We don’t actually purchase anything that has deposits. People just look through everyone’s bins on trash day and so ours get hit too.

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We have problems with both. The houseless raid our trash cans for recycling they can turn in for the deposit money.

Fair. So, what are your actual experiences out with teenage daughters and strange men lately? I have two teen daughters and two young adult men. My young adult men can ride public transport relatively safely here by themselves. My teen daughters have had incidents even when with us. There are real patterns of behavior they experience around “strange” men and they arent wrong to be wary as a result.

I live in a state with an estimated 30,000 black bears. There have been three reported attacks ever, none fatal. There are regular bear sightings around me and we are all in the forests regularly. Strange bear > strange man any day.

Someone upthread asked about tall people in the 3rd row of an Odyssey. They fit fine. We have a 8 passenger and to haul lots of cargo we fold down either one seat or two in the back, and we can pop out any of the seats (sides or middle) to accommodate really long stuff. I hauled 8’ long stuff in it this week by fitting the end between the driver and passenger seats. I can parallel park it just fine, but anything large enough to fit a bass + people by volume by definition has to be large and therefore a PITA to drive in the city. That said, I can haul amazing amounts of tall people and gear in the thing, and do quite regularly. My biggest person is 6’3”, 220lb and easily fits in any of the back seats. I regularly have 3 people over 6’ sitting across the back row. The middle row middle seat is the smallest, but the issue there is width, not height. We usually have its top down flipped to the console side unless we need all 8 seats.

Overall high inflammation levels can make you super sleepy too. It was hard for me to sort that out—actually went off zyrtec when I went onto an immunosuppressant and the fatigue remained. But, everyone’s body is different. You could ask to switch to loratadine and see if that helps.

"I understand that you need a person to vent to about your frustrations. But, when you vent about your frustrations, I receive that as you using me as a dumping ground for your negative emotions. It doesn't feel good to receive that. I'm glad that I'm a safe person for you to vent to, but for my own mental health and sanity...." and then say whatever your boundary and consequence are going to be. I give my kids a 3 minute freebie, but constant griping gets fined...with whatever stick works for that kid. Usually I carrot and stick. I reward going x amount of time without griping, and I assign either a financial penalty or a chore (depending on the kid) for griping. Emotional labor is labor. If they are asking me to do labor for them, they can do physical labor for me. FWIW, my constant dumper of emotions doesn't want to do the emotional labor of sorting through their own frustrations, so they just kind of pile it all up in their brain and then dump their problems on me. I realize that that is a growing emotional skills phase of development, and I want them to know that when they need me, I'm there for them, but also I'm not able to handle constant all day long dumping. They can make a list and vent at me later in the day when I'm able to listen, and then go for a walk and let go of their transferred stress. When a kid comes up to me and starts to dump I will stop and ask them, "Is this a problem that you need help solving right now or are you just frustrated?"

IMO, misogyny goes way, way back but the rise of hate radio (Rush Limbaugh), the ending of political cooperation between parties (mid 1990s also), the start of Faux News (1996), and the push by the Koch brothers to fund professors who acted as lobbyists and other think tank drivers—-all of that unholy swirl of junk in the 1990s changed us as a society and began driving wedges. The current toxic swirl of people like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson fuel algorithmic changes to what you see and listen to that take you to darker places. People feel isolated and insecure—and there are social media personas who prey upon that.

I think it’s part of a greater societal sickness re: lack of empathy, lack of respect for women, transactional relationships, etc. I also think the other stresses on Gen Z (affordable housing, access to healthcare, media trolls, etc.) factor into this. I think an analogue may be South Korea. Women choose to be alone or in a Golden Girls setup than marry into terrible. I know women who divorced husbands who became radicalized by politics and other things (red pill, manosphere, Faux news) and all of them have said they will never marry again—shack up, maybe, or get a FWB situation, but they will never give up having their own home and separate finances after the crap their exhusbands put them through.

Dd says there are older teens she knows who are down this rabbit hole—follow Andrew Tate and say horrible stuff like he says. She’s had to deal with a few of them in class.

I am sorry you are in such a stressful situation: Timeline for Typing and staging, if it hasnt been done suggested treatment plan and timeline for that—note that radiation can take a few weeks to start, and sometimes tissue testing is done to better match your chemo plan to your particular cancer type if negative now, whether a proactive masectomy would be something to consider/something insurance would cover think a lot about what you want out of your masectomy—aesthetic flat closure (chest wall reconstruction), regular flat closure, later DIEP flap reconstruction, etc.

@Lecka—Walmart online has this brand much cheaper than amazon or elsewhere. Be sure to price around because the WM prices I am seeing online are cheaper than in store here.

Finely ground tea is designed to release a lot of flavor at once and dont have much flavor round 2. Teas that are made of larger components will taste ok round 2. I sometimes rebrew, but only when drinking back to back. I dont let much time pass due to my fears (perhaps unfounded) about bacteria.

I’d build out the back of the cabinet so the spines of the books sit close to the top of the fridge and then put in a thick wooden shelf or box of the same tone as the door. It would add some warmth. ETA: look at Trailrunner’s pics on Houzz

In my area, it’s a mix of procedures among different clinics. Most of the places my friends take their kids do require all of the testing. Our kids who take meds have taken them since they were preteens so we havent had to hoopjump. We have to be seen every 90 days, but no additional testing. Add this to my soapbox list. Patients who need the meds in order to be able to coordinate all of the appointments and tests and refills cant get the meds or keep them until they hop through a crapton of very expensive hoops.

Rigidity isn't necessarily around "having to be there". I pay for the time slot whether I use it or not. I'm paying for their availability. So, maybe we "miss" a week because dd had a medical appointment---but that instructor had scheduled their life to be there, and still has all of their prep and administrative stuff to do regardless of whether my kid could be there or not. I respect their time and expertise, and I pay for it. We just aren't always there to take advantage of that. Life happens. If they offered me a makeup, great, but I don't expect that (and I don't receive it, fwiw). Speech therapy is a bit different because it's billed to a third party, generally. You physically have to be there. We did years of therapy---and the policy your speech therapist had seems absolutely ridiculous. It's no wonder people left. FWIW, as far as medical versus activities go---I generally have a policy that I try to schedule all medical for certain days and leave at least two days a week open for "life". The only times we haven't been able to do that have been during radiation and daily chemo, which, understandably, you've got to be there every dang day. Even then, we picked a time slot where we could fit in a bit of life around it. Medical is what keeps life going....but a few "life" activities have always been prioritized over medical in terms of time slots.

Nope! Of my kids, the ones with the 10 year gap between them get along personality wise much better than the kids with a much smaller age gap. My youngest kid has not been lonely much. There have been a couple of times a few years ago when she wanted someone to play dolls with her, but mostly she's become an expert at video games and often convinces her siblings to play with her when they are around. She's gotten a lot of extra time from me compared to the Middles, and is living the sweet life of Youngest where her parents are well broken in and have realistic expectations about behaviors and capabilities. In a few years you are about to hit tween moodiness, kids needing braces and wisdom teeth removal, much higher social demands, etc. You are about to be very, very busy and money is going to start flying out the window pretty steadily for the next 20 years (based on your spacing + college expenses). Tweens and toddlers are much the same, but I had no desire to sign up for another round of it.

This. Not having strict boundaries = a notable subsection of the populace will not respect you or your time.

We eat eggs a lot here. It's quick, low carb, and it can be switched up flavor-wise by a lot of different things. Even at $4/dozen, I can usually feed my family of 6 for under $6 if I toss in leftover meats and veg into it and add some clementines or something as a side.

She's been taking iron though....how much and for how long? Ferritin can take a long time to bring up...dealing with that here as well.

We seem to be dropping off pretty steadily from a peak....but rainy season has ended so people are outside more. Our state requires notification if they hit crisis standards for staffing....hasn't happened this year. But, after 2022, they've been expanding bed capacity because fall and winter 2022 was a freaking train wreck. We've only been at the ped hospital a few times in the last few months for regular appointments; they still have masking requirements in place for staff and visitors.

Nandina leaves and fruit are high in cyanide, and can harm birds. I am glad you are looking for alternatives. Dwarf spirea stays in that 2’-3’ size at maturity.

Incremental change---- nuggets + carrots > nuggets + fries 1 slice of pizza + salad > 2 slices of pizza

I'd add in inflammation markers + vector borne disease given the joint pain---so sed rate, crp, ana (for lupus), lyme disease, etc.