" Dum-as" heehee! That's a good one. (Doo-mah would be better, btw) I sympathize. I have no idea what to do with many foreign words when I'm reading. As a teen I used to read historical romances, and the authors would include lots of French phrases. It drove me nuts that they wouldn't include the translation. And that, friends, is the real reason I took four years of French in high school. :D

Do you think it's grosser to cook raw meat for six hours or to cook cooked meat for six hours? I'm gonna go with they are equal. No big deal. But hey, different people have different family taboos, and woe unto he who violates one of those deeply-embedded beliefs. It will make everything it touches unclean. :D

Kids are hilarious. My older son came to me one day and said "You listen to Stephen talk for a long time about xyz, and just say 'uh huh' and 'oh, really?' How come you just sit there and listen for so long?" :lol::lol: Because that's what moms do, sweetheart. Because that's what moms do. ;)

Try on everything you plan to take to make sure it all works together the way it does in your head. I changed what I was planning to take on our last big trip based on seeing what things looked like on my body vs. how I imagined it would. :D Don't buy new shoes for the trip, unless you have time to break them in. Hobbling is not fun. I packed the children's clothing in 2 gallon ziplock bags -- one outfit per bag, down to socks and underwear, then extra socks and underwear. And I took along a dirty duds bag for carrying to the laundromat. I could re-assemble outfits based on what was still clean in the ziplock bags. Everything stayed in place, I could find what I needed without making a huge mess, and the boys looked great. For me, it was important to keep the hotel room as tidy as possible, because so much mess was inevitable. I'm not good at digging through a suitcase trying to remember what I had planned for each kid to wear, while keeping the room dark enough for DH to stay asleep. The bags were a lifesaver.

For my home, I thought through how many of each we needed, and the rest went to the thrift shop. Well, one cute pair of pillowcases that my great-aunt tatted the lace on went into the cedar chest. :001_smile: I also went through the cedar chest where some quilts and such lived, and moved out a big denim comforter cover, some linen hand towels I'll never use, and suchlike. More space now for the wool blankets that NEED to be in the cedar chest.

I'm so sorry. A facebook group I'm in has steered me to Silk PureAlmond original (unsweetened) as being less likely to cause the inflammation I'm trying to douse out of my system. Apparently carageenan can cause it as well as sugar. Boo. I can't speak from personal experience, but I'll be experimenting with it soon. Just thought you might want to do the same.

The menu plan says spaghetti and meatballs, but I don't always follow the plan. :D

Wooty-woot! :D

My Dad always started conversations with me when we were alone in the car. One of his best ones was "So, what kind of man do you want to marry?" I thought that was brilliant of him -- instead of telling, asking. Getting me to think outloud. Dad had a lot of ways he could have improved his parenting, but I think he got that part just right. ;)

A Republican dominated Congress passed legislation several years ago to punish the Post Office employees' union that always assisted Democratic candidates. The legislation required the post office to pre-fund all employee pensions for 75 years from current income. So pensions for employees who weren't even born yet had to be fully funded. Then they denied the post office the authority to close offices or take other money-saving measures. Sad.

I adapt my regular recipes for main dishes that would go in the oven to the pressure cooker by checking the instruction manual for times for the meat I'm using. So a family favorite, bourbon chicken, went into the p.c. on high pressure for 8 minutes, because that's what the manual suggested as the minimum time for boneless chicken thighs. Came out perfectly. Though if you want a thickened sauce, you'll have to add cornstarch and stir and cook that as an additional step, just as you would with the oven version. But I'm too lazy (and it's too hot). BTW, I open mine on the back deck, and just bring back the inner liner with the food into the house. I love gadgets that keep my house cool despite the record heat.

When my boys were young, I'd say 5 and 7, we spent a long time on the Silk Road. I wanted them to be aware of how interconnected the world was even before the modern era. My favorite activity/project was a treasure hunt then a trading session. They knew what the products of each civilization were, and what they took to trade. So I thought about what we had in the house, and then I made up two lists: Chinese and European, and gave one list to each boy. So one kid was China, and he had to go search out the products that he would bring to trade on the Silk Road: silk, porcelain, jewels, and cinnamon and pepper. He ran around and got one of my scarves, a decorative blue & white vase, some costume jewelry, and kitchen cupboard spices. The other was Europe, and he needed to bring silver, amber, wood, horses (not really European, they came from the Ferghana Valley of Afghanistan!), and gold. He brought costume jewelry, some building blocks, plastic horse figurines. Then they sat down, heads together, and horse-trading began. They ended up both very pleased with their bargains. And I was happy with the lesson!

That makes no sense. Microfiber is ultra-fine-spun polyester.

A panel discussion on whether to wear matching polo shirts for school time, or PJs? And for the teacher, a denim jumper or jeans, or the tight spandex dress that was someone's uniform?

:lol: God allows DH to get into an accident because he wasn't paying attention to traffic, because he was thinking Deep Thoughts? How is that God's fault? Naah. I'm of the camp that says this is God's wake up call to a negligent human being who ought to know better. Just because "that's how God made me" doesn't mean it's a get out of trouble free card. We still have a responsibility to improve ourselves. I'd be furious at a husband who is driving carelessly.