I walk alone. I don’t hike alone. I like to have lots of noisy people with me when we hike so the noise scares away the cougars. I’m a scaredy cat. :)

I'll second this idea. I'm in the PNW and I find light therapy very helpful. I'm sitting in front of my light right now. :)

Eh. I don't know if I like Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers. I'm a bit soured on him after watching Sully. Maybe I'm old and cynical, but I thought that movie was a total stinker. I liked it better as a reality TV plane-crash show episode. :) I don't really follow what's going on in the television/movie world, but I could see one of the kind, gentle sitcom dad types playing Mr. Rogers.

When I was in college I worked in the library reference department with a young man who had recently emigrated from Burundi. After graduation, I took part in an exchange program and taught in a technical college in northern China. The foreign teachers and students often ate together in a little cafeteria behind the international dorm, and there I met a young man, from Burundi, with the same first name name as the man I'd worked with in college. Making small talk, I remarked that I knew another person from Burundi with his name. "Oh, was it (college coworker)?" Yes, in fact, it was. They had been childhood best friends. :)

I had a cat who thought that "dodge the water spray" was a great game. He acted just like my kids when they think they are sneaking around and getting away with something. He'd even get my attention before doing whatever it was that he wasn't supposed to be doing, to make sure I was going to play along by grabbing the spray bottle. What a little twerp. I loved him.

No, but it does sound helpful. Will you share it after you do it? My ds loves these books. He calls them the "big head" books.

GROSS POST WARNING NO, REALLY, IT'S GROSS An old friend of mine claimed to have done a test to see where his cat was hanging out when said friend was at work. Now, this friend was a bit of a joker, and very deadpan, so you never knew if he had actually done the wacky things he claimed to have done. Anyway, he claimed that he applied lipstick to his cat's rear end...and looked for lipstick prints. Seems far-fetched, but...maybe not for him. Anyway, if anyone wants to try it...let the hive know what happens. :lol:

I say the r. I think I missed the "spell it like this, say it like this" memo. Then again, I also say the r in suRprise, entrepReneur, and pRerogative, so maybe I'm a little weird.

Lots of psych meds are also used off-label. I remember one company got in trouble a few years ago...I don't exactly remember what they had done, but I think that they had encouraged the use of their medication for just about everything...anxiety, bipolar, insomnia, etc. without having specifically tested it for all of the conditions.

Is the pronunciation of February with or without an r a regional thing? I couldn't find a map for it, like the common pin/pen map.

Doh! Experimental design 101. Of course you are correct. I apparently can't multitask as efficiently as I thought I could. :laugh:

I weighed in. Down 4.4 my first week. I feel good about that.

I can buy that they can’t do the vaccine testing in an area where the disease is endemic. If they are measuring antibody titers to determine immunity, it would be impossible to determine if new immunity was due to the vaccine, or due to a subclinical community-acquired infection.

I would think that you were brave for introducing a topic that is so controversial--especially in HSing groups. I'm fascinated by that type of thing, so I'd ask questions and you'd probably think I was terribly nosy.

My husband also swears he learned dilemna. I didn't realize that it was widespread. I thought it was just a California thing, like how he says "wuf" for wolf. :laugh: I have "fond" memories of Jiffy muffins. Fake blueberries and you don't even get a full dozen muffins out of the box. "The food is bad--and the portions are so small!"

I don't. But when I order something, I depend heavily on reviews, so I'm kind of a freeloader in that regard. Some night I'll sit down and do a blitz of reviews to assuage that guilt. :laugh:

I have had positive and negative experiences with the police. I view them as a last resort. I would never call for a minor complaint--noise, dog running loose, vandalism (unless required for an insurance claim), etc. Actually, I had the police at my door once when my fence was tagged, telling me that unless I cleaned it up within a certain amount of time, I'd be fined. My parents, on the other hand, had a very positive experience with the police in my old neighborhood, after "breaking into" my house and setting off the alarm. They laughed and joked together. I don't know. I'm kind of a jumpy person in general, and that tends to make police officers nervous, and I think that we feed off each others nervousness? I am in an area that has had a lot of recent well-publicized murders of officers, so I understand why they tend toward being nervous, but I don't think that it is beneficial for anyone. Law enforcement requires a certain rock-steady type of personality, and I don't think it can be trained into somebody who isn't naturally that way.

We have started using Brave Writer for my kiddo with dyslexia/dysgraphia/autism spectrum disorder. I started not by buying anything, but by watching Julie Bogart's youtube channel to see if it would work with my family. Since P has dysgraphia, I scribe for his free writes, so he can concentrate on generating ideas instead of on the physical aspect of writing. We will be moving to speech-to-text software eventually. His special interest is WW2, so he happily does copywork if it's quotes from Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Patton, etc. :lol:

We went to church healthy this morning, but judging from the number of sick people we interacted with, I don't think we'll stay that way. Annoying.

The new point system is weird. Good weird, I think. Eating at home will be easy. I can make a giant, filling meal for only a few points. I think that my standard restaurant meal--cobb salad--will still be doable on the plan. I'm just not good with moderation. One serving of crackers seems pointless to me--I'll still be just as hungry as ever. I'd rather eat a big bowl of vegetables and beans--at least I'll be full. I made a bunch of things yesterday for assembling "Buddha bowls." Seasoned chickpeas, sauteed broccoli, quinoa, roasted red peppers, etc. I also hard boiled a bunch of eggs. I'll get used to this. I'm thinking of the free foods as the main foods, and points as seasoning.

I had my first meeting today. It is nice to be real with people about food sometimes. I asked about the blue dots and not being able to get a blue dot when eating all weekly points. They didn't really have an answer about that. Oh well.

Well, I signed up. I admit that I have some misgivings about penalizing healthy fats...on the other hand, eating the way I think I should has me 40 lbs overweight, so what do I know? lol

Doh! I forgot about that bit. Yes, the parent needs to “qualify†which means either have a certain number of college credits (less than a full degree), take the qualification course, or be overseen by a certified teacher. I never think about this part, because I have the college credits. Nobody checks on this, unless there is some sort of problem.

WA is pretty easy. Starting when the student is 8, we have to send in a letter of intent, teach the required 11 subjects, and either do standardized testing or have an educational assessment with a certified teacher. How the 11 required subjects are taught is up to the parent. Test scores/assessments are not submitted to any authority.

I am tempted. I did WW for a few months about two years ago, but wasn’t ready to make a big change. I think I’m in a better place to do it now, and knowing that there are enough free foods to actually make a meal is encouraging for days when all hell breaks loose.