Another consideration if you do any canning is if your cooktop can support the weight of your canner. I looked into a smoothtop range (not a cooktop) and the manual said not to use with canners because they were too heavy. Of course, that was quite some time ago and they might have changed by now. A separate vent by the wall oven is a great idea mentioned by another poster.

I was facing this same question and I opted against a wall oven because of venting issues--invariably when a pie is done, it boils over and the drips start to smoke. Cooking pizza on a stone and having the cornmeal smoke some, too, results in my kitchen filling with smoke. I also bake salmon and personally hate the smell. I want the ability to suck all that out with the vent.

From my son: If she is driving a car from the the mid 80's or older, the problems on them would be easier to fix than on a newer car. For example, if the casing on the coil wire got worn and the wire shorted out, that would cause the engine to die and she could isolate the wire or wrap something around it to keep it from shorting. Another possibility: the choke on the carburator could flip closed and stall the car. She would just have to jimmy around the choke linkage to free it up. A split vacuum line would cause the engine to die and she could fix it by cutting it back or taping it.

My two nephews are not unschoolers but the senior in high school averages probably 9 hours a day after school playing video games, and the 21 year old (dropped out of college) averages more than that per day, plus they both play all day on weekends. They are seriously overweight, cannot carry on a conversation with adults, do not interact with their peers, do not take care of their things or their home, do not even bathe without being made to. They even throw tantrums of sorts when made to get off the internet. I haven't seen anything positive there. A young homeschooler friend of ours will play to excess whenever he can. All he wants to do when we are around him is play video games. If he isn't playing a game, he is reenacting killing someone by playacting. It seems there is little else he wants to talk about. I would need a lot of convincing to see the merits of such excessive video game playing.

I don't know if this applies to your son, but it might be a technique you could try. Some kids, when faced with a job, like "clean your room", do not know where to start. They look at the mess and can not figure out how to make it look right again. So, you break it down and it does not seem so insurmountable: pick up all your Legos and put them into their container. That's it. One small job done. Then move on to one other little chunk. Same with schoolwork. He is capable, but when faced with the whole page or two of math, he might think it will never end. Do the first five. That's it. Do something else and come back to it. I ask my son, "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time." Another poster mentioned giving choices, which is nice. Let him pick from two different jobs and that way he seems more in control. No work=no food=real life. Works here for my older sons.

I am so sorry for you. My sister had 2 malignant brain tumors. One operated on and removed and another discovered on the followup and subsequently removed. She is in a university trial and is doing really well. She was given terrible odds, too, as are most people with this type of tumor. I hope your friend has had several opinions because there are new treatments out there that are really promising. Once again, though, I am really sorry for what you both are to go through. My sister is only 49.

Oooo, this is fun! Booklark (covers both audio ane ebooks) Infolark (media is information)

You say your original floor was cracked and uneven--that might by why your new floor is cracking. We poured a new floor over an old one in our garage and it, too, cracked and it was because the original floor moved around. If the cracks are hairline, I believe you don't have to do anything with them. If they are larger, then you might have to chip them out and put concrete patch in them. Do you think you can just live with them? Is there going to be some sort of flooring over it? BTW--I know what you mean about having all your stuff crammed in other places. We had to tear down half of our house (rot, sagging roof joists, house not tied to foundation, no footing), and we just had our basement dug out and repoured. All of our stuff is crammed other places. Fun ain't it?

My son had tons of trouble with math and math facts. Consequently, I have tried tons and tons of things to help him. I think two major obstacles were hindering his ability to master math facts: being able to "see" them in his head and having a crappy memory. Audiblox really helped--math involves patterns and sequences and my son was weak with both (to the extent that he could not reproduce a pattern sitting right in front of him). It has exercises that help with pattern recognition and long term memory. We did it extensively and after awhile he hated it. There are other programs out there that would probably be more fun that would also address these issues. Another thing that might help is teaching fact families: 3 + 2 = 5, 2 + 3 = 5, 5 - 2 = 3, 5 - 3 = 2. That gets the child used to seeing the numbers together. We used triangle cards where all the numbers are on the front of a triangle. We also did "air writing" so that he could better picture the numbers in his head. This is where you just write the number in the air in front of your eyes with your pointer finger so you can "see" it. We did a lot of work with MathUSee manipulatives and an abacus. I did not let my child use a calculator since he would plug in the wrong numbers (69 for 96) and the wrong symbols (x for +), so it wasn't helpful for him at all. We also do math in small chunks. If he is faced with a whole page of problems, he will get overwhelmed and make mistakes. None of these were a quick fix and he will still make mistakes. He does better if he sees it, touches it, says it, then does it. That way he hears "times" and knows it isn't "plus" since his brain still sees the wrong sign sometimes.

I don't know if you have Freecycle available to you but it is a good resource--lots of times people are giving away craft items, pet food, toys, whatever. You never know what you might find there and you can post if you are looking for a specific item. Someone on Freecycle needed a person to fix their push lawnmower and my son helped them out--didn't cost either of them a thing. If you know any hunters, lots of times they don't use all their meat--good friends of ours never eat all the deer they get. Trade labor. You need something done/fixed but can't do it yourself, do something for them that they can't do. Cut your own hair. I cut the dh and the kids' hair and one time I went wacko and cut my own pretty short. Didn't turn out too bad, either...

We are working on our house and currently have no furnace. We got down to 48 in here this weekend. What I have found that works has already been said: Cuddleduds under insulated pants (I found some at WalMart--they are jeans with a fleece-like lining), long sleeved shirt, long underwear shirt topped with a wool sweater, hat, woolie socks and slippers. Funny, I always thought our house was cold when we kept it at 60 but we really aren't suffering yet. We do have a heater in the bathroom that we plug in for showers. If you can, block the drafts--we have stuffed plastic bags into cracks around windows before and that shrink wrap window stuff really helps.

Too bad they aren't older--I make mine clean the toilet.

Both of my sons were in public school until a couple of years ago. I pulled the younger one out for 6th grade because he is dyslexic and the school did not know how to teach him plus the 6th grade teachers had a reputation for being bullies--they yelled at the kids that didn't understand concepts as quickly as others and they piled on hours and hours of homework with the explanation that they were getting them ready for jr. high school. My older son was having absolutely no problem in school but he wanted more time to do the things that HE wanted to do--work on his tractors and trucks. School was taking up too much of his life (according to him). He learns easily so I had no qualms about teaching him at home. My MIL, I'm sure, was not on board but she really didn't say too much outright. I have a SIL who is a teacher and she would never dream of keeping her kids out of school so I never felt that I had her approval (I am not a teacher by trade). I did not ask for their approval so it did not matter to me. I don't think all public schools are evil--I just don't think they are the ideal place for everyone.

Hi! Neither my husband nor I are surveyers but we have had our property surveyed and know how to operate a transit ourselves. You might have markers, but they might not be obvious to you. We have some markers buried in the road in front of our house. We also have some markers buried in the field out back. If there aren't any markers, they will measure from the nearest known point. Don't know if this helps--good luck with your neighbor!

I grew up on a farm with three sisters. My father died when I was eight and my mother gradually became an alcoholic. I don't remember having a library of books around although the Bookmobile would come out to the country and park about a half mile away. We would ride our bikes there to get books. In spite of this, I believe I had a good childhood. My mother was one who could do anything. My grandfather was a very intelligent man who could figure most things out. Schoolwork was our responsibility and we were expected to get good grades. I do not remember Mom helping out with any of it, although she may have in the younger grades. What we did have was a lot of hard physical work and if we were given a job, we were expected to do it. That and my mom being a do-it-yourselfer were probably the most compelling influences for me.

"How would that second source help? If the second source was written on the same level as the first source, it might not provide much more information that the novice can access." Of course this is true, but knowing oneself and knowing how to access different sources of information would be key for anyone trying to learn about anything. For example, I wanted to know how to make a webpage. I had absolutely 0 knowledge of how to go about doing this. The first book I picked up was written for computer geeks and was way over my level of competence. Several books and websites later, I found some that worked for me and I taught myself how to do it. I really don't think that a lot of kids know how to learn--they definitely don't if they give up after one or two attempts.

But if the novice were taught how to learn, s/he would not stop at one source.

I have no experience but you might try NPR's Car Talk with Click and Clack. They have a website where you might find an answer.

Our house is pretty leaky. We usually set the thermometer at 58 at night and 60 - 62 during the day. Now that we have only half a house and no furnace (long story), my husband broke down and bought a space heater. You aren't supposed to place them near anything combustible so it sits right smack dab in the middle of the bathroom. So, I joke that we do have central heat. Still, we only turn it on for a short while before a bath and that is it. We generally take a shower in the evening after doing something physical so we are warmed up from that and it helps. If I exercise in the morning, I am hot and sweaty from that and don't mind the cold room. A good idea is to have someone bring you a nice hot towel fresh from the dryer!

We're slackers. For the last month we have done little in the way of academics. We had to unexpectedly tear down half our house which involved disconnecting and moving our plumbing, electricity, phone line, and propane line since they all came into the part of the house that we tore down. We had to take out the furnace and all the ductwork (we still have no furnace). This has left little time for cracking open the books, since we did all this work ourselves. In the process my kids have learned about wiring, have sweated plumbing pipes, replaced a heating element on a water heater, dug ditches, operated the transit to take elevations for the new septic line, learned how to take down a house safely, and tons and tons of other stuff. I have absolutely no guilt about setting aside the books for now. In addition to all of this--my older son (16) has 2 tractors and 2 pickup trucks that he owns and works on: overhauling the engines, rebuilding the brakes, rewiring the trailor hitch, sandblasting and painting, etc, etc, etc. So, many days (before the house project) his formal lessons were cut shorter than I would like so he can pursue these activities. So, we are academic slackers. Does it bother me? Heck no. I really feel that one never stops learning if one is interested in things. When in his life will he ever have the time to explore his passions if not now? All too soon he will have to find a job, earn a living, whatever. Regardless of the level of academia one has achieved, there are always opportunities to learn--in that one can certainly rise above whatever upbringing they have had. If they chose later on in life to blame their parents, well, then, they just aren't that motivated, are they? I believe that the best thing my husband and I can teach our children is that, if they are willing, they can always learn. My husband is a do-it-yourselfer to the max, yet he has 4 college degrees under his belt. I have a bachelor's, too, and have just taught myself XHTML and CSS in order to make a webpage. Yet, we are not pushing our kids to go to college. How's that for slacking off? So, in answer to the original OP, I would probably say nothing.

My son does this too and one thing that I have found to help him is to have him talk around the question--just start telling me anything at all that he remembers no matter how minute. Getting at the main idea through the back door, so to speak, since one memory can spark another.

My son is doing math, which he does not like, and he said he wants to be a 'mathemagician' so he can make it go away.

If the Adderall does not work for her don't rule out all the stimulants. Each one works a bit differently. I have read that the generic versions can work differently, too, I would use name brand first and go from there. Some kids also do better witht he extended release whereas some do better with the short acting versions. It can really be a lot of trial and error. As far as sleeping goes--a lot of people who are ADHD take a stimulant and it helps them sleep because it quiets their thoughts. Hard to sleep if different thoughts keep racing around your head! I have recommended the Millermom proboard site before: they have many many moms on there who have experience with medication as well as natural remedies.

Your son sounds like mine. Mine struggled and struggled with math and one thing that helped with his memory was Audiblox. He hated using them but they did help in a lot of areas: he could not recognize patterns, could not sequence, could not replicate a pattern, could not predict what would come next, could not memorize. I was using them to help with reading (he could not recognize spelling patterns like 'cat' and 'rat'). At the same time, he could not remember addition or subtraction. However, when we used a portion of the program that addressed long-term memory, he could retain his multiplication facts (that is what they were working on at the time in school--he began to retain addition and subtraction after that). STill, he had a hard time transferring information onto a page and switching back and forth between addition and multiplication (multiplying multiple digits). And, using a calculator did not work for him since he would often transpose numbers when plugging them in or would push X for +. Since he had trouble shifting gears, so to speak, we used the box method for multiplication which is sort of hard to explain but whereby you draw a box and put the numbers to be multiplied along the sides. You end up doing all of the multiplication first then all of the addition instead of constantly switching back and forth with the carrying and all. Anyway, that's a little off topic. Your son might benefit from some memory improving games/programs. Audiblox is fairly inexpensive but, I found it to be effective. Brainware Safari is a computer based program that addresses some of the same issues and is more of a game format. Hang in there. My son was still working on addition and subtraction when we pulled him out in 5th grade. Now he is doing simple algebra and getting it!

Wow! After reading some of the other posts, I feel really, really blessed. Last week we tore down half of our house, had to move all the utilities, had to unexpectedly chop the only working bathtub in half and I have had 4 friends offer the use of their houses--one gave me a key outright, two said come over anytime, one said they were leaving town and come stay in their house if we needed to. My sister, who lives 200 miles away, drove down with blackberry cobbler. This same sister had 2 brain tumors removed last year and a lot of her own stuff to deal with. My parents are both deceased and my husband's parents are in their 80's and half way across the country, but they would help if they lived nearby. We are helpers, ourselves, and don't hesitate to pitch in whenever anyone needs us. I wish I lived closer to some of the posters, because I would love to come help!