We have no insurance. We went through Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield for about 3 years, and they kept raising our rates. They didn't cover anything we needed, and we got tired of paying our premiums, co-pay, AND still owing a ton to the doctor and the hospital. Now we just pay out of pocket. Our local hospital and our family doctor take payments, with no interest (for 6 months or so). Of course, we always worry about something major happening. One of my self-employed friends has a plan that just covers emergencies and major illnesses and I was thinking about looking into that. Health insurance is such a racket.

That's so funny! I watched the Oscars in the hospital when my son was born too. That was back when they were in March. And, the Emmys are in September, when my daughter was born. I love to watch both, but I prefer to record them so I can fast forward through the boring parts. :)

Haven't read all the replies, but I remember reading in a Miss Manners book that it is rude to ask people to remove their shoes. I believe she said it's like saying that your stuff is more important than your guests. If I'm at someone else's house and they have white carpets or something, I'll ask if I should remove my shoes, but I would feel weird if they asked me. And I could never ask anyone else to do it in my house.

That's funny, we just watched King of Corn last week. Does everyone else have Netflix too? Gotta love the Watch Instantly movies. :lol: If you want to avoid corn syrup, and have a Safeway near you, the Eating Right brand of products have a lot without it. (Don't ask me about other chemicals, I'm still getting educated about this stuff. But I believe at least some of their cereals have no BHT, yet another chemical to avoid. Don't quote me on that though.) Anyway, I've been trying to make more stuff from scratch, but they do have bread called "Special Recipe White Bread" with no corn syrup and 3 grams of fiber (more than normal white bread). Their "kids" products have Looney Tunes characters on them. We've also bought some cookies from that like that are made with sugar, not corn syrup, in the bakery section of Safeway. They are shaped like letters and come in vanilla or chocolate. Does anyone else spend hours at the store reading food labels, deciding whether certain products are worth the chemicals or not? It drives me crazy sometimes!

There's an article about it in this month's Good Housekeeping. A mom went "undercover" on the site to see what it was like. She said that although they don't allow certain words in the chat, kids find ways around it (but the moderators do update it a lot). She also wrote that there was a disturbing amount of "dating" on the site (she was asked by another user if she would be his girlfriend). The "dating" thing would be the only thing that bothered me. I don't really let my kids on social websites...my oldest does chat on msn messenger with her friend that she knows in real life. On another note...I wouldn't trust something just because it's Disney. Of course, I find the Disney Channel really irritating, and the relentless way they market to kids drives me crazy.

I guess I don't see what's so bad about not finishing a textbook. We have tons of books we haven't gotten all of the way through...we take what we need and move on. I guess if they really aren't learning a lot in the class, it's a problem, but I wouldn't say that not finishing the book means they didn't learn what they needed to. Actually, I don't remember ever finishing a book in all of my years of schooling, whether it was a grade school workbook, or a college textbook. I thought that was the norm. I always figured the teacher was emphasizing what they wanted to (and that's what we do when we are homeschooling.)

Our library does cut you off if your fines are $5 or more, the problem was we had so many books out, we hit over that all at once. Plus, you can't renew the books once you owe that much money. I'm just glad I got them all back in. (I'm also glad to know we aren't the only homeschoolers out there that are racking up fines, :lol:) Normally, I do just think of it as a donation of sorts, but $100 is lot! (I forgot the kids did have a bunch of videos checked out, and I think those are more money.)

...Because I think I have you beat. $100! We had about 50 books out, on various cards, from various trips to different libraries in the same library system. The books just accumulated when I wasn't paying attention. Then all three kids got sick, the next week our power was out for five days, and so I didn't leave the house for about three weeks. (Yeah, I know...excuses, excuses.) I haven't paid it yet, but I have all the books back in at least. I feel like a moron. It's not like I don't have fines EVERY time I go in (a couple bucks here and there, maybe a $10 fine a couple of times a year). But....ouch. this is the worst time of year for us, too money-wise, so I'm going to have to pay off one library card at a time (though my 11-yr-old is paying for her card, $11). Oh well, until it's paid off maybe we will get around to reading some of the hundreds of books we have at home. :lol:

:iagree: I love this system too. I hated messing around with the gritty scoopable litter, so we bought this. My only hang up is I wish the litter and the replaceable pads came in larger quantities (and were less expensive). It seems like I am always buying stuff for the litter box. We do have two cats and two litter boxes though, and they tend to use them A LOT. I am feeding them Friskies cat food, and I want to switch. I will have to try the one at Costco. We switched our dog to the Costco dog food, and it has worked wonders!

For years I've been trying to find a recipe to please dh (he wants some like his grandma used to make) but all of my sugar cookies come out dry and tasteless. Anyone have a good recipe? Thanks! *Note: It could also be me, not the recipe...I'm not the world's best cook. But I thought I'd try :lol:

We just watched the finale...I was so disappointed that Sugar didn't get the $100,000. I'm sort of glad Bob won, but I was surprised Jeff didn't bring up the fact that he won because of Sugar. If she hadn't voted for Matty at the end, Bob would have been out. I also didn't like how when Charlie asked Bob to explain how Susie and Sugar were more deserving of the million, he just said "they're not". Kind of rude when Sugar was the one that saved him (more than once if I remember right). Anyone else surprised that Sugar didn't receive ANY votes? (Or that Susie did?!?) I know they edit a lot of stuff out...I wonder what we missed there. As for Corinne...I'm just glad she got voted out. I could NOT believe her speech. Disgusting. Great season though! Lots of twists with the idol(s). :lol:

Wow, I can't even imagine all the hard work you've had to do! That's awesome, congratulations!!! :cheers2::hurray:

I bought Oxford Children's History of the World a few years ago and ended up ebaying it because there were a few things I tried to look up that weren't in there (I can't remember what we were searching for). It might make a nice spine along with another book...sometimes one will have some information another book doesn't.

We have the sweetest dog in the world...a Border Collie/Lab mix. She's gentle, and very smart. We adopted her from the Humane Society three years ago. I think mutts make the best pets...all of my dogs have been mutts.

:lol:

Wow, that's great!! Congratulations!

Thanks for the info! I sent you a pm about this.

Thank you for this post, it gives me some hope! :001_smile: How often was your son's therapy? I'm wondering because my son's therapy was only once a week for one hour (this was just for his motor skills and coordination problems). He did improve quite a bit, but we were working with him at home also. Is it more often for sensory therapy?

When you say generalist, do you mean a pediatrician? My son was only diagnosed by OTs...I don't want to go to our family doctor, because he doesn't seem to know very much about SPD. I think someone mentioned something about a developmental pediatrician? If I had a specific job title, I could search and see if there's someone in my area. BTW, thanks everyone for your help! All of these suggestions have been very helpful!!

They didn't really do anything for his sensory issues as far as I could tell. They worked mainly on his handwriting, tying shoes, upper extremity strengthening, core strengthening, bilateral coordination, and finger strengthening. They gave me some sensory activities to do with him at home, and that was it. This was through Easter Seals. We don't have health insurance, and we were able to apply and get a discounted rate for therapy through them. I'd been hoping that doing things with him at home would be enough, but I think he needs therapy for his sensory issues. Unfortunately, I had to search a lot just to find the Easter Seals. Our family doctor saw him once and said ADD...I'd been researching SPD a long time before this (I read several books, websites, and attended a conference about it) because the symptoms totally fit my son. My doctor had never even heard of SPD and said I "might want to stop reading books":glare: . (That is a completely separate issue, we don't like our doctor but w/o health insurance it's hard to find a new one).

Nope. New Moon was the worst in the series IMO. No action and very depressing. I thought Eclipse (book #3) was the best. For some reason I felt compelled to read the whole series even though I wasn't impressed by Twilight. Then I drove my DH crazy complaining about all of the books. :lol:

My 8 yr old son has been diagnosed with mild to moderate Sensory Processing Disorder, and coordination disorder. He just finished 3 months of occupational therapy, where they worked mainly his motor skills, and handwriting. They didn't really do much for his sensory issues, just gave me tips for things to do at home. I also own a few books that deal with SPD (Out of Sync Child Has Fun, etc), and we do activities out of those. Some things help a little, and some things don't help at all. My son is a "Crasher-banger". Here are some of the things he does (this isn't all of the time, it mainly comes out when he's doing schoolwork): -Bangs his hands on the desk -Pokes holes in his papers with his pencil -Scribbles and draws on his papers -Constantly drops his pencils -Breaks the tips of his pencils while writing -Constantly makes noises (nonsense words, singing, etc) -Tips his chair forward (and falls out of it frequenty) He seems to be getting worse. He can't sit still to finish one page out of his math workbook, even easy addition problems that he knows. I never thought he had ADD before (I was thinking it was all SPD), but I was just watching him today--sitting in the living room, away from his sisters, no other distractions, wearing his weighted vest, chewing gum....and he was STILL fidgeting, unable to concentrate at all. Does this seem like ADD? If so, where would we go to get him tested?

Totally agree with you there! We rented this last week, and we were laughing out loud at some parts. The "Why are you eyeing my lemon drink?" line had me in tears, I was laughing so hard. Worst movie I've seen in awhile. (Though it's fun to watch bad movies sometimes.) :lol:

Us too! We've been taking it easy all week, so the kids will be well enough to go trick or treating!

Thanks for your reply! I've always been curious.