I've been there too :grouphug: But it's best to not make assumptions on what you think she really meant by it or what should could have meant by it or what she wanted to mean by it. If you really want to know, you can ask her. If not, just let it pass.

Lunch: We had leftover steel cut oats from breakfast with broccoli and carrots and the boys also had a banana. Mother's Day was nice. I got to sleep in. :D And I went with Hubby to pick out a set of cannisters for my present. It may not seem like that special of a present, but I've been wanting some for awhile so I had a place to put my steel cut oats, granola, couscous, etc. For some reason, the bags from Good Earth aren't all that pleasant:tongue_smilie: Shopping: Just gotta do a meal plan and go get groceries.

I'm sorry, I don't have time to read anyone else's post. But here is our story. My husband graduated from college with about $13K in student loans. We had about $4000 on credit cards. Unfortunately, he graduated in film, which is pretty much useless at getting you a job right out of college. That's just not how the film world works. He was unemployed for about 2 months, then worked for a month doing overnight stocking at Target, was unemployed another month, worked 1 month at a call center and then got an incredible freelance job for 1 month, then got a really good job at a place that designed and built sets. From all those periods of unemployment, we learned, "Save for a rainy day, because it will come." Our student loans came due right as he was in his first unemployment period. And since I'd done really bad at paying bills, the interest rates on our credit card kicked up to like 30% and we couldn't afford to pay that either. It wasn't a very deep whole to be in compared to a lot of people, but it was deep enough for our situation to teach us a thing or two. That job lasted about a year and a half, during which time we paid off $7000 of debt (the credit cards and $3k of the student loan) and we were only earning $25K a year. Plus we had our $1000 in the bank for our baby emergency fund. Details are starting to get fuzzy, but the place he was working went out of business and we spent another year and a half unemployed. It was a tough time financially and emotionally. He did manage to find a part time job, two days a week for $8/hr, but we never would have survived without our savings (we used our tax money) and unemployment. The economy was really bad in this area for the film world, so freelance work was very scarce. We were down to our last dollar. We were so poor we couldn't afford to even buy macaroni and cheese (and I do have lots to say about eating processed garbage like that) and we eventually went on food stamps as a last resort. Unemployment had run out and his part time job wouldn't even pay for our rent. Then he got this job for $12.5/hour. He works full time there and gets $500/wk from that and works on Saturdays at the part time job for $80/wk. And how we survive now? We keep our monthly bills down. We have rent, renters and car insurance, cell phones, gas and electric and that *@^% student loan payment. That's it. We've never had a car loan (and we've never been rich either). We would be stupid to buy a house now, because no matter what, if you buy a house with a mortgage, you don't own it, the bank does. And I'm not willing to risk that. Food is our biggest expense and I'm sure I could make the $400 I budget for it go down if I were willing to eat processed foods again, but I'm not, so we are going very simple. I grind my own wheat, bake my own bread. I just placed my first order with Bountiful Baskets, so I'm hoping that turns out ok and will help me keep down the cost for fresh produce (we go through it SOOOO quickly). I make my own laundry detergent. I saved all the clothes from Pigby, so Digby wears his hand me downs. I don't buy clothes for Pigby for more than $3.50 each (for shirts or pants). I buy used from classifieds. We bought our washer and dryer for $150 total over a year and a half ago and they're still running fine. We bought our minivan for $5000 and sold our Xterra for $5000 when Chuck came along. We bought our very, very nice table and chairs for $90. I bought my double stroller for $100 less than the retail price. I am not perfect. I have a list of about 25 more things I need to be doing (making my own pasta, yogurt, kefir, etc) before I will consider myself perfect. Food does go to waste occasionally. But educating myself on the cost of goods and jumping at the chance to save money (only for what we need, not what we want) helps a lot. I don't know how we make it on $2300 a month, but somehow all our needs are met and money is going into the savings account. Slowly but surely we'll get there. It helps because I know this isn't our permanent situation. My husband is working religiously on his business plan to get this movie made and to move into the film world. ETA: after going back and rereading your post (I had read several pages of comments and forgot what the real question was), we're still not totally debt free. We just pay extra on our student loan every month and even though it's not much, it will be paid off quicker than what their schedule was. We've never had debt on a car or a house, so we've never had that problem. To me, rent is a different kind of debt. Yes, you owe it every month and yes you are paying the mortgage and taxes on someone else's property, but you aren't taking on the risk of it. And we live in an area where if we absolutely had to (like when we were on our last dollar and almost had to move in with my mother) we could have easily gotten out of our rent agreement because there are so many other people here who would have taken it.

Well, since my daughter is only three months, I have a while to go before I think of this.:lol: You have been very worried throughout her whole pregnancy. She's your baby, of course you are worried. Just get through this like you got through everything else. Ultimately it's up to her and her husband; you are free to give her advice and share your wisdom. In your last thread about going out there for 9 weeks, it did seem very much that she was nervous/scared/worried and just wanted the support of her mama. You can support her in this and give her comfort. Just make sure she has a good midwife and make sure you know all the warning signs of when to get help. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: You can do this. You can help her.

We don't. My grandpa once told me he thought it was a sin to not let children have pets. I told him we had some fish.:glare: They are mostly DH's fish and I've agreed to let him get some dart frogs, but that's it. NO MORE! Even those take up too much of his time and energy. DH asks me what kind of fish I want (the most inexpensive he can get) or what color frogs I want. I keep telling him I don't really care, they're his fish and his frogs, do whatever he wants. He thinks that if I pick them out that I'll bond with them. I am sorry, but I am just not fascinated with them like he is.

I don't have any GF ideas, but wanted to recommend this website for your menu planning. It will keep all the recipes you like and you can create a menu plan and it will automatically create a shopping list for you. Hopefully it can make your life a bit easier and take away some of the stress.

Here's a website that might have some good ideas for you. However, I've never had liver and have no intention of changing that anytime soon, so I can't say how good these ideas are.

:001_smile: How sweet of them.

:001_huh::ohmy::crying::mad:Oh. My. Word. That is absolutely despicable and disgusting. That's like the witch on Tangled: "I took you in because of what you can do for me, not what I can do for you." :grouphug:to you and :grouphug: hugs to your husband. I honestly don't know if you can do anything that won't make her whine to the whole family. A brief, "We can't move there. When you want to move to an apartment close to us, let us know" might be the best you can do. But you can't change her. Anything other than what she wants is going to result in a temper tantrum. Stand your ground.

You should laugh, crying ruins your makeup;) I'm pretty sure she didn't adopt him as her retirement plan: "When I'm old and gray, this child can take care of me,":001_huh: so that argument can be thrown out the window. My inlaws used to constantly ask when we'd be moving close to them (2000 miles away). Granted, they never demanded or had ill intentions or were manipulative, they just said it a lot. But nope, taking care of our family first is the way it goes. No guilt for that.

So sorry this seems to be a never ending thing for them. If it were me, I'd tell them that a cruise is not an option. You don't need to get into the reasons why. Tell them you could do a beach house. If they choose to go on the cruise anyway, then go with your family to a beach house. No bitterness, no guilt, just have a lot of fun and make good memories for your own children.

Good job Google! And it's all making so much more sense now. I was wondering if your brother had had to go get some for the females in your house while growing up. Or if that's what your mom told your dad when he was going to the store.

I don't know....but I Googled. If the Google answer is the same as your answer....*giggles*

Ummm...TeA in our house is "eating cabbage". We came up with something we'd never really do to refer to.....that. And artichoke is the code word when the other (usually DH) is doing something annoying in public and I don't want to embarrass or demean him or talk about it in front of others. I have to use it when the "hairy eyeball" goes unnoticed.

My oldest was 3 1/2 when my second was born. For the area we live, that's a LONG time between children. It was easy enough, because he new how to wait a few minutes and he could be bargained with. I honestly think a lot of it has to do with the personalities and temperaments of the children involved. Some people are best friends with their sibling close in age; some cannot stop fighting with them. And vice versa for siblings far apart in age. Digby was a very....I don't know how to say it nicely, but a high maintenance child. Always needed to be held to sleep, wouldn't go back to sleep easy, inconsistent about what "worked" for him and what didn't. After 12 months without sleeping thru the night, PPD was very bad for me. I went crazy. And when I found out I was pregnant with #3 (they are 20 months apart, closer in age than I would have ever purposefully planned on) I was very worried that I'd never sleep again. Well, at about 12 months, he started sleeping through the night and she came along and it was only hard sleep-wise for about two weeks. She would only wake up once or twice a night and would go right back to sleep without me needing to rock or walk her. And she started sleeping through the night completely at about 6 weeks. So for me, having two and a newborn is a lot easier than having one and a newborn. I think so much just depends on each child and there's no way to predict that before they're born. So if you really want another, go ahead, I agree with a previous poster who said most people don't regret having another.

When I went in to get my IUD, I couldn't help but think about how much at risk we women are in general. Pregnancy and birth carries risks. But so does every single type of birth control, except abstinence. I read about the risk of IUDs and tubal ligations and the pill and the patch. Plus, on any of them there is a risk of getting pregnant anyway, which brings us back to square one of the risks of pregnancy and labor. There are risks for birthing at a hospital, there are risks for birthing at home. In all honesty, no matter what we do there are risks. So bravo to me and every other mother out there. "There are no guarantees in life"

Any friend will have flaws. Being a friend means being a friend in spite of those flaws. I also think it's not that big of a deal. Just don't look at them. You don't necessarily know why she does it, she could be hiding a very deep hurt. Just love her anyways.

I can get you one from Utah

What worked for me was the Mary Kay Time Wise line. They have a different formula for normal/dry skin and combo/oily skin. It's a three step like the more expensive brands, but cheaper. I think it's very high quality stuff, like the department store brands, but costs less. I used it for a few years and it worked very well. I did have to be very good about washing my face two times a day though. The only thing that works better for me is being pregnant, but I'm not gonna keep doing that just to have clear skin :glare: I think I might go back to it, because I've hit the point after baby being born that my skin is breaking out like I'm 15 again:001_unsure:

ha ha, no it's not too young. I was done when I was 26. The doctor did recommend that I not take any permanent measures, just in case, so I went with the Mirena. I would only do something permanent if I were absolutely, positively 100% sure I were done.

I haven't read all the replies, but here's what we do: We have been known to buy The Total Money Makeover for people and write in them with our "We love you" message, that way they can't be returned. It's not like we necessarily have cause to think they'll be foolish with their money, but it's the best non-religious book for helping a marriage that we've ever seen. Honestly, once DH and I got on the same page about money, it was much easier to work through any problems. We figure it can only help any marriage, it won't ever hurt one.

I had gotten WWE for my son to start in the fall (1st grade). After looking it over, I realized we'd probably be no where close to that. After trying to instruct him on how to form letters (and being extremely frustrated with it) I bought Handwriting Without Tears. It fulfills its promise of no tears (for me at least, DS never cried, just tried his hardest to please me). I don't think WWE is meant to be a handwriting instruction program. I think it's supposed to be used after they can write their letters without having to think about it. In one of the books, maybe WTM or WWE, SWB talks about how writing is actually two steps, putting an inarticulate idea into words and then putting those words onto paper. That's why WWE separates the two steps, so children can focus on only one at a time. If he is trying to remember how to form the letters while he's doing copywork, I think it's too much for him now. If I were you, I'd look into HWT first. It makes writing very very easy for little boys. Plus, the books are very cheap. I didn't get the wooden letters, the teacher's manual has a template you can copy. I just cut out my own letters from foam sheets.

I have never used AAS, but I would think that you'd be able to either skip or go over really quickly the lessons he already knows. If he already knows the sounds letters make, skip those. If you get to a list of words you are confident he already knows, but want to reinforce the "rules" have him write them on the white board (or do something fun with them) so he doesn't balk at having to do it, but you can get it done quickly. Then you can say, "that's our spelling lesson for the day!" and he'll feel proud that he got something accomplished and it was so easy. Short, easy lessons should help you as you start off homeschooling; it makes it easy in the beginning and you can gradually build up their ability to sit still. (This is what we do for OPGTR, I skipped over the lessons about letters and at times, I've chucked the script out of the window and just explained the rule and had him read.) As a homeschooler, you don't need to be tied down by the curriculum, you can move at a faster or slower pace depending on where your children are.

welcome, welcome:seeya:

Lunch: We had leftover chicken lo mein. I swear, if I didn't painfully remember the 9 months of miserable pregnancy, the 40 hours of labor and the sleepless nights, I would have to wonder if Pigby was really mine. The kid whines and whines about leftovers, while I eat them for breakfast. Looking forward to the antibiotics we'll be getting for Digby. The kid has been sick forever and I finally took him to the doctor. Hopefully he'll get better very soon. Prayers: I would want prayers that my husband could find funding for his film. We need this to move forward with our goals