When I got them I bought the pans and the mats at the same time. I got the Nordic Ware half sheet pans and the mats to fit them together on Amazon.

Key lime pie is my absolute fave! I just got around to trying cheesecake last weekend, I think the key lime will be this weekend, bonus, the kids won't like it!

We are really enjoying Timeless! I was happy to find a show we could watch with the kids, I usually like darker, more adult stuff. But Timeless is fun, I'm hoping they go in some interesting directions, but don't want to accidentally give any spoilers so I guess I'll stop there.

I used to make yogurt using a heating pad. Now I have the instant pot and keep meaning to try it, I guess I just need to do it!

I was abut 6 months pregnant, working a temp job at a nearby city clerks office, and dh was unemployed. I am on the west coast, and at that time didn't really go on email or news or tv as soon as I got up. I was driving to work around 8:30, listening to the radio, and at first thought they were just talking about a plane crash. When I finally realized what had happened, I had to pull over. As a temp, I worked in the break room which had a large tv, so when I got to work I got to watch the coverage all day. I called dh, who was home and hadn't heard about it, and at first he thought I was talking about a bomb at the World Trade Center. I remember having to explain it several times, that it wasn't a car bomb, it was two commercial airplanes, that it wasn't an accident. By then it was almost four hours since it had happened. I saw the planes hit the towers so many times, they just kept the news on all day while I sat there trying to do data entry across the room. It was after that I started looking at news and email as soon as I got up. I couldn't believe I had gotten up and ready and out the door and didn't even know anything had happened.

Not normally, but it sounds like it would be really fun, going out by boat to get ice cream? More like a vacation, once a year activity. A typical night? We would never do that. But definitely if it were a special occasion, with friends or family, or one night if we were on vacation.

Hey, if I could get it together to take a box or two to goodwill myself once in a while I wouldn't have gotten in this situation!

They took everything! This bout of decluttering took me about 5 weeks. It's part of the reason I sent my kids to day camp and now sleep away camp this summer, because I just needed this to happen. Now I have to get the 1-800-GOT-JUNK people here this weekend. ETA: I used the Salvation Army, mostly because they are a bit less picky, and will come and pick up furniture etc. you can also schedule online. Otherwise there are some other charities I might prefer but nothing beats having a big truck come and take everything away! I really did have some good stuff, so hopefully if some of it was questionable all the really nice stuff I donated will make up for it.

I had told them 35, I am a little worried they won't take the rest. When they have come before however they have usually just loaded it in the truck without much hassle. I scheduled another pickup in a few weeks just in case!

I have found some really amazing things at goodwill and other thrift stores. That was always offset by the large numbers of things I bought that weren't so great, didn't fit well, didn't work, etc. I also found especially at Goodwill that their prices have gone way up and some of the stuff is barely less than new. I found some IKEA bookshelves for about $10 less than they were new. Other things, though, can be great deals, like the graphing calculator I got for $3.99 because they didn't know what it was. I think if you are disciplined and patient you can do great. You just have to know if you are the kind of person who will buy all this stuff because it is a great deal, or if you can walk away from stuff you don't need or doesn't fit properly or whatever.

The charity is coming today to pick up 52 mostly large boxes and bins plus a few miscellaneous items. 16 of those boxes are books! The rest is mostly toys with some miscellaneous clothes and household items. I still have many boxes of books to go through but those should be easier now that the rest of this stuff is gone. I didn't think I'd ever get this done. I am exhausted. Now tomorrow I am planning to start painting my kitchen cabinets. 😳 Is it too early for a margarita? The kids are at sleep away camp if that makes a difference...

Yes, I got one and I love it! Our previous one was 20+ years old so anything would be an improvement. But it is great, and I loved that it just came to my door, and I was able to fairly easily move it to the bedroom before opening it up and it expanded to full size. It has been almost a year and it has been really comfortable.

When my kids were younger and we were first homeschooling, I would drive quite a ways. They had fun, but I learned that most of these things were not worth driving to. They didn't really make friends in these classes, and it took too much time away from other school we should be doing, or going to park days or hanging out with friends who are closer. The classes were more enrichment content and it just was not a good use of our time, So it really depends. Obviously, if you are in an area where you have to drive farther for classes or to make friends anyway that makes a big difference. Right now the farthest we go is 25 minutes for a maker club one evening a week. They have been doing that a couple of years and have made really close friends there. We sometimes drive a bit longer for a weekly park day. We do mostly online classes.

I did it for a while. It was not really worth my time. But a cousin has done it for years and now is where she does big ticket shops and travels quite a bit for them, sometimes internatonally. I think it is still more of a hobby for her. I had a 2yo when I did it before, if my kids were older I might have kept going with it. Some of the shops I did were fun, and we got some restaurant meals. It is pretty easy to just get some small jobs and try it out. It is also probably more worthwhile if you live in an urban area.

LOL about the catalogs. That's actually one of the things I do when I go to my moms house, she gets all these catalogs with random bizarre things. But I would be very surprised if she gathered them throughout the year and saved them as a special treat for my visit.