Local fabric shop has a lady who gives classes. (sm)

• Does anyone here quilt? I have question. SM - cb
  • featherbed...long article - cat
    • forgot to put in music... - cat
  • Local fabric shop has a lady who gives classes. (sm) - Sm
  • hand quilt - marilyn
    • Thanks to all. I think I will try hand quilting. Seems - relaxing after day of MT.
      • glad you chose to hand quilt...sm - cat
  • I quilt, or I did before started MT. - nm
  • Baby quilt - nana
    • quilting - Jennyb

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I do that with my animals actually to help them with the static in winter.  Or a spray bottle with water and some liquid fabric softner squirted over things.  Easier and cheaper than 'Static Guard' in a can.

Good luck and congrats on your new furniture!

I was sent an email by a friend concerning the hazards of fabric softner last night.  I was wondering if anyone else has heard of this?  The article he sent to me was from Allergy and Environmental Health Association (http://aeha.ca/help-with.htm)

He was also talking to an associate who has having many health issues.  He awoke one morning with a "texas-shaped" lump and redness on his neck.  He went to the doctor the next day and the doctor suggested that he go home and look at his pillow and call him back and tell him what he found.  There was a dry sheet in his pillow case - and you guessed it - in the shape of Texas.  His doctor told him that it was unbelievable the illnesses that are caused by fabric softener.

It seems like there are some many things you shouldn't eat, you shouldn't use, and the list goes on.  Sometimes I think we are doomed if we do and doomed if we don't.  I guess it is an issue of pick and choose.  Does anyone know an alternative for fabric softener? 

By the way - If you don't want to look at this article for any other reason, look at it for the great list of alternatives for cleaning without using chemicals.  They have a great list and it is quite lengthy.  I printed it off just to have for a household reference!

so towels do get that musty odor.......but I find fabric softener works REALLY well.......no complaints so far

oh and I use TIDE with bleach (also works on colored clothes) for washing......(but I love the smell of Gain, just think Tide washes better)

Wanted to give all you ladies out their a chuckle for the day!

THE

ADULT LEARNING CENTER

REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED

by Friday, July 10th 2009

NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL

OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM

 Class 1

How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays--Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.

Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

 Class 2

The Toilet Paper Roll--Does It Change Itself?

Round Table Discussion.

Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

 Class 3

Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub?--Group Practice.

Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

 Class 4

Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor--Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.

Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

 Class 5

Dinner Dishes--Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink?

Examples on Video.

Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning

at 7:00 PM

 Class 6

Loss Of Identity--Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other.

Help Line Support and Support Groups.

Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

 Class 7

Learning How To Find Things--Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.

Open Forum

Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

 Class 8

Health Watch--Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health.

Graphics and Audio Tapes.

Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

 Class 9

Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost--Real Life Testimonials.

Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined

 Class 10

Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks?

Driving Simulations.

4 weeks, Saturday's noon, 2 hours.

 Class 11

Learning to Live--Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife.

Online Classes and role-playing

Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

 Class 12

How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion

Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.

Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

 Class 13

How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy--Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late.

Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.

T hree nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

 Class 14

The Stove/Oven--What It Is and How It Is Used.

Live Demonstration.

Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined. 

Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

Send this to all the guys that you think can stand the heat, and to all the ladies for the best chuckle of their day!

I took home ec in school too. Dresses were always too short in length or in sleeves. My parents sent me to Singer Sewing School for 2 years. I STILL can't sew. . . but sure wish I could. I don't even own a sewing machine, but have 2 of them sitting in storage (1 mom's, 1 DH's mom's).

BTW, my mom couldn't sew either. My father used to do any sewing that was needed in the house.

Is that a step away from the school calling the CPS?  I visited my aunt at a resturant she was telling me about her children's children.  She said the 12 yo was acting up really bad in school and he is about to get thrown out.  Every word out of that woman's mouth was it is because the DIL won't.... or the DIL doesn't........  Aunt has the kids more than the DIL does and she is constantly critising the DIL on everything.  She had their 2 yo son with her and he started grunting obviously messing his diaper and she hit him on the nose (not hard) and said STOP!  Then he threw up and she covered his mouth as if to stop him and it did not work and somehow that was all DIL fault also.   DIL would tell aunt what the pedi said and aunt disagrees that the pedi don't know what they are talking about, that she raised 3 boys and they were going to do things her way.  She disagrees with what the parenting classes are teaching.  You spank kids and spank them hard, she ran around with a hairbrush and a fly swatter when her kids were little.  Her DIL called me one night in tears because at some family function aunt started in on her and saying that she is incompetant and she needed aunt and DIL threw her plate of food at her. Aunt got peturbed because DIl was feeding her then 1 year-old cheerios.  I told the DIL that there is a government programs out there that can help her pay for childcare that she does not need to rely aunt.  I got the number from my daycare director and gave it to her.  She never called.  I had also told the DIL that she better start listening to the school and to the pedis and not the aunt because she is the one responsible for those kids and if aunt does something they are going to hold her responsible.  The aunt won't let her use anyone but her.  She is very bossy and the matriarch of the family.  I had offered to keep the kids on weekends but I am not good enough either.  I don't make my kids mind and aunt would have to work to hard undoing everything I did.  Funny, the school told me that whatever I was doing with my 5 year old to do it again with my 18 month old.  The DIL and son are mentally handicapped, both were in special education class in high school and both are janitors of the school which is probably the best job they will ever get.   Think they would do well though and their kids would thrive better if they had a better support system.  I wished there was something I could do to help but they did not want any of my help. I just don't like to go around them anymore.  I have turned down every offer my aunt had to watch my children.  No way.   

I know for some here they've said it's Walmart.

There's a chain of stores here in NJ, not sure if they're anywhere else though. It's calles SixthAvenue Electronics. We had a bad experience with them many years ago (they sold us a reconditioned piece of electronics without telling us it wasn't new) and to this day I won't even look at their flyers. I just throw them away.

Where won't you shop?

I am one of those st**pid women with little dogs and they are better company than someone like you, I am sure. They go where we go including nice hotels where they are welcome.  No one has ever complained.  They are clean and groomed, don't bark, and are gentle and loving.  Stores cater to me because I spend money there.  Are you?  Or, are you just walking around looking?  Maybe they don't cater to you because of your not so nice comments to their good customers.

Edited by Moderator for content. 

Mare stare has a whole boatload of farms that offer live cams in easy to navigate list format.  Usually in the spring these cams are trained in on mares who are about to give birth--which is incredibly cool (and sometimes scary!) to watch. 

http://www.marestare.com/Cams.htm

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

I also like to watch my kids play ball or take them swimming.  Sometimes, I get with my friend and her kids and we take them to the movies.  We love to cook out on the weekends and invite friends over. 

I also like just cleaning my house, believe it or not, and rearranging the furniture, etc.  Last summer, I painted and stenciled a lot and I'm thinking about doing a few pieces this summer.  I also like to take care of my flower beds.  Lots to do.  Summer is my favorite time of year.