ITA. I adore my dog, but we travel a lot. He gets sick almost every time we board him. (He will frequently go on a hunger strike and it's days before he's back to normal). Also, he sheds SO MUCH. It's overwhelming. When he goes to the big dog park in the sky, I'll miss him a lot, but I don't know if I'll be in a hurry to replace him. I might just enjoy the dog-hair free house for a while. OK, that's the bad stuff. The good stuff is that he is so sweet and cute and friendly. I was sick in the middle of the night one time. Who snuggled up to me? Not dh or the kids! It was the dog. He does bring joy & laughter to our lives.

For me, it's definitely not the house. ALTHOUGH it is related to the neighborhood. I like the convenience of our neighborhood to the things I do on a daily/weekly basis. I love that dh is 3 miles from his office, and that ds can ride his bike to the community college. And we are not friends with our neighbors, but we've met some of them and they are nice and I feel comfortable asking them to do something like look out for a package delivery if we'll be out of town. I think it's mostly a combination of friends/social group, church, cultural & recreational opportunities (which can be weather dependent!). So I think you have some control over the social & church aspects but not much else.

I would eat out a LOT. That's what I've always said I'd do if we won the lottery. (note to self: buy a lottery ticket). Other than that, I'd do what everyone else has already mentioned - 100% organic, grass-fed, local, etc.

We are Texans and sometimes I miss "home". But we have been on the West Coast for 16 years now, and I don't think we'll ever go back - for the first time, I don't really want to go back. :grouphug: to your daughter and to you. I hope you find a way to feel more at home.

Yes. I love, love, love where we live. I don't know how to explain it other than it just feels "right". And I don't particularly love the house we are renting. But I feel more content than I remember feeling in...ever. I hated, hated, hated the last place we lived (just 18 miles from here). I never felt right in that house or that community. I would lie awake at night thinking about how much I feared our neighbor (posted about crazy Steve more than once here, I think). And again, I don't have a truly rational explanation except that everything just felt WRONG.

Well, maybe not. We spent 3 weeks in London/Edinburgh/Paris/Loire Valley in July 10 years ago. It drizzled on us a couple of times in France. (yes, in some of our pictures I think I'm wearing the same red windbreaker another poster mentioned!). BUT for the rest of the time, it was the most horrible record-breaking heat I have ever experienced. We were reading in the newspaper about all the elderly in France who were dying from lack of air conditioning as their families left them behind to go on holiday. So...my advice is to check the weather forecast before you go, and be prepared for varying weather! I recommend traveling light also. We traveled with our kids and only brought carry-ons. We had to do laundry 3 times. Using the local laundromats was an adventure. Start your laundry, pop over to the pub next door, go back & finish your laundry. :) It was definitely worth taking an hour or so from our touring, to avoid hauling 3 weeks of clothes for 4 people around Europe. I'd do it that way again.

I, too, wondered where she might get a plastic bag! I don't think this one is that weird...cats poop! To me, the weird ones are the people ones, such as the crazy stroller lady trying to run down one of our members on the sidewalk every day.

Or too much time on our hands? Maybe we should all be out there picking up trash off roadways instead. :)

Do you mean you've never lived in a Neighborhood with a supermarket within walking distance? Because I've never seen a supermarket that didn't have housing within walking distance. Whether we choose to live in that neighborhood or not is a different matter!

Wow. I'm sure my dh is glad he's married to me. And he used the word during our lively discussion in the same sense that many posters here used it - to argue that we should consider carefully where we allow our government to intrude/control small aspects of our lives.

Well, most women use certain personal hygiene items in their bathroom. We could start another conversation about whether those paper products should be banned, too. ;) (I do use cloth *most* of the time!)

I just did a search to try to get info on my city's proposal and came up with this interesting article: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:nBFGbnxmDOUJ:www.princeton.edu/~homonoff/THomonoff_JobMarketPaper+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShVnsC0R19YW2fXpfG3vO15rlt46KMn6EbOUiWGPgZUftn0jLMU61Ax5jFGI-Yfz2oBAcvoi_4MDrL9IiGkipsxWNHdUtL85CCLGi6L64lqU2yyabNk-LcG1xSMwEKpjHnoPXJH&sig=AHIEtbS5s8gEK1GuZU6oaJlujazI-IlYiw The upshot is that a small charge (5 cents) for a bag has a big effect on peoples' behavior, while a small rebate for bringing your own bag has almost no effect. So in this case the carrot doesn't work, only the stick.

Oops..you're right, I said that. Now I don't remember the exact language; I'll have to check it out next time I see one. I've shopped in communities before where they charged 5-10 cents for a bag - but I don't think I've ever shopped in a community where single-use bags are banned.

I agree...you have the option to bring your own bag, pay for a bag, or not use a bag, so that's why I don't get the argument. Getting a free bag from the grocery store has somehow turned into an inalienable right.

Yes, the area I'm talking about is lower-income and has a high immigrant population. My dh grew up in the country from whence most of the immigrants came, and he says they don't have the same view on litter that we do...mostly because of the higher levels of poverty and lack of education. IME, bathroom bins can get icky. I'd rather go with the individual liners. Also, we fill our big kitchen can to the brim, so I don't think I'm wasting bags by using a separate smaller one. Somehow even though I rarely get bags from the store, and I only get a newspaper on Sundays, I still have TONS of bags available for scooping poop. They just seem to multiply! (produce bags especially)

I almost always bring my reusable Trader Joe's bags to the grocery store. The disposable ones have their uses (love the Target bags for lining bathroom wastebaskets). But my main issue with them is that they are the number 1 litter problem around here - some sections of the freeway are horribly littered with plastic grocery sacks. My city has a petition to ban single-use sacks, which I plan to sign. My dh thinks I've gone communist on him - that we shouldn't *force* people to bring their own bags. But I can't think of another way to get folks to be responsible for their bags unless they've paid for them. And maybe use the bag fee to help pay for litter patrol. What say you - communist or common sense? ;)

Pictures, please!

Really? Do the cashiers at your Costco load the cart or do you have to do it yourself? I am surprised. I thought the service at my closest Costco was truly lame (they are slow, not friendly, frequently don't ask if I want a box, won't use my bags, etc) compared to the location I shopped until last year. But they almost always have a separate bagger with each cashier to speed the lines along.

I have a Costco with lousy service. They have no idea what to do with my reusable bags. :confused: Unless I directly hand them to the bagger and say, "Please put the small items in these", they will just put them aside and start loading my stuff into the cart. So I'm not convinced these would be useful at *my* Costco.

Yes, but it might not be the same level of service. My dd's Virgin Mobile phone uses the Spring network, but it's not the whole network...I don't know how they figure it out, but her coverage is only OK, and I think actual Sprint coverage is better.

We've used Virgin (a prepaid monthly plan) and Tracfone (just buying minutes) and been pretty happy - but we are in a densely populated area. So you might want to ask around locally to see who has good coverage in your area. They are pretty cheap - you can get the phones typically for $20, and then all you have to add is a $20 card every 2 or 3 months...so it can be as cheap as $8/month for the pay-by-the-minute cards. (make sure you get DMFL - double minutes for life - on your Tracfone, and always search for a promo code before loading your next card)

I don't think anybody has mentioned Dansko or the other clog brands. I have a pair of Ariat clogs that are super-cute & comfortable. http://www.amazon.co...rds=ariat clogs I second (or third) the Zappos recommendation. Endless.com (which is now amazon.com/fashion) has been great for free shipping & refunds, too. I try to stick with those two, or Nordstrom sales. I tried another online retailer - I don't remember if it was shoes.com or shoebuy.com, but whichever it was took a LONG time to show the return as received and process the refund. I was getting nervous (even though I could see from the shipper that the return had been delivered). Oh, I like those, and they are reasonably priced! I might try them. :)

What a great idea. We've been trying low-carb for over a month and I have yet to make a quiche! I just searched and found a ton of recipes.

I don't want to get too political per board rules - but then, this is a political issue. It was Obama that proposed sequestration to force Congress' hand. Here's one link; there's lots more info out there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-fanciful-claim-that-congress-proposed-the-sequester/2012/10/25/8651dc6a-1eed-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_blog.html

Yes, it's sad. In my experience, contractors are completely unreliable. Half the time I end up doing business with someone just because he was the only one who SHOWED UP!