Well, let's see... I got one at 40, after 26 years of gainful employment. Yeah, my kids will get spendy phones and spendy plans when they, personally, can afford it. And are mature enough to have unfettered Internet access.

Hmmm.. Natural foods buying club: $250 (includes toiletries and cleaning stuff) Milk: $20 ($4/ gal for raw organic, $3/gal if I get the non organic, the difference being that the non-organic cows don't get certified hay in the barn) Eggs: $20 ($2.50/doz at the Amish market) Cheese: varies Meat: $120 we go to a butcher who uses local sources (boneless/skinless chicken breasts vary $1.19-1.49/lb if you buy 10 lbs, etc.) I also have a friend whose husband is a waterman, so fish is wholesale market price or barter. Produce is trickier, but we combine local farmers (we just bought a 50# bag of yukon gold potatoes for $18, picked 8 bushels of apples - enough applesauce to last a year, plus pies and whatnot for $96), frozen veggies through above buying club, and Trader Joe's/Whole Foods runs on my husband's way home from work. So, yeah, we're probably in the $500-600 range (if you average over the year) for a family of 5.

I would tell the neighbors they need to start using their own driveway. I completely understand using the driveway of a house standing empty for some time, but really can't understand why anyone would think it's ok to continue once the property is occupied. That's just rude.

I learned this morning that Old Testament smiting sounds remarkably similar to battles in Star Wars. Moses may have had a light saber, even.

I'm not much of a cookbook gal, though I did check out a number of books from the library and purchased the CIA gluten-free baking book. Mostly, though, I have found that it's been been very easy to cook as usual (I cook from fresh ingredients, though) and simply substitute gluten free ingredients where necessary, e.g. gluten-free soy sauce for fried rice, gf bread crumbs for meatloaf, gf pasta choices, using cornstarch for a roux instead of flour, etc. For things I need to completely revamp - flour-centric baked goods - I hit the blogs above and also Flour Arrangements About.com Gluten-Free Goddess The About.com pizza crust recipe is everything I look for in a crust. (of course, as with everything else YMMV)

I would totally keep it in a spreadsheet. You could use the master sheet as the ingredient list / price sheet, then keep the recipes in subordinate sheets, using the ingredients from the first sheet as menu items to select (for proper matching) and then have it calculate the price per recipe. All you'd have to do then is update the prices on the master sheet and the recipe costs would adjust. (you said spreadsheet. I got excited. :D )

Austen. I can't stand reading his vernacular. :ack2: Love Twain, would absolutely lose my mind reading him, though. (audiobooks are awesome!) (I'm going to fly my crazy flag here and admit this applies to Junie B Jones, as well. :tongue_smilie: )

Other. Bait blocks in the crawl space under the house and zap traps (battery, reusable) in the house.

Yes, these. And when one constantly sets one's self up to be the victim and have my sympathy, that's when I start to back away slowly. If it's really nutty, I just run like he!!.

Drain 2 large cans (because we eat a lot of hummus) of garbanzo beans, reserving the liquid. Dump the beans into the food processor, add a couple (or 4) cloves of garlic, sort of hacked up. Add a soup spoon of tahini, a healthy squirt of lemon juice, then whir it for a while. Drizzle in a little olive oil and toasted sesame oil while whirring. Taste. Add salt, pepper, whatever mix-ins you'd like, to taste. Whir some more, drizzling in some of the reserved liquid to loosen it up. Sorry, I don't really "recipe". Even my husband (not a cook, but learning) does it like this, though. He likes roasted red pepper or black olive. I actually prefer to cook dried beans in my pressure cooker and go from there, but cans are handy in a pinch.

Ok, but, see, that would be entirely appropriate for a conversation between me and MIL, out antiquing one day. I found this HUGE (as in hundreds) wall of soup tureens. Gorgeous! She comes along while I'm browsing through them - because I've always wanted a soup tureen, too - and points out that they have one handle. Chamber pots! And then she said she would never eat soup at my house again. :lol: But soup latrines would fit perfectly there!

Last week. We're 8 miles from the Delaware border and go through to get to the bottom, stick-out portion of MD. Our milk farm and butcher are also in Delaware, so we go there pretty regularly. The week before, we were apple picking in PA.

I used to translate for my idiom-challenged boss in staff meetings. "We're trying to keep this whole department from going to hell in a handbag" <ahem, "handbasket"> "I know I'm b!tching at the chorus here, but..." < :blink: ... ... "oh! 'Preaching to the choir!'"> That was my favorite. :D

The combination of valerian and hops has been studied to be as effective as prescription sleep aids, without morning grogginess. I would have to look in my books to remember if there are any contraindications for either, other than allergy, but I don't think so. The Yogi bedtime tea has valerian, passion flower (helpful for mind racing), skullcap (muscle relaxing)... It also has St John's wort. For stress, I like their kava calm tea. I will drink either of them in the afternoon to help relax a bit, if I'm bunched up. They don't knock you down, just gently support the relaxation process. But... You need to find other ways of managing / mitigating stress. Yoga, meditation, lifestyle changes all help. I am a traditionally trained herbalist; the "swap this tea for that pill" mindset is one we work against.

TheseThey have a number of no-knead recipes. I was talking about the crusty white bread. My husband, who is not at all a baker, let alone a bread baker, has made great bread with that one.

Especially for a large group!

Aw, I hate when I do things like that! As my friend, Brigitte, would say "that is not awesome." (I've actually had the bread fail. I prefer the King Arthur recipe)

"Kenny, the restaurant's on fire. I'll have to call you back." :lol: I love that commercial. So inane. So true.

Thank you all so much. Delta Dawn has now morphed into an I Am Woman earworm. Oh, good. I see I'm not the only one with this association.

:iagree: Talking on my cell phone outdoors means anyone can hear my conversation. Fine. If you lurk behind me, listening to the whole thing, and then have the audacity to comment on it? Still rude. Life lesson: if you don't really want to know what people think, don't dig into their stuff.

My grandmother died at home. She had round the clock care by us and Hospice. When she passed, we bathed her in rosewater, brushed her hair and changed her into a fresh nightgown while we waited for the hospice nurse to come and make the official pronunciation. When my mother was a real estate agent in MD, she said it was flat out prohibited for them to disclose such information. The only thing she could say, if asked by potential, was that she would encourage them to look through public records if they felt strongly about it. If she disclosed such information, she would lose her license. My house was built in the 1860s. I just assume people have died here. Why would they not have? It's only recently that we have taken birth and death out of the hands of the family and placed it the hands of professionals.

Where's the "other"? What if you only make right turns? :toetap05: Nah. Totally depends on the location, traffic, etc. There is exactly one intersection I will force myself through: turning left onto 14th St from Constitution Ave during evening rush hour. It's like DC is just plain evacuating to NoVa and that light is, I kid not, 3 seconds. Three. I counted. Multiple times.

Yes, you do. And if they are unresponsive to their customers, then their customers can take their business elsewhere. We've done that with Internet, cell phones, banks and, yes, insurance. When companies increase rates and decrease service, customers have the right to complain and/or leave.

Word. When I saw this thread my first thought was, "I didn't get that email!" We use Netflix and Amazon. While there's a lot of overlap, I find some things for streaming on Amazon (Upstairs/Downstairs is the latest) that just aren't on Netflix. (Now, I wonder if that stoner with the Twitter account threatened action for using his "name"... Lol)

Me, too. That is the favorite token wedding gift here.