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! 😂😂😂

Oh absolutely! Call it a training session on all the things you shouldn't do. Call it an ethics course. 😁😁😁

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that if our zany, local CC ever offered "Intro to Anthropology" with someone as classically hilarious as the great Betty White (sniff sniff, she was a wonderful lady), I would sign up in a heartbeat! If you don't know the reference go to season 2 Episode 1 on Netflix and watch! You won't regret it. 😂😂😂

Llama, I do agree you need to have advance directives, and all of your providers need to be informed that he does not have permission to make your medical decisions if you are incapacitated nor is entitled to any information about you, and for that matter, also for the kids in the event you are not able or close by to make decisions for them. This is serious, and scary. He could use that power as the legal husband to do terrible things. Doctors would not be able to stop him because he is the legal next of kin unless there are legal documents that expressly take that right away from him. Please protect yourself and your children in this regard if you already have not. Hopefully, your lawyer already thought of that and has those ducks in a nice, neat row.

You should write a new season of "Community"! 😂

Ouch!

All of these latest posts are just wonderful! You are all doing great! I, on the other hand, am going slowly. I am working on a functional quilt/blanket. It is made of long strips of all the leftover flannel from making the scarves at Christmas for the adult kids' stockings. So it random themed flannel striped together, and then a 2 yard piece of green check flannel I found in my stash with scrap light green flannel of a different pattern sewn down each side for a back. It is NOT great. It is just a throw around blanket for our bachelors. The last time we visited, it obvious to us that they didn't have enough blankets. They were keeping the heat low to save money, and bundling up in the apartment, sometimes even wearing their coats and wool socks around. They turned the heat up as soon as we showed up, but it made me think, "put the other projects aside and make some blankets". It is also a good way to use up these narrow scraps that probably wouldn't be used for anything else.

One thing that comes to kind for us when considering the kids' position is the fact that our really nice, middle class family home that we loved so much was purchased in 1990 and it cost 1.5 times Mark's salary, we only had to have 5% down, and the interest rate was 3% lower than the going rate at present. Dd and hubby cannot get a bank who will loan them on less than 10% down, and many want 15-20%, and a comparable house in an area whose COL is not considered "high" is 5 times son in law's salary. Sil salary is not 5 times, not even close, to Mark's salary at the time we bought our 1990 house. It is so discouraging for them. We bought the house they currently live on, and they are renting it at about slightly less than half the mortgage payment. If we need to sell it, we will make money on it. Due to Mark's income level and our credit rating, the interest rate is bizarrely low and we put 20% down so it has built equity quickly. We don't see our kids having the opportunity to do this for their own children unless something drastically changes in this country. My sister and brother in law in France paid a bundle for a very middle class no frills apartment 2 years ago. The payment was scary to my sister. However, with universal healthcare, public transportation which she uses so they only need one car, and other kinds of community services, it is very doable for them because they do not have the risk of other large bills. So the housing is very high, and yet, not a burden. Our bachelor sons pay $1300 a month for a not well maintained apartment because the company that owns the complex doesn't give a crap, and the city allows it. But that is what is affordable. Mark fixes something every single time we visit them. The rent includes water and garbage.

I totally get that, Llama. Letting him steal one more thing from you is beyond imagination. I do think behavioral modification could work. Set exceptionally deep boundaries on what he can and cannot say and ask for every phone call, and hang up the very second he crosses the line. Every time. Maybe if it happens often enough, he will get tired of being shut off and cool down. Then again, maybe not. Either way you and the kids do not have to listen to his triggering drivel, and abusive, manipulative accusations. Many hugs!!

Yes, do not go. It legitimate. You didn't an invite, so you rightfully assumed you were not invited. That said, I really do think your mom is probably manipulating things for a drama, and she probably plans on including you in that. I would be inclined, since you have not officially been invited, to put something on the calendar for the day. I recently went through this. My narcissistic sister in law manipulated niece to make sure we were not invited to her September wedding. Then, with one week to the big day, the dress needed emergency alterations and repairs (niece had lost some weight, and then a seam frayed out when she was trying it on), and my mom could not do that work without help due to her arthritis. Niece came to me with the gown, and I decided to be nice and help her out which was a BIG job and well worth $350 in alterations at a bridal store. She then invited me to the wedding in the same breath telling me that her mom was the one who pressured her to not invite us. I just nodded along, then said we had plans (which we did not), and told her the alterations were the wedding gift. She was grateful, sad that we weren't coming, but not angry or really upset. Sister in law went on to pick someone else to have a b$tch cakes melt down on at the reception. So very glad I was not there for that. I think it was for the best all around. My presence would have amped up silks behavior even worse because she would have been thwarted in her efforts to not have us there. I am sorry. It sucks!

Well, technically, if you don't get an official invitation for you and dh, you are not supposed to attend. Do you suppose your wicked, ridiculous mother filled niece's head with a lot of notions and now she doesn't want to see you? I would be inclined not to attend, but send a generous gift and loving notes regrets but dh and I already had a calendar booking for the wedding date, and no explanation. My reason for doing this would be because if your mom is targeting you or laying in wait to use the event to create drama, being there might make that drama even worse. It might be a kindness to not go there as a target for the crazy.

I should also state that our first mortgage was exclusively based on Mark's income. Even as a first year IT worker, he made profoundly more than I did as a seasoned professional musician and music teacher. It was a little demoralizing teaching band and choir full time in the PS, AND performing on the weekends, some of those performances being with good, regional orchestras, and still have that total income a lot less than he was making as an unseasoned, freshman IT guy. It has always been that way. I left the workforce with a sick kid just when my income had the potential to take off, and once you leave a performance career for more than a year or two, you are pretty much toast. It never recovered, and when I had my fine arts program director job from 2017-2021, my salary was about the same as it was back in 1988 when we married and I had my first music teacher school job.

I am in the same boat, same height. I decided 160 is okay. My doc and his nurse practitioner are determined that I should be 120. Sigh. The nurse practitioner admits she eats 2400 calories a day, and doesn't exercise, and maintains 130 on her 5'7" frame. No worries. I exercise hard and regularly, and have had to drop to 1100 calories a day in order to not gain weight. I am pretty certain I am going to have to fast for 30 days to lose weight because my body hates me. I barely have enough energy on 1100 calories to keep up the exercise routine. My face looks younger than I am at my current weight which is not down to 160 by any stretch. I feel like if I was insane enough and declared such a war on food that I got down to anything lower than 160, I will look 80 and am only 54. I just want to say you are my hero, Ottakee! You inspire me.

It would be a violation of Michigan law. Science must be taught at that level. If literacy is that savagely low, the school should be encouraging science teachers to read the text aloud, themselves, or other books on scientific topics, and then encourage learning through experience by lab projects which can be completed with oral guidance/directions from the teacher. The answer in a nation already experiencing ridiculous widespread inability to understand basic scientific principles is to NOT eliminate the subject and especially so at a time when kids could be really getting into it and enjoying it. I am just gobsmacked by some of the decisions pointy headed education administrators make!