Right. Fake port holes. So.darn.stupid.

Here is an updated article with interviews of a few students who have lived in them at U of Mi. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-michigan-windowless/index.html

This is what my grandfather did. Motor oil, parts cleaners, you name it. I shudder to think what the well water quality was for the neighbors of his automotive business! This went on I to the 70's, and to my knowledge no environmental clean up has ever occurred. Many automotive shops these days have waste oil furnaces so they use it for fuel oil.

That is different from state to state and court to court. In my county, the family court lets them choose at 13. Unless someone is declared unfit or the chosen parent refuses to take the child fool time, this is the way it goes. My brother fought to keep his 13 year olds, mostly because of paying more child support, and lost. The judges here do not want to risk runways and let the kids choose once they reach the teen years. It may be different in OK. At any rate, alienating the ex is not wise if you can possibly help it. And the courts ultimately decide. Mediation in your area may work, but judges override it here all.the.time. So parents can actually amicably agree to one thing or another, and be entirely overruled by family court judges. This is why an attorney is needed because they can help navigate the mess. Going it alone often means that one parent gets entirely shafted. That said, sometimes what is best for the child is very much against what the parent wants. In my brother's case, it was much better for his kids to be full time with her due to his own immaturity. These things are very hard. For my parents, the single hardest thing for them to deal with was admitting just how effing lousy my brother was as a parent. To this day he is wretched at it which is why he has a relationship with only one out of his five kids. Very sad.. Very very sad.

My brother had 50/50 for years. He and his ex had a very nasty relationship so it didn't work out well for the kids because they spent all their time fighting over what the other parents did or did not do on their week. 50/50 only works if BOTH parents commit to being decent about it. And it only works if both parents live nearby so kids have the same community, same doctor, friendships, etc. It is difficult for them to make friends, play a sports take piano lessons, and all that jazz if they are constantly going back and forth between communities. Your grandson is young enough that he will adjust to his new normal pretty quickly so long as these two can be mature ex spouses, and co-parent. If not, it is generally better for one parent to have full custody, and the other to be the unfortunate every other weekend and school holiday parent so they can have some kind of consistency. My nephews, one by one, moved out at 13 which is pretty much when courts will not force them to continue to do the back and forth. They went to their mother's and though she was not a spectacular parent by any stretch of the imagination, she was an improvement over my brother, and they did much better then. However, my parents were a big part of that. Grandpa and grandma were very careful to keep a good relationship with their ex dil so that they could be around their grandkids a lot. I urge you to not alienate her.

Okay, you may be buying higher quality things than I. When I was line drying the average shirt was very faded and developing thin areas getting ready to tear or make a hole after only one year. My towels frayed as did my sheets.

Oy! What an evil bastard!

This. What is better is geothermal heat, a truly environmentally sound way to heat, or an exterior wood boiler which is WAY more efficient than a woodstove, and keeps the smoke source out of the house.

Thank you! I processed two gallons of applesauce and froze.this year. Dehydrated grape tomatoes and bell peppers. Blanched, cut of the cob, and froze a bushel of corn, canned 100 pints of tomatoes, cut up and froze 20 heads of broccoli, scooped and froze several cantelope, and...a lot more. It was exhausting. And it is still wouldn't feed my family 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables from now to even the end of January. Putting up the harvest to make it to the next harvest is beyond the pale of exhaustion that most people today have entirely romanticized, and could not dig deep and bring themselves to do. Done wax poetical about it. Believe me, it is simpler, easier and frankly given the amount of energy used to do all this, probably environmentally friendlier to buy it mass produced when we are taking about real work math on energy required to produce X amount of yada yada. And I guarantee you that had I needed to slave like that to provide food for my children, none of them could have been homeschooled, and much less to the level of homeschooling accomplished. There just would not be enough time in the day and especially when talking about washing clothes on a washboard, hanging out to dry, making bread for the week, etc. not to mention making clothes. My grandmother did those things. What she did not do was teach her kids more than the alphabet or counting to ten, and sent the to school at the earliest possible time which included begging the school district to take my dad even though his birthday for K was a week after the cut off. My mother's family absolutely slaved away and was totally food insecure her entire childhood. You can bet she was thrilled to have income that allowed her to shop for my brother and I in the supermarket, and buy clothes instead of making them though she was a fine seamstress. As for hanging clothes out, I don't know what the real savings actually is. The sun and wind are very hard on clothing, and most of what we have today is not made from quality fabric. If it wears out wardrobes faster, sheets faster, towels faster, and so one is constantly buying replacements, it may not be environmentally friendlier when one considers the cost of manufacturing the replacements - often made overseas in NOT environmentally sound factories - and then shipped her by freighter, then by semi to the store. That is a lot of energy consumption! I really good energy star dryer might actually be better.

A man I gave piano lessons to years ago was a guard at a state prison, maximum security. We talked some about his job, and one of the things he said was it is really hard to get people to understand that the best and also cheapest investments for prisons to keep the rates of violence way down are landscaping - edible gardens that could be cultivated by prisoners, flower gardens that could be worked, etc. - plus pets, more time outside, and full spectrum lighting indoors. He said it was remarkable the effect these minimal interventions had on the prison population. But, legislators balk at such expenditures because "punishment" is the aim which makes prisons more dangerous than they have to be, and by extension, more dangerous to the staff. Seems pretty dumb to me. Give them horticultural hobbies, dogs and cats to care for, and good light. Less violence is good! Being able to someday reenter society as a non-violent person is good, very very good. Punishment for the sake of punishment may feel good to the outsider, but so what. Society needs to take the long view on this, not the short.

Vampire DNA! I think my eldest ds has that.

This experiment was also tried at Illinois Institute of Tech in Chicago. It has been much hated, did not increase social interaction, and if several students we know are accurate in their reports, increased depression and drop out rates on campus. If they want to have a social experiment for the benefit of the students, it has been proven time and again that investing in green spaces, gardens, light production, fresh air, and outdoor living is the ticket. Beautiful, environmentally advantageous spaces and habitats benefits faculty, staff, and students.

This. I was just thinking about last fall when my son's college had about 35 students in the quarantine dorm at any given time. The school marching band and other music groups would come down, spread way out around the building, and play music for them. Some of the clubs who met outside would do so on the lawn around the quarantine dorm so students could listen. They really tried to make those two weeks not seem quite so horrible, and that was dependent on windows for sure.

I know, this really bothers me. We have some fairly strict rules here in Michigan about the number of exits in ratio to population for congregate care, bedrooms have to have two exits (basically a window large enough for an average to larger than average person to get out of even if it means jumping from upper story) plus door, that kind of thing. I am not sure how this can be a thing unless California is less strict than here. (Alabama, where we just bought our retirement home???? OY VEY when it comes to building codes!!!!)

I agree. Ugh.

I wondered about fire code as well.

My children ate mashed potatoes, smashed cooked carrots, etc. at dinner with us plus thin sliced apples if they had teeth, banana, avocado/quacamole, green beans, smashed cooked cauliflower, applesauce, pear sauce, diced grapes...that kind of thing, and scrambled eggs, shredded cheese, or some fine diced or shredded chicken/turkey for protein even some peanut butter on small crackers.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/29/business/ucsb-munger-hall/index.html As someone who has found the older I get the more natural light I crave, I just cannot imagine being willing to subject my collegian to this. I would feel really low about not being able to look out a window, or having a window open in good weather for fresh air. I would especially hope something like this does not catch on in the regions east of the Rockies, and north of the Ohio River Valley because low light levels are already a problem for so many folks without then living full time in something like this. But, I get that it is probably cost efficient, easier to cool/heat, provides more wall space, etc.

My favorite winter outfit used to be this wonderful, almost ankle length wool riding skirt I had recovered with cuddle dud leggings. I wore it with a fair isle ski sweater, and a tank top under it. I had these bootie fake fur lined things that could be indoor outdoor (though they didn't work outdoors when snow.was deep). I felt like some sort of Nordic add for the good life, Hygge style, "Come to Iceland". I wore it A LOT, and ended up eventually wearing out the skirt and the sweater. Sigh. I have never found another world riding skirt, and though I do have another fait isle sweater it is nothing like that first one. Sniff sniff. 😥

I can attest to the fact that cuddle duds are DA BOMB!

I fixed yet another autocorrect. I would really like the phone number of the individuals responsible for this software.

Yes, so just fixed it. I hate my kindle! It has a grudge against me.

I think my favorite thing is the "family, friends" sign clearly visible with what appears to be a symbolic pyre! Epic! 😂

My almost six year old grandson will be dancing a jig. He regularly asks when he can get a shot so maybe he can go to the space museum again. He is a champion masker, and his not quite two year old brother wears a mask as well...way better than most of the adults I know. It feels like hope on the horizon for them! Once vaxed and the appropriate waiting time completed for optimal immunity, I am going to take him to the freshwater aquarium in Chattanooga to celebrate.

I watched it. It was great!