I watch a few beauty YouTube channels and have a couple of middle aged women I love. Have you ever watched Angie at Hot and Flashy? She's 53, I think. Or Dominique Sachse? She's around 47-48. Both have great channels and can give you some good ideas on what the middle aged crowd is looking for. :)

Before I read the responses, I'm going to guess you're here in the Pacific Northwest-Portland to Seattle? :) ETA: Yay! I was right! :D I actually did use an umbrella on Tuesday which was the hardest day of rain in my town. I was a downpour and I had to walk a few blocks from my car to the hair salon and back. I didn't want my newly styled hair to get drenched. ;) Normally, I just put up the hood of my rain coat if it's more than a mist. We have had lots of flooding here west of Portland. There was actually a tornado today in Battle Ground, WA not too far from the WA/OR border.

Thank you!

Say Leesburg to Sterling and a small radius around that. :)

Hi All~ Does anyone live in Loudoun County, VA and have a recommendation for a good dr.? My dd is away at college and having some health issues. She's been to urgent care but I want her to see a dr. she can develop a relationship with for her college years. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I'm a checked bag kind of gal. :) I fly about 6 times per year. Which airline are you flying? Most charge for checked bags but Southwest has 2 bags checked free per person. You would also be charged an overweight fee if your bag is over 50lbs. so make sure you don't have too much packed in there. My family would be able to do a 6 night trip with one checked bag. We might consider checking one suitcase with clothes and one duffel type bag with toiletries and extra shoes. I carry one tote bag and my purse onto the plane. Make sure you are accounting for bringing home any souvenirs. You can only have two carry on items per person: one larger item and one small, personal item. You don't want to get stuck with goodies you can't carry in the minimal bags you brought. We have traveled for speech and debate tournaments and just ship trophies home. You could to the same with souvenirs.

We moved to the Portland area from Orange County a little over 2 years ago. We love it and are so happy here! So far, we haven't experienced the months and months of gray weather that were promised to us. ;) We would love that kind of weather. I'm sure Seattle is rainier. It is true that the shortened daylight hours during the winter months can be rough. That's really the only real adjustment I've had to make. I love the casual lifestyle, the slower pace, and the lack of keeping up with the Joneses compared to Orange County!

WHY are there no drivers in Oregon who follow the rules at a 4-way stop? WHY must they always just sit there when it is clearly their turn to go and wave to me to go through instead? WHY is there never a pencil available the minute my 10 yo sits down to do his schoolwork? WHY does my dh always say, "How come you didn't tell me that?" when I've told him about 6 times. :lol:

I can totally understand some of your reasoning and preferences. This friend has an iPhone and, I'm almost certain she has unlimited texting. I see her text others all the time. I usually have send simple texts like: "I can pick your kid uo at 2pm." Instead of just texting "OK," she will call and tell me OK and then talk for another 10-15 minutes about unrelated things. :p It's almost always something that can be addressed in a sentence or less. :)

I'm just wondering what the norm is. I have a friend who almost always calls me immediately after I text her. She usually says, "I thought it would just be easier to call you." I often think, "I'm the one who texted you. If it was easier to be on the phone, I would have called." :) I am usually just texting with a quick update on a scheduling issue, a very simple question requiring maybe a one sentence answer, etc. Granted, I am a major introvert and hate the phone. So, what is your experience?

I hope we can keep the thread open. It's expanding my mind and causing me to really think hard about some things. :) I saw the "pep rally" after she was released. I'm conservative. I'm a Christian. It really made my skin crawl. :blush5:

I'm currently carrying this purse: http://m.michaelkors.com/sutton-medium-saffiano-leather-satchel/_/R-US_30S4GTVS6L?No=108&color=1999 I have it in a two toned blue. Dh bought it for me for my birthday. :) I love that it has two side zippered areas where I can stash stuff I don't need as often. My wallet, keys, sunglasses, and a book fit perfectly in the main compartment.

Thank you! I think I'll stick with Dulles. :)

I'm planning a trip to VA to see my dd for her fall break at school. I usually fly into Dulles. I like that airport. I find it easy to navigate. I stay close to there and it's simple to drop off my rental car and get back to the terminal. Flights are cheaper in and out of Reagan this time. Would you fly into Reagan over Dulles for a $50 or so reduction? Dd's school is about 30 min from Dulles and about an hour from Reagan. I can get to her school from Dulles with no tolls and it's a pretty straight shot. What do you think?

I'm only on page 13 of the thread but I'm going to throw this out there anyway. :D First, I want to thank everyone for the discussion! It has really helped me process my thoughts. As to this specific case, I think Davis is dead wrong. I do believe she has an obligation to fulfill her oath and that is to issue marriage licenses. She is not being asked to sin. If she were, I might have a different opinion (I'm still thinking that through), but in this case she is not. She is not being asked to approve of or endorse same-sex marriage. She is simply required to issue a license certifying that the marriage is legal. Whether she wants it to be legal is another matter. It is not a sin for me to say, "Same-sex marriage is legal in the United States," and it is not a sin for her to sign a document saying the same. She can believe same-sex marriage itself is a sin but she cannot say it is not legal. It's really pretty simple.

:lol: It's the term she used for herself in her blog. ;)

It's actually 3 out of the 4 oldest children. One of them has restored her relationship with her parents in spite of having married a Muslim. Daughter number 3, in particular, has written extensively about her claims of abuse during the past year and has come out as sapiosexual. I'm very familiar with this family having been involved in homeschool speech and debate for the past 8 years.

She hasn't had a checkup in about a year. I will try to get her in this week. Well, my dd left for college last August, came home for Christmas, and then was home for the summer. She just went back to school again last week. The aggression toward the male started in the spring so didn't really seem to correlate. I don't think she's got anything painful going on. She's not moving any differently. Yeah. She definitely seems to be telling what is hers. And she's not nice about it. ;) I'll look into the possibility of a trainer. I suppose that's a possibility. He's pretty slow these days. He's an old man. I will try examining her for any pain. She is way more likely to let me do it than anyone else. Thank you so much for the direction!

Hi Everyone, I always read the dog threads here as I am a huge lover of dogs and always want to listen in on the conversation. :) I need help with mine. I have two basset hounds-a male and a female. We adopted them from a family that we know who had them from the time they were puppies. Our male is almost 10 and our female is 8. We have had them almost 4 years. The female has very obvious anxiety problems and, according to our friends, has since she was a puppy. She is very sweet but very skittish. She is also very attached to our male. He is definitely her security blanket. When she's nervous, she goes right to his side. She may be afraid to do something but if he does it, she'll get her courage and do it, too. BUT, she is becoming increasingly aggressive with the male. She will sometimes snap at him while he's eating. She has a toy and if he even walks by it, she may bite him. If she's lying next to me and he tries to come up, she will snap and bite him. She was not like this until maybe the last 6 months. She just does it without warning. I feel sorry for him because he just looks at me like, "What did I do?" Just a few minutes ago she was lying in a favorite spot near my desk. He approached and she snapped at him. So far, he is the only one she has shown any aggression towards. She has snapped at my 9 yo ds a couple of times but only when he has done something like lie on her or pull her ears. Otherwise, nothing towards anyone except the male. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm getting to the point where she makes me nervous because I don't know if she's going to all of a sudden decide to be like this towards a person. I'm feeling like I don't trust her anymore. Any insight? Suggestions? Experience to share? These two are my loves. I am definitely both of their favorite person and I want to remedy this problem. TIA,

:grouphug: :grouphug: I just took my dd back for her sophomore year 2800 miles away. I was so glad she asked me to come with her again. At the beginning of the summer she said she didn't need me to come but then she changed her mind and asked me to come. I was able to meet lots of her friends. One of them told me that I'm the "coolest mom on Twitter." I'm not even on Twitter but, apparently, dd posts about me all the time on there. :D It's hard to let them go but so exciting to see what their future has in store. I understand and offer :grouphug: :grouphug:

I, too, have lost a child and wanted to say that Quill expressed my thoughts.

This is exactly how I felt about the book! My favorite lines come near the end and really sum it up for me. Jean Louise is speaking with Uncle Jack (pg 265) and he says: "Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscience." He continues: "...now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle onto your father's. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man's heart, and a man's failings--I'll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes 'em like all of us. You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming your answers would always be his answers." And finally: "We wondered sometimes, when your conscience and his would part company, and over what." To me this is so beautiful and really endears Atticus all the more to me. He provided Scout and Jem a strong moral compass when they were children. He instilled in them a desire to seek justice. They lived their childhoods in the safety of a loving father who raised them to be their own people. After GSAW, I see Atticus as someone desiring social justice and social change but realizing that an institution such as racism is not going to change overnight. So, he is doing his part during his lifetime and he raised his children to do their part during their lifetimes. I think Scout will eventually realize that she can make huge strides towards righting social wrongs but there will still be work to do long after she's gone. I really loved the book! TKAM is my favorite book and I was very satisfied reading GSAW.

I got my Charge HR after the first go 'round of this thread. :) I love it! When I first got it, I decided to just go about my normal daily routine for a week or so to see what my average step count was and I was horrified at how little I was moving. I made a goal for myself to not walk under 7500 steps per day without a really good exception like being sick. ;) Over the past 4 weeks, I've only had 3 days where I recorded less than 10,000 steps! I'm very proud of myself. :D I've also been spending about an hour per day in the "very active" zone. I like the sleep tracker and find that it is pretty accurate for me. When I lay in bed to read, I just move around a little bit every now and then so it doesn't think I'm asleep. I wanted to track heart rate since I have issues with high blood pressure and just wanted the record so I could provide more info to my dr. Now, what's making me mad is that I haven't changed my eating except for reducing what little soda I already drank and I have not lost a single ounce in spite of all of my active time. So much for calories in/calories out. :glare:

My current chiropractor is Dr. Rathbone. :lol: My kids' former pediatrician was Dr. Akey (pronounced ache-ey) :)

Dd has to dress in business casual during class hours: 8am - 6pm, I think. I'm sure she'd like to wear a nice pair of sweatpants to class but she can't. ;)