This is normal with a home health agency. They get quite a bit more and often have to take travel expenses out of it if clients are less than 10 miles apart so that is built into the hourly rate, and then the costs of operation plus profit for the agency. Independently contracted CNA's in the Detroit Suburban area get an average of $12.16, and this would be typical work for them especially med routines and such as well as help with bathing/self care. Some would also make meals and such. Most agencies do not offer housework except cleaning up after making a meal, and sometimes disinfecting a bathroom particularly if a client has an infectious issue. Just providing companionship/sitting would not be offered. Our county has an agency for the aging and disabled, and through taxes and grants, offer once per week housekeeping such as vacuuming, dusting, mopping, washing counters. This is a free service to people who qualify so the OP should see if this is available. I was brutally disappointed when a petition to get medicaid/medicare to pay for in home help - non skilled nursing - failed. Its crazy. Many disabled and elder persons end up in nursing homes on Medicare/Medicaid at $3500-$6000 a month. Meanwhile, providing a CNA once per day to make up some sandwiches, salads, soup whatever, help with self care, check that meds have been taken on time, and clean a bathroom is maybe $40 a day or $800 a month. Paying a relative to do some housework or provide the same service, again, so much less than a nursing home that it's a staggering savings to the tax payer. But nope. The initiative failed! I don't get it. OP, also my parents contracted with a lady in the community who was retired and wanted to make some extra money. My grandmother did not require skilled care, nor did she need lifting, just someone to walk with her when she went into the kitchen or bathroom, and keep a hold of her gate belt to steady her, then make meals, hand her pills at the right time, and vacuum, tidy up. She was allowed to bring books, embroidery, whatever hobby stuff she wanted because my grandmother slept quite a bit. She asked for $200 a week for Mon - Fri from 8:30 am. to 5:30 p.m. So it was a lot of hours, but she wasn't physically working for a lot of that time, and often got to sew, cross stitch, read, and nap. Maybe so that is something to consider. If the situation is similar, this relative will be on the clock for emergencies but not necessarily doing specific tasks, and enjoying free time. Instead of looking at it by the hour, look at it more like a blanket weekly salary.

My state require this for licenses therapists and psychologists. My own PTSD therapist has her own professional that she sees three or four times a year to vent about her job ad get an objective opinion, make sure she isn't over identifying or getting emotionally involved with patients, etc. I think that is a very healthy requirement.

Wow, what a jackass of a professor! Seriously one shouldn't discuss ethics or teach ethics when one does not possess any oneself! Go acquire some decent ethics, and then talk to the students. Yes, degrees do not mean a person has any ethics, common sense, appropriateness, or social intelligence!

My initial reaction to reading this was "JUST. HEEEEEEEEEEEELL NO!" I wonder if the professor would be privy to her birth date. She might not so if dd doesn't divulge it, that would be one thing potentially solved. I cannot imagine how this is appropriate and especially for an introductory level class. I mean, maybe for an upper level human sexuality class, and then if it were me, I'd take the consequences of not showing up, or fake hacking up a lung or something.

We are in one of these areas. I am glad. I do not need mail so bad that I'm willing to have a postal carrier out in this. I was just outside with the dog so he could do a quick piddle. I had cuddle dud thermal underwear under my heavy fleece pants, a thermal tank top, covered by a long sleeve shirt, covered by a long sleeve, heavy cardigan, followed by my wool car coat. I put on a heavy scarf for my neck, one around my mouth and nose, topped with a wool hat, and grabbed my winter barn gloves which are rated to -20 and have always been fine. We were out 5 minutes, and my lungs hurt, my legs were very cold, and the wind was blowing so hard that my core was starting to feel the cold despite all the layers. It's negative something 30's for the wind chill, and the wind speed is 35mph. I can handle the chill if I need to, but its the wind speed driving through my bones that is the real kicker. As far as I'm concerned, everything but emergency services should be closed, and we should be giving a half million dollars to every single, police officer, fire fighter, EMT/Medic, and road commission personnel out on the roads tonight!

I just wanted to throw out many, many hugs. You are doing great there mama, and there is good chance that as his gut heals, his appetite will improve which will make it easier to get him to eat other things. For now, a multi vitamin with minerals, and lots of those frozen blueberries, plus the carrots, apples, and GF sausage links will get him by.

Yes, children often have a kind of evolutionary adaptation thing that goes on where they develop a natural aversion to things that are fraught with health issue for them, but that they can't name or put an adjective to it. For the first few weeks, I'd be inclined to feed him a lot of what he likes that is GF so if it means cold veggies and chicken breast over and over again, I wouldn't worry about it. There are definitely worse diets in the world. I'd keep his favorite cold, healthy things around and encourage him to eat liberally. Over time you can encourage trying a new thing here or there. Often when a child has developed a digestive track issue, they are pretty internally traumatized and can't mind over matter their way to new foods. Lots of instinctive fear that they can't necessarily express in words. I've got one that doesn't have food allergies or celiac, but who cannot stand cooked veggies, and really only likes turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs, mozzarella cheese. I go along with it and keep plenty of it around. So while sometimes I think "That boy needs to eat more variety" the reality is him chowing down for the third time on chicken breast, cucumbers, and bananas or salmon, carrots, and apples, really isn't going to hurt him. It might be limited, but it is in fact pretty healthy.

This. And frankly, it shouldn't be that surprising in a country based entirely on the concept of rugged individualism, pull yourselves of by your bootstraps, and "I am not my brother's keeper", that this is the case. American ideals have been, by in large, individually based, instead of communally based so not donating to charity unless there is a personal benefit is totally in keeping with the national psyche whether we like to admit it. That said, math is math is math. Without the deduction, it simply does reduce what a person may be able to give since a lot of charitable giving occurs in the last quarter to reduce tax bill, and when refunds come out in the mid-winter/spring. Reduced refund, reduced amount of money people can give.

I had a gluten positive antibody test with a negative biopsy. My doc says it happens, and at the very least to consider myself allergic to wheat but likely celiac even if "technically" the results were inconclusive. This makes sense for me because my sister has celiac disease, and going GF made my life radically better. I do not avail myself much of GF products. We have one betty crocker sugar cookies mix we use. Around the holidays dh makes up a batch so I have a desert to take to events - and they are actually quite yummy cookies - and also uses it for the crust for GF cheesecake and is his go to specialty to bake for our anniversary. Other than that, I only use a GF pizza crust because sometimes I just miss traditional pizza. Otherwise, I use rice and polenta for my carbs at meals. Savory polenta is quite yummy - I put garlic and asiago cheese in it - and rice is my favorite when I've got left over beef or chicken veggie stew. I warm it up, spoon it out over a pile of rice, and it is great comfort food. GF replacements, flours, crackers, desserts, etc. as a general rule are bizarrely expensive, and frankly, are not all that tasty so I recommend apart from finding a few things that he can take to events in order to feel normal - its hard to have food allergies, celiac, or both and be the only kid in the room not having dessert while everyone is stuffing their faces full of cake and cookies at the Christmas party - steer him away from that section of the grocery store. For growing boys, I'm a big fan of potatoes anyway....fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium....fill 'er up!

All three college boys have no classes today. I was very worried when youngest ds's college still had not called it by the time I went to bed last night. Their forecast was frostbite in 5-8 minutes on exposed skin, and hypothermia a very real danger. He has a 20 minute walk to his engineering building so even with the high quality, well rated winter gear we sent, I was still worried. It wasn't like we could afford Antarctic Explorer industrial type items, just Columbia ski wear and such. Thankfully, when I woke up at 6 am, they had called it. PHEW. It is only 3 minutes to the one dining commons, and he has plenty of food in his room, so he can stay toasty today. I had to cancel my adult choir practice, spring musical practice, and tomorrow night's children's choir practice along with a theater parents' meeting, and a student art showing for this week. After dark, it simply isn't wise for people to be out, and many of the participants would be bringing babies and toddlers along. The parking lot is a sheet of ice, and with temps this low, salt doesn't work. I had visions of broken hips in the older folks, skinned up toddlers and preschoolers, mothers and fathers falling with babes in arms, and chapped cheeks, bleeding lips on my poor students. No thanks! So I'm having this weird week where I don't have rocket team, music rehearsals, theater, art, no organizational meetings, working from home instead of the office, and otherwise just hunkered down. I kind of like it since I had almost down time following the A Christmas Carol musical back in December, however, I also feel like I'm going to end up falling behind. I really hope this is the only polar vortex of the season. BLECH!

Teachermom, you should sue. Seriously. There will be some lawyer out there that will take the case for a percentage of settlement. I would FRY the airline. Enough is enough. This crap only changes when it hits their pocket books because corporate leadership doesn't have any morals, just pure greed as motivation. One can't appeal to them to be human beings. They sacrificed that for dollars.

We have been on flights before where the flight attendants did not allow switching seats. Made me nervous because the only reason I could think for this was "if the plane goes down, we want the divers to identify the bodies by their assigned seating". Good grief. On the subject of seat size, I think our government has been far too inactive on the subject. At some point it becomes a matter of public health and safety. Less than 34" of space from the back of your seat to the one in front is heavily associated with blood clots. Having to sit sideways to accommodate broad shoulders, etc. of another passenger causes back aches, head aches from the back discomfort, etc. Enough is enough. Seriously. And because everyone is crammed into a confined space, emotions do run high so at some point the total lack of comfort can and has t times had, a very real impact on the well being of passengers. I think they need to get a good study from orthos, chiropractors, etc. and then pass a law based on those recommendations. The airlines will have people bungy corded inside sucrets boxes soon if nothing is done. Unregulated capitalism does not turn out well for the peasants. They regulate all kinds of things about the seats of cars, there is no reason to NOT regulate this for planes as well.

We had chili over the weekend with grilled cheeses and salad. Tonight will be chicken tacos Tomorrow I am planning lasagna and salad Wednesday beef vegetable stew and biscuits Thursday - loaded baked potatoes with steamed veggies and tomato soup Friday - dh is cooking steaks in the wood boiler and I'm making a hashbrown casserole along with stuffed peppers (cream cheese and portabellas) And I told dh that I'm taking a break on Saturday so he better plan on ordering pizza. (I have a gluten free one in the freezer I can pull out for myself.) Sunday my mother and mother in law are cooking the noon meal, and we'll eat light snacks in the evening.

Agreed. I don't know why she wasn't offered a second extender. I suppose maybe they had several passengers that needed them, and didn't have enough aboard. Seems like a huge liability, on the other hand as litigious as our society is, maybe saying something would have been a real no no for the crew.

I totally agree with Margaret. Don't be reading other people's screens; don't eavesdrop. Mind your own business. It was crappy, jackassery of the dude to even post about that especially if he is a person with hundreds of 'friends" on facebook which we statistically know means the information is going to go quite viral. But, my husband once traveled next to a woman who was quite large, I mean really, really large. He was in his seat minding his own business with his arm on the arm rest when she plopped down basically sitting on his arm or overflowing onto his arm. He asked her to please move off his arm, and she cussed him out. He signaled for a flight attendant who sympathized with him but said she could not force the woman to move - a woman who was of course hearing all of this and KNEW she had him pinned down - because it would be discrimination and rude. Just out of spite, she stayed that way the entire 2 hr. flight. DH couldn't extract his arm without he felt getting accused of inappropriately touching her, so there he sat. When they landed - and by the way the woman seatbelt could not go around her even with an extender so American Air let her fly without a seatbelt fastened for the entire flight - he couldn't feel his fingers they were so numb. We now always ask for an exit row when we fly. We don't mind being responsible for opening the door, and flight attendants will move someone who is not capable of moving quickly and efficiently in that row. The thing is, if the person cannot actually fit into the seat, and the seatbelt cannot be used properly, why on earth is this allowed? Seriously. I'm sorry if someone is that overweight but this is a huge safety issue, and no one has a sacred right to fly.

Even with unexposed skin, short of some of the navy seal suits for diving in the North Atlantic, you aren't going to probably last more than 24 hours, very likely less. The "good" winter gear and even ski gear most of us purchase isn't good enough to withstand it. Part and parcel of this though is knowing what to do if you are lost. If you simply get stuck in your car, stay in it until help arrives because you are out of the elements, and that alone will allow you to conserve body heat. But if you are outside and lost, you have to be able to make shelter at the minimum, and depending on conditions, that may not be enough without starting a fire as well which is not easy in a snowy, icy environment. The NMU boy was dressed in winter hiking gear. Decent stuff according to his roommate. He died 300 ft. from his car having gotten lost on the way back from taking some nature photographs. It was not NEARLY as cold last week in the UP as it is right now.

It is good to cancel if you don't feel comfortable with it. I would be fine, but I've lived in Michigan all my life, and am pretty confident. My mini van is packed to survive "The Long Winter", LOL. But, there is one route that is off limits when there is a lot of blowing. It is miles and miles without windbreaks, just open fields. The drifting and visibility is quite bad whenever it is snowing. So if I had an appointment that pretty much dictated I take that route, I would cancel. I really don't want to put this mini van that I love in a ditch and end up with the insurance totaling it out. I am in NO mood to go car shopping.

WOOT!!!!!

So sad, this morning the news in Marquette announced that the missing NMU student - went missing last Thursday - was found dead only 300 ft. from his car. He'd gone to photograph at the waterfalls, and apparently got lost getting back falling prey to hypothermia. Be careful out there folks. Even with good winter gear, you really can last only so long out there unless you know how to make shelter and a fire. If you do get lost, your car skids off the road, etc. in this storm, try to stay calm so you can think clearly.

Dh got into the spirit of things. There are six large boxes waiting by the door to be broken down and taken to recycling. (Yup. No curbside recycling here. You have to save it all up and haul it to the county center yourself.) So that was nice. I need to tackle our closet. Sigh....I think I need an oxygen tank for safety again avalanche, and should have a rope around my waist with a bell so if he doesn't hear the clang a lang for long enough, he knows to haul my carcass out of there.

We put in a week's worth of groceries today. It was 12 degrees when we went shopping but the wind wasn't blowing. The whole thought of needing to go out in the middle of the week when they are predicting -8 and windchills of -10 to -20 while the winds howl at 25-35 mph made me contemplate getting in the car and driving to DD's in Hunstville. However, I have work, and I am pretty sure I have to show up for it. GRRRR....at least on my day off, I WON'T have to grocery shop. I would not be shocked if school is called off for the whole week. Michigan law, if memory serves, dictates this if the wind or real feel is -20 when the kids would be out waiting for the bus. Looks like we have a chance to hit that least Tues - Fri. We have a snowstorm/blizzard warning for Monday and it looks like visibility will be very bad. So....cue the weeping and gnashing of teeth of schools that year after year after year do not build two weeks worth of weather days into the calendar. I do not know why they do this.

They've added low visibility/white outs to our conditions for Monday. My googling has expanded to Barbados, Fiji, and Thailand. At this point, Guam even looks appealing!

This has confirmed my desire to retire elsewhere. I don't like extreme heat though so at this point we are looking at maybe Tennessee if we don't leave the country. Jamaica....that's my speed. Even when it gets warm, the ocean breeze makes you feel comfy. I could handle the heat there.

Eastern portion of the lower peninsula here. I've been sipping a mocha while googling "houses for sale in Tahiti". So, ya....I get it!

At my current workplace, being in community arts, my expectations are rather low. But, I have high expectations for clean and neat, well stocked for the bathrooms, and they haven't disappointed me. Safe water to drink, and coffee station were my others as well as adequate office space to perform my duties. They have the water and coffee, but I'm crammed into an office with two other people, and have to go outside to turn around, LOL. They are aware of the situation and have a meeting with the committee to discuss reallocation of space. If I were a university instructor, or working for a for-profit music/arts entity, I'd have higher expectations. I'd also be paid better!