My mom used to make an energy ball thing that was largely peanut butter, but definitely had regular sugar in it. Maybe chocolate chips too? So I say look at a few recipes and then experiment.

I hate it. My kids are cranky, I am cranky. Yesterday was one week from the change and I felt as bad waking up as I did the first day a week ago.

I would make them lists for each day to literally check off. One list of things that needs done every day, like cleaning cooking/eating mess, and other, day specific lists that divide the chores that need done every week out over the days of the week. So Monday sweep and mop, for example, Tuesday bathroom cleaning tasks, Wednesday vacuum, etc. here we have a daily time (5:00 , if it matters) where everyone stops playing, homework, whatever, and cleans.

Does she like Shakira? Shakira has some songs in Spanish. If it were me, if I could find one or two songs or artists that she liked, I’d go to YouTube or Pandora and listen to a song, then listen to suggested songs to find others similar. i used to like Juanes, and I remember a lot of his songs being upbeat pop, but I haven’t listened to anything newer that he’s done, and he has a lot of ballad type songs. It’s older music, but Selena had some cute upbeat songs like “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom”. My favorite Spanish language group was Bacilos, but I don’t think most of their music would qualify, too slow. But “Mi Primer Millón “ is pretty fast paced.

All I can say is, when we were buying DD a car, there were a couple of Chevy Sparks available locally, and they are cute, but after researching them online, they are prone to problems, and my DH would never buy one.

So I used a personal trainer for a few months last year, and it did help me, but with caveats. I did not do a meal plan. Mostly I was paying this lady to show me how to safely use gym equipment that I hadn’t used before and teach me new exercises. But I am a reader and as researcher, and I felt like (a) she didn’t actually always know what she was talking about, and (b) she was not as knowledgeable about proper form as I would have liked, or about working around pre-existing problems. So the first session was almost the last, because she had me try to do a certain number of reps/sets on a machine I knew would cause my knee pain to flare up, and I wouldn’t do them all. She acted like I was not pushing myself, but I had used that machine and knew what would happen, and she had no advice on proper form to avoid knee pain. It helped me to be accountable to someone, and I learned new things and I think have a more balanced workout routine, but I quit and haven’t gone back after I learned enough to get me out of my rut. If I were to hire another trainer I would talk a lot more with them beforehand about their knowledge base and I would look for someone with certifications.

For Christmas I bought my son some dumbbells and these posters that illustrate a bunch of dumbbell exercises, divided into sections for different parts of the body (arms, back, core, etc). Not sure if they’re right for your situation or not. I use the notes app on my phone to record workout info. The title of each note is “workout, date”. Using my phone which I also use to listen to music while I exercise reduces the amount of junk I have to carry around the gym, because if I don’t write things down as I do them, I’ll forget. Also I can quickly look at what I lifted/how many reps in the last workout.

My SIL teaches, and over the years had taught at five or six different schools. A lot of what seems to determine how happy she is with any given job is not the subject she’s teaching or the kids, but the administration and how well they support the teachers and how good they are about having reasonable expectations of work load. So it might be worth talking to teachers from the schools you’re looking at.

I don’t think coffee is really necessary at lunch, though if you had it Im sure people would drink some. I think you’re doing plenty.

Avoiding screens an hour or so before I go to sleep and getting morning sun have helped me to move my sleepy time up by about an hour lately and help me sleep better as well, I think.

At my house, if the smoke detector goes off during a time when I’m cooking, no one cares, except if they’re close, they might grab a towel and start flapping it to make it shut off. If there was an actual fire and they were in their bedrooms, the house would burn down with them in it, because the smoke detector had cried wolf too many times.

The kids are not supposed to have food in their rooms because of the mess they won’t clean up. Sometimes they do anyway, and get in trouble. DH and I sometimes bring food in our bedroom, but we clean up after ourselves.

In found three spoons under my teenager‘s mattress. Not under the bed, shoved between the box spring and mattress. She claimed no knowledge of how they got there. Really? You think maybe the troll under the bed left them there?

A Short Story of Betrayal

There is also the possibility that the bowls were broken and then thrown away surreptitiously by a child in the house, though my first guess, like others, was “under the teenager’s bed”.

I wouldn’t go or not go because of what people you don’t really know might think. I’m an introvert, but without chronic pain issues. In my case, I’d go if DH was fine with me just staying at the hotel sometimes instead of going with the group. That you have legitimate pain issues makes it even more understandable. Sometimes I get migraines. I never feel bad staying home from stuff because I have a migraine, and DH doesn’t mind going alone too things. I don’t worry about it, and I assume he doesn’t either.

I might want to know, but if it was my elderly father I wouldn’t want him to be crushed by the news either. I think, especially given that the source of your information could have been unreliable, that it would be better not to say anything. After the uncle dies, I might re-evaluate. It is for sure an unfortunate secret to be in possession of.

Okay, so I don’t remember all of the specifics of your family situation, but you’ve known since you were 15? that you had A half sister. You know your Dad is not a one woman his whole life man, which is a larger contrast then you may realize to someone like my DH who grew up knowing that his parents married quite soon after high school and his Dad had never dated anyone else. The emphasis on truthfulness is sick in both of our families that a parent hiding a child’s parentage or existence would be a huge breech of the character which we believe our parents possess/possessed. the reason I think you are being cavalier is your repeated use of LOL in response to people on this thread. Maybe you’re unaware of how lacking in empathy that makes you seem? Look, I’m pretty much done with this thread. Like I said, I don’t plan to do any DNA testing, and not because it might uncover family skeletons. I just wanted to point out another POV that it seemed you weren’t taking into consideration.

But because of your strong feelings on this you are dismissing the feelings of others who feel differently and refusing to admit that those feelings are as valid as yours, and that’s where I think some people, including me, are having a problem. Your attitude it’s very cavalier towards the (potential) emotional fallout of something that you will never be able to experience because you have known for a long time that you have half-siblings, and the character of your dad. It is good that for your sister that it only took her a little while to “get over”. But it might not be that way for others and that’s okay and understandable too.

Like I said, I think you underestimate how it would affect someone who doesn’t already know their family situation is complicated. I can see someone signing off on the disclaimer about it bringing up family secrets but then being really upset when that is not just theoretical anymore, because they really didn’t believe it could happen TO THEM. If I have half siblings out there conceived during my parents’ marriage, then either my father or my mother is not who they presented themselves as in a big way. The same would be true of my DH’s family, with the added complication of his mother being dead. So even if there were some sort of extenuating circumstance like rape, she wouldn’t be able to explain it. It would be devastating, and DH is much more of an avoider of unpleasant emotions than I am.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be. It’s a sucky fact about life that parents make choices that have unpleasant consequences for their children. But whether you like it or not, that’s quite likely how I would react. Maybe eventually I’d get over the desire to avoid unpleasant feelings and deal with reality, I know myself well enough to think that is likely, eventually. But I know a lot of people who seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to avoid/deny what doesn’t suit them.

If your family is complicated already, I think you might underestimate what an earth shattering thing it could be to someone who grew up in a stable environment thinking they knew who their dad was and secure in their knowledge that their parents loved each other and were faithful to find out that that “identity” was a lie. Especially if the parent in question has passed on and the new knowledge messes with the memory of a loved one who can no longer give an account of what happened it offer any apology or explanation. I haven’t done DNA testing and don’t really plan to, but if I did and a surprise sibling showed up, I would have to revise an awful lot of my childhood, and it would m mess me up for awhile. I don’t know when or if I’d feel like getting to know the person who, intentionally or not, was the cause of those feelings.

I have to sing other songs (usually hymns) out loud every time the ear worm pops into my head to get rid of it. Sometimes I end up with the other song as an ear worm, so it’s not a perfect solution.

I’ve always heard the no-family rule as well, and actually was just talking about it yesterday with a friend at church. Around here, family throwing the shower is rare. It’s usually friends or church members.

I know someone whose birthday is 9/11 and she hates it. She doesn’t like for anyone to wish her a happy birthday.