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dbmamaz

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Everything posted by dbmamaz

  1. btw, my church just agreed to hire a minister whose husband is retiring from the DC area, and they thought Glen Allen (just north of Richmond) would be a great place to retire . . .
  2. Well, we dont really expect to be able to afford to retire . . . or, we'll retire to DH's home country in canada. But the article mad the assumption that moving to a healthy part of the country makes you healthy - i suspect they are misusing that statistic - the people already living in the midwest tend to be farmers, working outside their whole lives, instead of sedentary city-dwellers breathing in pollution. But still, VA was on the list, esp Norfolk, for some reason.
  3. I did TKD with my kids for a year and a half. It was very hard for me, exhausting, but i stuck with it and it did get a bit easier. Until I fell and couldnt really walk right for 18 mo, including a surgery. I wonder in retrospect if I should have known better? I was never very athletic. I think I was about 45 when I started. but lack of sleep definitely makes everything hurt more
  4. Haha my atheist gay single parent friend just decided to homeschool! I've also met Muslim homeschoolers. And an online homeschooler using Keystone, but in VA the free online school seems not be being used much, and it only goes through elementary or maybe middle, definitely not high school. One of the unschoolers I met started out with her kids in Waldorf school, and when she started homeschoolng, she set up a play store and they spent a lot of time buying, pricing, giving change, doing discounts. Her middle child (the only one who was easy going and interested in academics) was doing the books with her for the family business. So, thats one way to unschool math. Her other two kids, tho, were kinda mean night-owls who wouldnt do anything she suggested, ever, it seemed. One of my closest homeschool friends atm (mother of one of my son's closest friends) is unschooling. Her son reads voraciously, esp history and political stuff, but they werent doing ANYTHING for math. I gave her the first 4 Murderous Maths books, and she said he is reading them some, and coming to her saying "did you know this?" about some math tidbit. So thats a non-coercive, non-curriculum approach to at least have some basic math literacy. (I use Murderous Maths books usually as a preview to a new thing we'll be doing in math, so the concepts are already familiar when we get to it in the textbook)
  5. If you come down to Richmond, esp the east or south areas around richmond, or more rural counties in central VA, the COL is a LOT lower. But the lower (more rural) parts of DE are probably pretty cheap too.
  6. I've met all sorts. Well, I'm not sure I've spoken in person to highly academic, tiger-mom, headed-for-ivies types, but this is the south. I've met radical unschoolers, more moderate unschoolers, there's a denim-jumper homeschooler down the street from me, I've met some that are doing academics but not at an advanced rate, I've had someone scoff at me because she would NEVER let her children read Harry Potter - but it took me years to meet her. I think the more religious homeschoolers stick to the coops in their churches, because they are told at church that homeschooling is an important part of their religion. I even met one person who said half of her church homeschools, but she hadnt been called to it yet.
  7. You certainly can buy gluten free waffles! Good luck - I hope this helps your kids!
  8. I made gluten free crepes yesterday - with fresh strawberries! I use 1 cup of corn starch and 1/4 cup of coconut flour The only savory crepe I ever made was a chicken crepe, which was a huge hit - back in college. Hmm, its not in the book I thought it was in? I thought it had diced water chestnuts in it
  9. Michael Clay Thompson's language arts are aimed at gifted kids, starting around grade 2 or 3
  10. I used to have terrible giggle fits - in high school mostly. they lasted for several minutes and left my stomach in pain. But if he has a history of grimace/tics you might want to get him evaluated for tourettes.
  11. You could do Bravewriter's Help for High School - its got 2 separate units in it, each one fairly short, depending on how you use them. The first section has some really fun exercises for finding your voice, and the second is more a short researched essay
  12. Why cant you control what he does at school? I packed yummy gluten-free/dairy-free meals for my kids, including treats, and always brought in alternative treats for when there were parties. I loved this website's 'how to start' section, tho I didnt end up liking her recipes This was the first book I got, and it helped me a lot. She also has a bread-machine version, but I was able to convert her sandwich bread for my bread machine pretty easily. I spent a fair amount of time on the celiac.com message boards - they are open to anyone trying to eat gluten free. And honestly, you can google to find gluten free recipes for anything you could want. Its become very common. Our favorite store-bought bread is Udis.
  13. If you have to eat gluten for at least 2 weeks (maybe a month?) before getting the panel, is it worth it to you? I blood-tested negative for celiac, but tested all kinds of positive for allergies. Sure, it might not be life-threatening, but why would I voluntarily spend days feeling like crap? I take it seriously for my quality of life. You need to make the choice if you can just choose to put your health above your convenience, or if you would rather feel horrid for several weeks in hopes that a doctor will TELL you to put your health above your convenience. IMO.
  14. I cant really answer your question - i came because hubby is canadian and promises we'll retire there! But . . I go to a UU church, and most of the members support universal healthcare. I've often seen a comic on facebook with Jesus saying "I cant heal you, you have pre-existing conditions" or similarly refusing to feed the poor because they arent working hard enough or havent had a drug test. I really cannot understand how people can call themselves good people and get SO angry about people they dont like being given basics for survival.
  15. When I started looking for schools for my kids, I was very disappointed that there were so few Friends schools here in Central VA, and most of them were very exclusive. I grew up in SE PA - there were so many Friends schools we had our own sports league, I think? Idk, we may have occasionally played against other private schools, but there were Quaker schools all over the place.
  16. pork roast w potatoes in the pan, roasted cauliflower, broiled asparagus
  17. I'm not very involved with the running of my church. I know that the bigger, older downtown church has 2 ministers (i think the second is part time, but I'm not sure). We only have one, and a director of RE (religious education, which is a part time position), an office person (also part time), and a cleaning service which employs disabled people. We also have two 'community ministers' - i dont think they are paid? but they are associated with us while they do other work. I know one works at the childrens hospital with seriously ill kids, and I'm not sure what the other one does. They both do occasional sermons for us (and i'm sure get paid for that). But certainly you can drop in to a service any time. Dress is pretty casual (I was informed I HAD to wear shoes, tho). We have members, friends (people who come regularly or have a long term relationship with the church) and guests. And music is my church's thing. That was one of the things our current interim minister pointed out - that we need to figure out what makes our church unique, and it might be the music. We also have a lot of classically trained, amazingly talented people. When we sing well-known hymns, pretty much every voice is raised and in key. We have a number of lifetime UUs, and founding members of our 20 year old church, who seem to know just about every song in the hymnal. Our choir used to be lay-led, by amazingly talented people, but now we have this fantastic music director. She has worked at other churches, but approached us as her spiritual path diverged from the church she was working at. She not only runs the choir and coordinates music w the minister, she's gotten us hand bells and organized a bell choir, she's organized a drumming group, she's done kids music summer camps, she's doing an acapella improv group, a junk band, a guitar ensemble, and an orchestra! I cant find membership numbers, but it looks like weekly attendance is in the 80-100 people . .and we managed an orchestra? i mean, its small, but still - its good!
  18. I went to a Quaker (or Friends) school grades 5-8. Non-violence is a big part of their beliefs. We had to go to weekly meetings as part of school (but a student meeting, during the school day). One time a friend of mine stood and said something, and then i wanted to speak too . . and then we both spoke again . . . and later we were told that 'conversations' are not appropriate in meeting. we thought we were just being inspired lol! I wonder that there do not seem to be any Quakers here. I wonder if it is in part because, where there are good concentration of Quakers, there are fantastic Friends schools. The years I spent there were the highlight of my education. Although some of the gifted classes in my public high were pretty great, too
  19. Idk, I'm a huge bravewriter fan - she focuses more on having a routine of language arts, not a schedule or a strict curriculum. Its as much or as little as your child needs. It is a bit hard to get the hang of a more open-ended program. She doenst have a writing project book for that age yet, but she does have the book studies. Idk, depending on your budget, getting a copy of The Writers Jungle, which explains her entire philosophy and gives a lot of suggestions, might be worth it. You could also read over her blog posts and listen to her podcasts. I dont think a strong speller needs a spelling program, though, and while some knowledge of grammar is important, in-depth grammar does not help with writing. But my main focus in LA is to create strong writers. In any field, you will need to write.
  20. aww, I love a lot of the UU hymns! We have the regular and the newer teal hymbooks, too, and I'm in the choir. We did a pop song this past sunday and it was lovely - someone recorded it and posted it on our fb page (i'm totally hidden behind someone, you can glimpse my hair a few times) A coupla things - My church stopped the bit where people talk in the microphone about joys and concerns. You can write them on a card, you can light a candle silently, then the minister reads the cards. I have seen people who obviously have issues who get up, light a candle, and start rambling on and on (one would talk about something she read in the paper, the other would discuss what he did in his college classes this week), so sometimes it needs to be managed, I guess. People come to UU churches for so many reasons. I know some come per previous poster due to mixed marriages. I've heard some say that they had questions about their faith which were disallowed at their church, and they can be a UU and still pursue their questions. Others wanted to bring in parts of other faiths, and that wasnt allowed. My church has a large number of lesbians who were frustrated with their church's stance on their issues - and one couple who was publicly in-the-papers kicked out of their church for being gay. But I know there are christians in my church, and jews, and i'm an atheist, and the minister we are courting this week is a buddhist - she actually came to a UU church when she and her husband realized that the buddhist organization they were a part of was really more political than religious, and they were looking for a spiritual home in a town that had no other buddhist organizations. The point is to come together with like-minded people, support each other and each others spiritual journeys, while doing good for the community.
  21. Oh, i'm glad someone said Mazda3 - i have a Mazda5 i really love, and I keep thinking my empty-nest car could be a 3 . . or a 2, except right now the 3 gets better mileage than the 2, which is odd.
  22. I cant eat just carbs in the morning, but just add nuts. My standard breakfast is a little gluten free corn flakes and corn chex, a big handful of raw sunflower seeds, a sprinkling of toasted pecan pieces, a little dried papaya, and soy milk. My second most common breakfast is grits cooked in the microwave with some leftover meat (sausage or bacon or ham) and maybe some spinach. Oh, or grits with creamed spinach (which i made and then freeze in ice cube trays) and then cook in an egg for a minute after its the right texture. I use bulk grits, not packets.
  23. I've been off dairy and gluten and about 15 other foods for 7 years now, and i miss cheese most of all! I have been a real home-body, but I'm trying to get out and do more activities, but they all involve food. My UU church is doing a seder tomorrow, and I grew up jewish, and really want to bring my kids, but the amount of work necessary to figure out what we can and can not eat from what they are serving . . . ugg. I hate it. lovely fad. Oh, and i was diagnosed as allergic to wheat and milk as a baby but 'outgrew' it . .. yeah, except when I quit them 7 years ago, my life-long stomach problems almost vanished entirely, my random extreme fatigue attacks went away, i no longer woke up with feet feeling like I'd been standing on them all day, and I stopped needing exderin 5 times a week . . . my boys stomach issue cleared up too, when I took them off wheat and dairy, too. whatever . . .
  24. fwiw, I do remember having this problem. My name is Cara, and I said Cawa. I clearly remember my father trying to get me to say it differently and getting excited because I said it correctly and i could NOT hear the difference. i have no trouble now. I might have been 7 then? With my youngest, who was late to talk, I did try to show him the difference between how the mouth is shaped for different letters. His difficulty hearing the differences did affect his spelling. We didnt actually do spelling until he was 9, and we used Logic of English, and I think it also helped his understanding of the differences between some sounds he had still been fuzzy about.
  25. I didnt believe in it, but eventually I started to. I had chronic yeast infections from age 20 on . . . very chronic. Monistat for 3 weeks straight and I'd be in pain again in 3 days. I also had no health insurance for a long time. Then i went on my food allergy trip and yeast showed up as a sensitivity, and i ignored that bit . . . i only had 20 safe foods, and grapes were on it, so I used vinegar as a condiment . .. all fermented foods can be a problem when you have yeast issues Anyways, I kept getting sicker and sicker (intestinal issues) and then i got a yeast infection - my ob-gyn had given me a refillable rx for an anti-fungal. Not only did the yeast infection go away - so did the stomach problems. But i kept eating a lot of vinegar, and the same routine happened again (and this was a very unique stomach issue, without going in to the TMI). The antifungal again kicked out both the yeast infection and the stomach symptoms I cut yeast out of my diet and both improved. I started adding supplements like probiotics, digestive enzymes, and trying to watch my sugar (which is hard). I have been on the antifungals once a month for years and slowly have been needing fewer but my PCP did not believe in full boy yeast infections - my ob-gyn had suggested I get him to test me and give me a higher dose antifungal, but he refused. anyways, depending on what your doctor is recommending, you could always try for a month or two and see if it makes you feel better.
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