To Andrea, Jen and Shannon. Spotify. Addicting? Severely! I have been playing with it all morning! At least it's keeping me off Facebook! I thought I knew more music than I do (I worked at a record store for years and now DD turns me onto all sorts of new things). Boy was I wrong!

Hi folks! We had a healthy cook-off at work today which I was in charge of which was a success. Yay, yummy healthy food! Didn't make it to the gym though because I was running around taking care of the cookoff.

The good news is that despite being on my feet nearly all morning, they don't hurt very much at all. Hopefully this means that the prednisone is starting to work (I'm on day 3 of 25 -- two more days at the highest dose, then it starts dropping). Two weeks ago I was at a museum where I was on my feet for 2 hours and I could barely walk afterward. Today I was on my feet for at least 2 hours and only felt a little uncomfortable. I haven't been particularly hungry but my weight is up a little bit anyway, probably from salty food the past few days.

Megan If Hugh Jackman is sitting beside me, naked, on Sat. night I will divide my time between the Cirque and him.

I have seen two other productions of Cirque and they were fabulous! I did enjoy animals at the circus when I was a kid but the Cirque du Soleil folks more than make up for their lack in today's circuses. Much kinder for the animals too.

So DH is coming and will try to enjoy the show. He's in quite the mood this week - all his emails are snippy - and now I really don't want him along. Oh well, at least he won't talk while the show is on and I'm going back to the dog's house afterwards.

Good evening all!

Dagmar

I need a new dishwasher. Not that my current one is old, but I hate it. One day it cleans okay, the next day not so well. And sometimes the shortest cycle of 2 hours seems to take 3 or more hours. So I'm starting to research what to buy. My old Amana was wonderful (cleaned perfectly and was fairly fast) but was kind of loud and ended up developing a bad leak. We replaced it with an LG and I'll never buy another LG product again. My washer doesn't wash clothes too well (better now that we do a prewash on EVERY load). The dryer is okay, though. The fridge has had three major leaks in the ice maker system but I think we finally solved that.

So, my original thought was to get a Bosch as I've heard so many good things about them. But DH said Meile has a better product. Do any of you have any suggestions? I'm really tired of having to rewash all my glasses because they come out with icky residue on them (and yes, I do use a rinse aid).

Allison - My dishwasher is Bosch and I like it a lot. It cleans well and is very quiet. The only flaw is that sometimes it doesn't get the dishes all the way dry, but that is usually when I've overloaded it.

I absolutely loved my Bosch that we bought in 2006--had to say goodbye when we moved. It was the cheapest model, but cleaned well, was quiet. My appliance repair guy (for my non-Bosch appliances) said Bosch was great. Don't know anything about Meile.

Quite a few of my clients have Miele dishwashers (they were "the" dishwasher for awhile). They are very quiet. I find they don't clean the dishes well, have a weird layout for putting the dishes in, and take along, long time and don't totally dry the dishes.

But they are super expensive (which is apparently why so many people bought them).

Dagmar

Kitchenaid here. Mine is just two years old. It doesn't dry all the way. (Actually, I didn't know it was supposed to, but am reading here that this is a flaw.) Mine is a funny size which is nevertheless popular around here because of the smallness of many kitchens in NY apartments. Though many people here don't have them because roaches like getting in them. Look, I'm just happy to have one -- a dishwasher, not roaches -- as I had gone decades without, not having lived anywhere with one since living at home with my parents in my 20s.

And then let me tell you how many apartments here don't have garbage disposals, and aren't permitted to have them -- and how unused I am to using them, and how I must adapt when I visit my mother, who runs hers frequently. I have to really think about it when I'm using her double sink, or I'd mangle a spoon in it during every visit.

Garbage disposals aren't allowed in Toronto - again stuff to do with the sewer system. One of my clients had one but I never dared try it. We put all of our food scraps into little buckets, which get dumped into the larger green bin, which gets put out every week for collection. I'm not doing it here at the dog's house as they aren't set up for it and I feel kinda weird - I do believe in recycling etc.

In fact DH and I have resuscitated our Brita pitcher. I looked at all of those little plastic water bottles in our recycling bin and thought about where they were going to end up. We can drink tap water instead.

TGIF!!!

Dagmar

That is so interesting about the garbage disposers. I never knew they weren't allowed in some places. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that didn't have one! As for composting food scraps, I've seen those nifty counter-top cans that hold scraps until you can take them to your outdoor com poster, but I hesitate to do that because of the problem I already have with ants. I'm sure that would be a major attraction for the stupid insects.

As for recycling plastic bottles, the recycled stuff is used often to make new items. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the bottles are recycled instead of just thrown away, it's okay to use them. Generally, I take one bottle to work with me and use it all week long (refilling from the bigger one on our work cooler) and then recycle it at the end of the week.

Thanks for all the input on the dishwashers. It was actually interesting reading about them yesterday. Funny how there are so many people who have TWO of them! I think that's overkill myself. I have lived in a couple places without dishwashers, and in fact we didn't have one in our last house for the first seven years or so. That's a lot of baby bottles to wash! Thankfully I got my kids drinking from zippy cups by the time they could sit up as those are much easier to wash.

Well, it's Friday and the last day of work for me until the 25th. I have a lot to do today to get prepared for the trip. I'm so glad I talked DH into leaving on Sunday instead of Saturday. Now I know I'll have time for a pedicure! And we might have time to go see The Help, too. Have a great day everyone!

Dishwashers . . . ours isn't working too well lately. We need to figure out if it's just the dishwasher crapping out or if it's related to our city water temporarily stopping softening due to lack of rain. I guess I need to call the city and see if they have started softening again. The problem we have right now is that after a cycle in the dishwasher, all the dishes get this thin layer of grit left over on them, like you get in your shower with hard water. If the city is softening, then it's a question of whether to get a new dishwasher or get a water softener I guess. The dishwasher came with the house and is probably about 10 years old.

Allison, we have a countertop compost holder. We used to toss scraps right outside our back door behind our plants, but DH likes to compost in big bins, plus we have a worm compost bin in our basement. Then he started storing the scraps in the sink in a plastic bag, and I can tell you that will absolutely attract fruit flies and other nasties. We bought a stainless steel pail with a charcoal filter from bed bath & beyond and I've been happy with it so far. No bugs or smells (yet). We empty it every couple days into our outdoor compost and rinse it out each time.

One thing I can say about composting is that it is amazing how much less trash you produce when all your food scraps go somewhere else. We have this gigantic trash bin, and the only time we ever fill it up is if DH was doing a lot of pruning in the yard. We typically only produce one real bag of trash per week. Meanwhile our neighbors have TWO big trash bins since they produce so much trash. I can't help but wonder how much of it is veggie scraps. We fill our recycling bin to the brim each time though.

Dagmar, I need some advice or at least the loan of your hanky. My dog has become a biter, I am advised to have him put down. I can't bring myself to do that. What do I do, I will feel guilty if I do and if he bites again, I will feel guilty about that.

Bargoo, I would suggest contacting your local humane society and asking for a referral to a dog behaviorist. The humane society is usually a good place to go for this because they want to prevent dogs being put down as much as possible. They may also be able to evaluate your dog for aggression in general. Definitely look into behavior modification before you put him down though!

Hi all.
I'm back from my trip to Houston and there's no way I can catch up with all of you!
I'll just mention that I am totally upside down in my mortgage. It is terrifying. I would love to move but we can't afford to sell.

My trip to Houston was overall good but had many stressors. My MIL that had the stroke is having bad memory issues that are not related to the stroke. They've told her that they may be related to a severe bladder infection. Dh and I are worried about Alzheimers but I guess time will tell. She was basically helpless.

I also saw my best friend. She has a 14 y/o son with SEVERE autism and an almost 12 y/o dd (normal). She had a son a year ago and we've been praying he wouldn't have autism but it is looking very likely that he does. It breaks my heart.

My food was hit or miss. I ran every day which I think offset the damages. I overate one day and I will never do it again-- it was terrible-- I felt hungover and sick the next day! I think it was the fatty dessert that did me in.

Back to tracking today!

Hugs to you Bargoo. I don't know the circumstances involved with your dog so I hesitate to advise, but I would be hesitant to keep a dog that bites.

I forgot to mention flying with Dewey. I was so nervous but he was GREAT!! The tranquilizer worked great. He didn't budge! I was so worried he wouldn't be able to "hold it" because it was so many hours from driving to the airport, to waiting at the airport (we couldn't get him to "go" there), to the flight. Coming back our flight was delayed for 2 hours so he had to hold it for another two hours! He was a champ though!