Now I don't feel so guilty having my kids take 30 minutes out of the school day for chores around the house.

When my aunts evacuated my grandmother to inland TX for a hurricane that happened in the Gulf a year or two after Katrina (edited to add, read on a later post it was a couple months after Katrina, so the hysteria was higher I guess), they had a terrible trip! The gas stations ran out of gas, there was so much traffic on the interstate, nowhere to buy food or water along the way. I think everyone went into panic mode. I heard about a retirement community bus that was evacuating to Dallas caught on fire and killed most passengers. They would have been fine if they stayed. However, that accident could have happened with a group on it if there wasn't an evacuation. Then the hurricane downgraded to a low category and didn't do much damage after all. I think it is best to evacuate if advised to do so, but I think in many situations people don't because they evacuated so many times and it turned out the storm weakened and didn't do much damage. It's like the boy who cried wolf scenario. I understand officials would rather be cautious in case the storm becomes life threatening. They would rather likely reap backlash for the storm weakening and people being inconvenienced needlessly in hindsight, than wait until the storm gets worse and have to regret not suggesting an evacuation,

This thread has got that song "Texas, our Texas" playing in my head! 7th grade and the textbook was bigger than any history book I ever had! I can sing all the words to that song, with gusto, to this day! Thank you 7th grade history teacher..... even though I only lived in TX a short time after that. I sang it to my children once when we crossed the state line to visit family. My sweet MIL from small town USA was hesitantly supportive of our homeschooling decision,but mainly because dh explained the many social activities and groups for homeschoolers in our city. Last year she caught on the decision wasn't just for a year or two and innocently asked us, "How long are you ALLOWED to continue to do this?" She was honestly shocked when we explained we can legally homeschool through high school. And I added my oldest wants to homeschool through college, but I told him it will have to be online school then because I QUIT after 12th grade. I didn't say anything negative in response, because she was not saying it in judgement. What gets me is that a few highly educated people in my various social circles say in awe , "Oh, how brave to take your child's education into your own hands! That is a wonderful undertaking! I could never do that. It must be such hard work on your part." Then when something comes up during the week such as a meal or transport need for someone we know, I am the 1st person those same people call because I don't have a job and they are too busy with the their jobs to help out. And I loved when a few people from my old job found out I now homeschool and asked "so you just stay home with your kids all day?" or "you don't work at all anymore?" What do they think the teachers are doing that are with their kids all day? I admit, in both circumstances, the negative comments are the minority response. Several people have positive responses. I give grace to the select few who just don't get it. A few days ago, I was at checking out at a clothing store. The cashier man looked at my kids and mentioned in a puzzling tone something to them about being out of school early. Before they could respond, he quickly remembered it was the public school's fall break and said, "oh yeah, schools are out this week." He looked straight at me and said pretending to talk to them, "Oh, I bet your mom reeaaalllllly likes it when you are home from school..." (Clearly in a tone and with a look expecting me to give some cue to him that deep down I really enjoy the days they are in school so I don't have to deal with them.) My kids and I held back sarcasm and said nothing but, "have a nice day" when we left. See, I do teach manners well, don't I?

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Another good possibility with Advent season coming up is to purchase an advent devotional to do as a family. We made Jesse Tree ornaments one year and read the corresponding Bible story to the ornament each day of Advent. This will be our 4th year doing a Bible story and hanging the ornament on the tree each day from Thankgsgiving-Christmas. There are tons of ornament ideas and daily scripture verses to correspond if you google Jesse Tree Devotional.

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Taco salad with corn tortilla chips Eggs, roasted potatoes or hash browns, bacon Spaghetti on top of warmed polenta, roasted zucchini, or GF pasta. Pork loin with baked sweet potato and salad Asian style green salad with slivered almonds, chow mein noodles (I think there is a GF option), canned mandarin oranges, and diced chicken breast with a homemade peanut/GF tamari dressing.

Since AWD Sienna's are hard to come by in your area, would it be difficult to find an AWD commuter car for your dh? I am guessing his commuter car will need to be AWD as well since you mention the steep hill in winter, but maybe not. Have you considered selling the 12 passenger van privately to get more money than through the dealer? This would allow more money towards your 2nd vehicle.

Are you sure we don't have the same husband living a double life?

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Loving: MEP math Hating: MEP math For one child, it is awesome, For the other child, it is torture. I finally caved today and ordered a traditional math program for the one who just doesn't get it after the 2nd time through year 2A. Once we get past 7+5 not being 11, I am hoping to supplement the traditional program with some MEP word problems and puzzles.

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Someone linked this video in a different thread (I forgot the thread name, maybe it was on the Gen Ed board). This video greatly encouraged me that I made a good choice to go back one "grade" level and slow down with my current 3rd grader who struggles with math. Her issue is b/n step 1 and step 3 in solving a 3 step problem, she has gotten distracted with LaLa Land. Also, she is very creative minded, and I think concrete concepts are difficult for her as well. We use bunches of manipulatives. LaLa loopsies minis, shopkins, Legos, dominoes, meter stick, abacus, drawings, chalkboard, white board, dice, money, colored tiles, cubes, you name it. She finally had a light bulb go off the other day and said math was her favorite subject for the 1st time ever. We went to a social event that evening and she proudly announced to my friends there that she finally likes schoolwork. Never mind that the next day we hit a roadblock, she fought tears during the lesson, and wondered why she said that the day before. Anyhow, this video doesn't recommend a curriculum that I remember, but it does encourage the teacher that slowing down to fill in gaps is productive. ( ETA: I don't think it is promoting mastery vs. spiral math programs, it is basically about being sure concepts are understood before moving on with more difficult problems using that concept. I am a fan of spiral math, tons of spiral review, and a time out for mastery focus of difficult topics as needed.) https://youtu.be/rl-9AhJFh-U

If you could work outside the home 12 hours every Saturday for a spell, him having total responsibility for the kids' upkeep, safety, meals, dishes, laundry, bedtime, and clean up...I bet he will change his tune very quick. My dh was never verbally critical of housework when my 2 kids were little, I got an all day Saturday job. After a few Saturdays, he said he understood why it seems so little is done with housework during the day. I guess until then he had an unspoken wondering why the laundry was piled up, dishes still dirty, and house untidy during the week. I eventually quit that job because we didn't need the money and it wasn't enjoyable to hear my coworkers who worked full time say over and over, "you don't have to work but on Saturdays? What in the world do you do all day?" I wanted to be rude and say, "I do the same job you are paying your childcare provider to do!" but that would have made the coworkers uncivil to me and the job required teamwork. I just did the eye roll. I agree with the poster that sitting down with you dh when you are both calm is a good idea. If he wants a clean house when he comes home, the in-house babysitting will need to go. Is the money or the clean house more important at the season of life? If it is the money, he will just need to cope with this season of life. Even if you had a maid service, the main living area would unlikely be clean when he came home to toddlers and preschoolers in the house. Someone suggested you take the kids to the library in the afternoon. That would so be not doable for that many kids with the ages described, IMO. If you just had your 2 at home when he arrived, your kids could have a quiet time in their rooms for an hour every afternoon while you tidy up (the kids could help with tidying some before their quiet hour and more as they get older--leaving you with a well deserved quiet time hour as well.). At your kids' ages, it helped that my kids often watched 30-60 min TV while I cooked dinner.

I haven't read any replies, but I would liken it to the question "Is life hard?" The answers are highly variable. Currently, homeschooling is easy for me because I have eager learners, no learning delays, no littles, no physical challenges, a dh fully on board, social support, no job outside the home, I like teaching, I keep a tight budget/live simply but we are paying the bills just fine, and I have access to materials that help me teach effectively. The addition of a job, having to care for a loved one, my getting sick or physically limited, the removal of social support, marital stress, kids' developing a negative attitude or disability, and million of other things could change my answer to hard.

For schoolwork, I recommend the bigger screen than the regular sized iPad. If you download PDF worksheets to something you can "write" over, it is like a real worksheet on the bigger screen. The books are more textbook sized vs. paperback size with a bigger screen. I have the iPad Pro with the bigger screen and love it for homeschool. It has more memory so I can download curriculum PDFs, photos (we use a lot of saved images for school lessons), audiobooks, ebooks, and schedules to my heart's content. I ran out of space on my regular 16gb iPad. I am not sure if Android or iPad is better overall since I never used an Android tablet, but the bigger screen is better for the homeschool related things we do on the tablet. If I were you, I would go to somewhere like Best Buy and demo their iPads and android tablets.

I agree too about the insurance companies setting formulas and making demands on doctors. My FIL had surgery recently and the doctor wanted to keep him overnight. The doc had to call the insurance company for approval and the insurance company said no. The doctor used to be able to choose the treatment plans and now the insurance companies choose. All people with x procedure get outpatient, all people with y procedure get 1 night hospital stay, all people who have z procedure get 3 nights. The same with orders for lab and test. If the diagnosis by the doctor doesn't satisfy the insurance company for the need for the ordered test, the insurance will not pay for what the doctor deems as thorough treatment. So people either have to pay OOP for what the doctor wants or the doctor never gets the lab or test he/she wants. Here, we have a MSN program at a highly respected university (nationally known) that will allow non-medical undergraduate degrees to enter the master's nursing program for NP. The 1st year is 3 semesters preparing to take the NCLEX exam to be an RN, and the last 3 semester are NP specific training and clinicals.

Just read about the gas shortage in our area at a local news website. Gas sales are up 50% more than usual gas sales since Friday. That's with less than 25% of stations having gas to sale. This is from overbuying, filling gas tanks that aren't needed, and topping off every day that I mentioned above.

This is what they are telling people NOT to do and are saying is creating more shortage. If the stations that are getting gas only have people to fill up what they need for everyday life, then they say there is enough for normal transportation. But almost everybody is filling up all their vehicles and extra gas cans every time they run by a station that has gas, which is creating much higher than normal everyday gas usage. Stations are running dry much quicker because of it. OP: Please do not worry about this. If you are worried about running out of groceries, go get a couple week's worth on the way home tomorrow while you have a full tank. If your town runs out of gas, enough people will be in your same situation to make it so students and non-essential workers have to stay home. I would go about life as normal, and if you get down to about 1/4 tank and there is no gas at any area station, then stay home in case you need to use that 1/4 tank for a medical emergency.

I think chili and potato soup are good options without the need for a third. I would add a 2nd sandwich option instead. Melted cheese sandwiches goes well with chili. The ham sandwiches sound delicious with the potato soup.

Would they be interested in service opportunities? I would guess meeting people through serving a charitable cause together would help filter out clicky people. They may not meet people their age, but probably would meet friendly people. I'm thinking specifically of an animal rescue group in our area in need of regular volunteers. The other suggestion is for your family to join a local hiking group. Hikers are usually (but likely not always) friendly, down to earth, and honest by nature. When I was in my 20s and lacking friendships, I joined a quilting group. I had mostly elderly friends for several years. They have been the longest lasting friends in my lifetime. Well, atleast those from the group that haven't passed away in the last 20 years.

I am sure the school will understand and that some others will be in this predicament. Even a compromise by going every other day just until the gas stations and customers get back to normal life would be rational under the circumstances. ETA: I would plan appointments and grocery shopping on the way back from school on the days she does attend.

Just juice your way to health! I have an expensive juicer sitting in the very back of a bottom kitchen cabinet that was supposed to help my son's asthma. I'd be glad to sell it to you at a good price. 😉 Have you switched to organic fabrics and flooring products in your home? Have you sent in a hair sample for analysis to see what toxins are detected? It must be the metal fillings in your teeth are soaking into your respiratory system. I hear raw cow's milk is a miracle cure for everything. I'm surprised you haven't tried that. Seriously, I hope you feel better soon and get sympathy instead of "if only you would...." from your loved ones.

Deleted my post-I read the post before your edit and thought you were referring to Christian Light Education instead.

For the heck of it, I put neither agree nor disagree for all the questions. I received a score of 0 for everything. I thought there might be a neutral homeschool style as an option. My true score on my 2nd test was high on classical and CM. Can I truly be a classical and CM homeschool style mix if I can't stand the Circe Institute podcasts no matter how hard I try to like them?