I absolutely concur!!!! We have been eathing this way for a 4-6 weeks, and the changes are amazing!! My depression is gone and I have tons of energy and focus! It is definately all about baby steps! We have tried this in the past and it can get overwhelming. The main thing that helped me was finding a local farm that delovers to drop-off points around town. my biggest challenge was finding grass-fed beef and pastured chicken and pork. Now that we have a source for meat, everything is just clicking. I searched for lard for 3 YEARS!!! We do eat veggie dinners several times a week to help offset the costs -and our serving sizes have lessened as well. I love what I have heard...pay the farmer or pay the doctor!!! ;)!! Eating locally and trad foods are such a passion of mine that you brought me out of lurkdom!!

3 or 4 years ago, I was in the same boat your husband is now in and it was awful! I had daily headaches and migraines weekly. It was almost debilitating. I am unable to take triptans, which are meds specifically for migraines, because they make me very ill, so my dr. treated me by controlling my pain. This usually entailed several ibuprophen followed be a hydrocodone-this left me in a funk/fog/hangover for one to two days AFTER the migraine. I was prone to depression because I often just felt HORRIBLE!! I had to change drs for insurance purposes, and my new dr told me I had just been putting on a big band-aid and not treating the problem itself. She was sending me to a neurologist but wanted to try two things first. She wanted me to try an anti-depressant used to treat chronic pain called nortriptyline, and then a beta-blocker if the other did not work. Well, it worked like a charm. I rarely had migraines, and although I still got headaches, it was not near as ofter nor were they as severe. After a year or two of this, I decided to get off of the meds. I began taking an herb called FEVERFEW and weened myself off of the anti-depressant. I am now 90% migraine free, and never get the horrible would rather shoot yourself in the head then feel that way kinda pain migraine!! I do still get headaches, but they are treated with ibuprophen and/or aleve. If you go to iherb.com, you receive $5 off of your first order and I get a 6 month supply for about $13, I think. There are also ratings on this website-read the ones for FEVERFEW-there are many folks who have success with this. My life is so different now. I would go back to nortrityline in a heartbeat if the FEVERFEW ever quit helping me. It's kinda cheesy to say, but it really did give me my life back! HTH!! I am copy/pasting this from another thread that I responed to and it is looking funny! Sorry! I try to let everyone I know about this because it worked so well for me!!

She is 14 years old and this is truly her passion. She has some talent for making little humorous movies which she mostly films inside/lower light and would like somewhat of a zoom. I think that her digital camera that she has now films quite well and I just hate to get a $300 camcorder for her for Christmas (it will be her only gift) if it will only do as well as the one she has. Thank you!!!

My dd wants a camcorder for Christmas this year. I do not know anything about digital camcorders! She makes videos very frequently by using here regular Cybershot (sony?) camera. If we were to get a camcorder for about $300, would it be better quality than her Cybershot? This child loves making movies and spends hours editing them. I would like to get her something to encourage this. Any help would be wonderful!!! Please recommend specific ones, if possible. Thank you!!

We own an ipod touch that no longer works, so when I heard about the Kindle Fire, I jumped on it! We received it last week and I played with it a little before wrapping it up for our "family" gift. It is AWESOME!! So far, from what I can tell, it is very similar to the itouch. But it is so much bigger and nicer than the one we had(which was a couple of years old)! The screen is beautiful and even though others have said that they are having issues with speed-ours is every bit as fast as our itouch! My older dd has been begging for a new itouch. She knows that the Kindle Fire is "our" Christams present since she checked the mail and the boX clearly had "kindlefire" printed on the side(ugh-stupid amazon). She is not my reader and commented on how my younger dd will love this because she loves to read. She does not realize that it is like her old itouch! I do not know about parental security yet. Can you tell I vote for Kindle Fire? HTH!

The main thing is to have enough liquid-but not tooo much! The way I can tell that it is enough(and I use homemade chicken stock) is that after you mix it well and let is stand for a few minutes-the liquid begins to slightly pool on top. Make sure and add some butter as well. Probably about 1/4-1/2 cup for the amount you need. This is unless you use the turkey drippings from the cooked turkey (which to me is way better than butter) because both will make it too greasy. I also put my onions and celery (chopped pretty finely) in raw, cover with foil, and bake til veggies are tender. Remove the foil and let cook til it is browning nicely. I think that this also helps with the moistness. Also, make sure to let your cornbread/bread dry out enough. This will keep it from getting gummy! HTH!

We are in TN and do have to register with an umbrella school. She is generally speaking a year behind across the board. I have never stressed for her because she has more common sense than most adults and is a very determined child in other areas of her life. She will make great strides when she finds her passion! Having said that, I know that she needs the tools to get to where she will need to go. I do not want to issue high school credits until she is able to fully understand and learn. That is why we homeschool!!! I do think that k12 will eventually be our answer just based on the fact that they are so open with working with students who struggle and our family really needs the accountability factor. My younger daughter is a reading whiz but struggles with math. She has extra classes geared towards herself and a few other strugglers. Her teacher really works with her and myself to get her up to par. I totally agree about my older dd's writing skills and comprehension. That is what I am thinking of doing with the rest of this year is just to focus on these skills to get her where she needs to be. High school gets pretty regimented in TN and is different than what we are used to. Thanks for your thoughts!

We began high school this year for my dd for several of her courses as she finishes up a few 8th grade classes. We planned for her to end up with about 4.5 credits by years end. She just does not seem to be up to par to do a high school work load just yet and I do not know quite what to do. Part of my concern is that our state has been approved for online public school which my younger dd is already a part of. We are loving it and it works very well for us. They have the plans to start 9th-10th grades next year and I know my older dd will not be ready for k12 10th grade at that point. So should I put her back in 8th this year, or keep slowly trucking with 9th grade but keep her in 9th grade for next year. I need to have her registered asap with our umbrella school and am very late doing so this year because I do not yet know what I should do.. Any advice?

3 or 4 years ago, I was in the same boat your daughter is now in and it was awful! I had daily headaches and migraines weekly. It was almost debilitating. I am unable to take triptans, which are meds specifically for migraines, because they make me very ill, so my dr. treated me by controlling my pain. This usually entailed several ibuprophen followed be a hydrocodone-this left me in a funk/fog/hangover for one to two days AFTER the migraine. I was prone to depression because I often just felt HORRIBLE!! I had to change drs for insurance purposes, and my new dr told me I had just been putting on a big band-aid and not treating the problem itself. She was sending me to a neurologist but wanted to try two things first. She wanted me to try an anti-depressant used to treat chronic pain called nortriptyline, and then a beta-blocker if the other did not work. Well, it worked like a charm. I rarely had migraines, and although I still got headaches, it was not near as ofter nor were they as severe. After a year or two of this, I decided to get off of the meds. I began taking an herb called FEVERFEW and weened myself off of the anti-depressant. I am now 90% migraine free, and never get the horrible would rather shoot yourself in the head then feel that way kinda pain migraine!! I do still get headaches, but they are treated with ibuprophen and/or aleve. If you go to iherb.com, you receive $5 off of your first order and I get a 6 month supply for about $13, I think. There are also ratings on this website-read the ones for FEVERFEW-there are many folks who have success with this. My life is so different now. I would go back to nortrityline in a heartbeat if the FEVERFEW ever quit helping me. It's kinda cheesy to say, but it really did give me my life back! HTH!! I am copy/pasting this from another thread that I responed to and it is looking funny! Sorry! I try to let everyone I know about this because it worked so well for me!!

I am pretty sure that we are getting my dds a Kindle Fire for Christmas. However, knowing that we will all share their new toy I have been browsing what is available for me!! Amazon seems to be lacking in the popular magazine catagory, where Barnes and Nobles seems to have EVERYTHING for the Nook. Can digital subscriptions to magazines be bought for the Kindle other places than Amazon? I am interested in mags like Martha Stewart, Prevention, etc. So nothing that is hard to find. Thank you!!

I am a historical drama nut-my girls call them my british soap operas! I totally agree with Cranford and Cranford returns, Little Dorrit, The Way We Live Now, and Wives and Daughters. Also Bleak House was really good, as was Middlemarch. What about Mansfield Park, Under the Greenwood tree, or Moll Flanders? I guess you have already done the standards like Pride and Prej, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, etc. My mil tells me that because I love Downton Abbey, that I would like the BBC show Upstairs, Downstairs. I have an older season on Netlfix, but have not watched it yet! Cannot wait for Downton Abbey II!!!!

We went through this with my grandmother back in late Nov early Dec. She had a massive stoke during surgery and we brought her home for hospice. I have never regretted the few weeks that we took off from school at that time. The kids helped take care of their great-grandmother (I was a care giver) and were able to just focus on being with family. We were all very close to her and since she lived with my mother, we saw her all of the time-it was a very difficult time for my children. My mind was also not where it needed to be as I was grieving-so we just let school go for awhile. The free time to just be kids, be with family, and to play when they felt like it was very healing for them. Do not worry about school-it will still be there when this is all over. Also give yourself permission to ease yourself and your children back into a routine. It hit me harder than I ever would have imagined when my spunky loving grandmother died(having never lost anyone before) and it took awhile before I felt like myself again. Do not be too hard on yourself and give yourself time to grieve and to heal.

I am so sorry for you and your family. We have been down the road of addiction for many years with my husband who is an alcoholic. Thankfully, he is recovery once again, and is striving to get better. He has been in rehab two times within the past 7 years. More than anything it is heartbreaking to watch. The first thing I would recommend to do is to realize and understand that this is an illness and does not have a whole lot to do with willpower. He is sick. It is not because he does not love his family. I know that is hard to grasp! Al-anon literature really helped me with his last relapse and helped me to learn (for the first time in 20 years) the proper way to deal with my husband. I think that maybe me dealing with things in a more productive way may have helped him a little to get better. Acceptance is big with my husband-something he did not get a lot of growing up! They say that an alcoholics/addicts guilt alone is enough to keep them sick-and our response to the situation can add to that, or help to relieve some of it. Love him, be there for him, and TRY to have endless patience with him. Praying for you and yours!!!!

We are somewhat in the same boat and I know exactly what you mean! My husband just became employeed after being out of work for 2 years during which I worked 8 months. In those two years, school was hit or miss. Then when things were beginning to get back to normal for us, my dear sweet grandmother had a massive stroke during a scheduled operation and never recovered. We brought her home to die-she lived with my mother-and I was one of her caregivers. I can honestly say that it was the roughest 2 years of the 20 years my dh and I have been together. BUT the four of us had a lot of great famliy time that brought us even closer together and then we were all able to be with our extended family throughout my grandmothers hospice. My girls were able to be there through the whole thing and learned so much about real life!! They were very close to my grandmother because we were able to spend lots of time with her and my mother-partially because we were homeschooling. I would not trade the time that they had with her for anything. I think that because of the stress and anxiety we felt/exhibited as a family during the last two years would have affected their performance in school anyway. At least this way, we were able to deal with this as a family and they turned to us rather than their peers (which is what I would have done when I was a kid in school). We have come thru this stonger and more determined. Now, I am having trouble getting back on track-but as building school is not an option for us-I am trying to find a way to make it work. I have taken a big portion of what was left of our tax return(2/3 of which we owed to my mother and in-laws for helping us when we had no money) and have purchased some curriculum that I think will work for us. I bought a combination of TT, SOS, and enrolled in Seton for several subjects for the accountability factor. Hopefully between the ease of the computer based curric and the accountability, we will get back on track! I will let you know how it turns out!

I am! I began last sememster with 12 hours and quickly dropped one class. I made it through the semester, but truly felt that my kids education took a back seat to mine. I am only taking six hours this semester so this is much more durable. I am ashamed to admit that I have kind of learned how to play the game and still get the grade. I am going to college not only to earn a degree, but also to learn. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day so I do the best I can and learn what I can. One thing that helps me, which is probably contradictory to what others do, is to begin working on things the week that they are due. This keeps me from constantly trying to keep ahead and has helped me to relax about looming deadlines. Something else that I learned after spending so much time reading everything that was assigned is that it may not always be necessary to do so. For example, for U.S. History last semester, I read everything that was scheduled on top of papers, discussions, etc. I quit the scheduled reading. We were given a study guide so I spent my time researching these to get ready for exams. By my last exam, I had even given up on the study guide and just looked things up during the three hour time-frame set for the exam. For Psychology, we were given exams for which we could use our text-the index became my best friend and kept me from having to read and study. I learned some but not as much as I had hoped. I did learn a lot in Eng Comp because I had to actually do the work-although there was some readings I would skip. I guess it is just a matter of balancing the desire for true knowledge and getting the work done. At this point in my life, I just have too much on my plate to really immerse myself like I would like to do. I am just not willing to put in a whole lot during my kid's childhood, YKWIM? Having said that, I do want to work towards a degree. I still have awhile as my youngest is in 3rd grade, so I can take my time!! ;)