I agree! And for what it's worth, I named one of my fur babies Persephone, and we called her Percy. I LOVE that name! :grouphug: ETA: My name is Amy, and my last name is very hard to pronounce and spell for the general public. I actually have to spell Amy just as much as my last name given the "hundreds" of spellings for Amy. :)

I agree with all of this! I spent the first couple of years separating the colors. Once I realized how much time I spent doing that versus the cost of replacing it when it got really, really, really bad, I now choose to let it mix and buy new. I usually replace once a year at Christmas. We LOVE Play-Doh around here. :tongue_smilie:

We do, too. The "gameroom" was used as our business for so long that we still refer to it as "the office" even though it now houses all the toys and crafts, technically "playroom". The "playroom" was in the formal living room which currently sits empty but is still called the "playroom". The formal dining room was the "school room" for a couple of years but was changed to arts/crafts/projects when the business moved out of our house. It is still called the "school room". The powder room (1/2 bath) is blue so much that everyone (including family/friends/guests) refer to it as the "blue bathroom". No matter what we paint that bathroom, it will always be the "blue bathroom". :) I think the fact that this house has good square footage in all the wrong places leads to the confusion. :)

We also refer to the room that was formally the baby's room as the nursery. The baby is now 3 years old. :) I assume that if someone uses the term "nursery" it means their youngest's room. :tongue_smilie:

We have traveled 4.5 hrs one way to see my family every 3-6 weeks for the the past 7 years. :) My in laws live 10 minutes from us and we see them once every 8-10 weeks much to my husband's dismay. I never took school with us. We would leave Friday afternoon or evening and come home sometime on Sunday depending on traffic, etc.

I LOVE this! I am very fortunate to be able to discuss ANYTHING with my close neighbors/friends. We have hung out and discussed everything under the sun EVERY Friday night in our garage for the last 10 years! We almost never agree on anything, but, boy, the discussions are fun, respectful, and fulfilling (and sometimes rowdy, too). :) I wonder if DH will let me make and display a HUGE purple donkephant on our lawn like the support signs on everyone else's. :) I LOVE this! ETA: And anyone is welcome to join us when you're in our neck of the 'burbs. :) It's Bring Your Chair and Drinks (anything from water to moonshine). The kids can join our brood for play or movies. ...what happens in the garage, stays in the garage. :)

As a business owner, I would add that should you enter into a written agreement with this person, you should have the document drafted by a lawyer. In the grand scheme of things, contracts can not and will not prevent someone from coming after you legally, but it works wonders in mediation/court. We have had this happen to us...and we lived to tell the tale. ;)

Thankfully DD7 had a great day also. She is exhausted and was starving so much that she had a stomach ache. She was shocked that they didn't actually do any school work today. :) But she thanked me for letting her go and told me "You made the right decision, Mom." Thank goodness she is stronger than me! Looks like this public school thing is going to stick. ;) I guess now I can start fretting about the academics (or lack there of) and planning some afterschool-ing to keep up our grammar and math. :tongue_smilie: I hope everyone else had a successful day! :grouphug: Now to survive Day 2...

Two hours and counting... :) On the plus side,I found the top of my desk! I haven't seen it in months! And I found an Ebates check for $30 I never opened in the stacks of mail! :lol: ...never managed to tackle the laundry though. Too much pouting this morning. :tongue_smilie:

I'm right there with you. :( We started public 2nd grade today. I am nervous. Daughter is/was super anxious. I don't want to do this, but our decision was based on some family logistics and her desire to attend school with some other kids. I "know" it is the best thing for now, but, boy-oh-boy, I. do.not.want.to.do.this. I'm having flash backs to in-home daycare when she was first born, and I was working outside home. I hated it then with a passion, and I hate it now. I feel like I'm giving my kid away. :( I was going to get through the mountains of paperwork on my desk, get the kids laundry done, and maybe tackle some of our gameroom conversion (moving our business out of our home this week also). Instead, I am reading the internet and fretting, fretting, fretting and crying, crying, crying. I would LOVE to go sit outside the building right now and just wait. :) Funny thing though, my neighbor and best friend has 7 kiddos. She has been crying this morning, too, and they have ALWAYS attended public school. :) She should be a pro (college, 9th, 2x 8th, 5th, 1st, 3-yr-old preschool), but she is in tears also! :tongue_smilie: Plus we usually sleep until 9am and had to be up at 6am...YIKES! My 2 younger kiddos (5, 2) asked why I was waking them in the "middle of the night". When I asked what my 5-yr-old wanted for breakfast, she asked why we weren't having supper! :) Good luck and hang in there! This is going to be a LONG day!!!!!!!! ...for that matter, a LONG year! :glare:

Don't forget BioMedical Engineers! I have designed disposable surgical devices such as dilators, introducers, catheters, needles/canulas, guide wires, etc. I have also designed breast implants and tissue expanders. :) BioEngineers have their hands in many, many, many things. BioMedical Engineering rocked!!! I LOVED it (the discipline, not working for someone..I'm "retired" now)!!! Great discipline as it is specialized but in great need (and need is growing with pharm/medical world).

When DH was full-time employed, it was the same for him also. He was in an upper management position so he was never really "off". But the difference was that he could handle something and refer it back to another employee in the office. Now, when we are on the road, there is no one in the office! :tongue_smilie: Unless you count me in the passenger seat furiously taking notes, looking up information, and conducting a fast game of charades to make the customer's experience seamless. :tongue_smilie: ...while widly gesticulating for the kids to be quiet "because Daddy is on a work phone call". :lol: ahhhhh...good times!

We have our own business. It requires very little overhead costs, and we run it from our home. Our entire business is conducted via internet/phone/email with occasional trips to visit our customers face-to-face across the US. DH has been in this industry for 20+ years always starting divisions for other companies and seeing them reap the benefits. After a very bad venture to go out on his own with horrific "partners" (that we later successfully sued but didn't benefit because lawyers cost same amount we were awarded—it was the principle of the matter), he decided to go it completely alone with 2 customers he felt would make the move with him (not a mutual decision—but that’s another tale). I was working as a Biomedical Engineer making almost 6 figures yearly when he started his company. He was making 6 figures working for others. I quit my job almost immediately (4 months into it--not a mutual decision). Our income was cut 60% just like that. Yikes! Talk about pressure to succeed! We cruised along for 2 years at 40% income, not able to invest back into the company but surviving status quo. Over the total 6 years we have been at this, our income is now 200% what we were making combined for other people. It's still just us with very little of me involved now that we have 3 kids under 7 and homeschool. :) I do all the accounting at night after bedtime (2 hours). The past 6 months growth has created a serious need for office space and employees! We are burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. It's nuts around here! But employees are expensive as is office space and furnishing it. Our overhead will increase dramatically in the next 3 months. Banks still see us as new, and credit is hard to obtain. We were just granted our first line of credit, and it’s still not enough. 75% of the 200% is needed as operating capital. So we now have 125% (of our work force income) to live on (I’m not going to lie, it’s nice). We have always been very conservative, trying not to "grow" too fast, but trying to capture any and all business. We have just reached the point where we cannot capture all the available business because we have maxed out human resources (us). We constantly evaluate where we are at financially and our work-home balance, family goals, etc. But when we started making 100% of what we brought home working for others, we had a major evaluation. Working for yourself (as you probably know) can be hard. Working for yourself and having no secondary income is incredibly hard because the stakes are so much higher. We reached the 100% mark around the 4 year point. At that time we felt like we could reenter the work force for the same money, but if we moved forward and made more money, our income would be hard if not impossible to replace in the work force (plus too much time would lapse to reenter easily). It was THE do or die moment. Our business runs 24/7 365 days a year. We NEVER get a vacation—EVER. That is the toughest part. When we have tried to travel for a 4-day weekend, it’s near impossible. We have taken printers/scanners/computers on road to set up shop on hotels to work. It puts a real damper on a “vacationâ€. We have conducted business going down the road—very stressful and a PIA. We are burned out of working so much, but, hey, we are the boss. It is what it is. We reap the rewards so we do the work. Every once in a while we dream about how “easy†it was working for others. Everyone in our world thinks we have it very easy because we work for ourselves full time. I liken it to homeschooling. Homeschooling can be hard and requires a serious time commitment. Some days it seems easier to put kids in school. But as many here point out, PS comes with its own time commitments, and the grass isn’t always greener, just a different color. After all the above, I would advise to put the reasonable worst-case numbers on paper. Make a contingency plan “just in caseâ€. That might be cash in savings, remaining connected to work force, cutting expenses, down-sizing, etc. Make a 1/5/10 year plan regarding expenses and sales. What kind of business levels would require expansion from a mom-pop size to micro size to small size? Would you need credit from the bank at some point? How does your personal credit look because we had to rely on that for the first 5 years? And EVERYONE makes you jump through more hoops to verify your income when you are solely self-employed. It’s not right, but they do. Are you the kind of people that can find more to give when you’ve given everything? And constantly update all plans and reevaluate along the way! We LOVE working for ourselves! It is so so so so so hard, but we LOVE it! Good luck!!!!! ETA...A day off means losing that day's revenue in addition to any revenue that our customer will give to another vendor in the coming days because we were not available to quote/capture that business. So no vacations.

Alum--make it into a paste with water. We apply Alum paste, then apply a bandaid so it stays on the bite. Alum is the spice used in pickling (spice aisle at store). Very, very effective on bites. My great grandmother's suggestion passed along.

1. When the youngest kid turns 18 (typical high school grad age), I will be 54 and DH will be 64. 2. This literally keeps DH up some nights fretting. If I ever get some real sleep again, I'll think about it then. :tongue_smilie: 3. We are burning the candle at both ends and in the middle right now to build our business to a point of passive income (with little manager oversight-type needs) or retirement. Given that we haven't had a spare moment in the last 7 years (and it's not slowing down, ramping up), who knows what we'll want to do then.

Our Staples added this service. They charge $.79/lb. I have about $600 worth of shredding. :)

Google CDC and Hep A. It describes how the series has to be administered and how long before international travel. We just went through this with my sister who is starting college in NY and travels international. It turns out that Texas requires the series for public schools so she had both her shots. If I remember correctly CDC said that 2 shot series is good for many, many years. Interestingly for this NY college Hep A was recommended but not required. My mom is always cautious about the vaccines but the international travel changes things.

We are also 10 years apart in age. DH was 45 and I was 35. We have 3 kiddos and were done. DH still frets over his age compared to his young kids. I will have to tell him about this thread because it appears that there are quite a few like us! :)

While I can't speak to the specific neighborhoods you mentioned, my extended family lives (and grew up there as well) in the Spring/Woodlands area. We are currently in Dallas and are considering moving to the Houston area. The Conroe/Woodlands area is in our top 3 choices. I have immediate family in Cypress (south of Spring/Woodlands a short distance off Hwy 290). My baby sister just graduated from high school there this year. It is a wonderful place to live and grow up. Hope that helps a little. Shopping is great in all those areas. Wide economic diversity in Spring and Conroe. Mostly middle class and up in Woodlands (at least in my experience) but can be more expensive area. Lots of families with kiddos in all three areas.

Yep. DH and I were in an antique shop last week and ran across his metal snoopy lunch box. It was going for $55! We both just stood there, staring at it, stunned. Talk about feeling old! :glare:

When I was growing up, I had a Cathy poster in my room that my mom bought at a garage sale (not sure why). I stared at that poster every night falling to sleep and consequently memorized it. I have no idea why it has stuck with me for 25-30 years. :tongue_smilie: Anyhow, I now repeat the words from that poster every night to each kiddo when tucking them into bed. :) "You are talented, gifted, creative, charming, brilliant, beautiful, sweet, thoughtful, witty, clever, gorgeous, dynamic, and a joy to be around." The Cathy poster was signed "Your Mother".. ;)

Except for the insane fees, I have had acceptable luck with online florists. I use online florists every Mother's Day for 5-6 people and use the same sources an additional 5-6 times throughout the year. I always check ebates.com first to see what discounts I can use through them (very easy to use if you have never done so). Also, Amex almost always has a discount or increased bonus points for one of them (and we use Amex points to remodel our house :) ). For many years I have used the usual suspects... 1800flowers.com ftd.com proflowers.com teleflora.com (haven't used in a few years) Hope that helps!

If you'll be here after Thanksgiving in November, be sure to take in the Christmas lights at the library in Frisco (hop, skip, and jump from Denton). Babe's Chicken is in the same area. Huge lights display set to music and very, very, very cool!

We are thinking of Molly and her family today. May she rest in peace and her family find comfort. :grouphug:

We always used moth balls. They stink so a caution and the smell might keep the kids from them. Put them under the porch past your utility items. The kids probably aren't crawling under there, I assume. The feral cats hated moth balls. We also put pine cones in our indoor potted plants to keep the cats from peeing in the soil. It worked great but might not be a practical solution for a large area unless you live with access to lots of pine cones. I have not tried a citrus smell but that might have some limitations in a large outdoor area.