An equinox. We told him to avoid those two. My nephew lives in Baltimore, and he said no one can get insurance on them because they are ridiculously easy to steal.

Youngest ds had to get a different car because his 98 Camry is starting to have too many mechanical issues to be reliable. He has been with Geico for 2 years. Boy, talk about not rewarding current customers who have good credit AND have never been late with a payment or even made a claim. For a 2012 car -owned - no loan - decent credit score, no accidents, no tickets, no nothing, medium policy plan, above the Michigan minimum but not anything close to a primo plan, $1000 deductible on collision, $500 on comprehensive, no towing or roadside assistance included - they wanted $7000 a year!!! 😠😠😠😠 So we had him run some online quotes from other companies. $243 a month. $3000 a year. Less than half. Geico lost a customer tonight. Sheesh. Same with banks upping fees on loyal, long time customers. But those same customers can switch banks and get discounts. It is like a never ending game of poaching. It gets old. Very very old dealing with the shenanigans and having to switch companies every couple of years.

Love SWB!

Just og hot water next to it and fabric, like a sheet, or agricultural fabric will go a long way towards protecting it.

I agree. Can we get rid of the damn calculators before 8th grade!!! Actually writing, long hand, solving problems activates the long term memory receptors of the brain. Same with pencil and paper and actually writing sentences on paper. Typing is for later. Little kids shouldn't be doing it. Science doesn't need tech until they are much older, and even then, there is a lot of good old fashioned solid science that doesn't need tech. They take up arduino programming when they are old enough to join the robotics team. Beakers and microscopes and flasks.....that's the ticket. I would never be elected to anything related to education because I am too darn radical.

Asding to this that Mark made all the kids learn to change a tire, change the oil in the car, and use a portable battery unit with jumper cables before they we went with them to get their permanent license. There is a driving test here, so they couldn't take it without one of us agreeing to the use of the car and of course being with them since they were driving on a permit. I think that it very useful. Unfortunately, ds once had to call a tow truck for a tire change because no matter what he did, he could not get the lug nuts off. The tow truck driver said they had been overtightened when he got new tires put on. But at least he knew how to do it! I was a stickler about being able to cook and grocery/meal plan, plus I deliberately took buttons of shirts or pants and made them show me they could sew them back on. My philosophy was once they turn 18, I should be able to retire from that little chore. 🤣

I think for neuro typical students, it is a matter of "firm foundation" and that is really set in the elementary years. I feel like our culture and our schools fall down on this in a big way these days. Puberty is a tough time to be told sink or swim when that foundation is not there. And confidence is a huge issue. If the parents helicopter, and the school babies at times when independence in the little things that build confidence, then it is going to be a bugger later. I see a lot of that. As Rosie said, it is all about investment. Not every kid is born naturally confident to embrace problem solving. It needs to be nurtured, and that means the adults in that child's life needed to step up when they were young. Let them figure out how to do some easy things after one demonstration, words of encouragement, hints and Socrafic method. Those early successes mean the world to them, and lay that foundation for the future. I see so much unnecessary "doing it for them" at the elementary level which isn't good. I get why. Student to teacher ratios are too high, and it is easier and less time intensive to just do it for them, spell it all out, walk everyone through every.little.thing simultaneously. It doesn't bode well when they are older. And without that confidence based in those early successes and mini victories, making the choice to haul everything around and use the bathroom seems way easier than spending the whole 5-10 minutes between classes fumbling at your locker or whatever the issue is at the moment. I wish for a world, a culture, an education system that sets up our youth for success and nort failure. I know. Pie in the sky, wishful thinking.

Reminds me of some of the "dad wrestles with 3 little sons and pays the price" bruises that Mark used to get when tackled by flying arms and legs. Being the father of 3 young kids, I could easily see there being a very innocent reason for these. He strikes me as the type of dad who, like his mom, tries to be as involved of a parent as he can manage under his circumstances.

Bingo!

I just started, "The Uninhabitable Earth". Warning. This book is not just for kicks and giggles!

I really don't normally give a crap about what the Royal family is up to. This got on my radar over my interest in what AI and manipulated photos released to social media is doing to some people's lives. It is very disturbing.

Agreed. I left the work force when our 2nd child had a health issue. It was before I had enough credits to qualify for ss and disability. But when the cardiologist tells you to take your kid home and isolate him at all costs to do everything possible to keep him from getting sick again for a couple years without putting said kid in a bubble, what is the alternative? Our system absolutely hammers any parent who has to make this choice. So many changes needed, and needed a very very long time ago!

Ours eliminated lockers. Kids have to tote everything to class. Part of the reason was practicality. They schedule classes with only 5 minutes in between, and combined grades 7-12 into one building. Hallways were congested, and no one who locker was on one end of the building to get to their locker and back to the opposite end on time. It got easier when they decided "who needs books", and decided a book was a tragedy perpetuated on youth, and thought a notebook/kindle thing was better. At least the kids are not getting bad backs from toting 60 lbs of books around all day. But mostly, it just makes my brain twitch. They sold the lockers at auction. It was shocking just how many lockers that was. But apparently some of them dated back to the 1960's when the high school population was 3 or 4 times the size it is now. They do have coat hooks and racks at the entrances, and in many of the classrooms so in the winter kids can hang those up and not haul them from room to room.

I don't know how many of you are aware of the background of Doug Phillips of Vision Forum infamy from the 90's and 2000's until his flaming fall from the homeschool movement. Here it is because it is very much aligned with the issues Pam in Ct was posting about. Doug's father, Howard Phillips, was a political activist who formed the Constitution Party, now known as the TaxPayer Party. You may have seen the taxpayer party on a ballot with some obscure name next to it and wondered what that was all about. Howard formed this party, and even campaigned for president, on a platform of "Christian women should vote for me so I can institute a 'city on a hill' theocracy in which as soon as I am elected, I will repeal women's voting rights because that is god's plan" kind of thing. He didn't get far, but he did run three times ,1992, 1996, and 2000. He didn't get more than 200,000 votes in any one of these runs, however you do need to imagine the potential influence of someone who had just enough funding to run around the country stumping in a lot of states, speaking in a lot of churches and faith based conventions. Imagine what happens to the right to credit, the right to enter rental contracts, car loans, the right to bank accounts, if the right to vote goes the way of the Dodo.s He essentially took up the flame of Phyllis Schafly and Jerry Falwell which had begun dying down a good bit. It helped launch Doug's career, a career that put him first in the halls of Homeschool Legal Defense Association, and then later to Vision Forum and homeschool conventions all over the US, special speaker in many conservative environs around the nation, and much liked by several prominent policy makers. So Howard and Doug may have been thought of as fringe to many, many regular people just going about their lives thinking whackadoodles will never get the upper hand on issues. Yet, fringe often does have a lot more influence than we tend to notice until that moment when we get hit upside the head with the proverbial iron skillet and go, "Where the heck did that come from!" I hope that was not too political. And is very difficult to talk about ideology and how those ideas infiltrate our culture without making any reference to politics. I am more than willing to delete this content if it deemed over the line. The degradation of women's rights returns half the population of this nation and their children to a subclass that has no way out of male domination when things go wrong. I think about John MacArthur who excommunicated a woman from his church for divorcing her husband who was sexually abusing their children. The husband went to prison, but she lost her church family and support because "how dare she". I am very thankful that the state of California was not an autocracy under theological ideology that made it impossible for her to get out. As for MacArthur, you can only imagine what I think of him. It would have to be expressed with symbols, because the words would be highly inappropriate for this forum! That is the mess Jinger Duggar Vuolo is knee deep inside. Sigh. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire, as the saying goes.

I think that if we were talking about the crunchy, earth mom influence, then that is a very valid point. Most of the influencers I have seen do not appear to espousing this at all given the sheer amount of lab/manufactured fibers used in their clothing, decor, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly with the performative aspect, and certainly so among "influencers". There is also this kind of mean girl hierarchy, " Look at me. I am better than you because I am doing what God says women should do" kind of attitude. Then there is the whole "Above rubies" thing where they casually forget that this woman had servants to run the home so she could be devoted to business. Above Rubies type theology permeated a lot of homeschool groups and women's faith conventions in the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's, and it was built on a false ideology that the average woman without servants, without the kind of living community of the time period in which it was written was even doable, much less even being desirable or well suited for all women. It was a mess, and this tradwife thing seems to continue to be founded on a one size fits all diminution of womanhood to one very narrow focus. Think about a lot of the speaker at the larger homeschool conferences that weren't Gothard. Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips, Videos Baucham, Geoff Botkin, Josh Harris to some degree, RC Sprout Jr, and many others. Here is an article from the New Yorker that is very interesting. https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-unmaking-of-biblical-womanhood The women of Duggar and Bates acclaim might seem to be some sort of extreme, aberrations whose influence should not be taken seriously. But, Jinger - very much still in deep, just with a different leader John MacArthur - Jessa, and Joy have millions of followers. So though they might be considered fringe by boarded here, their IBLP style message disguised by looking more mainstream, is a bit more influential than some would like to believe. These are just three examples. There are many more whose influence has seeped into public life in a very subtle, but definitely noticeable way at a time when human rights are being eroded rather quickly.

The sadbeigechildren thing is about this very popular aesthetic with influencer moms where literally it seems like everything their baby wears, plays with, everything she decorates with, is beige, cream, and grey but mostly beige. Zero color. It is the most boring color palette ever. Not a splash of color anywhere. Jessa and Joy Duggar who do the influencing thing ( and let me just say I am really disgusted by it because it is 100% pimping out their kids for money) and their videos are just, well, sad and beige. Carlin Bates, And just so many others who are well known extreme fundamentalist moms are very into this. The meme was born when people began to notice the trend among them, and I am not exaggerating when I say it is difficult to find any hint of bright color or even a pastel on these kids, around these kids, in the decor. It is 100% neutral, and the least striking neutrals at that. Not even chocolate brown or dark, charcoal grey. It makes everything blend together and look so bland. People feel sorry for the babies especially because as vision is developing the lack of color must be so boring.

There is a comic book and antique store in West Branch, MI that has a very big collection. I don't know if they would be interested in buying all of it, but it might be worth asking. West Branch Comics and Antiques - 989-726-5015 A&A Comic Book Store Lansing - 517-303-3445 The Shire Comics, Commerce - 248-895-8037 They are actively advertising that they are buying comics. I am so sorry about your brother. Hugs

Have any of you seen the movie, "Mona Lisa Smile"? The propaganda from those looking to restrict women to a Leave it to Beaver type nostalgia reminds me of the scenes from the movie in which the instructors of Vassar College tried to prep the students for their inevitable marriage outcome in which they have to be perfect 24/7 without ambition or aspiration, making everything just perfect for their perfect, pipe smoking, successful, future politician/rich/business husbands going so far as to not require class attendance nor test taking or homework if they married prior to graduation so that they could set up house and make things all nice nice for their perfect husbands. If you haven't seen it and have HBO MAX streaming, I think it is available on that platform. It is exactly the kind of thing that Prairiewindmomma and others are alluding to, and it is kind of thought provoking. We haven't had the right to vote, to own property, to have bank accounts and investments, an ability to live as adults with autonomy and non-dependency upon men for very long. There is, I believe, a movement within some conservative, religious elements to erode those rights until the accepted narrative for women is Mona Lisa Smile or worse. In the instance of this speech, I think the entire thing, not just her voice, is the issue. There is so much subtext with the speech, the setting, the slant, mannerisms...

My.eyes.are.bleeding.

Navymom, your instincts are screaming at you that being involved is bad for you and your family. You didn't want financial POA and got goaded into it. Do not agree to the loan, and rescind your POA. You didn't know want to be pulled in, and now they are trying to do that. NO, stoutly given, is a full sentence, and that is ALL the attorney, your parents, and anyone else needs to hear. Once you tell them you are no longer willing to be POA. Do whatever has to be done in your state to be removed from that, and then ignore communications from your dad and the attorney. If they can't draw you into communications, they can't manipulate you. Put your mental health and your family's future ahead whatever this mess is they are trying to draw you into.

I would not do that. States are going after people who help hide parental assets and income from medicaid. This close to the application time, and it could very well be problematic. You want to keep your financials entirely separate of your parents and let the chips fall where they may.

Nm

That makes sense. I thought she was recovering in one of their not in London castle/palace/houses. I can totally Ser things being green in London. I sure wish that they didn't need to make any kind of statements or release photos or anything.

I am now up to 1 bell pepper, 8 lettuce, 2 sugar snap peas, and 2 broccoli having sprouted. Onwards and upwards. I am making sure that the grow lights are on my new seedlings for 8 hrs a day or a little more just to make sure they don't get leggy. Of course they are still very small. Fingers crossed for more new babies tomorrow!