<p>yemaya, good to “see” you again. :)</p>
<p><strong>lol</strong>jmmom I’m definitely copying that one down for future reference!</p>
<p>My dh has a magnet too- in the interest of fairness. His says:</p>
<p>“DRINK COFFEE do stupid things faster with more energy”</p>
<p>Oh, and my mom even has one at her house:</p>
<p>“I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.”</p>
<p>Hahahahaha, Andi! 
:::sigh::: I like this place. The next time I decide to offer a little helpful advice on any thread, please lasso me, and bring me back to the Alley. Yikes. :eek: </p>
<p>Hey, I just met my S’s new g/f. Wowzah, she is a beautiful girl, smart, and nice. She’s in college, and she actually asked me today about the new dining set we had delivered. I was so stunned, I almost dropped my bottle of rum! ;)</p>
<p>andi - and a bib <strong>lol</strong> to you. Love the jogging magnet.</p>
<p>Hey y’all – we’re back from Paris this afternoon, after a completely unpleasant Air France flight (though not as dramatic as yesterday’s eventful flight to Toronto!), with enough mashed potatoes in my brain that I couldn’t remember how to get to my local sushi place for dinner. I think I’ll just go to bed now, I mean, hey, come on, it’s almost 7pm fer pete’s sake.</p>
<p>Sake. That’s the ticket. I’m off to fall into blissful sleep.</p>
<p>Oh yeah – my favorite birthday card from my brother had a caricature of a woman balancing a coffee cup on her head and ready, “Ever the optimist, Mary decided to use her hot flashes to reheat her coffee.”</p>
<p>Mootmom, sounds like you had a great time? </p>
<p>My aunt had a fridge magnet that said “no man has ever been shot by his wife while washing the dishes.” </p>
<p>Slugg, Sounds like your son has good taste. (And did you get the feeling she was coveting your furniture?)</p>
<p>My favorite refrigerator magnet:</p>
<p>“If a man speaks in the forest, and his wife isn’t there to hear him-- is he still wrong?”</p>
<p>When we remodelled we got one of those Sub Zeros with the panel to match the cabinets. We are talking white formica black granite type kitchen since it’s also part of our living room. Anyway. No magnets possible. Sorrow.</p>
<p>Must drink more red wine.</p>
<p>Welcome back mootmom! Bon soir et bien venue en Californie! La retour est douce…ou non…</p>
<p>Alu, perhpas you could innovate and put them on your dryer?</p>
<p>We have started packing at my house!</p>
<p>:eek:</p>
<p>I’ll take a straight tequila, forget all the extraneous crap.</p>
<p>We are going on a two week family vacation pre-college-drop-off so we leave in mid August.</p>
<p>I washed the twin XLs today! :eek: This is absolutely like falling off a building in slow motion.</p>
<p>Sybbie, you still got my back?!</p>
<p>Definitely…</p>
<p>I promise you, you WILL get used to this. The first leave-taking is a bit traumatic I admit, but pretty soon your s’s and d’s will have come and gone so many times your head will be bobbing up and down and side-to-side like one of those bobble head toys. Home for mid-semester break-- gone. Home for Thanksgiving break–gone. Xmas- here and gone.</p>
<p>Having them come back is such a wonderful experience that you can’t have unless they go away in the first place. I can even see that about two months is a “just about right” amount of time…both sides have gotten accustomed to life/schedules without the other around. TheMom is very annoyed that with D around, my own schedule is creeping later and later to match D’s. She claims she’s living in an owlry. </p>
<p>D on on the other hand, is enjoying herself just a little <em>too</em> much: she told Yemaya that I don’t look like Johnny Depp but more like Tevye. Why she would do this I can’t imagine.</p>
<p>Moot, welcome back! We had a PP (Paris Party) in your honor. </p>
<p>The Finland party was fun, too. Santa rolled up in a thumpin’, ultra-mack ring-ring mobile, and the deer were riding shotgun. They had the looks, the flavor, and the Benjamins. In the off-season, they call Santa’s sleigh, Da Night Rider. Prancer was kickin’ it with Curm behind the bar, and all of the bee-hotches were phat…I have no idea what I’m talking about. :)</p>
<p>SBmom, the day that we dropped D off at her college dorm was a fun, exciting, and exhausting day. We were on a very tight schedule, and they gave us only a half-hour to unload her stuff from the car and drag it up two narrow, steel flights of stairs. All of us parents looked like we were about to have one, big, collective heart attack! :)</p>
<p>The RA’s and the students really wanted the parents to LEAVE. They always have meetings and activities scheduled after the move-in, so they want the parents to hit the road. I had to do my Martha Stewart thing and make sure that the pillows on her bed were fashionably adjusted for good back support, and finally, my D practically punted us out of the building. </p>
<p>Fast forward two years: Now, we have a comfortable routine with her. She comes home when she needs to, does laundry, and exchanges things from her room (clothes, books, supplies). I’ve lost track of all the times she’s been here, and then, back to college. Ask me anything about containers. When D, Dh, and I work together, we can move her in or out of campus housing in an hour flat. Then, we collapse on the lawn outside of the building and act like we’ve just completed a marathon. Sometimes, just for fun, we drive past her window real slow, waving, and hollering, “Goodbye! We MISS YOU already!” 
Dropping them off at college is way better than kicking them out the door to high school each year.</p>
<p>Hi Guys!</p>
<p>I’m crashing through for a quick one - Glad to see the groups all here and that somebody’s keeping my seat warm!! Sinner’s Alley feels just like home - the way all good bars should.</p>
<p>I survived the college tour in style (lost it only once but it was a doozey…) and am off tonight for a nine hour drive to the Hyannis Ferry for a week dodging SUV’s on Nantucket - when I come back, I’ll regale you with college tour tales (if you can stomach them.) </p>
<p>Slugg, keep the floor clean.</p>
<p>TheDad, I am sure you are right. I perk up some when I think of the fabulous fun she will be having.</p>
<p>I think part of my sadness is also for my boys (14,7) because they are really close to their sister. The end of an era.</p>
<p>SBmom I wrote about this on another thread. The toughest part of the leaving thing was the separation between the two s’s. Heartwrenching.</p>
<p>Uh, does the bartender have a drink for this kind of pain?</p>
<p>Sb,</p>
<p>Just when you thought it was safe to go out…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/education/edlife/stress31.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/education/edlife/stress31.html</a></p>
<p>I know, I know, there’s not reading on sinners alley becasuse there are so many other threads which to do so (plus it’s way too dark and half of us can’t see a thing which is why the alley is so attractive). </p>
<p>I’ll refrain from doing it again :o</p>
<p>Slugg, nooooo don’t let them take my seat</p>
<p>Curm…gimme back my drink :eek:</p>
<p>Hello…I’ve never been in to Sinner’s Alley before, but it seems like a nice bunch. Should I just pull up a cyber-barstool? I could use something cold and soothing tonight. I have a new puppy and college D has a new boyfriend…a bartender (not the cyber-variety either). No college, no car… Lots to worry about. A strawberry margarita, I think…</p>