Mae

In the FeMC storyline in P3P But OMGSOOOEXCITED..! Cat-burglar-y theme? That's what I got from the trailer. And is it just me or do the characters seem older -- like highschool seniors or maybe first-year college students?

As much as I hate SE for them waiting over a year to toss out some rather significant lore bits on Keeper social structure (and in doing so nearly negating my Manqo'te's backstory and a year's worth of RP), this quest contains a conversation where a Keeper says that it is "unnatural" for a (traditional) Keeper female to 1) live with a male and 2) only lay/sleep/breed/whatever-term-you-want with only one male. And both of these points are things we see as being the norm with the one Seeker tribe we have represented in-game (U Tribe) and is indicated by Seeker naming conventions (Nuhns versus Tias). Strict monogamy is also something that doesn't seem to be the norm for (traditional) Miqo'te. Seekers are leonine in their social structure, with one breeding male (Nuhn) to a population of females that are 'his' until he's replaced/disposed. Keepers are more like the rest of the Big Cats, where the males stay away for the most part, unless it's time to breed and then it's just a case of the female paring with whoever is handy/is the strongest/brings the best courting gift that time around. One male and one female pairing up for good (or until the relationship goes south) would likely seem strange to either (traditional) clan. So, it's possible the following stances could be common for traditionally-minded Miqo'te's looking at mixed-clan couples: Keeper F / Seeker M -- Keeper's view: "She can only breed with him? And she has to live with him? This is unnatural and wrong." -- pretty much canon, as stated (again) by this quest, and could even apply to ANY Keeper female that enters a monogamous relationship with a male of any race. -- Seeker's view: "Good job taming one of those wild Keepers! You going to try for more soon?" Seeker F / Keeper M -- Keeper's view: "... She so clingy... why does she want to move in with him? And why is she only sleeping with him?" -- Seeker's view: "Well, he'll get more females eventually. Let's just hope he's stronger than other Keeper males and can keep them in line and from mating with anyone who wanders past." Regarding any offspring... it might be possible that (traditional) Seekers would be more receptive/welcoming of a cross-clan child than (traditional) Keepers would be. Keepers might see a hybrid as the result of an unnatural union, where Seekers might see one as the result of a happy conquest or (if the Keeper is the father) "well, at least you can be sure that you ARE the father of this one". ------ Going back to Lala's, I don't see them as being "child like". I see them as being bubbly and cutesy only, like Munchkins from Wizard of Oz maybe, so the idea of Lala's being involved in a relationship doesn't get me on the 'yick' scale (unless I'm dealing with a certain someone who's sole drive is to RP a "cute Lala romance"... THEN I 'yick' because of other reasons). My shying away comes from the idea of Lala's getting it on with other races because my brain says "ohgodsyou'regonnagetsplitinhalf..!" and "how much enjoyment can you possibly get by throwing your hotdog down a hallway?"

Maybe one out of every ten posts I do here, I'll have this happen to me. Usually for me, though, it's an entire spacing break between paragraphs; only occasionally is it between words. It will happen to me if I'm copy/pasting from the text box here while I'm typing a long post and switching paragraphs around, or if my connection is acting like it's gone down just after I hit the post button and I'm scrambling to copy my text before it disappears into nothingness. I have also noticed after I've hit 'preview post' a few times, it'll start cropping up.

While in my RP group we may occasionally time-skip, time bubble, or suspend time for various reasons (had to break early, event ran long, complications, for example), I keep pace IC with Real World passage of time. SE has a very strange sense of time that sometimes contradicts itself. For example in XI... according to the devs there, even though there are events/holidays/festivals that by their own lore happen only once a year (and game has been going on for over twelve years now), the rest of the events of the game are occurring over the course of a SINGLE year. I've heard that in XIV, the events of everything that's happened in MSQ from the start of 2.0 to what's going on now has occurred in just a few months (could be wrong, it's just what I heard...), and there's rumors that when the expansion hits SE is going to time-skip us several months into the future. If we're only advancing time according to SE's whim schedule, it sort of negates the purpose of choosing a Naming Day during character creation (strictly speaking as a mechanic and not an RP point). Also the in-game days only last a real-world hour -- three in-game weeks pass on the in-game clock in a single real-world day. It's a sort of kick back to XI, I think, where some mechanics, quests, crafting, and the like relied on the moon phases and elemental alignments of days and the only other option would be having to wait RL days/weeks/months for an opportunity to do something (NM only pops during the Waning Moon, don't fight Garuda on Windsday, don't try to fight Gnoles when the moon is more than 60% because of their healing abilities, need to wait for X-day with Y-moonphase during Z-weather to HQ a craft...). Could be wrong on that and other games did/do it, but the few other MMO's I've played the in-game time reflected whatever timezone the server was located in. Of course, some people could argue that Hydaelyn is either a REALLY small planet that does do a rotation in one hour (at that size, though, we probably wouldn't have much gravity or an atmosphere...) or that it just spins that fast (... I think we'd get flattened or tossed out into space at those rates...), but then there wouldn't be a reason for some races (Miqo'te) to develop clans with nocturnal/diurnal traits. Tidal effects, growth patterns/capabilities of vegetation would suffer... a lot of stuff that I don't think can just be handwaved with 'aether makes it possible' because if I remember correctly, Eorzea is unique because of the high aether saturation. Other parts of the world would likely suffer horribly. Aaaanyways... I'm tired and rambling... Kara was seventeen when 2.0 started, she turned eighteen last June (ICly, no-one knows when exactly her birthday is, they just celebrate it around the first day of summer. Character-creation mechanics-wise, it's the 19th of Third Umbral), she'll turn nineteen this June. So-on and so-forth. All my others, save the Gardener, age alongside passage of time in the Real World. The Gardener is the exception because... I don't know how old she is, honestly. I like to leave it ambigious with her, I guess? About the only thing I'm dead-set on with her is that she's somewhere between "old enough to have a five-year-old offspring somewhere" to "old enough to have grandchildren about to enter adulthood".

Mallow frowned and stopped in the main room of the Orphanage. The gardener was at the desk, writing. Still writing. She had been there for... Mallow wasn't entirely sure. Several hours, at least; she remembered seeing the gardener there when she was herding her minions to dinner. And still there when Mallow herded the minions back down to the playroom... and when she herded the minions to the baths a couple hours later... and still there when it was bedtime. Mallow glanced at the waterclock -- it was past the midnight hour. Mallow climbed onto an empty chair so she could see over the desk, and raised an eyebrow at the pile of paper stacked in one corner. "... Lady?" The gardener didn't look up or speak, but there was a subtle shift in her posture. "It's... really late." Mallow suggested. "I am busy." The gardener put down her pen, blew across the paper to dry the ink, and added it to the pile before taking another paper and beginning the process. "Y'know, I could've totally taken care of this..." Mallow lifted the paper and stared at it. "... I think I totally should've taken care of this. It's so... plain." The gardener paused this time and looked up. "... There is decoration." "Using the special stationary isn't really much of a decoration... these are really missing something." The gardener frowned and took the paper back. "The name of the play is there. The purpose of the event is listed. The location and date are both included. I do not believe I have omitted anything." Mallow let out a sound that was somewhere between a huff, a sigh, and a little frustrated scream. She was normally a very happy-go-lucky little Mallow, but there were just some things that the gardener did that drove her batty. This was one of them. "This is the last one needed." The gardener murmured as she went back to the flyer. "I will be done with it in a minute. I require you to place these around in the cities and residential districts in the morning." Mallow nodded. She had plans for the morning, but even she knew that this was a Very Important Thing for the orphanage -- the construction was incomplete, and while they were able to insulate the building against the cold of the season, it wasn't rainproof and with the spring would come storms. "Okay, okay. Watch the minions for me?" "I will supervise the children." Mallow hopped off the table and headed for her cot. It would be a busy morning. -------------------------------- The following posters have appeared all over the three cities and outlaying outposts/hamlets, sometimes in clusters of four or five, sometimes upside down, taped to the back of the heads of people sleeping face-down on tables in the Quicksand and Drowning Wench, nailed to Wood Wailer's spears, and occasionally stuck with magnets to the backsides of unwary armored Roegadyns: -------------------------------- OOC info: Archerangers Return: The Menace of Metal Mouth is a short stage-show fundraiser to benefit the Althaea's Orphanage. Any and all donations are strictly IC (no actual exchange of gil). It's a little "Shakespeare-in-the-Park"-y, and a little tongue-in-cheek-y. Date: Sunday, February 8th at 10pm EST Location: Mist, Ward 3 in the little park at 9x,y9 (just above the Mist West aetheryte)

I'm typically against cancer, and I really don't know Dogberry very well, but I'm all for him spreading.

To be fair, you don't need to be a chef in order to be able to criticise a meal. It's also possible to make an educated guess about someone's role-play based on their character concept. If someone is claiming to be powerful enough or lucky enough to fight a major named antagonist and survive then it's pretty clear that they're going to draw controversy. I could claim that Graeham is the long lost son of Livia sas Junius (he's not) and I'd fully expect people to criticise me for it or assume the worst. Heck, even if I pulled it off flawlessly I'd still expect to be criticised because it'd be a very bold move and I'd be opening myself up for that sort of response as a result. ...and as has already been pointed out earlier, if people do Primal fights as a 'what if' scenario or in private then that's fine. It's their bubble, after all. As soon as that ends up in a public environment, though? It's open for feedback and critique. If it is done well? Great! I can get on board with it, but the burden of proof is on the ones taking the bold leap and just as I don't get to tell anybody what they can and cannot role-play nobody really gets to tell anybody else what they can and cannot comment on. It works both ways, not just one. True, you don't have to be a chef to criticize a meal. What you DO need to make an educated criticism of said meal, is to at least taste it. You can't just hear of a new type of food that you've never tried before and decide it's horrible (and cancer-causing) just by seeing it's listing in the phonebook (or Yelp or whatever online thing you wanna use). Which... is basically what the OP did. Saw that some people went and had an event and dumped all over it and passive-aggressively demanding that it stops because they don't like it. Without knowing anything behind the group's lore, disregarding that this isn't their first foray into this theme, and that it's an event that's been well-received by the community in the past.

Also, I was under the impression (and I'll respectfully stand corrected if Sounseyy shows up and says otherwise) that in 1.0 there was a group called... Path of the Twelve, and their mission was to support and deal with people who were touched by the Echo, because there was a lot coming out of the woodwork for a while and the muggles were treating/convincing them that they were crazy. Adventurers (PC's) represent a small part of Erozea's population, so that there could -POSSIBLY- be a higher concentration of people who have varying degrees of special is understandable.

...GetoutofmyheadIwasintheprocessofdoingthesamething... Anyways.The game actually gives a lot of leeway for people to be called/touched by Hydaelyn/possessing the Echo, and still be within lore for it. All those other NPC's in the cutscene, it's ENTIRELY possible that they just passed off the 'vision' as a weird dream and go about the rest of their lives without ever realizing what they had the potential for. I RP MSQ as well (same group that Blue's in), and it's not that hard to include/justify other people/groups that are doing the same thing. "Oh, you're the other team the Scions sent out? Are you having better luck than us?", "... There was a guy in a black cloak summoning a gargoyle and causing problems out in ? Ugh, I can't believe they're trying to stir up trouble again..." That being said, I don't see a problem with people fighting Primals ICly, or even talking about it. If I ICly hear it, I just justify it as a group of people being in the right place at the right time to foil yet another Beastman's attempt at summoning.

Myeh. The ONLY thing I'm happy about for this set is that it's the same between the genders. Other than that... myeh. Maybe I'll find use for the boots... maybe eventually the pants if the half-skirt thing is part of that instead of the shirt... *wanted to be able to wear Snow's pants as a female character*

This is (... was...) Grr. In the line of cats I had, she was the one I loved the most... and the only one that I actually wanted/chose for myself. She slept by my head every night (with at least one paw touching my head at all times), greeted me at the door whenever I came in, and gods forbid I tried to go and use the bathroom without her supervision. I'd sit down at my desk, she'd jump up and sit on my left thigh, rest her head on my shoulder, and extend her paw across my chest like she was hugging me and insist on staying like that for hours or until I got up again. She even played fetch, though if you ignored her attempts to get you to play with her, she'd take her ball, dunk it in her water dish, then come back and drop the soaked toy on you... and sometimes she'd do it in the middle of the night. My doctor and roommates talked me into giving her up, though, after I had a major medical issue. I really hope she went to a good home... And this is Cory... aka "Trollpuppy" He thinks he can drive the truck. We adopted him out in California a little less than two years ago. He is probably a Jack Russell/Basset mix, or a pudgy Jack Russell with oversized ears, a tendency to howl instead of bark, and a super mellow personality.

Here you go.

Mmmmm...!

Got up this morning and went into the store to get my provisions for the day, which includes a 16oz bottle of whole milk that's listed as pasteurized. I won't go hugely into things, but I'm part of the estimated 50% of the lactose intolerant population that has little-to-no problems with whole milk that is either raw or pasteurized (ultra-pasteurized is something else). (Before anyone comes out of the woodwork trying to convince me that cow's milk is evil and I'll die a horrible death because I drink it and that I should switch to soy or almond milk... I have research that points to soy and almond milk being at least just as bad. I'd much rather drink goat's milk, but that's not available commercially as anything but ultra-pasteurized which makes it pretty much worthless, nutrition-wise.) Anyways. Drink half the bottle of milk, we get moving for the day. About a half-hour later, I start feeling... off. Shaky, queasy, crampy. I'll spare the rest of the details, but I was sick for a little while. No real idea -why-, I check all the packages for what I'd eaten at breakfast and nothing is out of date. A few hours later, I feel a bit thirsty and hungry (but not wanting to risk trying to eat something solid), I finish off the rest of the milk. Half-hour later, again I'm sick. I grab the now-empty bottle out of the trash to double-check the expiration date, and my eyes happen to fall on the ingredients list. Ingredients: ultra-pasteurized skim milk, mechanically separated and processed fats, carrageenan, vitamin B13 added My bottle of whole milk was made from skim milk that they went and re-added some sort of fat to. And seaweed. What. The. Frack.

Both of these. I want to wear the DoW "shirts" on any class. I'd also love to see starting gear be cross-race. And dyeable. And stuff that is just plain clothes like what we see NPCs wear, and is available from standard vendors instead of crafted with special materials and high-tier skill.

Two things you want to do every time you cut onions: use the SHARPEST knife you have, and do not cut any further down than 1/4 inch from the roots (1/3 inch is better, but you might think it's too wasteful). Less sulfur is released when you're able to make clean, crisp cuts, and the root area of the onion has a higher concentration of sulfur. Cutting underwater does indeed work, though some people will argue that doing so leeches out some of the flavor. Chilling and/or freezing also works, but freezing can make it very difficult to achieve clean cuts and sulfur will be released when you end up hacking at the onion. Running a fan behind you sometimes also works, keeps the air moving so that less sulfur reaches you. As for jalapenos and any other sort of pepper, sounds odd but first rinse your hands with milk as soon as you finish cutting, then use a paste of baking soda (or salt) to wash your hands with before rinsing with water as normal.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, you're looking to run three separate (but connected) events at three different locations, all at the same time? If this is true, then I think you're biting off waaaaaaaaaay more than you can chew. Regadless of the timezone issue (which I'll address in a few moments), various forms of plot can (or sometimes won't) happen at an event and at different speeds. Even if you're just running a single event of a plot, you run the risk of stuff happening too fast, never happening, or going completely off-track unless you actively DM it. I can't even imagine how things would go with three events in three different areas at the same time. Timezones and real-life obligations are always going to be an issue. In other places and games, I always just polled everyone and selected the time where the most amount of people could attend. Yes, some people got left out but if a few people's schedules are completely incomparable, there's nothing I could do short of catering to their schedule and blowing off everyone else's. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", and all that. Now... with you having three related events that are supposed to have happen at all around the same time, I'd suggest running the three events on different days and just time-bubble it all. For example: Banquet event happens on Monday, Fight happens on Tuesday, other event happens on Thursday. People who attend the Banquet and Fight events are informed that their events are not IC-canon until after the other event on Thursday concludes. When it comes to choosing the dates, you survey your participants. Ask them to put in order which event they are more interested in attending, then which days/times are best for them. This might not fix the problem so that everyone can attend the event they really wanted to, but it DOES sort of spread things out to give everyone a better chance of at least attending something. It does hard-lock people into attending only one event. And if the time-bubble thing doesn't sit well with people, you can just split everything up so that it's a chain of three events on three different days. Same idea, greater chance for more people to participate in some aspect. Those are my only suggestions... hope they at least give you something to consider.

Some days, I miss my last job. Other days... not so much. Every April to December 24th, I worked almost exclusively in the garden center of as a cashier, because for some reason I knew more about plants, seeds, soils, and fertilizers than 80% of the garden department. That whole situation can have it's own discussion another time... I wanna tell stories about what I would do from December 26th to when the garden center re-opened after the winter: Returns Desk. Doing a return should be an easy task. You come in with the unwanted/extra/wrong/broken item along with the package and your receipt before ninety days pass. I check the item, ask you why you're returning the item, you answer truthfully, I scan the receipt and item, stick a tag on it, hit a few more buttons, and you get your money back in a way that reflects your original purchase. The ONLY trouble we should have is if the package was destroyed/lost and I need to manually search the system for a UPC or SKU. But some people want to make up stories. Or prove that they shouldn't have bred, or just be all-around pains in the butt. Sometimes they're innocent and it's just a horrible misunderstanding... but that was always VERY rare. --- I don't remember if it was 2008 or 2009 that the New England area was hit by a really massive ice storm that destroyed a good portion of the electrical network. Almost everyone experienced blackouts, some for weeks and months before power was restored. Anyways, it was about two weeks after the storm had gone through and a man came in. He was angry, I knew he was angry before he even got into the building because I could hear him shouting out in the parking lot. He comes in with a door and practically throws it at me while screaming. Customer: I came here just after the storm because someone broke into my house during it and destroyed my back door and I needed a new one! I didn't have the extra money, so I got the cheapest door I could find, got it home and put it up, but since I didn't have power I went to stay with relatives and when I came back all my pipes had frozen and burst and now I'm going to sue for the damages and repairs cause I don't have the money and you sold me a defective door! Me: ... *looks at door* How is the door defective? Customer: It let in a f'ing draft! Me: ... Let me get you the store manager... *looks at the screen door* (... The draft is between his left and right ears... and they don't pay me enough to deal with crap like this) --- Man walks in carrying a log splitting maul. A BIG man, as in tall and broad. Me: ... Can I help you? Customer: *with a VERY heavy, eastern European accent* Yes. Would like to return axe. Does not fit in suitcase. (Note: area I lived in had a very high population of eastern European immigrants. This man was a repeat customer, he had only moved to the US from Russia about five years prior. He meant to say "tool box", so this was more of a WTF moment) --- Customer: What do you mean, I can't pay with this check that wasn't signed by the account holder and you won't accept the three different forms of identification that I carry that all have different names next to my picture, and none of these names match the two on the check?! is a Lizard Man and he's turned you all into sheeple for his race to eat!!! Me: *shoots supervisor and manager a look of "Please, save me..."* --- Customer: I'm returning this wallpaper remover solution because it's known in State of California that consuming this stuff will cause cancer. Me: (... Whhhhy are you drinking wallpaper remover solution..?) --- Me: ... Christmas trees are not returnable... Customer: But it died, and you have a one-year guarantee on shrubs! Me: The tree was already dead when you bought it, though. It was a cut tree. Customer: The needles are all falling out! Me: ... If this had been a problem before December 24th, we would've exchanged it. But it's the second week of January.

I did use a water bath...but I dunno if I used enough of a water bath, or if the foil lining the pan had some effect on the water bath. :< You really only need about an inch of water in the bath... might've been the foil? I had hit or miss myself whenever I tried to be honest. If it was creamy, it would be cracked. If it was perfect in appearance, the flavor and texture suffered. I think my problems though were more related to my oven -- I lived in that apartment for four years, and I argued with the landlord for three of them over problems with the oven/stove that he had installed. I just got to the point where I'd shoot for the creamy and cracked, and just top it with fruit or something to hide the cracks. I found the recipe maker that I linked originally in a magazine at my work (cooking magazines at a hardware store..?), but I never got a chance to try it for myself before going out on the road. All my stuff is stored at my mum's house, and I gave her full permission to rummage through my books and magazines bin whenever she felt like it. She found that magazine... to be totally honest, my mum isn't much of a baker but she turns out flawless cheesecakes with that recipe maker.

Have you tried using a water bath while baking?

It can totally be about baking. I'm about to make it into baking. Behold: For those who have lived under damper, mossier rocks than the ones I grew up under, this glorious confection is the cheesecake. Even in it's most basic and unassuming form (as pictured), it is edible heaven. I have heard tales of intergalactic warlords that became peaceful because they sampled a small slice on a world they were about to crush, and beings of light and love become avatars of nightmare because a cheesecake was threatened. Truly, many wars could have been adverted if countries would just send each other cheesecakes -- only the most black-hearted of the lactose intolerant would reject such a offering. Do not let the moniker of 'cake' fool you. This divine creation is actually a custard, the sibling of the flan and distant-cousin to pudding. It can be made with or without crusts, and crusts can range from crushed pretzels to crushed graham crackers, a giant cookie, every sort of pie crust, and even thin cake. The Devout of Chocolate can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Followers of Fruit, Worshipers of Candy, Faithful of Liquor, and even the Church of Bacon in the presence of cheesecake, for cheesecake welcomes all. It will even attempt to appease and conform to vegans, so that even vegans may know it's love. As complex as cheesecake may seem, it is surprisingly simple to make. This recipe reveals the truth of cheesecake, and I have personally witnessed this truth.

What type of pasta was it? I never had luck making the "Italian-style" homemade pasta, but my butter noodles (somewhere between an egg noodle and a slicker dumpling) have always been successful. Unfortunately... I'm the only one in my family that likes the texture of butter noodles and slicker dumplings <_<

I was never a small girl. According to my pediatrician and confirmed by other doctors as I was going through childhood, I had a heavier build and I would've been unhealthy if BMI scores were allowed to dictate my weight. I wasn't fat, I was just bigger. Like... if I had been a boy, I would've been encouraged to play defense in football. When I was a teen, I was put on a medication that caused me to gain over 150lbs in the first six months I was on it, for a total of over 200lbs gained before a more intelligent doctor stepped in and pointed out that I didn't need to be on the medicine in the first place. I've been fighting against all this weight ever since -- I'd start to lose weight, and then I'd hit a point where I wasn't feeling -right- and the weight would come back. Come to find out about seven years ago, the medication was fat soluble, so it's stored -in- my fat. I lose weight, get to the point where I'm burning the fat that I gained while on the medicine, medicine re-enters my system, and not being aware of what was happening I'd let the effects creep up on me... which resulted in me gaining the weight back. Vicious cycle. The three years that followed after that discovery and learning what to look out for regarding that medication screwing with me, I managed to drop almost 100 pounds. It was a lot of "Whee, I lost five pounds this week!" and "Another five pounds gone? VICTORY!" and then "Eh. Two pounds down. At least it's something." followed by "... Well, this sucks. I gained five pounds..." and "Another five pounds? I'm doing everything the same as I have for the past month. Why am I putting weight back on.. oh, crap, have I had a change in personality/moods recently?" for the first year or so. Once I keyed in on the early warning signs, I stopped re-gaining the weight after I lost it, but I slowed down losing it overall. I probably could've 'done better' if I'd gotten 'professional' help, but I'm very self-conscious in public and the idea of going to a gym/getting a personal trainer terrified me. So instead of putting myself through the emotional trauma of having to get on a treadmill in front of strangers, I danced for my exercise. It was something I enjoyed (I had dreams of being a ballerina as a child), and could do in the privacy of my apartment. What did I dance to? Judge all you like, I danced to the film recording of Cats. If someone ever walked in on me doing it, I probably looked silly as hell but damned if it didn't work because weight-loss wasn't the only thing I was going for. My endurance and stamina went up, my flexibility and range of motion improved, and it's possible that because I was determined to sing at the same time my lung function improved -- I was having less and less asthma attacks. And yes, while all of these are benefits of losing weight in general, my doctor told me that the results he was seeing outstripped what was typical with the weight I was losing. Actual food/diet wise, I didn't really have one. I learned when I was younger the meanings behind food cravings, so I ate when I was hungry and I ate what I was -actually- hungry for. Craving sugar? You are actually craving bitter (greens) and probably suffering from an imbalance in your liver or pancreas. Not a fan of fish, but suddenly that tuna steak at the grocery store's seafood counter is really interesting? You're low on essential fatty acids and craving extra protein for any number of reasons. Not a fan of pasta or bread, but suddenly all you want is a bowl of spaghetti and a piece of garlic toast? Don't pass it off as a simple carb craving, you might have a slight niacin deficiency. I am probably one of the few people that would encourage shopping on an empty stomach because, once you lean these clues your body is giving you, you tend to make better choices... or at least you will if you can control temptation. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I did fail at swapping the pack of cupcakes for a bag of spinach or other greens. And sometimes it leads to the weirdest food combinations (peanut butter, olive oil, and salsa sandwich, anyone? How about smoked trout, brie, green apple slices fried with garlic, and pickled carrots on sourdough?), but when I was dealing with my body screaming for -something-, stuff like this usually satisfied the craving with the first serving. The loss of the apartment my husband and I had and having to move in as roommates to another couple put a huge damper on my drive to exercise -- one roommate was a stay-at-home type and always around, so self-conscious me didn't feel comfortable dancing like an idiot for one to four hours a day when I might end up with an audience. I gained some weight back, ten or so pounds, in the year and a half we were living with them. Which wasn't horrible, I probably would've gained more if my job hadn't tripled in the amount of physical activity required of me at the same time. Being on the truck the past three years, I've put even more of the weight back on, but what can I really expect from being in a vehicle for 20+ hours a day? I'm getting off the truck this spring, though, and I can't wait to get back into the swing of things. I already have a new DVD of Cats sitting in storage, and I've got money put away for a new set of acrobatic dance shoes and brace for my knee. My husband, he went on a diet/lifestyle change last year (it was a program offered and pioneered by his work), and I have to say that it worked well for him. I would've joined and done it alongside him, but I can't eat a lot of the food the program recommends and alternatives aren't readily available out here on the road. The only things that were counted with the foods he ate were protein, calories, and carbs. Had to be high protein and low carb, or at least within a certain range of each-other percent-wise. He had five meals a day (decent sized breakfast, a good snack three hours later, lunch decent sized lunch three hours after that, another good snack three hours later, then dinner three hours later), and after a while he started to complain that he felt like he was having to eat too much. On several occasions my husband was told that he had to increase his calorie intake, usually related to him cutting back on his soda intake. Exercise was one 15-minute period per day where he got his heartbeat up to a certain rate -- for him it was three sets of brisk walking for four minutes followed by one minute of jumping jacks. It was recommended that the routine be done before breakfast, but as long as it was done before his last meal of the day it would be fine. We stopped tracking how much weight he's lost after the official program ended, but at his final weight-in at thirteen weeks, he had lost 38 pounds. He doesn't follow it as strictly as he did when the program was active, but he's recently gone down another pants size so he's doing well enough as far as I'm concerned.

I can't presume to be in the parent's mind, but I'd be willing to wager (based on my own reaction to seeing Common Core the first time) that it was less "stubbornness" "wanting to keep kids in the dark" and more "good parent wanting to help a struggling child with their math homework, but can't because overly-complicated new rules and superfluous steps to what is a simple math problem." Which seems to be the heart of MOST of the arguments being made against Common Core by parents: they cannot help their children who are already struggling with Common Core with their homework. The parent is sitting there, they can see the simple solution that really only requires a bag of beans to demonstrate the logic of it, but the child is telling them that they have to do it this other way or they'll get it wrong. The only solution schools that use Common Core have (if schools even acknowledge the issue -and- offer a solution) seems to be "Hey, Parents! Come in three days a week after school for the next couple months and we'll teach you Common Core, too!", which isn't a viable solution for most parents. And it's not a case of this not being viable because they're being stubborn, but because they have jobs -- they need to work to provide, and taking time off could mean the difference between keeping a job and losing that job.