I'm 36; I've worn glasses/contacts since middle school, full time starting in college (but really I probably should have worn them full time a year or two earlier)

There are some in town beaches, like Castle Island or Revere or Malibu beach in Dorchester, and then there are lots of ocean beaches if you don't mind driving. Salem is a nice day trip; you can see the House of Seven Gables and then all the witch stuff. Have you done the Museum of Science? A Duck boat tour? whale watching?

I used to have nightmares that I'd be really, really mad about something, and DH would just sit there laughing at me. Then I had children, and my nightmares came true.

I have one buff orpington, and she's very nice. I think of her as a solid, sensible chicken. She's not quirky, she gets along with everyone, she seems to be pretty much at the top of the pecking order, but without being a bully at all. And she lays reliably (my older chickens are 3 1/2 now, and so far they haven't slowed down much at all with laying). I like having all different kinds of chicks, though; just because it's fun that way. Our coop/pen is pretty simple, and it didn't cost anywhere near $1000...particularly if it doesn't get super cold where you live, you can get away with something really bare bones. Our pen is a dog run under our deck with an open-air hutch for roosting. There are modifications, like hardware cloth around the bottom and aviary netting across the top to keep out predators, and in winter we use a tarp across the most exposed side to keep the wind out. It gets down to single digits here occasionally in winter, and we haven't had any problems; this past winter we did run an extension cord out from the garage to plug in a heat lamp on nights when it was going to be under 20 or so. Ours have the run of our (fenced) yard during the day, and we lock them in the pen at night.

I like Liberty (nn Libby?), but I think pairing it with Justice is overkill. Jane. Liberty Jane. Oh...I know why I thought that. I know someone who used those names together. But with Nora as a first name and then Jane and Liberty as her two middle names.

DH often gets it under his fingernails (but doesn't have it there right now), and has actually gotten steroid injections there...it makes me queasy just thinking about it. He's tried psoriatain, which dried out his skin and had all sorts of scary potential long term side effects, but didn't do much of anything for the psoriasis. He hasn't tried any biologics yet, but he's considered it. We're also thinking of looking into home UV treatments--seeing if insurance will cover some of it. but it seems almost silly NOT to give the gluten free thing a try, too. Thanks for sharing your experiences...I think at this point he'd be very happy with something that helped some and lessened the itchiness; he'd be shocked if anything actually cleared it up all the way. My middle son also shows some signs of psoriasis--mostly flakiness on his scalp--so I'm doubly eager to figure out something that might help; I hate the thought of him going through the same thing when he grows up.

Yeah, I was reading about that study and a few others. The problem with psoriasis is that everyone seems to have a different story about what finally worked; you can find someone claiming pretty much every diet out there is what cleared up his or her psoriasis. But the gluten thing seems to have some actual science backing it up. It also seems more doable for us than some other changes.

DH has psoriasis, and has spent years trying assorted medicines, creams, supplements, wacky magic pills that someone online somewhere recommended, etc. with very little success. Steroids (creams and injections) help some, but I'd rather he not use those for the rest of his life. We haven't tried any dietary stuff yet, and it seems like cutting out gluten is the most promising dietary change. He doesn't have any other gluten intolerance/celiac type symptoms (sometimes unexplained joint pain, but we figure that's the psoriasis, too). Anyone tried this? Experiences? Of course, once you start reading about it, you can find people saying that cutting out gluten will solve pretty much every problem your family has, so I think the whole family should probably give it a try. I can't wait to have a perfect family ;)

Or you can give them away/sell them. They're much easier to get rid of without guilt than, say, a cat you change your mind about. As long as they're fairly young and laying well, you can easily find a new home for them.

it's low carb! (if it's dark enough)...I look at it as my version of coffee in the morning ;)

oh--another idea: I buy those Flat Out light flatbreads (they have, I think, 5 or 6 grams net carbs) and then just melt cheese and butter on them in the toaster oven, for a white pizza type thing. Or a cheese toast type thing, if you want it to sound breakfast-y :D (really, I'm just trying to think of things I eat throughout the day that are sort of breakfast-ish. I actually can't stand anything heavy first thing in the morning. I, umm, usually eat a couple of squares of 85% dark chocolate for breakfast).

one minute muffins? (google; there are a million recipes for them--I make a chocolate one)

DH is a high school math teacher and charges $40/hr for tutoring.

DH is a high school teacher, and he pretty much never wears ties anymore. He did more his first couple of years of teaching. I just asked him if other teachers wore ties regularly, and he could only think of a couple of people who do. (I'm glad he didn't say, "oh, sure, everyone but me does!")

I seem to be interpreting the question differently than other people. Les Mis is a "sung through" musical, i.e. there's no spoken dialogue (like, say, in The Sound of Music, where there are scenes with spoken dialogue interspersed with songs). The actors act out scenes, but they sing as they act. DH's high school did Les Mis as their spring musical this year, and, as a result, my kids are currently OBSESSED with it. They break into songs from it constantly, they listen to the CDs over and over, they try to pick out the songs on the piano, and they're working on their own musical. So...I like it, but I'm getting just a little tired of it right now ;). That said, we have big plans to go see the Broadway Across America production of it when it's in town next spring.

People keep saying this, but I've never seen any actual evidence that adult circumcision is drastically more complicated or painful than infant. Adults, of course, are able to tell you when something hurts, so there's a difference. But I looked up aftercare instructions on a couple of medical websites, and they all said stuff like, "take ibuprofen for the pain, keep dressing on for the first day, no sex for 4 to 6 weeks, you might have to take a bit of time off of work if your job involves heavy lifting." It sounds pretty comparable to a vasectomy or something. Of course, there are anecdotal stories on the pro-circ websites...but the anti-circ websites could certainly match them anecdote for anecdote with horror stories about infant circumcisions. ETA: I just finally managed to find a (pro-circ) website attempting to argue that the complication rate is higher for adult circumcision....but it did a pretty laughably bad job of it. It cited a bunch of studies of adult circumcision in African countries with complication rates between 1 and 4 percent, almost none of them serious complications. I'm not sure what they're claiming the complication rate is for infant circumcision, but I've certainly seen higher numbers than that quoted. And I'm not sure complication rates in sub Saharan Africa are really what you want to compare with US hospitals anyway. If that's the best they can do, I'm not even a little bit impressed.

There is some [evidence? speculation?] that ketones might pass through breast milk and be bad for babies. Atkins himself, I believe, recommended that women who are nursing or pregnant should eat enough carbs to stay out of ketosis. It seems to me that a lot of populations thoughout history have spent a good deal of their lives in ketosis, including during pregnancy and nursing, so it's hard to believe it could really be terrible....but I think (I don't know, because I haven't had to deal with it; I'd do a lot more research before making a decision were I to get pregnant) that I'd feel more comfortable keeping carbs just high enough (100ish a day) to stay out of ketosis if I were nursing and trying to lose weight.

depends on how much of it you eat :D

I wouldn't feel comfortable being in ketosis while nursing....my suspicion is that it's probably fine, but there hasn't been enough research on it, and better safe than sorry and all that. Yeah, I think primal would probably be better....add in some starches like sweet potatoes, maybe occasional white potatoes or wild rice (do you have blood sugar issues at all?)...stay off of bread and sugar, keep carbs at around 100-150/day maybe....I think that's probably what I'll try to do if I ever have another baby. (and I'm right there with you with not needing to be even a tiny bit concerned that I'll lose weight too fast no matter how I eat. Ahh--would that I had THAT problem)

Ah--those are the ones where my son will just refuse to answer the question at all. Which is how we wound up with "not interpretable" for his verbal comprehension score on the WISC.

I don't really get how "intact" is biased language, but "uncircumcised" isn't? Uncircumcised assumes that being circumcised is the default. Which, of course, it isn't. That's not how they come out. And nowadays circumcised boys are in the minority in the US, so by any standard one can think of, having an intact foreskin is the default. So I'll just go ahead and keep using language that acknowledges that I believe my sons were born with all the parts they were supposed to have.

But they have a choice. And that's the difference. ETA: if there were really significant benefits to circumcision, I would expect people to be able to demonstrate that statistically with data from countries where virtually no boys are circumcised (hello Finland!). That doesn't seem to be the case.

There's my husband. It's not a huge deal to him or anything, but he'd rather he weren't circumcised. He doesn't need psychological help; he's just done some reading and seen his sons, and would prefer that decision hadn't been taken away from him.

We don't have much choice because DH is a public school teacher, but he has a September break, and we've had good luck going then. It's still crazy hot, but the crowds are some of the lowest all year and so are the prices. If we could go anytime, I'd probably go in late Jan/early Feb; I'd much rather chance cold weather than deal with the heat. But I'd rather deal with either than with crowds, so avoiding them is my top priority.

Still reading to my 8 and 10 year olds, and I can't imagine stopping. We're doing Watership Down and The Two Towers right now.