Kess's Profile

The one thing I know when people organize their books by color is that they're not a fan of the long, epic fantasy series - those seem to always be in different colors.

So basically, you're sub-human ;)

Seriously just dress for the weather. Buy a good hat, wear a scarf, get a coat that's actually warm. No one cares what you look like when it's freaking cold outside. Pea coats may look nice, but they're certainly nothing on fluffy down coats when it's actually cold.

@Anna Lisa
I really think it's because someone like me (who owns a week's worth of clothes) cannot fathom when someone would wear all this! For the cook, it's easy to see how they would use that big kitchen and their gadgets to create great food, it's easy to imagine a person who has read every single book in that huge collection and garnered some knowledge from all of them, it's easy to see how the furniture maker uses all these tools to make wonderful furniture.

It's a creation culture - the academic uses books to create new ideas, the carpenter uses tools to create furniture, the chef uses gadgets to create food, the artist uses paint to create a work of art. Clothes don't really create anything - at least in the views of our culture.

Is that the right or wrong way of looking at it? I don't know. But I think that's why people tend to get so up in arms.

A really cool one to do is kiva because the recipients choose which people to lend the money to. My BF did this as a gift to my parents this year, and they thought it was really nice. They decided that they wanted to fund some starting businesses led by women and were able to do that.

At our house it's kind of a thing - you save whatever you've got and wrap presents in that. That didn't happen until we all moved out and my brothers in particular didn't see the need to use wrapping paper.

One brother uses the brown paper bags he gets at the grocery store, and the other uses newspaper. I didn't move out until after last Christmas, so I'll likely be doing the brown paper bag thing this year.

If you're really concerned about fire and that's the only reason for not getting a live tree, get LED Christmas lights and make sure your tree is well watered - the best way to do this is to cut your own (so it's not sitting in a yard for who knows how long) and then cut off a bit more trunk right before putting it into the stand, just like you cut flowers before you put them in the vase.

Then just make sure to water it every day. Also, I believe furs tend to be a bit 'wetter' of a tree than spruce. Although I'm not positive on that one.

Yeah, the mass produced blankets like that are not worth that much, IMO.

Heck, I won't even spend the money for a hand knit afghan. That's why I learned to knit! I'm currently working on an afghan and the yarn was $50! And that's 100% acrylic. Had I wanted to make it with wool, the yarn would have cost $70-$80.

I'd add in a liquid measuring cup and a set of measuring spoons. Even if you don't bake, those are just really useful.

Personally, instead of designated mixing bowls, I've gradually worked up to having a 1, 2, 4, and 8 cup pyrex measuring cups. For all but the largest stuff, they work great and are dual purpose!

You may want to credit the cookset from GSI Outdoors as for this product REI is just the distributor.

Yeah, this whole growing out of twins thing is ridiculous. I'm 5'10" and sleep just fine on one. My SO is 6' and is also fine. I think that much above 6' is where you start needing an extra long which is 5" more than a standard twin. So if you're entire family is above 6', yeah, you should look into finding longer beds so you don't have to replace them down the road.

I grew up with the bottom half of my brother's old bunk bed (we got an addition on the house that no longer required that they sleep bunked and they got my dad's and uncle's old bed frames) and it worked great - one thing to think about is that many have rods or dowels to keep them bunked and will leave holes behind on the bottom bunk side. While I didn't mind, I'm sure some people would so just figuring out if covering them is an option would also be something to look for.