Sadly, this all too true!

I suspect it is Family Dollar. The company was bought not by Dollar General, and while DG is not actively seeking to close those stores, it is also working against them being successful so that eventually they will one by one close up. Policies and management for workers at FD are much worse than DG. So it is an internal political game at the corporate level. It is not the fault of the workers.

Put her in the wheelchair. She is a fall risk. You do not have to apologize about that. That forces them to provide someone to wheel her around the place if they are unwilling to let him do it. Call the hospital social worker and talk this through thoroughly. They have patient advocates who can help with this stuff. And she has dementia just early stages. Try to get a POA if she would be willing to sign one. Let her know that your dad having a POA (he can carry the paperwork with him) might make it possible for him to be with her. It sounds like she would likely want him with her. Here is the last one. Get ugly about the money once you have the POA. He can call these offices and let them know that while they may have their "policies" and her insurance information, she is no longer capable of paying bills. Then this, "If you ever leave her wandering around the building for an hour or crying in a room for the afternoon because staff cannot be bothered to make sure she gets back to the waiting room or call me, a lawyer will be hired." Hospital talking bobble heads (administrators) usually only respond to two things. The threat of money lost/litigation, and dirty laundry aired in public. I wish that were not the case. But too many of them run hospitals like the board rooms of Chase Manhattan.

My real world advice is to have a hospital social worker together with an educator nurse (a nurse on staff that is one often assigned to help the patient understand his/her disease) talk about survivability and possible outcomes, and be in the room with her asking questions. Some patients really get it. Some are fuzzy and overwhelmed but get it later when it has a chance to sink in or after asking their relative/friend who went with them some questions. Some refuse to accept it. Those patients are the really tough ones. My father was the blast kind. All I can tell you is that A. if your mom wants to leave vacation early, let her do it. Her mind and body are under assault, and she probably feels overwhelmed but may not want to say it. Support that. Get behind that. No judgement. B. If she does not accept that she is stage 3 and everything that entails, you can't do a thing about it. You will have to come to peace with her making decisions you think are bad. C. Begin thinking now about how much physical care it is reasonable for you to provide if she becomes terminal, and do NOT over extend yourself because if you do, you will crash and hurt your own health, something you might not recover from right away or maybe not ever! Ask me how I know. D. If she will not discuss the future and planning for possible outcomes, then just keep telling her medical care providers this. Sometimes patients do better listening to hospital advocates and social workers. Hopefully she will not be like my father who made everything a million times worse for himself AND for all of us by not listening to anyone to the very end. I really hope you do not end up in that position. But, I also refuse to sugarcoat it. Make sure throughout the process that you have some time each day to quietly process your thoughts and new information as it comes.

It was your choice. That is the big difference. In fundie families, the adult daughter is not given a choice. If she wants autonomy, she has to run away from her family and face shunning often not having anything more than the shirt on her back. The system is designed to oppress them enough to prevent them from finding the resources to leave.

Whoa!!! I have words. None are polite enough to be shared on this forum. This is what is scaring me. Fascists coming out of the woodwork. I would prefer they stay in their holes afraid to come out.

You are nor wrong! Michigan currently has an led, anti-teacher, anti-education, sentiment through large regions of it so IF you move here you have to be very wise about where you land, says MOI who did not do enough research and under duress of elderly relatives moved back here and lived to regret that decision very, very much. And the rural areas are just 100% ruled by what the local, often fundie, churches think so LGBT friendly is 100% not a thing. Minnesota is way better, but the winters are even more brutal than here. And again, Ohio and Indiana can be much of the same, but if you are wise about it, you can find a place that meets the criteria, and teacher pay in those areas will be better while not having cost prohibitive COL. Any state except say Illinois and western NY that is typically thought of as Midwest and Great Lakes Region has this wild dichotomy. The OP will have to carefully research it. Dayton, Ohio has a good reputation though I cannot remember if it is LGBT friendly or not. It is absolutely as far south in the area that I would consider going in terms of summer conditions. There are parts of Colorado that would meet the teacher pay and LGBT friendly parts but I am not sure about COL. I think around Colorado Springs summers are pretty pleasant.

Yes. It is cheaper if the job is full time with health insurance, to pay over time than hire another full time worker. It becomes overwhelming.

We have a lot of that too. The main employer, related to healthcare, for the county always claims they are hiring, but aren't. They just want to keep an up to date list of hcw's available just in case. This place pays well and has great benefits so people apply with hope and never get called. I feel bad for folks because these jerks waste their time and never call back. Mostly though, local employers want people with post high school education, several years of work experience, work hours flexibility tolerating getting the next week's schedule on Saturday night, people willing to work eight weekends straight, and only 31 hours so they are not classified as full time and therefore never have to offer benefits, and sign a non compete clause so the worker cannot get another part time job in the same type of business in order to survive financially all for $9.00 an hour, and then when interviewed by the newspaper, claim everyone who does not want their lousy job are lazy, welfare recipients. Ask me how I know. My brother and his wife have a business and they are just one representation of these kinds of employers. We have a plethora of them in my county. GenX has enough work experience to get good jobs elsewhere if they lose theirs for some reason, Millennials and GenZ, refuse to be treated worse than dogs, and seek employment all over the state and country, and when they find a good job, move. Thus this county and its surrounding environs has a massive brain and worker drain which is talked about all the time by the county commissioners in the region, and yet the conclusion is never that the employers are the issue. It is always that Millennials and GenZ are ungrateful, lazy twerps who are not loyal to the area they were born and raised in. It is disgusting. In 2019, I was at one of the commissioner meetings to testify to the importance of not cutting the county contribution to 4H, and told them to their faces that I would not be "loyal" to a location that talks smack about my generation and demeans me constantly, showing no loyalty to me, constantly cutting youth programs, and offering no employment opportunities that an adult can live on either, and reminded them that the only reason my dh and I live here was being forced by eldercare issues. Nothing else. And it was sad that I had been forced to raise my kids in a place where the boomer generation hated them from the time they were born and had already written them off as "ungrateful, lazy idiots", and where every damn year we had to fight for the right for 4H to continue to survive in an place with practically nothing else for kids. So me, a GenX hard working, tax paying, upright citizen would have given anything to have NOT had to raise my children here, and I have actually advised them to leave for college and not look back. I also told them we would not retire here as there is nothing for our kids or grandkids except the scenery - which to be fair is absolutely gorgeous! They were not amused. The place was filled to the max with parents, teachers, even law enforcement fighting for the program because it does so much good. People filled the parking lot because there was no room inside. Support was overwhelming. The vote to keep the 4H funding required by law in order to have the program was 5-4 against. So 5 of these jerks still wanted to eliminate it, and wanted the 1300+ youth of the county involved in the program to be happy about it, and stay here when they turn 18. We took it to the next level and fought for a millage dedicated to 4H for the next ten years that cost $2.00 per business, and $1.00 per house. The businesses fought against it!!!!!! Thankfully, it still passed so it will be a while before anyone has to go to bat for it. But the kids involved in campaigning for it, never forgot that the business community fought against. Not surprising they don't want to live here and work for that community. We don't get transplants here. So you reap what you sow is very much in force. This is how it is here. Businesses in my region want them to work for nothing for forever, unable to fully support themselves, and be grateful for it, and endlessly without health insurance. It is not sustainable, and no one should be vilified for refusing to do it. It is why the areas of this country with either more business regulation to prevent this abuse or simply a different work culture among employers regularly receive new transplants, and why areas like mine will eventually be filled with only agriculture and ghost towns. The high school students really can't get summer jobs here though. Nothing is offered except detassling corn for a couple of farmers. This is grueling work in the heat, and hard on back, feet, and hands for $7.50 an hour. It is not uncommon for parents to tell the farmer that their child will not be coming back after seeing the condition of their kid at the end of the day. I never let my own teens even think about doing it.

The added benefit of being in a sleeper community off I 94, is a direct route to hospitals in Kalamazoo and of course U of MI medical center, and the children's hospitals. Detroit has some wonderful hospitals, Henry Ford, Beaumont, Children's at Wayne State U, Mercy...but I really don't think housing would be reasonably prices enough to make it on a teacher's salary.

I think northern -mid Ohio and Indiana. Spring comes sooner than Michigan, but it isn't swampy hot in the summer. That said stay well north of the Ohio River valley in order to have the milder summer. Eastern PA especially anything at a higher elevation. West Virginia is a low cost of living, but I am not sure about teacher salaries. My area of Michigan, just south of the shore of Lake Huron/Bay area, is very reasonable COL. With your qualifications my guess would be roughly $65,000 for PS. Community College pays SQUAT to instructors. Our winters routinely get down to 0 degrees though most days are in the twenties, and summers will have a stretch of 90 degree days with 85% humidity. But most days are 75-80 ish, and a little lower humidity. Just know that the commutes in winter are snowy and icy. Now word of warning. In the Midwest and Great Lakes Region, most suburban and rural areas are not necessarily LGBT friendly. The cities and larger college towns are but of course the costs of houses are higher. So Kalamazoo, home of WMU and Kalamazoo College are very LGBT friendly, but houses cost a lot more than say Bay City, MI which is pretty darn conservative outside the city limits, and just tolerant inside them. Ann Arbor and Brighton would meet a lot of your needs, but unfortunately might be pricey. They do pay teachers better there. East Lansing around MSU, super inclusive. Housing again a bit pricey. Rural areas just don't pay. But there are some sleeper communities close in to WMU, CMU, Battle Creek Community College (one of the better paying CC's), Spring Arbor University, Adrian College, Albion College, and Hillsdale which are cheaper, and you could commute in without a long drive.

Could it be that management has a bad reputation? I also know a lot of people who will no longer take factory work because the factories are constantly moved overseas, or as fast as they expand, they get downsized. Manufacturing work in our region has been very unreliable work, and shifts changed constantly which is very hard on the body.

In our area they do want to hire. But what they want are experienced adults or at least adults who are not summer only help, and on my part time, and low pay. So they aren't getting takers. If they were full time and competitive pay, then they would have a lot of applicants. But, we also have many adults going to school full time using the tuition incentives that Governor W offered to essential workers who put their lives on the line often at low pay through all of this. They are training for better jobs with benefits. I think places like Wal-Mart and several other businesses are going to have to suck it up and offer living wage, 40 hour a week in order to attract workers. The high schoolers are absolutely not getting hired around here.

Yes this. In my area of Michigan, some folks were putting off their older teens vaccines until after AP exams or final exams for DE just in case their kids were hit hard with immune response at a bad time in their study cycle and test prep. A lot of college students didn't become eligible until April here and with only 2.5 -3 weeks until final exams, chose to wait until the end of the semester. We have had a bit of a rush of 18-24 year olds this week. New graduates are squeezing JnJ in between commencement and the start of new jobs, and other students working around the beginning of spring/summer classes and internships. So I am not shocked that we are just now seeing a bit of an up tick in this age group.

I bought a 3 function collapsible dish pan that also serves as a cutting board. It was very handy on our camping trip.

Thanks! Funny thing is that if I wanted to go alone, I could do it with my Equinox. I am only 5'4" so with the back seat folded down and the passenger seat moved as far forward as it goes, I can sleep in the back of it. Poor dh at 6 ft cannot. I could either take the tail veil which might be harder for me to put up on my own, or the 5-10 minute two man tent, and then store my cooler, camp stove, lantern, and cooking supplies in the tent, sleep in the equinox. So far every trip I have planned as been with dh, but this has me thinking!

Here is dh with the tail veil. We didn't have it hooked to the van yet, but you can see how it is free standing when we aren't hooked up. It is easy peasy to unhook for the van when we want to go somewhere.

Here is the van partially set up for sleeping. I modified some curtains from the house that we no longer use and were ready for goodwill. So that was nice. And the quilt is nautical themed. I made it two years ago from a "layer cake". It has red flannel on the back, and is tied. Nothing special. When I made up the bed and saw how well it all went together I was pleasantly surprised.

Here are some photos. This is of the unit. The front two pieces are hinged and free standing. They lift right out. Since we wear pants/shorts more than once, I can get a week of clothes plus bathroom items into each cubby. So we have a his and hers kind of thing.

PeterPan, if your husband is not convinced and you will be embracing solo adventures, here are my suggestions. Find a used, Toyota Vienna or Honda Odyssey with less than 100,000 miles on it. These are known for running 200,000+ without major repairs, and since these minivans are still being manufactured, unlike the phase out of American made mini vans, you can still get parts easily. Remove the back seats. For about $300, if you are handy with tools, you can make a simple frame for a bed with storage underneath. We still use our minivan for hauling our college son back and forth to dorms with all his stuff, so our conversion lifts in and out, comes out in sections, and the back seats are not permanently removed. We recess the back bench, and take out the two bucket passenger seats when we want to camp. But eventually, the conversion will be permanent. Then put a foam mattress on it. I made curtains that cover the windows using sticky back velcro and 3M hooks. These are then removed easily when we want to drive around. Coolers and camp equipment goes on top until we get to camp and set up. We have a tail veil - a large room tent that attaches to the van. It is not difficult for us to put up, and dh has done it alone before. The roof is 8 ft so we walk around inside it, and can stay dry if it is raining without being cooped up in the van. We have a motorcycle battery that we can use with an inverter to power devices/appliances if needed. The tail veil folds up into a nice bag for storage. We pop the back hatch of the van, pitch the tail, and voila a van plus a room. We sleep in the van. If it is cold, we in hitch the veil, zip the hatch so it becomes a free standing tent, and close the van up. For one or two people, it is lovely. When our two college boys wanted to come, we kept the bucket seats in, and just rolled up our mattress and tied it. The two sections of our conversion that sit where the bucket seats would be, are hinged and lift out independently. So instead of pre- packing those cubbies with our clothes and personal care items, I tossed our stuff in cloth bags, and stowed in our rooftop carrier. This way the four of us could go, and then set up our storage cubbies and bed at camp. Since we wanted to use the tail veil for living space if if rained or the bugs were bad, we took another two man tent for them. What was fun about that was watching them pitch the tent. They haven't camped since they were pre-teens, young teens due to rocket team always occupying our time back then, so they had never pitched a tent without our assistance. So funny! 22.5, and 21 year olds kind of scrambling to figure out which pole went where. We let them muddle through. Good learning experience and now they can toss it up in ten minutes or less. I think a couple of times they thought, "Isn't dad going to come over and tell us what to do?" Nope, retired from that job when you boys moved into dorms! 😁 There are a ton of conversion options out there. Some are pretty pricey. We went the cheap, do it yourself way. But we also plan to be fairly minimalist, and do not plan on being gone more than a month at a time even in retirement because we have two magnificent grandsons that we would miss terribly.

It is absolutely amazing! I am one of those "school nerds". I have seriously considered taking another lit class just because. However I also need to for the moment stay focused on shoring up my resume for IREC. Applications for judges are due in the fall. Ideally, so would like to apply and be headed to White Sands in June 2022. However my mother in law just got diagnosed with peripheral arteriosclerosis - two toes on one foot looking dusky - and so that might complicate matters.

Yes, goal one has been met, and goal two is closer. Goal one was way back in the mists of time, I double majored in two music areas and minored in philosophy. But I loved science, and filled my electives with sciences so I was close to a general sciences minor. Since I have done so much science instruction through 4H and substitute teaching, I decided to see what my options would be to complete the minor. I called my alma mater up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that though I am 53 and went to college many moons ago, they apparently need money and were happy to let me take two classes and transfer them back to complete the minor. I actually found a couple that were online and not cost prohibitive. I was definitely not challenged in those courses. Now if I choose to go back, jump the hoops, and get my teaching license again (I let it expire many years ago when I was homeschooling and too busy to do any subbing as well as keep up with continuing education or work towards my master's degree), I would be able to teach choir, band/orchestra, etc. and science. Michigan doesn't have enough high school science teachers. If I wanted this as a secondary career, I could go for it. However that is only a distant back up plan. My top goal is working in Aerospace education outreach after years of volunteer work with 4H. We retired from that due to family issues at that time, and local program director problems as well as dh's work schedule. I am trying to get the elderly mother care thing smoothed out now that they are vaxed - find someone for housekeeping and another for lawn care, a driver for medical appointments - so I can get out of the primary care giving role. We weren't even done raising our kids, and then bam, hit with elder care, and it tends to fall on me though dh is wonderful and definitely as involved as he can be. I am burned out. Utterly burned out. I need to do something that is fulfilling. I am not a natural born care giver so I was very much looking forward to a career post kids. I had one in community arts and loved it. But the pandemic and decisions made by the foundation that funds it, killed the whole thing. I am not working towards an engineering degree. I am just taking some classes to show formal knowledge to add to my experience with the subject matter. The reason for this is that regardless of whether or not I resume a career in music/fine arts or teaching, I want to volunteer as a National Association of Rocketry mentor for the International Rocketry Engineering Competition (Spaceport USA America Cup). I am working on my level 2 high power rocketry certification - a process that I have helped Dh mentor nine young adults through yet have not taken the time to obtain myself - and then hope to begin working on level 3. I am hoping given my experience plus the course work, I can judge documentation or presentations without being level 3. Dh is going through his level 3 process now. Level 3 is most important for working the range (these rockets launch on M or higher motors, custom manufactured motors, etc. and the altitudes are 10,000 ft and up with 30,000 as the minimum goal in the advanced competition). I am not as interested in the range work as I am in judging their design life cycle documents and their oral presentations.) So the aerospace classes - my human space exploration ethics class was awesome sauce - are for me. All me. The actual engineering class I took first required me to petition into because they would have preferred I take a refresher calc 1 class. But, I got them to relent based on the fact that hubby uses his bachelor's degree in math all the time and is very current so I have an in house tutor. Believe me, it was a song and a dance to get permission. And then it kicked my behind all over the place, and made my brain very, very tired. But I got an A! A music education and piano performance degree holder who did not even need calculus to graduate and took one class of it just for funsies (ya, I know, I am a bit unhinged 😁) back in 1987, with some awesome husband tutoring, got a freaking A in that class. I have had a puffed out, proud chest ever since! If I am turned down for judging IREC (also, shhhhhhh banking on gender because they have so few women involved with the judging panels, none on the range, and lots of female students participating), I am going to be very disappointed. My current hike is in a town six miles from here. I would love to get to the place where I have the time and endurance to walk that round trip. However, it will probably not happen simply because the road there is very narrow, rural road, no shoulders, deep drainage ditches, a pedestrian nightmare that would make my poor husband have anxiety if I walked it. I drive up there, park at the trail head. It is a mile out to the river where they have a pedestrian bridge. So 2 miles round trip. When I have time, I then do the half mile trail along the river which adds another mile round trip. If I have extra, extra time, I can walk the town sidewalks to get one more mile. If so want more than that , I have to drive further away to a trail that is three miles long. There aren't a huge number of places to do this for someone who needs a relatively flat hike due to my ankle injury. But I am working my way up for endurance, and learning a new taping technique for the ankle that might make it possible to do intermediate trails. Dh and I have embraced "vanlife" for vacationing and for longer excursions once he retires. So I feel the need to get into better shape so we can explore beautiful landscapes together.

For the 9%, I am going to get two things need to happen. Way better messaging about the vaccine itself being free. The state/feel will pay. You will not see a bill. And then radio, t.v., social media, the Kardashians, The View, Ads with whatever shows are really popular, billboards at Little League, just blitz and saturate that message, and maybe even encourage counties to do a mass postcard mailing with free postage paid for by emergency funds sent to each state. Then there needs to be some emergency executive order. A. No employee can be fired for missing work to get the vaccine or recover from the immune response. Employers must pay the employee's wages for lost work but can recover this cost by filling out form x ,y z and sending it to the state treasurer for reimbursement, and then make that money available to the state. But throw a carrot out there that if the employer does not apply for the lost wage money, he/she/the company can take it as a charitable donation and not just as a deductible put straight up off their tax bill. That might really help small businesses. Then also encourage states to offer a lot of vaccine clinics on Fridays so employees have the weekend to recover. Oh, and mobile community vaccine vans so folks with transportation issues need not worry, just walk up and get 'er done. However, I am no expert in these kinds o matters so this could be totally off base too, and a lot of wasted money too! This is just spitballing.

That is so awful! Yes, so many children again often poverty is at play here, could be at high risk for all kinds of tragedy if caregivers get covid and there is no safety net, no back up system, no relatives or neighbors keeping a close watch and willing to intervene. I weep for the children of the world. They suffer so very much.

I have no young children at home. Our son who is a college senior in the fall is here. He does his own thing throughout the day so it does not impact me. 7:00 am dh gets up, I read or today, fighting a mild headache, came here to surf instead of read. 7:30 am, coffee coffee coffee, man my brain needs coffee don't forget my coffee, yeehah! ☕☕☕ Then a boiled egg and a celery stick. (I am nor much of a breakfast eater.) Then after that I have certain things that I do before noon if my mother does not have a medical appointment she needs me to take her to, but these are not regimented. I just do them when the fancy takes me. So usually, two hours of piano practice, a 2-4 mile walk or hike, a load or two of laundry, and then tidy up the kitchen or bath, and take the dog to a quick walk. I used to be at my Community fine arts director job on Tues, Wed, and Thurs from 9-4 pm plus then some evening commitments such as choir rehearsal for the community choir I directed, the community children's music class I taught, etc. So that changed my routines a lot. So the above is kind of what I have fallen into for now. I am sure it will change since I have also been taking college classes this past fall and winter terms. I have an aerospace engineering courses, hybrid and online combo, that is in the 2nd summer session, and I think if I am not driving to the in person session, I will be studying/completing assignments a lot. The piano practice may end for that period because I really, really want to keep up with the walking/hike routine.