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Sherry in OH

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Everything posted by Sherry in OH

  1. Does your father need a private entrance and suite? The most economical change would be to convert the study to a bed-sitting room and the laundry room (and if needed the adjacent closet) to a bathroom. You could install a stacked washer-dryer unit in the closet across the hall from the laundry room . If you do not want to share your father's laundry facilities, find a space upstairs for a second washer-dryer unit. If/when your father can no longer handle stairs, add a ramp to the front entrance and to the family room. Install them in such a way that they can be removed when no longer needed.
  2. Building and remodeling is expensive right now. Get additional quotes for gutting the bar area and installing a 7x9 or 7x10 foot accessible bathroom in that area. You can also get quotes for removing the laundry room, but lowering a floor is a structural change. It is likely to be much more expensive than working within the existing space. Consider a pre-fab kitchenette unit. You could include an apartment-sized stacking washer and dryer in the kitchenette design.
  3. Restaurant meals are high in fat. Fat can trigger diarrhea. So can stress, so perhaps you could kindly suggest that non-helpful family members butt out.
  4. Physical science is the typical high school level intro to physics and chemistry.
  5. Have you ever read Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron? "THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. ..." To have equitable schools, first you need agreement on what equitable means. Equal funding to all schools? What do you do about innate disparities? Some schools are always going to have more students with significant learning disabilities than other schools. If the former spend the bulk of their funding on a handful of students with severe disabilities and the later can spread the funding more evenly among all their student is that equitable? How will the brightest students be taught? Is it equitable to force them to sit through reviews of material they have mastered because other students need that review? Is it equitable to allow them to study more advanced material, and thus get even further ahead? We don't seem to know what to do about the outliers. As a society are we going to force parents to put their children in boarding schools from birth? That way no child has the advantage of a more enriched infancy and childhood than any other. Of course, you still haven't tackled the issues of prenatal care and genetics.
  6. Sometimes it is nice not to have to think too hard. Tiles is also good for tired brains, but there isn't much variety. I do go to other sites Logic puzzles (Puzzle Baron's grid style puzzles - there are also printables) Sudoku Crosswords - easier than NYT
  7. I rarely do the crypto, acrostic, or anagram puzzles but have been having a lot of fun with the old daily and mini crosswords. If you sign up for the free morning briefing, you will get the Mini and the grids for the Monday-Friday for Spelling Bee. Periodically, you will be offered a reduced price subscription to the News part of NYT (not puzzles or recipes) for $4 per month for the first year. You can also subscribe to just the puzzles for $4 per month (slightly less if you also do the news subscription). The entertainment and escapism offered by the daily puzzles are worth $4 a month. In addition to the puzzles others have mentioned you get 3 Sudoku puzzles each day, Vertex (a numberless dot-to-dot), and Letter Boxed (another word game). Vertex is my favorite.
  8. My vote is push her. Has she considered a smaller LAC? They often have a more nurturing environment than larger schools. Plus with a smaller student body it is harder for more timid students to get lost in the crowd. Also, yes to living in a dorm for at least freshman year. Not all dorms are chaotic, she can apply for a 'quiet' dorm. Although she might be tempted to apply for a single, encourage her to try roommates for at least two years. Whether or not they become lasting friends, roommates will ensure that she doesn't spend all of her non-class time in her room.
  9. Unless I truly loved the job and saw a future for myself in that company, I would start looking for something else. If nothing came up, I would try the drive for a while, but would need to take an honest look at costs versus benefits. Factoring in additional time and all transportation costs does the job pay enough to cover expenses plus a bit more or would you essentially be working for free? Could a volunteer position closer to home fill your needs for intellectual stimulation and resume-building?
  10. Since you don't want soup, is chili also out? Great Northern Beans are very good in white bean chili. Otherwise, baked beans, falafel (usually made with chickpeas but you can substitute virtually any bean), or bean burgers.
  11. Yes, but which tests vary by school and grade. My sons' school usually does PSAT in the fall and ACT Aspire in the spring. 7th grade will take no standardized tests this school year. 11th grade took the PSAT in person as originally scheduled. 8th-10th grades will take it virtually in the spring. The school cancelled the ACT Aspire tests. 9th, 10th, and 12th graders must take either the ACT or SAT, 11th grade must take the ACT. Students enrolled in n AP course must take the corresponding AP exam to get credit for the course.
  12. ACT Aspire is available for 3rd through 10th grades. In the past it was only available through schools but it looks like this year there is a home testing option.
  13. My sons's school requires that all 9th-12th students take either the ACT or SAT annually. My 9th grader took the ACT in December. He did zero prep, had not taken geometry (his school does Algebra II first), and still managed a respectable math score. There were questions about current grade and high school courses completed on the registration form. I hope ACT considers the responses to those questions when looking at jumps in scores.
  14. We received a gift yesterday. It was mailed priority on December 11th. We also received a Christmas Card mailed December 18th. Cards I mailed the week of December 13th are still in limbo.
  15. Have you seen the ovens with doors that open sideways? There are models with one large door and models with two doors similar to French door refrigerators. Echoing Peter Pan - maybe it is time to clean out your cabinets. Get rid of items you no longer need and find alternate locations for infrequently used items. Items used most frequently by other people can be stored in the upper cabinets. Save the prime spots to the items *you* use.
  16. I have never liked lazy Susans - things fall off the back too easily, plus there is all that wasted space around the edges. I also do not like to stack pots and pans. I want to reach in and grab the one I want without having the hassle of rearranging. Currently I store pots and pans in large drawers under my cooktop. In my previous house, I had pullout drawers inside the cabinets (after-market installs). While drawers without the hassle of doors are my preference, pullout drawers worked. I store small appliances in the lowest pullout in my pantry. They are accessible there but not occupying prime real estate. I am all about putting things where they make the most sense for the user. If you cannot reach over the counter cabinets, it makes sense to put your everyday dishes in lower cabinet drawers or pantry pull outs. Use your uppers to store items you do not need ready access to, or don't use them at all. I've seen several kitchens with no upper cabinets at all.
  17. We are still a few hours away, but happy new year to you Laura and to others in Europe.
  18. Starfall is good for kindergarten, especially if you go with the subscription version. If you can get your hands on the old LeapFrog videos, they are great for beginning phonics. Honestly though, if you are keeping up with math and read alouds, all you really need to add for the kindergartener are phonics/reading practice and handwriting. Magic School Bus is great for elementary science. As are Sid the Science Kid and the Cat in the Hat Knows A lot About That. If you want more science, rotate science books into your read aloud schedule, titles from the Let's Read and Find Out series are excellent for this. Your third grader probably needs additional language arts. Starfall has added some third grade content, but I don't know how it compares to what public schools expect. You could compare it the free materials on Khan Academy. Is the child able to do worksheets without much assistance? I would be more inclined to go with a workbook approach than entirely online. Online elementary requires a lot of adult supervision and assistance. Since you mention standardized testing, The Critical Thinking Company's Thinking Skills for Tests is a good resource for practicing test taking skills.
  19. NYE - cheese fondue, bread, green salad, dipping chocolate with strawberries and pineapple, sparkling cider NYD - Sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, veggie hot dogs, baked pork chop (traditional PA Dutch NYD meal with a vegetarian twist)
  20. Making art from costume jewelry Christmas Tree wall art For less work, consider using strings of beads as garland on a table top tree. Use tree hooks to dangle pendants and pins from the branches. Or hot glue selected pieces to styrofoam balls. This can be hung on a tree or placed in bowl for seasonal display.
  21. Our packages either arrived early or very late. One package seems to have fallen into a black hole. It left the sender's post office weeks ago never to have been scanned again. First class mail is also hit or miss. I sent two cards to the same address several days apart. The second card arrived before the first.
  22. It reads like a text message to a friend or colleague. I would expect emails to clients to approximate the formality of business letters.
  23. One of my sons has a first name that ends with an 'a.' Several times I've had people who should know better - camp administrators, medical personal, refer to him as she. What is the point of requiring me to complete forms indicating gender if they are going to assume based on the last letter of his first name that he is a she? I could see the confusion if it were an unusual name, but it is a traditional male name.
  24. We have stockings because they are one of my favorite Christmas traditions from my childhood. The children get chocolate oranges and candy coins in their stockings as a variation on the coins, candy, and citrus I found in my stocking, as my parents did before me, and their parents before them. My children are too old for Santa now, but even when they were younger they knew that I filled the stockings and that the gifts under the tree were from family and the cat. There is a long story involving a terrified toddler behind why. I find the thought of all family members contributing items to the stockings intriguing. I may suggest that next year. The big change for us this year (apart from COVID-related changes) is that for the first time in over a decade, the children's big gifts are not LEGO sets. The only LEGOS they are getting are stocking-stuffer Christmas tree sets.
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