When DS moved out, I moved into his room and it's been life-changing. Getting full nights of sleep for the first time in probably 20 years has been amazing and so good for my overall wellbeing.

I love fluff. It's the only time I'll willingly eat Cool Whip. This one is one of my favorites. I used to work in a grocery store deli, and this was one that was very popular with customers- as it should be. I've also seen it called Caramel Apple Salad. https://lilluna.com/apple-snickers-salad/

I wore a black dress with heeled boots to a wedding just a couple of weeks ago. I dressed it up with a pink cardigan and some jewelry and it didn't look funeral-ish at all. There were zero comments- no one cares how everyone else is dressed, it's all about the wedding party.

DD and her BF are living here together. He moved here from North Carolina to be with her and start a life here. We already had a partially finished basement, so we did a little more work to make it a studio apartment. The only things it doesn't have is a shower (which just hasn't been finished yet) and a full range top. They have small appliances, working kitchenette with my double ovens and a single burner. Anyway, they both live in the basement, but of course, are free to make the rest of the house their home too. DD still has a bedroom upstairs, which is literally just a walk-in closet for her right now, and they both have full use of one of the full baths upstairs for showering purposes. They mostly hang out in the basement, but when I'm home, one or both of them will just come hang out with me for a while. We don't charge them rent. He has a great full time job and she has two part time jobs, so make enough for an apartment, easily, but getting into a good one around here is tough. They are on a couple of waiting lists, so in the meantime, they are working together to increase their savings. They could be here until next summer maybe? If DH or I cook a meal (which seems to happen hardly ever these days) we always ask them if they'd like to join us, or we'll make firm dinner plans with them to know when we're making something. Otherwise, they've taken to buying their own groceries and preparing their own meals. Or more likely, they'll go get take-out from somewhere. They have full use of the laundry and full access to the kitchen and pantry should they want it. They buy what they need when they need it. If they are going shopping and ask if I need anything, I'll let them know if I do, with the expectation that it will be a contribution to the household and I'm not going to reimburse. I do not mind at all that they are learning to live life with another person under the safety of my roof. I mostly like him so far, so it's also been good getting to know him under super casual circumstances. By actually living here, he has to be himself, and I'm not just getting snippets of someone trying to show off their best when they visit.

I've never had it, everyone else in my family has had it twice that we know of. I've worked along side so many people who found out later their cold was covid- one of those was in an enclosed, non-ventilated office with my boss while he coughed and coughed.

Totally agree! And each book company has its own interface, so you have to sign up for different accounts for different publishers, and it just is annoying to have to log into so many things with MFA just to attend to schoolwork. On top of that, some of the interfaces are awful. *Looking at you current Excel course.*

All my fingers and toes are crossed for you today!

The promoting of holidays by stores months before the holiday. Apprently I should have already bought Halloween candy because it's been picked over everywhere. My grocery stores are promoting eggnog "while supplies last" right now. Sam's Club already has the aisles lined with everything one could possibly need to make Thanksgiving dinner. Um, I'm not buying fresh brussels sprouts today for dinner in seven weeks...

I have a Shark, but it's only a vacuum and not a mop. She works extremely well on both hardwood and carpet. I could set her on a timer and have her run when we're not home, but mostly we just let her loose when we're around. Mine has the base that it attaches to and empties when needed. https://www.amazon.com/Shark-AV2501S-Self-Empty-Navigation-UltraClean/dp/B09H8CWFNK/ref=sr_1_4?content-id=amzn1.sym.c9738cef-0b5a-4096-ab1b-6af7c45832cd%3Aamzn1.sym.c9738cef-0b5a-4096-ab1b-6af7c45832cd&keywords=shark%2Bvacuum%2Brobot%2Bvacuums&pd_rd_r=84e19b6c-4728-4fd0-976b-673daef36056&pd_rd_w=IruSx&pd_rd_wg=zyxvR&pf_rd_p=c9738cef-0b5a-4096-ab1b-6af7c45832cd&pf_rd_r=559XG5M4S24A88BN50RV&qid=1696212315&sr=8-4&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf&th=1 That's the one I have. I've had it for a year and it works just as well as when I first got it. I'm always surprised how well it maneuvers around the dining room table and its legs. We had to run the mapping twice because the first time it rolled onto the bottom shelf of a bookshelf and got stuck instead of going along and around the shelf. Oh, and the app wanted me to give it a name, so of course I went with Rosie. 🙂

Google tells me there are several recipes floating out there for a Sweet Potato Baked Oatmeal. I'm sure it's not that different from the sweet potato crumble, but maybe a little heavier on the oats. A long time ago I made a baked quinoa thing that I kind of made up, but this recipe looks delicious: https://www.eatingbirdfood.com/quinoa-breakfast-bake/

I had cyst down there once and my brain went down all the scary paths of all the things it could possibly be other than a cyst. It burst on its own one day when I was applying a warm compress and it was such a blessed moment of relief. Like, instantaneous. I hope they determine it's a cyst and lance it for you to take care of it right away.

You can have mail held at the post office for up to 30 days, AND it can start as soon as the next business day. We had mail held while inbetween moves- it ended up being about 20 days. It's super simple, go online and fill out a hold mail form. At the end of the hold period you have your choice of picking up the held mail or having it delivered. I suggest you opt to pick it up and then use that as your opportunity to change your address and set your forwarding correctly for the new address. Or if you need longer, that's when you could sign up for the PO Box.

Ooooh, gotcha. 🙂 I misunderstood your crying for happy crying. I highly doubt you have anything to fear.

One of the thing that CFA did this year is make it easier to customize the menu to your liking. You can totally add bleu cheese to the Cobb salad. Since the Cobb already comes with shredded cheese blend, it's up to you if you want the bleu in addition to that, or ask them to take off the cheese blend and just add the bleu.

Around here going to the movies on Christmas Day has become kind of a big thing, and one of our theatres has a pretty decent burger/fries/shakes menu that you can get delivered right to your seat in the theater.

I work at CFA and am really sick of the menu after 4 years, but that pimento cheese sandwich is To.Die.For. I like extra jalapenos. You can get it with grilled chicken if you can eat the grilled chicken. Order a Honey Pepper Pimento Sandwich with grilled chicken and no bun. You'll get a filet of grilled chicken topped with pickled jalapenos, pimento cheese and honey in a bowl. If you like the gluten free bun, of course you can order that as well. I think most restaurants are offering the components separately. You can order a side of pimento cheese and a side of jalapenos, and we already offer honey packets as a condiment. I will say that I find the pimento cheese to be very similar to Palmetto Cheese, which is available at Sam's Club and other grocery stores. ETA: I re-read your response and saw no chicken. I think the whole messy affair would probably be delicious scooped up and enjoyed with some waffle fries...

This! Shopping on a normal Sunday afternoon is awful, but during a Packer game even the grocery stores are like a ghost town for three hours on a Sunday. It's the best time to hit up Costco too.

It was episode 7 of the first season. A 20 minute episode with 18 minutes of it captured in one shot. I should watch the whole thing again to pick up on some of the things I missed. The shorter episodes really make it easy to binge it fast, which is what I did the first time through. I watched the whole thing in just a few days and then had regret when it was over.

YES!! Love, love, love!!

@KungFuPanda, I like Ouidad's conditioner for curly hair. My recent favorite new (to me) find is Morphe Big Prime Lash Primer. My eyelashes have always been kinda wimpy, but this primer is amazing. Separates and really makes the lashes luck thick and full, but not like their just full of fluff. I also use the Morphe mascara after it, so I like the duo, but the primer is where the magic happens.

I have several pairs of ripped jeans that I've been wearing for years and none of them have changed. They are still intact, the rips are exactly where they were when I bought them and no larger. The only pair that has changed is a pair where the cuffs were shredded up a bit, and my foot kept getting caught trying to put them on, but otherwise, the tears have not worsened a bit after much washing and wearing.

If you go into your FB settings, you can change things under your privacy settings. There's something about doing a privacy checkup, so select that, and then it will take you to choosing who can see what of your info on FB. At the very bottom of the first page for me, it asks about Audience, and who can see pages and posts I like/follow. If you click on the button there, you can set it up to be any number of things: friends, public, only specific friends, family, any custom lists you have, etc. There's also an option to block certain people from seeing those things, so if the pages you follow are helpful to you, maybe you could add these special people to a blocked list.

Fantastic news! I hope the rest of this process is smooth sailing from here on.

Sid the porch dragon skeleton might be my favorite persona on TWTM. He's always so classy and inspirational- I wish he were my neighbor!

When DS moved out, I moved into his bedroom for sleeping. Originally it was because of my DH's snoring, but I didn't realize the bed bouncing affected my sleep until we went out of town for a night and shared the sleeping space. When we went camping this summer, we went back and forth on how we were going to sleep, and in the end, I decided to bring two separate air mattresses, and it was a revelation. Neither of us slept well on an air mattress because of how it affected the other person anytime someone moved. We both got such better sleep camping this year.