Kholrabi, purple tomatoes, chocolate mint, apple mint are about as different as I got last year. Moving this year, so no garden.

Are you sure its a black snake and not a moccasin? If its a moccasin, it would be very dangerous to have that close to the house. If its truly a black snake, its a good thing. It should move on soon enough.

Special dinner, dessert out, movie night, commendation, congratulations, turn alarm clocks off. Lol

Yes, because I use it as measurement (or reassurance?) ... to see how far we've come in a year. The biggest thing I look at is how their current year compared to last year. Mine have spent as much time in public school as homeschooling, all told, and are familiar with testing practices so I guess I'm saying its a part of their whole picture, to me. I'm very data driven, as well, and both kids love seeing their results as well. So we do it. :).

Two mile run, increased my pace today and improved my time by 3/4 of a minute per mile. Whoop! Gonna be at this pace a while because it was pretty hard. Got all my stretches and hip strengthening in.

No. Even after homeschooling I would never be bored. I care for the home, garden, plan to start a small farm, and have a ministry. It is important to me and dh that I do those things to care for the family while he's away daily caring, in his way, for the family. I do trickle in money via eBay and amazon sales but only to purge, not for income. I guess I feel like I already do work just for a different outcome and plan to continue while I can. I had a full career before kids and have skills I can use if I need to go back to work outside of the home. But I'll only want to if need be, but we don't plan for me to at this time.

Forest Gump is another one for me. Every time.

Do you guys remember that movie? Barbara Hershey, Bette Midler? Oh how I loved that movie. So sweet, so many tears. The Notebook does the same to me, too. What is your PMS, need-to-cry movies?

Hmm well, dd is constantly complaining that after a shower and hand washing dishes, then putting lotion on her hands, hers all fall off. Maybe try that? Lol. But yeah, acetone should do it. Then let us know which nail glue that was. Dd wants to know.

we have the white stick figures for 2 pets and 4 family members. They've been on there 6 yrs and could use some help. lol I like better my 'surf' style stickers to remind me of my tropical upbringing and my vinyl sticker from my favorite brewery locally who has an amazing local artist do the art work. I won't be replacing the family figures when they finally dissolve but I will replace the others.

Today is the first time in 4 months back to intentional exercise that I am just not going to exercise as planned. SIGH..... I think I can make it up tomorrow so maybe it's not a complete fail lol I usually allow myself a ton of excuses but haven't budged most of this year. Won't beat myself up too much and will try to make up tomorrow. Trying to keep the pressure on myself to some extent because that keeps me engaged in caring lol. Encouraged by the rest of you ladies here though!

I have a beloved, expensive pair of sunglasses (in profile pic, actually) that has a few scratches right over the center of the left lens. It would be substantially cheaper to get a repair kit but I don't even want to try if it's not going to work but I have no experience in such a thing. I have corneal distrophy as well which makes a good pair of polarized sunglasses a must. SO I'm needing a fix. Should I buy the kit? Or just get new sunglasses?

Are we doing this today, too? Because I'm excited about a new meal I am going to try.. we are having a curry chicken and basmati rice casserole, herbed Italian green beans and cesaer salad.

I dont quite know w hat it is but feel like I need one since I'm back to exercising and I see them everywhere. What exactly is it and are there different types and features depending on what you choose?

Um, well, homemade Italian sausage made from antelope, on homemade hot dog buns, corn on the cob, salad.

So cryptic, what's going on??

The oreo I just add made me very happy. Don't tell the ladies over on the Exercise thread I frequent LOL Also, DS finally 'getting' right circle cylinder circumference concepts. DD cooking for me. SO HAPPY 'bout that.

This again. Despite the middle schoolers trying to drag me back into science lessons. I made it to the workout room, but barely. Lol

LOL well we obviously don't want to purposefully come at the wrong time! This happened to me with the UPS man the other day as I was getting loud with my kids over the lack of school work getting done! Glad he actually left my package!

Lazy? Really? Oh how about this instead: Everyone is different and responds to different approaches or the lack thereof. Plenty of people are interested in reading Bible literature of all sorts, but for one reason or the other would not want to be approached with it. The carts allow for a person to peruse on their own, take something or don't, talk about it or don't or just walk on by. The carts are being met with tremendous success as people are worldwide...yes, worldwide, are expressing appreciation for being able to get some information this way. A lady told me the other day that she always hid in her house out of all sorts of uncertainty but she enjoys Bible literature so she was happy to get it this way and she walked up to ME to tell me. The people with the carts are there just to man them and be responsible for taking them home. If a passerby chooses to engage in any other way, then that is their choice. To not engage is also their choice and totally respected. A person manning the cart is supposed to just be nearby in case there is a problem with the literature, it needs refill, to keep it secure, and talk to anyone who chooses on their own to. It's just something different to see if people like it. If you don't, feel free to ignore it. To those who think anything we do is 'about' conversion..... just the cart example shows you that it isn't. If another religion who is about conversion were to do the cart thing, you'd see a difference! I've said it somewhere else, this thread? Not sure, but what we do is about Bible education......for those that want it. We aren't trying to convince anyone otherwise, either. That;s a waste of everyone's time. We are at your door, or wherever in case you are someone who wants it. A simple not interested would explain that you don't. There seems to be confusion about why JW's have a ministry (any form of talking to others about the Bible). It is not my style to do things this way on this forum as I don't come HERE for THIS, but I want to tell those who are confused....it's just simply because take very seriously Jesus words when in Matthew when he says this is what Christians do. We understand others don't see it that way, but we do so we do it. It's not easy or natural and those of us who don't want to don't. But those that do want to (this totally a voluntary organization), those are the ones who love doing it and truly want to. And despite the fact that it doesn't describe so many individuals here, if you ever talked to someone who was learning about the Bible this way, it is a joy in their life. I have several of those people in my life and they are beyond appreciative. One of my new friends who is studying the bible with me told me that looking back, she would have hated to think that I didn't knock on her door that because of how much she is enjoying her studies. That's also why I do it. For those people. Not to irritate those who don't wish to do so....but I'm not going to know who wants to unless I go out in my ministry. ETA: people have mentioned bus stops and office buildings as to places they are seeing JWs. Simply put, if that's where people are, that's where you'll likely see us. And as for coming every so often, people move, businesses move, circumstances change after a time. So we might come back at some other time in the event that is true and someone different is there. Our returning is not meant to convince the same person with the same wish to change that, or to 'covert'. If you choose to discuss the Bible, what you do with that, to keep it up or drop it, of COURSE, up to you. ETA2: There is no shortage of wrong assumptions as to what we're about or why we do ..whatever. People find that if they ASK A JW, instead of non JW friends or going on assumptions.....they see there's a pretty simple explanation to any and all of it. Clears up a lot to go to the source..of anything. Not asking anyone to agree with the reasons, but they are what they are........

I don't know if it truly is the goal of direct sales is to reduce opportunity for comparisons or to capitalize on peer influence because I've never thought about, never read it anywhere in two mlm models I was ever a part of (ok, i realize this means nothing, but it's my experience, anyway) and I"ve never heard friends or those close to me in MLM go for that goal.................... I can see how a company would see these things are benefits, to corner their market..again, not so sure that's a bad thing in business in general. BUT I'm highlighting this just to say that when it comes to things that can be generic at these parties ...like kitchen stuff or even EOs or ..whatever.... I usually always have my phone our with my amazon app pulled up trying to see if I'd come out ahead by just ordering from there. And then I only order what it would most benefit me to order at the party and go home and order the rest. lol I'm wayyy to practical and view our family dollars as too hard to come by. So if it's the goal to use peer influence, or to convince me they have the best product at whatever price..it's not working. Maybe this is yet another reason why MLM doesn't seem to fit me. lol

This is a big pet peeve of mine, too. When I started my MK business, I was told to go to my friends first. Initially I had a few parties through friends and they didn't seem to mind, plenty of people ordered, booked further parties...seemed to go well. But it didn't feel right so I quit doing it and even though it seemed to go well, I hated it and was sorry I did it. But I think this speaks more of a WAY to run a MLM business than the model itself...for SOME. I never saw it in writing, but I got the impression that MK's model was partially built on going to your friends. Other MLMs don't seem to that I know of, but the people running it choose to. So I tend to 'blame' the people doing it. I built whatever MK business I had on 'cold' leads that worked out ok but it was too much work, or the kind of work I didn't enjoy. I ended up passing my customers over to someone else and returning my product. OH MAN did that piss off my Director. She pretty much told me it would absolve our friendship if I did b/c it would hurt her within the company too much. But I had to think about my family, too. Not sure what it 'did' to her, but my mom is still friends with her and she is still rolling in dollar bills so ... regarding building other businesses having similarities with MLMs.. I didn't say they were they same, and I certainly acknowledged there were differences. The similarities I addressed were the 'making of money off of others' that I kept reading was an issue with some. (I dunno, maybe I misunderstood that this is a problem in what I was reading) I keep seeing *some* of that as just...all businesses so let's not target just MLM in those accusations. All the things you ladies mention as differences, i agree with and would therefore fall into my 'there are certainly differences' disclaimer. I'm not wholly grouping it together for sure, just to be clear. There are many nuances of MLM that are not my cup of tea anymore but other than capitalizing on friends that seems to go hand and hand (by choice or by model) with MLMs, I don't, myself, find them a problem. And just personally, I have found phrases that work for me when being approached, so on that level, I'm not bothered anymore either.

I was homeschooled in high school back when no one knew what it was. Lol my siblings were too, at different points. I was familiar. My career ended up being in the school system and I decided after that exposure that when I had kids I would hs by the time they hit middle school, if not before. Many moons later, I found myself with a husband and kids across the country in a dangerous school district so I hs the kids in that couple of years in elementary. We moved to Montana and I let them go to public school through the rest of elementary here. But as each hit middle school, I brought them home.

Hmm..I grew up in the woods, made mud pies in the dirt, barefoot as much as possible, alongside three siblings. I am the only one with asthma. Dh was a clean city boy and has no allergies. As a mom, I am not afraid of dirt and germs and encourage mine to play outside, in the dirt if they want. I do feel that exposure to germs is very helpful to people but in my experience, it doesn't help with allergy type stuff as much as viruses and bacterial infections. We are almost never sick and when we are it's a 24 hr thing. We don't use anti-bacterial soap either. I can be heard saying, "germs are our friends". Don't know about the boy-girl differences mentioned. My girl has always done what he brother does, climbs trees, all that. Ive been reading a lot of research on leaky gut syndrome and the tie scientists are making between that and allergies. The few allergy type issues we have seem to agree with that research.

From the age of 16 to 21 I worked as a cashier at a grocery store and loved every second. Loved meeting a ton of people every day, bosses loved me, I made a lot of new, fun, friends. I love numbers and even bagging the groceries. Weird, I know. As a teen I also liked the attention I got, I think. I was promoted at some point and ended up working in the office towards the end, doing payroll and managing the cashiers on my shift. Sometimes I also worked in other departments, I liked those, too. It was pretty low responsibility and fun. It was physically demanding and hard sometimes, too but I didn't mind that. Those were pretty fun times. After I finished school, the jobs got all serious and super "meaningful" and not nearly as much fun with much fewer fun people. Second place goes to the days when I owned a daycare business. Did it for 3 yes in-home alongside my babies. Those were fun little people too, but I closed because I was tired of dealing with the parents issues.