medcave, those jelly jars might have been the ones that are like drinking glasses with a snap-on lid. I got some accidentally in a batch of jars I picked up off craigslist. Probably the HW store would be happy to let you look at them. I did take a closer look. One of the boxes was open in the center. They *were* like drinking glasses. In fact a couple of the other boxes had been taped back up. Folks had obviously bought them in the past thinking they were the regular screw-on lid jelly jars. The screw-on one-piece lids I showed above were on a separate shelf from the jars, not the ones included in the jar cases. Those had the plastic snap-on lids as there were no threads on the jars. Old stuff - before my time. If I ever think of anything small I would want to freeze, I may go back and buy those "freezer jelly jars". ;)

I've been doing a LOT of research about this - I've been having some awful symptoms for the past 2 years (since turning 40) -- some of which are typical menopause related stuff and some are not, but I suspect all are related to hormonal decline. I've been getting bloodwork and basically, my estrogen and thyroid are both circling the drain --- my last bloodwork showed the estrogen level of a 60 year old (I'm 42! WTH!) I am pursuing bioidentical hormone replacement via cream. I don't have it all figured out yet (I get the feeling that there's a lot of experimenting on yourself til you find the right combo) but from the reading I did, I am pretty confident that this is what I need. Those of you saying you can't take HRT because of pre-existing tendency to blood clots or migraines or whatever might want to investigate the bioidentical stuff via transdermal cream. Blood clots are only an issue when estrogen is taken orally and passes through the liver -- if you are delivering it via skin or patch, there is no increased risk of blood clots (and in fact, your risk of other heart issues goes way down). Migraines are also one of the things that estrogen can help. And even the connection between estrogen and breast cancer is not as cut and dried as I thought -- I feel safe taking the bioidentical estrogen. I have read probably 20 books on the subject of menopause and HRT and the one I found most clear ad helpful is called Screaming to Be Heard by Elizabeth Vliet. I would recommend reading it - it pretty much debunks a lot of the things that I had heard about HRT including the results of that women's health study that caused everyone to abandon HRT -- did you know that whole study was done with synthetic hormones, not bioidentical? And that none of the horrible side effects found in that study have been found in studies that use bioidentical hormones? They are all related to the synthetic stuff like norethidrone and premarin. Because the pharmaceutical companies can't patent a naturally occuring substance and therefore can't make big bucks of bioidentical, there have been few efforts to educate doctors or do controlled studies on bioidentical hormones, but the studies that have been done show amazing benefits without the scary side effects. (Of course, the pharma companies don't want you to know that, because they want you to keep taking your premarin....)

I'm 51 and have had heavy periods for about 10 years. I have had biopsies and sonograms, and been to several doctors. All results were negative. I've been told I should just live with it. However, there is a procedure where they freeze the uterine wall and that may help. I haven't tried it yet. I'm trying to wait it out--I've lived with it this long. It has to stop eventually. The last doctor suggested a low dose of Femhrt. I'm hesitant because of the side effects. I sympathize with you.

I don't think it's really fair to compare the 2 spaces. One is a loft with a modern vibe, and the other is much more traditional style rowhouse. While I think there are problems with the first one, I'd still probably choose it to live in over the second. I could fix the issues. Whereas the second one is less to my taste, and making it more my taste would probably ruin it in the opinion of others.