I was just going to say that when I am at the piano doing a long, intensive practice, if someone just walks in unannounced, I jump out of my skin. I concentrate that hard. Mark has done it to me before. I mean I am not mad at him or anything. I jut about fly off the piano bench though. It is also interesting that you and I might be the only people here who don't confine amorous activity in an otherwise empty house to just the bedroom with the door locked. 😁 At the moment I am sucking down coffee wearing nothing but a half camisole thingy and underwear. The humidity is getting to me again, badly. I may have to turn the a/c on which is sad for so early in the morning. If ds and dil just walk in without a text first, they are getting a surprise though knowing them, it wouldn't bother them in the least. I just prefer it NOT happen. Our bachelors gave us a key to their apartment and the code to the front door of the building so if we are coming for a visit but they are late getting home from work, we can walk right in. Still, we make plans ahead, and then unless I do not see their car in the parking lot, we still knock and wait for them to open the door.

I am in love! Melissa, this just one of the sweetest things I have ever seen.

These are amazing!

We don't have a pool. But, I am having so much trouble regulating body temp, that I feel over heated easily this summer so I am running around the house in my skivvies a lot. I put everyone on notice to always call before they want to come over. Always. Text is fine too but I need a heads up, and plenty of time to go put some clothes on otherwise folks are going to get an eyeful of mum that they might not have wanted! I don't think there is anything wrong with establishing a healthy boundary where adult kids know they are loved and welcomed home, but mum and pops have a life, an empty nest life now, and lack of respect for giving a courtesy call could end embarassingly.

You have hit upon the issues we have faced. My father was angry that his life wasn't going to end the way he thought it should, and raged, just took it out on me and my husband, my sister when she was there. And now my mother in law. Actually, MIL's twin sister is even worse. Last week we had a zoom meeting with Mark's cousins. She does not have dementia. But she does think she has the right to take out her frustration at losing her mobility on her family. She is downright mean, and not just verbally. She hits now. But her husband is 10 years younger, and he didn't make as much money as she did so he can't live on his monthly social security income if she goes to a nursing home so he is determined to limp this along keeping her at home as long as he can. None of the kids live nearby, very long distances and none of them are retired. It is getting ugly. I feel so bad for my cousins in law, and for uncle. The sad thing is we COULD do a lot better than this for the citizens of this nation, there just is no will among leadership who don't care how everyone has to live. I want so badly to age with grace. I know I have some definite control over that IF I don't get some type of dementia or neurological condition that takes my brain. IF. I don't want to hurt my children and grandchildren. I don't want to suck the soul out of them like my dad did, like my other in law does. Meanwhile, we are STILL fighting with MIL to get the wheelchair ramp put on me her house and the dang rugs OFF the floor, the stupid rugs she keeps tripping over.

For what it is worth, refusing food is very normal when the body is shutting down. My father didn't eat for 10 days before he passed, and barely was willing to sip any ensure. He took liquid morphine, and then a sip of ensure. Not really much hydration or nutrition. It was the same for my paternal grandmother. She just kind of slipped into a rather dazed state (no dementia, but long term decline due to stroke), and then wouldn't eat, but would accept a sip of water now and again. 3 days later, she died. So it very worth thinking about whether or not you want to tube feed someone in the end stages. It is harsh when all their bodies want to do is shut down, and there isn't any hope of improvement.

We need to be like Finland. But I suspect we will operate a lot more like the movie, "Don't Look Up". Sigh.

There are 16 ounces in a lb so 9 lbs is 144 which is a very standard setting for Allegro for classical music. I really expected him to give me a snicker. He took piano lessons for years before college, then in college, and was in choir as well as played violin.l bit mention being around me teaching for so many years AND around a good bit when I was doing some conducting. He just gave me a blank look. I felt so deflated! 🤪

I just made a really great joke, and Mark did not give me the response I was hoping for! Set up: Mark has double degrees in Math and Computer Science. My double degrees are Piano Performance and Music Education. Mark: "Honey, how many ounces are in 9 lbs?" Me: "Allegro!" Come now, that is funny, right? He was not amused. DMetler will get it. I know she will!

100%. I have never fully recovered emotionally and mentally from the situation with my dad. Physically, the nightmare began only one year after the horrific car accident that C and I endured. It was all put on me - my brother disappeared, my sister was in France, and all the other relatives except my own kids all vanished even though they had been regulars in my parents' lives to that point - and Mark. Mark had to work. We had one in college, a daughter with a high risk pregnancy, a high school senior applying to college and taking his last SATs, and a high school sophomore I was homeschooling and coordinating DE and driving to and from classes. I had to give up physical therapy without completing all the milestones, and now I have permanent disability because of it. Thankfully C was able to switch his physical therapy to his university health services and get it right there on campus. This has never been and never will be a concern for my mother, my father was verbally and emotionally abusive, my brother truly doesn't care what I went through, and though sis cared, she couldn't leave the France to help because she was in the process of renewing her residency visa. She did eventually come before he died, and then nearly wiped out her own health helping. He really needed a staff. What we had was 23.5 months of nothing, and then 10 days of hospice which was a bed, a camode, and a walker except we had already purchased those things except the bed, and a nurse one hour once per week. He died two days before they finally got it set up for a CNA to come give him a sponge bath and a couple other things which would have given us an hour to drink tea I guess. Lots of trauma. There is a point at which folks simply need a staff.

And the other thing that is expected is skilled nursing care by untrained family members because it saves insurance not having people who should be in the hospital actually in the hospital or sending an RN to the home. What was expected of my mother by medical professionals because Medicare was absolutely unconscionable. She wouldn't stand up to herself and did it because I flat out refused and kept telling the social worker, "I will NOT take care of that wonky, very rare chest tube set up and crazy wound care". I said it over and over and over again. So they finally started the process for medicaid and a care center, but then my mother caved in. That physical care of him took years off her life, and frankly, without RN training and just the crash course of 5 minutes with a nurse educator at the hospital, a lot of things went very very wrong. It was a nightmare. So my advice is that all family members refuse to do medical care. If you want to cook, clean, and help them to the bathroom in order to keep them in their home, fine. But absolutely do not agree to anything beyond limited CNA level work. If it would be an Paramedic, LPN, ADN, or BSRN taking care of it anywhere else, then you shouldn't do it unless you have the training. I have horror stories to tell about folks who aren't nurses doing the nursing job. 😱

You are not wrong to think about this! We are going to be I that boat soon with Mark's mom. She just refuses to accept the reality of her situation or to go along doctor and physical therapist recommendations. She truly does have an expectation that Mark and I will bleed ourselves dry to keep her in her hone or pay for assisted living at $5000 a month. Mark sat her down the other day (she has been told this multiple times over the years) and reminded her that we will not use our savings to pay for in home medical care and assistance nor assisted living. She will have to have whatever limited paid help she can get on what is left of her savings (15,000 which is much!) while she waits for a bed to open up at the county care facility. She just absolutely refuses to accept this, and has told our kids more than once that this will never happen because her good boy son will pay for her care. We are NOT independently wealthy. And every penny we spend to care for her or my mom is a penny that isn't there for us when we need care, and transfers the burden from her to us to our kids. It is a legacy of hurt that is perpetuated. If we were wealthy? No problem. We would pay for it. Not only that but eldest nephew warned me that his father, my !@@##$$#@!! limited contact brother told his sons not to worry about him. He hasn't saved a dime (or should I say he has spent most of his dimes on get rich quick schemes that fell flat), but we are such good, moral people, we will pay for him and his wife too! What the hell? And how any of these people got the idea we are rolling in cash I will never know. Here is something interesting though. We live beneath our means, but when we decided to lighten up and live a little, we bought a used Compac 19 sailboat. We love sailing. We paid $3500. LOL, apparently the gossip in our one horse town of 200 people is that people who own sailboats are rich. By extension this means we are rich. Sigh. I would not be shocked if he thinks this way because my brother is NOT a bright bulb. I should go get myself an entire Helly Hansen outfit and act like we belong to the private Regatta Club on the lake! If I am going to be accused of it, might as well act the part. 🤣 (My current sailing apparel is a pair of thrift store Sperry loafers, a Lands End swim top, swim capri from Amazon, and a Dollar General swim cover up with a windbreaker from a garage sale. My sailing cap did come from France courtesy of my sister. So ya. It is a huge deal. Given that assisted living runs $3500-5000 a month, and nursing home at $8000-9000 a month, it is beyond wrong for elders to expect their kids or other relatives to pay for this. Even expecting several hundred a week in paying for household help is unrealistic. I can afford a once a week housekeeper for mother in law and someone to mow the lawn. But daily help and nurses is not happening without causing a cataclysm of problems.

Plans are hard to make when no one knows what the future holds. We do the best we can. We have socked away a lot of money in the 401K and IRAs. The house we have now is worthless. We will practically have to give it away. There is a guy in town that would like the property so he will give us what the acre is worth, and then knock down the house/150+ year old church. That sounds sad. But the reality of living is that it just is a gorgeous but ridiculously difficult building to maintain, expensive to heat and cool. So we don't have any equity here and will lose a ton of money on this real estate. However, the Alabama house just keeps going up and up. We will get a lot of equity out of it. We will give half of it to our dd for the rent they have paid to live in it, and then we will have that other half as a buffer. Mark's mom's house is actually worth a good bit. He is inheriting it exclusively. His brother asked to have the trust/will changed to take him out because he feels Mark should get it due to being the primary care giver and also n doing all of the house maintenance since she moved here 18 years ago. His brother is a really sweet guy. He would be involved were it not for living 900 miles away. We will use that money to build our retirement home. We may divorce on paper when Mark retires and split the savings in half. The $120,000 ish that the non disabled spouse can keep in the event that the nursing home spouse needs Medicaid is a paltry amount of money when one considers the loss of that person's social security from monthly income, the cost of maintaining a home and insuring it. It leaves elderly people in poverty. Divorcing ahead of the issue will allow each of to keep our half, use it for our care, and hopefully not impoverish each other if one needs a nursing home and the other does not. Best laid plans of mice and men. Hard to say if it will work. Of course we will keep "living together in sin". 😅 There are certain conditions that I have in my "not willing to live with" pile. Though I am sure this is controversial for many folks here, I do plan to take advantage of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act which has been amended to allow non residents to receive assistance. I fully recognize that this is a very controversial topic, and there will be pushback here. I won't be responding to that pushback. I do have full support from my husband and kids should I someday make that choice. I have full support if I do not. Apart from that, our retirement home is bring planned to be very friendly to age in place, and reasonable distance to good healthcare unlike where we are now. It will also be a multi generational home so our adult kids can comfortably bunk in should they choose to, and be a place where if the economy did a very hard crash, and they needed somewhere to re-group, they would have that too. I do think what passes for "a system" is going to crash in about 10 years. It is already teetering with so many Silent Generation folks and early Boomers in need, and nothing is being done by the powers that be, head in the sand approach. 10 years from now the sheer number of folks in need of care is potentially just going to cause it to crash and burn. Gen X may end up without any options. With immigration so tight, there just aren't going to be care givers, and the number we have now is bizarrely low in relation to the need. Currently, though my body is 100% resistant to losing weight, I make the big effort anyway, and am a fiend on the rowing machine. I figure anything I can do to increase strength, flexibility, and preserve mobility is a big net gain for my husband and kids.

Looks wonderful!

Can't wait for the pics!!

Tomatoes, thank the universe, are self pollinating! So yay for that! I asked about it just a few minutes ago in the Michigan Gardening Forum on facebook. We ALMOST did not get enough chill hours. 52 hours over the bare minimum. But to make matters worse, we had the hard freezes in April, and at 28° after blossoming even at the early stage, that is a 10% loss. If at the pink stage, 50% loss on some varieties. At 25-26% it is 90% loss regardless of the stage of the blossom. So all the trees got women up because of that third week to March 70° temperature nightmare, followed by a too warm April that then did a "hold my beer" moment between Heat Miser and Cold Miser causing the hard freezes, then followed by nothing but rain and gloomy skies all of May. I would like Mother Nature to get her quarreling twins under control! Mark built a stand that went up the center of the Honey Crisp tree with a hose mounted to it, and a sprinkle that throws water 20 ft. The cross pollinator, Courtland, is only 15 ft. away. We turned those on at dusk each night and as the temperature cooled, it formed ice crystals on the blossoms which insulated them to 32 degrees. The trees in the morning looked like ice sculptures, gorgeous ice sculptures. The ice crystals melted throughout the day which allowed the blossoms to warm up slowly. We did it every night of the hard freeze, and when it was over, we had only 6 blossoms fall of the Honey Crisp. The Courtland wasn't entirely covered on one side with ice due to some branches being completely out of reach of the water. But, the ones close to the apple crisp were fine so we do have a half crop of Courtlands. The Courtland have never been that great of an apple really. So it isn't sad. We often allow people to take those for horse treats. But Mark might see if they can be made into a decent cider. He just bought a small masher and cider press. Honestly, I am very concerned about Orchard loss, garden loss, crop loss going forward. People believe that the world produces enough food to feed all 8 billion adequately and healthfully. We don't. Food distribution, crime, and politics make it seem like there is plenty of food, but it just doesn't get where it need to go, and for sure, this is a VERY big issue with all aid sent to many countries. But, no one is paying attention to the fact that we are seeing increasing massive crop loss, and burning of habitat to produce monoculture. Monoculture can provide calories. It cannot provide nutritional value across the needed spectrum. Now, we can't produce enough crops of rice, wheat, corn, and soy beans to even provide that to 8 billion if we had a perfect sharing and distribution system. This is the thing people are denying. The earth has been looted and pillaged. There are ways to heal her, and the end of monoculture, allowing rainforest regrowth, sequestering carbon, regenerative farming with livestock (yes, you really do need some cows and sheep and pigs and bison because their plop plops are what will rebuild the top soil biome and their hooves aerated soil without deep tilling which is actually a dangerous practice because it brings weed seeds to the surface that were too deep in the ground to sprout thus the need for Monsanto plus), conservation practices, and shutting Monsanto down with its dangerous glycophosphate. Reduction of carbon emissions. But the thing is, the wealthiest 1% of the population of the earth produce 30% of all carbon emissions, and they control everything and have no intention of stopping. We fight for just the smallest changes. We can't blame farmers for trying to make a living and feed the world in the way that every industrialized nation's department or ministry of AG has told them they should. Mark has promised to buy a piece of property for me to have a mini orchard on, dig a deep well, and make sprinkler systems for each tree. I can continue to fuss with raided beds, trying to control their environments, and I can have a little cobbled together greenhouse. So one family with four adult kids and some bonus ones as well, can have nutrient dense produce to supplement their diets, and have some canned/frozen/dehydrated for winter. But that is just one family with a crazy, determined mother whose career is never going to be revived and has decided to do this instead. One. That vast majority of folks can do nothing about their situation and have to depend on the grocery store. That clock is ticking. Lake Mead is running dry, the Colorado River, too small snow packs in the west...California which produces 70% of all the produce sold in the USA is on the brink of no longer being able to do that, and frankly, we must subsidize farmers to retire or go do something else and NOT farm dry regions. Everyone who still has some decent growing options and still gets enough rain and has deep underground a queries (looking directly at Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New York, and the New England states) needs to be subsidized to amp up to feed the nation, and NOT with monoculture. That said, some of what Nebraska, North/South Dakota, Colorado, and others face can be abated by a return to breeding and grazing bison whose plops plops are just amazing at feeding soil and planting native prairie grass seed so future dust bowls can be avoided. There are no-till methods of farming in pasture that work quite well. We need crop diversity, and we have to get the pollinators back so that we have nutritional variety. Gah! Here I am "preaching to the choir" as the saying goes. Rant over. Still, I need to figure out from the pile of construction leftovers and the old windows how to make a greenhouse that won't be so entirely ugly that the nice neighbor across the street will not hate me! 😂

Honestly, I am considering a small green house next year. I can put peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes and carrots in that big bed because they don't mind the less direct sun. Move the tomatoes back to their old bed, but also grow some in a green house. We have enough old windows to make a green house with a raised bed inside, about 8x8. I have 6, 32" wide, 36" tall windows. I think that in a sunny spot, this would be enough light, but we have grow lights that could also be hung from the ceiling, and operated by a power cord run to our outside outlet. I would have so much more climate control, and we do have a 28" wide old door from this building which we were going to get rid of so really it is just a matter of a little framing lumber. I don't need anything fancy, and dirt/grass floor is fine with me. It is amazing to me how quickly climate change is wrecking Michigan growing conditions. It isn't bad per se. So many states have it far far worse. But just from my parents' and grandparents' generations to now, it is incredible how much change there has been, so much less predictability, so many more large populations of non-beneficial insects combined with pollinator loss. Last year I had easily 2-3x more pollinators than this year, and I have far more pollinators attracting plants now. Cone flower, Black Eyed Susans, milkweed, massive spring dandelion crop, double the amount of marigolds. It is tough. One theory for my area is that the crazy warm up in March when we would normally still be covered in snow and not having temps above 35 until the end of the month but did result in two weeks of above 40 followed by a week in the 50-70s 😱, warmed everything to soon, from pollinators hatching early to soil bacteria becoming active. Then we had hard freezes the last week to April, temps down to 25 degrees. Maybe it killed soil bacteria and pollinators, and recovery is slow. I do know that a greenhouse would allow me more control. But, how does one introduce pollinators indoors IF you are going to keep some plants in there, and not transfer to garden beds? Tomatoes don't need them, and cukes need wind so may a fan for that. But what about peppers and such? Mark is allergic. I can't keep a bee hive in there!

Well, I am stumped. I feel like have a whole lot of nonsense trying to grow these tomatoes. Last year I fussed and yelled at them, and thought they would produce nothing, and was entirely wrong. And they were LUSH by this time last year. But my Amish Paste look like total crap. They keep getting taller, but refuse to put out new branches or leaves and have these bizarrely skinny stems. We have had a very mild spring and maybe that has something to do with it. But they are also in a new bed, and honestly, I thought it was "sunny" when we built it, however I had only spent afternoons in that part of the yard, not morning, and at 9:29 am EST, those plants are in the shade. We do have a week of very sunny days coming, and 90° temps. Maybe that will perk them up???? They have been given some composted chicken poo and fish emulsion water every 10 days. I am wondering if I should take that interval down to 7 days. I was also told by a local grower that banana water might do the trick. Something ate all my green bean leaves. 4" tall plants.nothing but stems. I have re-seeded in a different space. This was definitely insect attack though I have not been able to find adult insects or eggs. It was not squirrel/chipmunk/rabbit. No teeth marks or tracks, and we have not had a single rodent in the yard according to the camera. Everything else is happy. We have been eating lettuce and peas out of the garden. Radishes are growing well, broccoli looks great, fledgling carrots seem to be thriving, scallions seem like they are growing nicely, baby peppers everywhere, and two chili peppers already ripening, celery is going crazy.

You don't understand the condition of this home. The bones, as they say, are not good. It cannot be made a healthy place for a family to live. It was two cottages, one moved to the site from another property, bolted together with no central heating. That did mold in the walls where the two join, and has tested positive for asbetos. Your post seems to assume I have no use for historic architecture despite the fact that I currently live in a 125 year old Methodist church with stained glass windows. That doesn't change that fact that my mother's house is a VERY bad home, and many old homes are equally as unhealthy. Mine is not. Mine is also had no market value for re-sale, as is the same for many architecturally beautiful homes in our area, because young people with families very much fear the consequences once such buildings begin to fail. It takes A LOT of capitol to keep them up, ask any historical society, and there aren't grants to homeowners to help you save these buildings. Again, I am someone who in a perfect world would keep the old world charm, and high ceilings that make home far less energy efficient, and wood moldings, leaded glass windows, the whole shebang. My mother's house has none of these charms. It is a health nightmare.

My concern is about aging. If you plan on this being your forever home, and will age it place, then my answer is a hard no. My grandmother's 90 year old house was a nightmare for her to age in, and my parents spent a fortune trying to make it handicap accessible after her stroke only to have it nor be truly handicap accessible. Now my mother is aging in place in it, and so my nightmare of dealing with this continues. If I had my way, it would be bulldozed so we could start from scratch.

I was reading outside until the sun got to bright in my spot so I moved my chair. Then I got attacked by bugs. So I huffed, and I puffed and I went inside. But, in about an hour, my comfy spot will not have the sun directly overhead, and I will go back out. Otherwise, just about everywhere. I have been a reader since my mother taught me to read before K. My K teacher would find me during free play, under the table staying out of everyone's way with a book. My elementary principal had to make a rule that I couldn't read and walk. I was a bit of a hazard! 😂

I have three of these, different colors. I wear them without a bra because, well, my pamphlets don't need a shelf to contain them 😂😂😂😂😂, and in the winter I throw a cardigan on and leggings underneath. I am so comfy. I am thinking of bug some more because I know the second I really like something clothing designers across the universe sense this, and immediately discontinue it planning to never allow its revival in my lifetime. Soon as I am dead, bam! It will make a comeback. I am 56. How many do I need to last 20-30 more years? 😁 https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=863534022#pdp-page-content

I think every college kind of have their own rules. if memory serves, MSU here in Lansing does not allow anything like that. I don't carry anything on me. I tend to be home most of the time, and not in areas with much crime. When I travel, I am usually traveling during day time.

Old Navy has some fit and flare. https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=863621012&vid=2&tid=onpl000078&kwid=1&ap=7&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMKZ08R7DWUgSlE4cqzj9Kd8hlr17NTXpO8LBnWITiGuwpuZmoqYADBoCZxsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#pdp-page-content I have to wear a lot of empire waist because I have a short rib cage so no dress with a fitted waist works. I and up with a huge amount of bodice fabric gumped up around my booKs, and let's just say my booKs aren't really books but more like pamphlets so it looks just soooooooo bad. Mostly I do not wear dresses. I have a few sun dresses from Old Navy that I do enjoy, and then I have three performance gowns for when I have gigs, but all of those were professionally tailored. Otherwise leggings and tunics, or jeans and shirts. I have one fit and flare cocktail dress in jade green that actually fit right and came from Amazon of all places. I will never part with it because I hate shopping with the fire of a thousand suns. It will be my go-to for weddings for the rest of my days. I do have black dress pants and black top for funerals. Good luck. Dress shopping is just pretty awful!

Not the right dog. I think it would be best to wait until you return from your trip. If pup is still there, you can revisit this. But I would not want to leave a new-to-me dog behind with a potential eye issue that I have not had a time to diagnose and treat, not mention I would want to work on bonding without interruption for at least a couple months.