I've really been enjoying everyone's stories in this thread. You can see a lot of love here! Clementine, if you tell your mom to butt out, no matter how politely you say it, it will hurt her deeply. She advises you because she loves you and wants to give to you, and she needs to feel needed. I had sort of the same problem with my mother. So I sat down and thought about how she would love to feel that she had done something nice for me. Then I did a little mental inventory of her skills, and she had no shortage of those. I wanted to sew new living room drapes, pleated. This was an area where I really would love her help. So when she was over, I took her to the fabric store with me and we picked out something pretty. Then she helped me measure and cut, I sewed, and together we hung them. It turned out to be a really nice mother-daughter time for us both. I got help with something I needed help with, and she got to feel needed and appreciated, which she was. I learned to think of things to ask her opinions and help with, and she learned to relax. Everybody won. If you think about it, maybe can you find a way to put your mom to work helping you sew, or can, or something?

I like my upholstered pieces to be neutral and light, so of course, off white! But the only way to go is to have a washable, bleachable slipcover. My off white slipcovered sofa and two club chairs are from Crate & Barrel and they're great. I don't find the slips difficult to get on or off at all and they fit snugly and have no zippers. I have washed them three times in a little over two years. I have no kids, but I live in that room. However, I once read a post from someone who had white slips, from Ikea I think, and a couple of small kids. She was bragging that they looked great and she only had to wash them once a week! That's too much work even if they jump off the furniture and into the washer themselves!

lol -meth... I do hope that you at least post reviews on yelp and angieslist. The sad thing is guys like that expect homeowners not to deal with the hassle of going after them. If they lost a couple of half days of work and had a few cases go against them, they may start doing a better job. Since they aren't held accountable, they keep doing stuff like this. Our gc will be finding out how he can't get away with it on our job as soon as we have our written estimates. I know your job is not huge, but then again, going after him would therefore be easier/less complicated too. Maybe you could spearhead going after him and leave dh out of the process. It upsets me to think of the people before me who had shoddy work done by the gc but did not get the word out or make there be consequences for the gc. If they had, then we might not have been duped by them. The sad part is one person I know who used him did not bother to enlighten me about them until after we were screwed by them. If we had been warned, even after our project started, we'd have been better protected. Please do your best to post reviews at the very minimum. You will be doing a real service to the community.

I would say that our Chairperson has good control. She has no trouble at all reining in the meeting if necessary. She get's the stuff said, keeps order and we still have time to toss around various ideas. But everyone seems considerate of other people talking. I love my AV meeting!!!! Roberts Rules are also known as "consideration" in my book. I said MY book, lol, because I don't want anyone to think I am demeaning Robert or his formal rules. I like to hear every person's voice but only one at a time. Lucille, I understand what you mean about hearing. While I do have superb hearing,,,,,I want to have only one person talking so they can explain their view or method and then move on to the next person in an orderly fashion. Noise (no matter what the source ex: too many talking at one time) gets too loud cause everyone wants to be heard and then my ears actually hurt from the loudness! Needless to say, I hate places that are loud. (restaurants, sports bars, loud music or TV) My husband is somewhat hard of hearing and we fight about the volume on the TV! lol Joanne, I agree with you,,,,everyone should be on time. We have a couple people that come from a farther distance than I do, but they come from work. And the library sets our time so we can't accommodate them to start later. But I must say, they are respectful and quiet when they come in. It is not a constant "restart to catch several late people up" by any means. I belong to a great group of people and a great AV Club. I was fortunate to find them! Rosie