Monica_in_Switzerland
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Posts posted by Monica_in_Switzerland
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My question is: Is there something bothering you about your skin that you'd like to change? It could help to know what you need from your skincare. If nothing is wrong, don't fix it!
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Dropping by to give a quick book review:
Good To Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery
This was a fun read, but much of it was investigative journalism narrative. It boils down to this:
- Sleep is the single greatest factor in recovery. Get good sleep and plenty of it.
- Hyponatremia is a more serious risk than dehydration. Drink to thirst only, do not force liquids.
- Recovery techniques are all essentially placebos. Stretching, ice, heat, rolling, NSAIDs, massage, specialized food/shakes/supplements are all equally useless in producing real improvement in recovery. HOWEVER, the placebo effect is real and does marshal our own body's recovery systems to perform better. So pick your favorite one or two recovery rituals end enjoy them, but the effects of many recovery treatments are not cumulative. The placebo effect gives a boost, but not multiple boosts. There is only so far you can talk your boy into recovering at an increased rate.
- As a general rule, exercise science is junk science. The studies are tiny, the measurements taken are often arbitrary and do not measure real effects, and almost all are funded my commercial investors who expect a certain outcome.
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8 hours ago, wintermom said:
@Dreamergal Did the colour of your avatar change from blue to green, or am I imagining things? Great job with all the activities! Enjoy a relaxing weekend.
@Alicia64 So glad your knee is feeling better. You would not want to trade locations with me right now. The temperature has dropped way down and the wind is crazy. Yikes!
@Monica_in_Switzerland Glad to hear your PT is working well. and you can run again!! That's awesome. Are you near any skiing, being in Switzerland and all? If so, do you ski? I could use a mountain or two right now. 😉
I went for a walk with a couple friends on our usual woods hike. It felt so cold and windy. It was not a pleasant wind and the cold was the kind the rattles your bones. I wish I'd gone skating last night when it was nice.
Yes, there is definitely skiing around, but I'm not a skier. I think I came to winter sports a bit too old. My dh took me skiing twice when I first moved here, but any time I started moving faster than a slow walking pace, I would freak out and throw myself into the snow to stop. 😂 I wouldn't mind trying snowshoeing some time though...
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Hey, it's me! I'm making some good progress in physical therapy with my tendonitis, and I'm "allowed" to run again, but must take it easy.
I was surprised and delighted to find my speed hasn't decreased. I was so worried about losing progress. Obviously my HR is a little more elevated at the same speeds though. And I'll need to work back up endurance-wise. For now, just sticking with 5k every 3 days or so.
My PT is taking... what appear to be medieval era tools... and tearing apart fascia adhesions. It hurts, but it's a good hurt. 😆 He is great. I switched to him after a few appointments with one guy, then that guy decided I really should be seeing the sports guy at their clinic. The sports PT just looked at me for about 10 seconds, then said, "You clench your jaw. You chew on the left side. You have hip issues." It was pretty amazing. All accurate.
In the mean time, I've been keeping up with IF from 1pm-7am and weight is slowly moving in the right direction after a long pause at Christmas. I've also added in some upper body work while my legs are out of the game. But I need to develop that into a routine instead of just random pushups when I remember.
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9 hours ago, Scarlett said:
It is weird....I definitely have a deviated septum...and I breath through my mouth at night....but I feel like I can breathe through my nose just fine. I wonder if I don't even know what it is suppose to feel like.
There is a range of severity for deviation... mine was pretty bad. I could only breathe through my nose if I was lying perfectly still in bed and concentrating on it. If I even rolled over or changed position, I'd have to open my mouth. Now, I can easily breathe through my nose and even ran 5k with my mouth shut about 3 months after the surgery just to see if I could. (Yes, slowly)
I think the standard treatment is to attempt to treat with medication, but fix the septum if meds don't work. I was getting very concerned about needing antibiotics 2x or more a year, and occasionally my sinus infections were requiring multiple rounds of abx because they stubbornly wouldn't go away, so I decided to have surgery.
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You might have a case similar to mine. I started developing BPPV- benign periodic positional vertigo- in my mid-20s. I have to say, going to the ENT and having him literally grab me by the head and throw me around the exam table caused me to start laughing uncontrollably, which caused him to go into hysterics. Did I mention I was wearing these giant goggles to magnify my eye motions so he could check for signs of dizziness? It goes down as my by-far favorite ER visit EVER!
Anyway, since then I've been able to self-treat the BPPV.
In the mean time...
My chronic allergies/stuffiness was getting more and more bothersome, and I was beginning to have multiple sinus infections each year requiring antibiotics. Went to an ENT, had CT scan... very deviated septum. I hesitated for nearly two years before finally agreeing to a septum repair surgery. BEST THING I EVER DID. I no longer snore. I'm no longer a mouth breather. I no longer get sinus infections. When I blow my nose... it actually works. I still have allergies, but they are a fraction of what they used to be. And while I had not connected it to the BPPV, I have not had an episode for a long, long time, so I'm willing to consider the septoplasty might have fixed that as well. Oh, he also did a turbinate reduction, whatever that is!
Find a doctor you trust. Septoplasties seem to either get rave reviews or very negative reviews. My doc said about 70% of people feel better after a repair. He was very upfront and honest about it not being a miracle for everyone. That is part of why I waited so long. But for me, it was the right choice.
If you do discover you have a deviated septum and end up doing a repair, first learn to use and love a neti pot. My doc said he'd never seen such an easy recovery. Basically, after he took the packing out, I used the neti pot 2-3x a day with sterilized saline solution. No nose blowing during recovery, but you can very gently breathe out through your nose to clear any remaining saline/gunk.
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I would check for habit tracker apps. I think those could work for you.
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Hear me out...
New plans. I've been pre-reading, as well as reading about many of the books mentioned. I realized that there are enough actual survivor stories written for middle grades that I'd like to rely less on fiction. This came after pre-reading Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was good, but certainly far less good than a true story.
So now I'm pre-reading:
Survivor's Club
Boy on the Wooden Box
... both of which are actual memoirs.
What Did You Do in the War, Sister? is also a possibility, it is a fictional retelling based on real letters and interviews.
I'm keeping Escape from Warsaw for post-WWII unit.
We'll also keep The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler, which is non-fiction and very good.
For Pacific front, I've got:
Sadako Sasaki and the 1000 paper cranes
Code Talkers (fictional, but we've enjoyed all the Bruchac books we've read so far)
Empire of the Sun
I'll keep the two graphic novels, because my kids like them as introductions to topics.
Off to pre-read now...
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I agree with everyone else, and with the friend's mom. If he's old enough to leave the house with it, he's old enough to take care of it. It's not like your dog dug through his bag and chewed it up or something....
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No advice, just wanted to offer congrats on the job!
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1 hour ago, kfeusse said:
that is interesting. I will make sure he includes "hand forged' in his description.....you are right, that is important.
Do you think he should or shouldn't include his age....will that impress people or scare people.....like "wow that was made by a 16 year old...he's talented"...or 'oh, that was made by a 16 year old, he probably doesn't know what he is doing". What do you guys think?
I would leave it off, but you might put something a bit more hidden, like "Shop Owner has been hand forging xyz since age 12" (or whatever). No need to add that this only makes 4 years. 😂
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I agree with everyone else. Work ahead of the student from a good text, like AOPS.
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Forged In Pheonix Fire
Pheonix Feather Forge
Pheonix Smithy
The Blacksmith's Pehonix
Pheonix Metalworks
Iron Pheonix
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p.s. I suggest you work through the AOPS books yourself fas well. They don't have the same scope and sequence as other books, and they do have some truly challenging problems. You will probably be surprised at how much your own math understanding improves.
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I've only ever used the AOPS books, so can't compare to the class. I've been shocked with how well my kids did adapting to the wall-of-text style of the books. It is VERY intimidating at first. I think AOPS is an excellent character-builder, in addition to math curriculum.
I do not directly teach the material. The book is written to the student. I simply have my kids work through it, and we check each exercise set together so that I have a feel for whether or not they are getting it. I am more in a coaching role, answering questions when they come up, giving additional explanation when they are confused by the text, etc.
AOPS Pre-A for us (thus far, I'm on my second kid with it) is equal parts learning math and learning to learn independently. It really marks a passage into a different style of schooling in our home. It is the first subject I really shift into their middle-school hands, all while remaining available as a coach. My son needed about 80% assistance at the start of Pre-A. He is now in AOPS Geometry and I would say I help him 10% or less of the time, and the helps tend to be more along the lines of "Did you notice ..." or "What if you started by..." and then he's off and running. My dd, who has a different personality, really does not want my assistance. From the second I put AOPS Pre-A in her hands, she has only "allowed" me to help maybe 20% of the time. As a consequence, she is going slower. But since I'm using AOPS both for math and for shifting to independent learning habits, that's perfectly fine with me.
Sorry to drift off-topic, I just wanted to explain how we are using AOPS.
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Although the books were perhaps meant as moral lessons when they were written, I have never read them that way, either as a child or an adult. They are an embellished snapshot of life on the frontier amongst still-strongly-puritanical Americans. It doesn't bother me to read them at all, it's just, "Oh, how curious that people lived that way once."
The books that get our eyes rolling are the McGuffey Readers. I have not found a better set of graded readers that prepares children to read classics, but as we open them each day, my kids and I say, "I wonder what badly behaved child is going to die or kill someone by accident this time...😂" We just read the lesson about bats this week with one of my kids, and the little, vaguely accurate science lesson ends with a fable about a bat pretending to be alternately a bird and a mouse in order to escape from an owl and a cat. The fable ends with the line, "The meaning of this fable is that a person playing a double part may sometimes escape danger; but he is always, like the bat, a creature that is disgusting to everybody, and shunned by all." 🤣🤣🤣 We laughed ourselves silly with that one. And lest we fear the books are wholly devoid of educational fodder, by older dd suddenly said, "Oh! Like Snape!"
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I also use a lot of audio rewards, mostly audiobooks while doing chores. Another I enjoy is using a foam roller to roll out my legs. I also do headstands. Zentangle doodles are also very relaxing and meditative. And of course Hive breaks. 😄
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9 hours ago, Lori D. said:
You might enjoy some films to add to your research for your Cold War unit. NOTE: I have NOT watched all of these, so you may wish to preview some of these:
Communist Europe:
- The Tunnel (1962) - documentary; escape tunnel that 26 people used to go from East to West Berlin
- Night Crossing (1982) -- based on true family trying to cross the Berlin Wall in 1979 by hot air balloonCuban Missile Crisis
- The Missiles of October (1974) -- like a filmed stage play of the White House conversations/decisions during the crisis
- Thirteen Days (2000)
- Topaz (1969) a Hitchcock Cold War thriller set during the Cuban Missile Crisis
- The Fog of War (2011) -- documentary on Robert MacNamara, Secretary of Defense during the crisis
Fear of Nuclear War/Soviets
- The Manchurian Candidate (1962) -- a little hokey, but shows the fear Americans felt at communism and possible brainwashing/betrayal
- Fail Safe (1964) -- chain of accidents and mis-cues plunge the U.S. into near nuclear war with USSR
- The Bedford Incident (1965) -- paranoid US sub captain tracks a USSR sub almost to the bring of causing an incident
- The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966) -- humorous look at U.S. fears of Soviet invasionCommunism/Nuclear Threat in the U.S.
- Good Night and Good Luck (2005) - 1950s U.S.; broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow tries to bring down Senator McCarthy and his Communist "witch hunt" fears
- The Mouse That Roared (1959) -- comedy; an impoverished (imaginary) European nation declares war on the U.S., hoping to lose and receive war reparations, but their fake nuclear bomb is assumed by the U.S. to be real so things don't go as plannedThe Mouse that Roared is based on a book series and they are a really fun read! My oldest has read them, just good clean fun.
Funny Fog of War story: My husband DRAGGED me to see this in the theater. He is a big history buff. I wasn't (but I'm evolving!!!) About a half an hour in, he was completely and deeply asleep. 😂 I found it quite interesting, personally. 🤣
I can remember watching a move as a child, which I think was called Ruskies or something like that. It was about American kids hiding an injured Russian spy or something... I'm very hazy on the details and need to do some research.
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Just now, 8filltheheart said:
A Night Divided (excellent!)
Tear Down This Wall https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/50716/
This one is on my definite list. Thanks!
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5 minutes ago, Lori D. said:
Between Shades of Gray sounds fascinating! Thanks for recommendation!
Cold War list... I don't have anything written down specifically, but a few titles that leap to mind that we enjoyed:
FICTION
- I Am David
gr. 6-8; a 12yo boy who has grown up in an Eastern European prison camp escapes and must travel across both Eastern and Western Europe to try and find his mother. BTW -- the movie version of this book is lovely.
NONFICTION
- Year of Impossible Goodbyes (Choi)
gr. 7-9; communist take-over of North Korea in the late 1940s.
- The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sis)
gr. 6+; a picture book, but for middle school/high school/adults. Peter Sis is an illustrator, so that's why his personal story is in picture book form. He grew up in communist-controlled Czechoslovakia in the 1950s-1970s.
- When the Wall Came Down: The Berlin Wall and the Fall of Soviet Communism (Schmemann)
gr. 6+; first person narratives of the 1989 events.
- God's Smuggler (Andrew)
gr. 8+; Christian; Brother Andrew's autobiography, with much of the book about smuggling Bibles in the 1960s into European nations behind the Iron Curtain
A few titles that look interesting... no personal experience:
historical fiction
[Breaking Stalin's Nose -- is Soviet Communism of the 1930s under Stalin]
- A Night Divided (Nielson) -- gr. 5-8; the 1961 erection of the Berlin Wall
- Suspect Red (Elliot) -- gr. 5-8; 1950s Communist fears in the U.S.
nonfiction
- The Clever Teen's Guide to the Cold War (Rhodes)
- Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot" (Tunnell) -- gr. 4-7; 1945, the Berlin Airlift (start of the Cold War)
- The Candy Bomber: Untold Stories from the Berlin Airlift's "Uncle Wiggly Wings (Halvorsen) -- adult (?); actual accounts by the actual pilot
- Flight for Freedom: The Wetzel Family's Daring Escape From East Germany (Fulton)
- The Other Side of the Wall (Schwartz) -- autobiography in graphic novel form
BTW -- 2 powerful ADULT ONLY films that YOU may find interesting:
- Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
WW2 German Homefront. True story of the German teen who, with her brother, during WW2 protested Germany's involvement on the Eastern Front, were imprisoned, questions, and executed. It is her Christian faith that kept her going, and it so shines through in this hard but powerful film.
- The Lives of Others (2006)
Cold War. Set in the mid-1980s in East Germany when the Stazi (secret police) had a death grip reign of terror on the people. One Staci agent whose job is to listen in on a writer and his actress lover, finds himself being transformed from the soullessness of the state to appreciation for life by the beauty of art. Some adult scenes.Thank you! We did Breaking Stalin's Nose recently, and we give it a mixed review. 😄 We did Breaking Stalin's Nose, Between Shades of Gray, and The Wave together over two weeks. The Wave is a good one for middle school and the question, "How could people have stood by and let nazism/fascism/communism take over?"
The other recommendations will go into the pile to research!
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29 minutes ago, Lori D. said:
I saw that one too, but no personal experience.
The Year of Impossible Goodbyes is gripping. It is for grades 7-9, and is the fictionalized retelling of the real-life Korean teen. While the book opens at the end of WW2 with Korea under brutal Japanese occupation, most of the story takes place in post-WW2 Korea, as the brutal communists are coming in and taking over North Korea, which forces her family to flee.
Thx for mentioning the sequel. I'll have to look for that. 😄 It looks like there are actually 2 sequels! One of her time as a refugee in South Korea (Echoes of the White Giraffe), and then a final book about coming to the U.S. (Gathering of Pearls).
::insert evil cackle:: 😂
Oh, I hadn't seen it was a trilogy. I moved Impossible Goodbyes and Giraffe to our Korean War unit, which made my WWII list look *slightly* less crazy.
Also, I haven't seen it on any of your lists, but a couple weeks ago, I read Between Shades of Gray with my 6th and 9th graders, and it was incredibly well-done. It's probably better for 7th grade and up, but my 6th grader did fine with it, in fact I think she appreciated it more. It is a very moving story about the Soviet takeover of Lithuania, and a Lithuanian mother/daughter/son being sent to a labor camp in Siberia. There are references to prostitution/rape, but not in any graphic way. Even after Lithanians were allowed back home many years later, it was illegal for them to talk about their experiences in Siberia. So many people wrote secret accounts or made sketches, that were buried and unearthed only after the fall of the USSR. This book is a functional account of one such record/sketchbook.
Do you have a list for the Cold War?
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22 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:
No, I havent. Instead of focusing on Hiroshima, you might want to add a book about other conflicts. A Year of Impossible Goodbyes is excellent and then add a quicker read about Hiroshima like Sadako Sasaki and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It is a younger child's bk, but emotionally powerful. (Eta: I looked and it is listed as middle school)
I'm not sure we're all working toward the same goal of narrowing down my book choices... 😂
Year of Impossible Goodbyes has a sequel that covers Korean War, so that seems like a good pair. I will keep pondering Hiroshima. A shorter, younger book may be a good fit.
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@Lori D. @8filltheheart Amazon has pointed me to a book called The Last Cherry Blosom, a middle school read for Hiroshima. Either of you heard of it/read it?
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35 minutes ago, Plum said:
Love this idea. All ears.
There are quite a few books that meet my criteria, but are science-specific rather than history specific, like the following. But many of them would do as crossovers between history and science as well.
The Perfectionists
Napoleon's Buttons
The Disappearing Spoon
Stuff Matters
The Violinist's Thumb
Very basic and fundamental skincare questions
in The Chat Board
Posted
Just remember, if you use retinol (which is probably the closest thing to a miracle product on the market), sunscreen is no longer a thing you can forget occasionally. It is mandatory. Paula's Choice has some good products.
Neutrogena sunscreens are by far my favorites. I won't wear any others consistently. My DH, on the other hand, is allergic to them. So you'll have to just try some out.