I'm wearing a light almost "spring" jacket that's poly filled. My daughter bought it for me from The Bay years ago. It's one from their official Olympics line. I would love to own a Canada Goose coat, but the price is too much for me to go and get one. Besides, with our crazy weather, it can be -30 in the morning when you would need a Canada Goose coat, but by mid afternoon it can go over 0 and you look ridiculous in such a warm coat.

I started out in the Garden Junk forum, then added Stained Glass & Mosaics. Next I discovered the Cooking forum, but was discouraged from posting there by a few who would get pretty snotty. It is still a pretty active group, and it looks like the worst offenders, as far as insults go, have cleaned up their act. The worst one was banned, but came back when Houzz took over. I guess being banned was a good thing, she seems much less likely to be insulting now. I do read over there just about every day, but very rarely ever post there. I also read a number of the gardening and craft forums. Was excited to find "Reader's Paradise", but soon found it is not for me, much as I love to read. So many of the forums are just so "dead"! No fun at al! I've only fairly recently discovered this forum, and now I read here more than any of the others. Like Kathyg, sometimes I want something different, or feel bored, etc., and will check out some of the other forums. Mainly the Antiques forum, and the cleaning forum. Went through a period of frequenting the Caregivers and the Grief forums. I stuck my nose into Hot Topics a time or two, never again! They can be so AWFUL! It's downright discouraging to see names that you see on other forums, who you think of as nice, friendly posters, acting like spoiled 5 year olds, with the childish name calling and unwarranted insults. I really don't like arguments, at all, and see no reason to participate in them. It's taken me quite awhile to erase some of the impressions I got over there from my mind, so I could read some of their posts on this and other forums, with an open, unbiased mind. But I'm getting there. . . . . Rusty

There's nothing scary about tap water from a commercial or municipal source. Purity and safety monitoring are required to be ongoing. It's very rare for anyone to get sick from water freshly taken from such sources. The Grand Rapids situation is a major exception/aberration. Water from a private well, different story. Very many of these sources can be chemically or bacteriologically unhealthy, especially those near agricultural areas where commonly tapped aquifers frequently get contaminated with crop chemicals and runoff from animal waste. Distilled water is cheap but boiling tap water for several minutes will produce the same, nearly sterile result perfectly suitable for use for mixing in hand soap. Whether or not water is added, soap containers can often get moldy anyway and benefit from periodic cleaning.

Really -- I'm still (practically) the only one? I can hear my FIL's voice now, "Yes, that would have been in the year nineteen and thirty six that Daddy moved us from the coal camp into town and ...." Unfortunately he didn't live long into this millennium but I guess he would have said "It happened in twenty and oh-four ...." watchmelol, I've heard the first decade of this century referred to as the "aughts", "aughtys", and sometimes the "naughty aughtys". Mostly that was on a forum for a british band whose heyday ran from 1999 to 2005 or so. (Fun times!)