We had spice cake and I do the same thing. I just couldn’t be bothered to try saving our cake + I thought it was on the gross side.

Oh my god, my mom did the same thing! She told one of my teachers, with the idea of “just in case you need something” and asked said teacher to just check in on me. The downfall of having parents who are teachers- all of their friends are teachers and then all of your teachers know everything about you (so many of my…

I actually competed, on a regular basis, against the studios in Dance Moms and more often than not won/ranked higher. It sounds like this place is more like that than not if they are creating an atmosphere where you have to be super intense at 9 or can’t go beyond an intro class (although even the Dance Moms places…

No one in my studio went to classes 5 or 6 days a week at 8 or 9, nor did that happen as they aged except for rare occasions (like a pre competition extra rehearsal). Practice on their own at home, sure, but the studio was only open for classes 4 days a week. We still turned out a bunch of professional dancers,…

Done! Honestly, I think a lot of this applies to people who are planting lawns in areas that shouldn’t fucking have lawns or with grasses that have no business trying to be grown in those areas.

I think the idea is to plant native plants and ground covers, but honestly, what makes most sense to me is reducing the amount of lawn, rather than digging it all up. I’ve seen that done nicely where I live (upper midwest) and done really excellently in the dryer states. My grandmother’s garden in northern Texas is…

This is something that drives me nuts. I can deal with lawns in my part of the country (I dislike excessive lawns, but we can grow them without too much effort) but the “kill all the weeds” thing pisses me off. Clover, dandelions, other not grass bits of lawn were always my favorite as a kid and keep things greener…

Goat cheese gets involved too.

I don’t have a favorite because I love soup, I just tried this and it was really good-

Are you me? I’ve actually been finding some good summer soup recipes for the very same reason. Cauliflower with roasted red peppers, minestrone (because you can use seasonal veggies), and variations on the black bean theme go over pretty well here. I am going to get ambitious with a vichyssoise soon, since it’s served…

Who the fuck do you think gave the fucking trophies in the first place? We didn’t hand them out to ourselves.

Right? It’s hard to even tell what kinds of sports a kid may or may not be good at at that age. Kids grow and develop muscle differently during puberty than might be ideal for their chosen sport at age 7. I was a dancer whose hips rejected my chosen activity. On the flip side, I have friends who didn’t get good at…

Exactly. My husband apparently was obnoxious about grill marks as a kid, so his parents wouldn’t let him order grilled things, because they knew he wouldn’t want it when he saw the lines. I think it’s a not unusual kid thing to not like the grill lines, but that’s when you use your parenting to know when to just order…

Not to mention, a kid wanting fame and fortune doesn’t know what comes with it, usually. They don’t realize that being a famous tv star means paparazzi and speculation about everything and pervs counting down the days until you’re 18, or any of the other things that go with being exposed like that. Hell, most adults…

We keep Amazon wish lists for this very reason. Ok and to remember shit we want to buy for ourselves and books that look interesting (which we tend to pull up when at bookstores to remember what to look for).

Where’d you get my family photo? (Not really, but yes, my parents did make us wear the matching shirts and yes, that was the facial expression worn at the same time).

Yeah, there were a bunch in my G&T classes who were gifted as 10 year olds and evened to relatively average by 18. I include myself in this, btw. I mean, I was above average in everything in high school (grades, test scores), but because I worked hard, not because I was particularly gifted.

I find that people who have to say they’re smart usually are about half as smart as they think. Also, calling back to gifted programs seems, odd. Like saying “I was a high school quarterback.”

I have a friend who has written several blog posts that went semi-viral in the religious fundamentalist community (because they were about said community) and every time something hits about 1000 comments, about 20 of them ask her how dare she write news articles with swear words. Her mods get the same thing, because…

Most boozes but vodka. Vodka leads to vomiting (even in tiny quantities, like less than a shot. I don’t understand).