The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride - an autobiography in which the author recounts being raised by a Jewish mother and a Black father in the mid-20th century. He also came from a large family. This was a remarkable account of an extraordinary family.

I see the store brands in RI tend to be white eggs. Most cage free and farm fresh tend to be brown, but I've seen some white ones mixed in and (very light) green. :)

I have a similar problem (many ppl, mostly teenage girls I've been told, have my same first and last name on FB and friends who have searched for me have not been able to find me among the masses of them). I guess this is a case for making sure you have a profile picture of you so that if the potential employer does the now customary online search on your name, s/he finds the right person. :)

:iagree: :iagree: :lol: cough! lol! Okay, I know this thread is old, but I was hunting around for threads about teaching on slavery and stumbled on this one. I will state for the record that I am black and if a teacher gave such questions like these in the school in Georgia, I would definitely be mad and offended. I think the other posters that I quoted above have already done an excellent job explaining why such questions were not appropriate. I will only add that one should try walking in the shoes of those who might be offended by such "slavery-related" questions to try and understand why someone might feel they are inappropriate, even if the teacher is trying to teach across the curriculum.

Hi! Sounds good. I had leftover chicken sausage with green beans and goat cheese over rice. Wow! Kudos to you! Did you get out of the impromptu babysitting job that your hubs "arranged" for you tomorrow night? Took ds10 to our mini-co-op class (Literature circle). Making sure the kids are done w/ their co-op class assignments for tomorrow and making sure my lesson plans are in order for the classes I teach. How about a "talent show and tell"? Since we really can't "show" our talent, let's tell about it. I'm not very talented, but I can wiggle my ears. ;)

:lol: :( I'm just about to join for the first time. I feel like I'm missing out on important "organizational" information.

You're welcome! Sweet dreams!

I chose "I live in a cool state... and would not live in a dorky state" but that's not entirely true. I've lived in three states: cool-dorky-cool in that order. ;) I grew up in an area of my "cool" state that upon mentioning it to my future FIL at the time, struck fear in his heart and caused him to ask hubby to "seriously consider" who he was going to marry! My hubby's response was that once FIL got to know me, FIL would love me like a girl from "an *I* state." (hee, hee!) I had some "say" about our move to the cool state I live in now and there were definitely some places I was not willing to even consider, but it was mostly topography and demographics that made certain places a no-go. OP, I don't know if any of this helps you. You have to decide what you can "live" with and what would absolutely drive you bonkers if you had to live in a place like that.

You have amazingly good humor for such a visit. :D Oh-my-stars! I don't know which is worse -- the cavity filling or the unsolicited baby sitting job?!?!?!:ohmy::angry::eek: I feel pretty motivated. Been helping my 10th grader get through his school work. (He's a bit behind since he attended a youth retreat this past week.) Well, you've *earned* that fabulously eclectic meal, my dear! :w00t: I had leftover beef teriyaki stir fry and rice (and it was yummy).

Gala!:D

Maybe they meant *all the churches* in this particular denomination? :huh: It definitely ain't happenin' in the church I go to nor any of the sister churches. :iagree:

How about Livemocha.com http://livemocha.com/pages/about-us/ It's not a curriculum. They offer free lessons and paid lessons, but what I like most about this website is the opportunity to interact with native speakers in a "language exchange" (for ex., you record yourself reading dialogue in the language you choose to study and a native speaker gives you feedback, then you might do something similar for someone learning English). I would say it requires a lot of self-discipline to use this website. I used it over the summer to prepare for teaching Spanish at the co-op, but haven't had the time to do much practice since then. The site could be used as a supplement (using the flashcards for vocabulary practice). :)

http://www.yankeemagazine.com/recipe/for/one-bowl-lemon-poppy-seed-muffins/13724 I made these once so far -- good! I love just about everything "lemon." (I did not include walnuts as I don't like those and I reduced the poppy-seeds to 1 TBSP - that was more than enough.);)

My kids don't like some of what has been chosen for them. Oh. well. :nopity:

Awesome! Thanks for the update! :party:

Exciting! :hurray:

My maiden name is cool, but common. My hubby's last name is totally cool, and coupled with my first name I sound like someone "famous." LOL! If his last name were dorkey, I wouldn't give the guy the time of day let alone fall in love and marry him (once, a friend tried to get me interested in a guy who's last name sounded like an insect. yeah... no:001_unsure:). I always had plans to take on my hubby's last name after marriage, never to hyphenate or keep my maiden name.

We have very active lives so we're out and about often (and often with large groups of people). We don't do flu shots, but we do drink more orange juice and give the children vitamin C tablets during the season (from Whole Foods). For years and years we have only rare occasions gotten sick.

I'm pretty good about taking inventory and using up what we have. There are times my fridge looks so empty I think to myself that we'd be good candidates for an EBT card. :o However, there's always a plethora of condiments in there that would easily disqualify us (three different kinds of mustard, six salad dressings... you get the picture). :lol:

Hmmm... good question!:lol: If I dare make them when the kids are home, those "vultures" descend upon the kitchen like nobody's business and I have to practically fight them off not to have them eat too many of them before I get to pack them. I guess they would last in the fridge for a week. I haven't tried freezing them (but I typically only freeze muffins -- I have a small freezer).

Glad you asked! ;) PIZZA POP 'EMS Oven 425 degrees F Tools: kitchen shears mini muffin tins (need 48 "cups" total) small spoon Ingredients: TraderJoe's extra virgin olive oil cooking spray 1 pkg. Trader Joe's Plain pizza dough (16oz.) 3/4 cup spaghetti sauce pepperonis, chopped with kitchen shears (optional) 10 oz. Trader Joe's shredded mozzarella Spray the cups of the mini muffin pans with cooking oil. With the kitchen shears, snip* enough dough to cover bottom of the cup (can make smaller snips to fill in bottom if your first snip isn't enough -- the cup will "shape" your pop 'ems). A pound of dough can be evenly distributed throughout 48 mini muffin cups. Top dough with 1/2 tsp spaghetti sauce, a few pepperoni pieces, then a "healthy" pinch of mozzarella cheese to fill the mini muffin cup. Bake in 425 degree F oven on bottom rack for 8-10 minutes, rotating once during the baking. Allow pop 'ems to cool for at least 10 minutes and use a table knife to pop them out of cups. Lean them on their sides in the cups to cool completely. Yields 48 pop 'ems *(Note about snipping the dough) No flour needed! I just open the plastic bag of dough and pull down the plastic just enough to make my snips w/o cutting any of the bag along with the dough. (I hope this makes sense.):tongue_smilie::D

:iagree: Good review and highlighting of the mature themes. The whole thing w/ Roran & Katrina should go over a 10yr old child's head. I gave my 10 yr. old permission to read it, but he became disinterested in the middle of Eragon.

At the ages of your kids we enjoyed School House Rock and songs from their fave kids shows at the time.

OO-oo-oo! Thanks for the share! I just requested a brochure. :lurk5:

Something I learned this year (as we are a family of 5 as well): when you find the hotel you want to stay at, call them directly when making your reservation instead of trying to book online. They will take your reservation for 5 with no fuss at all. On our most recent vacation, we got a standard room with 2 queen sized beds and requested a cot for dd to sleep on. Here are my suggestions (and I love the idea of a DC vacay BTW): join Groupon, LivingSocial, SniqueAway, AAA Club Deals (if you're a member of AAA) and Travelzoo for discount deals on hotels, dining and activities (of course, you heard all the Smithsonian museums are free) consider booking a hotel that offers free breakfast like Holiday Inn and Hampton Inn & Suites (oh, and comes with an indoor pool). You'll get more than your money's worth by having that one meal taken care of for the day and having a place for the kiddies to burn some energy no matter what the temperature is outside. Both of these hotels have refrigerators in the room so you can bring your own waterbottles from the local grocery store (home or DC) and put them in there. I sometimes take an extra piece of fruit or a yogurt (from breakfast) and put in the fridge for a "light lunch" if we have no lunch plans. dining out - try to avoid restaurants with a wait staff (Panera, anyone?) and that'll save you a little bit of $$$