I started a really pretty doily, well I'm not used to using bedspread thread/yarn & so hard to get used to crocheting so small & have rarely used treble/triple crochet I prefer double crochet so I'm not getting much done. I'm seriously thinking about beading around some spoons for plant pokes. 1 reason is quicker & more cheerful & then I can keep the pink, red ,salmon & white flowering plants straight. I get moody about this time every year as I have more headaches from humidity & rain so that dampens creative juices but as weather improves & fog & rain go away I get back into doing crafts & GJ. I'm repainting a cast iron duck that needs touching up mostly but back was starting to get little rust so worked on it today. Have couple of lovebirds on a plaque that the wooden stake on back broke off, have to drill a couple of holes in new stake & attach it to back of it & give it couple of coats of clear sealer to keep it looking good. Went out to plant 4 -6 pks of plants today & it is just too wet, they will just croak so have to wait few days as another storm coming in. Used to have a name for these slumps- drolldrums I think??? This to shall pass(I hope)Glad you are healing nicely from your hip surgery. I sure did a stupid thing Mar12, knocked my 14 oz cup of tea into my hip, managed to grab it with other hand but 1/4 cup (about) burned my hip really good, drenched a thick washcloth with cold water & crushed 8 ice cubes in ziploc bag to put behind that as I could feel the washcloth really getting hot. Looked, after it stopping hurting so much an hour later & all the skin came off on the washcloth. Well, ER's out here are a mess so grabbed a tube of 99cent Dr. Sheffield's Diaper cream zinc oxide based made in USA(use on my dad's feet) & put all over it,once covered all of it pain stopped- I had tried triple antibiotic cream ,it wouldn't stay on. So fast forward to today & I can get clothes on & the thing is healed & just red,once swelling went down healed fast with the zinc. None of 3 brands of non-stick large pads worked, when you took them off any healing that had been going on ended up on pad. So air & zinc work! Not what books say that's for sure. Did I craft,not much, I read to get my mind off of it & I've cleaned out quite a few old Reader's Digests & other magazines I was "always going to get to" so at least something is getting done! Last year at this time I cleaned all upper cabinets in kitchen(air in house warmer by the ceiling so I got lovely cleaned cabinets then. Can you clean out 1 drawer at a time. My 89 yr old mom is sitting on a chair & pulling out drawers from her dresser & cleaning 1 a day. I thought that was good idea as she is missing hip joint altogether(woman texting as she was driving out of grocery parking lot slammed into mom's driver's side as she was going in) so can't take the drawer all the way out & set it on bed like she used to. So if your bedroom, kitchen drawers or craft room drawers need help might be good time to do it. 1 drawer takes 30 minutes to over 1 hr to clean out & replace all the items(takes longer if you find letters or memories etc) Just do little things, they add up & soon you will get spring fever & get back to doing again. How is your weather, it may be getting to you too!Jan

These are some great stories. I'd like to share mine, since I think that it's pretty interesting. I met my husband over the phone. I was working at a new job after being unemployed for 8 months. I worked in the order dept for a very respected publishing company, taking phone orders. Since I was so elated to be working again I tended to be extremely pleasant and helpful in those early days so when I received a call from StonyBrook University's bookstore inquiring about one of their orders instead of transferring the call to customer service ( as we were supposed to do) I checked the status of the order myself & told the guy on the other end of the phone that it had shipped out about a week ago. Since Stony Brook Univ is about an hour away from our distribution center I was a bit baffled as to why they hadn't received the books yet. He asked how the books had been shipped and I replied "by armadillo?". He howled with laughter. We spoke again a few more times in the course of the regular order pool, then he started asking for me exclusiveley and after hours of conversations at work (it's a wonder that my co-workers never ratted me out) we started calling each other at home. Now, these marathon phone calls took place over the course of a year. The subject of appearance never came up, nor did the fact that both of us were currently involved in long term relationships (I was dating the world's biggest loser- gorgeous as anything but the "honey can you bail me out of jail 'cause I've got two simultaneous warrants for my arrest in two different counties" kind of loser.) So after a year and countless hours on the phone I was going out to Stony Brook to visit a dear friend and my phone pal, Bill, suggested that we meet for a drink. I offered to stop by the bookstore to find him. I had a vision of being able to spot him immediately in spite of having no idea what he looked like. I was crazy about this guy already and was convinced that I would just "know. Well. For starters once I arrived on campus I couldn't find the bookstore. Nor could I find anyone that could tell me where the bookstore was. Panicked that the store would close before I could get there, I found a payphone & called. I told Bill where I was, he told me to sit tight & he'd come find me. You need to picture this. It was 1992. I'm sporting an impressive black mohawk, multiply piereced ears, skull buckle boots, head to toe black. In strolls the early 90's equivalent of James Hetfield from Metallica, complete with long hair & impressive fu manchu moustache. SO not my mental image of my phone pal and so, so not my "type". I was devastated. You have to understand that at the time I was very, very superficial & most likely would never even have spoken to my now husband, much less dated him. Still, the evening went well once I got past his looks (I was such an idiot) and I figured that I wouldn't hold that against him (a pompous idiot). We went onward to my friend's house...who had just taken a home pregnancy test & greeted us waving the urine dipped stick. It was positive & she was delighted. Bill never batted an eye at the antics of my delirious friend, just took it all in stride. So I called him about a week later at home. I figured that there was no reason he & I couldn't continue our friendship even though he wasn't my type. He was very odd on the phone, very distracted & almost disinterested and it ocurred to me...much to my horror...that maybe he had a problem with MY appearance! How dare he! I was livid. I found out later that he was so distant over the phone because his GF of a bout 2 years was there, wanting to know who he was talking to, who I was, etc. A couple of months later he calls me at work & we pick up as if we'd never stopped. The marathon phone calls resumed & when I'd go out to visit my now very pregnant friend, he'd stop by her place as well. Still friends, still chatting, nothing else. By this time we had both shed our respective (in)significant others, though. We had our first real "date" in July...a friend's wedding in Buffalo where Bill told me that he never wanted to get married & I said I had no intentions of doing so either... & he asked me to marry him on Christmas eve. We'll have been married 13 years this March and I thank God every day for how lucky I am. The funny thing is that I come from a very, very old country Italian family. My father died when I was very young but my mother is very traditional & old fashioned. She is anti long hair on men, anti tattoo and definitely anti motorcycle but thinks that the sun rises & sets on my husband. After years of her absolutely forbidding me to learn to ride a motorcycle she was delighted when I got my license after Bill & I got married & thinks that it's wonderful how the two of us share that. I'm convinced that after the parade of freaks I brought through her house she was so ecstatic to see me end up marrying someone that was intelligent and respectful she didn't care how long his hair was. But she adores him as he does her and I'm very fortunate for that as well :-). Nina

Oh, good grief! Anything can be taken out of context and to the worst degree! I’ve purposely avoided this thread after I initially posted, as some posters made it sound like any parent who helped decorate this kid’s dorm room was crushing that child’s own creativity “Mommy-Dearest-like”. In retrospect, I’m sure there are parents like that. And, yes, some of those initially featured pics of rooms are so incredibly unpractical. BUT, there are so many more, like us, where daughters have grown up learning from mothers who are very good at decorating, and they are absorbing and enjoying it, too. They have their own likes and dislikes, which are encouraged and respected. BUT, they still need and want help with storage issues in those minuscule shared dorm rooms, lighting ideas, and a lot of other ideas to consider. It irritates the heck out out of me that some immediately paint the worst scenario when someone (Me) says, yes I did help my daughter decorate her dorm room. No, it was not some impractical designer room. No, it did not make her friends there hate her or her room. But, yes, it was overseen by DD and her roommate with the colors and art they wanted and chose. We mothers did, though, know what and where to find the storage and lighting that would facilitate the very best use of that minimal space. And, we did it at our daughters’ and with our daughters’ blessings. In closing, there are probably as many normal, happy mom-daughter collaborations as there are non/collaborations. Maybe I’m in the minority, having had a great, fun relationship with my own daughter her entire life. I consider it a blessing, but one that takes work. My own daughter has learned and absorbed so much interior design creativity from me over the years. She could easily make it her career if she chose. And, we love trading ideas still. But, even at age five, I allowed her to make the final design decisions with her own personal spaces. Not all decorator mothers are “Mommy Dearest monsters”.

Further thoughts... I still think this "mom" is more worried about losing her source of income writing for the Chicago Tribune than about her kid's safety, or her kid's feeling for her own privacy. I did read the ONE article linked to, but absolutely will not or ever read anything else this sorry excuse for a human writes. The fact that she didn't even TELL her kid she was doing this, and the child had to discover it on her own... that speaks volumes about the woman's parenting smarts. (LACK THEREOF.) Those I know who talk about their children on FB do have privacy enabled, and they only talk about... hey, my kid graduated, hey, my kid won such and such... and at a certain age, they were consulted before they were posted about. These children didn't become "parenting issues we want to yack about in order to earn a few dollars, or sympathy, or whatever". I don't even HAVE a (human) child, and this peeves me beyond belief.