My kids beg me to buy 'Seaweed Snack' every time I go to TJ's. AT $.99, it's hard to say no. :D We all love the stuff.

I'm having both B & T do Sentence Composing for Elementary School. They do this twice a week, so we're working through it slowly. Both boys have needed some help, B more than T. Complaining is minimal. B just finished Practice 6 (Learning Sentence Imitating: Combining to Imitate). He has needed a bit of hand-holding on most lessons so far, but has come up with some much better sentences than he normally writes. I'm hopeful that this will eventually transfer to his 'regular' writing. :D T is ahead of B in the book, and needs fewer corrections. Since he's already done some MCT, I have a good vocabulary to use in correcting his work. ('See how there's a prep phrase here? You don't have a prep phrase in the same place in your sentence.')

You know, I did eat it in isolation. It was fairly high in fat on its own, though. (Tagalong) Thanks everyone for your replies. I think for now I'm sufficiently scared to cheat again any time soon. :D (Still really hoping it wasn't the cookie, though...I'd love to eventually be able to eat one every now and again. ;))

It's definitely doing that! I'm scared of trying another one!

Sorry to tempt you. D is a Girl Scout, so it's hard not to have them around this time of year. Got to support the troop and all that... ;)

I recently read Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers. There is a very interesting section of charts representing type distributions among a variety of groups of people (can't think of the word I want here.) I don't remember the details (loaning the book to someone right now, so I can't check) but there were a couple of charts associated with college entrance exams/grades/percentages of people with specific majors/etc. What really struck me was how disproportionately high the NT and NF types were on these charts. (Tended to test better, be more interested in higher ed). On the charts tracking types in business school, however, there were very few Ns, mostly SJ types. All that is to say, I think some types of people do inherently test better. Others may need more practice being taught specific strategies for testing. I don't know how helpful that is, but thought I'd throw it out there for consideration. :) Oh, this also reminds me of a good friend of mine. She's super smart, bilingual, went to an expensive private school, worked for a gov't agency (you get the picture) who once told me that she just doesn't test well. I remember not understanding at the time how this could be. After reading about the MBTI, I'm pretty sure she's an ESFJ, which would fit with the general observations recorded in Myer's book.

Nobody? I guess I could find out by experimenting, but at this point I'm kind of scared to do so. :tongue_smilie:

Wonder if we're in the same library system...I'm #17 in line. :D

So I've been doing Atkins for the past month (and have lost about 10 lbs. :party:) I've been very very good about sticking to the diet until last night, when we picked up our Girl Scout cookie order. I ate one cookie. One. measly. cookie. And even made sure I stayed within my daily net carb count, so as not to cheat tooo much. ;) Anyway, today, I felt super sluggish, like I was trying to drag myself through jello all day. Also had terrible brain fog. From about 1-6 pm. I feel normal again now. I keep thinking that maybe it was the cookie...could it have been the cookie? Surely not the cookie... Anyone with low carb experience want to chime in? Could it be the cookie??? Or maybe just a fluke? :confused:

Yikes! That would be tough. Maybe hamburgers, pot roasts, chicken cooked w/o salt and then seasoned separately for the rest of your family? Maybe also big green salads with plain chicken and/or eggs and some homemade salt-free vinaigrette. That's all that comes to mind immediately. I wonder why the no salt part. I've recently started Atkins, and one thing that is mentioned in the book is that the diet tends to have a diuretic effect, so more salt might need to be consumed while on Atkins. With your aunt's health issues, though, I guess that's not OK? What a wonderful thing you're doing for her. Not everyone would be willing to take in an aging relative, much less figure out a diet that's drastically different from the norm.

I had severe pneumonia near the end of L's pregnancy (which also resulted in L's premature delivery...) 3 months later the coughing was mostly gone, and 6 months later I was able to do normal stuff without getting winded. It was the better part of a year before I felt totally normal again. Hope you are better much faster than that. :grouphug:

:lol:

I'm in year 2 of my homeschool funk. Dealing with my own depression has helped a little, but I'm still struggling to figure out what to do with everyone, esp. B (12yo ds) who thinks everything is 'stupid' and regularly refuses to do his work. :glare: I'm going to try a modified AO plan with him for the rest of the year. Re-reading WTM & LCC is a good idea. Lately I've been wanting to just send everyone away, have a quiet house and spend all of my time sewing/crafting. :001_huh: Not very realistic, but there it is. :tongue_smilie: Trying to get back to excitement or at least good attitude/steady work (on my part!) :grouphug: to you; hopefully someone who's made it past this stage (please tell me people get past this stage and don't stay in a funk forever!) will chime in with some words of wisdom. :)

Looks like it. :D

Dh's three younger siblings used American School. None of them had good experiences. American School regularly lost their coursework/course completion information. :glare: After having to re-do several courses, they started to photocopy EVERYTHING. Came in handy several times. :tongue_smilie: I helped youngest SIL with some of her coursework, and found it to be extremely boring as well as 'light' (imo) for high school-level work.

B&T are using these, and really enjoy the readings. (They dislike any assignments connected to the readings, however. :001_rolleyes:) I've heard some people complain about the tone being condescending. None of the passages my boys have read to me ("Mommy, you have to hear this!") have had that feel imo, but I haven't read the books on my own.

Triple Cream Brie on whole grain crackers. When I was making quiche last year, I had Dubliner but no Swiss, so just used the Dubliner. I buy it on purpose for quiche-making now. :) Beecher's Flagship cheese (sold at Pike Place Market and also recently at Costco) is fabulous.

:iagree: If your HDL is high and your triglycerides are low, you are in good shape. The LDL number is virtually useless as an indicator of health. You would need to have the different types of LDL analyzed to see which sub-type is high. (Turns out there is 'good' and 'bad' LDL. :tongue_smilie:) (If you have time, check out the video segments entitled 'Big Fat Lies' and 'Why You Got Fat' in this link: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/. Not because of the weight stuff, but the side-mention of cholesterol. :))

From the author's blog (http://peterennsonline.com/2010/07/05/new-bible-curriculum-telling-gods-story-coming-in-february-2011/): I'm really looking forward to getting this curriculum. I like what I saw in the samples. :)

I've been the parent in a similar situation--it is very embarrassing. (And I'll admit that I've had the 'is my child going to be a delinquent?' thoughts, too. :blush:) When B was 5 years old (I think), he pulled the alarm at the library. This was a four-story building (we were on the 4th floor--the children's floor) and it had to be evacuated and the fire department called, even when I told the people working there that my ds had pulled the alarm. (Who puts a shiny red alarm right in child's reach on the kid's floor anyway? :glare:) There was an autistic boy on the stairwell when we were going down, and the noise totally freaked him out. I felt soooo bad. B is 12 now, and never did that again (neither have any of the other kids, thank goodness.) It was awful at the time, but now it has become one of those stories that the family tells around the dinner table and chuckles. :)

:lol: Oh man, I have soooo been there. :tongue_smilie: Have you considered Systematic Mathematics? (http://www.systemath.com/) Although it isn't spiral in nature, it might still be worth a look. There's a whole module on fractions, for example. (http://systemath.com/index.php/2008011141/Level-6/Working-With-Fractions.html). Also, there are video lessons (though not terribly high quality/exciting ones), and it's not terribly expensive. :)

There's no way you can ID a spider as a brown recluse by just the "violin mark": http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/fiddleback.html. :D Also, that spider pic you posted is freakin' scary. Yikes! Even after reading all of the spider myths stuff, I'm still freaked out by seeing spiders. I think the part of the brain powering the arachnophobia must be completely disconnected from the logic part of the brain. :tongue_smilie:

Huh. I think the Keurig coffee is just OK. Dh thinks it tastes stale and refuses to drink it. I much prefer my coffee freshly ground right before brewing. I love the Aeropress, though it's not great for serving more than 1-2 people coffee. (We keep a coffeemaker around, but only use it when we have company.) I can't believe I'm the only dissenter in 3 pages! Maybe I'm more of a coffee snoot than I thought? ;):D

Something I've tried with lentils that helps a lot: sprouting them before hand. (I have a mesh screen lid that fits on top of wide-mouth quart-size canning jars. I rinse the lentils, put them in the jar w/ the lid, and then keep the jar upside-down at an angle. Rinse a couple times a day. After about a day, tiny sprouts will appear. I don't let the sprouts grow...just cook the lentils at that point.) Also, putting a piece of Kombu seaweed in with your cooking beans is supposed to help. I think it helps a little, though not completely. ;) I made a lentil dish last week and forgot both of these tricks. Not cool. :glare:

After reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, we cut out almost all sugar/refined carbs. (Unfortunately, we're back on the sugar wagon with the abundance of tempting holiday treats everywhere. 5 lbs gained in no time! :glare: Anyway...must get off the stuff again. :tongue_smilie:) We don't do low-fat, and we eat plenty of eggs and dairy fat (lots of butter!) as well as a moderate amount of grass-fed beef. Dh recently had his annual cholesterol check, and compared to last year (fairly high sugar consumption, though still less than the US average), his HDL increased by 10 points and his Triglycerides decreased. (LDL fell a bit, too, but that information doesn't actually convey anything about heart-health. Turns out there's 'good' LDL and 'bad', and it's not something normal labs test. LDL levels could lower, while the very-high-density LDL rises, which would spell increased risk, or vice versa. This is why the total cholesterol number is pretty much worthless, too.)