Listeria is very dangerous for pregnant women. I'm not familiar with these products since I'm living in Europe right now, but they look like something I might buy. I think this will be discouraging for people like me that are trying to increase their fruits and vegetables in their diet. I buy a mix of whole vegetables that I wash and cut myself, but I do use some of the mixed, convenience packs to add variety to salads and soups. I don't understand why soups are on the list though since they will be cooked. Maybe just reheating isn't enough to kill the listeria. I hope everyone who became ill because of these foods feel better soon.

We now have three dogs. We started with our standard schnauzer who gets along well with other dogs. Then we decided to raise a puppy for the guide dog center in our area. We raised that dog, a golden retriever until he was one year old. The two dogs got along very well. We were all sad when it was time for the second dog to go into training full time. Well, four months later he flunked out of guide dog school because of his hips and because he was afraid of too many things. We were offered the opportunity to adopt him, so of course, we did. They still get along well, but it is hard to walk them both at the same time. The golden is very large and still pulls on the leash. He also barks at strange dogs which gets the other one going too. Not long after that we were asked to adopt a guide dog that was retiring whom we had watched once before when his blind owner was having surgery. So of course we said yes. We go through a lot of dog food and the vet bills add up, but they are having a great time together. They are all good dogs, but when one barks they all start. I think two is a good number.

I could have answered the same as many of the above responses. If I had to pick two things I guess it would be I've let go of some of the responsibilities in the house that teens should be doing for themselves ( their laundry, being the family brain as said above, and letting them clean when their friends are coming over). And I've started taking responsibility for my health by nordic walking, doing Pilates, and eating better to lose weight.

What about a Standard (medium) Schnauzer. They are very smart, don't shed, and like to walk. Ours is seven years old and has been a great dog.

Living overseas so long, I didn't realize they still made those classics! I loved Count Chocula as a kid. My favorite cereal as a child was Captain Crunch though.

I have the Leki supreme nordic walking poles. This is not where I got them but they are the same thing. I bought mine at AS Adventure. https://www.tesmasport.com/leki-supreme-nordic-walking-poles

I think the description above is a good summary. You can watch videos of proper Nordic Walking technique to get an idea of the motion. It's really like cross country skiing. My back, shoulder, and core muscles have improved a lot and my lower back pain is almost gone. I have a problem with my SI joints. I live in the Flanders area of Belgium where there are tons of mountain bike and walking trails over rolling hills, through farm roads, cobblestones, and on paved country roads. My pace is faster than normal walking and my stride is longer. On flat even terrain I can really get into a rhythm. Uphill I use them for a little push and downhill for stability much like trekking poles. Mine are adjustable but once I got them set at the right length (110cm) I don't change them. They have hard, pointed tips and rubber booties that cover the tips. I've found that the rubber tips are all that I need to use because they grip well on all the surfaces and make less noise. I started Nordic Walking after I stopped running due to SI joint pain. Regular walking wasn't burning enough calories and I was still having pain through the hip area. This really is a full-body workout, burns a lot of calories, and causes less stress on the joints.

I have Nordic Walking poles. They are Leki adjustable ones with cork handles and click in wrist straps. I love walking with them and am up to 10km several times a week now. They are not the same thing as trekking poles. I can walk so much farther with the poles without having joint pain. I recommend them to all my friends that want to lose weight or be more active.

The other homeschool families in our area are a big part of our social group. Even though my daughters have stopped attending co-op because their course work demands too much time now, I am still teaching this year. I'm doing a physics class for elementary and middle school. It's a fun, creative outlet for me and a way to keep in touch with our friends. The co-op isn't very large so I only have 17 kids to teach, some of whom I've known for years now. Everyone loves science classes. When my girls are done with high school, maybe I'll look for some paid work in STEM teaching or tutoring.

Maybe you could try DIVE Physics with the Saxon Physics book. I haven't used this one but we've liked other DIVE products.

We are using the DIVE DVDs with Saxon Advanced Math. My daughter is taking the SAT Saturday for the first time. She was also doing the Khan Academy SAT practice last year. So I guess we will see. I hope it worked. I like the DIVE products.

AP French through Laurel Springs has good teacher support, but they don't have life classes. You work through the powerspeak course, the teacher grades the work, and is available in iClassrooms or via Skype-type conference calls for as much help as is needed. My daughter had good spoken French when she started the class, but she said this was very good practice for the exam questions. There was a lot of drill in the oral 2-3 minute oral response to questions which gets them good at formulating quick responses, not using too many verbal fillers, getting used to being recorded. There was also a lot of cultural information. The course is structured like the exam, provides a lot of vocabulary related to the culture questions. I suspect the teacher support varies, but my experience is that Laurel Springs teachers are very good and very responsive. Our only frustration was with technical glitches on the powerspeak side. My daughter got a 5 on the exam. As to essays, we don't remember any thing longer than a typical AP FRQ.

AP French through Laurel Springs School uses Powerspeak. It covered all the necessary topics. There was enough teacher support. Occasionally we had problems with the system, little glitches with recording or whatever. Overall it was good preparation.

I don't really think the government has to be responsible for "an educational campaign" to alert the public about the risk. I've taught my children how to pack a shopping bag from a young age. I think the same rules apply to disposable shopping bags. We have to do our own bagging here so maybe that makes a difference. I think about germs all the time in the grocery store. In Belgium, the bread is not wrapped. You just reach in to the bin and select the loaf you want from among all the wonderful and delicious varieties. Then you put it into the slicer, press the button, wait for it to fall out the bottom, and then carefully put it into the paper sack. There are so many opportunities for contamination, not the least of which are my own hands that were just pushing the shopping cart before selecting the bread. I've seen people choose a loaf and then put it back after changing their minds. I think that's frowned upon, but what are you going to do. I'm also very careful about how I load my cart. I put meat in only one area, never touching anything else. But for all I know the previous person had a cartful of raw chickens and then put them on the conveyor belt, too. I find my reusable bags to be the least of my worries as far as germs go at the market.

I don't see a need to wash them. I have one designated for meat, it's red and has a picture of hamburgers on it so it's easy to remember. The others, only clean food in bags and boxes goes into them so they don't get dirty inside. I don't put them on the ground except in my kitchen. My car is pretty clean. I don't put bleach bottles or poisons into them either so I don't think there is any danger to the food. The food is all wrapped anyway. The few times a yogurt or something has spilled out into the bags, I just use a spray cleaner, wipe it dry and let it air dry completely. As they get old they become the bags for recycling or carrying supplies to co-op. I also like the ones I buy on vacation. I have some from France, Germany, Croatia, and Spain now I think.

For a city trip, assuming no snow, I would wear black or brown ankle boots. For a country trip, light weight hiking boots. If I'm staying in a hotel I like to have some nice flats to go down to eat in the restaurant in addition to the daytime walking shoes. Picking shoes is the most important part of packing for me because I have to have comfortable shoes or I'm miserable. The rest of the wardrobe has to work around the shoes.

I find it to be very time and energy consuming. There is planning, purchasing, looking at what you've purchased, then more detailed planning. Then there is teaching, organizing, monitoring, correcting, and encouraging. As the children get older there is more record keeping and college counseling and advising. Keeping up with the higher level maths and sciences is also very time consuming if you're own skills are not up to date. Of course, one could outsource parts.

My daughter was very reluctant to ask for help, too. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I was always able to help her figure out what to do. I think this was a mistake because as the year progressed and things got harder she was even more reluctant to ask the teacher for help because she thought the teacher might think she didn't know anything. Of course, that wasn't really true. Now I encourage her to start a dialogue early in the year as things come up and have warned her that some of the courses, like economics, I don't have a clue about. The problem with asking for help in online courses is that you have to be working a little bit ahead to even have time to email a question and get a response without the assignment being late. Especially with time zone differences we have overseas, even the best online teachers need a bit of time to get back to us. So I find it hard to find a balance sometimes with providing the help myself and insisting the student ask the teacher. But I agree, it is definitely a skill they need to master and the sooner the better.

We have the Ingert ones. You hang them up with the little pleating hooks.

I have IKEA curtains. They are dark grey, linen ones. They darken the room enough for us. But they do shrink quite a bit, so you definitely want to wash and dry them before doing any alterations. They are much cheaper than making your own or buying custom.

Many wonderful places have been mentioned already. We loved Croatia when we went last year. Not expensive, beautiful rocky beaches, crystal clear water, lovely national parks and camping. Also the food is a mix of German and Italian. It's an easy drive to Slovenia, too.

I have worn progressives for several years and I like them. I don't even notice the distance ranges most of the time. It did take two days to adjust. The only thing I find difficult is stairs because looking down through the reading portion at the stairs doesn't work very well. So I just take it slowly on steps. They have different quality lenses to choose from now. Much better visibility on the sides. I'm sure your eye care professional will explain all the options. :)

I was just in Spain for two weeks. We only had a day and a half in Barcelona but we packed a lot in. The aquarium was very nice and a good break from the usual tourist things. La Sagrada Familia is a must see. Buy your tickets online now for a specific time slot. We did 3:00 and the lighting was perfect coming in through the stained glass windows. We did the audio guides and felt it was just right. Park Guell is also very nice, but we didn't go into the part you have to pay for. There was a lot of construction going on. Las Ramblas where the attack occurred is back to normal except for the huge memorial displays. You have to be very alert for pickpockets there. The metro was very easy to use. We would buy a 10-pack ticket and just use it for all of us until it ran out. One person goes through and hands it back to the next person. We spent most of our two weeks on the Costa Blanca near Denia. Beautiful sandy beaches. I would not try to get to Madrid. There are nice museums there, but otherwise has a big city atmosphere. Barcelona is much more fun.

I taught a coop class using the Parallax Robotics Shield Kit for Arduino last year and it was fantastic. The kit is $149 and comes with a link to a huge project book that takes you step by step through assembling the kit and programming it. I did twenty one hour classes with it, but there was so much more in the book you could easily study this for a year. I also used the Make book mentioned above as a supplement.

We had this arrangement in our first house in Belgium. The washer, dryer, and dishwasher were lined up in a row in our small kitchen. It drastically reduced storage space and we had to scoot the chairs around to open the doors of the machines sometimes. It was nice to have the kitchen table for folding the clean clothes as long as the table was clean and clear. Sometimes I would forget that the kitchen table was piled high with laundry though and have to scramble around clearing it before we could eat. In our newer place, the washer and dryer are in the garage. I prefer it that way, but that means more carrying laundry around to fold and put away. If there was room in the garage for a complete laundry station, that would be ideal. ETA: I didn't like the extra noise in the kitchen either. I really don't see an upside to it, but it's manageable.