windmorn

Definitely would've cooked the meat. Wouldn't have used the cocoa mix. Not that it would still be here for 25yrs with dd in the house.

We have a soda stream. We love it when we can find the real sugar cola syrup. It's about the only one without artificial sweetener. Like Canning Nerd said, the syrup goes in after you carbonate. I hadn't had my coffee one morning and did it reversed a few months ago. I'm still finding cola splatter on the kitchen walls. Also if your water is really cold, it will get ice in it when you carbonate it. I found out when I used water close to the freezer part of my small fridge. I haven't tried making my own syrup, but then again I never thought about it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Jumping on the low carb bandwagon too. My boyfriend's sugar is out of control so it's a must. He's lost several pounds the last couple of weeks, but his sugar is still high. I have only got a big toe on the band wagon, but as soon as Christmas is over I'll pull myself up on it. Too much going on with activities and family coming in from out of town for me to have detox symptoms and fatigue right now. Plus having the flu and a bad sinus infection have made fizzy drinks a must to settle my stomach. I have switched to the lower sugar Coca-Cola Life which I really like. Not sure why they aren't advertising it better. It's a mix of cane sugar and stevia and tastes better than a real Coke to me.

Got mine from Becca_Ann today. Love it!

Got mine from armyoffive4god today also. Love it! I can topics tomorrow if it's light enough. My phone has been broken for a couple of weeks (get my upgraded replacement tomorrow ), but I just remembered my tablet takes pics. Mommato3boys - it's ok life happens. Will say a prayer for you. The firsts without loved ones are always the hardest.

I've gotten my ornaments from Lumabean, snowmom and Trudy this week. They are all beautiful! Can't wait to get my tree for homemade ornaments up! I got mine in the mail yday and should be to everyone by Saturday barring weather delays. Mine's in a box too. That's part of the reason for just getting them out. I had to find something that would work. Wasn't thinking about shipping when I made them.

I ordered info on a Christian healthcare alternative from Christian Healthcare Ministries. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm leaning heavily toward it. Major medical insurance for me and dd has almost tripled since I got it 2 yr ago after dh and ds died. The Christian healthcare Ministries is still double what I started off paying, but it's $120 less than my "affordable" insurance. There's also Samaritan Ministries and Medicare.

The affordable care act is killing me!!! Our premium for major medical went from $150 to $175 to $357 and just got a letter saying it will be $420 Jan 1. I started to home party/internet sales businesses to help, but they are slow taking off. I'm looking at Christian alternatives to health insurance. Has anyone used these or know anyone who has? It would save me a ton of $$$, but I'm not sure how well they work.

Got mine from midnight mom today. Love it!!!

It was actually the hot shot gel in a syringe that got the flies, but one of the terro's spilled and it looks like the same stuff. The bananas I agree with the lady from church. I only got them after buying them at Walmart. Other stores I didn't have a problem with them. I didn't notice about the screen. I guess my kitchen's too far away - opposite ends of the trailer. I did notice they love wet dish rags. :\

Let us know how the cooked radishes turned out. I think I made them before, but don't remember if I liked them. My memory's not so good since DH and DS died. Definitely do an analysis to see if it's worth working. We did that before DD was born and found I was going to be working for a net of about $50/week and decided it would be better if I stayed home. We could make up for what I was losing by me cooking more. We did the same thing before I started homeschooling. Most of my check was going back to the school where I worked and the kids attended so between that and other more important reasons like lack of education, it was a no brainer for me to stay home again. Now I've got a little over 2 years to decide what I want to be when I grow up and go back to work. Affordable care has forced me to look to supplement social security, so I'm doing a couple of home party things now, but it's been slow taking off. I'm hoping to grow them at least enough that I only have to work part time and can be home for DD when she gets home to make sure she does her homework after she gets home from school. She'll start public high school next year. I would agree with Wychwood about letting him to all the money, but if he's like mine was, he refused because he said he'd just make things worse. I think you're doing the best thing by sticking to what you have and starting fresh next year. That gives you several weeks to try get him to sit and look at the numbers with you and make the budget and work decision together before the year starts.

I wasn't sure where to put this, but since the fruit flies were in my kitchen I decided to put it here. (Cat or someone if there's a better place feel free to move this.) This year has been horrible for fruit flies! A friend at church narrowed it down to bananas at a certain mass merchandiser that you can find at least 1 of in most cities and they all have 1000 check outs with only 2 open at the busiest time of day - you know the one. I have tried everything to get rid of them from fly strips to the homemade traps with apple cider vinegar and recycled pop bottles. The fly strips might as well have been party streamers and the traps only partly worked. It seemed like after just a few got trapped the flies caught on and they quit working. Well, as the colder weather set, so did the sugar ants (side note - last times I had ants that bad it was a VERY cold winter here in the swamp.) I'd had success with the gel in the syringe to get rid of the ants before so I stopped at the local mega hardware store and picked up the Hot Shot roach and ant gel and some Terro liquid ant bait traps that I had never seen before. I went home and gelled around the sink and window where I saw the ants and set the ant traps under the sink, hidden on the cabinet close to the sink and one in the pantry for the few I saw when I went to get a snack after doing the sink. I ate my snack and came back in the kitchen and noticed I still saw ants crawling around the sink and around a couple of dozen DEAD fruit flies!!! Don't know what's in the gel, but the fruit flies loved it!!! I checked the trap in the pantry and evidentially the ants went to get help to help after they tasted the traps because there was 1000000000 more ants than I had seen at first so I set out another trap. About a half hour later, I had twice as many dead fruit flies and both traps were half way black from the amount of ants they attracted. They're clear so you can see the ants as they eat the bait, and I thought the ants in the trap were dead and it was going to stop working because they weren't going to be able to get in. (I was so amazed at the fruit flies I forgot to check the trap by the sink.) It was late so I went to bed. When I got up the next day there was not an ant to be found, including the ones in the trap, and only a few straggler fruit flies. The stragglers took a couple of days to completely be gone, but KNOCK ON WOOD, I'm now completely fruit fly and ant free. Who would have thought the answer to the fruit flies was gel ant bait?!?

So sorry Ann.

I got some window screen and cut it to fit my trays for dehydrating small food. I found some thin, flexible, plastic cutting boards and cut them to fit for fruit leather and such instead of going bankrupt trying to buy accessories.

I do the same as the WE2's when I make backpack meals. Making it plain would allow to use in anything without adding an unwanted flavor.

I think we discussed the colox bath a while back. I need to start using it again. It makes stuff last much longer and helps remove pesticides, germs, etc. you can google Clorox bath for food for the specifics. I've been cooking at home again. We ate out a lot and used a lot of processed food after dh and ds died. It's so much better now that I'm cooking again. My boyfriend loves it too - he gets the leftovers for lunch.

We're not going to make it either. I was really looking forward to the weekend away and meeting everyone, but I had a lot of car expenses this summer and a leaky roof.

Count me in!

:grouphug:Thank you! I'm just checking in and saw your messages.

HIgh quality gelatin or homemade bone broth and silica I know help hair and skin. I know some people that use coconut oil on their hair to help with dry/brittleness.

I did research on ADD and causes when I thought dd was in 1st grade. 74% I believe it was are deficient in magnesium. I started giving her calm brand magnesium and could tell a difference the first day. ds took about 3 days before he commented that she was playing quietly instead of talking our ears off. A health food lady where we used to live that started business in the 50's said first thing she did was give kids more calcium. I also saw a study saying ADD/ADHD kids were calcium deficient. Both make since because the calcium can't be used with out enough magnesium. Calcium helps regulate and soothe nerves and magnesium is a natural relaxant. When I started giving dd magnesium I gave her a double adult dose for 2 months before it started effecting her stomach. It's the active ingredient in milk of magnesia so when you have a loose stool you know the does is just a little high. The person at the health food store told me to get the adult one instead of the kid one and give half the dose and work up by about a quarter of a dose until I found the right level. The ingredients in the adult's and kid's are the same just the kids' is less potent for the same size bottle so you actually get twice as much for the kids buy the adults at the same price. To build up the magnesium, I found it best to give before bed (made dd sleepy when it started building back up in her system). Also don't give with calcium or anything with calcium in it because it will work to make the calcium work instead of building up in the body. I gave her calcium with magnesium to help the calcium build up and the extra at night to build the magnesium up. 1200mg combined total from all sources is the amount Ann Louise Gittleman (nutritionist that's written a ton of books) says not to go over in her books. The proper amount of omega fatty acids is important as well. The other things are the old stand by of avoiding artificial colorings and additives, exercising and getting enough sleep. I tried some of the herbal remedies with dd, but found the magnesium did much better than anything else to help her.

I was talking to my friend that uses Switched on School House and she said the prices have gone up about $100 over the last couple of years. I had bought some workbooks from Hayes Publishing for ds when I homeschooled him for 8th grade and wanted to use them for dd this year. I went online to order and all the workbooks they had listed were for learning French and Spanish. I called the 800 number and was told they quit publishing their workbooks because when they went to do a reprint the publishing cost had tripled and they decided to just not sell them anymore. I was told if I could find any at Amazon or other stores that might have stock that I could copy them for educational use. The really sad thing is they went from about a 40 page catalog of inventory to nothing. I wonder how many other companies will face the same issues in the near future and will either stop publishing or raise the cost so much that not many can afford it?