We felt it here in northeast Indiana! It was centered in West Salem, IL, so we are not supposed to be in the "shake zone," but we sure felt it! People as far away as Ohio felt it. It's really something, isn't it? How exciting! LOL Mary

I would not assume anything. I would call or email and ask. Can't you get Hancock's to order for you so you can show them exactly what you want? Mary

I'm supposed to be sewing costumes that I have already sold on eBay. LOL Mary

My dd went through that at that age, too. The doc said she was just catching viruses easily and that she'd outgrow it. She did. He also said that if she had had any other symptoms with it over and over again, *then* he would be concerned. Mary

Awww. I hope he survived. Yeah, it was in a news story recently about needing only the chest compressions. Funny how those things change. Mary

My brother stopped breathing the time he had his first seizure. We were all glad we were at home and that Dad knew CPR because brother stopped breathing. No one else in the household knew CPR but Dad. I was 13 at the time. What a fright and what a blessing Dad was there. I got my "Heart Saver Card" the next year at school (CPR training in health class). Mary

God bless you for doing that. Have you heard the newest thing in CPR, that the breathing part is not necessary? Mary

I have the pastry cutter and love it! (I have Miracle Blade knives and love them!) Mary

I think the thing that helps us the most is having a place for everything. I have to make it easy for us to put things away or we don't do it. Now and then, I look around and see what kinds of things are being left out and then make homes for those things. I am also reminding everyone not to put something down on the table and then have to put it down again later in the right place. That is twice the work. Put it in the right place in the first place! It is hard because we are naturally lazy, but we are getting better at it. Getting rid of things we really don't need helps, too. The more stuff we have, the more time it takes to manage it. Mary

Sometimes, but I'd rather have that than a clean house, but no children in it. :) Train up your children well and it will get better as they get older. Teach them to work and to do so with a good attitude. There are blessings in the future from that. I am living those blessings now. Mary

That would upset me, too. I[m afraid I would have argued with her. LOL I might have told her about the PS failures, too, only it is acceptable to fail (in the school district's eyes) in PS, just not at home. ARGH! Mary

We pack up leftovers of each night's supper. He takes that to work and heats it in the microwave and loves it. We don't do sandwiches that often because most sandwich fillings are too high in animal fats. He loves my cooking, though, so it works out nicely. I just plan to make more than we need for dinner. The kids and I eat leftovers for lunch, too. It is a great system here. Everyone loves it. Mary

5'2"

The boys are painting the bars of the suspended ceiling so they can put new tiles up. That, of course, becomes a project for the whole family. LOL Just TRY cooking around that! LOL My biggest project is trying to sell school books and a huge amount of Stampin' Up stampers for a friend. (How does one acquire 219 stampers and then not use many of them??) Mary

One thing I do when faced with so many books is to start with only a couple of subjects a day and then add another when I have the others going smoothly. I have 4 kids whose ages are spread out, so I understand. But it does get easier as they get older. They learn to teach themselves. Yes, that is all you are doing for a while, but that is OK, isn't it? Teaching our kids is a huge, wonderful task, so it is expected to take a lot of time when done right. :o) It is worth it in the end when you discover the relationships you build with your kids and how ready they are to face the world when they are older because of the time invested with Mom. Mary

Have you talked to your dh about maybe *trying* to learn to sleep on his side so you can sleep, too? We do those things for each other since we love each other, right? So maybe he'll try if you ask him? Or maybe you have. You need your sleep, honey girl! I mention this because my dh has to sleep on his right side or he snores, so he has learned to sleep on his right side. It has helped tremendously. It helped that I was so grouchy from being tired that I told him that if he did not do something, I would not be any fun to live with anymore! LOL He really is a dear, though, so we help each other with those things. I have also learned to sleep with a little noise--not too much, though. :) HTH

I sometimes do that with face-to-face conversations. LOL Mary

Oh! I see! Thank you. Nice idea! Mary

What do the little green squares mean, over on the right, below our posting totals?

OPK, I know I am probably wearing out my welcome in this thread, but here is something else I thought of... Whenever something needs to be done or repaired, we take the time to study the topic and see if we can do it ourselves. Recently , our washer was giving us trouble, and since it is old, we though we'd have to get a new one. Dh got online and looked up"trouble shooting washer" and found out the problem. It cost us $6 to fix it! Sometimes there are things that we need to call a professional for--dh will not work on gas lines or gas appliances. He is not knowledgeable enough to be comfortable and does not want to blow up the house, so we call someone for that. But everything else is a possibility. We consider the cost of doing it ourselves vs. hiring someone. We will have someone else insulate the attic because we'd save $50 doing it ourselves and end up with a huge mess that I am not sure would be worth that $50. It would take us much longer, too. That is a consideration since I cannot do it and dh does not have much time off work at a stretch. But we consider everything like that before we hire someone. We have learned to do so many things this way. The internet and the library are our closest friends. :)

We had one but did not use it as often as I thought I would. Good zip-locks worked just as well. I found that sometimes the Food Saver bags come open, too. It just seemed like something else to take up space in my kitchen. The bags are so expensive, too. And when I put cookies in the bags, the cookies got crushed many times from being squashed as the air was sucked out.

Same here. There are some things not worth being frugal about. We eat very healthful diets even though it is more expensive in some ways, but to us, that is worth more than money in the bank.

That is probably the best thing we have ever done. I Hate buying something because I cannot find the one we have. What a waste of money! We try not to keep too much stuff, either, because the more stuff you have, the more time it takes to manage it.

Just wanted to add that passing on frugal thinking to my kids has helped a lot, too. They think of cheaper ways of doing things that I hadn't considered all the time. They know the value of money. I am doing a grocery Price Book, too. Love it. Here are a few more things...we put plastic on the windows and keep the furnace low in the winter and use fans as long as we can in the summer. We also got that film you put on windows to block the heat-carrying light from coming it. I cannot believe the difference that makes in the summer! But the rooms are not dark. Amazing. This week, we are insulating our attic. Mary

I have been at it for years and could not list all of the things I do, but here are a few, besides the ones you listed: I cut our hair, sew household items and some of our clothing, do all our mending and alterations, have as big a garden as I can manage on our little property and use frugal methods, like propagating my own plants, hardly ever buy anything new, if I can help it... If I burn cookies, I scrape the black bottoms off on a cheese grater. No one ever knows the difference. :o) We do not waste one drop of food. We have a compost heap for non-animal items to help my garden. I make gifts, if I can. We get and offer things on Freecycle, too. Mary