We stick to around 20 carbs per day. Low carb/high fat. No grains, no sugar. Lots of veggies, meats, healthy fats and keep fruits to a handful of berries, usually with breakfast or a late night snack. My DH has lost 34 lbs since May. No hunger, no cravings and blood tests came back after 3 months with lower cholesterol and he is no more pre-diabetic.

I bought some tyvek suits and N99 masks for my husband. He uses them in his shop when handling solvents and doing sanding work. They are much cheaper online.

My husband swears I look just like the dark haired girl in the show Two Broke Girls. I don't know her name and I didn't see a resemblance at all. Of course, she is in her twenties and I'm pushing 50. I was looking through my high school yearbook and damned if there isn't a picture of me where even I can see the resemblance.

We started out using MUS and it was too distracting for my daughter. She wasn't interested in it at all except for playing with the manipulatives. We switched to CLE in first grade and it's just what she needs with no distracting colors or pictures. At the start of 3rd grade I switched her to Teaching Textbooks (my older daughter used it for all of HS and loved it) but she hated it. We lasted all of two weeks with TT and then went back to CLE. She took her end of the year testing (3rd grade) and scored on a 5th grade level.

I put up with a lot of garbage in my first marriage but I drew the line on another woman. My answer is absolutely NO WAY would I even think about working on a marriage built on that kind of deceit.

Do you keep it pulled back? I used to always wear my hair pulled back and my DH never noticed my hair cuts. I'm like you, I go very rarely to get it done because I usually wind up taking the scissors to my own hair. I lost 40 lbs before he noticed, and that was only after someone else mentioned it in his presence.

What's up with the "likes" not showing up?

The quality is good. We have several shirts from them and they have all held up just fine. They are Jerzees heavyweight blend, 50/50 cotton/polyester.

Greatproducts.com is having their annual homeschool t-shirt sale. Between myself and my two daughters we have at least 10 of their shirts. Love them! They have a lot of cute shirts for both kids and parents. www.shopgreatproducts.com

I went and will go again next year.

We are very flexible and our schedule changes day to day. My daughter is in competition training so we work our school work schedule around it. It usually takes us about 3-3.5 hrs to get all our work done each day. That is not including Art, which my daughter LOVES and will literally spend hours on it at a time. It's not unusual for her to work on her art projects after dinner until bedtime. 5x a week: Lifepac Bible 10-20 mins CLE Math 20-45 mins BJU English 20-30 SpellWell Spelling 10 mins BJU Handwriting 15 mins BJU Reading 30 mins 2x a week: Apologia Science 30-60 mins depending on experiment or just reading/recording data BJU Heritage Studies 30-45 mins. Science and History are two more of her favorite subjects so there are times when we pull other resources and it takes longer. Lifepac Health 15-20 mins Art

Our dojo is small too. We have the Shihan, who is an 8th degree black belt, Sensei M who is 3rd degree black belt and Sensei B who is first degree black belt. It's usually the same Sensei in the daytime and afternoon, and the Shihan usually comes in for the afternoon/evening classes. My daughter is one of the assistant Sensei's, as is almost all of the kids in the "Black belt club". These are kids that have decided to work to black belt and can come to as many classes per week as they want. Being in the BBC they are required to help teach two classes per month. My daughter helps in 4 each week. Shameless mommy brag: My daughter is on the competition team. She won in both the State and Regional Qualifiers and a few weeks ago she won the gold medal and title of 2014 National Champion at the AAU Nationals in Ft. Lauderdale.

I haven't read all the responses but I think the workbooks from the dollar store/ Walmart are not meant to be used as a complete curriculum. We used Kumon books in the preschool years but I wouldn't group something like CLE in with those. My daughter is a workbook girl. She wants to take her workbook and get it done independently. Almost all of our curriculum (with the exception of History) is workbook based. She tested well above her level in all subjects so I know what we use works for her. I also am anapproved re-seller for Starline Press, which is a workbook based, secular curriculum.

Try using heavy whipping cream in place of half and half. It has more fat and calories. My daughter trains for competition karate approx 18 hrs per week. (She won the title of 2014 karate national champion earlier this month!) This is the rule at her Dojo. If you don't eat, don't bother coming to work out. She is very thin, although very healthy. I add butter and heavy whipping cream to a lot of things. Her favorite is a garlic/butter/parmesan cheese mixture on top of meats and chicken. It adds healthy fats and calories to her diet effortlessly.

I want to cross the country in a plane on July 4th so I can see fireworks from the sky. I want to take my daughter to visit China, the country of her birth. Travel. I'll go anywhere really. I'm easy that way.

This is all I wear. I cannot wear anything else.

And yet I have changed it again lol.. We scrapped Lifepac History and are now doing BJU Heritage Studies. We haven't touched the Studies Weekly yet. Everything else is the same. We are 12 days into our new year, 4th grade.

I don't know, it sounds reasonable to me lol

My list of what I do eat is a lot shorter. I'm a very picky eater and don't stray much from my very limited menu. I would die before eating any of the following: Any and all seafood Coconut Vegetables besides green beans Anything from Taco Bell Anything raw Any meat not burnt or charred to shoe leather consistency

LOL yeah, we changed up what was planned too. We are 10 days into new school year. CLE Math 4, Apologia Zoology 2 Swimming Creatures, ACE Creative Writing and Literature, English, Word Building, SpellWell C/Cc, Editor in Chief, Draw and Write thru History, BJU Heritage Studies 4, Lifepac Health and Bible

I had the same problem with Chinese. I couldn't make sense out of it at all. I hired a native Chinese speaking kid from the local college and still had problems. My daughter had zero desire to learn, which didn't help. We gave up on it, and will try again maybe next year.

What about a TWA with a headband or cute barrette? That will keep people from thinking she is a boy.

There is a ton of info and helpful ladies on the Curly Girl forums. http://www.naturallycurly.com/curltalk/ (I'm a 3B)

My daughter uses ACE for English, Word Building and Creative Writing. It's not my favorite but it is hers. It totally fits her independent learning style. We use a work box system and she gets to choose which subject to do first and ACE is always her first choice. I was not thrilled with the ACE history and science. We use CLE for math, BJU for history and Apologia for science. We never used ACE math and CLE works well for her so I'm not switching. I want to add that I was hesitant to use ACE at first. I don't know that I have seen so many negative reviews on any other curriculum before. So much so that I decided to have her tested to see where she was academically after using ACE this past year. Honestly, I was kind of looking for a reason to NOT use ACE. As we finished 3rd grade I had her tested for the first time and she scored on a 5th and 6th grade level when it came to LA. So for my daughter, it's working, she is learning and retaining.

We went to SeaWorld two weeks ago and they do NOT have any type of homeschool discount. We went to Disney in October for their "Homeschool days". We have done that a few times and it really is a good deal.