Have you looked at latex pillows? They come in various levels of firmness, and unlike feather or polyfiber-filled pillows, the stuffing won't shift during the night. Memory foam is too hot for me, and it feels too hard for my head. Latex pillows are a little pricey, but my old one lasted more than a decade with no deterioration in how it worked. I'd still be using it if I hadn't left it in a hotel. :crying: I've never had any other type of pillow last anywhere close to that long without getting flat or lumpy! I have this pillow, and I really like it: http://www.amazon.com/LinenSpa%C2%AE-Natural-Talalay-Latex-Pillow/dp/B00CAX9V46/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1378923753&sr=8-7&keywords=latex+pillow I have the low-loft plush, and it's perfect for me on my side. It comes with a thick pillow cover that compresses it a bit and makes it firmer - without that cover, it's a bit softer. I like it both ways. The low-loft is about 4.5 inches thick, and the high-loft is about 6.5 inches thick. Edited to add: The standard-size pillows are $45, but the default when I click on the link is queen, which is more expensive.

How much work did you do each day outside of the time you spent in class teaching? When did you do lesson planning? How long did it take? What about correcting and grading? Did you have to bring work home, or could you get it done at school? If at school, did you stay longer after school let out? I was usually at school from about 6:45 or 7:00 until about 4:30 or 5 (school hours were 9-3). I taught an older grade in elementary; teaching in a younger grade would have required more prep time. When I left at 4:30 or 5, there were always teachers still there. I planned lessons before and after school and during silent-reading time for the kids. I did bring work home, probably 2 or 3 nights per week and always over the weekend. Recesses and prep periods were usually used for break (bathroom, snack, coffee) and photocopying. Grading and developing rubrics for grading projects and papers often took longer than planning, especially when the kids had drafts of papers due. About public school wages: would you be able to earn the same/more/less in a private school in your area than what you earned in the public schools? Private schools earn a little less here, but I don't think it's a massive difference. The norm is free or drastically reduced tuition for the faculty's children. What did you like about teaching and what did you dislike (or dislike most?) It was fun! I loved doing fun things with the kids and developing our own quirky classroom culture. I loved getting to know all the different people in the class. I loved the amazing discussions we could have about different topics (remember, older elementary). I disliked the inconsistency of the kids' preparation--some teachers in the years before my year did amazing jobs of preparing their students to move on; others didn't seem to have done much of anything. This didn't seem to be related to the kids; instead, there was an extremely high correlation between how well prepared students were with who they'd had the year before. Kids from Mr. X's class were strong writers and relatively strong in math. Kids from Ms. Y's class were appallingly bad at both. I also really disliked the math curriculum they'd used in younger years because even the strongest kids were still slow and inefficient at basic arithmetic (thank you, Everyday Math). I hated that teaching was viewed as the refuge of people who couldn't do anything else and who were not very smart. That was sometimes true, but most teachers I knew were dedicated, and I met several who were very, very smart. I also met some who were challenged by second-grade math (and I'm not exaggerating here). I also disliked being tied to the school calendar for my personal life. Teachers' vacations are always taken when everyone else is also on break. I really love the freedom that homeschooling gives us to take trips during the much-less-crowded school year. Did you feel like you were able to do any good in the lives of children? or were your hands pretty well tied? I had a huge amount of freedom because I had a very supportive principal. I was able to do what I wanted the way I wanted, which led me to be able to achieve great results. With a different administrator, the situation could have been very different and much less flexible. Also, teaching the oldest grade in a school can be helpful because there aren't teachers from the year ahead complaining that your kids are too advanced in math! Did you have any kind of leeway? in designing lessons? assigning homework? bringing interesting topics/cross-discipline connections/speakers/ideas into the classroom? See above. Even now with all the emphasis on testing, it will come down to your administrator. One of the reasons I haven't returned (aside from homeschooling!) is concern about getting a supportive administrator who allows freedom. What were you particularly proud of in your role as a teacher? I was very proud of the math education I gave my students. I sent them off with a very strong background in arithmetic and pre-algebra, and it showed in their test scores. The average kid in my class gained about three years in math scores over the course of one year in my class. Did you use the library? how? We didn't use it much other than for weekly visits to get books. Kids could go during other times of the day to get books as well. We occasionally worked with the librarian on reference skills in conjunction with a research paper.

After reading all these, I'm starting to think the surprising thing about my neighborhood is how "Leave It to Beaver" it is! We always have kids playing outside in our neighborhood, and I see kids from about age 9 up walking to shops, school, the park, or the library. We know everyone on our block. All of our neighbors say hi and are friendly, and we'll borrow sugar or eggs from each other. I've never seen anyone who lives here smoking. None of them have loud parties. I hadn't realized that my typical little neighborhood is so far from typical!

I'd say go for it if you've played Dominion before and like it. Prosperity is one of the better expansions, and the base set is of course nice to have. Alchemy is the only expansion I haven't played, and I've heard that it's often the least popular, but since the other two sets are good, I think it may be worth it. You should be sure you want to start down the Dominion path, though! We have a giant tower of 7 Dominion boxes at our house!

I finished level 8 and was told that I can write proper English under pressure. Does it tell you if you get one wrong?

I read Stephanie Z's post, and I found myself nodding along. I do think that this varies somewhat depending upon your family income now. In my experience, parents with relatively high household incomes do consciously talk about these issues for exactly the reasons that Stephanie Z said. Most parents want their kids to do at least as well as they have financially, if not better. If your family income is substantially past the average, then for your children to do as well as you have, you need to have conversations about the type of income it takes to support the lifestyle that you enjoy. To this end, I know many upper-middle-class professionals tell their kids all along that such-and-such job won't earn you very much money or that going into certain fields will make it harder to live the lives they may want to lead. In some families there's a lot of pressure to choose certain high-status and/or high-income fields. I've found that my friends from more modest backgrounds don't report having these same types of conversations with their families as they were growing up--or at least not about the same types of jobs.

Mine is a long-U with an island across the open part. The main sink is on one short side of the U; the refrigerator, microwave and second oven are on the other short side; and the range is against the wall along the long base of the U. Then I have a prep sink on the refrigerator end of the island. I prep mostly on the island across from the range, and I bake to the right of the range. This arrangement actually works quite well.

Where do you live? I need to know so that I never, ever go there. Eek!

There's also the Sea of Trolls trilogy from Nancy Farmer if you want Norse mythology mixed in to the story. It's been around for several years and has lots of very positive reviews on Amazon. My DS loved the whole series (I haven't read it).

How old are the books that you've been trying to read? I've noticed that some books have the real page numbers, and some don't. It seems to depend on how long ago that digital version was "published." Books that feature "real page numbers" will say so on the description page on Amazon.

I wouldn't expect three cleaners to be able to clean the interior of every drawer and cupboard in just two hours. I would think that two hours would give them enough time to do a fairly thorough clean of the bathrooms and kitchen, plus floors, but excluding closet and cupboard interiors. I think the level of clean that you wanted was probably not possible in the time allowed. Did you specifically ask them to do drawers/shelves/cupboards?

Wow! I can't even imagine a bill that low. Ours is typically $125-140 per month. I'd love to get it closer to $100.

I'm just curious about rates in different places. We pay just under 5 cents per kWh for the first 10 per day and just over 10 cents per kWh for all the rest. I'm told those rates are pretty low on a national basis, but I was recently shocked to find out that a couple of hours from here the electricity is under 3 cents per kWh. I'm also curious how much electricity you use (and for how many people/size of home). I'd love to get our bill down, but I'm not sure how low is realistic.

Have you tried putting oven cleaner on it and letting it soak? I mean like the Easy-Off kind of foaming oven cleaner. If you do try that, be sure to do it on a day when you can have all the windows open. It worked great on my old stove, but the smell is way worse when it's not contained inside an oven!

Hmm. I was wondering if you suffered from the lack of space issues we used to have. Since you don't, I guess I'd start by asking yourself why each item is on the counter. We have a fair amount of space but we still store some seldom used things in the basement. This leaves us with enough room to be able to store the coffee maker (don't use it daily), food processor, toaster, knives, canisters, etc. in drawers. Our KitchenAid is too heavy to store in a drawer, so we have a counter-level appliance cupboard where it lives.

Small wine rack Countertop hand towel rack Cooling rack Crock of cooking utensils Ipod docking station Occasionally during the day there will be a towel on the counter with a couple of hand-washed items drying on it. That sounds like a lot when I write it all down, but most of my counters are bare, the way I like them. Clutter drives me nuts.

Ditto what Ellen said above. I'd also consider putting a password on the ipad if you suspect that this could happen again!

I eat them occasionally when a raw cheese happens to be the kind I feel like having. I don't search them out. PCC (I know you're in this area, not sure how close to a PCC you are) and Whole Foods would also have raw cheeses. Trader Joe's would too, as would many QFCs. I read a really fascinating article about germs and gut health last weekend, and it's made me wonder if eating more live foods like raw cheeses would be beneficial for autoimmune and other issues.

We've had similar issues. We're planning to get air-proof fireplace doors, but I'm not sure if those would work with an insert. Where does the air conditioner draw air from? Is it from a system of ducts? If so, is there a cold-air return near the fireplace? You might try closing that cold-air return off and seeing if that helps, but only do that if you have several other cold air returns! If your house is fairly air-tight, the chimney may be easiest source of air to pull from. To fix the problem, you may need to provide another source of air for the HVAC system. There are make-up air vents that might work for your situation. They would make your air conditioner less efficient by pulling in some outside air, but it would allow you to control where that air comes from (i.e. not from the chimney).

I saw it this morning. There it was--a pink line of disgustingness oozing around the water line of the toilet bowl. That was the last straw for me, and I am now on a housecleaning rampage (with WTM breaks, of course! :lol: ). I realized that I can overlook or procastinate about all sorts of things around the house, but seeing a pink ring around the toilet is too much for me. How about you? What messy house signs send you scurrying for the cleaning supplies?

I think piano teachers who can do so (i.e. have enough demand for their services) often have policies like this. I can't blame them because they do have bills all year round. Cancellations and student vacations mean unpredictable drops in the teacher's income if students don't pay for the missed lessons. Our son's teacher has a similar policy--joining the studio puts you on the hook for one year of tuition (if you discontinue lessons completely, you are only obligated for payment through the time you notified her, with a few weeks' notice), whether you're on vacation or not. As for make-up lessons, some teachers make their written policy much stricter than their actual policy. In other words, if your child is a diligent student and you are an easy-to-work-with family, she may be willing to try to accommodate a very occasional make-up lesson with notice ahead of time. In my son's studio, it's easier for homeschool families to make this work because the teacher has more free time while school is in session. Remember that without this type of policy, there are many, many families who take advantage of teachers like this--cancelling at the last minute, demanding numerous make-up lessons to make life more convenient for them, and so on.

It's cost me a small fortune! I've found I'm a total sucker for instant gratification. It does save an awful lot of trees with all the boxes that aren't coming to my house!

I am facing a mountain of laundry today. You know how Flylady talks about climbing Mt. Washmore? That's me today. I hate laundry. Hate it. It is the absolute worst job around the house. I'd much rather do anything else. Vacuuming? Way better. Mowing the lawn? Sure. Even dusting is better, in my opinion. The only thing that even comes close to rivaling it for detested status is putting pillowcases back on the pillows. I don't know why I hate that, but I really do. It's only better than laundry because it takes less time. There. Rant over. What's the job you hate and put off as long as possible? I can't be the only one who has an unreasonable dislike of a regular chore!

Yep, Bac-Out (the enzymatic one, not the general cleaning one. You want the spray that mentions enzymes.) or Nature's Miracle. I spray the affected spots and let soak for a few hours. I then wash twice, but we have a dying washer. If your washer works normally, once might do it. For loads where you didn't catch it before and it's spread to the whole load, I just throw 1/2 - 1 cup of Bac Out in the washer with the water and soap and let it soak overnight.

And you know, thinking about this, I'm kind of irritated with my own comment above. Sometimes I think we strive to do the perfect thing too much, and I think I went overboard on the looking for the perfect solution. Sorry! You're making up homemade mixes for your family! That's great! If you want to use ww pastry flour, just store them in the fridge - they really won't keep for months in the cupboard. Or use your fresh-ground flour to make mixes and store them in the fridge. They'll be fine--really!