I have a Berkey and love it. I used to used the extra filters to get fluoride out, but it does slow down the filtering, which is s l o w anyway. I found out our town doesn't put that much fluoride in our water and at least for now, don't use the second set of filters, and have opted for faster filtering.

Siesta Key is lovely! We have been twice. First time, a 2 BR cottage (in rows, no yards), a bit of a walk to the beach. Then we got studio with kitchenette near the cove (PM me if you want particulars), it was reasonable, there were several small motels together (think old fashioned Florida beach vacation) and it was so close to the beach (not in view though) that you came back to the room for a restroom. Siesta Key has white sand, lovely sunsets, and there is a wonderful health food store with premade food just across the bridge, so you can get food and then just stay at the room.

If the college will tell you, get the deadline to accept/decline. Hopefully it will be months out. If it isn't, then your daughter will need to give her new address. I would NOT tell her private health information, colleges get uncomfortable knowing it, it is protected information, and only your daughter should tell it.

It sounds like he wants easy things to prepare for meals. Maybe take single servings out of your meals and freeze them in containers you don't care if you get back? Then take several to him at a time. We did that when my grandma was alive so she didn't have to cook for one all the time.

Another idea: If you don't mind being apart a bit, have your husband go ahead and rent a small apartment month to month. Then he is there to hop on either a rental home quickly, or if you wait for a bit longer, to look for a house to buy after yours sells. We have been in your situation, rental time for a house is usually one year, so you won't be able to buy for that time.

Unfortunately, a lot of eye doctor's haven't heard of vision therapy, and some even question its validity. And of course I don't agree, being that my daughter was helped quite a bit. The vestibular rehabilitation therapy supposedly is its own category (and there are practitioners better than others, so you want good recommendations), but use that phrasing, and call around. If there are larger medical centers near you, that would be a good place to start.

I am able to read in the car after doing some of my daughter's vision therapy exercises. It used to really get me quite sick. The vision therapist mentioned this, it may help, its called vestibular rehabilitation therapy. Now, which exercises helped.... I *think* its the ones where you gaze ahead, not looking in a fixed locked gaze, and move your finger up and down, then side to side (think a plus sign) and let your eyes follow the finger, NOT moving your head. Be careful, it can really make you sick. I discovered I moved my head, rather than my eyes to look and read. You work up, and try to not focus too hard all the time (I did), and always make sure you are moving your eyes, rather than your head.

I *think* the rental carpet cleaning machines are stronger suction and more sturdy. I would love for others to weigh in.

You may not want to leave her, so someone on call to bring either of you what you might need. Prayers for both of you!

When ds was young, he cleaned the bathroom to surprise me. He used a whole roll of paper towels and half of the Windex. But he was so proud of himself, his expression was priceless. I quickly (in my head) figured, well, about $2 for the paper towels and about $1 for the windex, so.... $3 to get my bathroom cleaned by my loving son. I was good and of course got excited and thanked him.

We are at about $700/yr. and one of the cheapest HOAs in the area (middle class). The neighborhood with the amenity center and lazy river is over $1000/yr. (also middle class) and many neighborhoods here (rich ones) are in the thousands.

I've had labs that total THOUSANDS but the contract rate was about $100...... Really, they are used to collecting a fraction of what the bill is. Raise a stink as high up (even to administration) as you need to. Your doctor is a good first call. The hospital's patient advocate is another option.

Since Turbo Tax charges for state returns, I mail them in. It seems that if you wish to still file soon, then mailing the state return is still an option. I am wondering if some of this is a result of other data breaches and numbers are now being used. ADDING: Just saw this from USA Today: "TurboTax customers who already e-filed their state returns don't have to do anything. The returns will be transmitted again when the problem is resolved, TurboTax says."

Be careful with the Benefiber.... that would finish me off and double me over.... I like the Align suggestion. Or higher quality probiotics behind the counter. If you are open to paying Amazon for overnight shipping, Prescript Assist is highly recommended on many of the blogs I read. What has happened to you is that the prep for the colonoscopy washed away all of your friendly bacteria. You can take liquid form bentonite clay for the "d" and it will be tedious repopulating your gut and getting rid of the "d." Do not eat dairy, or foods typically hard for you to digest. White rice in broth and jello for now (I only eat jello with GI trouble and make it since premade has corn syrup, orange or peach). Drink your water as Smart Water. And thanks for the heads up.....

We live in a neighborhood with an HOA (I don't like it, but all neighborhoods here have it). We have a vicious dog restriction, but German Shepherds are not included in it. I know families with German Shepherds. I think there are different levels of classification for vicious dogs.

Gluten free (and dairy free). I use baked eggplant in place of the noodles in lasagna. I slice the eggplant (with skin) about 1/4 inch thick, salt and bake single thickness on a baking sheet at 400 until starting to brown. It ends up tasting like a cross between lasagna and eggplant parm.

:grouphug: and prayers

How did you get to the posts that are past the search on here? If I do newest to oldest, that gives several pages, then oldest to newest give several more. I can't get to the group in between. I would like to see them again, and have the option to change, I have changed my views on some of what I posted.

We had to bite the bullet and get a very used third car. I just couldn't be without a car any more (8 yrs.!) or be the constant taxi.

There are about four doctors in my entire state that take it, none local. Be sure to check the little map that has providers on it.

I hope you are feeling better soon. I had viral when the kids were little. No coughing like you, just so tired, I slept 16 hrs. a day. It took over a month to feel normal, and yes, activity really does you in. I vote go back to the urgent care, or another one. You need someone to listen to your lungs and see if you are clear. A new doctor will be just as expensive as a new patient as urgent care would be.

I love Epcot, especially the part with countries of the world. I love eating different foods from everywhere in one location. It looks like you want to be busy..... when I saw your post, my answer was to float in a nice lazy river at the hotel by myself!

When we bought this house, it was $20,000 more for 1000 more sq. feet. I'm so glad we did it, we are a family of introverts, so each needs a space to chill. Our grown kids are still here, and dh works from home. So 2300 SF is closing in on us. I would look at your goals for the future, do you want to move again or have this be your forever home, do you want to be able to host your grown kids and families if they visit, will your parents ever move in? Also, floor plan is huge... we lived six years in a 900 SF apartment, but it had a better layout and storage options than the 3 BR units with more floor space. And I do feel this house could be 1800 SF rearranged, there is a lot of inefficient space, but we didn't have the choice of picking our floor plan where we live, options were very limited. Also, we have terrible storage options, no drawers or medicine cabinets in the bathrooms, no attic storage, no built in storage. I could live in much less square footage with larger closets, hall storage, built in wall units.

Art is hard, don't do that!! DD is an art major, and the classes are double time, along with very time intensive projects. Those would be even more difficult without a lot of art talent. I used to hard line not dropping classes, but have changed my tune after ds was in the wrong major and literally drowned in studies his freshman year. It would have been so much better to drop that calculus class he failed anyway.... and then had to go to two summer school classes to salvage his scholarship. It would have saved his GPA taking a huge hit to drop the class, then still do the other class(es) in summer school. Dd was minoring in Spanish this year, along with an art major. She was drowning in schoolwork. Upper level Spanish was the culprit. She had that panicked look, asked what I thought, I said "drop it, we don't need a repeat semester of too much work and no sleep." She will have to take a summer school class to keep the required number of credits for her scholarship, but at least the load is better. At 12 credit hours, she is still pulling some all nighters, but at least not regularly. So, I would get your ds to accurately access where he is at, and if it is determined he took on too much, then drop the class that is causing the most grief. Honestly, his academic success would rank over losing some tuition money. Don't be afraid of summer school, it is a lifesaver to get credit counts down during the fall and spring semesters. It is not a crime to not be able to do more than 12 credit hours at a time. A lot of students can't.

:grouphug: We lost my dad while I was homeschooling a early high schooler and late elementary student. His death wasn't violent, so I can't imagine your grief and shock. I'll say what I can remember what we did but every kid is different, so I suggest "feeling" your way through and do what is best for you and your kids. More than a few times I was frustrated to have the additional responsibility of schooling them, while grieving, dealing with my mom who had just lost her husband, etc. I was open to sending them to school, but found we didn't have to, my kids were always motivated to learn. I did find both kids wanted to do at least some schoolwork to be occupied, after a few weeks of being out of town and maybe a few more of getting back in the swing of things (we were in boxes and in the middle of moving when he died) we were able to keep up with studies they could do on their own while I was tied up time wise. They read literature assignments, we didn't go over them, you could assign full books and let yours read with or without writing assignments, you could require easy summaries, or let them make bullet points of things they notice, show them shmoop dot com for amazing input, anything that they might find that interests them. They also kept up with math (I let them correct it, they are honest), oldest was able to keep science going and self correct, they worked on grammar (workbooks, and I let them correct). Most of what I did was "open and go" and that helped tremendously. So they knew about how much I assigned (even kept up their assignment books and did them for me!), and about what I usually required. Being home allowed them to talk about their loss when they needed to without too much schoolwork to get in the way on days they were sad. I encourage you to gently prod them to keep learning, don't worry about it not being perfect, and let the rest go. They will still be learning, and learning a great trait, to be self learners. When things settled a bit (I'm guessing 3-4 months), we had a "save the summer" campaign where I figured how much work needed to be accomplished (minimum) to move them to the next grade. Then I let them figure how they wanted to do it. One pulled some "get 'er done" all nighters, both did work on the weekends (I did mention their public school friends regularly did that) and amazingly, we mended and got a school year accomplished and had a summer break. Maybe not the most stellar year of their career, but I was thankful that they had time to mend while keeping up their studies. Your loss came at a different time of the year (mine was at the very beginning of the school year), another option for you would be to take summer break now. I'm so sorry for your loss.