Balsam Fir is the one known for its scent. Here is an article and a photo that will help you identify the needles of the balsam fir. http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20141222/news/141229756

$150 for studio art $160 for swim $185 for voice and guitar

My iPhone 5's screen freezes or the message and contact icon open to reveal only blank screens and the keypad for the phone won't work either. It likes to do this when I am under time pressure and need information on when and where to meet someone or when there is confusion about the pick up schedule for my child. Luckily I haven't had to dial 911. I am sure it would do the same. Hard restarts or turning on and off do nothing. It usually fixes itself in about 45 minutes, ensuring that I am late, in the wrong place, or miss my friends entirely. It also refuses to speak to my computer and so can't be updated at home. I am seriously considering going back to my Motorola flip phone which only calls and texts. I do not need an expensive device that fails in its most basic duties and needs constant tending.

***** Noise canceling headphones and iPod all day long with upbeat music or binge watch your favorite shows. Just smile and nod when people talk to you and you can't hear them. Nap time for all members of the family that day. Cancel school. Do the schoolwork for that day on the next weekend day. Have your husband, mother, sister, babysitter stay home with the kids that day and you go out.

A friend of mine and I ran a nature study group for several years that included short hikes. We protected ourselves legally by running them under the auspices of our local chapter of the Audubon society, of which we were already members and that had many volunteer led hikes and programs running already. We chose trails appropriate for whole families which meant they were jogger stroller friendly. We required parents to stay with their children, but we did not require quiet and we let the kids run and play in appropriate areas and within reason. None of the kids (from, over the years, more than 100 families) were destructive or so loud that we felt they needed correction. There are so many benefit from free play in nature that we didn't want to discourage it. (See Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods). Also there are thousands of species that are not disturbed by activity: all the plants, insects, invertebrates, etc. along the way. The kids generally found more interesting things than the adults.

How about honoring what old people do bring to the table instead of bemoaning how they are not like one would like them to be? In a 70+ year life span they must have some experience, expertise, stories, knowledge that is valuable whether it is shared on a rotary dialed phone or on Instagram. People grow when they are supported in who they are, not when they are expected to change to fit an external ideal. Ask them questions, look at their paper photographs, have them tell you stories, join in on their hobbies, call them on the phone. They will feel loved and respected and people who feel love and respected will be more likely to have full lives. Also the aches and pains and declining eyesight thing is real. I see how younger people in our family expect my mother in law to just keep up with them. They literally cannot conceive in their young and healthy bodies the knee pain that she has even after double knee replacement or the arthritis in her hands that makes it impossible to hit the right icon on the tiny screen. Yet she always wants to keep up with her younger relatives and friends and is in agony later or frustrated that the "user friendly" phone isn't friendly to her. It is a huge blind spot of the young and fit. There is a hiking mantra that the group travels at the speed of its slowest member that is applicable to many, many life situations.

It is very disheartening. Though I suppose it should have been totally expected! There are some good people working to clean up the plastic garbage already in the ocean and others producing plastics made from plants in hopes of replacing the current nondegradable plastic. I am trying to reduce my plastic use especially with so many sea creatures eating it and dying horrible deaths (it was the albatross feeding its chicks bottle caps photo that got me). It is hard! Still, I keep at it. There are blogs like the following one on trying to use zero plastic and it is almost a part time job with all the research and running around to get alternative items. However, their research makes it easier for us. One blog is My Plastic Free Life: https://myplasticfreelife.com/plasticfreeguide/ Some plastic is certainly interred in landfills, but there are millions of people buying a bottled soda or bottled water and getting disposable cutlery every day that it is inevidable that a good portion the sheer volume of waste ends up in the ocean. A good gullywasher rainfall can pick up all sorts of discarded bottles and carry them to streams which empty into rivers which go directly into the sea. Stormwater drains in coastal cities often empty right into the ocean. So many avenues.

My cleaning supply budget just went up as our house is on the market. Prior to this financial and plastic bottle shock, I cleaned with: Gallon jug of cleaning vinegar (or regular vinegar will do) from Walmart $4.50? (you mix it with water in a spray bottle) lasts ages, kills germs on counters, washes windows and mirrors, removes odor from stinky laundry Half gallon jug of hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach $9 (toilets, laundry, disinfects). This will bleach colors so use caution around fabrics. Natural (plant based soap) dish detergent regular size bottle Seventh Generation $3 (use for dishes and cleaning counters etc.) Murphy's Oil Soap for cleaning floors $4 (mix with water, lasts a long time) Cloth bar mops instead of paper towels (except for bacon grease and cat messes) from Walmart 6/$6. I bought 48 but start with 24. Laundry Detergent. the cheapest natural oil based one in our store, Seventh Generation (NO SAVINGS HERE). $9/50 oz. Steel wool pads for cleaning stuck on food and yes, my shower! $3 Trash bags 56/$13. Vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and Murphys Oil Soap lasts at least 2 months. Brillo and laundry detergent 2 per month. Dish detergent lasts a month. We use a trash bag every two days, there are 56 in the bag, but I will just half that price to calculate the monthly expense. So with a one time purchase of bar mops for $24 the rest of the cleaning supplies are approximately $ 32.25 per month. ymmv I like the lower expense, our house is just as clean, and no fewer horrible scents. I can barely walk down the cleaning aisle without choking now.

I wouldn't even count it as a sensory issue, polyester is horrible. Many people hate it. There are some new weaves of polyester that are a little better now, but remember that polyester was the butt of many jokes in the 70s & 80s for a reason. Polyester is a crude oil product. Also, plastic (polyester ect.) clothing never ever biodegrades. So those itchy kid pajamas will be in the world forever as microscopic particles eaten by invertebrates. Great stuff! Not that there is any fabric made without environmental consequences (non organic cotton = pesticides), but a garment that is itchy and unpleasant isn't even worth being made in the first place and certainly not worth being around forever for a single year or two of use. Ha! I guess I have a few feelings about polyester. Full disclosure: I do own a few polyester fleece jackets that were gifts. I try to wash them as seldom as possible to keep microplastics out of the water supply and I will wear them out before tossing them.

There is a risk of a few products selling out if you wait too too long. I have had this happen at L. L. Bean and Lands End before. Often it is a product or color heavily featured in their catalog. And sometimes I noticed this unavailability in January when I was freezing and needed this one extra winter thing and there were none left after the holiday rush. So this October/November is a good time of year to look for the sales without risk of selling out. Sometimes there are Thanksgiving sales. They will notify you of deals if you sign up via email. Also some outlet malls in the northeast (N. Conway, N. Hampton, Concord & Nashua, NH, Wareham, MA; Freeport, Bangor & Ellsworth, ME; and Lake George, NY) have an L. L. Bean outlet store with 50% on most things, but if you are looking for a very specific item that might not be of much help.

I would definitely use your dd's boyfriend as a reference as long as he's over 18 in the future. Have you met anyone from the WTM forum in real life (at a conference or something) who could be a reference? We know you pretty well :) I was once a reference for a young lady who taught my son to swim. The position was in foreign language translation! I'd never heard her speak her other two languages. But I guess they liked my depiction of how she persevered over three years with immense patience to get my kid with sensory processing disorder from climbing up her body to get out of the water to swimming like a fish! Anyway, I was happy to give the reference even though I only saw her once a week for an hour and we really didn't talk. People can generally tell if someone is a good person just from being around them a short time so don't worry about looking for people with a deep relationship with you for the reference, it just needs to be a nice person confirming that you are also a nice, trustworthy person. Some places like food pantries have once a month or once a week volunteer opportunities. Here you come together once a month to unload the truck or stock the shelves or help the patrons. Something minimal might be a nice place to get started and get a reference. My son works at the animal shelter doing cat socialization. Basically he plays with the cats for a few hours a weekend. He talks to the potential adopters about the cats he knows well. He says "hi" to the staff but is too shy to talk to them much and they are pretty introverted as well. It is a very pleasant place.

No one in Maine enters their house through the front door. And no one ever knocks on the front door or leaves packages there. It is just not done.

Hi! There are a lot of us in Maine!

In both towns we lived in teenagers were welcome to trick or treat. For the most part, they were really well behaved and they often had the most creative costumes (I still remember the kid with the big cardboard horseshoe magnet covered with little plush easter basket chick toys, he was a real "chick magnet" ha ha). However, last year the PTA decided to hold a 'trunk or treat" in the parking lot. (There had been no trouble on Halloween night or reason like that so I have no idea why they thought this was a good idea). Half the town went there instead! It was awful how such a wonderful community occasion, getting to know your neighbors and their kids, was ruined. So many of the traditional trick or treating houses were terribly disappointed by the low turnout! One of my kids decided he was done with trick or treating even though his teen friends went. The other is just on the cusp of doing so. It probably depends on what her friends do as she only likes two kinds of candy anyway!

Fun Party I live in New England. My family uses the word.

My sister and I were pretty even keeled, even as teens and tweens. We never gave our parents much backtalk or trouble. We were generally pretty happy young people and most of my friends were too. I don't think I ever slammed a door or rolled my eyes at my mom. (I did, around 12, get embarrassed when she'd talk to cashiers though and I'd try to hurry her up, but that was like my big hormonal outburst!!!) SOOO... I was completely unprepared for my own children's adolescence. Honestly, I realize that hormones are driving a lot of the crazy, but it is just CRAZYTALK. I can't even wrap my head around the emotional volatility. Unfortunately, this makes me remarkably unsympathetic to the plight of the moment. I don't even know how to respond to someone who is weeping because a girl in school didn't like her eyeshadow shade. I would have never noticed anyone's eyeshadow, nor would I have cared at all what they thought about mine as a teen. When they are tweenagerish to me, I do a little better as I know their eye rolls and "Mother!" stomp stomp stomp slam is hormonal and not personal. I did read an article about a recent study that looked at brain scans of teens and adults. The teen's brain reacted to minor social slights with the same degree of alarm that an adult would experience hearing about a natural disaster or direct threat to life and limb! There is not one bit of perspective in there yet. And that info helps me be a little more sympathetic, but still... I'm just like "My sister and I never ever overreacted to stuff like this when our brains were young, do you really, really have to go there???" in my mind. Hugs to you. Hopefully you can find a kind person to talk to. So many people are judgmental these days, I know finding a good listener is hard. Look for an introvert! Someone on the edge of the mommy crowd. You'll have to approach them; they won't approach you, but many of them are damn good listeners.

I am for one glad everyone is moving to the cities! I lived in one. Hated every minute of it (well, to be honest, except the few minutes spent in The American Museum of Natural History, but I don't have to live their to visit it). And love that everyone now loves cities. This trend makes more room for me out here alone in the wilderness and perhaps will relieve some of the pressure on wildlife from suburban sprawl. However, I don't believe it is environmentally healthier to live in a city with all the air quality issues. Also access to fresh vegetables is a problem in some urban neighborhoods (food deserts). Probably the health benefits of city living are due to of access to top doctors and hospitals and the positive health support of having many social connections.

I agree with Regentrude. Run at 8 am while she's in class. Some community colleges have tracks or running trails.

Just sit down and write! Use whatever word processing program is on your computer (MS Word, whatever). Also carry a small notebook with you at all times to jot down ideas that come to you as you are out and about or when you are too busy to sit at the computer. Jotting them down keeps you from forgetting them, which happens a lot when you are a busy mom. Get the words on the page, then you can worry about editing and rewriting later. Don't let those things stop you from letting the words flow. National Novel Writing Month NaNoWriMo is November. You could sign up to give yourself motivation. They also have hints and tips on their website. https://nanowrimo.org/

This needs to stop. Taking a video course and being suddenly considered a guardian by the state? You have to be kidding. I am glad this article got out there. People need to keep a close eye on all the elders in their lives. There are sick people out there ready to prey upon them. My faith in humanity, already darn thin, becomes more tattered every day.

Right here is where the NRA preps its members for violence against their fellow citizens. The "they" they mention is pretty clearly liberals. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/30/controversial-nra-video/441506001/ It is very easy to look at international statistics and see the difference between gun violence in other nations and ours. The only argument one could make for "if we made assault weapons illegal, criminals would still get them and perform mass killings" is that there is something so profoundly sick in our American culture that we can't expect to be safe from our fellow citizens no matter how many weapons we ban so we shouldn't bother.

Susan Wise Bauer's Grammar Curriculum will be out soon. There are three books. It is instructor driven. https://smile.amazon.com/Grammar-Well-Trained-Mind-Instructor-Rhetoricians/dp/1945841028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506826993&sr=8-1&keywords=susan+wise+bauer+grammar https://smile.amazon.com/Grammar-Well-Trained-Mind-Workbook-Rhetoricians/dp/1945841044/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506826993&sr=8-2&keywords=susan+wise+bauer+grammar https://smile.amazon.com/Grammar-Well-Trained-Mind-Workbook-Rhetoricians/dp/1945841060/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1506826993&sr=8-4&keywords=susan+wise+bauer+grammar Warriner's English Grammar and Composition First Course. A classic. Written to the student. You would probably have to have some grammar knowledge to correct as I don't know if teacher editions are available. https://smile.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Composition-First-Course/dp/0153119004/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506827123&sr=1-2&keywords=warriners+english+grammar+and+composition+first+course Michael Clay Thompson Royal Fireworks Press. Includes Magic Lens loops which are problem solving with grammar. (rather analytical) The Magic Lens 1 https://smile.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Composition-First-Course/dp/0153119004/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506827123&sr=1-2&keywords=warriners+english+grammar+and+composition+first+course Rex Barks. Written to the student Challenging diagramming https://smile.amazon.com/Rex-Barks-Diagramming-Sentences-Made/dp/1889439355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506828238&sr=1-1&keywords=rex+barks

Was behind Stevie Ray Vaughan in line at a rest stop MacDonalds. He and the band had made a pit stop after a performance at the University of Maine. My boyfriend at the time was a HUGE fan and could barely speak, just got all goggle eyed and starstruck. I had no idea who Stevie Ray Vaughan was. In retrospect I should have tried to get his autograph for my boyfriend since he was struck dumb, but I was a really shy teen and didn't think of it. Titus Welliver (Actor: Lost, Bosch) went to my high school several years before I was attended. I ran into him in line at the buffet at an all school reunion, and I noticed his name tag. Had no idea who he was since I don't watch TV, but there was a pretty famous Maine artist named Neil Welliver and I was familiar with him, so I asked him if he was any relation to the famous artist, Neil Welliver. Lol. Neil was his dad. Was dining in my favorite restaurant in Katonah, NY. Meryl Streep was at a table across the room with her family. She lived in nearby Bedford, NY. I wouldn't have noticed her at all if my mother in law hadn't pointed her out. At least I knew who she was! Oh! And Susan Wise Bauer! I met her at a small conference in PA.

I've had Canon Powershots and Panasonic Lumix point and shoot. Both very reliable, fit in the pocket, and take great pictures at the $150 price point. There are several models of each around this price each has slightly different features. You can see what zoom possibilities are offered. Honestly, I often leave my Canon Rebel behind and use the Panasonic Lumix because it is so much easier to carry when I am hiking and it fits in my purse. I miss fewer shots that way. Plus the photo quality is really quite good.

I would buy a lot of the biologically rich land and protect it in perpetuity so I wouldn't have to see it logged and the soil compacted and the mature trees that host so many animals felled and the canopy broken so invasive plants can get a foothold and the herb layer and amphibians in the leaf litter flattened under the skidder treads. There are forests with a lot less diversity in our state from which we can get wood resources. These forests are unbelievably rich in species and should be left alone.