Bailey? I'd be thinking more Ashton myself. Dogs not so big with the subtle, in my experience.

I didn't think he was hiding things. I thought maybe he was eating things.

Oh dear, there is no way I can list my cars. I bought my first one in 1972. It was a Volvo sports coupe, they didn't make them for long I don't think. Quite snazzy. There have been quite a number in the last 30some years. From my 1964 Chevy that I bought for $75 to a couple lovely mid-80's Jaguars. Drive a Jetta and a Ford van now.

Went to Bed Bath & Beyond and spent the gift card we get for charging too much money on our credit card (we basically use it for everything for the points). We got: 1 fancy schmancy towel (just one, for now, to see if it's as functional as it is beeeeeautiful!), 2 bamboo cutting boards, 1 set of 4 silicone flexible cutting boards (they have pictures on them so you know what to use for what- meat, chicken, fish, vegetable), silver cleaner, and a candy thermometer. And of course, my replacement travel mug.

Shopping without the guilt! Fun. Also went to Home Depot and looked at bamboo flooring and quartz countertops. (just for fun). Tried to buy a charlie bar for our sliding door, but our door was an inch too narrow for it. Made Thai chicken soup, and fruitcake, and dinner (roasted butternut squash, sweet potato, and sausage). Drank some homebrew.

Called: my mother, Tom's mother, and my grandma.

In addition to yesterday's making homebrew and Christmas shopping for a bunch of folks, it's feeling like a very productive weekend!

Ooh! Also lots of laundry and food shopping.

And, {{Anne}}. God, I'm so sorry about the shitty weather and the shitty weekend and the cold and the not knowing and the, UGH. I'm really, really sorry. That sucks. I'd have had at least one meltdown already myself. At *least* one. I hope power comes back soon and that things normalize, like, toot freaking sweet.

They have to pay overtime, and every minute the power is out, they're running power plants but not bringing in any money. They have 2,000+ linemen from other utilities working, and they have to pay those workers' companies for them and their equipment. An outage like this is multi-million dollar loss.

The bigwigs probably could be blamed for things like poor planning, not prestaging enough crews and for having poor telephone response to customers.

About the babysitting/child discussion. I can't even get into it, but I feel like it's all I've been thinking about lately. I've been questioning my choices and decisions regarding not having kids, and it feels like I"m questioning the very essence of who I am. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm actually really kind of... not sleeping at night because of it.

OMG - DH just paid for some Chinese food that we didn't order. WTF. Luckily he ran back out and caught the delivery person and figured out that they had the wrong address.

My car history:

1980 AMC Spirit (bought in 1988 with 130K, I called that chocolate brown hatchback "The Beast")

1989 Nissan Sentra

1994 Saturn SL-1 (which lasted over 120K)

2004 Saturn Ion

My first car was an 89 Honda Accord that was my mother's. She gave it to me and bought herself a new car. My second car is a 1998 Honda Accord, that I bought new at the end of the model year. I am hoping it still has a few more good years in it.

{{Nora}} Why are you questioning yourself?

Cars?

• 1978 Mercury Marquis Brougham
• 1971 Ford Galaxie 500 (got from my grandpa when he couldn't drive anymore)
• 1972 Mercury Monterey
• 2000 Ford Focus
• 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible
• 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham
• 1985 Ford LTD (midsize) police car

I still have the last three. I also went through a ten-year period as an adult when I didn't own a car at all. Only two of those cars cost me more than $1,700.

My parents passed my twin sister and me there 1981 oldsmobile, which took us through three years of high school until we graduated in 1989--and we had to scrape by the summer and first year of college in an 88 Yugo that my dad bought off my aunt for $500 (I think he overpaid).

We then shared another passed down car (an 88 chevy cavalier) which my sister eventually bought from my mother while I scraped for a sheriff's auction Ford Escort.

When the Escort cracked a head gasket a year later, I got my first car loan for an 88 Cutlass Ciera which lasted me until DH and I traded it in for a new truck in 2001.

I'm now in the Mommobile Minivan.

I empathize with every 'ffista mom who feels trapped like a rat in a cage. We are lucky to have gotten out without the kids, together, a total of 3 times in the last 10 months. Paying a babysitter on top of dinner and a movie runs about $100 so that's usually out. Last night a good friend repaid a kindness by babysitting for us for free and it was really, really nice. We grabbed a beer before going to see the new Bond movie.

I hate to ask friends to sit with the kids because I feel like I'm imposing. It's not about trust issues or even guilt for the kids. But being so far from our family pretty much puts the usual outlets for free sitting out of our reach.