AP - President George W. Bush says history will judge him, but he is getting his own crack first. Bush is using his final 50 days in office to tout his legacy, hoping to leave a lasting impression of overshadowed progress. On Monday, World AIDS Day, Bush was heralded for his leadership in fighting the disease, a point that even his Democratic critics readily concede.

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Here are some of the recipes for my kitchen concoctions that keep my kids busy - Jordan likes to say that I am going to blow something up, all that corn starch and all...


Homemade Slime

3/4 cup water and 1 cup white glue
mix together and add food coloring if desired

4 tsp Borax and 1 1/3 cup warm water
mix together in a second bowl

Pour the contents of the first bowl into the second bowl and let sit for 1 minute.

Time one minute and remove your slime from the soapy water mixture, if you let it sit longer in the Borax mixture it get firmer. There is no need to mix the contents of the 2 bowls, just pour and time.

store in a zip lock bag in the fridge.


Snow Paint

4 Tbsp corn starch
1 cup warm water
food coloring

Mix in a small spray bottle, and turn your pretty little snow angels blue, or your snowman pink. Yesterday we just had a purple backyard.


Homemade Finger paint

4 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
2 cups cold water

Mix over medium heat until thick (will thicken more while cooling) devide into 4 or more containers and add food coloring. Let cool and paint away!


ok, so there they are, but I want all of you to post fun things that you are doing with your kids too so that I can get some more ideas.

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Ten Things to Know About Assisted Living.
The posts highlight the need for consumers to be especially alert when considering this alternative because of the confusing jumble of regulations from state to state and facility to facility, the various ways a facility can be licensed and the distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit operations. My family had one excellent assisted living experience and one dreadful one, which left us feeling misled and then abandoned when my mothers needs exceeded what the facility was willing or able to provide.
To this day, I dont know whether the sales staff and administration lied to us or simply presented their policies in such vague language that we were able to hear only what we wanted to hear at a moment of crisis. Regardless, the experience soured me on assisted living, a bias that may have been evident in my two posts.
So Id like to balance my own jaundiced perspective with the following account from a reader, Brian Weiss, a freelance medical and marketing writer based in Pasadena, Calif., whose late mother thrived in assisted living as she hadnt at home and, Mr. Weiss believes, could not have in a nursing home. With some modest editing, here is his account. Jane Gross
My mother lived the last several years of her life in a nearby assisted living facility. I do not feel there was either illusion or deception about the fact that [the facility] offered minimal medical support. They did have an R.N. on duty (days only), and I always knew that if anything serious were to arise (day or night), the answer would be calling the paramedics. I had zero problem with these conditions, since they represented a considerable improvement over what my mother had when she lived alone in her own home.
There is a trade-off being made. My mothers life prior to assisted living was one of increasing isolation and constant fear. Widowed when my father died of cancer in 1976, she lived in fear for her physical safety as a woman alone, in fear of falling or having a stroke and having nobody realize it, and in fear that she would not be able to continue getting to the store, cooking her meals and otherwise sustaining herself.
The move to assisted living came with considerable resistance, and finally happened only when she fell into the rose bushes and had to be retrieved by a neighbor. Once in assisted living, it was as though my mother got an instant on life. Suddenly, she had people to talk to and care about, nutritious meals served in a pleasant setting, no worries about physical safety, and the assurance that if something was wrong she could pull a cord and help was on the way. Oh, and dont forget the Bingo.
My mother had had a stroke in the 1980s. She had high blood pressure, C.O.P.D. and lymphedema. Was I aware that these were serious maladies that required monitoring and care? Yes. Did I think the assisted living facility was giving her medical care? No, except to the extent that I knew she got a weekly blood pressure check and that if something didnt feel right, she could go to the nurse in the facility a lot more easily than to the doctor, which meant more little things got looked at and evaluated than if shed had to make a doctors appointment and go to an office. The nurse provided capable clinical judgment about whether or not a burdensome doctors visit was really necessary.

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