Anne, if you have molasses on hand you can make your own brown sugar. 1 tablespoon molasses to 1 cup sugar for light brown, 2 tablespoon molasses to 1 cup sugar for dark.

Gronk. Think I need to neti pot and do the hydrogen peroxide in ears thing today - not enough sleep for the last several days has me worried about that cold everyone has getting past my immune system.

Oh yeah, the molasses thing should work well. Also d, good plan with prevention. Shut those germs out.

he he ... Anne's "whoopsie" story reminds me of when I was in college and a visitor (friend of a friend at another college) was talking about when his mother redecorated their living room. The focal points were two large lamps with big, hand-painted silk shades. They had Chinese characters on them, were really beautiful, and she loved them. Then they had a Chinese visitor who took one look at the lamps and cracked up. The characters read, "arrogant rich".

Snerk, a Chinese friend of mine routinely had people bring him things written in Chinese to interpret. He was Jamaican and had no clue how to read Chinese, but he made up the greatest translations.

d, here at my school it was illegal to have the temp over 84 degrees- this was when it was summer (though the heat malfunctioned a few weeks ago too). We had to go home if the temp got that high. I don't know if it's my workplace or MA state law or what, but that's the number they use here.

And Andi, those newspaper people need to be smacked. Can you call their offices and lodge a complaint?

Yeah, we're going to have to do it. It seems like at least once a winter we have to let the newspaper people know that their snow removal guys need a talking-to.

d, good luck with the neti pot and hydrogen peroxide.

Gronk. So little sleep last night.

Anne, I forgot to buy eggs last night for baking. So, I'm in the same boat. I was going to make brownies or a quick bread just for us this week. For Christmas I think I am mostly making various kinds of chocolate bark to gift to people we don't buy gifts for. Does anyone have any good recipes/ideas besides peppermint bark?

sj, we make bark with dark chocolate, dried cranberries, and pistachios, which is always pretty yummy.

sj, we make bark with dark chocolate, dried cranberries, and pistachios, which is always pretty yummy.

Yum. Maybe I'll do that with almonds instead of pistachios. I don't really like pistachios.

My older nephew is not biologically related to me, so he is not supposed to take after me, but it seems he got a lousy report card this quarter because he hasn't done nearly any homework. He's bored by it.

For those who are going to give birth, how do you like this maternity hospital?