Thanks so much! Love the slow-mo videos! Very helpful!

I know it's likely Yourube, but who on YouTube offers the best (most clear, etc.) instructions?

If I got to stay home alone (much more rare than going out alone!), I'd probably pick up lunch (& maybe coffee) and then cross stitch and watch something (mood dependent) while stitching.

We moved and did a major purge. I heaped books up on our pool table and left a lot on bookshelves. IIRC, we had already boxed up the keepers. I advertised mostly by word of mouth in our homeschool community that I was having a give away and people come over and just dug through my stuff and took it. I tried to sell a few curricula that I knew had adequate resell value, but otherwise--give away. I'm a teacher and librarian and so kept A lot of books (at least some people would think so). Now that we're firmly in the institutional school/two parent income world, I need to purge again. At this point I'm only interested in keeping sentimental favorites.

May not be your thing, but we installed a hammered copper single bowl apron-front sink in our last house, and I loved it.

Ditto on checking Costco

My girls wore Lamour when they were little. Fifteen years ago, they were very high quality and tres chic for little southern girls. I'm sure the same is still true.

I feel this is akin to not knowing how to count back money. I would say "kids these days," but some committee somewhere decided to take it out of curricula/courses of study, or at the very least decided to give teachers so much else to focus on that something had to get short shrift.

I work with a 25 (ish) yo college graduate who struggles to tell time on an analog clock. I can't figure out if she's an outlier or if it's today's normal for her age.

I used it when I taught high school world history!

Gorgeous! I have a friend who's a jewelry maker (& homeschool mom!) and she used labrodite a lot, I believe.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

INFP-T

FWIW, I took the test Sneezyone linked, and I got what I always get, even in a paid test--INFP. Any other enneagram 4s here? (And want to admit it? Haha. We're the number that LIKES to be different, so we like to think there's no one else out there like us!)

I need to know more about this.

I love personality typing! My favorite (& the one I feel the most accurate for me) is the enneagram.

Yes. I agree with this. This is the part we're giving up by our kids going local. Granted, it is a bit different because they can move into dorms with no cost (and have, and will), but it's still not the same experience as not being ten miles from home.

This is our experience, too. Both kids qualified for presidentials but were points shy of housing at those schools. Our smaller (but not by much!) local university offered the full ride with the added bonus of proximity to home should the housing not work out. Others probably disagree, but in our minds the debt was not worth the difference in schools. YMMV, of course.

Ditto on what the two previous posters have said. I consider our lack of debt mostly the blessing of an academic predisposition for both me and my dh, more than anything else. (And the kids have genetics on their side--in this instance a blessing, not a curse. Everything is a trade-off!) Both of us grew up modestly and still have what I'd consider a firmly middle class lifestyle now.

I THOUGHT I was an INFP, but I only identify with the second half of the INFP reaction. 🤣

My first two both earned housing scholarships but the first one moved over and then opted to come back home. (Kid didn't enjoy shared bathrooms--though they share with three siblings at home!--and knew coming home was an easy option. Also, home is closer to kid's job than sxhool, so late shifts usually resulted in a night at home anyway.) Second kid is set to move to dorm next month, but we're keeping an open bedroom. 🤣. I 100% support the move, but knowing the play of personalities (& certain tendencies/issues), I fully expect home to be preferable. Both kids have jobs and pay most/all of their day-to-day expenses. We provided cars for both kids. Older kid pays car insurance but that's it in terms of required bills. Younger kid will start with insurance when able. I agree with pp that not all parents are able financially to pay kids' ways. We certainly couldn't and didn't obligate ourselves. If second kid had opted to go off, loans would've been the way to accomplish that. Kid thought it through and eventually concluded the 100% merit award at the other school was worth the sacrifice. dh and I both managed full academic scholarships and had little debt to start off adult life, as I mentioned before. Our parents would've helped us (& did--cars, a place to live, etc), but couldn't have footed the entire bill and thankfully didn't have to. I wouldn't have qualified for grants, etc. , and while dh's situation was different than mine, I don't think he would've either. I fully recognize this is not everyone's situation and appreciate that, so no judgment at all for student loans. We are educators who greatly value education but DEFINITELY look at college pragmatically when it comes to debt and have encouraged our kids to always consider ROI.

I am horrified by this. This is an area we travel through several times a year, and I have college-aged children. I pray she is found safe!

Also--and perhaps this is a big one--my dh and I decided we would work toward being financially fit enough to meet our own needs as we age instead of helping them go elsewhere to school, and that would be our gift to our children since (so far) they've managed to qualify themselves for scholarships at our decent local school.

I don't know about soul crushing, and having never had significant student loan debt (I did borrow about $2k for a computer--which I had forgotten until now--and then took advantage of a payment plan through the university for grad school, allowing us to pay it off by graduation), I can't speak to it personally. I THINK the reason why so many people try to avoid it (& this is certainly true for us) is that the repayment generally comes at a time in a person's life when there are many other financial obligations for most people. For example, I have a friend who is about to have to start paying on her loan after the deferment (or whatever--I haven't been keeping up with all the details), on top of having two kids, a house, vehicles, and a husband whose job was tenuous there for a bit. It was a lot of pressure. Thankfully, the job is resolved for now, but they were looking at a loss of income on top of the loan. I think stories like that (& worse) are what many of us take as cautionary tales. (Also--the friend didn't finish college, and the job she currently has wouldn't have been helped in any way--practically or financially--by what she was studying.)

Thanks for sharing this. This makes the taking of loans similar to say, borrowing money for travel or for a serious hobby or something like that. I wondered if that was your motivation. Thanks again!