Clarita
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Posts posted by Clarita
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I agree with the sealing granite is super easy. The biggest hurdle is clearing the counter for the sealing, the single reason for our family not doing this maintenance item.
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15 hours ago, KSera said:
I think it's the hit or miss nature of them that makes them not an easy sell for everyone. Some people love them, like you did, and some people have terrible experiences with way more cramping. It's hard to make the leap when you don't know which group you will be in.
You do have to make sure they are all the "same" type of IUD. One just prevents pregnancy (the copper one) which does nothing to help the mentraul cycle symptoms, in fact a side effect maybe that it makes the period stuff worse. The other one is based on hormone stuff which I have heard helps the menstral cycle symptoms, even then there are outliers. I've heard from friends who were unhappy on the pill (moody, etc.) do wonderfully on an IUD.
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My granite counter tops are fine. I do next to no maintenance on them. I mean I wipe up stuff I see. That said I put trivets under stuff that comes out of the oven because I don't want to damage my kitchenware. If you put your glass dish straight from the oven onto your granite countertop you risk shattering your dish. Metal sheet pans I'm less concerned.
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Just in terms of feeding a cat with a cone. I found that if I elevated the food it made it easier for them to eat.
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We were looking at both homeschooling and private school pre-covid. Right now I'm so happy with our homeschool situation (with a homeschool charter school) that I don't know if we'll (including my kids) would want to go to a B&M school. Of course all that can change and my kids always have a say in how they want to be educated in terms of at home, or at a B&M school.
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On 1/3/2022 at 11:14 AM, BusyMom5 said:
If you can, check into buying a half or quarter beef directly from a farm or meat processor. There are many mom and pop type places that do this! Saves over half- plus more profitable to the farmer!
It's also fully butchered for you which I wasn't expecting. You can get the different parts in steak, cubes, ground, roast, whole as you like; they only charged a little extra if you asked for each slice of steak to be individually packed, otherwise if at least 2 to a pack I was not charged extra.
Even more so if you are a big family who eats or wants to eat meat a lot. Also you don't have to go to the rancher. You can have it processed for you so you pick it up at the butcher which can be closer even if you live in a suburban or urban area. I got lucky and my rancher has family that lives near me so he drives the meat there and I pick it up from him from there.
9 hours ago, Sneezyone said:Offal/off-cuts used to be cheap, not so much anymore. When I was sick as a kid, my mom would make oxtail soup (which kinda ended up tasting like a really rich french onion soup. Now oxtails are gourmet. SMH. Same thing with menudo ingredients (tripe, etc.). Grocery stores around me don't even butcher those parts anymore let alone sell them. You have to go to the ethnic markets.
If you are looking for those parts and you have freezer space look into buying a section (quarter, half or whole) steer. Then you just ask for all those parts. If you buy a quarter or half you may have to discuss with the butcher/rancher/other customer on who gets the part(s), but I had no trouble getting the oxtail and the tougue when I ordered my half.
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This book will be all you ever needed to know about baking. The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition: Friberg, Bo: 8601400132609: Amazon.com: Books Although it was a bit hard to bake from as a begining baker - there are no shortcuts in this book also they have larger quantities. However as a geek/nerd it gives you enough information to make your own pastry recipe.
I use this book as "fun" reading as oppose to a recipe book. Then, I use the internet to find the recipes and use the information from this book to tweak and/or experiment.
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I second butter and onions. If super lazy and even with the butter and onions you can just top them with European sour cream or creme fraiche. The European sour cream is lower viscosity than the American version. You can cook pierogies like you would gnocchi either pan fried or boiled.
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Some meats can be cut up small and "fried" up a little in a skillet with a little bit of oil. That meat can be used for tacos (corn tortillas can be GF I think... ) or seasoning on a vegetable (depending on how much you have).
Sometimes it's also cheaper to buy a big hunk of meat and break it up yourself. If your family eats enough meat you can look into buying a quarter half or whole animal (pork, lamb, or beef), it can be cheaper overall that way (like slightly more than just buying the same pound in ground beef but you get better cuts as well). The cost varies depending on where you are in the country. The downside is it takes up a lot of space and it's a large amount of money up front.
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9 hours ago, Amy Gen said:
1. We plan to have our own giant playroom at our house. That way, when grandkids visit, we can play with them and share the toys we love without causing mess at their own homes.
I absolutely second this idea. My MIL just happened to do this when the kids were younger. She kept a large train set from when my husband and his brother were younger. She had brought it out for my son to play with and we decided to go with it. She'll now actually tell me toys not to get my kids because those are going to be special toys for her house. My kids totally look forward to going to grandma and grandpa's house for the company and the "special" toys. The mess is one thing but that has made for special memories at grandma and grandpa's house.
My kids are 3 and 5 and they love getting clothes and other practical things from my mom. And also if it was special character/theme diaper/pull-up my daughter at 2 would have been excited. I think sometimes the parents framing of the presents is important for little kids. If the parents are excited the kids will go with that feeling.
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I don't meal plan.
NY strip and asparagus will make an appearance this week, because the steaks are defrosting as I speak (from our half a steer last year).
Other veggies we have beets, Koginut Squash, Black Futsu Squash, zuchinis, and yellow squash. Meats as usual we have beef and chicken, maybe I'll do a pot-roast this week too.
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42 minutes ago, Moonhawk said:
I had originally been leaning towards live teacher online, or at least online course, since Mandarin is completely different and a tonal language.
Do you live near any Chinese speaking communities? If you think there are Chinese people in your area who can possibly speak the language perhaps you can use Nextdoor or something to find if anyone can tutor your child. (pre-pandemic I totally looked into getting my kids a super part-time Chinese nanny).
If you are learning mandarin there is a pronounciation guide they (Taiwan and Mainland China) uses for their little kids; China's is romanized and Taiwan's uses their own symbols. Learn Chinese, Chinese Books, Chinese Clothing, Chinese Jewelry, Moon Cakes and more. (chinasprout.com) actually sells a lot of different curriculums for teaching Chinese many of which will have audio support. No suggestions here because well it depends on what you are looking for in learning Chinese. Just to be able to communicate or if you want to deep dive into being able to read and write. The everyday language that you want to be able to communicate may use words that are complicated written, so some programs teach by topics of communication, some programs teach by easy words to hard words (and how words are put together), and some seperate the communication part with words you are learning for reading and writing. Yes I realize the website is in Chinese, just use google translate.
If it's for your youngest my kids (5 and 3) are thriving with Early Start Music - Kids Go Mandarin. It's full immersion music class in Mandarin. She has taught me so much about how to teach mandarin to my kids. You are required to do the class with your kids so there is no handing over the screen to them issue.
A BUNCH of free resources for learning Chinese Welcome to the Global Chinese Network (Overseas Chinese Committee) HuayuWorld.org - Home. (Google translate again is your friend, For younger kids I navigated to an area where they have videos 小豆豆學華語 (huayuworld.org). You can watch the video and figure out how to say everything and your kids just have the workbook. Welcome to the Global Chinese Network (Overseas Chinese Committee) HuayuWorld.org - Learn Chinese and Move Forward - Textbook Download.
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My family loves a homemade cream of mushroom sauce. Cook mushroom and aromatics (onions, garlic, ...) with olive oil or butter. If you want add a little more butter to the aromatics then, add seasoning (my favorite is herbe de provence), cook for 30 sec to 1 min when it become fragrant. Then add flour (I usually scope with my 1/4 cup spoon slightly less than that but more is thicker less is thinner). (You are making a roux.) Once all flour is mixed in (no longer white powder). Add liquid chicken broth and milk/cream. Use different aromatics, veggies and meat to make different tasting white sauce.
Meat needs to be cooked prior to the cook mushroom and aromatics stage and removed. Add back the meat to heat up after you've added the liquids. For veggies that take a long time to cook you can cook them seperately before adding them in. For aromatic veggies like carrots I just cut them smaller so they can cook with the aromatics.
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17 hours ago, EKS said:
Interesting. I was bullied as a kid as well, and was counseled by my parents in the way I described above. I learned to ignore the bullying and eventually stopped caring. And once I stopped caring, the bullying stopped. I'm not sure how this equates to learning that one is defective and deserving of poor treatment.
I think it depends on the type, intensity, and how many people are involved. I've seen kids begin to feel defective because they are being bullied by essentially the entire school and yeah I can totally see how someone can start feeling defective. Also whether the thing you are being bullied for at the moment is in your control to change, for example if you like pink, you can ultimately choose to pretend not to like that color (not that you need to but you "can" always choose to) versus something more physical where you can't actually change.
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45 minutes ago, KSera said:
(no kind of mask should be touched while it’s being worn, and they should be being removed by the straps anyway, so the mask portion itself should stay clean).
I tried to tell my kids that but with little kids they touch everything. A little also because we have to be masked for outdoor activity as well and my kids play hard and dirt happens.
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Yes I do think elastomeric would be the type that works better for us.
27 minutes ago, KSera said:Yeah. One of the other reasons I was reluctant to wear it is because it looks from the outside like it’s not really a real mask—the outer is covered with obvious little holes and it looks like it’s sitting way away from the face because you can’t see the silicone seal part from the front.
It's so weird they decided to design it this way. For us it would look better than using a mask covered in old dirt and sticky stuff
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39 minutes ago, wathe said:
There are some non-industrial styles like Castlegrade that are less scary looking, and non-disposable. Filters would need to be changed periodically.
Ooo that one is nice.
52 minutes ago, KSera said:It doesn’t appear that there would be any advantage to these masks over using an actual certified mask for 40 hours, given that these are only good for 40 hours as well and are made of a non-recyclable material that will also need to be disposed of after 40 hours, plus have no outside testing. It does look like it might have an effective nose seal design, but their pictures aren’t very good to show exactly how that works. I can’t tell if it has a silicone type seal similar to on an elastomeric respirator.
The kid ones I suppose no advantage. The original and active one is different because you can wash the filter holder part (part touching your face). I get that COVID can be taken care of by setting out the mask for a few days, but body oils, sweat, and dirt are not take care of by that. I mean we are getting these for everyday use not hospital use. Where we live there are requirements for us to wear our masks during outdoor activities.
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I found these reusable masks any thoughts? Face masks and face mask filters for your protection | AirPop (airpophealth.com) See FAQ (FAQ - English : AirPop (airpophealth.com)) seems like it's a KN95 mask that is reusable.
I really don't want to use the disposables either. Reusing disposable masks... for me leads to the question of why were they labeled disposable in the first place.
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4 hours ago, barnwife said:
ETA: I think what I really need are high top, soft soled, lace-up shoes. Is that too much to ask for?
Do you though? Devil's advocate here, he'll learn to take those off too; they are just harder to put on after he takes them off. Speaking as a mom who has a little girl who only wears shoes because I don't let her go outside or on the ground if she doesn't have them on.
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As an aside a lot of pro athletes like football players (that's pretty manly right?) take ballet. I heard it helps them have better control/insight into the detailed movement of their muscles and have better balance (helps with agility I believe).
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14 hours ago, sheryl said:
What I don't understand is why do they carry 3 primary insurance policies? One for husband, wife and baby. Why not a group family plan? They would reach deductible sooner, etc.
Because it's not always cheaper to have a group family plan, especially if the insurance is part of a benefits package from work. When I was working it has never been worth it to be on the same insurance as my husband, even when I was on a high deductable plan.
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Also, something to consider is I've bought my cats beds etc. of $100+ and they prefer to sleep on jackets and on top of computers. I would see the top of a cluttered garage refridgerator a very appealing place for a cat who has to contend with animals she doesn't want to be with 24/7. The clutter probably makes her feel safe (because she is surrounded and feels more hidden from the world) not having the soft bed helps the traction. A blanket set on the clutter may give her the right amount of cosiness with the things that make her feel safe up there.
My cats don't like my kids all the time and they seek out cluttery spots. When I cleaned them out and make little cat havens there they've sought other places. Just being a little devils advocate here and saying that just because their cat's spot is the top of the fridge doesn't mean the owners are not good owners. With all the fancy cat stuff that I get my cats, one of my cat's favorite spots are on top of the family room computer, on a tupperware inside my closet (where she has gathered some t-shirts and socks), and the bathroom sink (every night). The other cat actually likes cushy places and will occasionally use the fancy donut cat bed.
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2 hours ago, HomeAgain said:
We used a lot of pieces from Getting Nerdy With Mel & Gerdy, layered tracings, diagrams, lab results that folded out and up....an entire year's journey tucked away in one book.
Wow! The 3D dissections look really cool.
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Interesting feedback. I was giving it a try and for us it is something that provides real life or interesting application of reading, writing and math. My books are not very crafty most things I put in are squares, my fancy is squares with rectangular flaps. I think it's nice because I can shrink my son's writing (my scribing) and drawing area down to post-it note size (which is less overwhelming for him).
I haven't invested in file folders so far it's just been combination of construction paper, paper and index cards. Thanks for the resources for ideas.
My kids have shown the grandparents their work and talked to them about what they did which is a nice perk.
How can I, as the adult train my mind?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
I second this and my weak subject is phonics/English Language Arts. Totally learning alongside my kindergartener on that one. Don't be afraid to field all your kids questions and say "I don't know. Let me look that up and get back to you." or look it up together (science is easier to look up together, for me phonics I have to figure out on my own and then give my kids the information).
I learned back when I was a student (both at work and in college) your "teacher" doesn't have to know more about the subject matter than you do to teach you. At some point they serve a great purpose just guiding you to more information about your topic, how to present the information, etc.