Yes, my mom did this. I used to think cooking was intuitive until I started meeting so many people who couldn't cook. I realized that when you have the basics it's so much easier to just throw things together in the kitchen.

This is how I cook. Everyday food, and pretty much anything I learned from my mother doesn't have a recipe. For baked goods I use recipes. I also like to try different ethnic foods, so those are almost always from recipes (some authentic, some found online that may or may not be authentic, but they taste good anyway).

Perhaps. But there are communities that don't allow certain adult type stores within x distance from a church. They apparently think they should be the morality police. Would that bother people as much as being food police? Neither one bothers me. My point was that this is what city councils do, and people who live in those communities have a choice. Vote for different people or get involved.

It wouldn't bother me. City governments make ordinances all the time about what types of businesses can open and where they can be located. If the people of South L.A. don't like it they can either vote the council members out, or get more involved in the city government themselves.

:hurray::hurray::hurray::hurray:

I have a Kindle 3. Pros are the way it feels in my hands and ease of use. My library doesn't have ebook lending and probably won't anytime soon. Yes I would buy the same thing, even if my library offered ebooks.

This is how we've always done it in my family. You get something you want, but it's still a surprise. However, when I first met dh, he thought it meant I wanted everything on the list! (well, I did, but that's not the point :lol:). It took me several Christmas seasons to get him to understand how it's supposed to work.

If this site is accurate, our taxes will go up if the cuts expire. We'd pay exactly the same under either the Republican or Democratic plan (which is much less than if they expire).

:iagree: I keep trying to find the "like" button.

Well, only 2.12, if he does it 5 days a week, is $530 (that's figuring 50 weeks). What would he like to do with that money? Take a vacation? Fix up something at home? Put it in savings? It's those little amounts that seem like nothing, that really add up to something. Anyway, to answer your question: breakfast burritos, muffins, banana bread (or muffins). Homemade egg mcmuffins are easy to make and freeze well. Canadian bacon isn't as bad as sausage, and you could even use just egg whites if he would eat it that way. I've never tried it but have seen recipes for eggs made in a muffin tin. You could mix in a fair amount of veggies, cook them in muffin tins, and freeze them. It sounds like it needs to be convenient and tasty for him to want to switch. I'd go easy on him at first. In other words, don't hit him with low fat, bran, whole wheat stuff all at once. My dh grew up in Florida, but his family is from Tennessee. He grew up on everything cooked in bacon grease, even vegetables. And nothing but white bread/white flour. His cholesterol levels are a result of that diet. It took a long time to get him to not only eat healthy, but to actually enjoy healthy foods. Taste buds don't change overnight, but they can change. ETA: Don't make him give up his coffee. That would be torture! (Full disclosure: yes, I'm a coffee fiend.) He could either make coffee at home, or grab his homemade breakfast then drive through McDonald's for a cup of coffee.

:iagree:My mother was 100% Italian, though she was 2nd generation American. No one on either side of her family put sugar in their sauce.

Most of the time I make my own. Sometimes though, I can get Classico (the only jar sauce we like) practically free by matching sales with coupons. When that happens I'll buy several jars and keep them on hand for busy nights.

Yes, this. I can't tell you how many useless coupons I printed when I first started. I also print them on the back of used printed pages. You know, the things you print and only read once, or it didn't come out right so you have to print again. I save those, and use them for scrap as well as to print coupons. I've never had a problem. I just don't use anything that would have personal information on the other side.

I'm sure there's some kind of order to the change, but I've never figured it out. Sometimes coupons will disappear in the middle of the month. The first of the month is usually when they "reset". This means 2 things: 1) if you've printed your limit before, you get to start again, and/or 2) new coupons arrive and some old ones go away. I've learned that the best thing to do is print a coupon I know I'll want as soon as I see it. Some companies offer a limited number, so if a bunch of people print before you, it might run out. More than once I put off printing only to go back and find that the coupon was no longer available. Most coupons that limit the number of prints are per computer, so if you have more than one computer you can print the number of allowed times on each one. The 3 of us each have a laptop, so when there's a really good buy one get one free sale at Publix, I'll print 6 coupons (2 per computer -- 2 is usually the limit). HTH, and I hope it's not too confusing.

My son was really curious about the old ones so we picked one at random to watch on Netflix instant play. It had a girl from the future wearing a sparkly future jumpsuit. It was pretty hokey, and we laughed over the fact that this girl was from the 21st century. :D

10 11 9 We still miss David Tennant. Ds especially misses him -- thought he was the coolest Doctor. :( The new guy's okay. Haven't watched enough earlier versions to know if we like any of them.

Since this thread has been recently revived, and since I'm a new poster, I'll chime in. I'm a former Cradle Catholic turned atheist. When I was growing up, Catholics were Democrats. Now it seems Catholic Democrats are condemned to hell. I thought a previous poster's comments about the Catholics being conservative was interesting since I had the opposite experience. But I grew up in the 60's, and since the Catholic Kennedys were all Democrats, so were all of the other Catholics we knew. When I first let go of Christian beliefs, I tried on a few others -- pantheism, paganism, new age. But I realized that once I quit believing one type of religion, I couldn't grab on to ANY religion. So, I'm a full fledged atheist. So is ds. Dh is more agnostic. I think he doesn't want to let go of the cultural aspects of belief.

Classic scam. Cut off all contact and block the sender. You don't owe a scammer any explanation for not responding further.

No you're not the only one. I wish I hadn't wasted my time reading the whole book though. I forced myself because so many people said it was so great. I finished it, but wished for those hours of my life back.

We use Bravewriter. It's more CM than classical, and it definitely isn't an "open and go" curriculum. It requires a lot of learning on the part of the parent/teacher. It works well for my writing-phobic ds.

The Dobby set is small and inexpensive. That would be a good place to start.

Ds still likes to build with Lego, and is a huge Harry Potter fan as well. He has one of the original sets from years ago, but the pieces are all mixed in with his other Legos. I just got him the Burrow and the Quidditch match for Christmas. I wanted to get Hagrid's Hut but can't find it at Target (where I have gift cards to bring down the cost). If I can find it at a price I like, I'll get him that too. I don't know if you have a Wii, but he has Harry Potter Lego Years 1-4 for Wii. He has a lot of fun with it.

This. And this. And this.

I love White Christmas -- I like it better than Holiday Inn. As a family we like: A Christmas Story National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation The Santa Clause (only the 1st one)

We tried FLVS last year, but it didn't fit. I think ds just wasn't ready for an online class yet. This year he's going to be taking the Career Education course on FLVS, starting in January.