I drive for a living, and put 100,000 miles on my last vehicle in a little over 2 years, so yeah, we feel the pinch. We have a policy in place to charge gas surcharges but I am trying REALLY hard to avoid charging it. We are already over the surcharge price here. I'm working really hard to loop all my driving instead of multiple trips out of the house or back tracking. I used google driving directions to figure out the best route for the business that saved me about 40 minutes of driving every week. I also started budgeting for EVERYTHING. We are down to $140 a week for food (breakfast, dinner and kids lunches), I have a separate budget for my lunches, since I am always out. If it gets much worse I might start brown bagging it on the 3 days I usually eat out. I am not shopping at all right now, and I'm starting to miss my friends. I hadn't realized how much our friendships revolved around shopping trips.

We also read the For Couples Only books and they really helped.

Your post is exactly where my marriage is right now. I wish I knew how to fix it, but it's a hard road. I've learned there are certain topics that he only needs the cliff notes on, and others that require longer debates. And of course, any time we disagree, we have a hard time discerning the 'I disagree with what you said', from 'I disagree with you', so they become arguments then end with one of us saying something along the lines of "I'm just not going to give you my opinion anymore'. We are trying to work on it, but it's not easy. I wish I had some great advice for you, but I can say you are not alone!

Kianna started at 3 1/2, D (4 1/2) has about 50 sight words and strong phonics skills. He just doesn't have the desire yet to put it all together.

:iagree: We don't have enough time for her to look up every word she asks about. Usually she is just double checking and is correct anyway.

She also has awful handwriting, though punctuation is no problem.

WOW. Maybe I'm crazy but I never realized this wasn't a normal thing. DD is about a grade ahead in math if I use a white board or chalkboard and write everything for her, while she does all the calculations in her head. She does not test well in math at all at school. If you go off test grades, she is a C student in her 5th grade class. Once homework and work sheets are factored in she's getting a B. But we just did some algebra last night off her homework that she didn't even struggle with when I wrote it for her on the board. I feel bad now, but I actually got annoyed :blushing: that she asked for help when she did it so easily. :confused: Should I have her tested? She used to be a strong reader but lately has been whiny about it, I chalked it up to wanting to ride her bike since it's been so nice here, but maybe I'm just being an awful mom?? :confused:

Both of my kids have been gassed on more than one occasion and I don't remember anything about not eating? We have a dentist we love who is known as the best in the county and we have NEVER waited that long.

What have you found useful in remembering things? I just had to call the owner of our businesses building because I found the rent check in my purse. :glare: Luckily the family who owns the building are really nice and I don't do this often so they are not charging a late fee. (yes that means it's been done before) But I'm realizing I'm to the point of needing a check list for what should be minor things. I shouldn't NEED a check list to remind me to drop rent at the post office.

How'd I miss it?! Other than Saturday day I have been on a lot, it's a slow weekend here.

This explains it much better than I did!

The use of the booster as I understand it is to make a false hip area in case of accident. The force of the seat belt could break the hip bones but with the booster the seat belt cannot tighten as much and protect the child's hips.

:iagree:

I'd move. I need a yard for the kids to get energy out in. Also as long as your DH doesn't mind it, the yard work isn't that bad in most situations. You could always get a push mower and have the kids help for their physical education! ;) lol

In AL you would be breaking the law, in California you wouldn't. My father in law died a few years back from liver failure. He spent his entire life having to cycle through narcotic pain relievers. His kidneys had both failed, and was only still alive because he had one from my husband. The polio and other heath issues is not what killed him. The medications that he had to take to make living bearable did. My next door neighbor is dying of cancer. She was given weeks to live back in May because she could not hold food down, and was not responding well to treatment. She is still battling cancer today. She doesn't smoke marijuana, but eats it. Small amounts are made into butter that her husband cooks for her with. She started eating more, which I believe is the reason she is able to have the strength to fight her battle. My grandmother was given THC pills in the hospital, a common treatment for patients who are slowly dying. It helped her have the desire to eat more, and was able to hold on until her sisters made it here from Mexico. I do not advocate marijuana ever being made fully legal as many in my state do. However, I don't believe you should judge it so harshly, when I have seen first hand how when used properly they can aid in saving lives, or creating the chance to fight. Calling it nasty and making closed minded judgments isn't going to help anybody. Someday you might look back and think maybe you should have looked into it more. I have seen it do amazing things WHEN USED PROPERLY. I have also seen a friend's wife deteriorate and start breaking into people's homes to get money to buy narcotic pain relievers. She is in jail now, and her daughter is being raised without her. Those pills can be just as dangerous if used incorrectly.

That's great!! :)

I base our after-schooling on what she is getting at that time in her school. They switch between history and science each semester this year so we switch and do the opposite of what she's doing in school. I incorporate a lot of writing into either subject, so I don't use any formal plan for language arts. We always do math, and always do foreign language. She goes to an arts based school so I don't do any music or art at home. In the last two years she's learned the piano and violin at school, in addition to a visual arts class and a graphic arts class. I'd suggest waiting to buy curriculum until you see what areas you want to supplement.

When I was in high school, my economics teacher heard me tell a friend I was up all night on the phone with my boyfriend. She immediately stepped in and asked where my mom was. I can't remember my exact answer but I know it wasn't polite in the least, and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed by cps because the teacher claimed my mom wasn't providing supervision. :glare: I get that there are times where hunches are wrong, and they shatter a family. However, there are times where if you don't say SOMETHING, no one else will either. The girl was here at our house last week, and she seems to be adjusting well to being at the aunts. She is seeing a therapist, and the aunt implied the husband is telling the truth (this is the moms sister, not the dads). Teens are hard to judge, and I am glad I don't have to work with them often. The cheerleaders and students I work with are 3rd through 8th grade, and my interaction with the 7th and 8th graders is limited.

I bolded the ending to be sure you caught that. With cheer I am with these kids 3-4 hours a day, 4 days a week. I know temperaments of the girls, I see interaction with parents. If that was the only thing I would have chopped it up to the mom being the dominant parent. That was not the case. The girl in question is now living with an aunt, and the parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce where the husband claims the wife is abusive. So yeah, I think I was in the right on that one. I am not quick to report, and I know all of the reports I made from cheer were also reported by another mandated reporter who works for the DAs office. She is actually much quicker to report than I am.

Wow Emily what an awful position to be in. It's hard when it's a friend involved. The language issue is hard because we are talking about an older child, but if it was me I would make the call on emotional abuse, just to get someone looking in that direction. At 16 the boy does indeed get the right to state where he wants to live BUT if the Mom can prove that drugs are being used in the home or prove some abuse she could possibly get custody still. She needs to be keeping print outs of every single text received from the father AND the son, they could be used to show lack of parental control in court later.

I guess maybe you took my meaning to be literal when I said 'high', and maybe I should have picked a different word? However, it still seems you are saying the same thing I did, and have been saying over and over. The original point was that taking a prescribed amount of medical marijuana is not as harsh on the body as a prescribed amount of narcotic pain reliever. How it turned into this issue with you I have no clue. :confused:

:lol:

And I totally agree with that! I'm not sure how I wasn't. Pain relievers are just that, PAIN relievers. When used properly you can get great benefit from them.

:confused: How are you correcting my statement? I never said that pain pills make you high? AND those abusing them DO get high, my statement was about the difference between using mj for medical reasons as opposed to just getting high. Not everyone realizes there is a difference. I know many conservative people who think cancer patients are just using it as a reason to get stoned. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

Clark Howard has a podcast about this. They drop the price of the printer and mark up the ink. Everything equals out for them apparently. I will say, last week I replaced an Epson office series with a Lexmark office series because I would save about $10 a refill on ink.