Steph, a mouth guard, made by the dentist, can really help.

smonster, if you move closer, you totally can! Or visit someone in KC, or even NOLA.

On the camping front, to be fair, I haven't gone in a couple of years. You guys have heard about my girly parties and mixed gender cabin getaways in the Ozarks, though, which I frankly prefer, being all old and lazy now. They involve beautiful scenery, a lazy hike during the day, and a hot tub or L's sauna (and a metric fuckton of booze and good food) at night.

Plus...beds. And the cabin is a vaca house.

I have a biteguard from the drugstore, which my dentist recommended I try first, and if it doesn't help, then she can make me a more rigid one, I guess. When she first recommended it, I only had random tooth pain that multiple X-rays turned up no cause for, and she said it looked like I was grinding my teeth -- but at that time, I didn't have the awful constant jaw ache. Now I have the tooth pain (sometimes every single goddamn tooth hurts at the same time) AND this jaw ache that makes me want to stab my jaw.

I've used the drugstore biteguard for about a week, I think, and I can't really tell any improvement. I still want to stab my jaw.

Steph, I clench (though not grind) my teeth--I don't know when it started but a couple years ago one day I woke up almost unable to open my jaw! Shocked the hell out of me. I got a night guard from my dentist...but I swear, while it may protect my teeth, it makes me MORE likely to wake up in the morning with an aching jaw! So I haven't been using it, but at the same time I fear that means my teeth are all going to crack in half.

The mouth guard does take a few weeks to take effects; kind of like AD's.

However, one fitted to your mouth might work better, and my dentist gave me painkillers to help with the pain while my mouth was adjusting.

I also booked a massage really focusing on the neck, head and upper shoulders during that first week of wearing it, and that helped a lot. YMouthMV.

However, one fitted to your mouth might work better, and my dentist gave me painkillers to help with the pain while my mouth was adjusting.

The drugstore one is one that you can fit to your teeth; it's this weird soft plastic that's all flat, and you put it in boiling water to make it even softer, and then after it cools for a minute, you bite it to mold it to your teeth.

I'm taking ibuprofen, but it doesn't eliminate the pain; just dials it down. Maybe I'll get a massage. It would be bad for my health NOT to!

Emeline is perched on the back of the sofa, looking out the window, waiting for the twins from her class to arrive for a sleepover. To say she is excited is an understatement.

Barb, all the pictures are great; they made TCG and I want to go back to Seattle.

Barb, I love that first picture, but just a warning--I have a picture of an airplane wing and sky and water, which looks gorgeous on a computer (I've used it as background sometimes) but when printed out, the blue just doesn't seem as awesome and bright (and I tried it at a couple different companies). Just to warn you (I still think you should print it though!)

The drugstore one is one that you can fit to your teeth; it's this weird soft plastic that's all flat, and you put it in boiling water to make it even softer, and then after it cools for a minute, you bite it to mold it to your teeth.

I did this once for youth hockey. If anyone ever tries one of these, I recommend sipping a hot beverage before, or a cup of very warm water, to reduce the shock to your teeth.

I am at home for the day, we had several inches of snow, and I had to dig out the end of the driveway so Andi could get to work. They plowed it less than an hour before she had to leave.

I still have to touch up the driveway, but spent some time stopping at Aldi's for some stuffing. All they had was cornbread stuffing, but that's OK.

I decided to sage up the cornbread stuffing. I had a partial container of dried onion, soaked that in water and then guesstimated the amount of sage to put into the cornbread stuffing.

Finally Thanksgiving tonight at six.

I also picked up a couple of acorn squash for 50 cents each. Thank you Aldi!

Oh, and they have some Austrian chocolate with with whole hazelnuts. Yum.