I thought the gin ad was about being frustrated over the Internet uproar that the bike ad caused.

How do you feel about physical labor as a weekend hobby? I grew up in the country. Taking care of land is so time consuming. I have more yard chores than I care to complete on my tiny suburban lot. I can't go back. I also can't go back to committing an entire hour to getting more milk in the house.

I'm 🤣ing at the photos of Christmas trees set up inside big dog kennels so the pets can't get to them.

This is the part I don't get. This wasn't some youtube upload. It was a commercial with actors. What's she fearful of? The director?Messing up her lines? I do not understand this level of backlash over a mediocre commercial that does no harm. As witch hunts go, this one is especially odd.

I've hit a pathological level of stalling with holiday stuff. It only makes sense that I'd start a new thread instead of pulling out my tree! What did you wish for, then get, and it turned out you didn't like it/want it after all? I'll go first: 1. Soda Stream - I'm a girl who uses ALL of the appliances and loves them. We never use the soda stream. It turns out 3/4 of us prefer non-fizzy drinks. We all sort of abandoned even recreational sodas at the same time. Dh likes cola, but that flavor is the hardest to create with the soda stream so it wasn't worth experimenting with recipes. Also, he cut way back AND switched to the cheap stuff because it's lower octane than Coke. 2. Gas stove - I thought I REALLY wanted one. It's so much easier to control the temperature of the range. However, when we had one for five months DD and I didn't like it. Cooking with it was fine, but both of us HATED that whiff of gas you get right before it lights. Dh and Ds thought we were crazy and never once noticed it. We have gas heat, but I'm so rarely in the basement at the exact moment it kicks on so it's not an issue. 3. Open Concept living space - It's so pretty and airy and nice looking! The reality of living in it was not something we enjoyed. We used the functionality of dedicated rooms a LOT more than we entertained anyone. We were also accustomed to a level of quiet that you can't get when your kitchen is part of your living room. I didn't realize how often two people would be having a private conversation, one person would be doing school work, and another would be cooking at the same time and we found it really annoying and distracting to have all of those things happening in the same room. 4. A new sofa - I just made a bad choice. However, I'm they type to use a sofa for twenty years until it literally falls apart. I wish I'd chosen a different one. It really should be more comfortable for what we paid for it. I could probably fix it by adding a layer of denser foam under the bottom cushions, but I'm much better at dreaming up projects than I am at completing them. 5. Two Story House - ugh . . . If I had a time machine. The light, the ease of cleaning, the accessibility. Our house works for us, but if I had it to do over again I'd go the rancher route.

Annnnd I'm still in denial 🙂 "Put up tree" is on my to-do list yesterday and got bumped to today. We'll see. I have my last class before the holidays for one class tonight and the same deal with co-op tomorrow so I can see it getting rescheduled again. Goofing off here isn't helping.

I don’t understand how an actress playing an imaginary woman can “look abused by her husband” or not look “normal” or “happy.” People analyzing it like it’s authentic footage is what confuses me. Sometimes there are just bad commercials. It doesn’t mean imaginary lady needs an imaginary intervention. I think imaginary lady just created an imaginary fitness habit. That’s HARD for some (real) people and WOULD be life changing even if your size remained the same. People LOVE to pile on. They just do.

Can’t you turn the suction down on your vacuum cleaner? Mine has settings for rugs, drapes, upholstery, etc.

My outdoor lights are a projector I plug in and aim at the house and I STILL haven't done them.

I wouldn't even attempt traditional in that room. If you go a little more modern you can fake like you did it on purpose. It took me YEARS to come around to this concept in my mid-century home. 😕 At least that's the style now and you can find LOTS of things that go.

The perfume adds crack me up. Advertisers must be shaking their heads at the emperor's-new-clothes ridiculousness of the whole concept. It's a smell and it's subjective. "Fine . . . just film more naked people in water. Make sure they whisper and make sure people have to see the add twenty times before they even realize we're selling a fragrance." I swear that's the formula. Yesterday I gifted my DH with some coffee beans. I guess I was telling him he needed to wake TF up and get something done around here. Have you all seen the Peleton add spoof site? I can't find it because of the recent uproar over the new commercial, but basically a guy took all of the photos from the print ads and rewrote them. He has things like. "Just built a $4000 stage in my living room to hold my new Peleton!"

I’m offended that Peleton took a mid-ranged bike that wasn’t selling, then jacked the price way up, added slick advertising, and got away with it in a luxury market. I don’t think they improved the bike at all! I hate that price no longer has ANYTHING to do with quality.

I have barely started. Barely. I'm in so much trouble this year. I haven't pulled out the first decorations and I have a few unopened Amazon boxes in my living room. That's it. I really need the panic monkey to show up right about now. 😬 I think this is the age where we can transition to trips instead but nobody else wants to travel!

It's making more sense now. You need a lot of bedrooms for a lot of people. Around here, below grade space doesn't count towards square footage. I was imagining 3000 square feet excluding the basement and was wondering WHY you'd choose a house at that price point that you didn't love. Finding enough bedrooms in the normal, mid-range of family homes has to be a real challenge with all of the 3-4 bedroom places on the market. Can you throw some sheet vinyl over the expanse of tile to make your lives easier until you can figure something out? The tile is still there for resale, but the vinyl is so easy to live with and maintain.

Around here they are no joke and a ton of work. They're really good for college preparation whether or not you test high enough on an AP exam to skip a college class. They also give your kid a classroom with more studious classmates whereas the 'regular' classes can be populated with students who may or may not do their work. Serious slackers rarely take AP classes. Honors classes are in the middle. Taking too many AP classes in a year can really fry your kid out. We're talking hours and hours of homework every night.

I try to do savory for these things because they end up looking like a dessert bar. Crockpot cheesy potatoes are easy and can be done in the oven in disposable roasting pans. ( I like the cracker barrel copycat.) Quiches are easy to do lots of and are good at any temperature. I've done a huge baking pan with fried potatoes, onions, peppers, sausage, and scrambled eggs and provided the smaller soft shell tortillas, cheese, and salsa for breakfast burritos. You can make anything festive with red and green bell peppers. Or just do a fruit platter in the shape of a Christmas tree.

I love this. My friend has a great story about the exact moment her son developed a sense of modesty. He ran out to the van in his boxers to retrieve a pair of pants. This was not out of character for him. The van was in the driveway. He suddenly felt exposed, dropped to the ground, and low-crawled back to the front door. He never went outside in his boxers and t-shirt again. His mother had been trying to convince him for years that it was a bad idea, but he never really comprehended until the day that he did. 😂 Meanwhile his three-year-old sister wouldn't leave the house if her purse didn't match her shoes. 🤣

I while ago I would have said it was overkill, but now with larger and larger pockets of anti-vaxers, young babies aren't protected like they were even twenty years ago. I get why a young mother would make this request. The flu shot may be over-reaching, but in my house we all get it because my son has to get it. The owners of the baby get to make the rules for baby access and we who wish to snuggle said baby must comply.

It does make more sense with basement space or later renovations. I didn't think of basement space because mine is completely underground and never counts towards square footage. OPs house also could have started with fewer bedrooms and been renovated to have more. My house is almost 50 and it's a friggin time capsule. We purchased from the original owners and we haven't done much either. I forget that normal people update things. 😕 We started with THREE harvest gold bathrooms, but a huge fallen tree forced us to renovate two of them. I'm not trying to be nit picky. I'm just trying to visualize the house as the thread goes on to 'see' what the problems are. I guess it would be hard to settle into a house that you disliked so much that just kept presenting new challenges. Some personality types are better at demanding exactly what they need in a home and not resting until they get it, and some are better at growing where they're planted. If this is truly a weird house issue and not a restless personality (that would carry a massive to-do list into ANY home) I might be inclined to change my opinion to thinking moving is a good idea after all. That wasn't really my first impulse.

Wait, why would a house with over 3000 sq ft have a master bedroom that small? (I just put the two posts together.) I don’t think I understand this house at all.

If she removes the tv entirely, she can’t watch a movie with the family because the other tv is in the basement and inaccessible. Oooooh, what if you got a projector tv. You could put the equipment over the piano and a white, roll-up screen on the ceiling over the fireplace. When you’re not watching anything it would disappear into the ceiling, but when you are watching a movie your furniture is still oriented toward the fireplace so you only have one focal point to cope with. Also, the ottoman could shift to the perimeter when it’s needed as additional seating and returned to the center for family lounging. We put vinyl plank in our house to make it more wheelchair friendly. We’ve only had it for about three years but it has suffered no damage from dog claws or heavy equipment. Real wood is nicer, but with the expense and damage risk we went with vinyl. It was DIY friendly and I was able to do it by myself in a few days. It’s also water proof so if I’m clumsy while watering my plants, or if ds’s tires are wet, there’s no harm done.

One of these years I’m gonna get bold and tell the kids that they can have dessert when 1. Their dishes are in the dishwasher 2. They’ve put away one batch of leftovers. 3. They’ve washed one pot or serving dish. By the time any adults can face dessert the cleanup will be mostly done. 😬 I already make the kids take a family photo before I feed them. The kids in my family are especially food motivated. 🤣

Do they own a marble track? That’s just fun for everyone. Sometimes I played with it when my kids weren’t looking.

I thought some of the questions were a bit vague. A lot of them were things everyone would notice or feel, but not everyone would be upset or derailed by them. It almost seems like this author’s definition of highly sensitive is that people can’t see themselves as separate from whatever environment they’re in at the moment and push through with something unpleasant without freaking out. The questionnaire didn’t allow for the subtlety of disliking something but not having it derail your mood or ability to perform.

How about this? Can you put the tv over the piano?