OK, I'm crying now...

You know, you buy a box and a few weeks later, mushrooms start popping out? I was just wondering if they work, how much you get, etc. I have always wanted to try one out, but it would be a bit of a hassle to set up the right conditions, and I want to make sure it would be worth it. Thanks :)

This is terrible, and to me is not at all what I think of as courtship. We were "lucky" enough to see young teenage relatives go through really bad relationships and so I was able to start talking with my children really young about the current ideas of dating and our ideas of how getting married should be. The first point would be that dating nowadays seems to be more related to having a boy-/girl-friend and whatever that entails :( and courtship has as its goal a good strong life-long marriage. What I have always encouraged my children to do is to avoid dating, an just hang out in large groups and get to know people on a friendly basis without romatic stuff going on. A lot of times you can get to know enough about what people value, how they treat others, etc., in this way, and then, when one is old enough to marry, you can sort of start considering people of the opposite sex in a more marriage-oriented way and perhaps getting to know them a little better, slowly. And so on. I have really trid to emphasize that sexual aspects will interfere with thinking straight, and they should avoid things like being alone with people, but that marriage is helped by some "spark," iykwim! And to me, this is the terrible thing about what these parents did to their daughter: they did not let her get to know other young men on a friendly basis--it sounds like she was "going with" the one she eventually married all her life! I also encourage my children to get to know someone they are thinking about in a lot of different areas, and to meet their families so as to see how all those interactions work out.

We had a couple of rules a couple of years ago which really amused my children: 1. the oldest (very much like yours!) is not allowed to clean unless she has permission, and 2. You are not permitted to tell the entire truth...

Thanks everybody :) Sounds like she doesn't need it but it would be good to have. I'm thinking of letting her wait til fall of her senior year to take it, because she's a nervous wreck about tests and did the PSAT last fall... if she doesn't need it currently for college, it doesn't seem like we have to hurry about it, does it?

does my daughter need to the take the SAT? She is currently in her junior year and has already taken 2 courses at the community college.

Thanks everybody :) Well, they've been to Italy, so I can only hope that they are used to hard-as-rocks biscotti (altho I'm going to try the other remedies before we go).

We made biscotti for a gift to friends, but they came out hard. So we put them into a plastic bag (that works with french bread!), but they are, if anything, harder! Help! Please! Thanks very much!

Precisely. Perhaps what the study should lead people to think is that teens need more help in saying no than just a pledge.

Are you saying that sexual activity among teens is so likely that someone would design the pledge with the idea not of helping them to avoid sexual activity but with the intention of making them feel even worse when they inevitably did have sex? How do you know this? How do you know that the pledges themselves are a cause of risky behavior? I bet a study would find that teens who have been raised to think of themselves as fallen human beings would find that they think of themselves that way, and that those teens who did not have that upbringing but who had made the pledge when they were young and still thought of kissing on the lips as "icky" would not any more than any other teens would.

Thanks everybody! It is really helpful to know that it works for some and why it doesn't work for others so I can know what to watch out for! I am trying to figure out how to make this all work without getting burned out. My husband recently went to work out of town and I find I am a lot more tired in the evenings than I used to be (which means that instead of being out of it for 1/4 of my day, I am out of it for almost half :( ). I know I need ot make some changes, but am not sure what! But I think that this is definitely worth a try!

I am seriously considering starting doing schoolowrk in the afternoon. Does anyone else do this, or am I completely out of my mind? There would be time in the morning and evening for the older children to independent work in the morning, but what I find are two things: 1. I am very forgetful and become extremely nervous and distracted if I have other things to do (like call to make doctor's appointments, bills, etc.); 2. our schedule is generally very crowded in the morning and evening, with these blank aimless periods in the afternoon; and 3. I am not a morning person to begin with. I have heard that it is best to do schoolwork in the morning because one is more alert then and because it is best to do the most important things first. So I just hoped that maybe some people would have more experience than I in this and be able to help me out in thinking this through. Thanks!!!!

I am a beginning knitter, and if I wanted to do this project, I would practice doing those cables on something flat, first. Like maybe another purse what you sew the edges of. Then she could be going for a matching glove and purse set. Or scarf; then she could try a number of different things!

My daughter is suffering... we are suffering! She gets irritable, stressed out, and very very tired (tho that might be an asthma issue), and has been taking pre-natal vitamins. Any ideas about other things that would help? I had PMS, but once I understood what was going on, I could usually keep myself pretty calm, except for twice a year when I'd get a little nutty.

Well, FWIW, when we moved here, we had only cold water attached to our washing machine, so I just washed everything together in cold water. I used the super-cheap liquid soap until I saw Tide on a very good sale, then used that until it ran out. The Tide usually went on sale right around the time I saw that the clothes were getting kind of grey. Then we had a flood which caused ringworm to abound (ARGH!!!!!!!), and i started using Borax with the laundry. That worked out great, and I noticed that our clothes never did turn grey :) That being said, my mother told me that she heard when I was born that Tide was the best, and she has been using it ever since. I felt that perhaps in the meantime things might have changed a bit, but she still uses it, altho she has stopped telling me that I should be using it! OTOH, there are some faded stains on some of our clothes, so maybe I will try the Tide again... next time it goes on sale.

I don't feel grown-up, and I asked my great-aunt, who was in her 80s, when she started feeling grown-up. she said that she still didn't. And it's not that I don't recognize that I am (at 50 ;) )a grown-up!!! It's just that... my mother seemed very competent, and her heels clicked on the floor, and I still feel like the same klutzy self that I was all along. I don't feel how my mother seemed to me, and I therefore don't feel grown-up

OTOH, around here I have heard about some mothers who are losing benefits pressuring their daughters to get pregnant... :( Anyway, yes!!!! Boys should take care of themselves no matter what the girl says. I looked at some stats recently which showed that a high number of young pregnant girls said they thought they were doing whatever they were doing correctly, so it might not even be some girl's lie but just a mistake. I have both sons and daughters, and I am watching out for all of them.

I think you have gotten some really good advice, and just wanted to add that I think you have a really great plan whereby you will get the most possible out of your trip, and I wouldn't worry at all about getting into bad parts of town by mistake, because usually you have to get kind of far away from the touristy areas to get to the bad parts. My parents have spent a lot of time traveling, in Europe and elsewhere, and the only time they had a problem was not in Europe. Bon Voyage :)

Thanks very much everyone :) I'm going to look into those--so far they look nice. The thing about a phone/pda combo is that I don't keep my cell phone with me all the time, and sometimes my husband has it (we are not major cell phones users, still stuck in the stone age!), so it would be a problem if they were together!

Now that I have figured out how to use iCal (calendar on the Mac), I am considering getting a very inexpensive pda. So I am wondering how they work out for others, as well as any recommendations for pdas, or features to look for, etc. I do not want it to have a lot of different functions. I don't want it to go online, I don't want it to also be a phone, etc. All I really want it to do is to carrry my schedule and beep so as to remind me to look at it (very important feature!!!!!!!), as well as work with a Mac (Palm has a converter, so I am not too worried about finding that). Now, if it would allow me to read downloaded text, that would be nice too, or play mp3/wma stuff, but neither is necessary at all. Thanks very much! I was looking around on amazon to see what was out there, and it was overwhelming, esp as the one I spent the most time looking at turned out to be something from 2000 (and therefore possibly not compatible with Mac OS 10.5!) Thanks again :)

Thanks so much for all this reassurance! And nice to know that the situation will get better. :) This sounds good. I really need a good book! Oh, boy. It's beginning to sound a lot like a good idea. Thanks :D I really need to know that!

I hope he feels better soon! And it would be interesting to hear how it all turns out. Altho I am scared of chiropractors :blushing: But I'd be willing to go that way. My friend was going to one, I can ask her about him.

This and the info about the probiotics will be very helpful! Yeah, the trial and error part is extremely tricky. I usually feel very clueless! Thanks very much!

Well, I think that she is waiting to see if it follows the pattern we have noticed, which is summer (related to agriculture [how depressing is that?!?!?!? Move out to the country and all your kids get sick!]), smoke, and colds. In between those things, they are really well, which is why we don't suspect other things, except maybe for my one son. I'm going to add these to my list of things to ask her about, thanks :)

Thanks so much! The problem with sending them to bed is that mine are just as happy spending a day in bed reading... even if they are not sick! I was the same way. But we have a plan now, which is kind of rickety, but at least it will get me going in the right direction, and if they are too sick to do schoolwork, they have to listen to educational tapes, which they hate!!!!, (I don't know why) so hopefully that won't be a problem (Don't they have a fiendish smile emoticom?) (And now I really want some popcorn :eek: ) Thanks again so much :)