h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Congrats, GDZ!

Yes, the stomach is a bag but it has a hole in it.

Caer, about No. 2 son's recipes -- for me it wasn't so much the recipes that were the problem when learning to live on my own, but the organization around them. Planning the shopping so I'd have the ingredients ahead of time, knowing when to start cooking so I wasn't sitting down to dinner at 11:30 PM (and stuffing myself with oreos etc. in the meantime to keep from fainting), that sort of thing. You might want to advice along those lines.

*add* advice along those lines.

Wonderful news, GDZ.

Interesting. Sunshine and Moonlight have a stepmother and she has just spent a week in their company. Apparantly she is horrified by the fact that they can, and do, cook meals and that I am expecting them to use the washing machine for themselves. She considers these to be a mothers job and not for large lumpen teenagers who are old enough to live elsewhere and, in Sunshine's case, will do within the next year or so.

6.5 months of frustration are ended.

*Matina brings GDZ an Extremely Large Pizza*

Congratulations, Zomnker!

Horrified that you've taught them to be independent and mature? How odd.

What kind of job is this? Did I miss that in the backlog somewhere?

Congrats GDZ!

::sneaks off with a slice of the pizza::

OK GDZ, once you are working you have to buy me a beer!

As a one time and likely to be again SUV owner, I would like to point out that we are not all jerks. I find that minivans are nearly as obtrusive as are most stock SUVs as well. And considering that the only car I am likely to own any time soon is P.O.S. Kia that has been wrecked, I will hate most big vehicles soon enough.

congrats, Zomnker!

My massage was deep tissue...I didn't even know I *had* knots in some of the places he found!!!

[-B4-]

Hi y'all!

In the it's a small world category, d'E, I am helping a young woman at Rutgers with one of her assignments.

I will buy you that beer Marv and maybe a shot too.

has anyone heard from Courtesy lately?

Congrats, GDZ!

When No2 son popped round yesterday, he said he didn't know what to buy, d'E. But one of the photocopied recipe collection was for a whole month of recipes, including weekly shopping and store cupboard check lists. Good Housekeeping magazine to the rescue again! He can cook well, but like me, he sees it as a chore. I shall offer to help him plan some meals and go shopping with him if he wants me to. I don't want to appear to be interfering though.

Congrats GDZ

That is great news.

[B]

The mother of a family that lived in the flat beneath ours (and whose son I and my brother used to play with) always accused our mother for spoiling us, not making us help out enough at home, and that we would end up as failures.

She made their son do an equal share (1/3) of all the household work from around the age of 12, and also made him contribute to the costs by taking a share of his child allowance.

Well, their son never finished his university studies due to a serious nervous break down, probably caused by too much pressure from his mother. Today, I am a financial controller and my brother is a headmaster - that woman couldn't have been more wrong!

I'm not saying that kids shouldn't have to help out at home, put they must also be allowed to be kids and shouldn't have to/need to shoulder the same level of responsibility as an adult.

T, I don't think it's too much to ask my 8 year old daughter to put her trash in the trash, or her plate in the sink. I think chores are a good thing, but they have to be age appropriate, and a parent should NEVER take back allowance (that's just cruel!). My daughter gets allowance for clearing the table after dinner, making sure the cats are fed in the morning, and keeping her room picked up. As far as the last one goes, all I ask is that she keep the floor clear enough so that if I have to go in there in the middle of the night, I don't kill myself tripping over things.