<p>blue- be thankful he even realized that he left the hamper at home. He could throw the dirty clothes in a great big pile on the floor and not even realize that they need to be washed. 
Think of it as progress.</p>
<p>My D left her ipod in the charger and forgot that she would need a calculator for her stats class. She also asked for more hangers for the new clothes she brought back. I had to spring for the large flat rate box at the post office.</p>
<p>Gsmomma - you have obviously met my child.</p>
<p>I was at the Post Office yesterday mailing a warmer coat to my son and met another freshman Mom in line mailing forgotten items to her son. The postal worker said that parents had been coming in all day with packages of forgotten things to mail to their college kids!</p>
<p>I couldnāt for the life of me find a warm enough jacket in the right size and at the price I wanted to pay before my son left last week. With the after Christmas (Clearance! Reduced!) sales, I finally found a great down jacket that should keep him warm for $59 from Eddie Bauer. He says he would like a pea coat, but I know it really wouldnāt keep him as warm as a down coat, could it??</p>
<p>EAO, after being a SAHM since boychild was an infant Iām starting my own business. Hopefully, Iāll be working with real estate agents doing staging (both inside and curb) inexpensively for their clients who need help. Iāve offered to work for free for one agent so I can develop a portfolio and references. I donāt really care about making money but need to do something to keep busy that I enjoy and that will enable me to not work when I donāt want to. </p>
<p>In the meantime, Iāve started putting the polyurethane on the woodwork in the basement. </p>
<p>Boychild has called several times this week. First to tell us he will be home Feb. break as he needs to meet with the Judge so he can write up his grant proposal to submit to the college. If he gets selected it could be worth $3700! Then he called last night to tell us about his first tutoring session working with Somali immigrant children (he said it will be a challenge as most speak very little English and are horribly behind academically) and that the school showed Gasland Sunday night and had a discussion after with the film maker. He really likes his classes this semester but has a massive amount of reading. </p>
<p>Idinct, you need to stop buying so much food. I only cook a real dinner maybe 3 nights a week now, or I make a big pot of soup which we can eat for days after. This week itās mushroom barley. I made it for dinner Monday, last night we ate it again, tonight DH is having dinner with his Commish so no cooking for me, maybe Iāll cook something tomorrow night but I go out to lunch every Thursday after tennis so often have no appetite when dinner roles around, and Friday night weāll either do take out or go out for a bite. </p>
<p>College, congrats to your D!</p>
<p>Kinder, yay to your D on her evaluation!</p>
<p>One of D1ās friends, a sophomore, says she is going to get a second hamper for her clean clothes. :)</p>
<p>The correct 
term, by the way, is hemmorhaging money, as used by Sherman McCoy in āBonfire of the Vanitiesā. 
In my particular case, it is D1 who is hemmorhaging money as she said she will pay for the cost of shipping the phone. She might also not be able to share a cab back to campusāreally a pity after she carefully worked out a four-way share.</p>
<p>Agree with emilybee about cooking less and buying less food. Now that D1 is gone itās back to making half-recipes of things.</p>
<p>S has a very big shopping bag full of clothes and other āessentialsā he couldnāt fit in his suitcase that he requested I ship. He has also added, earphones, caps, a big box of books (which I would never have bought him if I had known he was taking them back to school, the boy has a kindle) amoung other things. Nothing he canāt live without for a few days so i will ship them next week. He wonāt be happy, but seeing as I am doing the shipping and the paying I am not too worried. </p>
<p>He still hasnāt met with the special advisor he has to see because of his academic probation. Supposedly he gave her his schedule and is waiting for her to get back to him. no sense of urgency on his partā¦atā¦all. OTOH, there is no sense of urgency on my part to front the money (over $300) for books in two classes he may not be allowed to take. I am really hoping he gets this taken care of this week.</p>
<p>Indinct- Muscle weighs more than fat if you have been working out as much as you indicated that could be it! Hey as long as the clothes are getting looser!</p>
<p>Already mailed two boxes, second one was brownies from Samās Club. D3 is the events coordinator for a new magazine and she has to do the launch, food,drinks, entertainment etc. She has a budget of 100 dollars so I sent a bunch of brownie bites. She was able to get a friend to play Jazz piano for free and then made a deal with a kid starting up a dessert company for the food, all she has to do is buy drinks. If I am repeating myself sorry, I kept losing my posts last week and not sure what I shared!</p>
<p>After volunteering over the holidays with her little sister and me for underprivileged kids she has decided to do the same at her school on Fridays as she has no classes on that day. My oldest daughter also went with us and just told me she submitted an application for Teach for America. Surprising but good!</p>
<p>Emilybee, that sounds like a great business good luck with it, it also sounds like fun! My real estate friend also mentioned to me that Realtors need brochures written up, pictures taken etc. things that they often donāt have time to do. She also wants me to do that for her, who knows maybe I will start up a small business like that! Oh the opportunities to be had and taken advantage of, ha ha!</p>
<p>Got to run off to volunteer at the afterschool program I mentioned above!</p>
<p>Grrrrrā¦wrote a very long post and then hit the back button by accident. </p>
<p>EAO, my realtor friends say the same thing so that is where I come in. Iāll do the hand holding - whether itās helping pick out paint colors or sprucing up the designs of their gardens, de-cluttering, helping set up a garage sale, hang pictures at the proper height (my bugaboo is paintings hung to high which I see all the time and it drives me crazy,) etc., etc., etc. I wonāt be the person who is going to tell them they need to spend lots of money or gut the whole kitchen. </p>
<p>Working on a name right now. Iām leaning towards āFirst Impressions Lastā while DH likes āLooks To Buy Forā.</p>
<p>BTW, muscle does not weigh more than fat! 5 pounds of muscle weighs the same as 5 pounds of fat. Muscle is just denser than fat so it makes one look thinner.</p>
<p>Even with two kids still in the house I have to adjust to not doubling and tripling recipes when Bluejrās at school. Our 20yo is not here so much of the time as it is so itās really just three of us. If I cooked as I did last year we get so sick of the leftovers and I am averse to throw any food out. When I find we have more than one night of leftovers I try to call my mom and see if she can use anything. Sheās single and itās very hard to cook for just one.</p>
<p>I WAS able to print postage online to go to my sonās dorm but it took me a lot of tries to get his address into a form that the online thing would accept. It turns out that for me the problem was that my Sās address looks like:</p>
<p>123A Foo Hall
City, ST 12345</p>
<p>And it was the A that was throwing it off, because it couldnāt compute the zip code for a street address whose house number has letters in it. I changed it to:</p>
<p>123 Foo Hall
Room 123A
City, ST 12345 </p>
<p>And it was happy with that and he got the box just fine.</p>
<p>I had to fedex Dās keys to her dorm room ā yes, she forgot them. Fedex doesnāt deliver to a PO box and her address includes āBox 12345ā. So I left off the word āboxā and she got it.</p>
<p>When I send items to D1 at school. the school advised us to send it like:</p>
<p>Student Name
Box 123
School Name
School Address</p>
<p>By putting the Box # first, packages will be delivered to the mail room. If you put the Box # after the school name or address, it may not get delivered. Go figure.</p>
<p>gsmomma, I bet you could do </p>
<p>Student Name (Box 123)
School Name
School Address </p>
<p>and have that work if necessary to make various online software happier about the address.</p>
<p>Emilybee, you sound just like my kids when I said not all carbs are equal they told me a carb calorie is a carb calorie. I know what I mean so its all good right, lol!</p>
<p>I did forget to tell you that your sons predicament of not āseeingā his coat in the side pocket is what we in my family is called ālooking like a manā (apologies to Shaw Dad and Avon Dad!) But in my family is something needs to be lifted, opened, unzippered or moved to be found it will not be found. Then I walk over lift up, open, move or unzipper something and hand the sought after object to the seekee and voila! Then I say, Your looking like a manā¦</p>
<p>Still having trouble with writing posts and getting deleted like you emilybee suggestions anyone???</p>
<p>Actually, the box number is a separate line. It works. Box numbers are routed to the Student Center and the main University mail room. The students have the same box number for the entire time that they are students.</p>
<p>^Highlight your paragraph and copy as you write every so often so it will be saved. You can also write your post on Word, highlight the entire document when you finish and copy/paste on CC.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about all the stresses of going back to school. Not that we are immune - D called last night in tears because it is only the second week of classes and she is already behind. I think a lot of this is coming from her suite mates, some of whom realized after first semester that they need to buckle down and are now creating a tense atmosphere.</p>
<p>I am currently experiencing being a member of the sandwich generation which was discussed here earlier. I drove down to PA (7 hours) to help my dad with some medical tests and talk about moving into a retirement place. That was a week ago. Now my dad is in recovery after bypass surgery, my mom is in respite care because she cannot care for herself, and. I am trying to find somewhere for them to move to since it is clear they cannot live independently any longer. Oh, boy.</p>
<p>Thank goodness S HSā14 is low key and resilient. He is staying with friends as H is out of the country on business. I have decided to go home tomorrow and come back next week when my dad is released from the hospital to rehab. I am tired.</p>
<p>EAO, no apologies needed. I walk right past things without noticing. I actually hire an assistant whose job is to make me more productive. Iām fabulous at creating ideas and seeing connections, good at creating a plan, but not so good at all of the little details and my best hires over the years have been slightly anal compulsive young women who find things for me (where did I put that piece of paper with a phone number from Rhode Island on it), organize trips, make sure business trips donāt conflict with vacations, as well as schedule my business meetings with senior execs around the world, do all of my business travel, etc. The best ones remind me to get a haircut and organize anniversary dinners, trips, flowers, etc. Without this person, Iād probably lose my coat too.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about the stresses in both the upward and downward directions, HighHead.</p>
<p>Highhead, hope your father recovers quickly and fully. Sorry about your D feeling stress about classes. My D seems pretty calm so far, maybe she got it all out last semester. Her big stresser right now is what to do for housing next year, likes 3/4 of her roommates and she has a friend who wants to transfer residential colleges to hers and live with her and the other two, its just no one is sure what to do with the odd girl out. I thought I liked Yaleās housing system better than Harvardās (blocking drama end of Freshman year) but already being placed in a residential college freshman year limits who you can live with for the next 3 years!</p>
<p>Shawbridge, My husbandās best secretary used to call me to let me know all sorts of things that my husband had neglected to and she would remind him as well! My favorite was when she called me at 6pm (I was at the pool with the kids) to tell me that the car was going to be by a bit early to pick us up. Pick us up I said for what? She said Oh the such and such Ball! Panic set in, I got home got dressed and was ready for pickup, my husband however was in the dog house!</p>