This is exactly how I feel about FB. I joined only because my 14yo was setup on FB during our annual US visit and I wanted to see what it was about. I really love it for quickies. But then again, we're SUPER isolated - both from the US, our friends and family but also even from Mexico herself. We're 6km from the nearest pueblo and 18km from the nearest town. FB allows me to connect without having to put a lot of thought into the process. Reading this thread just reminded me of an old childhood friend (I'm 48, so it was a LONG time ago) that I'm now going to look for on FB. I'm sorry you were hurt, Colleen. I don't have really good friends on FB - I have only 1 real friend in the world. I use it for virtual friends.

if the picture is the picture of a person, is it yourself or a family member or even a photo you took? I recently realized a particular poster's avatar was actually an actress (which I suppose, shows my ignorance of American culture :)).

My kids all have different schedules. The 12yo takes Monday and Friday off; the girls take Saturday off. The 14yo does whatever he wants when he wants.

he wants to know what provocative means. i thought sexually stimulating but wondered what you meant. so we dropped the subject. also, which clothes (he wants to know)

I've been exercising but I'm afraid it will be quite a while before I'm running again. This second injury seems to have done more damage than the first so I'm trying to be happy about being able to walk. i'm doing rehab exercises religiously so I have hope I'll be running some day. I really do miss it though. I've been walking 3-4 miles daily and tomorrow I'll probably take a day off.

I like my coffee like my men. Black, deep and strong. I used to use soymilk but it really masks the taste of the cawfee. I never used much soymilk - just a splash - but I much prefer to revel in the taste of the naked, black cawfee. Go black. You'll never go back. :)

Things that I took for "normal" in my life went away after removing dairy. Unfortunately, it took 47 years before I realized dairy was the culprit. I also found that my "allergy" (it has never been diagnosed) got worse as I got older. All my life I have hated milk. When I was a kid I LOVED powdered milk because it didn't "stick in my throat" the way whole milk did, but you know how it was, you simply couldn't say "no" to drinking milk back then. I have always had excema all over my back and chest and ocassionally creeping up my neck to my scalp. Last year it turned into hives after eating dairy. It took a few months for the dairy to clear my system and now that my body is clean I will react with hives on my shoulders and upper arms after eating dairy. Things that I thought were normal which disappeared after removing dairy. 1) My IBS (diagnosed), 2) my excema. I never knew skin could be SOFT!, 3) my constant diarrhea. I thought everyone had very very loose stools to diarrhea constantly. Who knew it was normal to be normal? Like I said, it took MONTHS to get all the dairy out of my system and I will react (excema and hives) to trace amounts in anything. So label reading is important. We eat little to no processed food though and I am not much into condiments (except salsas - look where we live :)) so that's not a problem either. Even orange juice is freshly made - just the way life is down here. I hope your husband gets to know life without dairy. I do ocassionally miss it and will try some dairy (like twice a year) but other than that I'm very happy to lose all my symptoms.

I am allergic to all dairy. Even trace dairy in salad dressings. I wouldn't do it. Use soy milk instead. Everyoneceandawhile (like twice a year) I try to prove to myself that I'm not really allergic and indulge in a slice of cheese or some yogurt. Comes back to haunt me each and every time. I break out in excema, sometimes hives and have explosive diarrhea. TMI? :) Unless he decides to choose the reaction, skip the milk products.

Well, I'm not a grammar maven, I don't expect my kids to ask my permission for anything (we rule by consensus in our family) and I would be horrified if they asked me, "Mother may I", but my response to "Can" is the same. :) I always ask them, "I don't know, CAN you?" And when my husband asks me if I can see something or find something or know where something is, I generally will reply, "Yes. I can. Were you just wondering if I could?" or "oh, did you actually want me to DO x or were you just wondering if I could?". It isn't a peeve of mine but I really do enjoy playing with the words. It is all in good fun though and if someone is irritated I certainly don't do it then. I'm almost positive my Dad did the same to me.

Wow, that seems rather exclusionary. I was an unschooler until this past year (really, just since January) who used Sonlight literature (certainly not the IG's, etc.) to enrich my kids' lives. If this athiest, unschooling family can find a place for Sonlight in our lives, I find it hard to believe Christians cannot. :)

This is true. We fulltimed for 4 years before settling down in Mexico but I never bothered with the legality of what I was doing wrt homeschooling. It is crazy to me that you must have a legal address to exist in the US. There is a well-known website called "Families on the Road" and FOTR for those interested.

I DID see you waving!!! Did you see me wave back? :) We are just a tiny bit down the road from Xcaret - about 7km or so. We've never been because it is so expensive (even though we could get a 50% local discount, it is STILL uber expensive with 4 kids) and we have local snorkeling spots that are much nicer. We can swim to the reef daily, but the water is much too cold this time of year to swim. I can't believe you went in the water! It is so cold now (but we're used to summer weather). Just a week or so ago it was 96F/36C for a good week so we're really suffering with Norte no. 29. Welcome home and eat up! :)

Well, cheryl is in Disney so she stopped creating threads and I reinjured my calf muscle so I took about a week off and I think people got lazy and stopped creating threads. Go ahead and start one - I remember there was a thread earlier this week... Hey, how was your cruise? Sorry about the frigid weather - we are all suffering terribly from it - we've already had one death in our state from the weather. Last night was the coldest I think it has been this year and at 8am I am still huddled under a sleeping bag. Temp says 61F/16C outside. Same inside. Brrrr.... I'm going for an exercise walk this morning - I'll be off running for a while. Not sure if I have compartmental syndrome or just torn muscles.

free, yes, yes, yes, yes.

My happy weight is supposed to be 147.5. I'm currently at 77 kilos and heading down - my goal is 67 kilos. Transferring everything over to pounds...I'm at 169.4 pounds and my goal is 147.4! Wow! I had no idea that was my goal weight in pounds! I was going to say my happy weight was ridiculous, but I had no idea 67 kilos was 148 pounds. Hmmm...not sure about that happy weight. I'd definitely like to drop anohter 10 kilos (I've dropped 13 so far) so I guess I'd be in that arena.

I think the reason people might be a little uneasy is because they have no idea why people were banned or why threads were deleted. I personally, participated in many of the deleted threads (well, honestly, I have no idea how many as they are gone :)) and really don't know why the threads were deleted and people banned. I wondered if maybe I'd been banned and checked a locked thread and saw I'm not. So people are probably a little uneasy because they didn't see what led to the banning or deleting of threads (I know I never did) and are wondering if the hammer might come down on them also. Unless you see what led to the banning/deleting it is hard to know what posts lie outside that which is permissable - especially when you've participated in the banned/deleted threads. It is just uncertainty, that's all.

Thank you! I JUST found them myself at Huffington Post. I need to check back at cbsnews to see if they're updated. I'm stunned to find I'm falling for another man. The way our 44th president looks at his wife makes me feel all funny inside. :)

(still looking for the ball gown pictures) If that picture doesn't say 1000 words, I don't know what it does.

once she got the coat off it was much prettier Hmmmm...they're giving her a hughe thumbs up... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-fuller/its-official-michelle-o-i_b_159511.html

Aw, c'mon. If you're going to give an opinion, give those of us without TV or streaming internet a link or a picture, please? :) (listening to Terry Gross with my 14yo right now)

ah! that's the difference! We have had no live coverage - we're waiting until 1am to download the videos - and I've just been reading to the kids, so they got my cadence and delivery. And I LOVED the poem. :)

We read the Writer's Almanac daily and I was reallly disappointed with the EA poem found in the WA today. When I googled her poem for the innaguration, I found this site and fell in LOVE with the poem. We weren't able to watch any coverage (I'm hoping to download the speech tonight) but we read her poem today. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?ref=books (for dictation this month we've been working through the MLK "I Have a Dream" speech)

I found this quote to be telling: If you follow the government''s own ruling...1/10th blood..I''d say he meets that standard for being labeled black. Funny how it''s good enough when it keeps a person down but when it actually adds to a historic leg up then it''s problem....and I''m not saying you personally. But the question has been bounced around...''how is he black if he''s mixed?'' The government''s standard was good enough to keep the blacks in slavery, from voting, and just about anything they needed when it was convenient for segregation. The same standard now has to be good enough to give the man a historic place in presedential history. Maybe the next black president can be ''more'' black...but Obama gets to be the first black.

I think she is a BEAUTIFUL woman (and I'm only looking at photos, no video or TV) but the gold outfit, um, well, it wouldn't have been my 1st choice.

Living in Mexico and not having any TV reception (of Mexican or US channels) I had no idea until I came to the board this morning. We've been talking about Ghandi a lot lately and the boys definitely equated the two (MLK and Ghandi). I'll follow the Teaching Company link and maybe we'll try and watch that today.