Well, since there are 10 replies all from moms, here I am. I actually split the schooling pretty evenly with my wife (stay at home mom / student). I work, but I'll finish up any lessons that they didn't get to while I was at work. On Tuesday/Thursday, my wife goes to school (finishing her masters in english education) and I work from home / take care of school time those days. We also do special things on the weekend with just Dad. We all go to the library together etc.

Our daughter read Hop on Pop by herself just before her third birthday (end of December last year). We had started 100 Easy Lessons with her sometime in August, so that was 4-5 months worth of lessons (She was round lesson 85 or so if I recall). She had known what all of the upper/lower case letters looked like and their basic sounds since about 18 months. So she had known the letter sounds for almost a year before we started instruction. She learned the names and sounds through Bob Book Pre Readers (a book for every 2-3 letters) which my wife and I ready way too many times, a wooden letter puzzle, and lots of Leap Frog movies (specifically Letter Factory). I really like how 100 EL has you sound out words. It really tries to stress stretching the sounding out into one long word. So, instead of: C...A...T, you hear CCCCAAAATTTT. Every time our daughter would fall into trying to sound out a word with disjointed sounds, we'd tell her to take a deep breath and say the whole word (prompting if needed). Even after finishing 100EL, her fluency wasn't great. She could sound out a lot of words, but when she would read a book, it was more like she was reading a collection of words instead of reading sentences. She could understand what was happening in the story, but it honestly didn't sound great (relative to reading fluently at least. It sounded great for a 2-3 year old). She's 3.5 now and suddenly in the past 2 weeks something has just clicked for her and her fluency has greatly improved. It was almost an overnight change and we've been doing reading lessons for just over a year. I guess what I'm saying is I think there are definitely some developmental aspects, but you can probably help push those developmental dates up with a little bit of effort as well.

My daughter is loving it. Mom does most of the schooling while I'm at work, so mystery science is something special dd and I do on Saturdays. We did the cartoon sound effects and how to tear down a concrete wall this weekend and those have been her favorite so far.

We started with just a single piece of curriculum (Teach Your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons for us). We did a lesson 3-5 days per week, depending on her interest. Our daughter was enjoying school time and we added in math (Right Start A for us, but there are a ton of options). She wanted to learn to write and we added in Handwriting without Tears. We eventually added in very basic early american history and science from the What your X grader should know series (Kindergarten). Somewhere along the line Explode the Code replaced 100EL. That's the stuff we do daily now during "school" time, which typically takes around an hour to an hour and a half. We do all kinds of other supplements throughout the day though: Library books relating to the history/science we're currently talking about, readers for her, Life of Fred most nights before bed, other bedtime stories where we take turns reading, bringing up science lessons when they relate to real life (asking which state of matter different things around the house are or the different foods at dinner), card games, apps like Dragonbox Numbers, Teach Your Monster to Read on PC (this was mostly to get her used to using a mouse), MysteryScience (they still have free memberships for the year if you haven't signed up - the lessons are pretty fun and can be as short as 15 minutes or so if you don't go super deep into the extra activities or longer with the supplements) on the weekend, and then all of the general life experiences like having fun playing games, helping with cooking and cleaning, going to the zoo, swimming, playing etc. For us, while we have school time in the morning, education can happen any time.

It sounds like he also cited two sources that OP cited without actually using them (which would then imply he copied her citations) . At the end of the day, I don't think it's really an integrity issue. Definitely not worth reporting or squabbling over.

I can't say I've ever even thought that some people might think of finger licking as inappropriate. I wouldn't even be opposed to it at a fancy restaurant, although I doubt at a fancy restaurant you would often have the opportunity to finger lick due to the types of food being served. It's not like I ever stick my whole finger in my mouth or anything, but if I have tasty food on my finger and I'm want to pick up a fork, I'm going to just lick/suck/clean it up. I'm also a lot less squeamish about mouth cooties though. When around friend's/family, we generally don't mind sharing drinks/double dipping chips etc. I of course don't do that with less familiar acquaintances as I recognize that bothers some people.

You can add buttons in excel and add a single line of vbscript to tell them what to do (A1 = A1 + 1 etc), but that would take a long time (doing it x20) for something so simple (counting to 20 or less over and over) and isn't really worth setting up unless this is something that you're going to be doing all the time. For a one off, just sort and count them. If you really want something where you click a button and a number goes up, you can use this site I found after a quick google: http://tallycounterstore.com/online-counter You can label each tally counter and click the "+" button pretty much as you described. Just add a counter for each shirt type and label it. Even this is probably too much work and Twigs suggestion would be best.

The same way as care, fare, dare, bear, bare, air, chair, err (like to err). Definitely not 'fay-er', although. I understand how depending on your region, you might run across an accent that sounds like that though. I live in GA, and I could see people pronouncing it that way, though it's non standard. ETA: Using a phonetic alphabet, paid is \ˈpÄd\ and fair is \ˈfer\ (mirriam webster) or paid: /peɪd/ fair: /fɛər/ (using IPA format from dictionary.com)

I had it done 3 or 4 years ago. It was a quick and painless (yet terrifying) process. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes total for both eyes after laying down on the table. About an hour after the surgery, you can see perfectly. It's amazing to not need glasses any more.

I find myself daily asking how anyone ever learns English. Most of the time, my daughter is able to figure out the word from context after she mispronounces it and corrects herself. She regularly laughs when reading and says something along the lines of the 'the A doesn't say it's name there' when we come across a word that doesn't conform to the rules she's learned. We were reading a bob book the other day that was obviously focusing on the ai sound (saying ay) like paid, maid, afraid, laid, pain, etc. Then toward the end of the book it had a word like fair where ai didn't say 'ay'.

Our meals most every night end up being 300-500 calories. My wife makes up a menu a few weeks at a time so we can avoid the 'what do you want' dance every night. Here's a sample of some of the stuff we'll make over the next few weeks: Bulgogi Chicken Tacos (had this last night. 3 tacos packed with meat/chease were just over 450 calories) Parmesan Porkchops (parmesan bread crumb coating - fried) Chili Burgers Soy Chicken and fried rice BBQ Chicken (chicken breast pan fried or baked with no breading cooked with a bbq on them at the end) Shake n Bake Pork Chops Chicken Fingers (chicken breast cut up to size with shake n bake) beef stir fry Chicken wings (baked or smoked on the smoker) Pulled Pork (on the smoker or in a crock pot) Chicken/Rice/gravy (one of our favorite easy low cal meals. It ends up being about 300 calories for a bowl filled to the brim) Chicken Noodle Soup Chicken Tortilla Soup Lemon Pepper Chicken Parmesan Chicken (this one usually ends up around 800 after breadsticks/pasta so it's on the upper end of what we normally eat calories wise) Ribs (smoker or baked) Then we have slight variations on several of them. We typically have rice/mashed potatoes/baked potatoes/corn/raw carrots/mac n cheese as our sides. We're not super big into vegetables, but luckily you can add a ton of those without adding many calories. We pretty much always use chicken breast / 90-10 hamburger / bone out pork chops as a reference. On average we have 7-8 oz of whatever meat we're having. Sometimes as low as 5 or as high as 10 depending on what else is going with it. We use My fitness pal to create recipes for things we make a lot so it's easier to log. If you've never used a calorie tracker before, it can be eye opening if you're religious about tracking every little thing. It's just like how if you don't keep close track of where your money goes you find yourself saying 'how did we spend this much?' Then we you start looking you see where it all went. With calorie trackers, it really shows you how all the little things add up and makes you much more conscious of what you put in your mouth. I pretty much only eat things that taste great now because I'm not wasting calories on something that's only ok.

Why would you get rid of all of your spices? That's exactly how you *spice* up the taste of your food and make it less boring. Spices have little to no calories unless you get into some kind of mix like taco seasoning that has flour in it too, but even then I think it's worth it.

Which one would you do away with? I'm sure none of them are perfect, but they are all there to fulfill a specific need and they do. Just because it doesn't fit your demented narrative that the government is completely useless, doesn't make it so.

Social Security, Medicare, The Post Office, The National Park Service, The CDC, The NIH, The Insterstate Highway System, The FDIC (insurance on if your bank fails), The GI Bill, FHA (increased home ownership from 44% to 63% in the first 20 years it was in place), Consumer Product Safety Commission (ie why we get recalls on dangerous products), OSHA, National Weather Service, FDA. That's not listing anything else you might not like based on politics like SNAP, the EPA (because who wants clean air and water), science funding, NASA, Student Financial Aid, or Medicaid.

They're all religious, but there is one that accepts people of other faiths/atheists (liberty health share).

Agreed. The clerical staff in my office who make ~$10/hr can get an individual plan for just under 9% of their income after our company's $150 subsidy that they give to everyone (bring the price from $300ish to $150ish). This is roughly in line with individual plans offered on the exchange except they can't get the exchange subsidy, which they would certainly qualify for. Even worse is that the family plans range from $1150 to $2000 per month. The company subsidy that they give everyone brings it down to $1000 for the cheapest family plan. The clerical staff take home about 1200-1400 per month depending on if they do 401k and other insurance options or not. It's literally not possible for our clerical staff to buy a family plan, but at the same time, they aren't eligible for subsidies.

The issue with that is not all providers listed are available everywhere in GA. Many counties only have 2-3 options currently (I saw many articles last year about rural areas in GA with only 1). 3 Providers currently have 90% of the market share. One of those is going away. It's a pretty safe assumption that in many cases one of those others is going to be the only option now.

It's not he fault of any one bill or company either. But I can anecdotally say I paid $126 for a family of 3 in 2013 and am paying $509 for family of 4 now with a higher deductible, higher copayments, and less choice in doctors. How would guaranteeing the sickest among us insurance coverage, when they previously didn't have it not necessarily cause premium increases (not that I think we should have uninsurable people)? The cap on profits as a percentage of revenue also incentivizes higher premiums. Literally the only way for an insurance company to increase profits now is to allow increased prices on services matched with a proportional increase in premium payments. Ie it's not in the insurance company's interest any more to cut long term costs as their profits are tied to those costs. If they pay out less overall, then their potential profit is also lowered due to the ACA. Congratulations on being in a state that most likely expanded medicaid and has competition. What makes your positive anecdote any more valuable than my negative anecdote? I'm glad that the previously uninsurable are able to get some kind of coverage now, that doesn't mean everything about the ACA was sunshine and roses for everyone. There are winners and losers with the changes brought about by the ACA. I happen to be in the loser category due to Age/Health/Geography. We should work toward a more equitable solution for everyone. It shouldn't matter if you live in CA or GA.

So we should just disregard rate hike data because market share changes? Sure, since Aetna, is dropping out of exchanges their market share will most likely go down. That basically leaves those people moving to BCBS or Humana (as those three companies are currently ~90% of the marketshare). If they're lucky, they'll be able to go to BCBS which isn't going super crazy (roughly the same increase as Aetna). If they're unlucky, Humana is the other option in their area and they will see a gigantic increase. Most likely, average rate increase will actually be higher than that 27% weighted average in the article just because of how high the Humana rate increase is due to shifts from Aetna to other carriers. Also, no single state is going to be representative of the country. That doesn't mean you should marginalize the effects on the budgets of the hundreds of thousands of people in GA on private insurance.

Insurance rates since I started working went up every year, but it was in the 5-10% range annually. Since the ACA, it's been >20% for me every year. I understand why. My family is young and healthy. Those are the people most disproportionately burdened by the ACA due to how health insurance works (the young/healthy subsidize the sick/old). Our whole family is under 30 and we can get catastrophic plans (which are basically bronze level plans with lower premiums). My wife turns 30 this year and I will in early 2018. If we had the cheapest bronze level plans they would be just over $1000/month. Our cheapest employer plan is also $1100/month.

I'm not who you were quoting, but in GA, the Insurance companies are requesting an average 27% rate hike for next year. In 2013 before the ACA fully kicked in, I was paying $42 per person per month in my family for a plan (individual plan bought privately rather than an employer plan). This year, I'm paying $127 month/person and with a ~25% increase next year, that means I will be paying roughly 4x for my premiums what I was paying 4 years prior with a much higher deductible and copayments. It's insane. We have 2 more providers dropping out this year as well after 2 or 3 dropped out last year.

This happened to us this year. When I chose our insurance provider at the beginning of the year, I made sure our PCP, my wife's OB, and our kids' doctor was all in network. We're young and healthy, so we don't go to the doctor's often. The very first time my wife goes to see our PCP (about a month ago), she is told that they no longer accept our insurance because they had such difficulty getting paid all the time. We ended up paying out of pocket. My wife goes to see her OB for her annual check. She's excited to see her OB because he literally saved her life and our son's life last year after an emergency C section followed by an emergency hysterectomy. Same thing at the OB office. They stopped taking it because they can never get paid. Luckily, her doctor stepped out to talk with her for a minute anyways, but she didn't get her normal exam ($300 without insurance). So we're stuck with this insurance plan until the next open enrollment, but can't go to any of our doctors that were in network during open enrollment.

Somehow the rest of the developed world manages it... It kills me that we have concrete proof that Single Payer or Public Option works literally all over the world and the same people that tell you the US is the greatest country on earth will say we can't implement a system that most of the world has had for years.

I saw this after I had mentioned The Dark Tower series as well. There's definitely very graphic sex at least in the second or third book that I remember surprising me that I didn't remember on a reread. There's of course violence through out, but it's not graphic in the 'horror' sense.

I started the Dark Tower series in 6th or 7th grade (I think only the fourth book was released at that point). I also read IT,Needful Things, Insomnia, The Talisman and Black House all around that time (middle school). I don't really remember reading anything quite as adult as SK prior to that, but I don't recall any of it ever shocking me either (the graphic sex or the gruesome horror). I wouldn't say I was particularly numb/over exposed to that stuff before either. I had a pretty average tween/young teenager's exposure to sex to violence prior to that (movies/video games/other literature).