After 15 years of dishwasher ownership, I recently just banned everyone else from loading it. Or unloading it. I know I am particular in how I do things but generally have no problem with people doing things differently as long as the result is good. I just don't watch. But the dishwasher is different. There are certain areas where things must go in order to get clean, not block the soap dispenser, not block the washer arms, etc.... There are also certain foods that must be more carefully rinsed than others. Entire loads of dishes come out dirty if these things are not done properly and ends up taking much more of my time because once the dishwasher has dried the dirty dishes they are very difficult for me to wash. If it were just some dirty dishes AND my family could ever at least try to learn some of the basics, I could deal. But. My dh also puts things in the washer that actually WRECK the machine so he is just not allowed anymore. He cannot be bothered to rinse/scrape off things that clog the sprayers....like citrus seeds. He insists on putting things with labels into the machine, like salsa jars. That paper and glue come off and clog the sprayers. He cannot seem to remember to LOOK at what he is putting in the soap dispenser....at one point he was using the rinse aid in the soap dispenser. Two wrecked dishwashers later, he is just not allowed to touch. Unloading is also a sore spot. He cannot seem to remember where anything goes so I end up having hunt things down while trying to cook. Somehow he can always FIND these things when he needs to use them but then simply cannot remember where to put them back. Never mind that we have duplicates of almost everything....he can just look for the same items to know where to put things. My personal favorite of his unloading "help" is to take all the dishes out, stack them on the counter, then LEAVE THEM for me to put away. He is flabbergasted when I tell him this is not helpful. In his eyes, he did half of the job. In my eyes, I have counters full of dishes that have to be put away before I can do anything else because all of the working space is occupied by clean dishes. If they are just left in the washer, I can do what I need to do and get to putting them away when I have a chance. I swear the dishwasher was 75% of our marital stress. It made me mad to take the entire job on by myself but honestly we are all so much happier. I gave dh litter boxes as his sole responsibly to even things out. And I do not care one bit how he does them as long as they get done.

We have the Thermos insulated bottles. We have an older style with no under armor logo. No leaking, no whistle, and can be opened/closed with one hand.

I must be getting old too. It is so irritating to spend top dollar to go to a live performance only to be driven nuts by rude behavior. We went to the nutcracker last week. The tickets were very expensive. The performance was incredible. The family behind me with TEENS that talked through the whole thing really ruined the experience for me. I turned around several times to let them know I could hear them and that they were bothering me. I would have gotten an usher (I'm not afraid to tattle) but this particular theater does not have a center aisle and we were smack in the middle. I would have had to crawl over 30+ people to get to the end then drag an usher back. My daughter had a holiday concert this last week. Lots of families attend so you expect a certain degree of kid disturbances. I get it. I've been there. The family with the toddler that loudly babbled through everyone's performance should have been removed. I get that the parents want to watch their darling and all but there were times I could not even hear over the kid. Grrrrr!

All of our Prime stuff has been arriving one-four days late for the last month. The issues are regional. We called Amazon and was told that our region cannot be guaranteed for two-day, even with Prime. There is fine print somewhere spelling this out. We didn't know because we have always gotten our Prime on time in the past. It is not an Amazon policy, the issue is that our carriers (UPS, FedEx, etc...) do not guarantee their delivery times for our region. We are in the continental U.S. so this makes no sense to me but I'm glad I know now.

Thanks goodness! At this rate, I was afraid dd would be taking this class with her to college.

Checking in with other AoPS Pre-algebra people. Is Chapter 5 slow going for others?

It is not uncommon in my area but not so much for kids' performances. Our local community symphony has improved with each season for about five years now so while the performances are not flawless, I feel compelled to stand because it is clear they are going to great lengths to give the very best performance they can. And we just saw an amazing combined professional/local performance of the Nutcracker that had the whole audience jumping out of our seats at the end. But it is not all performances and there are a lot of people who do not stand. What I do find becoming more common and VERY annoying is that audiences no longer seem to understand multi-movement pieces and will clap between movements. It is distracting and can be unnerving for the conductor and performers. We have been to a handful of concerts lately where the conductor attempts to educate the audience before performing a multi-movement piece. But sheesh.....when did we lose basic concert etiquette?

We tried the Logic Stage Biology. It was not a hit. But so far no science curriculum has been a hit so don't listen to me. But one big tip for the biology - look through all of the experiments and plan your year around the seasons. It is winter here for six months of the year....everything covered in snow. Many of the experiments require an outdoor environment not covered in 4 feet of snow. Like putting an apple outside for a few days to see what happens. Well....it freezes. Ha ha! Or we needed things like slugs and ferns when in reality none of those are available here for most of the school year. I did do some planning but even pushing all of those things to the beginning of the year (the snow does not melt until we are done in spring), there just was not enough time to squeeze them all in. I also did not find the kit to be very helpful. Hard to get things were still missing (like slugs).

I just heard a story on NPR about BN. That last of their business model is to reduce the selection of books and increase the toys/games/other.

I am on my third iPhone over the past 8 years and have never had a crack. My 12 yo dd has an old one that she uses as an iTouch that has been in her possession for the last 4 years and it has also not cracked despite being dropped too many times to count. We do have simple cases on them.

I have changed my opinion to never in this case. I have to agree with others that say I would not trust anyone who cannot see the importance of arriving on time to pick up small children from the airport to watch them at all....whether the kids are flying to visit them or not.

We had property damage from a tree trimming company that we hired. The damage was from their trucks (ripped up yard and they hit our house with a truck), not falling tree parts. Part of the damage occurred because a truck was stuck in our yard. They asked dh to help them push it out. Dh was significantly hurt during the process. Their insurance paid for both the property damage and the injury (medical bills, lost work, etc....). I don't think we even contacted our home owner's insurance as it was just assumed the insured company was responsible. This is why contractors are insured and bonded.

Christmas Vacation (and we are bad parents who have always let the kid watch it with us) A Christmas Story Little Women Waltons Homecoming

I cannot say that I don't like the movie overall but I cannot watch it. The train on the ice scene gives me nightmares! Bad nightmares. I have only watched it one time and I have had that nightmare at least 100 times. Trains are scary. Ice is scary. The combo.... :svengo:

My parents bought an ornament for me every year of my life and the very first one was an inexpensive cardboardy angel that was purchased from Frank's Nursery and Crafts. This, along with all of my other childhood ornaments was passed on to me when I reached adulthood. So she sits on the top of our tree. She is 40+ years old, has some little rips in her wings, and a small sap stain on her face, but tradition rules.

Thank you. Both my dd and I are endurance athletes who feel pretty darn healthy despite a lifetime of vegetarianism (dd) and 20+ years of it (me). We even have large swaths of time in which we were vegan. While I am sure anyone can dig up research that says just about anything when it comes to diet, if vegetarianism were truly unhealthy, there would be a lot more squawking given how well funded the meat lobby is. As for the OP, if you have legumes, nuts, and eggs in the mix, your dd should be fine. If she did not eat eggs, B-12 could be an (addressable) issue. Many a pre-workout meal at my house is a nice bed of pureed or roasted veggies with a couple of eggs plopped on top. That is a very simple way to have things on hand to throw together a meal in minutes. Add a side of legumes and a nice salad for a really big and filling meal. There are so many variations on that theme that it never gets boring.

After a great deal of research including a TWO hour conversation with a repairman, we bought a Samsung 5 years ago. We got the low-end model and are very happy with it. A friend and relative also bought them at our recommendation and have been happy. The one I replaced was a "high end" Whirlpool that never really worked and completely died after three years. BIL replaced a KitchenAid with a very similar story. And friend replaced a Bosch that did not even make it a year....luckily the shop she bought it from declared it a lemon and refunded her money.

If we have guests that have special needs then we certainly would accommodate before resorting to a hotel. If that meant a space heater/electric blanket for the guest room and/or bumping the heat a little, we would do that.....to a point. I live in a leaky 130yo house. In the dead of winter the furnace can be going 24/7 and will not top 65 degrees. That is common in my area and there is not much we can do about it right now. People who visit us know this and can plan accordingly. I live in an area where people wear hats, wool socks, and scarfs inside and out all winter....and sometimes in "summer." On the flip side, as a guest, I would have a hard time if the nighttime temps were over 60 degrees. I would find that very uncomfortable and would probably lose a lot of sleep. I would just suck it up before springing for a hotel though.....but obviously I'm cheap:)

Do you have an electric blanket? We set our heat to 50 at night, guests or no guests. But I do provide an electric blanket for the guest bed and do make sure the heat goes up as early in the morning as I think the first person will be awake. Luckily our guest room is the most well-insulated room in the house. Our daytime temp is 62 so still pretty cold for many people. I do recommend that guests bring warmer clothing and slippers. I will bump the heat higher if people are chilly.

This is how I feel. No real anger but do wish we prioritized different things as a society. Plus I hate shopping anyway. I do find it very ironic that we celebrate "being thankful" only to then feel compelled to push and shove to get more more MORE stuff. It is embarrassing, frankly.

I'll try this if the Comet doesn't work. I cannot stand the smell but it would be worth it if it works.

I have been a steadfast believer in the "doesn't exist" method but that ends up turning into the chisel-and-hammer method whenever a certain really tall friend is set to visit. I'll try comet. That sounds workable.

I need some advice on how to approach the cleaning of parts of my kitchen that get a film of dust/grease. The worst areas are the top of the fridge (which is next to the stove) and the top of the stainless steel fan hood. I usually clean with non-toxic products but basic dish soap, baking soda, and vinegar are not even sort of touching it. I have tried citrus-based degreaser and micofiber too. The only thing I have had consistent luck with is magic-eraser type sponges but I have to go through 2-3 of them every time I clean these surfaces and it still is not easy. Any tips?

The title says it all. http://sse.squarespace.com

My dd is 12 and plays the violin. She now practices independently for about 90 minutes per weekday. Weekends are a bit more random depending on what we have going on. She started at age 4 and did not start to transition to independent practicing until around age 9. She was not fully independent until age 11. Dd always generally had a pretty good attitude about practicing but we did hit a few rocky patches early on when I called it a success if the violin came out at all. Her lessons were 30 minutes and I tried to mimic the pattern and length of the lessons for practicing at home. But I would cut practice short if things were not going well. We always started with Twinkle review. Then scales, review songs, working piece(s), and lastly whatever extra stuff she might be working on for a concert or group play. Until age 7 or so, I would employ the help of stuffed animals and dolls as needed. We had a pinky-eating (stuffed) chicken that was really good at keeping dd's bow-hold in order. Anything to keep it fun. I think dd was inherently well-suited for music instruction anyway, but her current work ethic and success at tackling difficult music is amazing. For us it was absolutely worth the initial growing pains to get here.