My children transitioned to a charter school last year as an eighth and seventh grader, and the only real difficulty they faced that I would attribute to homeschooling was in the area of what I guess I'd call "study skills." How much do I need to study for this test? How far in advance should I start this project? How do I take notes in class? Why can't I find that quiz I need to study for the next test? (Um, maybe because your backpack is A COMPLETE MESS.) Why didn't I remember to do my homework? (Perhaps writing the page number ON YOUR HAND isn't the best choice.) Stuff like that. I realize now that I had micromanaged their school days so much that I hadn't given them any room to develop these skills. It made for a fairly smooth-running homeschool, but it presented them with some challenges when they went to PS. My daughter took about six weeks to figure it all out (except for the messy backpack :glare:) and after that it was pretty smooth sailing for her. My ADD son, however, managed to go the whole year without ever REALLY getting it :banghead:. 99% of the unacceptable grades he received this year were due to his own irresponsibility/disorganization/forgetfulness, etc. He's starting high school in a few weeks, and I've spent the summer working through a study skills book with him and trying to teach explicitly some of these things that just don't come naturally to him. He has been less than enthusiastic about it (to say the very least) but maybe he'll remember something useful. Hope springs eternal! Since your DC are younger, I don't know if this will be helpful to you, but it's really the only thing I could think of that was a noticeable hurdle for my kids. I wish you and your kiddos the best of luck during whatever changes lie ahead. Hang in there! SBP

I love a good day thrifting!!! Congratulations :) SBP

:iagree: And when I couldn't afford to buy new, I bought DD things on Ebay. I found great deals on Kelly's Kids outfits there, I remember, which were cute, comfortable, and wore like iron. I also shopped the Gymboree sale rack and the Lands End overstocks/clearance items. And Belk department stores (maybe just here in the South?) had a store brand for kids (J. Khaki, I think) that was great for basics - jeans, turtlenecks, sweaters, etc. But overall, shopping for little girls is a giant pain in the behind. I can go into practically any store in the world and outfit my son in fifteen minutes. With my daughter, not so much. And now that she's old enough to have really strong opinions of her own, it's even harder. Thank goodness for school uniforms.... Good luck! SBP

This is pretty much my take on it. My DH doesn't keep our schedule in his memory either. I think his brain gets so immersed in his work stuff that it can't keep up with MY stuff too. Online calendar + smartphones really solved that problem for us. As long as I keep the calendar up to date, he's pretty good about glancing at it once a day or so and keeping up with what we're all doing. SBP

Am a little embarrassed that after 12 years here, I had to look at a map to figure out what side of Greenville I lived on... :o We were encouraged to look east/southeast when we moved here. We settled in Simpsonville, which is on the south side and has grown tremendously just in the time we've been here. I think you said you wanted acreage, and it's certainly available in the Simpsonville area, but it would be more like farmland, whereas on the north side of Greenville, you could get something with mountain views. Some of your decision might revolve around where your DH will be working, of course, and how long he wants his commute to be. I'm a little baffled about the crime thing. I'm sure we have some, but I've never gotten the impression it was worse than anywhere else, and it seems a whole lot less than where we came from. Granted, I live in the suburbs, but one of the things we love about Greenville is that we can take the family downtown at night and walk around and feel totally safe. The city has really gone all out to make the downtown area, at least, very family friendly. That's a hard question, and one I've never really thought about. When we moved here, we were advised by several people to look in Simpsonville, Mauldin, Greer, and the Pelham Road area of Greenville. It is certainly possible that the advice would be different now than it was then, but I think we could have been happy in any of those areas. There are many nice neighborhoods in each and good proximity to "stuff" - shopping, doctors, churches, libraries, etc. I'm certain there are other nice areas, too, that I'm not mentioning just because I haven't had occasion to get very familiar with them. If we moved now, however, we would probably stay in the "Golden Strip" area (Simpsonville/Mauldin/Fountain Inn) just because we're pretty plugged in here. With regard to the library system, I think it compares very favorably to most. A few years back, they did limit the number of books you can reserve (10 now I think?) which was traumatic when I was trying to coordinate grammar-stage books with WTM history studies. They also cut the amount of time you could keep books out, which has cost me a zillion dollars in library fines. I think the problem in both cases is me, though, not being organized enough, rather than a problem with the library! Hope this helps :) SBP

LOL! Talk about things I never would have thought to mention about the Upstate... Yes, we do have black widows. I've seen a couple over the years when cleaning my garage, and one near the front porch one time. We try not to leave shoes out in the garage, but otherwise, it's not much of an issue, really. They're very keep-to-themselves spiders and easy to kill if you do happen to see one. Frankly, the eleventy million palmetto bugs around here bother me way, way worse Seriously, at night, my back deck is like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie... But I don't want to scare you away! We moved to the Greenville area 12.5 years ago and have absolutely LOVED it here. I agree with all the good things that have been said - weather, proximity to beach and mountains, cost of living, lovely downtown, homeschool-friendly, parks, museums, a nice little zoo, etc. It's truly been a fabulous place to raise our family. I don't have any first-hand information about the regular public school system, but my children have just started at one of the charter schools in Greenville, and so far we are very pleased. We hope that they will get into one of the charter high schools as well. So that's an option you might consider, too. Good luck to those who are considering moves :) SBP

I get mine cut every six weeks because that's how often I have to go in for color. Now that I'm wearing it a bit longer, I don't have to go that often to maintain the style, but the gray bothers me enough at this point that it's worth the time and money to me to keep it at bay. She always trims it up a bit after she does color, so... every six weeks it is :) SBP

:iagree::iagree::iagree: My ADD kid would have been in so much trouble when he got home that any embarrassment suffered at the teacher's hands would have paled into insignificance. I can't even imagine asking the teacher for an apology in that situation. SBP

The French Countryside is the same pattern as the Antique White, but is stonewear instead of china. I read the reviews of both exhaustively before I bought and I left with the impression that the French Countryside is going to chip more easily (as most stonewear does in my experience) which took it out of the running for me. I was SO sick of trying to set the table for guests and having to pick and choose the not-so-chipped plates for the company. Plus, once it chips, it tends to lose its microwave resistance. The china is lighter weight but actually sturdier. It won't stand up to the tile floor either, though ;). Good luck!

I'm 5'7", and my DH is 5'9". I think my son outgrew me at 12. Last winter, right after he turned 13, he outgrew his Dad. He's now taller than everyone in our extended families as well, though not quite as tall as my dad was in his prime. I expect he'll be a little over 6 feet when it's all said and done. It's still weird looking up to him, though, and DH does this funny standing-on-tiptoes thing whenever they pose for a picture together :D. SBP

I have to put in a plug for the Mikasa Antique White! I switched to this last fall, and I absolutely, totally adore it. I did investigate Fiesta at the same time and considered it because I really wanted durability, and Fiesta seems highly rated for that, but in the end, the elegant simplicity of the Antique White was just more to my taste. I love that it can be dressed up or dressed down, depending on how I accessorize the table. I love that it's sturdy, chip resistant, and microwave and dishwasher safe. I love that it will never go out of style or "not match" whatever decor I have in the kitchen or dining room. I love that there are lots of fun extra serving and accessory pieces in that pattern that I can add in over time. And maybe it's just one of my weirdnesses, but after I bought these dishes, I realized that food just looks better/more appealing to me on a white plate, so I love it for that reason too. In the year that I've had it, I've seen no chips at all (unprecedented around here) and only broken one bowl, when I dropped a heavy mug on it. I've added a few extra pieces whenever Amazon offers free shipping on them (which they don't always, but when they do, it's a nice way to fill out an order when I'm not quite to the $25 point) and plan to continue doing so. I have my eye on the tall cappuccino mugs at the moment... ;) Anyway, you might have already made your decision, and I'm sure you can't go wrong either way, but I did want to put in my two cents on the Antique White pattern. I've thoroughly enjoyed it :) SBP

I adored the Harry Potter series. DH loved the books, too. Our son read through book 4 and then wasn't interested enough to continue (:001_huh:). Our daughter insisted she wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. I was deeply grieved, and I occasionally wondered if they were maybe switched at birth and somewhere out there my REAL kids had their noses buried in the HP books. (I kid... I kid! Um, mostly.) And then this summer, mostly because all her friends were going to see the final HP movie in the theater, and she wasn't allowed to because we have a strict you-have-to-read-the-book-before-you-see-the-movie rule, my DD picked up the first Harry Potter...and then the second...and then the third...and so on and so on until she'd read the whole series in about a two week period. I'm not sure she slept, ate, showered or groomed herself during that period of time, but she sure enough did some reading. And we talked about the books and had inside HP jokes and then watched the movies together... and it was all as wonderful as I'd always dreamed. BUT... my DD is 12, and yours is 8. Would I let my kid read the books? Obviously, yes. But with an 8 year old, I'd concur with others who said to stop at Book 4, or maybe even Book 3, until she's a bit older. If you have the time, I'd also suggest you pre-read them or read them along with her. There certainly are those who object to the HP series on various grounds, and I do respect that even if I don't feel the same way. You're the best one to judge what's best for your family :). Best, SBP

We used to, until they all went to live at Goodwill, along with about a zillion OTHER mugs that we didn't need. Mugs seem to be one of those household items that reproduce like rabbits in the kitchen cabinet. I have a favorite, hubby has a favorite, DD has a favorite, & DS doesn't generally use mugs. Yes, occasionally I have friends over for coffee, so I like to have a few that match my everyday china and don't have chips in them. So I kept about seven mugs and sent the rest to bless someone else. Or overcrowd their cabinets. Whichever. :D With regard to Christmas and other holidays, I use solid white (everyday china) or ivory (special-occasion china) mugs/teacups and accessorize with placemats, centerpieces, and other decor for the specific season. Much simpler and less space-consuming, IMO, and easier/cheaper to change the look as my tastes/interests change. SBP

We have one, and that's one too many in my opinion. I'm not much of a cat lover. He's mostly outdoor, but he can come in if he wants to. When it's cold, we tend to see more of him. When the weather is nice, he'd rather be out. SBP

This wireless fence is what worked for us. It will not give you five acres of coverage, though, or anything close to that. I think it's about a half acre, but I have heard of someone using two boxes to extend the coverage. The things we like about it are: 1) no wires to bury, 2) we can take it with us when we travel or if we ever move, 3) the dog can't just jump across the wire. If she leaves the range of the box, it will keep correcting her until she comes back. Our dog trained on it in one day, and years later she still won't cross that line in the yard. We consider it some of the best money we've ever spent. Good luck finding a solution that works for you! SBP

I started WW (again) last spring. My first week was so-so - 2 lbs, but like you, I remembered the glory days of losing 5 or so the first week of any new diet, so 2 lbs wasn't exactly thrilling. My second week was only 1 lb, and I was really annoyed and pretty much where you are now. It did get better. I now tend to lose a little, and a little, and then do what I call a "weight dump" about once a month where I inexplicably drop 3-4 pounds in a week, despite doing nothing differently that week. But there's no getting around the fact that it's much harder this time (at 41) than it's ever been before. In a way though, I'm wondering if that's maybe for the best - if maybe the fact that it's harder will encourage me to keep it off this time rather than just enjoying a healthy weight for a while and then putting it all back on (plus a few...) after a few months, years, or whatever. Maybe it needs to be harder for me to take it seriously. And I'm not saying this is your problem at all, but I do think it's normal for it to get harder to lose weight the older we get. I hope you'll hang in there for a while longer; I haven't lost two pounds per week, but I've averaged almost that and dropped 2 sizes since last spring. WW does work; it just works a bit differently (for me anyway) than it used to :). Good luck to you! SBP

I haven't read all the replies, but I'm tempted to say just (1) declutter, (2) declutter, (3) declutter :) That really is the most important thing for me. If I don't need it/haven't used it in a few months, it goes. Having fewer things makes organization SO much easier. One of my favorite inexpensive organizational items, though, are the over the door shoe holders (the kind with the clear vinyl pockets.) Our bathrooms are fairly small, so I have one of these in my closet and use it to store all the various medications/first aid supplies. Each family member has a pocket for their personal medications, and then the rest are organized according to what they're for - cough, cold, fever reducers, antacids/stomach relief, band-aids etc. It's so easy to see what we have, and easy, too, to go through once every few months and throw out things that are out of date. No more drawers crammed with icky medicines, and no more buying things I already have but can't find. I have another one out in the garage that holds my various painting/DIY project supplies - brushes, putty knives, spackle, caulk, tape measures, level, plastic gloves, etc. It's a great way to corral all those smaller items and make use of vertical space while still keeping the items visible and easy to find. The kids each have one in their rooms, and they've used them for different things over the years (but seldom for shoes, oddly enough). My son kept his favorite action figures in his when he was younger, and my daughter now keeps accessories, mostly, in hers. It's a great way to store gloves, belts, tights, and even some jewelry. Not sure I can think of a number three, but I'm looking forward to reading through this thread. I love organizational tips :) SBP ETA: We switched from the Google calendar to Cozi, but I absolutely agree that online calendars are one of the best inventions EVER. Now I can't remember how I functioned without one.

Yay for rescued Labradoodles! Don't know what we'd do without ours :). I agree with everything Mama Geek said. I think that any food change can cause loose stools in a dog, so I would worry about that, but just give him a little time to adjust. In our house, the wet stuff is just for the occasional treat. As long as he's eating well and enthusiastically, I'd switch him to just dry food and water, twice a day. (I know you can feed just once a day, but personally, I'd be miserable if I could only eat once a day, so I can't bring myself to do it to my dog!) My Doodle was about 45 pounds when we got her as a one-year-old rescue. She's now almost five, and she's held steady at about 55 pounds for the last few years, which seems to be a healthy adult weight for her. We feed 1.5 cups of dry food twice a day, and a few dog biscuits here and there for treats, and we haven't had any trouble with weight issues. If you wind up keeping him, I'd recommend taking him to a groomer to have his coat shaped up, at least this first time. Then you can "start fresh" and decide how long you want his hair to be. Our sweet girl was so matted from being on the street that she had to be shaved almost down to the skin, but now we have her clipped about three times a year, and that keeps her coat manageable for me. (Too long, and I start to see matting and a little bit of shedding, especially in the summer.) But Labradoodle coats vary widely, so yours might need more grooming, or less, or none in the future. FWIW, doing it myself is not an option with this dog. I tried one time to use the clippers on her, and she went bananas. It would have taken the entire family to hold her down, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I decided then and there that the groomer earns every penny we pay her! Our dog is an F1 (half lab/half poodle) and when we brush her (not as often as we should) we use the wire "slicker brush" on her. It pulls out the loose undercoat and keeps the hair from matting. Good luck with Bear! It sounds like he's lucky to have found you :) SBP

I wouldn't recommend piling the stuff in an out-of-the-way place (garage, basement, spare room, etc.) because of the chance that that big pile will still be there a year from now. We are fortunate to have a Goodwill really nearby and on my way to many of my kids' activities, so when I declutter, the stuff goes straight to the back of my car, and the next time I go by Goodwill, it gets dropped off. If your Goodwill/Salvation Army/Other Thrift Store is farther, you might just plan a "Thrift Store Day" each week and empty out whatever you've accumulated in your car on that day. I play the "what if" game sometimes, too - especially with books, which are really hard for me to part with - but once you get started decluttering, it becomes almost a game and can really be fun. And the greater ease of housekeeping/finding things is SO worth it. I hope you find a system that works for you :). SBP

We love our PetSafe Wireless fence. Our Labradoodle was fully trained within a day or two and has not attempted to cross the fence line in the three years since. She was a year old when we got her, and it might take a bit longer with a young pup, but maybe not. One of my favorite things about it is that we can take the fence with us when we travel. We spend a good bit of time at my parents' beach house, which doesn't have a fenced yard, but with the wireless fence I just plug it in when we get there and never have to worry about her wandering. The batteries are a bit of a pain - expensive and only last 6 weeks or so, but at home, she's so well-trained that she doesn't even have to wear the collar anymore; nothing she's ever seen has tempted her to cross that invisible line. My sister and parents were so impressed that they both have the PetSafe fences now as well, and they've had similar results with their dogs (Boykin Spaniel & Llhasa Apso). Quick and apparently permanent training. Good luck finding the right solution for your little one :) SBP

:iagree: I third the BBC version. SBP

I love your kid! :smilielol5: Yes, you definitely should have gotten the puppy. SBP

Agreed. My biggest concern, actually, would be that any pet owners who are that irresponsible are probably also not getting the dog proper vet care. Even if it seemed sweet, I wouldn't want that dog anywhere near my kids or my dogs, for fear of parasites, at the very least. Truly, I think the kindest thing you can do for the dog at this point is to call animal control and hope that it will be successfully re-homed. If you have a good enough relationship with your neighbors, you could certainly try telling them first, but if they didn't make some effort to keep the dog on their property, I'd definitely have him picked up. ETA: Oops. I just read that Animal Control wasn't an option for you. Bummer. Well, if it were me, I'd probably pay the $10 shelter fee and hope it would give the dog a chance at a life. It's rotten that you're in that position, but it's way cheaper than keeping another dog! I know I wouldn't be able to look at a hungry dog on my porch for long before I'd be feeding it. What a sad situation! So sorry you're having to deal with it. SBP

We test.... ...on the theory that every standardized test prepares you a little bit for the next one. We hope and anticipate that our children will attend college, and we believe that performing well on standardized tests will increase their college opportunities as well as their opportunities for any further studies in which they might have an interest. ...so that my husband, who is pretty uninvolved in the day-to-day business of homeschooling, will have an annual "progress report". He sees that the children are at or above grade level in everything, and he is happy enough to keep signing the checks and leave me to worry about the details. (This is definitely not a slam, btw. He supports me absolutely, encourages me when I need it, and acts as the "principal" when one of the kids needs extra discipline for something school related. But it works for both of us for me to be in charge of the day-to-day aspects of homeschooling.) ...so that when people ask, "Do you test?" - which, of course, is code for, "Are you sure they're actually learning anything?" - I can say "yes" and move the conversation in another direction. I know I could use that as a soapbox opportunity, but I'm not really wired that way, especially with well-intentioned friends. Originally, I thought that I'd get a lot of information from the tests - that it would show me weaknesses and I could make adjustments accordingly. Usually, however, the tests show me exactly what I already knew from teaching these children day in and day out. One exception was the year they both scored rather low (in comparison to their other LA areas) on the Language Mechanics section of the test. I added Daily Grams to the schedule for the next two years, and the scores in that area shot up gratifyingly. So I do use the tests a little, in that if I notice something that seems out of step with the rest of their abilities, I try to address that area more directly in the next year. I don't, however, do lots of "test prep" or "teach to the test" - not that I'd even know how to do that if I wanted to. It's just a couple of days of testing (which my kids kind of enjoy, for some weird reason) and then it's back to our regularly scheduled homeschool. SBP

:iagree: