i turned 43 this year and was calling myself 43 for a few months before my birthday. Luckily my age doesn't come up often.

they travelled to a crazy expensive place, took a very expensive vacation for a pretty long time. Makes me wonder if it was a suicide pact and the trip was a final hurrah?

You'll be 100% fine as everyone said. I fly Delta and usually upgrade to economy plus. For me (a bit bigger) it's worth the extra legroom. You also get better snacks...like whole fruit and stuff like that. Plus they're a tad nicer to you if you get sick and need to bolt to the first class bathroom which happened to me on a recent flight...but I digress. For me, if the flight is longer than a couple hours, the extra legroom is worth the extra cost. (And remember it's not just legroom, it's boob room too. But then maybe you're not chesty like me.)

I think her biggest mistake is calling herself a vegetarian when she eats fish. Um, fish is meat. If she eats fish and no other types of meat then she's a pescatarian, not a vegetarian. That's my pet peeve about anyone who's a tarian of any type.

Good to know. I use a very bright lamp but it attaches to my handlebars not my helmet. I also seldom ride in the dark but it's nice to have a truly good light that allows me to see vs just be seen, so it's good to have.

I've had this happen too and it sort of sucks but really all you can do is take satisfaction in knowing you made an effort to help. It's always possible that your sister gave you the wrong email address, or an old outdated one, or that it got filtered and sent to junk or something. Might not hurt to check in with your sister to see if the friend has mentioned getting it just to be sure there isn't a logical explanation such has she didn't actually get it.

I don't understand your post. Who has the high beams on...cars or bikes?

My pet peeve is anyone (car or bike) who isn't paying attention to where they're going and doesn't share the road or thinks they're the only one on the road...cars who don't check behind them before making a right turn and force a cyclist into a dangerous (potentially deadly) situation, cyclists who zig zag in and out of traffic, cars who aren't paying attention to where the rain puddles are and just wantonly splash through them soaking people on the sidewalk/cyclists etc. I don't own a car and only cycle when it's not raining and roads are dry so I don't have a dog in the fight.

Well, I am literally taking a break from going through some boxes of crap I've been moving around with me for the last 20 years. I can say definitively if you've been storing it, you don't need it and won't miss it. I just tossed a bunch of old pictures (and kept some too, and I'm sure they'll be tossed eventually.) I tossed old college papers and journals and letters...stuff that is either meaningless now or just embarrassing to look at. Really, it's OK. If they toss it, it will be OK. If you bring it to your new home and just store it, then you'll be burdening yourself every time you have to move or want to use the space they're taking up. My two cents is to either cull it down to 2 boxes before bringing it to your new place or give yourself a firm deadline to cull it once it's moved. It's really junk. I promise.

On that note...I'm sorry your family doesn't speak to you in a nurturing or supportive way. That stinks. But...they do love you as evidenced by being your storage unit for the last however many years.

Anonymous wrote:Around 20%. I round up or down a bit depending on how good service is, but always use 20% as the starting point.

same here. It's rare I go below 20%.

Anonymous wrote:Omg who didn't do this growing up?!

I didn't and I don't let my kids do it either. Not on public property.

^^ blood pools when you die. If you're on your back when you die, blood pools there and looks like a bruise. My dad fell on the floor and died. He landed on something that was on the floor and had a bruise and dent on his cheek from laying on that object. I don't think it's unheard of (esp in the "old" days) for parents of SIDS babies to be charged with murder because the baby had "bruises" when really the blood pooled after death. As for the ligature marks on JB, I don't know. But I do know that when blood isn't circulating, it will pool and look like a nasty bruise.

Can you have the kids (and yourselves) put your clothes directly into the washer at the end of the day and start it up before bed? Then switch it in the morning. When you get home you have only one day's worth of clothes to put away.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what to do with books? I have a hard time thinking of putting relatively recent hardcover books in recycling but I'm not sure any organizations take donated books other than children's books.

lots of places take books: you can donate to goodwill or similar, homeless shelters, women's shelters, libraries sometimes take them, you can look into selling them online to powells, amazon, half.com etc. You definitely don't need to recycle books! There's tons of homes for them. Post them on a neighborhood list serve, freecycle, craigslist etc.

I'm saving money to travel in a couple of years so I've been good about not buying anything new. I live in a smallish apartment and have a history or not getting rid of stuff, so the goal of long term travel has helped me be more ruthless in donating. I schedule a date for the VVA to pickup, and then fill boxes and bags accordingly. I'm having a hard time getting rid of *everything* I should because I keep thinking I'll have a yard sale closer to when I move and it would be good to have some stuff to sell, but I suppose that's foolish.

I have a friend who sold their house and most of their stuff, refurbished a trailer and toured the west before deciding where they wanted to settle. (They had a 4 yr old kid BTW.) I asked what they did with sentimental things that have no value to anyone else and she said she spend a ton of time scanning things like photos, school awards and random stuff like that that you'd want to remember and look at occasionally, but don't want to have taking up space in your home. So, the answer to the question about kids art, pictures etc etc is to scan them and then get rid of the actual item.

I'm on the fence about whether I'll rent a small storage unit when I go traveling and if so what I'll put in it...what would be worth the cost of storing vs selling or donating and replacing in the future. I suspect very few things are worth the cost of storing.

So sick of gun violence. When will sense and reason win out over "my right to bear arms"?