Oh that's great information thanks. I'm not even sure what are taxes here are. Do they really go up every year?? That's kind of scary.

Sounds pretty similar to Fla minus the shot records. Here we just have to notify and do an evaluation at the end of the year and send in a pass/fail to the school board. Thank you for your post.:)

I'm hoping that we will have somewhere close to $100,000 for a downpayment on a new home. The thing about CT, is if we move there we will be buying a home with my dh's sister and she has a nice university professor's salary to bring to the equation as well. She lives alone, never married, no children so she has quite a bit of savings by now. If we moved to NC, we would have to be able to afford a house only on what we bring from the sale of our own home.

YES!! I want some little chivitos! hehe I told my husband that if we move to NC I want some land to plant something and a goat! hehehehe :) I'd love to be able to get my son a horse too. He LOVES them and they are so good for his Autism. He can connect with horses in ways he cannot with people, but having a horse is probably a pipe dream at this point. But one can dream.... :)

Thank you so much!! So should I just google CT magazine survey?? What type of title should I be looking for?? Thanks so much. I am worried about the weather a bit too. I've lived in South Florida my entire life and I'm definitely a heat loving person more than a cold loving person. I've never been in snow and I wouldn't even know what to do in a real winter. How do you drive on the roads and such. I'd be clueless.

How are home prices in Raleigh?? I checked for Chapel Hill once because I heard they had a good school for Autism there, but it seems like a very expensive community. My husband is a civil servant and the sole provider for us and here in Florida we have only a very small townhouse with 2 bedrooms that we live in. If were lucky we'll be able to sell it to our neighbor who is buying up the units here for $100,000, and we'd probably walk away with $80,000 of that to put on a new house. That's not much in an expensive area and we would have to be able to afford to live on one income.

YIKES!! I'm certain then that I couldn't afford to live in CT because I know I couldn't afford NYC. We were hoping that we could sell our house and put a really good downpayment on a bigger house in another state. In order for that to work the rate exchange would have to be in our favor with Florida being the more expensive so that we would have more buying power in the new state. But it sounds like to move to CT we would have to go in with even less that what we are leaving with and I don't see how that's going to work.

Thank you so much for the wonderful information! :) Awesome. :)

I'd be willing to give on the special ed if I had to as I've always planned to bring my son home at some point. It's just that with him getting free therapy and not really even ready to begin any type of academics program yet he's better off where he is. But I always planned on homeschooling him once he got to a place where I could actually teach him.

Do you know where New London would fall into the taxes/housing/electricity category?? If we moved there that would be where we would go because we would be getting a house with my husband's sister. She works in the University so I we would have to live close to where she works. Thank you so much for the replies ladies. Keep 'em coming. It is so helpful. :)

Me too. You've been so heavy on my heart. I've been praying for you. Sending more love and :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: your way Arcticmom. May God open the gates of Heaven and rain down his mercy, peace, protection and grace upon you. God bless you. Jennifer

See! I knew I was right to ask you all here. :) My husband works for the Clerk of the Courts (who is an elected official) in the computer division. He answers help desk calls and helps maintain the website and things like that. There is legistlation right now introduced in the Florida House and Senate by the Judiciary to get rid of the clerk all together and have the judges run the clerk's office. If the legislation passes (which my husband says looks very likely) they will fire the clerk and all 9,000 of his employees and those people will have to re-apply and be hired as employees of the state rather than the county. It would mess up benefits, salaries, vacation and alot of other things and my husband says that if he gets fired, he won't reapply. I've never been to CT, but I've been to NC many times and love it there. I love the mountains and I would like to be closer to my mom since she is getting older now and she lives alone. I didn't realize that CT was so expensive! Most likely we won't be able to afford to live there. NC I'm sure we could afford, but my husband would have to be able to find a job. Sigh.

LOL I know! It stinks too because I still feel like I'm 17 in my mind. I think I can do whatever I want and my body says, "NOOO you can't!";) Not to mention I look in the mirror and ask, "who are you??" hehehe:tongue_smilie:

After your recommendation I searched for his book online because I was curious to see his perspective. Michigan State University has a copy that you can read online for free. You can read just the text, or you can see actual pages from a first edition of the book. http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/ssb/display.cfm?TitleID=556 I am enjoying this book so far. I like his writing style. He has such a beautiful way of saying things. Thanks for introducing me to this author. :) And to the OP, I like Parenting on Purpose by Dr. Bob Barnes. This is actually a parenting course to be honest, but for someone wanting a book his book Who's in Charge Here has alot of the same info. His advice has helped me tremendously with my own children. :)

I just got up from the chair after no more than 20 minutes sitting in front of the computer and my body snapped, crackled and popped like a bowl of Rice Krispies! :tongue_smilie: Why does this happen as you get older?? :confused:

I think it is good to have her evaluated just so you know what you're dealing with. Then you can check out some books and read up on it and better tailor your teaching methods to her needs. In my county, the evaluation is free with a referral from the pediatrician and they do a thorough work up. I was referred by my pediatrician for my son. We spent an entire day at the Children's Diagnostic and Treatment Center where he spent about an hour each with a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist and a pediatric psychologist. After they had done their observations and testing of him they called us into the room and told us their findings and gave us their recommendations. With disabilities, alot can be done with therapy if it is caught early. Just my humble 2 cents. :)

LOL I cannot think of the character of Ashley without seeing the face of Leslie Howard. I've always thought he was too old and too wishy washy to be the kind of man that would incite Scarlett to chase after him. You'd think she wouldn't give him the time of day. I think that Leslie Howard's portrayal of him makes him look like a spinelss milksop, but that's just me. :tongue_smilie: Clark Gable's character is much more exciting (and cute). :) I saw "the making of Gone with the Wind" years ago and they said that Clark Gable was actually a horrible dancer and that they had to install a moving floor into the set that went around in circles in order to make it look like he could dance on camera. :) hehe

My husband who has worked at his job for 20 years will most likely be getting laid off in the next couple of months. We've been talking about leaving South Florida for some time now and this layoff looks like a good chance for us to make a clean break and just get up and move out of state altogether. My brother, coincidentally, is also getting laid off in the next couple of months (he and my husband don't work together btw). My brother is talking about moving to North Carolina. My mom is already up there in North Georgia less than a mile from the NC border and my brother is my only sibling so North Carolina would have our family close together again which would be nice, but my mom said it's hard to find jobs up there right now with things the way they are. My husband's closest sister works in the University in New London, Connecticut and so he was saying that maybe we could move up there close to her. He said it might be easier for him to find work there than in the country which is where I would want to live in NC. Right now it looks like it's going to be one of these two places and we are praying hard that God would give us a clear sign where He would have us go, but I wanted to get some advice from you very wonderful and very knowledgeable ladies (and gents) here as to what I can expect in either NC or CT?? What are the laws/requirements concerning homeschooling, how vibrant is the homeschool community?? Are there support groups or other type associations where my kids can get together with other homeschoolers for field trips, co-ops etc?? Thank you everybody so kindly for your replies and advice. This is an amazing group here. :) God bless. :) Jen Oh Ps. I would be interested in knowing what kinds of services there are for Autistic kids as well. My son is severely Autistic and goes to an "Autism cluster" in a local public school. He gets therapies in the school and his teacher is really good with him. I'd like to bring him home at some point when he is older, but for where he is right now, he's really better off in the school he goes to. If anyone is knowledgeable about what programs the public/charter etc schools offer for Autism in these states I am very appreciative. Thanks. :)

Oh that is so sad. I have heard both sides of the whole pit bull issue, but for me, I just don't trust those dogs. I'm sure they are sweet and great dogs as so many people say, but a dog with that much power in it's jaws is not one I want my kids to be around. Especially with their reputation for turning. How tragic for this family. :( :(

Oh man!! Mom didn't tell me that!! Just that Scarlett goes to Ireland and that they don't get back together. Oh you HAVE to spill the beans now! I know I'm not going to have time to read it anytime soon. :) :)

:lol::lol::lol::lol: You crack me up, Cat. hehehe

Oh nooo!!!! :eek: I did spoil it didn't I??? Ooops! Looks like another "open mouth insert foot" moment for me. Sorryyyy. :)

I've heard that taking flax seed oil every day is supposed to help your hormones stay level and eating pineapple will help your cramps.:)

:iagree::iagree: Vinegar is a great cleaner. :) Baking soda too. :)

I am using Spanish Now with my daughter. I like it because the stories are funny it has funny illustrations. It also has crossword puzzles and stuff in it too. She likes it. The only draw back to Spanish Now, is that the instructor needs to be somewhat familiar with Spanish. It doesn't come with any type of cd's or anything like that so you would need to know how to pronounce the words. I speak Spanish so it's not a problem for me, but I could see how it could be a draw back to someone who's not that familiar with Spanish pronunciation. I also bought a book of children's stories in spanish and I make up flash cards from the stories of vocab words and have her memorize those in addition to her coursework in Spanish Now. One thing I did that she enjoyed was I wrote down all of the words individually from Country Mouse City Mouse and put them on cards and mixed them all up so that they were out of order. I would assign her 20 words a week to memorize and we would do timed speed races with the cards on Fridays. When she had all of the words for that story memorized I pulled out the book and had her read it. She was blown away that she could sit down and read this story out loud and understand it all. She really enjoyed that. :)