I just got a rashguard with swimshorts and I'm happy with it. I'm a little surprised that people define modesty as 'not sticking out.' Modesty is a part of culture, but when cultures collide (as often happens in the States) there is no wrong answer. Just what makes us feel comfortable or uncomfortable.

My kids don't wear pajamas. Ever. They just wanted to sleep in their clothes or their underwear. We just stopped buying them.

Last: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, no. 1 The Pox Party Current: Rainbow's End (Vinge); The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Marcella Cuchina Next: That's tough, I have a few books half finished (Cloudsplitter, Operatives Spies and Sabateurs). Maybe Beyond the Hundreth Meridian by Wallace Stegner.

I like the German names too; Greta, Mika, Elke. When I saw her the first thing I thought was Sabine (sah-bean-uh), but now that I've thought about it she looks like a Mika to me.

States have assistance for parents with minimum wage/low wage jobs. This includes single moms and 2 parent households. If she is truly making minimum wage they will pay most of the cost of daycare in a licensed daycare. I know this is true in Wisconsin and Illinois. I'm fairly sure its true elsewhere. The state would rather pay for that then have her on welfare. My sister has had a home daycare for almost 10 years. Her clients are almost exclusively on this kind of state aid. They each pay a percentage of daycare and the state pays the rest. The state also reimburses her for food. If your friend doesn't know about this option, she should. Maybe you could do a little research for her.

American History Reads: If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It follows the development of the HeLa cell line and the African-American woman who it was taken from. Very interesting. Good science. Good human interest. Good ethics. I like first person accounts like A Midwife's Tale (edited down from Martha Ballard's diary) and Mistress of Riverdale. I have a lot of these on-shelf which I haven't gotten to yet. It's hard to go wrong with either David McCullough or Stephen Ambrose. They have a range of biographies and period books. I read Blindsman's Bluff: the untold story of nuclear submarine espionage and Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: the untold story of WWIIs OSS with dh. Not bad. Reading Feynman's biography (Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!) of physics during that period rounds that out too (if you aren't annoyed by Feynman's discussion about picking up girls). Also interesting was Visions of Victory, a historical look at the goals of the 8 WWII super powers (Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussollini, deGaulle, Kai-shek, Hideki). Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, is a classic look at the late '60s, early 70s, especially if you read it with On the Road by Kerouc (not my favorite..although its better on audio). Mostly I like to read biographies and travelogues, like A Primate's Memoir @ a neurobiologist's time studying baboons in Africa or Arctic Homestead @ the last female-filed homestead claim in Alaska in the '70s.

I'm sorry, I've always found that game to be only marginally interesting with any number of players. Something like Dutch Blitz is much more fun. But it's not really designed for my age group. :tongue_smilie:

I live in a very small rural community and this is the norm. I know there are laws to make people feel safe that their investment (house) isn't going to be compromised. Unfortunately it's easier for communities to listen to the complainers, instead of standing up and thinking for themselves. We were harassed about having a VW campmobile (licensed, running) in our driveway. Supposedly we have to drive it every 10 days in order for it to be in view. It's a camper. We don't drive it that often, even in the summer. We were told it was an 'abandoned vehicle' and we would have to pay for storage. They cobbled together various parts of the code to back themselves up. I would love to put a garden in the front yard. I know we'd have the police here within a few weeks if we did. It's crazy.

I would look directly at state public universities first. Many of them have online programs. Then I would research programs of interest, talking to/checking the experience and publications of professors who teach there. Then talk to students taking the program if you can. Even in good programs there can be teachers who don't understand how to teach effectively in this medium. After seeing what my sister has been through with online-only universities, I could not in good conscience recommend an institution with a professional reputation that spans less than 10-15 years. I'm not saying that these institutions are bad, but they don't have as much to lose. There's much less keeping them in line when profit is the bottom line, not publishing and research prestige. I'm sorry to those whom this offends, but it is the voice experience. Not everyone's experience is going to be the same.

This is an interesting thread because I used to do this, but the last 5 or so service people have refused (even if I set it out where they can get it if they want, they ignore it) water, pop, coffee, or even fresh homemade cookies. It's getting awkward, so I've dropped down to just offering. They'd prefer to sit out in their trucks. I feel bad, but what can you do?

I've been working on my Master's degree online for the last 2 years and my sister is doing her bachelor's degree (different universities). Based on online chatter and personal experience I would recommend a brick and mortar university with an online section. Same professors. Mostly the same work (if anything more writing). And when you add it to your resume employers can't see if it was online or in person. There's still a lot of prejudice against online degrees. As if people who don't attend lack the stamina or the social skills of a 'normal' degree. Seriously, and this was from tech-saavy folk. There are also predatory online colleges. These places will say anything to get your money. I've seen my sister go through 2 different well-known online programs and she's been lied to (the first time was even that they had that major!) and financially ripped off. I'm sure you could handle an online degree, if you are self-directed and have a few hours a day to work on reading/homework/projects/papers.

Yes, this. We had very irregular money sources as children (occasional birthday money). Some of my siblings are born savers. Their personalities are very careful. My sister was not that way and it took several years of being an adult to moderate her impulsive-generous nature. My oldest is the same way. Over the last 5 years I have seen the light go on for him very, very slowly. Now I see him thinking about purchases beforehand and weighing pros and cons. He also has brainstormed ways to help himself save money. He still makes really bone-headed mistakes. He's 12. But I see him on the right road and its worth every penny of "pocket money" and the best thing is that its all self-motivated and learned so it will stay with him his entire life.

This computer is usually for the boys, although I do read WTM on it. I don't research on it. Your post is the top result. Moby Dick is 8th.

While reading this I remembered that in 1980 we moved next to a family where the husband was an engineer. He did have a modem and also designed deaf telephones in his spare time. However, weren't allowed to telnet on his computer so I don't really count this. In '95 (the year I graduated from college) I did some training on computer searching at my college library. Later that year my roommate's boyfriend (who had just graduated and had a computer science job) let us bum around on chat rooms. My husband has owned a computer and modem since 1990 and spent a ton of time on BBS's when he was in high school. It wasn't until my first son was born in '99 that we got a home computer.

Dh invited me the first day it started up. It's easy to drag people into circles. Then you can communicate with those circles. There's a live chat/video chat mode. I haven't really gotten too into it yet, and I'm not super excited either.

We live across the street (street, neighbor, bike trail, tracks) from railroad tracks and I grew up 2 blocks from tracks. Trains run all night for the paper mills in the next towns. When we moved here I had a sleep-wary toddler and was pregnant, so I worried about it. It's never bothered anyone in the family, even my son who has trouble sleeping. I actually like to lie in bed and listen to the whistle late, late at night. However, we live in a small town so the loudest thing is the whistle. They go through slowly. There is no shaking.

We have a '97. Honda changed the body in '98. The ones before that year were built on the station wagon platform. The ones after are built on a larger van body and after a year or so they added a stronger engine. (I think..I remember American drivers wanted more pick up and they did make some changes at that time. Dh asked me which I wanted and I said I didn't mind driving a V4 around. I'm not in a hurry.) You may want to do some research into whether those first few years with the new platform with a slightly larger engine had transmission problems. For the pre-'97s, we still have ours and have never had transmission problems. We're the second owners and the previous owners did not change the transmission either (based on their word and the written record they kept in the glove box). Ours is fairly high mileage now. Dh uses it as a work car.

I have 148 on my wishlist and I rarely receive books on it. They're just not the usual books for patrons. I went for over a year before receiving anything on it (its picked up a bit in the last few months). You can also look for other books too. I went onto the Award-winning books list and ordered a few I'd never heard of and I'll often scan the Just Posted list and general subject searches. You can also trade credits between PaperbackSwap, CDswap, and DVDswap. I've used @20 PBS credits for CDs in the last 6 months, and I still have a good half dozen credits for wishlist books when they show up.

I do two things. I use Stonyfield Farm plain (or vanilla) yogurt to start. They use 5 different strains of lacto-bacteria. I will use a previous batch up to 3-4 times. After that point the local bacteria takes over and the taste is different so I go back to another frozen batch of Stonyfield Farms (or Dannon if that's all I have).

We recently got a new fridge and the freezer on the bottom is very handy. One warning: I know you want water/ice in the door but those are more likely to break down then any other part of a fridge. So get your water, but be prepared. It may or may not last as long as a non-water/ice fridge. A lot of side-by-side complaints come from leaky/broken water dispensers. I started out wanting one with water, but didn't want to be buying another one anytime soon so we did a simple 1-door freezer on the bottom. Other features to think about: do you need a lot of condiment space? (we do) Some have more door shelves than others. door lock? door alarm? (when ours is open more than 2m a light bell rings roll out freezer vs. door freezer? (I like the roll out bin) wide door shelves for milk? (especially if you have some littles that make their own cereal and can't reach over the freezer well) separate fridge/freezer controls? special lighting? Odd cubbyholes/drawers/pullouts? (eh) I also liked the fridges where the meat/cheese drawer was on the bottom (easy to pull out for lunches) and was long and shallow (easy to find things).

I don't think vegetable CSA would be worth it for us. I have my own garden and prefer to raise what we will eat. We do belong to an organic meat CSA though. We used to buy beef/pork/chicken through this guy and pick it up in the fall but he recently started offering a share program. For $400-something we get certified natural (they can't afford to certify organic) hamburger (@10lb), pork chops (2-4), bacon (1lb), roasts (1), eggs (1doz), stew meat (3lb), and a 'surprise.' We pick it up once a month and it lasts 6 months. While I miss having control over the amount of meat, I think this is extremely cost efficient for natural/organic meat. I can visit his farm at any time, and I know he does this for the love of it.

I like Florence + the Machine's Buddy Holly cover on the new Buddy Holly tribute album Rave On. Peter Bjorn and John have a new album out and it's pretty good too. And if you like Fleet Foxes, you might like Dawes or Delta Spirit. The Decemberists had an album out a few months ago too. If you like the Broken Bells song, go back to Mercer's other group The Shins.

It only gets worse with a graduate degree. I'm paying $2200 for a 3 credit class, and that's at one of the cheaper state universities for the course. Since we're paying out of pocket I'm doing it a class at a time. Considering how much librarians make, I'm constantly amazed at how people afford this.

According to the surgeon who did mine, there may be a hormonal component (hormones trigger the release of bile to digest fatty foods). That's why women who have just given birth are at risk for gall stones. I had mine out 9 months after my son was born. I adapted my diet after being diagnosed--actually I barely ate anything the last few months. It had no effect on my attacks. They worsened until I was hospitalized to open the tract a little to let stones out. I had mine out the Monday after that procedure. No one knows all the possibilities. Like diabetes, there's some thought that the body gets worn out by overuse (bad fatty diet) and some genetic components. There's a lot we don't know.

The authors recommend cutting back on the yeast until the taste works for you. I can't eat the standard recipes in those books for just that reason. Try halving the yeast and see what happens.