bluestar's Profile

We keep one for our daughter, but we also use it as a place to bookmark stuff for US to remember we liked for her when it comes time to buy something. I never give it out unless someone asks for gift ideas, and then I tell them that they do NOT have to stick to the registry or buy the exact thing on the registry - it's an idea list, but I don't care if people just glance at it and say "ohhh she's really into dolls! I saw an adorable doll at the store the other day that's not on this list, I'll get that!"

As a mom to an 18 month old, I can also say that I really appreciate there being a list out there for friends' kids, especially now that I know what a lot of space all that kid stuff can take up - I don't want to buy their kid something the kid already has or won't want - a list is a nice starting point for figuring out what might be a good gift!

Just want to say that you do NOT have to remove the seat of a Bugaboo Bee in order to fold it up, no matter if the seat is facing you or facing away from you. They told us in the store that if the seat was facing you, it would have to be removed in order to be folded up. When we got home we found this to be completely untrue, it can fold up either way.

You DO need both hands to fold/unfold the Bee, which is maybe my only complaint about it so far. We live on the second floor of a house and I have been sort of practicing hauling the Bee up and down to get used to it and for me, the weight is fine. If I lived on like a fourth floor walk up, I would probably feel differently :)

It's nice that you can take the seat out of the frame (by the way, you can buy a carseat adapter for it so that you can use a carseat at first, but for me that was counterproductive since I didn't want to have to fuss with different components such as a carseat/bassinett attachment...but the option does exist at least) so that if you need to pack up a car and that makes it easier, you have the option, but I want to reiterate that you do NOT have to in order to fold it up. Sorry to hammer the point home, but everyone told us you did and it very nearly kept us from purchasing it and then we never would have known the truth!

I actually just got the same set of cards and I do plan to buy something like the Dignitet curtain wire from Ikea and just hanging them from that with some metal clips. We have a pretty narrow chunk of wall they're going to have to go on, so we're planning on doing four or five rows of the curtain wire. I'm not sure how this will look, but in my head it seems right! If it turns out that it looks awful, then we'll probably just spell her name with them on a shelf and use the rest for playtime or something!

Hooray! At last!

*crossing fingers*

Wow, eowes, that is just the bleakest, saddest picture of Americans I've seen in a long time. 'Bob' needs to act like a rational adult and realize that while yes, 4,000 sq ft of space may be nice, it is a full on luxury and he COULD live in a MUCH smaller space with his family if he CHOSE to.

I think the thing often missing from these conversations is a very clear cut distinction between NEED and CHOICE/WANT. I fall into the trap all the time myself - when we're purging or getting ready to participate in my in-law's big yard sale every year I often find myself saying "Oh but I need that". I don't mean that I NEED it, I mean that I really love/want it and would rather not give it up.

I teach an ethics class where one of the chapters is about the environment and consumerism and the first thing I always try to do is get the class to acknowledge that what you NEED to live - to just stay alive - is very, very little. Food/water, shelter, climate appropriate clothing. With just those things you could stay alive. Every semester it's a battle of the wills with people INSISTING that they NEED cars, phones, etc. Even though I tell them that we're talking about pure survival, they often just don't get it. There's a huge, huge gap there. You truly NEED very little, the rest are just luxuries, and it's up to 'Bob' and the rest of the humans on the planet (not just in America) to know when they're cluttering their lives with so many luxuries that it's making it difficult for other people to survive around them.

I don't buy the fact that Bob needs to take baby steps, I'm sorry but I don't. Sorry this is so long, it just gets me worked up every semester. Didn't mean to pick on Bob so much either :)

Okay, I just went to the Shade Store to see about cost because I'm looking at roman blinds for my living room. It seems, according to their cost that ONE roman shade for ONE of my windows would run me about $321.00 and that's with NO extra frills whatsoever, just the shade. I don't own my home and haven't had a lot of experience decorating, but is that NORMAL?? Because I mean....$321?!?! For one shade!? Maybe if you told me that was the price to outfit the five windows in my living room I wouldn't be as shocked. Man, it's going to take me a while to recover from that one!

Books actually are meant to be done with whatever you choose. Maybe you like the cover art and never even crack the thing. Maybe you like to dog ear the pages with your favorite parts. Maybe you like to mark up the margins. Or maybe, like me and like a lot of other people, you like to go to the library and borrow them for free because you a)can't afford to own a lot of books b)can't afford the real estate required to house them anyway or c)you just read them and then are done, so no need to keep them around when you can always borrow them again if you need to refer back to them. I don't think that not having books in my house makes me untrustworthy or unappreciative of the beauty that a book can embody. I think people need to stop judging others on the basis of what material things they value or possess. I know this website is in a lot of ways all about materialism, but I think we can all agree that there are many differences of opinion and that one is not always right above all others. I like to hope we can also agree with that without being insulting (and saying things like 'in my opinion anyway' or 'no offense but' does not negate the negative and nasty impact your opinions might have. Just because you slap a cliche'd disclaimer on there does not mean your words are neutral or okay)

It's in Boston, which you didn't mention in the post, and we're very proud to have it here! Now if only I could actually afford to live in it...

It looks like it has a cord, it quotes a cord length and if you look at the picture on the Ikea site you can juuuuust barely make the cords out along the bottom. The light diodes are what they use in place of a common bulb - they're supposed to last longer.

Thanks for linking to SarahC's apartment, I am 100% going to knock off that idea because our bedroom is really a tad too small to have bedside tables and we've been forcing the issue because we aren't clever enough to think of something like this ;)