Because I used to do professional event planning, my sons have seen enough drama to last a life time. I truly hate weddings in any form since then because people are just awful to each other. They decided that if they ever committed to a life partner, they would each do the online officiant training and perform each other's ceremonies or create their own blessing type ceremony for just immediate family and a few, close friends then go to a restaurant. We are now in the process of planning for our eldest son and wonderful dil whom we adore. We have a nice room at a restaurant, and since they both wanted a nod to their Scottish heritage, I have tartan plaid ribbon I ordered for each family. I am surrounding candle jars with the ribbon, putting three different sizes together on Dollar Tree gold charger plates, putting Dollar Tree glass gems in the bottoms, filling with water, and adding an LED floating candle. I have ivory lace pieces left over from dd's wedding that will go on the tables, and some dark burgundy poly satin to go under the lace. The restaurant has some silk ficus plants that we are allowed to use and will put twinkle lights in, and we have a black archway from the garden that we are cleaning up and putting in the room with the ficus plants for a little photo spot. We have ordered the buffet for the 25 people who will be there. My sister is making a small, 3 tier cake which will be decorated with the ribbon around each layer, and have a small silk flower topper which I will make. The venue did not mind us bringing cake in since they only have pies and ice cream on their dessert menu and the room is used for all kinds of parties like birthdays and such so people often bring decorated cakes. We are paying $20 a head for the very nice buffet and will not be paying for alcohol, just non alcoholic beverages. Dil purchased a nice, black gown from a resale store which my mom is altering for her, and she is adding a matching tartan shawl. Ds has his own kilt and tux shirt. We have a playlist of songs which dh will keep going in the background. Middle son is performing the ceremony and will do a small part of it in Danish as a nod to the other half of our heritage, and her dad is giving a prayer for the couple in Polish which is the other big piece of dil's ancestry. Not a single drama king or queen has been invited. My brother and his shrew will not be there, nor dh's sister, nor my alcoholic nephew and my very unstable niece. Dil did not invite her own brother due to his very poor behavior. I am looking forward to the low key, simple nature, and a small amount of people so we can all visit and enjoy each other. I am not sure I will EVER attend another big wedding in this lifetime. They have become such ridiculous, drama filled nightmares. The last one I went to the bride's brother got drunk and then spent the evening deliberately trying to spill beer on his sister. Eventually the groom got sick of it and physically evicted his brother in law. What a lovely start! 😡 We would have supported ds and dil if they had not chosen to do any kind of event. But we are also happy to splurge for this simple, cozy affair. Her family really cannot afford to do it so we are happy to pitch in, and it will give us an opportunity to visit and get to know each other a little bit.

Hey, I feel called out! (Said the woman who attended her husband's "light up the dead raccoon with thermite" event.)

That is a very big difference! But I don't advocate for couples to invite people to their island honeymoon/wedding events. Just elope and make an announcement later. This expecting people to spend thousands to attend a wedding is just wicked!

Whoa! People are nuts!

To cheese or not to cheese is always answered, "More cheese".

We were raked over the coals by a guest at HIGH volume (dd's wedding) for not providing McD's happy meals for her kids. It was an RSVP wedding so they knew ahead of time that we were not providing fast food for kids. There was roast chicken, baby red herbed potatoes, roast asparagus, carrot and rice pilaf, spring green salads with numerous fresh veggies for toppings, a large fruit bowl of mixed fruit, and rolls plus desserts. It was so ridiculous. Actually, I have seen so much egregious behavior from relatives at weddings, and brides reduced to tears that I no longer think weddings ate a good idea. Just take friends, go to the courthouse or pastor's office, have a nice honeymoon, and then send out an announcement upon return.

Since they are not violent crimes, they are usually minimum security which means not as restrictive and often a bit nicer. The prison system is classified by level of security provided based on level of risk. So minimum, medium, and maximum.

As usual, Rosie nailed it spot on!!!

No man's land. It is good for scavengers. But I have to admit to a little bit of secret support for over the fence of the mean guy. 😁

Right. Most of us are going to have to work in order to keep health insurance and put enough away to maybe pay for some care when we ourselves are elderly. My husband is only 58, will work to 65, and currently has an 85 almost 86 year old mother who is VERY demanding. She doesn't seem to care if she runs him into the ground. His brother lives 800 miles away, his sister 1400, and his sister is a very abusive person who cannot be allowed to be around. How is he supposed to work full time (for his company that is 54 hours a week for salaried personnel and often works 60) and take care of her and not collapse? Well, of course I pitch in. But I need to get back to work and can't because between her and my own mother, there is too much to do for them. We are slowly transitioning what we can to hired help, however, neither one has enough money to hire out enough to really give us a break. People live on average quite a bit longer with debilitating conditions than they did in previous generations. Medical technology is a double edged sword, wonderful and crisis causing all in one. We still as a nation have not collectively met these challenges head on. And frankly, if the economy is a worry, it cannot handle a mass exodus of workers taking up unpaid care giving as the largest generation in history is embarking on a mass retirement and a lot of health problems. I was still trying to manage homeschooling a high school senior, and a 10th grader, and working part time, and my mom recovering from surgery and my dad on hospice simultaneously. I ended up with health issues of my own, and in therapy for the inevitable mental crash that came. Hospice here only provides one hour of CNA and one RN visit per week. Nothing else. No insurance pays for in home care for someone who is non ambulatory and is recovering from surgery. My assumption is that in families where there isn't a mule like me that kills themselves to provide care, people just go to the nursing home.

Wow! That is awful! As for living to an ancient age, that is a hard nope for me. I already have a general age and set of failing health parameters in mind for when I will take a one way trip to Switzerland for assisted suicide. I absolutely refuse to do to my kids what my elderly relatives have done to me.

Bingo! I am scared for these children because I think worse may have happened. 😥

They are so cute!

Laura, is Scotland talking about voting on independence again? I have read some articles that seem to indicate Brexit had been a disaster for Scotland, and that maybe folks would like to rejoin the EU which would mean or course separating from UK. Any thoughts on that? If they do, how would that affect the other UK countries.

This. When my father died after putting me through hell and back (much of it by his own choice, no dementia there), it was my brother blubbering at his funeral though he had not lifted a finger to care for him. My sister and I were so relieved, and just wanted the damn funeral over because we were so bone tired exhausted from caring for him, and my mother in a fit of not thinking had a public funeral knowing that her entire damn church plus the whole community would show up (dad was a prominent business person). Over 500 at the funeral. Another 350 for the viewing. Though we paid for the custodial team to clean up, we were still expected to physically clean. Note that my lazy a$$ brother didn't lift a finger for that either. Sis and I have vowed that we won't hold a funeral for mom when the time comes. Instead, we are having a private back yard barbecue with a few friends, and our nieces and nephews and their spouses. My brother and his wife will not be invited. Guilt sobbing might be a thing for sure. In my brother's case, I am fairly certain it was putting on a show for his friends, colleagues, and pastor. I think he is too self centered to feel actual guilt. Get sis out now, OP! You cannot stop your mother from deferring to your father. She is making that choice all on her own. It is also not your responsibility to prevent them from taking the consequences of running your sister into the ground and not paying her, and your dad and other sibling not caring, and denigrating her. They can hire help and find out that employees have a lot of personal boundaries that family doesn't have or they can go to a facility and deal with that fall out. Please, please preserve your sister's health and future.

This breaks my heart! Sincerely, I do not want any product delivered to my region that requires this level of actual, human slavery, and that is exactly what it is. I am so very, very sorry. I am so ashamed of this country allowing such things to be legal. Though it will cripple the economy, I truly hope railroaders find other employment and walk off the job.

Gently here as one person who is so burned out on elder care giving that I can hardly breath and two siblings who do nothing but have strong opinions, let your sister move on even if it means you help her financially to get settled. This is no way to live. Elders who insist on aging in place when that requires one of their children to destroy their own health need a reality check. And frankly, they do have the right to age in place and endure disaster and tragedy. There is little you can do to stop it. Give your mother the phone numbers for hired health care workers, the community department for the aging who may be able to provide some housekeeping and handyman work. We forced our mothers to do this, and so now they get four of hours of assistance per week. It isn't a lot, but it gets the bathroom disinfected, dusting done, and laundry which is especially hard for my mother in law with her vertebra degeneration. Meals on Wheels will often deliver one meal per day. The other meals can be fruit and fresh veggies, cheese and boiled eggs prepped by the housekeeper if they are eligible which they probably are. See if there are any neighbors who would like to earn some side money by delivering a hot meal twice per week. Tell them it doesn't have to be elaborate, just nutritious. Give them grocery funds and agree on a wage for cooking and delivery. Mother in law is now paying someone to take her grocery shopping once per week, and to bring the groceries in and put them away. But you need to get your sister out. Nursing homes and assisted care have shifts of people. No one works or is on call 24/7/365. Your sister is going to have her mental and physical health destroyed. And personally, I give you permission to tell your nosy sibling to shut the eff up! Seriously. I told my brother where to go and when to get there, and reminded him that I absolutely would dump ALL mom's needs on him, and then report him for elder neglect if he didn't meet them if kept messing around making more work for me, and devaluing what I do! I was not playing. My mental health was hanging by a thread. He shut up. In my experience, the warmonger in the family has no intention of doing any work and when faced with the real possibility of having to put up or shut up, shuts up. Incompetency is such a high bar, I doubt you can mount the case unless he has been diagnosed with a specific dementia like Alzheimer's. The petition would also need to come from your mom in all likelihood in order for it to be seriously considered by the court. It is worth it if you can really make a case, but you need the advice of a very experienced elder care attorney before making a decision to pursue or not. Ultimately, there is very little that you can force on them at all. But what you can do is get your sister out. If you don't, you could end up with her crashing and then needing care which compounds the problem and does no one any good.

I am so sorry for everyone facing this please be safe!

This makes me want to cry! Poor babies. 😭

Your roses are gorgeous!!! 😍 So no sooner than we got all of the fruit trees and plants in the ground, the big freeze came across Northern Bama and we have had to cover everything from sundown to about 10 am. I would like to uncover them sooner in the morning, but since we are about 10 degrees cooler on the mountain compared to the valley most of the time, it is taking a while to get warm enough to be certain it is okay to remove the sheets we have been using to protect them. Sometimes I wonder if bad weather just attaches itself to me and follows me wherever I go!!

On the subject of composting toilets, I wish we had a LOT of toilets converted to composting in order to save water.

Right. Access at a distance is all dependent on climate and weather. In the U.P. of Michigan in the winter, temps are routinely -17C (0F) and below with wind chills ranging from -10 to -20 or -23 to -28C, and 6-8ft of snow, 1.83-2.44 meters on average that must be treked through, and along Lake Superior, the snowfall totals.are far worse..Hypothermia is a very routine thing for people.who go out at night, and it happens quite rapidly if proper gear is not worn. In a camper without insulated indoor plumbing, strong heat source, and a lot of insulation in general, even having a jug of water for washing hands would be quite difficult because the water would freeze very solid. In the "good ole days" up there, people used chamber pots and the urine would freeze solid. No one washed their hands after using said chamber pot. Hygiene was an issue. Native Americans had medicinal plants that they rubbed their hands with after using chamber pot systems. They therefore had fewer diseases related to hygiene. So for people living in Northern climates, lack of indoor plumbing during the winter really would be an indication of serious societal collapse if it became more than the occasional person choosing it as a lifestyle whereas it might not be seen quite so horrible in better climate conditions. Unfortunately, due to the number of folks trying to actually live as dispersed campers due to an inability to afford housing, in my state it is a very real indication of something along the lines of another Great Depression being around the corner if our nation does not get its act together. Some communities are trying to tackle it as best they can without state or federal support which is not the best way to address thie, but at least they are making an effort. In my father's out house days, his mother refused to have chamber pots. They braved the elements. In the heated lean to at the back door, she kept a pail of water and a container of hydrogen peroxide beside it so everyone could disinfect their hands before entering the main part of the house.

Q.F.T.!!!

My mom and dad both spent a significant portion of their childhood's without indoor plumbing. I did not. Mark and I have done dispersed, rustic camping by choice in National Forests, but again, by choice for a specific reason. That reason is to get away from any WiFi source, off grid, so that his work colleagues cannot bother him because it is the only way for him to have a true vacation. His work colleagues have exactly ZERO sense of boundaries, and are the type who would meet him in the recovery room after surgery to shake him awake to solve their problems for them. That is only a small exaggeration. When he had hand surgery and had to be under full general, his own manager wanted to know what the earliest he would be awake and able to take phone calls. So it is the only real mental break from work. I love being in nature, and enjoy camping. BUT, I would not choose to spend a week or ten days where I have no access to a bathroom and shower facility if I could possibly help it. The dispersed camping is no picnic for me, and is in fact, a bit stressful though for his sake, I do not let on. When we state park camp or go anywhere with a hotel, if he has signal, he is required to answer the phone and if there is a problem he can solve, log into work. His boss does not believe in work/life balance. I do not want to aim for a world in which people work themselves do death all for the hard life of living in a camper for years, hauling and heating water, perpetually freezing in the winter, and fighting heat stroke in the summer. This is NOT something that should be considered okay in 2022. In that respect, I could easily get rid of this concept of countries and sovereignty and economies and political nonsense in favor of Star Trek's United Federation of Planets with civil rights and health care, housing, and water and food for all.

This. I am sorry, but yes, we can look at the generation with the greatest voting power who has consistently refused to believe that science, the profound weight of evidence, and decided "To hell with the kids! I am nor going to change my lifestyle, or make a sacrifice of any kind now so they can have breathable air, potable water, and a world NOT on fire." I have listened to my own parents rhetoric and that of their friends and acquaintances, seen the statistics. The preponderance of evidence against them for making decisions they knew would cripple the nation for the future is just mind boggling. I still try to have compassion for them as much as I can, and not let it harden me into someone who can't think critically about the solutions we need and fast or become too emotional about the hardships we may face in the future. Just head down, get it done. But, I look at my grandparents, the Silent Generation, and just how much they thought about the welfare of their kids, their grand children, their great grandchildren, and the difference is STARK. The sad reality for my kids is that home ownership, and living rather independently is not going to be an option. My three boys, two of whom have life partners now, have had meetings together about finding an abode that all five of them can share in order to pool resources and get out of their respective apartments with multiple roommates always coming and going some of whom are good and some of whom are terrible. They would like to find a four bedroom, 2.5 bath house with 3 acres that they could garden on, have backyard chickens, have a wildflower patch for pollinators, a solar array, and definitely outside city limits enough to have a well with a whole house filter. They would plant fruit trees, and if the well wasn't at least 100 ft deep, dig another one so that the chances of running completely dry are very low. They would put in geothermal or at least earth tubes to help with heating and cooling. And they would share the expenses for the property. BUT of course someone in the group has to make enough money to qualify for the mortgage because none of the local banks are willing to allow these young adults to take out a mortgage together despite the fact that household income from five working adults all throwing their resources into the pot is crazy high, and one son has a very lucrative writing advance on his novel. Of course, they are all working on saving the down payment, but that is hard too since they do not have a place where they can currently all reside together in order share expenses and save money without the drain of roommates who sign up to share rent and then never pay it.