Brach's Ice Blue Coolers (blue mints, hard candy) Lime life savers. Lime Charms lollypops. Lime anything! (Curse you watermelon!!!)

Searched all over the Internet to find nothing better than the Hive!

I have a Jamis Citizen comfort/hybrid bike with suspension fork. Very comfortable. Upright riding posture. I also tried the Giant comfort bike which was also good. Some people like the step through comfort bikes as they are easy to get on and off of, mine just has a regular crossbar. Cruisers are not what you want. They are heavy and most of them have only three gears. Their super cute retro designs are adorable though.

If NutriSystem worked for you there are alternatives to NutriSystem that may have options without all the wheat. Here is a gluten free option from Green Chef. https://greenchef.com/home If it were me, I'd consult the doctors, try a low wheat meal plan to take the daily food decisionmaking off your plate (so to speak), and begin a physical activity that has great mental benefits. You've probably got your mind tied up in knots trying to figure out this health and dieting thing, give it a break for thirty minutes a day. I recommend daily walking preferably in an area with some greenery (if your joints allow for walking). Yes, for the exercise, but really because walking is great for the mind. Start small (even a block), and increase slowly over time. Think of walking as a meditative exercise rather than a physical one. Walk alone if it is safe and do not listen to music. I find long walks in nature (or along streets with many trees) to be the perfect way to spark creativity, work through problems, and to feel strong and alive. There is also a reason for the saying "walk it off". Sometimes a short walk is the best solution to frustration. Sometimes, I come back from walks wanting to do more traditional exercises, sometimes I have an inspiration for something to write, sometimes I see something so beautiful (wildflowers, birds, etc.) it makes my heart sing, sometimes it was just some fresh air. But all the time, I am better off physically for doing the walk (think here of endurance and muscle tone rather than weight loss) and in a better mental state than before the walk. Here is a blog post and an article about the brain science behind walking in nature and how it positively changes outlooks. Sometimes if we just have one thing that is going really right, everything else falls into place behind it. https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/how-walking-in-nature-prevents-depression/397172/ Also seconding Laurie4B's list in the post above mine. She covers just about everything (sleep!) and has the same perspective about caring for your mind and body rather than focusing on the scale.

I think most liberal arts colleges, though the one I picked was more flexible than the others I applied to. I didn't have to take Freshman Comp or Phys Ed. or any math for example which was absolutely not the case in the seven other colleges I applied to. I think many other colleges have a set of particular "core courses" that everyone takes. Many colleges seem to have electives as well which is very freeing but may be limited in number. Also I went to college in the late 80s and early 90s. Things may have gotten a lot more flexible than they were back then.

I went to a very well respected liberal arts college that remains focused on the liberal arts and a well rounded education. It was such a broadening experience and definitely provides the background for someone to become an informed citizen as well as the flexibility to do many jobs (except for technical ones). The key factor though was that it wasn't a "core courses" curriculum grafted onto one's major. There were distribution requirements rather than core classes that everyone had to take with the philosophy being that all their courses were equal in training students how to think. So it was something like: you had to take two courses in the humanities, two in science and math, two in non Eurocentric studies, and two in some other category that I can't think of at the moment. In this way, it was possible for individualized studies and dabbling in areas that were not your major. The vast majority of graduates are employed upon graduation or go on to graduate school. A common theme I see in the profiles of the successful graduates in the alumni magazine is that they get jobs as innovators in largish corporations (LEGO, PIXAR etc.). I of course, did not go that route...

Definitely appropriate. But if she is very, very, very sensitive there is a frightening scene where one of the engineers gets her heel stuck in a grate in a dangerous location, she gets out in time. There are a number of references to the main character having to run across campus to use the bathroom (she might get (rightfully) upset about the unfairness of that), but her boss eventually does something to fix it. And there is a scene of couples romantically dancing which is appropriate but might get an "ick" response from a kid.

We live in a south facing two story home on a corner with windows on all sides and no porch so we get sunlight pouring in all day long. The direction the house faces, the number of trees in the yard, and the presence or absence of porches (I am no fan of the interior darkness caused by porches) will all influence the amount of sunlight. A previous poster mentioned latitude too. We are at 43 degrees, the sun is only directly overhead for very short periods in high summer.

Sesquipedalian! (Thanks to our Michael Clay Thompson curriculum for this one.) "A long word or characterized by long words, long winded."

An overwhelming number of science picture books come in at a higher reading level because of the scientific terminology within. A couple of five syllable words can pop those things right up to a 5th grade reading level with the calculations the publishers use. But story based natural history picture books also come in with high reading levels: Song of the Water Boatman is a Caldecott honor winner. It has gorgeous illustrations, poetry, and nonfiction biology content and is rated K to 5 in interest/reading level: https://www.amazon.com/Water-Boatman-Caldecott-Ribbon-Nonfiction/dp/0618135472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520182980&sr=8-1&keywords=song+of+the+water+boatman&dpID=51I7QSBX71L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch Pagoo, a picture book about a tide pool hermit crab has a reading level of 5th to 7th grade. https://www.amazon.com/Pagoo-Holling-C/dp/0395539641/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520183176&sr=1-1&keywords=pagoo&dpID=617uzN%252BHWbL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch A Dragon in the Sky: The Story of a Green Darner Dragonfly comes in at a 2nd to 3rd grade reading level https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Sky-Junior-Library-Guild/dp/0531303152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520183312&sr=1-1&keywords=A+dragon+in+the+sky&dpID=51r33TCuOsL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Oh my! So trippy! College was clearly more fun in the 70s than it ever will be again. Shared with all my bio friends to brighten their morning.

My cousin teaches the natural history and outdoor recreation part of their regular adult trip and their grandparent/grandkid trip when they come to Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky. He's super great so I am sure the whole trip is too! The other teachers at that park focus on Appalachian history and music for the guests. My aunt has gone on a number of their trips and loved every one of them. All of them seem very focused on learning and enrichment. Road Scholar used to be called Elderhostel. You might remember it by that name.

What about working on a citizen science program? Ecology is a very math heavy discipline with a large outdoor component. This is one example that game up from a Google search of citizen science gap year. I am sure there are more. https://career.virginia.edu/blog/2016/mar/gap-year-opportunity-research-assistant-environmental-science

I think of hiking as taking place in a natural area and walking as a more suburban or urban activity. Terrain doesn't matter as much in my definition, there are plenty of habitats in which to take a hike that are flat and level and there are some cities that are built on hills. I will happily walk or hike with people, with my dog, or alone unless I feel the area is dangerous for some reason (usually places where sketchy humans hang out as I don't live near cougars or grizzly bears). I can be fearful when hiking or walking alone but I try to overcome it. I live in a fairly safe region. I have a cell phone that works in most places (except my house for some reason). On heavily traveled trails most of the people I meet are really friendly. On other trails I am unlikely to see anyone, nice or not. I started worrying a little about rabid animals after a very intense, dramatic, detailed story I heard on the radio about a rabid racoon attack, but those are rare and I suppose rabid animals are just as likely to be in my yard as along a trail. I go on two or more "walks" down my road per day. There are hills, and the road runs along a large wilderness preserve. There are coyotes and black bears and thousands of acres of beech/fir forest so the experience of my walks is a lot more wild than my "hikes" when I lived in suburban NY. My dad uses a term for a twilight walk that I really like and have adopted, an "evening constitutional". I don't know where he got it from, but I just looked it up and it appears that while it means a healthy walk, people have used the term as a euphemism for heading to the outhouse. lol

I remember trying to break that habit when my son was five. He slept so little that there were a few times I was afraid to drive. I tried the advice of sitting in a chair and gradually moving it toward the door. I remember my son talking, talking, talking on and on and on every night for hours until one night I fell asleep and slumped right out of the chair onto the floor! I was so exhausted, I almost gave up and slept right there. It wasn't until he was twelve that he got a handle on his fears and could quiet his racing mind enough to be alone after a short goodnight. My daughter, who is the youngest, always went right to sleep which is why I am still sane.

We definitely pick up trash alongside our road whenever it occurs which is far more often than you'd think on a dead end, due to the folks who drive down it to the river campsite to party or the vast amount of trash that comes with fair week. Sigh. The town cleans out any culverts blocked by branches or debris and the sticks the beavers try to block the big culvert with at the end of the road. And the fire department came once to rescue my neighbor's dog who had chased a squirrel into a culvert and got stuck. But no one on our road weeds the ditch parts of the roadside as our road is mostly thick woods. People don't weed their lawns much here either. Seeing as the thick beech fir forest doesn't offer up many flowers, we have to let something grow for our neighbor's bees: goldenrod, wild strawberry, dandelion. Mostly the ditch part of the road contains grasses and low growing native plants that can tolerate water occasionally, but there are several patches of lady's tresses orchids in the ditches that I most certainly wouldn't want weeded (and until they bloom, they look like weeds). However, I doubt accidentally pulling up orchids is a danger in your average suburb. I think low growing plants like grass and weeds slow the rate at which storm water flows through the ditch. The faster it goes the worse for the sewer system in urban/suburban areas and for flooding in rural areas like ours.

Daniel T. Willingham author of Why Don't Kids Like School is studies the neurobiology of learning. Here is an article on critical thinking and whether or not it can be taught he wrote for American Educator in 2007. From what I read in his book, I found most interesting that it is difficult to "think critically" about subjects you do not have got solid knowledge in. This rather supports SWB's neoclassical progression with younger students learning facts in the grammar stage and then beginning to question them in the logic stage and finally making decisions and arguments supporting them in the rhetoric stage. The ability to argue growing alongside one's knowledge. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Crit_Thinking.pdf

Two of my cats never dared the counter until we adopted the third who has corrupted them thoroughly. Spray bottles work when you are around. Who knows what they do when your out or at work.

I was doing a semester abroad in college at Monash University in Australia. I rarely wandered about the main campus, but that day I was walking across the green when coming toward me from the other direction was the lab assistant from my freshman biology class at my regular college in Maine. He recognized me too and was just as surprised. We had lunch and it turns out he'd just finished doing research on penguins was ready to begin writing up his data and as Monash was one of the closer universities to Antarctica he stopped there to work (and to warm up!).

I had it once when I was six, at Christmas, and I infected a whole house full of visiting extended family. I had it again when I was a teen, and I was so sick I had to crawl to the phone to annswer when my mom checked on me from work (phones had cords back then). These were both before flu shots were available. I have not had the flu since. I did not get flu shots in my 20s. I got them religiously in my thirties and forties.

See if there are opportunities for "mindless eating" of healthy foods you think she might accept. While she is watching TV or on the computer, put a dish of finger foods next to her without comment. She may reflexively snack when preoccupied. Include foods that will eat now and foods she has eaten in the past that might come back into rotation.

This ink remover is for fabrics, but it is cheap, easily available at WalMart, and might be worth a try. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Carbona-Stain-Devils-3-Ink-Marker-Crayon-Stain-Remover-Laundry-Spot-Care-1-7-fl-oz/38471167?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227026494505&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=52593498071&wl4=pla-84474548831&wl5=9002530&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=38471167&wl13=&veh=sem

There are many small preserves that have few visitors that are owned by The Nature Conservancy or local land trusts that will have low visitorship. The Maine Coast Heritage Trust: https://www.mcht.org/ The Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/maine/placesweprotect/index.htm Popham Beach in Phippsburg is my favorite beach. You can walk out to Fox Island at low tide. Phippsburg also has an old fort with a small sandy beach that has a few tide pools as well as a number of land trust and Nature Conservancy properties. Head Beach Campground is near Popham Beach. Hermit Island campground is another option. You would have to get reservations very soon! Popham Beach: https://visitmaine.com/things-to-do/parks-and-natural-attractions/popham-beach-state-park Head Beach Campground: http://www.headbeach.com/ Hermit Island Campground: http://hermitisland.com/ If you want fewer people on your beach adventure. Seawall Beach is on the other side of the Morse River from Popham. It is a two mile hike in. Morse Mountain and SeaWall Beach: https://www.bates.edu/bates-morse-mountain-shortridge/ The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockport is worth visiting: https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/ In Camden, the Red's Eats lobster roll food truck is worth the wait in line: http://www.redseatsmaine.com/ There are also picturesque farms with belted galloways that are worth a drive by photo opportunity: http://www.aldermere.org/index.php Acadia National Park is filled with amazing things to do. If you find it too crowded travel to the less populous part: Schoodic Peninsula: https://acadiamagic.com/schoodic/index.htm The Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor is a wonderful place to learn about the native peoples of Maine: https://www.abbemuseum.org/ The tide pool at the Rachel Carson preserve is great. Definitely go on the puffin tour you mentioned. Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is worth a detour: https://visitmaine.com/organization/pemaquid-point-lighthouse/vtmA4A53E72AF048924C We have dark skies in much of Maine which makes for good stargazing: https://visitmaine.com/things-to-do/lighthouses-and-sightseeing/watching-maines-night-sky By June the black flies should be much less numerous or gone. Mosquitoes will still swarm at dusk and through the night especially near wetlands or salt marshes but they won't be as bad as they were in May.

Happy Birthday!

So far I've only gotten one seed catalog: Fedco Seeds and one native plant catalog: Prairie Moon Nursery. When we moved here we had no idea there would be millions of mosquitoes out 24/7 during planting and early growing season so we haven't had a garden in three years thus the dropoff in lovely seed catalogs, I guess. But we will be moving back to the suburbs by the end of June, so there is hope for a very late sowing.