Yup. I painted my eldest daughter's room bright white with stripes in pink, turquoise, orange and chartreuse on one wall and randomly sized squares in the same colors on the opposite. Not a color combination I would want to live in, but she loved it.

Southern cold is damp. My dad complains when he comes down here. From Maine. :D

This would be my inclination, though I use Herbs for Kids garlic and willow drops (willow addresses the pain, garlic is antimicrobial). If there is an aspirin allergy, Herb Pharm is garlic and mullein (which will also help with pain).

:lol: I also used to enjoy when phishing emails would have a send list addressed to a big chunk of addresses that began with "ab". Very handy that, in addition to my email address they sent it to the abuse address at Comcast. That always gave me a good chuckle.

Evidently, so does mine. I think it came from not being able to remember my old board name, no longer having the associated email address, and being just plain insane from twin sleep deprivation. I was probably hiding in the bathroom when I made it.

I agree (except I think Tinkyada is absolute drek.) I went through all the cookbooks I could find. I've done better with blogs, frankly, and working out my own versions of recipes.

Decluttering and cleaning here, too. And, ironically, looking for the perfect day planner. Sigh. I think I'm going to have to make my own. That is not.awesome.

I am gluten free and not celiac. My sensitivity manifests itself as widespread joint pain. I eat pretty normal food. For some things that contain obvious wheat, barley or spelt, I look for gluten free options. So, I buy San-J gold label (gf) soy sauce (traditional has wheat). I buy gf pasta, but we eat more rice, quinoa, and polenta than pasta these days. Sugar is gluten free. ;) For beverages... I no longer drink good beer. There's gf beer that people say is drinkable, but I'm not convinced. Hard cider and wine are naturally gluten free. Coffee and tea, unless it's something with roasted barley, are gluten free. I avoid soy as well - no specific reason, I just don't care for how pervasive it is, with hormone precursors - and get along just fine without running into it. The only thing I can think of that is definitely not gluten free is Rice Dream (Almond Breeze is) because it has barley malt. I like Silk refrigerated almond milk as I seem to be developing lactose intolerance as I get older. I like Mama's Almond Blend as my go-to all purpose flour. It makes great pizza crust and biscuits. (Not "good for gluten-free", just good.) For other baking, I use Bob's Red Mill GF All-Purpose. It has beans (garbanzo and fava) but no soy. That, I buy in bulk through my food buying club. There are items that should be naturally gluten free that aren't, so label reading is important. For instance, Contadina tomato paste has just tomatoes (or tomatoes and salt, I can't remember) as the ingredient. Their "Italian herb" tomato paste has gluten added, though. If you can't figure it out, there is usually allergen information on company websites, or you can just contact them and ask. If you're having an auto-immune response to gluten (or anything else, really), it's entirely possible that it can express itself in ALL the ways you've described. I wouldn't hang my hat on that, but it's possible that you will find improvement in any or all of the issues you're experiencing. (My cycle seems to finally have reset after going gluten free AND appropriate thyroid supplementation, after being set to an annoying 14 days for a while. :blink:) At the very least, you can then rule out the ones that seem unaffected by dietary changes and look at them more deeply on their own.

We got a Lenovo K1 on sale at Staples and it's awesome. I'm using it right now to surf the boards. What else would it need to do? :001_huh: :lol: The kids like to play games on it and we're looking forward to sharing teaching materials on it from our PC (also Lenovo and I love it). The "big plan" is to move the PC upstairs to the school room (when we finish it) and have a doc for the tablet in the kitchen to listen to music, pull up recipes, etc.

:lol: That seriously needs to be on a t-shirt.

I wouldn't go on a trip that caused me that much turmoil. It just wouldn't be worth the anticipatory anxiety, let alone the anxiety of being there would prevent me from enjoying it. :grouphug:

Yes and no. I'm ready to get back to a routine, but I feel like I have soooo much to do before we get there. We've been on a light schedule and only off for a week. If we'd been off all month, I would be losing my mind.

I don't have a ball winder; I'm not particularly fond of them, so they become "stuff" in my mind. A swift replaces your feet, hands of a captive loved one, or dining chair to hold your hank while you wind it into a ball. I had one and enjoyed using it, but the clamp broke a few years ago and I haven't missed it enough to replace it... it's probably more necessary with a ball winder, since they spin.

Totally makes sense. We got Nooks because they seem to be more format-fexible than Kindle. We can check out ebooks from our library (through Overdrive) in any epub format, which is nice. I've never found the Amazon lending library, so I assume it's only available to access through a Kindle, though I could be completely wrong about that. Eta: no, you can use it through the app, according to their support page. So the advantage (as far as I can see) would be e-ink on a reader and none on a tablet, since you can use the apps on your ipad. E(again)ta: no, my bad. I was reading how to lend something from your own Kindle library. You can only use their lending library with a Kindle AND Prime account. Sorry. Went a little mental there. We'll blame it on the holiday sugar binge. :tongue_smilie:

Adorable!

Oooooh, gotcha. You're looking for one that IS tied to a store. Sorry, I'm no help then. My kids have Nooks, and they're very usable, but tablets are a whole 'nother area. (Though, truthfully, if I was looking for a primary reader, that's what I would look at, for the e-ink, not a tablet at all)

I'm the one on the new electronic toy here. I sent the kids out to shoot on their new goal. :D

This was my thought as well. The only place I see this being a concern is in upper level language, with non-fluent parents. Though, in my case, the more I teach, the more comes back.

If you're looking at tablets an not ereaders, I would expend your search. We were waffling between the Nook and Kindle, and ended up buying a Lenovo K1 last week when Staples had them on sale for $279. It has more flexibility than the ones tied to the book stores, better reviews (in fact, has the same CNet rating as the iPad). You can compare the features of various tablet options http://tablet-computer.pikimal.com/amazon-kindle-fire/vs/lenovo-ideapad-k1 : Both the B&N an Kindle apps are on it, btw.

If you go to myrecipes.com and look at Cooking Light recipes, you can exclude dairy, narrow by cost per serving, etc.

Oh, now THAT is clever! I know all the holiday stuff was on clearance at Target yesterday... I may have to run over there, too.Thanks for the idea! :D

I am, but only because I have to exchange a pair of shoes that have the sole peeling off at the toe. Bonus: I have Kohls bucks, so I can buy the boys some lounge pants in their actual size, instead of the M(10-12) I picked up, thinking all the M pants were 6-8. :glare:

Our county library runs the school libraries, too. A lot of the time, books I want are in the school libraries. I can return any book to any library in the state, though, I think. I know I can return them anywhere on the eastern shore.

One of my neighbors has one or two parties a year, in the summer. They always have so much fun! Great music, laughing and dancing. Last time, they were playing musical chairs and I was laughing hysterically. Couldn't even see them, but they were having such a good time, it was contagious. :D

No, but being wound up with the excitement and having normal structure suspended does, at least in my house. This, too, shall pass. Right? I've noticed it seems to affect adults in public places the same way. :glare: