I really like my overmount sink. Seems I oversplash less with that edge that lifts up all around. It is super easy to clean around with a toothbrush and some spray cleaner - easy peasy.

I know Arabic is offered at most colleges, but does anyone truly BEGIN the language as a college student? Or do you think that most of the students signing up for Arabic I in college have had at least some exposure to the language, either while growing up with the language or learning it in middle/high school? It seems like it would be a lot to take in whilst juggling other classes and responsibilities, being so different from English or the Romance languages. Am I wrong to think it would be that difficult? DS2 has to make a decision soon and is divided between following his heart (he is very interested in learning Arabic as he is studying the region quite in depth with a lot of his classes last year and the upcoming year) and his head (continuing with Spanish or French, which he had years of during his middle and high school years, but didn't retain enough to bother trying to test out of either).

nm

I'd wait and give it some time as mentioned above... but... I'd buy a poker/game table, add some sliders to the bottom (assuming the room has wood flooring) and slide it close to the windows when not in use, but pull it out for game nights when needed. We love playing board games/cards/puzzles and I hate that we don't have a space for a dedicated table like that. So. That's what *I'd* do with the space. 😄

Oof. It hurts. Similar situation here - super close family that ceased to be, leaving me with so many mixed feelings, it's hard to express. I'm now closer to the other side of my family that I barely knew growing up! Life is funny, in a not-so-funny way, sometimes. I just hope my kids stay close and want to spend time together voluntarily as adults so we can start our own traditions with their kids.

I feel so seen rn. If I were ever asked to write a sentence describing myself - this would be it. 😶‍🌫️

nevermind. Decided I don't have the energy to engage in this conversation. 😄

I love this version soooo much. Also adore the 2006 version - I think Ruth Wilson made the most perfect Jane.

** Just a cautionary alert toward this way of thinking (if you do find a non-HOA area to live in...). Wealth is not a determining factor for tackiness or hoarding or unmowed lawns or parking on the yard or collecting concrete fountains or for collecting old cars in the front driveway they are "going to fix some day" or who don't paint their houses or repair their shutters. If you believe your statement above, I'm imagining you've probably lived mostly in areas with HOAs, or in areas where most neighborhoods have HOAs that rein this in. I am related to people with gobs of $$ who "junk up their stuff" a-plenty. 😅 Shoot, my parents live in a very nice home on acreage and are sandwiched between two neighbors (with more property and much larger houses) that keep on building buildings to house all the junk they collect. It's obscene!! They all purposefully pick out homes without HOAs.

I read other replies now and totally agree that, today, it's a lot more fragmented. I think that's one of the big negatives to all this on-demand television or vlogs. It's made "water cooler talk" a lot harder bc we have fewer shared experiences. I remember, as a kid, watching Disney Family on Sunday evenings and talking with all my friends at school about it the next morning. I don't think today's kids get to have that experience and that's a huge loss.

If *I* had it to do over again, I'd have let my kids watch Nickelodeon (god, how I hated Sponge Bob) and the Disney Channel. In today's terms, I'd let my kids watch whatever YouTuber was crazy popular. ASSUMING none of those things were damaging to my kid's psyche (as in, not all YouTubers...). We DID watch tv and movies, but it was a carefully curated list that I put together. Things that were uplifting, encouraging, intellectual, lots of teamwork, and zero snark/fighting amongst siblings/no boycrazy stuff. My kids are well-voiced in quality television programming, lolololol!! They did watch big, blockbuster movies which, oddly enough, a lot of their friends didn't watch bc their parents would send them to watch cable tv instead of going to the theater to see movies. The result is that my kids felt really left out in a lot of conversations - and this carried right into college when their friends were sitting around sharing "omg, remember this show?" and everyone would join in, laughing at the absurdity of whatever show they'd watched when they were 10, but my kids had nothing to contribute and when their friends would notice, it was awkward to explain they'd never watched this-or-that show. It made us (the parents) sound a lot more controlling than we ever intended to be. We simply didn't have cable, so my kids never asked to watch those shows & I never brought it up! lolol So, if I had it to do all over again, I'd let them watch. I'd still have limits in place bc too much screen time for developing minds isn't helpful, but I'd let them watch, even if I had to grind my teeth through a Sponge Bob episode so my kids could laugh about it with their friends at gymnastics class, or camp, or whatever.

I'd give up the acreage minimum and look instead for a well-designed yard layout. I could give up the ceilings. I think that is one of those things that you are used to being high bc your current home has high ceilings, but I bet you would adjust to quickly once 8' ceilings became your everyday/normal - especially if the home has well-positioned windows and you have good natural lighting. I'd keep the living room and den - we also use both of those spaces as well and can't imagine giving one up. The bedrooms are probably non-negotiable, unless the home has the capacity for an add-on at some point - but then you'll have major construction to live through... I love having a pool, but since you say you'd add one if it doesn't have one, then I'd refocus on the well-designed yard layout and make sure you CAN add a pool in that space - find out where the backyard lines are and such to see if there would be major unexpected expenses.

Once all my kids started college, I moved stuff around so that they share rooms now. They are rarely home for more than a few weeks here and there - and even more rarely *all at the same time,* so I was tired of their rooms sitting mostly empty and untouched while I still had nowhere of my own (dh also has an office). So, I moved their stuff (they all had forewarning of this and were excellent-spirited about it). Those who had time to sort through their stuff did so - the rest went into Rubbermaid bins that were labeled. A lot of stuff (books, etc) I kept out and on shelves, but I pulled out desks (no one is using those anymore!), downsized dressers (DD2 had TWO dressers for all of her clothes, including a huge closet... but all that stuff is with her now and everything she leaves behind fits into the closet alongside her sister's). Whenever they come home, there are two "kids' bedrooms" or guest rooms. If more than two are home - they share the space. Mom's room is MoM's RoOm now - the same way their rooms used to be their rooms. If anything, I figure it's a good deterrent for them if they ever want to move back home, 😁😅🫠 I just figured (and everyone in the house agreed) that it was time I had a place for all my stuff to land. I'm usually spread all through the house, moving stuff hither and thither. Now, I have a landing spot and it's been heavenly.

I hope the next school is a perfect match for him! Clubs and organizations took a major hit during Covid. DD said that last semester was the first "sort of normal feeling" semester she has had - and she started college in fall of 2020. She joined clubs during the Zoom-era and the kids who knew what it was like pre-Covid graduated, leaving the rising students sort of reinventing the wheel for a lot of clubs and activities. It's been a real struggle getting back on track.

They did this at my DD1s school after her freshman year. They over-enrolled and were sticking freshmen EVERYWHERE. DD1s freshman dorm was nice and the room was a great size for two... the next year, her same room was a QUAD (with bunk beds). There were only two door-width closets so I don't know what the kids did with their clothes. The school stacked dressers on top of each other and had three desks (fourth kid was just screwed, I guess?). DD was an athlete and helped a lot of the freshmen girls get settled in and said it was a nightmare trying to fit stuff anywhere - and by mid-semester, the girls' rooms were a nightmare - stuff was just EVERYWHERE bc they didn't have a place for everything. DDs school also had ridiculous library hours - so there weren't many places to go and study past 9 pm always and sometimes the libraries would close at 5 or 6 randomly. I don't know how the freshmen made it through that! (and then Covid hit - imagine all those crammed-in students during those two years!) Makes me chuckle that hotels would tell us they couldn't accommodate 5 ppl (two adults and three children) bc of fire hazard issues - but colleges are literally piling grown adults of middling responsibility on top of one another in the name of making/saving $$$$. Crazy.

...dh and I are planning to move soon and UPSIZE!! 😂 We are essentially empty-nesters with one graduated and adulting while the other three are college students who don't foresee moving back home permanently. We lived as a family of 5 in an ~>2000 sqft house for years and had limited living as a family of 6 once ds2 joined our family. It always felt "just right" to us. Especially when Covid hit - and everyone had their own space to sort of cocoon up. It's impossible to compare American homes to other countries. With so much livable land across the nation, there's a LOT of space here. Not to mention that Americans have different ideas of "personal space" than Europeans or South Americans. 😄 I need my elbow room!! 🙃

For around $5-$800, you can get an HP laptop that will do everything you need and have gobs of storage space. Mine has been going strong (knock on wood) for many, many years. Seconding the Microsoft 365. I hated the idea at first and held onto my Office discs as long as I possibly could, but eventually I switched and I have been really pleased with it. I also have Dropbox for storage - I'd get a subscription to that, or use the Microsoft storage and move everything from your old computer into that. Then, you can easily access all of it from your new computer! You are going to LOVE the speed once you get the new computer!!!!

As a fine arts connoisseur, I'd say if fine arts aren't "meaty" enough, it's because you're not doing it right. 😁🙃😄 (said with affection, I promise, lol) With that said, I cannot imagine a single college raising a realistic eyebrow at a STEM-focused student not having much music, theater, or art on their transcript. Shoot, higher-tier universities often like their students "spiky" vs "well-rounded." But, a state school might red-flag it just because they are so accustomed to seeing the state reqs met by in-state students. Therefore, if I were even a little bit concerned, I would imagine it would be fairly simple to put together another .5 credit course? Maybe a course in the science of music? Something like these below: https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/courses/2122S/MUSI/MUSI-108-2122S https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-science-of-music.html

wowwwww.

My oldest was an athlete and in a tough major. No way, no how was a job an option for her - those athletic hours were brutal!! Next kid did not get a job bc she didn't need the money. She is planning to work off campus her upcoming senior year & is glad she didn't work earlier - she was able to join/lead many, many things throughout her college years. DS1 wanted to work, but I asked him to wait a semester (he's a music kid, so lots of zero-or-1-credit hour courses & responsibilities that actually take many hours per week to tackle) and he's so glad he did. He was worn thin freshman year with so many credit hours and music rehearsals. He eventually started working off campus with flexible hours - a kind of unicorn job I'm glad he found. He also gigs, but those are mostly evenings and scheduled around his availability. DS2 started out with a few-hours-a-week desk job on campus. He says it was mostly social, but he wished it had allowed more study time (but his coworkers wanted to use it for people-time, lol). He isn't sure if he'll do the same job next year or try to find something a little less social, haha.

One page, and some of the best writing I've ever done, imensho. 😄 My school profile, on the other hand, was a hefty mamajamma. She had a lot of girth to her as I left no stone unturned.

Easy pick if all my kids would agree to move there too: Hawaii. I’d live off pb&j and cereal forever, please and thank you 🙏😊 More realistically? North Carolina or certain areas of Tennessee Im much more liberal than those states, but most places that fit me politically don’t fit me geographically 😶

I don't see the point. Couldn't the teacher just C&P generic comments of her own making? Seems an odd thing to ask an AI to do (certainly report card comments are google-able to get some BTDT from real, actual, human teachers?) If my parents had gotten a "This student is consistently able to solve word problems," comment, they would have been utterly confused and assumed the teacher mixed me up with someone else and that the teacher obviously doesn't know me at all, so hopefully she at least assigns the AIs comments to the correct students & not randomly. 😄

One of my likely-law-school-bound student's end goal has nothing whatsoever to do with actually practicing the law. If they DO practice law following school/bar, it will only be to briefly gain a specific type of experience before moving into their ideal career. I find it funny that they already know - years ahead of time - that they will go through the pricey and grueling experience of law school, study mercilessly to pass the bar, and then ride off into the sunset in another direction entirely. 😅 But, the kid's plan is well-calculated and it's a good one. Just funny. (they'll never experience the lawyer burnout, though! haha!)

On audiobook, I'm in the middle of the third book of the The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet series (Record of a Spaceborn Few) by Becky Chambers. I find the series to be mildly interesting (space travel) - good for having in my ears while I do busy work around the house. Along the same vein, I recently started the series by Deanna Raybourn, A Perilous Undertaking and am now in the third book, A Dangerous Collaboration. I find this series to be of the same family as the Amelia Peabody series, if anyone liked those and wants to read something similar. Veronica Speedwell is sister-character to Amelia Peabody as are their romantic interests. Also a good "while cleaning the house" series. I'm also listening to Think Again by Adam Grant. Excellent so far. I'm also reading Dune, which was a Mother' Day gift from my son bc he just finished reading it and thought I'd like it. ♥ At the start of the month, I finished This is Where you Belong: the Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live by Melody Warnick, which had some very interesting points and am now beginning The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner. There's a theme there... lol