A girl should always keep options available. I'll be sniffing around some of my side forums. I know you'll be here when I get back ;)

I grew up in a large family and always shared a room (bed, too). I didn't mind it :) I think that's a personality thing, though because my friend's daughter is very introverted and has a hard time not having a personal retreat (she uses the bathroom, which can sometimes be a problem LOL). I think your kids' personalities matter in this decision - not that it should be the deciding factor, but it should be a consideration. I like the suggestion of using the basement as a school storage area and doing school around the home. Maybe another option is to make the fifth bedroom a study/bedroom -- it could be the school storage area as well as your eldest's bedroom. We had a similar arrangment at my parent's home once some of us had moved out; my younger sister slept in the office/den. She preferred to share the space with family during the day over sharing a room 24/7 with our youngest sister.

Oooh, there's a website??! Sweet! We love that show! You have amazing willpower - and you'll do great maintaining at your goal weight. The calories at my house go on vacation every weekend :D perhaps the same is true at your home? If not, your girl will make lots of friends sharing with the neighbors!

Can you use restaurants to supplement your entrees? Maybe order a side of rice from Chinese, or an order of noodles from an Italian place to bolster whatever you make on the grill ... I'm growing tired of salads this time of year, so this is what I do on nights I don't feel like making everything LOL. Since it's a side, you can keep it cheap by ordering one serving to share. Fajitas on the grills, with chips and salsa on the side?

Maybe you're in denial about the impending doom :tongue_smilie: You polish that parrot, Girlfriend - can't think of any better way to face a boardalypse!

I voted for utility room. Cats in the mudroom, dogs in the laundry room. Cat food stinks more, so it goes closer to the outside and trash cans. Dogs are messier, so their bowls go nearer the utility sink and linen hamper (washed daily).

What a wonderful thing you are doing! You'll play fabulously, and look lovely doing so :) Good luck finding your perfect outfit, and have fun!

One tree. Real. We inherited a lot of my husband's childhood ornaments, so we do those (no theme). White lights. No icicles, no garland. My kids each have a tree at my MIL's house. One kid has snowmen, one has angels; my two nephews' trees are trains and gingerbread-people. Every year MIL adds to their trees a new ornament in the theme. My kids ask if they can have their own trees at my house, but I'm a grinch so I said no. They'd pick the themes: penguins and snowflakes.

I like Design Seeds, too :D You can also try the Yolo website for good ideas and pictures. I get tons of color ideas by going through gardening books/blogs (nature makes the best palattes!) and also from fabric stores. When my sister was looking to paint her home, she used the Sherwin William app (there are others, that's just who her painters used) to take pictures of things she thought were beautiful, so SW could color match it. We made a day of it, going through the arboreteum; was fun! Good luck!

I'm very weird, too, with the exception that I don't try to tamp it down at all :D. My home is very eclectic, and drives most people crazy LOL. But I like it! I have a white sofa and grey carpet. My walls are Sherwin Williams Smoky Blue on three walls and Collonade Gray on the fourth wall (it's a brick wall/fireplace). I like it. The blue is bold but not overly bright; the vibe is cool, relaxing, and it sets off the views of the property beautifully because the gardens pop against the darker "frame" around the windows. (I painted the sills the same color as the walls, and not the standard white.) My office is (Sherwin Williams) Peppercorn and Wool Skein; bold and dark, a bit boring on their own but really a good neutral base for more fun accessories. I'm re-doing this room right now, as a matter of fact. Right now I have a 70s-ish poppy orange, avocado green, sunshine yellow thing going on. I'm going to keep those colors but update the feel a bit, so I'm swapping out mod flowers for orange houndstooth valances. I'm re-painting my chandelier in yellow, and going to re-paint my desk in a parakeet green. I think you can go so many neat directions with your basic beige/brown base! Blues would be especially nice, and so would deep grays (maybe a purple-ish gray like SW Dovetail?)

I married into a Catholic family, so we've adopted their habit of not decorating until Christmas Eve. Some years we have cheated a bit and started the week of Christmas because that's when he had leave or when I was in town (I travel for work and am never off on Christmas) but never before that. Christmas wasn't a holiday I grew up really celebrating; it was more of a lesser holiday, and definitely a consumer-driven thing as opposed to a faith-based event.

My sister is having her home re-painted next month. She used Angie's List to secure two bids, both which were within a few thousand of each other, and got a third bid from a company that came recommended by a friend. The friend's contact cost the most by $5K, but that included one more color choice than the others and also a quicker timeline. Her home is 4400 sq.ft. She wanted upper and lower trimwork painted (including a staircase), two formal rooms with two-story high ceilings, and a total of seven other rooms plus four bathrooms. The bids ranged from $15K to $19K. The lowest bid offered $1K off discount upon completion of the job, for a total of $14K. All three used Sherwin-Williams paint, and offered at least 3 color choices (one offered up to five color choices). Good advice here. I know Sherwin-Williams runs regular sales, occasionally as deep as 40% but often in the 25-35% range. If you could purchase it yourself, that alone would save a significant amount. Otherwise, maybe you could knock out the kids rooms or bathrooms on your own over a weekend, and hire someone to do the main areas? Not easy or ideal with a big, young family but possible.

:D I can see I'm in great company! :lol: I have a sister like you! It kills her to see me throw my book on the table, open, face-down instead of finding a bookmark. Spines are her thing, too LOL.

I'm going to snag some lingonberry jam for those gluten-free biscuits :) Today I am working (outside of the home). Same ol', same ol', nothing new. What is the topic of your paper? For Veteran's Day we always do a parade, and my boys' scout troop puts up flags along our small town's main street. This is the week we typically cut back our roses, and my daughter likes to deliver little bouquets and cookies to the veterans we know around town. How awesome to be in talks about your short story! Even if it ends up not being feasible, how cool that it was even considered - you know? Cool stuff.

I mark up books, yes. I don't know if I've ever taken colors to black and white drawings, but I've doodled in them with blue or red ink - for sure. I do a lot of highlighting (not just words, but the edges of the pages LOL) and line drawing and notetaking in my books. I encourage the kids to do the same. I have a hard time keeping people straight, even in shorter YA books so I always have a family tree-type diagram going on in the back interior cover page. I do not, however, dog-ear pages. To me, that's the true sacrilege! :D