Even if it is negative on retest, if there are symptoms, just hunker down. We have RSV going around so bad, my great niece who is only one years old, is hospitalized. She got the last pediatric bed on this side of the state. The one and only pediatrician in our county says that if she had even one more patient in need of 24/7 care, she is turning her office into a make shift kid emergency unit, and she and her nurses will keep them there because soon there won't be anywhere to send them. That is pretty crazy. The RSV is just is bad. I hope we have a vaccine soon! Influenza this year is no picnic either. Sigh....😢

I will habe to check this doc out.

The next quilt is planned out. Don't be impressed. It isn't like the first one is done, 😂! I just needed to get this drawn out on paper to make sure I had enough fabric to do what I wanted.

Again, not accurate. 25% of all children suffer abuse and or neglect. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470337/ Estrangement statistics match this number quite accurately. I have no idea at all what the issues are for the OP and make no judgment on that. But to suggest it is a fad for victims to themselves off from their abusers is an outlook that is disturbing.That really isn't grey. Also, 30 states have filial elder care laws obligating children, regardless of circumstances, to financially support/care for their elderly parents. 11 states are fairly non assertive about enforcement. Pennsylvania is troublesome, and has been known to do full financial audits of children to determine if they can be forced to pay for their parents' care or not. https://www.paelderlaw.net/pennsylvanias-filial-support-law-children-can-be-held-responsible-for-parents-unpaid-nursing-home-bill/ Though Michigan does not have a filial support law, when my father became violent and out of control, I was threatened with prosecution under some little used elder neglect/abuse law after he called 911 when I refused to stay in the house with him. $5000 in attorney fees later, I was able to get the DA to back off, but it hurt us financially because we really could not afford that at the time, and I have PTSD from the situation. So don't be naive about what the US will do if some prosecutor, some social worker, some judge decides you should be the fall guy for your elder, abusive parent. With the baby boomers all aging and soon to overwhelm the very broken elder care system, I suspect that many states will start going after adult children to try to force them to care for or pay for caregivers for their parents. The average cost of nursing homes is now $140,000 a year. How many of you think that offspring should have to be on the hook for that and especially for abusive parents?

It isn't a fad. This isn't bell bottoms vs boot cut. Millennial and GenZ are taking mental health a hell of a lot more seriously than Boomers and Gen X ever did. They are recognizing unhealthy relationship patterns and embracing the fundamental truth that they do not have to engage in relationships out of obligation. It is a generational shift against unhealthiness. That isn't a fad. It is a meaningful, cultural change, and it is okay even if the older generations do.not.like it. If I had not been steeped in religious koolaid that made me think it was my job to put up with my father's egregious behavior, I would have gone no contact. Zero contact. Walked away to never return. I thought I could not do that. It would have been so much better for me, so much better for Dh. It is really minimalizing and just sh*tting on the younger generation to call this a fad. Just because parents don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. OP, you can't win this, but you sure can lose it. So like everyone else has said, keep your feelings to yourself and if she says Happy Birthday, text "thanks" and move on. You don't need to do more than that, and probably should not. Many hugs!!! As I tell my daughter often, parenting is the hardest schtick anyone will ever have.

When we have bikes, we put them in the tail veil and close the windows/side vents so that no one can see them. But, since we do mostly state park and national forest camping in campgrounds, we don't do a lot more than that because we have had no issues with theft. There are lots of people around and park rangers along with camp hosts running around all the time and making sure everything is okay. Michigan parks are super robust this way. We also camped at Cooper's Rock campground in West Virginia and it was very much the same way. If we dispersed camped, we would probably take the more expensive items with us in the mini-camper van if we were going someplace. Our kayaks are stored on top of the van, so they aren't super easily accessible, and well, hard to just walk off with. But again, we have never had any issues.

No breakfast, salad for lunch with a boiled egg, and broccoli and beef stir fry for supper, heavy on the broccoli and light on the beef. I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while. Ofherwise, I would imagine it will be a good 10 days, maybe longer before we have beef again.

We have mostly rabbits, ground hog, possum, toad, several kinds of birds and moles in our yard. But on the outskirts of this little town we have coyote, fox, deer, coon, beaver, geese, ducks, pheasant, partridge, quail, wood ducks, wild turkey, and sometimes sea gulls. Everyone hates and despises coons, ground hogs, and deer because they do such substantial damage to crops and gardens. We had to shoot the occasional rabbit and ground hog until we started raised bed gardens that are two feet off the ground.

We are low maintenance, low pressure people. So the kids know they can do whatever works best for them. I think because of that, they have a tendency to want to be home for the holidays. Well that and the home cooked food. It could be the food. The three bachelor's do cook, but not on the level that I and the grandmothers cook. Dd likes food that she has NOT had to prepare, and having the uncles - viewed as large jungle gyms and personal entertainment devices by the grandsons - around so she and hubby do not have to parent or fuss with them at the table. It is time off for them! If we didn't have the kids, Mark and I would cook simply, snuggle up on the couch with books and movies, and enjoy quiet, down time, or maybe go somewhere tropical for the holiday and hang out on the beach. We see our offspring often enough throughout the year that are fine with not having a big, family thing.

I made a pot of meatless chili yesterday. We do like to put a little sour cream in it, but otherwise very yummy, healthy, and filling. We had it with salads last night, will use it to top baked potatoes for lunch, and then have bowls again tonight with some steamed broccoli on the side and homemade, gluten free cornbread. Tomorrow I am making a pot of potato chowder and we will do that again for a couple of days so that I am not cooking every meal.

Thanks. It should be a small amount of needles. The compost pile is under some dead branches of the tree that didn't get pruned this year so they didn't produce needles. What would be in the pile will be only that which the wind carried. I don't have any blueberries, azaleas, or hydrangeas on this property. The Alabama house has nine gorgeous blueberry bushes, and a ton of lovely hydrangeas.

Thank you for all the help! The pile is about five feet away, under the high branches of a pine tree along the row that my apple trees are in so I think if I get it fenced with the snow fence, I can keep it away from the apple tree trunks. The pine tree is old and needs to come down in the next year or two. The compost still isn't anywhere near touching the pine tree trunk. But it did occur to me that maybe I shouldn't have pine needles in my compost. I am not sure if those are problematic. Off to figure that out. I am going to have my work cut out for me if I have to move the pile. I will do it though if that is best.

I think it is great! Mark bought me the Dickens Christmas Carol set. I am camping at the bit to put it together, and have been waiting for the day after Thanksgiving to do ir, but feel my resolve waning. 😁

Doubt that. They have the machinery and can make a face cord in about 1 hour. Minimum wage here is only $10 an hour. They aren't splitting it with an axe. We also order it to spec, and can handle logs up to 24" in length in our wood boiler so they do not have to do as many cuts, and much of it is not split since we don't need it that way. We are taking three face cord split (log splitter) at $85 a face just to have small stuff for starting fires. It is all downed wood that their dad, who got injured, is no longer milling for lumber. When we took two huge maple trees on my brother's property down with chain saws and a small tractor, we went from dropping the trees to stacked wood in one day of 9 am to 4 pm with breaks and produced 7 face cord - they were absolutely huge trees and so sad that they were diseased and had to come down. These young men are not having to fell the trees nor take the branches off. I also seriously doubt that any of the other adults managing wood lots would be willing to sell wood if they were only making minimum wage.

Thanks! I don't have chicken wire, but I do have some snow fence left on a roll from doing a protected area on my mom's property where we were trying to prevent some drifting. I can use that to keep it all together.

Wood is plentiful so not expensive in our area, and lots of people have their own wood lots and portable saw mills, log splitters, etc. We have our own log splitter, just not a wood lot. So there are many many firewood sellers. It is $90 a face cord delivered, $60 if we pick it up. We have a trailer that can hold a facecord at a time so we pick it up. It is all white oak (rare to find red oak since that is always milled into lumber and sold at high price), maple, ash, birch, and occasionally a little bit of hickory. It isn't kiln dried, just stacked and seasoned naturally so this is probably last years cutting since it is all very dry.

So in spite of spending part of the day helping Mark get two face cord of wood unloaded and stacked, I managed to rake up a huge pile of leaves and grass clippings into a new, large compost pile next to my apple trees. I am new to this though so I have questions. Should I cover the pile with a tarp to hold heat in while coming into the Michigan cold season? Or should I leave it to mother nature to take care of as is?

Here is the fabric for quilt number one. This is for our soon to be daughter in law. She loves birds, woodlands, soft blue and greens. I hope she likes this. It will be reversible so the chickadees and birch trees will be on one side, and the owls and foliage on the otherside, and the binding done in brown so it coordinates with both sets of prints. I will be tying them or doing "stitch in the ditch" because lap quilts are now $100 a piece to have long armed. I have a queen size quilt top for our bed that has been done for two years, but hasn't been quilted because I really want it done in a musical pattern, but keep finding other ways to spend the $200+ dollars it would take to get the long arm done. I have to get my sewing area organized and tidied up so I can get started on it.

This is lovely!!!

He is cracking me up today! 😂😂😂

I have 4. I wanted 2. 2 were surprises despite vigilant use of birth control. So the 4th meant we took serious, permanent measures. I am happy with them. I adore them, and we have good relationships with all four of them now that they are adults and living independently. None of them are just like me. One is a literal mini-dh. My two oldest did inherit my musical genes. I have two siblings, and I am the middle, but we are spread out. My brother is four years older than I, and my sister was a big surprise almost 14 years younger.

Because I am insane, certifiably ready for the bin, I have decided to give lap quilts for Christmas to four people, draft dogs (rice filled fabric tubes to lay against exterior doors), and home canned food as well as frozen meals for Christmas, I now get to embark upon a frenzied season of sewing and cooking. 😱💀 It might be good if someone sent authorities to do a well check around Dec. 18 just to see if I am still kicking! 😁

We will have adult children with us. Usually, we also have our grandsons, but this year they are going to be with their other grandparents, and I am very glad of that because due to distance, lack of vacation for the grandparents on that side, and some health issues, our grandboys do not know their paternal grandparents as well as us. They are great people. It is excellent that they will be there. I will miss them though. Our Christmas traditions began changing as the kids aged and went off to college. In the past few years they have changed a lot. We have Danish Smorrebrod on Christmas Eve Day, and brunch on Christmas Day. It is way more laid back then during the years when the kids were little and we went back and forth between the two sets of grandparents both of whom were HIGH STRUNG and highly controlling on the holidays, not to mention toxic relatives we were expected to endure. Now we host, we are relaxed and fun loving, and we cut out the toxic people who every single year would make us absolutely miserable with their drama and antics. It is an adjustment for sure. But when the kids were little they were always in the church play, the homeschool group play, dh was singing in the community choir, I had my piano students' Christmas recital, plus a choir I accompanied for, plus a choir I directed, plus....Christmas is an insane time for professional musicians and for teachers. I was ALWAYS exhausted and then trying to make the holiday season special for the kids. I actually love and relish how much more relaxec and laid back we were. I think though that there is a lot of adjustment in the first few years to the empty nest. I would be okay if we had years in which we didn't celebrate the day, and either hunkered down at home or traveled for fun maybe leaving the Michigan frigidity for somewhere warm where we could kayak, sail, or van camp.

I would like to remind people who do not understand the worker shortage that 4 million people left the workforce and did not return after the 2020 lockdown. Another million retired within the next two years. A million died, and while many of those were older folks our of the workforce, we still lost a substantial amount that were working age. Women left the workforce to supervise their children for online school and when 50% of the daycares in just my state alone did not re-open, those same parents were forced to stay out of work or to reduce their hours to work only when their children were in school. The workforce was turned upside down. On top of this, the last of the BabyBoomers are heading into retirement age, and millions more will leave creating lots of promotions for Gen X which will leave a lot of promotions for Mils. Gen Z, the current crop of teens and early to mid-20 year olds was smaller than Mils. They can't fill the vacancies left by the Mils who move up the chain. In addition to this, immigration which used to make up for labor shortfalls is exceedingly tight to non-existent. Mathematically speaking, there aren't bodies to fill the gaps. Yes, that means businesses will have to be very competitive to get workers because workers have a lot of choice, and many will not be able to hire. This is not an issue of character or morality. It is simple math. Mils and Gen Z also have realized they are inheriting an absolute sh*tshow. Knowing how effed their futures are, they have very much collectively decided not to take the crap that Gen X has endured from their employers, and they don't have to because their presence in the workforce is desperately needed. The reality is that a lot of businesses and companies have piss poor business plans. They really think short term, and impulsively. For instance, Dollar General has built 3 new DG's in our county. We already had a plethora of them. But the demographics of my county is that it had been losing population steadily for the last thirty years. A whomping 25% of the population is aged 60+. That is 1/4th of the population is retiring or already retired. Another 14.4% are between the ages of 18-65 and on disability. They aren't working. The number of folks age 16-25, the ones who would often work these types of retail jobs while in high school, college, while trying to figure out what kind of career they want to end up in is only 18%. How many people are in my county. 52,400 rounded up. Now think about how few workers that is, and they have to compete with ALL the other businesses and employers in the county from the fire places to auto parts to fast food to hospital to farms to manufacturing, which we do still have some small manufacturing places left. And the demographic of worker that DG wants are the very people graduating high school, leaving for job training and college, and never coming back. The prediction is another 8-10% lost by the next census, and the schools are looking at which districts will need to combine. The net result is not only can they not staff the new DG's, they are struggling to staff the ones they already had. So why did the ding gong company build 3 more? Because when they announce expansion, stock prices go up. Executives, board of directors, major stock holders make money. They will play this game for a while and then when DG has issues, sell high, make a killing, and then announce "Well bummer. We have to close a whole bunch of stores." It is just crazy. The amount of money they will make is ridiculous, and then the house of cards will fall. It is a business plan based on short term accumulation of wealth by abusing resources to consume land, building materials, etc. only to abandon it and leave the locals with the mess. The county seat of only 4300 people has five auto parts stores. Five. And the newest built one, an O'Reilly, is complaining it can't make money. Well duh. It is in a three block area that includes, NAPA, Auto Value, Auto Zone, and Advanced Auto all of whom are across the road from Walmart! 🙄 No joke. What a dumb business plan! On top of which there are only 4 towns in the entire county that do not have an auto parts store. The McDonald's/Taco Bell/Shell Gas, Dollar General in every hamlet, every city neighborhood, every suburb was NEVER a sustainable plan. Shrinking generations, and GEN Z likely to have practically zero kids in the grand scheme of "population growth" of necessity means that businesses will close. They have to close. There aren't workers for all of them. The ones that are left, like it or not, are going to have to treat their workers like liquid gold to keep them for a while until the situation equalized to where there are not a huge number of jobs available and no bodies to fill them much less workers willing to take a "go no where" job which a lot of these are. Even in my dad's heating and cooling business, there was no room for advancement, no way to get any further ahead than the worker already was. The business plan only called for 1-2% pay raises, and no expansion so no one was ever going to go anywhere in the job. That is really common with many businesses. My county is not the only one like this. Business saturation exceeding any possibility of population support is actually not rare. As for young people not working, we just fetched two more face cord of wood from the two high school boys we are patrons of in the community to the north of us. They are charging $60 a face cord and have ordered 25. They have numerous customers. They make twice per hour or more for their hard work at home, and can work it round school, family life, etc. than they can make at fast food or the gas stations or anywhere else hiring high school students. We very much appreciate them and their industrious nature/hard labor, and are more than happy to spend our money with them usually leaving an additional tip after every two or three face loads we pick up. I am sure the local Dollar General manager doesn't appreciate that these hard working young men have the opportunity to control their own hours and make more money than working for DG. I have no sympathy for the company.

Bingo. At least in America, companies really like Dickensien. Pay pittance to the workers, while the CEO's and their friends take home hundreds of millions between salary and stock options. They really really like Scrooge and awful lot. He is their role model. They aren't so fond of the last part of that story, so they ignore that and hope the ghosts of their actions never come home to roost on them.