This has been great, thank you for starting it!

I truly enjoy a relatively small number of foods. A few others are just comfort foods. They make me feel better, but I probably don't truly *enjoy* the taste of them. If I don't have preferred foods available, and I get busy, I often don't eat. I get hungry, it's just not worth it to fix something that I don't actually enjoy. Now that I'm providing food for other people, it's not often that I don't eat, because it's always there and I have to fix it anyway. I get so tired of figuring out food; I'd love it if we could all just pop a pill and move on. I used to enjoy cooking. Dh is very picky and doesn't really like food, though, and I don't find it very enjoyable to spend time cooking for someone who is likely to take two bites and quit. So over the years I pretty well lost any enjoyment of it. One of my kids is very like that, but then the other is a real pleasure to cook for - so appreciative and has obvious pure enjoyment of the food. So that makes cooking feel a bit more enjoyable for me now. I'd still rather have a pill for a couple meals a day, though.

We usually eat out once a week, with friends, Mexican. I'm actually glad that habit has been broken, because it was getting more expensive as the kids get older. It used to be that we could split 2 meals and feed the four of us, but not anymore. It just adds up, doing it weekly. I enjoyed it simply because I didn't have to think about food. I get so tired of figuring out food! But I like saving $ more, most of the time. If we had a larger family, we would eat out very rarely. I don't mind restaurants, and usually enjoy them. I think it's primarily because we almost never ate out when I was growing up. We kids really felt like we were missing out, because it was something all our friends did, but we would always head home. (As an adult, I realized there was no way we could have afforded it.) The magic wore off years ago, but the feeling of doing something special still lingers. I don't like loud, crowded, indoor places. I hate not being able to hear anyone. The exception to this is places where there is live music, because then I'd rather listen to the music than people. Either way I end up overstimulated though. Dh doesn't like eating anywhere that serves only food that is the same as at home. We still laugh about the time we were at a buffet and he said he didn't enjoy it because it was "the same mediocre food I eat at home." 😂 Gee, thanks, honey. Lol He meant it's not any kind of special ethnic food that I don't know how to make, it's just regular (to us) food.

We are back from camping. Weather was good, 65/45, except wind was awful one day and night. I hate wind, it jacks up my nerves (I mean actual nerves, not just mentally). Fortunately, it was still the majority of the time. We hiked each day. This was car camping, so I brought an air mattress; I might not be able to move otherwise. Lol At first the air mattress was to make dh more comfortable (he's not a camper and does it only because we do) but it really makes a difference for me too. I'm paring down the car camping gear, but will keep the air mattress. 😁

I'm catching up after a few days off the boards, so this is late, but wanted to give our experience using the Dynamic Reader. It wasn't used in dd's VT, because she was too young. Ds was older when he started, and they did use it with him. At the time, he was not reading at all (I'm thinking he was 6ish). We had recently started Barton. When they called me into the room after his session, to show me the Dynamic Reader and how to use it at home, I was less than thrilled but wanted to look it over before responding. At home I realized it was awful for him. He could "read" some of it, sure, after doing the same story multiple days, because he was memorizing it. The stories were heavy on sight words, and even had they not been, he wasn't reading anyway! The next visit, I told the therapist that he was not able to read the stories, so I felt it was too early to use that particular tool for him. She hit play on a story (that he had done over and over for days), and then when he recited the words, was like, "tada! he's reading!" I pointed out that he was simply memorizing the words, not reading, and I did not want him memorizing words at that point. She looked at me like I had three heads. We soon quit VT for him, for this and other reasons. I feel they were churning out "results" by pushing memorization and the office and staff had changed a lot in the years since we did dd's VT. We use the Dynamic Reader at home now, but I enter stories from Barton manually, so they are reading words they can actually decode (plus the few sight words in Barton). We also use the VT software at home. I keep going to this same office because I want to keep using these programs for now. I think the DR is a good tool, but NOT the way they were using it.

I've been forgetting to check in; doing my 30 min of something has been working well. We're camping this weekend and will hike. Looking forward to that.

My goal was simply 30 minutes of *something*. I spent 5 hours yesterday moving books, shelves, and other heavy things. I mentally counted it because I was too pooped to do anything else. (Naturally, still had to put sheets on the bed.) I can barely move this morning, so I think I'm ok counting that as exercise.

Thinking of your family.

Forgot to post last night. Done!

I think I forgot to post yesterday. Done for both days.

I wasn't allowed to pierce mine until I was 13. This was very late, compared to my peers, and that decision is not something I would make for my kids if they wanted earrings. As modifications go, it is really pretty standard. I had dd8's pierced when she was . . . I'm not sure. Three, maybe? It was no big deal, they were both pierced at once and it was over. She has adhd and is not great at remembering things, but that doesn't really matter because she just has a small stud that stays in all the time. I check periodically to make sure the back is still screwed on tight. She is one who needs good earrings or they bother her ears. Since she has no particular interest in changing them regularly, and good earrings are more expensive, we stick with the one pair. Re growing in, I had a second hole done in mine around the same time, (man, did it hurt! It's not high up, just above my original hole, but for whatever reason it was extremely uncomfortable and took forever to heal.) For the last few months I haven't been wearing earrings in those holes, but recently got a small stud to leave in all the time. One of them was partially closed in. I could insert it a little, but couldn't push it through. I had dh push it through. It took some time and I would not recommend the experience. I don't think age at which you got them matters so much as how long you've had them. Before we put the studs in dd's and left them, there were a couple times she didn't wear earrings for a week or two, and it was always a tight fit to get them back in. I have no doubt they would have closed up had we left earrings out a long time.

Thinking of you today!

Me too. I forget to do things if I don't leave tabs open, and bookmarks don't help that. My email and browser tabs are basically my to-do list.

Yoga/stretching again, done. Will also walk a mile or so this evening.

Yes! That's the one area where she is almost like a different person. I find that I brace myself multiple times a day, when things happen that I know will set her off . . . and then now she will respond mildly, or not at all, most of the time. I didn't realize how stressful it was. Hopefully soon I'll be able to be more relaxed, instead of being at the ready all the time.

Yeah, I had some choice thoughts about this idea last night. 😬 I really hope that there are some other details that make this different than mom simply being "off-duty" for a while. Because otherwise, I feel like if my adult children are upset because I wasn't available for their needs 24/7 for 18 years . . . well, I've failed in a more important way. I do take to heart, though, what I hope is the point; that I should reevaluate if the *only* time I spend with the kids is schooling or if I give the impression that I just don't want to be around them. This is actually something I try to pay attention to, because my energy, both physically and emotionally, is limited and I don't want the entirety of it to be devoted strictly to school only. Same as above, OP, I don't expect you to give details on any of this. It just would never have occurred to me to be upset because my mom worked in the yard in the evenings instead of more time with us. (Thinking of summers, I wasn't homeschooled.) On topic, I am following along for ideas because I fail at making time for exercise.

Did 30 min yoga/stretching again. I technically have time to walk as well, but am choosing to finish painting a room today because I have been putting that off for too long.

Done. 30 min yoga/stretching after my ibuprofen kicked in.

I am hoping the surgery went well and thinking of your whole family. ❤

. . . going SO WELL! I have waited a couple weeks to post this, so that I had a better sample of days, and it continues to be good. (This is dd8, ADHD combined and ASD1, that I have posted about before.) We finally got in with the Psychiatric NP. She prescribed Focalin (2x per day) and Megestrol. The focalin lasts 4 hours, and dd's appetite has been good all day. I was completely shocked the first morning. I knew, of course, that she talked and moved constantly, but I did not realize just how much until she slowed down. There was this constant low buzz that I didn't notice until it was gone. It was honestly a bit eerie at first. She actually sat down for 20 minutes, quiet and still, and looked through a whole book all at once! She has even napped a couple of times! She has been sooooo much easier to deal with, from the first day. I also had not realized how much stress that was causing for everyone, including her, and how much it was affecting relationships. It feels like we have more mental energy to just enjoy each other when it's not all sucked out by conflict and/or trying to curb her impulses. For her, it no longer feels like we're always restricting her, since she can restrict her own impulses now, for the most part. School has definitely improved, both from the lack of conflict and increased attention and concentration. She says that without it, she is thinking about so many things that she can't concentrate on any of them, and now she can think about just one thing. Don't get me wrong, she still needs to move and take breaks, we still work on regulation, social thinking, etc. but the difference is that now doing things like that actually works much of the time. All in all, it has been a huge improvement. You were all right, I can clearly see it is a gamechanger. She has been able to focus on her fun projects in ways that she never has - building games in Scratch, writing stories, etc. It's not that she's so very different than before, it's just that she's more in control. Oh, and she is also sleeping better, which helps everything too. Ds7 seemed to have quite a bit of trouble with his behavior the first few days. Nothing huge. We're unsure if it was actually different or if we were just noticing it now because we'd previously been paying more attention to dd8's behavior. Either way, it is nice to have a bit better distribution of my time between kids. There are some things with him that I need to spend some time figuring out. No doubt I'll be posting about him soon. lol

My son had a lot of trouble with that one too. What I did (I have no idea if this was "correct", it's just what felt right and worked for us) was to move on. I always circled back to this procedure regularly, for a bit of practice and exposure, but didn't labor over it too much. At the end of the book, we took a short break, then back through the book again - moving quickly where he was proficient, slowing down where he still needed work. Somewhere in there, he finally got it. Was it maturity, the break, the review, what? I've no idea. I just know that simply skipping things (not too much, mainly when there just seems to be a glitch in one area) and coming round to them again has worked for us multiple times, with both dd and ds, and I felt comfortable doing it with this. Oh, also, we spent several months on that first Level with ds, and he didn't "get" that procedure till the second time through, so, yes, it can take months.

Day 1 done - 30 min yoga-ish stretching. (I'm shooting for 30 min of anything daily.) Plan to walk this evening as well.

No, I haven't used one in years.

I wake up during the bad dream, often multiple times, like a brief commercial break. Sometimes, I suppose it depends on how awake I get, I can sort of direct the dream when I fall back asleep, to make it turn out better. Usually, though, at some point it turns into one of those dreams where everything is moving so, so slowly and you just can't speed up. Ugh. Usually, but not always, I remember it in the morning. I had the same two nightmares over and over for years, starting when I was somewhere around early teens. I had other dreams, but these were recurrent. Finally, in my twenties, there started to be longer intervals between having them, gradually increasing until now I can't remember the last time I had one of those two. I also have dreamed of having loose teeth, and them falling out, for as long as I can remember. In the dream, the feeling is so clear, just exactly as it felt as a kid. I would let mine get so loose, they practically fell out. Imagine my horror a couple weeks ago when, upon groggily awakening one morning, I felt (what seemed like) a tooth slip out! I cringe every time I think about that feeling. It was actually the post to a newly installed implant. 😬

Thanks for the reminder! I'm aiming to do *something* for 30 minutes each day; most likely walking or yoga, maybe dancing. I might add a somersault, but probably not. The last one I did was well-received by my children, but not by my neck.