I have no answers but I can really sympathize. Our dishwasher died so we got a new one. No matter what I do, I just can't fit as many in. The spaces are just not made for my complement of dishes. I'm about ready to buy new dishes (if I knew what kind would work best.). I have decided that dishwashers should come with a label: "Compatible with Mikasa, Noratake...Not recommended for Fiesta, Pfaltgraf,...". (or maybe the dishes should be labeled: "Compatible with Bosch and Whirlpool only"). Paper plates look appealing right now.

My mother once corrected me and told me that the dishwasher door should be left open when it's done so the water could evaporate. I explained that if I did that the reachable dishes would no longer be clean, but covered in poodle spit. Since he visited her frequently, she started leaving hers closed, too. There was just something he couldn't resist about that water left on the clean dishes!

Oh, absolutely visit the doctor! I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, I just thought my experience might quiet your mind until you could get there :-)

Fifth disease, when it is mild and not obvious, can look like little purple pin pricks. The obvious "slapped face" doesn't always happen in my experience.

I do it the old-fashioned way...spiral notebook and adding machine. Actually from the mid-80s on, I used a spreadsheet and then things like MacMoney and Quicken to balance, categorize, and reconcile every penny. One year (maybe 5-10 years ago) I got irritated with paying for the update to financial software that got more bloated and less useful. I guess I blew a fuse, so I pulled out an old notebook and have been doing it by hand ever since. I pay my regular bills online, but I still do write lots of checks.

What about CollegePlus http://www.collegeplus.org/ ? I met them at a conference and they work with some Christian colleges to provide college credit for homeschoolers. They may have or know of some of the classical classes that might be a match for you.

We really don't share around here. I was on immuno-suppresants the first few years of ds's life. Because sharing anything was completely unacceptable then, it became the norm. He probably seems a bit like a germaphobe, but eating or drinking after anyone just feels wrong to all of us now.

Morning person here, too. I'm early to bed, early to rise. I hate and dread evening activities, though I drug through many in high school and college. Ds is a morning person, too, so the teen sleep late thing doesn't seem to effect him much. I start getting worried if he's still in bed at 6. It's Saturday and we're completely free today. Ds was up when I got up at 4am.

I hate it, too. I should try using BBC America. Theie general news site is my second hit after the national news each morning. I've switched to the NYT as a home page, but I liked CNN when I could see about 20 headlines at a glance. I may not love their "articles" but it was nice to see the day at a glance quickly.

Our outside kitty "disappeared" on a really cold night many years ago. It turned out he visited multiple homes on a regular basis (we thought he was ours), and one of the other families took him in for the night because the forecast was so dreadful.

I think I will "lose" his. I would have gotten him an HP to start with but the College Board docs seemed waffly on which calculators were OK back then. I figured if his calculator looked like everyone else's he'd be fine. I still use my HP reverse polish for everything(49SX), which completely explains why I hate the TI. When I go to do something on his calculator (or show him something), it is just all wrong! So, I have a strong bias that is contributing to my irritation. It really is fine to me that they solve some problems computationally or visually. It's just that iMHO the TI is a crappy tool for that compared to what is available now. It's like trying to pull a wagon full of stuff with 3 wheels when the other wheel is just laying there waiting to be put on. [/rant off]. :)

Thanks Kathy, I'm really glad it's only part of the test. I had just done a cursory look at the AP guide to get scope and sequence and didn't read it in detail. I just freaked when the study guide spent so many chapters on the calculator that I didn't notice they were only allowed for part of the test. I'm still irritated that we have to learn it. We use much more user friendly apps or programs to deal with iterative or unsolvable problems. Learning the TI stuff is just annoying. I sort of plan to burn the thing when he takes the last SAT and buy him a decent HP.

Interesting, I suffer from an autoimmune inflammatory disorder (in addition to several other autoimmune diseases). So far, I've only seen it from the other side: if you have a chronic, fatiguing disorder, it must be depression, and therefore, the only treatment we can offer is SSRIs (which isn't much help for things like Grave's). It would be great if anti-inflammatories could help with depression. I remember (probably 25 years ago) a GYN telling me that NSAIDs helped with the emotional symptoms of PMS as much or more than the physical ones. He chattered on about swelling in the brain, but he might have been on the right track.

So I'm teaching ds calculus this year, and I got an AP prep book to try to make sure I cover everything on the test. It is quite emphasized how important it is to have a graphing calculator and know how to use it for the test. There are several chapters on solving problems with the calculator. For example "Evaluate the derivative of f(x)= x^2 + 1 at x=3, the solution starts with 1. Go to the nDeriv utility by pressing MATH 8. 2. Enter (x^2 + 1, 3) ENTER And min-max problems are solved by graphing the function on the obnoxious utility and then moving the cursor and view window around until you find the min/max. I know that I've been out of the field for nearly twenty years, but Really?!? Will ds fail the test miserably if I just teach him calculus and don't spend hours teaching him the awful little programs on the TI? (We do actually do iterative problems on the computer and use real graphing programs on the PC or tablet to visualize functions, but I'm teaching him to take derivatives and do min-max by hand)

I find under easier to read and that's what I do. However, I always reply to e-mails at the top (or over) if I am including the original contents, because the first few lines show up in the inbox (and with e-mails it is hard to scroll and find new content among all the replies.)

I had chest pains with this flu that started right away before I had any cough or Tamiflu. Compared to everyone else, I think the Tamiflu made the illness shorter and I didn't end up with the lingering cough that most people have had.

One of ds's nutrition books had a table of beans ranked by gassiness. I can't find it now, but black beans were listed as the lowest. So I now make chili and most other dishes with black beans only. It made a huge difference. Plus ds says that black beans are one of the more nutritious varieties :)

Worst one I ever got: "Have you considered adoption?" at baby dd's funeral. (I did try to be tolerant, as no one knows what to say, but it was several weeks of the weirdest comments.)

I think it would for some people. Our gender roles are so ingrained that people just can't have a chance to figure out who they are. They are assigned "boy" or "girl" at birth and society expects that to define some huge percentage of who they are. I wish kids could say, "I'm Elizabeth Sutton Smith and this is who I am," and be unique individuals with whatever dress, careers, hobbies, etc. they choose. I really think a society like that would clear up issues for some and stop muddying the waters for others. I think true transgender* kids have more going on biologically, so I'm not sure continuum is right. I really hope this isn't offensive, but I've been mulling it in my head. I have autoimmune issues that affect every facet of my life. Part of my body is trying to kill the other part. Somehow I wonder if it is similar, one might have XY, but the rest of the chemistry in the body (maybe something we don't understand yet, maye something from the womb) says XX so the body is at war, a bit like mine. Because it seems that the bits and parts are important, but not as important as the overall feel of everything being wrong. I don't know if my analogy holds weight (conceptually or medically), but we all try to understand these things through the lens of our experience. I know that if medical science could find a solution for me, I'd be mighty ticked off if someone said that it wasn't OK for me to be treated because God made me this way. *Rereading I'm pretty sure "true transgender" is not the right phrase, but I just mean those who need more than crossdressing and not comforming to societal norms. I don't have all the terms right yet, so I'm thinking I might not be being polite to those who feel in between. Anyone have a better phrase?

One more question: Worldwide, what other books fit in this set?

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Maybe I'm not as poorly read as I thought. Maybe I can't think of one because it doesn't exist....An Amercian Christian allegorical epic?? On the upside, thanks to all for the suggestions. He is reading them, one by one. Not what he's looking for, but he is enjoying them. He finished The Mysterious Stranger and some short things yesterday and started on Satanic Verses last night (though he feels like he does not know enough Indian culture to get all of the humor.) Anyone know a great study guide for Satanic Verses?

Thanks for the link. I'm learning more every day and passing it on. I'm still not sure what he's seeking, a certain something that fills a certain niche, but not having read everything, I don't quite get it and am not sure it exists. (We likely start dual enrollment next year, so someone else can field these questions :) )

I don't know much about the thermograms, but I'm not sure why they don't do screening ultrasounds. The yearly radiation just doesn't seem like a good idea. Are ultrasounds really that much more expensive than X-rays? In terms of deciding the benefits of mammograms at earlier ages, I found this article interesting: 40 yo https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/images/mammo_chart_40.jpg 50 yo https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/images/mammo_chart_50.jpg 60 yo https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/images/mammo_chart_60.jpg https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mammography’s-limits-becoming-clear

I was one of those people that just wanted my dh for a while. That was what I really, really needed. If you feel like you need to do something now, go buy a card and drop it in the mail. They'll get it quickly and it will show that you are grieving with them, but she won't have that awkward, guilty feeling that you dropped stuff on the doorstep but weren't invited in. I found it really hard to accomodate everyone's need to comfort me while I needed to grieve, but then I score a 4 on the Introvert/Extrovert scale, so I may be extreme.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Cabot Cove was the murder capital of the U.S. for quite a while there :-) But I'm still looking forward to what they do with the second season. I've only seen Broadchurch. I've never liked the American remakes of any shows I've tried. I could see it eons ago when we couldn't watch the originals, but now why bother with another version? Can people just not understand the accent? If someone is going to spend money to make a new show, why not give us something original?!? Though it was a sad story, I really loved BC. It was cinematically beautiful, not just the scenery, but just the depictions of emotions in people. It all seemed so real. I didn't guess the ending, but I didn't dislike it. I think it makes the point that it is not always the priest or the scout leader that everyone is always so suspicious of. Sometimes it is someone that you would never suspect. I do like mysteries that lay out clues that I can figure out, but somehow I was OK with there being none here. Maybe I was just so wowed with the beauty ;-)