<p>I would love to join a happy hour with this crowd 
Although DH would love to join me and right now he is scrubbing down the inside of the refrigerator he just cleaned out and I’d rather not disturb that unexpected but much appreciated event! :)</p>
<p>It is Friday night so… I will have a chilled pint glass with lots of ice, stoli vodka- no flavors please (I like my vodka to taste like vodka!), a wedge of lime, and a fresh can of tonic (Safeway brand is best). Two of those is perfect! I understand that the pint glass is rather huge and really equals about 4 bar size glasses, but really, who’s counting?</p>
<p>Some of you may want to wait until you see how small the dorm rooms actually are. If it’s a suite arrangement, as at Yale and other schools, there will be plenty of room for a fridge. But I’ve told S that he’ll probably be in a very small cinderblock double (I’m trying to set him up not to be disappointed), and he should just wait to see how much room there is before deciding to buy/rent anything. I am planning on getting him a small cotton rug that can be laundered, since the floor will probably be linoleum and it’s nice to have something warm underfoot in the winter.</p>
<p>My limit is two drinks. More than that and I get very silly and wind up with a massive headache a couple of hours later. I have a glass of wine maybe once a week - we are not big drinkers.</p>
<p>And welcome again to all the new faces!</p>
<p>Yikes I just realized the long 7 weeks until move-in is now 6 weeks - I’d like this time to slow a bit please!</p>
<p>We did order D’s new laptop last night. I went ahead with the one from the school computer store since it was a slightly better deal than buying direct and will come pre-outfitted with all school access, etc and be waiting in her dorm. Not cheap but I intend to make full use out of that 4 year warranty!</p>
<p>hi PAVenturer and PinotNoir!!!</p>
<p>I was thinking about making a cup of tea, but now may have to uncork the wine.</p>
<p>sewemma that sounds delicious - vodka/tonic is my drink of choice when I do get around to having one. I’ll virtually toast you! (And anyone else getting the start on Friday happy hour) :)</p>
<p>acm, just make it a Long Island Ice Tea and you’ll be all set.</p>
<p>We don’t drink much either… not that we’re opposed, H is just very frugal and if I’m “wasting” calories I’d prefer to waste them on chocolate. 
But once I decided to make a pitcher of beer margaritas, so I had to buy a bottle of tequila. D came home and saw the bottle on the counter and flipped out. “WHAT is THAT? WHY do YOU have TEQUILA? You don’t drink!” You’d have thought I’d put out lines of coke on the counter, lol. I told DH that maybe we should drink socially more often, and in front of D, so she wouldn’t be so shocked! Perhaps we need to be a model of appropriate social drinking. I think D thought the only people drinking tequila are teenagers sneaking it in their parents’ basements, and drunken college students.</p>
<p>BTW, beer margaritas are awesome. Get a can of frozen limeade concentrate. Put it into a pitcher, fill the empty limeade can with tequila and add that to the pitcher. Add 2 bottles of Corona and a whole lot of ice cubes. Enjoy. It’s deceptive - tastes weak, but it’s not!</p>
<p>I’ve seen the size of the room but it’s hard to judge. Everyone says they are small and they do look small, but the rooms I saw had plenty of stuff packed into them while still looking roomy. I have always shared a decent-sized room and my mom and I are very, very good at organizing and condensing. My biggest issue isn’t actually the room but the drawer situation. I know the room comes with a set of drawers and I will buy another set (the white plastic kind), but then it will come down to a) either another drawer-type object or b) a microfridge.</p>
<p>I also have a question for you parents. I need a drying situation. Not all of my clothes can be dried all of the way. I wear the plus-sizes and if you don’t know, plus sized clothing comes with a little bit of stretch in it. Well if you dry it too much, it shrinks! But the clothes really can’t be dried at all; maybe for five minutes. So I need some place/some way to hang these clothes to dry. This sounds like a huge hassle but alas, until I lose weight I have few other options.</p>
<p>Any ways, what is a small drying solution? Clothes racks take up space and my mom says it’s better if my clothes hang. But short of stringing a clothesline I can’t think of what to do. Any tiny drying solutions?</p>
<p>
Oh this is hilarious!</p>
<p>acm - or an icepick - iced tea and vodka - oh those bring back many memories!</p>
<p>lafalum - I just read DH your beer margarita recipe and imagine we’ll be trying those sometime soon, they do sound tasty! I have to laugh though, your Ds reaction sounds like one my kids would use - to them it would be so out of the norm for me, and it is a rare event now but boy do I have stories - well that I’m not sharing with them either, LOL!</p>
<p>applicannot - a well placed clothesline may not be a bad idea, or a hanging hanger situation after being air dried for a bit in a dryer. Have you experimented with cold air drying or using the “no heat” or similar setting of a dryer? You may find a combination that works well.</p>
<p>applicannot, I use drying racks for a lot of my clothes. The racks fold flat when not in use.</p>
<p>We live in a pretty social area and we I like having people over, S is used to seeing social drinking but is not terribly interested in drinking more then the occasional glass of wine, or maybe he is a really good liar! Or maybe he is horrified by some of my friends behavior when they are cocktailing.</p>
<p>I was thinking about the clothesline, and so far it’s the least obtrusive choice. If I hang it from halfway through the back wall to halfway across the side wall (catty-corner style), it won’t be that noticeable and will provide ample space. I could easily hang decorative lights form it when not in use (once a week or less). It’s not like it’s going to be covered in clothes all the time; if I do laundry on Saturday morning, go out othat night, and put them away Sunday morning, no one will even see it.</p>
<p>DD hang drys a lot of her clothes, so she will definitely be bringing a drying rack with her. I have even seen people put them on their beds (towels down underneath to catch the drips), in son’s dorm so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.</p>
<p>As for drinking, when I get the chance I enjoy an evening drink, but most nights I am on call, driving children somewhere, or get home from work late and too exhausted to drink.
Maybe when we are empty nesters and retired I will get my chance!</p>
<p>I’d vote for a drying rack… Hang the stuff up right before you go to bed and it should be dry in the morning. A retractable clothesline would be my second choice. The problem with lines is that they always sag and also are pretty unsightly. A rack collapses nearly flat and holds a lot of clothes…</p>
<p>I find the cocktail hour discussions amusing. Does it make a difference now that our 2010’s are now graduated? IIRC there was a drinking discussion on the Parents of the Class of 2010 thread that got nipped in the bud as being inappropriate since HS students visited the thread now and again. In any event, I plan to try those beer margaritas, thanks for the tip. Since I have some bottles of Sierra Nevada, I will use this instead of Corona.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, my boss was saying his wife was trying to get him to drink this Kagan Water (no relation to the SCOTUS nominee.) It’s supposed to draw out toxins from the body since our bodies are more acidic and this water in more alkaline. I asked him how it tasted. He said it wasn’t very good and seemed rather heavy. Maybe it would work added to a cocktail??</p>
<p>:cool: </p>
<p>Just got a lovely e-mail from the FA office saying that forms were missing. Uh oh since i am pretty sure my dad mailed the ones he needed to mail and so did I. It says I am missing a federal tax return which is weird since I didn’t make any money that year. Also it says the loan counseling that I did was incomplete even though I spent like an hour on it. It’s the weekend so I probably won’t hear anything until Monday.</p>
<p>/rant</p>
<p>I remember those Long Island Ice Teas and I also remember doing some pretty crazy stuff after having a couple. Are you sure us old folks can handle them? (maybe just not in the presence of our teenagers)</p>
<p>S1 plays summer baseball for an American Legion team and tonights game location has a beer garden over looking the field. Should be fun!</p>
<p>D brought a drying rack with her and used it a lot. I hate to keep being negative, but bear in mind that some schools don’t allow you to put holes in the walls - you can only use Command tape or the like. So while a clothesline sounds like a great idea, you may not be able to put it up so that it could bear the weight of wet clothes. Perhaps Stanford is more lenient on these things than Yale was. ;)</p>