I too, have itchy booKs. Umm....I'm not sure how graphic to get here, but they only itch in the places that get sore when you nurse(though I'm not nursing and haven't for many years), kwim? It's a truly embarassing problem, but I did gather my courage and ask my doc about this. He told me it's eczema (sp?) and told me to put lotion on after my shower every night. PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU, QUIT READING HERE IF YOU'RE EASILY EMBARASSED!! There's a problem with that....not to put too fine a point on it, lotion leaves an unpleasant taste in an intimate area. {color me red-faced and embarassed here!} I've taken to using a little bit of olive oil on the area every night after my shower. Another thing that (I kid you not) seems to help when things are really bad, is folding up one of those Kleenex Lotion facial tissues, and wearing it in my bra over the affected area all day. I SO wish that I didn't have this problem! It's embarassing, and not a misery you can easily complain about in public, no matter how much you deserve sympathy for it! Thanks for bringing it up...I feel so much less "alone" now!

While I think the rice cooker cooks both white and brown rice really well, what I like about it most is that I no longer have to worry about timing my rice to be done at the same time as the rest of dinner. The rice cooker cooks the rice and then automatically switches to warm setting and holds the rice for a really long time, if needed, with no deterioration in the quality of the rice. I think most rice cookers can be used as veggie steamers (?), you just need to add a steamer basket, and water in the bottom of the rice cooker. I also make spaghetti and meatballs (or meat sauce) in my rice cooker. I like not having to use several pans for that, and I like that I don't have to drain the water from the noodles, and I like that the rice cooker will just keep the spaghetti warm until we're ready for it. Just in case you're interested, here's how I do that. I usually do a meat sauce rather than meatballs, but the method would be the same. Crumble ground beef (I use super-lean, so no draining) into the rice cooker bowl, add some chopped onions (if I feel like it), and set the rice cooker to cook. I stir the meat occasionally, until I like how brown it is, then I add 26oz. of canned spaghetti sauce, a cup or so of water, and whatever spices I want that day. I wait a minute or two until the sauce is boiling, and then I add broken spaghetti noodles. Then I close the lid and walk away, coming back occasionally to stir the pot. When the spaghetti is done, the rice cooker switches to warm, and the spaghetti stays there until we're ready to eat. I love not having to dirty a pot for sauce and a pot for pasta, and I love not having to dirty a collander to drain the noodles!

When I was a child I had an ear infection that my mom "let go a little too long". To make the story short, my eardrum ruptured. Talk about misery! Bloody pus from the ear for a while, and then no hearing in that ear for years. I've been prone to ear infections, and I take the antibiotics when I need them. At the first sign of an earache, I take meds to dry up any possible fluids, and then I push myself to drink a ton of water. It doesn't work for me if I wait too long, though. Hope you feel better soon! ~Julie~

I think my kid might be taking that same class right now at the community college! He just hasn't covered Powerpoint yet. :(

I just need to be able to take about 20 pictures found on the Internet, add a sentence or two of my own words to the bottom, and project them in sequence on the screen. I'd like to be able to just click for the next picture rather than have them flip to the next one automatically. I'm guessing that my main obstacle is that I don't have Powerpoint. I did see that I could download a trial of Office (including Powerpoint, I think), and maybe I could just use the trial version for this one project, and then not buy the whole thing when the trial is over? Would that be a fair use of a free trial? I don't think I can afford to buy it right now. Thanks again, Julie

I'm taking a cc class, and working on a group project due monday morning. The written project is almost finished, and we are to present our report with PowerPoint on Monday morning. The kid in the group who knows PowerPoint appears to be backing out on his commitment to set it up.:( I have *no* experience with PowerPoint, and don't even know how to get what I need, or if it's even possible that I could learn enough in the next 2 days to get it done myself. Any help here? Thanks, Julie

Choice #1: I saute some sliced mushrooms with a tiny bit of garlic & onions. I make an omelette with one egg and 4 egg whites, top it with an ounce of 2% cheddar cheese, and all of the sauteed mushrooms. #2: I cook one serving of frozen hash brown potatoes with some onion. I use my teeny pan to fry about 5 egg whites in a bit of Pam spray. I add a slice of 2% american cheese broken into bits to the top, and serve the giant fried egg (white) with the potatoes & onions. #3: I have one cup of Special K with red Berries, one cup of 1% milk(I leave half the cup in my bowl), a slice of whole-wheat toast with a teaspoon of real butter, and eat a piece of fruit. I like to have a lot of protien in the morning so I feel full for a long time, and I like to keep the calories around 350. These breakfasts are HUGE! I'm not hungry for lunch until kind of late, and then I eat a largish lunch, and then a very small dinner. So far, so good! I've lost 11 pounds in 7 weeks, and I haven't been hungry even once. :)

I chopped up the chicken and made sure I heated it very hot before we ate it. It was delicious with sauteed onions and cheddar cheese in quesadillas. It's the quickest dinner ever. Thanks!

I have a sealed, never-opened bag of grilled chicken breast strips from Costco. They are the precooked breasts of chicken, cut into strips, sold refrigerated, kwim? The package says to use by Feb 28. Would you use them? They look good and smell really good. Thanks, Julie p.s. I won't blame you if you tell me to eat them and then we all get food poisoning! :D

I needed the encouragement so very much. Thank you for being my friends (even though we've never met!):) My kitchen sink is empty & clean The church bulletin has been composed and is just waiting to be printed, copied, & folded My bed is made & my nightstand (first view from bedroom doorway) is clear. I figured out an easy(tho not necessarily healthy!) dinner that my family loves: chicken & cheese quesadillas, refried beans (from a can this time :(), tortilla chips, and nacho cheese dip. The kids will help me polish off the clean laundry in about 10 mins. Another kid is really responsible for the sweeping, and they WILL do it! The schoolwork may have to wait until tomorrow, I just hate the feeling of putting work off till the day before it's due. In other words, Superwoman doesn't really live here, but it's gonna be okay anyway.;) Thanks again, more than I can say... Julie

Okay, so maybe one of you can give me the encouragement I need to get off my backside... Today I went to the funeral of a sweet teenage girl who was killed last week in a head-on with a drunk driver. She was the niece of my dear best friend, and I wanted to be there for my friend, who is not only in grief, but was singing on her own during the service. The service left me....melancholy. Today is also my birthday, and my sweet dh brought me home a dozen long-stemmed roses. It was thoughtful of him, and I love him dearly, but after 20 years of marriage, does he not know me well enough to know that I've been struggling to make my budget work lately? Am I a totally ungrateful wretch to have the thought flicker through my mind that I wish he'd just given me the money? Just yesterday I got a notice from our med. ins. company that I owe an additional $1400 from a small procedure done (get this) in October '06. I haven't a clue what an arrangement of a dozen long-stemmed roses costs nowadays...maybe I'd better not think about that. (Here's the part where I need a big kick in the...)My problem now is that I have BIG things to get done in the next few hours, and absolutely zero motivation to carry me through. Here's my list. Am I hallucinating to believe that I can get this done if I just dig in with gusto? Compile 10 pages of information and type it into the correct format to turn in for a big project due on Monday for my class at the cc. Compose, print, and make copies of our church bulletin for tomorrow morning Figure out something for dinner (and it has to be good because we had a throw-together dinner last night after I gave away our big dinner to my grieving friend) Fold two loads of clean laundry Make my bed, clear my dresser Tidy up the main areas of my house so dh is happy to come home Make banana muffins for tomorrow morning (to use up the bananas that are rotting on my counter) Take care of a sinkful of dishes Sweep up the floor WELL? Can I do it? Am I able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Am I faster than a steaming locomotive? You catch my drift here, right? :rolleyes: If you've read to the end of my complaining, whining post, I'm so sorry! (but thanks for indulging my pathetic need to get this out):o

I *love* the good week, and wish it could last all the time. My poor dh is still bewildered, after 20 years of marriage. He takes the off weeks very personally. I just tell him that if it was a good week all of the time, it would lose it's "specialness"!:D ~Julie~

Pot roast with gravy, special recipe mashed potatoes, white corn, and steamed broccoli.

If it were me, it would be a library. Floor to ceiling bookshelves on at least 3 walls, a small table with two hard-backed chairs (the kind that will make you uncomfy and keep you awake if you're studying when tired), and one comfy upholstered chair with a reading lamp. I so envy you that small empty room!:) ~Julie~

My answer would be no. No. No. -but I would double check first to try and make an arrangement regarding a responsible adult parent riding along in the front seat. My perception of limo rides is that they are often about being a time for "cutting loose", and limo drivers looking the other way. I don't think young teens need time to cut loose without a parent around. Actually, I'm kind of surprised limo companies are willing to do this with minor children unattended. If I could finagle a way to have a responsible parent ride along in the front seat, then yes. Otherwise, no. ~J~

If it's choosing between two good things, and I'm fine with it either way, I let the kid decide. I'm going to give you my opinion about which I'd pick though... I'd let my ds do the football, if that's what he wanted. The guitar can be learned independently, if necessary, and football must be done when the opportunity arises. Also, it's a pretty limited time when a boy can do football, and guitar can be picked back up again at any time in the future when the timing is better. I know the anti-footballers will disagree about whether football is important, but as I've posted before, my ds experienced a *lot* of positives when he played football. ~Julie~

I'm not sure you really need more, but I'd agree with whoever said some kind of meat. Another hot main-dish thing (if you decide you need more) is biscuits and gravy. You can make both of those things ahead, and put the gravy in a small crockpot to warm beforehand. It's hearty, but also very economical, imo. ~Julie~

I do my major grocery shopping once a month, and then make only small trips once a week to "fill in the gaps". We are a family of 7 big eaters, and that's a LOT of groceries! Would you all take as many reusable bags as you need? That's a lot of bags. Do any of you take, like, 10 bags along when you do major shopping? Thanks, Julie

You could reheat those potatoes and top them with chili and cheese. Or you could scoop the insides out, mix whatever you have, usually cheese, broccoli, spinach, cream cheese, sour cream, onions or green onions, chopped bits of ham or bacon, put the filling back in and bake them. You could slice the potatoes, make a white sauce, add cheese, and serve them as au gratin potatoes. You could saute some diced onions, add the potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, garlic, etc, and then use that as the filling for a really great omelette. If you have a little bit of stew meat in your freezer, you could cook that, add a brown gravy, and pour it over halves of the potatoes. Just for curiosity's sake, would you let us know what you ended up doing? I'm probably a little strange, but I love to hear about what people do with their leftovers! ~J~

Lisa, Fondant absolutely should NOT be frozen! It just doesn't survive freezing. I can do fondant, but don't very often. For most cakes it's possible to achieve a really smooth "fondant look" with a good buttercream, though it won't have the same gloss finish. I'd worry about the cheesecake, too. In fact, I'd never agree to do cheesecake that I knew had to be transported 5 hours without refrigeration plus the time the cake sits out after it's set up and during the wedding/reception. This may be one of those cases where logistically speaking, the bride needs to be convinced of the common sense in choosing a different cake type. ~Julie~ p.s. What happens to fondant that is frozen is that as it thaws it develops bubbles and wet spots that sag--not pretty :eek:

...but when I was in middle school, I kept my Lip Smackers and my comb for my Farrah Fawcett "do" in the pocket of my Ditto pants! Ah, wasn't that round "saddle seam" on the rump flattering?!:D

no, really! Sparkpeople is changing my life! I mostly use it for the food/calorie tracking feature, but I find the suggested menu helpful too. My goals are both BIG and small. I (truthfully) have about 80 pounds to lose. That's BIG! On the other hand, I want to actually be able to stick to this for the long haul, so my weekly goal is to lose 1# per week (pretty small!). So far, I've been doing this for about 7 weeks, and I've lost 8 pounds. I only have to do the same thing I've already done ten more times, and I'll be there. I can totally do it. :cool: One of the things I like about Sparkpeople is that it gave me a range of calories to shoot for each day. The low end for me is around 1500 calories, so I shoot for that, but my allowance is up to around 1800 calories, so on days that I need a whole extra meal(yeah, a small one) because I'm super-hungry, I don't feel bad at all. I have high blood pressure, so it's very useful to me that when I enter in my food, not only does sparkpeople figure out the calories for me, but it also lists my sodium content. I like that if you do weigh-ins, it will plot your progress on a graph. It's really helped me to connect the busy-ness of life with my eating habits. Some weeks are busy, and it's nice to be able to see how I did when I was busy versus when l got to stay home a lot during the week, etc. I don't get a lot of emails from sparkpeople, I just opted out of receiving them. You can choose which ones you want them to send. Some of the articles are pretty good, some I delete unread. What amazes me is that sparkpeople is FREE! I'd pay {shhh, don't tell them}. I'd pay a lot. It's working. What do you have to lose? (now I sound like a commercial:)) Just go to Sparkpeople.com and sign up. (Did I mention it's FREE!;))

My dh is 6'5". He wears 38 waist and 40 inseam. Fortunately, I don't buy his jeans! I live out in the sticks, and my mil still lives in southern California. She orders jeans for my dh from a western wear store (apparently they have no trouble getting 38x40 Levis) and gives them to him at Christmas and on his birthday. Hope you find what you're looking for! ~Julie~

How many of you are taking one or more college classes for yourself right now? If you are, how many units are you taking, and which classes? Also, anyone here in college simply for their own edification, and not career possibilities/advancement? I'll start... Every couple of years I take a few classes at the local community college. Right now I'm taking a U.S. Government class, just for fun. :) ~Julie~

I know someone out there has what I'm looking for! I *know* all of the things about filling up on fiber-rich veg & fruits. I know about whole grains. I know about encouraging healthy exercise opportunities and participating as a family. I know the standard info about how to determine how big a serving size is. I know about kids not dieting, but making "healthy lifestyle choices". But... but..... but.......{insert pitiful whine here} I just want, for a little while, to jump start all of that by having a pre-set menu complete with serving sizes listed for each person. I don't want to have to do the counting of fruits & veggies, and the adding up of protiens, kwim? -Just for a little while. I also don't want to have to come up with healthy meal ideas on my own right now. I think that may come later, but for right now I think I need someone to tell me what to make for lunch. When we've discussed grocery budgets in the past, wasn't there a government website that had a sample month of meals for each budget level, (or somethin' like that?) Were the menus listed basically well-balanced, (perhaps with substitutions of better quality whole grains and fresh produce etc)? Did it list the portion sizes for each person? Thanks again, Julie