I'm in Oklahoma. A bus comes Monday - Thursday (normal school days) and drops off food. The kids were in the front yard playing the first day they came, but haven't always been present since then. They said it is for all kids, not just public school students. I've been pleasantly surprised with how helpful it's been, especially given that I'm trying to space out grocery trips. It's not great food, but cuts down the amount of food I need to have available. The most useful things have been milk and fruit. A few recent breakfasts: pancakes, sausage wraps, cold cereal, sausage biscuits. Lunches: sandwiches, burritos, pizza, chicken nuggets. There is usually one veggie and fruit. Always milk and juice. Portions are often small; both my kids sometimes eat twice as much as is provided.

Hmmm . . yes, I do initiate contact at least sometimes. It's not all one-sided, but it is lopsided. I rarely have an actual desire or need for contact, though. When I initiate, I do it because I realize it will be meaningful to them and/or it feels like it's my turn. I'm more the person who anonymously organizes donations to fill your freezer when you come home from the hospital, than the one who texts you to see how it's going. If the first friend contacted you now, what would your response be? I'm curious bc that has happened to me, where neither party reached out over several years. When we next saw each other, we just picked up as if it were yesterday. I was the last to reach out in that case, with no response, so she wasn't just pretending it was ok. And I had no issue with her non-response years before. I've been thinking about friendships being "worth" effort. When the friend above didn't respond, that never occurred to me. I just thought she's probably got stuff going on. I also don't feel that even close friends are obligated to share personal details or explain themselves if they drop off for a while. Now, they often do, and I have, but I don't require it to continue the friendship. I'm probably coming off as hating to be around other people. I *do* enjoy the occasional dinner or chat. I've been just as happy during these last few weeks with nothing. My social needs are pretty much met with my immediate family + parents.

On the other hand, I've had the experience of being so depressed/anxious/whatever you want to call it that I was unable to really take note of anything. There have been two significant time periods like that for me. One time it was known by other people. The other time, no one but my husband knew. In these instances, I was not even aware of most of what was going on with anyone. These were rare and extreme times. In regular times, though, it is often not my first instinct to get in touch with people. When I am going through something, it is not important to me whether or not people reach out to me. I do try my best to do so to others, because I realize it's important to many people, but I feel sure I've missed some. There have also been times that I've contributed in some way to a group message, meal, or other where the individuals contributing wasn't specified and did not contact individually. I wouldn't cut off a friend for non-contact - I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that they may be going through stuff of their own that I don't know about (no one is obligated to inform others of their difficulties) or have other factors. When I had the significant time mentioned above, that others knew about, some friends contacted me (left messages with my husband) and some never did. Some talked to me about it later, and some have never referred to it at all. They all care, they just responded in different ways. I don't know, maybe we're not really talking about the same thing. But I don't think I'd try too hard to contextualize a time period of non-contact with someone who cut me off like that. (I'd certainly apologize for hurting their feelings, though.) I'd probably just let it go, since our requirements for friendship are drastically different. I'm not trying to argue about it. I try my best to treat each friend in the way they want to be treated, and you certainly have the right to choose your friends based on whatever criteria you want. It's just interesting to think about the differing views.

Do test it if you go with the idea of using one phone for a hotspot. I don't seem to be able to stream with multiple devices very well with mine. You might check if the company offers a hotspot device separate from the phones. Some friends of ours used to use one at home. It meant they didn't have to have contracts on all their phones.

Well, since it sounds like it will work otherwise and you'd be in a contract no matter what you do, it may very well be worth it. You have my sympathies; it is so very hard to secure decent internet, decently priced, rurally!

If they won't slow down the speed, then it might work pretty well for your purposes, I would think. Is the only way to get it with a contract? No pay-as-you-go option?

Oh, as for numbers 2 and 3, I use my phone for a lot. When I'm home I use wifi, but out and about (in normal times) I use gps when traveling, look up coupons, use my budgeting app, check email for receipts, etc. I *could* go back to just phone and text, of course, but having data is really convenient.

We live in a rural area. Our main use of internet is things for school, email and browsing type things, youtube, and we do Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming. I've used my phone as a hotspot from time to time when the internet is down. It uses tons of battery and the speed isn't wonderful, but is adequate. However, once a limit is hit and it slows down, it's not adequate for streaming video. I don't know about any long-term affects on the phone itself. I personally refuse to enter into cell phone contracts anymore. 2-3 years is a long time to be tied down to a service. Things can change rapidly when it comes to internet choices and needs. We had unlimited satellite internet for a long time and it worked reasonably well. I can't remember offhand the name of the company . . . it was expensive, but we stream so much that it was worth it for us. Not sure if any of that is helpful or not.

I haven't directly ended a friendship. I have let distance grow because of changing interests and goals of both parties. I tend to avoid conflict, although I certainly am noticing a bit of a change in this as I get older; I'm more likely now to simply say things straight out. As of now, I haven't ever needed to sharply end a close friendship. I've had a handful over the years that have simply fizzled out. Full disclosure, I'm one of those people who doesn't really have that many "close" friends. I have a lot of friends, but I don't tend to confide in any in the way that I did with one or two in my teens and twenties. I can also go a long time without seeing someone, just because of being busy and the fact that I don't need a lot of interaction so I may not think of it very often. I'm trying to force myself to initiate contact more often, bc I realize it's important to others. But I find it quite difficult. The worst experience I've ever had with friends was in my twenties. It seriously affected my trust in people and is probably part of why I don't have close friends today. This involved very close friends, an older married couple, cutting me off quite suddenly. I approached them directly, in tears. Apologized for anything I had inadvertently done, the whole shebang. They acted as if there was no problem at all, they had just been busy, I was misinterpreting. Then a bit later I found out they had also been spreading outright lies about me. About this time, they moved and it was a natural close. I was devastated over the whole thing and worried about my reputation. I still wonder if people I know think badly of me because of the lies, although some later told me that anyone who knew me would not have believed it. If something like that happened now, I would directly end the friendship much sooner. Back then, I believed people were basically good and there must have just been a misunderstanding. It was foreign to me that anyone would deliberately lie. I mean, I knew it could happen, but nothing even remotely similar had ever been my experience.* Actually, now I can recognize people like that and avoid them from the get-go. In your example of someone whose beliefs and ideologies have become intolerable to me, I'd probably just let the friendship die naturally. *Edited to add: You know, actually I did have one other thing happen in my early (mid?) teens. A friend threatened suicide. I was scared and told my parents. She was very angry and tried to start a physical fight with me during lunch at school. I was so nervous and scared! but just turned and walked away from that, and we were never close again. She, too, eventually moved. At the time, I just knew she had a difficult home life and, while I regretted how things turned out, I knew I did the right thing. No way was I capable of handling the suicide threats on my own. I think the difference with the friends later was, in my view they were stable adults. So I expected stable adult behavior. Yes, my life was sheltered in many ways.

Well, I said we "need" to vacuum daily. It doesn't always get done. 😊 But it often does. For us, this means almost the whole house, but our house is small and single level. A couple of the bedrooms only get done every 3 days or so. They don't strictly need it, but it only takes a couple extra minutes. We pick up floors twice daily and just vacuum around temporary projects.

Yes, I realized after I posted that my post should be edited and was too lazy to do it. I should not have implied that masks are sterile and my choice of the word "environment" was poor. I think/hope my larger point was clear. (Maybe not, but I am again too tired and lazy to restate it. 😜)

I'm not expecting the mask and gloves we wear to the grocery store to do the same thing that a mask and gloves do in a sterile environment. As a pp mentioned, we do not have a realistic hope of rendering the world sterile. So it doesn't bother me to see someone do something like adjust their mask. It does make sense to try to remember to avoid what touching you reasonably can, of course. But I'm not too worked up over cross contamination in a non-sterile environment. It does bug me that a very small number of people in my area wear masks. Since they do seem to offer some protection for others, I wish more would wear them. Basically, if someone stays a few feet away from me, that's great. Bonus points if they are wearing a mask that is covering their nose and mouth. That seems to be all that can realistically be expected.

Oh my goodness, what great news!!!

I can't stand to walk on crumbs, etc. We don't wear shoes in the house, but still need to vacuum daily. I would prefer to dust weekly, but it actually happens monthly-ish. There are a few surfaces that get dusted more often.

Are any of those who have used the Facts that Stick books able to say if they are similar to the Right Start games? If I already own the RS games book, would I get anything substantially different with the Facts that Stick books?

I don't have toddlers now, but if I did I would definitely do a water table. I got so much mileage out of water. Another fun thing we did: I cleaned the tub really well, mixed up a lot of chocolate pudding, and let them paint themselves and the walls. It doesn't have to be a ton, though, they can have a lot of fun with just one batch. Water beads are great, too, a tub (or water table, bucket, etc) filled with those would be fun. Amazon has them reasonably priced. One winter I bought one of those small outdoor toddler slides and it stayed in the living room. Dd loved that. Another winter we had one of the roller coasters in the hallway. Both of these were really good investments that were used outdoors for years after the initial indoor period. Like this, except it wasn't that expensive: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0193MPPQO/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_HbKMEb7TVJV0Y

I'm so very sorry for your loss. (((Hugs)))

Also, I'm not sure, but I *think* the books change (by day? week? Or maybe they're adding more?) While choosing an elementary book last night, I noticed there were a few that weren't there a few days ago. If it had been just one, I'd think I overlooked it, but it's less likely I overlooked a handful (though not impossible! 😊)

I'm late seeing this. So glad things seem to be ok! I would be a mess; hope you're able to relax a bit.

Our bed, I take off in the morning and wash sometime during the day. I *should* put the other set on immediately, but somehow it is always just before bed. Every other time I wash pillows and quilt, so that takes longer. Kid's beds have Beddy's bedding, so it's off in the morning, wash immediately, and back on. I usually don't do more than 2 beds the same day. Each bed gets done roughly 7-10 days. I *love* fresh sheets and if/when I have a bed that is easier for me to change I would change mine much more often. Growing up, we changed sheets every Monday and Thursday. I can't seem to manage more than once per week.

Our cabinets have finger notches. If I had a choice, I would choose knobs. The finger notches mean that food, grease, whatever, gets in and around the notches. This seems to be the case no matter how much handwashing we do. Our cabinets are painted, and it also 8ncreases the wear around the notches.

I can't believe I forgot that one. Yes, that was awful. We usually like to rewatch after a few years, but I still have no desire to rewatch that one.

My picks before reading comments: Firefly Jericho Terra Nova The Unit Now off to see what I forgot!

I don't want any of it; on the other thread I believe I said I'll have a hard time going back, because less social interaction is great for me. However, I'm not the only personality in my family. 🙂 For dd, who seems to be an extrovert, I facilitate regular video chats with a friend. Ds joins in sometimes (he seems to be an introvert, but desires more socially than I do). We don't have a lot more time available than usual; we only had one evening activity. So, our schedule has continued pretty much without change. Extra classes or meetings online would disrupt our routine, so unless it's high-interest or required, it's a no. Depending on how long this goes on, though, I may see about more for dd.

Yes. I don't think there is much reasonable chance of not sharing anything we have. Our house is very small and only one bathroom for the four of us. He is careful at work and showers right after he walks through the door. Clothes go straight into the washer. Now, things may change for us, as his job is in healthcare. But right now, in our specific circumstances, we are comfortable with this.