I don't associate this phrase with Covid. I was familiar with it long before Covid.

Yes, we have them here in our college town. Last fall a student was riding one on a busy street at night, was hit by a car, and died. At a recent street festival, teens were riding them through the crowds. They get left all over the city blocking the sidewalks. I'm not a fan.

I'm sorry. College housing is a pain. My DS had an on campus room that he wanted to keep. They told him he still owed a few hundred dollars and locked him out of reserving his room for the next school year. He immediately paid the amount, but it was on hold until after new freshman got to pick rooms, so he lost his room and it turns out he didn't owe the money at all (he got refunded more than he paid!). Now they claim the freshman class is bigger than expected and there aren't any on campus rooms. He tried to get an off campus house with friends, but we haven't heard a thing about whether that is happening. He's away with military for summer, so who knows what will happen. In most places, basement bedrooms are illegal unless it's a walkout. I wonder if they found out they could get in trouble for having him down there. It seems he didn't sign a new lease for this school year. Did he just assume everyone would stay? It's too bad he can't stay in the house with his friends. I see housing issues cause significant difficulties for college students.

I have two years before my youngest graduates from high school and I'm done homeschooling. My oldest grandchild will be 5 years old and starting K that same year, so it's definitely possible. I have a 17 year gap between my oldest and youngest children. In my case, I have no plans to homeschool grandchildren, but I have heard of homeschooled adults who would welcome having their parents homeschool their children.

The University near me has a Senior Guest program. If you're 60 or older, you can attend classes that have space for free. You don't get credit, but I think it might be fun to take a few classes.

Ours just keep getting worse. Now AQI is 244, it smells like smoke outside, and the sky is hazy.

We just got an air quality alert saying ours is 232 "very unhealthy". DD went for a short run and said it was fine when she left and bad by the time she got home. Her cross country coach just cancelled practice for tomorrow.

Yes, animal shelters can use the old towels and blankets. If your thrift stores won't take the pots and pans (most will), see if you can find a metal scrapper who will take them.

Yay! New kitty! I was going to yell at you if there weren't pictures.😂

$1M mortgage???? *Faints* I could buy a *huge* house in an upscale neighborhood for $700K! One of the problems for young adults in our LCOL area is that people are moving from HCOL areas and they have tons of cash from the sale of their house and they outbid locals and can pay in cash. It's driving up the cost of housing past what local incomes can absorb. I live in an older neighborhood where young families want to buy their first house and the houses sell in a day or two.

Yes, this is the difference. My two who are married and have dual incomes both have houses in LCOL areas. They're not big houses and they need work, but they're building equity. The other adult out of college is single and can't pay off student loans and save for a downpayment, so he's stuck renting.

DS1 makes 3x more than DH has ever made after 40 years as an architect. DS1 has an engineering degree from a top 40 school. DS2 already makes about the same as DH and he has a science related degree.

Our summer has been cool so far this year. I'm waiting for warmer weather! Today we've had thunderstorms and temps in the 60's.

He volunteered to be OPFOR for ROTC Advanced Camp!

Aw, I'm right there with you. No, I'm *really* right there with you! My DS is also heading to Fort Knox on Tuesday! When I started here on the boards I had both young adult children and preschool/toddlers.

Yes they do and they should. This is not a healthy situation for his child and he has every right to protect his child. Go check the stats on how many children are abused or killed by their mom's live in boyfriends.

This is hard. I'm in a similar situation with DD16. She suddenly started ignoring her (fairly new) best friend and when I asked why she said the girl was smothering her. DD doesn't have many friends and I was happy she found someone nearby who did some of the same activities, but then there was a big change in the relationship. One evening DD went downtown to hang out with a guy and the best friend convinced their other friend to go downtown with her so they could "spy" on DD. DD was really angry. DD said she had specifically asked the girl not to show up downtown to to check up on her (hanging out downtown is not something this other girl normally does). DD also invited the girl to attend youth group activities with her, but now regrets it because the girl won't talk to anyone else or leave DD to socialize with other people. At least in our case, the mom is not pushing her daughter on us and checking in with me regularly. I would be hesitant to answer phone calls if that was happening. I'm not sure how to encourage the friendship while helping DD not be smothered, but they will regularly see each other at activities and I'd like if they could have a friendly relationship.

When I was growing up, I knew a family of TEN who lived in a 1200 SF house with one bathroom. They seemed like a very happy family which is good since I'm not sure where they put all those kids!

We had seven people in a house that's 1900 SF and we thought it was adequate. We came from a house that was half the size when I was expecting our 4th child, so this house seemed huge in comparison. We homeschooled our two youngest AND dh has worked at home for years. We don't have any space in our house that doesn't get regular use. Most of the people I know have half as many people and twice as much space.

I'm sorry for the loss of your mother. I've heard more than a few stories from people I know that dying relatives seem to be visited by deceased family. My own MIL had cancer for years and was in and out of hospice. On the night she actually died, they were getting ready for bed when she sat up in bed, looked at the end of the bed, and said "I think I'm going to die". She laid back down and died. I've always believed she saw something or someone (angels? her parents?) and knew it was time to go.

DD needs to take the ACT. We were hoping to take it in July, but needed to wait to see about some other things on her schedule. We tried to register today and there's not a single available seat near us. Now we have to wait until fall, but it doesn't seem that we can register yet. There's no way to change the date or put in the site that we want for the fall test. When does registration open for the next test? I don't want to wait too long and get closed out again.

We've lived in the same general area our entire lives. There are many things I like about living here, but I dislike our cold, grey winters more and more every year. We've talked about moving to NC near the beach in retirement (I love the beach!), but it seems like such a big step for someone who's lived her entire adult life in one community. My SIL (husband's sister, who I really like) lives there with a group of friends who all retired to the area together, so we would have a small group of built in friends and relatives. They're all nice and go off on frequent adventures together. Several of my kids and my only grandchildren live near me now though and I don't know if I want to move away from them.

Taking classes with a licensed driving school including 8 hours of in-car instruction is required for teens in my state. I didn't ride along and I've never known anyone who did. I don't even know if they allow it. I just dropped dd off at the driving school each time, she did her two hour lesson, and picked her up at the end. I think we did have a choice of which instructor, but she had a very full schedule, so we took what worked best and she had both male and female in-car instructors.

Ok, I had never heard of "flyovers" before and looked them up. Our closest main highway is undergoing a 10 year upgrade and expansion (which is a total nightmare, but that's another story) and one of the exit ramps I would frequently have to take is being changed from a ground level curving exit ramp to a flyover bridge. Every time I see the new exit being built it causes anxiety. I live in a state with long winters that produce icy and snowy roads. People DO slide off roads and bridges in the winter and whoever decided this was a good idea on this highway is an idiot. Oh, and this same highway had to be completely shutdown yesterday because someone was trying to jump off one of the bridges.

In the video she says that the woman opened the door and shot the other woman. In that case, she knew exactly who was at her door.