Jump to content

Menu

Chocomom63

Members
  • Posts

    92
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Chocomom63

  1. I believe I need something extra as well so glad to see your post. :-). I'm 54 (cringe) and my skin is in terrible shape. This menopause gig is for the birds. :-/ I've heard that Make Up Forever's primers (I think they're called Step 1) are really good and they have 10 different ones to cover just about any skin situation. I'm thinking of getting one of those. Kind of expensive but you use very little so should last awhile. Sephora has a video on Youtube called "Priming and Setting Tricks" and it has lots of good information so you might want to check that out too. Hope that helps!
  2. This is just devastating. He's MY age for cryin' out loud! And oh how I love his music! Their first album, Make It Big is one of my summertime favorites. And Freedom 90 with that video with all those models - I still listen to it all the time. So sad. :-(
  3. I don't read many blogs these days but I do like Dinner A Love Story which is about cooking and specifically family meals. I like the books by the author and the blog is pretty fun too. And I know that you have an 8th grader (my two youngest are in 7th) but Orange Marmalade is a good one for book reviews for kids. She also has loads of lists of different kinds of books for different topics. Granted there are a lot of picture books for littles, but there are chapter books for teens as well. Hope that helps.
  4. Oh honey I hear you! (((HUG))). You have my permission to cry all you want. The kleenex truck has been parked in my driveway for the last couple of weeks. I had one son move out last week (first time on his own) and another son moves 1500 miles away tomorrow (he graduated college in May so he's off to a new job and a new life). Then of course, there's my two youngest daughters going off to brick and mortar school for the first time as well. Lots of leaving and my heart is breaking. :-(
  5. Haven't read many of the responses, but just wanted to say it's not like I forget to eat, I just don't want to eat. I've been cooking army sized meals for a long time and I'm just tired. Speaking to the topic, one of the last times I forgot to eat, I was pregnant (eons ago) and at church and started getting shaky. I actually left church so I could go to the convenience store across the street and get a Snickers. After that I always tried to stay conscious of when I ate last so that wouldn't happen again.
  6. It does help to have a scale to weigh things and then check on the USPS website to see how much the cost of shipping is before pricing an item. Recently, I sold some Saxon Math and the price I got when I put the weight in online at home and when I actually mailed it was spot on. And all I have is a digital kitchen scale. Media Mail is the route I always go for books, cd's, and dvd's. Rates start around $2 - $2.50 per package so, again, adjust your prices accordingly if you do postage paid pricing, or make sure you put at least that much in to defray the costs of shipping. Shipping materials can get pricey, so save boxes every chance you get because that will help right there. I use mailers I buy in bulk from Walmart (I keep at least 3 different sizes on hand) and also invest in bubble wrap (I also save as much of that I can from shipments I get from Amazon, etc. as well). Keep plenty of packing tape on hand too. If you want to add a dollar or two to the shipping price (or the total price if you do postage paid) to help defray the cost of the materials then do that too. After you've done enough sales and shipments, you'll get an idea of how much everything will cost. Generally speaking, you will have to spend out a little, but you should make enough back for it to be a positive thing. I LOVE my online book selling and have made some good money over the years. I enjoy getting the books out of the house and into the hands of someone who will use and enjoy them and also the money I make usually helps with the cost of new school books or small things for myself or holiday shopping. My dream would be to open a bookstore (used and/or new), but that's just a dream (for now). :-)
  7. Kind of OT but the bolded! When the last of those three boys moved out of their room I cried - it was so quiet and I just missed them so much. I cleaned the room up in a day and moved the three girls in so I wouldn't have to look at the empty room anymore. :-) I also agree on flexible parents and respectful young folks - sounds like you have both at your place.
  8. How old is the daughter going to college? If she is 18 or over it would be one thing, but if she is younger, then I think stricter rules would apply. FWIW - there is a book I read called "How To Really Love Your Adult Child" (I know - I'm a bookaholic so I recommend books a lot - sorry) and it really helped my husband and I in dealing with a boomerang kid who needed to move on. It has a lot of ideas for family meetings and making rules everyone can live with. It also helps to understand your child as well and help them cope with situations they are having trouble coping with. Currently I have 4 adult children and we've been the route of kids working jobs that ended late and sometimes my older 3 would just hang out together in their room like it was a dorm so I'm well aware of all that. If they got loud I would just say, "you're being too loud for the littles please tone it down" and they would. Once I had to boot a kid out of the younger boys' room because he was keeping them up too late but sometimes it's what you have to do. I like the idea of maybe her sleeping on the couch if she comes in really late if it really is going to be a disturbance to the younger ones. However, you may just give the situation a shot first to see how it will work and then if it needs to be adjusted then adjust it. That's just my old mom opinion so ya know - grain of salt and all that. :-)
  9. My goal this week is going to be 6 glasses of water each day and my B vitamin at lunch.
  10. Okay, I'm going to suggest cookbooks. The first one is called "The Mom 100" by Katie Workman and it has everything including meal plans. I really wish this one had been around when I was a young mom - all very basic recipes and no weirdo ingredients. I have made many of these recipes and they work every.single.time. It's my go to cookbook of all time. She has another one called "Dinner Solved" and while I haven't used it as much, I am going to try more of the recipes this fall. "Dinner A Love Story" and "Dinner the Playbook" by Jenny Rosenstrach I also recommend. I haven't cooked anything out of the Playbook one, but I am going to implement it for the first month when I have a bunch of kids at school for the first time. I am in a food rut and desperately in need of new meal ideas. The only other advice I would give would be have dinner planned for the week and maybe get your kids to help with the cooking - they may be less picky if they get to prepare it? I get the picky eater thing though, I had one kid (who is now 25) and he hated it when hot dog buns were "broken". He also told me once that "I will eat it this time but not the next time" - I think he was 7 or 8. UGH. Now that kid helps me make dinners when he comes to visit. :-) Hope that helps. :-) Hope that helps and give it time.
  11. Not likely. :-P FWIW - school has been a good thing for my oldest dd so far and I believe my other girls will be fine too. The teachers have been able to help and guide where I just couldn't. I'm glad for that.
  12. Oh wow - thank you ALL sooooo much for all your kind words, hugs, and support!! My heart is full (and my eyes too) so I'm at a loss for words at the moment. But thanks and my hugs to all of you transitioning too. Garga - I am so with you on the book thing! I am actually keeping some of the favorites back to read to grandchildren some day. Just can't bear to part with them. Half my kids will be out of the nest by October this year. One graduated from college in May and he is moving to the west coast in August. Two others will be moving out on their own as well. So, this year is a lot of change for me and I'm really feeling the immenseness of it all. Anyway, thank you again for listening and sharing. Nice to know I have some support in all this.
  13. Yes, my dd (age 12) told me that on Saturday. I knew that the days of homeschooling were getting limited once oldest dd went to ps, but it's real now. And while I'm fairly okay with it...I'm not. Why? She and her twin sister are.my.babies.!! Yeah, I know this is the way it works, and the Kleenex truck backs up whenever a kid leaves the nest, but I'm not really ready to let my babies go. Well, are we ever? Probably not. So, I just need a hug and someone to say that I'll live through it and everything will be okay because it probably will be (their sister has flourished in ps), but I'm always anxious and never sure whenever these big changes come around. FWIW - I've been a SAHM for 30 years and homeschooling for almost 22 of those so this is a BIG transition for me and it's going to take some time to wrap my head around it all. It's hard enough to believe my oldest son is 30 for cripessake! Anyway, no questions or seeking advice...just needing to say all that out loud because there's no one else to say it to who'll understand. Thanks for listening.
  14. My dd12 got a nice knee length black skirt at Target in the juniors section just recently. I'm not sure what stores you've been too but these are the ones I can think of that might have something: Target Justice Old Navy The Children's Place (maybe) If you are looking in the little girls' section, try the juniors section. We had to go with the super small sizes for my dd but the skirt fit. And I would second Goodwill as well.
  15. Usually a buyer will email you to say they are interested in buying a specific item from your ad. Then when they pay through PayPal, they can put a note as to what the payment is for either in the body or the subject line of the PayPal payment form when they pay you. It takes a little organization on your part to keep your sales straight. You might want to have a chart with buyer's name, what they bought, the price, and how they paid, when they paid, and when you shipped made up so you can keep track all in one space. Once you sell a few items (and if you are just starting out, start small otherwise it could be overwhelming really quickly) it will make more sense and you will get the hang of it. PayPal is so simple for both buyer and seller that it won't take long to see how it works. Does that help?
  16. Not sure if you are selling on ebay or on a homeschool swap board, but I'm going to speak to homeschool swap boards. This is my take on it and it's probably more information than you were asking for. :-P When someone says they want to buy an item, I ask them how they want to pay and then send the proper address for payment when I hear back from them. If they pay by PayPal I just have them send payment to my address and I ask them to use the Goods and Services option instead of Friends and Family. This is because you have seller protection with that whereas you don't with the Friends and Family option. To me it's worth the fee to have that extra security just in case something should go wrong (I will say that in 16 years of selling online, I've only had 1 or 2 problems and they were easily solved between me and the buyer/seller). After I get the payment in my account (PayPal will let you know when it gets sent), I send a thank you to the buyer for the payment as soon as possible and let them know about when I'll be shipping the item out. I also email again after shipping to let them know the item went out and give them a tracking number. I usually use Media Mail and they now have tracking numbers automatically on that - yay! About Media Mail shipping, it starts around $2 to $2.50 for a package so be sure to figure that in if you have postage paid pricing. If you already know all that feel free to ignore. :-) I also ask them (the buyer) to let me know the item arrived, but a lot of the time that doesn't happen so I'm glad for tracking numbers now. To me, communication is key in online selling and I try to follow the transaction from start to finish. Ebay used to be like that, but it's rare to find those super friendly sellers who let you know everything. I had one of those sellers recently and I was in heaven. So nice to see someone still does that! I've never sent an invoice - don't know how and it's just easier for simple transactions to just deal with the customer through email. But that's just how I've always done it. I do believe there is a link in the invoice though that takes the buyer to PayPal to pay though. I hope that helps. And good luck with your selling!
  17. Our library has the book "Learned Optimism" so I will check that out today. Edited because I'm not sure I wanted to say all that. Sorry.
  18. I saw this term on another thread and I'd never heard of it before. I looked it up and I think it's something I've lived with for a long time. What can you tell me about it and can it be unlearned (recovered from?).
  19. Just about to say the same thing. She married Ike Godsey though so that's the name she was most known as.
  20. I just saw this today, but apparently she died on the 14th - she was 83. I wasn't sure if anyone had mentioned it, but I wanted to. I LOVED The Waltons and I think in some way it encouraged me to have 8 kids. :-P I also loved Corabeth because she was so over the top and I read somewhere that Ronnie Edwards loved the character for the same reason. My favorite episode was the one in which Ike asked her to marry him and you know, I haven't seen that episode in a really long time! In all the reruns I've never caught it. One of my other favorites is when they first got their daughter, Amy. She was trying so hard to be supermom that she forgot that all the girl needed was a regular mom and to be treated like all the other kids. Will Geer's Grandpa gave a great speech at the end of that one and it makes me tear up every time I see it. Good times. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord. And thank you Ronnie Edwards for your great acting.
  21. I wish Erin Condren had kept to making JUST their Life Planners. In the beginning they had been awesome, but then the size shrunk, the paper was different, and so on. Two years in a row they screwed up my planner and so I threw in the towel on that. I think the problem is they have too many things going and, in my opinion, the Life Planner really suffered. To me, they are just too expensive and the frustration just isn't worth it. That said, I'm loving my MAMBI Happy Planner! It's a lot cheaper (especially if you use the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby) and there is a lot of room for writing what you want and tailoring it to you. I am not quite like those who use it scrapbook-like (no time for that), but I do make it my own. I also have the do it yourself Happy Planner for next year and I like that one even better - it's a boxed set. My son got me a Passion Planner last year and while I liked it - it was way too big for me. I liked all the extras about goals and dreams, etc., but I wish it had been smaller and spiral. I haven't looked at one this year so not sure if they've changed. If you are looking for something super simple, I've also had the Homemaker's Friend Daily Planner by Sue Hooley. Very simple, pretty, it is Christian content so if that bothers you then this isn't the one for you. I can take it or leave it so not a problem for me. Now, my favorite planner was the BusyBodyBook from years ago. It had blocks and at the top you could write names, or your different roles, or whatever, and keep everything straight that way. It also had a page opposite that was lined for notes - I used the heck out of those pages! The last one was printed in 2012 I think and I truly, truly miss it. Wish they would print them again. Okay, that's my take on it. Good luck to finding something you like and if all else fails just crack out a nice spiral notebook. :-)
  22. I have two books by Anne Katherine - "Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin" and "Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day". I started reading one of them but it went into too much detail on abuse and boundaries that I had to shelve it - triggers. The other one wasn't quite like that but I can't remember which is which. So, you might want to check them out in person to see if they would be a good fit for your mom. I also would suggest any of Melody Beattie's books on Codependency because they have chapters on boundaries in them. I like a lot of her stuff and it has really helped over the years. I hope that helps and best wishes to your mom. ETA: I found them! The first book I mentioned is the one I had difficulties with. The other book "Where To Draw The Line" has a lot of good information in general about boundaries and how to set them.
  23. Thanks for your responses! I just wanted to re-iterate that she is not having really painful periods. It seems to be the normal cramping and she just has nausea that first day and it's interfering with school so we need to find a way to alleviate that so it's not a problem for her in the future. She and I brainstormed today to see how she would like to try to handle it. She's going to try the advance Advil to see if that helps as she said it did help with the nausea today. We also talked about nutrition and that she does need to get more fruit and vegetables in her diet so we'll both be working on that (yeah, I need to do that too). She's also going to track symptoms to see if any of these things improve. If not, or if they get worse, we will go to her doctor before school starts again in the fall. We also talked about going to the school nurse to see if she could help rather than me taking her out of school if possible if she's not feeling too awful. Someone mentioned "Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition" by Marilyn Shannon - I used to have this book and I think our library has it so I'm going to pick that up this weekend to see if there's some help in there. I have a book on kids this age and it seems to be a fairly common thing to have some nausea and even dizziness so that was helpful too. It wasn't until peri-menopause that my symptoms jacked up but I never did get the nausea. Although I had 4 months of morning sickness with every pregnancy. :-P So, that's the plan. Thanks again - you gave me a lot to think about.
  24. Thanks for your answers so far - I guess I was looking for some more natural help for this. Daughter is not a pill taker (she will take Advil chewables though and they do help) and going on the pill is not what we want to do unless things get far worse (which they aren't right now). So, is there anyone out there who takes care of their own or their dd's period issues in a more natural manner?
  25. Well, I just didn't know how to title this so there it is. Anyway. My oldest daughter, 15, is home again today after throwing up in her class (she goes to ps). She is also on day 1 of her period - just started today. And she recently started having cramps which causes her digestive issues I guess. This is the 4th or 5th month in a row this has happened now and I just don't know how to help her. I never had this issue and she is my first daughter so I'm kind of at a loss. Her younger sister has terrible cramps but there's not a stomach connection to it. I thought about taking her to her ped. but I'm not sure how much help that would be so I'm going to start here for help first. It's not severe cramping and I'm wondering if she just needs more water or protein to get her through the first day or so? Help!
×
×
  • Create New...