Oh, it mostly made me laugh. She doesn't ask for all that much, but if she watches commercial television, she's really susceptible to the advertisements. I try to watch them with her and ask, "What do you think are the bad things about that product? Do you think there's anything they're not telling you?" I don't have a problem with buying some of the things she wants. If it hadn't been so close to Christmas, I might have said yes. And I'm often willing to pay half if she saves half. The loans aren't a good idea, because once the money is spent, she doesn't remember she's supposed to pay it back. I'll teach her that when she's a bit older, but for now, it's better that she has the money ahead of time. About the makeup, it's just what Adellabedella says - just play stuff. Bright-colored nail polish and sparkly lip gloss. Fun stuff. She's forgotten all about the spy kit today. She's using an old black leather coat of mine as a spy coat and a pair of big sunglasses as spy glasses. Lots better than spending $20 for a bunch of junk! And anyway, I found a site online where you can make spy gear, so we're going to do some of those things.

DH and I do have our own revocable trusts, but I was speaking only of my mother's (now irrevocable) trust. Her trust named 'Sue and all of her children'. At the time we had hoped to have more than our one DS. The trust paid estate taxes when Mom died, but won't have to do so again until after DS dies. Here it's DS who is the pack rat. At his bachelor house he had 17 cars or parts of cars on property before DIL came along to reform him. Whew! The value of a Good Woman! One excellent benefit of my mother's trust has been that it operates as a separate entitiy from our personal property. As trustee I can draw upon it, but it's separate. It's nice to have that 'distance' although the trust has to file federal and state tax returns. Another tax benefit: I directed Mom's trust to sell some rental property and to buy a replacement rental using all the 'boot' (money gained from the sale). This utilized a federal tax regulation (#1031) that excludes capital gains until a rental is sold without using the exclusion. Someday DS or his estate will have to take the capital gains hit -- whenever the property changes title out of the trust.

I went to see the movie of The Hunger Games over the weekend. Heartily recommended. Excellent acting and unusual restraint for Hollywood in handling the violence of the story. I guess they wanted their PG-13 rating but IMO it made for a better movie. I had read the first two books in advance, and am now in the middle of Mockingjay the final volume of the trilogy. I am just about to get in the car and drive to the post office to mail Maddy Clare back to Pam. Thanks for circulating this book! Rosefolly

The beer is fine with me, ala Borracho Beans. It was the peanut sauce that gave me pause. (I've never actually tasted peanut sauce; it just sounds awful to me!) Anyhoo, I read your post yesterday morning and drew inspiration from it. I have some lentils that have been languishing in the pantry for years...purchased before I decided that I do not like lentils. And a couple of links of stray Italian Sausage had bubbled to the top of the freezer. They'd been there a bit too long so their destiny was either dog food? or buried in something. Googled around and found a recipe for sausage and lentil soup. Quickly scanned it and then went on to my room painting project. Mulled it over all day and, late in the day, dog tired and getting time to eat, came back to the computer to pull up the recipe. The recipe was gone, gone. Couldn't find it in history and was too tired to hassle with it. So, I winged it (thank goodness for the mulling)...hobbled to the basement and pulled out the old Italian sausage plus a package of freshly frozen sausage. Grabbed a jar of home-canned tomatoes and a quart of ham broth out of the freezer. While the broth and sausage were 'turbo-defrosting' in the micro, I sweated a small chopped onion, some celery (already cleaned excess from T-Day) and chopped carrots in the LC dutch oven (chosen from my pots because it's a bright sunny yellow--and I needed a lift!) Added some freshly ground fennel, bay leaves, crushed red pepper and healthy dose of freshly ground black pepper. Then the old sausage plus three links of the new sausage. When the sausage was cooked, into the pot went the ham broth, a couple of cups of water and a cup of lentils. Simmered until the lentils were done and then added the tomatoes, 4 cloves of chopped garlic and a can of canned spinach that I had purchased from an estate sale for 5 cents! (Recalled that the recipe had called for something green and the canned spinach was all that I had on hand in that category.) Cooked for another 10 minutes or so. I thought the soup turned out 'pretty good'. DH & DSII both said that it was 'Delicious'. I may actually have to buy lentils once these are gone! On the subject of mixing beans--I do that a lot in soups. Most of my soups somehow end up w/ a Tex-Mex flavor profile with a can of pintos or 'chili beans' and a can of black beans. In other directions, I'll use cannellini or Great Northerns and kidney beans or black beans together. It's all good. My dear MIL used to buy those packages of Hurst's 15 bean soup; Bob's Red Mill packages a 13 bean combo. I don't buy them because, IMO, the price is too dear for dried beans. Like, Designer Beans? No, thank you.