Good point! I didn't think of that.

My kids are older and neither need nor want anything for Christmas. Our community is doing a gift drive for foster kids ages 1-17 so I thought I would buy some presents for them instead. I would like gift ideas for the older kids--mine were pretty dorky and wanted non traditional things so I can't go by memory as to what would be popular. Thanks in advance!

Not a minimalist here. We are the people you minimalists come to when you need to borrow something.

So, I have an Ott-lite and asked customer service what sort of lux it has and if it could be used for seasonal affective disorder. This is the response I received: "Unfortunately Ottlite is unable to make any claim to SAD, it is recommended to confer with your physician regarding SAD. All of Ottlite’s products is a 1 O’clock afternoon sunshine without the heat, glare or rays (no UVA, no UVB, and only the smallest UVC enough to assist with plant growth). All of Ottlite’s products has a CRI (Color Rendering Index) of above 90, with the Kelvin temperature between 5000-6000." Soooo, does this mean that their lamps would be work for treating SAD or not? There was no mention of "lux" which seems to be a gauge for happy lights. Thanks for helping me interpret this!!!

Husband's passport expired in April 2018. Got a call from a business friend in Mexico wanting him to travel there THIS WEEKEND (the 19th). Anyone have experience getting an expedited passport renewal? Advice?

That's how much my "new" butcher block weighs. Be jealous, Bill. Be jealous.

The world of toaster ovens is a new territory for me--could you give me an example of what all you use it for during the day?

I'm 5'9", old, and not overweight. Looks small to me. I would ditch the rice and eat about 5X the vegetables using a variety of different ones.

I have a memory of an oil rain lamp....mostly I remember the dead flies that accumulated in the center.

My guess is #4--you are tired of feeling crummy and are trying different things. Sometimes just getting out of the old pattern helps one feel better--all three are good on their own, but maybe just shaking things up is what is helping.

Steam? For my kids, I used to put a tiny dab of Vicks Vaporub in a bowl, pour boiling water in the bowl and tent their heads over it. Hum. Some studies have shown humming can help sinuses.

This has become such an interesting conversation and has brought up other questions. I look at hate as being a very, very intense emotion. So, my question to all you haters 🙂 is do you feel other emotions with equal intensity?

I honestly don't think I actively hate anyone. So, it kinda surprises me when I hear someone say they hate someone, be it someone they know in real life, a politician (Trump for instance), TV personality, etc... Are there people you hate?

Well, I don't have a tattoo but I do have some spider veins on my legs that small children have thought were tattoos and were cool.....

I have tooled up in order to upholster a number of different things in my house. I have two chairs that I stripped to the bones and am in the process of putting springs in them--they didn't have any before. My guides are Kim's Upholstery (online)--she has some free videos and stuff or you can pay for membership and get expert help, and a book by Amanda Brown--Spruce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Upholstery and Design.

Thankfully, he is participating in his company's 401K and they do match to a certain extent. I worry that he has no realistic idea of the cost of retiring--that he will look at the balance and, being still young, think that it is a lot of money when it really isn't. So, I thought it might be a good idea to have an actual figure to shoot for so he can see that no, he won't be able to retire any time soon.

Say you have a young adult in your household, age 26, working full time. Is there any way to advise them as to how much money they need to have in their retirement account by the time they retire in order to live comfortably? I know there are a lot of variables, but is there some general guideline since retirement is such a distant concept for them?

Nevergiveup, because--well, what's the alternative?

No live dogs allowed in the bedroom but the two of them have a nice area just outside the bedroom. My sisters sleep with their dogs and I never understood how they get any sleep at all. My husky and German Shepherd dogs take up way too much room. The print was my mother's and it reminds me of her. I am not surprised so many have it--my neighbor had one, too! I have several small dog statues on a bedside table, but the dog theme does not extend to the rest of the house. I mean, I'm not the crazy dog lady or anything......

Framed Andrew Wyeth print of a dog sleeping on a bed called, I believe, Master Bedroom. I have cross-stitched pictures of dogs my mother made on other walls. Pretty much a dog themed bedroom.

We are not gluten free here but I like to cook gluten free on occasion, mainly because I don't think it's a good idea to eat the same things all the time and also because there is a huge world of food out there that most Americans don't even know about (visit an International grocery store--it's also a terrific place for gluten free flours and noodles). Made a fabulous gluten free coffee cake yesterday (Americas Test Kitchen:How Can It Be Gluten Free cookbook)--it was better than any with gluten I have made in the past. The whole family likes cauliflower pizza crust, too, and there was a pizza crust that used {I think} garbanzo bean flour that my gluten addicted son said he liked better than traditional crust.

I am neutral on this subject but the author of the second article seems to have celiac disease himself and is {I believe} an orthopedic surgeon. To address the pizza question, he stated in the article that one has to give the benefit of the doubt to assuming they are not cross contaminating with the toppings. No telling how your pizza place handled things, Cintinative--obviously they did not handle things well, but does this mean that all pizza places offering gluten free are suspect? He did not state it was not possible to be exposed at pizza places. I also believe he likened e coli with gluten simply to show that we are not afraid to use utensils that have been exposed to e coli as long as we clean them and as long as we clean something exposed to gluten we should be fine--boiling water was just an added measure of cleaning.

You might find these interesting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30230372 https://www.celiac.com/articles.html/journal-of-gluten-sensitivity/journal-of-gluten-sensitivity-autumn-2014-issue/the-cross-contamination-myth-buster-r3770/

At the other end of the spectrum, what if the woman was very attractive and the man texted something to his friend of her being a hottie and referred to some of her physical features-- Would there be a sexual harassment accusation because of the Me Too movement? She had no business reading his text.

I would love to see that demo! And one that shows how durable a flooring material is--I don't want to have to choose again anytime soon!