On salads, make spiced pecans (spicy with a little sweet), make homemade larabars (yum), brownies and sunadae. :) Only other ways I use them is pie and in cranberry relish (kinda like a jello salad). But mostly, I just eat them as snacks, they're my favorite plain.

easy to peel shells is all based on age of the egg - so since we have chickens and our family pretty much eats what they make, we're forever doomed to hard to peel eggs. Oh well. But favorite method for cooking. Put eggs in pan with cold water, set on stove on high, bring to boil, turn off heat, add lid and let set 10 minutes, then rinse in cold water. Done. I find that peels just fine for super market eggs.

I had a Chevy Cavalier that got 35mpg. DH is now driving a Saturn, basic compact 4-door model, that gets 32-36 mpg. Both manual transmission cars. Both crossed 200K miles and the Saturn is still going too. Neither were purchased new - the Saturn we've had a year or more now, purchased with over 100K on it already but it was the right price too and we've been quite happy. If we'd got a Civic in the same condition, that would have almost doubled the price -- not saying they aren't great cars but for commuting purposes, this was the right thing for us. It makes for a good commuting car.

I would pay mine off after: - all debts are paid - when we have retirement accounts full funded - when we have 9 months of savings (that will quickly swell beyond 12 months once there isn't a monthly mortgage payment in there) I would really really love to have my house paid off. But first, I'd really like to be debt free and have sufficient savings and retirement.

Good to hear about your experience. We were going to get some this spring but the latest feedstore shipment is next week and I wanted to wait more toward May since they'll be outdoors the entire time in a chicken tractor, so some element protection but not quite enough for day-old chicks in early spring. But we're still not quite ready to jump in, so maybe later in the season we will get some to try raising them. We've done regular chickens for eggs but would like some freezer stocking too. We ended up with 1 of a breed called Dixie Rainbow that was said to be a dual-breed and she is a brute. Big chicken and super jumbo eggs, but she is a favorite of dd4 and never made her way to the freezer as I planned when I saw how big she was getting (assumed rooster at first). That's the first "dual purpose" breed I've seen with some real heft. We had other dual purpose breeds before and processed one that got injured and it was a tiny amount of meat, almost not worth the effort processing, or so it felt.

I had to look up the conference, especially since I assumed it would be kinda close by, and his workshops would get DH to attend and probably push him to be my biggest homeschooling cheerleader. In fact, we just might go ahead and attend it because of that. He turned major homebirth advocate because of a Bradley class and I know he's already a big Salatin fan too...

You might be able to find a CD or something on ebay to get a good basic collection of files to start with. Make sure her machine can use them (example my machine uses .pes files) but most sellers offer all different formats too but would hate for you to find a 'great deal' just to get it home and have it not work. As for other tips: -- I got my machine from my mom and she used tear-away stabilizer for pretty much everything and I've been very happy following suit - sure simplifies not having a dozen different stabilizers and I've yet to make some that it seemed inappropriate for. -- Be sure to apply interfacing to what you're embroidering if it needs it like knit shirts or satins or anything that will shift a lot, sure helps with wrinkles and puffiness. -- I only ever hoop the stabilizer and then use spay adhesive to stick my fabric/item onto the stabilize in the hoop. Makes it much easier for me to get things lined up well and not accidentally skew things with hooping. -- Keep in mind what you're embroidering and the design you picked out, if the fabric/item is thin or fine then a dense design with a lot of stitches isn't going to turn out well. -- If embroidering on something puffy like towels or minky, where you need stabilize on top (so the design doesn't sink in), you can use a fine tulle on top instead of the wash-away stabilizer commonly suggested - I usually have some tulle around and still haven't needed to buy the wash-away stuff (and happy to not have to wash/rinse it away before giving it). -- When buying desings, watch how many stitches are in the design and also how many colors and thread changes there are. I will go with a simpler design with less colors or think of how I can use one color in more than one area to keep the thread changing down. -- Try to visualize how something will look with substituted colors can be helpful so you're not buying every single shade of pink or blue out there - but sometimes, if you don't use the designated colors it just might not turn out as expected. I've only had the problem once so far. Thats about all I can think of off the top of my head. Good luck.

I usually just wash ours once a day. If there is some really messy fruit, then I'll probably wash it unless I'm in the middle of prepping a lot and then I'll just wipe it off with the towel and keep on going. It and the knife gets washed each night. We're always cutting up breads or fruits or cheese or something.

I know that everytime I log into my account there is a link at the top for non-Maryland residents, so I foolishly assumed it'd be easy to find on their website (which I really hate using). here is a better link: https://catalog.carr.org/logon.aspx

Matches up for my area, my daughter got $15/hour once and keep telling her too bad she doesn't like babysitting, could be a great option for her since majority of my friends have young children and would love a sitter from a similar parenting-style family. But more like $12/hour seems pretty typical too. Reminds me I'm thankful to have a teenager in the house along with young children, not sure what we'll do once she heads off to college, guess never go out again. Better get a good year of dates in before that happens, lol.

Lots of websites will have some freebies, so you can check into that when looking at online vendors. I'm a little confused as to your question about general embroidery clip art. You have to have embroidery designs (art that has been digitized) in order to do embroidery so you'll still be looking at designs or sets (digital sets) or something to purchase or find for free. I don't know of any basic collections for the begining embroider and it'll also depend on her taste as well. I like looking at emblibrary.com and sign up for their emails for sales. They have some better prices than some other places I've found but there are a lot of vendors out there. Urban Threads has some cute and more young or edgy designs too. I only buy with sales though. There are a lot of other websites out there and many will have freebie files, so check into those. I love doing applique-embroidery with my machine, planetapplique.com is one off the top of my head, but you get really cute designs without using as much thread. :) A few years ago, I'd heard that metro thread can be a great price on thread but my machine doesn't like it. I have isacord and robinson-anderson (sp?) thread along with stuff I pick up at JAs. But I have a bit higher end machine too. Hope she has a lot of fun making cute stuff.

But is it true that if you get the executive membership and your rebate isn't greater than the difference between personal and executive membership, you can request the difference as a refund. Not sure I'm wording that right - but if I upgrade and it turns out my rebate is only like $20, I could get a refund of the difference between personal and executive membership less that $20.

Our library is $25/year for out of state members. You can see their selection of electronic media at: http://maryland.lib.overdrive.com/ And if you choose to join, I'd be happy if the funds went to my local library: http://library.carr.org/

At markets, talk to the people selling and ask how the items are grown. I tend to buy from local farms more when possible and I don't care about organic standards when I know how they grow stuff. I have a friend that ran an organic certified farm but let it drop because of the cost to her and her customers and found that just telling her customers her growing practices was good enough and I'm happy to keep buying from her. For other foods, consider consulting the Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen list online a a guidelines for when buying organic (when you don't know your farmer/in super market) is important and when you can skip it. Most things I buy these days, I do get organic but that list was a starting point for me. And also for things that I peeled or removed the skins, like bananas and oranges, I was less worried about being organic but again, it can be a progressive change and starting out with little changes is a good step. There are ways to do it affordable, but it takes some adjustment and such -- if someone just jumps right into replacing everything they eat with organic alternative, the price is really high. But I've managed to change over a good majority of our diet without increasing our food spending because it means changing some of the things we buy as well. Like grapes - only do organic now and that means grapes aren't an everyday snack anymore. Same with berries, used to have them a lot but now it's really just during prime growing season only. Other more affordable fruits are used instead.

Thanks, I love being able to add new things to my nook - really like that I could choose my bookseller so it will auto-load for me later. :)

Can be and is designed to be. This is one of the big wake up calls for me many years ago, realizing that processed food was studied to make it as pleasurable and tasty and addicting as possible so I would eat more -- I suddenly felt cheated and lied too. I put chick-fil-a in this category because I ***know*** that the ingredients are crap and awful for me but I notice the more I eat there, the more I want to eat there - even when I'm getting sick of it too. But when I take the time to reduce the majority of processed stuff and foods enginered to have over the top flavor profiles and mouth feel, etc, and just fuel my body on real food - I notice the subtle changes in tastes buds how previous flat-flavors have more depth and element and then does something like chick-fil-a taste pretty awful. But it's a constant slippery slope in my reality and I know a lot about food and still struggle to make the best choices for my health and my family's health on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. But I still strive to do the best I can as I can.

Some of us might strongly disagree with the above bolded part. I feel we have a very unsafe food supply but because much of the effects are still small or not majorly distinguishable or not affecting everyone yet, we have people still clutching to opinions that some people are just over concerned about food. And having corporations with so much control over information regarding food safety, doesn't make me feel safe. And I don't feel that we have as much of a luxury to be selective because having accurate and outright information is still hard to get. Sure I can spend more to buy organics or what not, but I still feel that I don't have all the information I need to make truly informed consent choices on what I eat, especially if I ever want to eat beyond my kitchen. But yes, I do have the option to stay home and eat only foods I feel are acceptable, but I care about other people and other families that have neither the information nor the resources (time, financial) to also make healthier choices for their family. And I'm not talking about choosing to serve apples over ice cream, though that is an element, but the choice to serve food that hasn't been genetically altered to include proteins that my body may find harmful or cause long-term effects that we may just be seeing the beginning signs of such.

Why is it a big deal - I don't know, I can't really think of one element or activity in my day or week that I spend more energy doing - cooking food, cleaning up food, planning food, being asked for food, saying no more food, etc. I find 'diets' a bit annoying to talk about, personally, but I am glad to see broader conversation about food in this country because I'm constantly amazed at how little people know both about what they eat, what is in their food, and what would be consider sound nutrition advice and how many are totally blown away when they realize that the majority of the foods they eat contain stuff they're not comfortable with once they know it is there. I've been nutrition and food focused for a while and I'm always learning more. My viewpoint is often changing, especially on things like organic standards ('oh it's just a new way to sell things' to 'well for this product, since I don't know the producer, I can at least make these assumptions based on this label') to food allergies ('people are just so over reactive these days' to 'wow, research indicates that the corruption of our food supply and mass consumption of chemical-laden, genetic-altered ingredients can have a mass negative effect on the body, including large increase in food allergies'). I am super please to see people taking the time to really thing about what it going into their bodies -- on this forum, just compare it to spending mass amount of time thinking about what you are feeding your child's mind and consider if feeding their bodies is as important of thorough consideration as well.

This was my first thought as well. I need to make these again soon, they're really really yummy. But there is a reason we only eat them once every other year or so. I top them with provolone cheese too. :)

Costco. We moved and there is a BJs just 18 minutes away but I will still drive 30 minutes to Costco instead. I compared products and pricing and just didn't see enough reason to change from Costco.

finish paying off debt and add to emergency fund. Though I would probably take out about $1-2k for something around the house* in order to not have dh throw tomatoes at me. *something being one of the many put off repairs needed, not like a new living room set. :)

Totally depends. DH has a brother with 3 children we never see and I don't know them at all having only met them once after we married. I wanted to name dd after my grandmother - his niece has the same name with a different spelling. I didn't see anything wrong with it. However, if they were cousins we were really close to, seen often and such, I would possible have had more reservations about doing so. And if it was something like my sister's kids, I'm not really close to them either but yet do feel more connected to, I would probably have not used the name unless I talked to her first. The only person that seems to have a problem with our name choices is Grandma/MIL.

So how is it going? I'm finally able to keep it going at my waist but not for any impressive amount of time. My next goal is to move forward or backwards, so far that isn't happening. Also trying to make it work with a side-to-side stance or even just put my right leg forward instead of my left. I'm also working on doing more tricks too or stuff I see called off-the-body because then at least I have something else to try while I'm working up stamina for moving it around my body. I'm finding some of the isolations to be pretty challenging too but fun to work on, though my arms may disagree. Also ended up with a bruise on my hand today and it just strikes me as so odd because certainly have never had a bruise there. It doesn't even hurt today while it was feeling a little tender last night. I'm tempted to get the hoopnotica dvds or something that I have more control over. Everything seems to be on youtube but I often find that some tutorials are either too long or just don't explain it well for me to get it - but I do like many of the hoopnotica clips I've seen. And also expertvillage seems to have several too.

This was one of the reasons dd wanted to go to High School. She played soccer competitively but the options were getting more and more limited as she got older and really seemed to dry up as we looked at having a team for 9th grade. We don't have the option to play without enrolling. So that, along with a desire for more social interaction, were some of the bigger factor for going to school.

Well practice, practice, practice begins. Made a hoop this morning (42") and haven't yet managed to really get it going, lots of falling on my toes, ouch. But there was one magic moment where it just worked and went and went and then haven't been able to recreate that moment. But seeing as how it's Day 1, that's probably not too bad. My 4 year old was watching and told me I needed to make her a hoop so she could show me how to do it. Well, fine then. So I made her a smaller hoop and turns out it isn't as easy as she thought. I'm also thinking that she could really use a lighter hoop - I didn't want to buy 100 feet of the small tubing just to make them 2 hoops but starting to think I should. They're just 3 and 4 and it seems a bit hefty right now, but we'll give it time.