I now only send cards to my elderly relatives. The younger generations do not give a flip about cards and often seem vaguely annoyed by the expectation they now have to reciprocate since you sent one. I'm also pretty sure I'm the last person in North America to send hand-written thank you cards for gifts. Instead of a thank you card, I get a text from my sisters saying "Thanks for my kid's gift!". I guess it's better than not hearing anything, (I'm looking at you, cousin K), but... *sigh* I'm feeling old and cranky.

Yep. Big hunks of egg and giblets in a thin, watery gravy. It also looks sort of cloudy. I guess it's a Southern thing? I have no idea. I grew up in NY. 🤷‍♂️

I opt out as much as possible. We have a hard, "No travel on holidays" rule. Dad's home = drama. Last year, he threatened to go to a soup kitchen if my sister didn't host. Sister had to go out of town to see inlaws because her FIL had suffered a heart attack. MIL's annual Christmas Party = terrible food, not enough seating, everything is LOUD and disorganized. I hate going. MIL side steps the "no travel" policy by having the party on a random day before Christmas. 🙄 She always manages to plan this stupid party on the day that Trans Siberian Orchestra is playing. I've wanted to go for years, and we never can because of this party. 😞 I'm really hoping she digs in her heels and insists on having the party at her house or SILs house, because then we won't have to go. DH won't want to do all that driving and I wont' stay overnight at their homes, (too much drama).

Oh, my MIL makes gravy with floaters in it. It's a thin, watery gravy with giblets and hard-boiled eggs bobbing around. I can't bring myself to eat it...🤢

I don't like bringing food made from scratch to these events because of the judging. I also know way too many ultra-picky people who won't eat food prepared by other people. They'll eat store bought things but if it's made from scratch at home? Nope. They refuse to touch it.

The behavior comes and goes. He's been having a lot of "tweenage" mood swings lately. After months of him being decently happy and easy to get along with, he's swung back into mouthiness, whining, eye-rolling, arguing, delivering lack-luster school work, etc. I tried a few polite but firm discussions of my expectations and they fell on deaf ears again. Then he lied to me about something, and I blew my top. So, he's grounded from electronics for awhile. After me yelling at him, he was suddenly able to produce the best writing examples I've ever seen from him. On one hand, I was happy to see it because now I know he is capable of higher quality work. On the other hand, it made me really upset because he's been playing me and acting like it's too hard and he has no idea what to write. Interestingly, he's become a model student in art class. His art teacher compliments him on his behavior and effort now, and told me he has gotten onto other kids for misbehaving and being rude to the teacher.

My HVAC guy takes credit cards but he does pass the cc company swipe-fee on to the customer. We replaced our HVAC 18 months ago and had a choice of $6,000 paid as a check or $6,180 if paid by cc, (I think the swipe-fee was 3%). We didn't have to put down a deposit, either. I guess my town still has a small-town mentality, because none of the tradesmen that have done work for me have required a deposit. They all have offered credit card payments too, with the customer paying the fee. When I bought my car, I could have paid with a credit card, too. That was in a different state, however.

I'm not surprised. People buy a lot of things we throw away: paper towel and tp tubes, empty egg cartons, plastic soda bottle caps, plastic lids from pringles cans, used coffee cans... During one night of insomnia, I pondered how much of my garbage I could sell on ebay and to the recycler. It would be a funny experiment to do.

No clue! People buy all sorts of weird things. But they do sell if you lot them up.

The proposal in Buffalo wasn't to create a pipeline for STEM colleges or other "elite" schools. The proposal was for poor and at-risk kids to be sent to a public boarding school, which would provide them with education and life skills.

I've been presented with this argument, too. The line of thinking goes something like "Don't talk about how bad it really is, because then you'll scare people and they won't want anyone from Mexico coming into the country". There's more I could say, but I'm already flirting too closely with politics. There's some willful ignorance around the issue, as well. I have met several people who do not believe that trafficking and abductions are a thing, (one of those people is my father), and that it's "middle class hysteria". I live along the I-35 corridor in Texas, and yes to whomever said the abduction attempts come in waves. Every 3 or 4 months, there will be a cluster of reported attempts in this area. Sometimes the police have been unable to verify what happened, but sometimes they *do* verify there was a real attempt, and it makes your blood run cold.

I got a 94%. I'm only kind of surprised. I have a pretty good recall of faces and names.

Sell them on ebay. Baseball trophies You won't get a lot, but they'll go to someone who wants them. Otherwise, I'd take them to a recycling center.

This was proposed as a solution in Buffalo a few years back. Public Boarding Schools The article mentioned it could be for kids as young as 1st grade. I don't think that particular charter school idea got off the ground in Buffalo, however.

I don't know if anyone uses Ibotta, but if you do, here is a potential "deal" for you that is a small money maker. It's still a good deal even if you don't use Ibotta. Walmart has a rebate on Stayfree, Carefree, and o.b. products. Walmart Protection Rewards You buy a product on their list (or multiple products) totalling $5.67 or more, submit the rebate to Walmart and get a $5 Walmart giftcard in return. The rebate comes quickly! I had an email with my code a few hours after I uploaded a photo of my receipt. If you use Ibotta, check to see if you have either a Stayfree or O.B. organic tampon offer. I had an offer on Ibotta for $2.25 cashback on o.b. organic tampons. I also found an internet printable coupon for them. Here's how the deal worked for me: 1 box o.b. organic @ $6.97 Minus $1 coupon = $5.97 Minus $2.25 Ibotta rebate = $3.72 Received $5 Walmart giftcard = $1.28 money maker I'll probably use my giftcard to get a few grocery items. I am only $4.50 from cashing out on Ibotta again.

I'm 47 and have been wandering around my mid-life crisis for the last year-ish. It's not helping that DS11 is hitting the moody tween years as I am hitting perimenopause. One or the other of us is always moping around about how everything is terrible and dull. If you want another baby, then you should have one. I had DS11 the week before I turned 36. But then again, if you have another baby, you too will be hitting perimenopause at the same time your kiddo hits the moody tween years. Then you have all their hormonal stuff plus your own hormonal stuff plus the "The kids are older and don't need me" stuff to deal with at the same time. If the job doesn't work out, is travel a possibility for you? For my own situation, I know that *something* needs to change here, but I haven't figured out what. I traveled around the US a lot in my 20s. I remember really looking forward to short trips to new places and would kind of like to do that with DS11.

This is the first house I've owned with a septic system. I can't say I'm an expert on the care and keeping of the system, but *knock wood*, we seem to be ok so far. We had the tank pumped at the 4 year mark and the guy that did it felt it was appropriate for the number of people in our home and the size of the tank. He said we could have waited a little longer to do it, but why tempt fate? Our laundry grey water does *not* go through the septic system; ours empties out into the side yard, which saves some wear and tear on the system. Some of my friends have septic systems and say they can't do too many loads of laundry in a row, otherwise it will overwhelm their system? I don't use a lot of bleach or antibacterial cleaners. We do have a garbage disposal on the kitchen sink, but it is mostly for the little bits and scraps that don't make it into the trash. Veggie scraps generally go to the chickens. When we've painted, I avoid washing the brushes in the sink because I don't want that stuff in the septic system. No grease down the drain. I try to scrape off as much as possible from the pans before they hit the dishwasher. I admit I was really worried that the drain field would get overwhelmed during hurricane Harvey and we'd have an enormous problem, but everything was fine. We get heavy rains in the spring that make me fret a little, but so far there has been no calamity of the system backing up into the house. (Again, *knock wood*) It probably depends on the size and type of your system how often you'll need someone to come out and pump it, or if it needs pumping at all. I think eventually *most* systems will need pumping. There's going to be trace amounts of grease and grossness that end up in the system and they'll accumulate over time.

There's a guy that stands on the corner each Halloween, across from the Methodist church Trunk-or-Treat, and screams into a megaphone about salvation as the kids go by. He wears a bible on a chain the way a biker or trucker might have a wallet on a chain. He's kind of...a bit much.

Ouch. I can see why your sister would be hurt. Are you thinking of hosting everyone for Christmas at your home, where they'd all show up nursing a grudge and making the day tense for everyone? If so, I'd be tempted to encourage your sister and niece to visit the new in-laws and you host your parents. Time and distance may help. I've been the relative with a grudge at Christmas, and I was glad that my dad had another place to spend the holiday.

DH saw an article about Amazon losing a big cloud contract to Microsoft. So maybe I was wrong about it being CIA and the position would have been for the JEDI project. I'll never know for certain, but I guess I'm doubly glad now that we decided to pass on it. We could have gotten far along in the relocation process only to hear "Sorry, we lost the contract. No job for you". 😮 AND! DH has a job interview with a local company next week, plus he's looking into stepping into a new role in his current job. Both positions would mean pay raises equal to what Amazon was offering, but in our low-cost area it would be a BIG bump in pay. So, we'll see. Maybe one of those will develop into something.

Apparently, my dad has been telling his girlfriend that my step-uncle used to be a spy for the US Army and that back in the 1980s, our house phone was "bugged" because of the work that Uncle Jack was doing. Dad also insists that Jack told him a bunch of "spy stuff", but Dad can't disclose it because it's "top secret". Dad's completely lucid, just utterly full of doodoo and thinks it's fine to "embroider upon the truth" if it makes a story more exciting. Jack was not a spy. He was in the Army and worked out of the Pentagon, yes, but that doesn't mean he was a spy! And if he *was* a spy, he wouldn't freaking tell you! There's no loophole in the "spy code" that says "Keep it under your hat, unless it's your brother in law, and then it's totes ok to spill the beans". So, yeah. When husband first told me about the clearance requirement, I thought "My dad is going to be interviewed by the FBI and tell them 'No worries! My brother in law is a spy and I know all sorts of spy stuff! I won't tell!'. I'm going to have to account for this nonsense to not only my husband's employer but the federal government, and I have no explanation other than he's full of doodoo".

As others said, it's cloud hosting for government contracts. CIA Cloud Contract with Amazon Civilian government contractors with high level national security clearances are nothing new. I worked along side contractors 25 years ago and it wasn't anything new then, either.

You've given a lot of insight into this, thank you. I had not considered the tax implications of the RSUs. DH and I talked more, crunched more numbers, talked more, took a break, and then talked again. He's going to tell Amazon no thanks and look into other opportunities. I couldn't see an obvious path to improving our lot in life by pursuing this further. It would be a lot of work and a lot of upheaval to be only a tiny bit better off financially, maybe. And I am SO relieved.

This is good to know. I must have misunderstood this aspect of the loan.

I had a clearance when I was in the USAF, but it was lower than the one DH would need. I asked friends who'd been through the process for a higher level clearance, and they said how much the Feds dig into our lives depends on the project. We don't know the specific project yet, but suspect it's a rumored project for the CIA, based on the limited info the recruiter could give and some googling. (I realize that a few people are probably rolling their eyes and doubting the truthfulness of the story at this point, lol. I keep scratching my head and wondering how I landed in the middle of this wanna-be Tom Clancy novel, too, lol). I'm not worried about past employers lying. We have worked for good people and DH has an excellent reputation in his field. I'm more concerned about what relatives would say. We...uh...are related to some characters.