This has been my experience, too. I lost about 40 lbs from 2001 to 2002 by cutting out anything white and refined. Then I became vegan in 2003 and kept the weight off without any difficulty until I had children! After I had my DD in 2008, I started eating a lot more of the calorically-dense comfort-type foods. I gained about 30 lbs. I'm now back to making much more conscious choices about more vegetables, less refined food--generally more whole foods. I have lost about 15 lbs so far. It's slow going, but it's happening. I know if I continue to eat this way, I will keep it off.

I'm also looking at some other books about North Korea. It's a bummer to go from reading such a great book to reading something that's just meh. I'm reading Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenrider right now and sometimes the word choices are really raising my eyebrows--as in, not the right word for what I think she means. The truth is, though, that I should really stop reading organization books and start organizing. :lol:

What we have done (but never for a group that large) is choose a few colors that go well together and have everyone wear what they would like to in those "approved" colors. This year, it was red, navy, dark green, and khaki. It was easy for everyone to find something flattering in those colors and the photo turned out well. We've never tried to color-coordinate generations or families. I have seen some done that way, some better than others. I have a friend whose family did the tee shirt thing and her family was assigned bright yellow tees. She ended up wearing something rather tent-like and unflattering, as she was pregnant, and it was hard to find a shirt that both fit and matched her family's except a men's Hanes Beefy Tee.

:iagree: Good, whole food (including lots of fruits and vegetables), moderate exercise, sunshine, and adequate rest sound like they would fix him right up. Vitamin and mineral supplements will prevent terrible deficiencies, but there is no substitute for good, healthy food.

My tip-off is screaming in the night and resistance to being flat, including a lack of interest in nursing. If your baby has goopy eyes, had a cold recently, and has a fever, those are all big signs that you could very well be dealing with a bacterial ear infection. I read that ear pulling was not a reliable sign of ear infections because babies/toddlers pull their ears when teething and anytime, really, just because they're there.

I finished Nothing to Envy last night and loved it. I didn't want it to end.

That's fantastic! We have three chicks right now; one is a barred rock. I'm really enjoying them, too.

Yes! I'll have to find a good one to read for the readalong. I minored in Russian in college so I have read a lot of Russian lit, but it is some of the best in the world, IMO.

There should be an option to rent for a period of time on a lot of the Instant Video selections. But it looks like this is not just for Prime subscribers; anyone can rent videos.

I love Prime. If I can buy an item online for a good price and have it arrive free and quickly instead of dragging my two little children to *one more store*, I am all over that. We buy all kinds of things from Amazon--garage shelves, food items, games and toys, art supplies, toiletries, clothing, car seats, etc. You can also "rent" streaming videos for a week for reasonably good prices--things you want to see once or twice, but don't necessarily want to keep. For instance, I rented a couple of Aligned and Well biomechanics videos, watched them and got comfortable with the exercises, and thus paid $1.99 instead of $14.99 to learn what I needed to know.

My guess is you have fluid in your eustachian tubes after your cold. It's pretty common for kids to get clogged ears after a cold. The tissues swell in the ears and nose and trap fluid in the eustachian tubes, and then the ear drum can't move properly in response to sound. It's less common in adults because the angle of the eustachian tube changes so that it slopes downward, providing better drainage, but it can still happen. You could take an anti inflammatory (ibuprofen) and/or a decongestant. Those might help relieve the pressure. But the fluid will probably drain on its own as you continue to get better.

I finished Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit last night. I found it quite motivating to take up a creative activity and do it regularly, but I have a bit of a time problem with all the other things I'm committed to do! I liked a lot of the ideas in the book. Some of the exercises seemed a bit silly or really only appropriate for dancers and choreographers, but I didn't try them all out to see if they worked, so maybe even if they were silly, they were still effective. Today I have started Nothing to Envy. I had a hard time putting it down--it is very compelling.

Studies have shown the lactational amenorrhea method to be pretty effective (98%?) if practiced properly. There are actually two competing myths: 1) breastfeeding provides no protection against pregnancy, and 2) any breastfeeding at all provides complete protection against pregnancy. Yep. All of this. I read about a study that showed that increasing the caloric intake of a group of lactating women in a developing country didn't increase their milk supply, but it did cause them to ovulate sooner than the average in their country. :iagree:Babies in more traditional societies nurse about every 15 minutes for a few minutes throughout the day and night. Not many Western babies do that. In my own case, I used Lactational Amenorrhea for the first 6 months of my DD's life, then switched to another method of birth control once I felt that was no longer reliable. I didn't get pregnant. Since my DS likes a pacifier and sleeps much better than my DD did, I never trusted LAM and used another birth control method from the very beginning.

I had a Mirena but my uterus expelled it after about 6 or 8 weeks. The company will send a new one to your doctor's office if that happens, but I decided to go with Implanon instead. I've been really happy with it. It is a small rod in my inner arm. It's the same hormones as Mirena.

We have the same issues here. I don't mind waiting for a book to be available since I always have a quadrillion books I could read anyway. But I do hope the selection improves and the search capability gets synched to the rest of the library catalog. That would be much more user-friendly.

My DH drew up plans for one and priced out the materials he wanted, and it was going to cost $359, plus all the hours it would take him (though he would enjoy it a lot of the time, there are plenty of other things he needs to do, too). We found one for $179 plus $85 freight, so we went with that instead.

I think sometime shortly after a year is the upper limit of the norm here. I'm still happily nursing my 3.5 year old. Most people who know that have the good sense not to criticize :lol: but I think they are quite surprised.

I read On Gold Mountain, which is the non-fiction account of her family's history. It read like fiction at the beginning, but then started to feel more like family history. It was ok. I'm interested in reading some of her fiction to see if I like it better. Oooh, for some reason I have never read this Kingsolver book. I think I'll put it on my to-read list.

:iagree: A dairy allergy or sensitivity can really increase the frequency of ear infections. Cutting all dairy out of his diet might make a big difference. It usually takes a couple of weeks for all the dairy proteins to completely leave the body.

I just ordered my scarlet and cobalt sets. Kohl's has them back in stock and I had a coupon. :D Now I will have my rainbow in the cupboards! They seem very durable. We haven't had ours that long, but we haven't broken or chipped any, and I am even brave enough to give my 3.5 year old one of the plates sometimes.

We've been gradually acquiring some, too! We have shamrock, plum, lemongrass, peacock, tangerine, and sunflower so far! I want to get scarlet and cobalt, too.

I finished Little Dorrit last night! I really enjoyed it, though it was grim, of course. His characters are so memorable. I just started The Housekeeper and the Professor because of recommendations on these threads. :)

A guy I know who installs carpet says that if there has ever been a pet (or probably a toddler) in the house, there is definitely going to be urine in the carpet and pad, even when the owners swear up and down that their pet *never* has peed in the house. Ick. I want to tear up our carpet at least on the main floor at the earliest opportunity.

I just got 3 chicks on Monday! I really wanted a Buff Orpington but the store didn't have any. When I bought the chicks, the man at the store told me they were getting ducklings next week. I was sure I looked like such a city girl that no one would ever suggest I should have any kind of animal!

I have one that my DH bought me in 2006 and it has been fine. I don't do a whole lot of mixing, though.