The easiest thing to cut is any drink with calories. When I'm cutting, I want all of my calories available for food. I typically skip breakfast and can have 800 calories each for lunch and dinner. I prefer having two larger meals that get me full than 3 smaller ones that leave me hungry still. I typically do two sandwiches for lunch with 3 oz of deli meat each on white bread with some kind of cheese plus some kind of fruit. Thats around 800. Dinners, we eat a wide variety, but its prety rate to have one more than 800 calories if its homecooked for us, so I usually have a little room for an additional snack.

I let my daughter pick out our mystery for this weekend. She choose 'Why does the sun rise and set?'. She was very upset that we didn't start it right away (it was 7 PM). She got over it, but when I was putting her to bed she said something about the sun was going down for the day and I asked if she remembered what our mystery this weekend was going to be. She said 'Why does the sun rise and set. But I was upset because I wanted to do it today'... Maybe I'll have to hold off on letting her pick until the weekend.

I was thinking of making it a special weekend event rather than part of our normal school day curriculum. I was thinking hype it up and on Saturdays or Sundays we get to check out the next Science Mystery. I think I'll let her choose one from two or three topics each week that way she knows what to be excited about for the weekend (and I have time to prepare materials).

It's really not a lot of extra work to make a few phone calls and then take a few minutes to meet people at the door when they come. It's worth it, in my opinion, on a service that can range in price several hundred dollars. If several hundred dollars isn't worth a couple extra hours of your time in phone calls / meeting people at the door, then don't sweat it. You could also look up some kind of estimator/calculator online to see if their estimate falls within a reasonable range. It's your money, you can do whatever you're comfortable with.

To be fair, the whole article is only 10 sentences long. So 10% of the article is dedicated to talking about him being a homeschooler.

Yeah there's nothing good about health insurance these days... Both our primary care physician and my wife's obgyn are out of network now when they were in network at the beginning of the year. While we're stuck with them until open enrollment, they can apparently change whatever they want whenever they want. Our daughter was born on 12/31, so we had to pay 2 deductibles (one for 2012 and one for 2013), even though we were assured by our health insurance liason through work that one pregnancy would be one deductible even spanning calendar years. Our insurance decided to charge separate deductibles for mother/baby for our son, so we also had to pay two deductibles there as well. We constantly have problems with our insurance not fully covering child wellcare (vaccinations/tests in the first couple of years). More to your point (instead of me griping), my wife ended up having an emergency hysterectomy with our son and there was apparently an assistant surgeon who was out of network on the surgery. We argued with the insurance company and hospital about it since we had no control over it and never even knew he was there (despite meeting 3 other surgeons / anesthesiologists that worked on her) and we were in an in network facility. They eventually paid it or the hospital/doctor dropped the charges. It's all a major headache (it was months of going back and forth with the insurance company 'reviewing' it each time), but if you stick up for yourself, you can get it straightened out.

My wife is getting invisalign in October and it's $5000 for that where we are (GA). That seems to be the going price for Invisalign elsewhere around Atlanta as well.

I think the point of linking that paper was to show that you can play linguistic games to change the meanings of things. I think even Sadie would agree that Leviticus is outright homophobic and doesn't agree with that section of the paper. S/he was merely replying to someone else wondering if the bible isn't talking about slavery in the sense of owning people, but rather being 'slaves to Christ'. Which is a 'give me a break' line of thinking. It seemed to me the paper was a tongue in cheek response to playing linguistic games to suit your narrative (Sadie, if I misrepresented you there, I'm sorry. That's what I took you to mean).

I'm sorry if I have come off hostile to you.I didn't mean to. Debates with apologists are somewhat of a past time of mine and I'm sorry if I've been carried away (I regularly participate in a couple of religous debate forums). Have a great night and it's been a pleasure talking with you and TM even if we feel each other is misguided.

Old testament god who was chummy with all sorts of people and regularly talked to / intefered with daily life or Jesus could have come out and said "Owning another person is wrong". Instead what we get is a list of things you are allowed to do with your slaves including beating them (as long as they recover after a day or two) and loopholes around the 7 year/jubilee freedom (exodus 21 for both of those) and told that slaves must obey masters and masters should treat slaves justly (new testament). I don't think there is a fair and just way to treat a slave. Who are you to say that prescriptions of slavery were just a product of their time, but sinful sexual acts are not? Maybe God was just telling us that being gay is bad because intolerant people will make your life miserable. Who are you to pick and choose which things are okay? You seem to condemn slavery even though God is A Okay with it. God tells us exactly what to do with Adulterers (kill them) and you don't seem to condone that either.

Got it. You are also then fine with owning another person as you property, selling your daughters, and stoning people to death for adultery (too bad those pesky secular laws get in the way of this)? Also, you are trying to tell me that being gay is a choice? I'm sure the people that end up committing suicide over it or have been relentless bullied, tortured, or killed for being gay should have just chosen not to change their sexual preferences...? Do you even realize how absurd you sound when you say something like that? I assume you are a mostly good person and a great mother(?) - after all you are here on this forum presumably to help provide a great and loving education for you child(ren) - and it's depressing to see the blind bigotry that can be expressed by an otherwise nice and normal person. The Collossian line I quoted about wives submit to your husbands was followed by husbands love your wives - a completely different meaning - where as it seems you would have me believe both should submit to each other. Again, you can make the bible say whatever you want it to say as is evidenced by our back and forth here.

The 10 commandments are also from the old testament. I guess we don't need to worry about those any more either. Why are so many Christians (even in this thread), so concerned about having them displayed in government buildings then...? 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.a 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.b 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commandsc and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I'm sure you can come back with another piece of scripture that shows exactly why we can ignore the old testament laws (although many still pick and choose what they want to follow), but that again just goes to show how contradictory the bible is and you can use it support whatever viewpoint you find fits your world view. People have used the bible to support views for and against slavery, for and against women's equality, for and against war. It's almost like people have a way of determining right and wrong independent of a several thousand year old collection of books.

If I'm reading you correctly, you are saying that you feel that homosexuality is a sin (presumably because the bible says so). Do you not see the bigotry in your position? You are basically stating to all gay people that you think that a major part of their personhood is bad/wrong/sinful/immoral. I know I would not want to associate with someone who thought that my sexual preferences, which I had no control over, made me immoral. It's a hurtful position to have about someone. I'm sure once upon a time, people also held the same position on 'witches', people who wear polyester, and fig lovers, but we've moved beyond that due to empathy, reason, and philosophy. I'm not sure how do have multiple quotes in a post (maybe someone could pm me. ETA: Hornblower pm'd me. Thanks), but in response to women being equal to men in the bible, that is laughable. I've heard the apologetic lines before about toil vs pain in childbirth, but then why do all of our translations read pain? It's obvious that most translators feel that is the appropriate translation. You can dress it up anyway that you'd like to make yourself feel better, but even with modern medicine, childbirth is still painful. The 1 Corinthians 14:36 line that you included is up for debate whether or not it is even to be read as you are wanting it interpreted (IE him reading/quoting someone else and then responding aghast), but even giving you the charitable reading, that just shows that women were allowed to prophesize with Paul. Also in 1 Corinthians, how about : 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Also the whole bit in 1 Corinthians 11 about it being a dishonor for men to cover their heads while praying, but women MUST have a covering their heads (long hair or an actual cover) followed by this golden bit of equality: 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of man. or how about Collossian 3:18? 18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. You also neglected the most infamous 1 Timothy 2 11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. That last line pretty much summarizes woman's role in the bible - make babies. The fact that you may be able to tease out something that looks like equality for women in some specific situations of the bible only goes to show that if you try hard enough, you can make the bible say anything you want it to.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that says bullying is okay. Most people don't realize what they are doing is bullying. It's easy for bigotry to be expressed as bullying though. Imagine your bigotry is sanctioned by the creator of the universe, to whom you pray and you think of as perfect. It's okay to not only own other humans, but beat them as long as you don't beat them too much. Non matrimonial sex should be punishable by being stoned to death by the community (sure sounds like judge/jury/executioner is commanded here...) Women are beneath men - a precept from the very beginning in Genesis where women are punished with the pain of child bearing. Women are unclean during menstruation. Women cannot hold authority over men. Women should be subordinate to men. A man lying with a man is an abomination. We've mostly overcome those first three bullets in spite of the bible. The last couple of decades, we have been working hard on overcoming that last one. That's what Dan Savage is calling bullshit - the blatant bigotry that we should be able to see is ridiculous, but people condone it because of what some bronze age men had to say several thousand years ago. We know that despite what the bible says, we shouldn't own people, women are equal to men, and sex is okay. Some people are still having a hard time accepting homosexuality and it is understandably hard when you're told that it's an abomination. Hell is for bad people and gay people are going to hell. It doesn't take a huge leap in logic to get from that to being outright mean or maybe even more subtly oppressing gay people.

My wife volunteered our house for a thank you party to her Sunday school teachers who are retiring. She only invited people in her bible study group, but they pretty much all ended up coming and all have 2-4 kids. It was a lot of work, but we had a blast. I smoked 40 lbs of pork shoulder for pulled pork and made a ton of bbq sauce and my wife made a humongous cake. Everyone else brought chairs, tents for shade, drinks, plates, sides, and we all had a great time hanging out and swimming (we had about 20 kids in our pool at one point). My daughter had a great time having so many of friends over too. It was a lot of work, but worth it for the good times and good food.

We bought one of these for our daughter a couple of years ago (she was ~18 months at the time and is 3.5 now). I end up sleeping in it now and again whenever she calls for me in the night and won't go back to sleep and it's just fine for a normal mattress.

Sams has been worth it for us. Toilet Paper/paper towels/ diapers/spices (their spices alone can save you the price of the membership as they have giant containers that are barely more expensive than the tiny ones you'll find in a normal spice aisle)/non chicken meat seems to be a little cheaper and is the best place we've found for briskets and pork shoulders for smoking. There are typically decent 1st time sign up promos going on too. When we signed up last year, we got their premium membership (basically just adds 5% cashback) for the price of the normal membership + we got $70 worth of specific coupons (of which we used around half because some of the stuff was things we wouldn't normally buy). The sales associate that we were buying the membership from actually told us about the promo too. You can always walk around one to check out prices on things you'd actually buy. You don't need a membership (at least at Sams, not sure about Costco) to walk in the door. We only go about once per month to stock up on stuff though.

I see people say these kinds of generalizations about the south all the time, but I've yet to experience anything like this. I grew up in GA and went to public school in the 90s/early 2000s. I don't know that anyone ever asked me specifically about my religion at all. I never had a teacher mention anything about religion other than possibly telling a story that involved them being at their church. I grew up non religious. My mom says she believes in some kind of higher power, but we never went to church or anything and I was never indoctrinated into any kind of belief or non belief (I was just not exposed almost at all). By high school I came to realize I'm an atheist (prior to that there just wasn't any thought about it). I'm still in GA and overwhelmingly, the people I know are all Christian. One of my great friends from work is the most religious person I know ('found' god after a brain tumor years ago and really turned his whole life around from decades of drug abuse). He is a mentor for an AA type faith based program, never misses church, prays before every meal, asks to say prayers for others that are having troubles, every hardship he endures he approaches optimistically saying God hasn't helped him come this far to fail, every triumph in his life he gives credit to God, etc. He knows I'm an atheist and it has never been a problem. Our families regularly visit each other and have group outings. The same thing for everyone at my wife's church. I go to group events/parties/kids choir etc sometimes and they all know why I'm not there on Sundays with my wife, but the most I hear that is remotely evangelizing is that they hope to see me more often. I'm sure there are these crazy religious fanatics out there that are rude to people that are different, but I find it hard to believe after living in 6 or 7 different cities in GA and never seeing it for myself that it is really as wide spread as it's made out to be - even in the bible belt.

I would guess that someone will be live streaming on Twitch.tv or YouTube. You would be able to watch from your laptop. You could get that up to your tv if you have an HDMI cable to hook up your laptop to your tv and use your tv as a second monitor, or have a Chrome Cast to cast your laptop browser to the tv (these are $35 and totally worth it). There are more technological ways of getting around the US cable subscription requirement by tricking it into thinking you're in another country (http://www.howtogeek.com/182666/how-to-watch-the-olympics-online-without-a-cable-subscription/), but I would go with trying to find someone else already streaming it and watch theirs. You could also try to get a friend or family member (if you know any suckers that still pay for cable) to share their login.

Yeah that's pretty much what. I was thinking. Thanks!

My DD finished 100 Easy Lessons a few months ago. We've been reading through Bob Books since, then, but recently picked up Explode the Code (book 2). DD was super excited about it before she even knew what it was - because of the name, I guess. She's been doing 3-4 pages every day including the weekends at her own request. We were thinking it would be like 2 pages per day on weekdays originally. My wife is worried that she'll go through it too fast and everything won't have time to sink in. We've been spending almost as much time doing some of the exercises in the teacher's manual to make the lessons last an extra day or two, which is mostly thinking of words that go with the lesson or dictating words and she writes them on a whiteboard (writing is her favorite thing at the moment). I'm thinking it's just a combination of book 2 being too easy for her, it's still new and exciting, and she loves writing, of which it has a lot. Also, I'm doubting that you can really practice reading and writing too much, especially if you're enjoying it, but at the pace she's been going she'll finish this book in a month.

We had a lot more formal PreK than most people. We have a small sunroom that we turned into a school room. It has tiny toddler sized table and chairs that a family member gave to us, bookshelves specifically for school books (Bob Books mostly at this point), and a cabinet with all of our curriculum/manipulatives/binder only used for school time. We started with just 100EL doing a lesson per day which would be 10-30 minutes depending on distractions. We added in RightStart A somewhere along the way and do a lesson most days unless DD says she doesn't want to (most of the time she wants to do everything). A few months ago, we picked up HWT and she would do 2-4 pages per day (however much she wanted - 1 day she did the last 20 pages when she was off on her own). After 100EL was finished, we would just make sure to read at least one Bob Book - more if she wanted. We also would go over some light US history/science from What your Kindergartner should know one or two days per week. Typing it all out it sounds like a lot, but it ends up being about 1 - 1.5 hours most days of formal class time with the rest of the day spent helping cooking or baking, playing with her little brother, swimming, playing outside, playing on her tablet, helping cleaning, or otherwise being a toddler. Sometimes we take school out of the school room and into the kitchen while we eat lunch. Teaching is split between me and my wife (probably 3:1 in her favor) depending on our schedules. Lesson times are a lot less stressful when we do them while DS1 is napping, so school usually doesn't take place until just after lunch.

Met at 16/17 in highschool. Married at 19/20. We had been living together for 2 years by that point. We've been married for just over 9 years now. We've had our low points like most every couple, but nothing we haven't been able to work through and the last 4 years or so have been fantastic.

Depending on what they need to do with it for school, you might be able to get away with a ChromeBook. They are super light, cheap, and you can go from turned off to working on something in under 30 seconds. Those are the best advantages. The biggest downside is that since it is using the ChromeOS and NOT Windows, you can't install programs on it. Basically, ChromeOS is a fancy version of the Chrome Browser and you can only run Chrome plugins. There are Chrome plugins for all of your main office type products (word/excel/power point), but you wouldn't be able to install a program that requires windows. My wife is getting her master's in English Education right now and this works out perfectly for her. She can browse the internet and write papers. It wouldn't work if you were wanting iTunes or special programs for course work like an IDE for programming. We got the Toshiba Chromebook 2, which is one of the higher end Chromebooks, but those are still priced at the low end for normal windows laptops.

We haven't used the getting ready for the code books, but the explode the code teacher's manuals have nice instructions/activities/explanations of the thought process behind what you're doing. They aren't really related to the workbooks at all other than the test sections at the end though and you could totally do the workbook without the teacher's manual. Overall, we think the teacher's manual is worth having to give some insight into the purpose of what you are supposed to be teaching rather than just going through the workbooks with no guidance on what's actually be learned.