I've not been here long, but I have been part of other forums associated with Gardenweb. What I've found is that most people have more experience than me... and I love it. I'm 21, but I'll gurantee I'll be back on this forum to learn from those of us who have had the time and the financial investment to learn about so many different products. I wouldn't want to spend more than $10 on any product unless I had some people I could trust telling me that it was worth it! Pauline-I was given a facial mosturizing product from avon as a gift. It is wonderful. Talk with your avon rep about the Things you Dew moisturizer from their Mark line (or look online). I have the one for "behaving" skin which just tells me it's pretty balanced, but I'm sure they have one for dry skin too.

Like Johnliu I also use a lot of wasabi, as well as Chinese black vinegar, toasted sesame oil, achiote paste, wakame, and ginger (but not all together). I tend to use soy sauce more often than salt and cayenne or hot sauce more often than black pepper. A tiny bit of cayenne can be used to intensify the flavor of chocolate. I get celery leaves at the Farmers' Markets or in the organic section of the grocery store. On one of the morning news shows, they said that celery is the most important vegetable to buy organic, as it otherwise harbors more chemicals than any other vegetable. I would expect lettuce to be a close second, but I wash that pretty well. Ingredients I grow include Meyer lemons, limes, and herbs. At my new house, I can grow dill very well, and it did not do well in Venice at all. I am also growing cilantro more successfully, but I'm having a bit of trouble with basil and tomatoes so far. Thyme and oregano are doing well in pots in my back yard, and I also have lemongrass, epazote, and ephedra, all of which are fairly small and probably will not reseed themselves, and I will not plant them again. Lars

Thanks so much for the reply! We have started a new booster club at my child's school, to support the music program there. All the board members are new at this, including me. The advice I need is this: Our bylaws were modeled after bylaws we found at many other schools. The bylaws we copied from other schools have been in place at the other schools for many years, before ATMs, check cards, debit cards, PayPal became popular. Our bylaws specifically require 2 or more signatures on each check. Our bylaws don't address debit cards, PayPal accounts, etc. 15 years ago, most booster clubs I knew made their purchases by check or from petty cash. The treasurer kept the petty cash box and the check book, so the treasurer either wrote the check for each purchase, or disbursed petty cash for the purchase. So the treasurer and the booster board in effect made all purchases or authorized them in advance. To me the spirit of the bylaws is that the booster board makes the purchases. However, particularly with the advent of PayPal, our booster club has the technical ability for the music directors (teachers) to make purchases. Our treasurer (new at this) has said that the music director (a teacher) can make PayPal purchases and simply give him the receipt and that is fine. I'm concerned for a lot of reasons. It's my impression that historically the separation of disbursement of funds is an important protection for the teacher. If the board makes the authorization and disburses the funds, then any mishandling of the funds is the board's fault, not the teacher's. I also think the spirit of the bylaws is being violated by allowing the teachers to make direct purchases - I think the 2 signature requirement is to force 2 board members to scrutinize each purchase in advance, except for the ones small enough to come out of petty cash. Anyway, if you've read this far I'd love some advice, particularly from anyone active volunteering with the school system. Our music director is an honest, upstanding person who would never misuse the funds. However, there will be a turnover in board members and also in teaching staff, and who knows what the next board members and music directors will be like? It's important that we keep the accountability in place, at least I think so.

First - document everything, photocopy papers and give a report at each meeting and distribute the monthly account activity. Be transparent. A few years back I became treasure of a large group after the previous treasurer quit because someone had asked her for a financial statement. We had to met at the bank to sign signature cards and when she handed over the statements I immediately noticed that many months were missing. Her comment was that there wasn't any activity those months. After scanning the checkbook and seeing that she had written checks those months I had the bank pull all the missing statements. She had written several checks to "Cash" and failed to document who received the money. At the next meeting I gave a complete account of the bank activity for the three years this woman had been treasurer. You can imagine the uproar it caused and the previous treasurer went around town saying I was maligning her character. I never mentioned her by name I simply printed out all the checks - the amount and who the check was made out to. At the next meeting I suggested that they add a second person to the account and that both signatures would be needed on a check. They voted against that and I never had any problems - but I made sure there was adequate documentation for every check.