Oh, I'm sorry Scarlett. ❤️

We are all hoping for a mild and uncomplicated case for you! ❤️

I've seen the meat truck in the San Antonio area. They set up in the parking lot of a pawn shop. Seems legit. 😂

Most people are too cheap to pay for bubble wrap or packing peanuts/paper, so they "improvise". My DH recently bought something from eBay, and joked "What, did they wrap this in pillows?" when he saw the bulging box. Surprise! They really did use bed pillows to wrap the item. At least the pillows were new. We've also received items wrapped in trash bags and fiberglass insulation. 😕

This is our problem here, too. I don't know of anyone who we could "pod up" with. I was looking into some homeschool groups that have outdoor events, and out of the 6 I checked, all of them lead with anti-mask statements. Like, ok...it's outdoors, so masks probably aren't needed, but the fact that you lead with this statement tells me we are not approaching this problem in a compatible way. Just...ugh. My brain is tired.

1% is amazing. I have a friend that lives in Manhattan. She said she's been (carefully) visiting with friends and family, and part of me was like "You have GOT to be kidding me!". But, if positivity was 1% here, I'd be visiting with people, too.

It's either do it now, or wait until next spring, I think. It's so weird to hear that 5% is hotspot territory in some states. Texas seems to have plateaued at 6-ish percent, and people are again yelling that it's time to open up more, stop wearing masks, etc because "cases are low!". There were 3800 new cases today, and this is what people are calling "low".

I would not trust a doctor that put personal political opinion over scientific facts.

I'm really hope you get your cd's back! I'm also really glad that you posted this, because I'd always felt like I was being grinchy by not loaning out things or by simply saying "Oh here, just KEEP IT!" Every.single.time. I've loaned something out, I either never get it back or have to argue to get it back. Not long ago, I broke my personal rule about not loaning things out, because a very sweet person asked if they could borrow some curriculum I had. Sure. After all, they pride themselves on being a "good Christian" who is super honest, and surely they'd return the curriculum... Nope. Never got it back, and then somehow I was the jerk for being "pushy" about asking for its return. And then kiddo asked for it, because he wanted to reread the books, so I had to rebuy it. 😕 I suspect that the people who are most trustworthy to loan things to are the ones that would never, ever ask to borrow in the first place!

Lots of books, some "good" art supplies. Maybe some little Minecraft figures or something to do with World of Warcraft. Kiddo is 12, so he's on the edge of sometimes toys are fun, sometimes he isn't interested. We will probably get him some funny t shirts, too. I'm going to make a few little gifts for him, too. Nothing big, just silly things like a giant set of polyhedral dice made from plastic canvas.

I miss lilacs and the beach.

We just buy canned and packaged foods with a long shelf life. 🤷‍♀️ Peanut butter, canned beans, canned fruits, canned tomatoes, canned fish. It's all stuff that could be eaten cold, if there was no way to heat it up. The longest I've had to go without power was 10 days. We had a grill, so we could heat food up, but we still tried to keep it simple to make dish cleanup easy. Washing greasy pans with cold water is not much fun, nor is boiling water just to wash dishes. Personally, I think those 25-year buckets are a waste of money. There isn't anything special in them that makes them a better choice than buying more of the shelf-stable items you already eat. Being prepared for an emergency isn't a one-time, "set it and forget it" type thing. You're supposed to periodically check your emergency supplies to make sure they are still good, functioning, not moldy, pests haven't gotten at them, check expiration dates and rotate stock,etc. Those buckets appeal to the idea that you just need to buy their product one time and be worry free, forever! Eventually, you have to eat the emergency food, otherwise it's wasted food. If your primary concern is having enough supplies in the event of extended power failure, buying "extra" at the store is a better option. If you are trying to prepare for long term civil unrest, 🤷‍♀️. That way madness lies.

Try these: https://www.cavenders.com/ Tractor Supply https://www.ddtexasoutfitters.com/

That article is from 2005?

You might want to adjust your signature. It makes you really identifiable, IMO.

Oh, I did! I immediately put it in the car and drove it over to Goodwill!

Yes, a big black X through the address part, and black out any bar codes on the address label.

I bought one of those big 144oz Lysol containers and thought "Well, we're set for a year". No limits on canned goods at HEB near San Antonio. The only limits I am seeing are on disinfecting wipes, cleaning sprays, and disinfecting aerosol sprays. Those products always sell out quickly, but if you show up either late at night or early in the am, you can get them. Diet sodas have been iffy for stock levels. Apparently, they have a double whammy of sweetener shortage plus aluminum shortage. Everything seemed decently stocked for 8pm on a Friday night. One shortage that surprised me: craft paints. I went to Hobby Lobby last week and there were almost NO craft paints or paint brushes.

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Why should they know that?

You don't have an edit option? Do you see the 3 little dots in the upper right corner of your last post? Click them, and you should see "Report, Share, Edit" as your choices.

Oh yikes. Yeah, none of my family would do well in an environment like that. I went to junior high school in an "open air" school, and it was really noisy all the time. The teachers did not teach as "teams" when I was there, but I think that might have been the original vision for the building. Like, "here's this big, hippy-dippy space for everyone to mingle and learn and be free". By the time I got to that school, that plan was abandoned, and cubicle walls were put in to try to give everyone separate space. It was still super noisy, though.

My parents did not talk about money. Any time I asked, they'd tell me it was none of my business, but they'd also get mad if I spent "too much money" on something or when the electric bill was "too high". It's hard to know what "too much" and "too high" are when you have no context of a budget or what a normal bill should look like. So yes, they did influence my financial life, but in a negative way. I had to learn how to budget the hard way; by getting in over my head and correcting the problem. I have no idea if my parents are good or bad with money, because they still refuse to discuss it and say it's "none of my business". They could be sitting on millions or near broke; I have no idea. I hope it all works out for them. 🤷‍♂️ I do talk to my son about money and show him what our bills are, so he's not blindsided by this stuff as a young adult. This is what our water bill costs, this is what we spend on groceries, this is what we spend on car insurance, etc. We talk about how we need to take care of our "needs" first, and then we can spend money on "wants". He knows I use coupons to save money, but we also talk about how sometimes buying the more expensive item is the better deal, because it will last longer than the cheap item.

The local religious schools are all charging around $5k a year. There are a few church-specific private schools that go through grade 12, but you have to be a member of the church to attend. There's a small Christian school here that charges about $3k a year, but I was really not impressed by anything they were offering academically. The Catholic school's program looked pretty solid when I looked into it, but they only go through grade 8. If you wanted Catholic high school, you'd have to drive into San Antonio and pay $10K+ a year. $10K a year isn't terrible for San Antonio, but $5k a year would be rough for the average family here.

Not enough desks for everyone by design? Can I ask why? 100 kids per room? Is that high school level? Or are you talking about university kids? I think the only time we ever had that many kids in a class (US public k-12) was band, choir, or orchestra. Academic classes were somewhere around 20-25 kids a class.