Linguine noodles topped with Hormel Chili without the beans. Yum!

Go for it! Someone on these message boards has this quote as her signature and I loved it so much I wrote it down: Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW, what a ride!" Anonymous

Having my son at almost 30. The instant he was born, I was a changed person. I really can't explain it. From that moment on, I've been a new person.

Go! When you're old and grey and sitting on the porch, great-grandkids at your knee, wouldn't you rather be telling stories about the time you all went to Italy instead of the time you stayed home and fed the dog? :)

Is there a Japanese restaurant nearby? When we studied China we went to the Chinese restaurant. The Chinese people there got a big kick out of talking about home. They showed us on a map where they were from etc.

Flylady has the answer! Have you ever heard of her? She helps people get organized. (flylady.com) She grappled with this one and the answer is to go out there and get yourself stocking stuffers. If the rest of the family are being meany-grinches, who cares! YOU'RE not going to sit there on Christmas morning without a stocking--no way! No one will stop you from having a stocking this year!!! Go to the dollar store if you don't have a lot of money, or somewhere else if you do, and buy buy buy until your own stocking is full full full of exactly what you want. Don't let the Grinches get you down!!!

Thank you all for your ideas! I think I'll call the local pregnancy center and see if they want any of the tiny baby stuff, and then load up the car and take the rest to Goodwill.

Did you ever have Lasik surgery? If you did, (even if it was years ago) remember that the eyes get a lot dryer in the winter and you might need eye drops.

If you want to be able to skim it, and not have to listen on cd, put it on hold at the library. Then, when the person who has it now returns it, the library will call you and you'll have a week to come by and check it out.

My son was the same way last year, at age 5. After a year rather like yours I finally learned: slow down! She's not ready. Now that my ds is 6, it's a joy to teach him. Sounds like she needs to mature just a tiny bit. I would follow everyone else's advice about making it more about fun than work. Actually, I AM following everyone else's advice! I have a 3 year old and I'm going to make it easy and fun for him until he's 6, and then we'll ease into more structured "school."

I have a ton of random toys stuffed in the attic that I don't know what to do with. For example: A plastic kitchen set about the right size for a 2 year old A plastic bowling ball and pin set Some McDonald toys, like telescopes Baby rattles Big plastic animals (like dinosaurs) Tops Toy shopping cart The list goes on and on (and on and on). My attic is overrun with stuff that my kids don't use. What do I do with it? It really seems a shame to throw away. The stuff isn't brand new, but is still playable. Do I give it to Goodwill? Do I put it all in a few boxes and mark them FREE and put them on my lawn? Do I try to give them to friends? Giving to friends is tough because it's all jumbled in the attic and the attic is very small, so you have to crawl around in there. I don't really want to pull it all out and sort it to decide which friend has the right age kids... What do you guys do when your attic is overrun with junk that you don't want to throw away?? Help!

Ok--I've researched the tights, and it seems to be a trend for 20-somethings wearing mini skirts. So, if you're not 20 something and not wearing a mini-skirt it won't work. If it were me, in real life, (at age 35) I would wear either sheer black or nude with a little shimmer bought from somewhere like Victoria's Secret, but not plain nude.

:iagree: with the previous post. As long as the boys are having fun, just keep inviting them a lot. See if the parents will agree to make it weekly and see if something develops. Hang in there! If you could just get 1 or 2 friends, that would be an excellent start.

I've been reading the old testament to my ds6 right from the bible, but we use the Living Bible translation. It's a lot of fun to read and is very storybook like. We tried reading various children's versions, but they left out a lot of the good parts! The bible has the whole story, and if you hit a dry patch you can just skip over it and get back to the good parts.

Bundy (Peg and Al) Brady (Mike and Carol)

I was bullied as a kid. Imagine your absolute most embarrassing moment ever--something that still makes you blush and cringe. Not a funny embarrassing moment, but sometime when you made a fool of yourself and everyone knew it. That sense of humiliation and mortification is what it was like every single day, all day long in school, while the kids made fun of me. It's reeeeeally hard to get over that. In fact, I always thought I'd forgiven the children who bullied me, but just last week I caught myself fantasizing that I met up with one of them and gave her a big slap across the face. I'm 35 and I've never hit anyone in my life! Where did this little fantasy come from?? I realized that I hadn't forgiven her! And I'm not really sure how to do so at this point. Oh, and the worst of the bullying was at a private school, so that's not always an answer. I agree with the post about validating how horrible it is for your son (the poster said that finally friends exclaimed and were aghast with her about how horrible it was.) I never breathed a word of it to my parents. I was so ashamed and humiliated. I loved them and they loved me and I knew they would be so hurt to realize people were treating me so badly. If he's showing signs of wanting to get back at them, I'll bet that's normal. However, I would read up about bullying as much as I could and would find someone for him to talk to who has training in dealing with the aftermath of bullies. A counselor or someone who really understands.

The fashion magazines have all been showing that we are supposed to be wearing tights this year. I saw tights at Wal-Mart the other day and there were all sorts of colors, greys and blacks, and some had subtle designs in them. Would the tights match the shoes? I think tights look kind of dumb with shiny shoes. Has anyone else been seeing all this fashion stuff about tights? It's in all the magazines... For some reason the fashion people hate pantyhose. I love it, but I guess it's "out."

If they don't go in the dryer, then tension rods in the bathtubs. They have tension rods that are small enough for a shower stall and also tension rods big enough for a regular sized bath. I have tension rods in my shower stall and tub and they come in very handy! They're cheap--like under $10.

Of course, you'll have to make your own decision, but: I would not move away. As a kid, my entire family was my mom and dad because they lived 3000 miles away from the rest of the family (who are absolute strangers to me.) After my kids were born, my parents unexpectedly, and on a whim, moved 2000 miles away from me. I was heartbroken. When those two moved away, my entire family moved away! (not counting dh, ds's and my 3 in-laws.) It took me two years to stop crying at least weekly about their being gone. Now I only cry on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother's Day, etc. The 2 big problems with being far from family: 1. My kids don't know their grandparents. I think kids NEED good grandparents. 2. How can I help take care of my family when they're old? Can't. I don't think your reasons for leaving are good enough. They left me, but if I had left them, I would have regretted it, because it's so sad to be away from your family without good reason.

I haven't read the other posts, so not sure if anyone's talked about this: My husband plays the guitar beautifully. He learned from a well-known and accomplished classical guitarist. My husband can play any type of music and it sounds great. However, he never learned how to read music. He can't. He just hears the song, and then plays it--accurately and well! Now, I'm not saying your daughter shouldn't learn to read notes, but perhaps she's one of those (lucky!!!) people who can just hear the music and play it. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Is your daughter like that? PS. I can't play without music and I muddled through never properly learning the notes and it was tough to play once I got to a certain level. If she isn't like my dh and is more like me, then encourage her to learn the notes.

Oh, yeah. Where is that web site for people who sell sleeping caps? I always tell my husband about the line in that Christmas poem, "and ma in her CAP were just settling down for a long winter's nap." Cap!

I wear a knit hat, too! In fact, I'm wearing it right now! I wear it to bed and my husband just rolls his eyes. The other day we were looking at a list of questions designed to help spouses with conversation starters. There were questions like, "I feel special when you..." or "I know you love me when you..." One of the questions was, "I get turned on when you..." and my husband filled in the blank "...take your hat off." :001_rolleyes:

I feel so itchy now! Ugh!!!!

These are all very nice responses. Thank you to everyone who posted. It does seem like a lot of work for just a day or two. My husband and I have birthdays on the 29th and the 30th, so I think I want the Christmas stuff cleared out by then. (Don't ask me why, I don't know. I just like it down in time for the birthdays.) I think I'll do the 12 days of Christmas idea, only backwards. I think we'll put the tree up 12 days before. We won't really be properly doing the 12 days of Christmas, but 12 does seem like a nice number of days to celebrate. Not too many, not too few. Thanks all!

I've heard of people who put up the tree on the night of the 24th and then take it down pretty soon after Christmas. They like it that the 25th dawns with a brand new tree to look at. In the past I've thought that was a horrible idea. I've wanted the decorations up well before Christmas. But last year my ds 3 and 6 seemed so confused that "christmas" lasted for weeks. They kept thinking every day was Christmas and just seemed befuddled. So, now I'm thinking, maybe I'll just decorate on the 24th and take it down on the 26th. Sort of like decorating for a birthday or for I dunno, valentine's day or something. Just a few decorations for the actual DAY and not for an entire Season. Has anyone ever done it this way? I have a feeling that if we celebrate JUST Christmas and not the entire MONTH of December (and into January) that my kids will understand it better and it will actually feel more special? Any opinions??