😁

Is there some way to protest the "Can't Heart Rosie's Posts" rule? If we send SWB a pallet of chocolate chips will she relent?

Wrong party. There is one party elected. Period. I am not of that group. They also do not elect females in my county. We will be moving when we retire which is only a very few years away. At any rate, I don't want to get too much more off topic or into politics. However, it is very difficult to discuss issues like these because political considerations are always at the heart of any possible solutions or improvements. Sometimes it is so challenging to think of anything that might make a positive difference. I do think drug and alcohol rehab, free and easily accessible is one place to start. But again, no one wants the tax payer to be on the hook for it even though in the long term, there would be huge savings from less incarceration, to fewer kids in foster care, etc. How to get anyone to think long term is the big conundrum!

Thanks. I looked at a chart that had the index lower on parsnips, but it may have been an old one. It was my mom's from a long time ago. We have taken up a new exercise routine together.

Let me ask this. Does anyone put them in vegetables stews or does the flavor not fit? I make my stews with potatoes, carrots, onions, green beans, peas, red pepper, and pinto beans. Would parsnips go with? I have never done turnip but now I wonder if I should.

Exactly.

I feel this. The insecty things really should steer clear of my garden. What we really need is for someone to figure out bug language, and then create a bill board for them. 😁

Congratulations! Grandbabies are the best kind of babies!

I had no idea notate is so prolific! Jealous of your dwarf pomegranate. I say find the snail and feed it to a bird, relishing the thought as you do. Stupid thing. I really get peeved with the bad invaders in my garden. You have no idea how viciously I ended cabbage beetles that went after our eggplant!

Could you harvest snow, melt, and water plants with that to avoid the chlorine? Ya. I know. A pain in the neck to do it!

I approve of all this lovely festiveness! And as a former quasi music therapist, thanks for thinking of a lovely solution for your special needs students. You are the best!

It truly is. In recent years, though we are a 40% of all revenue comes from agriculture, they tried to eliminate the county extension office because they are required to pay about $60,000 a year towards its operation with the rest coming from the state through MSU. People went nuts on them! No soil testing, water testing horticulturalist, no master gardener program, you name it, in a rural, agricultural community. They were going to give tax rebates to some friends of theirs for doing well, exactly nothing for the county, and then vote themselves huge pay raises. Sigh. Anyway. Off topic and getting political so I will seethe quietly to self from here on out!

Okay, see, ya'll always come through! The Hive for the win. I will buy a couple and roast them to see what he thinks, and then see if I can get my hands on some celeriac. I am not certain I have ever seen it locally, but I am game to try it if I can find it.

I ordered a book on Michigan soils and micro-climates, and I picked up a pamphlet from the Extension office on encouraging my blueberry bushes that struggled this summer. Apparently yelling at them and telling them they are a disappointment, and stop loafing around like a teen on Saturday morning just isn't cutting it! 😂 So I will read these in January when the holiday insanity has subsided and I am staring at 3 ft snow drifts outside. I know with hoophouses and growing lights indoors, some of our Northern folks might still be harvesting. I am curious how our Southerners are doing. Are plants flourishing? Has anyone had their first ripe tomato?

And especially just more workers. About 15 years ago or there about - Under Governor Granholm - the budget was cut to the bone and the caseload for social workers left behind was tripled and in some cases quadrupled. So a lot of stuff never even get followed up on, and families under supervision aren't actually supervised. Burn out is beyond the pale of reason. So for Michigan, a massive problem. Then the state got behind on billing the counties for their portion of the foster care bill for their children in the system. Our county didn't know it was $400,000 behind on paying the state and then had 30 days to pay it. They basically ordered CPS in our county to return every single child to their bio parents that month in retaliation since they fired a bunch of county workers in order to take the funds out of payroll. No flipping joke. Our stupid county commissioners bungle every budget they have, spend on stuff they shouldn't, never put a dime away, and then fire people when things get tough only to have to rehire those positions later. Corruption, corruption, corruption.

Dh got his bloodwork back from.his annual check up, and he had elevated AIC, not high, not diabetic, just bumping toward the lower threshhold of prediabetic. Diabetes does not run on either wide of his family. No one has it. Genetics possibly at play because their Scandi genes seem to keep them long and lean, and everyone on that side is a big foodie eats tons of veggies and fruits. I think what has happened is he has an absolutely ridiculous sweet tooth, eats quite a bit of candy, puts sugar in his tea, sugar in his spaghetti sauce, his chilli, you name it. He is now determined to get that back down. He is a mashed potato lover and doesn't want to give that up. I am going to stock red potatoes which are lower glycemic index than my usual yukons, but I was reading that parsnips are quite low gli high in fiber, and some people eat them mashed. I don't think he would go whole on parsnip mash. But I am wondering if I could put some parsnip puree in with mashed red potatoes and up the fiber content, lower the gli, and have the flavor still be "mashed potatoes". Don't suggest mashed cauliflower. He hates and despises cooked cauliflower....probably the only veg he cannot stand cooked as again, he is a major foodie and if it doesn't moo or baa from the plate or bite back, he likes it! 😂 I was thinking maybe 1 - 9" parsnip to 4 red potatoes, for 2-3 people. However, since I have never cooked with them, I don't know what to expect from the flavor and texture. I will be shunned by my family if I make nasty mashed potatoes at the holidays! 😜 Is that ratio even worth doing in terms of making the dish more glycolic friendly?

The corruption never ends!

Welcome to 1980's politics in Michigan. It was dumb, wild ride. So basically they made it legal and made it sound like it was restrictive, and then promptly made it so there was ZERO teeth of any kind. It would be like prohibition with no enforcement so Budweiser keeps making beer and distributing it while illegal but no one gives a crap, but the state can say 'we have laws to control it". Crazy.

Same here in Michigan. Legally, if you aren't a licensed teacher, you can't homeschool except by religious exemption. But no one has to file. We homeschooled for academics primarily, but when asked - and this is true- I explained that the current white European bias and Manifest Destiny emphasis in US history and civics education went against both the bitter truth and our personal beliefs, and that was NOT a lie. But ya, even the statute here requires homeschooling parents to cover a laundry list of academic subjects/topics, but there is no follow up or enforcement. I would not be opposed to a portfolio review where even just 80 lessons/papers for each su ject had to be handed in. I am against it being the public school that looks at it. I would rather it be an independent group, maybe the teacher education professors of a university or developmental pediatric psychologists or something, anything but the local ps who would have a vested, financial interest in saying they never received it when they did or lying about the contents in order to get the kid forced back into PS for the per head funding. That said, just freaking reform public education to start. In my state, they really do not have a leg to stand on pointing fingers at others for the moment, except the egregious violations.

I agree 100%. The vast majority of kids attend public and private school. The vast majority of kids who are in the foster care system were public and private schools students who languished for years under terrible abuse and neglect. Our lack of value of children historically in this nation is the issue. The general we, the leadership doesn't care enough to reform the system, take decisive action, stop reuniting children with their abusive parents, and fund foster care and group homes, possibly even nice, loving boarding schools. They don't, and if you bring it up to a lot of people, they will complain that they don't want their tax dollars going to it. On the subject of education itself, I wish that portfolio review or something was a burden on the homeschooling community because I see soooooo much powerfully egregious educational neglect in religious communities here. These children really would be better off in our sad, pathetic local public schools which is a real endictment of "using homeschooling as an excuse to keep my kid blindly ignorant so he/she can't imagine leaving this religion." We need a children's bill of rights to start.

Heart, since you are a brand new employee, I would also send photo documentation of the road being flooded or a link to an online news source stating the road is flooded and shouldn't be traversed. This way they don't think the new employee is just being a flake and trying to get out of working on the weekend already. I am going to take a wild guess that the thermostat on that dryer is going up which is why the previous tenants didn't take it along. But just in case they didn't know about lint blockages in the hose and vent, it is probably worth checking out before declaring the dryer worthless.

Heart, if you can slide the dryer out and remove the hose that vents it, you can check to see if it is plugged which prevents proper air flow and is also a fire hazard. It might need to be cleaned. You can also take a stick and feel around in the wall opening and see if there is lint clog in there. That does happen.

You warned me at the word "glitter". If there is a satan, glitter is his muse!

AA batteries. Everyone needs them for a wide variety of devices, and it gets old buying them. If providing recharging stations at the office, giving them rechargeable batteries is great. Mark puts six in each of our adult kids' stockings at Christmas with a little note, "Amazon basics. Gift not included." They love it, and their friends think it is hilarious as well as a much needed gift. I am a big fan of those pocket size LED flashlights as well. So handy to keep in pockets, purses, glove compartments, etc.

I am so sorry! This has been such a long journey for your mom and your family. Many hugs from me to you.