I never knew how to do it, and since this is a new computer I don't even have any other photos on here to put in. Thanks Mrs. Mungo! I used the built-in webcam thingy to take a picture. Very cool.......(not me, but the webcam photo thing!) :D So tell me, are you ever surprised when you finally see a picture of someone on here and find that they're not at all what you thought they'd look like?

"Billy" bookcases from Ikea--quite durable and fairly inexpensive.

I bought used copies of both HO and Western Civ. Although I would be hard-pressed to tell you why, I preferred the Western Civ. and re-sold the HO. I like the online study options for Western Civ. too, and my 9th grader will be doing the first volume along with the online content this year.

I don't want to be too nosy, or too personal, but do you mind if I ask if the medication is for allergies or high blood pressure? I'm taking medication for both of those, and have had a lot more problems with the heat since taking them. I've been wondering which one is the culprit. Maybe you're taking what I'm taking?

I never have been a person who sweats, and in the last couple of years I've had to start taking medicine for allergies and high blood pressure. In the past year or so, I've definitely had problems coping with heat. I get sick, dizzy, and my muscles start cramping up. After that the headache starts--it quickly becomes so severe that I cannot function at all. Obviously it feels awful, but thankfully I have a lifestyle that allows me to pretty much avoid becoming overheated. I don't really like the way that I feel like a wimpy "pansy" who has to be coddled and protected from heat, especially when I have a farmer husband who can and does work all day in the sun when it's 110*. My boys are very tough about hard work and heat too. When I have to be in the heat, I bring *cold* water to drink the whole time, and it helps me a *ton* to carry a spray bottle of cold water with me and mist myself. I must appear a little weird to others when we're out, but if I plan ahead for those two things, I can do pretty well. I don't whine about it, and I try not to draw attention to myself, but I've gotta drink and mist!

Vlasic dill pickle spears are only 5 calories each, and they have a *ton* of flavor. It seems like sometimes I'm not craving food, as much as flavor, if you know what I mean!

100 E Z Lessons worked for 5 out of 5 of my kids. For my second ds, it looked like it wasn't going to work, but really it was a maturity thing. He needed more time to be ready. I backed off for about 6-9 months, and then it "clicked" for him.

Maybe I misunderstood--isn't the OP doing a salad with grilled chicken? Or maybe she meant chicken salad, as in sandwiches? Hmm....not sure now.

I don't think you necessarily have to add anything. 'Course, if it were me, I'd be adding something great to drink. If you don't do alcohol, raspberry lemonade would be a good cooling drink. Really though, I think you're good!

What's even worse is my mil, (whom I love dearly) mispronounces it and it comes out sounding like "crouch". ARGH!! My dh also calls the center "console" of the car a "counsel". My sil always says she's making baked "bings" for a bbq, and hangs her clothes in a clowset. I know I'm just being picky, but I still can't help being privately annoyed!

People often use the phrase "I could care less" when they really mean "I couldn't care less!" It just makes no sense at all when used incorrectly. Don't people realize that they're really saying the opposite of what they mean?!

Lol! I was thinking the same thing! I've never used black bean sauce before, and I was a bit skeptical. I felt like it really did add something to the dish though, and I will probably use it again.

My new laptop has a webcam, and I don't know what I could use it for. Any ideas? Would it be an easy way for me to get my picture in the little avatar space thing?

Well, in our case, (with the exception of the plastic trash cans and the 2 duffel bags of clothing:D) I would eat anything that we feed to our cows. Actually, we do eat some of what our cows do. My kids have grown up sorting through the pile of almond hulls for stray almonds that were left behind, and we tried the flavored rice/popcorn cakes before they were released to the stores because the special flavors were included in a run of discards that we were feeding to the cows. I kind of like the idea of my cows eating M&Ms, though I don't think we've ever had candy for our cows.

Well actually, we were doing it for a lunch, and we had other leftovers, so no, that recipe didn't fully feed all of us! Everybody got to have some though. I would probably triple that to feed us all. So Janet, are you the kind of gal that has black bean sauce on hand? If so, I'm impressed. It is considered an exotic ingredient where I live. :)

Our dairy cows are not organic, but if you're talking about what cows are fed that you might not think of, here's a few things that we've fed along with more traditional grain & hay feed: leftover Quaker rice cakes (including the chocolate, cheese, or caramel variety) Brewer's grain (spent hops, etc, from the beer-making process) loads of tomatoes, and leftover tomato "pulp" from the canning process huge loads of odd carrots (we gleaned from the pile daily :D ) Our grain and hay all gets loaded into a big mixer truck that grinds all of it up with big augers and then shoots the feed out the side right into the mangers where the cows eat. Once my dh was driving along, looking in his side mirror to make sure he was getting the feed in the right place, and he saw bright blue "bits" in with the feed. Turns out that he had used his loader tractor to haul my big Rubbermaid garbage cans to the dumpster at our farm to empty them. He forgot to drag them out of the tractor scoop when he was done, and when he scooped up the first batch of grain to load into that truck, he'd inadvertently dumped my garbage cans in with the grain. Yep, my heavy-duty garbage cans became part of that first batch of cow feed that day, ground up into teensy bits! :lol: Twice our cows have accidently eaten duffel bags full of personal effects. Apparently there was a vagrant sleeping in our grain pile, and sometimes he'd leave his personal belongings in the grain. It's really hard to see small things left in the grain piles, and my dh would come along and scoop them up in a big load, and into that feed truck it would go. We only knew because we found pieces of duffel bag and denim jeans. The rest was chopped up tiny by the auger, and presumably eaten by the cows, because we could only find tiny pieces left over. Cows are also *really* fond of anything you might plant in your own garden...don't ask how I know, please. :toetap05:

I guess my expectations weren't very high maybe? I live in a rural area where there's not really any asian-style food at all. :glare: I was pleased that it was easy to prepare, quick to make, didn't taste gross, included a lot of veggies, and my kids all liked it. That rates it an excellent for us! I didn't serve it with rice. We do enough carbs as it is, so I wanted to stick with mostly veggies. I definitely would have wanted more sauce if I had rice with it. Do you feel like the rice wine made any difference? I decided it wasn't worth searching for. Sorry it wasn't so great for you...:tongue_smilie:

I posted (last week I think)asking about a substitution for rice wine, and included the recipe for String Bean Chicken a la Panda Express. I tried the recipe & thought I'd post the results...It was EXCELLENT! :drool5: For anyone who wants to try it, here's the recipe again. Marinate 1 lb chicken sliced into 1/4 strips in a mixture of: 2 T soy sauce 2 t rice wine 1 t sesame oil 2 t cornstarch 1 t sugar Heat your pan and saute the chicken in 2 T vegetable oil for about 3 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan, and cook the following until tender-crisp: 1 c onion wedges 2 T minced garlic 1 t black bean sauce 12 oz fresh green beans 1/4-1/2 c water Add the cooked chicken back to the pan of vegetables, toss and cook for 2 minutes more. Oh, YUM! This turned out really well, but I did change a few things. 1.) I only used about 1/2 lb. of chicken and it was *plenty*. 2.) I used low-sodium soy sauce--don't do it! 3.) You could easily use only 1 T vegetable oil to saute the chicken. It would be more than enough, if your pan is non-stick. 4.) I skipped the rice wine because I didn't have it on hand and didn't see it at the grocery. If you try it, let us know how it went for you, ok? :)

My dh was born into a solid Dutch Reformed family. In fact, I think they've been Reformed for as many generations as anyone can remember, back in Holland. I had never attended church, but was invited to a Reformed church when I was about 15 years old. It's where I met my dh, and I've never wanted to stray (either from the husband, or the denomination, lol!) Reformed beliefs seem logical and correct to me, though there are some things about the church that I think aren't strictly the right way to do things. We started out as CRC, but ended up RCUS when we moved about 18 years ago. So...do any of you have dc memorizing the Heidelberg Catechism?

:iagree: Exactly what WTMindy said! I don't hide anything, but there's times when I hope I don't have to explain. ;)

Thank you so much! Do I look prettier, skinnier, smarter?! You even put me over by 1 rep. (now I want *four* greenies :D)

Isn't it fun? I'm very close to 3 squares also! I'm nowhere near that on # of posts, though. That's ok...I'm kinda quiet in person too. :001_smile: I hope that somewhere along the line I've positive repped you! I'm trying to spread some rep "love", but having a hard time because when I click on the little scale icon to leave someone positive rep, the rep box pops up off to the right side of my screen. I don't know why it does that, but it takes a long time to scroll that direction and back just to leave a nice comment. Am I being stupid? Is there a reason why the rep box pops up off the side for me? Anyone know?

I'm not sure how that happened, and I have *no* technical knowledge, so take my opinion for what it's worth. If the woman sounds normal, I'd probably dismiss this as a fluke, but keep my eye out for any other danger signs.

I'm gonna give you the Creme Brulee right now, because I can do that one off the top of my head. It's easy to make, but not for the faint-hearted, nutritionally speaking! Creme Brulee Heat (but don't boil) the following ingredients in a saucepan: 32 oz heavy cream 1 T vanilla extract dash of salt In a medium-sized bowl, mix the following ingredients: 8 egg yolks 1 1/2 c sugar While whisking the egg mixture quickly, dribble in a ladle-ful of the hot cream. Whisk in another ladle of the hot cream, then pour the whole egg mixture back into the pan of hot cream. This step tempers the mixture so that the hot cream doesn't *cook* your egg mixture--it's pretty important, so do it just as I described. Ladle the liquid into (about) 8 oven-safe ramekins, and set the ramekins in a roasting pan. Add hot tap water to the roaster so that it comes up about an inch high on the outside of the ramekins. Bake at 300 degrees for 50 minutes. When you remove these from the oven, they will look solid on the top, but will be very jiggly inside. Don't worry, *they are done*! Stick them in the refrigerator until well chilled. When you're ready to serve these, here's what you do: Preheat your broiler. Spread a generous teaspoon of brown sugar (yes, use *brown* sugar) over the top of each serving. Pop the ramekins under the broiler for a minute. You will be able to see that the brown sugar has melted, caramelized, and will be shiny and bubbly. Take them out of the oven, and either serve right away or refrigerate. Don't do the "brulee" (the broiling part) until close to serving time, because it won't hold overnight very well after you top them. Enjoy! ETA: Do I get positive rep or negative rep for ruining everyone's health *and* their waistline simultaneously? ;-)

Peach Praline Cobbler Filling-mix the following together and pour it into a greased 9 x 13 baking dish: 8 c sliced or chunked peaches 1 c sugar (either white or brown) 4 T quick tapioca 2 t lemon juice 1/2 c chopped pecans (I like to toast them first, but you don't have to) 1/2 t vanilla 1/4 t butter flavoring (yeah, I know this seems yucky, but if you have it, add it, you won't be sorry) Topping-toss the following ingredients in your food processor and process until it's crumbly: 1 1/2 c flour 3/4 c brown sugar 3/4 c white sugar 1 t cinnamon 1 1/2 sticks cold butter cut into pieces 1/2 c pecans Sprinkle half of the crumbs over your filling and then use the very tips of your fingers to push a bit of the crumbs under the surface of the filling, then sprinkle the rest of the crumbs over the top. Bake @ 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake 20 minutes longer. This is pretty good on it's own, or topped with ice cream and caramel sauce, but if you want to go that extra mile, you can add chopped sugared pecans sprinkled on the top. You can buy them or make them--I'm including a recipe for you anyway. Sugared Pecans Whip the following ingredients until frothy: 1 egg white 1 t vanilla 2 t water Add 1 lb. chopped pecans and stir to coat. Remove pecans from liquid and dredge in a mixture of: 1 c sugar 1/2 t salt 1/2 t cinnamon Spread on greased sheet and bake at 250 degrees for about 1 hr, stirring occasionally. After the nuts cool, make sure they're broken up.