I am requesting a toaster oven from my son for my birthday but I want one which will last a while. I also don't want him to spend too much money on it.
So I need some recommendations from any of you who have toaster ovens on the best one to get that hopefully doesn't cost over $50.
I've looked online for a few but well I am still not sure.
I think I want a large one but I guess I will settle for a smaller one.
I really wouldn't use it for toast but more for cooking things like breaded shrimp or pizza. Mostly cooking frozen stuff or reheating leftovers. But it might be nice to broil a small steak or something now and then.
Thanks for your recommendations. Oh - I would also like to know what store you bought yours from. Thanks- BB

Okay, so, first of all I live in BC, Canada. I'm not really sure how to go about this, but I don't know what to do right now and I'm really worried about how the next month is going to go.

I turned 18 in February, applied for college, got accepted, and moved away to be on my own during the summer. I applied for student loans and I was approved for $7000 this semester. I thought this was pretty cool, and most likely enough to live on after I paid my tuition (Which was only $3800 this semester). On top of that, my boyfriend was moving in with me and planning on getting a job to help support me while I attend school.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances, $2000 of my left-over 'living' student loan money was stolen/loaned, and the person only paid back $1000, claiming that was all they took. This person is a family member - really the only family member I have, and they're currently paying for my hydro and internet until I can afford it - so I can't bring myself to do anything about it, or even fight with them over how much they took. The worst part is what they spent it on, but I don't want to divulge that. On top of that my boyfriend, who is currently 20, left his job of his own accord with the intention of moving with me, so he doesn't qualify for Unemployment Insurance. We've been checking all the websites, gone out on numerous occasions to every store that would take a resume handing them out, and emailed quite a few possible employers, but so far we haven't heard back. His resume shouldn't be the problem, since it was done professionally, but we've still tried editing it now and then to get it to sound even better. Still, he can't seem to get a job, and we've been looking for two months (since he moved here).

The problem with this is I've had to pay all the rent ($600 a month) and I'm out of student loans. We're currently $5.00 in the red, and the only reason we have food is because my college has special bursaries set aside for people in financial crisis, so they've given me Superstore gift cards so we can buy food. Unfortunately this doesn't help with my biggest problem right now, and that's December rent.

So, my biggest question right now is... What can we do? I've been so stressed about this that I haven't been able to concentrate on my work (art school, it's kind of hard for me to paint when I'm this stressed) and I'm starting to fail my classes, which would make this entire endeavor a complete failure. What are our options? I'm going to see a school councilor Monday about some options, but I want to know if anyone here knows anything that could help.

Sorry about all this, I didn't know where or who to ask...

I live in Maryland (so if anyone knows specific laws, that'd be rad too!). For clarification person without details we will call Neighbor A & B the married neighbors and neighbor C the sweet neighbor.

A & B Live next door to me (we have townhomes). A&B got into a fight. They have 4 children. A is drunk as hell (like always) and pulls out his gun and points it at his wife. B grabs her kids and runs to Neighbor C's house. She's not in shock. She's calm and collective - but she says she needs help, and so C of course helps. A (in his drunken stage) pounds and threatens to bust in neighbor C's door if they don't let him in. Neighbor C calls the cops because A claims he is going to shoot them with his gun. The 911 dispatcher asks B(The wife) if her husband (A) has a gun - and she says not a handgun, but yes a shotgun.

45 minutes later we hear a gunshot. REALLY FREAKING CLOSE. Then another... by the end there are 4 gunshots. A&B live right next door to us...2 of the shots were IN THERE HOUSE and the other 2 were on our street because A went psycho in his drunken stage and shot neighbor C's car in. The cops came - helicopters came. It was a freaking madhouse.

Regardless - Because no one actually SAW Neighbor A do what he did and now his wife (because we all know how unfortunate domestic situations can be for woman) won't admit that her husband has a gun (because he just got released from prison, can't legally posses a gun - so he could go back to prison for having possession of a gun as well as the damage he created) - the cops can't really do anything (at least at this point...).

Do I have ANY right to tell my leasing office they either need to evict the crazy man or let me out of my lease? I have 2 young children that there room shares the wall with A&B's house. I'm scared. Shots were fired. This is crazy, ridiculus, and obviously not a safe haven... But I can't really afford for a broken lease to be on my credit report (but if it has to be, I will do it - my children's safety is obviously more important). Anyhow, do I have any legal rights?

They can be funny, weird, scary, heart-breaking... anything you want to post.

1. (had this one last night, inspiration for this post) I got to play with the first dog my family ever had. I haven't seen her since the summer in between 3rd and 4th grade. I was really sad when I woke up. It was weird that I was the age I am now, in spite of the fact that I haven't seen Butterfly in almost twenty years.

2. Kidnapped by my grandfather, who turned out to be the joker. This is also one of the few dreams I've had where I realized it wasn't real while dreaming. I remember saying to myself, "don't wake up. This is too cool."

3. Walking down the hallway of my high school, and everyone is singing the same damn song. Fuck you high school musical, it happened in my head first.

4. I'm in the house my family lived in when we were in North Carolina. I look out the kitchen window... TORNADOS EVERYWHERE! AHHHHH! Super sweet.

5. This was a dream I had many times as a child. I'm out in the country. Rolling hills all over the place. I'm with a bunch of children playing soccer, but the sunlight is so bright that I am unable to see what is happening in the game. I'm just running around blindly.

I FINISHED WRITING JIBBERJABBER FOR MY HORRIBLE IMF CONDITIONALITY CLAUSES ESSAY. IT TOOK ALL WEEKEND. THIS WAS A BAD TOPIC CHOICE, BAD MEANING BORING.

( essay writing playlist: )

also from this weekend:
i made chocolate pudding, my mum phoned me back with my childhood favourite recipe; took essay breaks to watch epsiodes of it's always sunny in philadelphia, season 5; wrote two pages for the other essay, on intra-state conflict.

a huge soaring song / hello school hello again

Arcane is bad for sure.
November 08, 2009.




This coincides nicely with my purchase of Roots of the Swamp Thing hardcover. I had never read the House of Secrets origin story. If tears could come -- they would.

"you kept repeating the same
patterns that alienate me so i
went away from you and
reenacted us with plastic bottles
while the lesbian ghost tried
to have sex with me"

with my finger in the slab of fog
i draw a map of us
and perform our relationship
with a shampoo and conditioner bottle
as the lesbian ghost who haunts my shower looks on
with yellow hair tangled among pink ribs
i know she comes from 1944
i know she almost survived
i don’t know how many times i’ve told her
you’re a minor nothing will happen between us
i don’t want tea now stop coming in when i’m naked
but she doesn’t listen
she stands there akimbo with teacups at her feet
and stares the whole time i am in the shower
vapour weaves a cemetery path
the thing accelerating
with every morsel of its thingness
the refusal of the thing to condense
for want of constant heat and enormity
in a towel i perform our relationship
with a shampoo and conditioner bottle
and it is the pinnacle of my performance art career
until i remember miranda july has already done this
with shoes
and i think fuck
but the ghost doesn’t mind and claps her tiny hands

http://killauthor.com/issuethree/audri-sousa.shtml

i submitted here, also. it is one of the least annoying magazines i've seen in awhile. it would be nice if they liked me. i like to think that when i genuinely like something it will genuinely like me back.

i need to think some happy thoughts. why not my honeymoon? why not?

russ's parents have this aversion to us going to europe even though we've found inexpensive way, but whatev. therefore, i have a few somewhat more economical ideas:

1. taking the train out to colorado/staying in a lodge and going hiking, probably play a few shows in the area while we're there.
pros: gorgeous time to ride the train if we go in the fall, and i miss the mountains.
cons: possibly too time-consuming

2. staying somewhere cute in quebec city/hiking/etc.
pros: je peux parler my mauvais pastorally accented franglais! but still a huge plus in my book. also, hello, it's gorgeous.
cons: maaaybe too expensive depending on what we do. but probably not.

3. finding a conference i want to present at and mixing work with pleasure!
pros: killing two birds with one stone!
cons: but that's still more than kind of obnoxious!

4. asking parents to just give us like $2000 and forget the honeymoon!
pros: money, yeah!
cons: totally not gonna happen!

thoughts?

I have millions of things to do.

I have a first draft of my HAUSU article due Thursday which I haven't started D; D; (also I do not have a copy of th film yet, eep. Also I am still unsure what my thesis is going to focus on, eeep!)

Cucalorus (http://www.cucalorus.org/) is this weekend, and I hope I have time to watch some free filmz. (features I want to see: Timer, House of the Devil, Dogtooth, and of course Precious!)

I must do GRE things and such. I am excited to apply to Pratt's dual Master's in Library Science and MS in History of Art. Also they have Post-Master's certificate in Archiving! Also you can intern with MOMA!

Anyone that has seen HAUSU and knows anything about Brechtian film theory or feminism or Japanese yokai myths or etc, help me out!

I'm looking to buy a Wii since my bf never has money to go anywhere anymore, and I can't always afford to pay for him. So I figured it might be something fun we could do while not having to go anywhere. Watching movies all the time gets boring :P Anyway, a guy in the town I work in is selling one plus the remotes, wires, and 2 games for $190. But I'm so scared of buying it and it being a POS. Any advice for me? He listed it in excellent condition and when I asked why he was selling it is he said he just doesn't use it and wants the money to buy an xbox.

Впервые с советских времен увидела в продаже четвертушки хлеба… в нарезке… для бедных, возможно, скоро организуют продажу по кусочкам…

Читать http://www.kp.ru/print/article/24066/305991

great big bass line & so many ghosts

I am 20 weeks pregnant with our first kid and we are very excited!

I have a job that pays some bills and gives me health insurance, but quite honestly if I wasn't pregnant, I would have quit at least two months ago. Basically, regardless of when I do end up leaving to have the baby I have no plans of returning. Maybe to a different department in the same company, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

I am a high risk mama and I literally have twice as many appointments (at least) as the average pregnant lady. I am overweight and have high blood pressure. I'm being monitored by two doctors and everything has been okay so far with the baby and his/her growth and my blood pressure has been well controlled by medication.

I have been having a rough time with morning sickness and getting knocked down by a stomach bug for a couple of weeks and have missed a fair amount of work. My bosses are not pleased with this and think I need to toughen up. That may be the case, and I may look back and think I was being a giant wuss, but right now in the moment I'm just doing the best that I can. I have not worked here long enough to qualify for FMLA but I can take a medical leave of absence or personal leave. With that, I would technically be an employee for up to 38 weeks and would have no changes to health insurance for the first 12 weeks. After that, the health insurance would go away unless I paid into COBRA.

If I'm counting right, I'm one missed day of work away from being fired. As far as I know, I would qualify for unemployment because I have a health condition that would have led me to being fired. We would definitely qualify for food stamps then and although I'm not sure about Medicaid, I would qualify for CHIPS insurance for the rest of my pregnancy so at least prenatal care and delivery would be covered and the baby would be after that.

My question is, do you think it would be better to get fired or to go on medical leave now? I'm due in March, so my insurance would not last until the birth of my baby, but it would get me through the next few months at least. Is having health insurance through my company more important than trying to collect unemployment?

Any thoughts are helpful! Thanks for your time, I totally love this community.

Amazingly, these pictures are not all from Zenith and Quiet Storm this time.

( Read more... )

That's all for food from July-October.

We went to two Halloween parties this year - John and Jean's and Jonathan and Patty's. Both were a pretty good time. We dressed up like Squall and Rinoa from FF8. It was exciting to me cause these costumes required very little sewing and we didn't have to do anything to our hair cause we have the right colors.

( Read more... )

The next post is going to be all kinds of food.

Teddy and I took a nice walk along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail sometime in the late summer/early fall, and then we went to North Park to take pictures of the fall foliage.

( Read more... )

We also took a walk today because it was so beautiful! I took pictures of the two ship replicas on the river, but I haven't uploaded them to my PC yet.

I'm finally getting around to actually posting the rest of my pictures from July-October. It's kind of hard to post when you have a schedule like mine. Monday-Thursday I wake up at 5:30, leave for school by 7, work at school till 2:30, rush over to Oakland to either work out or practice Japanese with friends, then go to class from 4:30 to 7:10. By the time I get home (around 7:30-8) I'm just not up for anything. Fridays are better cause I only have school till 11 and then no class, but then of course I have papers to write and a ton of junk to read. It's really pretty annoying cause none of the work or the readings are intellectually stimulating in any way - it's just a huge waste of my time and takes away from time I could be using to familiarize myself with lesson plans and the like for work. But whatever.

( Read more... )

That's all for the birthday pictures!

"Being attracted to" and "Wanting to be in a relationship with" are not necessarily the same thing.
As to attraction, none of those things really matter. As to relationships, SOME commonality is nice, but it's the differences that adds the spice to a relationship.

lj hasn't been emailing me comments on my journal!!!???!!! wtf is up with that?

I have never been a fan of Aldi's... Anyone have some insight on Save-A-Lot? I imagine it's about the same, crappy quality... 

I've two problems here:

1) When I hit 'enter' to type another line, I get paragraph spacing. How do I get line spacing instead?

2) If I have two or more columns and I type in one column, the spacing of the text in the other columns go haywire. How do I make the text in all the columns align the same?

Here:



I'm a newbie so please help. Btw I would like to know how to adjust these by using the design view. I don't want to touch the codes unless I really have to. Help?

no idea.

I have a roach problem.  Personally, I think they are coming in from the drains.  We put down boric acid and traps/poison etc. and I can swear it's gotten worse.  I am at wits end.  I don't know what to do.

I'm not 100% sure if I should ask this question here, but I'm going to anyway and if it isn't something that is relevant, it can be ignored or deleted.

A year and a half ago, my aunt had gastric bypass surgery in order to lose a large amount of weight. Her medicare gap insurance fully paid for the procedure because it was deemed medically necessary since she had been trying to lose the weight for many years with minimal success due to other medical problems she has had for awhile.

A year after the surgery and nearly 200 lbs lighter, she was approved again to have both of her knees replaced so that she could walk without the aid of a cane or wheelchair for the first time in a very long time. Now that she's lost all the weight, her skin doesn't have enough elastic left in it to shrink up, so she's carrying a lot of extra weight in skin and it's pulling on her knees, back, hips and other areas still making it difficult for her to walk without the aid of a cane.

All of her doctors agree and have written letters saying that the skin removal surgery is a necessity and it would greatly improve her quality of life. The insurance company refuses to believe it is anything but vanity, since it's a cosmetic procedure, and has refused to pay for any part of it. My aunt wants to appeal the decision and I'm trying to help her write a letter of appeal.

My question is...how do we go about doing this properly? I've done research and so has she, but none of it seems to actually be pointing how to actually phrase the letter and how to make it the most compelling it can be. Even with so many doctors to back her up, she still wants her side of the appeal to be compelling.

Has anyone had experience with this type of thing? I would appreciate any guidance in the matter. She has 30 days left to appeal and really no idea where to begin. All the websites I've found that say they do a guide to writing a letter seem to be too generic. Is too much detail a bad thing? I really have no clue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Five months ago I started the dental braces process. I am paying $5700 out of pocket for braces, since my insurance does not cover them. I paid $570 down (I think, or an amount close to that) and now pay $160 a month till its paid off. I started about 8 months ago. A co-worker mentioned since its a medical expense, I might get extra money back for taxes? Anyone know anything about this? I usually just do my taxes on TurboTax. This is costing me a fortune and if I could get extra money back on my refund, that would be amazing. I live in NY if that counts for anything.

Hey poor_skills!
I recently went to an AmeriCorps conference and took a workshop on living on a budget. I thought it was a great training and want to share what I learned with you. Check out the blog post I wrote about the workshop: http://servingandsurviving.blogspot.com/2009/11/surviving-on-serving-budget.html

lost my phone again last night. pretty pissed about that.

--

so i went out and biked this morning for the first time since the Week of the Great Water & found myself coasting wildly down a golden hill, two dogs & a garbage truck giving merry chase, while cat stevens crooned in my ears that morning has broken, praise with elation, praise every morning

yes, mine was the sunlight, mine the morning, mine the mangy dogs lolling tongues & all; mine the furious pedaling toward exhaustion's joy. mine all men's losses & all men's gains, the empty pockets, the full & heavy heart pushing me on & on down the hill --