We're more whole foods people & I try to avoid processed foods. I make my own veggie burgers with black beans & rice, or sometimes sweet potatoes & rice, or whatever I can throw together. I subscribe to a few foodie magazines that help me come up with some great recipes without using processed stuff, and that helps a bit too. I do let dd have some of the processed veggie foods, but only about once a month or when we've had a really busy day and there aren't any leftovers :)

Wonderful! Thank you so much!

Not sure where to put this, but hopefully this is the right forum :) I volunteered my blog to promote Cards 4 Cancer Day on April 10th, a day where millions of homemade cards will be delivered to cancer centers around the country and given to cancer patients. As a blogger, I decided to become a Team Leader and need to recruit others to help me make cards for this worthy cause. The cards don’t need to be anything fancy, just something nice letting patients know they are in our thoughts. I’ve chosen Phoenix Children’s Hospital Cancer Center as the recipient and I need help to make some cards to bring to the kids there. (and if you aren't a crafty diva, you can buy cards & sign your name - anything to let the kids know we are thinking of them!) Some guidelines for the cards: - We ask that you stay away from “GET WELL†and also any religious messages in your cards, acceptable messages are listed here:http://cards4cancer.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/types-of-message-to-include-in-your-cards/ - The cards may be signed however the person making the card feels most comfortable. - The cards may be in an envelope or not but if you do place them in an envelope we suggest leaving the envelope unsealed in case the staff needs to look at the cards before they deliver them. - All cards should have spiritjump.org somewhere on the card so that those who receive the cards will know where to go should they wish to receive more support. - I must have all cards by April 5th so that I can plan a day to deliver them to the center. If you are interested in signing up to be on my team and are able to make some cards, please go to http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDNlemJPbXNwTXo0bjF2MGFxZWg4Tnc6MA and sign up. You’ll need to select “Team Member†for your role, and enter “Dealusional†under the Team Name section. I’d really love to get a bunch of cards to deliver, so please consider helping me in this. If you know of anyone else who may be interested, please, please feel free to pass this along! If you live in the Phoenix area, I'm happy to come and pick up the cards. Otherwise, you can PM me and I'll provide my mailing address. Just wanted to put this out there in case anyone is interested! Thanks! Amy

It's hard, but try not to take it personally. I think you should leave a fb response that says something like "newbie bidder did not contact me indicating any issues. Would've resolved." or something to that effect. I stopped selling a while ago because it was too stressful worrying about neg fb & chargebacks.

I have the same passive-aggressive MIL! She drives me crazy! My dh & I have a deal - I deal with my mom, he deals with his. So it's his job to talk to her when she does something stupid (and trust me, she does a lot of stupid things). The problem is that he's so used to the things she does that he ignores 99% of it and it doesn't even phase him. So I've resorted to lots of sarcasm and just ignoring her too (it's the only thing that keeps me sane). Our dd knows what Oma is like and she's starting to ignore it, too. Thankfully she lives pretty far away, but those 2 weeks a year that she invites herself for drive me crazy.

I use the Kitchenaid mixing bowl with saran wrap over it. You can buy proofing bowls too, but I've only been able to find plastic and don't like using plastic bowls.

We try to avoid plastic bags for food storage, and Costco has some great glass containers with a snap plastic lid. They were pretty reasonably priced, too.

There is a huge discrepancy in cost, quality, etc. It really just depends on what you want. First, what kind of riding do you want? Hunt seat? Saddle seat? Western? The cost of shows and clothing will vary depending on what you're looking for. Dd wanted to get to the Olympics, so she chose hunt seat. 8.5 yr old dd has been riding for 3.5 yrs. She started when we lived in WI, and we spent $15 on lessons. The lesson quality was exactly what we paid for, it was eh, ok. Dd needed paddock boots (you can find cheap ones for around $30 new) and borrowed show clothes. We only competed in 4H shows at that point. When we moved to AZ in August, we decide to kick her lessons up a notch. We found a fantastic trainer in a wonderful barn, and lessons went up to $55. She needed jods and a shirt for competitions, and each competition is pretty pricey, so we only do 2 a year, and she has to earn half the entry fees for each show. She is really excelling and doing great, and we can absolutely see a difference in quality of lessons. I thought riding was expensive, but recently heard from a friend that her 12 yr old dd is in volleyball at public school and has to pay $2000 per semester to play. So I guess it's all relative. There doesn't seemt to be a "cheap" sport these days.

Definitely try for a hike at South Mountain! We live right by it, and there are lots of great trails, along with petroglyphs. Also, Maricopa County has lots of great events at the outlying parks - http://www.maricopa.gov/parks/events.aspx As far as museums, the Science museum is fun & the Heard is pretty neat. Mary Poppins starts this week, I think, and there is a discount code for $10 tickets (we took advantage of this!). Valley Youth Theatre also has some plays coming up, I think. We also enjoy mini-golf (Castles & Coasters is fun) and Desert Botanical Garden. Stuffington Bear Factory is nice, too. And ASU often has free community events if you want to check out their calendar. The Renaissance Fest has also started in Apache Junction. We just did that this past weekend and had fun (and you can get discount tickets at Fry's). Also, Estrella War Encampment is this week, too. If you're here on Friday, you can get in on the school group day. And I'm not sure if spring training has started yet, but there might be games for that, too.

Wonderful information! Thanks so much, I have a lot to think about. I guess I'll have to ask for more giftcards for my birthday so I can keep buying more, huh? ;)

I enjoy wearing makeup, but don't really know what to buy and the last time I bought makeup was 8 years ago. I got a $50 giftcard for Christmas that I'd like to use to buy some new makeup, but I don't know what to buy. I went into Sephora hoping for help, but the woman showed me $50 foundation and army green eyeshadow. I was hoping to find something that made me look "dewy" and was illuminating and when I told her this, she said they don't have anything like that. I don't really know what I should buy, but was hoping for eyeliner, mascara, blush, maybe a brown pencil (?) and some eyeshadow. But again, I know nothing of brands or what colors would be good on me. Can anyone help? I want something that's fairly good quality. I just don't know where to begin!

In our experience (and we've been using SL from K - 3rd), it falls right along with SOTW. We actually use SL's history as a supplement to SOTW. It takes a little coordinating, but works nicely with it for us.

We've used the BBC site for French. They have Spanish, too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/

I was going to get this for my 8.5 yr old. Is it creepy in a bad/scary way??

I've heard to open the freezer and stick their head in. Hope this helps!

I made these as gifts before, & gave them in snowman mugs from the dollar store - cute & cheap gifts :)

We love, love, love Sonlight. Easily made into a secular program, too.

I saw the infomercial the other day on this. I haven't used it, but from what I saw it seems like it teaches shortcuts and algorithms for finding the answers, but the students don't really understand *why* they are the getting the answers. I may be completely off, just the vibe I got from the infomercial. It does sound interesting, though!

I think it depends on your house. When we sold our house we'd lived in for 5 yrs (the house itself was nearly 50 yrs old), we did the following: replaced countertops with cheapy Home Depot laminate ones - they are cheap, but still looked nice and updated the kitchen replaced all cabinet handles to modernize the cabinets a bit got a storage unit and put everything we didn't need for day-to-day in there painted every room got new vinyl flooring in the kitchen & entry - this was nice vinyl that looks like tile, totally updated the house and made it look newer put reed diffusers in several rooms did carpet cleaning for the rooms with carpeting painted the front door I also kept a list of things we had to do before each showing, like wipe down the sink, straighten the beds, open all the blinds, vacuum, close toilet lids, etc.

My 8 yr old also has trouble with some of the long sentences in WWE 3. She gets frustrated if she can't remember it perfectly, and that seems to defeat the whole purpose.

Another vote for God's World News!

My 8 yr old loves The Sisters Grimm, any Jedi book (but she loves Star Wars) and some other favorites are the "News" series - Viking News, Explorer's News, Roman News, Greek News, Revolution News, etc. She devours these! ETA: Misty of Chincoteague books are also a fave!

Great recipes, thanks! Dd tried salmon a few weeks ago, and didn't like it that much. I think it was the way I prepared it. I'll give it another go with these recipes and maybe have better luck.

Great ideas, thank you so much! I haven't heard of some of the dvds, so that will be a fun resource.

Here's my list: Ohio - Ashtabula (east of Cleveland) Germany - Giessen Illinois - Waukegan, Grayslake California - San Francisco, Walnut Creek Washington - Bellevue, Redmond Wisconsin - Grafton (n of Milwaukee) Arizona - Laveen (Phoenix 'burb)