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!

And don't be tempted to cram people around tables. I have seen this time and time again in order to put too many people into a too small space. I've seen old people trip and fall, people getting caught up in table and chair legs, unable to push back from the table quickly if a beverage gets spilled, etc. there needs to be a reasonable amount of space. My recommendation is to always take what the local fire department tells you is the maximum capacity and reduce by 20% for the number you will allow. I have never known a fire department to be stingy with their numbers, if anything too generous. A lot of times they use a square footage formula also taking into account the number of emergency exits - of course this is moot for outdoor weddings - but the number is really only appropriate for the ceremony, ie. aisles of chairs. It becomes an inappropriate number when tables start taking up the bulk of the space. Also, do check local ordinances about parking. noise, zoning, etc I know someone who bought a beautiful victorian home, renovated it without doing her research first, and then wanted to open it for small weddings. Would have been gorgeous. However, city ordinance dictated no more than four cars in the driveway, no more than four on the street. She wasn't near an area where should could readily rent a parking lot, and then offer valet parking. OOPS. No wedding venue. She was able to make it over into a bed and breakfast, but she'd already invested in a lot of stuff like tables, chairs, linens, etc. for the wedding venue so she lost a lot of money. Probably you've thought of all of that, but I usually like to just check and be sure since knowing someone who made a big mistake in that regard.

Well, think that's a little bit of an extreme response. Now that said, there really are people who HATE talking on the phone so ten minutes is practically an eternity. I would not necessarily think that it related to the incident 14 years ago, but more that they simply do not like chit chatting on the phone, and then responded inappropriately. My husband has to talk on the phone a LOT for work so when our grown kids phone home, he often hands the phone to me. If I am not home, he works really hard to get them off the phone in 2 minutes. LOL, He doesn't have the energy for it after being in conference calls all day. They are finally learning this. Short, sweet, to the point, get the heck off the phone now.

I like the idea of activities. Could be lawn bowling, could be barbecue, could be stocked trout pond so go fishing guys - though it should be catch and release because if they gut and fry them, you've got that smell wafting around the place which would not be conducive to wedding happiness, pool tables, etc. Also, offer a no frills kind of package deal for people on a budget. You could work out "for this price you get" and maybe it's the use of the facility for so many hours plus desserts and beverages but not a meal, set up seating for only 50 or 75 guests, and maybe you toss in to that rental of tablecloths and cloth napkins but no china or anything. There is real need for young couples not connected to local churches to have a pretty place for small, easy weddings that don't break the budget. If you price it right and are careful how much service you provide, it should be a decent money maker.

I concur with Stacey. Studies show teens are having less sex than 50 years ago. But the ones that are having sex are at risk, and frankly, as a tax payer we all end up paying for that often in the guise of Planned Parenthood services, medicaid for pregnancy and babies, WIC, etc. clinics for STD's you name it. I am not against providing these things at all. Really. But it also behooves us as a society to do what we can to prevent the need widespread need of them, and try to insure more babies are born to ready parents than unready. It is wise to limit STD's if we can. So while I don't think a basket of condoms at the nurse's desk will cause teens to go, "OH yay...now I can have sex" because the ones that are wanting to have sex have already been thinking about it and very likely decided to risk it, I do think it could spur them to think, "Hmmmm I was going to have sex, but if I can be safe, that's cool", and maybe they'll use one. It isn't expensive so why not give it a shot. My son's college health department provides them free all over campus. LOL, their motto when doing a presentation at his freshman welcome session was, "Don't be silly. Wrap your willy!" I think a lot of parents weren't happy, but I was fine with it. They'd had an increase in students coming to them for pregnancy tests or STD testing, and they decided to tackle the issue. In the three years since they've done, the numbers of students seeking this assistance has dropped by a huge percentage, and they are handing out A LOT of condoms. That's not surprising. Shoot even when I was in college way back in the Stone Ages and staying in the conservative, no party dorm, my floor mates were having a lot of sex, and every year there were abortions or dropping out school for pregnancy mixed with whispers of "I think I have herpes" or some such disease. I am quite happy that my son's college is being proactive. We have to try. That's my position. Biology is strong, and abstinence education has been proven to be ineffective at combating the problems. So hand out condoms, make diaphragms and IUD's easy to get, free would be great, and educate, educate, educate. I think that is the single biggest issue. When a couple of our local high schools abandoned abstinence education and adopted very real, explicit health courses that fully explain human biology and reproductive issues, their pregnancy rates went down to nothing. We have whole years when the high school with 500 students doesn't have a single teen mom, and the abortion rate for the county is getting down to literally single digit numbers. Good job! Good job! Keep it up! One of the very few things, educationally speaking, that is working in my county of otherwise academically pathetic schools.

As part of the package, provide a coordinator to handle all of the details that make brides, mothers of brides, etc. miserable the day of...so the caterer comes to talk to the coordinator, not the family, and so on with every vendor. If people are going to pay a good deal of money to use such a nice facility, then really help them make that day lovely by taking away as much stress as possible. Also do your research with local businesses and find out what vendors are willing to deliver/work the events. Have that list available so that parents and couples can easily find out where to go for flowers, food, DJ, what not. And if you don't have a parquet dance floor, I would recommend putting one in because the crowd that would normally pay to use a facility besides a church or a small VFW hall is usually the one that wants some space for dancing.

Daria, I completely understand why you would want to do this. Your first instinct is to be that go getter advocate for your students. However, I do think it would burn bridges, and I do think it is inappropriate to sign up when your students won't attend. My suggestion would be to contact the college and the dance instructors. Would they be willing to send an instructor to your school? Sounds like the college kind of burned your kids, so I'd emphasize how your kids were closed out of the classes, possibly discriminated against as a way of trying to get them to come up with an alternative.

I didn't enjoy my own wedding, and if I had a time machine and could go back, we'd just run down to the college chapel with our chaplain and a couple of friends, get it done, and then call our parents. We have married off one, a daughter. It was DIY to save money, and no help from any corner. The groom's relatives were from out of state, my sister lived 700 miles away at the time, my mother was nursing along my father figure after major surgery, my brother never helps with any family event ever, and the out of town guests had a clear expectation of being fed an elaborate meal. So we worked. We worked. We worked. We worked. I did hire a caterer. She totally screwed up! Big time, and had no work team, and could hardly manage because she had no work team. So we worked hard right through the reception, and then having made the mistake of using a church so there was no ability to do some of the tear down and clean up on Sunday, had to do everything that night and leave it spotless. Yes I enjoyed the ceremony, and LOL, I was at the piano playing them down the aisle and back, doing all the prelude and postlude music. That was my favorite part!. The reception was a personal nightmare that I did not enjoy in the least though apparently the guests did. Dh was exhausted, DD's younger brothers were exhausted and run ragged. If we had it to do all over again, they'd be given a check and told "run away to Jamaica, call us when it's all over". None of my sons are in a hurry to marry. Actually not one of the trio has any desire to marry. They watch their friends crash and burn in toxic relationships and have decided that dating, courting, relationships, and marriage are too much stress to be worth it. If they change their minds, at least as mother of a groom, I'll just be told what to wear and when to show up. If for some reason the bride's family thinks I should help in some DIY event, I'll write them a check and say, "Please hire help. I have BTDT got the t-shirt, and will not ruin the entire thing for myself, my husband, and my son by working like a dog for days." I will give them enough money to really be able to hire some help for several hours.

I am going through this very weird thing where I have this nagging feeling that we need to get rid of a ton of stuff, and yet no indication at all that we would be moving soon. I mean, the feeling is so strong that I've look around the house and thought, "I should haul about 70% of it out of here and have a bon fire in the back yard! So bizarre! At any rate, for today a small box of mugs - we have our favorites such as NAR, NASA, and college mugs that we always drink from so who needs 25 other coffee mugs???? - and a box of books went out of here. I have a small cabinet of decorative supplies that I never use. All of that is getting bagged up and donated.

We did duck and cover, and that was LATE into the years in which they were being done. I am pretty certain it was just because we had a whole bunch of older teachers near retirement, and so it was kind of a habit. We used to giggle while under the desks and tables that we were just logs for the fire. Our whole room had wood floors, wood tables, wood chairs...so sure teacher, sure we 5th graders believe that in a mushroom cloud of fire, this will protect us! For sure. Seriously. I don't know who comes up with this stuff. Most kids are just not that clueless.

Agreed. It's nuts. My grandmother wanted to give a way a lot of her important things before she was in ill health because she wanted to avoid drama. She approached her five children on three different occasions asking them what they would like so she could label things, or settle issues if some of them wanted the same item. They wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't take anything. I think that it was because for them it meant emotionally acknowledging that grandma was getting old and die, and they didn't want to think about it having already lost grandpa. But she didn't take it that way. She thought it meant that they didn't want any of her things, that there was nothing of value, not even photos, to them. So she approached 11 grandchildren about it. We all called each other, had great conversations about it, and decided who wanted what. I got my grandmother's ruby thumbprint glassware, another cousin took a handpainted light fixture that was over the couch, something my grandmother had adored and was very unique. Another cousin took her guitar which she played for her kids when they were young, spending hours singing to them, a tradition she continued when we grands were all little. And so on....some of the boys divied up grandpa's tools, and his guns. Bit by bit things moved on to their new homes until my aunt finally got upset on one of her visits. My grandmother stood her ground and said the grandchildren got these items because we cared enough to have a discussion about it with her. Oh my gosh. The tantrums, three aunts, my father figure (other uncle had recently died so he was not involved, it was legendary. The oldest, an aunt I had been very close to, was just so upset about the glassware that I thought she'd have a stroke. I drove all the way home to box it up and bring it back to her. As soon as I walked through the door with the first box, my uncle (her husband) had a fit because auntie had inherited nine sets of expensive, antique china worth thousands of dollars from his mother and he wanted to know exactly where she thought she'd keep it. They had a fight, and when it was over, she refused to take the glassware. Sigh.... The tea cup and saucer collection had gone untouched so that was offered to auntie, but my father figure birthed a cow because he wanted it all since he had been the one to buy them for her. (He had a tradition through his teen and young adult years of buying her a new cup and saucer for every birthday and mother's day.) My mom didn't want them. It wasn't like he was ever going to do anything with them. Melt down after melt down. When it was all said and done, nothing changed. Grandma was so appalled by the attitudes of her own children that she demanded we grands keep the items we'd asked for, and we grand kids were so disgusted by our parents behavior that we all kind of hinted that we wished we could have them all committed right there on the spot. It was an ugly family meeting. My mother never got anything from her side of the family. Grandma had remarried and the man was abusive. He took all of her photos, china, etc from her first marriage and burned them in the yard. Do not ever assume that the splitting up of the belongings of the dearly departed or soon to be departed will go well. Better just steal yourself for the drama, and then if it goes well, you'll be pleasantly surprised. And when there is remarriage, it is a serious problem because everything becomes marital property. The kids may view it as theirs, but yet, none of it, not the house, the money, the left over toys and books from their childhoods, the photos, nothing. It's a real problem for a lot of families.

I quoted this last part because it is what I want to address specifically. My experience with Millenials is that they do feel passionately about this issue, and they do the work. It's just that our media doesn't report it. They are so darn determined to bash this generation that they will not run stories about the work that they are doing. Local case. U of MI has a long history in the last decade of really abusing their lecturer's, seriously...work them full time, refuse to give them full benefits, have them lecturing at three different campuses and then claim they aren't full time at any single campus therefore deserve the low pay and no benefits, etc. My son and thousands of students demonstrated for three days on behalf of the lecturer's during U of MI contract negotiations. They did not go to class, and were willing to pay the consequences - but since the professors were grateful for their activism, they let them make up the work, and speak in class about their activism. They held a fundraiser prior to the demonstration to get matching strike t-shirts. A local paper...just one...came and interviewed anyone. Just one. There was a photo, a caption, and NO STORY. But, they won the day. It worked. The contract negotiation ended in a large pay increase plus the addition of health benefits for the lecturers. And the thing is, as I've walked around WMU, NMU, and U of MI - the three campuses where I currently have millenials in school - the civic groups are constantly advertising activism, protests, email blitzes, letter writing campaigns, you name it, and they are well attended. Many, many students involved. Now maybe this a later millenial thing, my kids are the tail end of that generation. But they, their friends, their TA's who would be of that generation, their younger professors are very involved and active. In the Flint area, one could never make the case that millenials don't get involved in the same way in labor or other causes...not when you see them out there demanding the big three automakers and their subsidiaries be held accountable for the water pollution, handing out gallons and bottles of water, hugging victims, demonstrating in Lansing, email blitzing their senators, and then when their senior senator shows up to speak, filling the auditorium to capacity with students all carrying signs, the hallways, sidewalks, and parking lots filled with those that couldn't get a spot inside. When MSU tried to duck and cover on the Nassar issue, students by the many thousands protested, joined sit ins, made it nearly impossible for the administration to function. There was a near riot when John Engler was posted to the interim president position. Between grad students and undergrad as well as the younger teaching staff, it was a massive attempt to hold the administration accountable. It was barely mentioned in the national media, and totally downplayed as if the Millenial response was pretty much nothing. In case no one noticed, real journalism appears to be entirely broken, nearly extinct. Funnily enough, while people bemoan the millenials for not being activists, the millenials pretty much view their parents Gen X as the lazy butt generation that couldn't be motivated to care about squat, LOL. Generational hate...alive and well! To be honest, I do have to admit that I think my kids are better at activism than I ever was at that same age. Of course, all of this is very regional too. What is happening in one part of the country, may not be a thing in another. Between the climate crisis, the plastic ocean, the poison water, destruction of rainforest, and stagnating wages in the face of serious inflation on top of everything else they've inherited, I truly believe Millenials and GenY have a lot more to worry about than my Gen X peers and I ever did at the same age. But that's also perception, and perceptions are very subjective things.

All of their science is Young Earth, Literal 6 day creation. Some scientific principles are misrepresented in order to support that view. Other issues that may not mesh with your worldview: Biology text pg 162 - Some babies die very soon after birth as a result of genetic disorders. It appears that God designed into the genetic mechanism of humans (and most organisms) a genetic screen that eliminates many greatly deformed individuals, preventing major genetic disorders from continuing. Teacher's Edition: The level of carbon dioxide (CO2) is normally kept in check by green plants, which utilize it for photosynthesis. The combustion of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum also releases large amounts of CO2, which is known to be increasing in the atmosphere. The earth's temperature is kept warm enough to encourage abundant life as a result of the insulating effect of a layer of CO2and other gasses. These gases allow sunlight to pass through but also trap the radiation that bounces off the earth, keeping it from returning to space. This is known as the greenhouse effect. Some scientists have analyzed long-term climate data and have noted a slight increase in the earth's temperature over the past century. While the data is far from conclusive, some blame CO2and other "greenhouse gasses" for the increase. They blame this perceived global warming on car engines, electric power plants, and other major sources of CO2 emissions. pg. 141 (this is incorrect) Not all genetic traits are exhibited as purely dominant or recessive. Many alleles express what is termed incomplete dominance. Incomplete dominance occurs when two or more alleles are expressed, resulting in a phenotype that is intermediate, or a blending, of the two traits. Flower color in snapdragons and other common garden flowers demonstrates this condition. When homozygous red and homozygous white snapdragons are crossed, all of the heterozygous offspring are pink. Why? In snapdragons neither red nor white is completely dominant; therefore, in a heterozygous flower both alleles express themselves, resulting in a pink color. .. Incomplete dominance occurs when ONE allele is not completely expressed.

My parents spent about $1200-1500 in 1988 to put on my wedding - a monstrosity that I never wanted nor did dh - and invited 350. They managed to feed them a decent luncheon, provide table service, have a decorated cake, and pay for other things simply because the venue was free due to my father figure being an elder at the church, the kitchen committee agreed to work for free to do all of the food prep, service, and clean up, and mom made my dress for $175 in supplies. The dress was gorgeous and exactly what I wanted. Everything else was a nightmare for me because the entire day was too overwhelming. Also, dh's uncle was a professional photographer and took the pics for free but we had to pay for developing the film and he took 40 ROLLS OF FILM! Developed it all, and sent us the bill. It was a ridiculous amount of photos, many of which should never have been taken (like my mom carrying my dress to the dressing room). He was just too darn excited and snapped everything. It was something like $240 to develop all that. At any rate, to do that today, it simply would not be possible on the cheap. Just the materials for my dress now would be in the neighborhood of a $1000 to purchase at the only fabric store left in the state that carries them. Many churches in our area no longer allow the use of their facilities for free so venue rental is a big deal. Zoning ordinances often prohibit "the wedding at home" due to parking and noise. My niece got a $500 fine from the city for not researching it before she held her wedding in her MIL's beautiful backyard. Oops. I definitely still think there are ways to do a wedding with a small gathering of some kind of very, very cheap even with prices the way they are today. I also think that these options tend to not be acceptable in a lot of families for a variety of reasons.

WOW! I find it interesting that step kids could even be on his insurance. DH is not eligible to put step children on his. He has to be their father by birth or adoption or legal guardian. Around here marrying someone with kids does not make one the legal guardian of those kids. Really, you don't have any rights when it comes to step children. Different companies, different policies, and of course different states. If they were on his insurance, as health care access is a matter of well being and often life or death, he should have been compelled to provide the card. Good grief. What a twerp! That said, on some levels I do understand. He didn't know you; he was probably suspicious of what his wife said about her ex husband. Identity theft is such a big deal these days, and with the kind of info on a health card one could open credit cards in another person's name. My brother's ex did it with info off the child support order when it was upped due to household income increasing, and opened a visa with my brother's new wife's data. She didn't even get in trouble really. Just a slap on the wrist. It really hurt the boys when it came to college. My brother refused to fill out FASFA because he figured she would some how get his tax return info, and step mom had just gone back to work again. It cost my nephews access to financial aid and most scholarships. What a world we live in!!

Patty Joanna, I wonder some of the same things but suspect that a lot of the most outrageous pricing is simply greed for stock holders and CEO's. I have been very angry about the epi pen mess. Dh refuses to pay their cost and now has epinephrine that we have to keep refrigerated which is a pain when he travels, but I am nervous that I would make a mistake in a crisis. I am not that great with medical stuff. I really want those epi-pens back. Our insurance won't pay a dime on them now. Not one penny. They are pretty darn mad about the massive price increase. GRRRRRR..... My cousin is a researcher, not in pharma, but in environmental science and she says NOBODY makes money doing research for these companies. The company owns the patents; the company makes the money, and they aren't prone to sharing generously with the researchers. The sales staff may make a killing off comissions plus salary, but the people actually figuring out new treatments are making only modest salaries. Ceo's get massive bonuses, stock holders make a killing, but no spoils for the most part to the actual employees who make the money for the company. Typical. I guess the researchers do it because they love it and want to help people.

Absolutely agreed. I have seen that too.

If his income isn't as high as her ex's, it is a loss. People see it this way. Seriously. If dh passes, I won't remarry unless said person has had the same income level. The bottom line is I have to provide for myself and years out of the work force means that though I am employed again, my own social security draw is going to be FAR lower. It gets really complicated when you get older. There isn't time to recover from financial disaster like there is when you are in your twenties and thirties so it makes some people a lot more cautious with good reason.

If memory serves, there are some nice lectures on basic finance on Khan Academy as part of their Economics and Finance units.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! LOL