My Fitness Coach has good reviews, but everyone gives a big thumbs down to the Jillian Michaels Wii game. FYI. The new Active Life (I think that's it) looks interesting, too.

This is not rhythm boxing? 'Cause listed right below the hula hoop & super hula hoop is the rhythm boxing, and in rhythm boxing you start with beginner and can unlock advanced and expert. I really like the rhythm boxing and do not particularly like kickboxing for some odd reason, lol. I love my Wii Fit. I used it all winter when I was battling my seasonal blues, and it enticed me to be more active every day. I have a bum ankle so I worked a lot on my balance and strengthening my ankle with various Wii Fit exercises, and saw a huge improvement over the first three months. Due to the ankle I don't enjoy the running stuff, but have improved quite a bit at most of the aerobic stuff, love the rhythm boxing, finally got the hang of hula hoop, really enjoy the balance games (table tilt -- love that little game!) and the yoga, and recently I've started trying more of the strength exercises, gulp. Now that I'm better at most of the Wii Fit exercises, I go to it for core/balance work, some yoga, and some strength work. For cardio I do rhythm boxing on expert, and maybe some hula hoop, but now I'm trying workout DVDs for better cardio workouts for me. (I can't believe I'm able to follow a workout DVD -- it's those months of doing the advanced step and the various rhythm boxing, lol!) Have fun! My kids enjoyed it quite a lot at first, but I am more consistently using it and racking up more high scores, so they find it harder to beat my scores now. Oops. I also got We Ski, because I enjoyed the ski slalom so much on Wii Fit. My ds9 really loves playing We Ski. I have a short list of other active Wii games I want to get, now that Wii Fit has been so fun: Outdoor Challenge, a Dance Dance Revolution game, the downloadable Helix, and I hear there's a marble run game. I would LOVE a whole "game" of Wii Fit step, or Wii Fit rhythm boxing!

I like it, for what that's worth :) I subscribe to Cooking Light and really enjoy it... Eating Well is fancier cooking and I'm usually too busy for that... and I'm thinking of subscribing to Clean Eating because it really is wonderfully healthy food (recipes and tips) and I need more inspiration in that area.

Summer is much too hot for us (me) to go camping. Here in most of Oklahoma it doesn't cool off much at night and that makes a big difference in our (my) comfort level! So we tend to go camping with the Scouts in spring (March-May/June) and fall (Sept-Nov). We don't mind cold nights and all that; it's the hot nights that do us in :) My husband was inexperienced at camping until he started doing a lot of camping with the Cub Scouts (younger son) and Boy Scouts (older son), as well as on various leader training weekends. The boys have gotten used to camping with the Scouts as well, and we've acquired two small tents and the gear everyone needs for sleeping and keeping comfortable. We finally bought a camping stove last week, and we need to get some cooking & cleanup gear so we can head out on our own at last. I'm excited!

I think it depends on whether you want to include a writing or analysis component to the history. We used History Odyssey 2 last year (Middle Ages, 6th grade) and this year (finishing Middle Ages, then Early Modern; 7th grade). Over time my son has become more accepting of the reading, analysis, and writing that History Odyssey assigns. If you want to stick with SOTW, I would add plenty of other reading (fun!), and decide how to include analysis and writing -- whether with the history or elsewhere in your child's studies. Good luck!

I did this for SOTW2 -- ideas for music, art, craft, and more to correspond with each week's chapter (or two chapters). FYI, I put the chapters into a slightly different order to correspond with History Odyssey 2: Middle Ages 'cause that's what my older son was using. Here's the link to the first page of 7, on GoogleDocs. Let me know if you'd like to see the rest. I could publish it to my blog. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjvf2n8_203dzh5bqc3

Roast turkey Mashed potatoes Herbed bread stuffing Turkey-stock gravy Steamed green beans with pecans (might try to switch to in-season broccoli though) Cranberry-orange preserves Roasted sweet potatoes Dinner rolls Red wine, sparkling cider Pumpkin pie Pecan pie Real whipped cream Coffee Simple, easy, and Just Right for our family :)

My husband and I (with our kids) got to the polling place about 9:10 am, and spent a quick 35 minutes in line. Much better than the 2-3 hours friends & the local newspaper reported for the early voting Fri, Sat, Mon! We have the optical scanners, pretty quick and easy to use. I was #270 at our polling place at 9:50 am.

Is it at your house, or are you travelling? We get together with three other families in town, and it's someone else's turn to host this year. Are you cooking? Everything or just a few things? I'm cooking some sides. And then on Saturday I'm cooking a whole feast for our own little family, 'cause we love Thanksgiving food! What is your all-time favorite Thanksgiving food? Turkeybreastsimpleherbedstuffingmashedpotatoesgravygreenbeanscranberryrelishandredwine, followed by pumpkinpiepecanpiewhippedcreamandcoffee :D Will you be making the famous WTPumpkin Knot Rolls? Nope, 'cause one of our feasting families is a master baker, and 'cause when I do our own feast, the one thing I never have managed is making the rolls. Just one too many from-scratch things! I'm putting this recipe in the mix for the following week, though.... Do you have a recipe to share that you think no Thanksgiving table should be without? Nope. All of our Thanksgiving foods are pretty basic and well-known, and besides I think everyone should have whatever THEIR must-have food is, on their Thanksgiving table.

Episcopalians here, too. My sons are ages 8 (3rd grade) and 12 (7th grade). I mix it up, spending time on the Bible, the liturgy, the catechism (in the Book of Common Prayer), the church year, saints, prayer, church history, etc. So far so good :) For Bible literacy and such (timeline, mapworks, study of core stories, some memory work), I really like Bible Study Guide for All Ages. My second choice would have been Explorers Bible Study. My kids have also been exposed to many of the core stories in Godly Play, the approach our church uses for preK - 2nd grade Sunday school. For church history, I've been really happy with biographies for my younger son, especially a couple of books from a Lutheran publishing house (Early Saints of God, and Kings and Queens for God), and the very good History Lives church history series for my older son (Monks and Mystics, etc). Both boys are learning about the breadth of Christianity, including what current Protestants value, what Catholics value, and more. I used to look for great, focused stuff like various Protestants and Catholics have, but everything was too focused for us. We are so very in the middle :) I still use a little bit of Catholic stuff and things that have a very Protestant perspective, but it's working out fine to make our own way. I'll post separately about Episcopalian- or Anglican-specific resources :) My older son will be confirmed this Sunday, and in deciding whether we think he's ready, I've realized that we're doing pretty well by his religious education and faith formation. It's a process, but so far so good.

Dropped from $2.75 yesterday to $2.49 this morning, in central Oklahoma. Wow. I think our taxes on gasoline are low; our price swings seem similar to other places.

This reminds me that when I was a young adult I noticed some fit, attractive older women with white hair, and thought, "I want to grow old like they are!" Now I am old enough to technically be a grandmother (46 in a few weeks), and I have finally been taking some action in that direction. I was never the skinny girl but never as big as I thought I was, either. In my 20s my weight varied by 10 pounds up and down, with "down" looking really pretty good, but after having kids in my 30s I never totally lost the baby weight. Eventually, very slowly, I moved away from sloppy big pants and tops and started wearing a bit of makeup, and even if I hadn't left the house all day, making sure I spiffed up some for when my husband arrives home at the end of his day. A year ago I was still firmly in the camp of carrying an extra 25 pounds, by then always wearing relaxed but nice dresses and skirts, with a little bit of eye makeup and lip color. I was content with that, pretty much, and yet... in my heart of hearts I wished I was more active and fit. I started walking, joined SparkPeople and the Well-Trained Sparks team (hi Tami! you look HOT in my book!!), logged my food on SP which naturally led me to improve what and how much I was eating... and from April 'til September I lost 15 pounds and dropped from a size 16 to a 12-or-less, gained stamina, energy, strength, and confidence, improved my posture (they used to call it "carriage", right?), discovered fitted clothes (LOL), and found a whole new world! Now I hit my favorite thrift store regularly to replace my too-big things with nicely FITTED clothes in my current actual size. My skirts are short and slim rather than ankle- and calf-length & relaxed/too big, my tops show that I have curves and even a waist, and I think I look very nice! Also, I am acquiring a whole new, um, underthings wardrobe, which is very fun for me and for my dear husband. My husband loves me anyway, but we both really enjoy that I feel and look so much better now. I really, really like being active and finding new things to try. My husband and I are tackling learning to dance, which is very fun. I still have another 5 or so pounds to my original goal weight, though at this point my goal is strength and fitness, rather than a certain weight. The tummy may never be flat, but so it goes :) I'm aiming to slim down enough (lose enough fat) that muscle not jiggle is the main action at my hips and tummy, lol. I guess I feel hot, or sexy, because I am so much more comfortable with my still-imperfect body, am dressing in more flattering clothes, and have lots more energy and better posture, and my husband lets me know of his appreciation too :) It's truly been a whole new world for me, one that a year ago I couldn't imagine for myself.

I've been a member of the Oklahoma Food Co-op for three years or so, and I LOVE our producers' cream, eggs, beef, buffalo, sausages, soap, laundry soap, bug spray, vegetables, pecans, peanuts, coffee, and more. My budget at first only allowed me to buy their veggies and fruit, of all of their offerings. Then I discovered the cream, and chose to buy that wonderful stuff even at the higher price. Then I decided it was really worth it to me to use wonderful eggs, so I started buying my eggs through the co-op when I am able to (they go very, very fast). Grass-fed/pastured meat is expensive, but that is because the costs are not hidden (lower quality, poor return to the ranchers etc, lower nutrition, increased health care needs). Eventually I began trying various pastured, grass-fed meats, and they are delicious! As well as precious (due to the cost). So, I use that wonderful meat occasionally as a treat (beef stew - wow!, roast chicken!), but mostly as a side rather than the center of the meal, and as the basis for more meals (beef/chicken stock...). That, to me, has been the biggest adjustment. Small amounts of delicious, nutritious meats. It keeps the budget in better shape than simply replacing store meat kinds and quantities with grass-fed meat kinds and quantities. My 2 cents :)

My poll response was 88F+, lol. We live in Oklahoma in an 1800 sf house, kids' bedrooms and common living areas downstairs, master bedroom & thermostat at the top of our open stairwell (we have a cathedral ceiling). The temp in the main living area is several degrees cooler than the thermostat at the top of the stairwell, but I'd guess 3-4 degrees difference at most. Daytime: thermostat at 88F+ / as high as it will go, about 30 min after morning showers. Kids' bedtime: 86F, the point at which they'll fall asleep fairly easily. Our bedtime: 83F. I became determined to get used to living more in tune with our actual climate, summer and winter several years ago when the winter heating costs skyrocketed. By now, my family is comfortable with these summer indoor temps, especially using a floor fan or ceiling fan; we all dress lightly. Our concrete floors also help, since we go barefoot indoors and the concrete is the slab foundation, at more or less soil temperature. We avoid adding heat and humidity indoors. Showers, dishwasher, and clothes washer use are in the evening and/or first thing in the morning. We hang our clothes outdoors to dry. As little heating up the kitchen as possible (we rely on the microwave, quick stovetop cooking, grilling outdoors, ...). Nice bonus: It's fantastic to be more comfortable outside because we are not living in a chilled indoor environment in our hot summer climate. It's somewhat shocking to go into a chilly restaurant, store, the library, etc. (I take a light sweater!), and yet when it's truly hot outside (105F+), spending an hour at the library is very nice.

The Microsoft Web site has several downloadable calendar form kinda things. I used one last summer -- on my Mac, importing it into NeoOffice! -- and it was really nice. Somewhere on microsoft.com I think....

I LOVE good coffee (Starbucks et al.), but nowadays it must be mostly decaf -- and all decaf after, say, 11 am. So, I reclaimed my even earlier tea-drinking days. To start my day, a nice mug of half-caffeinated good coffee, real cream, and sweetener (currently half stevia, half less-refined sugar to cut the blood sugar spike). My current coffee choice is Bishop's Blend from Episcopal Relief & Development -- great body & taste, good price, fair trade, organic, shade grown, and the profits go to world relief projects. Occasional treats include Trader Joe's coffee from friends, home-roasted coffee from friends, and locally roasted coffee. I seldome buy Starbucks anymore. Anyway, I am thankful to be able to afford good coffee again, after some years of Folgers being all we could swing. Thea rest of the morning I get another mug or two of decaf, similarly doctored but less sweet. Currently I am in the rare situation of a sinus infection/allergies, and it is helped by drinking lots of coffee, so I am (decaf). In cool weather I switch to herbal and decaf teas from late morning 'til bedtime. Nothing fruity, and no green or white or rooibos. Favorites include Constant Comment, Earl & Lady Grey, jasmine, Stash's licorice spice, (in previous years also their green chai spice and red chai spice), a spicy ginger tea, chamomile, peppermint, and a chamomile-and-spearmint mix. In warm weather I drink cold water. Er, after those several morning cups of coffee.

LOL! Me too, hoping on your behalf :)

Three days left, and it's really minimal: 30-45 minutes per day of history! This gives us a week before the June whirlwind begins, then a brief lull, then a secondary whirlwind in mid July. A few more quiet weeks, and then our school year will start in mid/late August. We're ready to play for a bit!

My elevator speech about our homeschooling used to be, "We are following 'an old-fashioned model,' doing Singapore math, composition and phonics, Latin, history, and projects." By "old-fashioned model" I mean writing exercises used from the Greeks to the 19th century (the progymnasmata leading to rhetoric), and Latin as the heart of learning grammar, logical thinking, and a different language that will lead to reading the "real deal" works in Latin. Heheh. Nowadays maybe I could say, "We are following 'an old-fashioned model,' doing arithmetic and algebra, composition, Latin, history and literature, piano, and projects." Hmm. Lately I sort of automatically respond with, "Singapore Math, a 1930s latin text (Latin Book One) and another Latin program from England (Minimus), some standard piano books, we're currently studying the middle ages, and the boys read lots of related books and literature. Um, what did you want to know?"

I just attended my first homeschool convention, after being one foot in HSing since Jan 2001 and actually homeschooling since Sept 2005. Most years I'd felt, as other expressed, that my local convention was more narrowly focused than my own interests, and wasn't interested in attending. This year, on the other hand, I was interested in several of the speakers and up to 10% of the vendors, and I really wanted to invest in myself as a homeschooler... so I decided to spend the money ($35) to attend. I really enjoyed myself, partly because a good friend also decided to go on Saturday, and we attended together. As a bonus she was an experienced convention goer. We split up and attended different talks, comparing notes afterward. I took the advice once given here (I think) to feel free to slip in or out of a talk and not stay for the whole thing; that was definitely a good idea! In the vendor hall I got a chance to examine some relatively costly materials and confirmed that I really do want to use them. I examined some other materials and discovered which would work best for us. I discovered some materials I'd never heard of, and was spurred to think through some different ideas that I hadn't considered. Plus, I got to browse at the Miller Pads & Paper booth! I returned home refreshed from a day spent on myself. My friend considers the conventions an investment in her homeschooling and in herself as the mom in a homeschool family. Now I understand... even though ours is not the "perfect" convention for me!

Generally like p.s. but liberally tweaked :) Also, we love having lazy summer days -- and always have some busy summer weeks that keep us hopping! We start about the same time as the local schools, mid-August, and finish our school year in late May. My husband is on staff at a state university and his work life is very influenced by their similar schedule, so it works for all of us to be somewhat synchronized. I schedule mini-breaks of 3-5 days about every six weeks, because we all really need a breather. Often these coincide with holidays or school breaks, though this year we ended up with a 10-day spring break because my 12yo went on a church youth trip during spring break and we wanted a few days of everyone together, too. We take two weeks at Christmas (from a few days before Christmas 'til Epiphany) because after Christmas Day we have a family birthday, a winter Scouting campout, New Year's, and our annual Twelfth Night party! For us, the first four weeks of our year are a gradual build-up to full amounts of schooling, and the last three or four weeks are a gradual relaxation and finishing of schoolwork and enjoyment of late spring. Currently the math books are nearly completed, and I will save the rest of the review pages for once-a-week review this summer. For Latin, I'm switching gears for May -- no lessons, only review, enrichment books, and Latin games; this is the kind of Latin study we'll do this summer as well, in the weeks the boys are home (see below!). Piano will continue, more relaxed and with more theory games, in the summer (I'm the teacher). We have dropped formal writing/composition study for May. The boys do handwriting or copywork several times a week, currently moving more into note taking, list writing, cards to family members, etc. The big thing that we're keeping on pace is history -- the reading, discussion, mapwork, and enrichment books and occasional movie or documentary -- aiming for a particular stopping point. It feels pretty easy to keep working on history since everything else is so light right now. This summer we have more week-long commitments than ever, so the in-between "lazy days" will be precious. Last three days of May: 12yo to church outreach VBS elsewhere in the state. First week of June: 12yo to Boy Scout camp, 8yo to morning VBS. Second week: all my guys to work/attend Cub Scout Day Camp. (Breathe.) Fourth week: 12yo to church camp. (Breathe.) Second & third weeks of July: host a visiting British Boy Scout, and he & 12yo & dh will go on a camping trip out of state. I might sign up my 8yo for a science museum class one of those July weeks, or swim lessons for two weeks in July. (Breathe.) For the last three weeks of summer break we'll all laze about, play video games and board games, tend the garden, ride bikes, etc.

This is turning out to be our second year of not... quite... finishing our history by summer break. I decided to plan on repeating the scheme we did this year: wrap up the previous year's study in the first several weeks of the new year and then move on to the new stuff. Last August-to-mid-September, we finished our Ancients study -- SOTW1 for dsThen7 and The Story of Mankind for dsThen11, plus enrichment books. Then we started our Middle Ages study -- SOTW2 and History Odyssey Middle Ages 2. (After a month or so I aligned SOTW2 with HO-MA2 for my sanity.) Right now we have finished the medieval Europe study (2/3 of HO-MA2, more or less) and are doing the study of the non-European world at double speed. I decided to focus on reading (overview/spines and some enrichment) and mapwork but drop most of the HO writing projects. My aim is to be done with the non-European medieval study by the end of May, when we need to end schoolwork. We have a somewhat busy summer, but in the intervals between camps etc., we'll enjoy Shakespeare (summaries, plays, Shakespeare in the Park, movies). We start our school year in mid- or late August, so that's when we'll spend about a month studying the Renaissance -- possibly more but with Shakespeare already tackled I think we'll be okay. I really didn't want to squeeze all the life out of the Renaissance by zipping through it before summer, so this is a good plan for us. I have no idea if this is going to happen every year, but it's working out okay. If we ever needed, for some reason, to catch up and finish on time, we could. I'd just have to speed up a bit sooner (or NOT slow down quite so much over the winter!!). Good luck!

Also France's empire / colonies... from North America (remants include Lousiana, Quebec, Acadians) and South America (French Guiana etc.) to Africa (many former colonies still have French as their first language) and Asia (French Indochine is now Vietnam...). In modern history, I would definitely want to have a glance at 1968 in France -- violent student protests, etc. An interesting question; thanks for bringing it up!

I have The Feynmann Lectures on Physics, a three-volume set. I think Chapter 22 in Volume I is what you've heard about, or at least it seems to match your description. 22. Algebra 22-1 Addition and multiplication 22-2 The inverse operations 22-3 Abstraction and generalization 22-4 Approximating irrational numbers 22-5 Complex numbers 22-6 Imaginary exponents Toward the bottom of the first page of the chapter he says, "To discuss this subject we start in the middle. We suppose that we already know what integers are, what zero is, and what it means to increase a number by one unit.... the assumption that we know what integers are and we know how to count." I have no idea if this section is part of the recorded lectures, sorry.

To me, if there is an appropriate comparison to make with the Great Depression, one would choose the beginning/early days of the G.D. That's the only way we could be comparing apples to apples. Of course it makes no sense to see how our situation looks against the worst times of the G.D. There's an interesting post about this very thing over at Sharon Astyk's blog, Casaubon's Book: "Recognizing parallels when they slap you in the face with a haddock" (!). All in all, I'm more of the "big transition" opinion. Getting the pantry restocked with basics, planning to put some small windfalls into purchases that will help us get along even in a slowed and less certain economy, getting a helpful vegetable garden started. Hmm.