I'd use the fruits and orange veggies (squash or carrots) in baked goods, and donate the rest. I read your post quickly and I'm not too familiar with WIC, but perhaps you can decline anything you don't need?

You talking about that crazy lady on the mat the other day? You're a brave Captain!:D Sounds like a fun day for all of you.

:grouphug:

Goodness, time flies! I remember his nursery pictures! What an awesome workbench. Daddy did a nice job, and the little guy can use that stuff for years. LOVE the rocks on the cake! What'd you use? You are such a cute and talented family! Enjoy your special day, Little Mister.

Breakfast was a green smoothie and iron tablet, as usual, plus half a bean burrito. Lunch was way more fun! It was library day for us, and afterwards I surprised my girl by pulling into the A&W drive-in. We had root beer floats, naturally. Oh, and we each had part of our sandwiches: BLT for me, and chicken something for her. Talk about stuffed... What I can see out my window right now: I'm on the 2nd floor and can see past my mulberry tree and weedy yard to some cut hay fields with lots of those big round bales of hay. A little while ago DD and I stopped working to watch the little white-haired neighbor boy learn how to ride his 2 wheeler up and down our dirt road with his daddy's help. It was adorable! Cute and funny things said by my 13 yo child lately? Oh, it's been a good week for those - While watching a commercial for a posh senior citizen retirement village, with several shots of white-haired grannies playing golf: "Mom! I don't care HOW MUCH that place costs, I am SO going to send you there when you get old! You're going to LOVE IT!" :001_huh::lol: (But...but...but...I'm not a golfer!) While reading her instructions for SWB's Advanced Language Lessons: "Man, this lady thinks of EVERYTHING, doesn't she?" Then she got right to work without an explanation, but when I looked later I think DD was talking about Susan's reminder to use a pencil so that mistakes could be erased and corrected. ETA: Happy Birthday to your 14 year old, Jenn!

Again, thank you for your prayers, care and concern. MrTea has already asked if I want the computer moved downstairs. He'll rig me up with something, I'm sure. :001_smile: He's a good man. He's trying to do a lot right now and I'm sure he is stressed. I need to show him my password for here in case he can update if needed. He knows I'm on here all the time and I think he just kind of scratches his head at my make-believe friends. (He's a good sport about my addictions, though. Years ago he traveled a few hours downstate with me to attend an anniversary party for some people I'd met on an online forum. He was busy shaking hands with people I could only introduce by their screen names, and he just kept saying "I thought she was KIDDING!") For his support, he's got some great buds at work that have been through many, many things together.

Breakfast: Scrambled egg and a veggie/fruit smoothie. Lunch: Few bites of chicken breast, crackers with cream cheese, apple crisp. Accomplished: Shredded and bagged up 5 lbs. of cooked chicken breast for the freezer. Took a nap. :001_smile: Coffee: I only take mine in ice-cream form! Love the smell of it brewing, though.

:grouphug: So sorry this happened to your son, Dancer. I admire his keeping his wits about him in a horrible situation. Hope you all get some decent rest tonight. Peace to you all as you process this in the days ahead.

Yes, keep on top of the check-ups and follow-ups. I never had anything questionable until this last round. Perimenopause is not for wimps, even without sucky pathology reports. Thank you, all. :grouphug: back at you. Take care, LizzyBee.

The pathology report after my last D&C has won me a trip to a specialist. It will be good to have things figured out and taken care of. I started posting last week when I first got the call from my regular ob-gyn but after all the mad typing through blubbering tears, my post disappeared into an internet black hole, and that's a good thing. Since then the panicky/sad/LIVID rollercoaster ride I was on has slowed down considerably. Now I'm ready to tackle this beast. I am at peace with how school will have to happen for the near future, and that was one of my biggest concerns. My kids and best friend now know what's going on, so the black cloud of telling them has lifted. Being autumn, I was already in full-on fill the freezer with easy meals mode and I'm pretty organized as a whole, so home life even without All Knowing Mom at the helm full-time shouldn't be too disastrous. First up, surgery consult for the hysterectomy. (BTW, hysterectomy will be a relief for me, and I realize that is not always the case for all women, especially those still in child-bearing years.) Hospitalization and healing will keep me off computer, I imagine, as I don't have a laptop and my home PC and internet connection is on the 2nd floor. Thank you, as usual, for being such a great support team with the schooling and other matters. Even when I'm lurking, you have helped me solve more problems than you can imagine. Well I think I'll go enjoy some breakfast with my daughter now. Then we are going to get back to figuring out perimeters of semi- and quarter-circles.

Jean, you rock. Way to go! Your instructor sounds like a real comedian. Skipping rope for a "breather"? That would be when I'd first start laughing! :lol: Take some Ibuprofen and get back in there and show 'em what you're made of.

:grouphug: I'm so sorry, Peela. Try to take care of yourself the best you can in the days ahead. I know you're usually a health- and nutrition-minded woman, but still...don't forget self-care in the middle of these storms. Peace to you and yours.

Zero grammar instruction. Zero outlining. Zero diagramming. Very little writing instruction, and it seemed to be based on word count more than anything. This was 1960s-1970s Michigan in a school district where the teachers smoked pot with the students at lunchtime. In 11th grade my family moved to Colorado, and I was placed into a College Prep English class based on all the "Language Arts" credits I had (classes titled Poetry, Science Fiction, Novels, Short Stories, British Literature, etc. Hey, at least they were encouraging us to read and discuss!) Now I was reading Dante and Chaucer (in Middle English) in my new school and having the time of my life...Until the day the teacher was calling us to the board to diagram Chaucer...I didn't even know what I didn't know, and had no way to even fake it. I sat watching students placing words on all those little tree branches, hoping and praying I wouldn't get called up. Eventually I did, of course, and had to tell the teacher I had no idea what they were doing. For some reason the teacher took it as a personal affront that an idiot like me was even placed in her class, and declared on the spot that I would spend my lunch time the rest of the semester in her office studying. (Studying what, I have no idea. I was mortified and angry at how I was treated in front of the class that day, so I'm sure I shut down) We moved again (Dad's internship was finished) and I finished highschool in a different less-than-stellar district. So, no grammar lessons until now. I am learning with my girl. (Thank you, SWB!)

I learned by helping from the time I was little. My whole extended family thinks they belong on the Food Network (some do, some don't). We all take great joy in cooking and meal prep usually involves way more people than is necessary. We are an enthusiastic bunch when it comes to food.

We had a spectacular double rainbow last evening. We had phone calls and text messages flying out to family and friends in the area so they wouldn't miss it, and it tickled me to hear/see their reactions come in as they each stepped outside to look.

My 13 year old could have used one at the bank the other day. She was making a cash deposit into a savings account, and the teller was baffled that she didn't know her account number OR her social security number OR carried a driver's license. (I wasn't there, but her daddy was watching her handle it from the sidelines and reported back to me. He says she politely asked the teller to go check with Mrs. G in her office to identify her. Mrs. G was already poking her head out her door to give the go-ahead.) I also think it would be good to carry on her person when she's out and about doing group activities.

Oh! Great news on Libby. Your family must be so relieved. :grouphug: I hope that at least MOST of your worries are behind you! Thanks, Jean. I can go to bed now. ;)

Jean? :bigear:

Even here in Michigan I have to make sure the chickens stay cool, especially this summer when we had a couple of months of hot, dry winds. I thought I had moved back to Texas there for awhile... I like the misting system mentioned. I ended up running a sprinkler in our chicken run several days this year, with the hopes that the wind blowing across the tall, wet grass would work similar to a swamp cooler. We are redoing our pen now so that I don't have to be quite so vigilant next year. Provide lots of deep shade if you can. Ours are partially under the shade of an apple tree, with a couple of cinderblock shelters for the chickens to go into (stacked cinderblocks to form three walls, open on the fourth side, plywood roof). The chickens spend time in there during the hottest part of the day. They will also dig themselves some shallow bowls in the dirt and spread out there when it's hot. We also keep their roost area well-ventilated with an old computer fan drawing the hot air out. Doesn't take much. Deep, multi-layered shade. Large, insulated watering can (they like cold water). Make sure they can catch a breeze. Some breeds are more heat-tolerant. Hatched chicks are easiest for us. Pay a little more for sexed chickens, so that you cut down on the number of roosters.

She's flossing her teeth.:svengo:

:iagree:Yes, that part about the youngest being more like an only with a large support staff really stood out to me, also. That's exactly how it has felt in our family for a long time as we have just the youngest at home now, born long after the others. We actually had another large (9 yr) gap after our first child, so we've kind of gone through this twice. OP, this has been a nice conversation. Glad you brought it up today. Something that I had to stay mindful of at different times was to make sure the youngest had time to be her little goofy immature self, and for ME to not expect the same mature behaviour from her that the older kids were already capable of. I think we have a fairly fun household with lots of lighthearted fun and all that, but it's still been a more adult-oriented household for a long time. So the youngest got in on all the documentary-watching and Scrabble-playing from the beginning; where I had to make an effort was making sure the child also got to watch kid videos and play dress-up. Our gaps kind of threw me at first, but it's worked out well for all of us. Great things and lots of joy have come from having our "stretched out" generations built right in! Lots of well-meaning people used to comment that our spacing was genius because we always had "built-in sitters". :glare: That's not how I saw it at all. Where I have come to really appreciate how my older kids can help is more along the lines of giving me insight into how their little sister might view her childhood some day! :lol: I ask them all the time if they think she will someday blog about what a horrid upbringing she is getting!

So many ortho and dental appointments! My girl just got her braces off this morning. Daddy took her while I headed in another direction for some medical stuff. Breakfast: I was fasting for labs. I made up for it at... Lunch: I stopped at Subway and had a big 6" roast beef with all kinds of green stuff piled on, including extra jalapenos. The child with the movie star smile ;) had some leftovers at home, followed by some of the junk I brought her that she has had to skip for the last 2 years: caramel apple, doritos, bullseye candies, and bubble gum. Throwing off routine: It's always something, isn't it? Adapt, adapt, adapt. Today it was those pesky doubled-up appointments. Looking forward to this week: Lots of things! The leaves are starting to turn, and it'll just be prettier each day all fall. Wednesday I will have a little outpatient procedure to resolve a perimenopause issue, so I am looking forward to getting back to feeling healthy and strong again once that nonsense is out of the way. Also looking forward to finishing up a couple of my daughter's books and moving on to some new things. Hey, I already know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow AND Wednesday (egg in a basket on Tue, and nothing on Wed) :lol: I won't need to post.

Say hi to Al and Norma for me! :lol: I wonder where your L went? Off to the and of ost keys?

Bean burritos. Egg burritos. Cottage cheese. Leftover pizza. Breakfast cookies with lots of nuts. Mornings are smoother with protein around here. Handheld protein works best of all.

I voted "other" because I tolerated it being on for the short time my daughter was interested. Loved Caillou's little bald head, but didn't care for the whiney voice. S