I'm going to be starting back in the fall for my master's degree. Getting a little nervous but excited as well!!

Right there with you and I would love to discuss these things but would rather take it to PMs if you want to talk.

My mom was diagnosed with brain cancer 2 weeks before I had #7. My parents lived across the street from us at the time. Due to work issues, my dad wasn't able to do much of the daily care. After her surgery, she needed someone to be with her during the day for several weeks. This wasn't entertaining time either. She slept a lot but someone needed to make sure she had food and drink when she was awake. And then the daily treatment appts began. My oldest at the time was 14. He's always been very independent and was able to keep up with pretty much all he needed to. My littlest ones (baby, 2yo, 4yo) didn't do anything but play all day. The three middles were just doing bare bones school - math, handwriting and reading. I tried to make sure they were reading good stuff, but wasn't always up on it. Honestly, a lot went undone for that year but I don't regret any of it and I don't think you'd be able to tell by interacting with any of my kids. They got some great life lessons for that year. If it were going to be a long term thing, I might have to reevaluate some of that.

They're telling us we're in extreme risk this afternoon. Yikes! I want all my kiddos home before that happens!!

All the products I've tried from them are very yummy! They don't taste like "health food." I like that their protein shakes are WHEY protein and not SOY and they come from grass fed cows somewhere (?) on special grass. (How's that for technical terms??) One of the protein bars is better than a candy bar!! If I could afford it, I would use as much of their stuff as possible. It's the best I've tried so far. I do use the protein shakes, but only one scoop instead of two. I've used the energy drink powder you add to water, but they quit making my favorite, grape. My mother has a membership. She used their shakes while going through chemo. I order every so often from her.

:blink: Wow! I'm glad your friend is ok!

It's in quotes because that's the expression that someone used today. And I thought, "what do you mean 'just a little'?" Seems if it's not physical abuse, then it's not REALLY abuse. :confused: It just appears to me that women are told to stay longer through verbal abuse than physical. I don't want to get personal because I don't want this thread closed. ;) I appreciate all the insights and if someone from a BTDT perspective wanted to PM me, that would be fine too.

When a woman has a physically abusive husband, people are very quick to say "get out, get safe!" but if it's "just a little" verbal and emotional abuse, the advise turns to "stay and wait it out." Just because the wounds aren't visible doesn't mean they're not as real. Can someone explain this to me? I'm having great difficulty understanding it?? :confused: Really, I don't want this to get in a horrid debate. I just want to understand why the difference in advice.

AMEN!

Hope it gets straightened out soon. That's an annoying way to live for sure! :glare:

No, you're not being selfish. It would be one thing if she was 90 and an invalid or if there health reasons that made traveling difficult for her. The older our parents get, the more we find they are just set in their ways and don't like change. My ILs live 1000 miles away and get upset if we take a vacation anywhere but to see them. We don't want to use up all our vacation time to go to the same place every time. We try to go every few years, but the complaining gets old. I know it's difficult, but just let it roll off. If she wants to see you, she'll make the effort.

You really might need more progesterone. I was using prog cream for several years and this last year it seemed to stop working. I don't know if my skin got too saturated or what. I switched to a sublingual and am taking a lot more than before. I was having midcycle spotting and then spotting for a few days before AF. When in your cycle do you start the prog? I start a small dose on day 7-14 and then about 3X that on 15-26. It's completely taken care of the spotting and the heavy AF. I only take estrogen if I start having night sweats during AF - so not every cycle. It's great to have dr who will listen to your symptoms and not just the labs! I know my dr has changed my life for the better!! My mom picks on me for "going to the dr all the time" (it's every 3mths) but if it helps me get through this time of life with my family still liking me (lol!) I'm all for it. She was awful to live with in her 40-50s!!

Have you had your ratio of estrogen to progesterone checked? If that's off, it could be causing the spotting.

We had a really bad case of strep late 2010. Two kids got scarlet fever and one had a 104 fever for a week. We took him to the dr 3 times that week and they did check for mono with him. It was over Thanksgiving, that was supposed to be at our house, as well. Just sayin', sometimes strep is worse than other times. It's a bummer to have to rearrange a holiday. Hope your dd is feeling better soon!

At this point, if something happened to it, it would mean we would need to split people up between the other two cars if we needed to ALL go somewhere. That wouldn't be convenient, but would work. I guess it really is a gamble, huh? We've never had to use our insurance for anything other than towing in over 20 years, but I guess you never know.

Do you carry full coverage on your paid for cars? We're trying to think of ways to save some money and were thinking of dropping some insurance coverage on our big van. At this point, we rarely drive it - only when we ALL need to go somewhere. It's 7 years old. Do we really NEED full coverage on it? I keep thinking of a little bumper thumper my mom got into a few years ago. She had full coverage on her car but because of it's age, it was cheaper for the insurance company to total it and pay her what it was "worth" than to pay for the repairs. My mom wanted it fixed because it was worth more to her since it was paid for. She ended up getting it fixed, but it did cost her some. :glare:

Maybe, but more likely it's your testosterone level.

You really want to know? Ok, due to extenuating circumstances that make me NOT want to have to mess with a meal and the huge clean up afterwards because there's no other option than to have EVERYONE come to my house, we're having. . . . . . . . . pizza. Yes, I'm serious. :lol:

Makes you wonder why we even have those teeth if the majority of people have so many problems with them and need them removed. :confused: Guess I'll ask the dentist about it the next time we go. I only ever had 3 of them. My brother had 6. :blink: Two on the both sides on top.

Anyone still have their wisdom teeth? My oldest ds's are coming in and don't seem to be causing any problems other than the normal teething stuff but everyone is saying "oh, he needs to have those out". :confused: The dentist hasn't said anything about them so I'm thinking it's kinda crazy to just assume they need to come out cause they're coming......in.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to look to check out Thinkwell. I haven't heard of that before. I really want him to do something at home because, well, I like math. :D That's what my degree is in. I LOVE getting to help him with the upper level stuff. Weird, I know.

I didn't even realize Foerster had a calculus. We've liked his algebra books.

I can't believe my ds is almost finished with high school. Only one more year. He's at the point math-wise, where he'll be doing calculus next year but there don't seem to be many options for calculus in the homeschooling sphere. Has anyone here done this with their kids and what did you use?

:iagree: Personally, I think if you've gone to the trouble and expense to get a CCL, you should be able to carry anywhere. Crime can happen at any time, any place and how is it ok to tell someone they can defend themselves and their loved ones only in certain places? Do you think the bad guys care about where they're supposed to carry a gun and where they're not? I don't.

Haven't decided yet. My older dc usually like to volunteer but there are 3 things going on that weekend that we usually do and there's no way we'll be able to do them all.