Shaun - I love your photo with your swap items on the pretty table with flowers and the beautiful Florida greenery outside. Sheshebop, the presents were wrapped and present so elegantly. That was a special touch on top of selecting excellent gifts. And yes, I too, yearn for the Le Creuset little pots. I've picked them up at stores many times and decided to hold off. . . but one of these days! Enjoy, Shaun. Send photos of your successes. Karen

I've had chest freezers for most of my life and never had any issues with finding food (nor do I hate a chest freezer). I use boxes to organize my frozen veggies (one box per type). I have sections for meat and other frozen stuff. I use baskets for butter and stock. Anything else is labeled with a marker. I rotate the contents with each shopping trip (quarterly or so) or when I make stock/soup/chili etc. I've never lost anything nor have I had mystery product. I also put bottled water in there for storage and to fill up space. I defrost once a year, usually in the fall or early winter. Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion and should use what works best. If you are planning on long term storage, a manual defrost is the best option. The frost free (or self defrosting) units cycle heat to keep frost from building up inside. That seriously diminishes the life of any product you store in the freezer. In terms of size, go with larger. In terms of brands, well, that's personal opinion. You can buy the same products pretty much any where. That's personal preference too. The freezer we had when I was a kid conked out at 40 years old. In the past 22 years, I've had two. The current one is about 10 years old and has spent it's life mostly in an unheated garage (in TN). Having said that, note that manufacturing of appliances has gone the way of everything lately; seems like they are disposable and it's cheaper to replace than fix. Stick with a brand name you're comfortable with and purchase from a store you feel good about. Just keep dead bodies out of there.

Well, BM's mom picked up SD on Friday from school. This morning (Sunday), BM called DH & told him SD has been throwing up since 3am & has the stomach flu. I guess that put BM's plans out & she was going to be home for DH to pick her up. I made a suggestion that DH let SD stay at BM's until she is no longer sick, since BM is not working & SD can't go to school... he didn't want to ask her so he was still going to bring her home. The last time SD came home with stomach flu, everyone in our house had it for a week & this time, I told him that I was not available to stay home & take care of SD as I have to be out of town on Tuesday, so if she needed to be taken care of, he would have to stay home & take care of her... also, that if she gets DGS2 sick, he won't be allowed at daycare & I will have to stay home with him, which messes up my plans. As far as I'm concerned, BM knew of the risk because her other DD15 and her DS1 was sick with it last weekend apparently. She is the mom, she should nurse her DD back to health, right? If SD can't go to school, there's no reason BM can't take care of her until she's well enough to go back to school. After all, she could have warned DH that they've been sick since she knew everyone in her house has had it the last week or so. Anyway, DH arranged for SD to stay with her, at least until tomorrow/Monday. Besides the physical discomfort of being sick, it affects us being able to work (=our income) & being a sole proprietor w/no employees at the time, it would force me to close business or my dad (he has a separate business in the same location) would have to run both of them, by himself because right now it's just the two of us. He doesn't need the added burden of me getting sick and/or possibly getting him sick too. As it is, I'm already taking time off because the daycare is closed on weekends & the other grandparents have not picked up DGS for two months... and it's no longer feasible to bring him to work with me, he gets into everything as 2 year old's do. So, I'm aggravated now with the prospect of dealing with a sick child and/or having the illness brought to us & having it affect our already stressed finances. I'd just like to figure out how to stop being aggravated with everything... and feeling like everything is BM's fault in one way or another. I know that's unreasonable or irrational thinking. But, it's just one thing after another.

I read the article twice and I still don't see where he's " bashing her character ". IMO, it's another one of those sensationalist articles that turns out to be nothing like the headline suggests, and exists only to draw attention and stir up dissention. I feel sorry for the young lady, and I'm sure it was a huge disappointment, but why would she want to keep the medal - as a reminder that she lost ? I'm certainly not a follower of Mike Rowe - too rough around the edges and too full of himself to suit me - but I think we need to stop reading things into these articles that aren't really there.