My son is younger than most, just 13, so this may not fit for you. DS gets $25 month allowance to do with as he pleases. It supports his aquarium hobby and a few other purchases, but most of that he socks away. I buy most clothes, but alot come from ebay or Walmart where I can get good deals. If he wants extra clothes (a new cap, a fancy abercrombie shirt, etc) I usually make him pay for it. He's not a clothes horse. I pay for sporting activities, movies/fun stuff we go to as a family, dinner, our vacations, and outings that friends' parents invite him to, but not usually more than once a week. More than that, he has to dip into his money. Especially when it's the girls asking! LOL Some activities I'll pay a limited amount, but then he has to pay the rest if he wants more (ie, snacks, trinkets, etc). I usually make his lunch. If he forgets to bring in/put away his lunch box at night, he gets to pay for lunch the next day, but our kids don't go off campus, and the cafeteria lunch is less than $2. We do fast food on nights when the gap between my getting home from work and him getting to scouts or sports is small. However, he starting thinking he could get fast food ANYtime. So now he gets an extra "allowance" that is strictly for fast food runs. I started out giving him $36 a month for that, which was to include scout night dinner. That seems to have been too much as we had $$ left over, so now he gets a $25 junk food fund which stays in the car. Starbucks he pays for with allowance or gift cards (he routinely asks for these). I don't pay for chores at home. We are a two person family and I want him to learn to be a responsible family member. Heck, "I" don't get paid for taking care of the house either! I've pretty much implied that once he is wage-earning age he will no longer get an allowance, although I will still probably pay for many of the things I pay for now (family entertainment, food, basic clothing, sports, etc.) I've told him he will have to buy his own car and gas, so I've encouraged him to get a job when he is 15. He has already started mowing lawns and petsitting to earn money for a new computer. (He paid for half of his old one when he was 8). I want him to learn to be responsible and learn to earn things for himself. It aggravates him sometimes, especially when friends seem to get everything they want from their parents, but I know he's proud when he can point to what he's bought with his own money. And it certainly is NOT like he is deprived!

A week is too long to be left alone. I don't have family or friends nearby so I asked at our vet's office for a pet sitter recommendation. They gave me the name of one of their longtime clients who did pet sitting. I spoke with the pet sitter over the phone and got references. I phoned the references and they were SO happy with the pet sitting services they'd been getting from this woman for years. I invited the sitter to our home to meet with our cats and tour our house. Hubby and I both immediately liked her. Gave her a house key and our travel dates and we've been delighted with her ever since. We've been using her services for well over 10 years. She keeps our house key and when I need her help we communicate via email. On her last day of sitting she leaves her invoice on our table and I mail her a check. We've arranged that she comes over once per day, brings in our newspaper and mail, leaves tire tracks and footprints in the snow so our place doesn't look abandoned. She keeps the cat food bowls filled, water bowls filled and scoops our multiple cat litter pans. I like the idea of having a responsible adult in our house every 24 hours. During one of our Christmas trips she phoned me to say our furnace wasn't working and our house was cold. I arranged for our furnace man to meet our pet sitter at our house and we had a working furnace within a half hour. Had we left our house alone with no one checking on it we could have returned to frozen pipes and really cold housecats! Our sitter charges $15 per visit. We have four housecats she tends to. I give her a bonus at Christmas. Never would I leave a house with animals in it for a week. Kessala

I still have hope he will call again. There is someone out there for you!! I mean I got Tony at Walmart. I was a vendor and he would bring my boxes of heavy books out for me. At first I thought he was one of the "special" people that Walmart sometimes hire. When he would bring my books out he would be red faced and didn't say a word, just sorta grinned at me. His mom dressed him funny. A group of Walmart employees started going out to lunch and they included me. Pretty soon Tony started coming along. My DB was playing at a club downtown & I invited all of the "gang" down. Guess who showed up? I was pretty drunk when he got there. Hey my parent were there I had a ride home & a Mom that wouldn't let me get out of line. Anyhooo Tony drove me home in his brand new mustang. After a couple of beers he started talking to me. We sat in front of my parents house talking. I realized he was very smart, just painfully shy. Like I said I was 3 sheets to the wind,and I kissed him. Well let me tell you my eyeballs changed sockets, my toes curled, and I saw fireworks. I just "knew" that he was the one. We started dating in December & married in May 23.5 years ago. And I love him more each day. So don't judge a book by its cover...and if you get married I want to be a bridesmaid!!! lol

Got nothing done in the garden today except raking the courtyard. My kitchen cabinets are coming tomorrow and I cleared that path for the cabinetmaker to come in the back yard and use the back door which is closest to the kitchen. Plus the cement guy and the gloppida-gloppida machine is coming to build a form and pour a new front walkway at 7am, the freight line is delivering via 18 wheeler a pallet loaded with a parrot cage, and I know the friend will come by to mount the TV on the wall and wire the electronics through the attic and into the new hall closet. It will be SO NICE to have dinner and a movie with a real stove cooked meal again.....I threw the old electric range out of the house about 7 years ago, and have cooked on a 2 burner Waring pro hotplate, an electric fry pan, a rice cooker, a slow cooker, a microwave/convection oven, and an electric hot pot for coffee. I cannot WAIT for my stove! And the dishwasher to be reconnected, and my new sink...sigh....but back to hosta gardening after they are done. Bear with me. I'm rather distracted these days. Babka, I'll turn around twice blindfolded and see which hosta in hand feels rugose-er.