I went looking around for independent reviews of mosquito traps. Amazon has mediocre reviews of the MM. I found this site, which seems to have extensive information on many types of mosquito traps. http://www.picaridin.info/mosquito-trap-reviews.htm

how loud is the mosquito magnet?

As someone considering a Philosphy degree, I'm signing!

I'm so glad you shared that. Congratulations...

she's great!

my heart goes out to those people who are looking for familly/friends: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-40286910

I cannot step outside these days without getting chewed up! Went out my granddaughter yesterday in the late morning and we both immediately had bites. I quickly took her back inside. Unfortunately, she gets awful looking welts. My daughter has to cover them with band-aides because they get so bad looking and they hurt. I think all my concern about fleas is mostly because we've been chewed up by mosquitoes. Is there anything I can use on my yard? Our backyard is North facing and we back up to wooded parkland. We have no sitting water on our property but we're pretty close to all our neighbors. I have no idea what they do.

Amen. I was so sad to hear his condition was downgraded to critical. I hope he pulls through.

I'd love to know what works well for dogs... I use advantage on my dog last week and I think he's got fleas!! Ugh. Thanks for the Dawn detergent idea. I'm thinking of using a flea collar too. I bet they make them for cats.

Whoot!!! I'm SO happy for you. :party:

What? Are you saying that a WTM member's son was at the London fire or the shooting?

Well, I've told my children I'd like to live to be 68. By then everyone will be adults and (I assume) have families of their own. They don't really like when I say that. The reality is I don't want to be a bother, and I don't really think they'll *need* me like they think they will. I guess I'd like to live to be about 80, but only if I can have some independence, which I don't think I will given my extended family health (and also my marriage - if I'm honest). My mom & her sister were both 73 when they passed. Their mother was in her low 80s. My dad is going to turn 80. His parents didn't make it to 80 due to smoking. My dad never smoked, so we'll see what happens. My dh's family are long-lived. My FIL was 103 when he died and his mom was almost 100. My MIL will be 91 this summer. I have no interest in living to be 100. None.

Just awful. My heart goes out to those affected. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40269625

I just saw this come up on BBC of all places, as I'm following the terrible fire in London. It looks like they have a suspect in custody. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/14/532894023/gunman-opens-fire-as-members-of-congress-practice-baseball?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170614

Can you bring one or two of your boys with you to help with the final clean-up? I'm sorry it looks like the other job isn't going to work out. That is a bummer.

congratulations!! I remember him from our Hive meet-up too. Wishing him all the best

FWIW, it sounds like a fun dream to have. I remember once waking up laughing because I had the most silly dream. It just made me smile.

I have also learned the hard way to double and triple check the recipient. It is SO embarrassing :grouphug: .

Thanks everyone for your stories. They are all encouraging. I don't know if I want to build from scratch. I know people who have in this county and it is full of red-tape and frustrations (and $$$$). I wouldn't mind at all taking something that is existing and adding to it. Just finding it in the right location has been difficult.

prayers for your daughter today. So glad it wasn't a worse injury or a concussion. hugs.

I usually get between 6-6.5 hrs. I need about 7.5 . It's even harder now that the sun is up by 5:30. But, I also have to be up before 6:30 2x a week to babysit my g-kids.

One of my thoughts was to buy a house with some flaws and fix it the way that would suit us. We found one house that fits this criteria. It has good bones. The yard is exactly what we would want (shady, flat yard) and it even had a full bath on the main floor. But, it's on the smaller side and the owner has it overpriced by 50-70K. I don't want to over pay for a house that needs remodeling. My thoughts are to be a stickler on the things I cannot change (location, yard) and try to be less particular about the things I can change like bathrooms and kitchens. However, to be honest, I am very particular about style house. I despise tradition boxy colonials and that is the popular style here. I also do not want 3000 + sq feet. There's been several houses that could work quite well but they are far too big for us at this time in our life. We're trying to downsize.

how do you go about doing that? I'm clueless. We did send out letters to one of the neighborhoods but we got about 3-4 responses that went no where. Very disappointing. I suspect most people thought we were flippers.

That is how I felt about the house we removed our offer from. It was a moment... I just knew. And then there were big problems. Sigh. I still think about that house, but it is way overpriced for the condition. (the sellers cannot go lower, so they are in trouble - but that's another topic).

I'm getting pretty discouraged trying to find a house. We have zeroed in on a couple of specific areas, which limits our options. Also, I do have some specific house types that aren't exactly common in this area.....so even more limitations. Just waiting for the right one. We've had a few come up that were close, but one thing or another took it off our acceptable list. We saw two this past week that looked great online but weren't right. Now I'm back to being discouraged that I'l ever find one. Mostly we can tell the house is not what we want just by checking zillow and redfin. For every 10-15 houses I check out on real estate sites, one is worth actually going to visit. We've been looking since Feb/March.