This has been a fun read. Lat week when I was grocery shopping, looking through the meat section, a man and his son were there, the son,( about 8 years old, had a large plastic dinosoare,he dropped it a few times, got bored waiting for his dad, so decided he would take the tail of his toy,and poke it into all the meat,not being content with that, he starts poking his finger into the meat,all while the dad was right next to him. I said to the dad," Your son just poked his toy into all the meat," he says to me,"Ya, whatever!Grabs a few steaks and walks away.I pulled all the meat,and gave it to the butcher,who,I hope, threw it out.I noticed, he did buy the meat his son "played" with. My SIL. took her young daughter grocery shopping one day,they always stopped for a bubblegum ice cream cone when they were done, this day, her daughter was not behaving,and :demanded: they go get an ice cream,now! When they were done shopping, she brought her daughter home, then went back out,alone,when she came home, she was chewing some bubble gum from the ice cream, her daughter wanted to know where she got it, she told her, "Well, we always stop for an ice cream, but you were so naughty, when I brought you home, I went and got one for my self"It sure was good, had extra gum in it this time, as she blew a bubble.She never has trouble with her after that, I thought that was brilliant. Not much bothers me,although, I can relate to the swinging bridge,when my children were small, the husband,thought it would be fun to " swing" the bridge,some things are just Not funny.To this day, I hate them, also, my youngest does not like to drive over bridges,he don't know why. Ha! cAROL

I found the tax shelter in this posting when searching for a gift for my brother. He is a tax preparer and has everything. So I just had to share what I did for him. I took one of those woodcraft houses from Walmart- removed the two screws from the base. I cut a 1" block of wood that fit into the bottom of the house. I glued this block onto the base thus allowing the top of the house to be easily lifted off the base. I cut a 1/2" groove in the center of the block with the table saw so I could set a card of thumb tacks into it. This was hidden in the house until the top was lifted off. I wrote a poem for this & read it to him while my daughter did a Vanna White presentation of the house. Everyone got a good laugh out of this and I finally did a complete craft project! It's been a while. Hope you have as much fun with this as we did. Here's the poem: I drew your name for Christmas It's an honor, don't you know To get my brothers name for Christmas Ah! ashopping I will go. But then I started frettin After searching high and low Whatever will I get 'im (Twas wrong to worry so!) I went into an office shop Maybe something for your desk? I talked to the clerk a lot She tried to aid me in my quest. He could use a tax shelter Is what the lady said It seemed a bit off-kelter But there was nothing left instead. So here's your little shelter All painted so very nice The foundation has been mended The roofs' been polished thrice. The flowers are all blooming In the big pot by the door The bumblebees are buzzing And there's no sawdust on the floor. It seems to be the perfect place I do agree she's right It sure beats a plain old case And your tacks! They're finally safe at night!

I guess I was a quiet little girl, I played cards...had a set of Authors and Old Maid cards...and my great grandmother taught me to play casino. My grandfather made me a spool knitter and I made miles of that stuff and then coiled it for mats. I had a bead loom. And for several yearsI had a washing machine box which got folded up and stored in the garage when it wasn't a house. It had a door with a knob on it and windows with shutters and even a chair inside. The grand kids loved it! And there was always a sandbox....I remember once when my husband was planning on doing some brick work in the backyard and he had about 2 tons of builders sand dumped on the drive way. Like magic that pile gathered kids with little cars and dolls and it was perfectly silent as each one made roads and ran their little cars around!

OK, so anyway, I wanted to come back and update. After comments from those here speaking from personal experience, I picked up an InStyler. Rather lengthy, detailed review. Might help others who are wavering as I was. Midweek I almost returned it in frustration. But then I learned some things that changed my mind for now. So I picked up InStyler last weekend. Evening time, tried it out on dry hair when I got home, wonderful results. I did a trick my stylist taught me with a curling iron for that 'loose perm' look. (Not the best descriptive phrase, but 70s/80s girls will know what I mean ;) Start at front, working to sides and back with curling rod vertical instead of horizontal. First curl is directed at face, next one directed backward, repeat that alternating pattern till you get to the back, then do the other side. (Or starting position can be reversed, starting curl directed backward, alternate from there.) Results weer good; nice body, soft waves with a bonus: perfect ends, a little wisp of a curl. And lift at the top/crown was perfect. Not exaggerated & unnatural, not whimpering. Just right. I got the 3/4" barrel. 3 heat settings; L,M,H. First night I started out with Low. It does heat fast & gets much hotter than I anticipated. (I rarely use a curling iron but would rate the InStyler Low/Medium equal to curling iron High.) The grip part, a concern of others and me too: it isn't too bad to hold. YMMV and be better than mine. The base is wide and requires opening & closing your grasp as you go. Opening only at the start and end points. The furthest open position your hand isn't extended to the point of stretched. It's closer to position of a normal relaxed hand with palm flat, if that makes sense. On a scale of 1 (a hairbrush) or 2 (standard curling iron) to 10 (impossibly clumsy), I'd rate holding it a 3-5 range. This is where your experience could be much better than mine. My hands sometimes ache from that touch of arthritis appearing. So on mornings I struggle, holding my dryer can feel like trying to grasp & maneuver a brick. InStyler gets a 4/5 then. On good days with full strength & no ache I'd rate it a 3. It can be a bit tricky to maneuver as F2BH mentions, but that improves as you get familiar with it. Results after that first night were disastrous. I tried it every morning, both alone and after using the Conair Spin Brush. After air drying, after blow drying, with product, without, slower movement & pausing, faster straight pass. But the InStyler was doing terrible things. Frizz everywhere, I'm talking major, uncontrollable 'wet it and do over' frizz. And scorching, was really worried I was doing major hair damage in under a week. And strangest of all it was actually flattening my hair from middle to ends. And I do mean pressed flat. Couldn't figure that one out at all due to the cylinder shape. I just couldn't duplicate the nice results from the first use. Very frustrating! About midweek and at the point of giving up & returning it, decided to watch instructions. Couldn't find a DVD in the box (because as I discovered yesterday it's slipped into a little cardboard hang tag on the cord. Duh.) Meantime I watched the online demos and they mentioned use Low Heat for fine hair. hmmmm, could it make that much of a difference? Yes indeedy. That was one problem. After that first successful night on Low, I had been alternating between M and H heat. Simply out of habit, because a curling iron on low does diddly on my hair. One day I did switch InStyler to Low, but after turning it on at a higher heat, so it was much hotter than true Low setting. The other difference was the first night my hair was completely cool. Successive uses after that my hair was wet then dried, then InStyler used. For whatever reason, my hair responds much better to InStyler when it's cool . Easily remedied by switching my routine; blow dry upside down with fingers to give it some fluff, let hair cool while I put on makeup & get dressed, then use InStyler. An accidental bonus discovered. I work at home. Started at 4 a.m. yesterday morning, rushing to meet a deadline. About 9:30 something came up that required an immediate & quick errand. Drat. So busy with work I had done nothing with my hair yet. On the Scary Morning Hair scale, 1 being Run a Brush Through & Go, 10 being Frighten Small Children to Wails 'n Tears, yesterday was a 6. So I had to do something, and fast. Brushed my hair, no product, used the InStyler set on Low, did some quick passes through my hair. And there it was again: nice body, smooth curls just like the first time. And straight from Scary Hair no less! It was all about the heat setting + temperature of my hair. No frizz, no scorching, no flattened sections. Good to know it can be a quick remedy in a pinch. ;) I'm still on the fence about it though. Only because it's been a bumpy week with it. Now that I know Low heat & my hair being cool matters, I'll play with it a few more days. If I consistently get good results, I'm leaning to the side of keeping it. It's another style option & a nice change. Point of all this is even though it's seems obvious at first glance, there are tricks to using this tool and getting good results. Going on the premise that the average female grasps Hair 101 by the time of her late teens. So moving beyond the basics of good cut & products that work best for individual hair, with InStyler a great deal depends on individual hair type & how it responds to various factors. Heat setting for sure. Whether your hair responds best after being recently heated with a dryer or needs cool down time. How long you pause or don't, how fast or slow you go, etc. It's the difference between success or failure. So if you're skeptical as I was, it might be worth investigating but definitely watch online demos or DVD that pertain to your hair type. As far as which barrel, my suggestion would be to use your preferred curling iron size as a guide. Tho I rarely use one, any barrel larger than 1" just doesn't do much for my hair so I knew the smaller barrel would be the better choice for me. As far as the Spin Brush, that one is definitely a keeper for me. I'm still very happy with it. Consistently a nice polished finished look in much less time. It's versatile too. Flipped under, up, back or forward, all works well. There are off days, just like any hair day, but overall it's a great finishing tool & worth it to me. I do blow dry initially, but just to get moisture out, so I tussle my hair with my fingers, upside down, getting extra volume in. Zip through with Spin Brush and I'm good to go and it lasts all day. Where it's especially handy for me is if it's a weak hand day, no worries about being able to hold, let alone coordinate brush & dryer when my hands don't want to cooperate.