I know there were a couple of conventions this weekend in FL - hoping to find one of the $15/$50 coupons that are normally on the catalogs. Need to put an order in ASAP for outgoing materials, and our convention isn't until JUNE! Please help!

I'd offer them up free for shipping on the thread for that here

We're using SL B and really loving it. I'm not familiar with the other program you mentioned though sorry.

I think you could with a little tweaking - we do and are also no longer Catholic. I DO cover some sections with post-it notes to show we skip those. But it's only a few pages at most.

What I'm asking is - what items would you bake now and freeze for when you didn't have an oven? I'm looking at things like muffins, breads, cake, pies, etc that then can just be thawed and eaten. We normally have some type of baked good with nearly every meal. I listed the available appliances we will have in case they influenced ideas. And yes - we do use pretty much all those regularly. We eat 3 hearty filling home-cooked meals a day :D The only one I'll be purchasing is the rice maker, and we normally cook rice on the stove 3-4 nights a week. The grill already was on my buy list.

We are putting an offer in on a house on Monday {prayers would be appreciated}. While the house itself is in great condition for the price, the kitchen was redone without a space for a stove or oven. We're going to put a gas one in :D but it may be a little while {up to 3 months} before we can purchase a new stove {our current one is electric}. We will have a microwave, crockpot, toaster, set it and forget it rotisserie cooker, quesadilla maker, corn dog maker and a waffle maker. I'll probably pick up a rice maker too and maybe a BBQ grill. Knowing this - what would you cook / bake now and freeze for when you didn't have a stove / oven? The lack of a stove doesn't worry me, but we do like to bake a LOT. We do a lot of baked meals or make desserts in the oven. I already have on my list cranberry bread, pumpkin bread, banana bread, different types of cake, pumpkin pie, and corn bread.

My dd is a young 2nd, and she loves the Mo Willims Pigeon books. I think there are 5 or 6 books in the series now.

Can you elaborate on the AG Cyber monday sales & weekly sales? DD wants Molly :D

I totally agree with all of y'all! And don't even get me started on the Plus size tops that the neckline goes well below the bOOks in both front and back! It's so hard to find MODEST things in my size.

No chocolate here as it doesn't agree with me, but I'll be making cake later on. I'm thinking golden with crushed pineapple in it. We're in limbo on the house - my agent has to wait for some ID number from HUD before we can put an offer in. We HOPE that comes Monday so we can put a quick offer in. But in the mean time I'm plotting and planning :D:D:D . And yes that is a pool in the back yard. Really hoping it isn't a deep one as dd hasn't learned to swim yet and I'm incapable of it due to a brain injury as a kid {I'm mostly fine now fwiw}. Weekend....cleaning & tossing stuff. Bagging stuff for a HUGE donation to the local thrift shop {they are picking up Friday}. Posting stuff on our local HS blessings bash FB page. More cleaning. Maybe some packing too.

It is a pool :D But as of yet I haven't seen the actual pool - waiting for the house inspector to lift the cover. I am hoping it isn't as deep as I think it is - we really don't need a deep pool as I can't swim and dd hasn't learned yet. All I really need to do is a little repair and repainting, and it will look great. The purple in the kitchen HAS TO GO! It's going to be Sugared Lime and the dining room white. And I have to re-tile the two small bedrooms and paint dd's pink, and put fixtures in a half bath. *fingers crossed* and pray hard - we are putting an offer in Monday as soon as my agent gets approval from HUD to do so. And so far no one else has put one! As for what's calling to me....I've always had a dream of running a used book store catering to homeschoolers. I actually sat down once and figured out what I'd have to have and it was possible, but not practical.

I'm just now getting to the board today, I've been busy all day on the phone chasing down a refill for my thyroid meds that the Dr. has ordered but not yet sent to the pharmacy. As of 2pm today, it still hasn't been called in yet. Did I mention I'm out of it? :glare::glare::glare: I've been trying to get this ordered and filled since MONDAY. But, in good news, I have a pretty much confirmed buyer on my house. He wants to buy for less than I want, but at least it won't go to foreclosure. Given the issues with this house I'm glad to find a buyer. Now I just need to get a new house found and closed on it. I have my eye on this one http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5203-Village-Gln-San-Antonio-TX-78218/26364755_zpid/ and I'm waiting for my agent to call me with the exact details so we can put in an offer. I am praying hard that they accept my meager offer of $30k cash instead of the $44k they are asking. We went to look at it yesterday and really liked it, even though it is smaller. It has the same double sized master bedroom setup as our current home, which works well to split into school room and bedroom for myself. The smallest bedroom is quite tiny, but we're going to use it for a storage room so it works. I'm spending today getting rid of stuff - nearly everything in the Garage is going to have to GO as none of the houses we are looking at have garages. So I've been posting stuff all day on our local homeschool blessing bash FB page, and I'm waiting right now for a few folks to come for things. Everything left after Monday will go to the local thrift shop. As for breakfast - I've yet to get any. I'm going to make chicken fries & noodles and a can of veggies and call it good :D

Which Journey book is it? I'm pretty sure I have an extra Brownie Quest girl book, lightly used. I'd be happy to send it for the cost of postage.

Nivea Extended Moisture is a good one, and should be available at most places {Target, WM, WG, etc}. I don't like most girly lotions either, but this just smells a lightly scented smell - kinda baby powder and floral but faint. The smell goes away pretty quick too. And it's SUPER hydrating :D

Just across town. But with no drivers in the family, it really isn't much different that moving out of state. I'll be hiring help to get us moved. We need to have everything packed up for a marathon moving day as soon as we find the new house.

Well, today so far is a good day - I'm up and around! Managed to get a hold of my Dr.'s office and waiting for a call back now, and called the realtor to look at 4 more possible houses. We even managed a full day of school yesterday! The news with us is mostly just moving and prepping for moving. I need to do a whole house clean during the day when I have light :D as the kitchen lights went out AGAIN {this is the 3rd time in 7 years we'll have had to replace the entire fixture}. We don't really do any extracurriculars, but dd has plans to do a Brownie try-it today. Other than that I have a bunch of errands - bank run, thrift shop run, grocery run. And I'll be :bigear: to see how going gluten free works for you, scrapbookbuzz. I've thought about it many times as I know I have issues with wheat / gluten, but with all our other allergies I just haven't felt that it was possible to eat a balanced diet for us. We're just allergic to too many of the alternatives used.

GSUSA says that Brownies can either wear the brownie specific uniform {blue shirt, brown pant / skort / skirt from the GS shop} OR the GSUSA official uniform {white polo & khaki bottoms}. Along with that goes your choice of sash or vest {I recommend vest if you'll be doing a lot of patches - the sash fills up FAST}. Just any white polo and khaki skirt will do :D If your troop leader gives you a hard time about it being a skirt instead of pants, just say it's for religious reasons.

:D Since we're not part of a troop, we can do what we want :D. Technically it's all Girl Guides and Journeys now, but there is a GSUSA policy that ANY discontinued patch may still be earned by the AGE level it was first intended for. They don't like it, but they can't do anything against it either. And it was dd's choice to double patch with both new and old programs - we do 2-3 try-its a week so the new program wouldn't have lasted us long at all. As it is I'm going to have to start finding council's own try-its to keep us busy since dd will be doing 3 years of brownies to allow her to catch up age-wise. As for buying them...I've been scouring council shops nationwide for months for everything from Brownie up. I'm down to just needing a handful to have ALL the outgoing patches for all levels. There is a FB group called Girl Scout Badge Swap, and I created a file in their files that has ALL the shops with the old patches still in their online shops.

My mother has a small fund {$30k} thanks to my brother's life insurance. Section 8 here doesn't count things like this if you are on the wait list - it's only counted if you are receiving assistance. By auction are you meaning the foreclosure auction? Or another type of auction? We are hoping to sell it, but otherwise we will do a deed in leiu of foreclosure and give it back to them. The bank won't have any losses as the house is worth 85K, and we only owe 70K.

Dd wants to earn her Senses Try-it tonight, and one of the activities is painting the tongue to make a tongue map. It calls for unsweetened grapefruit juice for the bitter liquid - but I don't have any and really don't want to make a trip today. Any ideas for substitutes?

I can see just fine for most things :D and you'd never know unless you asked that I have a problem. My issue is with telling depth / distance - I can't tell how far ahead of me a car is unless I can see pavement between me and it. I physically can drive, but have no business being on the roads in this busy city.

It's undesirable and often unsafe. If I move there, one of my first goals will be to get my concealed weapons permit. Relocating to another area is an option - but I really would hate to leave here. I've lived in this city for 11 years, know it well, and what places to avoid. I also have a wonderful thyroid Dr. here, and that is quite hard to find. We are not upside down thankfully, but just behind. We did fine until my dad passed away, taking with him his VA check. Then they cut my mom's Social Security and took medicare out, and now her check is equal to the mortgage, which doesn't work well. Most bank owned homes here are closing in 5-10 days. I have a possible buyer lined up for my current home {he's buying under value, but above what is owed}. My backup plan is to go ahead and sell to him, but with an agreement that we are allowed to rent for X amount of time from him. This. My mother is in a wheelchair and blind, I have vision problems preventing me from driving as well as auto-immune issues. My daughter has ASD.

We are working with a wonderful realtor, but I am doing most of the work myself. The big issue is finding one within walking distance of the bus line and in a decent part of town. Since you're local to me - do you know anything about good parts of SA other than the NE side? I really have never been anywhere else in SA other than Downtown and the NE side. I know a little about the south side but not much.

It's been an interesting morning, and dd isn't even up yet. I finally had breakfast of a toasted bagel with butter & sugar - I was getting sick and needed to eat. Today's plans? Cleaning, Laundry, trying to get ahold of my Dr. for a script, looking at houses online, and oh yeah we really should do some school - we haven't in nearly a month thanks to being sick and stressed. I wish I could have coffee, but it doesn't agree with me anymore. I might cheat and have a little later though with lots of creamer. Animal? I used to have one who did. He was a giant half siamese cat who weighed about 50 lbs I kid you not, and it was all muscle. He was twice the size of most house cats, in both height and length. I had him for over 10 years, but sadly he passed away a few years back. Now we have a very yappy inherited Chocolate taco dog who was my dad's - anyone want a taco dog? Free - I'll even send a bag of food with her!:D I want to get a cat, but not until we figure out the whole moving vs. not moving thing.

We've been trying for the last 2 months to find a new home, and it's not going well. Our budget is extremely low {$30k}, and most houses here seem to sell about $45k. Add in the fact that any house needs to be near a bus line as I can't drive due to vision problems, and it's become nearly impossible to find anything and get it before it's purchased. I really don't know where to go from here, and our household is about to come to blows over all the stress from house hunting. FYI, renting is NOT an option. We have terrible credit & low income, which is all rentals here seem to look at. We live in a college town with a high amount of rentals. Rent would be equal or higher to staying were we are plus we'd have a much smaller space. Plus we are sure to have to pay for repairs as my mom is blind and tends to mark up walls with her wheelchair. Option A is to buy a rowhouse for $12-$20k in a not great part of town, and I do mean really not great {I have lived in some rough areas but this is about the max I'd do}. We would have plenty of space, but no yard {not that it would be safe to spend time in the yard anyways}. House would be paid for, and we would go into this with the goal of it being TEMPORARY and put funds back into the pot for purchasing another house elsewhere. However if my mother passes away {she is in poor health}, it would likely become permanent. Option B is to catch up the mortgage on the house we are currently in, and stay there. Said house has several roof leaks, is very drafty, and really not in good condition. I have concerns as to both termites and the foundation. We would have to take money from the housing fund to stay here, as our income is not enough to cover all bills {and yes we have lowered them as much as possible}. Again, if my mother passes we would have a loss of income and not be able to make ends meet. We could likely stay here for several years taking money from the housing fund to keep us afloat. We are on the Section 8 rent voucher list but have been told it will be 3-5 years before our number comes up. Option C is to do some hybrid of the two - catch up the mortgage enough to stay here, but keep looking for another house. The longer we stay in this house, the smaller the house fund gets. And I need to decide in the next 30 days what to do and do it. I really don't know what to do.....but the stress of this is just making me sick.