We recently found out our crazy neighbor has a camera, too...and my dh wonders why I hate living here???

Congratulations and :grouphug: to you.

Oh, from your description I assumed the book in the first post was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Too much violent s*xual abuse and perversion. Why is it a best seller??

I was going to suggest that. We enjoyed it and it's short & sweet; only an hour or so, I think.

I had a similar problem with our local library. Most of the tables that aren't in the "quiet study" section are in the periodicals section. So when ds and I headed to the library for schoolwork, we'd spread out at a table next to the magazines. You wouldn't believe how much soft p*rn shows up on the cover of mainstream magazines these days - Vanity Fair & others. The first time I saw n*ked Jennifer Aniston on a cover, I brought it over to the librarian and told her I thought it was inappropriate to be on display. She put it behind the counter and said she'd bring it up with the head librarian. A month or so later, there was another n*ked lady on a cover - again, I took it to the desk. This time a different librarian took the magazine from me, but informed me that this was the "adult" section of the library so she didn't think there was anything they could do. So, I was supposed to make my 14yo ds hang out in the kids section? I was just shocked because this is a library in a very conservative family-friendly community.

We don't eat a lot of lunchmeat, so when we do, we want to be able to at least taste it. :)

I'm with you on the heart attack fears. I tried C25K a while back. The problem is we live in a hilly neighborhood. I truly thought I would die on week 2. My heart rate was so high; it was way past training level and approaching maximum! So I gave up; I didn't know what else to do...it seems silly to DRIVE to a flat area to do the training. Previously to trying C25K, I walked the neighborhood at least 3x/week; you'd think that my cardio capacity would have increase to allow me to jog the hills a little. But no. So I am back to walking my hilly streets. On a positive note, I had a nurse doing a health assessment recently. I told her I walk 4x/week and do yoga 2x/week. After another minute of questions, she went back to her chart and said, "OK, so your lifestyle is very active" and I said, "No, I would say it's only moderately active." She said "Anything over 3x/week exercising is VERY active." :001_huh: So I was glad she was giving me "credit" but it felt like a rather low bar.

Me, neither. I would have given her both slices in this instance, because, why would we both want to eat a meager sandwich? We frequently have "clean out the fridge" lunches and I will say, "Only enough lunch meat for one sandwich; someone else can have the leftover soup, and someone else can make a quesadilla." But - although I would have handled that specific lunch a little differently, I definitely agree you gave her enough good choices.

Hilarious! My 72 yo mom loves to text; I'm going to send these to her. :)

It sounds like I am somewhat in the norm, which relieves me. But I wish I could get down to half as much...When did life get so complicated? I flipped through all the drawers after my original post, to see if I was missing something HUGE that could be taken out. But I only found a couple of things in the warranty/instruction manual file to toss (for a hair dryer and vacuum that are no longer with us).

You know it's expensive, right? Just checking. I would look for houses in the North Tustin area. You would be close to dh' job, plus less than 30 minutes from the beach. There are nice neighborhoods with larger lots and established fruit trees. The homes are not new (70s maybe?) but a lot of them have been remodeled, if that's important to you. Since you are looking for nice areas with good schools, avoid Anaheim and Santa Ana. Irvine has excellent schools but the homes are newer and on smaller lots. Redfin is a good search engine for homes that doesn't make you register unless you want to save your favorites. re: Homeschooling. You will find more options for homeschooling than you ever knew existed. I sure did, when we moved here 5 years ago!

I have an entire 4-drawer file cabinet with household papers. Bank, credit card, & retirement accounts. Tax records. Insurance. Medical/dental. Car. Etc. It seems excessive to me - I do clean it out periodically and only keep from 1-3 years of records depending on what it is. So why does running our home take up an entire file cabinet? (It doesn't include any purchase receipts or household bills; those are separate and I am extra-vigilant about tossing them every couple of months.) In other storage, I have up to 10 years of tax & home & investment records (about another 2 file drawers worth). I meant to purge anything older than 6 years but am glad I didn't - I actually needed 2000 investment records to complete something on the 2010 tax return! So, is my 4-drawer cabinet normal?

They are much easier! Dh tried flour ones several times, using different recipes & techniques. He could never get them thin enough (and we had a tortilla press) so that they didn't shrink up & fatten up on the griddle. The corn tortillas are super easy - you mix masa & water, and you can roll them out without a press.

You must be ordering the right stuff! I used to order 2 or 3 times a year from RR, from about 1998 until 2008. And about every 3 orders or so there would be a problem like the OP described. I learned to always call in my orders - now I don't even remember if they could give me the stock info on the phone, or if they told me when I could call back to find out? (the details are a little fuzzy at this point). I'm surprised that in 2011 an internet mail-order company is having the same system problems they were having 12 years ago. I'd have thought they would have upgraded the system so that people could see real-time inventory information, or at least get an immediate notification of back-order problems.

Have you tried homemade corn tortillas? We LOVE these. My hubby makes them for us, so I have no hints or instructions except that you use corn masa. (you'll probably have to go to a grocery that stocks a lot of Mexican food items to find this).

I only keep cooking sherry (for certain soup & casserole dishes), cheap red wine (for spaghetti sauce & beef stew), and peppermint schnapps (for pepperminty frostings). If a recipe needs something I don't have - I just skip the recipe for the reason you mentioned; I don't want to run out for a bottle of something that I only need a TB of. I have an almost-full bottle of brandy in my pantry for that very reason. :(

She's not allowed to read a book! That would be rewarding her misbehavior!

The quality of the teachers is one reason we never signed up for CC. I don't think they are necessarily bad, but, they were unknown to me. It was just so much money to spend on a class taught by a mom who might have never had one of her students in the program before, much less taught it. So, in your case, I wouldn't do it if I didn't have confidence in the teachers.

Hugs to you, Molly. I just looked through a few pages of your blog...you are handling this with such grace and courage. My diagnosis is very recent (a few weeks ago) and I hope I will be able to say the same thing about myself one day.

I wouldn't, nor would I ask anybody to support mine or my child's mission trip. My dd took an overseas trip a couple of years ago, and we only asked her grandparents to contribute to the trip; I thought it would have been very presumptive to send out requests to other family members or friends. (oh, we also sent a couple of letters to my mom's brother & sister - dd's great aunt & uncle - b/c my mom INSISTED that we do so; I suspect she has been hit up by THEIR grandchildren). Anyway, dd also participated in the church fundraisers in which the money was split up among the participants, but dh and I ended up paying for the bulk of the trip. I recently got a request for a fundraiser for a student whose parents are truly wealthy. :blink: (I didn't reply)

I would definitely say something - it's very strange that they went 2 days in a row without calling you, especially since you did talk to a real, live person. I'd probably write a note asking for a response, just saying what happened and ask what you should do in the future.

I was doing a lot of driving & walking last week, so I "read" some audio-books. I finished The Time Machine by HG Wells. It was excellent but a little creepy. I hadn't read this before and was fascinated when I found out it is one of the original works of the dystopian genre. I started The Four Loves by CS Lewis. It is read by the author which is its main charm. It's only about 2 hours long but it's hard to slog through. :( I also started Three Men in a Boat by Jerome Jerome. HILARIOUS! I haven't finished this one only b/c my dd started listening to it with me, so now I'm not allowed to listen to it without her. It's really laugh-out-loud funny; sometimes British humor can be hard to get, but not this one. So the last two are continuing this week. I also have the non-fiction Four Fish still on my nightstand.

Where did you find this book? I looked it up on Amazon and the cheapest one listed is >$100! My library doesn't have it.

The only one I haven't seen already listed is: Amadeus The one available on DVD is R-rated; it's a director's cut that has a nudity scene that none of us saw when we were in college. The scene actually helps explain something that didn't make a lot of sense in the original release. And since it seems the lists aren't just including movies that are "must-see" because they're Important, but also "must-see" because they're Fun, I'll also add: Up in the Air A History of Violence Jerry Maguire I love those movies but wouldn't want my teens to see them. :)

You reminded me that the cc which she is currently attending offers AA degrees in costuming (in which she has shown an interest) and other more "technical" theater degrees. I would not want her to give up this great opportunity for the honors program at the private college, but I guess she could do more at the CC and then transfer in... Ugh. Too many decisions involving too much money!