The only problem with the little Moka pots is that it requires a bit of concentration & paying attn to make coffee in them. A programmable drip that you can set up the night before & it's ready when you stagger into the kitchen is wonderful for some of us....

Isn't there a Starbucks or other coffee shop near you? They'd have it. Also check the hippie health food section of your grocery store. We have different coffee in that section - organic fair trade etc. I use Kicking Horse and they make a lovely Cliffhanger espresso bean.

I wouldn't really care about the apology because that's just not a big deal to me. BUT - I wouldn't let her take the final exam for the driving licence. I'd make her wait another month at least & demonstrate more responsible driving skills, including adjusting speed for conditions and heeding safety warnings from occupants. If I were feeling really cranky, I'd make her write an essay on the demonstrated dangers of excessive speed.

It is not right to leave abandoned cats outside & no, it is not right to stop feeding it. It's obviously not feral. In my area we have no kill shelters. Cats are checked for tattoos or microchips & they attempt to reunite the cat with owners, in case kitty is just lost. If no owner is found, the cats are spayed/neutered, vet checked, vaccinated & put up for adoption. In fact I'm setting up a live trap tomorrow as I've had a little tortie visiting my yard but it's too skittish to come to me. A couple blocks from me are some apartment buildings & people dump the cats when on moving day at the beginning of the month :( Absolutely positively do not let any cat go outside without confirming that it's been spayed or neutered. There are too many cats in the world already & it's cruel to contribute to the feral cat overpopulation. The fact that it's hard to adopt out cats should make people realize the urgency of dealing with cat over population....

Miquon Saxon Mapping the World by Heart Drawing with Children AoPS Patty Paper Geometry Nebel's Elementary Education

nm

how adorable!!!

Amateurs. Aeropress or cold-brew a la Corey Doctorow is the true west coast hipster coffee afficionado way ;) We have an electric kettle. We're serious tea drinkers too.

I read through the wikipedia article on it & it touches on some good points, including that some studies are finding that in the higher iq ranges, the generational effect is a decrease. I think it's diet - both prenatal & postnatal - & stress (or more precisely, lack thereof). And what I think is that the groups that were scoring low were stunted & so with improvements in health & lifestyle, they're more likely to reach full potential.

The only advantage to it as far as I can see is that twice a year we get to practice resetting the clocks on our microwaves and ovens etc... Good practice for power outages :p I hate the clock moving thing. Let's just all agree to stop. -signed cranky, sleep deprived and have a headache

French Press style is a plunger type coffee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_press

Your blender might not be able to handle a good green smoothies & IMO, green smoothies are the only worthwhile smoothies :) The others are just too sugary - fruit sugar is still just sugar. I'd recommend looking at this website http://simplegreensmoothies.com/ There's really not much to it. Get your greens, add your frozen fruit, add enough liquid to process & you're done. At the beginning your ratio of fruit to greens might be 2:1 or even 3:1. As you get used to the flavour, go down to 1:1. Baby spinach is the mildest green to start & high quality frozen bluberries are probably the best at making it palatable to a novice. Mango, banana, strawberry are also good options. Careful with pineapple & kiwi as those can upset stomachs...

total tangent but reminds me of another high profile inventor's remorse: Labradoodle Inventor Regrets His Creation I wish municipalities would put higher taxes on disposable/single use plastic crap items. The municipality has to pay to deal with all the garbage so why not? Using money to induce changes in bhvr seems the most practical approach. We already have fees on electronics & car tires here for ex, to help pay for getting them properly recycled....

UVA rays go through windows & even small incremental minutes outside add up, so IMO, a base minimum sunscreen should be worn every day. But maybe that's just me :) I'm desparately trying to avoid any more damage from my misspent youth on beaches & boats. As always ymmv

Paula's Choice has several you might like. This one is tinted a very light beige so you don't get a white cast. It disappears into the skin. http://www.paulaschoice.com/shop/skin-care-categories/sun-protection/_/Resist-Super-Light-Daily-Wrinkle-Defense-SPF-30/ I also have this one http://www.paulaschoice.com/shop/skin-care-categories/sun-protection/_/Resist-Cellular-Defense-Daily-Moisturizer-with-SPF-25-and-Antioxidants/ & http://www.paulaschoice.com/shop/skin-care-categories/sun-protection/_/Hydralight-Shine-Free-Daily-Mineral-Complex-SPF-30/ (& I have her tinted bb creme too , which also has spf 30) I alternate which I use. Mineral sunscreen tends to be a bit tight feeling on your face, so you may need to ramp up the moisturizer in the evening. I use a moisturizing toner before applying & it's usually enough but i know some people apply a separate moisturizer or serum. Anyway - they're all worth trying. If you're anything like me, your skin changes from season to season so having slightly different formulations is nice as things work a bit differently at different times of the year. & All her products are cruelty free ;)

Why would you need to do anything about it? We have skunks coming through our property all the time & we see them out on walks in the evening. And raccoons. And coyotes. The bears I get a little antsy about but they're a lot rarer. Skunks don't do us any harm. (& yeah, I have 3 dogs. Fingers crossed but none of them have been foolish enough to get skunked yet... but it's ok if they do. It's not the end of the world....) The only time I'd do anything is if I saw an injured one - in which case I'd use a humane trap & take it to the wildlife rehab center (where dd works LOL. She heals skunks on a fairly regular basis) They are gentle & beneficial animals. here's more info on skunks & some humane steps you can take to encourage them to set up residence somewhere else if it's a real problem for you: http://www.spca.bc.ca/welfare/wildlife/urban-wildlife/skunks.html

And just à propos here's our psa for parents of boys ;) http://www.testicularcancersociety.org/index.html there's also a fairly nsfw but probably appealing to certain young men site in the uk which you can find through googling 'check one two uk' and 'feeling nuts'

:grouphug: aw seriously, that's SO sweet. Sorry it took forever! The walk ins get insanely busy on Saturday. I posted as soon as I got home! Go and enjoy your day!!

thx everyone. back from dr. on initial exam the doctor thinks it's something benign but we have ultrasound next wed to make sure. at some point i'll have to have a gentle conversation with ds about taking care of things quickly & either telling us or going to dr on his own promptly. he first noticed it last august :huh:

Ds confided to me very late last night that he has a lump where there shouldn't be one, and has had some odd symptoms. Spent the rest of the night rubbing his back as he is terrified of what this means. We're going to try to find an open walk in clinic this morning. It's hard for my mind to not leap to the worst case scenario either...

I think if I were in this position I'd call community public health social workers, and/or just call an ambulance. If she's undiagnosed, this is crazy. She might have something completely different, something treatable....

I typed up a response & deleted but I'll try again... I'm ditto'ing happycc because I like her recommendations. I think many of the curricula you listed are too 'exploration' based & too time intensive. They can work for certain families, but if they're not working for you right now, ditch them. There's no shame in moving to a more 'open, teach, repeat' curriculum. I think some of the things you've listed are frankly just too airy-fairy. They require a certain type of student and a certain type of parent to implement well. For some of us, a book that says "say this. Repeat it. Write it down. Have student read it. Have student write it. Correct as they go along." etc is what's needed. Those things were much more likely to get done here. ETA - "don't ditch curricula too early." :) The only exceptions are the ones you get in the mail & open the box & go 'what was I thinking???' Usually you know within the first lesson that it's just not going to work. There are only a handful of things that I bought which never got used & almost all of them were of the "this is better because it teaches REAL understanding" variety (complete with the slight air of disdain for the other curricula which just teach kids to 'parrot'). I got sucked into the hype ;) You mention some open & go things didn't work either because they weren't really open & go or because your dd would essential balk at some point. The suggestions from happy cc are all good options. And I'd gently suggest that every curriculum will suck at some point, your dc won't like it some days, some days you won't like it, some days it will be boring, some days it will be confusing for either one or both of you... That's ok. Just open the book & carry on. Give it several months (or a whole semester) of solid use before deciding whether a curriculum will work or not & whether you want to continue or switch for the next level. Don't expect to love every minute of every day. Consider too how much actual teaching you're doing. I still get into the trap of thinking "I've explained it to you, shown you an example, you're read the explanation WHY ARE YOU NOT GETTING IT?" That's how it is sometimes. Sometimes you have to explain, explain again, skip it, cycle back next week, explain in a different way, forget about it & move on again. Expect this to happen. Also consider your expectations for her output. Are they reasonable? In a classroom, the teacher is doing a lot of talking, demonstrating, & the kids are not working independently for long periods of time. One on one, I know I was guilty of overloading my kids when they were young. Evals would be good but I also think your child is young & I don't think it would be necessarily wrong to decide on a tincture of time & reassess how things are next year, after you're actually used a single curriculum for a longer period..

It's on her profile page :)

I sort of count calories but only loosely & mostly I count the carbs & the rich protein/fat things. What I try to focus on is 8-10 servings of veg & fruit - & at least 1/2 of that but preferably 2/3 should be veg, not fruit. I don't calorie count veg at all, but I count fruit. easiest for me is green smoothies - doesn't even require chopping, just rinse, dump & turn the machine on. A green smoothie before every meal when I'm actively nudging my weight down. Before dinner for maintenance. Add 4 servings of grains/day 3 servings of legumes some nuts & seeds & we're done for the day. I'm the laziest cook in the world. Either oatmeal or a whole grain cereal + soy milk for breakfast. Rice is either leftovers from dinner or a roll with (vegan) ham/cheese/hummus + whatever fruit & veg fresh or in a smoothie dinner is curry, pasta, wraps, veggie burger, tacos, or soup & all based on bean & lentils & tofu or Yves cuisine Just Like Ground for filling tacos and wraps. This is pretty much it, in constant rotation. Sometimes we get Gardein faux chicken breasts & use those for wraps or bake them & serve with potatoes & mushroom gravy. I'm hungry from the moment I wake up till about 3pm & then I'm not hungry any more, so actually I often skip dinner altogether. Whichever way it goes, I just keep on eating from my daily 'plate' until I hit about 1700 cal. snacks for me are nuts, carrot sticks or very occasionally pretzels. They're my 'thing'. I love pretzels. But what I try to do is think if I'm actually hungry - if I'm hungry, I should eat more of a meal, rather than a snack.... My dd likes to bake desserts so there are often baked goods here. I will usually have one but that counts as one of my grain/starch things so I better not have been hitting the Squirrely bread that day. I try to weigh myself weekly but usually it's every 2 weeks & sometimes more. I use the Wii for it - I like that it keeps tracks & gives me a nice chart but I hate that it takes time to turn on. (Also its obsession about L & R balance. It's never satisifed. I got 49.9% once & still got the lecture about working on my core strength.. )

You can leave it if it's working but here you're legally required to disclose that it might need servicing soon. If the buyer hires a home inspector, the home inspector would note it or perhaps ask outright "when did you have this last serviced and what the did the service say?" When we were buying, the vendors showed us some service receipts for furnace & hot water tanks... They had to fill out a long form about all aspects of the home & that was given to their realtor who gave it to our realtor & our home inspector.