Yep, most of our rooms are different colors (and in quite a few rooms, we use two colors per room).

:grouphug: I hope everything is okay!

:grouphug: I hate bee and wasp stings!

Yes, that happened to me once! I thought it was really weird! But it DID hurt!

LOL. It's okay to start in mid-Sept! You'll have a gorgeous new kitchen and you'll be all ready to homeschool in it. Unless you don't homeschool at your kitchen table like I do. Then you might be screwed because you might not want to leave your nice new kitchen. :D

Ours doesn't start until Labor Day but I'm getting antsy, I'm ready to get back into it! :D

Another "it's fine, I would not be offended" post from me. :)

It doesn't bother me. Some of the threads get insanely long and not everyone has time or reads fast enough to want to read 20 or 30 pages of replies, but still wants to answer the question asked by the OP (who is the one who REALLY ought to read all the replies, since they were the one who asked the question or whatever lol). ETA: and I agree with other posters that likely the point of someone saying that is to sort of apologize in advance if they repeat something that was said already.

I am glad that he is okay. So many scary things out there to worry about with kids, no matter how old they are!

Me, too! I'm almost 200 pages in to "A Feast For Crows."

:lol:

No. Once in a while if we're going out together at night I'll put on a little makeup. But I don't normally wear it, don't normally have an interest in it, and he doesn't seem to mind.

Almost 11 y/o DD: "Mom, I have a multiple choice question for you." Me: "Okay, go ahead." DD: "Which of these continents is the only one that doesn't have a McDonald's? A. Arizona...." Me: "Stop. Right. There." !!!! :confused: !!! :lol: Okay apparently we need to have a conversation about continents lol. But what the heck, she knows each of the states and their capitals...so she KNOWS Arizona is a state.... Moments like this don't reflect very well on me as a homeschooler, do they. lol.

My husband is SO non-confrontational. He would rather just not say anything to her or her parents (even though she lives with her parents and he's friendly with her dad) and just not call her and ask her to babysit again. I'd personally like him to tell her that we found it upsetting and inappropriate to hear from our daughter that she had brought a strange guy into our home and around our children without our permission. But he's not going to want to say anything like that (and is also not going to want to risk losing their business at his shop, probably). I don't even know the girl's phone number to say something myself. And don't want to put my husband in an awkward position. So maybe I'll have to let this one go and not ever say anything to her, and just not ask her to babysit again (which is a given). If we ever get another sitter outside of family, which doesn't come up all that often anyway, I guess I will have to tell them up front that they are not allowed to have people in our house without our permission. I guess I just assumed a 19 year old would have enough common sense to know that and wouldn't do so without permission and that I wouldn't have to lay out those kind of "rules" up front. Apparently that would be a false assumption.

Last night we used a babysitter for the first time. She's 19 and her dad was a repeat client of my husband's and they became friendly. The daughter became a repeat client, too. So while I never met her, my husband had quite a few times and was comfortable with her as a babysitter. So last night she watched them from 7:45 til late at night. All seemed well when we got home, kids sleeping, she said no problems, house in order. This morning my almost 11 y/o daughter said that right after Ben went to bed (around 9), a guy came over and was still here when dd went to bed at 10. I'm not happy. She didn't ask, the guy is not someone my husband has met. I won't be asking that girl to babysit again, I don't think that was appropriate! How would you react? Get annoyed? No big deal? Say something to her? Just not ask her to sit again? Say something to the parents? Or what?

I would never be okay with my husband spending time alone with a female "friend." He can have guy friend and we can have couple friends but him hanging out with and/or going out to breakfast with some girl, or something? No way.

Funny! I always love "finding" other Jamie fans! :D

Well, the K curriculum I use won't take more than an hour to an hour and a half. And my son (K) usually wakes up before my daughter (going into 6th). So this fall I plan to start with him, and work with her when I'm done with him. If she is up, I'll have her do something she can do independently while I work with him (such as silent reading or her Teaching Textbooks math or whatever).

Can we talk about hot dogs too, now? Hebrew National or Nathan's are the best. Served on a Martin's potato roll. Topped with French's yellow mustard, sour kraut, and Boar's Head sweet vidalia onions in sauce.... I have SO made myself hungry. No wait, you did this to me! lol.

Yeah, that is cool. :) Thanks for the input, all. I guess we will go with the electric, and get a regular size one. We plan to go with an inexpensive one, too! Probably used online or something. It remains to be seen how long she'll even stick with the lessons, if she'll like them, etc. If she sticks with it long term we can always get her a 'better' one or an acoustic if she wants one somewhere down the road.

I'm curious too if you've actually read it (the OP I mean). They said, and this is a direct quote from their book: "For the under one year old, a small, ten- to twelve-inch long, willowy branch (striped of any knots that might break the skin), about one-eighth of an inch in diameter is sufficient. Sometimes alternatives have to be sought. A one-foot ruler, or its equivalent in a paddle, is a sufficient alternative. For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective." That alone makes me want to vomit. On the subject of a baby who bites while nursing, Michael Pearl said: "My wife did not waste time finding a cure. When the baby bit, she pulled hair (an alternative has to be sought for bald-headed babies)." Other excerpts from the book: "Use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him, then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he has surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring, and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender — no compromise." and "A proper spanking leaves children without breath to complain." These people are horrifying. There is no excuse for them. None.

She's going to start guitar lessons in September. I pictured getting her an acoustic guitar and her taking lessons on that. Today the instructor she is going to see told me on the phone that he recommends an electric guitar for a kid her age. He said that they have a smaller body that is easier for a kid to get their arm around, that the strings are thinner and easier to play, and that she won't need an amp or anything until she gets better and then she can get a small amp if she wants, that they do their lessons 'unplugged' with no amp anyway and so on. When I mentioned this to my husband, he was like "you can hardly even hear an electric guitar if there's no amp!" And then there's the fact that we don't know if we should be buying a "child sized" guitar or regular... my daughter will be 11 in October. What would you go with? Acoustic? Electric? Child-sized? Regular size? Thanks for any advice you can give!

I let my daughter pick out whatever she wants at the library. I don't limit her "fluff" reading. But I do lots and lots of read alouds with her, and many of those are NOT "fluff."

My husband just bought these at the store today but the ones he bought are golden Oreo cookies, and the filling is strawberry and white. They're pretty good!

Lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mayo. Oh, and cheese, of course! Either American or Cheddar. Sometimes I'll go for some specialty burger that has mushrooms and bacon and whatnot. I love burgers. :D