my violin teacher was Mrs. Stringer.

yes, grocery shopping fatigues me. I will often go and get only things I need right away, and maybe stuff for one dinner because I want to go home. Drives my dh batty. My mother was the same way, looking back.

thinking of you today, too, OP. I hope the party turns out nice.

there is a website called "A Place for Mom" that will give you lists of places in the area you want, with the target price you want- if possible. They will speak to you on the phone and are very helpful. They found us the non-profit locked home, which we really, really liked. Ultimately, the place we found we found through word of mouth, but A Place for Mom was very helpful for finding what was out there and educating us on cost and services.

Hi, we just went through this with my grandfather, here is what I know. I live in Orange County,Ca my grandparents lived in Riverside County, Ca The closest large city to me would be Santa Ana or Anaheim, the closets to my grandparents would be Riverside or Menifee.- cost of living in Riverside county is more affordable than where I live and so also the prices of private care is more affordable. We had my grandfather in private, memory care (board and care) and it was *Not a locked facility and not a medical home. Price was $2, 500.00 a month. He shared the master bedroom with one roommate, they had their own shared master bathroom attached. If he had been in a smaller shared room, the price would have been $2,000.00 a month. This covered 24 hour care, home cooked meals, laundry, bed-changing, room cleaning, entertainment-care during the day (bingo, moved them around, didn't let them just sit) also a daily walk. We had to provide toiletries, his clothes, and any special food he liked (like donuts for breakfast that he liked) We paid for his medication, but they administered medicines daily. They co-ordinated health care in the home, but we had to take him to doctors appointments outside and take him to have his hair cut. We decorated his room, he had basic cable. We looked at a retirement home, that was considered non-profit, they had a locked memory care unit, but the price for that started at $4, 300.00. The private home board & cares seemed to be the most affordable, but they did not take medical, which we did not have at that point. We were trying to get him on medical for later, when he was worse. When he was at the private board and care, he was self-ambulatory and able to use the bathroom and able to feed himself. He did get worse, and we moved him to another board and care that could care for him more fully, and they were asking $3, 000.00 a month, but we negotiated down to $2, 500.00. hope this helped.

I love an iced chai latte, made with soy. I think a small is around 100 calories. Very, very good, my grandmother is even addicted to them now. :)

beautiful!

Like 3 ladybugs, I have been blogging since 2006. I started out on blogger, then moved to wordpress sefl-hosted, and I really like wordpress more than blogger. I am currently in the middle of moving over to squarespace, though. I'm tired of being a non-techy person trying to deal with tech things. I will really, really miss the plugings, though, they are really handy for doing whatever you can think up. Squarespace you do pay for, but I figure it is the same as I am paying for my hosting right now, and hopefully I will have less headache and can design/change my blog without having to hire out.

we are with public charter homeschool programs, so that name appears on the transcripts. But, privately, and on my blog, we refer to our homeschool as "Cliffs of Insanity Day Academy" and for High school, it is "St. Jenn's School for exceptional teens" I am demur when asked what my kids are exceptional in.... :laugh: I want to get a Staff sticker for Cliffs on Insanity Day Academy to put on my car, that would be cool :thumbup1: but seriously, I would never really name our schools like that, for reasons the OP hinted at, I'd never want my kids to feel uncomfortable or judged. If I had to name our school, we would have gone with a street name.

I'm on it for my neighborhood, it is really handy.

I vote for wayfarers, too. I just purchased it.

thank you everyone for your responses. Joanne, thank you, your reply is extremely helpful and yes, this is the way we are looking at it, you stated it so much more clear than what we've tried to say. We are looking at this as big problem because of the addiction quality. I did talk to my son today and approached it in agreement with the thoughts of so many of you- that I'm not totally against it per se, but think it is dangerous because of the addictive aspect and that being curious is totally normal, looking at it to see what all the hype is- totally normal. But if you view some un-savory aspects of it and then cannot walk away and say, 'nah, not good for me" then you have a potential problem. The fact that it was daily for a few months the first time, and this round daily for 2 weeks says to us that he has a problem and cannot just walk away and needs some help. I told him that I was most worried about the impact this could have on his ability to successfully have meaningful relationships later. I spoke about the addict aspect of needing harder and harder stuff to get the same feelings and how it can lead to a place you'd never imagine early on you'd go. I also spoke to him about the change in his attitude towards women when in the midst of this, I totally picked up on it both times, tho not knowing why it was happening or exactly what was happening. The best I could describe it is as a subtle disdain or dismissal. The first time around, before I knew what what was actually happening, I told him I would not be homeschooling him the next year because of his attitude. Well, I spoke to him alone, it went well but not a clear indication of how much he took it to heart. He was embarrassed and appalled and didn't want to see a counselor. Later, husband and I spoke to him together, this time he seemed more embarrassed and agrieved. Later, he had an attitude. We had some stricter rules laid down for while he is under our roof in regards to the internet, he seems to be resenting our attitude at the moment. I pretty much skipped the point of view of the r*pe victim, seeing it's not the prime concern, addiction is. we are praying. we have alcoholism on all sides of our family, so we talked about the addiction part of that and how the people we know who have died from it did not set out thinking they would one day kill themselves with their addiction, they thought it was no big deal and that they could control it. thank you everyone for all the replies.

Hyacinth, thanks, that is a good point to consider. We did discuss getting a professional the first time. My husband was concerned that a professional might take the attitude that it is a normal exploration thing and not be as concerned as we are. Maybe I could vet a counselor first. Thanks for the suggestion.

I really hesitate to put this on here, which is why my title is so vague...but here goes, I know the hive is the place to go for resources and I really don't want to spend hours searching through links. I will come back and delete some info later. **edited, thanks everyone for the advice. We are looking into professional help.

my youngest and I volunteer with a cat rescue. They keep some of their cats at a petsmart in a special room, so the cats will get seen. Volunteers go there twice a day to clean the boxes, feed, and play with the cats. It was my dd's dream to do this. Me, my grandmother was a cat lady- I shouldn't be there... :driving:

{{hugs}}}

we have the same clothes everyday thing going on here..... I'm going to show this to dh, he'd crack up.

my copy just arrived from Amazon! Haven't had a chance to crack it open yet, though :D

Halftime, yeah I get the blanched look, but it's never gotten blue, I think blue is when you worry. try to warm it up? make sure he moves it. I've noticed my hands fall asleep more quickly and more serious now, too, so I try to wake them up, shake them, make a fist. the prescription I was given was a glycerin lotion, like a heart medicine. I never needed it and I didn't like having it around kids, so I didn't re-fill it.

I have Reynaud's but I am in very good health other-wise...well, except chronic anemia. My left hand gets colder than the other, so cold it hurts. I have been told to go to emergency room if it's blue, or to put a prescription on it if it's blue- but I haven't refilled it because it's never happened. Reynaud's can vary with how sever it is, mine is not really bad, just a bother. When my hands ache, I put them under warm water or hold over something warm like a flame or a heater and then put gloves on, or have someone with warm hands hold my hand. No one ever picked up on the Reynaud's until I saw a reumatologist who picked it out right away, I had never heard of it before that.

mine is on the way from Amazon, my credit card was charged. Excited! :)

we never get the flu shots, when my kids were little and had a lot of asthma, I relied a lot on elderberry tinctures. Now, they are older and I rely on first- handwashing! I also hand out wipes as soon as we get in the car after being out in public like target or the grocery store. Wipes-not hand gel, the gel isn't as effective. Other than that, I give vitamin C and have real yogurt and cream cheese available always, with live cultures. That's it.

I didn't see Lion Boy mentioned, there are three books in the series, they were excellent and no rated R stuff. The hero and his family are black, living in a future-ish London. He has asthma.

We sold our late 1950's house, the inspection came back with a list of things to fix, pretty minor. The buyers forwarded the list to us, we agreed to fix 3 things and said no to the rest, our house had been listed "as is". They agreed to our 3 things and things went forward. One of the things was our garage door had been severely termite damaged, they asked us to replace it and we said no. We then bought a slightly older 1950's house and my husband did the inspection, since he is a building inspector and civil engineer. The owners were really sweating it...but we understood that this is an older house and would have issues. We didn't ask them to fix anything. I agree with 5 of 5, it comes down to if the buyers and sellers are realistic and how much they want the house. good luck!

good luck! Prayed! where in Ca? I'd stop by if I'm close (OC) and, If I was you, I'd skip cleaning the kid's room, you have a lot going on. Kids have seen worse...