Salmon Fishing in the Yemen....my dh and I just watched this and both of us loved it.

I will pray for you. ((Hugs))

I'm all in favour of a dog sleeping on the bed. We once had a basset hound who began growling at my feet if I moved in the bed in a way she didn't like. That got her a one way ticket to the floor. :). Otherwise they are welcome.

We had a great parade at noon, international food fair outside community centre, my dd is splurging and doing a helicopter flight over our town (offered every Canada Day) and fireworks at 11 (it's too light until then). Happy Canada Day!

It is weird. But seems to be true.

So I've increased water intake a lot and increased healthy fats and wow I don't know if it's coincidence but the scale moved. And I didn't realize the leg cramps I was feeling was probably dehydration. I drink a lot of water naturally but I guess not as much as I thought. I'm feeling encouraged.

So I upped my water, lowered carbs a bit and feel pretty good. I guess it's a journey...and I must want to get there :). I also agree it takes tweeting for what's best for each body. Today I'm having a grad/birthday party at my house. I did the baking yesterday and had good self control. Didn't test anything :).

Thanks for the encouragement. I am in this for the long haul. And you're right...it is a learning process.

Sleep...elusive at best. I'm naturally a poor sleeper. Couple that with special needs kids and fibromyalgia. Well you get the picture. But I'm trying to work on this problem.

Interesting. I did read that today but good to hear this matches your experience. I will try that.

Thanks for your responses...I will check out low carb pals and some of the other resources. I don't think I can do less than 40-50 which is usually my plain Greek yogurt and a few berries and sometimes a piece of dark chocolate. I don't think I'd stick with plan without those treats. I am happy the scale is moving down and I am finding this reasonably easy to follow. I don't want this to be a diet. I want to make this a lifestyle change. The one red flag that pops up on all sites talking about weight loss is stress. I have a significant amount of stress in my life...over and above regular life stresses. I just don't know how to change this......well I can't. So I know that this impedes weight loss. I will keep plugging along.

On the advice of my dr I began low carb 3 weeks ago and have been fairly strict, although we did have a family vacation for 10 days during that time but I only indulged a couple of times. So here is my question. there is so much advice on the web, some of it seems contradictory. How do you know you're doing it right? i have a lot of weight to loose so I guess I thought i'd loose a lot right away but as of today I've lost just over 5 pounds. I definitely had the low carb flu. . . . nauseau, etc. and itchy skin. I'm aiming at 50 carbs a day. Everyone talks about weight "melting off". That, thus far, has not been my experience. Am i just being impatient? :) Overall I'm liking how I feel on this eating plan so i'm trying to keep that in mind while I wait for weight loss.

Jenessa

Very sorry for your loss. Big hugs and prayers....

I am thankful the two have a connection. It might be the only real bond my youngest boy has with anyone. I'm also fortunate eldest ds is super connected to us. I appreciate people's comments about my parenting...honestly it's baptism by fire. We've been through a lot with both boys and their special needs. It has made us very flexible and thinking out of the box type of people. Because we have to. FASD is such a crazy thing to live with.

Our week away was exhausting. As we were driving to our location, which was about 4 hours from where my youngest ds lives, my eldest ds declared he wanted to visit his brother. Eldest ds has some special needs which requires us to provide more guidance than regular kids his age but we didn't want to deny him a visit. Given the craziness of meeting dd's birth father, we decided we would try and arrange a visit. So I phoned my niece (remember the one that took in my youngest ds) to ask if eldest ds could spend two nights with her for the purpose of the brothers visiting. She agreed. So we had to put our ds on a two hour ferry to get to destination. We were a bit nervous but all went well. Visit went well. Apparently our youngest ds was very depressed according to eldest ds. He was also very sleepy which makes me wonder if he's being medicated. I've asked social worker for an update but they aren't great at responding. He did confess to some mental health problems. But I got a couple of photos. :). I barely recognized him. :(. The change in a year is great. The report made me sad, but happy the boys connected. I was a bit worried eldest would be convinced to stay with youngest (eldest has a mild intellectual disability) but that didn't happen.

I'm happy to answer questions. We adopted two out of foster care at age four and a newborn through private agency. Our private adoption is also an open adoption.

It is a great story and I do know that fairy tell endings are not a given. What I learned from my experience with our ds is that in today's day and age, with technology, our adopted kids can pretty easily find their birth families. When dd began rumbling about finding birth father I decided it was better for me to bite the bullet and check out the situation. She is also a very rationale child...if I found out things that would make me concerned about contact, she would understand and follow our guidance.

I never imagined all the things that we'd experience when we adopted our three kids. Of course we've had the very difficult time with our youngest son and his RAD/ODD. This situation continues to be painful for all of us. Then there's our eldest ds who also has FASD and a mild intellectual disability. It's like running a marathon parenting him but at least he's well connected to us so he does say sorry mom, even if five minutes later he's doing the same thing. But I haven't talked a lot about our dd who we adopted as an infant...10 days old. No special needs (well, I tell my kids everyone has special needs :)). A breeze to parent. She has always wanted to meet her birth parents. Last year we learned her birthmother had passed away. So fast forward to last month. Our adoption was an open adoption so we had a lot of identifying information but they lived 1800 km away and so we've never had contact with birth father family. (We have with birth mother family.). About six months ago I did a google search of father's name but it is a super common name so I typed in his mother's name. Up popped a picture of a woman who ironically works for local government, as I do. Looking carefully I thought there seemed to be some physical features similar to dd. I went to work next day to ask my boss, who knows a lot of people in province, did he know her? Sure enough he did. I shared with him that I thought she might be my dd's grandmother. He thought I was crazy :). We discussed ways we could sleuth around to determine if she might be the grandmother but life and time got in the way until dd 18th birthday. That day I woke up with a strong feeling I should try and contact this lady at work and just ask. Worst case scenario I'm wrong, she thinks I'm nuts. So at 3 o'clock I did. She answered. It was her final hour of work before retirement. And it was her. I probably sounded like a bumbling idiot...I started conversation by identifying myself in my professional capacity and then said "I think we met once 18 years ago." Anyway she confirmed I was right but was leaving for a short trip so wouldn't have a chance to talk to her son until a week later. Long story short, birth father was ecstatic that we had tracked him down. He is getting married next year and his fiancé knew all about our dd since they first started dating. So, I knew we were heading on a trip that placed us within three hours of him. So I invited him to come see us. So on Father's Day he and his fiancé came over to my sister's and met us all (later that day, because of previously planned grad party he met about thirty other family members, including my 86 mom, and survived :). It was very emotional. It was very cool for my dd to see herself in him. He and his fiancé are great. It was surreal too. We just got home late last night. I'm still processing things. :)

Very sorry for your loss.

When you live in a rural community 120 miles seems like peanuts. So yes I would. We have bought most of our vehicles 300 - 1500 km's away from our town. It's just what people do here. Our town has one Ford dealer. We drive Toyotas.

That's so cute! My dog likes belly rubs too.

This is the best chicken soup I've ever made. In fact I'm making it today for my husband's birthday. That's how yummy it is. http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/01/chicken-pho/

We have three dogs...a Bernese Mountain Dog, Yellow Lab and a small terrier/spaniel cross. They all want to sleep with us but usually only our little dog is allowed. However, a few weeks ago our Berner was sick. I had to let her out in the middle of night. While I was waiting for our Berner to finish her business our yellow lab snuck into the bedroom. It was dark and I was tired so I didn't immediately notice...until her giant body and snoring made it impossible to sleep. (She usually sleeps with my son.)

My son's brief stint at public school, starting Grade 10, resulted in him being bullied by a teacher. The results were devastating.