I'm in :) I'm hoping to do the full Declutter365 this year. I've found their facebook group really supportive and full of ideas I need to tweak things when I've worked on it this year. It has the little by little, step by step and community I enjoy. In year's past, I've done the New Years Cleaning Challenge which worked well at first, but I found trying to do a full room each week, week after week, led to burnout and it doesn't have the steps by steps for the trouble areas I struggle with, but I know lots of others who love it and do it to refreshen their house each year. I've also tried the January Cure which leads into Weekend Projects which I still have as it has a lot of hints, but a lot of it is not relevant to us.

I think it can work well and be worthwhile, especially for rehabilitation. And I've found ours groans when my eldest steps on or if the younger ones jump on too fast, just old plastic creakiness, I think. Personally, we tend to skip the daily measurements as I found the remarks it makes unhelpful - particularly to the kids - but others find them motivational.

An internationally famous woman - famous for being her empathy and her listening and helping struggling people - who openly discusses her issues and the difficulties and someone lots of people have seen demonized for her weight issues among other things like many other people with weight and health problems. I've never paid much attention to her, but I can see why she would appeal and why WW think she could bring in new or wider range of people. Lot of rich people put money into companies and don't become the public face - and lots become public faces without understanding or putting money in. I'm sure I could think of someone better eventually, but I do not think she's an odd choice. Honestly, I'm more surprised the two haven't come together sooner - make more sense than a lot of the celebrities I've seen attached to health products.

I like this idea :hurray: I use Photobucket to store my photos online, mostly just in folders by year. Dropbox is also good - you can use it like folders on your computer but it's all backed up online.

Oh, New Years is big here. I try to get all the major cleaning done before the 21st - didn't manage it this year but we're almost done now. I love to sweep and start the new year fresh. I try to make a list early in the month with the big kids input of things that kept being put off this year that we can do in the last week of the year/first week of next year that always includes a nature walk with bird feed [nature trips often get delayed due to weather and disabilities]. Big one on this year's list was baking more biscuits/cookies ;) We decorated for it on Boxing Day - I print out pictures like these [my kids particularly like the bookmarks on this page as wall pictures] for them to colour and the bigger kids often make their own. We make sure there is one on the window for guests and one near all the clocks and the rest are spread throughout the rest the house by the kids - finding them is part of the fun [the shower one was the last and most surprising find this year]. On the night itself, we have a big family dinner and dessert - we're having this at the hotel my partner works at this year. Those under 5 go to bed at a normal time, and the older kids all bring their sleeping bags to the living room to try to stay up. I have a youtube New Year's playlist [that we've listened at least daily for almost a week now] that perks them up and board games ready [we may add movie marathons and puzzles this year] and a small table of snacks/finger foods and drinks. They all have a little baggie of noisemakers to use at midnight. As their father isn't working this year [he works nights and has done New Years these last few years] it will be even more exciting for the kids so not sure what we may do - it'll depend on what the whole family wants to do that night. We watch the BBC's firework display at midnight usually. I usually slip to bed and turn lights off at this point, and M-6 went to bed shortly after me last year. In the morning, we have a sweet breakfast [sweet filled breads and such], they have another baggie of noisemakers so the little one can join in as well, we pull crackers together, and then they open their large present bags while we listen to New Years music. I also always record a mini-interiew with each of the kids on New Years Eve before we have dinner. Just a few questions and asking about their year and their hopes for the next. We like to watch old ones during the night as well.

I mainly post or share articles of interest - but then I also use my facebook a lot like an RSS feed to stay up to date on local news and hobby sites and such - better than it all being in my inbox. This and chat making it easy to contact via computer now that most IM services I use before are defunct are how I mostly use facebook. I post personal updates and photos very infrequently - usually just around special occasions or when big thing come up - though for the club I run from house I'll often post game or such updates on what we're doing as all the people who come are friends with me on facebook and enjoy having those.

Fallout 4 is a Mature/18+ rated game with content to match both the rating and the concept of a post-nuclear wasteland where adults make not always the best decisions in the name of survival. The only parts I or my partner would let our kids watch is the building section [you can build settlements] and character creation. The rest is too risky - all the Fallout games have leaned on that side of very very grey and this open world probably more than the rest. You've got human looking synths that can snap and start trying to kill everyone without any notice.. Personally, unless you can keep the 11 year old from watching as well, I'd wait on it. That you have doubts at all probably tells you what you need to know.

It isn't that it is bad versions of something, it' that they're selling something as one thing and giving another. Imagine someone put spam in pita bread with cranberry sauce and sold it as a hamburger. It has ham in it and bread is bread right and it's a reddish sweetish fruit based condiment? And then they blast you as being ridiculous to complain. That's essentially what has been going on here -- and promoting itself as an elite service because it has these dishes it doesn't actually have. They're complaining because they ordered something they told they could get and got something completely different. They could have just called it what it actually was but instead felt that they giving a more ~exotic~ would bring in more business and then wouldn't step down when it was pointed out that they were wrong. It is a bit high and mighty and disrespectful to take the bits you want to boost your business and ignore the parts that actually make it that dish and then expect people not to notice or complain about the difference.

Try not to feel bad about catching it late. Even with all the psuedo-awareness around these days, lots of people fall through the giant cracks because the idea and images of the spectrum in wider society is really narrow compared to the reality. Some people are caught early, many others wont be until adulthood - if at all. Girls are very much more likely to be caught later, exponentially more for non-White kid of any gender. The system is pretty broken because of bias that it looks one particular way and anything out of that is dismissed. Honestly, as an autistic parent with autistic kids, that your first questions on safe spaces for her is a great start. I would look into the Loud Hands Project, they have a lot of good writing and websites [though the anthology is good, it would probably be a better read for you than her as it discusses the abuse done under 'cures' and such which may worsen her anxiety, but it may help you to understand her better and understand what Autistic adults are talking about]. I would try to find local groups, I found one through meet-up - however they do tend to be far more guys in them which for me wasn't helpful but teen ones here tend to be a bit more balanced. There are ton of books but you have to wade through the cure/prison menality ones to find the one written for and by other people. There are several out there written just for girls. Wishing you both the best in this!

:lol: :thumbup: Such a great cute story. Love it. It sounds like something I would do, but then when I was in labour with my youngest, my partner was trying to be supportive by rubbing my head and told me I was doing good and I just responded with something like "It's not doing good, it's doing well...and I am NOT doing well!" :blush:

I've gotten a camera early because our old frustrating one died and I really like taking photos. We literally were discussing bridge cameras on sale, found one that fit my needs [i need all the anti-shake and anti-blur I can get between my hands and our kids], and he told me either I was going to buy it or he was going to buy it for me because I have an awful habit of finding nice things, discussing it with him, then putting it in a folder or wishlist and never mentioning it again and buying things for everyone else. I have no idea what else he bought other than it is 3 things, totaling about £40, one has to do with a TV show we like watching as a family. I've also bought for myself 4 sweaters and a long sleeve shirt-dress that kinda looks Star Trekkie which I'm counting a for it because when going through clothes for winter we found I'd ended up sending all but 2 sweaters to textile recycling at some point this year when they'd all fallen apart and never replaced them [one of the sweaters left is older than all my kids. I apparently also never buy myself clothes until my lack of something is repeatedly pointed out to me and I keep being confused at not having anything warm enough]. My partner has said he'd like more crafting gear as he wants to get back into it [he does painting and nerf customization and other thing that are mostly fine detai], more co-op and multiplayer games that we can play together, and/or RPG games that are different from what we already have. As 2 of those 3 can be bought online with instant access [and I do not know that much about his crafting to buy without his input], I'm looking more into those. He commented months back he wanted to run on the FATE system so I'm mostly looking at that. Even that is hard to buy for him as whenever I've mentioned history based ones [he's a trained up archaeological scientist turned hotel night manager] he complains that none of out other friends that we play with will do the history roles "right". I know he bought his mum a knitting themed mug and kindle voucher and his stepfather mini-tools for fine detailed work.

I thought the whole bad British teeth thing was mainly defensiveness/media thing about the whole fluoride issue as most UK places do not add it. I remember hearing it as a kid before the whole neon teeth as mandatory became a thing and it was well known teeth came in a wide range of colours. I get the study but there seems to be a lot more variables as others have noticed. I am a USian and moved to the UK when I was 17. When I arrived, my teeth were a mess - I have a medical condition which commonly comes with weak teeth and depression in my teen years resulted in less than great self care. In the last week I was in the US, I went to two dentists because my mouth hurt. Both did all the xrays and such and said that they'd prefer to wait, likely just my TMJ issues. I literally had holes in the front of some of my teeth that made eating and teeth brushing painful but they were written off as cosmetic issues that just needed whitening. I came to the UK, months later when all the paperwork was in I went to an NHS dentist and when he heard that he wasn't surprised. He was annoyed but not surprised - he'd been a dentist in several places [he wasn't a Brit either] and the wait and see is more common when dealing with more difficult insurance companies and what I needed - multiple small white fillings - was likely to be harder to get a profit from with difficult insurers. What I'd spent my late teen years hoping to get fixed, he dealt with in fortnightly appointments over a couple of months dealing with though measuring ust by missing teeth I would be measured the same at that point. When my molars have cracked in my adult years here, I've always been asked whether I want to remove or attempt to save the tooth and as I almost always go for the former I now have 5-7 missing teeth including all my wisdom teeth though as a whole my teeth are in better shape now than ever before. My British partner and I both have had braces - mine for gappy teeth and him for having eye teeth trying coming through the roof of his mouth [they're now where they should be though one is rather Britishly wonky]. He's had no fillings or pulled teeth or anything than a tiny chip other than his wandering eye teeth. He had a bet going with his brother about making it to 30 without [as that is when his brother had his first] and my partner smashed through it rather smugly. I'm rather envious of his British teeth.

I quite like holidays and traditions that help me slow down and connect. I find it hard to pick a favourite. I do love New Years. I love the feeling of renewal, chance for self reflection and discussions, and in our home we have a lot of traditions and time given to doing things that often get left aside the rest of the year. I think I plan the most for New Years to get all those things in [i have spreadsheets and everything]. I really enjoy the Earth Festival with lots of time outside and the tradition we have with it are fun and caring and getting outside - things are often more accessible during that time which is great when disabilities are often a barrier to going out which I really enjoyed when I was younger. May Day is really good community time here and I love watching the kids listen to the history and current discussions within the workers' rights movements. The Festival of the Dead really connects us to our past and opens up a lot of good talking and really good way for us to deal with those difficult feelings and discussions. And so on. But for me, Children's Day on June 1st is one I probably enjoy the most at this time in my life. Weather is almost always nice for that brief period in June here and our city runs a massive funfair and activity day in one of the bigger parks on the closest Sunday to it. Because we always do that I don't do much planning for it. The set time to discuss the kids' perspective and just give over to that for a bit is good fun for us.

Big - no. When we went regularly to London as my youngest was part of a medical study it was really overwhelming and draining as was day trips to Manchester or Birmingham. I find big cities just too much and really not very accessible - everything is spread out and takes too long to get to for me. I live in a small city on a major road leading in and out and can walk across the centre in a half hour or so depending on how I'm feeling. My partner works on the outer ring road and can get there and back in less than ten minutes when carpooling with the lodger. Everything we need is pretty close together and, due to the demographic here more than size probably, very accessible. It's just the right size for us- I like having as much as possible on my doorstep without that doorstep spreading out too far.

Math Essentials - both the videos and the hints on the page are towards the student.

A saline nasal spray and allergy barrier nasal spray would be my first step, but if it was continuous for 10 days I would now go in [in line with the UK's NHS recommendation of 7-10+ days] so I'd go in if I were you especially with pain in the upper molars. From personal experience and many doctor warnings - the longer it goes on, the more likely a a bacterial infection is taking hold and increases chances of damages to the sinuses [mine are already in bad shape now as I have quite chronic sinusitis that I've let linger too long too many times dismissing them as 'just allergies'].

We skip Christmas here. I have no happy memories of it from my childhood, just stress and anxiety and guilt and more, and my partner wasn't fond of it for...less extreme reason so we chose not to bother with it after we got married. We literally sat down [and have revised since] and discussed what holidays we wanted to do and what parts were important and how we would deal with not doing the main ones that didn't feel like us/ours. We have lovely New Years celebrations because the whole renewal mindset is important to me. It doesn't have any Christmasy stuff other than gifts and crackers [i find the most neutral ones I can find and the kids like pulling for the pop and funny hats and it just feels very British and fun]. Our only tradition on the 25th is both my partner and I work to cover others [he works nights and I do it online during the day] and we watch the Hogfather movie because we love Pratchett and it was the best way to explain Christmas to my autistic eldest when he was 6 and got really irritated by all the costumes and lights and such [same child who did not get birthdays until he was 5 and only after hearing people talking about birthday cakes and asking if we had birthday cakes] so now we do it each year for fun and cultural education kinda. We decorate a tree for Earth Day with bird friendly stuff as it was the one thing the kids liked about their friends/club's celebration. I don't wish Christmas didn't exist even though thinking on it too much upsets me because the memories are still powerful decade+ on, I just wish it wasn't everywhere for months. I'd like to watch TV or videos on youtube or go to the shops without it being everywhere for months. In October, I heard young school age kids - the target market I think - complaining about decoration being in shops - I think it's too much even for those who love it so for those who do not it feels like being drowned out and playing dodge for months now. If I could ban it in public space/media until like a fortnight or so before or just from the start of Advent, I would happy and I think many who enjoy Christmas might enjoy it more if it didn't pull at them everywhere for so long.

I started my New Years shopping last Saturday, now almost all of it is done other than needing to arrive from the various places I ordered from, a town run for Argos and little things like bubble bath and baking ingredients that I like to get in person. Also making picture cards which I like to do last because then I can relax and shopping for my in-laws which is my partner's job. Thankfully it was easier this year due to both having my internet system pretty down pat now [specialty hops first then ebay and amazon a catchalls for what I cannot get elsewhere at a good price] and the things my kids wanted at the top of their wishlists were simple easy to get thing. We keep year round wishlists [because saying 'I'll put it on your wishlist has worked far too well on their requests and before big events I ask what they want on the top when I'm picking]. Now mostly waiting on the postman. Hopefully yours will go well for you - I hate the shopping and buying lots of thing at once particularly, but it was a relief to having had bought them.

We do not celebrate Christmas for several reasons. I typically don't give a holiday greeting unless given one first and then just a 'you too, and a happy new year'. I've never been bothered by Happy Christmas greetings - except from a certain relative who once spent an entire afternoon with my then one year old eldest trying to get him to say it because he thought it would be funny. The same relative then spent a few years always wrapping one child's birthday presents in wrapping paper that said it and made a big faux-drama about how it was the only paper they had and I surely couldn't mind. I didn't until they made a big deal about it every year, and pointed it out to a child who could not read and had no idea what they were talking about every year - and as the child' birthday is at the end of February and usually they didn't see us until near the end of March the excuse wore thin when used repeatedly [especially when they would ask the small child if they did anything on the 25th of December]. We stopped seeing that relative during the month of December after the first issue and just tried hard being nice when we had to - we gave them gifts for their holidays and tried including them in our holidays and the kids did stuff for them for our holiday just being warm about it. As this relative is one of the most vocal atheists one could meet, I found his behaviour most frustrating. This relative just gets obsessed and mean when we're not doing something that they think we should even when we are very happy. We now do as little as possible with them.

My partner is a night manager at a hotel. He's about to enjoy the last time off he expects to have between now and New Years. The new refurbishments and the soon to open new build taking a lot of people is draining him at the moment, but he specifically chose work that even at its worst balances well with home and family and our health needs. Regular stuff he does includes cooking dinner almost every night, taking care of any toilet problems, splits keeping the kitchen clean and doing dishes and taking the trash/recycling out with the lodger, does almost all of the food shopping with the lodger, splits making lunches and helping hang up and pull the laundry down from the tall dry rack with me, makes the beds most of the time, and so on. I'd say he probably does more and is better at household work than me - he was the main home person for 9 years for a reason - we're working on being more balanced and finding our way of doing things that suits us.

I didn't really do spelling with my older 2 who are now 11 and 8 until this year. They read so well after using Blend Phonics and I See Sam books that I thought the rest would come naturally with copywork and such. That didn't work well for us. They are not natural spellers and they really do not like not knowing for sure how to spell something. The constant asking how to spell something was tiring for everyone. Both of them asked this year to work on getting better at spelling (and with help reading bigger words). We tried sequential spelling but it didn't work well for us. They felt it was too much too fast with a lot of words they didn't use. For spelling, we're now using Words by Marcia Henry to help cover word patterns and rules along with The Essential Spelling List by Fred Schonell. We're liking Words as it starts right from a review of phonics sounds, it has both reading [both in lists and in finding patterns in books] and spelling [both with words and dictation of sentences]. It takes not even 20 minutes - the longest part is me writing the words we're working on on a whiteboard most days. The Essential Spelling List is an old British spelling book that has groups of similar words but no rules with it. I still love it mostly because it goes from words for Year 2 - Year 7, simple to grab and go without me checking US vs UK variants, and they like it because it's over and done before they know it. I also like that the higher groups have workbooks that I can have them do later but group one is just focused on the words. As we just recently started, I'm having the older 2 do an entire set a day which is for group 1 12 words [each set is for a week]. I just read them out at the end of reading challenge time [they're reading out a page of words from ABCs and all their tricks a day while I write out any they miss as challenge words for them to keep trying. I never planned to use it that way but they really like it] and any word they mispelt during either Words or Spelling List gets added to their spelling challenge words either for further writing or for spelling.com. My 6 year old, who struggles with reading but wanted to try spelling like the older kids, does Essential Spelling List as written per day which for group 1 is 3 words [it's set up to do 3 words 4 days a week with a 5th as review if needed, the higher groups have up to 5 per day] along with any challenge words she's missed before. I tack it on the end of Blend Phonics time and it has really boosted her confidence. I wouldn't do Words before Year 3/3rd grade as recommended in the book and if not pretty fluent already it will take more time than here. The Essential Spelling List says it for ages 7-12+. I know lots of people who don't do spelling until Year 3/3rd grade level [and if my Year 2 child didn't ask and get so happy from doing it I would drop and wait until then] and others who drop spelling pretty early for natural spellers who do just fine and others who do really well with simply copywork and dictation. If you wanted to drop spelling for primary and pick it up again in middle school ages as I did with my 11 year old, it can be done. His spelling has already quite improved with focused work on it. Or maybe you need a more get it done curriculum if you think they need it. The pros and cons will depend a lot on your kids, how they are at spelling and what works for them and you.

While I get what you're saying frogger, your example of water vs diamonds has major flaws. The price of diamonds is heavily controlled by corporations. They are far far more common than many other cheaper for the public to buy gems. Diamonds are probably one of the easiest examples of how the price of something has nothing to do with its actual worth or scarcity, but rather the marketing and firm control corporations like De Beers has on them. Water may seem cheap in many places, but in others it is expensive not because it is rarer but because of who is controlling it and the laws in some areas on how much control corporations can have on the price of life essentials like water. Supply and demand isn't a simple reality, like anything to do with people it has a lot of complexities. The base rules of economics, including those Adam Smith used, rely on people being rational on what is the best interest for themselves and the community - many would say that this would not be looking at the reality of people. Most of the rules of economics have many obvious exceptions. Even the one on morality is questionable at this point with how destructive some companies are. I think things like basic income which treats people as having worth to society to be recognized whether or not they are 'productive' in an economic sense can be a step forward, and likely a structure trying to put into place due to issues of unemployment which Finland like every other country is wrestling with. We need something better than what is common now to deal with the fact that 100% full employment is impossible nor even desirable but people still need to survive in a system where money isn't actually optional. It is far better than the UK where our current government thinks we can punish people out of poverty [and the universal credit system they want to bring in is even worse].

Almost everyone I know personally now does. The most vocal atheist I know makes a huge deal about doing Christmas. I find it interesting: when in the US when I said I don't do Christmas I was most often asked why not in a way that felt like I needed a very good reason and my not doing so challenged something [i was in very-Christian-Bible Belt territory], but in the UK when I say it, almost everyone responds with how they only do it because their family does it/it means a lot to certain family member/it's a good time off with family when everyone is so busy the rest of the time sort of remarks. The UK is very Christmas crazy even compared to the US [it is *everywhere* - there is no escape unless one never goes out and watches no TV and so on] but it's cultural tradition to blow of steam and be with people rather than anything religious as others here have said. People are happy as long as we're going to blow off stress at some point vaguely around the same time [we make a big deal of New Years in our home] and are happy to generally have fun with them.

I would say it is not worth giving up home educating and the flexible lifestyle for using schools as a way to dive into UK culture. As a USian in the UK, there are many other ways to experience British life than schools especially if you are here long term. I can certainly see the appeal for the rest of the school year [which goes way later than US ones as most UK schools have comparatively short summer breaks] so you can rest and baby time, but then you still would have to disrupt naps and keep your schedule around the school run and things. As my British partner says - school is school so it not going to more cultural here than there [other than all UK schools are Christian unless specified otherwise], especially the way UK schools work many of them really aren't community schools so it would just be experience the culture of that school rather than actual British life. If you really want the British school life, put them in uniform and have them do a nativity play with tea towels on their heads and random animals as those are pretty much the only universal concepts going for primary schools. The British film Nativity is suppose to cover that well. Better ways of diving into British culture and life: Joining a local HE group can be good, I can send you UK facebook ones if you life as it is good for getting recommendations for local ones. I've heard London has many. Best thing I did for mine to get them into local community was arrange park days on my local facebook group. Mumsnet, forum for mums, has local chat groups that can be active and good for finding local activities. There are also national organizations like St John Ambulance which the older 2 could join which have a very long history and have country-wide opportunities for experiences and meeting people. British TV is a good step in for rest days. Make a list of various UK sites you would like to see. Find your local council's website and go through the museum and library pages and parks and local groups for events - many of them have free events weekly or monthly that will give you far more UK culture than school. I guess, having been here and home educating here a while and having a British partner who is even more against sending them to school before GCSE age than me now, I'm not exactly sure how British school is meant to help you dive into UK cultures better than living life in your community. Everything will be different because you have to do it here. I think you need to trust that you can show enough of UK cultures without school -- and maybe that British cultures and life aren't all that different and it's the little things that really make it which you'll only see by being in the community.

:iagree: for my eldest. My 11 year old is very similar in he understands conceptually very easily but makes computation errors if he rushes and doesn't write it out step by step. We're using Math Essential this year because he wanted a break from MEP and I wanted something that would stretch him on computation so he could find out what he needed to firm them up before moving onto secondary level stuff. It usually takes about the promised 20 minutes unless it is long 3 by 3 multiplication or double digit divisor division so it's over and done if he gets it right and would be easy to add onto other things. We started with just him talking out the sample problems and those he missed. That worked well for stuff he had down pat. When we got to the harder stuff, like the longer multiplication and division, it wasn't enough and he could see that because his score would go from 9 or 10/10 to 6 or less. The videos with them showed him how to write them out again and with fewer problems he could give them attention before burning out on it. We're finding it very helpful alongside Math Mammoth (which show the writing out often in even more detail) for any rough patches - as with the computational we can both see by the score drop if he needs a few more days in depth on a topic.