Ours is 1850sf for the 4 of us. We could (and have!) gotten by in much less space, but I feel this is just right for our family. The family room and dc bedrooms are upstais, and the master br and living room are downstairs, so we can spread out, but yet still talk to someone on the other floor. Also, as I am the chief maid around here, I wouldn't want it any larger--it seems to be about the right size to keep up with the housework.

No way. I've tried to teach my dc that you don't *have* to jump up and answer the phone every time it rings. If it's not convenient, don't answer it.

I went today for a mammogram and ultrasound to check a br*st lump. The mammo was fine, but the u/s showed the spot and the dr. says it isn't a cyst. So sometime within a week I'll be having a biopsy to know for sure. The dr. did say that it is very small (3mm) and about the smallest they ever find a lump, which is in my favor. I'd appreciate prayers or nice thoughts. Half of me is completely relaxed and thinks just take care of whatever it is. The other half is completely petrified. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep myself distracted with election news.

I've only kept my favorites from when I was teaching elementary school-mainly b/c some of them are now hard to find. I have 2 or 3 from when my boys were little that they really cherished. Besides that, I have a small shelf with nice picture books that come in handy for when we have visitors with littles.

Methinks I will stop using coupons.:tongue_smilie: Thanks for the laugh!

I wouldn't do it-I do think it's a bit rude, but in all fairness, I don't think it's ever occured to me to do it.

:iagree:This is my *favorite* Weird Al song hands down!

I was worried about this, too. I decided to substitute teach. I could use my Education degree and get a substitute license. ( I was a classroom teacher from 1988-1993.) However, my classroom experience wasn't as relevant as the degree. I filled out the app, went to an orientation and now I'm a sub. It isn't steady work yet, but it's good experience and pays better than most anything else I can get after 15 years at home. Also, if you make up a resume, make sure to include any and all volunteer work you've done. Just because you haven't been paid for it doesn't mean it's not work. I would probably only list my title (SAHM or whatever you prefer),and I would put homeschooling separate from that. I wouldn't list all the duties of being a sahm. I *might* list duties of hsing, especially if I lived in a state where I had to keep meticulous records or some other form of accountability.

We're the "rich" family. Basically that means we are very, very average but our deadbeat siblings (think drug abuse, mooching off elderly parents, etc.) have some family members convinced that we got all the breaks in life. We live in an average suburban neighborhood, don't take expensive vacations, clip coupons, rarely go out to eat or the movies and all those other things many people do to some degree or other just to make ends meet. I guess it was a "lucky break" that dh opted to move out of his parents home and get a J-O-B to support himself, or that I chose not to abuse drugs so I don't have a criminal record. Sorry you have to deal with this. Snotty siblings can make life miserable.

No, they wouldn't give us any credit for work homeschool work. They didn't want to see any of his homeschool work or his standardized test scores. However, at the end of the semester Aaron took his finals and they were all based on the entire semester-they didn't cut him any slack for what he missed the first 6 weeks. At the beginning of this school year, I talked to the counselor and I was ready to challenge the lack of credits based on the fact that he had to take finals that included the entire semester. I didn't have to do that. They had already given him the full credit for history and English(without telling us) and the rest will be made up through electives. I could not have counted on that being the case ahead of time.

My ds experienced this and it frustrated him. At age 11, he was in a homeschool choir that was grades K-12. The choir director made him sing alto. She wouldn't even test him. It was very difficult for him, as his voice had already started to change and alto was way to high for him. Then next year(7th grade), he took choir at the ps from a good friend of ours. He tests kids at the beginning of the year, and sometimes at other times as well to make sure they are singing in their correct range. It made all the difference for my ds. I would talk to his voice coach and his teacher. Not all boys that age sing in the higher register. I have 2 ds whose voices changed early.

Yes--and now that I'm not hsing, I really see it as a job. It's funny, too, that there were so many times I thought I wasn't giving enough attention to hsing in favor of doing "mom" things like laundry, housework, etc. I always said it was my job. While hsing didn't take up 40 hours a week, now that my dc are in school I find that the physical aspects of maintaining my home (laundry, pay bills, grocery shop, etc.) don't take as much time as I thought they would and I think I probably spent more time hsing than I realized. It is definitely so much more than a job, though, as many of you so eloquently pointed out.

I chose "other". I think that if there are necessary parts of our infrastructure(think roads) that are underfunded, they could use the money for that. My community currently has 3 items on the ballot that are asking taxpayers for more money. The amount the govt. wants to give us is probably 3 times the amount that most people say they can't afford for the new taxes. It seems to me then that some of those things could get funded and there would still be money left over.

Last year I ended up plunking my ds down into ps 6 weeks into 9th grade. When we decided it would be best for him, I was going to wait until the semester break. After talking with the counselor, I realized he would not graduate unless he made up the 1st semester's credits somewhere along the way. Here in OR, they prorate the credits, so he only ended up being 1 1/3 credits short, instead of 4, and he will be able to work that into his elective schedule.

15yos is getting Brisingr by Christopher Paolini 12yos (my comic book geek) will get a large comic-type book, either a Far Side or Calvin and Hobbes.

I just had this done in September! So far, I've had one period and it was much lighter than I'd been having, although probably still heavier than many women experience. Like you, however, I can leave the house without a change of clothes now.:001_smile:

I'm not an economist and I don't play one on TV;) , but dh and I were just discussing this today. It seems to me that the govt. should have just kept its hand out of the whole thing. It may have gotten rougher for awhile, but it seems like the economy would come out stronger in the long-run. I don't know if I would call it socialist, but it is definitely *not* capitalism at its finest.

I did that once-and only-once.:glare:

This one is actually sad, but true. A year ago, if you owned $1000 in Lehman Bros. stock it would be worth $0 today. A year ago, if you owned $1000 in AIG stock, it would be worth approx. $30 today. A year ago, if you would have bought $1000 worth of Budweiser, drank it all and returned the cans for deposit, you'd have approx. $88. Cheers!:cheers2:

Glad you got to go. We thoroughly enjoyed the one we went to-hence my avatar. I would have liked to have heard McCain in person as well, but when he came to our state, he was charging $1000 per person.

Here in OR, we have vote by mail. We should be getting our ballots in the next few days, and I usually vote as soon as I get mine.

That's why I rarely ever let my dc use those "kiddie carts" at the grocery store.:auto:

Well, I'd take the bus, especially dh is partly in charge of running our local public transit system. :001_smile: Around here, it takes 2-4 times as long on the bus as by car--it's usually more like 4 times longer. So the time difference you give sounds very reasonable. Enjoy the bus trip!

The 30 Day Gourmet book is excellent and well worth the money. It is well-organized, has lots of great recipes that can easily be adapted by size or ingredients, and a great planning section. I've checked out a lot of OAMC books/methods, and imo, 30 Day Gourmet is the best one.

I love having teens! They are a joy to have around. I'm finding the teen years much easier than the middle years (4-10).