I found a list of books for kids in that age range, particularly sensitive kids that also uses the following criteria: Wholesome can be defined so many different ways by families so let me lay out what my criteria was in creating this list. Wholesome to me included books that featured: Positive relationships Fun reading Generally lighthearted with a positive message No serious violence (some mysteries below might imply light violence or crime) No profanity

I love our pace bunnies! It almost makes me want to run in an event again just to get to hang out near one. I'm still traumatized from the last running event I participated in though (6.5 mile run in early May - it was heavily snowing with thick wet snow, high winds and slippery - I got into a car accident on the way there which used up all my adrenaline and it was just a heavy wet messy miserable slog - I actually quit running for a few years after that). I give you complete permission to be out of the house for 3 hours to go to the gym. I've just started doing this on Sundays myself and it's wonderful. I'm going with some friends who also feel a bit guilty but we've realized that we need to make time for us (somehow our DH's have been making time to run/play hockey/go for coffee for years without feeling guilty). Volleyball last night was good. Today is a bit of a rest day but I'm hoping to get in my 10000 steps, do some stretching and make sure I get ready to go to the gym tomorrow morning.

1/8 - $90 on regular bill for cable/internet/phone but no additional spending 1/9 - $68 on groceries 1/10 - I have no plans to buy anything or go anywhere aside from work and dropping DD off at Guides later tonight. So should be zero for today!

Last year when I was home full time and we could have a morning basket, we did a loop of a few things. One was Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists which I found was a great program. We each had a sketch book and I participated too; it was gentle enough that DS who is not very into art was able to be happy with his results and innovative enough that DD who is all about art was happy to join in. We also did a tour of popular songs in North America from 1900 on. I used Dave's Music Database to locate lists of the top 100 songs for each decade and we listened to them, danced to them, watched any associated videos on youtube and talked about the history associated with each decade and the different types of music. It was a lot of fun and the kids now recognize music from all sorts of eras. It would take us about 3-4 weeks to get through a decade. I didn't have us listen to all the songs in the top 100 for each decade, but ones that I chose for various reasons (cause I liked it, musically or historically significant, had a fun video). We also learned some folk songs. I played them on the piano and the kids learned the lyrics and sang along. Trying to remember what else we did - those were the big active things that I remember.

I've used the following lists when we've been looking for books related to specific countries - haven't made my own list! https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/detailListBooks.asp?idBookLists=280 https://ci.keene.nh.us/global-fiction-middle-grade-readers?q=kids/Global_Fiction

Again, it's like we are weather twins. Walking the dog has been positively pleasant the last two days. I used to stare at the dust bunnies in the rafters (and the random balls stuck up there too) when we were stretching after classes. And then one year they did construction on the roof and all the dust bunnies and balls starting raining down on us whenever they were jackhammering. It was highly unpleasant. And showed just how much dust was collecting up there. Went to the gym with some friends on Sunday. We did run/walk intervals for 20 minutes, an ab workout, arm workout and leg workout followed by stretches. It was nice and relaxed. Really felt it in the shoulders. Gym this morning. Decided to run and not do anything else. Aimed for 30 minutes with a run 4 laps/walk 1 lap pace and it worked well (have previously been running 2 laps/walking 1). But I think my face is still bright red over 2 hours later. I have certainly drunk almost my full allotment of water for the day already. I have a volleyball game tonight so might need to sneak in a nap this afternoon.

DH and I used to have the largest room. It was so large it has two queen mattresses on the floor beside each other when the kids were little and a couch and still had empty floor space. It was ridiculous. And we didn't use it much. Once the kids got older and weren't always sleeping in the same bed as me, we gave them that room. They each got their own bed and we moved into one of the two fairly small rooms. There is room for our queen size bed, and nightstands, a dresser and very very narrow aisles to get to the bed. But again, we don't use it much. We sleep there. It fits all our stuff. It's a much better use of space then the old situation. The situation has changed again and DD and DS each have their own room (DS has the other small room, DD's is somewhat bigger. The giant master bedroom? That's now the office where DH, DD and DS each have their own desk and computer. There's also a reading/Lego nook with two bookshelves and another bookshelf elsewhere. The guinea pigs live in the office. To sum up, having the smallest room has worked really well for us and has been for about 7 years now. We always tell the kids that nothing is set in stone when we make a change and find ourselves making fairly major changes every 2-3 years.

All hail the proper use of semicolons! A friend's daughter was homeschooled all the way through Grade 12. When she was looking at entering a particular university, they wanted her to come in and write a short essay for them to demonstrate her writing ability. After the person in charge read the essay, he commented to her mother, "When I saw that she used a semicolon correctly in the first paragraph, I knew that we would have no problems admitting her." It is encouraging to hear your story about your DS as I have one child who writes extremely well without any instruction and one who struggles mightily with the whole process, particularly punctuation.

I have done this only once so far but have plans to do it a few more times. Books that I read as read alouds to the kids when they were quite young are ones I consider for this. Typically it was so long ago that they may have forgotten what happened and we didn't discuss the book much, if any. When I have DD do it as assigned reading, it is in conjunction with a deeper look, richer discussion, and some assignments relating to the book. For instance, we read Anne of Green Gables about 3 1/2 years ago but I will likely have her reread it along 2 -4 of the others in the series this year and we will work through some responses to the book and examine things more in depth.

Thinking good thoughts for you!

Perfect! I will retrieve it from the bookshelf and start it once I've finished one of the other books I'm currently reading. Hopefully tomorrow.

Glad to hear your assessment of My Brilliant Friend. I really want to read this; maybe it fits into a Bingo category somewhere? I feel like I should just trail behind you and you can toss books to me in your wake as you complete them. I'm still reading Georgia: An Arctic Diary and also reading Catastrophic Happiness by Catherine Newman. The exercising/need to sleep is still getting in the way of reading. Hoping that will even out a bit as I get used to my new schedule. I finished reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery to the kids. They both enjoyed it, much to my relief, since it's one of my all time favourites. They took the first revelation about the identity of one of the main characters in stride but were completely gobsmacked and a bit upset about the second revelation. Overall it was a lovely way to start reading aloud in the new year (although I think we started it shortly before 2018). I think we're going to read Wonder next as our read aloud. I've heard mixed things.

That was my last bingo book last year and I'm super excited to read the rest of the series. And excited to check out the link. I'm getting back into sci fi and fantasy after many years. So I've noticed a lot of talk about Heinlein here recently and I'm curious as DH just got rid of pretty much all his Heinlein. I think he maybe kept one. He felt that it really hadn't held up well over the years and was not impressed with the sexist nature of the writing. Curious as to what others feel about this and whether there's some Heinlein that is to be avoided at all costs but some that is still OK to say, hand to your teenage child and say "Read this!" or if there is just other better stuff out there in that same genre. Welcome ThatBookworkMom! Can't wait to hear what you think of Ready Player One. I thoroughly enjoyed it the first (and second and third) time but I do think that there is a certain age range for readers where it hits a sweet spot. I am not getting much reading done. If any of you are on the Well Trained Bodies thread, I've joined that one too and I'm doing well with the exercise but it's causing me to pass out in a dead heap of exhaustion every evening and hence - not much reading. Plus the students are back at university so the buses are incredibly crowded and I can't even get my book out of my backpack to read on the bus home, which was one of my prime reading times. However the weekend stretches before me without many commitments so I'm going to try to finish the two books I've started.

I, for one, will continue to merrily punctuate when I feel like it (most of the time) and fail to punctuate on rare occasions when I am feeling lazy. I am amused by the fact that your username has a period at the end!

Well 5 days in and things are going quite well. Tracking my food which has been painless and also resulted in still being able to have one small treat each day. That's been a nice surprise. It's a very very small treat, but I'm enjoying it much more than when I was gobbling up a ridiculous number of cookies etc. Yesterday was a rest day so I focused on just being fairly active overall during the day and getting in 11000 steps. This morning went to the gym and did 10 minutes rowing, 20 minutes running/walking (alternated 2 laps running with 1 walking - I feel like I'm back to being 18 when I started going to the gym - I'm pretty sure that's what I did then), some abs and inner/outer thighs. The best thing about all this is that between getting up ridiculously early to walk the dog before going to the gym before going to work and getting up somewhat early on days when I just have to walk the dog before going to work, I am absolutely exhausted at night. I'm passing out in the evenings (often having an hour nap and also getting to bed at what is, for me, an early hour - before 10 pm). So I'm getting a lot of sleep. And with getting that much sleep, I have much less time to think about eating! Which is definitely a good thing. I have the Garmin Vivofit and have had it for almost 2 years now. I find it pretty accurate in terms of steps (sometimes when I walk the dog in the country I'll count my steps and I find that it's off by maybe 2 steps over a 1000) but the how many stairs I've climbed function is completely wonky. I like that I only have to charge it every 3 or 4 days. I like that it buzzes and tells me to 'Move!' if I'm been sitting around too much (also have a job in front of the computer). I don't use it to track sleep as I can't wear anything on my wrist to bed. Overall, it has been definitely worthwhile and it is also pretty resistant to damage as my has been drenched in water multiple times, whacked on countless walls and doorways, dropped from great heights etc and continues to function with a few extra scratches thrown in. I've been using a product called (weirdly) Cat Crap Anti Fog Spray that I bought on a whim. I find it works quite well when I'm walking the dog and it is minus 30 or sometimes minus 40 with the windchill and we are starting and stopping and then she wants to run and bleah. My husband is not as enamoured but that's fine because that means more for me. We must live in the same place. This last stretch of minus 30 for 2 solid weeks has been rather unpleasant. Usually the kids go sledding multiple days with their public school friends over the winter break but no one wanted to go outside at all.

You could try using Common Sense Media and setting the age for books to 17 under the reviews tab. They list a lot of adult books as well as YA books and give you a good idea of what things you might want to know about before reading the book.

We had African dwarf frogs in the freezer for some time for the same reason. We learned our lesson and when the hamster passed last November we disposed of that in the neighbouring dumpster. And what is with all the beans? I also have a plethora of green beans that were blanched and frozen from the garden in my freezer. I'd like to use them up but struggle to figure out how to do so. There are ideas upthread but I absolutely suck at figuring things out cooking wise and need actual links to actual recipes.

DH moved to an electric toothbrush on the recommendation of his dentist 4 years ago and he found it quite helpful. I switched 3 years ago because our dental coverage was lacking and I wasn't going to get to the dentist every 6 months like usual (more like every 18 months). It made a big difference. When I went to the dentist after almost 2 years, the cleaning was one of the easiest I'd ever had. They asked if I was using an electric toothbrush given how decent my teeth were after that time. Shortly after that we got electric toothbrushes for the kids as well. I like the timer feature, especially for the kids - it makes them brush for two minutes as it runs for that long. We are using the Philips Sonicare ones we got at Costco.

I think this time I'm trying hard to make my goal be more about my lifestyle and less about specific numbers. So I haven't actually stepped on a scale, and I'm not yet keeping track of my times when run/walking although I will probably start doing that eventually. I'm just trying to set a goal of being minimally active every day and more active than usual 3-4 days a week as well as an even more important goal (for me) of resetting my palate by getting used to eating specific portion sizes, reaching for veggies/fruits and enjoying my food slowly and thoughtfully. I have no plans to actually do any runs or other events. Mine often doesn't record anything when I'm on the treadmill or elliptical. That was an interesting list. I'm pretty sure I can do none of them except maybe the jumping. Might try to work on that and also have the kids work on them. I went to the gym today; first time going before work and it worked well. I didn't have a particular plan aside from make sure I got up early enough to walk the dog, get my breakfast and lunch ready to take with me, make it to the gym and shower after my workout before getting to work. So I did a bit of everything - 20 minutes run/walk, some upper body on machines, some planks, some upper body with free weights, some legs with machines. Climbing the 8 flights of stairs to work after that was rather more difficult than it usually is!

I work about 20 hours a week and then when you factor in the time it takes to get to work/get home from work, it adds up. What has been working is having older kids who can be left alone and given lists of things to do. I divide their lists into academic tasks, personal tasks and household management tasks. They are responsible for a lot of pet care (we have a lot of pets), for much of the dishwashing/putting away dishes, for all their own laundry, for cleaning the bathrooms, for helping with meal planning and cooking. In addition they are expected to help with general household cleaning and keep their rooms relatively clean (this differs depending on the child - I require that their not be any biohazards in the room). Much of this gets done while I am at work, aside from the meal planning/cooking. When I started working more we did explain to them that we were expecting them to take on more household responsibilities. We also explained to them that while the things they had been doing to date were expected as part of their contribution to our family life, we were going to ask them to take on additional tasks that they might normally have had to do if I wasn't working and we would compensate them accordingly. So they do get paid a certain amount each week (quite minimal) for these additional tasks. I have also found that planning planning planning was key. Food and meals. Planning. But I can only plan for about 3-5 days and then I revise the plan. I can't do a week or 2 weeks or a month. There's too much variability in our lives for that to work. I also let DH know that if the choice we were making as a family was for me to work, certain things were no longer going to be done by me and if he wanted them done (these were things that weren't a priority for me), he could do them himself or figure out a way to do them. He has been pretty good at stepping up to do the things he wants done and letting go those things neither of us cares enough to do.

That was a super helpful post! DH just bought one with his Christmas money and I've been trying to think of ways to be enthusiastic and supportive but this gives me all sorts of ideas.

That graphic novel sounds very intriguing. I might have to track it down. And even though I'm not buying any books this year, I did discover a whole bunch of books yesterday. We had two giant Rubbermaid totes that I thought were full of something .. I'm actually not clear on what I thought was in them. It turns out they were full of books - especially the books that DH had been bemoaning having lost recently. So there is great excitement over the "new" books. Yes, my library fines can be quite alarming (and the library helpfully gives you the option to track your fines for the last 15 years or so. I avoid that option. Fortunately the kids can 'read off their fines' so I make liberal use of their cards for any homeschool related books (and to be honest, sometimes if I am logged in as them when I am requesting books I forget to log in as myself when requesting my books so my books end up being on their cards). :lol: My friends and I have been talking about Swedish Death Cleaning - I didn't know there was a book!

Fun! Mine is: "When I was born, my mother was so horrified to be handed a female baby that she took three months to name me." Since I've already mentioned the book I finished yesterday, you can probably guess what book it's from.

Although I have a ridiculously large at home library, my goal is to read through it over the next 20 years (yes, I counted, it will take that long at least) and get rid of most of it. Then, I, too, will be able to have the library be the location of my book collection. I include my DNFs on my own personal list so I have a record of attempting to read the book (because I have been known to attempt to read the book a second time and not finish it having forgotten I hadn't finished it the first time). But I don't count them in my total of books read for either myself or for BaW purposes. That looks really interesting. I see there is a graphic novel square in Bingo so I'm hoping to read this book for that square. Finished my first book of 2018 yesterday: We Were Witches by Ariel Gore. It's a memoir of sorts of her experiences going to college as a young, single, poor, queer mother. I'm going to use it for the Feminist Author square. And it has certainly inspired me to read more feminist authors - before I give it back to the library I'm going to make note of some of the books she references and try to read 3 or 4 of them this year.

I'm going to join you all this year as I clearly need to do something different according to my knees. I've always been pretty active but my regular fitness routine took a nose-dive when I quit my job 4 1/2 years ago and let the gym membership at that place of work go (due to some financial pressures mostly). However I am back working part time and I decided to save up and get a gym membership again - did that near the end of December and went to the gym 3 times over the holidays (despite it being closed for 4 days). It felt so good to be back! I actually love going to the gym and I missed it a lot. So... I'm aiming to start by going to the gym 3 x week. 2 mornings which will be pretty brutal as I need to wake up really early in order to be able to walk the dog and then catch a bus to work/gym and work out before I start work. I don't mind mornings but this will be a bit earlier than I am used to. And then once a week on Sunday with a friend. We'll be running and rowing and using the free weights and weight machines and anything else that catches our fancy. I'm hoping to go to one or two classes, although my choice of morning classes is limited and I pretty much hate most of the ones that are offered early in the morning which is a pity because I love group fitness classes. But... the big thing for me is learning to nourish my body in a healthy way. I'm going to try to eat sustainably so I can do this long term. So I'm not giving up anything specific but tracking what I eat, trying to control portion sizes, trying to focus on lots of vegetables, some fruits and protein, and carbs at a couple of meals but not all. And then maybe a small treat here and there but not every day - that's why it's a treat! My goal is just to have my current clothes fit better and then hopefully start moving into some of the cute clothes that are put away from 3-4 years ago that are currently too tight.