Ok, I was right on target at the beginning of the week and then... Mead explosion. Did anyone know that, when you're done fermenting mead and bottle it, that it will explode? Yeah. It does. Discharging half a litre of high-velocity fermented honey syrup all over my kitchen, in fact. All. Over. (Thank goodness I had finished clearing the "stuff" off the counters on Monday). So, after spending a couple of hours cleaning the kitchen - ceiling, lights, counters, walls, windows, cabinets, appliances, "stuff" - my husband got home and took on the floor while I cleaned me. (OH, good! I see where I can check that off Thursday's list, as well as cleaning the stove and faucet.) Anyway, I'll be back on track in a bit and probably check off a bunch of Thursday stuff so I can move the Friday stuff there - we have art class starting back up on Friday. OK, wish me luck. I'm going in!

Yes, 2 cups. More specifically, 15 ounces. A box is a quart, but then they usually say a quart or 4 cups.

YAY! I'm so glad for you to be starting 2009 in this positive way!

:iagree: Outside of a really bad schooling situation, though, I would be hesitant to pull him out mid-year. There is a certain period of adjustment that every kids will go through, no matter what their school experience has been; his experience is that, when not in school, he is on vacation and he will need time to get past that mental hump. If it were me, I would start doing some "after-schooling" in the spring, then ramp up and continue through the summer. Then, you can evaluate whether you're on the track you'd like to be on, whether you need tweaking or going back to school in the fall is best. Really, only you can decide what is best for you. I know that's not so helpful, but it's true.

YES! I have a song snippet in my head as soon as I wake up and it's not always something I like, nor something I've heard recently. I've found that listening to other music is the only thing that will get it out, and not always. As far as musical training, I don't have any. I don't read music or play an instrument, though I used to sing (by ear) until I developed horrible performance anxiety. My husband does not have such an issue. Isn't that odd?

It's a triangular "tube" that has adhesive on the inner surfaces. You drop a little pheromone square in there to attract them, then they fly in, commence the mating dance and stick fast. They do have to be replaced periodically, because the pheromones apparently stop wafting.

That's ok. The Hale database can give her lots of options for safe alternatives to discuss with her doctors. ;) Knowledge is power. Many of us have been in this situation and have come out the other side just fine.

Uh, yeah. I think BIUB dates have been on canned goods for 10 or 15 years. Pantry moths seem to like nuts, grains, beans, dried fruit, pasta, and herbs. I think they can lay their eggs between the label and the can. When we had an outbreak in September, there were two of the little !@$#! inside my microwave door, flying around. A bag of pecans was completely unrecognizable - it looked like sawdust. We had good luck with the bait things, though I have occasionally seen a single one, which I stalk till it's squashed. Right now, we have "little flies" - which are like latrine flies but, you know, not. Anyway, they fly in clusters, in delightful little holding patterns, like mime flies in the little invisible box, generally under a "cover" like a light. And you can't whack them. And they seem to never. die. Is it NOT January on Delmarva? Did I miss a memo? WTH?!?!

You can cup-feed (think a medicine cup) or use a syringe, or he may take a bottle when he is hungry and she is simply not available. I would call the anesthesiologist who will be doing the procedure and discuss exactly what they will be using beforehand. And then, I would look it up on Dr. Hale's database. The fact is, many drugs used in surgery are safe. They are used in part because they have a short half-life, meaning they are rendered down into inactive parts fairly quickly and generally do not affect breast milk. Unless the anesthesiologist is particularly well-versed in lactational pharmacology, however, the advice will be "pump and dump" for 24 hours. Still not earth shattering, but... Outside of that, if her family is able, bringing baby to the hospital to nurse in pre-op, then back to nurse after she's out of recovery would be good.

Yeah, that's generally how I feel about it... I mean, the servers at Yahoo know, there aren't committees meeting to discuss my surfing habits. And, in the most invasive way possible, this could mean that embedded, dynamic ads on yahoo pages will show me things like... I have no idea... books?... instead of life insurance for retired people. Whatever. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, my personal feeling, when people claim that "someone" at NSA could be listening to my every phone call, is that I would feel really bad for the person who has that job. There are times when I am bored by my phone calls. (And, also, I haven't had curtains on my kitchen windows for a year and a half and don't care if the neighbors can see in, and there are sheers on our bathroom window because, if those neighbors climb up onto their roof to see in, they deserve something of a view - possibly much better than the one they're getting. :D)

And Miss Manners would point out - gently of course - that you are not in a position to "do" anything. There is simply no way to approach the lack of a thank you without it being vulgar, so don't.

Yes, exactly. Or, for instance, not even using "raw materials" but, say, making a teddy bear out of reclaimed jeans? Or, Fern & Faerie Recycle Diapers? Would Stell's diapers themselves have to be inspected, even though the garments they're made from would be either inspected or exempt because of their manufacture date?

HAHAHAHA! I think that's what ultimately finished us, too. Fear of more. :eek:

I have 4 - a daughter who will be 20 in a little over a month, a daughter who will be 8 in a little over a month (I was divorced and single for most of a decade between), and 4 year old twins. We didn't plan to have four children, nor did we plan not to. However, in the face of a sudden, unexpected "lateness" we decided we needed to explore how we felt about potentially going down that road again. I'm not sure I have emotionally come to terms with being done, but I know I am, if that makes any sense... I sometimes have that yearning when there's a new baby about, but I don't want to return to that stage of my life.

Ooh, there's a movie coming out? Excellent. My 7 year old is reading it now. She'll be thrilled to find there's a movie. She likes to see how the films are different from her experience of the book. :001_smile:

My husband and I discussed it after a "scare". Thoroughly. We explored our feelings about this stage in our lives, whether we wanted to enter into another round of pregnancy / infant / toddlerhood and ultimately felt as though we wanted to continue moving forward, rather than looping back around. And then we went to the friendly, neighborhood urologist and, uh, codified that decision. :001_smile:

:iagree: I could have written the first part of your post... could very possibly find myself writing it in its entirety in a few years, when my boys are older. I am not of the "gee, what harm can it do, their focus is on 'humanitarian' missions and engineering" camp. I don't care if CAP doesn't actively groom kids for military service. I am actively grooming my kids to NOT serve the world in that way. I would not support that in any way, even in a periphery group.

Yes, you're supposed to. My dad went to renew his moldy old dusty passport to go fishing on PEI this summer and was told the passport requirements had been pushed out because of trouble meeting the demand, but I believe it is in effect now.

That right there is some baaaaaaaaaaad appliance juju. Wow. I bought a Dyson after 2 Hoover Wind Tunnels broke (one with the beater bar stuck on, one with the beater bar stuck off) within the first month of use (and the second one was the second time I used it). As Laura said, everything about it pleases me. My favorite thing is that, when I accidentally suck something up that won't make the curve, we don't have to employ tools to take the whole flipping thing apart. It snaps apart at strategic places. I've had the Dyson for... 5 years? Maybe 6. No issues at all. (Of course, I have a Whirlpool dishwasher that is nearly as old, was a portable and now is installed and that is still working great. Maybe I'm sucking up all of RoughCollie's good appliance fortune. :D ETA: Does anyone besides Consumer Reports actually care about how quiet a vacuum is? I mean, I'm not vacuuming around the bed while people sleep. It's a vacuum. It makes that, you know, "giant sucking sound" originally blamed on NAFTA.

If it makes you feel any less anxious, my nearly 8, neuro-typical, girl child often misses the mark on such complex instructions as "go put your nightgown on". (And then, 20 minutes later, when we ask if she's ready for bed - and she has done nothing beyond walking up the steps - and we scream, it takes 30 seconds.):glare:

I have a Rowenta and love it. It replaced a 15 year old Black & Decker that still works. I just do a lot of ironing and wanted something heavier and without the non-stick coating. If you're an occasional iron-er, I'd recommend the B&Ds without reservation.

Ok, so here's another spin-off question: what about those things made with already tested or not needing to be tested materials. Like, for instance, what if someone on Etsy is selling a handbag sewn from vintage garments? The vintage garments are not needing to be tested, since they were clearly manufactured prior to the deadlines, but what about the bag? What if somebody sells wreaths made from plastic flowers they purchased at Michael's? Those will have been tested... ack! :001_huh:

I would ask someone local. No telling what the septic norm is in Scotland. FWIW, Buffalo, NY smells like septic, specifically around the Sabers' Arena. No idea why, but it smelled like that every time I traveled there, for months on end, so I'm guessing the cause was benign.

Yeah. That. Yes, but grammatically, you're using WTM as an adjective to describe which board or people, so the "the" is entirely appropriate.

I went to preschool as a kid. I hated it. There wasn't anything bad, no trauma, just group activities with people who did things in a "clunky" 4 year old kind of way. And I could read. I gave it a couple of weeks and informed my parents I would not be returning. I essentially felt the same about playing with neighborhood kids. I played with my cousins (1 year older and younger) and my kindergarten teacher's boys (ditto) and we had great, imaginative play for hours on end. The neighborhood kids were always sticky looking and only knew from board games and had perpetual snot. :ack2: Maybe it's just not her gig.