But if I were to just spend that Sat afternoon and Sunday in Edinburgh, I would see the Edinburgh castle, walk the Royal Mile, do the Real Mary's Close tour, a Scotch Whiskey tasting tour, perhaps check out the Grassmarket and Dean Village areas too. And since you'll be there on a Sunday, I'd be sure to have a nice Sunday roast dinner.
It's not the same as DQ, but don't forget about SoftStuff on 40 and Cindy's in Elkridge. Neither are as expensive as the Charmery, and they're locally owned.
Never heard of it but OH MAN am I going to take the kids. It's right down the road from where I buy my birdseed! Thanks! My favorite ice cream place is my former place of employment and I refuse to go there because the owner is batshit (traditional ice cream, not soft serve).
Bring cash-- they don't accept cards. I've been going there since I was a child. It used to be at the end of a motel on that land. Folks would wait in the line and then stand around and eat their cones or sit at the picnic table there. I have such fond memories of going there growing up. They razed the motel and built up that whole shopping center. The EC Diner there used to be the Double T Diner which used to be the Forest Diner. So there has been a diner in that spot for decades.
And MDmomof2, has another great suggestion. Meadows has great frozen custard. Another locally owned business. I think the guy who owned it sold it to his sister recently.
If it's the DQ off 26, it's probably the one in walking distance of my house. I've lived here for 15 years (how did that sneak up on me) and I've only been once.
DQ party time!
It's not the same as DQ, but don't forget about SoftStuff on 40 and Cindy's in Elkridge. Neither are as expensive as the Charmery, and they're locally owned.
We ended up with a Kitchen Aid and I think I love it EVEN MORE than the Bosch. It’s as quiet, cleans and dries as well, but the indicator light it better and I swear it holds more/loads more efficiently.
When I looked at the Bosch models, I noticed that the bottom spokes are angled so you have to place your dishes in one direction. I like that I can arrange things differently depending on what I have to wash.
We had the craziest crash of thunder (?) around 11:30 last night - rubytue did you hear it too? I had my eyes closed but I wasn't asleep, and I saw a bright light flash and then a few second later it was SO loud and long that I wondered if it was a bomb. This may have had something to do with watching Fallout right before bed, lol. I was happy to learn that my dog is quiet when it thunders, though - I'm not sure if we've had any storms come through since we got him but he didn't bark or anything. I had a thunder sensitive dog before and it was pretty miserable when storms would roll in overnight.
I remember growing up, we always ate our McNuggets with honey as the dipping sauce. Does anyone still do that? I wonder if McD's even offers it anymore.
YES. I still dip them in honey.
I also loved their hot mustard. You can’t get it anymore.
I saw someone say that the Great Value Southwest mustard is a dupe for the McDonalds hot mustard. I haven't tried it myself.
We just got back from Edinburgh last weekend. I would not get cash out at the airport. We found that we didn't need it-- every place in Edinburgh took cards. Be sure to use a card that doesn't charge an international fee each time you use it. If you do need it, you can get some cash out from an ATM in the city. My guess is that ATMs in the airport charge higher fees.
I have a Verizon plan that gives me a international travel pass each month, so I used that. My H downloaded an eSIM before we left. We both have WhatsApp on our phones, so he could call me using that. That's what we have done whenever we travel to Europe, and it's worked perfectly.
Be sure to pack a good raincoat and umbrella.
Have a great time! We can't wait to go back and see all that we missed.
We have the CS preferred card and love it. I just transferred some of our points to British Airways for a ticket for my husband to the UK. The transfer process was simple and the points were in his BA account immediately.
We replaced our powder room toilet when we replaced the first floor floors before we moved in. Our contractor suggested this and said it was the model that could flush a dozen golf balls without any issues. We got it and haven't had any issues. We're going to replace the rest of our toilets with them too.
When we sold our house in GA, we didn't need the fridge so we offered it to the buyers. They didn't want it so I had to make arrangements to donate it. When we bought our house in MD, the fridge (and washer/dryer) conveyed but we didn't want it. We replaced it before we moved in.
Philip and Elizabeth were damn lucky to live as long as they did because they didn’t have serious health issues. The vast majority of people are taken out by cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. if you can avoid that, it seems living to nearly a century is easy.
Charles’s grandfather, George VI, died in his 50s due to his incessant smoking. The Queen mother was 101, I think.
There's been speculation that the Queen died of bone cancer and that the Queen Mother was also battling cancer when she died. But they wanted it kept private so it wasn't disclosed publicly or even on their death certificates.
I read that Harry is flying to the UK to see his dad. Given everything that has gone on in the royal family, hearing this makes me wonder if it's fairly serious. I do wonder if Charles will expand the senior working royals to include Beatrice and Eugenie.
Thanks melissa and lessel. We caught it early and he has a good prognosis. We're being seen by Hopkins for this, and his transplant surgeon has done more than 500 liver transplants.
womet , my fingers are crossed that your husband can exercise his reasonable accommodation to avoid going in the office. I am not looking forward to April. Your agency seems to be handling things much better.
I'm fairly certain he'll be allowed to continue working from home. He was just diagnosed with liver cancer and will be having a transplant later this year. So he'll be on immunosuppressants for life. Limiting his exposure to sick people and to old, dirty buildings for prolonged periods of time will be really important.
Hmmm, interesting about SSA. My H works there and never wants to go back into the office again. We'll likely exercise his reasonable accommodation, if needed, to keep him working at home full time for as long as possible.
The telework/remote work isn't done the same across all parts of my agency. In my part, we're all given the option of being remote. So even though I live 25 minutes from the office, I work from home full time. We're even giving up our office space in March since there are only 10 or so people who go into our office building regularly.
We have. My parents paid for my undergrad (except housing in the last 2 years that I paid for by being an RA). I took out loans for my graduate schooling and living expenses. Those were just discharged under PSLF recently. My parents also contributed a set amount of money towards our wedding. They gave me a car to drive when I was 16. That I promptly got into an accident with-- it was totaled, not my fault, and they let me have all of the money from the lawsuit against the driver.
My husband has benefitted to, although most is recently. His parents helped him out with a car when he was younger. And on multiple occasions when he needed some more help financially. His dad died 18 months ago, and we've benefitted from that. H inherited half of his dad's IRA, which we used towards our downpayment on our house. And we are about to close on his dad's house, so my H will get some more money then (some will be reimbursement for paying all of the bills for the estate and some will be H's portion of the proceeds from the sale of the house).
I adore my island with nothing on it-- no sink or stove. Just like lessel said. It's perfect for entertaining (I have 2 bar stools at mine) and ideal for serving food from (we put our Christmas food on it and we each made our plate there. Then we had more space at the dining room table.
We have a butler's pantry that is devoted to drinks. We've got our nespresso stuff there, a nugget ice maker, drink syrups (for coffee or water), and a drink fridge. It has helped us keep our main fridge more organized and not waste food as much since we can see it easier. One thing we may add to that space is running a waterline to the icemaker so we don't have to fill it using a pitcher. But that will be easy for us to add down the line.
I want to retrofit some rev-a-shelf drawers in some of our lower cabinets where we keep our pots/pans to make it easier to get them. In my ideal kitchen, I would include drawer inserts that fit perfectly inside the drawers for things like our utensils and other items so they stay organized. I have some now but they don't take up the drawer space fully, so I have some empty space.
I would never get a pot filler, but I love the idea of a hot water dispenser built into the sink. simpsongal, when we replaced our countertops, we got 1 large sink. I'm so glad we did. I absolutely love it. I love that I can lay a half sheet pan down flat in it to wash.
Must have: a pantry. When we were looking to buy, I can't tell you how many houses had no pantry. So food items would need to take up cabinet space. I love my somewhat shallow but wide pantry, but would be just as happy with a deeper pantry that has pull out drawers.
When we got our dog, we introduced him immediately but on leash. But we made sure that there were places the cat could go and hide if needed. We never really needed it. They weren't best buds, but our dog maintained a healthy "fear" of the cat so he never tried to go after him. Our girl cat was never really a fan of the dog, so she wouldn't get near him. Our current boy cat loved the dog more than the dog ever loved him. We let the cat out of the cat carrier on day 1 and he walked straight over to the dog and hugged his face. If the dog would have let him, our boy cat would have snuggled with the dog.
Re: dog poop. We had a container that we kept in the garage that housed the poop bags. It was like a diaper genie, but for dog poop. It helped some but didn't eliminate the poop smell from our garage completely. Depending on your front yard, you might be able to put one in front of your door behind a plant or something.
We fed our dog in the morning and at dinner time. He got walked before work, right after work, and before bed.
Can you switch to French press for your coffee, and your H can make his coffee from the coffee maker in his office? We have the Mueller electric kettle and have been happy with it. But I would look into finding somewhere other than by the sink for it to sit.
My mom just had surgery to fix this-- uterine, bladder, and rectal prolapse. I don't think she had mesh for hers, but I think they used other tissue to hold things up. Her doctor described it to her as putting in a stitch or two at the top and "hoisting" things back up. She had to have a catheter for 2 weeks (may have been longer than needed since this was around the holidays). She's doing well now. She only needed tylenol afterwards, but it was really important for her to take senekot and colase. And to be sure to drink enough water.
I had a mirena inserted after having extremely heavy bleeding that put me in the ER. IIRC, I'd been prescribed progesterone in the ER to stop the bleeding. And then had the mirena inserted. I don't recall having any bleeding after a few weeks.
A woman who works for me almost always uses approach B when messaging me on teams. I ignore until there is an actual request. And I've told her that if she needs something from me, approach A is better. But she hasn't gotten the message. I've thought that it's an age thing-- she's older than me, so the way she messages on teams feels like an old person. Someone who didn't use IM when they were younger. But then I realize that she's the only person who does this, and I work with a bunch of people who are older than her and they don't do this.
We love Blue Ridge. We love going to Mercier Orchards-- for hard cider, homemade desserts, and you pick (not sure what will be in season during spring break though). There's the Blue Ridge scenic railway that goes from Blue Ridge to McCaysville from mid-March to the end of December. And that area has a ton of outdoor activities-- hiking, fishing, horseback riding.
For sleep, I find some people can sleep on planes and some can’t. My older son and I cannot. My younger son and DH get a solid 4-5 hours on overnight flights. When going to Europe - so landing in the morning after an overnight flight - I just set expectations that the first day sucks. Everyone is tired. You often have to kill time while waiting to check in so you can’t nap etc. But then you sleep that night and all is good after that. Just don’t plan anything big for the first day. It will be great!
This. I can only take a brief nap, so I have headphones so I can watch movies. I also make sure I have movies downloaded to my phone/Kindle in case there isn't anything playing that I want to watch. I also found that I had zero jet lag on our trip to Munich by drinking a packet of liquid IV before and on the plane. Bringing some additional snacks is nice too (esp if you or your child might not like all of the options offered).
When we arrive, we plan on something to do that will keep us awake. Our goal is to keep awake and moving until 8pm. We did a walking tour on our first day in Amsterdam. We saw family friends and went grocery shopping when we arrived in Munich.