We did not allow it. My MIL and FIL were beyond terrible at supervising grandkids. Like, they would forget there were toddlers and preschoolers in the house.

I am so sorry to hear that! I hope everything will be okay.

LOL, until the sun went down, dd and fam were outside around their fire pit. She was Michigan raised, he was Penn raised and their early marriage years were in the Albany, NY region. So it is balmy for them! 😂 I am very much looking forward to our retirement there. Dd and I are planning her raised bed gardens. With three growing seasons, she has mega plans. Cool weather crops March -May, peppers, tomatos, eggplants in the summer, and more salad greens in the fall. She says the blueberries and black caps on the property will probably be ripe in May! Faint. Be still my heart! We get blueberries mid July here, and black caps as well with full black berries in August. I will definitely miss the Michigan cherries and peaches though! None of the hotter weather varieties of those grown south of the Ohio River Valley are any good comparatively speaking. 😉

Good to know. I think this coming summer, I am going to hire every high school student who needs some extra cash to come do it. That will eat into the savings, and especially because I will buy them pizza and pop as well, but it would be so much better for my body. Right now I feel like I need a jacuzzi, followed by the kind of massage that is NOT relaxing, followed by 10 physical therapy sessions. I am sure I will feel better in the morning.

Since I can't sleep, I will explain. When we bought this place, and old church, since it had 30 ft ceilings, we were able to rip out the existing floors, put in the framing and pex piping for radiant floor heat, and put a propane boiler to heat and circulate the water. That boiler is in the basement. We built a shed, and put a wood boiler inside (Michigan code, it had to 20 ft - if memory serves- from the house). The wood boiler holds enough hardwood logs for six hours of heat during the day which keeps the house at 72. At night we stock it up and make sure the damper is 100% closed so it slow burns for eight hours. It keeps the night heat at about 67. One of us has to be up by 7 am if not a little sooner in this weather to stock it again before the fire goes out and the coals get cold. It is definitely cheaper for heat since there is no natural gas out here. But now that our sons are adults and living their lives, 54 year old me post-car-accident with some issues and 58 year old hubby are the folks exclusively doing this wood thing. It isn't so bad in the summer. One year my brother had to have a tree taken down, a HUGE maple, and once the tree company felled it, we cut it into log lengths, split them, and hauled them bit by bit from his house (two blocks away) with our hefty riding lawn mower and a large yard wagon (metal). LOL, I enjoyed driving the contraption. Unloading and stacking was okay in the warmer weather, and we didn't have to get all of it moved in one day. Bro let us move it at our leisure so I didn't end up so sore. Mil has a fireplace as well, and we hauled 1/4 of a face cord to her house and stacked it on her front porch so she can have fires when Mark is there to build them for her. When we arrived, her furnace had conked out (not good in this weather) so while Mark fixed it, I built a fire so her living room and kitchen would warm up quickly.

Nope. And my pandemic uniform had been "braless" 95% of the time. It made me realize that my back and shoulder soreness has actually been caused by bra straps. So I will not wear them anymore than absolutely necessary.

This I the kind of thing that makes your brain scream, "Why am I in Michigan???" 😱💨🌨🌬🌪❄ I hurt all over. It is so hard on joints when even your LLBean parka and flannel lined jeans doesn't keep you warm enough. The things that bend end up wanting to seize up. But we are going through $150 a week in propane during this snap, but we can actually heat the house on about $40 a week with the wood boiler. Normally, we get our wood in the summer and fall. This year none of our suppliers had wood for locals. They were making huge money shipping it to the Detroit area. We just now managed to find six face cord. We still have two more to get, and I am going to be too sore to manage it tomorrow when temps and wind hills will be worse. Maybe Monday afternoon. I had a warm bath and a couple cups of hot tea. I am still not warm. So off to bed under a pile of quilts. Stay warm everyone, and remember, Michigan is drop dead gorgeous. Life on the Great Lakes is amazing, our outdoors from April-October are da bomb. But really, just go live some place else, and come visit here.when the weather is fine!!! 😀 update: So I just went out to feed the boiler because dh is in a conference call for a work related outage. I managed to smash my right hand between a couple logs. Badly. I think my middle finger is broken. I am supposed to have a miniconcert on Sunday by zoom. Sigh. Not sure how great my interpretation of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Rachmaninoff will be with a finger in a splint!

Oy! 😡 People like this should be kicked out of the teaching profession. Whatever next? Flat Earthers teaching astronomy and earth science?

Michigan update: 33,000+ over two days. The general consensus is that it has not peaked yet (though we have had days much higher than this), and of course deaths are lagging. The prediction is another three to four weeks left in this surge. I am weary. We are planning a LOT of outdoor, travel, road trip, great landscapes vacations and sailing, lots of sailing. This winter is just frigid and icy. Worse than any of the last five winters, bowling winds, very little blue sky. We haven't been able to do any of our winter sports activities so by the time spring comes, we are going to be stir crazy. Our new, first road trip will include, Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Black Hills again, Custer State Park, and Agate Fossil Bed National Monument. We have decided to wait and do Yellowstone in the fall after school resumes. May 1st might be too chilly for the boys to do any longer trails since they prefer not to hike in parkas and heavy gear. I spend a lot of time planning out every aspect just to keep myself distracted.

Closure for the family, but not new for certain. It is sad that we just all knew it right from the beginning.

I am so very sorry for your loss, and best wishes to your husband for a speedy recovery. 💓

Update! So I decided today that in the interest of peace and happiness with rapidly getting more unhappy and confused mother in law, I would go get that cod. I wore my KN95, tightly fit to my face. Eldest ds who did not have his grad school class today nor any coursework to get done, went with me and did the same. The place was crazy busy in the back with 13 people standing in line for their famous bacon, beef jerky, etc. When I saw that, I stepped back out, took a huge breath, held it.with my mask tightly on my face, grabbed the cod from the freezer which is right by the front door, no one in line at the check out so while my lungs were squawking and wanting to burst, the box was scanned, I threw cash on the conveyer belt and ran out. Made it outside just in the knick of time because I really can't hold my breath more than a minute. It was $69.99, no tax, and I tossed $70 on the belt so all she had to do was put the penny on their take a penny thing. Ds was definitely more relaxed! Then we went to DQ and each had a blizzard in the car. The sun was shining, and we had a very nice conversation there and back. Ds and I are close anyway, but he so busy writing papers and getting them published or in class, that we don't get to spend a lot of time together. I think the outing was good for me, strange as it was. I feel like a walking Petri dish! So there is that. 😜

We are seeing a lot of "just like a cold" folks. I try not to laugh. They say this stuff on social media after two weeks in bed, and trips to the doctor's office. Sometimes s so have to refrain from spitting coffee across the screen. I have never had a cold lay me out for two weeks or cause me to need prescription drugs and IV antibodies to fix it. The closest I have come to needing an IV was after a stomach bug that lasted so long I hadn't been able to keep any fluids down for many, many many hours. I narrowly avoided it by getting a shot in the rump that paralyzed my system so I wouldn't fetch anymore. Then I could keep water down. But a cold? Nah. Stuffy, nose runs for 5-7 days, maybe a little headachy. Nothing that put me off my feet or came with terrible fatigue. My former boss has it. The "it is just a cold guy" who is type 2 diabetic. His wife updates his condition on her Facebook page. "Nothing more than a cold" meanwhile in the next sentence saying he is coughing so hard he cannot talk, his blood sugar levels have gone entirely out of whack, he is so fatigued that day five of symptoms, he can just barely muster the energy to use the bathroom. Then she follows it up with "just like a cold". Nope lady. That is NOT a cold.

Right because even if it does not overwhelm the health care system, it will keep ravishing the work force. School won't be open because everyone will be constantly sick. Shipping is halted because constant sickness in large numbers, food, medical supplies, how does it get delivered? And of course all viruses come with the possibility of what are considered "rare complications." But they aren't going to seem rare when tens of millions of people in a single nation are sick at once. Things just grind to a total stop until it rages through in a way that is worse than what we have now. What we have now is bad enough. So yes, I am seriously keeping my stink eye on this stupid substrain.

👍 Not in Michigan either! 💅🐧🍙🌨🌬🌪⛄❄

Well, we chose based on wanting to be near our grandsons in our retirement. Alabama was not our first choice by any stretch. But they are settled in Rocket City. Thankfully, we found a wonderful home on the just right amount of land a reasonable distance from Rocket City, and in the mountains with a marvelous view. I feel very content every time we go there, so I am looking forward to Dh's retirement in 4 years, 5 months. But if choosing based on just scenery, weather/climate, pure want/desire only, Astoria, Oregon or some where a little south of there on the coast would be our thing. Early in our marriage, we lived in Newburg, Or, and spent nearly all our weekends camping/car camping along the coast line. Tillamook was a favorite place along that route. Many, many fond memories, and just enough of a seasonal change to make it not boring.

This! I really believe this so where we are at, and especially without a lot more data.

I think omicron is a wild card in terms of transmissibility. Tons of vaxed folks here are getting omicron.

Shipping is out of the question, and under these circumstances, given how immature she is being, I would not want to meet in person. My inclination, so she can't say you held her things hostage, would be to box it up and drive it to a location such as grandma or aunt's house, and drop it on the porch, take a picture of it on that porch, send to her to prove you did that, and then drive back home. I know you said it is 8 hours. But if these boxes are heavy and you have a vehicle that gets good gas mileage, you could save cost over shipping. Drive there, drop it, turn around immediately and when tired, pull into a rest area and sleep a couple hours. If you pack your own food, again assuming you have a vehicle that is not too expensive for fuel costs, it will be cheaper than shipping. Otherwise, tell her she can have it when she can meet half way, and only on a day when your husband can go with you as a witness, and photograph the exchange so she can't lie later, and say she didn't get the stuff. My guess is she is the golden child of your narcissistic ex, and so he manipulates her to keep hurting you because you dared to stand up to him. If she likes her position as golden child, she will continue to pander to him. Obviously the falling out when he asked her to leave, and he is calling the shots again, so you want to have proof that you made the exchange. I am so sorry this is happening! It must be so heart breaking. I hope you can find a support group.

Good to know. I do not have celiac, am just wheat allergic, and the corona premium does not seem to trigger the allergy. But when my sister comes home this summer, I need something safe for celiac sufferers. She really wants to have our fish fry.

Here are some. I have no idea how readily available they are. I am not much of a beer drinker so I never shop for it. https://www.bonappetit.com/drinks/beer/slideshow/10-gluten-free-beers-that-actually-taste-good

I will ask him if he has it memorized. He keeps it on her refrigerator. (10 minutes later) 1 cup Gluten free pie crust flour (pie crust flour is much finer, and so it gets really crispy) Bobs Red Mill or King Arthur 1 cup corn starch 1 tsp GF baking powder 1.5 tsp sugar 1 tsp garlic powder 1 generous tsp onion powder 1 tsp salt Scant 1/4 tsp of black pepper 1 whole Corona Premium beer 12 oz (this is not advertised as absolutely gf, but their distillation process seems to strip it all out. I am very reactive - wheat allergy - and am okay. But since your little man has Celiac and Pandas definitely check it out and see for yourself. 3" minimum of oil for frying - we use peanut, but sunflower works well though quite expensive 375° oil. If loins have been frozen, allow to thaw and then pat fully dry before breading. We cut into 3 " chunks. About six minutes of cook time on the pieces. We have a fryer that is roughly four quart, and we do six - eight pieces at a time so they don't stick together. Then drain on towel. Voila. Very yummy. Mil makes Cole slaw and hashbrowns (she browns these in the oven with very little oil used). My son in law is allergic to fish, so we have two fryers, one which has never had seafood in it. We cook breaded chicken breast for him, and make a night shade free orange sauce for his pieces. He considers it a bit of heaven. Hope it works for you!

Anatomical question. They speak. But speech is created when air is forced over the vocal cords causing them to vibrate. So if they don't have lungs, and do not breathe, how can they speak? What is the mechanism? Also, what is their blood circulating? It takes a stake to the heart to kill them, but what is the heart for if not circulating hemoglobin? Aliens. I am voting that they are aliens, maybe from Jupiter. That seems right. 😁

Nothing. Parents were told "Suck it", and despite there being a law about that, not one damn thing was done. I am pretty certain it is going to take a lot of lawyering up, and a boatload of lawsuits to force the issue.

Well, the Hive has your back if you decide to draw a line in the sand and refuse to go! Hubby can "suck it up buttercup" as the saying goes.