I asked my dh last night (he's an MD) and he said that it would depend on whether or not the person in question was obese. He said that extra weight will make your cycles more flaky and puts you at a higher risk for PCOS. He basically said, a couple of months if you're a regular weight an longer if you're obese.

You could use them for collages but other than that NO WAY!

I don't but I live in northern BC, Canada and I'm pretty sure that there are probably fewer than 100 black people in a 300 mile radius of my house. :)

I've visited with them some. I went to a funeral at one colony and spent a night at a former colony (they still function almost exactly the same way). I think that I've got a pretty good idea of how they operate.

Nature walks and phys-ed would be high on my list. You could easily burn an hour of time on each of those activities. Anything that develops fine motor skills could be counted (like colouring, beading, or legos).

I'm still praying for you, neighbour. :) ~the other Rose in BC

Are you taking any meds? Some can really mess up your cycle. I'm going to chime in in agreement with getting a pregnancy test. In Canada they're only $1.25 at the dollar store.

Spell to Write and Read isn't a workbook based spelling curriculum but it's reusable. It's a k-12 curriculum that you buy once and can use with any number of children. Each weeks spelling list comes with various suggested practice activities. Each year the children create their own spelling notebook with a complete appendix of the spelling rules that they have learned. I've really appreciated it and the price can't be beat: ~$100 for all the spell you'll ever need.

This seems a little draconian to me. What does my ability or lack of ability have to do with my qualifications for my profession? Being able to swim is good but it seems really heavy handed to require it as a pre-requisite for graduation from university. Maybe universities should start requiring people to be able to drive, cook, touch type, sew and know cpr to be able to graduate. Professional qualification shouldn't involve personal skills that have nothing to do with the profession one is choosing. Maybe I could see swimming as a qualification for teachers but engineers or lawyers, that just seems like too much.

Will do.

A couple of things that will make your trip nicer: 1. Fuel up before entering Canada. Gas is ALWAYS more expensive in Canada 2. Don't use your cell phone here or at least be prepared for some wicked roaming charges. 3. Washrooms are restrooms in Canada :) 4. Be prepared for the metric highway signs and speed limits 5. Border guards are from the devil. Be honest, straight forward, know where you're going and for how long you'll be there and you'll probably be OK. They seem to think that all Americans are trying to slip into Canada to live here and work as though you're all from some third world country. If you've got a criminal record they will turn you back even if it's from 17 years ago (this actually happened to friends of ours that were coming to visit). 6. Don't bring any fresh produce across the border when you pass in either direction. It will be taken from you Enjoy your trip :)

I probably would. We've eaten some pretty sketchy stuff and never gotten sick. I suppose the temperature of your house would count. If was 100F then I probably wouldn't. If it was 65F then sure. Food safety rules seem WAY over the top most of the time.

You're going to laugh... "This land is my land. This land is your land...."

This doesn't surprise me at all. My sister was routinely encouraged to skip out on the standardized testing days because she was doing poorly due to delinquency issues. Her teachers cut her a ton of slack because they didn't want to see her again the next year.

Maybe they could go about this in a much easier way if they just gave all teachers in training frontal lobotomies. They would probably have a lot more cooperation that way.

This just goes against all reason!

Time for a treat. :)

My dd is going to start any day now. I have no plans to do anything special about it. It would probably just be awkward for us both.

I'm going to pitch my two bits in here. I think that it's safe to say that I'm on a slightly different course than a typical evangelical Christian. For my background, I grew up secular/hippy, became evangelical as a teenager and then have been moving away from evangelical with my dh since our early years toward fringe anabaptist (did you even know that such a thing existed!). I would not fellowship in a regular evangelical church because my beliefs are too divergent. Here goes nothing... :) I believe that the typical story of the atonement (Jesus' work on the cross) has been distorted. My biggest issue is that I don't believe that simply by Jesus' death do wicked people get counted as righteous people. "Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous." I also believe that God is able to forgive people without killing someone/something. This all plays hugely into my understanding of what I believe that God did when he sent his son. What I believe happened was that all humanity was in bondage to the devil. All our sin leads to death. What God did was send his son (of course with his full agreement) to live a sinless life and then die a death on the cross knowing full well that death would not have power over him, like it does over us. After his death Jesus showed up the devil by breaking the bonds of death. Now people that live in faith and obedience can put hope in one day being with him in heaven. This gives people something worth changing their lives over. This hope is what enables people to actually live righteous lives. This understanding of the cross seems infinitely better to me. It would be like a human parent deciding with their child for the child to go through with a very painful medical procedure, like say a kidney donation without anesthetic, so that another child in the family might be saved. I like this so much better than Jesus as the whipping boy version. I'm putting myself out as a heretic here but I felt like it was worth pointing out that there is a way of looking at the cross through a different lens that does look so heinous. This was actually the majority view before the reformation and the only orthodox view before the 1000s. This view is called the ransom view of the atonement as opposed to the evangelical view which is called substitutionary atonement.

I've got a long shave saga here. When I was a preteen kids at school started teasing me. I was too embarrassed to ask my mom (she never shaved) so I went and bought some bics (I felt like I was buying contraban tampons) and went home and DRY SHAVED!!! I then had to fess up to my mom and ask what I had done wrong and how to fix it. Because of this situation I would suggest at least mentioning it to any girls so they don't make the same mistake. Now for a cute story. When I was in Bible college one evening I was chatting in a mixed group about shaving. A couple of the guys in the group were HORRIFIED that I didn't shave all winter while we were all wearing pants. My feminist nerve went into overdrive and so the next morning I put on a skirt and went down to breakfast hair and all! There was so much scandal about it that there and then I decided never to shave again. Fast forward a year later and I was just starting to get to know my soon-to-be husband. He noticed the hairy legs and was really impressed! He liked that I chose to do things my own way. I guess God has someone out there even for the crazy rebels like me.

:) I'm just happy to bless others.

Hi all, Over the last year I've been experimenting with geography. I created a worksheet that can be filled out for any country. My children fill in the worksheet and some blank maps related to the country of the week. I primarily use this site for maps: http://www.d-maps.com/. They use our encyclopedias, the CIA World Fact Book and library books for their information. By the end of the year they've produced their own atlas of sorts. This could be tailored for different years by producing simpler worksheets for the younger years or by expecting less of their answers. I'll attach a pdf of the form that I use. You can alter this however you would like. I don't know how to attach an alterable file but I'd be happy to email you if you want to tinker. Or maybe someone could inform me about how to add a .docx or .odt file. Enjoy!

Awwww. Thanks. I need the sympathy. Hubby is gone this week to so I'm under a lot.

I just weaned ds16mo last week and I'm working a little more slowly with ds11mo. I HATE weaning. It makes me feel so conflicted but I'm pregnant with #7 and I know from experience that my milk is going to evaporate completely within a few weeks anyways. I'm also sick and fall to dehydration quickly. Weaning just makes me feel like my babies are going lose all bond with me because I now don't have anything special to offer. Irrational, I know, but that's where my thought go. Tell me I'm not alone. :)