windmorn

Hi all! I'm in the middle of my crazy summer. The boys are 1/2 done with their hike and said they are eating better than anyone they've run into. While everyone else is eating noodle mixes for dinner, they're having a 3 course meal of flavored instant potatoes, a dehydrated meal with meat, veggies and lots of complex carbs and pudding. DD is at camp for 1 more day. I go get her early Friday. The weather was pleasant for our DC trip which was a good time and has remained so until tomorrow when temps are supposed to reach the 100's here in KY. :/ At least it's not muggy like home. Hope everyone is having a good summer!

Glad to hear that. That's what I use. I didn't want to suggest it in case it was a no-no. It works wonderful! I use it on my trays for everything. It makes it really easy to transfer things to jars if I'm dehydrating ingredients in bulk or straight to vacuum bags if I'm making meals.

Sorry to hear,about your sister. Prayers for you all.

Thanks for the advice. :AmishMichaelstraw:I'll have to look into a mash. I did get some primatene tablets after mom bought them for me. They have a rule at the local wal-mart that they can only sell products with ephedrine/psuedophed to county residents do to the high number of drug labs in the area. I guess you aren't supposed to get sick away from home. They seem to be helping. Nothing's helped the cough other than ginger tea though and I'm getting sick of it after 2 weeks because I was taking it in DC for motion sickness. :/

 

Is it like this in all states?

 

 

In Louisiana you just have to let them know before school starts that you have a private homeschool and how many students. There's a independent study route, that requires a little more paperwork, but I don't think there's a deadline. Most people only go that route for Jr and Sr years if they do high school so they will qualify for TOPS which is a program where the state pays for college. If you decide in the middle of the year to homeschool, I think you have 30 days to get the info in. Sounds like New York is trying to cut homeschool rosters.

I'm typing this quick as mom is ready to go to town and I NEED out of this house asap. I've got a chest cold and mom and dad's house may be the end of me. I'm supposed to stay here until the boys get done with their hike, but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to for health reasons. I'm considering asking dad to open my grandmother's house for me it's so bad, but we'd still need to shower here. :/ The problem is they never open the house and it's damp and moldy/musty. I thought I might be able to cope until I opened the shower this morning and there's mold everywhere! Maybe the answer has already been posted, but is there anything to help this?!? I'm buying some clorox cleanup and some herbal drops that help build immunity to mold if I can find them. I've got some at home and forgot to bring them. My 34 yr old sis lives here as well and I'm appalled that she has let things get the way they are. She's got a degree in sports medicine for crying out loud and should know all this dampness and mold isn't healthy!!! Thanks for letting me vent and for any suggestions. Now that I'm setteled for a few days (maybe) I can check in more. If I go to my grandmother's, I'll be without tv and internet :/ but also the mold.

It began yesterday - 3.5 hours late. When I titled the thread I didn't know how true it was. Hopefully we'll be to the hotel soon and can rest. This bus isn't very good for sleeping and we've been on it since 1130 y-day except a few hours at Mt. Vernon and Arlington.

Wish I wasn't in DC. :/

What your nails say about your health was one of the top stories on Yahoo this morning. It's a very interesting article on what the lines and colored spots on your nails could mean. If you don't have any, that's a good thing. It was on 4 different pages so I didn't try to copy and paste the article.

We have one of those Mist-o olive oil sprayers. We haven't had any trouble cleaning up after it. I also have a couple of cans of some generic spray that I picked up at Ollies Bargain Outlet. That works great, too!

I have a refillable mister that I can put oil in to use instead of Pam Cooking Spray, but the bread still sticks to the pans like crazy! I have to oil mist them AND flour them and then I'm still crossing my fingers the bread will co-operate. Does Pam Cooking Sprayknow something I don't? LOL

 

I was just going to say dimethyl silicone but I did a little research and found out:

 

Lechithin - not bad for you unless you can't have soy. I put it in smoothies to make them creamy and its supposed to be good for weight loss. It is the cause of the brown funk after using cooking spray

 

Dimethyl silicone - didn't really find a report on how it effects humans. One report on several substances toxicity says no info available. It is used in many industrial lubrication applications. Used for anti-foaming.

 

Propellant - no info because no one knows what is used.

I never understood why they leave them out of papers on a holiday weekend.

You're welcome. I know some of them aren't free anymore, because the backpack gourmet one is on there. It was up to $9.66 while ago.

@Gunplumber - I learned years ago when I was a counselor in training at Girl Scout camp that vinegar kills bacteria that can cause infection. They used a 50/50 mix of vinegar and alcohol in the girls' ears after swimming to prevent swimmer's ear and whatever other infection they might get from the lake water.

 

 

I'm having trouble with our dog scratching too. I think I might try a raw diet too.

 

 

I wonder if the safe for humans gmo's are effecting the pets? Maybe they didn't used to use corn in dog food, but until you started hearing about GMO's, I don't remember so many dogs having skin/allergy issues.

I debated on wether to post this or not, but I decided to and let everyone make the choice if it's right for their homeschool. The books are free through the CK-12 Foundation. The foundation sounds very Agenda 21, but since the books are aligned to the Common Core Standards, they should work to meet state requirements if you have to prove you're doing that.

 

Here's about them from their website and the links to the books follow. CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. As a leading member of the OER movement, CK-12 is using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the "FlexBook." With these free, common core aligned and NSES aligned digital textbooks, CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational STEM content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning through the FlexBook Platform™.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=CK-12%20Foundation&search-alias=digital-text Only 37 books are on Amazon and only about 30 of those are available right not.

 

The actual foundation website http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/ has many other books available. Teacher's editions to many of the books are on that site as well.

 

 

 

Someone of facebook posted this link. I haven't gotten to look at them to see if they are all still free yet or not.

 

http://selfreliantinfo.blogspot.com/2012/05/50-free-self-reliant-and-preparedness.html

Up to $9.66

I've cleaned it off my baking sheets with oven cleaner that works in cold ovens. Although if it's baked on very thick, I still have trouble with it. My silicon pans have been helped by a very hot bath in dish detergent and scratching with my nail, but they don't get completely clean. I find that the can of spray at the Dollar Tree that doesn't contain silicon and is made in the USA doesn't leave as much crud as Pam which has the silicon (not sure where it's made).

We bought an upright a few years ago. I wish we could have bought a big deep chest freezer. We had to buy an upright due to space issues (small house!). I also have a small chest freezer that's 10+ years old.

 

Things I don't like about the upright (as compared to a chest freezer):

 

-you lose more cold air when you open it

-it runs more

-you don't fully use all the space. In a chest freezer, you're piling things on top of each other. It's tough to utilize the space in an upright unless what you're putting in there is easy to stack. If all of our frozen stuff was things like frozen pizzas, it might work out better.

-when the power goes out, the upright thaws quicker than a chest freezer. We lost power for nearly a week and it was a few days before we could find a way to get the freezers running again. I didn't lose anything in the chest. I lost some stuff in the upright--mostly things that were on the door and things that weren't meat (veggies, soup, stock, fruit).

-the "frost free" feature. Maybe someone else can add to this, but I think all uprights are "frost free". Not good for storing veggies and fruits. I also think the meat doesn't keep like it does in the chest freezer due to the "frost free" feature.

 

 

 

 

These are the reasons that I got a chest freezer. The other reason would be that the chest freezer is less likely to leak if a hurricane or poo hits. The one we just bought earlier this year has a drain in the bottom so if it did lose everything, I could take it outside and hose it out.

 

Thanks Twillight for the tip on the blankets and rugs over the freezer to help insulate it. I'd never heard/thought of that before.

Congrats!

If you get an antenna and live within 20 or so miles of the tv station, you might be able to pick it up. I had gotten a digital antenna to try and get rid of satellite, but I live just far enough that it didn't work well. Our internet doesn't work well sometimes either so going down to just Internet tv didn't work either.

 

 

We have a digital antenna and we are 35 miles from most of the area stations. We get them very well. Try aiming it a little different. When we set ours up, hubby stayed on the roof and I watched the TV for the main station until it got a good picture. We have rescanned more than once to get it better and to add stations.

 

 

I couldn't find an outside one when I looked. All they had were small ones like we used to call rabbit ears but drastically different looking. There was one that could go outside I think, but it's range said 20-25 miles as well. I could get the major stations as long as there weren't many clouds and before the trees started getting leaves. I think one of the stations I had problems with might have been the station itself, but I haven't tried since they did an upgrade a couple of weeks ago. I'll have to look around online and see if I can find a better antennae.

yes ma'am. They're trying to do it in in about 17/18 days.

Saw this on MSN just know when I got on to print out the orienteering merit badge worksheet for ds. It's the top 5 dirty clean places. Guess what was number 1?

 

http://health.msn.com/healthy-living/the-dirtiest-clean-places-1

They're trying to do about 220 miles. I think he's saving the through hike for when both the kids are grown and it's just me and him. Gives me about 7 years to prepare. Should have the best of the dried meals figured out by then. lol

 

I'm using Ramen for part of the meals, but they're going to be gone about 18 days. Need a little variety - at least for me.

Thanks everyone!

 

Arby - a few nights by myself at my parents house, and maybe a few nights by myself after we get home. I'm not sure yet when dh has to go back to work.

 

Jeepers - I haven't tried the Nido kinder straight yet, but I did put it in a recipe. I was afraid with the extra viatmins it would taste funny, but I couldn't tell any difference.

 

 

Anyone ever seen boil in the bag noodles that cook in 3 minutes. Our walmart had them on clearance. I got some hoping they work so I can mark dehydrating cooked noodles off my list. I'll try to post after I test them.