Haha, you must have felt very young! I think my friend was the youngest one in this crowd, and she just turned 42!

This is our approach, too, minus the book. When the kids were young we role-played shaking hands with a firm grip while maintaining eye contact. I can't believe how many compliments I receive on that bit of behavior, even now when they are 15! My dh is also a table-manners stickler, and both kids use a knife/fork properly and are comfortable in the most sophisticated of restaurants. We also travel abroad a lot and they learn that many kids around the world are just as polite. And also, they learn that many are not. I also get a lot of compliments on their usage of "please" and "thank you" when I'm not around. My son't ROTC instructors tell me he is the most polite kid they've ever taught.

I am DYING. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

:smilielol5: :smilielol5: Love Peanuts!!

There were a few...probably season tickets holders. One of the gals came down during a song and was singing to one of the husbands....it was very funny.

I think in light of National Women's Day, we should all get together and go. :D

Sleep well tonight, my friend.

I am animal lover by nature, and have always had pets. After my sweet Lab died (at 14) 3 years ago, and we had to put our last cat down, I decided to be kind to my dh ( :D) and go animal-free for a bit. Two months later my neighbor's cat walked in through our cat door and switched residences. Pippin the Wonder Cat is fantastic - being chosen sometimes makes for a really great pet! But last year I was minding my own business at PetSmart, when I saw puppies for adoption that had been abandoned. I could't resist, and now we have a dog again. A very different experience from my past - this dog is only 10 pounds full grown. She's part dachshund, part chihuahua, and part scruffy terrier (Cairn or something along that line). She's fantastic!! I'm obsessed. What I like: She goes everywhere with me. Easy to travel with, never gets carsick, fine with hotels, boats, and even on our motorcycle! She just wants to be where I am. She's low-maintenance. If I don't feel like taking a walk or if it's raining, I can just throw toys from the couch and after playing fetch for 10 minutes she's tired. She eats the cat food from a continuous feeder. We use grain-free dry food, and just fill up the container once a week or so. Dog & cat eat from the same container. She's sweet and funny, and we think the she's adorable. If I'm sick in bed for 18 hours, she's with me, snoozing away under the covers. If I'm up and want to take a long hike, she's good to go. She's my perfect companion. She lets me put clothes on her. What I don't like: I have to use the furminator on her regularly or she sheds a lot. That scruffy terrier fur! She's stubborn. Or stupid. Or both. She doesn't really like other dogs. She does like cats, though, which is good. She loves people. That's it - she's a great dog!

Praying for you! :grouphug:

Hilarious!! If you are at, near, or past this time in life, you can relate. I'm not quite there yet, but my sister is, and we were rolling with laughter. Very fun show - we had a bunch of girls and it was a great night out!

I order things about twice a week on Prime, and so far everything (lots!) has arrived in 2 days. If there is local stock, I get it in one day. I hope that doesn't start changing.

The more you eat them, you'll probably start liking them raw. Baby steps! But when you get to that point, and you're not hungry for breakfast but need something to fill you up for hours, my go-to is this: cut avocado in half, throw away pit, sprinkle each half with garlic salt and eat with a spoon. Seriously yummy. You'll get there. :D

I had never seen a scorpion until we moved here, but we get them in the house regularly. I used to freak, but after 12 years I'm getting rather blasé about the whole thing. I used to imagine we had some huge Stephen King-type scorpion living in our walls, spawning all these ceiling-crawling devils. Now I just kill them and move on, and even the kids no longer think it's fun to get the black light out and find them glowing in the rocks outside. Sigh....amazing what you get used to.

That's great news, Bill. I've been wondering about you and your dad. What a great time he'll have at the basketball game!

This is very helpful! Having recently returned to Lenten practices, on Fridays I tell my dh I'm not having meat. He always jokes, "Why did you thaw fish then?" (he's having a hard time getting past his 30 years of non-denom thinking on this). I love your analogy - we spend a lot of time in Europe &, like good restaurants here, they label "meat" and "fish" separately. This is definitely an explanation he can understand. I hope. :tongue_smilie:

I have a fear of large sunflowers. The kind that are taller than me. I'm somehow afraid they're going to become all "Little Shop of Horrors" on me.

This is what I see, too. Somebody may use plastic bags but choose to recycle and compost nearly all their personal garbage, carpool or take public transportation, use "green" and natural cleaners, cook food from scratch, etc. And they may think your use of bags is fine, but if you do one of the aforementioned things you are ruining the planet. People love to be righteous! For me, I bring my reusable Trader Joe's bags with me, I recycle a lot but I don't compost, I rarely carpool and my city is sprawling and doesn't have very good public transportation. I do try and use natural cleaners but I usually end up giving a good scrubbing now and then with toxic ones...somehow it feels cleaner. :tongue_smilie: Bottom line is that I do what I do, and I try and make a difference in my small way. My biggest thing is food safety, so I choose to ignore Monsanto as much as possible by NOT buying their products and doing organic/grass-fed/blah-bity-blah about 90%. But I'm lucky that I can afford to do so, and don't come down on those who can't. But if one CAN, I wish one would. :D ETA: Oh, and when we lived in a very large Asian city, we had no car, and walked or took the metro/ferry everywhere. I love living without a car! When we're in France we shop about every 5 days at Carrefour and every couple of days at the small independent shops (boulangerie, patisserie, etc). At Carrefour we have to buy a large bag, and then we just use those for the small shops.

It went through here about a month ago. My dd brought it home and we thought she'd eaten too much or had food poisoning. I ended up sleeping with her that first night so I could hand her the puke bowl, then bring her water and clean the bowl out every time. Of course, I came down with it the next day, then my ds the day after me. My dh was the only one spared, and he kept away from all of us as best he could!

Wouldn't it be awesome to be at the Colosseum for that? We were able to see Benedict at the Vatican in 2005, and it was pretty amazing. But to be there for Stations of the Cross, always one of my favorites, would be really incredible!

I fired my son's music teacher for very similar reasons. He would often be late, but not stay late to make up for it. He would never bring a pencil and for a while we wasted time each week while my ds scrambled for one, but then we just started making sure my son had a pencil for the teacher to use. He would also spend lesson time looking up his website and showing my ds some things to do for homework - but this could easily take 1/3 of the lesson time. I felt like I was paying for my son to watch his teacher on the computer! For me it worked better to just drive to our new teacher's house. Inconvenient, but I felt I was getting my money's worth.

I know how you feel. I have the same panic when someone else is watching my kids. But now that they're 15, it's much better. When my dd was small (3-12ish), my parents would occasionally watch her while my dh and I went on a short vacation. I always told my mom, "I couldn't care less if she has fun - just keep her alive!" my mom would just shake her head and comment about raising 3 healthy kids to adulthood.... :D

Awww, heck, I'm so sorry. :grouphug:

In my PP dreams I'd set my dd down, strapped in her car carrier, on top of the car while I was putting groceries in. Then I'd drive off with her still on the roof. Awful dreams.

I was thinking the same thing when I woke up this morning. I'll definitely participate.

Your son sounds like a sweet, sweet boy. As the mom of a 15yo with her first "boyfriend", I salute you! :D