I hit a peak weight last summer and felt terrible. Honestly, I was just fed up with how I looked and felt. I signed up for a 5K (never was a runner before) and started weighing my food. I started in the middle September and competed in October (time of 46 minutes). I've dropped 20 pounds, lost two dress sizes, and cut my 1-mile time from close to 20 minutes to 13.5 minutes. I feel so much better. I have chronic health issues and low energy is a problem when my condition flares up. I haven't had as many issues since I started moving more. Seeing the inches melt away and having more energy are both motivating me to continue. Favorite clothing items fit again, too. :) ETA: I'm in my late 30s and I only weighed my food for about two weeks. That was long enough for me to learn how to eyeball a ballpark calorie amount.

Yes! The current primary system is terrible. I'd love one block of time that everyone in the country casts a ballot to nominate a candidate. Everyone gets a say and then we're done.

It looks like Hillsboro (Intel) and Beaverton have tech jobs and they are neighbors. Do they have a similar feel culture-wise?

Even if we switched to a popular vote for presidential elections (something I support), we should still have state-by-state elections for senators and representatives.

I see both sides. I think it's reasonable to re-evaluate whether or not an electoral college still serves our country's needs. Personally, I live in a winner-takes-all state that will always vote a particular way (opposite to how I vote). A popular vote for president might encourage more people to participate because their vote actually counts toward their candidate's total. I read an article discussing that poor voter turnout is directly related to how much a person feels their vote matters.

I'm getting a master's that also grants me a teaching license. I'd love a functional public transportation system. Where we currently live it's not really usable because the routes are extremely limited. We've always lived in suburban neighborhoods, but we both like an urban feel as well. We have six kids, though, so we need more bedrooms than one might find in an urban dwelling. :) I love the idea of trees. There aren't many trees here.

I like overcast days. I burn in five seconds here because it's so sunny. I don't know how I'd feel with no sunny days long term, but I'm thinking I'll be fine. We love that show. :)

I'm an ultra liberal Christian. Dh leans atheist. A Unitarian church would be the best fit for us (but there isn't one where we currently live).

We are seriously considering a relocation. We're currently in Utah. We've discussed the idea of the Pacific Northwest off and on for a decade. Maybe it's time to act. What are homeschooling laws and communities like? Do you know anything about the public schools? I'm getting my teaching license in secondary math and I have kids in all age groups. Currently two are homeschooled, but the rest are attending school. Once I'm licensed, I'd love to work at a neighborhood school. We've done charter schools here because our local schools are very unsafe for queer students (relevant to our family). Is that a problem at Portland schools (in your district anyway)? What do commutes tend to be like (dh is a software developer)? Currently we live 15 minutes from his office. Is traffic bad in Portland or do people tend to have commutes under 30 minutes? What neighborhoods should we check out? What do you like/dislike about your city? We plan to visit within the next couple of months so that we can make a decision. TIA!

I'd get something smaller. If my mom is taking my kids somewhere, I just trade vehicles with her and she takes my van.

I would not occur to me to think about wearing a bra for modesty while sleeping/near sleep. If I had unrelated teens (any gender) sleeping over at my house, I'd throw on a robe when interacting with them, but I wouldn't wear a bra to bed. In a camping situation I might wear a hoodie or something over my sleeping tee, but that's more likely to be for warmth than modesty. I still wouldn't wear a bra to sleep. That sounds so uncomfortable. The people freaking out about this situation are ridiculously out of line.

I've never dieted before this fall. I started seven weeks ago and I'm more than 20% to my goal. I started by exercising. I walk/jog for 45 minutes 3-5 times per week. Then I got a food scale and started counting calories. My target is 300 calories less than my maintence caloric intake. I'm taller than average, so you might need to adjust that. I did low carb for a couple of weeks, but now I just stick to minimally processed (for the most part) and within my caloric "budget." I wanted this to be something I can maintain without it feeling like a punishment, so I have no restrictions aside from total calories. Counting calories has helped me realize the costs of various foods, which makes me choose more thoughtfully. The sweetener I was using in my coffee, for example, had way more calories than I thought. Now I use Sweet Drops (stevia). I've replaced my Yoplait with plain Greek yogurt. I snack on carrots or snow peas with my guacamole instead of tortilla chips. I still eat pizza, but realizing that slice of deep dish has almost twice the calories of a normal piece causes me to make different choices.

Yikes, no. And I currently wear an F-cup. I wore sleep bras to hold nursing pads in place when newly postpartum, but that's the only time.

I kind of feel like my body is trying to get back to its normal. I only need to lose another 15 to be within normal BMI. My personal preference for my body frame is another 20 pounds lighter than that. The last few years have been rough (y'all saw this most recent kid hospitalization/illness). I got really depressed, stopped taking care of myself, and put on forty pounds. That combined with the ten post-pregnancy pounds from my sixth baby left me feeling awful physically. I had some related health scares earlier this year and finally found the motivation to prioritize myself despite the intensity of my children's needs. I completed a 5K last month and I plan to do another in the spring. :)

In September I set a goal to lose weight. 7 weeks in I'm down 13 pounds. I did low carb for the first couple of weeks, but I felt really run down so I decided to just try reduced calories from minimally processed foods instead. To reach my old "normal" adult weight (stable for 10+ years with little to no effort), I have another 35ish pounds to lose. I've never had to work on my weight before, so I'm not sure what to expect. Looking at my logs, my weight loss is averaging 1-2 pounds per week. There are daily fluctuations and sometimes I'll see a jump in 1-2 pounds between consecutive days. The week always ends up lower that it started, though. I read an article this morning that cautioned against "ambitious" weight loss goals (anything > 10 pounds) because of the risk of gaining it all back. The author recommended dropping ten pounds, stabilizing, and then resuming weight loss again. I'm not convinced that is necessary. I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm simply eating less (shooting for 1500-1600 calories per day instead of the 1800-1900 I'd need to maintain my current weight) and moving more (walking/jogging 45 min. for 3-5x per week). If my current rate of weight loss holds, I'll hit my target in 5-6 months. That doesn't seem extreme, either. Thoughts?

My 16yo has bipolar II (although that diagnosis might change as he ages). A mood stabilizer (Lamictal) plus Abilify has been the best med combo we've tried. SSRIs make it worse my child. Hypomania generally manifests as him being more active and hyper. The depressive episodes tend to go way lower than the high of the hypomania. Medication reduces both the highs and the lows.

All my kids wash their own except my 4yo. His clothes go in the hampers dh and I use. Usually I wash those, but sometimes dh does a load.

Dd got a cancelation appointment with the pediatric GI specialist today. He said we will go ahead and do an endoscopy and more bloodwork if dd starts vomiting again within the next three months. The scope would be to see if she has any damage or malfunction internally (e.g. silent reflux). If she starts vomiting again after three months, we will have a visit to discuss our best options. For now he wants her on a strong probiotic and we'll just watch and wait to see how she does. He said some people's GI tracts stop functioning normally after a viral illness. That could be what happened here. I'm glad to have a plan.

She hasn't thrown up for 10 days. I wouldn't say she's 100% healthy, but she's definitely improved. She had her echocardiogram on Monday last week. She does have mild back-flow, but the cardiologist thinks she will grow out of it. It's something we will watch as she grows. Dd has gained weight since she stopped puking. She's now around 64 pounds. I've been putting off starting my master's degree while all of this has been going on (the program can be started at the beginning of any month). Maybe things are stable enough now. My 16yo is having a hard time (mental health), but we've stepped up our outpatient treatment plan to hopefully keep him out of the hospital (did in patient last year--also in October). My sister (mom of five kids) is working on her doctorate right now and a few days ago she told me, "There's no perfect time for school." That's probably true.

I didn't call PR yesterday and dd hasn't puked since Wednesday night. This is probably just another break, but maybe I'll see how she does over the weekend.

I'm thinking back to a week ago right after dd was admitted to the children's hospital. The night shift attending pediatrician said he thought she needed MRI in the morning and a consult with both neurology and GI. In the morning neuro said they didn't need MRI because they were sure it was migraine. We never saw anyone from GI, even though dd's number one complaint was vomiting. So, I'm wondering if I can call the Patient Relations reps who came when I was upset and somehow get into GI sooner. Dd should have been seen by them while she was in patient. Instead we got a consult with Behavioral Health. This is such a ridiculous mess. Even with me actively pursuing assistance, we are not getting the care she needs. It shouldn't take eight visits and and in patient stay to misdiagnose her with migraine while failing to look at other options.

We discussed that today, but it doesn't seem to match her symptoms.

Luckily 4th grade is pretty low stakes in terms of credits and graduation requirements. I'm going to set her up to keep her skills up to date in math and language arts. She's not feeling great, so library books for history and science will be good enough. There are school-at-home options available, but I think they'd add a layer of stress that it would be best to avoid at the moment.

Today's neurologist thinks it's not a migraine. He referred us to GI. Dd has an appointment with GI on December 14th, and we are on a cancellation list. We are going to try Cyproheptadine on the chance it helps her vomiting. We have an appointment with her primary care provider on Monday. Maybe we can set up an endoscopy so that those results are ready before dd's GI appointment. She's also getting her echocardiogram on Monday. Dd has missed 3.5 weeks of school. We've kept in contact with her teacher and the principal, but all of us are agreeing that homeschool is the only feasible option now--especially since this is still not diagnosed or adequately managed. Dd is upset about everything. :( We restarted the Zoloft two days ago, but this whole situation would make anyone depressed.

Yes, it was just bloodwork. I'm not opposed to doing a scope, but I'd like to have her seen by GI to see if that's indicated. I think it would be traumatizing for her. It's certainly more invasive than anything we've done so far. She's still puking as of this morning.