is mary the first gal on the second row left? geez i didnt even recognise her till you said her name. hey sheila, we play a very similar game on bluberry email group. we start out in a bus - or one time it was a wagon train- the person who lives at each designated 'stop' has to be our tour guide for the trip until we get to the next 'house' , taking us to sites along the way and entertaining us with new and exciting restuarants, etc. it is great for us people who cant travel because of obligations at home. we are planning another trip around the U.S. this winter. boy i wish my scanner worked . i have pix of the dollywood GT and the louisville GT. anyone remember that one? i thought that one was really good. g

The Delboeuf illusion finds that if two identical circles are placed side by side, one surrounded by a much larger circle and the other by only a slightly larger circle, people falsely perceive the inner circles as dissimilar in size. People consistently over-serve themselves when given larger dinnerware: they perceive the middle space on the dish as larger than it really is. "It's not simply that the bowl holds more," says van Ittersum, the study's lead author. "Even when you give people a specific target amount, they'll pour more than the target into a big bowl, and less into a small bowl, because of this illusion." And because it's the inner and outer circles that power the visual trick, the colour contrast between the two has a significant effect on serving behaviour. For example, study participants placing white pasta into a white dish served themselves significantly more than those placing red pasta into a white dish. "If you want to reduce the amount of unhealthy food you eat, you want to choose a plate that really contrasts with it; if you plan to eat healthy food and want to eat more, you want to choose a plate with a lower contrast," says van Ittersum, an associate professor of marketing at Georgia Institute of Technology. The researchers found that a tablecloth similar in colour to the dinnerware significantly diminished over-serving tendencies. This, again, comes back to the Delboeuf illusion. "If you put a white plate on a white tablecloth, the illusion kind of disappears because you eliminate the outside circle and just focus on the inside circle," explains van Ittersum. Laughing, he says it's "all very technical." But the bottom line is that choosing dinnerware based on its size and contrast with the food or table is a much more effective strategy than education. * stolen from the Ottawa Citizen. So, their you go - it really is all in our minds!! This is my contribution to your Thanksgiving celebrations - go ahead, TM, get the big dinner plates out! Just make sure the table cloth is the same colour, and you are good to go. btw, Ginny, Franz Joseph Delboeuf was a Belgian philosopher. An Englishman, Edward Brantford Titchenor did further research on false perceptions of size. And we all know, at the holidays, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs!! lol. So, for Cyn, whose stream of consciousness led the charge, and for ThinMan, Annette, mnwsgal, and Honalee's newsletter: Greylady - do I owe you stars? I wasn't sure. I did check it out and the Journal of Consumer Research, same outfit that did the followup on the Delboeuf Illusion, did research at 2 Italian restuarants. This study show that people using larger forks tended to eat less!! Now that is weird. Check out the following: The authors tested this conclusion by varying the quantities of food. They found that when the initial quantity of food was more (a well-loaded plate) diners with small forks ate significantly more than those with large forks. When customers were served small servings, the fork size did not affect the amount of food. Interestingly, in a lab experiment the authors found that participants with small forks consumed less than those with large forks. The authors believe that the participants did not have the same goals of satiating hunger as the restaurant customers did. To avoid overeating, the authors suggest consumers learn to better understand hunger cues. "People do not have clear internal cues about the appropriate quantity to consume," the authors write. "They allow external cues, such as fork size, to determine the amount they should consume." So there you all go - thanks for playing!! Nancy.

Yes, I will be the first one to admit my husband and I both need a break. Usually I handle what comes with no problem, but I think the holiday stess is getting to me. I'm a wife, mother, grandmother and caregiver, but recently it's been hard to balance all that. Throw in Christmas shopping and planning and I think I've felt overwelmed. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, 2 of my grandkids (ages 5 and 12) and my son-in law came to visit. An overnight visit wound up lasting 3 days. I love my grandkids but the extra everything exhausted me. (and my husband) Not to mention it threw my MIL into a confused exhausted state for almost a week. I usually "do" Thanksgiving at my house, but I cancelled the big family thing and chose to have a quiet small dinner with just the 3 of us. I think I pissed the family off, but I don't regret doing it. I don't think they realize the amount of work it puts on us. Or how it stresses her to have her routine changed. So...now I'm planning Christmas--it's tradition to have it at "Grammy's" (me) house and I always look forward to it--but not so much this year. With my MIL's declining health things are much different for us. One daughter lives close and is wonderful to give me a break, she visits regularly enough to know the meds and the care MIL requires. The other daughter ( the one with 4 children) rarely calls and doesn't realize how things have changed for my MIL. She just shows up with the children ( who will be charged up on christmas) and thinks things are the same as always. So..having said all that I've deceided to simplify things around here. Insted of a lot of gifts, there will be gift cards and I'm going to play up the fact that the after chrismas sales will be great when they go to use them. The huge amount of food will be cut in half with just the favorites. I've enlisted both daughters with what they will cook and bring--pies and such. The youngest daughter has offered to come early and do a lot of the cooking for me. Her husband has offered to come and sit with my MIL and keep her intertained ( she loves that boy and so do I). There will be paper plates, not the good china,and what I can get already prepared will be bought, not made here ( the restuarant down the road makes a mean smoked turkey). I'm not gonna worry about how messy the house looks cause it's gonna look like a mad house once they all show up anyway. I think I just might survive this after all.

As promsised, here is the response from the restaurant I received. They clearly did not read my email very carefully since I was complaining about the complete lack of a non-smoking area, not smoke from the non-smoking area entering the smoking area. Thank you for taking the time to share with us your concerns regarding the smoking section at Applebee's. We try to ensure the comfort of all guests by designing our restaurants in compliance with national, state and local requirements for air quality and for separation of smoking and non-smoking areas. In cities and towns where smoking is allowed, most of our restaurants utilize a built-in smoke filtration system in and around the bar area, in an effort to filter out smoke and smoke odor before it can migrate to the non-smoking areas. The smoking areas in most new restaurants are designed and tested to have a slightly lower air pressure than the non-smoking areas, thus minimizing air flow from smoking to non-smoking. In compliance with some air quality codes, the mechanical ventilation system (heating and air conditioning) in many new restaurants creates a complete change of air in the dining rooms every ten minutes, replacing stale air with outside air that has been conditioned to make our guests comfortable. Where called for by local ordinance, we have installed glass partitions separating smoking and non-smoking areas. Any time a non-smoking guest is bothered by smoke migrating into the non-smoking area, it should be brought to the attention of the restaurant manager, as it could indicate a problem with the heating/air conditioning or the smoke filtration system. We value you as a loyal Applebee's consumer and hope future visits exceed your expectations. Sincerely, Peter Jones Guest Relations Coordinator