I highly recommend you check out http://www.e-mealz.com. They have healthy choices and if you find one for a local grocery store, they make the meals based on the sales, so you can save money. This web site has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE for me. The kids eat the food; it's very tasty. It only does dinners, so you'll still have to do the work for the other meals, but I feel breakfast and lunch are much easier to slap together. The cost is only a dollar or two a week; totally worth the time you save not doing the work yourself. Each week's meal plan comes with a shopping list, too!

Hey! So I heard about the book Curly Girl on these boards. Bought it. Read it. Started doing it. I haven't used shampoo for more than a week. My hair is getting better and better. Thank you for showing me the light! I have loose corkscrew curls. You can see the "before" look by watching the video at www.analyticalgrammar.com. (This is NOT a sales pitch, it's just the only place that I have to show you what my hair looked like before.) Anyway, I had my hair cut today by a local stylist who was trained by Lorraine Massey of Curly Girl. It took TWO HOURS! He no-pooed it, moisturized it, dried it with the diffuser, and then cut it ... CURL BY CURL. I've attached a pic of what it looks like now. I'm SHOCKED. This is the best my hair has ever looked! What do you think? Any other curly girls out there who've had the Deva cut?

Amy, yes, the new (lower-priced, BTW!) version of AG with the three-ring binders have more detailed info about PPs. All the info that is on the FAQ is in your book, it's just not all put together like that. I don't know if you're on Facebook, but there's an AG fan page and there are pictures of our new binders and an explanation of the price change. I'll be sending out an e-mail to our database very soon with the announcement as well! I'm so glad the program is working for you; I love hearing that!

Also, ladies ... feel free to call me! I'm happy to answer questions and sometimes all you need is a minute or two on the phone to clear something up. The number is on the inside cover of your book. (I don't get to classroom teach this anymore ... I miss the teaching stuff, so the phone calls are fun for me!)

:iagree: A Health Savings Account, High Deductible plan is definitely the way to go. Call an insurance broker and see what you can get. i'm sure the church would be thrilled if their prices were lower, too.

Go to the FAQ of our Web site and scroll down to the questions for current users. There is help there. If you're still confused at all, please call me; I'm happy to help! The phone number is on the inside cover of your book.

Learning diagraming allows you to learn to talk about language that way. The problem is that I have no idea how your native language "works." If you plan on teaching your children to be fluent in English, then I would wait until their written and spoken English is at about a 4th grade level, then teach them the English grammar using diagraming as a teaching tool so they can master the advanced stuff. This will allow them to master the usage and punctuation. PS I put another answer in the quote ... look for the stars ...

Look at it this way ... do you want those men and women who protect you in the military to see it as "just a job"????

My pleasure! If you have the right curriculum, you can learn the diagraming right along with them. I sell a curriculum my mom wrote. I don't want to be seen as advertising on here, but PM me if you want info. :tongue_smilie: Ritsumei - parsing is an old-fashioned word that means to label the parts of speech. Most grammar programs have the kids write an abbr. for the part of speech above the word in a sentence. The only problem with just doing that is that just IDing the part of speech doesn't tell you what JOB those words are doing. That word may be a noun, but is it the subject or the object of a preposition. That's the important stuff.

There is no connection between grammar and being a good creative writer. There is, however, a DIRECT connection between grammar and not riddling your writing with punctuation and usage errors to the point where no one will pay attention to the lovely story you've written. If there were a way to get a student to MASTER punctuation and usage rules without a mastery of grammar, I wouldn't teach grammar at all. But you can't. How would you explain that a comma goes after an introductory adverb clause or around non-essential participial phrases if the child doesn't know what those are? Many try to get by and say that you pause, so you comma. That will work about 80% of the time ... it's the other 20% that make you look silly. It's those clauses and phrases (gerunds, infinitives, noun clauses, etc.) that are the important part. Just knowing your parts of speech gets you NOTHING. I find it next to impossible to get a kid to really master that advanced grammar without drawing a picture of the sentence. It's just too complex. Without a diagram you find yourself saying things like: You need to use "whom" there because it's the direct object of that gerund phrase. The gerund phrase is acting as the subject of the sentence, though. Eyes glaze over ... Draw a picture of that sentence to a kids that understands a diagram and it's no big deal.

In the Air Force you can request separation when you get preggers. They don't have to approve it, but you can request it. It's normally approved, unless you are a high-need specialty or they've paid a ton of money for your education. There was a helo pilot a few years ago who was an academy grad. The Air Force was into her for about $500k (academy ed, undergrad pilot training, helo training). She got pregnant and asked to get out 6 months into her commitment. They said no. It's a high-need and they'd paid a BUNCH of money to train her. She sued and lost. As a 10-year veteran, I agree with that.

They go to their shirt (first sergeant) or commander and ask for help! Keep in mind that the VAST majority of us are told about deployments at least a month or two in advance, sometimes more. I had a tech sergeant who ended up having a good friend care for her two teenage sons for 6 months. It's a little hard for civilians to grasp just how close military people are to each other. You commander or shirt would do everything possible to help you find suitable care for your children or try to at least change your deployement bucket to give you more time to find someone.

Keep in mind, too ... in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter (and I sell a grammar program!). The whole point is to learn the conventions of diagraming so that you can USE a diagram to explain advanced grammar concepts (phrases and clauses) and constructions (a phrase that modifies a clause that's acting as a subject, etc.). Diagraming is a MEANS to an end. It's not the end itself.

As if it were a helping verb? That's ridiculous!

I saved (in general) this weekend on the following: meat canned goods pasta sauce (25 cents a jar!) frozen veggies (some were free!) baking mixes (a few cents each) cereal fridge dough, crescent rolls cat litter foil baking items/ingredients meat and fresh produce tend to come from store specials, not coupons Everything else is store special matched with coupons. thegrocerygame.com was a huge help. They have a four-week free trial and you can use as many store lists as you want during that time. totally worth it.

:iagree:

Shalom, Thanks so much for telling me about the grocery game. I went to Harris Teeter today and bought $225 worth of groceries for $125! I was so stoked!!

It's one of two things: -He doesn't really know the rules for Caps -He knows the rules, but doesn't really care if he get them correct or not If it's #1, then I think the answer is pretty obvious. It it's #2, then you and he need to sit down and make a deal: You - I know you know to put a capital at the beginning of a sentence, use end punctuation, and capitalize names and other proper nouns (list whatever you KNOW he knows.) For this day on, if you make a mistake in these 3 (or 4, 5, 2, whatever), you will re-write the entire sentence (not fix his error, re-write the WHOLE THING). Son - okay. Here's the deal, though. You cannot bluff! You'll have to do this for a while until he FINALLY understands that it's way too much work to re-do his mistakes and it's easier to do it correctly the first time. Blessings,

That's us! Did you go to Hanshew? Did you have my mom? LOL ... I graduated Service in 1992. If you had mom, go to this web site: http://www.analyticalgrammar.com. The grammar curriculum may look familiar!

I got forked when I was in high school. When they did mine they put the forks in tines down and then took a jar of Vaseline and dipped it over the handles to coat them. Yeah. Nice. The same kids (on the same night) wrote "Hi, Mrs. Finley and Erin" (mom was an 8th grade English teacher all the neighborhood kids had, including me!) in shaving cream on our driveway, brought about 50 campaign signs from all over the neighborhood and stuck them in our lawn and ... the pièce de résistance ... took slices of baloney and stuck them to all our lower windows. This was in Anchorage, AK, in the winter. The baloney froze and I had to pry it off the windows with a spatula. Good times.

Praying ...

I started the envelopes three months ago along with the total money makeover. It has made a HUGE difference. You just look at things differently when you hand over cold, hard cash. It's more than the envelopes, though. Get your hands on a copy of the TMM book and read it. It's an easy read and you'll begin to see what else you can do. The monthly budget is CRITICAL. It works, even on a very tight budget.

Thanks! PM me your e-mail and I'll give you credit for referring me. Looks like you get something for that.

A good Cuban would tell you to dip them in Mojo. It's a mix of lemon and garlic. I'm sure if you google it, you'll find a recipe. Plaintain chips are called Mariquitas. SOOOO GOOD! My best friend is Cuban and she and her family know that when I visit Florida, I need mariquitas STAT!

Have you found the grocery game worth it? I'm torn ...