If the OP's shower is anything like ours, I can understand. Ours is *noisy.* I can't sleep through it, so dh and I get up at the same time every morning. If the OP's shower is on the wall next to their bedroom, I can see the need for showering at a time when they aren't trying to sleep.

I voted no, because they don't actually do the loading of it into the machine. They are responsible for gathering it, taking it downstairs to the laundry room, and then folding and putting it away after it's washed and dried. I do all the laundry on the weekends, and it's just easier to work their laundry into my schedule.

My kids have to have their own tubes of toothpaste - it grosses ds out to even consider sharing. They each have their own shower puff, although I'm not sure if either one uses them anymore.

Is it possible to split up the cars, or some of the cars, so they each have some that are theirs alone? I think it's difficult for kids to have to share everything, and they do need some things that are theirs to control. I think I'd put them in a pile and let each child choose 5 or 10 (I don't know how many you have) to have as their own, and have some type of container for each to store them in, and if necessary, label the cars for them. My kids are pretty good at sharing now, but they've always had things that were theirs and that they could decide whether or not they wanted to share those items. It wasn't something that was always forced - you *have* to share.

I made these for the first time the other day - they are dark chocolate brownies. Many recipes are a tad too sweet for me, and my family thought these were great: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/desserts/sinfully-dark-chocolate-brownies/

Dh and I have before when we were very poor college students, but I haven't since then and wouldn't. . .

That was my first thought, too - I'd be trying to call, but not going over!

Will she eat any raw meat, or an egg? Some cats don't do well with eggs, but I'd keep trying different foods. I might even offer canned fish if she hasn't eaten for a couple days.

I don't know what it might be (my cat has gone on food strikes before), but I know it's really important you get her to eat something. It's really not good for cats to go w/o eating for too long - it will cause liver damage. So try a different food, raw meat (I feed my cat a raw diet now), just try to find something she will eat.

I've started using Finish, too. I was using Cascade powder and it left an awful film unless I used an additive like Lemi-Shine or borax. I tried the Finish tabs and they worked great, so I bought some of the powder (less expensive and I can use less if I have a small load), and it's been working wonderfully as well. I don't have to use Lemi-Shine or anything, and we have hard water.

I voted no because I don't plan on starting later, but my ds is very slow to wake up most mornings, and so I'm expecting things to move even more slowly for a couple days at least. I'm still going to push (gently) for the normal starting time, but we probably won't make it.

I have a KA mixer and borrowed dh's aunt's pasta maker attachment to try it out. I ended up buying an Imperia pasta machine instead. It comes with a spaghetti and linguini cutter, but you can get all sorts of different cutters and a ravioli maker for it. I just bought the ravioli maker, but haven't had a chance to use it yet :)

I don't notice the coconut flavor all the time, but my dh does. He does not like it in his meals, so I use expeller pressed (has no coconut flavor) for anything that's a main dish, sauteeing, frying, etc. I'll use the virgin coconut oil in baking.

It really depends on how warm your house is. In summer, mine melts (I have gallon buckets of expeller pressed and virgin coconut oil in my pantry). In winter, the virgin oil is very hard, the expeller is slightly less so. My palm oil is the softness of shortening all the time, but the coconut oil varies greatly :)

Congrats!! :grouphug:

I may have to look into those - it's been awhile since I planted any new flowers in my yard :)

I only have one other rose now, and it may be an alba (my mom gave it to me). I would love to have more, but have been hesitant because of how much work my Alchymist has been. Everything else in my yard is survival of the fittest :tongue_smilie:

I'm in zone 4 (Idaho). Depending on the source, I've seen Alchymist rated for as low as zone 4, but I don't know if they're considering that it only blooms on old wood. That's one of the reasons I bought it in the first place - I thought it would be cold hardy here and easy to care for. . .and some years, it probably would not die clear back to the ground, but even so, many of the canes would die off and I wouldn't get very many blooms, if any. So I don't know if it's my particular climate here or if it's really not hardy to zone 4.

I guess - lol. I take whatever I can get with it - most of it ends up being 6ft tall or so. I would love to be able to keep it taller, but just haven't figured out how to preserve it over the winter (and I don't have the room to try to trench it in the ground - it's right in the corner of two fences and the area around it is full of daylilies and iris). One year I thought I killed it (before I knew I needed to wrap it). The garden centers were reporting that over 50% of all the roses in the area died due to the extreme weather, and it looked dead. I went out to dig up the stump and throw it away, and as I was digging, I saw tiny green shoots coming out, and was so relieved!

I can't successfully wrap it any higher than 7ft or so, and because of our winters, the tips still get killed off. So I don't have to grow it on anything - it just never gets tall enough, unfortunately.

And that's the reason why I put up with babying it through our winters. . .it only blooms on old wood and will die back to the ground most years unless I wrap it very well. And since it's a thorny rose, it's quite an ordeal - lol. But every year it blooms, I think it's all worth it :)

I haven't grown a lot of roses, but read up on some and planted this rose a few years after we moved into this house. I absolutely *love* this rose (it's my avatar). It's called Alchymist. One of the things I love best about it is that the blooms change in appearance and somewhat in color from the bud til it's fully blossomed - and it has a wonderful, light fragrance.

I would want a shower and tub in the bathroom. I rarely take baths, but a bathtub was essential in the kids' bathroom when they were younger, and now that they're older, they use the shower.

Dh and I play WOW, too, and have a great guild. A few times a year, I'll take a couple weeks off from playing, and dh always loves it when I decide to play again :) He's the social one and has a lot of business social engagements that I could go to, but generally choose not to, so we really don't do much exciting. We rarely even get out to go to dinner by ourselves. But we just enjoy spending time together, and other than WOW, we have a few TV shows we watch together.

My dd hasn't been diagnosed with asthma, but has had a number of episodes where she feels like she can't breathe and gets panicky. I stumbled across this when I was searching for things to help her, and she now will do this exercise when she needs to and says it really helps: http://www.nqnet.com/buteyko/buteyko-kids.html I also watched this 17 part video series and read some more about the Buteyko method - he talked about sleep apnea and snoring, and the crazy idea of taping your mouth shut while sleeping to help with that. My dh snores a lot and I'd often have to sleep in the guest room because of it, but he agreed to try the tape (he's a good sport!), but it's really amazing how much it has helped. He's sleeping better than he has in years (and so am I). So anyway, here's a link to the first video - he gives a whole history on the method and why it works, etc: