I get headaches and my head feels very full and stuffy with barometric pressure changes. Benedryl actually helps that too for some reason. I woke up this morning to a message from my internet provider about the big storm coming. I had no idea we had a big storm coming. It's supposed to hit this afternoon, then again tomorrow morning. It's bright and sunny right now.

Hello Newbies! I'm Dorothy, hence the Toto name. My gang consists of dd26 who is in grad school, never homeschooled, ds 15 always homeschooled, extremely quirky, and dd13 always homeschooled, extremely quirky. I teach science classes at a science center I own/run. Married to a great guy who does all the cooking so I don't say much to the "what's for dinner" posts, other than yummy. We have an excessive number of people in Texas on this thread. 😉 (I'm in NJ.)

My kids are like this. Oldest danced like a left-handed person. And threw balls that way too. Ds batted lefty the times we tried sports with him, and dd does TKD moves like a lefty. I fell like a weak pincher grip may be about more than just handedness? I think that is something worth working on, but maybe with something larger than Battleship pegs (I have a hard time grabbing those little suckers, but then again, my fingers are probably a lot larger). Melatonin gives me super weird dreams AND doesn't keep me asleep. Advil PM works well. it's Advil and benedryl but benedryl alone doesn't work. Maybe because I take it all day long for allergies.

I'm slightly over 200 pounds and still barely a B cup. So bras aren't actually essential. I wore one when I interviewed for my new teacher position and for my two open houses. I do wear them when I teach. And used to wear them to church. But that's about it. Usually you can't tell whether I'm wearing one or not. For real, I know because my older daughter would say something if she realized I wasn't wearing one 😜 and I meet up with her every other day or so to workout (yes, I can workout without a bra). Nursing (and now) I wear camisole tops. Snug enough to hold nursing pads when they were needed. I do like grilled cheese. My gramma used to make it with Velveeta. Now we use white american cheese.

I think this is true. I rarely discuss the kids eating habits these days, people don't care when they're teenagers. Although there are still the diet discussions - keto, vegetarian, etc. Today I wore a bra for only the third time since March.

Morning. Woke up before the alarm again. Evidently somewhere around 7am is the spot where I wake up on my own. 6:30am feels way too early and I can't seem to stay in bed past 7:30am. Now if only the rest of my life would work around that schedule. Open House today. Should be interesting.

I worked out with dd this morning - just a walk then I did some yoga on my own because we got talking about stuff and she had to leave for work. Then walked with ds during TKD, about 4,000 steps. Now my ankle is swollen and sore. I have osteoarthritis from a very bad sprain a few years back. Right now I'm wearing dh's ankle compression sock to see if it helps. Will need to try it walking or when I'm standing all day for my classes too. Open house at the science center tomorrow. Hopefully I'm feeling more social than I have been the past few days. People are just annoying me right now. I'm Irish, Swedish, German and English and dh is Irish, Polish, German and English. We do some family traditions that are Swedish and some that are Irish but I think that's it, other than the typical American stuff.

This hits on one of my super pet peeves. Chemicals. "We don't <eat, use, wear, like> chemicals". Water is a chemical. EVERYTHING is chemicals. I had someone do the food thing to me and I turned to my kid and asked her if she ate her poptarts yet.

I think some of the anti-maskers are just sharing every single thing they see against masks no matter how crazy. Because it reinforces their point of view? An attempt to convince more other people?

I sort of, sometimes follow her ideas but her emails are annoying.

My kids don't watch any television at all. They watch Youtube and Netflix and Hulu. And play video games all day long. If I don't care about the person's opinion at all, I may get snarky and sarcastic, but generally I just don't answer. Slightly snarky, slightly serious answer - "I feel my kids need to learn to control their own behavior and manage their time before they are off on their own as adults, so I just give them free reign to work it out for themselves". Starting when they were 2 and 4.

Thank you.

So, y'all know the saying about Best Laid Plans....and all that? Kids did get up. We did go to the science center to work out. You would have thought ds was dying with all the moaning and groaning doing some yoga. Then did some school. Dd started crying doing math even though it was a teeny, tiny bit of math, then her leg kept cramping and hurt so no TKD. Dh came home from his moms so we had delivery pizza instead of pick-up pizza. I prefer plants to flowers, but they need to be easy plants like little dish gardens of philodendrons or something. I've been gifted things like orchids (sorry Texan!) or amaryllis that are super hard to keep alive, so I generally don't. Keep them alive, that is. But philodendrons or succulent dish gardens are super easy since you can neglect them most of the time.

I agree with this. There's no reason certain non-core subjects and electives can't be unschooly or at least relaxed. We go year round but lighter in the summer, then we slowly add things back in. I will say, this year seems like it's going to be way worse than normal, just judging by the last couple weeks where I've been trying to work on sleep schedules and exercise. I have one sophomore and one 8th grader and both are cranky as heck lately.

Morning. We're on plan so far today. Woke the kids up. In an hour we go to the science center to workout, then home for school/chores/work on classes, the TKD this evening, picking up pizza on the way home. I don't think I've ever had a day this planned out.

I can't play Minecraft. My eyes never seem to focus properly.

My oldest worked her junior and senior years of high school at her dance studio. She worked about 15 hours a week, and danced for another 10-15 hours a week. Once she was in college, she took off her freshman year then started working retail about 25 hours a week her sophomore year. It was actually very helpful for her to figure out in high school how to juggle all the commitments for school, work, dance, and cheerleading. Those skills served her well when she went to college.

Oatmeal is healthy. 🙂 I made healthier oatmeal cookies today. I swapped unsweetened apple sauce for half the butter, all the white sugar and part of the brown sugar. I also used whole wheat flour. I kind of was winging it, putting together a bunch of different recipes. Then added dark chocolate chips. They are pretty yummy. Texture is a little tiny bit off but not that noticeable. I'm making ravioli for dinner tonight. I was going to order pizza but decided that would be better on a night dd was at TKD, so we could just pick it up on our way home. So probably tomorrow night. Dh usually makes his sauce with all kinds of veggies, then purees it for ds. I'll think I'll throw in some spinach while it's cooking since we don't seem to have any other vegetables around.

I'm setting myself a strict schedule for the next three weeks until classes start. I still have so much work to do and I want the kids to work out and I'm still working out with dd and then there's homeschool where they can mostly work independent but I need to sit with dd every day and I need to do some housecleaning. So I may not always be here early in the day because I need to stick with this schedule. It's probably better if I leave the boards for the end of the day where I'm too tired to be productive but I can manage to read boards.

Happy Nirthday Angi DD.

I had an ablation so don't know if I'm truly menopausal or not. I've had a handful of periods in the past 4 years. But I'm also 51, so figure I'm close and should start reading up either way.

Kids and I are happy to be home. I swear MIL doesn't have one piece of comfortable furniture in her entire house. I'm tired after driving, then going to retrieve the dog so I told the kids they are on their own for lunch and dinner. They're pretty much always on their own for lunch and sometimes for dinner, so this isn't that unusual for them. I just have to figure out what I want to make for myself.

I don't like sushi. I dated a guy a long time ago who really liked it so we went out for it a few times and I tried different kinds. Didn't care for it. Dh did make cashew encrusted tuna chunks that I think counted as sushi once. They were pretty good but nothing I'm clamoring for either.

Morning. Kids and I are heading home today. dh is staying at his moms longer. Not sure when I'll wake up the kids but not too late since we want to miss too much shore traffic.

I like Thor: Ragnorok, Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. I haven't seen CA: TWS yet. I don't think I've seen any CA except Civil War. I kind of started watching the movies in the middle, before I realized they were connected so much.