I haven't read all the preceeding posts but military families move all the time. We not only survive, we thrive.

I have lived in places where there were incentives to recycle. We did that most of the time. I certainly did not recycle things I would have to actually wash versus rinse. When I lived in a desert area, I didn't recycle anything that needed rinsing. Water was more precious. I tried using large collection boxes in the grocery store lot but they wouldn't get picked up so I would drive around with trash. My dh quickly put a kibbosh on that. If they didn't pick it up and it wasn't clean (paper or cardboard), it wasn't being recycled. What I don't like is the hard plastic containers all kinds of things are packaged in. They are very hard to open and aren't recyclable,

SO yesterday at the big base promotion party, near the end, I get a call on my cell phone and youngest dd tripped on a dog blanket, fell on the carpet, and probably broke a bone on her right fifth toe bone in the foot, not the toe sticking out but in the foot. So I get her an appointment with her doctor this afternoon. I completely forget about my dental appointment for fillings (a routine sort of thing with my disease) and while I am talkiing to them about rescheduling, I get a call waiting. This is from my internal medicine doctor's nurse telling me that I have an abnormal pap and do I mind being referred to Dr. So and So. I am just so sick of all this. My older daughter should have had surgery last week but was rescheduled to the TS Fay to next week. I don't know when or where we are moving. That means I can't plan anything in the future like vacations or other type of commitments since we don't know where we will be. We know we are in a must move situation but when exactly or where. One of my bloodwork came back last week with a marker positive for lupus and a very negative marker at that. The youngest one has stopped growing taller for absolutely unknown reasons because they have checked all kinds of things. And she also has developed asthma and allergic reactions to wasps. The only bright spot is that my oldest seems to be coming out os his depression. Thanks

I kept my name and dh kept his. The kids all have first name, first middle name, second middle name (husband's last name) and then last name (mine). It hasn't caused problems at all and none of us wanted to hyphenate our quite long last names. Most people don't question it. I do not like the practice of my local homeschool group that wants the kids to callme Mrs. Last Name. I am not a Mrs. even though I am a Christian and a conservative. I am a Ms. Last Name since I am not married to my deceased father.

Praying here.

I have drank coffee a little bit since I was a kid. My mom did not encourage me but I did have sips of her coffee. In college, I became a steady drinker. It wasn't an acquired taste for me. Buth then I love dark chocolate. Both have rich bitter tastes. Though my dh teases me saying I have cream and sugar with a bit of coffee. My husband says he was drinking coffee as a kid. Put of three children, one only became a sometime coffee drinker as an adult and since he has stopped taking ADHD medicine. The second one is ADHD, is medicated and doesn't drink coffee. Youngest has been happily drinking coffee since she was about 4. She normally drinks it less than once a week.

I am praying

No, they weren't migrants. They were a Florida Cracker family. Dd thought of lassoeing a bucket so we might try that.

We are a long term mililtary family. We've been married 23 years and DH has been in the AF for 21 3/4. He has been taught as a 2nd LT. not to follow illegal orders and he is still being given yearly lectures on not giving such orders and against sexual harassment and on fire safety and scores of other safety and legal issues. If their is anything that the military as an institution does well, it is training. It doesn't matter which branch you are in (I can't speak of training in Guard or Reserves since I have no knowledge), but those principles are pounded into your head. Two years after we have left Europe and AFN, my children can still give you most of the talking points made by the commercials. If you don't watch the tv, it doesn't matter. Those same principles are proclaimed at mandatory briefings, in the base newspapers, in lesson materials you need to master for promotions, on billboards, etc, etc. He was recruited into the military by an AF recruiter and that man was completely honest and aboveboard. He told dh that he may not get the job he wanted and that no guarantees could be made. It turned out that the AF did need physicists and my husband who had a physics degree was a natural for that job. But we both knew, and still know, that the needs of the AF come above the desires of our family.

It really depends on the church and the location. No one here wears hose and that includes elderly ladies. It is too hot and muggy. My girls like to usually dress up like today dd15 was going to wear a gorgeous Indian outfit except she couldn't figure out how to wrap the one piece in time and I was too busy to help. Usually the younger wears dresses, skirts, or pants and a shirt, while the older one often wears shorts and a t-shirt during choir season where she wears a robe over that.

My youngest dd is a bookclub of girls ages 7-11 who read intermediate level books. My daughter chose Strawberry Girl which I thought would be easy to find some activities to go along with it on the internet. I haven't found anything except an Internet Scavenger hunt which won't work since we don't have a computer for each girl at the meeting. I am already planning to serve strawberries for the snack. Hive minds got any great ideas? TIA

We don't have babysitters since youngest is 11 3/4 and next one up is 15. That said, I think we often are spending something like 50 or 75, if we go out to dinner. The higher end is usually if we have to go to a function. If we go out to a movie, it is about 20 total. SOmetimes, we go to a bookstore and have coffee/hot chocolate and wander the store. We are just about as likely to go out for breakfast or lunch and that is less than 20.

One of the big problems with measles was not only death. Yes, death wasn't that common. But other serious complications were much more comman than 5/1,000,000. Deafness is not something I would want my children to develop. I have an auto-immune disease. I don't think vaccines have anything to do with it since there were plenty of reports of these diseases before vaccines were administered. There is also absolutely no evidence of any diet related cause of auto-immune diseases. A number of the diseases tend to attack better educated, more well off patients which may have something to do with a better diet (less contaminated food) or maybe cleaner homes. Who knows? There is no evidence for any cause at this time. Some seem to have something to do with your genes that you inherited and others may have something to do with a virus you caught.

I watch a few events- Summer Olympics, WInter Olympics, World Cup and usually parts of the Tour de France. The last one got on my permanent watching list since I saw the race in person pass by when I lived in Belgium.

I am starting my 14th year of full-time homeschooling. Since we are military, we have moved around a lot. In our current location, I don't think I know anyone else who has homeschooled the duration of their child's education unless their children are younger than mine (my youngest is 11). Some are homeschooling highschoolers but even there, the emphasis is different because many of the kids coming out of school had school problems. Not always was the child doing poorly or having some type of bullying or discipline problem. SOmetimes the school was not challenging enough. But regardless of why the family left, if the situation changes, they often go back. The problem for my daughters has been with my younger one. This year, three of her friends have gone back to school. Her only friends that are left are younger than her (or one who is older but acts younger due to learning problems). It is not a situation that I am happy with since my younger dd realy needs same or older age friends. My older dd who was in high school last year, still has all her acquaintances in homeschooling around. In the second location we homeschooled, there were lots of children who had been homeschooled from the get go and were being homeschooled into high school and graduating. The same was true of other places we lived but this area has been different. I don't know if it has anything to do with stricter homeschooling laws then the other states I have lived in.

I just signed up my daughter for Spanish 2. The class is about 399 and billed after one month. This includes the book. I talked to the administrator before signing up because my daughter will be having surgery and probably a move this year. There will be no problems with us taking some breaks. She is supposed to start this Monday so I will report later how it is going.

Usually 78 but sometimes 76 due to bad humidity. At night, I often turn it off or put it up to 80. We live in coastal Florida and probably use air conditioning 10 out of 12 months. Our level billing is about 309 a month so no one gets it any lower. I can't even imagine what it would be with 72. I was upset to read that as a cost saving measure, the local public schools were planning to up the thermostat to 76. My tax dollars at waste.

I have a 10th grader who decided that she realy does want to do American History which she was going to do with a homeschool academy that is not going to happen. I have to quickly come up with something else. She has difficulty with memory with dry textbooks. Things she says have worked for her in the past are The history of US, Lyrica Life Science, and videos. Any suggestions?

No, It is against the military code to publicly support a partisan candidate or party. In our household, and I am sure, in most other military households, any money given to any candidate is donated by me. I don't even tell my husband until after the fact since I want absolutely no suspicion of his influencing me. Now we tend to agree on candidates. the military is not only allowed but encouraged to vote and they can be registered as a partisan for election purposed (registered Republican, registered Democrat, etc) But there is a furher reason those studies are suspect. I do donate to candidates both in the past and this year. I have looked at various lists of so-called donors and I am not on anyone of them. I didn't just donate $10 either.

Sometimes posting makes me feel better so I hope it does the same for you. I hope it is okay that I'll pray for you.

My area has gotten about 25" inches so far in this horrid storm. Roads are flooded, the sewer system is overwhelmed, we have fish on our sidewalk, etc, etc. They have closed most of the streets in my area including ours. I am so grateful since they expect us to get 5 or more inches more rain. This is truly a dreadful storm and it seems to be drawn to our location. Our area is never getting relief. It was stationary for hours and now is moving two miles an hour away from us. So far, we have had some water seep into the Florida room and wet spots appear on a few ceilings. The water from the lake in front of our house (formerly our street) is still quite far from our front of the house. Not much schoolwork got done today.

Mine was Go Away Little Girl by Steve Lawrence. I don't know that version. I hated the Donny Osmond version. I do know Dominique by The Singing Nun that was my husband's song in the same year.

While some diseases and many of the more common ones, may have a personal responisibility componenet- that doesn't apply to the problems in my family. My youngests asthma, cellulutis and anaphalactic reaction to a wasp sting has nothing to do with misbehavior. Nor is her myopia due to lifestyle issues. My older daughter's repeated dislocations of her shoulder doing such routine things like archery, swimming, and reaching are not due to misbehavior and so her surgery to correect the problem is not due to misbehavior. Her ADHD is not due to misbehavior though her behavior is worse if she is not medicated. He migraines aren't due to misbehavior either.My oldest's depression is not due to misbehavior. My inflammatory arthritis, asthma, Sjogren's Syndrome, and migraines aren't due to lifestyle choices either. None of us are suffering from anything due to how we live. I know a few people who ate very well, exercised a lot, were thin, and still had high cholestrol or high blood pressure. One man rode his bike fifteen miles wach way to work, never smoked, drank moderately, was nearly a vegetarian and he had very high cholestrol. His friend who biked with him and was somewhat heavier, did not have high cholestrol.

In this country, it is not as clear as some others. But I would like to give you a few examples- when kids go to college, most are very low income but yet their interests and behaviors have not changed. The same thing when a low income person wins the lottery. They will suddenly have a lot of wealth but their habits and interests remain largely the same, at least at first.

I believe we have had about ten inches. Our swimming pool is overflowing but not by that much so it isn't reaching the house. However you can understand why everything is closed since many roads are flooded We have a lake instead of a parkway in front of our house. You can't tell where the road, sidewalk, or parkland is except for the trees. Power lines are dangling in various places so we are just staying put.