I agree with the voice-over to an extent, but it seems to me that the frequency of the voice-over is dropping as the story unfolds. I think it was a necessary tactic to get the story rolling quickly. I do like how they're using the imaginary scenes, like with Mrs. Fitz, and flashbacks (flash forwards?) with her and Frank, to further tell the story. Maybe as the show progresses, there will be more of those and less of the voice-overs.

yes, I agree, I don't like waiting a week between episodes. I miss those old school mini-series (what's the plural of mini-series, I wonder... mini-serieses?) I remember watching North and South as a kid.... loved it!

I was just trolling the interwebz to find a suitable pic of Jamie in a kilt... I thought sure, given the propensity of kilt-loving here, there'd be more comments and discussion, even if it was just frivolous.

tragic, really, because the kilts... the men.... the men in kilts....

ok, well we're three episodes in and there's no more talk about it? or is there another thread? And am I the only one that thinks Jamie is hot :drool5:

The kids and I watched Big this afternoon and there's a scene where Tom hanks takes the woman's shirt off, and there's the f-bomb and several instances of GD - non of which I had remembered. I kept saying "don't repeat that" to my ds.

I know it wasn't 80's and probably cheesy, but Dream a little Dream, with the Coreys, was filmed in my home town. I used to go downtown where they were filming and even chatting with Corey Haim very briefly. I grew up in Wilmington and remember seeing movies/tv shows being filmed there all the time. Empire Records is one of my faves. Here's my question, though: Where can I rent these awesome movies? I've tried looking for Willow, for example, and haven't had any luck.

My husband travels a lot (USAF) and he has an adapter similar to the link posted above. He travels with a Kindle, ipad, iphone, and laptop (he's quite the tech junkie) and the one adapter he has seems to be enough. I do remember seeing that his also has a USB connection, too. I have no idea where he got it, or what he paid for it, but I would guess Amazon.

I'll play (but this is definitely still a work in progress). Math: Horizons Pre-Alg LA: MCT voyage level, although I suspect we'll move rather quickly up to the Magic Lens level (I forget the name). Dd is very strong in her LA and I'm guessing once she learns how MCT teaches grammar, she'll move pretty quickly. (MCT is new for us, and quite a jump, IMHO, from CLE-LA) Lit: the Searcher package from MCT (Treasure Island, Call of the Wild, Invisible Man) to start, plus somewhere/somehow along the way, develop a reading list for her. She truly devours books. History: Human Odyssey, vol 2. I also have the whole Hakim History of US set, and I'm trying to decide if I want to add US History to the list... Logic: problem studies for one, from RFWP, plus I picked up the book that goes after The Fallacy Detective, but I can't remember right now. PE: a homeschool PE class once a week at the Y and she's a competitive diver, so lots of practice. Extracurricular: she's taking an online programming class for adding mods to MInecraft. This will be ongoing, as we started it in January. At the co-op: Cambridge Latin 1, Math Counts (a real-life math based problem solving class), Physical Science, Dynamic Detectives (another problem solving class), History Mysteries, and cooking for girls (because I cannot yet let go of the "control" of my kitchen). I *think* that's it? Looking at it all typed out, it seems like a lot, but I feel like I have gaps. I'm thinking, health? geography? other stuff?

I'm curious about this- is it a book from the Critical Thinking Co? Japanese sword fighting? How cool is that?!

I thought I might try here to see who might have a suggestion for our "problem". We have a flagstone patio (very rough and natural looking) around our firepit. We had to have a retainer wall installed and when they were finished, they had left us with a gap of mud about 12" from the flagstone we already had to the wall. Well, today, I fixed it with flagstone, small river rocks, and pea gravel. I might indulge myself in a little back patting, since I'd never done anything like it before, but I hate the way it looks right now. Because everything I installed is "new", it's a bright off-white slash against the greenish-brownish-been-out-in-the-elements-for-a-long-time color of the other flagstone. I hate it! I want to dump mud and dirt all over it, but then it'll never clean up quite right. So, if this were your project, what would you do? Leave it to the elements to color, even if it takes years? Make buckets of muddy water to pour over it in an attempt to darken it a little bit? Dump dirt and mud over it and let the rain wash it off (which is what the guys did when they were building the wall - piled the dirt on the flagstone as they were building the wall. That area still hasn't completely recovered yet, and it's been over a month). Yeah, I know, #firstworldproblems

My son just recently had one, and I tried the duct tape, but it wouldn't stay in place on the bottom of his foot. I bought the Compound W for planters warts and it worked for us.

I can't imagine how difficult this must have been. I was a receptionist for years at an animal hospital, and we would almost always drop what we were doing for euthanasia appointments, for the very reason that it's difficult on the families and often the vet staff (especially if it was a long-standing client). This was usually true even if there were emergencies, but then we always had at least 2 vets on staff all day. Even if the techs and assistants were busy, there were several of us behind the desk who were able to go to the exam room and help with the euthanasias. I would definitely bring up your concerns to the vet or practice manager. There are often communication breakdowns between the front and back, but to wait so long for something so difficult? That's not ok.

^^This! I just finished a series by Ilsa Bick (the Ashes trilogy) that I borrowed from the library. It's labeled as a YA horror series, but there's no way I'd let dd read it (she's read the HG, Divergent, and Legend series). It's a post-apocalyptic zombie-esque series, but it has an interested twist and even though it follows a plot formula (like so many) there's just enough of a twist that it kept me reading. I had to laugh about the several comments on GoT. I read the first three or four, but got stuck because it was so convoluted with all the different characters and sub-plots that I just couldn't keep up. Now I just watch the series. Maybe once the series is over, I'll go back to the books. By then, hopefully the author will have finished the series. I remember reading Dune in high school, and trying to finish the series. I can't remember how far I got, but I never finished the last book I started. It just got too far out there...

I second what the PP said about the chlorinated pools. My dd dives at the local university and at one of the college dive teams' practices, a diver grazed his head on the platform. On a side note, can I just tell you how I cringed???? Anyway, when he got out of the water and laid down on the back board, there was blood everywhere because of the water spreading it out. Obviously practice stopped for a while, but once they whisked him off, they washed off the platform where he was laying (with pool water) and resumed practice. There's so much chlorine in those pools, there's really no way any bacteria or viruses could survive.

I tried to get my dd to read it (it was one of my faves growing up; also White Fang) but she couldn't finish it for the very reason I bolded. Of course, this was a few years ago, so I may have her read it again next year. She'll fight me on it, but I really think it's worth the reading.

Honestly, we're big Rick Riodan fans in our house. We've listened to several of his series in the car. Also the 39 Clues series is very well done. It ties in a lot of history and geography in the story lines.

I had posted this in the middle school forum and someone had suggested I ask here. Has anyone used the whole program with success? Or at least a large part of the program? I'm thinking of switching my rising 7th grader to MCT but it's so totally different from what I (we) have done in the past, I'm less than confident with what the results would be. MCT users, did you find that you needed to supplement with anything? Is it a solid program as a whole? Were/are your students ready and successful for higher grades/college? Thanks so much!

I've recently joined the RFWP forum, but haven't really seen what I was looking for in this respect. Excuse my ignorance, but could you expand on your last comment? I'm not familiar with Spark Notes, but I do remember hearing Kern talk about dissecting literature - are you saying that lit should be taught with Spark Notes analysis or without?

We have lots of people in this area with tvs outside, either on covered porches/decks or screened in porches. I think they're used mostly for football season, tho. I have a neighbor, in fact, who has a big tv (not as big as 60" tho) set up in their outdoor entertainment area - which is pretty swanky by the way - but we're far enough away it doesn't bother us. They're also pretty considerate to call up to our house to let us know if they're having an outdoor party of some kind. I'm quite certain they've invested quite a bit of money in their back yard and might feel a little put-off by someone complaining about the noise; however, as previous posters have said, they may be genuinely clueless as to how loud it is. You might even approach it as a "wow, you really have a nice set-up! I hope you don't mind us sitting over here in our yard and watching tv with you, do you?" They may find it funny and you can joke your way into letting them know that even after 8:00, your kids can still see/hear the tv and maybe they can just keep that in mind for when they are choosing what to watch (FWIW, we love Game of Thrones). I also like the idea of suggesting speakers near the hot tub. As for screening trees, there are cypress (?) trees that grow really fast and offer good visual screening, but sadly, it may not do much for noise. Good luck with this. It isn't a good situation to be in.

We're starting SOTW 3 this fall - I will be using this idea :)

:lurk5:

I used to be a consultant, so I have a well stocked TPC kitchen and the things I go to all the time are spatulas, the batter bowls (both sizes), cutting board with the measuring cup, and stoneware. I also love my knives. Oddly, I can't remember what they call them, but they are from the nicer line. I also have the stainless cookware, but that's expensive. I wouldn't have it if I hadn't sold the products. I'd say the newest piece that I have that I'm surprised at how much I use is the stoneware microwave egg cooker. It makes a perfect egg for bagel sandwiches.

this could have been my post.

Thank goodness! I just hope we survive the next 7 years :scared: