I have my dd21's pet rat back at my house for a while. DD is changing apartments and the new landlords charge extra for pets. She is a college student and has had many room mates and couch surfers over the last six months. Most of them were in the bad habit of sneaking junk food to the rat. :glare: Calliope is here for now and more than a little pudgy. :001_huh: I plan to cut all snacks for a while and just feed the rat cubes. What else can I do to improve her health some? Ironic, because I am a little pudgy myself, but am more worried about the rat. :lol::lol:

Thank you, I grabbed it. I don't have a Kindle but I have the program to load books on my laptop.

I did not know either. I googled and watched some YouTube clips arrgh...now I am sad. Who watchs that?

This is one of my few political-free safe places. More and more of my IRL places are getting loud. I can come to ask questions, and talk, and YAWM and look at kilts. The people here have more that unites us (kids and education) than we have that divides us. What a relief. Thank you for the refugee, it is a loud and scary place out there. :001_smile: :hurray::hurray::hurray:

I hear that. Which is worse, not sleeping and being a grumpy mess the next day or taking Ambien and being whacked out the next day?

She is beautiful. I agree with the others that having her Dr (or you) explain about the effects of steriods is very important. She is probably aware of the erronious stereotypes of heavy people being lazy or eating junk food. She might subconciously be judging herself looking for what she is doing wrong. Let her know that this is related to her medical condition and its treatment. Build up her awareness of the beauty within in each person, at whatever leave she perceives that right now. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: One of my dds was on steriods for many years due to ITP (4th grade to 8th grade). My kids were naturally small and slender, (bottom 5% for both height and weight). The steriods gave her chubby checks and a 'betty boop' figure. She is off steriods now but you can still see the slightly rounded face. I say that, and of course, I can't find any pictures that really show it. :tongue_smilie:

I agree, it looks terrible and actually draws more attention to little bottoms than just leaving them off and wearing the leotard.

I can't wait to see what others say.

been there, done that :001_rolleyes: Fortunately he was on the phone with a coworker not a client. yikes I was yelling at a teenager and we had just gotten to the: "you are grounded for life" "you don't understand me" part when my dh stepped out of his office and gave us both the evil eye. The weird part is she (the teenager) and I never do that. It was a one-off pressure buster and now his coworker thinks we are screamers. :tongue_smilie:

That is the best ever!!! I am sure that lady still remembers and chuckles. :lol::lol:

thank you for the information. I am glad to hear there will be buses for transportation. I have lived in the path of several evacuations, I am not in a flood area but the highway comes by us. The traffic jams are horrendous (spelling?). People around the country say things like 'just leave' but they don't really understand what that means in real life. :tongue_smilie: Be careful and stay safe.

The mind boggles. :p

I am thinking about signing up for one of the tax prep companies free tuition training plans. I know I need to pass the IRS test afterward. Are any of the programs better than the others? Has anyone worked for one of these companies? I am not afraid that I will have troubles learning the material, I just want a reliable company to work for afterward. Thanks for any help. I know I asked this once before but I can't seem to find the responses. Respond here or pm me, whichever is more comfortable

My dd21 attends New College in Sarasota. They have been notified that classes are cancelled for Monday but food service will stay open. They have encouraged kids to go home if possible but housing and student services will be open if they stay. Dd has an off campus apartment and a job down there. I am a little nervous about her getting around, she doesn't have a car. Prayers will be appreciated.

This is the background for the joke, only read if you want to. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiement (paradox) explained in wiki as: Schrödinger's Cat: A cat, a flask of poison and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle states (per wiki again): In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be simultaneously known. The more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa.[1] So the two men are traveling but can only determine where they were, not how fast they were going. The cat with them was both alive and dead until an outside observer determines its condition. Hope this helps.

I don't usually post jokes or funny pictures, I figure we get enough of those through facebook and email. But this one made me think of the well trained mind. So Heisenberg and Schrodinger are driving down a highway... Police: *Sirens* Heisenberg: *Stops car* Police Officer: Sir, do you know how fast you were going?! Heisenberg: Uhhmmm no, but I can tell you where I was. Police Officer: (to himself) That's suspicious. *Searches car* Police Officer: Do you know that there was a dead cat in your car?! Schrodinger: Well, now I do. :lol::lol:

My first thought was 'cat' also. :lol: Because, really, all they to is sleep, play with things, yell for food and then go back to sleep.

Sadly, that is one area they will just have to figure out on their own. :lol::lol: They are bright girls they'll work it out if they want to. I voted no, but I do own an iron, we use it for crafts.

:iagree::iagree: exactly...congratulations and wow!!

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Praying for your daughter. Just keep letting her know you are there for her.

Congratulations! What a beautiful picture. 4H has such a wonderful range of projects available and is so low cost that kids can do lots of exploring and trying things out. Your dd is so pretty and so is the dress. :001_smile:

United Methodist here also. Tithing is explained and encouraged but not required. No one brow beats you for how much you give. You are encouraged to 'pledge' an amount (up to you) for the upcoming year but that is more for planning purposes, no one has ever questioned the amount I have pledged. We are encouraged/urged/taught to help others and to work for justice. The UM Committee on Relief is a highly ranked charitable fund that spends almost 100% of money donated directly on the mission (very little overhead). I have heard more sermons on helping with poverty than I have on tithing.

We are making that drive in two and a half weeks. :auto: This is our younger/last dd to leave. I am happy/sad/happy/sad all the time. Excited because she was able to attend her dream school do to some serious scholarship work. yay! Sad that she will be gone and we will no longer have any kids at home. Sad because she does not currently intend to return home except for occasional visits (does not plan to move home in the summer). So far I have consoled myself by taking in cats (rescues), but I really really need to stop that now. :001_smile:

Consumer Choices contest. Our 4H does this during the county fair, kids can compete as individuals or as teams. Tables are set up with comparative products, such as 5 boxes of granola bars, 5 backpacks, 5 packages of batteries, one year they had descriptions of 5 checking accounts at local banks. The kids are assigned a scenario. For instance in selecting the best granola bar, they might need to find the healthiest bar or the most economical bar. They then list their choices from 1 to 5 with 1 being the best buy for their scenario. One member of the team presents the rankings and gives a brief explanation of how they determined the choices. Teams win based on points for selection and points for presentation. I could not find an example on the Florida website, but the North Dakota website had a good sample contest. They are judging beverages, e-readers/tablets, and insulated jackets. http://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/4h/Consumer_Choices/2012JrSrStudyGuidesSampleClasses.pdf

Wow, I have just hit 2000. :party: I am not a high volume poster, but I really enjoy hanging out here and reading. Thanks for many years of enlightenment and entertainment.