I haven't been through this situation, so take this for what it's worth, but: Dr Phil says you need to be honest, and he needs to take it, and you're never going to get over it until you're sure he knows how bad he's hurt you. And he's not going to know until you're honest about this. The flowers have to go, and he's got to step it up. What could he do that would make you feel loved right now? What do you need right now? Forgiveness isn't about forgetting what happened, it's about letting go of the idea that the past should have been different than it is. You haven't yet explored all of the ways you've been violated yet, so you have every right to be hurt. Also, if you're religious, pray. Pray 1 Cor 13 especially. Just pray. It takes some time, but prayer has a way of softening you, and humbling the person you're praying about too.

Sorry for another post but... Not only is that inappropriate, it is sexual harassment. If they didn't discipline the kid at the very least, if not fire him, the company would be open to lawsuits. No insinuations. No sexual comments. Nothing political. Nothing too religious or it can all be taken as harassment.

:iagree: :lol::lol::lol: I laughed so hard I snorted at this, read it aloud to DH (an industrial engineer), and he laughed and said, "That's about the most accurate statement I've ever heard!"

Technically in the USA any cell phone without service and with a charge should be able to make a call to 911 for free, or to almost anywhere with a credit card. But it's something like $3.99/minute the last I knew. There are plans for older people or people with a limited income. I stumble upon advertisements for them from time to time, and an older lady I know got one after she retired. I don't know the details, but I imagine you could google for something like that for your mom. Tracfone really is the best commercial option I know of. You can buy a year of service instead, but it ends up costing more, and the minutes do expire. This is why: When I was in college I worked for a regional cell phone company for a while. The company made some money from its customers, but it earned most of its money leasing lines to other companies (like Verizon, etc). Prepaid companies are on their own sort of pay by the minute billing option. They buy a certain amount of bandwidth, but it expires for them monthly too. If they were just paying as you used it, it would cost those companies too much to do business with you. eta: I just remembered the last time I saw an advertisement for free service was at Dollar General store. You got a tracfone and 200 minutes a month free if you signed up and met certain income guidelines.

For privacy reasons, you might want to STRONGLY consider removing the name of your husband's ministry and your DC's names. Someone on the internet could stalk you, call your children by their names, and say you or your DH were hurt and know so much information about you they might believe them and go with them. I like your background, but I would make the color scheme pale rather than bright. It is a little too cluttered.

Nice article, thanks for posting!

Depending on ages: Have you tried the whole, "Since no one can get their chores done properly alone, all of us are going to work together until all the chores are done correctly thing?" It's more fun, but takes 3 times as long. And then the kids who do get their chores done right can do them alone, and they get extra screen time, or whatever your family's reward is. When they see it's not "Mom's making me do chores she should do herself," but "this stuff has to be done, we can do it together OR I can do it myself and get to the fun stuff." Heck, I'm in my 30's, and I still find washing dishes much more pleasurable when DH is helping than when I'm stuck in a kitchen alone. The other option, the military option, is that when you know someone knows how to do something correctly and isn't doing it, to point it out and to punish them, with extra chores or whatever consequence is most dire to that child. I might reserve that for teenagers. Have you had their vision checked? I remember once a friend was complaining about her daughter's apparent inability to sweep a floor, but then she realized the poor kid would have qualified as legally blind without glasses. Daughter got glasses, floors and everything she touches are MUCH neater.

I'm talking about all of these situations.

I had many, many similar experiences, starting at age 9 when I went to a baseball game with my parents. I went alone (but in their sight) to get something like a box of crackerjacks and got propositioned by an old drunk guy on the way back. This is exactly what I'm concerned about. In my case, in the most dangerous situation I was riding my bike to my grandparents house in a very nice neighborhood, my mom was a few blocks behind me in the car, with smaller kids who might not bike that far well. A car started circling me. Luckily, a cop drove by, I waved, and the circler left. A week later the same guy (or at least same description, same car) tried to kidnap two 6th graders from a middle school. The person was never caught. Several years later a little girl was killed, and it turned out she had been attacked, and her convicted killer looked exactly like the guy. I can never be certain it was the same person, but my instinct says it was. Except for the guy circling my bike with his car, and a few other creepy things that happened as an adult, that inspired me to call the cops, I never told anyone anything. I just didn't know what to do with that information. I don't want that for my DC.

Thanks, I had never heard of that book before. My library has it on the shelf, I'm going to get it today.

Well my real answer is that you should listen to your own instinct and that no one knows your kid as well as you. But if it were my DC, I think I would treat this like any other embarrassing situation, and make her go back because if you cave to anxiety, anxiety might take over her life. She has to see that while she is important, anxious feelings are not. After a class or two someone else will do something stupid, and they'll forget all about it. Also, what does she think friends are? Someone you're friendly to and work hard to impress? Or someone who genuinely likes you, and supports you even when you're going through something hard? I'd be more worried about that, and her getting the habit of letting social anxiety take over her life than I would anything else. There are books for little kids about anxiety. I saw one the other day that was called something like "Is Your Worry Too Big?" You might find some books like that for her that will give her ways to deal with anxiety. DH would just say she has to go, it's her gym credit. He's as insistent about the importance of martial arts as I am about swimming. Non-negotiable.

:iagree: Also, people can respond differently to real foods than they do to glucose solution. Sometimes people find that combining high fat foods with carbs makes their sugar more reactive, not worse. Most people are the opposite, but... I just think a food journal is a more accurate representation of your life.

Cook and chill all of them and toss with mayonnaise for cold pasta salad?

Fat free, sugar free instant pudding (especially a mix of one box each chocolate and coconut). Fruit (with a tsp of a syrup - raspberry or chocolate drizzled over the fruit and the plate). Mango is especially good for this. Pears or fruit cocktail (canned, sugar free) in sugar free jello. Pumpkin Mousse: A can of pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, and a container of fat free cool whip. Mix. Sweeten if necessary. Make a really rich flourless chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate. Reduce the sugar a little and serve tiny portions. Can you tell I grew up in a household where my mom was constantly on weight watchers? Honestly though, I wouldn't worry too much. He's probably about to have a growth spurt. I'd focus more on limiting snacking and drinks with calories (milk or water are fine) and increasing the fiber in foods if I was concerned.

We're academically orientated, and will encourage our DC to get STEM or Accounting degrees. If they insist on something fluffy that is EASY to learn in real life, they'll have to talk us into it, and probably double major in STEM or something like education so at least they have jobs to fall back on. We want to prepare our DC for practical life. We think undergraduate humanities are overrated. Also, we're following a great books sort of program already, so they should be better educated by the time they leave us than most college graduates are already. This might change a little if they opt (and can get into) for a school like Harvard or Reed, well known for intellectual kids who are capable of any job. And I don't necessarily feel that other fields are without merit - if money were no object, I'd go back to school and study theology, just for the pure joy of learning. I just don't think luxuries are something we have the duty to finance.

I'm a little more concerned about how you feel after having eaten a lot of sugar. You could probably go to a pharmacy or something like Walmart right now and get a free blood sugar monitor to test. Though I'd recommend actually spending a little more money and buying one that has CHEAP test strips. Then, when you feel strange, test your blood sugar. Sometimes, when people feel shaky and weak their sugar is actually normal, it's just falling quickly and they're having a hard time transitioning to burning fat. If that's the case, and you're not diabetic, the way to fix that is to exercise. Long, slow exercise. Work your way up to walking 3 hours a day and within 2 weeks of doing so you'll be a lot better. Any amount of exercise will help, though.

Probably 3 weeks until I slept better, 6 weeks until I felt a little better, and... I didn't feel back to normal until I quit the thyroid medicine and took iodine supplements (50 mg Iodoral that I order from someone on Amazon). I can feel the difference with iodine in less than an hour. However, you really need to explore some things before trying that - because if your low thyroid isn't the result of not eating enough iodine and having too much exposure to things like bleach, but is instead an autoimmune issue, or if you have an iodine allergy, supplementing could make you a lot worse, not better. Upping the dose of thyroid meds hadn't been working for me, I knew I had a negative ANA (autoimmune) test, and figured out I wasn't eating enough iodine, and decided to go ahead and risk it. After 90 days I felt better than ever, took another thyroid test and had a perfectly normal result! And my hair grew in thick and dark and shiny.

I was like this too... Yeah, I didn't have the slightest idea how to deal with it either, and at the time my parents were so overwhelmed with other issues that I never brought things to them. Martial arts does seem like a good idea. Sounds like you're teaching very good boundaries. :001_smile: I think you're right, and especially in cities, a certain percentage of disgusting perverts are more open about it. This is a good idea. Thanks everyone!

I think you must have led a much more sheltered life than I have.

hahahahaha :lol: I wonder why I never thought of that.

On the topic of 12 year olds in modest dresses who just look a little *too* good, or too old... How do you teach your daughters defense mechanisms when it comes to men? My parents were really good at a lot of things, but this particular topic wasn't one of them. Athol Kay's Blog (Mostly about married teA, NOT SAFE FOR WORK) had this thread a couple of weeks ago about Child Beauty Pageants and at the end sort of got into teaching pretty girls to be rude to men who made advances to them. The idea of teaching boundaries is one thing, but teaching girls to be rude seems.... wrong??? idk. Please tell me what your thoughts are on this?

It's modest. She's just beautiful. I'd let her wear it because she's going with her dad. The point is for her to have a cinderella moment, right? I've been struggling a lot with this idea myself though. I read something about it on the MMSL blog a few weeks ago - at the end of this long thread on child beauty pageants he said you should teach very pretty girls to be rude to men who hit on them as a defense mechanism... Here's the link, if you want to read it or start a spinoff thread: http://marriedmansexlife.com/2012/07/child-beauty-pageants-poise-or-posion/ I'm curious what everyone thinks about that?

More menu planners I found on Pinterest (since the first has already been posted): http://momsbyheart.net/create-your-own-menu-planning-board/ http://www.thehomesihavemade.com/2012/02/magnetic-menu-board-part-1.html http://www.bhg.com/decorating/storage/organization-basics/free-printable-storage-labels/#page=9

No. I keep meaning to, but I'm an abysmal failure at this. I've gone so far as to write down all our favorite recipes, but then when I get to the store I just buy whatever looks good and cook around the things that we have in the kitchen. There's a gorgeous system on pinterest with magnets and color coding... my hyper-organized dream self drools over it...

The short version is to get a dog book called Smarter Than You Think. The somewhat longer version is to keep the dog on a leash by your side or in his crate at all times when not outside for the next 3 weeks. When your husband is home, have him hold the leash. It's called tether training.