Any updates? Zebras still at large? I am totally on Team Dazzle. I made the trek to the airport today for Dh's aunt, and my wildlife issue was a pair of pheasants in the middle of the toad who refused to move. I mean, flat out, defiant, you can't honk at me enough you will have to get out of the car and threaten to pick me up before I will move, pheasants. So there I was with the flashers on the car, stuck in the road, exiting my vehicle and having an argument with peasants, just trashing talking the tweerps before they finally decided to leave. And believe me, it was slow, spinning away in which I am sure they were trying to emulate Arnold Schwartzenager "I'll be back!" I have a theory. The animals are so mad about climate change that they aren't putting up with our crap anymore, and have decided to take back the planet. Next up, deer start knocking on my door at night wanting to sleep on the couch! 😁

I admire this mama! Tenacity! 😂

This is very much my experience though the evangelicals in this area take even a bit farther and claim the vaccine, masks, or both are "Mark of the beast", so they get pretty ugly about it. There is a lot of end times fixation in the local churches, and they kind of interpret everything that happens in the world as meaning the anti-christ has arrived. Very hard to reason with so I don't try.

This. I seriously doubt that homeless folks are trying to attend a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert, a Lugnuts game, or a Broadway Show all of which are optional activities that no one has a legal entitlement to much less a human right. These groups can require it, and that is also their right, the logistics of implementation falling on them. Don't like it, don't go. We are not talking about proving vaccination status in order to go to the hospital.

It is all kind of fun planning, and yet crazy making on a budget. For Christmas, we plan on decorating above the cupboards (there is room) and putting some centerpieces on the counter top, then spreading food out buffet style on the counters. I am very thankful to have a LOT of countertop space at that house. This way food photos will be pretty because of trying to pull of Danish/Scandi Smorgasbrod. It will also alleviate space at the tables. And of course one corner of the table is going to be Dd and C in his high chair, so that takes up space. Then add to it that my mom needs to have a chair that is super, duper rock solid, and can't get on and off a bench well. She has some balance issues from her disability so a chair that is even a little.bit loose or wobbly is not an option. So I am trying to think of everything, and can't just buy junk chairs to old us over until there is more furniture budget. Christmas wrap five gallon buckets from Home Depot???? 😂 hmmmm....probably not tall enough. 😁

Just fine here. But I can imagine that if some school uses one of these primarily for communication (football season here and a lot of coaches use FB) then maybe there were some hiccups. It would.be worse if WTM was down! 😁

Also awesome by too pricey for regular folks is a frost theater. Dress up like a mad scientist, turn out the lights, and do the presentation under black lights with white crazy hair, glow in the dark paint on the coffee can which contains liquid nitrogen. (Very dangerous. So just don't do it unless you really know what you are doing!) The nitrogen is wicked expensive. But, you can flash freeze bananas and other things then smash them into shrapnel with hammere, and feed an 8 ft long balloon into that coffee can, and then watch it expand as you slowly bring it back out. Awesome science stuff. But ya, we had some crazy strict safety protocols. We made instant ice cream with the stuff afterward, and we had to let it warm up before it could be served because it is dangerous to eat at such low temp. Not an ice crystal in it because of the flash freeze. Best ice cream we have ever eaten. Wildly popular. Those were the days! Sometimes I really miss it, but then remind myself how much it has changed, how little support or respect there I for the volunteerw, and that fleeting sentiment passes. Anyway, there are a ton of fun things for outdoor Halloween activities besides some of the traditional stuff if you want to branch past candy and pumpkin carving. Theo from Popular Science published a book about ten years ago with some wild experiments that would be great for Halloween. They come with danger ratings based on skulls, and three skulls means "be extra careful". However, in reality, if you possess basic knowledge, safety gear, and common sense (I realize that in some places this might seem like a super power 😁), many of them are just fine to do as demonstrations or to let teens and older kids do with supervision. It makes for memorable Halloween parties.

This. We need to find something for the Bama house which may have anywhere from 10-20 people at the holidays, and kids. I mean at this point we were thinking, "move the picnic table indoors???" The big thing is money. We made some repairs, paid the college bills, and boat a sailboat for family enjoyment. So expensive furniture is not happening at the moment. We will make do with a couple of folding banquet/work tables and dd's small four person table for now. But chairs are an issue, and then of course eventually "what do we want it to look like in the future". I think a farmhouse table, long but not particularly wide with leaves or something so we can make it down when the crowd is not there. But thick legs. Farmhouse, bench, must hold Paul Bunyan, kind of legs because every regular table we have had eventually had the legs wiggle loose, joints wear out, etc. and Dh had to repair them. We are apparently hard on tables.

Just turn me into a pin cushion, sigh. Preparing for many sore arms ahead.

It is a blast. And marshmallow wars are safe fun, and more kids will take those kits than will take the candy. We put three marshmallows in each kit, and then figured parents would be responsible for buying ammo. Plus, the whole physics behind the concept is worth exploring. Previous to that Halloween, we had held a county wide "Science of Medieval Warfare" demonstration with a catapult and a trebuchet dh made with the club that were large enough to launch pie size pumpkins, and then a smaller one that launched tomatoes. The one for tomatoes was used for a distance contest. So I did a presentation on how the technology worked, how it was sighted in, and then we did a demonstration with club members assisting. Kids who had signed up for the team tomato launch contest, then had a prescribed amount of time to assemble their catapults from the kits we provided. Each team of 3 kids had 3 tries to launch the furthest. We also had a target contest, and had a huge bullseye target on the ground, team with the most points after 3 launches, won. Thankfully one of the master gardeners donated a ton of tomatoes! I then did a presentation on "Greek Fire", speculations on what it might have been, and dropped a several grains of pure sodium contained within a muslin packet that was dropped into a wading pool of water from a very safe distance using a stand and a rip cord. This allowed the spectacle of flames on water without injury. Then I oil slicked the water, and set it ablaze from a safe distance with some cheap, balsa would boats in there so demonstrate " burning the fleet". Again, very popular 4H leaders with an, at that time, very liberal program director who maybe didn't always tell MSU what we were up to at the time! 😂😂😂😂😂 I would post photos, but we aren't in 4H anymore and cannot use those pics without permission because many of them show some of the kids, and I no longer have media releases for social media. I forgot to say that this Halloween, we are building a catapult for the back deck of the Bama house and launching tomatoes into the cove (uninhabited by humans) at the party. No one will ever be able to say we are boring grandparents!

We made a big, fabric target (if memory serves, it was a funny ghost face against an orange background, and about 10 ft by 10ft) and anchored it down with rocks. How far away you and the catapult or trend get (depending on what you build) depends on size of machine and the amount of force generated. There are a lot of plans for simple ones available online, and a book (wish I could remember the name) on amazon. Not expensive to build. You get a lot more distance from a trend bet than a catapult, and sometimes it is easier to "sight in". Usually each child got to launch their little fabric baggie (a square of junk fabric tied up with twine around three tootsie rolls or something similar) to see if they could land on the target. But we did have little ones come through who wanted someone to do it for them because they were afraid to come too close to it. Then one of the 4H teens would do it for them and then walk them to the target to get the candy. We also gave away " kits" of rubber bands, plastic spoons, and marshmallows to older kids instead of candy so they could go home make a super rudimentary catapult and have marshmallow wars with their friends. That's just the kind of 4H leaders we were! 😂

😳😲😮😠 Bad movers, bad bad movers! I say do what makes you happy. Corben Bernsen would say this too. I saw his Central/Upstate NY house in a Farmhouse Style magazine. Amazing place. He and his wife love mixing antiques with "whatever works and is comfy", and it is in my eyes, quite ecletic. They seemed to have a down to earth approach, and suprisingly, low budget so they are bargain hunters. It was kind of refreshing to see a different approach to home decorating.

Oh yes. And for fun, you could have a spooky theme target to aim for, and make it a game for the teens. We did it one year with 4H. We had them participate in a trunk or treat, and we took the back part of the parking lot so as kids approached, we launched to the target area, and then they had to retrieve it. We were a HIGHLY popular station. 😁

I agree about the bucket of candy. Very germy. If you want to have fun, you could make a PVC catapult and !launch candy to the end of the driveway! 😁

Wouldn't it be nice if catnip had the same effect on humans and one could just play with the cat toy? 😁

I have no idea. All I can say is that with my mother in law, we have a young girl, 17-18, from the local Mennonite community who is a lovely companion and caregiver who comes three days a week for part of the day, and we pay her cash which is what she prefers anyway. I think on paper my mother in law's weekly withdrawal of cash is would be assumed to be grocery/gas/co pay for meds. It isn't enough to trigger a problem, and we do have her on a waiting list for the memory care wing of county medical, by have no idea if she will agree to go when a bed pops up or bad enough to be forced to go. If she was bad enough and no bed was available, we would put her house on the market, and use the proceeds for a private home while waiting for a bed at the county facility. Thankfully, the county memory wing is wonderful. Mostly we live on pins and needles. But in terms of personal care, my mother in law is still of as intensive as you grandma. I am very sorry, Tiggy! All I can suggest is that while it seems cruel, sometimes the only way to make the wheels turn is to be the very squeaky axle, and abandon the elder at an ER so social services then kicks in and gets the necessary everything coded such that 30-90 days of rehab is approved while a permanent bed is found in a care facility. We had to do that with my uncle who had MS. My grandparents were in ill health, and his sins were all still working full time. They couldn't just drop out of life to care for him 24/7. The system sucks!! 💓

With you on that! Come to Michigan where it will be 20-25 degrees Christmas Day on a warm Christmas, and the house is heated on propane and make that statement, LOL. Ya, half the country is probably going to have to do this with that recommendation...😂😂😂

Here is what we are doing: Halloween. The grad school boys and undergrad will be busy with school. The grandmothers really do not observe it. So dh and I will do a shut down here for 10 days beginning Oct. 11. We are vaxed, by will do this just to be careful for our grandson with a heart condition. Then on the 21st we will make that 12 hour drive to the mountain house south of Huntsville and spent two weeks with dd, dsil, and grandsons. There are two homeschool families, all adults and teens vaxed, who have formed a pod so the families can socialize together. We are hosting an outdoor Halloween party. Costumes for fun. Pumpkin carving. Fire in the fire pit. Spooky (one kind of really spooky for older kids, and one cutesy spooky for the little ones) scavenger hunt in the big yard. Buffet of fun foods, and making glow in that dark slime dough. Dd and I are going to have fun decorating the yards and we will play songs like Monster Mash, theme song to Harry Potter, etc. softly in the background. If weather cooperates we will get the telescope out. The whole thing is intended to be outdoors and in the garage with the garage doors open. The half bath just off the garage will be available for us with the window open and a fan, and everyone three and older wearing a mask when using it. The other families are super covid cautious so the mask in the bathroom might be overkill. But we don't want to have any regrets. Christmas: The grad school boys too not have finals. They just have papers due, and those will be submitted by Dec. 8. The undergrad who lives in the dorm will be done Dec. 10, and will be headed home for break. So they will all come here (they are vaxed and will happily take boosters or third doses when available) and hunker down for nine days, then make the drive to Alabama. On grandmother is going to her sister's in Colorado, the other who is thrilled to be going will also hunker down. On these trips, we pack food to eat in the cars, and we double mask to use rest areas and even outdoors when pumping gas just in case. No hotels. We muscle through the long drive. Well, dh and I do. Other people (looking at the college boys) nap half the time! 🤔 So we will all be together there. Dd remains pretty isolated with our grandsons except for her homeschool pod. Son in law was given a private office where he works because work remote is not an option despite being in IT due to the nature of his projects. He still only zooms into meetings with others even at work. His boss set it up this way when dsil shared that his son was now high risk. His boss felt so bad about not being able to let him work remote, that he told everyone to stay the heck away, and no one is allowed in dsil's office. There is a mask mandate company wide for in person so that helps, and his colleagues have a high vax rate. He eats his lunch in the car just to be extra careful about taking his mask off. We really hope this means we are keeping grandson very protected until he can be vaccinated. The poor little man asks regularly, "Can I have my shot yet, mama? I want to take swim lessons again." Makes my heart break. If the vast majority of the grownups in this land had actually acted like grownups from the start, the little ones would not be suffering in this way. Since the other two pod families are not having relatives and friends to their homes (because they have a lot of relatives who do not respect their concerns), we will probably have a Christmas Eve get together. Food, Christmas Carol singing, stories, maybe a movie. It all depends on how much entertaining dd, Mark, and I feel up of because we will already be managing a group of ten. I think we can make a go of it because the grad school boys don't mind cleaning up, and undergrad likes to cook my mom loves to help cook and entertain. So we may manage it. Then after that, we will collapse on Christmas Day and eat leftovers while the little play with their new toys. The grandmothers will then do a hunker down - if this thing is still raging - in order to go back from kids February through mismatch for a break from the ice, snow, and bitter weather here. Easter is a wild card. None of the boys have any kind of decent break. I suspect Mark and I will run down for just a short visit, host an Easter Egg hunt for the pod, and then come back home and begin preparations for ds's college commencement. Classes end on the same day for all three of our sons. So we are all heading to A's graduation, and then taking them on a "Yay, everyone has finally made it through their undergrad and mom and dad are delighted to no longer be paying on college bills" trip west. If we adults have all had third doses by then, and N has been vaxed, we will probably let our hair down a LOT and just have fun. We do tend to be outdoor people, and love to be in the scenery, eat picnics, or enjoy outdoor dining experiences. So we will probably wouldn't need to worry anyway, and won't see the kiddoes again until June when they come up to go boating, kayaking, and camping around the Great Lakes. And of course, these are plans, but we also know things could change. Note that in none of this did I mention my brother, his wife, his kids, my mom's brother, etc. They are covid hoaxers. Not really much of a relationship there, and the sister in law thinks she can cure everything in the world with Reiki, vitamin c, and vegetables. Mark's brother and his wife are great people. But they have two little grand daughters who they are trying to protect so they will have their own pod with their adult kids, and not be mingling. That's okay. We have agreed to meet sometime next summer and have a family cookout somewhere special like a meet up at New River Gorge National Park or something, and everyone has their own vacation rentals, or for our family of avid campers, campsites.

Oh yes. Very much so. Mania is way way beyond happy, feeling joy, experiencing contentedness. It is on an exponentially extreme level, outside the bounds of the wide bell curve of normal.

This. The compassion has run out while a dear college friend of ds's in the ER 24 hrs now for a threatening to rupture hernia, in horrific pain, and has yet to be seen because assholes think they get to overwhelm hospitals. 98.8% unvaccinated people according to that county's medical health director. Add the RSV that is going around, and it is an apocalypse out there! Done. Very, very done. After all the horrific rhetoric out of the let her rip crowd including being told by the local pastor's wife that my grandson is expendable because he has a pre-existing condition, and I will no longer give an ounce of mercy or grace to that crowd. I weep for the innocent children hurt by their parents' malignant narcissism, but have nothing for the adults espousing this crap.

Holy moly! You need some serious chocolate!

I think talking to a pro and sorting out your feelings in a neutral environment is good. But, I also think the fact that you really worry about this means you are not a toxic person, and therefore probably have little to fear. In my experience, the parents that were cut out of their adult children's lives were the malignant narcissists who were positively toxic, the abusers, the ones that so incredibly favored a single grandchild that is was very painful for the other grandkids to be around their grandparents.

Exactly! It is not "discrimination" to call out logical fallacies. And if one does not want to be "othered", stop proclaiming myths, falsehoods, proven untrue remedies, and dangerous advice during a pandemic. No one has to have patience with that. People are disabled and die from this crap.

Less packaging across the board. Hey lego, I know plastic is cheap, but for the love of how much is spent on your product, how's about splurging for biodegradable bags for all the parts so at Christmas and birthdays for my grandboys, I am not throwing out all that nasty plastic? And maybe also when I go to the deli, old fashioned butcher paper and twine ties or biodegradable tape could be used because I am sick of deli-bags. I just feel like so much more could be done to reduce plastics manufacturing and dependency, and some of it would not be super hard to convert to doing.

Copiers, in my opinion, are possessed by evil gremlins!