I don't know. We have had the following breeds in the course of marriage: cocker spaniel, black lab, collie, sheltie, border terrier, springer spaniel, and basket hound. We were fine with everyone but the basset. She was, without a doubt, the dumbest animal I have ever had in my life. I have had goldfish with higher training potential than her. Lambs are total idiots, and yet, bottle fed bum lambs were NEVER the problem that basket was. We were hosting a garage sale one day and a guy came along and asked if she was for sale. I told him she was his for free, and off he went. Turned out to be a guy who owned 40 acres and lived on it in a pop up camper. She was definitely better suited for outdoor life so maybe he got along with her okay. I couldn't bond with her. Neither could dh. It was like trying to bond with a rock. I have to say that the experience left me thinking, "There will never be another hound in my house ever again in this life time!" Yeesh!

Dh just reported that the market is out of refried beans, pintos, and black beans. Are people stocking up for Super Bowl Nachos? They also had no gallons of milk, and only 1% and fat free half gallons unless buying organic. I don't stock much milk, and they had half n half which is what I use in my coffee. So I am okay! 😁 I have some canned black beans in the cupboard and a bag of dried pintos so we are good. He did note that a deli, rotisserie chicken was now $12.00. That is very high for this area.

Nope, not at all! LOL

I am still sore but doing better. I have been keeping the fire stoked today. It nearly went out last night and the house was 61 when we woke up which just feels ridiculously cold when it is 10°F outside and the wind howls. I am seriously OVER winter already.

That is what I did during my last pregnancy when they told me I was not going to make it. I wrote letters to all the kids for their 18th birthdays, one to Dd for when she started her period, one to the new baby specifically in case he did survive and I did not, and then wrote down a lot of stories while organizing all the photos.

I have found that no matter what boots I buy, if I don't have wool socks, I am cold. Having sheep on your feet really does the job. I have also found that if I can buy men's boots, the quality and cold rating are better, such is the misogyny of the fashion industry. Currently I am wearing men's size 6.5 (head to order them because TSC doesn't carry them that small) work/snow boot. Feet are toasty warm with wood socks. My only issue is that for support on the bottoms of my feet, they failed me the other day working outside in the wood. We have been having temps.10-20 degrees with wind chills below zero. I think they would have been fine if I hadn't been standing on frozen, iced over ground for so long. I may as well have been standing on cement all day.

Lambs. Try keeping lambs in the living room. They want to jump and skip which results in someone smacking their head underneath the table over and over again. Lambs are NOT bright! 😂 Ya, you need a fence.

LOL, Lewis does this too. The look on his face and his whole body language reminds me of telling the kids they had to use the bathroom before donning their snowpants. Geez, mom! 😂

😂😂😂😂😂😂epic!!! My friend, Cordelia, knows where to go to fetch for me if we are in Michigan. If we are in Bama when it happens, thankfully my relationship with DD is so open, that without blinking an eyelash she will retrieve before any of the other relatives or god forbid my mom, shows up. LOL, I can only imagine my sons' faces if one of them found it. Eldest boy, always on the look out for family photos, would absolutely go under the bed and start rummaging through boxes. 😱

And one very practical thing: if you have a special drawer or a box of tEa items, designate a good friend to retrieve it asap when you pass so if dh has someone helping clean out your things, there isn't an awkward silence with everyone standing around in the bedroom, maybe the kids are there, and well, you can imagine. It happened with a friend. Her very prim and proper, uber conservative mother found it while helping her husband, and well, it was an uncomfortable moment followed by mother in law giving him the evil eye for a few days. Since none of us really knows when such a thing shall happen, I always recommend every woman have a contingency plan for that situation

Not wrong!

Yay!!! 👏👏👏

For me, I prioritize travel and new experience because if really means a lot to me. I desperately want to go to Denmark with our adult kids. I have never seen Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, etc. so those would be big bucket list items. I haven't seen my sister in four years, so a trip to France would be happening as well.

I am so sorry. I decided not to tutor this year due to this very thing. If I tell mother in law not to make medical appointments on days x and y, and then the students are always cancelling, it is hard on her especially when she is waiting on openings with specialists. I just couldn't have her continue saying, "I don't have a driver that afternoon" when I wasn't going to be able to keep a schedule anyway. It is so frustrating.

I agree. Sadly, we have no hospice here. With the massive nurse shortage and hospital overwhelm, the hospice nursee, CNA's, etc. all took high paying jobs with hospitals and traveling nurses. Some folks have returned their loved ones to the hospital because they are in such pain, and can no longer get pain meds since hospice collapse. I am just overwhelmingly heart broken by what is happening. So much freaking trauma, and much of it did not have to happen IF this country as a whole had been willing to row together from the very beginning.

It is a very good diary of what it was like to go through this.

I just love it when a filthy rich dude with exactly ZERO expertise in medicine, virology, epidemiology, or public health spouts off his opinion because 'I am white nd rich so of course I am an expert in everything and the whole world should listen to me". 🙄😠 Meanwhile in Denmark, sub variant omicron.......

Update on former boss and his wife. They are six days past positive test. They started out saying "just like a little cold" but aren't saying that anymore. She thinks that by the time she is two weeks out, she will be on the mend. He is still coughing hard, though he hasn't needed treatment, layringitis, raw throat despite zinc lozenges and hot toddies, and really bad fatigue. She thinks it will be another two or three weeks before he can return to work. She is also REALLY angry with his doctor for saying this is a mild case. In her mind a mild case of covid should be a mild cold. 😤😡 We are nearly two years into this, and the medical community has been clear that mild is a range, and it doesn't mean "no big deal". Sure, my 21 year old had the " hardly noticed I had it" experience, but a crap ton of mild cases make a bad case of influenza seem like a day at the park when it comes to the fatigue and recovery aspect. She emailed me to say they would come out of isolation on Thursday, but I told her they really need to have negative tests despite what the CDC claims, and that not resting enough could cause problems down the road. She is reluctant to continue isolation because that challenges her previously held notion that covid is absolutely no big deal and wildly over exaggerated. Sigh. They could end up ruining their health! And his type 2 went winky and hasn't gotten back down. Seems to me they need to concentrate on resting AND getting his blood sugar under control. He still has vacation time coming. He hasn't taken a vacation day in two years, and he is allowed to bank them!

I am so sorry! That is heart breaking. 💓💓💓

Pellets are nice, but this is a huge wood boiler, not a woodstove, so it isn't made for pellets. We don't burn pine either because the sap builds up. We save any pine we run across for the fire pit. But, you really can't cook over pine either, so often we put it in the wood chipper and then mulch around the apple trees and whatnot.

💓 I am so sorry.

I am glad that is your experience, it is not mine. In my circles, they absolutely would instantly go there. I live around a lot of fundie people who have been taught all teen boys are nothing but buck goats in rut. So if someone with a history like this woman's said something like that, circle the wagons is absolutely the right response on behalf of the boys.

My thoughts are that because this woman is the kind of person about which you have to consider the above and worry about it, you really have to significantly limit contact with her and your kids. That is sad. But she has created this by how difficupt she has been, how much she has taken advantage of you, and how manipulative she is. I would also be inclined to say, should relatives ask, I don't trust her so I have to protect my kids by witnessing all the conversations that take place because she uses my family so badly, and I am not willing to take it anymore. And that will not be well received, however, it can't be helped. She is just not a good person to have around, and unfortunately, who knows what nonsense she fills her kids' heads with so that means by extension, their access to your kids has to be limited and strictly supervised. I have been there. Textbook actions by my sister in law. Unfortunately, you cannot control what she says to the extended family or the community. That is always the queasy thing about dealing with these kinds of folks. But appeasement and taking it on the chin does not turn out for the better either. So it doesn't really change what has to be done. Very frustrating for sure!

I think though that enough has been made known a out sister in law and her problems, that is does speak to a pattern of her being a rather abusive personality. She has spent a lot of time being worse than a jerk towards Baseball. There is something really wrong with this woman so even if she didn't mean what we think she means by it, this is not a relationship in which that conversation can happen so for the sake of the kids, the worst kind of has to be assumed.

Genessee county. Not Tennessee. My kindle does not like what I type most of the time. Stupid kindle.