The original recipe has a name I cannot pronounce. I tasted a roasted red pepper spread at my ex BF's place the first time, and the recipe came from his father. The original recipe is from the former Yugoslavia, don't know which side. It is made by roasting peppers, tomatoes and eggplant if you care for them. Skinning them comes next and you then grind them with a meat grinder, more interesting than puree. Here is the thing though. The last part of the recipe calls for mashing raw garlic with salt, lots of both, than mixing with the pepper and some oil. The taste is to die for, much better even than this spread, which is pretty good. My alternative to this, since it would not be safe to can, is to mash a bit of garlic with a bit of salt and a teaspoon of oil and add it to some of this here pepper spread when I want to eat it, almost like the original. It is amazing with sausages, spread on bread and with omelets too. Actually, I could eat the original with anything. Oh, and I think the oil emulsified with the peppers because the texture was much thicker. Anyway, thought you guys would like to know... Marie (now going to eat some of my wonderful spread)

mjsee, that's not a rant, it's a legitimate belief. Trouble is proving you are...and how I hope you are...correct. If there is definitive proof, I've not heard it. I have read that horrendous crimes in general are higher because of today's wide-sweeping, all pervasive news and copy-caters. Surely there have been studies and the stats are available. I've just not been made aware of it. On the other hand, if the stats are the same and we were just less aware of it back in the day, would we not have been more protective then, too, had we known? i did not allow my children, nor does my daughter allow my grandchildren to ".... let my kids have the same level of freedom I had..." and here's why: Over 40 years ago, at age ten, while walking 6 blocks to my grandmothers house I was attacked by a man. Fortunately, I was rescued and unharmed. Also as a young girl while out bike riding and/or walking to school, I was approached and/or 'flashed' on several occasions. I was grabbed and quickly( harmlessly and scarily) groped by a man during an afternoon movie I was attending with my older eleven year old brother. So my philosophy was this: I would rather over-protect and see them grow up safely. It seemed to do no harm as both graduated college and fearlessly wandered the world, tramping through jungles and living in huts with strangers or alone. My grown children are coping me in this with their kids. So, mjsee, I'm not calling you out as wrong. I'm simply explaining why I did not give my children the same freedom I had in my not- always halcyon days of yore. Though it would not change my mind, I would really be comforted to learn that crime has NOT escalated, so if you've a link or can direct me to a source, please do! TIA! Oh! I was going to apologize to the OP for taking this adrift, but see it was me re. smelly fabric! See this is why we should never complain when our posts are taken off-course. It can be like conversing on here, and isn't this last bit far more interesting than bedbugs, germs or smelly fabric?! :>)

No one else uses my phone. I do pick up phones in other office that I happen to be in & use them & honestly don't really think anything about it. The only time I've ever done this was when a co-worker came in really sick & then went home (she shouldn't have come in to begin with; she honestly could barely hold her head up). Our boss asked me to do some of her work & it was easier to do it in her office than to carry all the files to my office. We had a full-time cleaning lady & I had her wipe every surface she could find in that office with a sanitizing wipe - phone, computer, desk, etc. The co-worker was sick for a week (really bad stomach bug - her parents caught it so I was really glad I took precautions). She really wasn't well enough to come back after a week; she still looked pretty sick. But our "nice" boss that I posted about in moonie's post called to tell her that she'd had plenty of time to get well & that if she didn't come back to work the next day she was fired (and this was one of the boss's friends!).

I had 4 kids in 5 years. I get it. I second the suggestion of the detergent filled bucket, but I usually did not have the energy for that. I just hand washed the offending pair with dish soap in the utility sink and left it until it was time to do the whites. That way any solid matter was washed away and the underwear was more or less clean when it was put in the washing machine. I am lucky enough to have a utility sink and when I was really lazy, I would just let them soak indefinitely until wash day. I would change out the water once a day (if I remembered). Human beings with normal immune systems are able to take on a good bit of bacteria without a lot of problems. Kids are dirty (teenage boys are not much better). Don't stress over it.