Yes, SO many trees in Tallahassee. Even with the lesser impact it could have been bad, so I was still not relaxing until we heard from someone who went by our house!

Just got a report that our house is fine! The little shift it took to the east meant Tallahassee was not hit as hard as we'd been told to expect. We are thankful.

We chose to evacuate (from Tallahassee). I'm trying hard not to be anxious about our house.

I would definitely get a separate subscription for each interested kid if you have the funds available. The 6yo may need assistance with some of the fine motor "put this on exactly right here" stuff.

They are really good. My 11yo can do them on her own (maybe needing help with one thing during a project). The quality is good and the projects hold up well. The videos that go along with them are great - Mark Rober does a great job explaining concepts and also demonstrating how to put the project together.

Would this be worth pursuing for Mu Alpha Theta, do you think? Their government council has reps from MAA, among other organizations. The way their rules are written, there's literally no way for homeschooled kids to participate (even if a school would be okay with allowing homeschooled kids in their chapter, Mu Alpha Theta rules won't allow it). To the OP - when I had my kids do the AMC 8 a while back, I looked at school websites to find the specific teacher in charge of math club and competitions and then contacted that person. The person at the first school I contacted (our zoned school) said his school didn't offer it, but he pointed me to the right person at another school. She had me give my kids a sample test that she could score to see if she felt like it was worth giving spots to my kids (she had a limited number of openings).

Ha! The two things I "knew" back in January are not correct. 🤣 Here's what she's actually doing... Math - we ended up taking a summer break (we usually don't), so she has a bit more of Alg 2 to go...and we are probably switching from AOPS to Foerster's for that. She will start Precalculus mid-year, but I'm not sure which textbook, since the "maybe not AOPS any more" thing is brand new since we started school this week. AP Psychology - yes, doing that, but using Myers + Sonlight Workbook. I have lined up a place for her to take the exam (which was a bit up in the air for a bit, since we live in Florida). English - mom-directed readings & writings. Right now she's reading Oedipus Rex. Latin - Latin III with Lukeion. We debated between this and AP, since she actually did Latin III at home with me last year, but given that this will be her first online course and she struggles with anxiety, we decided to go with content she's familiar with and not throw the stress of a second AP exam on her as well. Chemistry - outsourced to a local former teacher who offers in-person science classes for homeschoolers. They are using Holt Rinehart & Winston's Modern Chemistry. Bible - first semester will be volume 4 of Starr Meade's The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study (did the previous 3 volumes already). Second semester I will choose books for reading/discussion/writing assignments. Computer Science - various courses on Codecademy.

So sorry! It is wild to me that a person can have 4 fractures and be told "yeah, just get moving." 😳 For making you smile purposes, here is my daughter's fortune cookie from a couple weeks ago.

If you enjoy his videos, also check out Dear Kristin's. My 14yo loves all things MBTI, and Dear Kristin is her favorite YouTuber. 🙂

Praying for him, and for you.

Any chance the person who was staying at your place might have told her to pick something up and that he would put it there?

No. 👀 I tend to just leave things wherever I was using them. I'll take out my earrings while I'm sitting at my desk and think "I'll go put these away as soon as I finish X," but then while I'm doing X I also think about how I need to do Y, so I get started on that, then Z runs through my brain so I have to do that... And then there are materials from X, Y, and Z in various places, and my earrings are still sitting on the desk.

Re: dermatology checkup - I believe the recommendation is to have a full-body check annually.

I had something very similar to what you describe a few months ago. I went to my primary doctor. She had no clue what it was, didn't think it was likely to be anything problematic but sent me for a mammogram to be cautious. Mammogram was perfectly fine. (It was a little amusing to me that the mammo people seem to only know the word "lump." "You found a lump?" "No, it's a spot on the skin, not a lump." Next person, "So I see here that you found a lump...") Around the same time, I had a dermatology appt - just a check up for a full-body exam. She was asking if I had noticed any changes so I mentioned that spot (which had faded a bit at that point but was still Definitely There). The derm glanced at it in the course of the exam and was immediately unconcerned - "oh yeah, that's nothing." And I forgot to come back to the topic at the end and ask her what it WAS, lol, but it was very obviously something she recognized and knew as not problematic. It eventually faded but the skin there is a bit discolored. It never once hurt or bothered me in any way other than the fact that I didn't think it belonged there. 😄 Anyway, if it happened again, I would go to a dermatologist first (or ask primary to refer to derm, if your insurance requires that).

I had one years ago that showed up on x-ray and they gave me a shoe to wear (6 weeks, I think). Then I had one a few months ago that did not show up but I'm convinced that's what was going on. They said "we can give you a shoe if you want" so I did get one, and I wore it for two or three weeks, after which I was not experiencing pain when walking so I stopped. You can get the shoes on your own - don't have to go to a doctor for them. This looks pretty similar to what I used both times: https://www.amazon.com/Brace-Direct-Post-Shoe-Adjustable/dp/B082V9Y9FN/ref=asc_df_B082V9899X/

This looks like it's okay given that it was related to the health care of a family member? https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/222/how-can-i-obtain-a-deceased-relative-medical-record/index.html But I could certainly be misunderstanding.

I don't care what is done with my body after I die. I think I have a preference for burial over cremation, but also I don't like spending more money than is necessary, so... 😄 I do want a service, one that is focused on glorifying God and proclaiming the gospel. Romans 5:12-21 is the text I'd like the pastor to use for the sermon. I'd like the service to include the first question & answer from the Heidelberg Catechism. I had songs picked out (our previous church asked all members to fill out a form thinking through these things), but the church we're in now doesn't do the same sort of music, so I should revisit that.

I would... 1. Assume that any photos given to the birth grandma will end up being shared with the birth mom. You cannot control what happens to a photo once you share it with someone. Only share photos that you're okay with the whole world (including the birth parents) having access to. So if there's a photo you're okay sharing with the world, go ahead and give it to birth grandma. If not, don't. 2. Stop following the birth mom on Facebook. Find someone else in your life who can check on her page periodically and let you know ONLY if there is a potential legal issue. Otherwise, her posts are only going to lead you to feeling upset, with nothing you can do about it.

For online I like School Desk: https://www.theschooldesk.app/ It has some similarities to Homeschool Skedtrack, which @HomeAgain mentioned above and I've also used, but School Desk is much less clunky. It works really well for me. (The developer is my brother-in-law. My sister homeschools their kids. I don't get any compensation if people choose to use it, but I feel like I need to disclose the connection!) For paper, the closest thing I had to working well was just writing daily assignments in spiral notebooks (one notebook per kid). But I do prefer something online so I can plan further out but still have the flexibility to move things around if needed.

I'm not even sure how one would use the standards to generate comments with ChatGPT. Like, since Little Suzie got an A in math I can just pick an arbitrary standard and say "this student has mastered this"? And if Little Billy has a B, how would it know which standard(s) are a struggle for him? What I could see doing with it would be to ask it to generate a list of generally positive comments that could be used on a student's report card, and then looking at those myself as a sort of "comment bank." But I would still need to choose which one was appropriate for which child, and add in specifics as appropriate. Similarly for generating a list of comments that could be used on a student's report card to inform the parents that the child is struggling in a particular area (academic or behavioral). So I don't think there's anything wrong with generating some suggestions for how to phrase things, but the teacher would need to be choosing what to say for each student.

I will never be cool. 🤣 I've always called it Settlers. DH actually learned it as Siedler, as his family was introduced to it by a German exchange student who brought it along. Then he got the English version and introduced it to our friend group in college. We played it all the time. I prefer to play the base game but only with 3 players, or the extended with 5. Otherwise I do end up feeling stuck.

Remembered another one - Zelda! I love that name. But it's WAY too closely connected with the video games to be usable (for us).

Girls: Alice, Felicity, Rosalind, Beatrix Boys: Peregrin/Peregrine (not sure which spelling we would have landed on), Basil, Caspian I think I'm forgetting some.

I have claustrophobia. The Internet seems to think it's curable. I have serious doubts about that (in my own case, at least). But I also haven't taken any steps to try.

That's bizarre. I don't recall it being a thing when I lived in Atlanta (20+ years ago).