First one is really sexist.

The second one is a hyperbole, but there is nonbuyers remorse.

Depends on the mood I am in how annoying I find that stuff or not. I like it better when it is turned on its ear, like "Husbands may not choose paint colors without a note from their wives".

I have a few random raves.

1. Candy bars in 100-calorie sizes. I find these portion-controlled devices useful, albeit uneconomic. I just came across these cuties and I like having a little indulgence. Huge portions drive me totally loco. Even kiddie ice cream cones are monstrous (the Europeans get this). Anyway, i like this idea.

2. The towels with velcro so you can "wear" them out of the shower. Esp when it is hot I like the light weight. DD had them at school and since she is home I came across one and tried it. Ditto lightweight ribbed towels.

I had no idea about that last one, mtn. Definitely good to know!

Those memes are pretty tone-deaf.

Sometimes I will actually contact a co. directly about something that really bothers me, or something that really pleases me. Most co.s consider such communication useful and will respond favorably.

The neighbourhood that I live in is situated such that all roads that lead to it first of all lead to a bridge that leads to a highway. I am sick and tired of people driving stupidly, causing an accident and backing up traffic so that I can't get home.

This morning our son had to drop some things off at our house for our other son who is leaving to climb a couple of mountains and he himself is headed out of town today. He couldn't get here because the bridge is closed due to a police incident (that's become a generic term for accident) so he called a hotel near where he lives to see if he could drop the stuff there. They were kind enough to say Yes, they know about these stupid traffic accidents.

So all you people, keep your car filled with gas, stay off your phone, keep your wits about you.

There is new high construction going on and part of the plan is to have a dedicated lane to our area which bypasses the bridge and the highway. YEA!

My vent.

My Friday rant is about drivers. Granted those of you who have been to Massachusetts know that MA drivers are considered among the worst in the nation, and are often referred to as Ma$$holes. It is at its worst on weekends when people are going North to NH, ME etc. or South to the Cape for example. We have to do both this weekend and I am dreading the aggression I expect to see on the road:

1. Tailgating

2. No signal when changing lanes

3. Weaving in and out to gain a few minutes at the risk of causing an accident

4. Flying though yellow lights

I could go on and on..........

I had to request Annie Selkie to stop sending catalogs because their hypocrisy was making me want to bang my head against the wall. In the most offensive catalog they had a theme running throughout with bold 'visionary' sayings from page to page like 'We are all one world' or 'Let nature be your guide'..... and then they have things like a huge empty turtle shell on the floor, dead animal heads on the wall, and coral pieces on pedestals. These were not for sale but props for the shoot and they were not the look-alikes - this particular catalog was filled with things like this on every page. Don't present your self as earth friendly nature lovers and decorate with dead animals and expect me to be your customer. Not happening.

Rant: when the garbage or recycling truck come by earlier than I get the bins out.

Rave: when the garage or recycling truck goes back on the other side of the street and the guy crosses over to pick up our late bins! Okay, this happened one time. A good "rave" can keep me happy for weeks.

Rant:

I had a dreadful Boden costumer service experience nearly 14 years ago and haven’t done business with them since. I do really like the looks of their stuff though and have heard good things, so I gave them another shot.

The tankini top I ordered was cute and fit well so I wore it to the pool where it chaffed under my arms so badly I had to quit swimming for the day. So I washed it carefully and sent it back with an explanation. They credited my account. All good.

Then Heidi from Boden customer service called and left a message asking me to call back. I don’t need anything from them at this point, but I figure maybe they are trying to improve the product? So I call. She’s not available and I get an interrogation—I was asked for my order number twice (I don’t have it), asked to spell my name a couple of times, asked for my email address, my mailing address and on and on. All the while the guy is saying things like oh we don’t have that address (then how did you ship the package to me?). Finally I cut him off and said I don’t need anything from you and only called because I was asked to. So good bye. Sheesh. Maybe I’ll give them another try 14 years from now?

Rave:

This shirt from title nine is awesome. I bought it in the wildflower color last minute for a trip. It is cool, comfortable, washes fine in a sink and dries quickly, and it is flattering and looks nicer than the average t-shirt.

https://www.titlenine.com/product/breeze-womens-short-sleeve-t-shirt-430929.do?sortby=ourPicks&refType=&from=fn

Bonnie, I may be tempting fate, but we have had such good experience with traffic going back and forth to CT and Maine this summer. Of course we never, ever travel Friday nights or Sunday night.

Thanks to Crl my Friday rave is the Title Nine website! I'm always looking for bra-sized swimwear, and I'd never stumbled across this brand before.

Blfenton, I share your annoyance about traffic accidents preventing you from getting home. I live at the end of a 2 mile long peninsula that is at the end of another 4 mile long peninsula. In the last five years we have had so many terrible incidents/accidents that have caused gridlock and the inability for people to get on or off one or both peninsulas. The most recent one was a 3 car fender bender at the light at the top of our peninsula. Rather than move their cars out of the intersection, they left them there such that we could not get off the peninsula-it was rush hour and we were on our way to court for a case in which my daughter was the victim so we were freaking out. Thankfully, after 20 minutes, the cops showed up and made all three cars move - it was incredibly maddening to see that it really was a fender bender with limited damage and no injury so no reason they couldn’t have moved their cars.

My rant.....coming home from vacation to a dryer that doesn’t work. Then two days later, right after dh left town for 10 days, I came home from a huge grocery store run to discover my fridge and freezer were not cooling. Did I mention I just got home from a huge grocery store run? Then I had to water dh’s vegetable garden. Turn on the outdoor spicket, watered the garden and turned off the spicket. Except even though I’ve turned it completely off, there is still water coming out. So I had to figure out which valve inside turned off the water to that spicket until dh comes home to replace it. Later that day, I’m in my backyard with my puppy talking to my neighbor on the other side of my fence. I look over to see my puppy has found a loose board on the fence and has managed to escape. She is NOT trained and does not come when called so I had to chase her down. Thankfully, she knows there is a dog in the House next door and ran right up their front steps so I was able to corner.

Everything started to fall apart at the same time, and all when my free handyman (dh) is on travel for ten days.

oh, I forgot to mention, the night my fridge broke, I woke up at 3am to my smoke detector going off every few minutes. Not chirping like the battery needs replacing, but actually going off. This went on for 15 minutes. I searched the whole house to make sure there wasn’t any smoke, etc before crawling back in bed but of course I was all wound up and worried there was a smoldering fire I didn’t know about. Never did figure out was was wrong. Rant over.

My rave....d19 asked what was for dinner. It’s Friday and I’ve had crappy week (see above LOL). I said I Hadn’t given it much thought as I wasnt sure whomof my kids would be home. She said she had seen a chicken recipe online that looked good and offered to make dinner. She’s even at the store now getting the ingredients. She never makes dinner so this is a nice treat.

Serendipitous traffic accident. A school was built near an exit from a major highway. There was some discussion about whether the school needed to arrange (and proffer) for a dedicated turn lane into the school property. The school had gotten temporary permission not to have the turn lane. The evening before the hearing at which time they would get their permission formally granted, I witnessed an accident where a driver caused a fender bender while making a left turn into the school grounds. It tied up traffic on the highway. I mentioned it that evening to some of the government officials who would be granting the permission.

The school did not get the permission and had to put in the turn lane.

Bridezilla. I'm just going to put it out there. That's all.

Rave: Since starting Keto 4 months ago, I don't eat anything with sugar in it. Yesterday, I was in the supermarket longingly looking at the Italian Ice cups. I love lemon Italian Ices.. a throwback to my childhood. We'd walk to the corner bakery and for 15 cents, you'd get a big cup of slushy deliciousness!

So today, I learned how to make it(not hard at all!). Used swerve sweetner and viola!

YUM!

MA isn't the only bad driving state. AL drivers are bad about those things too! Drives me nuts... and glad we just moved closer to town so I don't have to drive so much!

My rant - 2 HVAC units were replaced 18 months ago. Both have had issues in recent months. So it's now 77 degrees upstairs = DD1's room is hot and DGS isn't spending the night. :(

DH had injections in both knees yesterday, and we did the final part of our move, so one of my knees is a bit sore and swollen today. He's already done too much today (with the dogs getting the Lab settled in today) and I have things I want to do, but know I need to postpone a few days. I swear I am not moving again, or at least selling a TON of things before we down-size and someone else is doing ALL of the packing and moving.

Rave: Having finished (all but the art) moving this week, so DH and I (and all the dogs/cats) are finally under one roof again. It's been 51 days.... but I did enjoy having a big bed to myself with the two girl dogs while he was with the boys at our previous home.

Rant: too political to post here

Rave: deliveries from 3 online sources arrived today, days before they were promised. Way to go Landsend, Zappos and Nordstrom!

Ongoing rant: 14 year old gd loves Urban Outfitters. Yes, cute clothes, but these type ads featuring young teens in such provocative poses just makes me see red. Am I out of step?

I don't think you are. Too "Pretty Baby" for me.

Rant: Tomorrow is our anniversary, and our favorite French restaurant that normally put on a Bastille Day celebration closed about 2 months ago. Also, another gastropub restaurant closed our favorite location. (I think real estate is so high here they just can't make it anymore). So, we have to find reservations at another place. We could stay in and cook, but I think we need to go out.

Rave: Went to Baltimore this past weekend to see baseball game and wound up going to a fun smaller museum on the inner harbor after we checked out. The American Visionary Art Museum has lots of modern art and the most awesome gift shop. Bonus: NOT full of little kids like the science center or aquarium would have been.

American Visionary Art Museum

Rant: due to a medical procedure, I had to wear my glasses, instead of my contacts, all day and my nose and ears are sore. Boo-hoo, it’s a drag.

Raves: due to a medical procedure, I should be returning to my old self and feeling better. Yay for technology & skilled medical professionals.

Jojoco! Maybe you are afraid of jinxing it, but if you are not superstious, please share this "most gorgeous...' I'm excited for you!

Jojoco...you found a house?!? I hope you will share some pictures or at least a description.

Rant: I will ditto Allison’s ditto about AL drivers being bad. Of course many have migrated here from other states in recent years, at least where I live. It used to be so peaceful and easy.

Rave: I also love Title 9 and Athleta. Athleta makes the best tall size leggings and tights with normal waistlines. I have some hiking tights I practically lived in last winter.

bpathome wrote: "Rant: when the garbage or recycling truck come by earlier than I get the bins out."

My rant is when I get the yard waste/compost bin out to the street the night before (because they come about 5:30 a.m.),it's often after dark with me wearing a headlamp so I can see (and I have a long driveway), then when I go to pick up the bin the next afternoon, they have missed my bin. I'm at the end of the road, but there are 3 of us here and last time they missed us all. So I call and they tell me there are no drivers in the area, they'll get it next time (in 2 weeks) and if I want to put an extra bag or two out, no charge. Well, I use it for compost, kitchen scraps, etc. and I don't want to have that sitting in bags. Makes me crazy! Last time I insisted they send a truck and he did come a day or two later.

My biggest RANT this summer is all about OTHER DRIVERS. Cell phones, driving five miles under the speed limits, not knowing how to traverse a traffic circle...

RAVE: New counter stools for my breakfast bar!! Instant update!

RAVE: I live in a lovely neighborhood near the largest city in my state. The houses are all 50-60 years old and with good setbacks, so there is no crowding. We love it here. We walk a lot and people are very friendly.

RANT: A single man bought the house to our right about 8 years ago. His house is on the corner and the back of his house "faces" our backyard. He put in a new kitchen immediately. Fine. A few years later, he replaced the fence with vinyl. It was badly installed and goes up and down like a mountain range. OK. He replaced a bathroom. Fine. He put in a flagstone patio. Lovely.

He has cleaned his gutters once. Little trees and vines growing everywhere. Not good. Shingles have fallen off the back of his garage and birds are nesting inside the walls. Gosh. His siding is flaking and peeling. Hmmm. We saw rats(!) dragging slices of bread from somewhere under his house. Yikes. (I don't blame him for causing the rats...there is a citywide problem because of many water/sewer construction projects, but I do blame him for the bread.)

He had a roommate for a few years who kept the yard nice and we asked him about the gutters, etc. He shrugged and said he had stopped suggesting maintenance work. He finally bought his own house and moved.

I'm very glad we aren't trying to sell our home right now because buyers would be wondering if our area was in decline.

The owners have accepted our offer but we’re are still in the inspections phase. I promise to post pictures as soon as all the contingencies are removed. Trust me though, the house is stunning.

Rant: Forgetting that there are bugs out in the woods at dusk. So I've got itchy bug bites on my arms and lower legs.

Rave: Overnight personal retreat at a hot springs resort. Mindfulness and soul restoring hot soaks, geothermal sauna and a 90 minute massage along the river. Delicious vegetarian meals and incredible scenery. Blissed out and feeling well today.

Rant - Received a bill from the anesthesiologist company that dated back to DS2's birth almost two years ago. It was with our old insurance but is covered. For some reason they didn't respond or pay that so we received a bill. I got to play middle man calling back and forth trying to straighten everybody out. Four phone calls. Oh the joy. I think all is well now but I will be following up.

Rant 2 - AT&T's live chat pisses me off. Wasted four hours of my life dealing with them (I'm not exaggerating) when we didn't have cell signal. It was becoming a regular thing for a while. They insisted it was our SIM cards (both of them and my neighbors. . . ) and not the towers. *eye roll* I finally agreed to go to the store and have them changed (for free) just so I could mark it off the list. I was still walking into the store when the girl confirmed, what I already knew, a tower was down in my area. Grr. That's the really condensed story. I filled our my customer survey for the chat.

Rave - DS1 finished his swimming lessons yesterday and before being the last one out of the water he asked the helpers/guards if he could go down the large water slide. He can't swim yet. They agreed and he ended up going twice. One helped him up the stairs and two waited at the bottom to grab him after he went in. He was so happy! In general I found all those kids (teens/helpers/guards) to be very encouraging and kind to all the kids the two weeks they had lessons. Side note - The pool isn't open during lessons and all the other kids and parents were gone before the sliding took place. The instructor was fine with it. She taught me how to swim and did all my trainings and certifications so we were finishing a catch up.

Rave 2 - Thought were were going to have to replace our water softener but all is well.

Rant - people who ignore leash laws. I live in the suburbs, so maybe this rant wouldn't apply to rural areas. But a small dog was killed this week in our neighborhood, by a lab whose owner lets it run loose on the green belts, in violation of the leash laws. I walk often with a dear friend who is terrified of dogs running up to her (though fine with my leashed dogs). Why should she have to walk in fear of dogs attacking her? Why should small dogs be viciously killed in front of their family just so the lab's owner can have the feeling of his dog "running free"?

Mrs S, I one hundred percent agree about leash laws. I once had a Newfie come out of his yard onto the public sidewalk and attack my on-leash Golden. Even worse, I was pushing my toddler in the stroller. All I could do was drop the leash and get my daughter out of the middle. Thankfully my dog was not physically injured but he became leash reactive in the presence of off leash dogs. We’ve had other unpleasant encounters with off leash dogs too.

That's awful, Mrs S.

Sheeisback, I lost over 9 hours of my life on the phone and chatting with AT&T. I now have another company for landline and internet (and it is much much faster and never goes out!) The thing with AT&T, one person cannot talk to you about everything. Wireless, landline, internet and TV are all different entities. Even after I canceled, I received a bill showing I still have internet. I had to call - again. She said my order had gotten "stuck" somewhere, but that still took over 30 MINUTES! WTH.

Rant: Two power outages this week. One caused by an accident, one by a neighbor's tree. Both outages exceeded 6 hours.

Rave: The best renovation splurge I made was a standby whole house natural gas Generac Generator. I had power.

Allison - Oh, 9 hours is really bad. What on earth.

The thing with AT&T, one person cannot talk to you about everything.

That's terrible. My internet is through my cable company (only co. we can use in this area) and they're another bag of fun to deal with from time to time. We don't have a landline so I had to do the live chat with AT&T when our phones wouldn't work. Anytime I've had to use the chat I would get passed off to someone else part way though with no explanation and they'd want me to go through EVERYTHING AGAIN. In an attempt to save some time I would start to interrupt and tell them it wasn't this, this, or that as the problem and they would be polite and agree that what they just suggested couldn't be the answer answer based off of the info. I gave them. They were reading off a script and would just go on to the next thing. It's like they're hoping you just go away out of frustration. I was told the last time the 'supervisor' was informed. Sure. We would switch but they're the only carrier we can get service for this area. Part of my complaint to them is it didn't USED to be this bad with signal. I used to get 3 to 4 bars depending on where I was standing in the house and now I typically get 1 and 2 at best. They don't make the micro booster anymore (they would send them for free to people who had issues likes ours and I didn't know that until recently) but my in-laws gave us a new one. I'm not sure why they never used theirs. We need to bump our internet up though in order for it to even work. We'll be able to use wi-fi calling then but I find it ridiculous that we even have to do that!

When I shared the story with the girl at AT&T she said they have issues with the phone people too.

Jo.......teaser! Cannot wait for pics of new home!

Mrs S, my NextDoor is overrun by posts complaining about that very issue. Despite leash "laws", they are never enforced and there are daily horror tales of babies in strollers and dogs and people being attacked by unleashed dogs while their owners ignore the mayhem. I live in a very dog-friendly area in LA and have been bitten by two and there's no recourse at all.

Sheeisback, that was easily 5-6 phone calls and chatting once. Nothing was ever under 1 hour. We do not have fiber optics in our neighborhood (older, and underground utilities). A technician had come to the house (before we bought) and "bumped up" the speed, so at 5am it was semi-okay, but as people woke up around 7am, it would constantly drop - on/off, on/off, on/off, then go completely down. Couldn't work! A different technician came after we moved in and he said we are too far from central station (we are 13K ft away and you're not suppose to be over 9K ft). So he un-bumped what the previous tech had done and at least we didn't drop as much, but we had .768mbps. Couldn't download for squat, much less use the new TVs that were connected to the internet to download movies or watch Netflix. It was basically useless. You know it's bad when the AT&T technician says there is nothing he can do to make it faster and I should find another provider. So hello, Spectrum.