One reason why I would want my kids to be familiar with PP is that it was such a common classic for so long. For a couple of hundred years there, in England and America, it was often the only book besides a Bible that a Protestant family owned. Just about everyone had read it over and over--for one thing, it was one of the very few books besides the Bible one could read on the Sabbath, so it was Sunday entertainment for generations of children. It was such an intrinsic part of the lives of so many ordinary people that I think it's important to know something about it.

My daughter likes them. They're not amazing or anything, but they're OK. I'm a bit annoyed at them--nowadays they take what would have been one book and divide it into 2 or 3 to make twice the money off them.

I suppose this comes out of a situation where most of the kids do not have a love of reading and do not read for pleasure at any time, and the teacher is trying to encourage that love by playing catch-up on things they should have already learned. Of course, parents and elementary schools ought to foster that love of reading, but they often don't. More and more (when I work as a librarian), I see a lot of kids who never get to choose their reading. Their schools do Accelerated Reader or a similar program (oh how I hate AR) and give them lists of approved titles. Most of those books are already checked out, but they have to find one from the list. That neat-looking book they want to read isn't on the list and there's no time to read more than one, so no dice. Then, when they find a book from the list that they don't want and have to read, they have to take a test afterwards--and AR is supposed to make kids love reading! :banghead: These same kids are brought in by their parents who want to choose all their reading and push them towards challenging books. Now, I am all for reading as much as possible and good challenging books, but it is simply not appropriate to try to make your 3rd grader who is clearly not enthused about this ("but he reads at a 4th-grade level!") read Treasure Island. For pity's sake, please let him pick his own books to read! Do Treasure Island as a read-aloud, that would be wonderful! Yes, high-school students should be reading their own choices on their own time and learning to read serious literature at school. But that pre-supposes that the students have already had years of choosing their own books, enjoying what they read, and keeping up with a habit of leisure reading along with school. And relatively few kids are allowed that gift at a young age, when it is best developed. When faced with a classroom full of kids who can read but don't particularly care to, I have to say that I think the love of reading should come before delving into serious literature--and indeed that the one is a necessary foundation to the other. I suppse, then, that teachers who do this are doing remedial teaching on kids who have never learned something that they ought to have learned long ago.

I'm not really sure. I'd like to be a forever homeschooler, but I can't tell the future and I would put my children's needs before my desire to homeschool. Certainly we plan to homeschool through 8th grade; high school is the earliest time that I would consider sending them to school.

BTW Pamela, this is a favorite story of women who are looking to make changes as you are: When Queens Ride By. Actual real 30's story! I'm not entirely sure about it myself, but I think I can take some good lessons from it despite my somewhat mixed feelings.

There seems to be a spectrum. But it is not all that uncommon for someone to develop the problem as they get older. My in-laws raised 6 children in a small, slightly messy and chaotic, but normal home. Over the past 10 years they have slowly been turning into hoarders. Yes, they are older and not as spry, but they also refuse all help and have a hard time letting go of anything, even junk mail. Ill health and an inability to manage other areas of life often get intertwined with this problem, and it's a knotty tangle. Something like flylady, which not meant to deal with mental issues like this, is not effective. It's a really difficult issue to solve all the way around.

This is a really difficult issue and it's a mental illness, as others have said. You might like to look at Squalor Survivors, esp. the "It's not me" page.

OK, here are a few. Just follow the sidebar links to more. Casey's elegant musics Gertie's new blog for better sewing Couture Allure--Go find the fun posts from a couple of weeks back on how to walk, sit, get out of a car gracefully

Certainly that quiz looked much more like the life of a well-off woman with help around the house--a movie wife more than a Dust Bowl wife. But that's also what you would get in an advice book! Looking at dress patterns and style magazines of the day, not at actual photos of Okies, will give you that flavor as well. (My family were Okies, and my great-grandmother ran a chuck wagon and kept her family in a tent, so don't think I'm dissing anyone. But I'm pretty sure Bertha would have loved to be able to dress nicely for breakfast.)

I, personally, would not recommend Fascinating Womanhood. IMO that book espouses a very childish, manipulative way of behavior. (I didn't realize it was still in print; I saw an ancient copy years ago.) If you're interested in working on being more feminine and pretty--and I would add dignified to that list--there are tons of resources, and even a whole lot of blogs on vintage style and how to sew and wear them in a modern way. I'll post the addresses of some if anyone is interested.

Ha! Mine mostly actually does. He is always too warm and I'm always too cold (in winter) so he's fine with it. I meant to add, Pamela, tell us what you want to work on! Start a group and I'll work on me too. :)

I got 96, which I don't think can be right, but I also love Mendelson's Home Comforts. Not that I'm a great housekeeper, but I keep trying...

Sure, I know a bunch of homeschoolers like that. And even a few people around here in my real life as well. You might like to take a look at The Prudent Homemaker, she's pretty interesting. I don't know exactly what things you're talking about, but maybe this will fit the bill. So if you start the social group and post it here, I'm sure a bunch of people would join.

I agree with abbey that you should talk to her about how everyone feels different. IME, many women are still feeling that way as adults. It might help to know that.

I don't think of it that way with other people, just with me. :D In my church it's considered perfectly normal for people to get teary and emotional --I'm the oddball that way, but I just can't do that.

Totally agree with you. First, I hate losing it in front of other people. I am much too private a person to show my feelings like that. It happens anyway sometimes, but I really hate it. Then, if I am alone and don't care about that, it doesn't make me feel better. I get a headache and can't breathe properly and my eyes hurt. Blech. And yep, the loss of control is probably the worst bit. Normally, I almost never cry, but life has been extremely difficult lately and I'm starting to have a hard time holding it together even in front of friends. (Don't you hate when people are nice to you? If they'd just ignore me or something I'd be fine, but instead they get all sympathetic and I lose it. Argh.)

I saw that the other day and I wish I'd thought of it! Brilliant.

We had a similar thing happen years ago a few months after we moved into our house. Everything was nice and clean--we didn't have nearly enough furniture to fill the place yet--and I found these random little white worms crawling around on the wood floor in the dining room. Never did find out where they came from, but AFAIK it was maggots. Never happened again, either.

I got to 1:19. It's too painful. I can't do it. That poor girl (not the "regular" one, the Indian one :001_huh:)

But the NT doesn't say that the temple was useless; all it says is that the veil was ripped. All that explanation you give is just someone's interpretation of the event--it's not scripture. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching at the temple, and from my POV it wasn't "useless" at all (that strikes me as very disrespectful to the Jewish faith--after all, God did order the building of the temple in OT times). I've always seen the rending of the veil as an expression of the universal grief and pain at the Savior's death, but that's just my impression. I don't see why it should invalidate temple worship. At any rate, it seems that the early Christians did have rites which were not open to the public and were only for the more initiated of Christians. They are mentioned in the early writings, but not described (because they were too sacred to be written down), and were lost. So I don't see why Christianity would be incompatible with such practices--they don't exist any more in mainstream churches, but they did once. (This is from an LDS POV.)

18" dolls are more common, so it's easier to both find doll clothes and sell them yourself. More patterns, too. Aren't the Vision Forum dolls 18"?

Oh, that's just heartbreaking. I'm so sorry.

My kids are watching Muppet Treasure Island this week--does that count? :D (My 9yo read it for the first week of SOTW4 and I told her she could watch it after she finished the book.)

I think that very few classical educators are doing anything 'too' old-fashioned, where children would wind up writing in an archaic style or something like that. The goal is to train kids to write clearly and fluently, to be able to express themselves precisely and adapt their writing to different audiences or styles. I think we use plenty of excellent modern resources as well as, I hope, the best from the past. I don't think that "classical" means that you can't use contemporary books--you're just looking for the best.

My oldest daughter loved the Pony Pals books. They are very appropriate; there are 3 girls, and they have ponies, and solve little problems or friendship difficulties. There are a couple of boys in the background, who sometimes try to cause trouble (one is pretty mean, the other is a follower), and the girls try to either avoid the boys or be friendly to the nicer one. No romance, no dieting, just lots of pony sleepovers and helping sick animals. There is one story about a girl who comes for a visit who thinks of nothing but clothes and makeovers and hair. The Pony Pals are exasperated by her, but realize that she's afraid of horses because of a childhood trauma, so they try to help her forget about her hair and find out that ponies are nice.