If you are concerned about the suggestive scenes, do not watch the deleted scenes. The scene on the airplane with the flight attendants just keeps on going & going. Amber in SJ

It was easier to count the ones I hadn't read and that number was 19. I sent the list to my DH and I think he is one of the Americans who have read 6 on the list. We balance each other out! Amber in SJ

One of the things that I learned at a stress-reduction class I took (involuntarily) was the importance of breathing correctly. When we are stressed we breathe shallowly and this stresses our nervous system further. When I was spending time in the cardiac intensive care with my dad, I found myself using this technique often. Stop and take a deep breath through your nose. Picture your lungs filling from the bottom up. This is no time to try to suck in your stomach. Once your lungs are as full as you think you can get them hold the breath for a count of three and exhale through your mouth. Allow your exhale to make a noise, like a huff or a sigh. I try to think of something soothing as I exhale like shades of blue or the word calm. I know it sounds all goofy & new-agey, but it really helped me when I was in the moment. Take care of yourself. Amber in SJ

DH is a mechanical design engineer/ project manager for a small biotech company here in the silicon valley. Last week they went from 35 employees to 11! He is now the only engineer there. We were told the company can meet the payroll for the next 6 months and after that all bets are off. He was also told to take any & all PTO because there is no way the company can pay it out. The other mechanical engineer at the job had been there for 18 years (less than DH) and pffft...she is out. You could safely say we are concerned. Things could get interesting around here. I grew up pretty poor (government cheese, secondhand everything) and DH did not so I have a different perspective on things. Amber in SJ

I have 4 dc & my contractions never became regular or close together. I was also never delivered by my OB and I was always trying to convince a total stranger that I was in labor. For dd #3 when the pain of contractions woke me out of a sound sleep, I called the hospital spoke to the on-call doc who "guaranteed" me that I was not in labor. He told me that under no circumstances should I go to the hospital because they would just send me home. We went to the hospital anyway and the nurses took one look at me yelled "Don't Push!" and ran for the doc. The doc & I got to the room at the same time & I barely got on the bed in time for him to catch. I was wearing my regular clothes (a dress) and hadn't taken off my shoes. The doc wasn't gowned & the bed not broken down. He apologized afterward. The moral of the story? Don't wait. Amber in SJ

Or you could say what I always say; "I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way." I always get this look :001_huh: Sorry, I just can't help myself Amber in SJ

When people give me lists of reasons of why they could never homeschool I think they are just feeling like they have to justify their choices. I try to assure them that I don't think their educational choices are wrong for them, just not right for our family. The patience one is my favorite. I hear that all the time and it makes me laugh because I do not consider myself to be patient at all. I am of the opinion that if you pray for patience, the Lord doesn't open up a wellspring of patience in your heart, instead you find yourself in situations where you must practice patience over and over and over.....sometimes I am successful and sometimes I am not. Homeschooling does not mean you are patient. It means you have opportunities to practice patience. Amber in SJ

I have read all 4 of the books in the series & I have to say I liked the last one the least. My 14yo dd has also read them. we have had some great discussions. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that the relationships seemed to be "fated." Neither Bella nor Edward chose to love the other. She was "dazzled" by him & her blood "sang" to him. And don't even get me started on the whole imprinting thing. Again, the people in the relationship have no choice. To me this is a very immature view of love and all kinds of bad behavior is excused by people who think they have no choice in who they love. We have told our daughters that you choose your love then you love your choice. Lots of people are attracted to people who are bad for them, it is what they do with the attraction that is their choice. The Twilight books romanticised the idea of an irresistable attraction. Removing the choice also means removing the responsibility for those choices and that is not real life. Just my opinion Amber in SJ

In the last few years, I have been told I look like JENNA FISCHER who plays Pam Beesly on "The Office." I haven't seen the show, so I looked her up online. I don't think I look like her. I didn't see a single picture of her smilling. My dh looks like a red-headed Neal McDonough. Barney Rubble hands and all. Amber in SJ

At our house Friday is a day to catch-up on all the things we let slide during the week. For the elementary/ middle school kids I don't schedule regular school work. Friday is the day we clean up messes and go to co-op/ park day. We also have pizza/ movie night on Friday with the whole family. We love Fridays. (unless it is my week to do a co-op project.) Amber in SJ

My dc choose 10 pieces. This is usually gone in a few days. That way I only have a few days of being pestered for candy, finding random wrappers and worry about tooth decay. The rest is traded for a small gift like a book or 5 songs from itunes for the bigs or a small toy for the littles. I take the rest of the candy & separate it. Anything that could go into a cookie or on a brownie (m&ms, reeces pieces, solid chocolate, PB cups) goes into the freezer for future baking. I keep a bag of the other "good" stuff (skittles, twizzlers, gummies) in the pantry & it gets doled out when we go to the movies or on road trips. All the junky candy goes to work with DH. Yes, sometimes the bigs complain because they'd rather have a giant bag of candy than a book they know they will get eventually, but I tell them the candy is going so they might as well get something they want for it. Amber in SJ

Our garbage/ recycling/ compostable yard waste is picked up weekly. Because we live in the city you are required to have garbage pick up & if you don't pay it a lien will be placed on your house. Our family of 6 almost fills the 32-Gal garbage and 64-Gal mixed recycling every week and we usually have a small pile of yard waste every other week. The neighbors have a fabulously landscaped yard & garden with a very precise Asian theme that gardeners come & work on 2X/ week. They usually have several huge piles of yard waste. We can purchase extra garbage stickers if we are having a party, large cardboard boxes can be flattened and placed next to the recycling bin. If your bins are filled to overflowing and the lid doesn't close, the collectors may refuse to take them and you are fined. The garbage collectors also pick up plastic milk jugs filled with used motor oil for recycling & will leave you with an empty for the next time. At least once year there is a "dumpster day" where dumpsters are parked in various places around our district & you are given a list of what will be accepted at which dumpster site. Some of the things make me laugh like the dumpster that is designated for "dirt & rocks." The dumpsters that fill up fast are the ones that take large items and the ones that take e-waste. The event is supposed to last from 8am until Noon, but some of the dumpsters fill up in 90 minutes. You have to prove you live in the district. Now you know more than you ever thought possible about big city garbage collection. We took a tour of the recycling plant & it was so cool to see how the automated system separated the mixed recycling. Amber in SJ

Mine came up: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 100% Orthodox Jew 89% That's an interesting combo! Amber in SJ

Hi, Can I ask for information & opinions about the flu shot? I think DH had one several years ago, but I can't remember. It was a "clinic" event that came to his work. Everyone in our family was wiped out last year at least once and some more than once, so I am considering it. Pros? Cons? Do people really "get" the flu or flu-like symptoms after getting the shot like I keep reading? How accurate is the "guess" of which strains will be most common? Could I use more bizarre, random quotation marks? Our family consists of DH & myself, and dc from 3-14. My DH is the one with the weak immune system. Thanks, Amber in SJ

I am not a piano teacher, and I currently have 3 children in piano lessons. I do play the piano (poorly) and I got all of them started with pianimals http://www.pianimals.com/index.htm Because your dd is 8 it won't take her long to move through the first book. There is even a holiday book at the first levels, so she can play for the holidays this year which was always a great incentive for my girls. There are sample pages on the website to look at HTH Amber in SJ

We have a few rules about dinner at our house: 1. If you come & ask mom "what's for dinner?" (while I am making dinner) the answer is always "food." 2. You must take a "polite bite" of everything on the table. 3. Anything you put on your own plate must be finished. 4. The most negative comment allowed is, "It's not my favorite." 5. We eat dinner late enough so that we can eat with DH that being hungry before bed is not usually a problem, but anyone may help themselves to a glass of milk and a piece of fruit until 8:30 pm when the kitchen closes, provided they clean up after themselves. A glass of milk & a banana before bedtime has staved off even the growing teen hungries in the middle of the night. I love to cook and I even bake when I am stressed. DH has been known to come home to a few loaves of bread, several dozen cookies and a couple of pies and say; "Bad day?" but even I get worn down by the everyday dinner grind. I highly recommend "Desperation Dinners" and "Cheap, Fast, Good" and the "Complete I Hate to Cook Book" as great cookbooks. Nothing fancy; just basic good food. You can modify these books pretty easily for whatever food needs your family has. Amber in SJ

I can't say we wouldn't do it all again, but our questionable financial decision looks like this: Three years ago MIL called my husband in the middle of the day. He was home because our fourth child had been born three days earlier. I mention this because I like to think that sleep deprivation played a part in our decision making process. She was calling to tell us that she was going to be out on the street because the bank was foreclosing on her house. One of the things that made this so shocking was less than 10 years earlier she had received a $500K divorce settlement and 3 years earlier she received a $200K inheritance. When she received the inheritance money she quit her job. Shortly after she was diagnosed with MS and even though the doc said otherwise, she claimed not to be able to work. She said had no one else to call as her other sons were unable (unwilling) to help. So what was the bad financial decision? We paid off her house. Yessiree Bob, and we did it the the stupidest way possible. We emptied a retirement account DH had from a former job. Do you know why you are not supposed to take money out of a retirement account before you retire? Because the penalties & taxes will kill you. That year instead of the couple hundred we usually get back we owed $35K! It was a tough three years and we are just barely back on our feet. We now own a house in a place that we would never live, in a bad neighborhood that would take tons of work to sell. Even worse my MIL decided that we were rich and started calling us whenever she wanted something. When we refused to buy her a new dishwasher, replace the windows because she didn't like her old ones or replace her car she started telling interesting stories to the rest of the family. We started hearing that we plan on kicking her out & selling the house when our oldest is ready for college. She told the notary, in front of me, that we were forcing her to "give" us her house. She even told someone that she thought we had drugged her to make her "give" us the house. Some family members believe her. Whew! Sorry this got so long. My DH just paid the homeowners insurance on that house and in November we will pay the property taxes. I guess you can say we are still paying for our mistake. Amber in SJ

We don't talk about library fines around here due to what we refer to as "the incident." It started out innocently enough when I was placed on bed rest at 20 weeks pregnant with our fourth child. I requested books & whatnot on-line & DH picked up & returned. It was an idyllic time...we had no premonition of the perfect storm of circumstances that would converge to throw us into the murk of library fines. First, in his worry about my health & that of our unborn child, DH forgot to return a small group of books (8 items) that rattled around in the trunk of his car for about a month. Second, we often buy library discards and it is not unusual for us to have books that look like library books on our shelves so when my oldest was cleaning out the car and found these books she thought they were ours and put them on the bookshelves; bookshelves that I did not see for months because of my confinement to bed. Third, our library switched to e-mail reminders only and I had neglected to give them a current e-mail address. I discovered the books when the baby was about 6 weeks old. I was aghast! I gathered up the books and the infant & went to return the books. I had my checkbook out & was prepared to pay the fine, but when the librarian said $332 I started to laugh. Apparently at 6 weeks overdue the books are considered "lost." The cost of the book plus a "restocking fee" is added to your late fees. If your fees are not paid in 3 months the account is turned over to a collection agency with an additional charge of $25 per book. I can't remember all the other fees. I was stunned. The librarian removed some of the fees and it was down to $176, but only if I would pay it right then. Our library doesn't do the "payment plan." I wrote a check for what was our grocery budget and walked out. I thought DH was going to have a stroke. We did not set foot in that library for years. We just recently returned to our brand new, renovated library. I like to think I helped pay for the upgrades. Yes, we have gone weekly for four weeks now and I owe $2.25 already. I think I will have to consider it a donation. Either that or I have an illness... Amber in SJ

How many of you have nicknames for your children that others think are terrible? Our oldest, very dramatic dd (14) has been known as Senorita Psychopath & Emo Barbie on occasion. These nicknames make her (and us) laugh during her temper tantrums and she gets over it quickly. One of the ladies at our church was horrified & gave me a lecture about bad parenting. If anyone at any time says "I don't like that name" it can not be used again. Usually nicknames that refer to personal appearance are off limits too, but I have been known to be surprised by the eyeliner my dd cames out of the bathroom wearing and I end up telling "Elvira" or "Cleopatra" to try again. Anyone else? Or am I alone in my bad parenting? Just wondering Amber in SJ

Ours are usually movie related but slightly mangled: "I do not think that word means what you think it does." or anytime I have to end a comment with "I mean it!" I am followed by "Anybody want a peanut?" From Princess Bride as well as "We've got to get out of here before someone kills Guy!" and "I've got one job. It's stupid, but I am going to do it!" From Galaxy Quest We like Pride & Prejudice too, so whenever someone gives a particularly backhanded compliment one of my daughters will pipe in with; "Against my better judgment..." Whenever someone gets news that they may or may not want to share with the family we get to hear; "So....It was a bad note?" Oh! And recently I will hear; "You are a murderer of LOVE!" Whenever I have to burst that teenage angst bubble. I think we watch too much TV around here. Amber in SJ

Or at least a list of topics covered? Everything I have found on-line is too general. I have to make a decision about this curriculum soon. Thank you very much, Amber in SJ

there can be plenty to clean up. After the Loma Prieta quake we had 2 bookcases tumble (yes, they were secured.) Dishes rattle enough in the cupboards to break and a big bottle of soy sauce dance its way off the shelf and smash on the kitchen floor, splashing the kitchen ceiling. As for finding someone cheaper, cleaning service is pretty expensive here, in the Bay Area and I don't imagine it is much less expensive in LA. If the person is truly disabled you might want to look into having someone come in and "Earthquake Proof" their home. It can make a big difference in damage to property as well as safety for the person. This person also needs to have an "Earthquake Plan" including a 72-hour kit, a safe place to go if evacuated, and out of state numbers to call to notify family. As many noticed today often the state wide network goes down but people out of town can be contacted. HTH Amber in SJ

We were about 3 weeks from our due date & she was our 1st. When I woke him up at 3:30am he thought I was joking. My water breaking convinced him. Since it was our first & we didn't know how fast things could move, I made him open his presents and then called my mom and over the phone gave her the entire guest list & cake delivery to cancel. We got lost on the way to the hospital, because I wanted to stop for breakfast and got lost in the hospital. Things were pretty intense by the time we got to the maternity floor. You'd think that losing amniotic fluid with every contraction would have convinced me to hurry! I cringe when I think how silly I was Amber in SJ

My sister used to work in medical billing & she would send me the silly names she came across. The ones I remember best are: The Bear Family with the three children named Cinnamon, Gummi & Panda The family with 6 children named Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee, Thursdee, Fridee and Saturdee. (I guess Sundee was a day of rest) The River family with the children named Jordan, Thames, Seine, and Amazon The family whose mother confided that the children were named for the cities where they were conceived; Cheyenne, Sedona, Alexandria, and Rhodes We live in a very culturally diverse area & some of the name funnies have come for Dh's work in the high tech industry: The man whose last name was Hung who changed his first name to Samuel. His wife pronounces it in 3 syllables (Sam-you-well) And my personal favorite: Dh worked with a man whose first name was Ha and when he became a citizen he changed it to Harrison....Harrison Fived....because Harrison Ford was taken. Amber in SJ

When dd#3 was a baby, I was nursing her on the couch and she had one of those vomiting episodes where she hoses you but misses herself. The only clean shirts were in a laundry basket just inside the front door. I stripped off the soggy mess and was just reaching for the laundry basket when the UPS guy, who knew about our broken doorbell, gave a firm knock that caused our rarely latched front door to swing open. He stood there frozen, box in hand and I stood there topless, with baby barf dripping from the ends of my hair. His eyes slammed shut and I snatched up a shirt to hold in front of me. He held out the box with averted eyes and I grabbed it. I don't think he required a signature! The second most horrifying story for UPS guy delivery was when my 18 month old got a small cut on her scalp that bled so much that the both of us were covered in blood when the doorbell rang. I would have ignored it because I was dealing with the screaming & the gore, but one of my other helpful children opened the door wide and started yelling "MOM!MOM!MOM!" at the top of her lungs. We looked like extras from a horror movie. I don't think he required a signature for that one either. I feel sorry for our UPS guy. Amber in SJ