I find I have to pick and choose what I'm going to ignore, let bother me and not talk/debate, and let bother me and hash out... for example... laundry dropped on the floor... Yes, it annoys me BUT I 100% ignore it.. I only wash what is in the laundry hampers, does this tend to annoy him sometimes, especially when he NEEDS clean laundry and it's not washed? Yes, but then he recognizes it's his fault for not picking up after himself and he has no leg to stand on to complain to me... This same concept works to a point for dirty dishes... but not quite as well so I will loudly complain about dishes left in the sink and make everyone in the house come back to the kitchen to put their dishes in the dishwasher... IF I catch them leaving them behind.... otherwise I bring it up over dinner.... The 'girl friend' I caught him with... oh yeah... I brought this one up... but I waited on my timing until he was wanting something from me and I was NOT being agreeable... and when he started in on what is my problem with not going along with such and such... I CALMLY stated I wasn't doing anything like he was suggesting... until I understood EXACTLY how the girl friend (used her name) fit into our total FAMILY plans... changed the whole course of discussion as you can imagine... Not paying attention/forgetting... typically we're talking about calendar related things here... for example, I'll be at work on Wed when child needs to go somewhere, will you be able to do it and he agrees, and then all of a sudden he no longer can do that as he 'forgot' about his committment and has made other plans... I've taken to making him pull out his calendar and write down committments in front of me if at all possible.... depending on what the event/plan was, sometimes I will make HIM figure out now what will happen, sometimes we just 'skip' whatever it was and 'deal' with the fallout, and sometimes I push hard... Since you haven't really given any indication of what your 'major' harsh topics were... I don't know how well these examples fit for you, but I think you can get the idea I'm going after here... you have to pick and choose when and what you 'debate' and HOW you debate it... straight forward, passively, etc... I tend not to argue, but to state facts... you agreed to do xyz, and now you are dropping the ball and expecting me to pick it up... do I have that right? You left your clothes on the floor knowing I only EVER wash what is in laundry hampers... do you not know where the hampers are in the house? Rudely, this approach tends to make him acknowledge some fault/shortcoming, and cuts the wind right out of his sails for coming after me.... yes, in some ways it 'belittles' him and makes him feel like he's being treated like a child... and then I point out that our children put their clothes in the hampers.. or they have punishments for not doing what they have agrees to or are suppose to do, and that gee since I'm not his mother maybe he should not expect me to act like it and pick up after him or get him out of jams he's gotten himself into.... again... it typcally stops him cold... I also tend not to agrue back... which tends to really annoy him... why don't you say something back? to which I'll say I have nothing to say that you want to hear right now.... interestingly enough when you don't fight back with workds it stops the arguement pretty quickly... one sided debates don't last long... Yes, I can be a pretty cut and dry person... don't know if this helps you or not...

Have you tried the library, they usually carry back issues of the more popular magazines. Might take you awhile but there's always a chance the cover will ring a bell with you and it will be the issue you saw the photograph in.

Probably got about 8" of the heavy slushy heart-attack snow. Was looking for someone to come and plow or shovel for me. About 3 this morning I decided I'd go out and see if the snowblower could handle it and maybe I could get it taken care of and I saw it had mostly melted! The ground is so warm (we haven't had really cold weather yet, was 60ð - 70+ð just the past week so it shrunk a lot. Part of the driveway was nearly bare. There was still a packing of 4"-5" on the garbage carts but on the ground, Mother Nature is shoveling. And it's been hanging around the low 30s so it's disappearing fast. Still a white cover on the ground. It does put a person in a nice mood, especially when you can stay home. I put up some Christmas lights yesterday and I'm enjoying them. I set up the little tree about an hour ago. Probably decorate it a bit later tonight. The deer were moving around at a friend's place. I didn't see any around here but it could have been timing. I should check for tracks. The big problem with these slushy snows is power outages. Statewide, 175,000 lost power and there's still about 40,000 without power right now.

We had a hard-wired alarm system installed when we built our home. It includes a carbon monoxide sensor (which we recently had to have serviced after 17 years) & had our back-up batteries replaced. Ours also includes an optional setting for the doors/windows beeping when opened. We are in a rural area and haven't had any problems, but DH decided to install a couple of game cams on some trees near our driveway while we were gone on vacation last year to monitor vehicles/people coming/going from our driveway. It was interesting, - the housekeeper's vehicle and 1-2 others we also expected (our DD and her fiancé), neighbor, monthly pest control, plus the wildlife of course.