Well, I have a lot more clarity of mind regarding what's important. The pandemic has given me the space to consider what I want and where I am going.

We are planning on leaving here (Texas), and probably relocating to Ohio. There are some aspects of this town that have made the pandemic more tolerable, (low population density, HEB grocery stores, access to high speed internet so DH can work from home, low cost of living), but the attitude of people here has made a bad situation extremely difficult. We had already talked about moving out of state because there isn't enough to do here if you aren't an outdoorsman (and we are NOT), but the pandemic solidified that idea for me and probably moved the timeline up a bit. Another consideration is that my in-laws here are not in any position to care for DS12 if something happened to me and DH. I'll probably never convince DH to move back to Illinois, but at least in Ohio, I'm within a day's drive of my Chicago peeps in the event of an emergency. I'd feel a lot more at ease knowing I had back up care for kiddo.

This will probably vary depending on where you live. My town has 28K people in it, but I'm outside of the city limits in the middle of nowhere, so it's still very much "country". The major tax revenue source in my town is manufacturing, not entertainment, which means things are overall quiet. No one comes here for vacation, lol. Absolutely zero tourism. No traffic. There's nothing to do. There's no shopping district, only a handful of mediocre restaurants, and 1 movie theater. There's a college in town, but you wouldn't know it. There are no bars in town, either. Like, maybe there's one or two restaurants that have a "bar area", but that's it. It sounds like maybe your current town's tax revenue comes from vacation and entertainment? If that is the case, then you'll always be dealing with crowds at various times of the year, no matter how much land you own. Your solution might be to move to an area that is not a tourism destination. You'd still have the amenities that matter to you with less people flocking for vacation. Something to keep in mind regarding country living is that you would likely be outside of city limits. No city services will be available. Internet may be limited, and you may only be able to get satellite tv. Fire and EMS will take longer to get to you, (and you may pay a premium on your home insurance if you don't have a hydrant and station nearby). You will probably need a generator, in case the power goes out. You have to pay a service to come and pick up trash, (ours is inexpensive, about $60 a quarter), but you'll have cheap neighbors who won't want to pay it and will burn their trash instead. Since we're outside of city limits, there is no enforcement of "community standards", so some people leave old appliances out in their yards to rust and rot rather than pay the dump to take them, and there's nothing you can do about it until it becomes a big enough nuisance that the county has to get involved, (and it takes a LOT to get the county involved). People will come from other towns and dump trash at the end of your country roads. People dump pets they don't want, and animal control won't get involved because it's outside the city limits. Oh, and something we learned the hard way during the pandemic: our county does not have a health department!

Pickled watermelon rind is good! My stepfather's grandmother used to make some every year. I loved that stuff. Wish I had her recipe for it!

This year gets worse and worse.

I would create a new label via click and ship, and send it to the senior citizen. Have them retape up the box for the gift, apply the new label you provide, and arrange for package pickup via usps.com. This is the simplest way to get the package to the correct person. Should usps pay to fix their mistake? Of course. Will they? Nope. Edited to add: With click and ship, the post office just has to scan the bar code on the label. I don't know why the clerk at the post office was creating more labels to stick on your original packages. That isn't necessary if you buy a label via click and ship. They are just supposed to take the package and scan it as received.

Thirteen times. I didn't count changing apartments or dorms in college.

Agreed. Did she trip because she was having mobility issues, or was it just an accident and then had mobility issues? It's also unusual that she's already recovering, (may be fully recovered?). From what I read, that is not typical of TM.

I have a little solar dancer collection. I have a dancing pineapple, dancing pumpkins, a dancing Mr. Bean, and a dancing Queen Elizabeth, plus several others. Totally worth the $1 each!

Hmm, I read both articles on the transverse myelitis case. The fall while jogging clouds things. Is the TM from the vaccine or is it from the fall? It's hard to know from what the articles have disclosed.

A food trial can be tedious, but it's also the easiest and cheapest in some ways. You can start a food trial today and not have to wait for allergy testing through a specialist. Often once you tackle the "main" allergen, the lesser allergens are not as troublesome to the pet. For my dog, he was chewing his feet and sometimes getting staph lesions on his abdomen where he came in contact with the grass. We could have done a food trial, but since the issue was more localized, the odds were in favor of environmental allergen vs food.

I would try to sort out whether the allergy is food vs environmental vs both. If it's food, then you switch to hypoallergenic foods and the problem is mostly solved. Do you or your vet have an idea of whether the issue is food or environment? My dog has grass allergies (ugh), and I have to say that the Apoquel has been amazing. It's expensive, but it helps him so much.

Not sure if it's on or off in our area, but we're skipping it this year. It is probably a safer activity, especially since wearing a mask is part of Halloween and it's outdoors. But, kiddo would be stressed out by it this year, I suspect. Trick or Treating around here is sometimes fraught with conflict. There's a fire-and-brimstone dude that stands on the corner across from the Methodist church every Halloween, yelling about how we're damning the children to hell. That guy plus covid plus politics means we're skipping.

Unrelated to academics, but my 12 year old took it upon himself to organize a large group to accomplish a goal on an online game we all play, (World of Warcraft). He had something like 10 or 15 people working together to make it through this dungeon. I don't think any of the other people playing realized their leader was a 12 year old kid! Edited to add: The reason this seems like a big deal to me is because he had utterly no hesitation in jumping in and leading. *I* wouldn't want to take on that task, because the game goals are challenging and trying to coordinate all those people is like herding cats. He was totally confident and comfortable and it blew me away.

If the food prep is draining you, can you enlist everyone else to help with the prep? Would it be easier if you just prepped your own dinner and everyone else did what they wanted for dinner? Does everyone have to eat the same thing at each meal?

I am not sure if you are joking or serious when you say the idea of meeting other moms gives you anxiety attacks. If you are serious, I would encourage you to get some help for that. One, it will help *you* feel better, and two, it will help facilitate these relationships for your child. For an 8 year old homeschool kid, yeah, you're going to have to put yourself out there and meet the other parents to help your child make friends. If you don't live in a neighborhood with oodles of kids, I'm not sure there is any other way to do it except showing up at park days and introducing yourself. I am an older mom, too. The age difference between me and the younger moms at homeschool meetups was a non-issue because we were at a similar stage in child-rearing. We all had kids right around the same age, so even without other things in common, we had the kids in common. And I'm not even the oldest mom to come out to park days! One of the moms adopted kids late in life and was about 60. Sometimes it was a grandma bringing kids to park day, too. You don't have to be "friends" with the other moms. You just have to be friendly and willing to show up.

Agreed. I know some people think the way we do things is nutty, but this works for us and I am comfortable with what and how kiddo is learning. I had started to type out a long post, but decided against it. I always feel a little uncomfortable when the subject of "hours spent on school" comes up, and feel the need to defend and explain what we're doing. Compared to a lot of homeschoolers I know, I'm a tiger mom that forces him into academics. Compared to others here, I'm a slacker mom. 🤷‍♀️

Hmm. It's true that we generally do spend fewer hours per day on formal studies thanks to year-round schooling. It wasn't part of the design, however. We work until we feel mentally "done" with seat-work. We usually end up spending an hour on each subject, but do not cover every subject every day. For my child, I found that less than an hour per subject meant very shallow engagement with the topic. I would rather cover fewer subjects deeply and leave space for independent reading, rather than many subjects covered in a box-checking or shallow way.

We spend about 3 hours on focused, butt-in-seat work for my brand-new 6th grader. Kiddo reads independently every day for 2+ hours, and frequently chooses things like biology or history books to read. For this particular kid, I think I would kill his love for independent reading by turning that time into structured, butt-in-seat type learning. But that is what works well for this kid. Results may vary for other kids. 🙂 I appreciate unschooling and we've always been a bit unschooly in some ways, but I am also not a fan of contemporary unschooling. "My child existed passively in the room while a poem was read. That counts as literature!" Nope. There needs to be engagement on the part of the student. Edited to add: We also school year round, so that skews the daily hourly commitment down a little. If we followed a traditional school calendar, we would absolutely need to increase the number of butt-in-seat hours every day.

This! My aunt gave me baby clothes in bigger sizes, too.

My neighbor decided to have a flag-football game partially in my backyard. I don't have a fence between my property and his, so I guess that means it's just communal or something? He has several acres of land, but I guess that part of my backyard was more appealing for flag football. They didn't even invite us to come play!

One of my son's online instructors made a point of asking families "So are you homeschooling this year, or doing public school at home?" I appreciated that they made the distinction because they are not the same! I think some homeschool moms have made it a mission to "convert" crisis schoolers into full time homeschoolers. Instead of helping, they are making a mess of things for all of us.

You live in such an interesting neighborhood.

I still remember the name of my elementary school nurse 40 years later: Mrs. McCloskey. She was available all day, every day for any kid that felt sick, needed medication administered, etc. She also taught some classes on nutrition, safety, dental hygiene, and health. And she had Slim Goodbody to come to our school, too! :D Incidentally, school nurses are in short supply. It was an issue before the pandemic. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nurse-shortages-at-schools-could-be-putting-your-child-at-risk/

This is the time frame for widespread US vaccine accessibility that I heard mentioned recently on public radio. A vaccine is likely to be approved by January, but it likely won't be widely available until mid-2021.