Be prepared and have alternate snacks available. Nuts are great and very portable. You could bring other yummy treats to keep in the breakroom fridge - cheese, deviled eggs. It's hard to feel deprived if you are enjoying delicious wholesome food!

Chiming in to show support. I've been off sugar completely for about 15 months. The first two weeks were the hardest for me so keep in mind that it gets easier. If you continue to stick with it long term, the cravings typically fade away. As mentioned, be sure to read labels on anything that you plan to eat, unless you will be preparing everything from scratch from whole foods. They put sugar or other sweeteners in almost all packaged products. It ended up easier for me to just stop eating almost anything packaged. Good luck!

Finish the basement bathroom and move the boys to the basement. DH gets one of their old rooms as his space, you get one for your space. Everyone wins.

I only have experience in Tennessee but my DD was able to start taking dual enrollment courses (to be clear- courses offered at the community college that would count as credit towards both our homeschooled high school and college) before her junior year in high school. Yes, the state grant didn't kick in until junior year, but she was still considered dual enrollment (self pay) before that. This is up to the school to define the type of student. As long as the courses taken as a "non-degree special student" provide college credit on the transcript, I don't really see a possible downside. You may want to look ahead to possible colleges/universities of interest to be sure that there isn't a cap on the number of credits entering freshman are allowed before they are considered transfer students. The ones we looked at in Tennessee didn't have a cap as long as all the credits were earned before high school graduation. The reason this could be important is that there are many more scholarships open to freshmen. For what it is worth, the first course my DD took was a college study type course. It was excellent and a great way to begin. Is there any way your DD could take it live on campus? It makes a great transition to campus courses and DD's forced the students to visit the various college resources as part of the course: tutoring center, advising center, library, computing lab, testing center, etc. I think you would losing the main advantages by taking it online.

One of my DDs is taking an online course in computer science offered to high school students by Purdue University. It is being offered free, which still stuns me, and is covering the same material that is covered in their first semester computer science course but stretched over two semesters for the high school students. The lecture is a video recording but they have quite a few people (at least one instructor and I believe some grad students as well as undergrads who have had the course and done well) signed up to provide assistance to students as they need it through a message board system. The lectures don't always cover everything a student needs to know to successfully complete the assignments but DD is getting all the support she needs from the message board support. I've been impressed so far. No idea if this is offered every year but we will definitely be keeping our eyes open in case a follow up course is offered.

Yes, I think this is key. DD described the exam questions as being similar to problems they worked in class but each problem had a twist. Anyone who was relying on memorizing the exact steps to solve problems was lost. The actual math was simple enough but you had to have a true understanding how to apply it in the slightly novel problems presented. Congrats to all the successful student stories! Love to hear these.

DD recently took an exam in her engineering science course. The instructor was disappointed in how the class performed on the test, with a class average score of 65%. DD not only finished the exam earlier than anyone else, she scored a 96. We used many of the homeschool resources that folks on TWTM consider "light" or "non-rigorous." It's gratifying to see that DD was well prepared for her college courses after all!

DD attended her CC as Edward Elric. (pics added)

Diploma. It doesn't ask if you will get a diploma from the state. Just issue one from your homeschool.

I followed the common pattern of slowly putting on weight over a couple decades. I was finally unhappy with the situation and starting to have other health concerns related to my weight (snoring, increasing blood pressure, fasting blood glucose in the pre-diabetes range, etc.) I started just over 2 years ago by giving up all sugary drinks (sodas, sweet tea, juice, etc.). I was a big soft drink consumer and this step was HARD. I was sick with almost flu-like symptoms. It took 2 weeks to start feeling better. This very board was there for me - gave me encouragement to stick with it when I was feeling so bad. I got used to drinking water, which never tasted very good before, but eventually started tasting pretty good when it was the only thing I was drinking. I've since added coffee but still nothing sweetened to drink.That's about all I changed in the first year, in addition to cutting back on eating out, and lost close to 25 pounds in the first 6 months. I plateaued for several months at this point, which I think actually helped my body to acclimatize to a lower weight. I definitely wanted to avoid the lose and re-gain syndrome. I read a LOT on ways of eating and, knowing that I wanted to find a way to eat that I could sustain indefinitely, selected one that made sense to me. I do not think there is only one "right" way to eat so what worked for me could be completely wrong for you. I went with a Primal influenced low-carb-high-fat way of eating. This resulted in a sudden jump start to my weight loss which soon slowed to about a pound a week, which then slowed to a pound every couple of weeks, and then slowed again. I wasn't in a hurry and was satisfied if I seemed to be going in the right direction every month. I'm now at the weight I was when I graduated college and got married. I naturally eat less than I used to, mostly because the high-fat content of my diet is so satiating. I wouldn't be able to sustain this way of eating if I felt like I had to go hungry. My blood pressure is well within normal range, my fasting blood glucose is low-normal, and I no longer snore. I sleep better, move easier, and feel healthier. This board has provided me with so much encouragement and support in lots of areas so I wanted to share my success story.

It's good that you are looking into the possibilities of how to find an affordable college for your student. Unfortunately, if the calculators are showing a family contribution of about $10K, your family is likely outside the range of federal financial aid (mainly the Pell grant). With a good but not outstanding student, merit aid is not very likely either, outside of some possible small scholarships from the school to entice the student to attend. Are any 4-year schools within commuting distance? Living at home is one clear way to save significant costs. Also consider a community college within commuting distance for the first 2 years. This can be a tremendous savings for a student who isn't expected to get large merit scholarships from the 4-year schools.

Really enjoyed the conceptual chemistry videos by the author, John Suchoki. He has a very clear love for the subject that shines through.

I've been looking at a similar scholarship possibility for DD except that it has a one to one committment (one year of employment with the agency for each year of tuition covered). She's currently at a community college with the tuition covered by a state program so if she decides to pursue the scholarship, it would be only for the last 2 years at a university. Two years is MUCH easier to commit to a work agreement and provides an excellent experience base to then go wherever the student wants. I'd be more hesitant with a 6-year work commitment. What if the student really doesn't like the work, the organization, or the work location? Six years is a LONG time to barely endure a situation.

We are approaching history a bit differently. Since people remember information that interests them, I'm having DD pick and choose which history chapters to read. She then summarizes in writing what she found interesting.

Note that The Fallacy Detective uses a basic assumption that a Christian worldview equals fact/truth. This may be what you are looking for but if not, it wouldn't work at all.

I recently pondered the same question as DD15 wanted to be able to look up information in a bible. What I did is browse a used bookstore to find a helpful looking bible index and concordance and then also bought the bible edition that it referred to.

I'm a parent to a college student. For her current courses - Calculus - option of doing web based homework that is auto graded and counts towards final grade OR doing paper based homework that is discussed and does not count towards final grade. This is the first time the instructor has used this online system (Launchpad?) and it has some serious kinks. Most of the students have abandoned it because it doesn't always accept valid answers. Computer Science - in class assignments are not graded, longer labs are turned in electronically and printed out and turned in and graded by instructor. Engineering Science (i.e., physics) - Web based homework that is auto graded. This system seems to work much better than the math one. In addition to having the graded problems, it also offers practice problems that can be repeated as many times as needed and can also provide hints to the solution as well as the full solution. The practice problems are not graded. The lab portion of this course requires lab reports on paper and graded by lab instructor.

Thanks, everyone! I think you are right that they would like the students to dress a bit better than ripped jeans, shorts, or flip flops.

DD was invited to join an honor society at her community college. Induction ceremony is next weekend and the students were directed to come dressed in "business casual." DD is considering wearing a colorful patterned skirt with a matching solid polo top OR A black skirt with a solid red sweater top I'm never really sure what is meant by business casual. Would one of these outfits better meet business casual?

Here's the official formula: http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/090214EFCFormulaGuide1516.pdf

The above is correct, to my understanding. Tn Promise is actually good for 5 semesters, so a little longer than 2 years.

This!! And it is not just Target. I've commented on the awful noise to a couple of the stores. I understand the need to make a beep or something to remind the shopper to take their card but yikes. I do not know why we are not going to chip and pin. Chip and signature (or chip and nothing for totals under a certain price) certainly is short-changing the security options.

The FAFSA EFC is only used to determine if you are eligible for Federal aid (Pell Grant, subsidized student loans, Perkins loans). It is NOT an estimate of what your family can be expected to pay. Confusing, I know, because the acronym EFC makes it sound like it is what your family would be expected to contribute. Almost always, you will be expected to pay MORE than the FAFSA EFC. The calculators on the college websites may be fairly accurate if you have regular wage-earning jobs, but are often not up-do-date with the latest tuition fee increases. If these are the calculators that are giving you a higher amount, this is going to be more accurate for out-of-pocket costs than the FAFSA EFC.

My introverted homebody is currently thriving at the local community college. By the time she finishes there, I think she will be ready to tackle a large state school. The CC has much smaller class sizes than the intro courses at the state universities and by the time she transfers as a junior, the upper level classes at the universities will be much smaller than the intro courses. Just offering another possible option.

I think the tricky part comes as we try to provide career guidance to someone else. No matter how well we think we know them, we can't really predict what they will ultimately be successful at and enjoy. I was talking to someone recently about this. He and his wife are both engineers and guided their children to pursue a STEM career. The first son did this, launched successfully, and is satisified with his career. The second son expressed unhappiness with academics and kept saying that he wanted to be a mechanic. His parents dismissed this as nonsense because he had never shown a desire to tinker with mechanical things and had never even attempted to change his own oil. Eventually, this son dropped out of university and took a job at a Jiffy Lube place to support himself and started taking courses in mechanics. He is now a mechanic and very happy.