Mary D

I am the maid of honor at my best friends wedding this weekend! she is getting married on Sunday so I will have all day Saturday and Sunday with her and would like some cute/neat ideas of special little things I can do for her (that won't cost much money). For instance, I am of course stocking up on champagne and wine for when we get our hair done and am going to buy a sweet little veil for her to wear during her rehearsal.

But, she's my best friend in the world and is juggling this wedding while also getting her masters and I know that few thoughtful things here and there would go a LONG way to make her feel happy and loved. Any suggestions?

My husband and I are married and filing jointly. I put my W2 info in and nothing else. I come up with a $1300return. I put my husband's W2 info in and we suddenly owe $34. This didn't make sense when he has paid sooo much in taxes off his check. So I erased mine and put his in first. He got a return of $2300. So you would think that together we would both have returns...no. I put mine in again and it came up with us owing $34 again. So I am completely confused!! I did switch our filing status to married filing separately to see what that would do, but that was basically no help. Why am I showing us both as getting returns but when we put them together we owe money???

I am planning an italy vacation for sometime in September and am considering doing an escorted tour with either Italy4real or cosmos. I was interested in anyones experiences with either of these companies and thoughts on doing escorted tours. I like the idea of everything being planned but am afraid that I will feel a bit like cattle being herded across Italy. At the same time, I have a very busy work life and not having to plan every single detail seems like a wonderful way to go.

Christmas is coming up and I would like ot bring something nice to my marriage counselor. I know that an actual gift would be innappropriate but I do a lot of baking around the Holidays and give plenty of people in my office, etc. batches of cookies, cakes and what not.

Is it appropriate to bring some holiday treats to my counselor or is best left to just simply saying "happy holidays" during my session?

I am going on a 12 day cruise of Italy leaving from Rome and will be stopping at Livorno, Florence/Pisa, Naples, Sicily, Croatia, and Venice. We are trying to stay on a relatively low budget for this type of vacation and know that a good way to save money is avoid the high markups on shore excursions provided from the cruise ship.

However, not being familiar with Italy at all, I'm not sure which ports we should book excursions at versus which ones we can probably do on our own. Can anyone provide any input on how far the cruise ports actually are from the main cities/attractions on these stops? If it's right up the road I imagine we can do it on our own, however, if things are rather spread out i'd rather plan the excursions through the cruise lines and not have to worry about transportation.

Any help would be very very much appreciated!

One of my husbands christmas gifts is a guided ghost tour of the city that we live in and the historical buildings and sightings, etc. I purchased the tickets but rather than sending them out to us, we just pick them up at the door. I would like to give him something for christmas to reprsent this gift but can't come up with anything. Anyone have any good ideas as to what I could put under the tree in this case?

I have the same typical allergies that most people have to pollen, dust, and other common items. I've been tested and nothing extreme sticks out. However, when I get an allergy flare up I also get very very itchy skin. I know that itchy eyes, runny & itchy nose are normal but is itchy skin also normal? It's particularly strong on parts of my body with sensitive skin such as my inner and upper thighs or on my chest.

Is this a normal allergic reaction or could it be something different? It happens probably a few times a year.

My husband and I are having our one year wedding anniversary next week (Tuesday) and I'm not sure what to do. We are actually celebrating that following weekend with a getaway and 5-star dining experience. However, I still feel that we need to do at least something on our actual anniversary. Obviously we'll make dinner but neither one of us get home until at least 7:00 so it's not as if we're going to whip up something gourmet. It stinks that it's during the work week and that we'll celebrating the following weekend. Any suggestions on what we can do to make the actual anniversary date a little bit more special??

this year I'm making my own costume and am going to be a knife throwers assistance. I have no issues with making the outfit but am trying to figure out a way to get knifes to stick out of the dress (as if the knife thrower missed the backboard). I've seen knifes in party supply stores that have retractable blades but I can't figure out how to adhere them to the outfit itself. They're not that heavy but basic hot glue gun won't work.....any ideas? It needs to look like i have a few knifes thrown into me.

I have about a 1 pound of left over roasted chicken from my crockpot and don't know what to do with it. Last night I made chicken salad out of it but I still have enough left for one full meal. It's a little too dry to just reheat and eat but I need something quick and easy to make toniight. Any ideas?

I'm looking to buy a house with my husband sometime mid next year but I'm afraid that we won't be approved for a loan or that the interest rate will be insanely high. I have flawless credit but am relatively young and therefor don't really have a lot of credit to keep flawless. My husband on the other hand had some mishaps several years ago (before we were married) and several thousand dollars went to collections. We will be paying ALL of his debt off in about two weeks. So my question, is with my perfect credit and his crappy credit will we still be able to get into a house? We'll both have good credit for around 8-10 months before we buy and we will around a $10,000 down payment.

We are young and newly married so it wouldn't be the end of the world if we rented for another year but I would so like to get into a house and stop paying rent. Any advice or suggestions?

I currently put away a good chunch of change every month into savings for a down payment I plan to use to buy a home with in about 1 years time. I also have a $200/month car payment for the next two years. My question is should I continue to pay the car off as is for the next two years or should I double my payments each month and pay it off in one years time but then put $200 a month less into savings to make up the difference? I'm not sure how it will work out best so I'm looking for any good advice

Any help here would be greatly appreciated. I run around 2.5-3.5 miles 4 days a week and have just recently started getting excrutiating pain in my lower left shin and the ball of my foot, also on the left. It hurts all of the time and it really takes a lot for me to be able to run even a couple of miles on it without it throbbing so bad I have to stop.

I think that it is small bone spurs starting which I know is relatively common but I don't know how to get rid of it. Any suggestions on how to heal them? I would also love any advice on how to better avoid them in the future. I love running and can't imagine not being able to do it. I'm afraid that this might really lay me out for some time.....

My dog is fairly needy and can't stand being seperated from my husband and I. She gets lots of attention and play time but regardless of how much attention we pay to her she will NOT leave us alone when we are watching TV or a movie. She will sit right in front of us and make these talking/growling noises. If we ignore hre long enoug hshe'll even start barking right at us! We pay her plenty of attention but sometimes we just want an hour or two without having to contstantly play/love her. Any suggestions on getting her to be less needy and more quiet in the evenings? We've been told to use a muzzle to stop her from barking but I'm not sure of that solution.

I'm thinking of cruising sometime in 2009 to the Mediterannean which my husband has always wanted to see. But, I would much rather spend our time exploring Italy. I think we've compromised with a short 5 days cruise to the Med and then spending 4-5 days after exploring Italy. I would particularly like to see Rome, Venice, and the Tuscan region. Is all of that possible in a few days or are the areas too spread apart? If it is possible, whats the best way to get from place to place-train, car, etc? If it isn't possible, would you recommond arriving back from our cruise in Rome or Venice?

I would like to schedule a cruise for sometime in 2009 as my husband and my last hoorah before we decide to have kids. He would like to do Greece but I would love to see parts of Italy. If we do a cruise that leaves out of Rome or Venice we can easily spend a few days before or after to see those cities. However, I don't know anything about Greece itself. Where should we make sure our cruise goes to? what ports of call should we absolutely not miss? Finally, should we even plan to cruise or should we go on our own? I like cruising because it's relatively hassle free but I don't want to miss the best parts of the country just because I'm stuck with the ports the cruise goes to.

I've had a savings account with ING Direct for almost a year now and have always been very pleased with them. I just recently started looking into retirement planning and discovered that they also offer Roth IRAs with very low startup requirements. Has anyone heard anything about this service, good or bad? Does anyone use them for retirement planning? I hear it's not always the best idea to do retirement planning through a bank because it's not their real speciality.

I've got a boxer/greyhound mix with absolutely endless energy. So, about twice a week I will take her with me on my jogs. I go for 3 miles but typicaly take her back home after 2, or just 1 if it's very hot (I live in Florida). She seems to do fine and enjoy it, though she does come back in and lay on the cool tiles for awhile. I make sure to give her plenty of water afterwards and let her eat some ice to help chill her back down. However, I went with her yesterday and a neighbor stopped me to pretty much yell at me for animal cruelty! Mind you, when I stopped my dog was practically strangling herself to get back on the road.

So, is it unhealthly for dogs to go jogging that long? Should I cut back her distance? I don't want to hurt her but I thought exercise was good?

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to dine at burns steakhouse in Tampa Florida without a reservation. If so, were they able to seat you and how long did you have to wait? I tried making a reservation but they were booked for weeks in advance. I don't mind walking in and seeing what happens but it seemed like the hostess I spoke with wasn't even sure if they would be willing to put me on a list. Has anyone ever done this at this restaurant?

Hi all. I currently live in orlando but really hate the busy tourist city and would like to move closer to Tampa where all of my family is. My husband and I still have jobs in Orlando though so we're considering a move to Haines City or Clermont. Somewhre closer to Tampa, but still able to commute to ORlando. Anyone out there live there now and have any suggestions/comments? I'd really appreciate any guidance!