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GrammarGirl

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Posts posted by GrammarGirl

  1. Wow. I'm surprised that Montpelier is that expensive. We're in the Upper Valley and could probably get an extra 1000 sq. ft. for the price of the house in the second link. The first house seems comparably priced, though, but the yucky neighborhood is probably the factor. In our county, the prices go way down as you travel north. Where DH pastors, we could not afford. Two towns up I-91, we had our pick of several.

  2. I get what your saying about the hardwood floors and dust. however, the dust is still there in the carpet. You just don't see it embedded in the carpet fibers.

    I know it's there, but since it's out of sight, it's out of mind. Carpet is better for my mental health since finding dust bunnies has been making me feel guilty and inadequate--oh, those pregnancy hormones!

    • Like 1
  3. I never want wood floors throughout again. We are moving out of a rental we've been in for 6 mo., and the amount of dust I'm finding under beds and such is disgusting. (I've had a rough pregnancy and haven't been up to swiffering under furniture.) The house we're buying has carpet in the bedrooms.

     

    I also never want another open-concept living/dining/kitchen. I can't get my toddlers to stay in any one area, so food gets on the couch, the dining chairs get pushed into the kitchen. It's been a cramped messy area. I'm so excited to have a family room in the finished basement and keep the kids out of the kitchen unless it's mealtime.

  4. One week from today we close on a 2300 sq. ft., 4 bed, 2 1/2 bath home. We started out looking for 1500-1600 sq. ft., but with Baby#5 coming soon, we realized we'd be cramped. I'm sure we'd be fine in 1800-1900, but this house was the best deal. DH is a pastor, and it makes me uncomfortable to have such a big place because I don't want anyone to think I'm extravagant, but based on a lot of the responses here, it seems the house is about right for our big family.

  5. We got a counter offer - they wanted us to remove the contingency that we needed our house to sell first. While we were discussing that (20 min), my realtor called to tell me they accepted one of the other offers. I'm bummed!

     

    We actually spent the morning hunting online for other houses and there's nothing even close to as nice as that house in our price range. Grr.

    If you're in VT, as your username implies, I get it. We spent 6 mo. scouring the market before we found an affordable house that didn't need lots of work. We're closing in 2 1/2 weeks. Hang in there. Something will pop up!

    • Like 1
  6. That's my worry too. For my oldest, who is a good and avid reader, I'm not worried. But for my less enthusiastic reader, I'm not so sure he will be ready for the Great Books in high school if he basically only reads the assigned books and a few twaddle-ish books.

    Doesn't LCC stress additional reading (by the child himself and as family read-alouds) as part of a lifestyle, thus exposing the student to much more than he's been required to read for school?

    • Like 1
  7. I would try to get to the bottom of the confessing issue. I think you posted about it in another thread? I had/have an over-active conscience instilled in me by a legalistic-church upbringing. As a kid I would confess things to my mom because I thought God would kill me if I didn't. I still have trouble at times knowing what is appropriate to apologize for and what is false guilt and have to ask my husband who's a pastor to talk me through my pangs of conscience. If your daughter attends Sunday school or such, maybe the cause is there. Perhaps an inappropriate fear has been instilled?

  8. On page 25-26 of the police report, the person being interviewed (one of the daughters) said they were out of the house with their parents and grandfather when they received a call to come home. This was the incident where Josh was reading to a sister who was sitting on his lap. I think it's unclear because of the redactions whether Josh was alone with the kids or whether a grandma or other person was also there. Though it's redacted, it looks to say all the kids from **** on up went out to eat. So it sounds like Josh was alone with youngest sibs unless maybe someone like Grandma Mary was there.

    Page 22 is also about the book incident. It says someone dropped the book, ran from the room, and told his/her mother. Inconsistencies in recollections, maybe? It doesn't seem to make sense that Josh would have run from the room. Anyway, I just doubt that the little girls were truly clueless that what Josh did was very bad, as the parents alleged in the interview.

    • Like 1
  9.  

     

    Megyn Kelly did not ask them about discrepancies, unfortunately. One inconsistency that bothered me was their claiming the awake victims really didn't understand what was done to them (therefore, it was no big deal). However, if IRC, the police report said the 5 y.o. ran to tell on Josh.[/quote

    I thought the parents were out and Josh called them and told them they needed to come home because he had something to confess.

     

    It's a bit hard to tell with all the redactions. It does say that according to JB, Josh called them. But in one of the girls' statements, it seems it was the little girl who ran to tell her mother.

  10. Maybe I am confused, but it seems to me that when the rooms were locked he might have felt he HAD to get more aggressive and go after opportunities as they arose? It might not be that he became more predatory, but simply that he had to become more bold in order to do what he wanted to do. Since he did not receive proper counseling he had no proper outlet for dealing with se**al feelings and he escalated since previous things had been swept under the rug he assumed (rightly) that new encounters would be too.

     

    My cousin who did something similar (and whose parents were a fringe part of this movement) and later offended and went to prison had a deep sense of entitlement toward women. His mother was too busy to properly supervise him and he ran roughshod over his younger siblings with no discipline. I think Josh may have had the same feelings based on some of his obnoxious comments that are similar to ones my cousin made.

     

    I think the real reason that Michelle and Jim Bob did not get help at the appropriate time is that they knew the counselors would be mandatory reporters and they didn't want legal trouble or more public exposure because they knew that the whole issue of Josh being a minor was not good. My guess is that later the girls were having issues that Michelle and Jim Bob wanted dealt with before they presented themselves to a viewing public. After all, if something happened and the girls revealed what Josh had done in front of the crew filming, even if it never made it on TV, they were going to have problems with getting respect from the network.

     

    They valued Josh, their oldest son and the reputation they were building for him more than the mental health of their dd's. After all, according to what they believe women are just supposed to suck up their problems anyway. Josh was supposed to be their "first fruit", and instead of making them proud he revealed that their tree is diseased.

    This is possible. Either way, the safeguard of locking the rooms didn't stop the abuse, yet the parents presented their approach as effective.

    • Like 2
  11. Megyn Kelly did not ask them about discrepancies, unfortunately. One inconsistency that bothered me was their claiming the awake victims really didn't understand what was done to them (therefore, it was no big deal). However, if IRC, the police report said the 5 y.o. ran to tell on Josh.

    • Like 4
  12. Yes, with the police report. It started as touching while they were asleep. Then he cornered one girl in a laundry room while awake. AndAnd he molested another who was reading a book on his lap with others in the room. And that's what merely they told police.

    In the interview JB and M claimed their safeguards were working because Josh stopped molesting the girls in their rooms. I think I gasped at that point because it was obvious to me the attacks were actually getting more bold, from a girl asleep on the couch to an awake 5 y.o. with witnesses in the room, and then under the clothes. JB seemed to think the worst offenses were the ones in the girls' room and the others were no big deal, when anyone else can clearly see the escalation.

    • Like 4
  13. We'd always planned on Christian school since I spent my teaching career in Christian schools.Homeschooling happened unexpectedly.

     

    While DH was in seminary, I taught high school English at a UMS school. Once oldest DD was in K, we anticipated enrolling her in the school, but I was shocked to learn they undervalued phonics instruction and encouraged inventive spelling. Their approach was antithetical to my educational philosophy, plus the tuition was high. We decided to keep DD in the dirt-cheap daycare at the school and homeschool K on my days off. The next year DH graduated, I quit working, and we moved to a rural area with only one (expensive) Christian school. Since we're now expecting baby #5, there's no way I'm going back to work just to pay tuition. It looks like homeschooling is our long-term plan, and we love it.

    • Like 1
  14. As a former high school teacher and college prof, I think 9th grade is so young to be worrying about a career. Let him pursue the interest as far as it goes, but he may well change his mind. I told my tenth grade classes not to feel pressured to plan their lives at 16 and had (the most hardworking) kids thank me.

     

    Also keep in mind that a college degree need not be career focused. DH has his undergrad in classical piano, but he has since earned a ThM and is a minister, albeit a minister who also doubles as church pianist twice a month.

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