I signed up my son today! Fantastic!

Ours is called Rita because she 'read-ah's the map to us!

I am right there with you ladies who are having their worst year THIS YEAR!! My oldest son is 11 and has fought me on everything this year. So much so that we toured the local public school in March and seriously considered enrolling him even if it was just for the remainder of this year. My 10 year old has significant learning struggles and has all but given up on himself, making it that much harder to pull work out of him every day. Because of the difficulty with my older boys, i feel like my daughter has completely gotten the short end of the stick and been doing her own thing most of the year. My little guys are young enough that reading and playing make them happy and are plenty for me to try and work in with them. All that to say, this is our 7th year and I am totally over this year!! We have done very little this month and I am searching for my motivation to get my mind refocused and encouraged once again.

I made my own using Microsoft Publisher. I used their premade monthly calendars and for the daily pages I put separate text boxes for each item I wanted. I added little graphics to pretty it up :) Then I used my pro click binder to put it together. The cover was laminated card stock with pics of our family on it. This year I am using the Well Planned Day, but honestly, I miss my homemade one because it was perfectly suited to me!

I did just that at our last house. Ater putting up with the interruptions and trying to nicely turn the kids away when it wasn't convenient, I made a sign. One side had a green light and said "We would love to have guests!" and the other side had a stop sign and said, "We are not available to play right now." We had to explain how it worked to the neighboring kids and had to remind everyone again after it had been up about a month. Once they understood, they were pretty good about following our guidelines. The best part for me was that it kept me from resenting the neighbor kids. Even if we weren't having school, if I didn't want to host them, I would put the stop sign up. It took training my own kids to understand that they had to respect the sign as well. They couldn't ask if their friends could come in and play unless the green light was up. It was a perfect solution for us. The kids I was dealing with were between 10 and 12 years old. If they had been much younger, I don't know if it would have worked.

I would love them! I'll send you an email :)

I was in the same situation about 3 years ago. I got bankers boxes that were sturdy and had lids and I labeled them by size and kind of garments - for instance, Boys, Size 3T, Tops. Then I took the clothes we had and chose the best pieces from those to fill the boxes. Once the box was full, everything else was gotten rid of. That leaves quite a bit of clothes when you are dealing with little sizes, so it may actually be too much if you are really trying to cut down. It worked for us though because we had an attic to store them in. They were put away stacked by size, easy to grab when necessary. When we had our last baby, a son, I got rid of 17 boxes of girls' baby clothes because this one is our last little one. I didn't realize how much I actually had until I sorted into the boxes. Before that, everything had been in bags and just been tossed into the attic unorganized and difficult to ever use. HTH!

Thanks for the replies, ladies! I do love the idea of not having to deal with sheets, beds, etc. I've read up on the types of hammocks suitable for sleeping and I have one son who is all a hammock to free up playing space. We may try it out. Now, off to browse Ana's site and get inspired for other possibilities!

In the minimalist thread, someone mentioned using hammocks as beds. Has anyone ever tried this? It sounded intriguing, as we are moving soon to a house with more bedrooms, but they are smaller than what we have now. So, I'm considering some space saving alternatives for the kids' rooms. The little bit of googling I did seems to indicate that millions of people all over the world use hammocks as beds, but I don't know anyone who does that around here. Anyone with experience?

It is the only planner I have used for the entire year without ditching partway through and creating my own. I was surprised at how well I liked it so I didn't hesitate to get the deal through the Homeschool Buyers Co-Op. I also bought the Well-Grounded Middle Schooler, but wasn't as thrilled with it for my oldest son.

My 9 year old has been in vision therapy for about 6 months now. I was completely stunned when we had him evaluated and he scored so poorly on tracking and visual perceptual skills! I was in on the evaluation and could see first-hand his responses to the testing. Truly, it was jaw-dropping to see what difficulties he had seeing properly! He has been previously diagnosed ADHD, but I think that was an incorrect diagnosis. The vision therapy has definitely helped. We too have to pay out of pocket, but we are blessed to live very near the office. I agree that the home exercises are crucial to the success of the program and can tell a big difference when I don't follow through like I should with his exercises. Since we are still in the middle of it, I can't say for certain what the outcome will be, but so far, it has been a positive experience for him.

Thanks!! I ordered three of them and I googled 'Teaching Company coupon code' and found a coupon that gave me shipping for 99 cents!! The code was 42248 and took my shipping from $10 to 99 cents!!!

I help a friend with her business run from her home and for a while, she used paypal for all the cc transactions. Then we found a service through Sam's Club that is called First Data. It is online processing, so no machine is needed, just an internet connection. There was a one time set up fee, but no monthly charges aside from the % taken from each transaction. The fees were far more reasonable than anything else we looked at and it is based on your monthly sales. I called the local Sam's Club, through which she has a business membership, and they were able to give me all the information I needed. HTH!

I ran in my first one Saturday and my time was 38:10. And, I wasn't last. It was a bit daunting to see people running a 15K cross the finish at the same time as me, but I tried to focus on competing with myself instead of anyone else. I have already looked for some more 5Ks in my area this summer so I can beat my own time :)

I received the email too, but deleted it without reading until I saw this post. Thanks! Now off to print some of my goodies!!