I got a degree, quit grad school after a year, and ended up working a lovely career that had nothing to do with my degree for 8 years. :D Do I use it? No more or less than I did when I worked full time. ;)

Faramir is the unforgivable change. I could even deal with arwen... but not Faramir. It totally ruins the whole point of his character, Boromir's and their dad's. It was a gorgeous little story, and they ruined it right htere. Anyway, that said, I did enjoy the movies more than I thought I would. I mean, they kept a *lot* of the good stuff, made a gorgeous Minus Tirith... :D And I think they did a pretty good job with the relationship between the hobbits, which was also a really important part for me. The books are just plain spectacular. Poor Hollywood didn't have a chance to make anything so good. But I think the movie-i-zation was so much better than most. They only ruined it a little. ;)

It's a lot easier after a few weeks (or whatever) and you've found your new favorites and new substitutes. The really hard part is dealing with trying anything new and getting occasional gluten surprises, when you had no idea to even *think* that a spice or rice (or corn) cereal could have gluten in it. (McCormick spices are usually safe, others sometimes put gluten-containing things in to help it pour better. Most cereals, even non-wheat ones have maltodextrin in them, which is gluten-based.) I would recommend just cutting back to plain meats and veggies and fruits that you make at home so you can *totally* control the ingredients. However, you don't want to feel like you're being deprived of stuff, so go get some gluten-free pasta if that's what you want. :) Look out though -- a lot of gluten intolerant people are also intolerant of milk (and other milk-based dairy) and soy. My soy and dairy problems flared up badly when I went gluten-free, but it went away in a month or two. (So for a little while, I wasn't just avoiding gluten, but also all soy and dairy! And gluten-free foods sometimes have soy in them, so just check the label.) Good luck! It's hard, but if you are gluten-intolerant, finding it out and fixing it is literally life-changing.

Like others said, I think you need two things: 1) Short term -- you need a break. Get a babysitter or a maid or do *something* to destress, because the next part is hard. 2) I'd stop *all* school stuff until the kids learn how to do their chores. And make them do it. It's very hard to train this, but it's *very* worth it. And with all these years of not doing it, it'll be a *ton* of work. You need to know what you can hold over each one of them to make them do what you want. No, it's not fun. But ignoring it won't help -- they'll grow up into people who don't know how to clean or cook or do anything to take care of themselves. The 14 year old should be capable of any chore in the house that a grown up can do, pretty much. I even put my 3 year old to work. ;) She can pick up toys, empty the dishwasher (stuff she can reach), put clean trashbags in the trash can, carry groceries down to the garage, hand things to me so I don't have to reach over to pick them up (like cans for the pantry, laundry for me to fold, etc.). GOOD LUCK!

No limit. But they do have to do their chores, school, etc.. I take it away if they act rude or insane or misbehave.

Or do SOTW, but take longer than 4 years if you're worried about maturity with SOTW 4. There's *plenty* to do for 5 or even 6 years. :D Some people just do 6 year cycles.

I had an irritable uterus with my last and this one looks like it is doing that to me too. Make sure to drink plenty of water and lay down if they start. If you have them too close and regular or too many in an hour, do call the doctor. That said, I had my last one only 1.5 weeks early, and her brother was a week early anyway. (Maybe mine are just done "cooking" early. :D) So yeah, it's annoying, but it may not be anything to worry about. Just drink drink drink more water. ;)

I don't really respect organizations who use the money they receive on issues not really related to their stated goals. Even if I agree with them. It's inappropriate. Also, I've found in my own state, that our state organizations are often blindsided by HSLDA activities. They don't work well with our groups or understand the situation as well as the folks who live here, and I'm worried they'll just make tings worse for us sometimes! We have perfectly good *state* groups, thanks!

I make a little notecard of the important points/experiments/whatever for each of the next lessons in the 4 threads (A, B, C, and D). I only do one lesson a week, at most -- this book is for K-2, so even at once a week, that's covering the whole thing in a year! Anyway, I do a quick lesson plan for all the subjects each week, of things we *might* cover. I look at the science notecards and pick one that works best for this week -- some of them might require nice weather, or one might correlate with an event that week (example: we did stuff about the earth's movement through space during the equinox), or whatever. Then I try to let it come up naturally, in conversation when I introduce it. Or not. Whatever works. We pick up some books at the library. I also just bought the Usborne Science Encyclopedia to use as another resource. (Sort of like using the history encyclopedia along with SOTW). The thing is, I think it's easy for me to just run by the seat of my pants a little bit, since I have a BS in biology, with a lot of chemistry and physics as well. :D

School choice. Let people decide what's important to them and pick a school that matches. Ta da! No more fights over most of the stuff people fight over about with schools. And schools are no longer a virtual monopoly and have to actually compete for students/money.

Yep, they often add extra stuff to make it redder. :P As long as it doesn't smell "off" it should be just fine.

My son is similar. We talk a lot about expected behavior in public. ;) Before we go to the library, we review the rules of the library, for example (No running, Talk quietly, Stay with mom). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Same with the doctor -- i let him know right before we get there that he remembers how he's supposed to behave. AND I let him know what will happen if he does not behave. He doesn't get the lollipop, or loses the priviledge of computer time, TV time, going to the craft store, whatever. I've also lately just been telling him a lot about how I only have so much time and patience, and if I use it all up on him misbehaving, I won't have any left for fun stuff. And I've pointed out that when he misbehaves, I make a mental decision not to try some certain things with him -- different classes, higher level classes, certain fieldtrips, etc.. It helps sometimes. It depends on how well your son reasons with punishments that don't happen immidiately, or with the idea of understanding he lost something he never had (like a special class/fieldtrip/etc.) Some days are better than others. :) Oh! I also find he behaves better if he just had protein. :D He has scrambled eggs or meatballs or something before karate or science class.

We should have just had them when we were in at the end of September. They're all out now. Of course, we also had the flu, so maybe we don't even need it. :D

The emails seem to be less useful to me than they were years and years ago. I use gmail, so i have all the FlyLady emails tagged and it's easy to just delete them if nothing looks interesting. I've customized the whole thing and have my own schedule, so my tasks don't line up remotely with hers anymore anyway. :D But it's nice to check in every once in a while and see if she's come up with anything else that might help. I looked at the holiday planner, for example, to make sure I'm getting everything planned. Some day I'll probably even have time to integrate the stuff from the home maintainance planner. :D

We had the flu-like thing recently, and the fever part lasted 7 or 8 days for the kids. Our doctor usually says to give a call if a fever lasts 5 days or so, just in case, but some viruses really do last that long. What you need to look out for is having the fever go away and then come back. (although this flu does vary from day to day). It can indicate a secondary infection. I know a few people (including my husband) who have picked up a post-flu bronchitis that is pretty unpleasant. Our house has been full of sick people for almost a month, as various things run through.