<p>Almost page 100!</p>
<p>i love coming in just after recaps LOL. ditto to all above</p>
<p>parent56: LOL! This is just to see if I can get to page 100!..have coffee ready for the early birds and for those sleeping in. :)</p>
<p>:cool: 
</p>
<p>GSharp-let me just take a moment to say what has been on my mind for a long time-you are a p*sser! 
(that means he’s hilarious, in case anyone is thinking about taking offense ;)) </p>
<p>OK, so confession here. There is no way that I will shed a tear when my two boys leave my nest this fall. Maybe it’s a mother/daughter thing that particularly brings on the tears, but it’s just not gonna happen here. I love my boys fiercely and would lay down in front of a truck for them, but I will shed no tears at drop-off or thereafter. I believe (hope,wish,pray) that they will stay in touch with us-I just learned how to text last month and hope that helps. :)</p>
<p>Now what does move me to tears? I have been sitting on the floor of this little back room we have, a small bedroom/office, trying to make some sense of the HUNDREDS of file folders inside bigger folders which are sitting on the floor. My DH is a pack rat, to say the least, and I am trying to clean up the room just a little bit, to the point where someone could actually walk into it. This morning I found about 20 unused greeting cards he has accumulated. There are notices from credit card companies dating back 7 years about closed accounts or increases in credit limits, etc. It is simply overwhelming and I am sorely tempted to throw out massive amounts of stuff without going through it.
But, I won’t. I did toss out magazines dating back two years which I’m sure he intended to read when he had the chance. Never gonna happen.</p>
<p>I also found his original employment agreement from his current firm. Apparently, he is entitled to four weeks paid vacation. LOL If he gets away for a week a year, it’s with his Blackberry firmly attached and constantly buzzing. I recently repeated to him the line I have often heard, “No one goes to his grave saying ‘I wish I would have spent more time at work.’”</p>
<p>Anyway, enough of my mini rant-of-the-day. Still no AP scores here although one of “our” young ladies on this thread will be attending the same college as DS#2 and when she posted that AP scores were up on the school’s web site, I passed along that info to DS#2, claiming that my “sources” had told me. And, you know who you are, Keil. :)</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone on the great AP scores! We still have not made any trips to BB&B. Please leave some stuff for us!</p>
<p>As for that American Girl Doll stuff-I still get catalogs from them since I once ordered something for a friend’s daughter for her birthday. The girl is going to be a freshman at Brown in the fall, so I’m guessing that was a LONG time ago. But, they just won’t stop sending the catalog. Our letter carrier knows we have 3 boys and must think we are nuts. (That’s opposed to all the people who KNOW that we are nuts.) Who would like the catalog forwarded to them? Volunteers?</p>
<p>
When I was a kid I was a doll collector and I used to bring my Madam Alexander dolls to the doll hospital. It was serious doll repair, though, not for the kid’s amusement. My D1 still has many of her dolls and they are very well cared for. D2 hated dolls. She used to hang them from the bannister down into the living room and let them swing there. It started out as a make-shift baby swing but then she found great amusement in the freaked out reaction she got from people and continued.</p>
<p>I can’t get over the roommate with the Lady Gaga tickets and bracelet. My D would throw her arms up in the air and shout “score!!!”</p>
<p>zoosermom,
I am a “kindred spirit” to your DS#2. I hated dolls, never had any, and preferred guns and toy soldiers.</p>
<p>ok, i’m strange, had 3 favorites… a teddy bear, a gollywog (dont be offended that is what they were called its a british toy) and here is the strange one…a Top Cat plastic thing that used to have bubble bath in it…the top was his head/hat!!</p>
<p>momof3sons: Your H and mine sound like they could be twins! I’ve been in a room like that with the same task and reaction. {{{{HUGS}}}. And may I say (also something I’ve thought and appreciated for a very long time)…and I mean this as a compliment. You are also a p*sser!</p>
<p>zooser: I understand about having the dolls repaired (just not going in for a “check up”!). You also fall into that wonderful category with GSharp and momof3! (Sounds like your D2 has the hilarity gene as well). Thanks for the insights, smiles and laughs. :)</p>
<p>ETA: parent56: I had that Top Cat bubble bath! Thanks for the trip down memory lane! ;)</p>
<p>:cool: </p>
<p>momof3sons, when you finish with your H’s office can you go to my Dad’s house?</p>
<p>Dad’s always been a bit of a pack rat. Mom was the one who tossed stuff. Sometimes, if it was an outdated appliance, she knew Dad would pull it out of the trash if he thought it still worked or could be used for parts (Dad’s an engineer). So she’d send it to the attic for a couple of years to “cool off,” and then toss it. But Mom passed away a year and a half ago. The stuff you describe in your husband’s office is exactly like the stuff in my Dad’s office. He has 3 stacks of magazines on the kitchen table that he wants to read but hasn’t gotten to. He’s not a hoarder - he throws away the newspaper, etc, and his house is very clean - but he is a pack rat.</p>
<p>D has an AG doll that was produced for only a year. It’s nicely stored as it “may become valuable one day”. Yeah, sure!</p>
<p>lol ks i also had a pinocchio one but just wasnt as “wonderful” as Top Cat</p>
<p>I had typed a reply re the dolls yesterday, but I guess I never finished it. Work has been CRAZY and with both girls away it is more time for WORK (sigh)</p>
<p>Count us also among the group which never had American Girl dolls. Not even the doll that shares a name with one of my girls. My kids did like dolls but never over the top love. We also very very unlikely to spend that money. We did get a catalog for a few years. They did however have cabbage patch dolls which I got at a yard sale. The similar but still smaller scale money sink here has been build a bear. D2 has one which she got right after the local store opened, who is very much a member of the family. There are several others, but this one is special. She even has a facebook page 
She (the bear) has been to England, Michigan, Arizona with each girl on trips. D1 is very attached to her also and wants to know if she will visit her in college.</p>
<p>No AP scores yet but we’ll probably be one of the last.</p>
<p>When I got home last night H had a bright idea to change plans for the trip out to school, wanting to do the trip in one 16hr day with each of us doing 1/3 of the driving. D has never driving multi-hours at a time and I don’t want her to drive at times where we might be uncomfortable. I remember many of those interstates out in the Ohio area were chock full of 18 wheelers and ones with an additional trailer, made me a bit uncomfortable (we were pulling a popup camper) Anyway, after mentioning all the other things to take into consideration, this idea died a swift death.</p>
<p>parent56: I agree. Top Cat was the best!</p>
<p>mpabon: LOL…probably as valuable as all those beanie babies (huge bins!) sitting in my attic!</p>
<p>Good Morning all! I say that we just get a virtual bus trip together and EVERYONE can come on down to Texas for lunch…but only if I can get back on and join you guys in NYC for dinner and then I want to go to ACM’s beach house :)</p>
<p>SWTCAT: Deal! :D</p>
<p>Good morning! </p>
<p>momof3sons - we have a room like that in my house too. I can’t blame it all on my H though. The kids have contributed as well. I’ve noticed stacks of their old videos, childhood games that I’d thought were long gone, and elementary school fiction that I was sure I’d given to my friend for her classroom (friend teaches 3rd grade at a Catholic school in a low-income area, and was thrilled with the donation - guess the kids pulled a few before I passed them along). Cleaning out that room will be one of my end-of-summer jobs.</p>
<p>LOL at you receiving American Girl catalogs after so many years. I ordered from them quite often when D was young, and we used to receive their catalogs on almost a daily basis. We now receive just few a year.</p>
<p>ks - you’re absolutely right about momof3sons and zoosermom. Thanks for the laughs, ladies.</p>
<p>Lafalum - what a great response Lafayette had to your friend’s tragic story. </p>
<p>Off to run errands…</p>
<p>momof3sons…Our husbands could be twins as well. It makes for an interesting marriage when you have an extreme type-B (DH) married to an extreme type-A (moi – okay, I actually alphabetize and categorize the canned goods in the pantry). You’re a better woman than me by doing it for him. DH has a very large closet that he vowed he would go through – that was 3.5 years ago – it’s not so very large anymore and appears to be getting smaller:) !</p>
<p>kindredspirit & BT… Y’all are going to have to clue me in on inserting the graphics in the HTML. I know how to change color, font size, boldface, etc. but can’t figure out the graphics. Heck, I can only add 2 emoticons: happy and sad. Those who can add the cool, cute ones have my admiration. </p>
<p>When I was young, a friend of mine had most of the Madame Alexander international dolls. I’m fascinated with geography/culture and would stare at the collection in admiration. When I had D, I went crazy and began collecting them “for her”. She has over 100 in a mahogany curio in her room. She doesn’t even glance at them, but I still periodically look at them and dream of traveling to their many countries. BTW…is it any wonder I became a teacher of…can you guess the subject? :)</p>
<p>jc40 how cool that your childhood fascination became your life work!</p>
<p>i picked my profession when i was 12…loved it and still miss it, but had to make that choice to leave it when H moved here.</p>
<p>i had 2 dreams as a little girl</p>
<p>1) become a nun and have 5 children
2) have a black baby and dress him in yellow</p>
<p>one actually came true!! LOL my mother tried so hard to explain to me why those would never happen and i had almost forgotten it until 15 years ago</p>
<p>First time on this thread! I can usually be found on the Visual Arts forum as D is starting Minneapolis College of Art and Design this fall. H is a imaging technician (X-ray, Nuclear Med and CT), and I work for county government as a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) analyst. Our S just graduated from De Paul University in Chicago, so it’s been a busy summer!</p>
<p>As an aside, neither me nor my daughter liked dolls very much. I was always playing school and she was more interested in cars, dinosaurs, etc altho she did like stuffed animals.</p>
<p>jc40: Here’s a link to cc “smilies,” which will give you instructions for many other emoticons, including the “cool guy.”</p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential - Smilies](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=showsmilies]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=showsmilies)</p>
<p>For other graphics, you can use the character map on your computer and select and copy from there. I can give you directions for Windows on a PC, but not on a Mac (I think BT can help you with that! …waving BT!). If you have the former, pm me and I’ll be glad to guide you.</p>
<p>:cool: </p>
<p>ETA: Welcome redbug119! Congrats to both of your graduates! Nice to have you join us. :)</p>