No, I don't buy dh's clothes, except for an occasional gift item. We met when we were in our 40s, so we were both pretty used to doing those things for ourselves. Plus, he likes to wear shirts that are really too baggy for him. If I bought a shirt that would actually fit I doubt he'd wear it much, and I don't want to add to his billowy shirt collection.

My mother used to "fix" meals. This reminds me of how we would tease her by asking if she had broken it. I do sometimes have to repair a meal myself, but usually I "make" meals. "Preparing" sounds too fancy for what happens around our house. Sometimes we just "throw (insert name of meal) together."

We used Teaching the Essay from the Analytical Grammar folks. http://www.analyticalgrammar.com/teaching-the-essay It walks the student through the 5-paragraph essay writing process. I've passed mine along to someone else, but as I recall it includes instructions to the student, some graphic organizers, a grading rubric, and the text of the 3 or 4 short stories that are used as the basis for the essay assignments. There is also a CD to help the parent/teacher get prepared. The total cost was around $20 including shipping. You could probably do the whole thing in about a month's time if you wanted, or else spread the assignments out over a semester. It was good practice for my dd to work on 5-paragraph essays.

Same here. We tried homeschool groups when my daughter was younger, but none of them really worked out for us. One was an established group where everyone had religious convictions that we didn't have. Another group would advertise play dates, but then no one but us showed up. What worked better for us was to get my daughter involved in sports, art classes, and after school events at our library. It seemed like we kept running into some of the same people over and over. My daughter is fairly outgoing and was able to make friends doing these kinds of activities. I'm an introvert, but I did manage to make friends with a few of the parents. Not close pals, but comfortable acquaintances where I felt okay with my dd going to their house or their kid come to our place.

I doubt it would help much. We have a Brynne and she gets called Brian, Bree, Breanna and Brianne all the time, and apparently we've complicated things further by adding the "e" because she gets called Brine a lot as well. At the time we were contemplating names I thought people would view it like Lynne. Most people don't seem to have a problem saying "lin" instead of "line" there, but I guess the extra consonant at the beginning gets them flummoxed. Who would have thought a one syllable name could be so confusing!

We did Connections Academy through our state's public school system for a couple years. I agree with a previous poster that it is very public-schoolish. That didn't bother us much at the time, since my dd had just come out of the brick and mortar school. The teacher guides were helpful, and you didn't necessarily have to do every single math problem or every workbook exercise if you were satisfied your child had the concept down. Most of the teachers there were pretty responsive. It is very much a "check the box" kind of thing though. The scheduler tells you what you need to do each day, which could be viewed as a help or a drudgery, depending on your outlook! Some of the lessons were dry, but the textbooks were similar to what we'd had when she was in public school before. I didn't think CA was awful. We were just ready to leave the herd and start schooling on our own after a couple years.

I don't know that my dh would be angry about me using his email account, but it just wouldn't be practical for us since I get a lot of emails every day and I think he gets quite a few as well. I save a lot of mine too. Dh has a part-time business enterprise and doesn't really need my emails cluttering up his account. If he started having his emails routed to my account I suppose I might be a little annoyed. I don't want more stuff to sort through and it's easy enough to set up another email account.

For most subjects we are done when the book is finished. However, we do continue on with math and reading during the summer, although with a much lighter load. I don't designate the reading material for summer. I just let my dd pick what she wants to read. She's a pretty enthusiastic reader, so I don't have to encourage her much there. For math we mainly do review over the summer, so I wouldn't start a new book until the fall, but we might do Khan Academy or some worksheets during the summer. Not every day during the summer, but 2-3 times a week.

My dd (coming up on 15) is pretty comfortable interacting with peers of either gender. She's met plenty of boys in orchestra, as well and in tennis and swimming. She did go to a dance at her friend's charter school, but she and her friend attended with a small mixed group of boys and girls.

Two. I have a medium-sized one that I've had for several years, which I've used quite a lot. Last year for Christmas my mom gave me a huge crockpot. I was thinking I should get rid of the smaller one, but the big one is just too big for some things, plus it tends to cook much hotter, even on the low setting. I use them both, but for different things. I think two's the limit for us though. I can't justify the cupboard space for more than two crockpots!

We've never had tv in any of the bedrooms. If anybody wants to watch anything here, it's on the one tv we have in the living room. Plus, there's not really room for a tv in my dd's messy bedroom.

My dd attended our state Connections Academy for a couple years during elementary school, so we haven't done any high school classes with them and the requirements could vary by state, but here is our experience: 1. Teachers varied. Two were ok, but one of those was slow to get back to us and sometimes didn't answer all of our questions. My daughter had one teacher who was truly awesome, really understood where my daughter was at academically and modified some assignments to suit her. We met this teacher once at a CA get-together and at another event 2 years later she recognized my daughter in a crowd and was enthusiastic about seeing her. Some of the teachers really do go above and beyond to make online learning more personal. Others were more so-so, but we got the job done. 2. I only recall one time where there were any computer issues, and that got resolved within a day. 3. Transferring credits - we were just in grade school, so not really an issue for us. CA did some of their own placement testing, but didn't question anything that was on the transcript from before. There might be more scrutiny at the high school level, but I can't really speak to that. If your questions was about transferring CA credits to another school, I don't know. We went to our state CA, so theoretically it was supposed to meet all state requirements. We've just homeschooled since leaving there so it hasn't been an issue for us at this point. 4. Yes, parents were able to access grades any time. I set up access for my ex-husband to view our dd's school information on the CA system. I don't know if he ever did, but the divorced parents thing was not an issue for us. The only thing was that we sometimes had to wait for the teacher to grade papers and projects, so it took a while for grades to show up. The online quiz results showed up right after the quiz was taken. Our experience may be rather state-specific and it's been several years, so things could change. If you are thinking of transferring during the school year I would call the academic counseling office for the CA school you are thinking of enrolling her in and find out what her class placement would be - would she have to start at the beginning and catch up, or does she just jump in wherever her classmates are? We knew some folks who started late in the year and had to begin at the beginning, which made them feel like they could never catch up.

I'm a dog person. My daughter would like a cat. My greyhound might like a cat - but in the wrong kind of way.

I was rather shocked by the lack of world history at our local high school too. The only thing that's required is a semester long class called "Global Studies" in 9th grade, which looks like a bit of history with world geography, although it doesn't seem like you could cover too much in a meaningful way in only one semester. They do offer AP U.S. History but no other AP history classes. There are 2 other semester U.S. History classes, both emphasizing the 20th century. The only other world history class is a one semester class on Russia and Eastern Europe. I guess that's more than no world history, but I'm certainly glad we are homeschooling!

My 4 yo neutered greyhound just squats a little - not as much as the girls do though. Never seen him lift his leg.

I was able to get a Teacher's Edition for Earth Science that had the answers to the review exercises in the student text. I had to email and specifically request it. It's been a little over a year since I got my materials, so maybe they are revising some of their offerings. I see they have middle school, honors, and high school earth science now. On their home page, right-hand side under the heading "Teacher's Editions", there is a note that says: "If you are a parent or a teacher, we can send you the Assessment and Solution Key Teacher's Edition of the FlexBook you're using." Then there's a button right below it to "request it now." I suggest contacting them through that link and seeing if they have any teacher materials/assessments/answer keys available for whatever text you want to use.

The idea of homeschooling never occurred to me when my dd was really young. When she was in early elementary school her dad underwent multiple rounds of cancer treatment, including a bone marrow transplant. Dd was really stressed and found it hard to focus at school with lots of disruptive, unruly kids in the classroom. At first I decided to do an online school with her. It was ok-ish, but that's when I started to think more about homeschooling. Doing the online school gave me the opportunity to be involved with what my dd was doing on a daily basis. (A big improvement over B&M school, where I never knew much about what she was doing in school, except for completed papers she brought home. Even when you asked a teacher, it seemed like they only gave you cursory information.) I realized we could do school ourselves without the assistance of somebody else designating the curriculum.

We used the Earth Science resources from CK12. I was able to put the textbook on our Nook, so we didn't have to be sitting at the computer to look at the text. I didn't think the text was jaw-dropping exciting, but it got the job done and was an easier read than some of the standard textbooks we've used. What I liked was that CK12 will gladly give the answer keys and teacher resources to homeschool families. You have to email and ask for the answer keys, but there were no extra "homeschool hoops" required before they would provide them.

I thought I'd like the bagless. At first it was cool to see what I was actually sucking up off our floors. I spent a lot of time taking it apart and unclogging it though. It was much more of a pain than I anticipated. Maybe I just bought a lousy bagless model, but I have a bagged vacuum now and like it much better.

I'd definitely want to check around. The orthodontist our dentist "highly recommended" just didn't inspire a lot of confidence. He rubbed us the wrong way and his staff was rather cold. We checked out another orthodontist just for a reality check and his price was significantly less and he had a welcoming, friendly staff. Our insurance didn't cover orthodontia at all, so it was a big investment for us, and we wanted to go some place we felt more comfortable - and being less expensive as well was a big bonus!

My dd14 has a twin bed, just the regular sized one. We have a double size loft bed with a desk underneath that she could use, but she doesn't want to climb up there, so twin bed it is.

I have the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature. We haven't used it straight through, because my dd doesn't really like the workbooky approach, especially all the vocabulary lists. Quite a few of the short-answer questions are recall-type questions, but there are some that have you ponder on a character's motivations and why they respond the way they do. I like that the final lesson assignments list more than one option. There are some overview chart to help keep characters straight and help analyze what's going on in each scene/chapter. The beginning of the book mentions one lesson a week. Some of the lessons seemed rather short for a week's worth of high school work. For example, the section on Oedipus Rex was 5 lessons, but I didn't really want to spend 5 weeks on it. I just pulled out the material from the guide that I thought would be good and used that. If you wanted to take a more leisurely approach it would probably be just the thing. In her introduction the author cautions against avoiding the "cattle drive" approach. We just felt like it dragged out a bit too much for us. My kid gets cranky about having to answer a lot of recall questions or "what happened in lines 156-207?" kinds of questions. Also, this guide limits itself to Mesopotamia and Greece, and there's a lot more ancient literature from other places that one might want to explore. After two and half weeks we were perfectly satisfied to leave Oedipus Rex behind and move on to something else. Don't know if this helps much since we didn't use it as directed. I think it is a useful resource and I will probably dip back into again when we decide to read another of the works covered in this guide.

If her daughter attended school there part of the year, I can understand why they might be interested in continuing after-school activities and keeping in touch with friends from school. It might not be a draw for you, but I can see where it might appeal to someone. When we left public school, the principal at my daughter's former school allowed her to do some activities there. It helped my daughter make the transition, so maybe your friend is thinking of it along those lines. As far as showing her homeschooling records to people at the school -maybe mom just needs some re-assurance.

Yes, I am a curriculum hoarder too! Not as bad as I used to be though, and most stuff I only buy if it's on sale or I see something irresistible at Goodwill or the library book sale. I have to stop reading glowing reviews about curriculum items I don't yet own. I'm too much of a sucker for that type of thing.

Does anyone here have any experience with New Learning Resources Online? Here is the website: http://www.nlro.org It does look like they are willing to serve homeschoolers. My dd was interested in an online class as a supplement to what we're doing at home. This looks fairly inexpensive compared to some other programs. I was just curious if anybody here had tried NLRO.