Does it have to be a dress? How about nice black slacks, heels and a dressy top? Or a jacket and coordinated blouse. Cute earrings, cute bag and you're set. Do you have a Nordstroms? Was recently looking for a dress to wear to a wedding and saw some really cute things in the women's section. I don't wear women's so nothing worked for me, but I ended up with a print skirt, sleeveles beaded linen top and matching cardigan sweater which I got at Macy's. It was Jones New York, so nice fit and quality. I hear you about the dresses. I'm a size 12 pear, and every one I tried on was horrible. Too big on top, too small on the bottom, too low, big arm holes. I feel your pain. Good luck, and let us know what you do. (Oh and congrats on the weight loss. Keep going.)

Ah, a baby. I can't advise you, but I can tell you our story. We bought our old house when our first child was 1 and a half. The ensuing year we had the inestimable luxury of living elsewhere rent-free while we did substantial work on the main floor - removed plaster and lath (sorry purists, but it was crumbling), new kitchen, plumbing, and electrical throughout, floor refinishing. To the point of having the house functional and basically presentable. Cosmetics and finishing, I assumed, would be picked away at after we moved in, over the next few years. My husband appeared to assume the opposite. His usual hobbies having languished for a year (anything with wheels), he applied himself to them with renewed vigour, all the more so when child #2 was born after we were in the house. Meanwhile, half-wallpapered walls, doors without moulding and missing baseboards (all in the basement waiting to be stripped) mocked me as your hold in the wall mocks you. I fixated on getting the work done, he resisted, and it was something we fought about far too often over the years. Yes, this is the story of a marriage and a family as much as it is of a house. We HAVE done a lot (kids are 21 and 17). New porches front and back, lots of painting inside and out, much of the woodwork, and small projects too numerous to mention. Lots of landscaping too. Wired the upstairs. And maintenance - a real headache when to have to already re-do some things when many things are not yet done the first time! Pragmatic stuff. New sewer cleanout in yard. Fixed basement flooding problem. New roof. Some new windows. But the house is not yet done. With the privilege of hindsight, I think the following. Even if we had applied ourselves harmoniously and earnestly to the house, it would probably not be finished, and even if it were, we would have made our lives complicated in other ways (there were issues). And the kids would have suffered if less attention had been available for them. As it was, the house always took a back seat to what the family needed - our issues have been largely tamed and the kids are fine. And this is how it should be. But I never understood that. I woke up every morning with "finish the house" at the top of my to-do list, and ended every day frustrated that we had not gotten to it. OK, that's an overstatement, but the point is, I let it eat away at me for what were the best years of our lives as a family and it would have been much healthier for me to just say "it doesn't matter today - we'll do it when we can." I will say that even if I had changed my expectations, we could have managed things better. One regret I do have is that the house got kind of cramped at one point, and we probably should have moved. But the house was "half done" and it never felt ready to put on the market (and I don't mean it only had a hole in one wall. I mean rooms half painted, no baseboards, etc). So we felt "stuck" and now the window of opportunity (one child moved out, prices vs. future earning power ratio not so good) have sort of passed, and the logic of moving is gone - until we downsize rather than upsize. On the other hand, if we had not started big projects, such as removing all the woodwork for stripping, we never would have gotten them done either. I hope there is something in this that will help you harmoniously navigate your situation! Karin L

One particular treatment that was done in the 18th and 19th c. when it came to paint, was to paint the entire room in the same color, trim and all. The modern interpretation of this would be to do a higher sheen level on the millwork. This could address the issue of the different sizes of doors and such and minimize the horizontal banding effect of a wainscot. * * * * Mount Pleasant, a Georgian house that has slowly been taken back from colonial revival notions of what it looked like to what it Really looked like --based upon physical analysis-- had very Interesting paint treatment: The entire room, including all the heavy Georgian detail, was painted in one color (a rather drab gold if I remember) The cupboards had a bright paint treatment on the interiors, and there was a brownish black band of paint that ran around the lower 6-9" of the perimeter, intersecting EVERYTHING: door jambs, doors, fireplace, etc...a cut line straight across. (Apparently to hide the splash marks from washing the floors and muddy clothing and such)

Rosemary, you need to be on Internet Explorer and then download Smiley Central to your toolbar. This is the way it works for me...When you want to add a smilie to your post, find the one you want, click on it, and then a message will appear that says OOPS...click on #2 and then click the button to copy the HTML, I also have to click to allow access to my clipboard, then I use the Ctrl and V and click in my post to insert it. When you do your preview you should see the smilie if you did it right. Let me know if it works for you! Barb