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pageta

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  1. DH has always had this idea that we could save money by being a one vehicle family. We did it for a bit before we had kids because I could drop him off on my way to work and pick him up on my way home. Six months after ds was born, he took a job in another state and obviously we needed to have two vehicles during the transition and so we have had two vehicles ever since. Our car gets 30 mpg while his truck gets about 17 mpg. He only drives his truck about 5000 miles a year. It is an old truck, and we only carry liability insurance on it. So expenses are $20 for tags and about $75 twice a year for insurance. Plus gas. And repairs. Recently we took his truck in because he noticed it was leaking brake fluid. The back brakes needed to be completely redone (the truck has 165K miles on it) and that was $400. The spring mounts are rusted out and need to be replaced, the back urgently and the front will need to be done in the near future as well. Cost for new spring mounts are $600. We are not supposed to haul anything without getting new spring mounts in back as the wheel could break through the bed of the truck. So we are not driving his truck and have it listed on craigslist. So DH is back to this idea of "saving money" by having just one vehicle. Our schedule (the children and me) was school three days a week and town two days a week (we school year-round). One day ds has choir, so I have to go to town. The other day we did nature study at a favorite park, and it was very nice to be able to break up our errands into two days as doing errands with three children in tow - two of which are young enough to have to be put in and out of their car seats every time we stop - wears me out. Now if I want/need to have the car for the day, I have to take dh to/from work. It's a 20 minute drive, mostly highway but lots of traffic and lights. I make him drive when he's with us, but I have to get the kids ready and be in the car all that time. By the time we load up the kids and drop him off, it takes an hour out of each end of my day. If I want to have the car on two days, that four less hours in my week. Not only is it four less hours in my week, it's added stress as well. Our kids have a regular bedtime, but generally they fall asleep when the sun goes down and get up when the sun comes up. From Oct to April, they usually aren't yet awake when dh leaves for work. So that means waking them up and having them in the car for an hour before they get breakfast and such. I also have to be awake earlier and rush around rather than just doing what I need to and having a somewhat leisurely morning that is built around what I need to do rather than having to take DH to work. So not only do I have to struggle with getting the kids in the car, I have to schedule my day around firm deadlines. We have to leave at a certain hour in order to get dh to work on time. Then we have to be finished with our day an hour before dh usually gets home because we have to leave to go get him and bring him home. That along really spikes my anxiety levels. I homeschool two kids and have a toddler. I work from home doing technical editing. When the kids are in bed and it's quiet and I can concentrate, I should be editing. When the kids are awake, I am constantly interrupted - I can never relax. I get up on the weekends and go to Starbucks to work and get there when they open (yes, I get up at 4:45 a.m. so NO, I do not stay up late watching "the football game" with dh). If it were up to me, I wouldn't be up at that hour on the weekend, but I have to in order to get my work done. And I get so tired of always having work hanging over my head. It just wears on me. Now I have taking dh to/from work hanging over my head, too. It's 2:30 a.m. and I'm wide awake (insomnia), and I know part of it is simply anxiety due to having to plan my day around making sure we're finished and ready to leave to go pick up dh from work today (he was out in the field yesterday so brought home the work truck last night). It's a stressful drive, it cuts an hour out of my day, and I have it hanging over me all. day. long. I feel like I am being ridiculous, but on the other hand, this is taking such a toll on me. I really don't want to have a vehicle payment right now, especially since dh has some dental work that is going to cost thousands of dollars in the next six months. For dh, having one vehicle doesn't really change his life much - he still goes to work and comes home at the same time so the burden falls largely on my shoulders. Am I just being a wimp?
  2. I am a morning person, but my kids get up between 6 and 7 (or later in the winter) and we do not start school until 9 a.m. I like my lazy mornings - they set the tone for the whole day. I get more done early, and then I'm not so stressed the rest of the day. Works great for us. I see no reason to roll out of bed and start school right away.
  3. A "plants based diet" to me means it is composed of a majority of plant foods. We eat meat, but we eat far more fruits, vegetables and grains than we do meat. So I consider our diet very much a "plants based diet." We watched this movie, and were already following the Michael Pollan mantra - Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants. - so we did not see the movie as a compelling reason to become vegan as some people do.
  4. To the OP, I feel your pain. I am in a similar family situation, though playing a different role. My advice would be to not talk about it any more than necessary. There is no reason why you need to send them postcards from Disney or bring them back souvenirs as that would only serve to remind them that they are not in a position to take your kids on expensive trips like that. I have family that is in a different financial position than us and I just clam up when they talk about all the fancy things they do all the time. I am very happy with our life and our situation, but they all do things that look a lot better on Facebook than anything we do. I really would rather not hear about it, personally. If they want to go on fancy trips and do things that cost lots of money, that's fine, but I would rather not have it rubbed in my face all the time. I think it is important to relate to people based on what you have in common and focus on that. Going to Disney is not something you have in common with your parents, so other than telling them so they don't expect to hear from you while you're there (since you'll be out of your usual routine), they don't really need to know. Be kind. I think you, too, may be disappointed that your family is not able to do things like that. Enjoy what you do with your inlaws, and enjoy the time you spend with your family. They do not have to be the same in order to be equal. Focus on what you enjoy most, and they will both be important. For you and your family. Hugs!
  5. Us too. Our street has a name that is historical sounding, so it's kind of cool.
  6. I got my permit when I was fifteen - as in, the day I turned fifteen or thereabouts. Then every time we went somewhere, my parents had me drive so I would get experience. However, I was going to a boarding school 90 minutes from home, and you had to be 2 hours from home without a car in order for my parents to pay higher insurance for me to have a license. Thus I did not get my license until I graduated from high school and went to college in Washington state (my parents lived in Florida, so I was finally far enough from home). I did not have a vehicle at college until my senior year.
  7. I take my kids to a pediatric dentist so they all go at the same time. Then dh and I also go at the same time, kinda. We schedule two appointments back to back - I arrive when he is through and he drives the kids home while I stay and have my teeth cleaned. He uses sick leave and we get the last two appts of the day.
  8. How often do you get your teeth cleaned? And do you have dental insurance? DH found out this morning that he needs an implant...and of course dental insurance doesn't cover that. Whenever you have something happen when it would actually be nice to have insurance, they don't cover the procedure. In fact, I think this is the formula dental insurance companies use to determine coverage: Less than $100, they cover 100% (except for nitrous oxide) $100 to $1000, they cover 50% More than $1000 - you're on your own, baby! We never had dental insurance when I was a kid (for the same reasons I'm thinking of dropping it now - it's a waste of money), but we only got our teeth cleaned once a year. I never got my teeth cleaned twice a year until I met dh and that seems to be the standard with dentists (an easy way to double their business?). None of our children have had cavities, and the only extras we've paid for them have been getting molars sealed and two extractions to help the new teeth come in right. DH and I have both had crowns and such, but dental insurance is always so lame when these things come up, and it makes me mad every time. So is dental insurance worth the cost for the little you get out of it? Could we skip it and only go once a year for cleanings instead of twice? What thinks the Hive?
  9. This would be why I write things down. If I don't, I inevitably forget something. The more I write down, the less I have to remember, the less frazzled I am. It's a spiral that only builds on itself, like a snowball. Write it down and you won't have to remember.
  10. I think it has a lot to do with personal space and some people need a lot more than others. I grew up in the city, and either you drive close together or you have a parking lot and nobody moves. Now I live in an area where people rant against tail gating...and they also line up in the left lane for miles because they are going to turn seven miles down the road and they might not be able to merge (there aren't 12 car lengths between cars and anything less than that they can't possibly squeeze in) so one person drives 49 in the left lane and the other drives 48.5 (speed limit is 55, of course). I swore when I moved there that people around here really were afraid of actually arriving at where they were going therefore they put it off as long as possible by driving 28 in a 35 with 7 car lengths between cars so we have to wait through 4 lights instead of just one. Back where I came from you have 5 lanes in each direction on the interstate and everyone is going 70 even though the speed limit is 55 and if you leave more than 1.5 car lengths between you and the next person, someone squeezes in. When you're accustomed to driving that way, you drive differently. I would not want any of the locals around her to drive like that because, quite frankly, they do not having the driving skills to do it. If they drove behind me like that, you right - it would be VERY dangerous. If Jeff Gordon drove like that behind me, I wouldn't consider it dangerous, especially if it was a road he was familiar with (NASCAR drivers go 200 mph with inches between bumpers). It's like driving on ice - you do it enough, you learn what the hazards are and you become comfortable with what you can do and what you can't do and you drive accordingly. People who drive curvy roads all the time drive much faster on them than people who drive straight roads all the time. I now live in Nebraska and every time I drive curvy roads in Kentucky, someone flies up behind me and rides my bumper because I am not going as fast as they feel comfortable driving on that particular road (which they probably drive every day). I don't get mad at them and have a meltdown over it and rant about how they are endangering my life. So is it ignorance? Yes - both on the part of the person tailgating AND on the part of the person being tailgated. Politeness is a two-way street.
  11. Well, I had to spend an afternoon with my in-laws, and while they annoyed me, I can't say I have anything like that to complain of. My 5-year-old saw there was cake and kept asking for it and dh's aunt didn't serve cake and didn't serve cake and didn't serve cake and didn't serve cake and didn't serve cake and finally at 4:00 (we had gotten there at noon and eaten right away, but no cake) I see her in the kitchen and come to find out she is fixing another meal. Seriously? Four hours after a heavy dinner? After that meal she FINALLY brought out the god-forsaken cake. We normally eat supper at 6:00, and usually we leave these family gatherings around 5 in order to get home and eat supper and put the kids to bed. So apparently now she is serving supper at 4:00 so we are there to eat it? I don't know, but she sure could have either hauled out the cake sooner or at least given my poor 5-year-old an explanation for why it was sitting there but we weren't eating it. She does not have children of her own, though she taught pre-school (3-year-olds) for years. Sometimes I think she thinks like a 3-year-old, too. Sorry your SIL is so disagreeable. It would drive me crazy, too.
  12. Love Quicken. Have used it for years. The online version (last I checked, within the past year) is very bare bones so don't base your opinion on it. I've owned the Home and Business version and now have a simpler version. No complaints here.
  13. Today it was in the bottom right corner. It seems to happen when I stay on a page for, say, 30 seconds. They assume I'm thinking, but usually it's because someone interrupted me.
  14. Anyone see this message pop up while shopping on amazon? "Need help deciding? Ask a friend now." Has anyone tried it? Who is this "friend" exactly, and what do they know about what I'm looking at? Signed: Dying of Curiosity But Too Scared to Click
  15. We have two categories of clothing - home clothes and town clothes. If I am at home and the baby spits up on me, I do not change. I use spit up cloths to keep the mess to a minimum, but other than that, unless something has poop or vomit on it, it stays on. When we go to town, we change into town clothes (our new clothing vs stuff we bought used) and we take them off immediately when we get home (and usually put them back away unless they are actually soiled). Beyond that, here is my system - I gather the laundry every day and take it to the sorter downstairs. Here is the schedule: Monday - darks Tuesday - whites Wednesday - jeans Thursday - linens Friday - delicates Weekend - nothing I have soiled clothing from potty accidents put into the diaper pail and that gets washed twice a week, M/T and Th/F. I try very hard not to do laundry on weekends. Washing clothes is hard on the clothes and makes them wear out sooner. Folding clothes and putting them away is a lot of work. So my strategy is to avoid generating laundry as much as possible.
  16. Absolutely. If you want to download Kindle books, you get the free Kindle app from the amazon.com site. While you can get free books on the web, I've found that (especially with classics) amazon has on their site for free everything that you can get from gutenberg press and the like for free; IMO it's just easier to get it from amazon and read it in their app. I have a Kindle, and their are some books I read on my computer and some that I read on my Kindle. I like having access to the same library on both. I shop a lot on amazon and I love their shopping interface, especially the suggestions it gives (i.e. people who bought this item also bought...) - I've found a lot of great books that way. You can tell amazon where you want the book sent (kindle, computer, etc.), or if you are in the Kindle app, you can see the items you own and double click on them and the item will download if it hasn't already. Easy peasy.
  17. I've worked out a routine that goes pretty well for us. Monday-Wednesday-Friday are our formal school days which go as follows. Morning Routine 6:00 DH gets up, I read for a half hour, then computer time until DH leaves at 7:00. Children get up at some point. Feed kids breakfast, then they go outside and play. 7:45 Leave on our morning walk. Takes about an hour. 9:00 Start morning school with my oldest. Begin with Bible, hymn, poetry/recitation, then an AO reading followed by language arts (Latin, grammar, oral reading, copywork and dictation), possibly another AO reading, then he practices piano. Goal is to be finished by 11:00. 11:00 Downtime for me while kids play downstairs or outside. I check email, answer clients questions (I work from home), and do miscellaneous chores around the house (like start a load of laundry). Afternoon Routine 12:00 Lunch, listen to Bible story while everyone eats. After lunch, singing together at piano, then oldest does math worksheet while I work with my Kindergartener. We do poetry/recitation, phonics, a little bit of math, followed by one story. Youngest goes down for a nap. Finish school with oldest - history/science per WTM, another AO reading, then possibly art. Goal is to be finished by 3:00 or sooner. 3:00 - 4:30 More household tasks, responding to client email, doing miscellaneous tasks. Evening Routine 4:30 Husband arrives home and we have organized chaos until supper. I decide what we'll have for supper before we go on our walk, and I start preparing it whenever necessary. 6:00 Supper 7:00 Storytime for children 7:30 Children in bed. They do not have to go to sleep (though youngest two are asleep fairly quickly, especially if there wasn't a nap for the baby; also, during the winter they go to sleep much faster than during the summer due to the extended light hours in the summer) At this point I work on projects for my job until 9 or 9:30. I then outline our school plans for the next day - I seem to get more done if I spell everything out ahead of time (like at least 80% which is better than what I do if I don't spell things out). Tuesday and Thursday are completely different for us. Tuesday we leave after breakfast for town. We go to a favorite park where we do formal nature study, followed by the library and groceries and any other errands. We get home around lunch time. The kids then play all afternoon, though we might do a reading or two if needed to get through our readings for the week. Evening routine remains the same. Thursday we go to town again, this time in the afternoon. My oldest has choir, and we run errands before and during his rehearsal. I have certain grocery stores I hit on Tuesday and others I hit on Thursday depending on specials. My kids eat a lot of bananas so we have to buy bananas every 2-3 days or people get very unhappy. Thursday morning is when I clean the house, pay bills, and other domestic tasks. I do my best to keep Saturday and Sunday completely free of routine domestic tasks (other than cooking and doing dishes). On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I get up early and either go to Starbucks and do work I couldn't get done during the week (sometimes I need no interruptions sometime other than at night when I'm worn out from a long day) and/or I do a long workout on local trails. Sunday mornings we go to church. On the weekend we do family activities together. I grab some groceries (bananas!) on Saturday morning if I need to. So that is the rough outline of my routine. If a holiday falls on a weekday, we just skip whatever it was that we would have normally done. If it falls on a Thursday, I would probably try to clean and do those tasks on Wednesday and Friday. But with a routine in place, everyone knows what to expect and goes along with it pretty well. I used to fly by the seat of my pants a lot more, but it took a lot more self-discipline to make myself get things done. Now I know when I am supposed to do things and I only worry about those things (like cleaning house) during the times designated for them. If I pay bills once a week, I don't lay awake at night worrying about a possible overdraft because I'm checking in often enough to know what is going on, KWIM. I started working on this routine earlier this spring and have honed it to my liking over time. We are leaving on vacation tomorrow and I am very proud to say that we did school yesterday as usual - in my former life, an event like a vacation or family coming to visit meant taking at least a week off school before and after said event. Make a list of everything you need to do, think of the most logical time to do it (either day or time of day) and then follow your routine. Keep a master list and then re-tweak it every week until you get it the way you want it. Life always happens, but if I have a general plan in place, I find I'm a lot less likely to get lost in the details.
  18. Yes, I think you're on the right track. It isn't where you are, it's where you are going. Are you making progress? Narration has been a challenge for us, and I've tried various ideas. You just keep throwing money against a wall until something sticks, and then you throw more of that type of mud (or at that spot on the wall, LOL!). Every kid is different and even with one kid, no one formula is going to work. It's a process over time to be able to summarize the story and repeat it back. Some selections are more difficult than others. The more you practice, the better you get. So hang in there - keep up the good work!
  19. It depends on the situation. We school year round, so in order to do 36 weeks of school (which is typical of many schools), I need to do 3 weeks per month. After two years of falling dreadfully behind in October (we run Jan to Dec as well), I am doing things differently this year. When things are going well, we haul arse. Right now we're running about a week ahead. We were a week ahead at the end of June and then July was a disaster but August has been a good month. I work from home, so I need the flexibility. I've also learned to stick to a weekly schedule of sorts. We do formal school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday is Nature Study and town. Thursday is choir and catch-up (if we need it). Tuesday and Thursday also work for extras like handicrafts, composer study (in the car) and free reads (audiobooks in the car). We also often do math on Tuesdays and Thursdays but not always. If Monday is a holiday, we don't do school, and then we carry on with our routine on Tuesday. Having that set in stone rather than a target number of days I want to complete this month helps me get going in the morning. I know it's a school day - I don't get distracted on other things and then say, Oh well, I guess today we aren't doing school and then get into a crisis situation. The past two years when we have had trouble, it's been tough, and I will admit there have been tears (on my part). My goal this year is to be finished by Thanksgiving so I have all of December as "grace" because that last quarter seems to be when things slide the worst. The first year this happened, I simply condensed our schedule. We do Ambleside so I just did more readings per day so we could finish our books. Last year we did about a week of "finishing up" in January. Our basics - math and reading - and on a do-the-next-lesson type of schedule. As long as my child is performing well in the things we are doing and I'm on track overall for our learning goals, I don't worry about what lesson we are on. We use the McGuffey Readers and Ray's Arithmetic. When we switched back to Math Mammoth, I simply skipped pages covering things my student was already proficient at rather than plodding through each lesson. I also, as a result of such crises, have shortened our formal school "week" to three days rather than four. So we do 3x36 weeks of formal days of school (our MWF routine). I work from home, and with my work schedule and other things (like family trips or people coming to visit and such) that works for us. We get through all of our curriculum goals in that time. The remaining "school days" are spent doing our Tuesday/Thursday routine and other special activities we do on the weekends. That's what works for us. Previously we were doing four formals days of school for each "week" of school. As long as we're working at grade level or above, I see no problem with a "shortened" school week. Later on we may add more things to our Tuesday/Thursday routines, so that remains and option but doesn't seem to be needed at this time. I also used to do 40 weeks of school instead of 36. So you can tweak on that level as well. There are two things that you have to look at - how are you going to finish this school year, and what do you need to change so that this doesn't happen again? Only you can answer those questions. I've been known to call a "teacher inservice day" on a Saturday or an evening and go to Starbucks with my computer for a couple hours in order to tweak our routine and figure out what we need to do to keep on track and get everything done. Don't hesitate to take some time like that if you need it. Better to get a plan that works so you can shed the stress than to be pulling your hair out for the remainder of the year. Figure out what is essential. I've also dropped certain things I decided simply weren't THAT important to me, making our routine shorter so we were able to get things done without wearing ourselves out. Other things got streamlined (for instance, our memory work only gets done on formal school days, which is part of what defines "formal" school days). I know it's hard to be in a situation like this, but you will get through it. Figure out what YOU need to do, get a plan and then follow it. It's much easier to follow a plan than to be stressed out and not have one.
  20. If she accepted the invitation again by email, I am sure she knows that the family will be there. I wouldn't worry about it. People need to do what they have to do to get along at events like this.
  21. We are in the process of switching companies because our current carrier (of 3+ years) DOUBLED our premium this year. I called around and compared prices and the varying factor seemed to be the replacement value of the house. The value our current carrier wanted to set it at was completely unreasonable for the neighborhood we live in - if we built a house for that price on our street, it would depreciate by 1/3 immediately when we moved in. We found another company (dealing with a local agent familiar with our street) and now have a far more reasonable replacement value that our house is insured for. Our current company claimed that the premium was going up due to the tornadoes in TN and other states last year. We've had tornadoes wipe out entire towns in our county since we bought our house, but we have not had any unusual tornado activity in our state last year, so I didn't buy that line. Our neighbors said their premiums had increased steeply this year as well.
  22. Change the pads more often? What are you washing them with? I use cloth pads and I get itchy if I don't change them regularly enough. After using cloth diapers, I know that detergent can make a big difference in how things, for lack of a better word, wear. There may be residue from the detergent you're using that is causing her skin to itch.
  23. I have a boy who was peeing but not pooping in the potty when we went to visit my parents, and my mother decided she didn't want him having an accident at her house so she bought pullups to wear there and he totally quit using the potty for over a year. Did I ever thank her for that! Both of my boys had issues with pooping. One fall, my oldest was having issues. He would poop his pants at night while he was asleep and then he'd get his hand in it and wipe his hand all over the sheets and clothes and walls. Oh my! Of course, he did this occasionally at our house (like two or three times a month) and when we went to visit my parents, he did it every. single. night. During the day he would get skid marks so he would smell to high heaven. He was too uptight to poop, he got constipated, and it was just a disaster. My dad lost his patience with him (they were on their way to a museum with the kids and all of a sudden the vehicle smelled to high heaven because ds had a skid mark). My sister thought he needed therapy. It was just a disaster. Once we got back home, he got back on a regular schedule and has basically gotten over it on his own. When I mentioned it to our family doctor, he said it isn't considered a medical problem until they are at least 7 years of age (which neither of my boys was at the time we had issues with either of them). I've heard excellent things about this book, though I haven't read it myself. My hunch would be that your big trip has a lot to do with this, and you're just going to have to ride it out. Do what you have to do to survive, and once you are back home and in your regular routine, a little bit of effort will go a long way (where right now a lot of effort will produce only minimal results). I am so sorry you have to deal with this. It is not fun. I can only tell you that you will survive. We had a lot of family that simply did not understand what it was like having boys who didn't care about being soiled - it simply wasn't an issue with their children so they were just clueless and thought we were completely incompetent. I just told myself, every child has some kind of issue at some point, and this may not be the issue their child has, but at some point their child will have an issue that my child breezes through. You may have to wait a while, but the tables will be turned at some point. So hike up your pants, hang in there, and know that you will make it to the other side.
  24. I guess the disagreement is whether or not those issues have anything to do with homeschooling. I support HSLDA because they support homeschooling and because they support issues I support. Both reasons are equally important to me when I write out my check for membership dues. I don't really worry about how directly those issues they support are tied to homeschooling, though I do believe there is a relationship to a varying degree.
  25. What do politics have to do with where you buy a chicken sandwich? It's a chicken sandwich, for goodness sake! There are lots of things that can be correlated with politics that aren't tied to them directly.
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