I have to do this too....It's a pain but worth it. I lost a couple baby bottle parts and some childrens silverware once when my husband got flip happy. I became the disposal checker after that...

"Over the years we have ground up so many spoons and forks -- probably everyone we have"

I think you mean "every one you have." If you grind up everyone you have, I will not be accepting any dinner invitations.

Don't make me laugh out loud. Of course, whoever published your comment earlier was so amused he or she didn't bother to correct me. :-) EL

Mrs. Bucky and I have been married for nearly 30 years. We attribute our long, successful marriage to the fact that we have followed simple rule our entire married lives: I don't try to run her life and I don't try to run mine, either.

Now Bucky...

Remember that Marriage is a fine institution - If you don't mind being in an institution.

Elizabeth, we still polish silver, and in fact we have the silver owned by three generations of my husband's family (which only appears on special occasions). I noticed many years after our second son was born that his great-grandmother's monogram is the same as his, so no doubt the silver will pass to him some day.

" A Woman's Prayer:
Dear Lord, I pray for: Wisdom, To understand a man , to Love and to forgive him , and for patience, For his moods. Because Lord, if I pray for Strength I'll just beat him to death "

SIlver dip? Even if Henry does recommend it, doesn't it take all of the nice patina off the silver. I'm gonna want a full report on this, EL.

Possibly the the most provocative posting title ever with the worst payoff.

Rule #1. It's HER house.
Rule #2. It's His problem.
Rule #3. It's not broken if insurance doesn't cover it.

For the horrible results of improper Lock Out Tag Out procedures watch the cat incident in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I use many clips from this movie when I teach the OSHA 10 Hour class.

On the subject of marriage, my spouse (also a Canon) and I came to an agreement about keeping a happy household about 25 years ago. I am in charge of the kitchen and all that happens there, including the cooking, the cleaning & the grocery shopping. She takes care of laundry and made arrangements for child care when ours were little. Other things like paying the bills, taking out trash and cutting the grass have been passed back and forth at various times.

On the matter of the garbage disposal, about 15 years ago I found a plastic disk, well perforated, with a half-inch spindle in the center of both sides. It fits perfectly in the opening, and prevents anything larger than an eighth of an inch from going into the grinder. It gets clogged with food pretty quickly during cleanup, but the spindle makes it easy to pick it up. Depending on what's on it, I can either dump it in the compost bucket or simply turn it over as I turn on the switch. I have since tried a screen style drain (too deep, doesn't sit well) and more recently an Oxo drain with a perforated silicone base that works really well and cleans beautifully in the dishwasher.

EEL, about six or seven years ago we put on a Safety Day where I used to work. Kicked the executives out of their reserved parking and brought in a whole bunch of exhibits, literature, talks, etc. One of the exhibits was from BGE. They brought in a demonstration trailer with about a fifteen-foot section of high-voltage line run from a generator. Their spokesman, a real linesman, did the usual things: lighting a flourescent lamp, frying a hot dog, setting newspaper on fire. At the end he took off one of his gloves and showed everyone where he had two missing fingers from an "accidental" encounter with a live line. Really brought the lesson home.

I also got to sit in a sprinkler system demonstration. An old, small camping trailer outfitted with a sprinkler system. Most folks looked in through the windows when they set the curtains ablaze and saw the sprinkler knock the flames down and out, but a few of us got to sit in the kitchen area and watch it up close (after signing a waiver).

I've been blessed: I inherited my parents' two sets of silver. They bought a very simple set of eight 4-piece place settings when they got married in 1935. When they bought their house in 1941, they splurged and spent $150 on twelve 7-piece place settings of Stieff Corsage with all the serving pieces. Finally, when my mother-in-law became ill and had to move from her home to a health-care facility in 2003, she gave me her eight 4-piece place settings of Corsage. We use the simple silver every day, and break out the Corsage for every "occasion" dinner.

"Goddard's silver dip" - my question, EL is how stinky is this stuff? I have stuff at home that works great but it smells like rotten eggs, so I wait until my stuff is so tarnished it's almost black and then break down and break out the stinky stuff.

Joyce... I use Wright's silver cream, which is not very smelly at all. I worry about the dips because I feel like they remove all of the patina that makes the silver look so special.

If you don't use your silver a lot, there's a special cloth that inhibits the tarnishing process. Whatever you do, don't put your silver in plastic bags.

Thanks, Pigtown, I am getting Wright's ASAP. I guess I just thought all silver polish (and dips) smelled awful because beginning with the one's my mom used to get to the one I have now, your nose knows!

Whatever you do, don't put your silver in plastic bags.

Very hoi polloi Pigtown. Did you learn that at Oxford? :)