You are a brave woman.

We have an emergency fund, and a separate savings. Really just popping on to say that I keep misreading this thread title as "stinking funds!"

Yep. Good luck. Kind of like Lyme Disease is Lyme Disease. Not Lyme's. It is named for a place, not a person. Lyme, CT. It is Lyme. Try letting that one bother you, and watch yourself go insane. :)

Hi all, Slipper, I hope your appts have been productive! Jean, how are you after that fall? I posted about this issue on the chat board, but wanted to ask here (couldn't find the thread)... Have any of you heard of Visual Midline Shift syndrome? Here's a link. I seem to have the left shift pictured in one of the diagrams, plus an anterior shift which is pretty extreme - to the point of my body creating new, larger muscle groups. DH and I are now researching whether to pursue further evaluation and treatment. The thought of somehow losing the sensation that I am constantly navigating the bridge of the Titanic is appealing. A catch phrase in our house is, "Graceful like Mommy," as I wobble so often. I don't know. It certainly would explain a lot, but I am reluctant to chase a rabbit trail.

I am not totally clear on the treatment options yet, but there are special glasses with prisms that seem to help, along with some type of physical therapy - I think. I have spoken to one person who's being treated, and she's thrilled with the results thus far. I had never heard if this, so it's completely new to me.

Probably a long shot, but: Anyone heard of this? Specifically the Visual Midline Shift. It can be the result of a brain injury, but they are finding more and more that it is present in people with other conditions (MS, Lupus, CFIDS, Lyme, many more). I was evaluated for it, and it looks like it is an issue for me. It certainly explains a lot. Now we are pondering whether to pursue treatment.

Love it! It looks great on you!!!

Am I too late? I didn't see this till now. It's this one: http://www.capresso.com/prod_super_avantgarde.html We have the Jura Impressa S7, Avant Garde. We bought our refurbished, and paid less than half of the listed price. Still expensive, but oh, the joy it has added to my life!!! (I am such a dork about coffee!) We bought the refrigerated unit to go beside it a few months later. :)

I've never been inside an Aldi. Don't do WalMart for a multitude of reasons, though there is one within 15 minutes. Our beef and eggs come from a local farm. I don't always get to the Farmer's Market (which is not impressive in our area anyway), even in season, so we often use Wegman's for that - we buy organic and local when possible. Chicken & milk - we buy organic and pay out the nose for it at Wegman's, Costco, or Harris Teeter. We use Amazon S & S for a lot of specialty items, or I order directly from the company (KIng Arthur Flour comes to mind). We've used a CSA in the past, but it was not cost effective at all for us. When all else fails in our house, I use Harris Teeter's express online shopping option, though their prices are higher than Wegman's for organics - this is when health issues dictate that a shopping trip is not possible.

Sent it! Cool pic! When'd you cut your hair? Love it!

Hey KK, I haven't read this whole thread - sorry. If you're looking for a new fridge, someone just posted one on freecycle semi-local to you. I tried to copy/paste and send it to you via pm, but your inbox is full. If you want me to try again, let me know and I'll try to send it again. :)

Thanks for sharing your experience, Julie. Ours is similar, and it's only been a few weeks. I'm interested in seeing if others have had the same experience - I am surprised at the changes we are seeing. Speech patterns are smoother, no grinding of teeth for the last few nights, an overall calmer attitude. It feels premature to chalk it all up to no dairy, but I'm hopeful.

How sweet!!!

If you eliminated dairy in a child's diet, what type of changes did you see? Physical (eczema, asthma, etc?)? Behavioral? Anything else? DS has confirmed IgE allergy to dairy, despite consuming it regularly. Not an LTFA, like his other allergies, so we were not sure what to think. We eliminated it a few weeks ago and are seeing some interesting changes in him. Not sure if it's all attributable to the dietary change, so curious to see what others experienced upon eliminating dairy.

We use it. :) It ended the Math Wars here. We still take some breaks and do other things at times, but it's the best, most consistent fit for us re: math.

Aaaack! Thank goodness you saw the case. What if some kind person had brought you some GF treats from that bakery, not knowing? Probably you'd not have eaten them, but still... It could happen. I love the above letter. Please do send it. I think sending a letter would be better than a phone call, although a phone call to follow up might be good, too. We ran into this on vacation, with nuts. A fudge shop was selling "tree nut/peanut free fudge" that was repackaged and next to items containing nuts. It was clearly dangerous, for people with true nut allergies. I was so upset, thinking some uninformed grandparent might take nut free fudge home to a grandchild! Plus, I was disappointed for DS. I tried to talk to the owner about it, but she obviously thought I was over the top. Hopefully your letter will go over better! ETA: This really highlights DS's allergist's words for me. When talking about restaurants, and the safety of eating out with LTFAs, DS's allergist said, "You are putting all of your trust in these people." The wait staff, the cooks, everyone. It's true. When food can make one terribly ill, or even kill a person, we put every ounce of our trust in the person preparing it. It can be a scary proposition when the people preparing the food are not fully informed, no matter how good their intentions might have been.

For those of you using just the We Choose Virtues flashcards - how do you use them? Any tips?

Taking notes. :) Just added How the States Got Their Shapes to our Amazon watch list - thank you! These are fun! Just a quick hint, if you are thinking of buying them - if you buy a subscription to the Reading Rainbow app for iPad, they are all available on it. We own a few of the books, and then realized there are a ton of them on the app. It's $29.99 for a 6 month subscription to the app, but that's less than buying all the books. Of course, the library would be even less. :tongue_smilie: Our library doesn't have them, so the app was a great way to get access to them without spending the cash.

I think this was the TED talk: Sorry for the long link, on my phone. ETA: I'm not suggesting this is your DD, only that it might be an interesting thing to watch as you ponder synesthesia. I learned about it from DH, who has a fascination with it.

There is a great TED talk on this ... I will try to find it when not on my phone, or maybe someone will link it. Also, a book called ... The Man Who Tasted Shapes, I think.

No experience with this one, but I've looked at Murderous Maths recently. We love Horrible Histories. Isn't there a science version as well? Life of Fred is good. Beast Academy. I'll be checking out the other suggestions, too!

DS just turned 9, and is in 3rd grade (according to our local school district). Our usual math is TT (Teaching Textbooks). Ironically, we settled on it because it was more independent for DS, and less like mom teaching math, which made us both want to pull our hair out. But during our breaks, DS and I really get into math together. So the breaks are a big change of pace. LOF independently - hmmm, some people probably do that, and do it well. But we don't. :) We read the chapters together, giggling throughout. We do the problems together, though I'd imagine that you could have your kiddo do the problems, show his work and check them fairly easily. BA - we also do that one together, during our math "breaks". I think there are samples online, you might check them out. Your kiddo could definitely work on that independently or semi-independently, with you checking work afterward. I think we do it together to emphasize that change of pace, in a way, since our usual math is more hands off for me (DH oversees the TT lessons). Are you a member or the living math yahoo group? We've gotten lots of ideas for books, games, and more from the email list, and also the site itself. What about backing up and playing games for a while? Maybe even one day a week would help - designate a game day? Not sure how old your kiddo is, or if any of this is helpful.

We love LOF here. At her age, I think it would be fine. You could add in games and math readers from the living math site to round it out. Find other ways to make math fun and meaningful in her life. Melt downs are hard. We have had our share, and sometimes we've had to take Fred breaks - and just read, read, read Fred. We always go back to our regular math afterward with a better attitude. :)

When we have bogged down in our regularly scheduled math program, we take a Life of Fred break. Fred is fun, engaging, and a different style. We will fly through a bunch of books, doing the practice rows and the "your turn to play" at the end of each chapter. It keeps math fun and meaningful. When we are doing this, we also add in more math games, and I get ideas for appropriate math readers, etc from the living math site. We've added math apps in, and computer games - though in our house, those don't go over very well, as my kiddo seems to be the only one on the planet who doesn't care for video games. We also use Beast Academy during these "breaks" which aren't really breaks (shhhh, don't tell DS, he just thinks it's fun!). We are actually coming out of this phase right now, and are just getting back to our regular math (In our case, TT). We're doing both LOF and TT now, with a sprinkling of Beast. Maybe some of those ideas will help. :)

We did something close. We basically got a puppy for our puppy. :) When our pup was 5 mos old (approx), we got an 8 week old puppy as a playmate for him. Would I do it again? Hmmm... No. I wouldn't. But that's not to say that it's not a great idea for your family. I don't know. The pups get along great, they are both 4 yrs old now, and they are very bonded to each other, and to us. But I think that training them each appropriately and fully would have been easier with only one puppy at a time. I think they needed a bigger spread in age, and in future, I'd probably wait at least a year between pups. It wasn't a bad experience. But I don't think it was optimal either. I feel intuitively that it would have been better for them to be farther apart in age - mostly for training reasons, as stated above. But they sure were cute together!