B: 1 egg, 2 egg whites, deli salsa, grilled corn omelet, coffee S: coffee and a granola lemon bar (my friend was an HOUR late-grrrrr-so I got hungry and chose the most healthy thing I could find in the coffee shop case; what a waste of calories!) L: 1 cup cottage cheese mixed with finely diced tomatoes, green onions, cilantro, and spicy spices S: 10 pretzels D: Taco salad: 1/3 c refried beans, 1/8 c. shredded cheese, lot of shredded lettuce, tomato, ¼ c cottage cheese, salsa, 120 cal worth of baked chips on top. S: Arg. Lays Baked BBQ chips, 2 handfuls, and a ½ c of fritos. I hate having chips in the househate it! Salty snacks call to me. S to redeem myself: one red delicious apple. ----------------------- Marci~ It must have been the moon or something. I went on a snack hunt as well yesterday. Did some damage, but am back on track today. ...That's a cool pic you took, but I can see the damage the algae does. It's sounds like a nightmare to try and get rid of! Too bad someone can't harvest it and market it as a health food. JEN!!!!!! Start posting your menus NOW that Tara is better. I know when a kid is sick, hard hard it is to stay on track! You're tired and then fixing carb-y foods for sick kids is SO tempting. Is there anything more enticing than the smell of baking bread or toasting toast? :) Just start over...TODAY! I'm lining up all my pairs of boots to kick you in the hind-end...and I have a quick a few pairs! DeeMarie~ That endo appt sounds like REAL KINDA FUN!---not! We better ALL light a candle for your other tooth. You have a great attitude about it tho'. It's sounds like you're going to healthfood boot camp at work! Bon Voyage!!! NHSuzanne: I'm curious. Do you guys get ticketed if you don't take care of the noxious weeds? I have some property up north and if I don't clear the Canadian Thistle every spring, the fines start! The county fines people a 100 or more dollars a day for noxious weed spread. Now that's motivation to do yard work, eh? Needless to say, I've never gotten fined. We're expected to have a hella wind storm tonight. Remember last year when we were out of power for days? They're saying this one won't be as bad. That was a 10 and this is supposed to be a 7. I'm bringing in wood today and getting the candle and flashlights ready. And we're all sleeping downstairs tonight. There are 200 foot trees next to my house and they DO fall occasionally! If I'm not on tomorrow, it'll be because I have no power! Short story: Yesterday, my DD in college called me. She says, "Mom, I have a problem..." Well, I am thinking the worst, but then she tells me that she's babysitting a friend's offspring and that the baby has been crying for 40 minutes. I can hear the baby on her shoulder crying its heart out. 10 minutes later, we finally got the baby quiet--air in tummy or overstimulated; I'm not sure. Dimly lit room and some pats on the back, pressure on the tummy, etc---but talking my DD through that baby's crying spell gave me the strangest feeling. Now I know how my mom felt when I called her with my colicy babies! It's tough not to BE there to help! Is Raeanne on her wine tour in CA already? And where's Maddie? Patti? Tikanas? JOHN???????? Halloween is almost here, so let's get motivated to step away from the candy. Anyway, have a great day and stay safe!

I enjoy threads like this one. Tough nuts to crack. Some people come to the forum all apologetic and withholding information. Others are fundamentally quite demanding but positive happy hopeful optimistic and unrealistic, so it's just a laugh and a lark. On Tuesday, advertguy2 asked about his kitchen: "... approximately 12' x 12' with one window and I want it to have a functional layout. I would like it to have an island and perhaps a peninsula as well since I couldn't decide which one was better. Can someone please provide me with a layout? It has one window and one door going to the backyard. THANKS!!! " That was right after marcolo wrote: "What is becoming an issue is, as you say, the expectation levels of some of the new posters. They want the max for the minimum. They expect perfect strangers to create buildable drawings and an ideal layout while they themselves cannot be bothered to learn how to post a picture. They don't bother with measured drawings. One fellow had the gall to write a four-sentence paragraph--no drawing, no photos, no links--and demand a layout. I gave him the what for, and he hasn't been seen again. This probably deserves a separate thread, but I haven't figured out how to address the issue without scaring off the innocent." Both of the two people I've quoted are in this thread: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0422251116196.html Sewing your own wedding dress & rebuilding your own transmission Some related threads: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0410083312116.html When context is missing. http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg042105021789.html Contextual Beauty___or a Good Fit. Meatball, you rock! Hope you enjoyed advertguy2's self-parody. And welcome to this forum. I'm looking for something nice too. What suggestions do you all have?

@finedreams: No, I was never the other woman. They had been split up for a couple years before he and I even got together. I believe my DH sat around waiting for her to get her partying and dating out of her system and I think she thought he would always wait until she was ready to resume their relationship. DH's brother and BM's sister are both married and DH father is with their aunt. So when it comes to birthdays and such DH has a lot of his own fam there too. I believe he wants to go to them because he feels guilty that he isnt there. When we throw SS our own birthday his fam wont come because they already went to the one big one the BM threw for him. The funny thing is when me and DH got together she hated me from the beginning. I had no idea who this woman was but she knew me apparently. She would tell DH every rumor she heard about me she would solicit info about me from acquaintances(sp). She had it out for me. And it has just escelated from that point forward. The real kicker is she later got together with my cousin and got pregnant a couple months after she found out I was pregnant with me and DH first child together. When she found out I was pregnant she told my DH "well I guess it is really over between us" .This was after 2 years of us being together. So that being said SS has two little half brothers, who are actually second cousins too, but they cant know each other because BM refuses to have anything to do with me. She had forbade my cousin from talking to me. It is all the signs of a woman scorned I guess. It is all so silly and for nothing. She has tried to turn it around on me and portray that I am the one with the problem and the one who has been hateful to her. There is no reason for her to be so spiteful.It would seem to me that she is engaged to be married and has has a new baby but is so hell bent on making life difficult for my DH. I know that birthdays and holidays can be celebrated at any time of the year, I have no problem doing it, but my DH cannot fathom not having SS on the actual day. He is the one who wont budge. I have aksed and asked for him to file a parenting plan, but he hasnt. He pays child support and we have SS every weekend, thats when BM isnt keeping him away. DH is by no means an absentee father. He has every right to take her to court, but chooses not to.

The credit algorithm most used was designed by the Fair Isaac Credit Organization and is extremely complicated, enough that most blanket statements just don't work. So here is a brief explanation of a few ways that store credit cards effect your credit, in order of importance. (1) Payment history - a record of making payments on time is one of the best things you can do for your credit score. Since department store cards are easier to get they can help establish credit (2) Credit utilization - Keeping your credit utilization score low is incredibly important and can kill your credit just as fast as late payments and overdrawn cards. This means that you want the credit you use to be a low percentage of available credit. This is where closing zero balance or low balance cards can really kill you. (3) Age of accounts - Closing cards that have been established for 15 years can harm your credit, having an active account that was established a long time ago is a very good indicator of credit worthiness, and this is one trick that the algorithm uses to calculate beyond the 7 years of history. (4) Available credit - keeping a good credit utilization can be maintained by simply getting more and more credit. However, that can be bad at some point the algorithm starts subtracting points because of your ability to run up so much credit that you will never be able to pay it all back. Still it is better to have stores lower your available balance than close cards. (5) Number of cards really only has an effect on credit seeking activity. If you suddenly get a lot of new cards or regularly gain cards at a significant rate it can also hurt your score. From Experian Dear Experian, Can closing a few of my department store credit card accounts affect my credit scores if I have established good credit and have high credit scores? My husband wants to eliminate our higher interest rate cards. - LTB Dear LTB, Closing accounts can affect your credit scores. The extent of the impact depends on your credit history, most importantly your utilization.