My 8 minutes this morning was inner and outer thighs..I could really feel it. I started reading the book last night. Mr Cruise has an interesting background as a result of serious health issues that existed in his family. The first half of the book is his background, his education, what drove him to do what he's doing now and what his beliefs are on diet and exercise and being healthy & fit. The second half of the book is devoted to walking you through the first 28 days. So you have 4 weeks of exercises, but each day has a "tip" and another type of exercise as well. Some days it's just to journal (which he highly recommends doing daily), other days it's answering some personal questions about yourself, what your SPECIFIC goals are, identifying bad habits & what those habits have cost you, what you will gain when you become fit and lean, how you can inspire others, etc. Each day also starts off with an inspirational quote. He does recommend walking to exercise your heart and lungs. There's a section about eating, some menu examples and a few recipes and an "eating card" system (kind of like a Weight Watchers point system); he does also address emotional eating. The back of the book has a heavier weight paper section that has tear-out exercise cards to take with you if you travel. The first couple pages of the book were words of praise from Denise Austin, Kathy Smith, Tamilee Webb, Jack LaLanne, Anthony Robbins, the editor of Fit Magazine, Prevention Magazine....so he seems to be highly respected in his field. Well, I am off to do some yardwork in case we actually get the thunderstorms this afternoon that they are predicting!

I have to go to work...will try to work on this from there...or when I get home. Nancy

Thank you to Aequitas and justmetoo for your helpful suggestions. I think the "no problem" solution might work out because at this point, she just seems to think at the time she is misbehaving that the consequences are just a joke. Waiting until she expresses genuine interest in something and then implementing the consequence seems like it might get through to her a little more than the rote loss of ipod, sentences, no hanging out with friends. As far as the lunch account, DH did call the school and told them she is not to buy anything but the actual meal. The sneaking food at home usually occurs when I am taking a shower. The last time she did it (that I am aware of), she came to me afterward asking for a snack, and I said no since I am pretty sure she already had something. So, she told me well, I didn't have anything, but ok... see, I am saying ok rather than arguing with you about it. Then later, I saw there was an empty package of cookies in the cupboard, and she fessed up at that point. DH has actually become very supportive of me over time, but still manages to undercut me sometimes, but for the most part, we have to present a united front because she was getting in the habit of trying to start arguments between us by "tattling" on the other. He knows she misbehaves, it is just that sometimes our strategies for dealing with it differ. His thing is to ignore most of it, or he just doesn't see how it is a problem. Like the party behavior, if I had tried correcting her as often as she needed, he probably would have given me "the look" like I need to just let her have fun and be a kid. He chalks it up to kid behavior, but so much of her behavior is still age inappropriate, and she gets called on it by peers, but sees it as their problem, not hers. Other kids of similar age at the party were calm and were not creating the chaos that she was. DH and I are now seriously discussing an evaluation because in the past we were both in agreement that it was behavioral and we wanted to hold off on medication unless it was absolutely necessary. There is much past history that I did not get into in the previous post, but SD used to live with GM, who got her put on Abilify at age 9 with no impact, then she came to live with us, without medication and was fine for about the first year or so. And, the truth is, things have not been easy for her growing up with BM being a mess and DH acquiescing control to his mom for a lot of the time when she was little. But, it seems that now she just doesn't care about the lying or crazy behavior. It seems like she would rather get to do what she wants for that little bit and live with the consequences. It seems like now she is older, she knows that she does not need to listen to us and really feels like our rules are a joke because she gets to do whatever she wants at her mom's house, like have boyfriends that she keeps secret from us, facebook accounts, time to hang out with no adult supervision, watch movies and t.v. that she is not supposed to, etc. For the last several months, I have noticed also that when she comes back from her mom's, the first week is somewhat more bearable than the second week when she knows she is going to her mom's that weekend. She can be perfectly pleasant if no one is asking anything of her, but the second she is told what to do, an argument ensues. With DH, she can be calm, have conversations, act normal, whereas with me, she either chooses not to talk or to argue. However, there are still plenty of times when she will argue with every last ounce of her energy with him as well. To me, I think that the behavior problems could stem from a disorder, especially because BM also has bipolar disorder, and I know the likelihood of her having it is greatly increased. But I have worried that SD wants so much to be like her mom and to have an excuse for the behavior that takes it out of her control - her mom is also a master manipulator and liar. I discussed it with my own counselor the last time, and she said she is very cautious about diagnosing children with bipolar, but that a good idea might be to take her to a therapist, explain the background, and ask that she be seen for a period of six months or so to determine whether her bad behavior is just that, or if there is an underlying cause like bipolar. Also, like JMT said, the behavior doesn't happen in a bubble. She does not control her chattering at school and was in trouble several times last year (not severe trouble, as in sent to office, but enough to be constantly distracting to teacher and classmates, and it was mentioned again at Parent/Teacher conferences this year. The only other person who is ok with the behavior besides BM and consistently defends it is her GM (MIL). SD goes to her telling her how we took away this or that privilege and makes it appear that we are just out to get her. For instance, SD wanted to participate in an activity that requires practice, so we said that she could participate if she put in the practice beforehand. She did not practice the entire time, but when she spoke with MIL about it, she tells it as though we simply have unreasonable expectations that she cannot meet so we will just take away the activity anyway. All we wanted her to do was practice, put in some effort. So MIL calls DH and tells him that she is just too discouraged and we do not care, and will we care when she commits suicide. That is quite offensive to me, since I feel that is all we have tried to do is encourage and give opportunities to do activities or even earn them back if she has lost them. At this point, I feel emotionally wiped out from all the drama that is constantly stirred up. Just yesterday, she was playing with something that is not a toy, I talked to her dad about it, and he gave me the go ahead to ask her not to play with it, or take it if she was not listening (he was leaving for work, SD was not awake). I talked to her about it and she said, well I need to talk to Daddy about that, and she said that once more later on in the day. I said, that is good - we have already discussed this matter, but do talk to him about it - in fact from now on any time you need anything, even something as small as a snack, go talk to your dad about it, and if he is at work and you can't get a hold of him then too bad. I guess that is how it will be from now on. She doesn't think I have a say, and I will be perfectly fine letting DH handle it. .

Janie, I just read your post. It's eucalyptus extract, but such a mild scent, and it doesn't linger in the bathroom. It's gone, shortly after you flush. When you're done washing your hands, there is no scent of anything. It might be worth trying, I wouldn't think the scent would be strong enough to flare up your headaches for you and your mom.