I agree!

White

My ace right now is that my grandson likes to sew random pieces together just to see what he can come up with so anything under 1/4 yd/23cm goes go him. Now that I am making cloth napkins again, hot pads, coasters, and also baby clothes, I am saving the larger scraps for some of these things. I have a friend who makes a scrappy quilt every year that she donates to an organization that provides blankets to families in need. she makes kid themed ones as well. So that is a nice way to use up the leftovers. She uses flannel or thrift store blankets for the centers so she doesn't have to buy batting which is getting really expensive. My mother in law has this crazy stock pile of huge amounts of flannel that she can't use, and she gave me a bunch. The last throw quilt I made for our couch had two layers not flannel for the center instead of batting.

That doesn't work at a lot of colleges. Dorms are a money maker for colleges and so many require on campus housing unless the student is living with a parent or guardian. No joke. 18 and must live with parent, and not only that, must live at the residence listed on FAFSA. Others will not allow anyone, even if mom and dad live within 20 miles of sorts school, live off campus until age 21. It is a scam, and should be illegal, but it is the case. We looked at the possibility of our middle and youngest sons attending the same college, and then buying a cottage or renting an apartment so they would have space, privacy, and could cook for themselves. It came out to about $5000 a year less for the two of them. But because we could not move to the college town due to Mark's job and our elderly mothers, not only would they not meet the requirements to live off campus, the house would have been considered a secondary residence/vacation home which would affect FASFA and greatly increase the EFC which was already laughably high. The system is rigged against the middle class. The answer from financial aid is always, "Parents should take out loans and second mortgages." Of course if parents go into debt for all of their children's educations, then when in the heck do they retire, and what do they do when they have no emergency savings or become disabled and can't make those debt payments?" It is simply insane. Dd got lucky when she was a freshmen. U of MI was out of housing. They could not house their entire freshman class, and had far fewer commuters (students living with parents and driving) than they expected, so they suddenly loosened up the rules. She was allowed to live with her aunt in the area.

If memory serves, onion is considered a yellow veggie. I am not certain though. I cook with turmeric all.the.time. so I count it!

I don't consistently eat the rainbow though I try. One issue is that I only eat very low glycemic fruit due to type 2 diabetes running on the maternal side of my family. Generally sour/tart apples, lemon and lime, kiwi, avocado. And mostly I don't like avocado because to my taste buds it tastes like dirt so it is just an occasional small dollop of guac on an enchilada. This makes it hard to get purple. I do not have a consistent source of purple kale or purple carrots. I eat some eggplant, but am not a fan of it. I do eat a lot of black beans and some websites do list those in the purple list. I use a lot of bell peppers in my cooking so orange and yellow are easy to get as well as red since we use red peppers of various kinds plus tomatoes all the time. I love numerous green veggies. I use a wide variety of herbs and spice though so in small amounts, I might get the rainbow more often than I actually count.

Okay, so I am behind because yesterday got away from me. As is our evil morning ritual, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the absolute slaughter of coffee beans occurred with no remorse whatsoever for their demise. I really should start playing "Rite of Spring" as the first pot is brewing since it is so appropriate. All three days we got up a bit late so we had more of a brunch than breakfast and lunch. Scrambled eggs with lots of veggies and many, many mushrooms, with salad and some cottage cheese. Sunday dinner - Roasted chicken thigh with carrots, green beans, and cauliflower. Monday dinner - meatless chilli and baked potatoes Tuesday dinner - scalloped potatoes, steamed broccoli, and stuffed mini bell peppers Sunday I had a little dark chocolate to satisfy a craving, about an ounce.

Chris, I am so very very sorry. Many hugs.

It just isn't. The sheer amount of debt we would have had to take on for our one boy who was Ivy and near Ivy made zero sense. He is an electrical engineer, so as long as he attended an ABET certified program with internship options, there wasn't going to be any fall out from going to a state school vs. an expensive private school. Dd went to U of MI, and it was hard even in 2008. They were more generous with financial aid and merit back then so the bill when ds got in was a massive shocker. Med school is probably the exceptional given that undergrad from Cornell vs. a not top 25 state school probably does make a difference in the chances of being accepted. But still. When one considers the horrific debt of going to med school, how can one also take on massive debt for some expensive private school? In the past ten years, the private schools have gone off the rails on rate increases and cutting aid. Just ugh.

McCormick garlic powder, and garlic granulated were just under $5.00 usd/each ($4.64 EU, $4.09 GBP, $7.51 Au $6.84 CAD) same size as above yesterday when I checked. I don't use McCormick. It end to buy in bulk from the Mennonite bulk food store or get Simply Organic brand. I have not been in a supermarket recently that carries Simply Organic so I have no idea if the price has skyrocketed or not. I have a fair amount of garlic powder here, and it is the back up for when I run out of dried cloves. I did notice that several items had gone up again including jarred items like spaghetti sauce, olives, pickles. It looked to me like about a 15-20% increase, and they had already gone up 25% in the last year.

Oh, I agree it had a slant for sure. But the other farmers who agree to be interviewed, it is just heart breaking. I don't see how any family farms can survive with the current policies. It is the same here though. I am not poking at the UK alone. It is staggering how little respect there is for food producers, and especially non corporate food producers. I have watched documentaries, other farming and environmental series, and they definitely back up some of what Jeremy is saying just without any entertainment value or bragging. His ego is pretty enormous for sure.

Agreeing with Rosie here! Send a card. Don't open the door to more stress, drama, and abuse.

Gorgeous!

I am so sorry! That just stinks!!! 😢

Oh, that is so sad. It was going great, but yes, they messed up that dye lot!

Wonderful!

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

All of this WDW talk makes me nervous. In just under four years, eldest grandson turns 11 and we are throwing a Harry Potter themed Bday party where he will get his letter. We hope to take him to Universal Hardly Potter world to buy his wand on Diagon Alley. I am worried that the pricing and complexity of trying to figure the whole thing out will be similar a to WDW. I have never been to Universal. The last time I was at WDW was 1978. I did go to Epcot in 1987 with mother in law's educator discount (she was a nursing professor at that time), and I think it cost about $28 a piece plus parking. We pulled a small wagon with packed lunches. So cheap. And since Dh's folks lived on Merritt Island, we didn't need accomodations. Y'all are scaring me!

And now I will live vicariously through you! 😁

The vast majority of weddings these days require travel to attend, often significant travel. That doesn't make them destination weddings. It is just the reality of a modern society in which a ton of adults go away from home for college or other job training, and do not get jobs near their parents. It also reflects the fact that families no longer reside close to one another. When Dd got married, she lived on the west side of our state, her fiance and his immediate family was from Pennsylvania. It was literally impossible to have a wedding and not have it be a destination for a significant portion of the guest list. Dd's maid of honor came from Baltimore, and we had to help her with travel expenses. Since most couples these days include two earners who also have to juggle their work schedules, their bosses demands, and what little paid vacation they have, it is not unreasonable to expect that a wedding takes place wherever the couple resides and works or for them to give up on a traditional wedding and travel to some exotic beach someplace and not have very many guests due to the cost of travel. My suggestion for the OP is to respond with regrets and send a modest gift. Clearly this is causing stress. Season in life. We can't all attend every family event, and wedding invitations are not commands with obligations.

I swear they go out of their way, some of them, to try to hide or something. Makes me really annoyed.

I think a second opinion might be wise. I am not willing to give any other advice than that, but I do know from experience that a pediatrician who doesn't specialize in preemies and multiples can be very short sighted and demanding about growth patterns. We had this happen with our middle son. I had had a rough pregnancy, and a VERY dangerous delivery which left me too weak to really nurse him and not in good enough health to produce any kind of milk supply. A nurse helped me express colostrum for him, and I tried my best for six weeks to pump a little breast milk to put in his bottles with his formula, but I was in such bad shape, it was really pretty fruitless. He was projectile vomiting a lot, and our pediatrician would just hammer at me about weight gain (npnreal advice or assistance from the guy at all) and labeled him failure to thrive, made a lot of very scary predictions about him. I called my CNM, a very wise woman who knew a hell of a lot more about a wide variety of baby issues than it seemed the pediatrician did, and she sent us to a specialist pediatrician who dealt mostly with struggling, ill and disabled babies and a lot of preemies. He was so helpful, figured out what ds was reacting to, got us on the right formula, and didn't freak out when ds had a slower weight gain than "normal" for a while afterward. He said babies take some time to work it out when they have had a rough start. He was vigilant, but relaxed and supportive which was exactly what both of us needed. So that is all I can say. 2nd opinion with a pediatrician that has more experience with multiples, and preemie babies. Maybe she could ask her OBGYN for recommendations.

Holy cow, batman! No thanks. 🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃 Of course, Alabama authorities who were apparently drunk or high for many decisions of the 1970's introduced 50 gators to the Tennessee River at Wheeler Wildlife Refuge. Uhm. They aren't supposed to naturally live that far north. Idiots. Morons. Now of course they have adapted to the cold so when it got down into the teens and below with windchills below zero this past December for numerous days, they lived, possibly a little cranky about the weather, but they lived. The river and lake water temps did not fall below freezing, but were actually below 40° in several spots. That river, at the US 231 bridge south of Huntsville froze back in 1940. So did this week + of those kinds of temps even thin the herd a little bit? No.it.did.not. So I will NOT be kayaking the Tennessee River which is so sad because I really want to do so. However, gators give me the absolute creepy crawlies, and my paddle is too light weight to beat the buggars off so unless Redstone Arsenal blasts them out of the water for me, I'm not going. Sadly, I think the military has other things to do besides nuke gators for kayakers. And where were NASA scientists in all this???? Hello, Marshall? Y'all have PHDs in hard sciences? You didn't tell the Marx Brothers that they shouldn't do this??? 😠😠😠 The gators are coming for us here in the frozen wasteland of the far north of the U.S. Someday we will be shooting those blasted things in Lake Superior, and they'll be trying to swim International Falls, MN. Ranchers in Montana will like, "Wait! What just ate my cow?" And it won't be a wolf. It will be a damn gator. And of course during snow storms, they'll be knocking on everyone's front doors begging to come in. Why is it that normal people can see the value of NOT introducing invasive species to the environment, especially ones known for their ridiculous Darwinian adaptive skills but the numbskulls in charge cannot understand this? May the Force be with us all because we are going to need it! 😁

Thanks! It was all just free hand fun. I should have taken pictures of what the moms did. Granny did one with apple blossoms and another with pussy willows just on the fly, no pictures to look at or anything. My mom did some gorgeous butterflies on one, turned another into a really cute ladybug, and I think my favorite one she made look like blooming hostas. They each made six, and then were tired so they stuck me with eight to finish up the box, and I was the least creative soul of the three of us! I could not believe how much they enjoyed painting, so I think that if I manage to make it to a craft store, I might pick up some porcelain chicks or some wood cut outs or something and have another paint day next weekend while our sons are home visiting. They have been wanting to paint some Celtic knots if I can find them. The grandmothers would LOVE to paint with their boys. Today is back to sewing. I have a baby outfit and a baby quilt to complete before March 31 when we leave for baby shower out of town.

Looks like a LOT of fun! Happy for you that it was a good day.