Not that I know of...My sister, who gets all the vaccines for her children, was upset that there wasn't a vaccine for mono (her 6 year old son was recently diagnosed).... Quick check on the CDC website "There is no vaccine to protect against EBV infection. You can help protect yourself by not kissing or sharing drinks, food, or personal items, like toothbrushes, with people who have EBV infection." http://www.cdc.gov/epstein-barr/about-ebv.html

We haven't made official plans. My grandmother, on the other hand, wants to be cremated. Her ashes will go to her youngest child and when she can no longer care for them, they will come to me. Her wish is to never be buried in the ground, so I fully intend to keep her as long as possible. My father really wants to be buried near family, but my mother is a nut bunny and wants to cremate him and dump in the Pacific Ocean. Yea, she's already made plans for him even though he is alive. I intend to fight her about it when he passes. As much as I want to kid myself into thinking he will live forever, he is slowly dying and this will become an issue sooner rather than later. I really don't want to be dumped in the ground though. I know of one family member of my SO's. He passed when he was young, and the family chose a cemetery in the city they lived. Then they moved away and no one visited his grave. That is a bit depressing to us. We've been visiting him and leave him flowers as a nice gesture, even though it's been a very long time since he passed. My SO would love to have a family plot.

I had a lot of hand me downs at one time. I decided to downsize, donate and now? No one offers hand me downs to us anymore, so clothing is tight. In hindsight, I would have suffered it out. I was tired of looking at it, sorting it, washing it...But in the end, it was truly a blessing in disguise. I would minimize the number a bit, pass along to help someone else, but don't get rid of all of it. It sure is helpful when you cannot afford clothing.

No clue on how to say "No way" without coming out any saying it. Thankfully a lot of the fundraisers are online now. So much simpler to ignore them. The little boy that came to our house and I said no to? That was hard. And then he had to throw in "But your SO's father bought some popcorn". *sigh* We will be buying popcorn so we don't look bad. Now where are the girl scouts and their cookies?? I can get behind that.

I was going to say Best Buy as well. I believe you have to remove the hard drive before turning them in. Disposing of the hard drive safely? No clue. I've heard a beating them with a huge hammer and throwing them out is an option. Google showed lots of fun options. :laugh:

My great-grandmother, my mother and my daughter all have the same middle name. I have been working on my family tree for awhile and did not notice any patterns in naming, minus naming the next alive child the name of the child that died previously. One family in my tree had like four 4 Henry's (I think that was the name), 3 who died before the age of one and then finally the one that lived well into his 60s. All of my children has either a first or middle name from someone in our family, minus one child who is completely original.

My first son was named before he was born. I loved the name, and thankfully his father let me name him what I wanted. The next two boys it took me a day after they were born to think of a name for them. The fourth boy was named as soon as we saw him from our short list of names. Boy number 5 did not look like Vlad (he was my smallest baby), so it took us until we were going to be discharged to name him. I think that is the first time I used the baby naming books. My sixth child and only girl of the bunch was named after she was born. I had two or three names picked for her and when I seen her, I named her. My seventh child (and another boy LOL) was named before he was born, but I had to see him to make sure it fit him. I am disappointed that I switched out his middle name with something else, but I'm not worrying about it. My future offspring have a list that I keep updated. I'm pretty confident I have the next boy or girl name picked out, but I need to see the baby to name the baby. Sometimes they just don't look like the name I want to give to them. I'm sure the nurses think we are crazy at times. We hold the baby, talk to the baby with the potential name, see how it feels...We run through a few names before we tell them the official name. Every time they want the baby to pop out (It's another boy!!!) and then they ask the question "What's his name?". Well, I'm not sure just yet. Give me a few minutes before I throw a name on him and look even more crazy when I say, no wait, I don't think I like that one anymore.

5 years ago, my oldest son (who would have been 6) was questioned by CPS. My son was baffled and requested me in the room if he was going to answer any questions. (I think his speech problem helped out there.) He was asked how much mommy and daddy had adult drinks, how many people had seen him naked (besides parents and doctor), how often we left him alone, if we beat him, if he ate enough, etc etc...Why was he put through a grueling CPS questioning? Because his brother had a near SIDS (I know that is not the medical terminology)...At the time he was questioned, we were released of any wrong doing, but CPS still had someone come and question him. I was horrified by the questioning. My son does not remember any of it (thank you horrible memory). My other son was 2, so a visual assessment of him was alright to appease them. In reference to the article, this is exactly why I won't let my children walk to the corner park and play (I can see the park from my sidewalk, a minute walk from our place). I have a few neighbors here that would love to find a reason to call CPS on our family. Now that most of my children are of the questioning age, I don't need a repeat of five years ago.

I wish my SNAP benefits were $4.50 a person. That would be almost $200 a more a month. As it is, we are looking to lose more from our benefits because our average pay went up. *sigh* I wish I could be free of SNAP, but we would starve if we did not have it. Reading through that blog post, I seen wheat, dairy and legumes, all things I really try to avoid (food intolerances). It is really, really hard to eat on a budget when you have food issues (to the point that I have to suck it up sometimes and make the wrong choices to save money). Even worse is my son might be tested for problems with corn (of all foods, CORN?) and then the measly food budget would be shot (we are avoiding this one for a bit). I know my grandmother and aunt are both disabled and get SNAP. They are always hungry. One persons disability check is rent, the other is utilities. They thankfully have two different days they get their SNAP benefits but it is so hard to hear my grandmother say she is hungry. She calls me to let me know what deals she scored at the store. Some months are better than others, obviously, but hunger is a really big issue for them.

Bare shelves here but my budget forces me to keep only a week at a time on hand. I used to stock up (we always seem to get the rentals that are 10-20 miles from food stores) but paying bills outweighs food at this time. I'm hopeful for a change soon because I do not trust winters in northeast Iowa, especially living so far from stores. As long as we have food to get through a week at a time, I'm not too worried right now.

We bought our son a 10" bike at Toys R Us a few years ago (training wheels that could be removed). Even though he hardly rode it, at least it is getting use by our 3 year old daughter (and I think she is about average 3 year old height). She uses it without training wheels.

Same thing happened with our new phone line (different phone company). I ignore one to two telemarketer calls a day now (some days more if they feel persistent).

See, here is my story. I only say this because we have become firm believers to not get attached to a stray. We were adopted by a cat in our new place. We asked around and were told by multiple neighbors that she was a stray and a community cat (the entire area left out food for her and other strays). We fed her, loved her and when she had kittens on July 20th, she brought them to me. It was love. And then a very unfriendly neighbor's daughter stole our kittens off our front porch a week later (covered porch with no door). :( Her mother, not wanting her precious daughter to get in trouble, made up like 5 different stories about how they got to her house (none of which made sense). They went a step further and had grandma come over and say it was her cat. *sigh* We are *supposed* to get them back between this Sunday (6 weeks) and September 14th (8 weeks). If they are not returned, well, we learned our lesson. I would say if you thoroughly investigate the cat, your neighborhood and are confident that no one else will randomly pop up and claim ownership, go for it.

Where my husband worked (and is going back to), they do pre-employment medical exams. They do base employment on it as well. My husband almost did not get the job because his knees pop (done that for years). Once he explained it was a chronic condition, the nurse let it slide. It was height, weight, eye exam, electrical stimulus for like nerves or muscles, drug test, seeing how much weight you could safely lift, etc. I don't know if it is legal. It would have really sucked if he hadn't got that job. And hopefully, the new nurse will see the old report so he will squeeze right back in.

I am probably not going to explain this correctly but I talked to my insurance company a few weeks ago about this. A few papers came with our policy this time around. I never really paid much attention to them before, but I felt compelled to read them due to our ever increasing policy price. The company does not do a full review of your policy every six months. They might check your age, or your credit, etc. (I cannot think of the other things involved at this moment) each time they renew your policy. I can call in and request a full review or something similar. (I am digging myself in deeper with my horrible memory.) The rate *might* increase or it might decrease. In addition, we are more than welcome to apply for a new policy through them to see what the rate would be (which makes no sense if they do a full review then why would I waste my time doing a new policy with the SAME company). I am not sure if this an option with State Farm, but I'm throwing it out there. We've been with Progressive for 5 years (I *love* Progressive), but if my rate keeps increasing I might have to break away. I was supposed to call in and see if it helped us to get a full review, but I forgot. And now I am reminded again to get it done. I hope you can find an option that works for your family. My sister had Geico for a few years. No complaints. She liked them. She switched to State Farm because they were cheaper. Shopping around is always a good idea. I really need to take my own advice sometimes LOL.

It depends on the meal. Hamburgers are gross heated up, so I make fresh. Come to think of it, most meat reheated is pretty yucky. And cooked vegetables are yucky heated up. We do salads a few times a week, which makes for very simple leftovers. Soups are simple as well. Oh yea, spaghetti and tacos are pretty quick as well. I did not have a microwave for a very long time, so I adapted to heating things on the stove. My SO comes home anytime from 6pm all the way to midnight, if he is not out traveling for the week. I figure after a week or more on the road, the easiest thing I can do is make sure he has a hot meal occasionally (minus salad nights obviously). We aren't typical though. We see each other so little, that I take advantage when he is home to give him a proper meal. We do save the dishes for morning if it is a late, late night supper. I know how crappy making leftovers can be from my single and living with my sister days, so I try to accommodate him. I will say, there have been nights he comes home at 9pm, we start the grill, make dinner and hang out. (I don't always eat with the kids, especially if I know he is coming home.)

I agree with you. My SO is taking college classes this semester. The costs of the books are horrifying. Unfortunately, we don't have extra money to buy used editions from outside sources, so we are at their mercy. I was extremely disappointed to find that one of his classes is only an E-book with a code. It cost us $180. *faint* We won't have anything to show for that class after this semester. And last semester, he had two books that were loose leaf. Ridiculous. I have them tucked safely away, but they are not very useful after a semester. Who really wants a college text in a plastic binder?

Yes, we use them. Once we are out of the vehicle, we lock the doors so no one can climb back inside the vehicle. I only use them because I have a child who used to try opening the doors while the vehicle was still in motion. On our new vehicle, the doors do lock once we are moving, but I'm not sure if you can unlock the door while still in motion. I decided to not test it and enabled the safety locks instead.

We still use our Geo-Trax here. I only bought when they first came out, not the newer incarnations. Most of our trains still work, but we don't always use batteries for them. Instead, the kids don't mind pushing them around the track themselves. My sister had some that she was going to give me, but concluded that we had too many. She ended up donating her set. I'm always on the look out to add not only more tracks, but trains. They seem to be a hit with everyone that sees them. :) I never thought to look at Youtube for information on how to fix them. I'll have to check it out later.

Seems right to me...If my SO went back to his old job, we would be making close to what they list as a living wage for 2 adults and 3 children (we have 5), and it was plenty for our family. I think $900 a month for food is accurate here for us. I wish I could cut it down, but no gluten and no legumes kind of kills a budget. Wish my SO would go back to his old job. *sigh* Seeing the numbers is a bit depressing, knowing that we are around poverty wage when last year we weren't even close to that.

She lives in Colorado, if I remember correctly. I'm going to assume she found it in her house and took it outside for its photo op before squishing the poor thing. (If it was a tick, I would not be mourning its loss.) My SO's entire family has an extreme fear of spiders, my SO included. I'm one of the rare ones in the family that is catch and release (even if the lil bugger runs across my computer monitor or drops right down in front of my face or my personal favorite, runs across my bed while I'm watching a late night show causing me to jump (I have a fear of swallowing a spider in my sleep)).

I checked all the kids as they woke up. They thought I was crazy. But no ticks on them so my day can proceed.

She ended up squishing the poor lil thing. :(

Well, it has been agreed that it is either a really funky looking tick or a crab spider. She has two ways to test what it is. My SO's option : "Ok...theory testing time. Put it on your arm...if it bites and hangs on, it's a tick...if it bites and runs away...it's a spider...disclose your results so we know" My option : "Tease the spider for easy recognition. Gently poke it with a twig; if it widens its legs and moves sideways, it is a crab spider. (They will also wave their “tentacles†in the same manner water crabs do.)" Now to see if she kept it and which option she goes with (I'm going to assume not the first option LOL)...

I vote tick. The person that took this picture says spider. Can anyone identify if this is a spider or tick, and if so, what type is it?