LOL, I 100% agree with him! Parmesan should be fresh. This is the only way. The other stuff is just colored plastic shards. 😁

Tiggy, Aldi makes a brown rice and quinoa penne that has potassium, all the B vitamins but riboflavin, and some fiber. It scores higher nutritionally than typical white wheat type varieties. Do you think you could get him to eat that? With some real butter, some cheese on the side, and some fruit, I wouldn't feel bad about my youngster eating that every day to lunch under these circumstances. I have seen some thermos type soup crock containers that were single serving ish size and very wide mouth openings. Amazon had some. I have no idea what they weigh in terms of a little kid carrying one in a backpack. Might be worth checking out. My eldest boy, ever the picky eater, would eat deconstructed chicken parm. Shredded chicken, sprinkled with parmesan, butter noodles, and just a little pizza sauce on the side. He didn't like anything slathered with sauce. He would always take carrots and baby dill pickles plus an apple or banana with him to soccer. Same thing every time. I let it go. I would go nuts, but he was happy!

That face is VERY hard to resist! McNuggets once a week? 😁

Poor kid! Did you warn him that the Hive is not easily bamboozled by childhood charm? 😂😂😂

My dumb thing was setting together two strips of one-way fabric with one upside down. So much for that border of the quilt. Rip, rip, rip, rip, reset. Sigh.

I am a big fan of filling tortillas creatively. Chopped ham, shredded greens, and some ranch dressing was a big hit with my kids. But a lot of leftovers that are good cold will work like leftover chicken from a baked or rotisserie chicken , whatever shredded cheese the child likes, and greens or veggies, salsa etc. I would let him have deconstructed pizza "lunchables" by providing mini flat breads that he could spread pizza sauce on, top with mozzarella and toppings, microwave or bake at home, and then eat cold at school. Most kids like cold pizza. Hummus comes to mind. It is a legumes but I though peanuts are usually banned, I don't know of any schools in our area that say no hummus. So if he likes that, send it with whatever veggie stick he likes and a breadstick to dip as well.

I have an antique corner cupboard in the corner. It was my husband's grandmother's cupboard. I keep some of my Ruby Thumbprint and Royal Copenhagen China in it. That is my only dining area storage. I have a cupboard in our hallway which is very wide so the landing accommodates furniture. I keep tablecloths and the candles in there. I have a small marble topped side table with two shelves behind doors that is on the side of my island, and I keep the cloth napkins I. there.

I don't do classically Valentine's type things like hearts and roses. But I have a lovely white tablecloth, a ruby colored table runner, and my grandmother's Kings Crown Ruby Thumbprint glassware. We were given a glass candleabra, not too tall, as a wedding gift. So I put that in the center with white candles, set the table with the glassware, and make a nice dinner. When we still had kids at home, I did the same, and put a small box of chocolates and a note from us at their plates. I do need to replace the cloth napkins I normally use. Years of laundering have made them rather ragged and faded. So I need to go through my fabric stash and find something suitable to make new ones. The current ones need to become wash rags.

Oh my gosh! My mother had one of these. 😱

We have been teaching astronomy for quite a while to a wide variety of ages. We are basically treating it like a STEM 4H field trip. 😂 The grandsons might be tired of us by the time they wake up on the 9th!

Egypt. Not just 50°F. We saw kids in snow suits at 65°F. I guess when one is acclimated to 80 in the winter and 120 in the summer, 65 feels like cold, fall weather, and 50 would be an ice age. Of course, I don't know how often they get that low in Egypt. But ya, the bundling up is a thing. Meanwhile, we were going around in shirt sleeves thinking it felt positively balmy!

Yes. Our area of Michigan is practically assured to be cloudy. Our grandsons are 8, 4, and 1. So it isn't going to make a lasting impression T, but the other 2 especially N will remember it. We booked a place 4 years ago to make sure we would be able to have somewhere outside of town without light pollution, and a clearing for our telescope because we have sun filters so we can view it through the 12" scope. We are calling it astronomy camp, and have astronomy based activities planned on the 5th, 6th, and 7th for the grand boys. We will be in Northwest Arkansas.

NM

NM

Initials..yes! Had a friend in college whose set of 3 initials was FCK. He was not a fan of that at all.

I also stopped going to Mark's social events for coworkers +1 during our homeschool years. I had education and rocketry to talk about, and the last good book I had read was whatever literature I was teaching my kids at the time. All the other women were career women at that time, many without kids, and I felt out of place. I actually, in terms of my own hobbies and pursuits, fit in better with some of Mark's work buddies. I felt self conscious though about being the only gal shooting the breeze within a sea of male, computer geeks. I did have more just outings, and general chats though within the context of 4H and rocketry. But then covid killed our program, our new program director nixed everything that was not agricultural. So I lost that connection. That was hard. We live 3.5 hours away from our rocket range for high power launches. There are female rocketeers there, and when we are down to the field to launch, I do very much enjoy their company, and that goes for the guys too. This is not a remotely misogynistic group. Everyone just loves rocketry, and mentoring competitive teams, and so forth, and everyone, even beasts, are welcome and befriended. We just don't live close enough to socialize, and right now weather has been so crazy, we haven't been able to manage any winter launches. It probably makes me feel even more isolated.

I demand "likes" for Rosie. Seriously! The woman is the soul of wisdom. I am in your boat as well. I feel completely displaced in the current culture of my region.

Meet my middle school band director.

WTMECW - Well Trained Mind Educators of Curriculum Wars. 😁 I am in Michigan and so is Ottakee. We might have one more Michigander here as well. A meet up at say, Sauder Village in northern Ohio would be somewhat central to Northern Indiana, Northwest Ohio, and lower half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that if any out of staters want to come to Michigan to experience its glorious, Great Lakes summer, I will meet you somewhere, and if you want me to help you draw up an itinerary to see some of our best things, I am willing to help with that. Huge everybody! Especially to Llama.

STEM is one reason that during the pandemic, I pursued the two classes I needed to complete the unfinished general sciences minor I had declared way back in the mists of time. I was double minoring so I didn't have to complete it to graduate and left it undone. But by completing it, I became eligible - should the notion to return to teaching ever strike me - for secondary ed science positions. Given the teacher shortage, I would easily land a job. The music degree and performance background is my early years is of no value now. One does not take a gap in a performance career to take care of a child with a health condition and come back from that. Music teachers are generally, here in the north, the first to go when budgets get cut. It is more expensive to run a music department than an art department so bye bye band and choir teachers. Everyone get funneled into a very underfunded art class for their required fine art for the Michigan Merit Curriculum. Then three schools who still want a band and a marching band because "football and commencement" will share ONE band director who then doesn't get benefits because "part time in each district, not full time" which means high turnover. Only the higher middle class and wealthy districts on my side of the state have full time music teachers. I have been slowly pursuing aerospace engineering. It is expensive, and I am not likely to ever complete it. I seem unmotivated at the moment to dig heels into Calc 4! 😂 But, the coursework on top of the general sciences minor on top of having a bachelor's degree does qualify me for some STEM education engagement jobs. But at 54, my entire retirement is wrapped up in Dh. I would not be able to work long enough between now and old age infirmity to make up for the lost time. It isn't like I can put 30 years into the school district at this point.

I love it when that happens. Yesterday we had a veggie stew and except for the potatoes, it was all veggies from my garden. It feels like real accomplishment.

NM

I have one friend. Just one. She moved 3 hours away so we see each other about once per quarter. This thread is making me think we need some regional, WTM meet ups. Many of us are pretty lonely.

I think for men who have been regularly employed their entire adult lives and have never had to claw hard to get a job as a male, much less with the issues of discrimination, they can be quite clueless how it really is for women getting back into the work force after a break. They don't realize due to gestation, lactation, etc. the resume gap falls disproportionately on women. We also often end up being saddled with the family elderly care because A. men see women as the care givers and nurturers so it doesn't occur to them to take time off to do this themselves B. the wage disparity often means if a couple/family is going to lose an income due to care giving, 9 times out of 10, they keep the highest salary, the man. I don't believe men are being deliberately obtuse, they just don't think about it, and do not experience it enough in their circle to hear what it is like. Very few Toms and Joes in their workplace and social group are saying, "Hey, I have to take a break in order to care for mom, and I am really worried what this means for my career." Or, "Little Festus has to have surgery and a long recovery, and I will be taking family leave from my job. My boss is not happy, and I am very concerned about how I am going to get a comparable job when Festus goes back to school." Add to this that when there is a divorce, women's income falls 20-50% while on average, men's rise 30%. They just are ignorant of what the work income world is like for women. Here is an article from 2017 based on a University of Michigan Consumer study. Men consistently see the economy has much rosier than women do. There are a variety of factors, but the fact that we have to worry so much about gaps in our resumes, choices between care giving and not, making on average 18c on the dollar less than men, and if they have taken time off for care giving, gaps in the resume. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/04/25/why-women-and-men-view-economy-differently/

Thanks! I love doing these things for the kids. Our bachelors also have on a scale of 1-10 "home decor" a -9! 😂😂😂 So we helped them pull together some Christmas decorations this year. They have nothing on their walls at all, and love to be very eclectic, represent their hobbies, and express humor. So once the quilt is done, I amount two wall hangings. One is a quilt panel cartoon character vikings I am just going to put a casing on the backing, sew to the panel, 3/4 way around, flip right side out, and then hand blind stitch the opening, iron, run a dowel through the casing, and give them two 3M sticky hooks for the wall. I will stitch around a few characters by hand to "quilt" the pieces together, but nothing extensive. I will do the same for the other which is a quilt panel of a chess board and pieces. Both panels were on deep discount at a quilt store because they were old stock. I paid $3 each, and have some cheap broad cloth I picked up for $2.99 a yard to use on the backs. I think I will have about $7 into each one which just isn't bad for making something decorative to spruce up the place. I also then need to get into my scraps and figure out a table runner for them. My mom made them a Christmas themed one back in 2022. She gave it to them at Thanksgiving that year. It is still on the table....13 months almost 14. I said, "Boys. Have you been washing that every 2 weeks or at least every month and then putting it back on the table?" Blank expressions. Totally blank. Brainwaves trying to formulate an acceptable response. Finally, "No mom. Because we don't have another one to put on the table, and we would feel bad if the table was empty." Big grins from these goofs. So guess who is making a couple to table runners and washing the Christmas one next time I visit? 😁 Bachelors! 😂😂😂