Ok, so that implies that they only store third-party sellers' stuff in Prime-equipped warehouses (which would make sense). But that brings up the question of why they have non-Prime-equipped warehouses in the first place??? ETA: I will say that I've ordered tons of stuff with Prime, including several things this Christmas, and all of them came just like they were supposed to.

Amazon's explanation doesn't make sense to me. I order things from Amazon marketplace sellers that are Prime eligible (which I figure means that the seller has paid Amazon to store and ship them), and most of them are used books, something that the seller doesn't have all that many of - in some cases, I'm pretty sure there was only one of them. (Just checked - found a Prime-eligible used copy of The Ugly Duckling where it's the only one.) And all those shipped normally and got here in two days like they are supposed to, however far the warehouse it was stored it.

That sounds like a rough situation :grouphug:. I just wanted to point out that it *is* being authentic and real to act differently around someone who dislikes you than you'd act if you were only with people who liked you. It's a different situation, and so it's natural to act differently. Don't think of it as "not acting like myself", but as "acting differently with an unfriendly audience than I do with an exclusively friendly one". From your post, that sounds like an unusual situation for you to be in (which is a good thing :)), and so it wouldn't be surprising if your automatic reactions to that situation are maybe also unusual to you - they aren't used much. If you are uncomfortable with how you currently react to being in front of an unfriendly audience, change it, but I don't think you need to react the *same* as you do while being with a friendly crowd - they just aren't the same thing, and it's natural to react differently to different situations :grouphug:. It might help to acknowledge the inherent difficulty and stress of being around someone who doesn't like you - it *is* hard, and a far different thing from them not being around. I don't think ignoring the impact of their presence and trying to act just as you would if they weren't there is the only (or best) way to be authentic. I think it's completely authentic to acknowledge to yourself that it *does* make a difference to have them around, and figure out how to act so as to minimize the impact of their presence on you and your interactions with others. You would be acting differently, but it's a different situation - why *wouldn't* you act differently? :grouphug:

IDK, I've got eye troubles as it is, and I've got little kids who are running around while I use my light (and who might look right at it) - just didn't want to risk it, kwim?

All this, although I had results in about a month of consistent use, starting in mid-Oct. (Next year I'm starting at the equinox, *before* problems start.) From what I read, 20-30min/day is sitting 12 in away from a 10,000 lux light (with the light shining down at a 15 deg angle). If you are farther away from the light, or using a less bright light, the time goes up. I recently got a lamp, and in my research I ran across the Canadian Consensus Guidelines for the Treatment of SAD, which included a discussion on the risks of ocular damage. Ultraviolet light and direct gazing at blue light (particularly an issue with halogen lights) were associated with potential eye damage, but fluorescent lamps with UV filtering were generally safe, so that was what I went with. There wasn't a lot of research on LED lights, so I avoided those, plus I wanted to avoid directly gazing into the light as much as possible, so I got a lamp that shines down, instead of one that shines up. The linked paper also had a list of which sorts of eye conditions put people at particular risk for eye damage, and recommended that those people get an ophthalmologist exam prior to starting light therapy. The four basic parameters wrt effective light treatment that the above linked paper talked about were light intensity, light wavelength, duration of daily exposure, and timing of daily exposure. Light intensity ought to be 2,500 lux or above, and the higher the lux, the less duration was needed (I got a 10,000 lux lamp, which needs a daily 30 min session to get a sufficient "dose" of light; 2,500 lux lamps require 2 hours a day). Wrt light wavelength, both broad-spectrum fluorescent lights and cool-white fluorescent lights have been shown to be effective. Timing-wise, there's debate over one morning session or a morning and evening session; I've been doing one morning session right after I get up, and it has reset my circadian rhythm some - getting up in the morning is easier now. Anyway, I got this lamp: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Daylight-Sky-for-Optimal-Therapy-DL200US/204497298 and I've been pleased with it so far (used it for two months now). I was starting to spiral down when I started in mid-Oct, and it's made it easier to get up in the mornings, and overall I'm feeling much more "normal" and generally *me* than I have in past winters - with this (plus exercise, eating right, and enough sleep), I've been staying on a fairly even keel and haven't had to much trouble staying productive.

When we paid for overnight delivery and Amazon failed to get it to us on time, they did automatically refund the extra shipping cost - I didn't have to contact them or complain or anything. Not great when you wanted the item enough to pay for quicker shipping, but it's better than having to fight to get the extra shipping refunded. Yesterday I ordered an item that's not estimated to get here until next Monday - a full week with Prime shipping. It was marked with "extra processing time". It's not a Christmas present, and it's something that we've been procrastinating going to the store to get for 3 months, so we probably can live with an extra week. OTOH, my sister said the Amazon stuff she bought us was supposed to be here Christmas Eve, and it arrived at 8am this morning (Enterprise truck). WRT Think Geek and their epic fail in a previous year - I wonder if they just were. not. expecting. the level of demand they got. Something similar happened to our church with our Easter egg hunt - we planned for 50-75 kids and got 200 :scared:. It was not pretty, and there were lots of unhappy people, but we had *no idea* we were going to get that many people and there wasn't all that much we could do to accommodate them on the fly. A little more success than you expected is nice, but a *lot* more success than you expected is as bad (or worse) than no success :doh.

Anything over $100 is "expensive" in my book. I don't think I've spent over $100 on anything yet (although sort of on LiPS -I got the manual used for $80 but if you count the cost of buying/making all the magnetic tiles and other materials, it probably comes out to $110). I tend to buy used or on clearance as much as possible, lots of living books, and not too much consumable stuff. The most expensive-feeling stuff I buy are new consumable workbooks; I cringe at the $90-$100 I drop every year on SM workbooks (2 wb, 2 IP, times 2 kids). For reference, my hs budget is $600/yr, and so far that is enough for curriculum, a bunch of living books, and misc supplies.

Anxiety (and depression) both provoke the "flight" response (as in fight-or-flight) - anxiety makes you want to get away from the problem any way you can. The problem is, the more you give into the anxiety - the more you avoid what's making you anxious (when avoidance doesn't make it go away for realsies) - the more anxious you are about it. IOW, the more you give into the anxiety and avoid something, the harder it becomes to eventually face it. It's far, *far* better to face it at the beginning, when it's relatively little, than it is to avoid it when it's small, because that just makes it bigger and bigger. I know for me, I think it's "no big deal" to avoid at the beginning - that there's plenty of time to get around to it and it will be just as easy or easier to do it then. Only that's the anxiety talking - it's completely, utterly *wrong* - *because* I avoided it when it was "no big deal", I *make* it a Big Deal. My dds have anxiety issues, too, and when I'm on my game, I try to deal with it by being a calm, persistent rock. I sympathize a bit - yes, it *is* hard - and I explain how avoiding it makes it worse, and I try to come alongside and help (drag) them over the initial hump. But I generally try to make sure that together we face it head-on, together - give them all the sympathy and empathy in the world, give them lots of help and scaffolding (that I try to phase out over time) - but not budge on actually *doing* it, even if just a little bit. Because as much as they beg to "do it later", letting them avoid it now is not in their best interest - because it's going to be *worse* later. (I do try hard to set them up for success - enough sleep, enough good food, regularly scheduled breaks, water and healthy snacks next to where they work - and sometimes if now is objectively not the greatest time (hungry, tired, sick, etc.), I settle for doing a small amount - just enough to get over the initial hump.) WRT to my parents and how they could have helped: My parents always emphasized, with both words and actions, that what counted was doing my best, whatever the outcome. If a C was my best, then they'd be happy with that. And that helped (over time - it took lots of repetitions to sink in ;)). But my mom has the very same perfectionist anxiety I have, and her own method of handling it is to "start something when her anxiety about not finishing overcomes her anxiety about starting". It works, for certain values of "work", but it's not the greatest, kwim? So no one ever really showed me how to handle anxiety so much as to keep going in spite of it. I ended up with a conscious "growth mindset" - if at first you don't succeed, try, try again - that failure just means you can't do it *now*, not that you can't do it *ever*. But I also had an unconscious "fixed mindset" - that I can either do it or not, and that doesn't change - that if I fail now, I'm a failure forever. (For more info re: growth/fixed mindsets: http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/.) My parents definitely explicitly taught me a growth mindset. But I wonder if maybe I partly learned a fixed mindset implicitly from my mom - if she has the same tangled beliefs that I do. (I also definitely imbibed a fixed mindset from school and media depictions of "being smart" - smart was a thing you were or weren't, and there was no changing it. And I definitely thought of myself as "smart" - in fact, I defined myself by it. It was the only thing I had going for me in the outside world (or so I thought) - I wasn't pretty, wasn't athletic, wasn't popular - I was an socially and physically awkward smart kid, and smart was how everyone outside the family saw me, and how I saw myself, too. My parents and their "do your best, whatever it is" attitude was a *major* corrective to that.) WRT helping, like Chris in VA, I wished my parents would have "made" me do things, although if/when they had, I resisted every. step. of. the. way. I wanted to be able to do things, but I didn't want to do the things required to do things. But really, I needed to be *taught* how to do things - have everything broken down into *doable* steps, and then be held responsible for doing each step. If a step proved to be too much, then be walked through how to break it down into even littler steps. Basically a combination of being taught *how* to do things - to work through anxiety, to make a plan and follow through, to modify a plan instead of giving up - and then kind of being pushed to actually *do* it even when it was hard. But a sympathetic pushing, one that was flexible, that made sure tasks were doable at my current level (and modified them when they didn't work out as planned) - basically being in every way on my side, positive and loving and kind - yet not letting me give up - *because* they were on my side. ETA: Which means that the parent in question has to *have* the ability to work though the issues in question themselves, or else learn to. My mom is awesome, and taught me a lot of good things, but her handling of her anxiety is only so-so, and so she couldn't pass on any better, kwim? I've found, in trying to help my kids, I have to learn and apply the same things to myself. Because how can I walk them through dealing with anxiety if I can't deal with my own?

Perfectionism and anxiety here, too, and they *definitely* contributed to my underperforming, both because of procrastination and because of just not doing things at all. I procrastinated because I was putting off the perceived unpleasantness of the work, and my anxiety made some work seem *far* more unpleasant than it was in reality. And I *knew* that, and after every frantic all-nighter I'd tell myself that just doing the work ahead of time would be *so* much better than the stress of doing it at the last minute, yet when it came time to do the work, it seemed like so big a deal that I'd put it off again and again. Because I needed the adrenaline rush that came with doing it at the last minute to overcome the anxiety of starting. I never would have put it like that at the time - I thought I just preferred to play over doing work (and that did become a habit) - but in retrospect (and after a decade of being *aware* of my anxiety and working on it), I had help in developing that habit - there was a *reason* that work loomed large, and that was because I was anxious about it, about getting it done "right". I remember explaining, very rationally-sounding, that the reason I didn't do my homework was because I could learn without it and it was only worth 15% of my grade and I was willing to take the hit in order to not do it. Yeah, well, the reason that seemed like a good plan was because of how *bad* the homework seemed - not how bad it was in *reality*, but how bad it *seemed* - because my anxiety made it feel like a huge thing to be avoided, and my brain went right ahead and crafted a nice, rational-sounding reason to give in to the anxiety :(.

My own experience is that easy material combined with easy tasks aren't the things that kids who *want* to do well tend to skip "because boring", though (unless the volume is ridiculous, so that even a competent adult would be spending hours at it). IME, those "I *hate* them - they are so *boring*" assignments are where it's easy material combined with *hard* tasks - they *feel* hard but pointless because the material can be learned without the skill that makes the assignment hard. Sometimes what makes the task difficult isn't a skill worth cultivating (for example, where the difficulty in is hours of fiddly cutting and pasting, or coloring), but sometimes the skill is genuinely useful (the ability to summarize and condense, or the ability to delay gratification, or the ability to work without having to "feel like it" - all things I lack). Personally, I would evaluate what exactly about the assignments she skips are difficult before writing it all off as "pointless because the material can be learned without it" - a lot of study skills are pointless until they aren't - when the person hits the limit of their ability to learn without studying. I'm busy trying to learn to summarize and condense in my 30s because I never bothered to learn it "because it was pointless - I could learn the material without it". Yeah, that was only for certain values of "learn the material", and up to to a certain point of difficulty.

I was a gifted student who underperformed, and at the time I'd have explained it as laziness and "just not wanting to". I didn't like it, but I wasn't willing to take steps to change it, either. And I crashed and burned but good in college :(. But now, in retrospect, a lot of the things I didn't want to do because they were "painfully boring" - they were actually *hard* for me to do. It's not that I *couldn't* do them, but that I couldn't do them with ease and in a reasonable timeframe. And as they were usually sold as necessary in order to learn - and I could learn very well without them - I thought they were just stupid and boring. But, really, I had no trouble flying through stupid and boring *easy* things - the fact that I hated these so much because I couldn't fly through them was, in retrospect, a sign that they *weren't* all that easy for me. I was a voracious reader with a good memory, and I could integrate my knowledge on the fly during tests, and that covered up the fact that I was actually missing a lot of foundational skills. As a kid, I *loathed* the end-of-section/end-of-chapter review questions, and my brief period of just not doing work and lying to my parents about it was centered around skipping those. (I was in 4th grade, and my mom dealt with it by having me have my teacher sign off on whether I had hw or not each day. I was *really* embarrassed by that - I was a "good kid" and that was something only "bad kids" had to do. You could probably make up a sheet for your dd to write down her hw assignments on, with a space for each class, and have her go to each teacher to initial it each day (after you probably talk to them about what is going on).) If I couldn't get the answer directly from the text, word-for-word, I was mad and complained about it. I didn't realize it at the time, but summarizing a text - both finding the main point and putting that point into my own words - was a very difficult skill for me. It still is. Dd9 is doing WWE 2, and *I'm* learning from it, too. But at the time I thought those questions were just about making sure you learned and remembered those points - and I had zero trouble learning and remembering the entire text, so I thought it was pointless. Later on, I thought it was a "gifted thing" - just not having enough to think about to make the work worthwhile. But there are lots of mindless things I don't have a problem doing - because they are *easy*, or easy enough. This was the deadly combo of simple content and hard task - I loathed it so much not because it was "boring", but because it was *hard*. The task was hard enough to require serious thought, only I didn't think I "should" have to think hard, because "I already knew it". So I just loathed them and spent the bare minimum of time and effort on them. (It didn't help that no one ever *taught* me how to summarize and condense - they just gave lots of tasks that *required* that skill :-/.) As well, I didn't realize how bad my executive function skills were until recently (when I took the parent test in Smart but Scattered) - because my memory was good enough that I didn't *need* to be organized. And I work fast and well under pressure, so I let external deadlines provide the kick to get started and didn't realize how many weaknesses that covered up. Not only did it cover up my inability to make and follow my own schedules, it also covered up how *hard* some of those tasks were for me. Because when I did them in a flurry of adrenaline (often cutting several corners that didn't affect my grade but did affect my learning), I worked faster (and in some ways better) than I could do without that push. I used to think it was because "work expands to fill the time allotted", and there's some truth to that. But it's also because my skills in many areas were shaky, shakier than I knew, and they took me so long when I wasn't under pressure because I just wasn't very practiced at them. I could overcome that for a short time through the adrenaline rush of working fast and furious under a looming deadline, but they were just not fluent skills for me. I just didn't realize it because I could learn things without them, because I was able to compensate well for them. And eventually, I couldn't work at all without that adrenaline push, and it took more and more external pressure in order to feel that internal push, and that happened at the same time I hit college, with its higher demands on executive function and study skills. And thus the crash and burn. But, anyway, long story short (too late ;)), the point is that what I thought was my own *unwillingness* was actually caused in large part by my *inability*. It was just hidden, from me and everyone else, because I was able to compensate so well for my lack of foundational skills that no one had any idea I lacked them. In general, I do believe that if a person sincerely wants to do something, yet is not doing it "because laziness", they probably *can't* do it - not without an overwhelming, unsustainable amount of effort. And so they naturally avoid those tasks unless they *really* need to do them - because an extraordinary effort is reserved for extraordinary need. Somehow the effort involved in those tasks needs to be lessened - because *no one* can operate at extraordinary levels all the time. And, at least for me, that means uncovering the missing foundational skills and remediating them.

I'm getting two hair clips - nice pretty beaded ones - which I asked for (the surprise is which particular ones). (Hair jewelry is the only jewelry I wear on a regular basis ;) and it's kind of tradition for dh to get me a few new ones each Christmas :).). My mom is getting us some pampered chef spices. I love to read, but I buy myself books throughout the year, so I don't really have any to put on a list. I asked for a nice warm pair of gloves, but dh wasn't sure about buying those without me trying them on.

To me this does sound like a red flag. Does he have any other phonemic awareness difficulties? My dds both have had real problems learning to blend (along with other phonemic awareness/processing issues). The biggest thing that has helped is the Dekodiphukan (Decode-if-you-can) sound pictures. (Dekodiphukan is an out of print reading program that is available in its entirely for free online; if you have an iPad, they've put all the materials together into a set of free apps that make it *very* user friendly. I've read through the rhyming storybook that introduces all the sounds and sound pictures a dozen times with my kids - they love it and it makes learning the sound pictures effortless. This is the explanation of how to use the apps, and in what order: http://www.center.edu/iPad/Images/Sequence.pdf) I don't know what it is, but it was easier for my dds to learn to blend the sound pictures into words than to do the same with letters. Dd7 learned to blend through playing the PP train game with sound picture tiles (that I made using the free Dekodiphukan font file), over and over and over again. I have made *all* the words in her lessons (Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach - which I like because it goes very, very slowly in the beginning, working through 36 lessons of CVC words) into flashcards with sound pictures on one side and letters on the other (260-odd CVC words, and now 54 CCVC words and counting ;)). She uses them for spelling - spells from the sound picture side and then reads back to me what she wrote (my older daughter is using them for cursive practice and covert blending practice ;)). And for the first 8-10 lessons we worked through the words with the sound picture tiles, training them together a la the PP train game, before working with letter tiles (and training *those* together), before moving to reading from the book. I love those sound pictures so much I want to marry them ;) :lol: :hurray: .

It's helped my kids to make both 'b' and 'd' (and 'p') with their hands - it's a completely different thinking process from figuring out how to read/write them. Every time dd7 confuses them, I have her make the letter she sees with her hands. It's not a quick fix, but it's working over time. We've also talked about how with 'b' the stick comes first, but with 'd' the ball comes first. (And with 'p' vs 'b', for 'b' the stick points up, and for 'p' the stick points down.) And so every time she confuses them, I ask her which comes first, stick or ball. (This initially didn't work as well, because my kids write the "ball" first for both 'b' and 'd' (and 'p', too), and so they thought of first as temporally first - in which case there *still* wasn't any difference - instead of first going from left to right.) I know you've done a lot of similar things, but, from what you posted, none of them really show how 'd' and 'b' are *similar* - that they all focus on their differences, but in ways that don't really show how they relate to each other. For example, "bat before ball" and "donut before door" tell how 'b' and 'd' are respectively made, but they don't show how the "bat and ball" are related to the "donut and door" - a student might never connect those two facts together in their head. And with letters that are being confused because of their *similarity* to each other, I think it helps to understand *what* about them is similar in addition to what about them is different - how their appearance relates to each other.

I had difficulties with ordering pictures online (from a different company) where it seemed like my order was just in limbo like that, and it turned out to be issues with permissions - my dh had faxed the release form and the name on the fax didn't match the name on my order, even though the order numbers were clearly marked. I emailed on all three of the orders after three weeks in limbo and got back one "fails reading comprehension" pointless response, one response that at least sort of grasped my question but had no helpful answer, and (thank goodness) one on-point helpful response that explained the permissions issue (even though they couldn't *fix* the permissions issue).

You could try giving her nonsense words to blend - she wouldn't have heard them before and so would have to figure them out some way or another. You could also do the train game - it's what taught my dd7 to blend. It's where you write, say, 'a' and 't' on different bits of paper, set them down several inches apart, and say the sounds as you scooch them together. /a/............./t/, /a/......../t/, /a/....../t/, /a/..../t/, /a/../t/, /a/ /t/, /at/. For cvc words, you could do /sa/ and /t/. (With dd7, for 'sat', we'd train together /s/ and /a/, and then train together /sa/ and /t/.) You could also try oral blending of syllables: /in/ /cred/ /i/ /ble/ But if she hasn't been having any troubles learning to read, I wouldn't borrow trouble :grouphug:. I mean, my dds had *lots* of signs of trouble with phonemic awareness - blending is just one of them. (They were late to get rhyming, and tended to switch around or add/drop syllables in longer words, and once they had a wrong pronunciation in their head, it was extremely hard to correct, amongst others.) Learning to read hasn't gone smoothly, not from the beginning - it was never a matter of just sitting down and doing the book. I mean, if your dd moved from letter sounds to cvc words easily, if she's never given you reason to think there's a problem - there's probably not a problem :grouphug:.

Probably this - that he's blending in his head (which is a more advanced skill than blending aloud) - but it could also be a result of him reading by sight, or being able to mentally put the sounds together into a word he's heard before (which is good, but is different from being able to blend sounds together). My oldest dd learned to read through phonetic teaching despite not being able to blend - it was a combination of reading by sight and phonetic pattern matching - and she did hit a wall with reading unfamiliar multisyllable words because of it (couldn't blend the parts together, not even orally). It's one thing to learn to read without blending, and it's another thing entirely to be *unable* to blend. So in your shoes I'd play a few oral blending games to see if your ds is *able* to blend. Say the sounds of a word individually: /c/ /a/ /t/, and ask him to "say it fast" to figure out what word it is. You can also ask him to add a sound to the beginning or end of a cvc word: "add /s/ to the beginning of /lid/ - what do you get?" "add /d/ to the end of /an/ - what do you get?" If he can answer all those without blending out loud, maybe try using nonsense words, because they are by definition words he doesn't already know. ("/v/ /a/ /m/ - say it fast.") Probably he's blending in his head and doing just fine, but it's good to know if he's compensating well for not being *able* to blend. ETA: He's an auditory learner? That ups the odds that he's blending in his head instead of having problems. My dd that couldn't blend but learned to read in spite of it was *very* visual. My auditory learner who couldn't blend has had to go through a year's worth of practice of blending cvc words, and still blends aloud for unfamiliar words.

I *hate* not being able to find things - *loathe* it - and one of the hardest parts about having kids was how stuff of mine that I carefully kept track of would end up walking away because of someone else. It was *maddening*, and I've dealt with it by putting a fair bit of energy into finding places for everything that it hacks me off to not be able to find, and then put an inordinate amount of energy into restricting access to those things as well as making sure that those things always, always, always get put right back immediately. Plus I have an extremely strict standing rule that *no one* is allowed to get *anything* off my desk without asking, *ever* (and it's a standing desk, so kids too young to reliably follow that rule couldn't reach it anyway). (Also, no one is allowed to *put* anything on my desk without asking, because no one but me is allowed to junk it up ;).) Because, yeah, we're lucky if we can find one of the three kid scissors, etc. And the kids never know where all their Barbie shoes are, or doll clothes, or anything, really (on the really important/valuable things *I've* established places for them and make sure the kids put them back in there each time, every time, but something things still fall through the cracks). (And dh isn't that much better - important things of his get lost semi-regularly.) I'm kind of sad that I suck so much at teaching the skills of keeping track of things :(. It doesn't help that I'm not all that organized - I just have a good memory and am observant, so I see where things are and remember them (even when the locations are something like "midway down the second pile on the right on the shelf of horribleness" ;)). But that does little good with a family of people whose executive function skills are as mediocre as mine, but are *far* less observant, and with less good a memory. (And the older I get, and the more crap there is to keep track of, my memory is no longer up to the task - so I'm painfully learning how to be somewhat organized.)

I've had the "lost nouns" mommy brain thing since dd9 :-/, and last year the brain fog started hitting hard - couldn't concentrate, couldn't read, couldn't think seriously (and I was also very fatigued - physically, mentally, emotionally) - it was extremely frustrating and disheartening, especially since I'm only in my early 30s. I turned a corner after sleeping 10 hours a night for a month, and I still aim for 9 hours a night now (the nouns go missing whenever I'm short of sleep - it's kind of the first sign of trouble). I also added in exercise (daily walks and stretching/strengthening 2-4x/week), omega-3s and a B-complex (plus a multi-vitamin). And now that it's winter, I've started using a light therapy lamp - SAD's an issue for me, and for whatever reason the brain fog hits hardest when SAD's hitting hardest. (I don't know if the lack of light itself contributes to brain fog or if the depression leads me to do/not-do things that contribute to brain fog (I definitely spend waaaaaaaaaaaaay more time fracturing my attention surfing the web when I feel depressed than otherwise, and that doesn't do good things for my mind or emotions).) And I've prioritized devotions over other thinking reading - I believe that being spiritually renewed and refreshed through God's means of grace is foundational for all of life, physical as well as spiritual, and I finally started living it out ;). I have definitely felt a big improvement doing this, but I think it just is getting me to everyday-typical, maybe a touch more - which is *awesome* compared to the impairment I was experiencing this past Feb-Mar, but isn't always enough to be able to do my studies the way I want to. I can usually read and contemplate my books when I get time during the day (which is a wonderful improvement), but most of my interruption-free time is at night after the kids are in bed, and despite improvements my brain is still not up to heavy reading/thinking then - it's *done*, and I just end up messing around online. I live in hope that continued sleep/exercise/vitamins/light, and continuing striving to live out my faith, will lead to continued improvement - that I haven't plateaued yet, that there's not something more going on. (I do wonder/worry about hypothyroidism - I've some symptoms and it run in the family.)

This is what we do, too. The first year we moved up north, we ended up leaving our lights on 24/7, because plugging and unplugging them in the cold proved beyond us wimpy southerners ;). They were regular lights, and yes, our power bill went up 50% or more - it was ridiculous. Thus why we got the timer - saved the cost of the timer in our power bill in the first year alone.

I read (and reread) them in chronological order - you can figure things out well enough if you start with a later series, but they do include characters already introduced, and, idk, I prefer to know all the backstory and relationships and such, instead of just guessing or inferring or not even realizing the depth of information I'm missing. Agree with a pp that the Trickster series is my favorite :) - I'm still in favor of reading them in order, but if you get bogged down and it's go out of order or nothing, then I vote for go out of order ;).

I grew up along the Gulf Coast and lived in FL before moving up north (to northern IL). I used to think I could live anywhere, but I now don't ever want to go anywhere farther north - it's (mostly) not the cold itself, but it's the *dark* (and the cold+dark together). I had no clue that SAD would be an issue before I got here, but it has become a major issue. The past two years were bad enough that I started planning to get a light therapy lamp this year in August. It's helping, but it is just a barely-adequate substitute for actual sunlight, and it's not the only thing I'm doing to (try to) stave off the black hole of depression. I'm doing fairly well at the moment, but it sometimes feels like half my life is spent preparing for winter/darkness, surviving winter/darkness, and recovering from winter/darkness.

I used to work in an in-house call center (fundraising for the seminary my dh was attending - the school covered a significant portion of the tuition costs for the students in addition to all the other school expenses), and we were happy to send out a letter to anyone who asked. (We were evaluated based on number of completed calls - spoke to a real person and got a yes/no/send-me-a-letter response - instead of on how much we got in pledges, which made for a less stressful working environment.)

The Disney Store has some Star Wars costumes - Princess Leia and Darth Vader, plus some from the new movie. Dd7 got the Princess Leia one, and it was very nice.

So, I've spent the past hour playing around with Genesis 1, trying to fit it to common hymn tunes :lol:. It's easier to work with bigger chunks than just single verses - in fact, if your chapter is all on one theme, you could just do the whole thing to one tune. I started by cutting and pasting the text into a word processor, and put each meaningful chunk on its own line. I then counted the syllables in each line, and took a look at the longest chunk, and whether any patterns were showing themselves. Then I looked up the tunes whose meter matched my longest line, and picked one I knew very, very well (this is key, it was easiest for me to work by ear instead of strictly counting out syllables, and to do that you have to know your tune by heart), and started singing the text, noting where breaks naturally fell, and adjusting my line breaks accordingly (combining small chunks, breaking up bigger chunks, re-chunking sections), as well as breaking the lines into verses. I found it easy to stretch too few syllables (make even a five syllable text fit a tune meant for eight), but with extra syllables, one extra was all that I could easily manage. I worked a verse at a time, and just kept going till I ran out of text. (It's troublesome when you end with less than a full verse - when you get within a few verses of the end, it's worth trying to jiggle the lines to end on a "verse break"). Anyway, I started out using the tune for the Doxology - Old Hundredth - which is in long meter (88 88) and that went reasonably well. There were some lines that required me to take out vowels (over becomes ov'r, the becomes th') to reduce my syllable count, and some lines where I stretched a syllable over three notes, but with creative juggling and *lots* of singing lines over and over and over until I got them to sound right, I got a decent rough draft of Gen 1:1-5 done in an hour :). (I don't know if that's easier or harder than pointing the verses for chanting.)