😠😠😠 @#$$%&&&&%$$#@#$%%&&%$#@@$%&

You know, this is kind of a bummer. I mean this kind of thing is so common with many species, Komodo Dragons do it too. But still, we have so much nasty in the world, it sure would have been fun to have some sort of monster baby, sharkey sting ray that is has super powers. 😁

It is gorgeous. Lots of Michiganders call it "God's Country". It is the only place in the US that reminds me of the Atlantic Coast in Maine. Presque Isle Park in Marquette feels like some of the scenic turnouts we walked when I was a kid and we traveled all along the coast. I think we ended up spending a week in Boothbay. Some of my best childhood memories!

We went to Chicago for the weekend. We visited the Lego store, Chicago Institute of Art and heard the CSO string ensemble play some Beethoven which was just lovely, and had dinner at Riva's Cafe on Navy Pier, wandered around the Pier, saw the stained glass window exhibit. For our 30th, we ended up in the UP on Lake Superior because youngest had freshmen orientation that weekend. We dropped him on campus, got our own hotel room since he was staying at in the dorms, skipped out on all the parents stuff because this was our fourth rodeo, and enjoyed the great outdoors. We had a spectacular dinner at a 3 star restaurant and bar on the water. 35th was last summer, and we had a lovely outing planned, but an emergency with Mark's project at work ran right over that like a steam roller.

😂😂😂😂😂😂 That would be one EPIC memory!

I truly feel elementary school has too much nonsense stuff, too much test prep, and too many students per classroom. This doesn't help. As a child, I did not have significant amounts of homework. We always had plenty of time to work in class, and our teachers would rove around the room while looking over shoulders to see how we were doing, answering questions, and giving guidance with words of encouragement. But, we only had 20-22 children per classroom. Now it is 35-40 per teacher. No way does that adult have time to do this.

I am a Ravenclaw as is my youngest. Mark is Gryffindor and so is our middle son. Daughter is Hufflepuff, and eldest son is Slytherin. A quidditch game between all of us might be epic! 😁

We do not watch the Duper Bowl since we aren't football people here. But, we like to use it as an excuse to have a special movie night with game day foods. Tonight I am making buffalo wings and blue cheese dip, chili cheese dip with corn chips, and putting out salsa, fresh veggies, and mixed nuts. I will be doing an actual game day in October. Mother in law is a very very proud University of Iowa alum, and has never gotten to go back for homecoming when they honor alumni. She has regretted her decision to never make that a priority though prior to it becoming too hard to travel, I had offered to make that road trip happen. Now with her P.A.D., she can't go. So I have planned a surprise homecoming game watch party for her. Our sons and daughter in law, my mom, Mark and I. Mark is going to get her out of the house that morning to go grocery shopping, while we sneak in and decorate. I am making a UI hunting and pennants to hang around the windows, a big tissue paper yellow mum (yellow mum is what the alumni wear at the game), and hawks to hang from her ceiling fan. Pulled pork sliders, wings, seafood dip, chicken bacon ranch dip, potato skins, cut out cookies (hawk) frosted yellow and black, and homemade ice cream. We will set up our large screen, and watch the game with her. She is so cute. Every year she watches the homecoming game while wearing her school sweater from 1957. Everyone is going to try to wear black and yellow or all black.

Also, SAD is real, and I am very sorry you have to deal with it. February is a real bummer for an awful lot of people. When I still had kids at home to school, I thought February was the absolute pits.

I don't think I have ever said this in my whole life. Come to Michigan. It is 58° and sunny! 😱

I would! I know I would. But we would have to abandon kids, honorary kids, and two elderly moms to do it. We haven't been willing to do that. However, we have put my mom on notice that when mother in law passes away or goes to a facility, we are leaving this community and going to a much much better area. She will be welcome with us. As it is, she splits her time between my sister in France, our daughter and family in Alabama, and here. So she would only have short periods in which she would have to guilt trip my lazy brother into acting like a person and helping her, or call my very fine nephew 35 minutes from here for some assistance if she doesn't come with us. The new area will be within 2.5 hours of our bachelor sons, two sets of honorary kids. Dd and hubby are thinking of eventually coming back to Michigan. So it is possible our winter retirement fun will not be the Alabama house which would be sold if they move.

True. If you have a community. Ours is, apart from us who are willing to help, politically aligned with "every man, woman, and child for themselves". I really can't count on a soul around here, not even my own brother two blocks away, yet have a mother and mother in law to worry about. We are the very last in the entire county to get any response from community services and first responders. You have to be more self a sufficient when your community doesn't act like one, and doesn't want to fund or take part in community response.

I just whipped this up in under and hour. I found this panel for $3 at a quilt store. It has a MINOR, like you have to look hard for it, flaw thus the price. I knew my viking bachelor boys would love it. I put a casing on the back, sewed it right sides together, flipped and finished, then straight stitched the grey borders and around the triangle mountains. They don't have any wall decorations because they are not allowed to put holes in the walls to hang anything. The 25.5 year old has been in this apartment for 5 years! So this will take a 1/4" dowel hung on 2 of those 3M sticky hooks.

We have used our has generator numerous times. We are the last to get attention part of the county, so where some places are without power for a few days, we can be out for a very long time. We used it one time to power vitally needed medical equipment at my mother's home when my father was on hospice, and getting very panicky. We also powered my mother in law's freezer after she lost power for more than week having just purchased a side of beef that cost her $750.00. She had a $1000 deductible on home owner's insurance. We have used it enough that it has more than payer for itself. One time we ran it for a neighbor who had life saving meds that had to be kept refrigerated and at a specific temperature. His insurance for darn certain was not going to pay for him to go to the hospital and remain there just because there was a power outage. (Hospital has back up generators.) He would have been out thousands of dollars for that because I guarantee the hospital would have admitted him if he needed to be there for a week. They don't have a patient hotel or anything.

Agree. When my cousin was in high school she got her EMT training and license in high school without interrupting her college prep sequence. Where there is a will, there is a way. There is unfortunately, no will. I hate that.

This is really pretty.

Here is a picture of the throw quilt that was hastily slobbed together because one of my honorary kids lives where there are a lot of blizzards but doesn't have enough blankets. It is all of the flannel strips left from making flannel scarves for stocking stuffers, with two layer of flannel for the "batting" because I have ugly flannel my mother in law gave me that needs some sort of usage that doesn't make me look at it 😆, backed with flannels and bound with it (have decided that this many layers of flannel is a pain the patootie to sew on my machine and results in far too much fuzz in the bobbin compartment). It is not a measure of good sewing technique, just fast technique. We are having a warm spell now, but there is bad wed rather predicted for them in the next two weeks, cold, and possible power outages. My middle son is visiting this weekend, and will take it back to them.

Ya. I get it. We have the Michigan Merit curriculum here. Very school tries to put everyone through it, then pressures the teachers to grade inflate. It is stupid. There should just be variety of options, and all of them well done. One thing I hate is that after algebra 2, they decided tech center would count as a full credit of english and a full credit of math based on "they might use math or have to write something down in their tech program." Sigh. They had already dumbed down the tech center. Why can't they actually have a real introduction to electricity class at the tech center where they will learn really cool, applied things, and use the math they are supposed to know on a regular basis, and not obfuscate everything? I don't get it. Vet science should be called vet science, and it should count as a science. I personally think they should have tech center type options plus lots of humanities options in middle school where the needed math and LA is integrated into the class, we call the class what it is, and because we have teachers with subject matter expertise, we don't have to cloud it all with slight of hand tricks. Call it "Kitchen Chemistry" because that is what it is, and it has basic math, pre-algebra, and algebra 1 principles taught in the class as they go because they will need that in order to successfully complete the program, and they will write gosh darn it because we have a scientific process and it has to be documented properly. Lab reports are a great way to teach kids to communicate concisely, and effectively on paper. I am pretty sure they don't even require lab reports in middle school anymore. When I was a kid, we completed them as we completed the experiment, and handed them in at the end of the day. They received actual narrative grading critique so we knew how to improve if we were so inclined. Sometimes it is really hard to stomach the loss of educational options and approaches that children have endured for 30 years. It was happening when my oldest was young, and she is 32. But it hadn't hit critical mass yet.

This! And in 1984, my high school was not all that rich by any stretch. Very rural, rural funded, lots of money spent bussing kids from hither and yon. Yet we had it. We also complained whenever we met rich kids from Frankenmuth that had even more at school than we did! 😂 Hey they had a 4 star chef at that time, a performance art center (which got rebuilt about 15 years ago by a wealthy businessman in the area and it went from wonderful to totally awesome), and a bunch of other stuff. Meanwhile, corn dogs were on the menu with creamed crap of corn, and some sort of slop that might have been gravy, applesauce, stewed plums, leftovers from the last biology lab project, potentially radioactive slime from the physics lab, no one really knew for sure. Eventually, a bunch of students organized a sit-in at the head principle's office for two days. Hundreds of kids refused to go to class until we were promised a fresh, salad bar with fresh fruit options. It worked! We got it! Today they would call in the state police post and sheriff's department to arrest kids for something like that. The high school civics teacher thought it was awesome sauce, and sat with them. Didn't get fired either. He told the superintendent that he could not pass up the opportunity to teach peaceful protesting as a form of legitimate civil disobedience per the civil rights of students. It was covered by the local newspaper. I figure the fact that a reporter was around is why he didn't get fired. But we got a salad bar! It was everyone's best friend. LOL, it killed the hot lunch program down to ala carte. Pizza by the slice, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and spaghetti. Over and over. 😂😂😂

Yup. Extremes. I do not understand WHY! Why?Why?Why? In my high school in 1984, there were a bazillion options for English and Lit, for math, for science, for history. It was so interesting to be an 8th grader and go over the list that last quarter of school listening to parents, teachers, and guidance counselor recommendations of the many classes offered, and chart out a course. We even had the following music and art options: Concert Band (for everyone who had taken band all through middle school), Pep Band, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Symphonic Band (audition only), String ensemble (we didn't have enough string students to have an orchestra), choir (for anyone who wanted to learn to read music and sing assuming they could carry a tune in a bucket), chamber choir (audition only for credit but rehearsed after school), Glee Club (for credit but after school), Art 1-4 plus drawing for beginners, intermediate drawing, advanced drawing, Art History, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. We had three music teachers and three art teachers in order to manage it all. Robust PTA that did a lot of fundraising for special things like the band traveling to state honors band or marching band championships, choir when it traveled, gallery showings for student artwork, and combined with the theater department, one major musical per year. The first semester theater department put on a major play. And that play was serious. The drama teachers would make them rehearse the play, the playwrights, symbolism and messaging, you name it. Parents fundraiser to make sure they could make or buy costumes, create good sets, make props. English had lots of options from just basic foundational stuff to a one semester totally devoted to Shakespeare class for those that wanted it. Sometimes students wanted enough electives that they took a zero hour course (7:30-8:30 pm), and an after school like Chamber Choir or Marching Band. One could work your schedule out so that if you were taking a math or science or English that was pretty tough for you personally, you could take other courses that were well done but not so heady and stressful, yet have a full load, and not hurt your chances of doing what you wanted to do as a future graduate. We had a big staff, a well trained competent faculty. Sure we had kids determined to skip school, act up, and sleep through class. They were a very small group of students compares to what teachers report today. I think that is because we had something for everyone from two years of woodworking and metalworking, to home economics. This is what I want to get back to doing. Big staff. Big, expert faculty. Lots of options, but all of them based on the fact that elementary school and middle school get.themjob.done. I am also willing to admit I do not know how to change political and administrative culture, federal education policy stupidity, societal mindsets in order to make it happen. I think it is embarrassing to be a nation this rich and NOT provide this for our future workers, future voters.

Like I said up top, I favor the two years of basics high school, followed by two years of real, very well done Tech Center for trades and professional licensing, then out for kids who want to do something besides a four year college major. I think different kinds of diplomas are okay. I also think that we need to stop treating kids like herds. Butt he foundation must be fixed because we must give as many kids as possible, the skills to be able to choose to make up a gap or deficit in order to change tracks if they want, or decide they don't like their profession and do want to do something else. Right now we push them into higher and higher math levels without the foundation being there, and it serves no one. Fix the base. The if some kid does not like their professional track, they can say "Hey I want to take trig, I want to take AP Bio, or whatever" and then do that, and move into their new program. Mostly, we are just failing kids left and right. Neurotypical kids do not all need to take Calculus. But they need a firm foundation in which I'd they changed their minds and wanted to, they aren't paying for remedial pre-algebra, followed by college algebra all of which won't count for anything, and then finally into college trig. Same with writing. They all need that foundation so they don't get relegated to remedial English before taking basic college writing or even worse and we see this a lot in our area, high school graduates who have to take remedial reading a 099 class at the community college because they can comprehend grow up reading. Neutrotypical high school graduates. This is all kinds of wrong.

I think there was a lesson last year to many Michiganders during the Wildfire/Bad air quality for an entire month disaster. Many of them just so not keep much on hand. Having to go out in it was horrible! But so many and to go stock up in the midst of the mess in order to then hunker down. Social media was loaded with posts about wishing they didn't have to go grocery shopping and such because they ran out of important things on some of the absolute worst days to be outside. Of course, this was pretty much a first for a lot of folks. Wildfire smoke at that extreme is just not something this state has ever had to spend a lot of time thinking about. We will occasionally get a little wildfire or a bush fire, and between our fire departments and DNR, they have always been able to control it pretty quickly. Then bam, we had a good size one up by Grayling, followed by all of the Canadian smog drifting down. It was an eye opener.

Agreed. There is a lot of stress out there. Too much. Kids get overwhelmed. I blame a lot of that on college admissions. No teen should feel the need to take 5 AP classes simultaneously and then set the ridiculous exam in the hopes of getting a paltry $2000 scholarship on a $25,000 annual tuition/room/board bill. That is a mess that needs to change. If a kid is taking Calc 1 and AP Bio, let up, and take some regular stuff or enjoy some electives. This also happens because middle school has simply become a spin the wheels kind of mess. It seems like skills stagnate. That isn't helping anything. Let them run in place for 6-8, and then start heaping on the coals. No wonder there is overwhelm. I swear our educational system seems to take glory in extremes.

We are not preppers. I am pretty certain that there is no way to prep for an Apocalypse unlike many movies seem to indicate. I think there is a lot of money made from sources who take advantage of that extreme in human nature. But, we live in an area that can have power knocked out for quite a while, roads that get packed in with snow drifts or covered in ice, and take days to be taken care of by the road commission. So this is what we have: 14-30 days of food, and that includes grains and legumes that could be cooked. We have a two burner camp stove and we keep 30 days of fuel for it. So I can use it in a well ventilated area indoors or go outside. We keep charcoal on hand for the grill. We have a generator and keep 20 gallons of fuel for it. We never get lower than 2 face cord of wood for the wood boiler, never go less than 20% on the propane tank for the back up furnace, and lamp oil for three Aladdin lamps, plus some extra pillar candles. I try not to let any prescription run too low which is pretty hard given insurance never wants to let anyone have extra on hand. But sometimes the doc will order a longer supply. We also have a very robust first aid kit which is more of a tackle box of supplies. 2 fire extinguishers. We live 8 miles from the fire department and not on city water, so they have to bring a tanker. The hope is to put the fire out or contain it until they arrive. We are on a well, and we have enough solar panels hooked to car batteries to run the electronics on the furnace and also the pump for the well. So I don't keep a lot of jugs of water on hand. My sewing stash is should not be counted as prepping! 😂 If it were, one would assume that I believed there had been a cloth Armageddon and no fabric would be available in the future. 😁

That stinks!