I was expecting flip-flot prints in the snow, but this is way worse! My feet are cold in the house with my socks and boots on. I can't imagine going outside barefoot in the snow! As a kid I got cured of going outside barefoot even in the summer after tearing off a toenail and another time skinning my toes while biking barefoot. Fortunately my dd is fond of wearing shoes outside!

I used to send out dozens of Christmas cards. Over the years I started to really dread writing them out, so I relieved myself of that responsibility. Some years I send out a few, but mostly I don't worry about it. If you hear from someone and really feel the need to respond, you can always send a "Happy New Year" card later on.

We are still waiting here. I am a bit annoyed because I gave my daugther the homeschool code for our state, which she said she filled in on the forms. However, the school counselor changed it after the fact and without telling us until after it was done. Now it appears we are at the mercy of the school and will get the scores whenever they decide, whereas I was hoping the results would come straight to our house since we used the homeschool code. Grrr.

I am an introvert and enjoyed playing with other kids when I was young, as well as going to parties as a teen and young adult. Of course, I was perfectly comfortable being by myself too. As I get older I find that I have less interest in doing a lot of things with other people. I enjoy being with my family and occassionally seeing a few close friends. I don't have a big drive to seek out other people for activities and social events. I don't hate being around people - I just don't want to be around a lot of them at once, or for very long. Even among introverted people I think there is a wide range. Some really don't like being around others much, and some enjoy going out and doing social-type things and then retreating to their quiet space. My dd15 is quite social, friendly, confident. She enjoys going out and being involved in lots of things, seeing friends, etc., but then she likes to come home and have nesting time in her room. I think she and I are both introverts, because as others have said, it is more about how you re-charge and where you get your energy from.

mini-flashlight or something like a Swiss Army knife if he doesn't already have one

duplicate, sorry

My daughter liked workbooks a lot when she was younger. I don't have any boys to compare, but I tend to think it has more to do with individual preference rather than gender. As for my dd, I think she liked having a finite number of pages to work on and the sense of satisfaction in getting them completed. We have never used workbooks for everything, but for grammar, vocabulary, spelling, handwriting practice and some math practice, they worked quite well for my dd. I gave her a weekly checklist and she knew exactly what was expected for those subjects where we were using workbooks. History and literature have always been much more open for us. We do a lot of discussion and writing projects for those. Now that my dd is in high school we do much less of the workbooky type of thing. If you've got a kid who likes workbooks and seems to be retaining the information from them, it might be an easy way of just getting those things done.

I actually emailed them earlier this month because I was concerned that my daughter had started the program in mid-August and we hadn' received a bill yet. The response said they were a little behind on their billilng and I would be receiving one soon. Still haven't received it, but it sounds like this is about normal for them. I was kinda worried that I'd missed a statement, but apparently not.

I found the homeschool code for the PSAT for our state, which my daughter filled in on her form when she took the PSAT; however, the counselor "corrected" it by putting in the school code, so apparently my daughter's results will be going to the school instead of coming to our home mail box.

It is age 18 where I live. In my state, child support can continue until age 21, but that only applies to divorced or never-married parents, and the adult child needs to meet certain criteria like attending school at least part-time, maintaining a minimum GPA. Even if a parent did have a child support obligation for a child between 18 and 21, that doesn't legally require them to house said adult child after age 18.

At home. We've had mail-in ballots in my state for quite some time. I like being able to take my time looking through the voter's pamphlet (more like a catalog) while I'm voting. Before mail-in ballots I used to vote at a local school. I don't miss the parking issues and lines there on election day.

That people can assault, emotionally abuse, and otherwise terrorize those in their own family and not feel remorse about it. And now that someone has mentioned it, this too... My greyhounds lived to be 14 and 15 and that still wasn't long enough.

I'm in my late 40s and I don't really want to fuss with coloring my hair. I've had a few greys since I was about 30. Now I'm starting to get quite a few around the temples. I don't really care for the skunky stripes on the sides too much, but I'm hoping the rest will catch up soon. My mom is 70 and is an unconvincing ash-blonde. Nearly every time she sees me she pesters me about coloring my hair. All the more reason to let it go natural!

Same here! I also have a greyhound who is neither grey nor gray, but I still think I prefer "grey."

I'd say we tend more to the cluttered side here. My daughter and I both pile things up. We now have about 1,200 sq. feet instead of 900, but we seem to fill up whatever space we have with books and things. If we know we have company coming over, we do perform a frantic cleaning though! :D

I call my in-laws by their first names. MIL will sometimes sign a card as "Mom," but it always felt awkward to me to refer to them as "mom" and "dad." They don't seem too bent out of shape by it though. My husband and I met later in life. My daughter refers to her step-dad's parents as "grandma" and "grandpa." Maybe that makes up for my stuffiness about the whole in-law name thing.

We fall within the thrifty plan even with eating out. Only one of us is a meat-eater though, and we seldom go out to eat at any place fancy.

Nag Champa, sandalwood, cedarwood and patchouli are regulars here. We prefer the woody over the flowery scents generally. My all-time favorite is olibano, which is a type of or related to frankincense I think. I like the Primo brand ruh khus, but I've tried over brands that say they are ruh khus and they don't seem to smell the same. I've ordered online from http://www.incensemania.com and http://www.incenseontheway.com and had good luck with both.

I signed up for SAS Curriculum Pathways a couple years ago. We use it periodically as a supplement. They do require you to register, but there's no cost. We've used this as a supplement, mostly for social studies, and a few of the science interactives. Some of the primary document exercises in social studies are pretty good. A lot of the exercises seem to be things that an individual student can do, rather than group activities, which make them easy to use as a homeschooler. When my dd finishes an exercise, she can email the results directly to me. We haven't really tried any of their math or Spanish resources, so I can't comment on those. This isn't something we use every day, but for free it has provided some good supplementary material for us.

16 - I was down at the DMV on my birthday.

Same where we live, except the participation fees are higher. I had to confirm dd was passing her courses, but no testing was required, nor did anybody ask any questions about our curriculum. The "fun" of public school did not apply to my dd either. She did take one science class freshman year and was appalled by how badly her classmates behaved. She would much rather accomplish academic things at home than in public school.

Yes, don't think eating, think re-purposing. One year my sister gave us a zucchini behemoth. My daughter painted some nice birthday decorations on it and we took it back over to my sister for her birthday.

It's $150 at our orthodontist's office for a replacement, but ours has had mercy on us and didn't charge for the last one. Maybe because it didn't last as long as he had told us it would. Someone there once told me they don't re-use the molds because they get torn up in the process of casting the new device. Don't know if that's really true. Probably there's a storage issue too with molds being made for lots of patients.

No, I don't like to be running around too much during week days. I only have one kid I'm homeschooling, but I am self-employed and work from my home office. Generally, I like to be around during normal work hours so I can be available if someone calls with a project. Plus it gives my dd a time frame in which to focus on school.

We used it in Grade 9. Prior to that we had jumped around with writing programs, so this was a good review for dd to pull everything together and work on refining her writing. That was good timing for us, but I think an older high schooler could benefit from it as well.