I have an Amana glasstop stove, and I'm worried about one of the burners. For the last few days it has been acting a little weird. I thought at first that I didn't have the switch all the way to off, but it really is and has been for the last few days. Every time I pass the stove I put my hand over the burner and it is at least a little warm...sometimes it's hot enough for the "surface" light to come on like it does when I'm purposely cooking something. Is there a way to disconnect the burner? I'm a little leery of leaving it like that. Thanks in advance from the appliance impaired... Maria

Gosh, where to start? The Waltons, Laugh In, Little House, Back to the Future, Wargames... A few days ago I showed him the I Love Lucy clip where she does the MegaVegeVitaMin...VegeMinaVitaMeat...you know, the one where she gets drunk on the vitamin stuff (it's a little early for me). Of course, mine is 13 now.

Actually, I wouldn't ask the school district for help on this one. I took my son to ISU, where they have a psychology clinic, and they gave him standardized and IQ testing. They found what they thought to be disorder of written expression, and if I wanted they would do the additional testing to find out exactly, but at the time I declined. They have a sliding pay scale based on income, and he had four hours of testing for $50. The people testing at the psych clinic are mostly doctoral students who are very closely supervised by doctors. Usually the school district sends kids there who are thought to have ADD, ADHD, some other disability, or if the teachers think the kids would benefit from family or play therapy. I would look at the colleges in your area and see what you could find.

When my dad died a friend sent us a baby cherry tree. He could do anything with wood (and stained glass, for that matter) and cherry was his favorite. I thought it was very thoughtful. We put it in the front yard and watched it bloom every year.

I have a classmate who approached me at the beginning of the semester and asked if I would take notes for her. Indiana State University has a learning center where kids with learning disabilities can get assistance and serve as a go-between for kids at test time and for papers and such. They are paying me (just minimum wage for 3 hours a week, mind you) to write my class notes on special carbon notebook paper. She gets the original and I get the yellow copy, and we both have legible notes! At test time she turns in a special request to her teachers and someone will read aloud the questions for her and she can either answer them orally or write them down herself. I also have a fellow psychology major who has cerebral palsy and is doing school from her wheelchair--she took all her statistics tests orally. Quite a job, but they did it. Also, there is another boy here who has someone to help him from class to class in his walker, and another helper who fingerspells for him EVERYTHING the professors say in class. My school is great about accomodating all kinds of learning as well as physical disabilities--I'm sure it's not the only one. She can do it!

I "third" the exercise--it helps me a lot when I'm stressed out. When things get absolutely unbearable I start journaling again. Just writing down how stressed out I am or what's bothering me for a few minutes before bed gives me someone to tell my troubles to. The journal is not judgemental and does not try to dismiss my troubles by solving them with a few little words. I can fall asleep more easily because it's off my mind for the time being. Sometimes just verbalizing our stress, even if it's in a journal, is a relief.

Early to bed? Gimme a break. Pork chops inspire man to plumbing. Chocolate makes my world go round. I like this--this is fun! (Hey--that's six words!!) Caffeine is its own food group.

When I was tested several years ago, I was told I was allergic to orris root. It's the root of an iris grown near the Mediterranean, I think, and the root is harvested, dried, and ground up to use in EVERYTHING even remotely flowery. I literally have to use flower-free everything. Even shampoos have to have a fruit scent for me to even consider using them. At school I have to bring my albuterol because I get into a couple of classes where these little 20-somethings (who try entirely too hard to look cute) slather themselves with all kinds of flowery stuff. That and sitting near the door are the only things that help. For your husband, near the door or in the balcony may be ideal. Good luck.

I can see how it would make you feel uncomfortable, but let's face it--they're six hours away, and you don't get to see them all that much. Having that picture to look at and remind them of your visit is worth being uncomfortable for an afternoon, no? If it does become a yearly tradition, wonderful! You get to see your family grow, and you will have even more pictures to show people and brag about your wonderful daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Wow. I can only imagine what a time you're having. Could it be he is afraid that you are going to someday withhold that love? Perhaps he's testing you to see if you'll still love on him no matter how awful he acts. Hang in there. For him to be that age and not very verbal about his feelings is doubly difficult. Love him as long as you can. Maria

What's wrong with it? Plenty. Mostly because it certainly does not take a village (or the UN) to raise a child...it takes parents who get up off their butts and grow up and step up and raise them like the adults they are. More and more we are turning over our children to other people to be raised, immunized, educated, etc. and we don't even realize we're doing it. I would just like the chance to raise my child the way I want, not have the UN or the state or the president tell me how to do it. If I wasn't mature enough to have a child, shame on me. Granted, I know something has to be done about child labor and food, insurance, and medications (as well as a whole host of other things) for children in third-world countries and war-torn regions--but don't tell me in America how to do it. I'm here just trying to take care of my own little corner, and people like the state and the UN and the school board and the pediatricians can leave me to it and concentrate their efforts on those who need them. Maria from IN, who's still feverish and coughing and frustrated and heard about this convention several years ago--and is still honked off about it.

Diva. Definitely. Just look at that expression. You know, like "We are kitty. Bow down before us." Just adorable.

For my Health Psychology class we are reading Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Sapolsky. For a "textbook," it's actually entertaining. For my Honors Religion and Culture class we are reading Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy. It's a lot like Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, only at the back he doesn't just list the basic things we should know about world religions, he explains them. I will keep this book as a reference, definitely! Next we will be reading Karen Armstrong's The Battle For God. My 13 yo will soon be reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, and I preread it to see if he could handle all that torture and death...I'm still not sure. Beyond that, I am reading books on fibromyalgia for my Health Psychology paper, books and studies on classical conditioning for my Learning and Memory paper, and I will have to figure out something to write about for my Perception class (at this point, either color blindness or audio processing deficits). So these are not necessarily what I'd want to read, but I'm learning and trying to enjoy them just the same. Maria

I won't try to link all of them here, because I'm definitely computer illiterate, but I'll list the titles for you: Eddie Izzard Pavlov's Cats How Not to Use PowerPoint by Comedian Don McMillan The Impotence of Proofreading by Taylor Mali Victor Borge Inflationary Language Hugh Laurie The Sophisticated Song Like_youknow Taylor Mali Rachmaninov Had Big Hands A Vision of Students Today The Friends Theme and Sugar Ray Dad at Comedy Barn Riverdancing Violinist That should get you started!:D Maria

It's getting worse and worse every day, you know. First, the campus bookstore robs us, then the students. The campus library here won't even keep textbooks for reference anymore because people would check them out and not come back! One young man was mugged the other day, at 2:00 in the afternoon! They took his wallet and beat the snot out of him. It's just not safe anywhere around a campus anymore.:eek:

It reflects the fashion and thinking of the times, if nothing else. At Indiana State the English department offers every couple years a fiction class called "Science Fiction as Social Criticism." I still wish I had the time to take it!

Maria here, raised in Evansville, living in Terre Haute... Hello, all you frozen Hoosiers! :eek:

My 13 year old and I have been doing chorewars for a few weeks now, and he's really hot to get those points! All of these chores need to be done, and he's eager to help out, and telling him that the one gold point equals one penny isn't so bad, either! It does help him keep track of things that need to be done and things he can do when Grandma's here, and I like coming home from class and seeing that the cat's fed, the mail is on the counter, the trash can is brought in from the curb, and the schoolroom is straightened up. Of course, given the format of the website, we have gotten a little carried away with the adventure descriptions... Vacuuming: "The Sucking of Dirt from the Floors of Either the Room of Living, the Room of Dining, the Room of Schooling, or the Hall of...Way." Getting the Mail: "The Hoofing It of Thy Feet to the Box of Mail and Emptying the Contents Therein for Transport to Yon Kitchen Counter" Sweeping the Porch: "The Swishing Back and Forth, Verily, of Thy Broom on Yon Concrete Slab that Greets Thy Neighbors" ...maybe we're having a little too much fun doing chores, no? :)

Well, you know, dear, there's more than one way to stay warm this winter... ;)

Well, I have one son who's 13 now, and we have been homeschooling since Kindergarten. I started back to college in 2005 after about a 15-year break, so the WTM recommendations we had been pursuing got kind of thrown out the window for a while, and now we're using Switched On Schoolhouse for everything but History--still using SOTW for that. I hope to get into graduate school (just getting ready to turn in my application, cross your fingers!) and become a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. That should make teaching high school rather interesting. I'm divorced and have a great boyfriend who's just as wacky as myself, and this here place is home to a cantankerous cat and an active lab/coon hound puppy, who will tree something only because he wants to play with it. Currently I'm completing an internship at a local hospital's psych unit, and I'm having the best time! I finally know what I want to do when I grow up!

:DWhen the pups were born and I looked at the runt I knew his name had to be Fiver...we took him home and everyone thinks we're strange because they've never heard of the book!

Where I'm from, it was DEE-cal, as well as puh-CAHN (pecan) and LOO-ee-ville (Louisville). Up here in Terre Haute (just 2 hours north, mind you) it's PEE-can and the ever-popular Loo-vuhl. It was almost like learning a new language. :eek:

It's games (juvenile humiliation) like that which made me tell everyone in my life that I definitely didn't want a baby shower. Thank goodness they listened to me; I would have had to get nasty...