Many states are actually like this in practice. It isn't just from the public policy perspective. Due to the age of majority not having been reached, being married does not make one 18 for any reason. Voting rights are not conferred, the right to buy tobacco, the ability to enter other legal contracts, to be employed in certain types of jobs, etc. It all goes back to colonial, patriarchal views of women. Though there are instances of minor males being married off, most are females to older men. According to child.org, in a 2020 study of the matter in the US, 87% of all child marriages were cases of the female not being the age of majority with cases of girls as young as 10 and 12 being married off to adult males. Only 13% of cases involve males below the age of majority, and exceedingly rare for a male to be below the age of 16, most being 17 and striking distance of their own 18th birthday. The idea behind allowing marriage prior to the legal age of adulthood is to indenture a young female to an older male. It was a property exchange, nothing more, and in the state of Delaware, girls as young as 8 could be legally married off, 12 being very common and to men 15-20 years or more older. To be fair to Delaware, in modern times they were the first state to put a total ban of child marriages, 2018. In 2001, three ten year old girls were legally married to men ages, 24, 25, and 31. Those girls did not receive emancipation due to being married. At that age, regardless of being legally married, they cannot even request an HPV vaccine. Given the historical bias against female agency, and the continued influence of patriarchy, religious beliefs, and misogynistic control in the U.S., it should not be a shock that many a minor female who is married off will experience lack of agency and ability to advocate for herself or her child, ability to make necessary legal decisions in situations in which adult age is not automatically assumed and must be proven. Though a legislature may establish marriage minimum ages, if they do not then specifically also include language that automatically confers specific rights of majority to that married minor, then it cannot be surprising that there are issues with this, and again, we are talking about issues that are overwhelmingly faced by females. It can't be surprising then that our male dominated political establishment doesn't find this problematic since their sons and grandsons are highly unlikely to face the consequences of child marriage, but those same sons and grandsons are in a position to benefit from child brides.

I think they probably mean semi-formal. You can get away with black dress pants, simple white blouse, if you wear dressed up accessories, and if your hair is long enough, and if you can pull it up, messy bun or curled hair pulled into a ponytail. I do semi formal with nice shoes and necklace, and keep a silver/black/burgundy wrap that I pull around my shoulders and knot or secure with a pretty pin.

I am on a trip that was NOT planned. My niece, husband's family, invited his mother to come for Easter, and she refused to fly, and suckered dh I to driving her even though once here, we could only stay four evenings and three days due to his work schedule. Niece is a wonderful person, lovely hostess, lots of fun. If I was here without mil, I would really be enjoying myself. However, mil is being a vicious, snotty, jerk to me and only slightly better to dh. She was so awful this morning that I told her that I was done. She isn't my mother, and do not talk to me or ask me for any help. Niece was really surprised her grandmother is treating me this way, and has taken over dealing with her. Mark ignores her except when she needs help up and down the stairs since the last thing we need is her getting a broken hip while here. I won't go into details, but the gist is she has been so awful to her own son that we agreed we will never travel anywhere with her again, and her only chauffeur services from us will be medical appointments, grocery store, and pharmacy. If she wants to go anywhere else, she has to hire a driver or stay home. So, now that I have that off my chest, I can honestly say I cannot wait for Mark and I to head out together to Virginia in May. We are also changing up our anniversary plans. We had a vacation house rented in June so we could kayak in the Traverse Bay area, but the home owners had to cancel our reservation because a tree fell on the home during a storm, and they have to do extensive repairs. I am not sure where we will go. Mark only has 3 days he can take, and June is huge peak travel time in Michigan. Everything books up well in advance. We may not end up going anywhere since I am not willing to spend my 35th in a Super 8 eating microwave food. Might be better to just stay home, and drag the kayaks to our favorite beach on Lake Huron.

Thanks for this information. I decided against the San Marzanos. I have started my cherry tomatoes indoors, but I will buy Amish paste seedlings. I don't think I am up for the snarky attitude of San Marzanos. 😅

Love it! 😍

Thursday: Breakfast - enough coffee to create a force field around the planet. One bagel with peanut butter. Lunch - two boiled eggs, too busy running around being driven bonkers by my mother in law Dinner - Stopped on the road. We had my yummy veggie pasta salad, Clementine oranges, and hummus with veggies. Y'all, she brought a huge suitcase, a carryon, two purses, a large backpack, and three shopping bags for five days! Just five days. This was only the beginning of the frustrations. If I end up reporting that I ate a one lb bag of peanut M&M's and drank enough long island iced tea to be pickled for a month, you will know what did me in. Be kind!

So cute!!!

Well, I can understand not wanting to kill one. I do want to caution you though that foxes can carry rabies. In my area, if they come up and root through gardens, especially pens close to the house, we are advised to either shoot them or call the DNR to see if they will send an officer to track and trap so they can test it. On my friend's farm, if we get one in the henhouse, we deal with the chicken remains REALLY carefully. You might be able to trap it for release.. You need to deal with that especially carefully. I recommend an old quilt over the trap before you pick it up to carry so he can't see you, and leather gloves, like welding gloves plus full coverage of the rest of you so when you open that cage to let him loose, he can't nail you. If he is healthy, he will be scared and likely just run for it once the door is open. But if he is rabid, he may be aggressive. So far there have been no cases of the fox strain of rabies being transmitted to humans. 7% of all known rabies cases in wild animals seems to be from foxes. But due to the fact that an elderly man in Wisconsin or Minnesota (can't remember which state) just died of rabies despite immediate prophylactic treatment due to an immune system issue that caused him not to be able to make anitbodies, I still recommend caution. No one wants to be the test case for "fox rabies jumps host to humans" on CNN nightly news. Sadly, we have a fair amount of rabies here. Skunks are our primary vector, and the DNR has done significant catch and test due to the huge skunk population. One in 8 tested last year. Ugh. 12 skunks from my county identified which means many dozens more had it and died without being discovered. One of the local vets ended up on shots for it after going to see sick horse which it turns out had gotten rabies from likely a skunk in the pasture. Fox urine, which can be bought, is a good bait for live trapping them.

Well, okay. Trying to get back on track. Monday we did not eat breakfast, slayed the coffee, and then had big salads at lunch with one boiled egg each. For dinner, I made a huge pot of beef stew. Lean beef, and not a lot of it. Six large carrots, one whole large sweet onion, one can of kidney beans, 3 long celery stalks plus I used the leaves to perfume the veggie broth, half a large bulb of garlic, 2 cups peas, 1 cup green beans, 1 pint of my home canned tomatoes run through the blender for more broth, generous oregano, a little basil, one whole red bell pepper, a little Very Old Barton bourbon. It came out great and a lot of servings of vegetables per two cup serving. I made Irish soda bread to eat with it which we toasted. Tuesday: Coffee and a boiled egg, and then for the rest of the day we ate on the leftover stew and soda bread. Today I feel better after having so many veggies. Wednesday: We each had one slice of soda bread left, toasted it, and topped with peanut butter. Destroyed the coffee. Lunch, there was one more small bowl of stew left for each of us. We are currently eating Clementine oranges. Dinner is already planned. I have some mushrooms and more red pepper to use up before we leave tomorrow for Pennsylvania. So I am going to saute scallions, red pepper, and mushrooms, add two scrambled eggs a piece, and each with a fresh bagel which Mark is in the process of making now. No snacks. We both just want to get over the bloated feeling of not eating right, and knowing that it is going to be difficult to eat well at niece's with mother in law in tow, I am tackling food for the road trip. Road trip food plan: Broccoli, red pepper, celery, cherry tomato pasta salad with homemade Italian dressing. Done, in the fridge chilling. Hummus with carrots, celery, and red pepper sticks. Fresh bagels with peanut butter. Honey roasted cashews Lots of water which we are hauling with us in our camping jugs. Mother in law is NOT pleased that we are not going to eat fast food all the way there and back. Mark told her too bad, and if she keeps complaining about it, the trip is off. She is quietly stewing. Same woman is now maxed out on dosage of 3 different BP meds, and a fourth med has been added. Kidneys functioning at 32%, but yup, she wants us to buy her fast food! 🙄😡 That is a HARD NO!

I have started seeds indoors. I am hoping for 6 cucumber plants, 8 bell pepper, and 12 broccoli plants out of the effort which would be a germination rate of about 75%. Of course, this is me these seeds are considering sprouting for, and they might just go, "Heck no! I am NOT hanging out all season with that plant murderer!" I have not planted the San Marzanos. The more I read about them, the more convinced I am that they may have been a bad choice for this region and my abilities. I think I may just by Amish paste tomato plants from the nursery as well as some romas. All the other seeds need to be direct sown. Green beans, carrots, radishes, scallions, chives, and sweet onion (those sets will come from the nursery as well). Mark might try his hand at some potatoes in large containers. If I have enough hanging pots, I might buy strawberry plants. Does anyone know how many plants can be placed in a 12" diameter pot that is about 6" deep? I was thinking 3, but maybe that is too many.

We finally got enough warmth to finish melting the snow. I am going out this afternoon to rake out the uncomposted leaves from the bed, and replace with the litter from the big pile of munched leaves that did compost this winter and looks really great. I have some organic chicken doo doo compost as well, and am adding some of that. The soil has settled since the bed was built three years ago, and I will be adding 3" of top soil over it, and then just let it sit and stew. I had decided against mixing it in so as not to disturb beneficial bacterial growth in the soil. Is that the right decision though? Should I be using my hand rake and trowel to give it a good mix? I have some seeds to start today. Mark will be doing a little pruning of the apple tree tonight after work. Other than that, nothing else will occur since we are going to be 24/7 busy with his mother Wednesday evening through next Tuesday evening. But when we return, he is building the new raised beds for me, and then we will engine the arduous task of shoveling in 3 cubic yards (2.265 cubic meters) of top soil and 1 cubic yard (0.765 meters cubed) of compost plus for the San Marzano tomato bed, some wood ash, and mixing together. Our hope is to have the new beds built the weekend of April 15, and all the soil transferred by April 22 when I leave for a week in Alabama. Then it is a waiting game until we can transfer seedlings. But, it absolutely has to be done by May 16. We leave the 17th for Virginia. If we don't have rain, my mom can water them. If we have a frost, she will have access to agricultural fabric that is ready to just pull over top of the beds. So it will be almost 2 weeks before I have anything to report or photos of the new beds.

Reporting on myself that we have been at our bachelor sons' home for three days, and they have wanted to eat and have us cook all their favorite things. We obliged. Health was NOT a consideration for those two! I am a sucker for making them happy. So, no report. Just put me in the dog house. We will try to get back on track today.

I am beginning a set of baby overalls made with strawberry themed fabric, trimmed in green check, and with strawberry buttons. I also have on deck to make some new curtains for the kitchen window over the sink. But, I have seeds to start inside first. Iw as supposed to do that last week, but, I ended up dealing with an emergency for mother in law, and then realized I didn't want them to germinate while I was gone, so delayed one week. I may not get back to sewing until after Easter.

So because Michigan is evil and awful, we are experiencing freezing rain. I have not been able to do anything in the raised bed I already have, and dh had not been able to build the news ones. When we aren't waffling back and forth between rain and snow, we have winds of 30-50 mph. Sigh. I am so over this. 😠😭 AND my mother in law through a massive monkey wrench in all my plans, and I have to take her to her gradndaughter's, a ten hour trip one way, next week and since it would be stupid to return home only to go back three days later to get her, spend five days in P.A., and no one will be here to watch over my plants if the seeds germinate so I can't start seeds indoors this week or next. I am waiting for April 6, planting them, turning the plant light on, and leaving a couple of bowls of water on the shelves with string from the bowls into each pod as a way of water wicking irrigation until I return and hoping that will be okay if they germinate while I am gone. I am NOT a happy gardener at the moment.

Right. Even in the military, personnel can violate an order on moral grounds, and have a means to defend themselves with representation for doing it. As far as I am concerned, those officers have NO out on this and should go to prison. I have a theory about Uvalde vs. Nashville. Hint. One of these two elementary schools has a 90% minority enrollment.

Most states tax the right to vote by requiring a state issued ID which costs a significant sum between the procuring of birth certificates, travel to and from the issuing agency, and the ID itself. It is a poll tax plain and simple. Tons of people seem to be just fine with that. In my state, it is $34.00 for the vital record (birth certificate), and $10 for an ID for a minor for the first issuance of an ID, $30 for driver's license or adult ID, or at least these were the fees quoted at our Secretary of State office locally. Sadly, they have also been known to be wrong, and not care. 😠 Anyway, that is a poll tax of $64.00 plus travel costs to get it. I don't see mass hysteria from the 2E folks about the infringement of the right to vote on the poor of America. It is an infringement/restriction. I am 100% with you that since even a plain text reading of 2E indicates there is no inherent right to guns without being well regulated because it literally says that. I have no idea how on earth we can motivate the powers that be other than voting out the morons, and potentially mass protests in every city, every town, every hamlet in America so vast that the one and only flipping thing they care about, the economic engine that makes them and their buddies ever richer, is brought to its knees. I do not think it is possible to get enough people to care enough to do it. Unfortunately, it will continue to get worse until enough of the Silent Generation and Boomers are gone that Millenials and Gen Z take control of the nation while Gen X silently watches as the much smaller generation of the bunch. Several demographers I have read indicate that as a voting bloc, this takes place between 2026-2028. And people wonder why GenZ doesn't want to have any kids!

Dwrn, I thought this was going to be Sid moment! 😂

I am behind again. The moms have had me hopping for several days. Monday: Breakfast - Java and a slice of toast Lunch - some fresh veggies and a Clementine Dinner - roasted chicken thigh with roasted red pepper and green beans, saffron rice Tuesday: Java only at breakfast GF pasta with homemade marinara, some parmesan, salad Two boiled eggs, a celery stick, and a rice cake

I don't have the time to go boot up my old laptop and look for the articles I did have in my bookmarks. Here is one from a quick Google search: https://www.ajc.com/blog/get-schooled/gunfights-trained-officers-have-percent-hit-rate-yet-want-arm-teachers/mDBlhDtV6Na4wJVpeu58cM/ Another: https://daiglelawgroup.com/new-study-on-shooting-accuracy-how-does-your-agency-stack-up/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/may/25/shannon-watts/do-more-7-10-police-bullets-miss-their-mark-gun-co/ I am upset, so I am not going to go looking for more at the moment. My BP is a little elevated. I need to seek some calm.

You are 100% spot on.

Thank you for saying it. This school district is only about 60 minutes away, the furthest reaches just bordering the district just south of my county. I have friends who have children in that school. I was having a hard time articulating what needed to convey without the emotion so I didn't post. I appreciate you vocalizing what I could not.

Well, I don't know if that is true. I think it is deeper than that. Between WWI and WWII, Europe endured an awful lot of homes without fathers, dads who didn't come home, in the millions. It didn't raise violence levels and crime subsequently. 2.5 million lost their dads in Germany alone. The US lost 180,000 fathers. There has been no correlation or hint of causation that these fatherless kids were more prone to crime and violence. It is easy to blame that. But the reality is there is something bizarrely wrong with the American psyche in the last 30 years. I personally believe we are a culture obsessed with violence as a means of airing grievances, an abnormal fascination and hero worship of violent people. However, that's only one facet of the problem.

Just found the website. The visa lasts 12 months. I am not sure if it is easy to renew for another year. But it would represent a definite mental break from the U.S. for those that qualify. https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp Adding healthcare information https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Barbados

Most recent baby outfit. I just need to finish the seam tape in the legs, and stitch those bunny buttons on, and then I have a baby quilt to finish.

Lovely!