Got it! I think I'll get her one of the tags if she wants one. It is a Littman, but the one on her required materials list cost $80 not $200 so maybe she'll advance later.

Thanks for all the advice! I was thinking more for sentimental reasons LOL, but see that engraving has a larger practical purpose. Very helpful!

Christmas morning is eggs or egg sandwiches for all with everyone making their own; sometimes my dh fries up some bacon. Dinner is people from church over later in the afternoon with everyone bringing an unbaked pizza or two that they'd purchased the day before and cooked up just before coming over. Ice cream for dessert. Everyone's happy!

Thanks much!

My daughter is in vet tech training and wanted a stethoscope for Christmas. Is getting one engraved something people do? Just a thought I wondered tonight.

I don't see how it could work any better than it does. Plus it's not the type of laxative that you can get addicted to (OTC) that you take when you're eating food regularly. I will say that I do this one when I'm on a temporary liquid diet, so I don't have a bunch of stuff in my colon. I haven't done it when I've been eating a regular diet. I don't think it'd matter, but I'm just saying I can't say what the final results will be or if the salt/water combination is as effective with food in the colon. You DO want to do it on an empty stomach and if it doesn't work the first time, I'd try adjusting the salt (I would think more, but I don't know!) and trying it again another day. I've only had it not work once and I don't know why it didn't.

Google "master cleanse salt water flush" and you'll see instructions for doing this very thing. You shouldn't do it too very often, but it's easy to do. 2 tsp. of sea salt in a quart of warm water. Drink within 10-20 minutes. You'll get a very similar effect as that which you get from the colonoscopy prep. If it doesn't work (if you're not using the bathroom a lot about an hour later), the amount of salt may need to be adjusted.

Funny! I said they should rename the prep drink "Bottoms Up." :D Do you have to do the low residue diet the five days ahead of time? I actually drank raw milk for the first four days and then when I had to switch to clear liquids, I switched to a lemon/syrup drink for that day. It think this made my prep time easier because there wasn't much in there.

I just had my first one last Friday after putting it off for a couple of years (I'm 51 now). And please forgive me, I didn't read all the replies so may be repeating something. Once I got to the hospital, I had a great time. :) I don't know why, but I enjoy being knocked out. It was supposed to be "conscious sedation" but I don't remember a thing. It was like a nice deep nap. I remember asking me to turn on my side, I adjusted my top arm and the next thing I remember is asking for chicken broth in the recovery room. Then I got to veg for the rest of the day and I binge watched The Crown. What's not to like? :) Righto about the prep. It wasn't super awful for me. I have two suggestions for this. 1) If it's the big gallon of drink, get the non-flavored version. I did okay with the drink -- could chug down a glass no problem -- but the last swallow when the fake lemon flavor hung out on the taste buds for a brief moment, that's when I gagged and almost threw up. 2) If you want, you could do a practice round in the following way. Do this on a morning when you don't have a lot going on and when you can be near a bathroom for awhile. Put 2 tsp. sea salt (not iodized salt!) in a quart of warm water and stir to dissolve. Drink it up within 10-15 minutes. Tell yourself it's chicken broth as you drink. Some people chug this entire amount, I usually take about 15-20 minutes. About an hour after you finish this, you'll be using the bathroom a lot. You can have something to eat once you start eliminating. I've done this a few times when I've done what's called The Master Cleanse. I think because of my experience with that, I handled drinking the gallon of drink better. I think it also helped me that I was on an (unrelated) liquid diet for a bit before the colonoscopy prep, so there wasn't a ton to get out of my colon. I didn't lose any weight at all because of this, I think.

Adding on to the "breakfast for dinner" idea, both pancakes and French toast freeze nicely after cooking and cooling. Make up a bunch and freeze individually on cookie sheets and then wrap each piece for storage. If they'll eat through them pretty quickly, don't worry about wrapping the individual pieces, just put them in a Ziploc bag together.

Lasagne for sure.

Hey Quill, can you go ahead and hire a bunch of us as employees so we can be on your plan, too? :D After I posted the other day, the form was redone and the first estimate was double what it was supposed to be. THAT'S good, but since I needed everything to reduce by a sixth, it was still too much. We have a couple of options before us (again, this is just for me) -- either a regular insurance policy with a high deductible or a medical sharing plan that doesn't cover preventative. Don't love either option. I am able to get dental and vision through dh's work (separate from health insurance), so we'll do at least that for now.

CaliforniaDreaming, we do shoes tonight that have chocolate coins, a mandarin, a small icon and a small gift in them in the morning, and still do traditional stockings on Christmas eve (welllll, truth be told, at 4am when we get home form church, LOL). Those stockings tend to have a few more things in them, but nothing extravagant. These Christmas morning stockings have never been about Santa Claus for us (even before we were Orthodox), they're just a stocking with some fun small things in it.

Similar to the above, we go to church tonight for vespers, then the kids leave their shoes out by the door overnight. In the morning, they find chocolate coins, a mandarin orange, and a small gift.

I'm needing to choose between medical sharing and traditional insurance this week and I hadn't thought about doing both. I don't think we can afford doing both, but it's given me some food for thought as we make our final decision. To me, the medical sharing covers the catastrophe and we pay for everything else out of pocket, whereas the high deductible insurance pays for preventative and catastrophe, but the latter only after we pay a high deductible. So I'm leaning toward thinking the medical sharing is the route I may go.

Do you like milk? When you drink milk, replace some of it with half 'n half. :) I do 1/4 cup half 'n half and 3/4 cup whole milk. That both lowers the carbs and ups the fat. And it's yum.

Our youngest was born two years after his brother (they are the last two of seven), after I was 40. I must have been 41. He's a definite light in our home and I'm so glad we had one more! For several years after that, until I was about 50, I said it'd do it again. Now I'm starting to wonder. :D

My two youngest boys love Sir Kevin of Devon.

I might have a house you could rent soon. :) :(

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I am! I saw a number on the scale this morning that I haven't seen in more than a year. I have about 20-25 lbs to lose. I've been doing an intensive Thin Within program since September; TW is focused on dealing with the issues for why we overeat so that change is long term and not just in the moment. I am getting older and the weight loss is more slow going than ever before but I'm going to press on. For different reasons, I've been doing a master cleanse type thing for two weeks now (alternating between the spicy lemonade drink and a raw milk/half and half drink) and usually I'm going nuts after 10 days or so but at this point, I'm not so I'll keep going with it. My two biggest helps right now: 1) Eat when it's both physically pleasing and emotionally pleasing. Binging is usually just physically satisfying but not emotionally satisfying. I want both and purpose to not eat if I know I'm going to be disappointed or whatever afterward. I'll wait until the timing is right. Sometimes we think we'll never eat if we do that, but I haven't found that to be the case. I still get hungry regularly. 2) Remember that the foods are available another time. This really helped at Thanksgiving. We served nothing that couldn't be made pretty easily again so I just tell myself, if I want that later, I can make or buy it again.

About 7-8 years ago we purchased an all-fridge fridge (NO freezer) and I. love. it. I can't see going back until the kids are out of the house - if then. Our full-sized freezer is out in the back mudroom. If/when we do go back, I'll probably do the bottom freezer. Even just typing that makes me realize I don't want to go back. Sears sells an all-fridge fridge.

For some reason (ones that are good ones, but have interesting timing), I started a master cleanse about 10 days ago and want to continue for a bit longer. So my Thanksgiving dinner is spicy lemonade. :) We are eating vegan right now, but are okay with fish, so we're having friends over for a salmon dinner with Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, a grain dish, rolls, corn and some desserts.

Thanks, Lanny. We remembered last night that with Southwest you can change your ticket to a lower fare if one becomes available, so we'll go ahead and purchase what we see now and watch to see if it goes down. We live on a route that sometimes has had $108 RT (SEA --> PHX), which we paid last spring, so I guess part of me wants to hold out for that. Silly idea this time of year. Oh, gosh, not here and we live in the land of Alaska airlines (Seattle). It's always more expensive compared to SW when I check. I checked this too, and it was again more expensive. Maybe it's the route we fly most often. (SEA --> PHX).

Yeah, I think that's what I tried (not very well) to infer in my original post. I think they have certain flights / destinations that go on sale, not an across the board sale for all flights. We do use two airports that are usually included in their sales (SEA and PHX), so I'm just wondering if what I'm seeing now on their pre-Thanksgiving sale will have a better price in two days on Black Friday.