Your geeks aren’t alone. We are not mcafee fans either here. Too much overhead and it doesn’t even do as good a job as windows defender,,,,,

We had one that was over ten years old. He finally died when the tanknheater shorted out and boiled him or I am sure he would still be here

The Key Basket. Everyone drops their car keys into this little basket in the kitchen. With multiple cars and both teen and elderly drivers over the years, this has totally saved our sanity in terms of finding the keys to the car you need when you need them.

DD17 finished her Sunmit Award for Venture Scouts! I hope these pictures come out ok. One is her “official” photo for the district recognition banquet. The other is from inside her Quinzie - she and DH were winter camping with his scout troop last weekend. Next up - court of honor for Summit and working in her Ranger award. And being on stafff at the World Janboree this summer. Busy Girl!

Dishwasher less than a year old. We scrape off food but do not rinse. Dishes come out sparkling clean our old dishwasher was over ten years old and I had to rinse everything.

Get your list of ports and call your cell phone carrier. They can tell you what type of coverage you will have in the port. Most everywhere in ports in the Caribbean, we had wifi access in the towns. Shipboard internet was sketchy even when we paid for it, so I would not count on it. We had good luck with cell coverage in port, but your carrier will be able to tell you if you will pay roaming or not.

Bummer! That sounds so stressful. I have two kids getting married this year. DD25 is handling everything herself and I expect her reception will be low-key and full of music. DS27’s fiancé has sisters that are doing everything for their wedding - DS and his fiancé will be flying in just before the wedding and leaving right after (military schedules). I think my job will just be to show up and smile. And possibly hand out tissues to grandparents. I hope it all works out for you!

A couple of answers: i used a small kids size backpack for “stuff” on the cruise. You could use a fanny pack instead. Wallet, sunscreen, sunglasses, water bottle, whatever. My bag was nylon with ponies on it so things inside didn’t get wet (ponies are optional). DD17 spent all her time in the water and was good with 2 swimsuits. She does not wear sunglasses at all as she prefers to wear a hat. We never used towel clips but maybe it would have been handy a few times. DD17 and I used lanyards with clips DH put his badge into his wallet and tossed the wallet into my bag. I think the lanyards with clip were more handy. Have fun!!!!

This exactly describes oldest DD. For us, the secret was to not let it get that bad in the first place. When she was in her teens, she still shared a room with her younger sister. When I would go in to get the girls up, they would visit the bathroom, then we would make a quick sweep of their room and put things away. The only way I could cope was to help her with the mess daily. Some hope for you - when she went off to college, she really couldn’t take anything much with her, so it was much easier for her to keep neat. Now as a young adult, she has developed a lot of coping habits and her home is neat all the time. But her car? Oh My! She is still working on that. i think you just have to stay on top of it or it gets overwhelming.

We put in the frameless shower door this time and it is great. We had a curtain before and it was ok, but would sometimes let water run on the floor if people didn’t get the curtain pulled right. The frameless doors are easy to use and easy to clean.

I’ve done both. When we remodeled the downstairs bath the first time, I did floor to ceiling tile like you described. I’m not a Tile Expert and it took me many days to do the whole tub area and get it right. Then we had a water leak in the wall and a rotten floor joist and ended up re-gutting the nearly new bathroom after just 3 years. The second time around, I opted to do a surround because I just did not have time to mess around with tile again. if I was paying a real tile guy and not doing it myself, I would have opted for tile again. Easy to clean when done right and looks great. But sooooo much work!

DD17 wants to do marching band next year at her chosen college. Since it comes with an out-of-state tuition waiver, it would be highly desirable for her to get in, We are 3000 miles away from the school and they are letting her submit a video. Big sis is home for Christmas (she is a band director) to help with the recording. They planned to spray paint yard line markers in the driveway on the snow for her to march. All good, right? Day of recording - temperature drops to near zero. Playing outside while marching might be possible, but her fingers are too cold. The girls scramble around and move everything around in the semi-heated garage to get a five yard free space and charge ahead with the recording. DD17’s marching videos came out perfect, but will certainly be memorable. She is wearing a wool cap, fingerless gloves, a heavy jacket and shorts (so her feet would show). You can see all the snow outside in the background out the open garage door. The girls are piecing together the videos today and recording (indoors) the musical ability video, hoping to get it all submitted by Monday when oldest DD heads home. Oldest DD is likely to be a grad assistant for the marching band at the university this year as she is starting her masters (and needs the money). Keeping fingers crossed now - DD17 has a good enough scholarship to pay for everything without the band waiver, but it would certainly help with finances for her if she had that bit extra and she really wants to be in the band, Anyone else with funny audition stories?

DD17 took 9 DE credits this last semester - a four credit biology class with a 1 credit lab lab and a 4 credit math course. It pretty much maxed out her time she had available for schoolwork as she also takes a band class at the local high school. She had 3-4 hours of homework from the two classes each day. We ended up doing her at-home classes in a series of marathon weekend sprints -10 hour days of English and US Gov. DD17 felt like she was too rushed, so for the spring semester, she is just signed up for one DE 4 credit math class. Credits matter. A 4 credit class with a lab (5 total) will take up a lot more out of class time than a 3 credit course. DD expects to have 1-2 hours of homework daily this coming semester for the 4 credit math class as well as actual in-class time, but by not taking another 5 credits, she figures she will have time to get it done. I should note she also has a lot going on outside school work - music lessons, ski coaching and scouting. Our biggest sacrifice has been transportation. I gave up my truck to DD17. DH drops me off at work on his way in the morning and I either ride home with him or DD17 comes and picks me up. We are lucky in that everything is close by (10-15 minutes) but juggling schedules every day has been a hassle.

3 of my kids have done rounds of accutane for acne. Side effects were VERY dry skin - they had to use lots of moisturizer and lip balm. 2 of them had excellent results. Oldest DD had 3 rounds and only saw some improvement for her cystic acne. She is currently is getting excellent results from blood pressure medication (Spiro-something). Her skin is clear for the first time since she was 13. Antibiotics had very small impact on their skin and retinal and the topical creams only helped a little as well. Just to say there are quite a few different treatments that can be useful.

I love my new quartz countertop. The old one was Corian and stained easily. Quartz cleans easy and i can set down a hot pan without worrying. The only negative I have is that I chipped the edge of the counter top by dropping a coffee cup Just Wrong. DH says he can repair it though....

I had one who hated learning to drive. He still hates driving. He lives on his own and will stay home rather than drive anywhere if it isn’t mandatory. I suggested he move to an urban area with good public transport, but he hates those too. My best guess is that he will marry someone who will take over all the driving for him some day.

Nope. Not doing that either unless I had a long stick to poke it down with. It would be just my luck to stab myself with a syringe or other pointy object in the trash.

DD17 has dark hair and we recently just bleached a streak so she could dye it green again. She did the same last year but needed to go back to dark hair for a summer event and we just used regular hair dye to match her dark brown hair. Going dark again was very easy.

i knocked my 2018 goals out of the park. I skied a bunch, travelled a lot mostly for work) and read tons. My 2019 goals are similar - Ski More and Play More Video Games.

This is us too. Except for my vitamins, which sit out on the counter so I remember to take them each morning,

Chargers generally last less time than the device to which they are attached. Dying chargers and:or batteries can also cause video issues with the display. Replacing the charger would be something to try - these are readily available on Amazon. You may find the battery has been damaged by the bad charger. These are also replaceable on most laptops. Or.... you can start over with a new laptop.

DD17 has taken it for three years. No side effects and it has worked great. She is weaning off now as she has reached maintenance level on her allergy shots. i tried Singulair for my allergies but it caused headaches. I get by with OTC Claritin these days.

It is absolutely OK to host your own anniversary party. I think having it in the same place you had your wedding reception is a very sweet idea if your elderly relatives would be able to attend, but it would also be ok to have it at a different venue that was accessible if that was a problem. Throw a party! Get a caterer, buy flowers 🌺 and have a wonderful time!

It’s Wedding Travel Year for us! Oldest DD gets married in April in Idaho and Oldest DS is getting married in October in California (assuming his deployment schedule holds to plan). DD17 has another East Coast trip on the books for this summer - she is on staff at the Boy Scout World Jamboree. Also, she and I are doing California in March for her high school band (I’m chaperoning). i have at least three work trips on the books already - Boston, Orlando and San Diego. I will probably have a couple to Seattle that Rent planned for now. DH will make 3 trips at least to Texas to visit with his mom. We travel a lot - mostly because everything is so far away from Alaska.

DH is making his Modified Mountain Man Breakfast. He uses reindeer polish sausage always instead of breakfast sausage(I can’t eat pork) and it’s always super tasty! Eating Reindeer on Christmas Day is one of our family traditions - because only 9 reindeer get to pull Santa’s sleigh each year ....... the rest Get Invited To Breakfast as Sausage! https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/216742/dutch-oven-mountain-man-breakfast/