Thanks. Going forward, I think I do need to make sure her math facts are solid. She "mastered" addition/subtraction in her ReflexMath program, and is now working on multiplication/division. Maybe she has forgotten some addition/subtraction facts in the meantime, or they are not automatic. I have Kate's "Addition Facts that Stick," and am planning to run that six-week program with my 6-, 8, and 9-year-olds this summer. They can all review them together. We also need to have a talk about doing our best work, checking work, and being careful. I don't want to replicate the test too much by forcing her to do hours of straight computation, but I could have her work on computation for ten minutes or so, and then check her answers.

I was wondering if there is a way to teach perseverance and stamina in doing math. We just finished up our annual Stanford Achievement tests to comply with state requirements. DD9 enjoyed her tests, and got excellent scores in many areas -- including "Math Problem Solving," a section that does include some calculations, but also has some cute pictures and a lot of interesting questions requiring thought and reasoning. Her Math Computation score, however, was an absolute disaster (around the 50th percentile). When presented with the section, there was a lot of eye-rolling and sighing, and exclamations of how she couldn't possibly do these "pages and pages" and "hours and hours" of "boring math problems." And I really think that was the problem. It was about an hour of problem after problem of straight computation. She knew how to do most of the math, but she made careless errors (adding when it said to subtract, for example), as it just didn't hold her interest in the way that the problem solving section did, and I have never asked her to sit down and do math problems for an hour, so she didn't even know how to approach it. Our current math program, RightStart, is very teacher-intensive and light on worksheets. We are also about half a year "behind" in math, as I switched from Saxon 2 last year, and she only tested into RS C (which is the 2nd grade level) -- but I have had her working in the Kumon Multiplication and Division books to keep up with her 3rd grade-level skills. Interestingly, she did very well with the multiplication and division. Most of the disaster was with multi-digit subtraction -- more of a 2nd grade skill and something we have spent ALL YEAR DOING with RS C. I really wanted to make sure she understood everything and did not have any gaps, but now I feel that maybe I was the one doing all the work and not requiring enough of her. I'm afraid that I have neglected to teach her the hard work and discipline of simply working problems. Is this something that anyone else is intentional about, and is this even a worthy goal? I know that test scores are not the end-all, but she is a bright student, and I need to know that I am educating her at least as well as the public school. I am feeling very discouraged.

Yes, this. My non-stop, obsessive talker calls both sets of grandparents at least once a week, and they talk for an hour. I keep asking my parents and in-laws if they mind, and assure them that they can tell him they need to go at any time, but they actually love it. They find him to be a fascinating conversationalist, and I think this helps train him in the give and take of conversation as well, as he has their full attention while on the phone.

This does sound horrible. My husband wanted to get me "a day at the spa" for Mother's Day last year. I told him I would love a day off, but would not want to waste it doing something so boring. Instead, I took the day off to go to a bookstore, have a nice brunch (by myself!), and sit at a cafe and read the entire Sunday NY Times. It was bliss.

I loved this discussion, and agree with her points. Currently, I am in a great little co-op that shares responsibility for teaching SOTW -- complete with mapwork, discussion, role plays, and interesting hands-on projects. We also have the kids practice public speaking, and may do some art history, science, and foreign language. Then, there is a generous one-hour play time. Each mom only has to plan one history lesson each month, and she makes it amazing and memorable. We did the chicken mummy Egyptian funeral with a pyramid, procession, and weeping and wailing. We made the Trojan horse, Roman roads, and a Viking ship. The children dressed like Athenians and took complicated votes on which candy they should have -- complete with earnest speeches for and against lollipops. They tried out different castes in a caste system role play, and we caught all of the toddlers trying to camp out in the Brahmin room with the silver and china and good food. I don't mind planning something elaborate once a month. It is fun and do-able for me. And I love that my kids can experience history the way I wish I had time to teach it. We just complete our reading at home, and come to co-op prepared for discussion. I realize that this is not the only way to teach SOTW, but it is what I want for my kids at their young ages, and really the only way we are able to consistently do fun projects.

I need to start reading through the 2e threads. I just never thought that applied to us, as her learning differences have not been much of a problem for me in our homeschool. I have just worked around them, and figured that all children learn in different ways. While this has allowed her to be successful at school for the moment, I see that this may have just been encouraging more coping strategies. My husband does not work around "learning differences" when he teaches, and has been very frustrated by some of these issues. Oh yes -- this. About two years ago, I became convinced that she simply wasn't hearing the questions and instructions, so I took her to an ear doctor. I was actually shocked to learn that her hearing was perfectly fine. The doctor joked about how hearing and LISTENING were two different things, and encouraged her to listen to her mother. I kept feeling like there was a missing link between what she was hearing and what she was processing . . . or else she just doesn't listen. It is difficult to tell.

Oh, thank you for explaining that. I think I just mean auditory processing speed. She seems to do well processing things on paper. I think it is definitely a 2e situation. I have not had her tested for being gifted, as that part is clear to me. I just need to find what else is going on.

I would like to start looking into testing for my 9-year-old (rising 4th grader). She speaks and reads like an adult, and is exceptionally good at languages, writing, art, music and science -- but in matters of math, following directions, and day-to-day living, she sometimes gives me blank stares, and becomes defensive about why she needs to know this anyway. She cannot figure out dates on a calendar, forgets right and left, and is shaky at reading clocks and counting coins. In co-op, she raises her hand to answer a history question, but then sometimes has trouble coming out with the words for what she would like to say. Her processing speed when asked a question, or asked to do something, is on the slow side. Other concerned moms have asked if she might have a learning disability, which I have dismissed because of her very high standardized test scores (even in math -- as thankfully right/left and calendar reading are not a big part of the standardized test) and high performance in other areas. But now that my husband has been tutoring her in another subject for a year, and is noticing the same things, we agree that we should have some sort of an evaluation done so that we can better understand her and meet her needs. I haven't talked with our doctor yet, as it is hard to articulate what is wrong, and hard to decide IF something is wrong, as she is such a high-achieving kid. But I have to think that in a classroom, where processing speed and answering questions is a lot more important, she would not be able to achieve as much, and the problems would become more apparent. Are there any ideas on where to begin, or how to explain this?

Oh yes, Level A is very gentle. I would not hesitate to use it for Pre-K. My daughter started it in K, which is when we discovered RS, and she absolutely loved it. She would keep the manipulatives out and continue to "play math" even after the lessons were over. I am starting my 4-year-old Pre-K kid on it this fall.

Yes, I'm hoping to use BA 3 as a catch-up over the summer and through the fall (per the advice of other WTM-ers on this forum when I posted my RS panic). We have already completed most of 3A, just using it as a supplement this year, and a few topics will just be review after completing RS C, so I am expecting it will go a lot more quickly -- even allowing for extra time spent pondering the more difficult problems.