I also started taking potassium powder in January after finding a study where it helped people with Restless Legs Syndrome and/or Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. I'm not sure if it's helping me with those, although I think it might be helping me with my strength training. I noticed in February that I was upping my weights more often than I remember doing before. Since potassium is used to help muscles contract, it's at least plausible that my muscle fibers are firing better now than they were before, allowing me to get stronger.

Are there any alternatives to Singulair for kids who have mood side effects from it?

DS2 tried it when he was 11. It seemed to work pretty well, but about 5-6 weeks in he started to have mood issues. The PA had warned us this could happen, plus the bottle had a warning on it. I wasn't sure if his moodiness was from being 11, or a side effect. The day he finally ran out of the house yelling for no reason at all, I knew it must be a side effect. (I know the mood issues took a while to be noticeable because I renewed the prescription once.)

Our Aldi and the one in the next town over have been having trouble keeping frozen potato products in stock. Last night they were out of everything except for the seasoned fries (not gluten-free) and hash brown potatoes. Since most of all of their fries come from Belgium, I've been wondering if a backup at the east coast ports has been messing up their supply chain.

It was just a bulb (about $25) we stuck into one of those desk lamps with the bendable neck. He puts it right next to his skin, and does each section for several minutes about five days per week. If you are concerned about UV light, I'd just have your daughter wear wraparound sunglasses with UVA/UVB coatings on them.

I believe I heard Venmo also has to send a 1099 to anyone who receives $600 or more total, from all sources. This is yet another reason I am insisting that people pay me in cash for their jerseys for our sports team. I don't want it to look like I have a business when I don't.

For the podcast lovers: Someone here recommended the Naked Bible Podcast a few years ago. I can't thank that user enough! Finally, some real meat! The host is has a PhD in relevant ancient languages, and uses scholarly info to talk about the Bible, regardless of what various denominations say about various verses. One of his latest series was about the use of the Old Testament in the book of Revelation. It really shows how each of the various modern interpretation systems goes off the rails by ignoring how much of the OT Revelation directly quotes or alludes to. If you don't know where to start, I recommend the series on Hebrews.

This post has been on my mind for weeks, and I finally got around to replying to it. If I remember correctly, you are a Christian. I think you are selling yourself short. What you see in the bolded as a lack of ambition, I see as evidence of your spiritual gift. I encourage you (pardon the pun) to go to BibleGateway to read through a list of verses about encouragement. Yes, I know many of them are specifically about encouraging people in their faith, but I don't think the idea would be limited to just that. Anyway, I'm glad the forum worked well enough to let me find this post again. I wasn't going to be able to move on until I said something.

DS doesn't have sensitive skin, but these things have helped him. Vitamin A and D3 from Vitamin Shoppe. We decided to try vitamin A because some acne drugs are based on vitamin A. This supplement has half beta-carotene and half vitamin A, so we aren't worried about him overdosing. It took about two months to see an effect, but it has helped noticeably. A blue and red LED bulb from Amazon (no longer available). There is a specific wavelength of blue light that is known to kill to bacteria that causes acne. The bulb took maybe 3-4 weeks to start to help. If DS doesn't use it for a few weeks (like on Christmas vacation when we were traveling), the acne starts to get worse and takes longer to heal up. Before we added these things, DS was already doing standard acne skin care, but his acne seemed to be getting worse. We were concerned because DH ended up on accutane as a kid. We wanted to try something else before seeing a dermatologist. So far, at 16, it seems like this combination is working well enough to generally keep the acne to mild levels.

Is this what you meant to say, or did you say it backwards? I ask because I read an article a few years ago (possibly in Consumer Reports) that doctors tend to choose much less aggressive treatment for themselves than they recommend for their patients. I don't remember if the context was limited to cancer or if it included other ailments of the elderly like heart disease.

What sort of inappropriate things have come up on Libby? I initially thought that Amazon was recommending an actual hardcover book of photos of naked women, say like Playboy in book format. Nope. It was a Kindle "collection" of p*rn.

Last night DS12 was looking for books on Kindle Unlimited. He said he saw something "weird," so he did as I had instructed him and scrolled away quickly and came and told DH. Amazon had recommended a collection of explicit photos. DH looked through the Amazon browsing history and everything they we borrowed and nothing even remotely related was there. When he looked through the recommended books another two collections showed up. They were based on my kids' borrowing history of Archie comics and Minecraft books! DH did a chat with Amazon which proved to be useless. After being escalated several levels, he asked what in our history would lead them to recommend content that goes against their own policies. After 15 minutes of waiting for a reply, he gave up and left the chat. He told our kids they can't look through the books anymore without one of us there.

DS1 will be in 11th grade next year, so there is no more time to delay learning to write papers. I see that IEW used to have a product called Writing Research Papers by Lesha Myers, but they don't seem to have it on their website anymore. There appear to be some used teacher manuals on Amazon. It's a shame because the samples I saw looked good. Also, DS1 did IEW last year, and it helped his writing greatly. He is currently in his fourth Lantern English course, although they've all been in creative writing. Does anyone have any experience with the research paper courses? Are there any other programs I should consider? He has ADHD and does better with programs that break things down into smaller steps.

Yes, Roy messaged me and offered to set up a meeting to answer my questions. I wanted to hear a little more from other people before I set up a meeting. Can you tell me what kind of kids the courses were all wrong for?

It sounds like you had kids do both the Logical Communication course and some Shakespeare courses. Did the Logical Communication course include how to read closely and annotate?

I'm looking at Roy Speed's Logical Communication for DS1 for 11th grade next year. He's currently doing his fourth Lantern English creative writing class. For 9th grade we did IEW's Ancient History theme book. He hasn't had much essay writing experience and no experience writing research papers. The Logical Communication class looks interesting to me. I like the idea of having students ready numerous essays before being required to write their own. Does anyone know if the class also includes learning how to read things closely and annotate like Roy Speed's Shakespeare classes? He hasn't done any of these classes, but those skills look like good ones for DS to learn because his tendency is to not read carefully (ADHD).

DS1 is in 10th grade. For his art class I have him do a lesson from Mark Kistler's Draw 3D videos about four days per week. I am very happy with this system because he has gone from little interest and no confidence in his drawings to occasionally drawing buildings with perspective and shading for fun. In other words, I don't want to change anything about the work. How should I go about assigning a grade for the course? Likewise, how should I assign grades for other project based elective courses such as home ec, shop, etc?

I understand what you mean. I see attractive guys in their 20s at the gym, but then I think that even if I were single, I'm too old for them. They couldn't relate to growing up before the internet was so all consuming. They wouldn't even remember life before smart phones!

How so?

Spike was more interesting than Angel, but I still can't quite get over him trying to rape Buffy. I haven't read any Anne Rice books in almost twenty years, so I no longer feel qualified to comment on Lestat. But I remember him being quite the character!

Does this apply to Stefan and Damon as well? They were even older than Edward.

So many love triangles! I read and saw the movies for Twilight and The Hunger Games. I watched The Vampire Diaries (after getting hooked on The Originals) but didn't read the books. I'm curious to see if there are any trends such as people on Team Edward also hoped X would win in one of the other series. In The Hunger Games I was on Team Gale. I never felt like Katniss actually liked Peeta much. DH's opinion was, "Katniss needed a lover, not a fighter." Obviously Katniss couldn't respect Gale anymore after his bomb killed Prue, but I never was convinced she actually wanted Peeta. It always felt more like she was settling for him. In Twilight I couldn't see why Bella would choose Edward over Jacob. Edward had sooooooo many red flags. The relationship came across as abusive, whereas Jacob was safe. Now here's what I don't understand about myself. In The Vampire Diaries, although Damon was initially the jerky bad boy, over time I found myself rooting for him, and not just because Stefan went back to his ripper ways. Now there was about a 7-8 year gap between when I read the other series and watched The Vampire Diaries, so maybe it has to do with aging and longing for more of the excitement of my younger days.

I'm considering having DS do chemistry with Clover Valley next year. Any thoughts on parent-graded vs. the regular class?

Praying.

I have relatives that live maybe an hour from you. I told DH a few weeks ago that maybe some time I could meet you in person. His response? "Don't do it. Some of her bad luck might rub off on you!"