Jump to content

Menu

AFwife Claire

Members
  • Posts

    1,222
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by AFwife Claire

  1. I came here just to search for this today! My third son is applying to UAH, and my transcript template thing got kicked back because I just put the letter grades in. The admissions counselor told me they wanted numeric percentage grades, which astounded me. Community colleges don't even give those at the end, and neither do a lot of other outside courses?! Truly bizarre. And I didn't even weight the dual-enrollment and AP courses, so I guess if I do end up resubmitting the transcript (might just bail on it, since as others have pointed out, the merit aid is nowhere near as good this year), I guess I'll change that too. Good grief! When my second ds applied there 4 years ago, I just sent in my transcript, no problems, and it was one of the easiest applications! And we only paid for his meal plan and books/fees, lol. Ahhh, the good old days . . .
  2. Hey, I bought that for my daughter back in early May, just based on reviews on Amazon! I'm glad to see it recommended here too! Whew! I figured the physical version would be good, since a younger daughter is interested too.
  3. I'm glad this thread was reactivated! My second daughter (now 13) has become very interested in Korean, also because of k-pop and Korean dramas, lol. She has taught herself the written language so she can translate names and things like that, but I was unsure of where to go for spoken language learning. I am definitely going to be looking into these recommendations! I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to search here first, honestly. She also would like to live in Korea. We have a very good friend who was selected for NSLI-y and has spent a summer and a year over in China. We are looking at applying for that in high school.
  4. As far as false positives go, my uncle down in FL had a positive rapid test back in the beginning on June. He was sent to the hospital where he had 2 negative swab-type tests over the next week. He was having symptoms--coughing, difficulty breathing, fever--but it turned out he had pneumonia. So the rapid test definitely can have false positives. And I know those false positives are not "struck out" of the counts either.
  5. I married a man who is 8 years older than I am, and who is the youngest of 9 kids. So dh's parents are the age of my grandparents. I was only 20 when we got married, so there was no way I was calling them by their firstnames. They told me to call them mom/pop, but I did what many people on here have done and avoided calling them anything directly, lol. And then as we started having kids, I called them Grandma B and Grandpa B if talking about them to or around my kids, and "your mom" and "your dad" if talking about them to dh or his siblings. But as I got older, it just became easier to refer to them as Mom/Dad (even though we definitely don't have a mom/dad type relationship). Dh's mom died a few years ago, and his dad is 95, so it's just totally different than my parents, and we don't even see them (or just dh's dad now) much anyway. I introduced myself as Claire to my now daughter-in-law when we first met, but I think she also just doesn't call me anything, which is fine! I do think that in bigger families, there are just so many other people calling me Mom, that it doesn't seem like such a unique title, you know? My great-grandma was called "Mama Claire" (I was named after her), and I do think that would be a sweet name for me to be called! But right now, I still have a five-year-old, and so I don't *feel* like I'm ages and ages older than my new daughter-in-law. SO hopefully she'll feel comfortable with just calling me Claire. She has a lovely mom herself, and I don't ever want her to feel uncomfortable no matter what she calls me! My dh met my parents before we ever started dating, so he called them by their first names. My parents are pretty much the most motherly/fatherly people you could ever know though, and now he calls them Mom and Dad. My parents do a lot with international military officers who are over here getting advanced degrees, and many of them end up calling my parents Mom and Dad as well, especially single officers who have lived with them for 18 months or so! When they go back to their countries, marry, and have kids, the kids call my parents Grandma and Grandpa, lol, so I've been used to sharing my parents and their titles for quite some time!
  6. Yes to all this! We are members of both. Honestly, with a big family, I feel like we get our money's worth out of both of them. I do like the clothes at Costco, and like someone else said, most of my wardrobe is from Costco. But I get most of my groceries at Sams, and the curbside pickup as well as the scan and go are really, really nice. I personally think Costco is more for little families who like to buy a bunch of little packages of stuff, whereas Sams has more stuff in big quantities. But not as much trendy little stuff.
  7. Yeah, there's a house like this in our old neighborhood here in Ohio. We were stationed here back in 2000-2004, and a few months before we PCS'd in July 2004, lightning struck a house in our neighborhood, causing a fire. A few years later, my parents bought a house in that same neighborhood, so we would come back to visit them. Their house was around a corner and down the street from the lightning house, so dh and I would walk by it, taking kids to the park or whatever. The owners eventually replaced windows, siding, and roof--but that was it. And it was obvious no one ever moved back in and lived there. Boxes were piled up so you could see them in some of the windows. The grass would get long, the city would post notices about liens, and eventually the grass would get mowed, but that was it. Eventually, in 2018, we moved back to Ohio and bought another house in this same neighborhood. Nothing has been changed on the lightning house. Now the garage door and front door are both terribly faded, and the house just looks so shabby. Ironically our neighborhood got hit by a tornado a year ago on Memorial Day, and many houses were just demolished and had to be completely rebuilt. Not this one, however! Windows were broken, and debris was everywhere, but the structure was still good. Eventually my mom and dad's next door neighbors, both of them young Air Force captains, organized their office to come help clean up around this abandoned house, because it just looked bad. Eventually the windows got boarded up, but I don't think they ever got replaced. We have wondered why neighbors haven't pushed the issue more forcefully with the city, but it seems like someone in the neighborhood finally got a little more organized with complaints., although nothing has happened still. It turns out that the lady living there when the fire happened was elderly (a widow, I think), and the trauma caused her to decline mentally such that she could never move back into her house. But she didn't have anyone as a power of attorney or anything before she became mentally incapacitated, so now the heirs are apparently just waiting for her to die off so that then they can sell the house. Or at least that's my understanding. In the meantime, they use it as a huge storage unit. I wonder if they have insurance on it though--doesn't a home have to be lived in for insurance companies to provide coverage? At least not be unoccupied for over 16 years?? It's weird, and I'm glad we don't live right around the house! It would drive both dh and me nuts. I would just grumble, but he would definitely escalate the situation, lol.
  8. That is such a blessing. We felt the same way after the Memorial Day tornado that hit our neighborhood a year ago. We were so stunned--so many trees were down, debris was everywhere, the house was a mess--and a large local church sent teams into our neighborhood with chainsaws. We had 18 young men and women (early twenties, most were, I'd say) in our yard. There were maybe 4 with chainsaws, and in an hour or two, they had chopped up 5 big trees that had fallen in our yard and dragged them out to the curb. It would have taken us weeks to do it all, assuming we could even find one chainsaw. I used the same phrase to my younger kids--they were the hands and feet of Christ--and it brings me to tears to think about even now. I was so overwhelmed. And it still took months and months to recover. But their selfless service was such a huge encouragement to me, and I know how you feel! ❤️
  9. This tangy pineapple chicken recipe is quick, easy, and very kid-friendly.
  10. Ahh, we will finally meet in person then, Lord willing! We are headed over there this afternoon to do the writing assessment!
  11. My family PCS'd to Dayton when I was in junior high, and I graduated here and then went to Cedarville, so I was here for several years. I married my dh in between my sophomore and junior years at Cedarville (he was stationed at WPAFB then), finished up college, and we PCS'd to Colorado Springs. I had never been bothered by gray winter days all those years. I had never even thought about it at all! After spending 5 1/2 years in Colorado (dh was assigned to 3 different bases, lol--we loved it!), we PCS'd back to WPAFB. Oh my goodness! That first winter was HARD! I kept thinking, "How did I ever anything done here?!? It's so gray!" And it really was, compared to Colorado! But I adjusted, and the next winter was easier. After moving to VA, where my dh eventually retired, and then moving back here summer of 2018, I don't even notice it anymore. There maybe some stretches of cloudy days, but there really is plenty of sun as well. I still do miss that brilliant deep blue of the Colorado sky occasionally though . . .sigh . . .
  12. Yes, move to SW Ohio with happysmileylady, ArcticMama, and me! Is your dh military? There's a big base here for support. It's really a nice area for families. I'm so happy we moved here from northern VA!
  13. Yeah, with my stubborn kids, it was more about me convincing them that they actually wanted to be potty-trained, rather than any specific potty-training trick. So I pointed out all the time how babies wore diapers, and things big kids could do that babies in diapers couldn't do. And then I proceeded to let my older kids do whatever seemed to be what the non-potty-trained kid wanted. One kid really wanted to chew gum (believe me, not something 3 year olds normally do around my house, but it sure was motivating!). So I let the older kids have gum frequently while lamenting how the 3 year old was still little and in diapers, and no one in diapers could chew gum, since that was what big boys did. I think psychologically the child has to decide that they are motivated to be potty-trained, and at that point, it will happen, if they are neurotypical. I would work on differentiating between babies in diapers and big kids in underwear, and try to help her see that she really wants to be in the big kid camp. My most difficult child was #8. He was difficult about everything, and I knew potty-training was going to be an absolute struggle, so I just never bothered to really start. I sat him on the potty a few times, so he knew what to do, but he had no interest. #9 was born when he was 18 months, so I used the "big boys don't wear diapers" thing a bunch, but he wasn't convinced. Then one day he and all his siblings went to the dentist for their yearly cleanings a few weeks after his 3rd birthday. He came out from there and told me, "I a big boy at the dentist. I don't wear diapers anymore." And that was that. He switched to underwear and maybe had 2 accidents in the next few weeks. It was unbelievable to me. But he decided he wanted to be a big boy.
  14. Hmmm, lots to think about. First of all, these guidelines are not laws given by God on Mt. Sinai. "10 people at a gathering" is completely random and arbitrary. There is absolutely no way that 10 random people from different places is more safe than 11 people who have all been in one place for 2 months. That's ridiculous. We do not think our family is "more special" than little families. But even when my son and his fiancee sent out the emails canceling the big ceremony/reception, they said "we will just be having a ceremony with immediate family only" so we were just expecting that the parents and siblings (none of whom are out on their own!) would all be able to be there. It's hard to mentally readjust such a fundamental thing, even when we've already had to readjust every other thing. Second of all, my younger kids have literally not left the house since the first week of March. They are not snotty brats who have been exposed to stuff and will run around, coughing and wiping their snotty hands all over unwilling people. Good grief! Instead, they (and the rest of us) have followed the restrictions we have been handed down with a pretty minimal amount of complaining, honestly. We're not out attending "open 'r up" rallies or even taking the whole family out to Costco. But some of you are certainly giving me a better perspective on what people with only a few kids think about little kids. My 5 year old is a little girl who adores her older siblings, and who, for the past year, has been looking forward to being the flower girl in this wedding. She's not real clear about "the virus" and all that that means. She just knows that now she can't be the flower girl. Maybe there will be something in a year or whatever, but she won't wear her special dress because it won't fit, and a year is an eternity to a 5 year old anyway. It still hurts, even when I reframe it and play it off. And my son *is* sad and disappointed. He definitely wants all of his siblings there for his wedding. But he is also in the middle of finals, and has already had to change everything about this wedding, and I came on here to vent instead of venting to him. We know that he "leaving" us and cleaving to her, so I don't want him to feel like he is in the middle of some tug-of-war thing. I'm not pushing for anything else--but I can still take time to work through my feelings of disappointment and irritation over arbitrary number guidelines. Thanks for those who showed sympathy and understanding of my feelings! It's just so hard. And thanks for those who recommended dresses! I just placed a large amazon order of many of these dresses, and we will see which one wins out! I'm actually a little excited about seeing them in person now, so that is a big improvement!
  15. Yes, I read that book a few years ago and thought it was excellent! I've recommended it to a lot of other people also.
  16. Definitely the second son will go. He would have been the best man, and the two boys are really close (in age and as brothers). We may leave the other 2 boys with the younger kids. If we leave them in Ohio, then obviously the 18 and 16 year old boys would have to stay (my parents live 10 minutes away if needed but the kids are very capable). But yes, deciding which kids can go and which kids can't is very painful. I really don't have any nice church dresses though. Due to my unflattering perpetually-pregnant shape, I usually wear nice pants and a longer shirt. I have some really causal summer skirts that I love, but they're not really wedding ceremony garb, even if it is quick and small. So I kind of need to find something, and then I'm sure I'll find other places to wear it.
  17. Well, see, he's the one holding the line on "only 10" absolutely. And there are 12 of us, no matter how you slice it. Oldest DS is the only one not living in our house, so you would think anyone with common sense would see that 11 people who have been sheltering in place in the same house for almost 2 months by the time the wedding rolls around (and the youngest 6 have literally not left the house at all since the second week of March for any reason at all) would be safer than 10 random people from 10 random places, but no, you'd be wrong, apparently. Pastor is afraid because "churches have been under increased scrutiny" since all those losers in other states have continued holding services. And honestly, I do not care at all for the VA governor and who knows how threatening he has been specifically to pastors. Bride's parents live right outside Richmond, so pastor is right there in the hot spot of government, so to speak. That would certainly be lovely, and I hope something like that will happen. But the reality is, DS will be stationed on the other side of the country, and he'll have several months of training in different places over the course of the first year. I don't know if or when it will be possible for them to make it back over to the East Coast--and who knows if by the time they get back over here, she'll be expecting or something and not able to fit in to her dress? So I'll hope, but hold on to that very loosely. So far not a single other thing has worked as planned, so I'm not real confidant . . .
  18. Well, we don't have a place to do one. We're in Ohio, and they're in VA. I thought the reason they were doing it at an isolated house was so that we could all be there, but apparently I was wrong. Bride's mom doesn't want anyone to go into the house, so that's one reason she doesn't want our kids there--in case they need to go to the bathroom--so it doesn't seem likely she'd let us have a second ceremony there on their property.
  19. So our oldest DS is getting married May 23 in VA. Obviously this is a terrible time to get married, and their ceremony will not look anything like they had been planning for the past year. There's no way to do anything later, however, because he is also commissioning the week before the wedding, and they will head off to CA for their first assignment in July. VA has a limit of 10 people at ceremonies, so even though they are getting married at the fiancee's parents' house (on 11 acres), and even though 11 of us have been sheltering in place *in the same place* for the past month, the pastor is adamant that only 10 people can be there. We have 10 children (and the bride has her parents plus one brother), so that automatically means all our kids will not be able to be there. (This is crushing to me. I proposed some options like keep the younger kids in the van until the end of the ceremony, etc, but bride's family is not really looking for solutions and would prefer not to have all of us there. 😥) So as it stands, just sons #2, 3, and 4 will go with us, and the rest of the kids will watch it livestreamed either back here in OH or by themselves in a hotel room in VA. Lovely. And we will have no family pictures of all of us. I am really trying to have a good attitude about this, because obviously this is no one's ideal situation, but it is really, really hard. My younger kids are hurt. So all that to say, I had not shopped for a mother of the groom dress before everything because I just hadn't had time. Instead I spent a good deal of time finding bridesmaid dresses for my 3 older girls, who were going to be in the wedding (bride left dress choice up to everyone, except for the color), and now are not even going to be allowed to go to the ceremony. Now I need to find a dress I can order that fits a woman who looks perpetually several months pregnant (thanks to having 10 kids) and that will come before the wedding. And I'm just so hurt by the whole thing that I'm not really motivated, and I don't want to spend a ton of money. DS and DH will be wearing their Air Force blue service dress (not mess dress, so I don't need something super formal), and I was thinking something navy blue or perhaps silver/gray. That's what my daughters would have been wearing. Does anyone have any suggestions of possibilities? The whole thing just makes my heart hurt. ☹️ Thanks for any help.
  20. I watched Phantom last night (okay, and this afternoon too, lol). For some random reason I had already been on a bit of a Phantom kick starting maybe 3 weeks ago. I was humming one of the songs while working a puzzle, but it bugged me that I couldn't really remember any of the words. So I googled it and watched clips from the movie. But the guy who played Phantom in that movie (Gerald Butler I think?) didn't sound "right" to me, and I really wanted to hear what I used to listen to on cassette tapes when I was in high school back in the day when Phantom first became a thing! So I found the album on Amazon and started listening to it while I worked on the puzzle each night, to my kids' laughing consternation ("Oh ho, Mom's getting serious about the puzzle again--hear comes the Phantom music!"). I was so happy when I saw that Andrew Lloyd Weber was streaming it! I never saw the stage production (but I did actually read the book it was based on back in high school), so I was glad to put a picture to my own mental images. I'm looking forward to watching other show now!
  21. We are definitely saving on gas. I used to have to fill up my minivan twice a week with all the running around we had to do. For groceries, our second oldest son is back home from college, but the difference between feeding 11 and feeding 10 is not really that huge. I had spent a lot more money in January and February stocking up because we moved in November, and my pantry stock had gotten very low. But now I'm mainly going out for milk and fresh vegetables/fruit once a week. And like someone else said, I'm not stopping in places while I wait for a kid to be done with a one hour class, so I'm definitely saving on random things! I feel like I'm using my food more efficiently too. Since I'm home all the time, and not scrambling around, trying to get dinner on in a rush, I'm using left-overs more effectively, and not wasting anything. I'm remembering what I have in the fridge/freezer better too, since I made a detailed list and am keeping up with it. I forget how organized I used to be, when I used to be home so much more, before I had so many older kids with different needs and interests! I spent time unpacking some boxes I hadn't gotten around to, and I found 3 new puzzles, which was a tremendous bonus because we had already finished two 1000 piece ones, and there weren't any available anywhere to order! So that saved us money! And we had planned on buying a trampoline but didn't jump on that soon enough, and now those are gone too. We did have to buy another chromebook because too many kids needed to be online at the same time. Since track season is cancelled, I assume we'll be getting our "pay to participate" fees back.
  22. Our oldest daughter turned 14 Saturday. Her sisters and I were supposed to be in VA, visiting friends from when we lived there, and going to a bridal shower for my soon-to-be daughter-in-law. We were all so sad that weekend didn't happen. Instead we made homemade doughnuts (a first for us, but it was really fun and took up a lot of time, with the glazing and everything), which was special. She picked her birthday dinner, and we made these strawberry tart things, since she doesn't love cake. Then we did a zoom meeting with her grandparents while she opened presents. They had dropped theirs off earlier. Fortunately I had already ordered the presents off Amazon because I had a present idea early and just acted on it! Usually I am rushing around on a time crunch, and that wouldn't have been an option this year. I got her a crepe pan and crepe tools, which she loved. She's already made crepes twice, and the tools make it a lot easier than it used to be for her! It wasn't the birthday she wanted, but it was okay. DS#5 is turned 9 next week (super excited, and we weren't planning anything big anyway). He'll pick food, pick his cake design, and open presents on zoom with grandparents as well. My dad's birthday is April 29, and I'm sad we won't get to do anything special with them. Another daughter turns 13 May 1, my husband's birthday is May 2, and we have 2 more birthdays in June. The way sadder thing is that our oldest son and his fiancee just canceled their wedding ceremony/reception scheduled for May 23. They will get married in VA sometime in April, and I guess we'll facetime it. I can hardly think about this. 😢 If there could possibly be a date in June or July, if things get lifted, where they could have a bigger ceremony with family, then they would do that, but they leave July 31 to drive to CA for their first duty assignment (he is graduating and commissioning in May), so it seems unlikely. It's all been pretty devastating, and in light of that, no one has really been complaining too much about birthdays around here. 😟
  23. We went to a wedding with food trucks for the reception. There were 2 of them--Mediterranean and Mexican, I think--and people could pick which one they wanted. Someone came inside where we were all sitting at tables and told us which tables could go when, so it wasn't like people stood in line for forever. And there were munchies/appetizers on tables inside the reception hall for people while we waited, so it wasn't like we were starving while we waited. It was fun! I thought it was a great idea!
  24. We spent time in prayer for all affected. We just heard that my brother in Seattle has been exposed--a close co-worker just tested positive. He has been working at home since March 4, so maybe that's enough time past that he won't be affected. This afternoon we made cut-out cookies, since we never got around to do that over Christmas break. I have to say--I am enjoying a breather from all the driving around I have to do on a normal day, I know I'll get tired of it, but for right now . . . I'm enjoying it. I'm also trying not to worry about what's going to happen for my oldest son and his fiancee, who are supposed to be getting married May 23 in VA. 🥺
  25. Ugh, I don't know, but we are in a similar boat. Our oldest ds is planning on getting married May 23 in Richmond, VA. I don't even know what to think. They will definitely be getting married--they aren't sleeping/living together, plus ds is commissioning and has to be at his first duty station the beginning of August, so she needs to get in the system. But I have no idea how all this will change things. I'm so sad for them!
×
×
  • Create New...