MrsJewelsRae
-
Posts
512 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by MrsJewelsRae
-
-
Sorry but no. I'd not go along with that. I'd tell her we'll be enjoying both the healthy and traditional fare. I'm used to having to ask people to restrict and exclude things from their menus if we are dining together. My youngest has anaphylactic allergies to several foods, but peanuts especially cannot be present in any foods he eats or those eating with him. That's not a preference, it's necessary, I would never think to control a special meal simply for my own pleasure. It's Christmas- once a year put some butter and sugar in stuff! ;) I'd figure out a way to have both, but if you absolutely cannot bring yourself to disappoint her, at least do your own traditional meal the next day. :)
-
When I was a teen my dad lost his job during the recession. Housing prices dropped crazy and my parents couldn't even sell their house for significantly less than they payed for it. My parents lost everything- the bank foreclosed on our house and it was Christmas. We were broke, scared and sad. My parents couldn't afford to put together Christmas or even buy necessities. I remember our neighbours showing up with a huge box stuffed full with every item you could want to have a great Christmas meal- a big turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, potatoes, corn, carrots, pumpkin pie, big chocolate santas for each kid, etc. I remember my mom crying with thankfulness. :) I don't even remember if we had a tree or any gifts at all that Christmas, but my dad put the lights on the house one last time, we decorated inside, and we had a delicious meal and drank egg nog, sang Christmas carols and enjoyed being together and feeling loved. We weren't the only ones going through hard times, there were several houses on our street alone with foreclosure signs on the lawn, it was such a blessing to see how people were so caring and generous. It really did teach us the true meaning of Christmas is not found in things.
-
My 9.5 yr dd still plays with her doll house regularly and with her girlfriends who are 9-10. I can see her playing with it in one way or another for a few years to come. We've spent some nice times together redecorating it and upgrading the furnishings (we bought it at an antique store for her 5th birthday). I'd definitely reccomend it- good healthy play that keeps them young. :)
-
I have found some of my favorite treasures from other people's trash! My dd's GORGEOUS Jenny Lind style bed frame, old antique windows that I put my kids pics in and hung on the walls, and a beautiful old dresser on display in my living room. :)
-
Yikes, upon reading up further on this group, while I don't think immediate removal of the children is warranted, I do think they should be carefully watched and perhaps have some home visits to try to see if these allegations are true. Still stand by my thoughts on Quebec.
Amy- should have clarified, yes I tend to be super paranoid about CPS and news articles putting CPS and homeschool in the same sentence definitely freak me out too. Guess I was trying to make us both feel a little better. ;)
-
Amy- I'm in Chatham too! hi!
Quebec is biased against homeschooling and religion and daring to opt out of their liberal curriculum- put all 3 together and the fact that your immigrant children have not learned the native language of the province and its no wonder they're going hard after them. Regardless of their beliefs I hope they are given a chance to prove themselves in ontario before CPS tries to take their children away. Being different and perhaps a little dirty should not mean automatic removal of ones children on Quebec's say so. Unless the allegations were more severe I say give them a chance. We also have a fairly new growing community of conservative Muslims (full burqas, etc) here in chatham that has their own school and I haven't heard of any problems they've encountered so far, though they are deffinitely different and keep to themselves. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and I hope it doesn't backfire on the stable homeschool community. I'm not too worried as chatham is kind of the "bible belt" of ontario- lots of churches, some private Christian schools, lots of homeschoolers- our Member of Parliament has lots of family actively involved in our hs community. I've not felt too much judgement with homeschooling here, most people say "good for you" and such. Actually it's been other Christians who have been the most insulting or resistant to it, but even they support our rights. :)
-
The early childhood/babyhood days are gone so so quickly, much too fast. It's not really fair of your dh to hold you to an agreement made pre-children, no woman truly knows how she will feel once she becomes a mother. I would and did anything I could in order to stay home with my children, as it was what I wanted more than anything, and our priority. No, we had no vacations for years, we had one car for years, we were on a very tight budget- paycheque to paycheque and nothing to save- and it was not easy to make things work, but we worked hard and we wouldn't change a thing, I have no regrets! :) We are in a much better place financially now, we have 2 cars and are finally going on a long awaited vacation. We pinched our pennies, shopped thrift stores (still do), I did some daycare at home, used cloth diapers (loved it!), cooked from scratch, etc and it was all worth it. I wouldn't trade a moment of those baby days for the ease of bill paying, vacations or a savings account, especially since I didn't get as many babies as I always hoped for, I'm glad I cherished all the moments I could with them when they were small. :)
Jewels- mama to ds (11), dd (9), ds (5)
-
I have one dd in the middle and my boys are 6 years apart so there's not much hand me down going between siblings, but they still get lots of hand me downs. My youngest probably gets the most new since its cheapest and easiest to find in our town. My dd gets a ton of hand me downs from my friend (and I pass my youngest boy's clothes on to her son). Dd loves getting a big bag of hand me downs to go through. I take my kids to value village and thrift stores regularly so they can pick out "new to them" clothes within our budget. I go to the city where the bigger stores are like Old Navy and we buy a few new things a couple times a year.
-
I live in ontario, our taxes are higher than the US and that's how we have "free" health care for all. Some points I can think of:
You chose your dr, but there is a dr shortage so a lot of people are stuck with a dr they don't prefer or they have no family dr and need to use a walk in clinic. When my dr moved I had to find a new family dr and I was able to get in easily partly through "connections" and because my kids have health issues which bump them higher on the wait list (dd has asthma, ds has anaphylactic food allergies)
Midwifery care is fully covered in ontario, I had a homebirth with my middle child and it was free, I just bought my own towels, bedding, etc.
The hospital had lactation consultants on hand that gave free consultations while you're in the hospital, as well as drop in sessions.
There is dental coverage for children whose parents don't have benefits (my dh is self employed and we have no benefits and make under a certain amount of $ so we are able to have our kids' dental needs covered through a program we applied for- it covers preventative as well as problems, but not cosmetic or braces.
You can walk into any ER and seek help but as there is no "competition" for hospitals like in the US and combined with the dr shortage and other issues the wait can be very very long, if you're not bleeding profusely or suffering a heart attack you will often wait a ridiculous amount of time in the waiting room. If at all possible, you really ought to see your family doc. In our town we drive 40 minutes to the next ER in a smaller town if we can because we know we'll actually get treated fairly quickly, most people know that our local (10 mins from us) city hospital (rural town of 40,000) sucks at getting people through in a timely manner. We only go to our local hospital for extreme emergencies. Part of the problem is that lots of people clog up the system with non emergent issues because "it's free" or they have no dr. It's not unusual to see people in ER cause they have a bad cold, or they're high.
Infertility treatment has some coverage, including some coverage of IVF for patients that qualify (first child only, etc). Our appointments with the RE were covered, all testing was covered, procedures were covered (the IUI itself was covered, ultrasounds as well, but sperm washing was payed out of pocket- about $150 I think). All drugs were payed for out of pocket.
Specialist appointments (allergist, gynecologist, RE, etc) can be months long wait times. I once waited 9 months for a gyn appointment when I was newlywed and having terrible pain issues with my endometriosis. The wait for the RE was about 5-6 months from referral. Allergist was a couple months. Once you get in as a patient you can get appointments much easier, it's the time from referral to first appointment that's so long.
It's not a perfect system, and I've never had to navigate it through a catastrophic illness like cancer. In many cases you can improve the wait times by being your own advocate, being pushy, having an excellent dr who fights for you, etc.
My friend has extremely high risk pregnancies and thankfully lives near top hospitals in the country (Mount Sinai and Sick Kids). She spent a month on hospital bedrest, then had an emergency c section at 28 weeks, and her baby spent 4 months in NICU. Her biggest expense was parking.
-
My sister and her husband wanted to move away from the city they've been living in for the 10 years they've been married. They were really desperate for friendships for themselves and their little girls and they just weren't finding it where they lived. They're very close to us so my bil told his boss he was moving and he would be happy to stay with the company in a different capacity or he'd be giving his notice. His boss scrambled and actually decided to make a new position for him so he could stay on, he was doing a lot of on the road work anyhow and they needed a new branch down in our area (4 hrs away!) but had never gotten around to it. So, he's keeping his job but they're moving 4 hours away to our town- a place they can actually afford to buy a house, they'll be 10 minutes away from us, our church has lots of kids the same age as theirs (including mine!), they'll be joining the homeschool group I'm in, and we have several hs families in our church! So they bought a lovely house and they're moving here in 2 weeks- we can't wait! We never thought we'd be able to live in the same city, after I've been living down here for 14 years with dh and it's all worked out so neat and fast!
-
Tons of garlic till you can smell it in your skin! Scored cabbage leaves on your breasts. Make sure your nursing bra doesn't have a tight seam running across your breast that's causing a plug- that's where mine hapenned. Warm WET compresses- no dry heat!!
-
My best friend introduced us at a bible conference when I was 17 and he was 21. He was her brother's good friend. I was saving a seat for my best friend and he asked me "is this seat saved for Mr. Right?" ;) My best friend came along and introduced us. We lived 4 hours apart and didn't have Internet so we only saw each other a couple times a year at special church conventions. When he came to Toronto for my church conference I fell hard for him, I was almost 19. A few months later our moms got talking at another church conference and realized they grew up in the same town and his mom was my grandpa's secretary 25 years earlier!
To my shock his mom invited our family to spend the weekend at their house a couple months later (she is totally against match making, still don't know what possessed her!?). Dh took my sister and I out for dinner with the youth group from his church and when we got in the car after it was sooo cold I was shivering and holding my hands in front of the heater when he reached over and took my hand in his and held it all the way home!! I'm pretty sure I didn't breathe or blink the whole way! ;) A few months later he proposed and a few months after that we were married! :) We've been married for 14 years!
-
My dh has been packing on weight and eating way too much fast food and sugar for several years. He's tried a few diets half heartedly here and there and lost nothing. He signed up for MyFitnessPal app on his iPhone 6 weeks ago and he's hooked, he's doing great, eating almost no fast food, he's not depriving himself, and he's losing! He's lost 20+ lbs since he started and he intends to keep at it, get to his target weight and keep it off. I'm really hopeful this time he's going to have long term lifestyle change success. He really likes how easy it is. :)
-
Btdt! I host all the holiday meals since we have the best location- one year I was 38 weeks pregnant! This year I decided to get everything done ahead of time as much as possible. I cooked up 2 turkeys a day or 2 before, made the gravy, carved it all up and put it all in my big slow cooker. Carrots were chopped and put in the small crock pot, squash was baked and just needed reheating, same with the mashed potatoes. Baked 2 pies. The day of most everything just needed to be heated and we pulled off dinner for 20 fairly easily! :)
-
I highly recommend getting an adjustment done by a chiropractor trained to treat pregnant patients. I think when everything is all aligned well and loosened up it may allow the baby to drop or apply the right even pressure where it needs to. I had this done at 41 weeks (my blood pressure was climbing i had to be transfered from my midwives to an OB and he was pushing for full on induction w/i a couple days) as well as acupressure and it helped get things moving, then getting my membranes stripped that afternoon pushed me into full labor a few hours later. Ds was born naturally, nearly 9 lbs and very healthy. :) I went from 2cm to birth in 45 minutes, no tearing and was home in a few hours.
-
Withholding information is not the same as lying. You cannot trust information of this magnitude to a child, there is a huge risk that they will tell the children whose father died. They don't need to know, tell them he was sick, he was obviously emotionally/mentally ill if he committed suicide, but they don't need all the details. If you tell them he committed suicide, they're going to ask how- do they really need to know that too? As a child I was told some very damaging/ sensitive information by my cousin, I was too young to understand it and process it and felt too upset and embarrassed to ask my parents about it. It was info I did not need to know, and neither did the cousin, my parents would have shared it eventually when I was old enough. My aunt never should have told my cousin that info and just trusted her not to share it. Imagine how you would feel if a random cousin insensitively told your children that their father killed himself, please don't put this responsibility on your kids, and the risk on your already grieving nieces/nephews.
-
I love roasting veggies just in olive oil and salt/pepper, but I've also made brussel sprouts lightly steamed, chopped in half, mix in cream of mushroom soup (I use homemade but you can use condensed) and bake for about 15-20 mins, top with shredded cheddar- my kids love it that way! :)
-
I was driving on a busy county highway, everyone going about 90-100 km/h when I saw a woman driving a pick up truck with small children sitting in the back- in the bed of the truck!!! There wasn't even a cap over the bed, those kids could have been bounced out so easily, plus they were like 6-7 years old! I was soooo mad!!! Yes, I called 911. That's the worst one I've seen.
-
We just started a women's bible study at church on the book of Esther: It's Tough Being A Woman and we are doing the workbooks and watching the videos- I really love the videos, don't think I'd enjoy it as much without them. A few of my girlfriends did "Breaking Free" and said it was amazing, I'm going to do it on my own.
-
If cost is an issue, I'd go with pasta. It's easy and cheap. Buy a couple of disposable roasting pans and cook up a bunch of noodles (penne, rigatoni, etc) and cook them in batches, add some good bottled or canned sauces, shredded mozzarella mixed in and on top. You can add ground beef or meatballs if you find them on sale. Cover in foil and bake til hot but don't dry it out. Add a salad and rolls, done! :)
Rice and meatballs/ chicken and broccoli can also be done in big roasters with your choice of sauce.
-
My word some people are ridiculous! We have outdoor cats, they are barn cats, we don't get them fixed or vaccinated because they wander off and city people tend to drop off cats here because we have a barn and live in the country (while we're out, it's hapenned several times). But we do care for them, we feed them and play with them, but they do not come inside, we have allergies and I'm not willing to have cats in the house. We have a mutual agreement, they hunt mice on our property and I'll give them shelter in the barn, some food and love. The most we've had at a time is 3, tomcats tend to wander off if there are more than 1, we've lost at least 1 to coyotes, a few on the road, etc. I'm not a heartless person, I love animals and treat them well. Just because the cats are not allowed in the house doesn't mean it's ok for some random person to walk off with my animals! WTH?! My word, the woman left them assumingly with food and water and the companionship of each other in a sheltered place in her property for a few hours and you're calling her a bad pet owner?! They're certainly better off there than rotting in an overcrowded animal shelter. Pets get out. Sometimes the gate is left open or they bolt out the door, it happens to many pet owners. Does that mean whoever finds them (and even knows who owns them) can keep them and just assume that whoever lost them didn't care about them? The neighbour obviously has a screw loose, she knows who the kittens belong to and has no right to keep them. Her cats got out by accident! My senior neighbours have a friendly farm dog, he sometimes wanders over here to see my kids, that doesn't mean I get to keep him.
-
I've had my Diva cup for 8 years and I'll never go back! I have a tilted uterus that's a little low after 3 kids and I had issues with poking and discomfort, or the cup simply protruding. But I read a tip on here a few years ago about flipping the cup inside out. Problem solved! It's much more comfortable now and it functions even better.
-
Sorry about your reaction. :) My 4 year old ds is highly anaphylactic to peanuts, among other things. I've had a few idiots I've run into as well. At the farmers market a few months ago we walked by a peanut booth and the man shoved a scoop of peanuts toward my ds, offering him some! I pulled my ds away and shouted "no he's allergic!" - he rolled his eyes as if he didn't believe me and even attempted to push the scoop at us again as we were rushing away! My dh was about ready to kill the guy when I told him about it. At another farmers market a few weeks ago my friend stopped to pick up some cookies at a booth, the lady offered her some peanut butter cookies and she declined saying "no sorry, I don't want to eat any peanuts as my friend and her son are visiting me and he's deathly allergic". The lady went on a rant about these peanut allergy people who expect everyone to run their lives around their problems, peanut free schools, etc and finished with "why don't they put them in their own schools?!". Ya, sorry my sweet and adorable little boy's life threatening food allergy is such an inconvenience to you!!! While they're annoyed at having to find peanut alternatives for school lunch, my heart stops every time my son sneezes when he's eating.
Fwiw, while I do have my concerns about vaccines my son is completely unvaccinated. He is my only child who I took prometrium progesterone supplement with- which is suspended in peanut oil (I was otherwise peanut free during my pregnancies), and he's the only one with food allergies. I think there are multiple reasons why we are seeing such an increase...
-
Nothing. Ever. 14 years of marriage. PCOS, endo, and low sperm made that a non issue, tho we had decided to leave it up to God, but we ended up having to go the other way by using meds, procedures, etc to get pregnant.
For Christmas next year . . .
in The Chat Board
Posted
I'm having the guys do all the post meal clean up again while I take a nap! ;) I pulled off a full Christmas dinner and dessert, plus a double batch of cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast all by myself for my family and my sister's family but I could not stay on my feet once we had eaten. I'm still recovering from a brutal bout of influenza so for the first time in 14 years the guys did all the clean up while I took a nap. It worked out quite nicely and the men survived. ;) Think that should become tradition. :) Even better, I'd like to not have the flu next year, but that's seems to be a tradition too unfortunately...