I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

IllinoisLady

Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. -Abraham Joshua Heschel

DivineMrsM

MinusTwo

Eats Shoots and Leaves is one of my favorite books of all time. Thanks for reminding me to find it on my shelves and re-read.

ruthbru

I don't know the book but might have to check it out! I do remember the example of "Don't eat, Gramma!" and "Don't eat Gramma!"

magiclight

NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE DAY - JUNTEENTH IS NOW AN OFFICIAL NATIONAL HOLIDAY

magiclight

Many American companies will do anything to avoid pay equity.

At issue is a new Colorado law that requires companies with even a few employees in the state to disclose the expected salary or pay range for each open role they advertise, including remote positions. The rule's aim is to narrow gender wage gaps and provide greater pay transparency for employees. To avoid having to disclose that information, though, some employers seeking remote workers nationwide are saying that those living in Colorado need not apply.

Johnson & Johnson ad seeks anyone NOT from Colorado as does Cardinal Health and pharmaceutical distributor McKesson Corp.

IllinoisLady

Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in charity and it overflows love. -John Ruskin

ruthbru

IllinoisLady

Ruth....

Spookiesmom

👍

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

ruthbru

IllinoisLady

MinusTwo

Oh but Ruth - you can just imagine how the state Repubs decided - it's much more important for Texas to spend money to continue building the orange one's wall than it is to fix the electric grid so everyone has secure power. OF course in the winter when it's freezing since most houses are not insullated here, but now in the summer when it's 100 degrees and we're constantly warned to conserve since we're in danger of an outage.

Betrayal

MinusTwo: Insulation serves a twofold purpose; it keeps heat in during the winter and heat out during the summer. I don't understand the rationale of building a home with no insulation; is this just a Southern issue? Having spent last summer with no air conditioning due to house being under restoration (since Nov. 2019 and yes, we are still in limbo awaiting completion), I do not envy you if you lose power. We experienced years of outages in the summer due to storm damage and in the winter from ice storms, so we installed a propane powered generator. While the initial cost appeared high, when you totaled up all the refrigerator and freezer products I had to toss over the years, it paid for itself. So we no longer freeze in the winter nor roast in the summer (I have A/C this year).

Maybe the Texan "independence" thought process needs to consider the cost when it comes to electrical power vs the wall? BTW, if we eliminate all emigrants, who will provide lawn, tree, and other services that most Americans consider beneath them? Most of the landscaping/nail services in this area are populated by Spanish speaking individuals who have an unbelievable work ethic and probably for low wages.

Unless you are a Native American, all of us are descended from emigrants and most of them were escaping from some form of discrimination/persecution in their native countries.

Edited so it makes the point about our collective ancestry.

IllinoisLady

If we pretend to be more enlightened than we really are, we will miss an opportunity to heal ourselves. Admitting our limitations can make us feel vulnerable, yet it is very freeing. We just have to be ourselves as we are now, accepting the mixture of enlightened awareness and human limitation that is in each of us. Through this self-acceptance, we find a deep peace and self-love. Shakti Gawain

Spookiesmom

Construction varies according to local. Neither of my houses up north, Ohio, had insulation in the walls. And very little in the attic. They were also OLD. Insulation could have been blown in, but nobody really thought about things like that, then. Also, in snow country, the roofs have a steeper pitch than here, to help melting snow slide off

My house here is concrete block, covered in stucco. No way to get insulation in walls. We did have insulation blown in attic. Doesn't usually get freezing cold here, but I have seen snow. Here the builders knew how to situate a house to take advantage of the breezes, plant trees to block sun.

Today all the builders care about is $. Throw up a house in a week, move on. Destroy any trees in the way. Joni Mitchell said it years ago, Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot.

Jelson

APOLOGIES TO ALL!! on a tangent here, Spookiesmom - your post reminded me that I had heard that there were few houses with basements in Oklahoma - a state I think is prone to tornadoes and where it would be nice to have a basement - I was inspired to google this and found that in this case, it isn't some popular preference quirk or builders' shortcut, but a result of the high water tables and clay soil which cause wet/moldy basements. This is also true in some other states which also have similar soil/water table issues. Now Kansas has the highest percentage of homes with basements in US......I am wondering if the geology there is different.

Spookiesmom

We don't have “true" basement here either. Same reason. I'm 8 feet above sea level. My cousin lived just east of Orlando. He stuck a hose in his grass, went down a bit, shot water back at him. I think in certain states the have storm cellars. Not all the way underground but mounded up so you are sheltered. My gma in Kentucky had a fruit cellar. Heaven help us kids if we went in it. That’s where she stored all the stuff she had preserved. But it probably also was a place to get underground if necessary.

exbrnxgrl

I live in Santa Clara County in CA. I know of no one who has a basement here. If I inadvertently used the word basement when I was teaching, most of my students had no idea what I was referring to.

IllinoisLady

I live in Illinois ( central-southern ) and while there are a lot of basements here they are troublesome. We do have a very high water table and most of the basements tend to be damp. A lot of them in heavy rains will leak water onto the floor through any floor cracks -- and almost ALL of them need at least one sump-pump. We lived in town with a full basement and did okay but did have water in our floor cracks during rains. My mother also had a basement and while we never saw it leak, there was always something of a musty odor. Now we live out at the lake in the woods and no basement. Actually, we have no where to really go in a bad storm. We have been out here for many years now and don't much worry. We do have big ravines on either side of the house to get into if a storm comes.

ruthbru

We all have basements in North Dakota.....most people here wouldn't buy a house without one. We don't usually get very much precipitation so a high water table is rarely a problem. We like them for protection from storms, extra living space and storage.

I was sad to see that Champ Biden has died.

IllinoisLady

Ruth -- that is sad to hear. I went to read after your entry here. I'm glad Champ got to be a part of the Biden's lives as well as a part of the White House life. Most of the president and first families have had a companion animal, or animals and I think it humanizes the office as well as the president and first family.

As for the other guy, not only was he a misfit for the office, his apparent distaste for animals was nearly painful. I always felt like he did not want anyone to waste a second spent on anyone but him and heaven forbid an animal around him get 'the' attention only he deserved.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

Don't let the door hit you on the way out and I'd consider it a great favor if you'd make that exit ASAP.

exbrnxgrl

illinoislady,

I love Jen Psaki. So cool, composed and smart as a whip! I was however slightly bothered by the use of witch 🧙 instead of which but remember, I just retired from teaching about two weeks ago. I have a feeling it will be a while before my teachers eye relaxes!