yes. a thousand times yes!

Great thread!

Curious. I started out going through the scripted process, but found that the tiles are something of a problem. My ds (8) likes to mess with them and it distracts him from the task at hand. He'll get lost in arranging them, driving them around, making up some sort of video game with them. It's excruciating trying to get him to focus when he's got those tiles in front of him. So I don't use them for stuff I know he already "gets" and if something new or important, I use them just to introduce the concept and spell maybe three or four things. Then we go through a number of the "spell with tiles" words orally while he jumps on his bed. lol. He writes the rest. Following with interest...

I'd keep them all, but I'd use the milk and yogurt for cooking/baking.

That's disgusting. I hate the higher education industry. I would like to say my kids need to just opt out, but I'm too insecure for that.

Deep fried turkey would have worked for SC too.

Mac and cheese is a vegetable side in the South, and will be on a lot of Thanksgiving tables in SC. It would have worked well for several Southern states as a representative Thanksgiving food. As to the lobster in Maine, I have this vague recollection that when my sister went up to Maine for Thanksgiving at her inlaws, they did serve lobster, but I don't know how it was prepared. I am 100% sure it was not in mac and cheese. Maybe we should put together our own list...

It looks like they just asked some sort of chef/foodie/blogger from each state that wanted to try to make a name for him/herself. Hence the strange collection. They should have polled regular people.

To the OP, I don't have any recommendations, but my daughter is allergic to tocopheryol acetate and it causes her to break out in rash, almost to the point of chemical burn. That is the "Vitamin E" that they put in so may skin products. I wonder if that is what you are reacting to in O of O?

So glad I stumbled on this thread. I went the website, read it and watched the video, then showed it to DH when he got home, and DH and DS watched it together again. Now all three of us have one. DH modified his work notebook (he's a product design engineer) retroactively and is keeping us apprised of how it works on the job. DS(8) is doing it and copying down the next day's school workplan and chores from the chore chart as bullets. He's even taking little notes in there, which I find adorable. And I love this way of having a spot to dump my thoughts all in one place, rather than random scraps of paper that get lost. And I like the idea that it will be a nice little historical record for me and my days. It might sound odd, but I find this was the greatest or a least most glaring gap in my own homeschool education. Learning how to keep a schedule/calendar/appointment/notes. I just never learned it. And I got by okay in college only because I studied well enough that a forgotten quiz date wasn't so big a deal. But as a mom. Oh my. It's bad. And I feel like I might have been better had I gone to a brick and mortar school with the responsibility of keeping track of dates and learning to take notes. I'm interested to see if this sticks for all/some/none of the three of us.

For a massive decluttering, maybe plan a future date which you will devote to purging the place where you store extra stuff (attic/garage/basement). Then between now and then, purge the house, room by room, so that all of the rooms have been combed through by the time the big storage purging comes around. That will buy you some time for the things you're not quite sure whether to keep or toss. If you store it, you'll revisit it later.

Based on your description of her foodie tendencies, I second the motion for getting her the classes as a Christmas present. I can say that at 10, I'd have died of happiness at a gift like that. :)

I am a minimalist, but I don't consider myself to be terribly frugal. That's because I often let needs become emergencies, and so then I'm forced to pay full price. I really dislike shopping and then when people say never pay full price, I feel guilty and dislike it even more. It's a downward spiral. Trying to work on this!

Oh good. I didn't see this earlier.

My initial though is that this must be the digital scam du jour. Do you know Jane's cousin and Jane's mom? If so, go for it! If not, stay far away from that scheme and show love to Jane in the ways you can. I'm thinking it is quite possible to find recently divorced FB users and send out a message to the friend list pretending to be a helpful family member. :/

Great thread!

Working on it. Haven't landed on anything consistently workable yet. I've been struggling trying to make morning meeting work. It really doesn't, I've found over the last week or so that we get more momentum sooner if I just have the 3rd grader go ahead and dive into his work right away and once he's really going, do the kindergarteners work with her. So over the last two days we've done our "morning meeting" at 3:30 with tea and cookies. I think everybody's happier that way. We usually have enough done when we leave to go to the YMCA for mom/dad lunch break workout (T/TH) or YMCA gym class (W). Enough that I'm not freaked out. I would love to have a routine like some of these previous posters. I just don't think I have the self discipline to ever make it work, nor kids with the type of temperament for one day to really resemble the next on an hour by hour basis. I'm a serious work in progress.

I think a card/gift for children's librarians is great! Stealing this idea....

Get rid of it and use a pour-through method. :leaving:

I have a third and kindy. You can see what we are doing in my siggy. All About Spelling and Science are the most parent heavy for me, but not bad. We're really liking RSO chemistry (suggested here by the "hive") and the kindergardener can hang out for those activities.

I find it really attractive. It's a nice font.

I think Im a weirdo that uses my food processor several times a week, but could get by easily without a crockpot. <shrug> It really depends on what and how you cook. Have you seen those enameled electric griddles? That's on my wish list for when my current one is worn out.

That just blows my mind! In real numbers or as a percent of human population?

I went to Kroger to stock up on the $2.49 butter and they were out. So I got a raincheck. And then went to another Kroger and got ten pounds anyway. Woo Hoo! Another ten pounds with my raincheck and I should be good through Christmas. :) ETA: I've never seen a Costco in my life.

And this is exactly the reason I think kids/parents need to know someone familiar with the field. So you don't get misinformation stated as fact - such as economics majors just teach economics. Thanks for your perspective!