See in my house, there would be step 2.5 - new outfit to replace one that now has breakfast on it.

I'm totally with the Queen on the ice cube thing. Drives me insane. Think I'll look into those round ice trays ASAP.

My husband had to do that a few times - I thanked him and never ever asked about it.

You also need to look was is included in meeting your deductible as that can have a real impact on your out of pocket costs.

We live in Minnesota. Winters can be brutal. A few things we do to stay sane - indoor pools (a lot of communities have them here), indoor gardens/arboretums are great for a blast of warmth and humidity and color, having fun outside - sledding/skating are popular in my house, and playing tourist. We tend to go to local…

Kitchen Faucet

Could not agree more. About 2/3's or so of the way through I gave up, read the end, and fantasized about punching everyone in the book right in the face. Ugh.

I love scarves. And am wearing one today. Guess I know what I will be doing the rest of the day at work....

I've never thought of it that way. That's an interesting idea. I do enjoy using Overdrive on my phone to check books out from the library. The selection isn't super, but I don't have to worry about returning them. The phone does it for me!

Leftovers. That's our go to for the grown ups. Salads are another good one - don't dress it unless you are having a marinaded or pasta salad.

Close enough. I use a combo of Staples ARC and Levenger's Circa. I hate using my laptop for note taking I wrote everything down.

Or pizza. In college it was either pizza or nachos. Now, it's passing out exhausted while drinking a glass of wine after putting kids to bed.

I was thinking the same, but on re-reading the situation in the article seems more like when a group of people go on vacation together instead of staying at someone's house.

My son tried putting his sister in one her first Christmas so their dad would throw her out when he was cleaning up.

We have a big table in the basement and pretty much leave the folded clothes there. We truck down to the basement to clean stuff in the morning. We are a very laundry lazy family. And, we are ok with that.

If you don't want to use a Bjorn or other baby wearing device, a baby chair is an awesome piece of gear. You put them in there, facing you, a string of toys hangs across the top, and they stare at you. It's great.

Those giant ones from Amazon are perfect for storing stuffed animals.

Staid St. Paul, MN was HUGE bootlegger haven. My kids visited the caves where they used to hide the whiskey barrels on a school field trip.

The big drawback is that if you have auto-payments set up - you have to change them. It is a huge pain and time suck. Especially for those that you don't use very often or only re-up annually.

To avoid doing Christmas brunch wrong and given that I will be spending most of the morning constructing Barbie's Dream House, what is a tallboy? Never heard of one of those. The other two are covered.