Considering the toddler who died in TX was hospitalized with the flu on April 8th it has to have been around at least since then.

There are several recipes to be found to make your own natural hand sanitizer. Maybe that could be an option?

Aww, I hope he feels better. A sick kid is horrible even when there isn't 'pandemic potential' being blared by the media.

A good immune system and healthy, hygienic habits could help prevent you from getting sick in the first place though. It would be once you have the illness the cytokine storm would cause problems. I certainly wouldn't binge on sugar and become sleep deprived to lower my immune system purposefully. http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php However, even if we do see an excess of deaths in that middle age group, there could be other reasons besides the "cytokine storm." Perhaps this group has exposures that have made them more likely to contract the virus than other age groups, so the greater number of deaths is simply a result of a greater number of exposed individuals. Perhaps they were less likely to have been vaccinated in recent years, meaning they had no cross-protective immunity. (This also is a big question mark, as we don't know, even in vaccinated individuals, that any immunity to human H1N1 viruses would confer any protection). Perhaps they've simply been more likely to be noticed in this outbreak, and thus their cases have received more attention and were more likely to have been worked up (as far as obtaining a culture, etc.) than those in the typical influenza risk groups. There are just too many unknowns right now to address these questions, but certainly they will be investigated as more surveillance data is collected. Additionally, other clues may come from additional analyses of the virus itself. In H5N1 and the 1918 H1N1 strains, we know there are certain mutations in both of them that have been associated with increased virulence. When all the genes of the novel swine virus are sequenced, the presence or absence of these mutations can be determined, suggesting it may or may not be likely to induce the type of cytokine response that has been associated with the highly virulent strains. Expect an information overload when researchers have more of a chance to examine the virus itself in greater depth...

It's amazing how attached we get to something like cable. I actually cried when I turned it off. It was very emotional for me. I think part of it for me was that I never had it growing up. I thought 'rich' people had cable so it was something to aspire too. Giving it up made me feel like I had failed in some way (even though we could afford it, we just barely watched it so we decided it didn't make sense to pay the money).

Well, we got rid of our cable awhile ago. We still watch plenty of shows though. We use hulu.com for the most part. Most of the major networks have their shows available there for free the day after it airs. We watch the Daily Show and the Colbert report. I love hulu cause A) it's free and B) there is only 30 seconds of commercial during commercial breaks. We hook our computer up to our TV, so we just watch it on our TV like normal. We just use a keyboard instead of a remote. Oh, and hulu also does high definition as an option if you have a high def tv :) I know you said you miss your fox news. You could check I-tunes. Some news stations have their shows available as a free podcast (I'm an MSNBC fan, so I download Countdown with Olbermann free :P). You can also look at other free podcasts, both audio and video. I like downloading various pastor's radio shows. Truth for Life, Grace to You, and Revive our Hearts are a few of my favs. I honestly don't see cable surviving in it's current form for a whole lot longer. Now I'm not saying next year or anything, but the next decade or so I imagine changes will come.

http://www.menus4moms.com/ dine on a dime is a good cookbook. Rice and bean meals are good too. Cook a lot more from scratch, and use about half the amount of meat a recipe calls for.

Chinchilla's! We're waiting until kids are older and can play more gently with a small pet, but I love chinchilla's. Personally I don't like hamster's or gerbils much.

Not all particle board is created equal. Like someone said earlier the glue is different, and the quality feels better to me than your typical particle board. Any solid wood bookcases I've found have also been very expensive :(

My husband and I choose not to go to church Easter/Christmas just because of this. We hate the crowd, being squished, everything about it. That's why we choose a small church in the first place.

I've heard of it being done with Italian Greyhounds. You really should figure out what temperament you want in your dog first. Then once you narrow your list down that way you can contact breed rescues or go on breed specific forums to ask specifically about training a dog to go in a litter box or on a pee pad. That's what I'd do anyway. It's very important to make sure the temperament of the dog will fit in with your family, otherwise it won't matter where they go to the bathroom.

With the chicken breasts cut them up into small cubes before you cook them up. One chicken breast can feed the whole family as long as it's small portions, and if it's cut up people tend to eat less. For another cookbook recommendation if your library has it is Dine on a Dime. Beans and rice is a great staple, and there are several ways to prepare it. If you want you can add little bits of sausage for flavor.

Ah, when did they close Wurzburg? I was just there 2005-2005 working in the hospital. That makes me sad:( I live near Fort Meade and did my drills there for reserves when I was still in. It doesn't seem to bad. I don't like summers much here though, it gets a bit humid. There is a lot of stuff to do around here though, and in Howard County there is a pretty good homeschool group (based on their website anyway). May I ask what he does in the Army? That could dictate what bases he'd be able to go to. I liked San Antonio (again minus the humidity) during my nursing training there. I've heard good things about Hawaii. I grew up near Fort Drum. It does get cold in the winter, but it is absolutely beautiful country. If you and your family don't enjoy outdoor activities though you would not like it. There isn't much else. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Like I said, if you let us know what he does we can probably help more.

Is it just a grade school/elementary teacher that makes you cringe, or would college professor also be bad? Or a music teacher? Teacher is way to general a term to dislike IMO, because there is such a wide variety of teachers. As for the OP, I would cringe if they were stripping, selling drugs, working for big oil, or working for Wal-Mart. Oh, and maybe plastic surgeon they did it for the money giving boob jobs to bimbo's. If they're repairing cleft lip and faces of burn victims, then it's all good. My kids are too young yet to be thinking about a career, but there isn't too much I'd be disappointed in. As long as they were happy and living up to their full potential then they'll be fine. Of course I think my parents were a disappointed in my choices. They wanted me to be a Dr. or something, but instead I joined the Army as a nurse at 18 and now I'm a SAHM.

I'm obviously not there yet, so I'm not speaking from experience. If it were me though I would find something for him to do that either didn't cost money, or at least cost less. For instance, I'd take them to a community little league where I might have to pay for shoes/outfit/gloves or something, but I wouldn't pay per lesson for gymnastics. If apathy is the problem, maybe you could try having him volunteer somewhere to help others like a pp mentioned. It might help him get over his apathy.

College does not necessarily equal educated IMO. My uncle is one of the most educated people I know and he's never gone to college. He reads constantly, fiction and nonfiction about a variety of subjects. If there are certain subjects you feel particularly weak in, educate yourself. If you feel more comfortable educating yourself in a classroom environment maybe you can audit a community college course in that subject.

I think you should be fine. If you're really worried about it though you can always give yourself a 'classical education'. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/educating.php I'm planning on working through this myself, simply because I love learning and I feel I missed a lot growing up. I do believe it will help when I am educating my children to be more knowledgeable about various subjects myself. In reality though, there are so many resources out there and places you can go for help that if you get stuck on something in particular your child will not suffer. In fact you will likely learn yourself as you help them find the answer.

I don't know what to tell you. Our local paper here posts a run down of each candidate on the ballot. This last election there was school board and some local judges. It was only a very brief summary of each person's life, not even anything on their views that would effect their job, but it was something.

I just read this and I'm excited! I drink Jones cola right now, and that's made with real sugar too, but I'm curious to see the taste and the price of the new pepsi. I also love that snapple has been making tea with sugar instead of hfcs as well. I'm very excited by the trend of making sugar 'cool' again. I just hope people don't take it as a license to be able eat/drink more 'natural' products just because it is sugar vs. HFCS. I will admit though that I love indulging in the occational soda, and I'm excited to see where this movement goes.

I know you can, and that it's usually done toward the end of the cooking time. You have to make sure you have enough liquid in there, and I want to say it's the last 30 minutes of cook time, but you'll want to double check. But yes, you can add pasta.

What's the original recipe?

Mormons and JW are really big on going door to door to spread the Word. Mormon's have their young adults go on missions just for this purpose. Basically all their men 18-21 are expected to go for 2 years, women go if they are not married by 21. (at least that's what one of them told me) I've never minded too much, they're always very nice. Those are the only two we get knocking on doors in our area, but I've had other tracts left on my door, or car winshield.

:P You beat me to it.

Do you have a clothes line? I don't know about clothes, but I know with cloth diapers when they become stained with poo you can lay them in the sun. It works really well at getting the stains out. I know it sounds odd, but it works. Maybe you could either line dry them in the sun, or just lay them out on a nice sunny day.

The Mac OS is very crash resistant and virus resistant. There are only 40 viruses for the Mac vs how many thousands for the PC. Unix, the OS Mac bases their OX on, is even more virus resistant, but I think it can be less user friendly. Those reasons were part of why we went with a Mac. No more blue screen of death, or virus worries.