Earlier this month my DH went to China for a couple of weeks so we broke down and finally got him a Kindle. Well, it was more like I dragged him kicking and screaming into getting a Kindle. (No, I don't have one but I'd gotten one for my elderly mother and drilled her in how to use it so I knew pretty much all about them.) My husband went from being a reluctant Kindle owner to an avid Kindle owner. He travels a LOT and he was always packing piles of paperbacks in his luggage. Sometimes he'd run out and wind up buying more paperbacks and carting them home. (One reason we quite literally have thousands of them.) He loved just having the Kindle to pack when going to China. He loved that he had 90 books loaded into it. (All but one of them free.) He's in Washington state now and didn't even look at packing paperbacks, just stuck his Kindle in his carryon. As far as the ipad goes, yes it does a lot more than a Kindle does BUT, I wouldn't recommend it for reading for long periods of time. The display screen of a Kindle really does look like a printed page....a printed page taht you can adjust the text size. An ipad or any tablet thing like that will be backlit and while that might make it easier for you to read in a roomw ith no lights, it'll also tire your eyes more....just like reading a computer screen all day.

Hi traci - I was thinking maybe you had that wrong when you said it was Passive. Thought I'd remembered you saying it was Argos before b/c that's how I decided to go a shade darker in my LR. :) Too. Many. Paint. Samples. !!! Anyway, just wanted to add that I have Passive in my kit/nature room/dining room and Argos in my living room. They're all connected, but the light is very different in the LR. When you look at the rooms as a whole, it looks like it's all the same color. I think I'm going to do a tone-on-tone mural in the living room to emphasize the color difference (using Passive on top of the Argos). Man, I love that color strip!

I love this thread. It's fun to see people getting excited about what they've already done, rather than nervous about what they have yet to do. My list will not be must-haves in everyone's kitchen, but in our first week of this newly remodeled space (yahoo!), here's what I am LOVING: * the ISLAND--my kids think I built it just for them. It is perfect for snacks, breakfast, projects, casual meals when it's just me and the kids (or the kids and a couple of friends). Because I didn't put any appliances in it, it actually feels like a lovely table when we sit down, and it is also a perfect, unbroken space to spread out during cooking sessions or as a buffet when entertaining. I knew I wanted it when designing the kitchen, but I didn't realize how amazing it would be in the end. * granite counters--oh, they are gorgeous, and oh, they are easy to work on * pull-out trash--my husband wanted this; me, not so much. I thought it a waste of cabinet space and would have been fine with a bucket under the sink. Now that I have it, I LOVE it. It is perfectly located and very easy to access, much easier than opening a door and reaching back in (and again, I never minded that before). I love that it gives us a place for our recycling as well. Plus, the cabinet underneath my sink is chock full of cleaning supplies and extra racks for my stove and microwave. Great storage space for these things; that space is not wasted. * new, super-quiet garbage disposal--what a change over our old one! We actually had to look inside it to make sure that it was working, because you can hardly tell. * airswitch for the GD--one less switch cluttering up my wall. * plugmold instead of regular outlets in one area--again, a cleaner look * lots of lighting, all on dimmers--I love the versatility. * more windows than you can shake a stick at * pull-out faucet--I love my new Grohe, and it wasn't even my first choice. My favorite feature of the pullout is how easy it is to fill pots now. I just set the pot on the counter and pull the faucet over. * deep, full-extension drawers--ah, the unclutteredness of it all * pantry closet with roll-out shelves--ah, ditto * soft-close drawers--I have kids. Need I say more? * a microwave with racks so I can heat up three plates at once--I didn't even know such a thing existed (that will give you a clue as to how old my previous micro was). But WOW. * bottom-freezer refrigerator--I love having it all at eye-level. And the drawer-style freezer is much easier to use too. * my old, salvaged dishwasher--Still works like a dream, and does a MUCH better job than the fancier dishwasher I had in our rental house during the remodel. That crummy DW taught me that keeping an appliance that works really well can sometimes be better than buying new!

Angles, thanks, but my kids go to college four or more years early, are happy and successful, are healthy, and they adore each other and have great relationships with their parents. They're usually so well behaved that I'm used to getting stopped by strangers telling me how wonderful it is that my kids clearly love each other so much. So glad you were so skilled at raising two easy children. It will be hilarious if/when a difficult one shows up in the line, or if a previously easy child has a hard time when they hit teen years. If your daughter's child were BOTH mean enough to throw sand and smart enough to connect "going home" with "throwing sand," she would have now worked out a perfect way to manipulate her mom into going home exactly when she wanted the next time she was bored. Going home isn't natural consequences for sand throwing. A child who is deeply affected by her mother's disapproval will not throw sand after a major show of disapproval. A child who isn't very bright might perceive being removed from the party as punishment and not be smart enough to realize it could later be turned to her advantage. Leaving the party is either unnecessary or simply counterproductive, depending in the child's intelligence and personality. If the child wouldn't try to pitch a fit, I would stand or sit the kid in a corner. If the child would, we would go home--for additional punishment, such as standing in the corner there. Nice and boring for a good long while. The punishment--because that's what it is; calling it something else is delusional--would escalate with each repetition of the unwanted behavior. Now, that said, none of my kids were mean enough to have a phase where they tried to hurts someone for more than a couple of weeks--with the most externalizing child, repeated three times, unfortunately. The natural consequences for throwing sand are getting sand in your eyes or alienating all the other children. Going home actually isn't one. Not at all.