The beauty of getting jeans/pants altered is that is eliminates the never-ending search which takes a lot of time. I am tall and very thin so pants just. do. not. fit. ever. Now I don't sweat it. I find what style/color I want and go for length and leg fit knowing my alterations person will fix the waist. So much less time and pressure. Yes, I have to go to the alterations place, often twice, but it is still so much less time than running all over trying on pants with a .01% success rate. The only jean I have had any luck with is certain styles of Express that can only be ordered online. Old Navy is ALL way too big in the waist as are AE and Aero. It is so frustrating. I live in jeans every single day so am always on the lookout. I feel bad that I passed this wonderful problem on to my dd. She can still wear the larger girls' sizes but the adjusters have to be cinched up so much that they look ridiculous and are very uncomfortable. The alterations person just take the whole thing out and sews to fit.

Yep. Find a good alterations place. Both dd and I have to have our jeans altered. It is usually about $7/pair. Because we get them altered anyway, I often just buy used that has a good length.

I have had all types, thick and thin, blow out on me. Dd and dh too. But I will say that we are SERIOUS users here. We wear wool socks year-round. Dh and I are both very good about always wearing slippers in the house (old wood floors shred socks). Dd is not as good about remembering. But it does not seem to make a difference. We ski, run, hike, and everything else in them. I would chalk it up to being hard on socks but that does not explain why other brands are holding out much longer. My original Smartwool is just your mid-thickness typical hiking sock and has seen very hard use. The elastic is going on the ankle because of age and repeat washings but the wool held up. It is very cold where I live and almost everyone lives in drafty old houses. Sock-talk happens a lot in normal conversation. The decrease in quality of Smartwool has been noted by almost everyone around here. It is the sad byproduct of manufacturing being moved to China.

Acid helps to cut the bitter. Splashing lemon juice or red wine vinegar on bitter veggies might help.

Similar because they are the original Smartwool people (pre-China). And very nice socks:)

Point 6! Fox River is our the second go-to. Both hold up well. Point 6 is cuter and more robust. Both are pricey (Fox River less so) but will last years and years. Pass up the Smartwool. The quality has tanked in the last few years. My first pair of Smartwool is 20 years old and still going strong. The pair I got last year is in shreds. I am very disappointed.

My dd started Suzuki violin at age 3.5. I cannot say that is a good age for everyone but was great for dd. She still plays at 12 yo. I think there are advantages to early training and late training. Part is personality, of course. One huge advantage to starting young is that kids tend to not get bored with playing Twinkle for a full year. It is a lot harder to sell Twinkle to a 9yo. Dd also simply does not remember her life before playing violin. So, we have never had the practice battles lots of people struggle with. It is simply part of every day like meals, getting dressed, and brushing teeth. If your dd has interest, I say go for it. The worst that happens is that she wants to move on at some point.

Thinking of camps or a camp database? Do write:)

Her instructor has been helpful but admits that she does not have a good grasp on what is out there. It is very rare for people in my area to send kids to specialty camps so it is not something the instructor keeps close tabs on. I am for sure finding lots of different options, I just feel like I could be missing a better fit that I don't even know about.

She plays violin and is looking for a camp that focusses on classical music (chamber or orchestral). I am following the leads people have posted. I still wish there were some sort of one-stop website that lists most of the camps nationally. I knew it was a stretch but thought it was worth a shot to ask just in case.

I just had one. I was pretty much covered all of the time. It was much less stressful than I thought it would be. Expensive also, FYI:(

I have (what I think is primary) Raynauds. No doctor has taken me seriously and it doesn't matter anyway because there is no treatment except to try to prevent your hands (or really whole body) from being cold. Stress can be a trigger as well. It can also happen in toes and knees. I have toes too. It is cumulative so it is important to prevent as much as possible. Other than being annoying, it is not really dangerous.

Sink or swim here. I plopped my (at the time) 8yo in the kitchen with the BH&G cookbook and told her to yell if she had any questions. There was a lot of yelling the first few times but she figured it out. And I may or may not have consumed a lot of wine during those first few "adventures." Now (age 12) she has a friend or two over most weeks to pick out recipes, bike to the store to get any ingredients we don't have, and they cook dinner. Sometimes this involves imperfectly cut veggies or other small mishaps but they love it and it is usually edible. I only ask that they avoid recipes that require the Vitamix, deep frying, or the too-heavy-for-them cast iron. I also ask them to yell for me to supervise the heating of cooking oil or the use of the food processor. Now if I could just teach them to properly clean up the kitchen afterwards..... I did not learn how to cook until adulthood and promised myself that any offspring of mine would not find themselves in that predicament.

I'm going to PM you FM.

Thanks Clementine. I have found that I can get good hits for my region but I seem to be missing some. Michigan is not necessarily our target but even within that state, when I do a normal google search, it misses WMU's very good summer program along with other smaller programs I know exist (and can obviously look up myself) which makes me wonder what other programs I don't know about that I'm also missing. I was hoping that there was some sort of database of all (or at least a lot) of summer music programs. Part of it is that some programs us the words "camp" while others use everything from "symposia" to "conservatory." I can't seem to nail them all down.

Nothing is "close" to us. But we are willing to travel if necessary. It is the travel plus cost of the camp that ended up killing us. Dh had to take 4 days off of work just to drive her, plus gas, two nights of hotel......

Blue Lake is the camp dd attended:) It is just a little out of our financial reach. Interlochen is 100% out of the question due to cost even though dd would LOVE to attend.

I'm in the midwest. I know there is so much out there. I just don't know where it all is!

Dd went to summer music camp last year and LOVED it. She of course would like to return. She auditioned for and received a substantial (half) scholarship. Even with the scholarship, the cost was higher than we can justify for an annual expense. It was also a full day's drive from our home which contributed to the expense both in time and money. I would like to see what our options are. Perhaps there is a good fit closer to our home or at a lower cost? Does anyone know if there is some sort of online list of music camps? I realize this is a reach but thought I would ask before taking on the huge task of trying to find every camp within a day's drive from our home.

Our policy is that dd must do some sort of physical activity at any given time and that she must finish out any term that has been paid for (with exceptions for issues she might have no control over....I did pull her from a dance class mid-term that was a train-wreck and I didn't care about the money at that point). It has never been a problem. Dd (12yo) has walked away from one really big activity and a few that she was less involved with. The less-involved activities were easy. She finished a term then decided she did not want to renew. I would put your situation in the same category. Some were very convenient and affordable so I did wish she had found the love, but I would not make myself do a physical activity I did not like just because it happened to be convenient so I cannot hold dd to that standard. The biggie was a sport she was very involved with for years and leaving was a real lifestyle change for the whole family. We did require that she continue for a pre-determined waiting period. It was not the sort of activity you can stop and rejoin easily. After the waiting period, she still wanted to quit, so she did. We did require that she tell her coaches herself (with follow-up from us). It was really really hard but was the right decision for her. We hold the same rule for a music/art activity. She must be involved in one at any given time. Dd has dabbled in many art activities, coming and going as terms end. I don't think I would just let her up and quit her music activity without a lot more consideration. She has 8 yeas under her belt and is involved with many groups that depend on her participation. It has never come up so I don't know exactly how we would handle it. I only bring that up because I think many people would think martial arts bridge the fitness/art span similarly to dance so you might consider a different approach if that applies to you.

What if you do not want gifts?

I don't think so. Septic systems are pretty simple. You have the pump, the tank, the lines, and the drain field. Pump failure can result it back-ups but should only require a replacement or repair. The lines can get clogged or damaged....again replace/fix. In either case you really have to wait for a problem to do anything since you cannot really fix something that is not broken. Tank failure is where the real money comes in. You usually cannot really "fix" them. But you also really cannot know when one is about to leak. So, save your pennies, conserve water, get it pumped out annually, do the usual flushing precautions, and hope for the best. Many systems will last forever. I suspect if you save up money for problems, your will last forever too.

There is. Ha ha! I just write plainly. "Your presence is the best possible gift you could give. We really mean it. Please do not bring anything but yourself. Thanks." I'm sure I will be enjoying my afterlife in manners hell, but I can live with that. At least I always put my napkin in my lap during meals and address wedding invitations properly.

Ms. Manners is behind the times on this topic. I do think requesting money for a 16 yo bday party is tacky but not something I would think too much about. Especially if I suspected it was a cultural difference. And it is far easier for me so any that-is-so-tacky thoughts would be overcome by thank-goodness-I-don't-have-to-figure-out-a-gift thoughts. I no longer believe ANY mention of gifts on an invitation is a no-no. Dd has a bday party every year. We have done no gift and donation parties. No one has ever showed up with a gift anyway. No one grumbled (at least to me). Dd has always been fine with it. The donation years were her idea. The no gift years were ours The kid is getting a PARTY, I hardly see it as child abuse to deny her gifts above and beyond what her very large and generous family showers on her annually. And I did not have to shovel out a whole bunch of extra landfill goodies. I make no apologies for that. We are constantly battling clutter and I really don't see why inviting your friends over for cake and ice cream has to mean accepting a pile of clutter. Times have changed. In this culture of too-much-all-the-time, I would think a shift away from gift-focus would be welcome.

I was taught that this is tacky but to be honest, I would think, "Sweet, I don't have to go to a store, and wrap something up, and hope they like it....just toss some cash in a card, Yay!"