You can have jeans tailored just like other clothes. Most mens stores have a tailor that works with the store, although this is getting harder to find these days. Or check around and find a seamtress, most work out of their homes but advertise, or are listed in the Yellow Pages. Or ask at a bridal shop for the name or business card of the seamstress they use. I have boughten men's jeans and had them taken in at the waist. You can have them hemmed too, of course. To take them in at the waist they can either put in two darts or take in the backseam. If they take in the backseam they need to have a special sewing machine that does felled seams. This may cost more to have done. Mens jeans are sized by the waist and the inseam length, in various combinations. Measure your waist at the point where the waist of the jeans will fall, this is not neccessarily at the bellybutton. Never order jeans from a cataloge or online. They will never fit right. (Unless you are already familiar with the brand and style# and are only replacing jeans you already own.) Every brand caters to a different figure type and fit.

Something else to consider other than just the sheets are the different types of mattresses and mattress pads you cover your mattress with, as well as the weave and fiber content of any blankets you top your sheets with. They have as great a cause and effect on sleeping comfort as do the sheets. We have a memory foam mattress and it holds your body heat really well, which is nice in the winter along with flannel sheets (we don't heat our bedroom) but that warming has the opposite effect in the summer. In the spring we add a mattress pad and sheets from coolingmattress.com and the wicking technology helps keep you cool. When you sweat (and the average person loses about 10% of their water in the form of sweat while sleeping - and people who sweat profusely, even more), the material in the sheets wick the moisture which will make you feel cooler. We use a comforter from the same company in the fall/winter because it helps regulate the temperature - you get neither too cold nor too warm. We like it a lot more than the down-filled comforter we used before getting the comforter from this company. A bit extreme, but we also have "Summer Survival Mats" we can use. They are gel-filled mats that act as a buffer between your body and the mattress to absorb your body heat. Great for that time of the year before you turn the air conditioner on, for camping, or a way to cool down fast without air conditioning. You can watch a video about these mats at cooldownfast.com, along with more information about how they work. -Grainlady

I have no idea what kind of cotton Bob is working with but I grew up with 100% cotton velveteen in the living room...in those days there was no family room and my mother would wipe it with a whipped up suds of a laundry soap and then wipe with a damp terry towel and it would look like new. I have a 100% cotton sateen fabric on my livingroom sofa...it's 25 years old and now very worn...but I kept it scotch guarded and spot cleaned whan necessary....and it lasted a long time. Granted not the family room, but I have 7 grand kids and there have been kids, dogs, coffee, wine and who knows what. It's all about the weave...cotton is very durable if it's not a satin weave and quality dyed. But I would make a rule, no eating on it by people younger than 20!!! If it's a good buy...go for it! If you get 6 or 7 years out of it....they will all be close to 20 and you can get it recovered in a cream colored linen....which would be my dream sofa! Linda C

Stopped into a Marshall's on my way to the library today. I hadn't even know it was there. Went through EVERYTHING because I didn't want to miss something. My conclusions: everything commonly available in cotton is either white or blue. Wait! There's a third color! White with blue stripes. I don't normally wear either color. This has been true in every store I've visited, not just Marshall's. I did end up buying a white linen shirt with embroidery at the neckline. It was only $10 on clearance (slightly damaged, but I can fix it easily) . I will wear it a few times and see if I can stand to wear a color that will be filthy by the end of the first day. I can always tea dye it. Probably will. Marshalls had, it seemed, almost everything on clearance. Must be between seasons. But henceforth I will think of that store as the Home of Rayon. I'm sure I would not have noticed that before, if I hadn't been ferreting inside every shirt for the fiber content tag. Wait Wait! I did buy some all-cotton shorty pajamas. They are blue and white. Striped. But I don't have to choose jewelry to match them, and I won't worry about them making my skin look green while I am sleeping. Then I stopped off at a Talbots (which I also didn't know was there) and bought the shirt Lucy mentioned above. The cut is very flattering, with a yoke front and back. The nicest cut of anything I've found so far. Tassel-Tie Chambray Popover Shirt Which is blue. With white embroidery. I asked them to help me find anything else in a sleeveless natural fiber. I was the only one in there, so the 2 staff ladies quite got into the challenge. I tried on the 4 other items, 3 of which were blue, white, or blue and white. The remaining shirt was white with orange embroidery. Sigh. I didn't buy anything else. So far I have not bought anything in any other color. But the Nordstrom order arrives tomorrow.