Agreed. I have two young adult bachelors trying to get themselves established financially amid all of this mess, and they do not buy cereal. They keep some juice in the house but not a lot, and occasionally make lemonade. All of the stuff Kellogg sells are just priced out of their grocery budget. Most of their friends do the same. I am not sure that Kellogg understands that they are rapidly pricing themselves out of the young folks market. Cereal is expensive and unhealthy to feed little kids; my dd doesn't keep it around. Maybe Gen X would eat it for dinner? I don't know. Seems like the company the CEO was really re-enacting that moment right before the peasants go, "Eff it! Let's storm the castle!"

Apparently, the CEO was on the news in January claiming cereal is reasonably priced and that Kellogg's would move be marketing "Cereal for dinner". We don't buy cereal, haven't for years so I wasn't following the flap. But on social media among Gen Z young adults who have already done a few years of " ramen noodles three meals a day because rent is insane", it didn't go down well. I think Reddit, among other forums, jumped on that.

Thanks. Good to know. I am prepared to plant the broccoli bty the end of May because I have a big row cover should we have a cold snap. I will also be able to put tomatoes in 8 weeks from now because we have covers. I could hold off on green beans because those could be directed sown and still harvesting at the right time for mom and I to can before we get hammered with tomatoes. Would you wait on cucumber, lettuce, and bell peppers? I know that the peas for sure are going out in 6-8 weeks because it will be consistently in the 50's and 60's during the day, and we have a sheet we can drape over their trellises if it was going to deep freeze. Seems like last year they absolutely loved, cool springtime. Everything will be in the ground by the end of the 2nd week of May with my mom watching over it because we have a volunteer thing we are doing Virginia. I am going to use a fan, from a distance, to produce a breeze after they are a couple inches tall to help them develop strong stems. My cukes last year started out as weaklings when transplanted.

My daughter always loved them for her babies. She loves vintage looks, and snugglies. Right now and a friend and I are sewing toddler clothes from vintage patterns out of quilt fabric and having a blast. T looks so darn cute in those clothes! I say go for it. You could also donate to baby pantries for moms in need. I make flannel burp rags, changing clothes, and receiving blankets for our county one, and also baby quilts and sun dresses and rompers. Even our local social services agency has a couple of closets they keep packed with items for parents in need, and foster parents taking a baby on short notice. I think they would love these precious, handmade things.

Got back from the rocket launch last night rather tired and fell immediately to sleep. Good launch though and tons of fun in the sun. Today, I am setting up the seed starting thing. Last year I only managed to successfully start cucumbers (4 plants and it was PLENTY for us), and 4 broccoli. Nothing else came up, and I think I know what I did wrong. Think. No certainty there. So I bought all my other plants at the nursery. I have a curbside pick up for 2 more trays (I will keep them and reuse every year until they crack and are no good), and a bag of good soil in 2 hrs, then sowing will commence. I am going to start with 6 cherry tomatoes and 6 cucumber ( and hope 4 germinate and grow strong), 16 broccoli, 8 bell peppers, 8 snow peas, 8 sugar snap peas, 8 butter lettuce, and the rest to as many green bean plants as I have space. We have two grow lights: two trays on the shelf in the picture, and 2 on the shelf above, and I think that comes to 16 pots per tray. The cherry tomatoes will be started in the bigger cardboard pots and placed on some old saucers/plates. The spider plant and both aloes will end up on the top shelf which has a ton of light. The spider is up there now and thriving. IF I am successful, this will leave me direct seeding sunflowers, sweet corn, more green beans, carrots (in rows in front of the peas, one week apart), radishes (same way), chives, and scallions. I will buy 16 Amish paste tomatoes, 8 basil, 4 oregano, 16 nasturtiums, 16 marigolds, 6 celery plants, 4 mint, and 2 more blueberry bushes. So far so good in terms of my apple trees NOT budding out. The only reason they haven't done it during these insane warm snaps that were shattering February records was the overnight lows still got down to 32-35 degrees (0-1.67C) at night, and if the temp was going to move and maybe go a degree above at night depending on conditions in our little town, I ran a sprinkler on them to cool the branches. Of course the best laid plans of mice and men not to mention green things probably still viewing me with disdain and fear, I could end up buying ALL my plants!

Oops. Didn't think about that. My mother in law and mother have them planted closer to their driveways. My bad!

I find there are really aggressive people pretty much everywhere, and most of them, in my experience, are in our age group. It is disheartening. As a result, I do not like to shop in person. I do run into Aldi, which is never packed, for groceries, and into TSC when I need gardening things. TSC is kind of "salt is the earth" farming/gardening crowd and everyone is laid back and chatty in a good way. But I don't do estate sales, garage sales, big box stores. I use curbside pick up for Walmart, Kohls if I absolutely need something from them, Home Depot, etc. and drive through for the pharmacy and even the bank. I collect a few kinds of glassware, just looking for some more rare pieces, and I do that online since it is rare to find them in any kind of antique store. I have seen aggressive people at antique stores and their lunging for items makes me nervous that they will take down the entire display! The place I love to go is my favorite nursery and farmer's market. Different crowd, everyone happy, no aggression or snarkiness, and lots of room to space out and enjoy the offerings. The other place is ski slopes. We never have issues when we go skiing up north.

I think a whole lot depends on the current status of parent/child relationship, plus tone and context. I have a niece who is just super, emotionally unstable so any news of anyone doing anything positive, makes her get upset and take it as a personal assault on her. She needs to own her feelings and get therapy. These rest if us do not need the drama, so no one shares. Sad for her. But life can't be consumed dealing with it. With my own kids, we are really close and they know that we place no judgement on them. So if I say, "Cousin x just bought a house or a new car" or whatever while they duct tape together used cars and live in apartments, they do not experience shaken confidence or feel inferior. However, my mother in law can be a real piece of work and tries occasionally to deliberately make one grandchild feel horrible by insinuating they are less than because another appears to be more successful (always measured by money and things). Kids are used to it, but she always wonders why of her ten grandkids, only two are close with her. 🙄 I just don't think we have enough information about the relationships in the original post to know if there is an issue or not.

I am new to all the green thumb things but I do know that host as are water loving and do not mind shade. There are several varieties, many with very pretty flowers.

100% adorable!

Michigan is currently cooperating with outside pleasure. Today we spent 6 hours launching rockets. Tuesday we were also outside for several hours, and tomorrow I will be trimming some bushes/trees.

I would definitely save money. Mark is a big meat and expensive cheese eater. Alone I would eat eggs at breakfast, hummus and veggies at lunch or something similar, maybe a chef salad, and suppers would consist of meatless chili, Mexican gumbo with brown rice, chicken vegetable dumpling soup, rice and beans, risotto and roast brussel sprouts, homemade Mac n cheese with roast broccoli, or a loaded baked potato and salad. I make excellent food, and can cook very well, yet am not a foodie. He is a primo foodie person, so are my oldest and youngest children. The middle two, like me, are just fine with tasty simplicity.

Hi everyone, we are okay. Just insane since this incident! I want a dull moment. More than one. Many dull moments. Our youngest, the EE, lost the oil pump on his car, and ended up stranded on 194. He was able to get it towed back to his place of work, and then called a friend who came to get him. But they are in the middle of a big, big push to complete something that sounds kind of geeky, robotics cool by Wednesday and now was NOT a good time for him to miss work while figuring out his transportation situation. So he took an Uber-$60 - to work (45 minutes away so not surprising it cost this much and then he tipped nicely), and I drove the 4 hrs today to pick him up when work was over, and leave my car for him. Mark has borrowed a truck and car dolly, and is headed here now to haul it back home to see if it is only the oil pump or if it blew the head gasket. I think it is head gasket. Ds said he had a 5 gallon jug of oil in the car, and he thought he saw a little drip when he came out of work so he checked it on the dipstick and it was fine. 3 miles down the road, and whammy. He poured a good portion of that oil into the car, and it ran out. Maybe the oil pan and the oil pump? Sigh. Probably the head gasket. Now we will be shopping for a car for him because he cannot take time off work to find one until they get through the deadline and presentation to the customer. His boss was really happy when he showed up to work today in that uber. He figured today was just a loss. Pinball, that cat. Nana, we are very attached to miss fuzzy, but I swear she has ZERO loyalty. I am pretty certain not only is she a total "give me the first lifeboat off the Titanic" kind of gal, she would loot the rooms on the way to the boat. I wish, for all of us, some nice, quiet, no drama, no crisis, dull, sunshiny days!

Please do. I am still dragging. Definitely not in any danger, but it is not fun, and we had the happy ending story.

I feel like I am living some sort of disaster movie script. Today was 66, tonight will be 41, tomorrow we are going to have 35-50 moh winds, and the overnight low will drop to 19. Meanwhile the birds are chirping, and worse yet, at my mom's house of litter of bunnies has been born which means things were so screwy this winter that momma bred way too early. I saw momma foo foo tonight. I am not holding out hope for her babies making it. I went today to talk to my apple trees and beg them not to fall for the scam. Do not bud. Please. Just keep snoozing.

Lots of love and hugs.

Wow!

Climate change is just so wacky. We have crocuses popping up. It just isn't supposed to be this way. I am starting seeds on Monday. I would do it this weekend, but we have a rocket launch out of town, so it will have to wait. I am going to start cucumbers, broccoli, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and bell peppers. I have been evaluating my space and the number of containers I have, and decided I can't do more than that this year. I told Mark we would work fall 2024/winter 2025 to expand the seed starting space. This means I will get all of my celery, Amish paste tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, chili and jalapeno peppers, from the nursery. Direct sow green beans (bush), chives, carrots, radishes, sweet corn, and sunflowers. I will also pick up 4 packs of marigolds, basil, nasturtium, and oregano. I am going to look around the yard for a spot to sow zinnias. I love them! I have no idea how to grow them. Just lost. But, it will be a fun experiment, and I will only be out $1 in seeds and my expectations it is fruitless. I will start the March thread Monday with a picture of my fledgling seed starting area.

I don't have a lot of suggestions, except to say that if you find a shelf unit that fits but does not have doors, you could make decorative curtains to cover the shelves. I have done that before.

2 hr ish nap. I feel a lot better. Lewis and I slept on my mom's couch with the windows open, and this afternoon turned very breezy. He cuddled with me under blanket with our heads out. I swear I was literally craving fresh air. Very primal. I am now finally at home, but told Mark I don't think my mental can handle closing the windows tonight even though I know the propane is shut off at the valve outside and this cannot happen again. So we are going to leave every window opened a crack since it is only going to get down to 41. I would convert that to C for our non US boardies, but I don't seem to have the energy. Mark bought lamb and veggie shishkabobs at the store after he bought the new detector, so he is going to throw them on the grill outside. I am thankful not to be considering any kind of kitchen cooking tonight. Thanks everyone! As always the Hive is wonderful!

That is what concerns me. February. Wildfires. Climate Change is getting scary, and being an El Nino year or whatever they call it, isn't helping.

I have to teach a chemistry class tomorrow (8 week program) to kids ages 9-12, PS kids, Homeschool kids, Private school kids. I love having a mix. It is at the library. Since day one is atoms and molecules, introduction to the periodic table, I am going to do a not too scary but cautionary tale about how what appears to be harmless atoms can bond to become something dangerous and talk about CO. Tell them how I felt when I woke up, what the hospital said, and encourage them to ask their mums and dads if the batteries in their detectors have been checked recently or if the models they have are really old and have been checked to make sure they still work. We will build a CO molecule with toothpicks, and gumdrops, and then go from there. We were going to build a whole bunch of molecules, but this is one time when chemistry reminds everyone how much we need to be careful of gasses becoming concentrated. Later I am teaching 8 weeks of plant science, so I am going to do a whole unit on trees and moss, CO2 sequestration. Then we are going to wander around the township library property which has numerous oaks and maples, and talk about what those trees do for our environment and oxygen levels. It is good to give them a visual that depending on tree species, old growth forest trees, etc. it takes an average of 6-9 trees to produce the required oxygen for just one person. I now need a nap I think. I might wander down to my mom's house where I can avail myself of the couch while we let it air out more. It isn't quite warm enough yet to throw a blanket on the ground and sleep. The ground is still pretty cold.

We have a brand new detector. So this is cool. Since dd was on the full freak out, while I have been posting here, I have been in an empty ER at the band aid station with Mark. We walked in and told them what happened, and said we were willing to take oxygen by mask or nasall canula for while, or be sent home with it, but we knew it was bad yet mild in the grand scheme of exposures, and we just can't rack up a $7500 admission or $500 blood gas test a piece just to be told "no worries". They were surprisingly accommodating. And they have this new, nifty thing. It is like a hand held pulse ox except that it detects CO level in the skin or blood vessels or something and gives them a baseline. If that is worrisome, then they do the more invasive. Ours came back fine. We were already coming out of it. So they consulted with Mark's GP who has his practice in the building, and he said we could go home, but stay outside for several hours and let the house continue to air out. No idea what it cost. But DD is now satisfied and no longer threatening to get on an airplane. I feel so much better. We just picked up a big salad to share. Also, Lewis is really perking. It is 66 degrees out, shattering February temperature records, and in the fresh air, he is frisky. So we aren't going to the vet. The reality is he is 14.5, bad heart, other issues. As the vet says, something is probably going to get him this year so try to enjoy the time we have so long as he is not suffering.

We are in the car and have arranged to speak with Mark's GP. Not doing the ER. If he insists, that would be dicey. They will want an arterial blood gas which is $500+ at the band aid station, and every hour in the ER is $900. So if the GP is like, "Scary, but you are coming ou5 of it okay" or "Sit here in my office with oxygen for an hour", cool. Lot less cost.by long shot.

Oh, and because my brain is in a fog. I was using C03, but really it's just CO. Kind of embarrassing on an education board, and as person who has taught chemistry in the past. My mistake.