I hate to be naggy but I can't help it, lol. Listen, I'm 52 now, although I'm lucky enough to look *much* younger than that. But one reason I look younger is I've kept out of the sun as much as possible. Laying out to get a deliberate tan isn't healthy, isn't good for your skin, etc., etc. Some exposure to the sun is good for us, yes. Lifts our mood, makes us feel good, that's fine, but if your skin starts turning darker, then it's not good anymore. Your skin turning dark is your body trying to defend itself.

I wish I could show you my arms; the top side of my lower arms has a fair amount of damage from the sun because that part of me has been exposed the most over my life, but when I turn my arm over, the underside is still smooth and very young-looking.

Please don't be like my daughter who didn't listen to me, laid out every summer to get tan and now at 29 has skin damage. She and her friends are just starting to notice spots and irregularities that are not going away during the winter; they are permanent and unsightly. They laughed at us older women when we warned them; well, they're not laughing anymore.

Please keep the sunblock on, wear a hat, cover up whenever you can, make your kids do the same, and don't let your skin tan as much as you can help it. You will be happy you did this when you hit your 30's and up. Really, honestly.

/nagging impulse switched "off" now, heh

Please update when you can because I'm such a blog-worrier. Although everyone is right; she might be just sick with a virus too. I got sunburned a lot as a kid; blonde, blue-eyed, etc. Happens. You're not a bad mommy, please don't beat yourself up. :)

If you are getting credit card offers in the mail, don't toss them in disgust without reading them. Open up each one and read carefully what they are offering you. Many banks are offering 0 percent on balance transfers, for a year or more and at a substantially higher limit than a the few thousand you mention above. We moved our debt to zero percent cards and are paying no interest at all; this year we will be out of debt altogether (would have happened sooner but both kids decided to get married in the same year, ack!)

But you can't ever be late (as you know) so be sure to pay more than the min and twice a month at least. And NEVER use the zero percent cards for purchases because almost always they have a different rate for purchases than for balance transfers. Plus they'll add the purchases onto the amount you transferred and it's just a mess to keep track off.

Remember; all credit card companies screw you any way they can by making the date your payment is due and the interest fee due on different days, believe it or not. So if you pay the exact min. you thought was due, sometimes that isn't enough because of various fees involved that you weren't aware of. Trust me; we got pulled into that trap years ago, we didn't pay enough several months in a row without realizing it because the date the interest fee is added and the min. payment due date were on different days and we didn't pay enough without realizing it and our interest rate shot up to 26 percent or whatever even though we honestly thought we were paying the min.

Never pay just the min. Be safe and always pay more and try to pay twice a month at least in case they move the dates around.

As for making more money...*sighs* It's rough. I wish I had some advice on that for you.

I've been depending on Lotto. It hasn't worked out very well, though. ;-P Good luck! :)

"Moment of Truth" is the slowest damn game show I've ever watched in my life and I thought that "Smarter Than a Kid" or whatever show was pretty slow. We have TIVO so the first night we just ran the thing up; there is literally 5 or 6 minutes of real content. Needless to say, we haven't watched since. I don't mind *good* crappy TV but it must be entertaining and faster-paced than Glacial Speed.

As for Simon, ditto! My god, I don't think I've EVER seen the man truly smile before! Now I realize what I thought were smiles were just snarky imitations of a smile.

And our household broke into "awwwwws" in unison at the puppy too. I'm not a dog person, although I have had dogs, but man! That was one uber-cute little pup-pup.